‘Listen, Cyril. I watched Elsa closely this evening. She’s hopelessly in love. You can be sure that Eric, when he took her out, succeeded in explaining away that business. Didn’t you see how different her manner to him was after they came back? I tell you, the danger has never been so great as it is now, and I’ll stop at nothing – nothing, I tell you! – to prevent it. Certainly I’ll let Sylvia have as free a hand as she wants.’
‘But what do you think she has in mind?’
‘I’m not sure. It’s something to do with this story she insists on our acting, obviously. I’ll tell you what I think: if she’s sure she’s lost Eric for good and all, she’d tell Paul the truth rather than let him get Elsa. Well, if she does, I’m not going to stop her. What does a rift between the De Ravels weigh against Elsa’s whole future?’
‘You’re convinced, then, that if the truth does come out Miss Verity will have nothing more to do with Scott-Davies?’
‘No,’ said Ethel slowly. ‘I’m not. I can only hope so. I believe really that we’re playing against time. If only their engagement isn’t announced before she learns the truth, I think she’d have nothing to do with him; if it is, I’m afraid she might persuade herself to believe him against everyone. Elsa is very loyal.’
There was a short silence between us.
‘Ethel,’ I said, more earnestly than I usually care to speak, ‘Ethel, abandon the whole plan. I confess, frankly, I’m afraid of what may happen. You’re playing with fire.’
‘No,’ Ethel smiled. ‘Not fire; only candles. And the game is worth them. Good-night, Cyril.’
It was in a more than uneasy mood that I sought my room, and sleep did not come for long after I got into bed. The events of the evening had left me spiritually battered, and it was a state not only to which I was unaccustomed but which I did not care for at all. That Mrs de Ravel had something desperate in mind I could not doubt, and it seemed to me madness on Ethel’s part to allow her to proceed with it. And yet – if she was right and the danger of an engagement between that poor deluded child and the unspeakable Scott-Davies was really so imminent, was it not worth while risking anything in the world to prevent it?
I turned uneasily between my sheets. The more I contemplated that engagement, the more filled with horror of it I became. It was impossible. Ethel was right.
It was not until well into the small hours that a startling thought came to me. Why did I feel so strongly in this matter? Why was I not pursuing my usual policy of leaving other people’s troubles to look after themselves – of remaining aloof from the complexity of interfering in other people’s affairs? What was the mainspring of this real horror I felt of a marriage between Scott-Davies and Elsa Verity? Could it be, could it possibly be, that I had fallen in love with the girl myself?
Once this extraordinary idea had presented itself, I lost no time in examining it very thoroughly. I had never been in love, so far as I know, so that the characteristics of the state were unknown to me; but it seemed that if I were in love with Miss Verity I should definitely want to marry her. Did I wish to marry her? Indubitably (I realized with relief) I did not. She was a charming girl, compared with Armorel Scott-Davies she was idyllic; but it was useless to pretend that she was not something of a nonentity, her character seemed far more negative than positive, she was no whetstone for the sharpening of wits. And though one may cherish an idyll, does one ever want to marry it? Theocritus is admirable for the enjoyment of an idle hour, none better; but one could not possibly read Theocritus morning, noon, and night. No, for serious consideration one falls back on something more solid than an idyll.
I liked Elsa Verity very much indeed, I pitied her innocence with all my heart, I was as anxious to prevent her from being crushed as one would be concerning a delicate flower growing too near the edge of the path; but love her? No, thank goodness; a hundred times no.
chapter four
I am telling this story not at all well. I began the last chapter with a reference to Armorel’s invitation to me, on the morning following that fateful evening, to help her gather bluebells for lunch. I had to excuse myself, because John had selected the place in the woods which was to be the scene of the supposed murder, and I had to familiarize myself with it and carry out certain arrangements in preparation for the afternoon. These arrangements completed, I glanced at my watch and saw that it was barely eleven o’clock. The pretended quarrel in the house party was to be enacted at twelve o’clock, and I was not looking forward to it in the least. In the meantime I would have half an hour to spare for Armorel and the bluebells.
I have probably made it plain that I do not care for the type of young woman which Armorel Scott-Davies represents, with her cigarettes and her lipstick (I believe that is the term); on the other hand her well-meant attempts to atone for her cousin’s boorishness had touched me, and I thought it only kind to requite them. I made my way along the stream to the bluebell wood. Elsa Verity, I may say, had gone into Budeford with Scott-Davies in his car on the excuse of purchasing a false beard for De Ravel, without which the poor fool had pronounced it impossible to play the part of a deceived husband. Little enough of a false beard he had needed to play the part in unwitting reality! But the fact of Miss Verity’s disappearance lent ominous significance to Ethel’s words of the night before.
The bluebell wood at Minton Deeps is about an acre in extent, composed of large trees and thick but not dense undergrowth; it lies along the lower slope of the steep valley and is bordered by the stream. The winding path which is the main way through it follows more or less the margin of the rivulet. I had gone almost the whole length of this path, pausing occasionally to call in subdued tones for Armorel but without response, when, reaching the conclusion that she must have completed her task and departed, I determined to strike uphill along one of the many narrow tracks that traverse the woods, and so reach the house that way through the fields. I had passed about halfway through the wood, still keeping a lookout for her pale brown linen dress in the distance, when I all but fell over Armorel herself at a twist in the track. She was lying at full length, a sheaf of bluebells near her, her face to the ground, and it was evident even to my inexperience that she was sobbing bitterly.
I paused in some confusion, for feminine tears I have always endeavoured to avoid; they are embarrassing, emotionally disturbing, and by no means always necessary. Armorel’s tears were, in addition, astonishing. If I had not actually seen it, I could hardly have imagined Armorel weeping.
In the ordinary course I should have slipped unobtrusively away, pretending that I had noticed nothing, and perhaps whistling a gay little tune to aid the deception. At present, however, this was impossible; the girl was lying not merely at my feet but right across my path. I could not but be cognizant of her presence.
I determined to put as good a face on it as possible. ‘Ah, Armorel, here you are,’ I said, as cheerfully as I could. ‘So you’ve picked the bluebells, I see. I’ll tell Ethel. She’ll be delighted.’
Armorel had sat up with a violent start, keeping her face still turned from me. I made as if to pass on my way.
Then compunction overcame me. In vain I reminded myself that feminine tears were rarely as serious as they appeared. I felt that I must at least offer some consolation. ‘Is anything the matter, Armorel?’ I asked, in considerable embarrassment.
She shook her averted head. ‘No, thanks. Just making a fool of myself, that’s all.’
‘There’s nothing I can do?’ I hesitated, feeling absurdly that there were probably a great number of things I could do, but not able to recognize exactly what.
‘No.’ Suddenly she turned her tear-stained face towards me and spoke with an intensity that I can only describe as ferocious. ‘Yes, there is though. Sit down and tell me how much you hate Eric. You do hate him, don’t you? I wonder if you hate him as much as I do.’
‘Armorel!’ I had to protest, but I sat down nevertheless.
Armorel gave me a rather watery smile. �
�You’re a good sort really, Pinkie,’ she went on in more normal tones, brushing the lingering tears from her eyes, ‘under all that prim stiff-and-starchiness. Most men when they see a girl howling think it a fine excuse to get their hands on her, you know.’
‘I trust,’ I said, perhaps a little stiffly, ‘that I should never take advantage of a woman’s distress to proceed to such unwarrantable liberties. Not indeed that I have the faintest wish to “get my hands”, as you term it, on any girl.’ But I could not help feeling that it might perhaps be not at all unattractive to play the rôle of manual comforter in some cases which I need not specify.
Fortunately Armorel did not perceive this unworthy reflection. ‘No,’ she replied, ‘I really don’t believe you have. And that’s probably why I want to let myself go at this moment and simply yowl on your shoulder. Could you bear it?’
It was a strange proposal for me to hear, and a bare twenty-four hours ago I should have condemned it out of hand as the suggestion of a forward minx. And yet I could perceive now that it was nothing of the sort. Had my earnest reflections of the small hours given me something of a deeper insight into the opposite sex? I hope I have none of that foolish pride which forbids a man to admit that he has been in the wrong, and I confess freely that some at any rate of my former opinions regarding women had been quite mistaken. Armorel herself, for instance, was taking on quite a different aspect. Instead of the hard, man-aping, frivolous-minded young woman I had fancied her, I realized suddenly now that these affectations were just the manifestations of an immature mind, realizing and ashamed (however unnecessarily) of its youth, and trying desperately to appear mature. I had mistaken the outward signs for the inward lack of grace. The lipstick, the paint, and the cigarettes were non-essentials, mere excrescences on a simple and quite possibly a not unpleasant nature. Her request of a moment ago was not a piece of calculated coquetry; it was just an appeal for sympathy and comfort.
These reflections passed through my mind instantaneously; yet though I recognized their truth, the situation seemed to lose nothing of its embarrassment. ‘If it would really afford you any relief, my dear girl,’ I said with unwonted diffidence, ‘I should be most pleased for you – er – to make use of me in any – that is – ’
But before I could bring this halting sentence to a conclusion Armorel’s head was already on my shoulder, and Armorel’s tears had broken out afresh. ‘It’s true,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s perfectly true, what that damned woman said. How the hell did she know? It’s supposed to be secret. Eric is going to sell Stukeleigh!’
‘No!’ I exclaimed, my stupefaction such that I actually forgot for the moment that I was holding, like any hero of a nineteenth-century novel, a weeping young woman in my arms. A Paladin in Pince-nez indeed!
‘Yes. And the way she said it seems to have brought it home to me worse than ever. Oh, Pinkie, it – it makes me feel too awful.’
We sat for a few moments in silence, as if under a common shock. In truth Armorel’s news had quite upset me. It distresses me, almost as if I had a personal interest in it, to hear of a fine old mansion passing out of the hands of the family that has owned it for centuries: and in this case… Stukeleigh, the Scott-Davies’ home, was a magnificent Tudor country house, one of the finest examples of Tudor domestic architecture (a period in which I am exceedingly interested) in the country.
‘And not only Stukeleigh,’ Armorel’s voice went on drearily, ‘but everything that belongs to it – the furniture, that lovely little village, the lands, and – and the pictures.’
So the rumours had been true. Eric Scott-Davies, last ignoble remnant of a proud house, was preparing to sell not only the portraits of his ancestors but their very home.
‘Can’t he be stopped?’ I muttered. ‘How could he possibly do such a thing?’
‘Oh, it means nothing to him. Less than nothing. That’s almost more awful, in a way. He was brought up there, every one of them’s been brought up there for hundreds of years, all their pictures hang on the walls they lived in – and it all means less than nothing to Eric.’
I admit that I was surprised that it should mean quite so much to Armorel. Apparently I allowed my feelings to be divined, for she twisted suddenly away from me and burst out fiercely: ‘Oh, I know what you’re thinking. Just because I smoke, and use slang, and don’t behave like the nice girls you knew when you were a boy in the year dot, you think I’ve got no feelings. My God, Pinkie, if you knew! I tell you, I love every brick of Stukeleigh, and every blade of grass in the park, and every reed in the cottagers’ thatches, so much that it’s like a knife turning in my tummy to think of it being sold.’
‘It’s terrible,’ I agreed, deprecating this dramatic outburst, but well able in the circumstances to excuse it.
‘And it’s so unnecessary. If I were in Eric’s place I could manage perfectly on what’s left, even now. Stukeleigh does just pay for itself, run properly.’
‘And do I understand that on Eric’s death you inherit?’ I ventured.
Armorel sat, her arms round her knees, looking moodily at her toes. Her feet, I noticed for the first time, were small and particularly well-shaped. ‘Oh, yes, that woman got it all right. How the hell she knew I can’t imagine, but it’s true enough. According to Uncle’s will, if Eric dies unmarried I get Stukeleigh. Almost makes one wish he would, doesn’t it? And pretty quickly too. Oh, I know I’m a beast even to think of such a thing, but Pinkie, he doesn’t deserve Stukeleigh.’
‘He does not,’ I agreed fervently. I could not remonstrate with her for the terrible sentiment she had just expressed, for to my discomfort she was already crying again.
I touched her arm tentatively, with the intention of expressing my silent sympathy, and to my surprise she leaned towards me again and rested her head on my shoulder. It was the action of a child, I knew, so that I had no excuse at all for the unwarrantable action of my own which followed. I, who had only a few minutes ago repudiated with indignation the suggestion that I could ever take advantage of a woman’s distress – I, who had never done such a thing in my life before – well, something quite extraordinary seemed to go ‘Click!’ in my interior, and in the confusion of the moment I kissed Armorel.
She sat up abruptly, a faint flush on her cheeks, and looked at me. There was no need of upbraiding, for no one could have been more ashamed than I the next moment. Only too well I knew that I had betrayed the poor girl’s trust.
She was generous. She did not speak angrily. ‘Pinkie,’ she said slowly (and even in my shame I was able to notice that her tears at least had stopped flowing), ‘do you often do that sort of thing?’
‘No, Armorel,’ I assured her with all the earnestness at my command. ‘Indeed not. I assure you, I can’t understand it at all… I was carried away, in some inexplicable manner. I apologize most sincerely.’
‘Am I the first girl you’ve ever kissed?’
‘I fear so,’ I said, in futile endeavour to minimize my offence. ‘Yes, I’m quite sure of it. Yes, certainly you are. I don’t understand it at all. Really, I – ’
‘Well, next time, when a fool of a girl’s howling on your shoulder, she doesn’t want to be kissed on the forehead, remember.’
‘No,’ I stammered in confusion. This grave censure by a young woman so many years my junior, whom hitherto I had been unable to regard even with equanimity, let alone approval, was disconcerting in the extreme; and yet I could not say that I did not deserve it. ‘No, precisely. It was the action of a cad. If you could bring yourself to trust me again… That is – ’
I stopped in astonishment. Armorel was leaning towards me, and I saw now that, though her eyes were still full of tears, she was actually smiling. ‘No, Pinkie,’ she said softly, ‘she doesn’t want to be kissed on the forehead a bit. She wants to be kissed on the lips.’
As to what happened after that, I really cannot bring myself to put it on paper.
It was only a few minutes before twelve when we rose to leave the wood. A
nd I had better admit at once that I did so with no little reluctance. I intend to set down in this narrative the precise truth, however ill it may reflect on myself.
And yet the reader cannot condemn me more severely than I condemned myself on our rather silent walk back to the house. Although my mind was still in considerable confusion, I did my best to apply my old methods of self-analysis, in an effort to realize how it had happened that I, of all people, should have come to such a pass. For even as early as that the most astonishing feature of the whole affair was plain to me: that I had so very much enjoyed kissing Armorel. It had really been a quite entrancing sensation. Incredible!
For I must explain that I had been accustomed, in my ignorance, to regard the act of osculation as an unnecessary and degrading one, practically on a par with the savage habit of rubbing noses, certainly no more dignified or satisfactory. I perceived now that I had been exceedingly mistaken.
But did it mean that because I had enjoyed kissing Armorel, I was in love with her? Can one enjoy kissing a woman whom one does not love? It seemed highly improbable. And yet, if I was not in love with Elsa, I could not possibly be in love with Armorel, for I certainly wished to marry her no more than the other. Then why had I enjoyed kissing her? Why did I wish to kiss her again? It was all very disturbing and confusing. I wished that I knew more about these things.
Fortunately the others scarcely noticed our entrance, though I felt as if my guilt must be written in capital letters on my face. They were engaged in an altercation. Eric, it seemed, did not want to enact the scene which had been sketched out for himself and Mrs de Ravel. The others were insisting that he should. I could hardly blame Eric. The situation was exceedingly awkward for him.
Somewhat to my surprise Armorel at once threw the full weight of her persuasion into the scale. ‘Oh, come on, Eric. Don’t spoil the party. Why on earth shouldn’t we act it? You’re not the only one. I’ve got a scene with you too, remember. I’m madly in love with you. Oh, Eric, darling, how could you treat a poor maiden so? Give up all the others, and return to me!’ For it had been decided in the end that John’s original suggestion should be followed.
The Second Shot Page 6
