There was a choking sound from the darker end of the hall and Susan was aware of Gibbie Johnston struggling with some ungovernable emotion. Suddenly he gave up the attempt, and rushing towards the door-way, bolted through it. Immediately after, loud and prolonged guffaws from outside filled the air.
By the time they had argued, persuaded, and scolded themselves hoarse, and had finally prevailed upon Oliver to divest himself of the greater part of his wrappings, Susan and Charles had lost any constraint which they might have felt, and were back on the old safe footing, temporarily at least. They set out to pick up the patiently waiting Cunninghams, exactly ten minutes before the hour at which they were expected at Reiverslaw.
2
Thanks to the terrifying speed to which Gibbie Johnston urged his old car over the country roads, its occupants were only a few minutes late in arriving. Mrs. Holden, acting as hostess, received them radiantly, her greetings quite overshadowing those of the host himself, who seemed content to lurk in the background. The “old cousin,” Mrs. Holden’s official chaperon, was nowhere to be seen. Evidently she was one of those convenient old ladies who could be relied on to retire early and spend the greater part of the evening in bed.
Before Susan could begin apologies and explanations for their lateness, Oliver had stepped forward and was halfway through a long and garbled story, chiefly conspicuous for its shameless lack of truth.
“I must apologize, Mrs. Holden, for our unpunctuality, which I beg of you to believe is no fault of mine, or the Cunningham family. The woman, my sister, prinking before her glass until the last moment—” He threw out a hand dramatically, and a storm of protest was changed to laughter. Dangling by an emerald-green cord from his wrist was a black-and-white check sponge-bag.
“My little reticule amuses you?” Oliver said in gently chiding tones. “But where else would you have me carry my handkerchief and the latch-key of Easter Hartrigg?”
He dived his hand into the bag, and with the air of a conjuror producing a totally unexpected white rabbit from a hat, drew out the massive iron key which locked the front door of his establishment.
“Dear me, Miss Parsons!” said Mr. Cunningham, wiping his tears of honest merriment from his eyes. “Your brother is what we call a real divert!”
If Oliver had first struck the note of hilarity and set the pace of the party at a gay gallop, it was Mrs. Holden who saw that it was maintained in her own neighbourhood at least.
The round dining-table, a shining dark pool under shaded lighting, in itself encouraged a pleasant sense of intimacy never so easy of achievement at an oblong board, where the corners conspire to act as barriers, and host and hostess face each other in splendid isolation from either end.
“This is an informal party,” announced the hostess with her dazzling smile, “so I shall have Commander Parsons and Commander Crawley one on either side of me.”
The chosen ones leapt with pleased alacrity to their places, and Susan, glancing about her, thought with some amusement that Mrs. Holden had done the arranging with considerable skill. Not only had she secured both the younger men for herself, but she had managed to escape the pitfall of putting two members of one family together so cleverly that only Peggy and her father were side by side. Susan had ample opportunity for playing her favourite onlooker’s part, for of the two men between whom she was seated, Mr. Cunningham believed that good food, like all gifts of providence, was not to be taken lightly, but enjoyed with quiet pleasure; while her host appeared to have been stricken dumb, and if he spoke at all, merely uttered monosyllabic grunts. Mrs. Cunningham, having given up her attempt to converse with him also, was placidly eating filleted sole. Beyond her, Charles threw an occasional remark across the table to Peggy, who gratefully returned the ball when it was not intercepted by Mrs. Holden on the way. She, though to all appearances absorbed in Oliver, was yet alert to break in on Peggy and Charles with airy composure and delicate grace. Poor Peggy.
Though she had Oliver on her left, he was devoting his entire attention to his hostess. It was hard, thought Susan, for a very young girl who was feeling callow and badly-dressed, to have the conversation swept from her, and never to be permitted to take any real part in it. . . . Too bad of Mrs. Holden. Her pretty little ways were quite charming, or would be in a woman ten years younger, but there was too much of the pussy-cat about her for Susan’s taste. Sometimes those little dabs that she made were made with unsheathed claws. . . .
While Susan was thinking this, her eyes met Charles’s roving glance. He twinkled, raised one eyebrow comically, twisted his mouth into a soundless mew, and by these slight indications gave her clearly to understand that his opinion of Mrs. Holden was much the same as her own. The excellent dinner progressed, the talk and laughter about the other side of the table continued to make up for the comparative silence in Susan’s neighbourhood, but she realized that everyone was not so pleased and contented with the party as the acting hostess. Peggy, for instance, smiling bravely and holding her head up, was having a poor time, and Jed . . . What was the matter with Jed? Perhaps he hated to see Mrs. Holden sitting there as if she were his wife when she was not. It must be rather a trying situation for any man who loved a woman. . . .
“You’re very quiet to-night. What’s come over you?” demanded the subject of her last thoughts so suddenly that she started and let her fork drop with a tiny clatter on her plate. Amazed and a trifle indignant, Susan stared at his weather-beaten face rising uncomfortably above the stiff collar, at his blue eyes fixed on her with mischievous intentness.
“Very quiet?” she repeated. “I’ve made three separate attempts to talk to you, and you have said ‘No,’ ‘Yes,’ and ‘Umph.’ In fact, I think a Trappist monk would have been a more cheerful companion! And you have the audacity to accuse me of being very quiet.”
As always, this slight and very natural display of temper by the equable Susan restored his own good spirits at once, and he loosed one of the tremendous laughs which made the glasses ring.
“What’s the joke, Jed?” cried Oliver, rather too eagerly. For Mrs. Holden, perhaps annoyed that his attention should have been distracted from her, said with a small tart smile:
“Dear Jed, must you roar so? It simply goes frough and frough my head.”
Peggy turned very pink, and darted an angry look at her. In a second her zeal to champion “Uncle Jed” might have led her to rush in where any angel of discretion would have feared to tip-toe; but she was saved by Charles, who murmured in his most languid manner: “I likes a good ’earty laugh meself, sir.”
The contrast between his gentle, pensive look and the assumed lower-deck accents in which his remark was voiced provoked an outburst of mirth, and poor Jed’s spontaneous roar and his love’s remonstrance were alike glossed over. He relapsed into his former silence, however, and Susan found herself disliking Mrs. Holden. The little Persian cat did not mind whom she scratched, it seemed.
When, leaving the men to their port, the four women retired to the drawing-room, all their gaiety of the dinner-table fell from them like a discarded cloak, and conversation languished. Mrs. Holden was not going to trouble to sparkle when only her own sex was present. The sight of two tables set ready for bridge did nothing to raise Susan’s spirits, and Peggy positively blenched as she looked at them.
“Susan,” she whispered aside, while her mother was trying to interest Mrs. Holden in harmless local gossip with little success. “This is a horrid evening! And I can’t bear it if I have to play bridge. I’m so awfully bad. I’m sure to revoke or do something terrible!”
“Nonsense, my dear,” said Susan. “You won’t do anything of the kind. Just keep your head, and—”
“But that’s what I can’t do. I’ll feel exactly like a nice fat rabbit sitting with three starving stoats,” she said dismally.
“Be comforted. They won’t be able to have two tables, because Oliver doesn’t play, and you can be unselfish and sit out.”
Later, as Susan s
at down with her host as partner, to play against Mrs. Holden and Mr. Cunningham, she envied Peggy. The other four—Mrs. Cunningham as eager to escape as her daughter—withdrew to a far corner, where some childish card game which occasioned a good deal of talk and laughing argument was soon in full swing. Meantime Susan made the comforting discovery that if Jed Armstrong played with a recklessness probably inherited from generations of mosstrooping ancestors, which added considerably to the hazards of an otherwise dull game, he was also possessed of skill and more than his share of good luck. All the finesse of Mrs. Holden, all the minister’s sound, conventional tactics availed them little. After three rubbers, during which Susan seemed to have taken little part except as dummy, the other two professed themselves tired, and announced that they had had enough.
“Well, well,” said Mr. Cunningham, his cheerfulness standing him in good stead in this hour of utter defeat. “We haven’t had much of a chance to-night, partner. They held all the cards. Still, you know, Jed, there’s an old proverb that says ‘lucky at cards, unlucky in love,’ remember!”
“I’ll remember,” said Jed, his face expressionless, and Susan thought that the minister had not been too happy in his choice of proverbs.
Mrs. Holden merely uttered a small, irritated laugh, and begged Jed to remove his foot from the hem of her dress. She was not a good loser.
3
It was difficult afterwards to decide who had first suggested that the party should return to Easter Hartrigg, where there was a drawing-room floor covered only with easily-removed rugs, and end the evening in dancing. Susan suspected Oliver, who swore that the idea had been Charles’s; and he in his turn held that Mrs. Holden had been responsible.
Be that as it might, Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham were dispatched to their Manse in the hired car at the respectable hour of half-past ten, while the rest, loud in promises of seeing that Peggy would be sent home safely, bestowed themselves in Jed Armstrong’s large and draughty vehicle and presently were jolting over the rough roads towards the Parsons’ house.
The rain had ceased, but the air was damp and chill, and smelled deliciously of wet earth and fallen leaves. From every puddle in the road drowned images of the stars winked feebly, pale travesties of their originals overhead. Ghostly hares, leaping from the hedgerows, loped before them in the glare of the lights until overtaken, or swerved recklessly across the car’s path, almost under the wheels, yet always escaping by some miracle. The trees, hung with raindrops brighter than any diamonds, flashed into momentary splendour as they passed, and driving up to Easter Hartrigg the black windows gave back the reflection of the car’s lamps so faithfully that the whole house seemed illuminated in honour of its owners’ return.
“Now, then, Oliver, look sharp with that key. It’s cold,” said Charles, as they disembarked and gathered round the front door.
“Key?” Oliver’s voice sounded blank. “It’s in the sponge-bag, isn’t it?”
“It may be,” said Charles. “But I haven’t got the sponge-bag.”
Oliver proceeded to turn out the capacious pockets of his Burberry, and after a few seconds fraught with anxiety, produced the bag. “Here we are . . . ! I say . . . the darned thing’s empty!”
“I’m so cold,” murmured Mrs. Holden plaintively.
Peggy began to laugh.
“Rot, my dear fella. You must have it. This is no time for practical jokes,” said Charles, and was acidly requested by Oliver not to make a fool of himself.
Jed Armstrong joined Peggy in her now unrestrained mirth, and the fair Primrose murmured again:
“I’m so cold!”
“God knows where it is. I don’t,” said Oliver finally, after a further desperate search which proved unavailing.
He was assailed with a chorus of questions, as futile as those usually put on such occasions. Had he dropped it in the car? Had he left it at Reiverslaw? Was he quite, quite sure it wasn’t in another of his pockets? (This was contributed by Mrs. Holden.) Could it possibly have fallen on the gravel? Above all, why had he been such an ass as to put it in the sponge-bag at all, and after doing so, to take it out again?
“Oh, my nose was bleeding, an’ I’ve shoved it down my back!” Oliver retorted savagely. “Perhaps you’d like me to undress and have a look? Or would someone care to search me?”
On this Peggy broke down and fairly cried with laughter, in spite of his murderous glare, and Susan, who had concealed her own amusement out of politeness for Mrs. Holden, cast self-control to the winds and laughed also.
Mrs. Holden said she fought she’d raver sit in the car, and retreated there shivering ostentatiously.
“It’s a good thing the rain’s off,” said Jed philosophically. His Primrose’s discomfort did not appear to prevent him from enjoying the contretemps immensely.
“There’s nothing for it but to try the windows,” said Charles, and they began to make an exhaustive but fruitless survey of every window within reach. When they had roamed round the house rattling the sashes, to the intense indignation of Tara, who from inside, and in spite of their reassurances, never ceased to bay untiringly, they met once more at the front door.
“How long d’you think it’ll be before Donaldina comes back?” asked Oliver.
“Hours,” said Susan helpfully. “Their dance won’t stop until three at the very earliest—”
He groaned. “It’s only just after eleven!”
“Well, look here.” This was the resourceful Charles once more. “Are none of the upstairs windows open? If they are, we might run a ladder up, and—”
“But what a brain, Charles!” said Susan. “Of course, some of them are sure to be.”
“Let’s look.” Peggy, still enthusiastic, began peering upwards.
All their prowling and craning like demented star-gazers, however, only revealed the sinister fact that as far as could be seen the faithful retainer had closed every window above stairs as well as on the ground floor. With a sinking heart Susan remembered that a house not far away had been broken into recently, which accounted for this excessive caution. More, Donaldina had assured her mistress before she left that ony burrglarr wad hae his wark afore him if he thocht to break intil Easter Hartrigg. . . .
“Hi!” bawled Jed Armstrong from the back of the house. “I’ve found one. It’s pretty high, and pretty small, but it might be managed.”
With the exception of Mrs. Holden, who preferred to remain sulking in the car, they hastened round to him. It was true. The bathroom window, the top portion of which opened inwards by a rope and pulley, showed a welcome aperture.
“The damn’ thing will have to be unshipped before anyone can get in that way,” said Oliver gloomily. “However—where’s the ladder?”
Charles emerged from an outhouse with one, which he set up against the wall.
“Now, Oliver, my lad,” he said, “it’s a bit on the short side, but we’ll do it all right. Show a leg! Which of us is going up?”
“I am,” said Oliver.
“Oh, but—” began Peggy, but was nudged into silence by Charles. “Let him alone,” he muttered.
Grimly Oliver looked at the ladder. “It’s good-bye to these trousers,” said he, and sighed. “I suppose modesty forbids that I take ’em off? I thought so. Well, here goes—”
When he had got a little more than half-way up the rain began again.
“Would anyone like to fetch me an umbrella?” said Oliver resignedly.
“We’d better get under shelter,” said Jed, ignoring him.
“But who’s going to steady the ladder for him?” Peggy cried indignantly as they turned to seek cover, and she lingered, heedless of the rain.
“Go on, Peggy!” said Oliver from above, “you’re the only one in the whole outfit with any heart, and I don’t want you to die of damp. Stand from under, like a good girl. What if I fell on you?”
“Oh!” wailed Peggy, who had quite forgotten that she was afraid of him and had even disliked him heartily. “Don’t fall!
Please don’t fall!”
“He won’t fall. Climbs like a cat,” said Jed callously.
“I’ll be all right, Peggy!” cried the hero on the ladder in a manly voice. “Off you go!”
“He reminds me,” said Charles in reminiscent tones, “of a bloke I once saw at a music-hall. The Loquacious Laddie on the Tottering Ladder. It was a good turn, but I’m not sure Oliver’s isn’t better. More romantic-like.”
To seek shelter where she could watch him was one thing, to retire to the car out of sight was another. Further than the precarious haven offered by the back-door Peggy refused to stir, and they collected there while the drips from the ledge above fell coldly on their upturned faces or trickled down their necks.
“Here,” exclaimed Jed suddenly, stripping off his overcoat and trying to envelop Susan in it. “Put this on!”
And as she protested: “Don’t be a fool. Peggy’s got on a thick coat, and that thing of yours is no good.”
“But what about you?” asked Susan weakly, for her only evening coat, an old one, was certainly not intended to be worn for standing about in the rain.
“I’m all right. Never get cold,” he said shortly and buttoned the enormous garment under her chin as if she had been a child.
“Thank you,” said Susan with extreme meekness.
From where they stood they could see the road, up which a wavering light was now moving towards them, evidently attached to the bicycle of some returning reveller. As it drew abreast of the house there was a rending crash and the ladder fell to the ground, leaving Oliver clinging to the bathroom window like the ivy to the oak.
“Hell!” he ejaculated loudly.
Before anyone could move to go to his assistance the bicycle came to a stop, and a stalwart figure, bounding through the laurels and rhododendrons bawled: “Bide whaur ye are! I’ve got ye!”
Susan Settles Down Page 20
