The Listening Eye

by Patricia Wentworth

  She snatched up her hand-glass, went to the window, pushed back the amber curtains as far as they would go, and faced the light. The yellow room receded and her spirits rose. The dress really was pretty, and she definitely didn’t look as if she was getting jaundice. She finished herself off and went downstairs feeling better.

  She was going to need all the moral support that she could get, because when she got into the drawing-room Moira was there with Wilfrid and Clay Masterson, and none of them took the least notice of her. They were grouped round the fireplace, and as the temperature had in the last hour decided on one of those melodramatic drops which make the English spring so delightful, the hearth had its attractions. The fact that nobody made room for her set a spark to Sally’s temper. She walked up to them, was stared at by Moira, and greeted by Wilfrid with an insulting “Darling, you look cold.”

  Sally said, “I am cold.”

  “Darling, so am I. And I was here first!”

  Wilfrid was naturally capable of anything. She had always known that, and as far as he was concerned her feelings were armoured. She got between him and Clay Masterson and felt pleased with herself. No one had introduced them, but Moira never did introduce anyone. All her set were supposed to know each other. Sally wasn’t really in her set.

  Clay said, “What were we talking about?” in the kind of voice which means that someone has butted in and spoiled whatever it was you were going to say. In the circumstances, it was perhaps not surprising that she did not find herself attracted to him, but she supposed that some people might have found him attractive. He had rather the air of expecting it himself. Of medium height, not handsome and not plain-Sally found herself summing him up as very sure of himself. She supposed that would go down with some people. With Moira for instance. Moira was a trampler. If you gave her an inch, she would take an ell and despise you from the depths of whatever did duty for a heart, and she liked someone who would stand up to her and give as good as he got. Clay was saying,

  “It was a marvellous piece of luck! And the fool hadn’t the slightest idea of what he’d got. Said he’d done the place up proper when he got married somewhere about fifty years ago-bought a nice upholstered suite and shoved the old stuff away in the attic! And there it was-oak dresser, very good lines, and a lovely corner-cupboard. Handles all gone of course.”

  Wilfrid laughed.

  “Well, take care you haven’t been had!” he said. “That’s quite a good confidence trick, you know-reproductions well weathered and knocked about a bit and shoved away in an attic or an out-house.”

  Clay Masterson said,

  “I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  And then the door opened to let in Annabel Scott with David Moray, and Hubert Garratt silent and depressed. They too came over to the fire, Annabel with her smiling charm, David the tallest of the men, his fair hair always a little rough no matter how much it was brushed. Sally’s heart gave an angry jerk. He was a thoroughly tiresome creature. He wasn’t in the least the sort of man she had ever meant to fall in love with. She wasn’t in love with him. She hadn’t any intention of being in love with anyone for years and years and years. It was a pleasant thing to play with, but go in head over ears and get drowned in it-no thank you!

  They were talking and laughing now. Annabel’s entrance had made the conversation general. Sally spoke and laughed, and saw that David did neither. He just stood there on the outer edge of the group and looked at Moira Herne. Her glimmering hair was like an auriole. She was wearing something that was the colour of splintered ice. Her hands were ringless and her neck was bare. Her eyes were like pale jewels, water-bright.

  He went on looking whilst Lucius Bellingdon came in. He was followed by Miss Bray in a hurry. She must have been in a hurry when she dressed too, for her old-fashioned black lace was done up crooked and her hair was wispy. Behind her came Miss Silver, quiet and composed, in the neat dark blue crepe-de-chine which her niece Ethel Burkett had persuaded her to buy during their holiday at Cliffton-on-Sea. The price had shocked her at the time, but the dress had proved to be a Stand-by. It was suitable, it was ladylike.

  Moira Herne turned her gaze upon Miss Bray and said,

  “Late again, Ellen? What about the example to the young? I expect Mrs. Hilton will give notice. She will if it’s something that’s going to spoil. It must be damnable to be a cook and have people late for meals. I should want to throw the soup at them.” Her voice drawled a little. It had no inflexions.

  Miss Bray flushed in an unbecoming manner. She began an indistinguishable murmur in which most of the words were lost, but it was broken in upon by David Moray, who took this moment to cross over to Moira Herne and to say without any preliminaries, “I would like to paint you.”

  Moira did not appear to be displeased. The pale bright eyes were turned upon him. Since he was so tall, she had to look up, which enhanced the effect.

  “You want to paint my portrait? What would you want for doing it-a frightful lot? What about it, Lucy? You would have to pay for it. I’m broke.”

  David was looking at her between narrowing lids. Without waiting for Lucius Bellingdon to speak he said in quite a casual way,

  “No, not a portrait. A head. Medusa.”

  She stared.

  “Medusa? What do you mean? Was she somebody?” She looked round the group. “Does anyone know who she was? Because I don’t. I never could be bothered with things like history. After all, it’s now you have to live. I can’t see any sense in cluttering your mind up with who people were or what they did hundreds of years ago.”

  Annabel Scott laughed her attractive laugh.

  “Medusa goes back a long way farther than that!”

  “Does she? Why does he think I’m like her?”

  Annabel said, “I don’t know. She was a priestess in the temple of Pallas Athene. She took a lover there, and the goddess punished her by turning her into a gorgon.”

  Moira said, “Oh-” and Annabel went on sweetly.

  “They had clashing wings and they were horrible to look at, but Medusa kept her beautiful face, only snakes, grew out of her hair, and her eyes turned people to stone.”

  Moira appeared to consider this information. Then she stared at David.

  “Were you going to paint snakes in my hair?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Or clashing wings?”

  “No-just the head.”

  She said without any change in her voice or expression,

  “It might be rather fun. You could start tomorrow.”

  The door opened. Hilton appeared on the threshold. He looked like a man whose wife had just been speaking her mind. He said, “Dinner is served.”

  As they went in, Lucius Bellingdon said to Annabel Scott,

  “Just what did all that mean?”

  “That he wants to paint her.”

  His eyebrows rose.

  “As Medusa?”

  “So he says-but without the snakes.”

  “Then why Medusa?”

  “Darling, if you don’t know, I can’t tell you.”

  At the moment he could only be aware that Annabel had called him darling. All these young things called everyone darling and it meant nothing at all, but it was the first time Annabel had said it to him.

  They had reached the dining-room before he had himself enough in hand to say,

  “We’ll see what he makes of it. That young man can paint.”

  Chapter 21

  AFTER dinner they rolled back the rugs in the drawing-room and danced. Annabel played for them until Lucius Bellingdon produced a gramophone and a pile of records and made her come and dance too. She danced as delightfully as she played.

  Sally found herself with Wilfrid as a partner, but he had not asked her until Moira had gone off with Clay Masterson. She thought, “Well, anyhow he won’t be proposing to me any more, and that’s something.” Aloud she said,

  “You’re holding me too tight.”

  “Darling, why so captio
us? I’m holding you the way I’ve always done, and you haven’t minded it before.”

  “Perhaps I just suffered in silence.”

  He shook his head.

  “Not like you, darling-the tongue has always moved freely. Haven’t you noticed it yourself?”

  She laughed lightly.

  “Perhaps I have.”

  He said in a complacent voice, “Our steps go well together.”

  “Which is what you say to every girl you dance with, isn’t it?”

  “Darling, it’s part of my charm. And you should never dissect charm-the soul of it eludes you. Let us change the subject. Do you know that I am going to be your landlord?”

  “You!”

  He nodded.

  “It’s a prosaic thought, but facts are so often prosaic. Paulina left me the house, so you see I can now evict David and move in on the top floor myself. It will cheer you like anything to be able to see me every day, and I shall demand a definite touch of respect as well as the prompt payment of the rent. David can have my room if he likes, but I don’t recommend it. Mrs. Hunable is a shocking cook.”

  Sally experienced a pleasant sparkling anger. It warmed the colour in her cheeks. She said,

  “You can’t turn David out!”

  “Watch me, darling, and you’ll see that I can. Unconscious of his doom, the poor young artist plays-which is partly a quotation and partly my very own. When he gets back on Monday there will be a short well phrased note waiting for him. By the way, do you know whether he pays by the week, or the month, or the quarter?”

  The eyes which Sally raised to his had a dancing light.

  “He pays by the quarter. And I’m afraid you can’t turn him out. He isn’t a Scot for nothing, and he got Paulina to sign an agreement.” She paused, and added, “So did I.”

  Wilfrid gazed reproachfully at her.

  “An unwomanly action. And the Scotch are all the same-a practical, money-grubbing lot. No one with the soul of an artist would bother with anything so sordid as an agreement. I shall have to see if I can’t find a loophole. We will now leave the distressing subject and given an exhibition performance which will make all the others green with envy. ‘On with the dance, let joy be unconfined’!”

  Their steps did go well together, but as far as an exhibition performance went it was Clay and Moira who would have stolen the show. Whatever else Moira was or was not, she could dance, and Clay Masterson was her match. They hardly seemed to speak-just drifted on the music as if it was a wind that carried them, her head a little tilted, her face blank, her light hair floating. Once, when he bent and said something, her lips parted and her eyes half closed.

  Rather to Sally’s surprise, David asked her for the next dance, and that without a glance in the direction of Moira Herne. Any pleasure this may have given her, however, subsided when she found that all he wanted was to talk about Moira.

  “She’s a marvellous subject, and I should think she’d be a good model. She really can keep still. Have you noticed that? Most people, especially women, can’t keep still at all. If they are not moving their feet or fidgeting with their hands, or feeling to see if their hair is all right, they are flicking their eyelashes up and down or doing things with their lips. Do you suppose it’s just restlessness, or do they think it’s attractive and the way to make people look at them?”

  Sally allowed a small gurgling laugh to escape her. She loved David when he was earnest and didactic.

  She said,

  “Darling, I wouldn’t know. If I move it’s because I want to, or because a hair has got loose and is tickling me.”

  David frowned.

  “I told you not to call me darling! You only do it to make me lose my temper, and I won’t have it! We were talking about Moira. You mayn’t have noticed it, but she never fidgets.”

  Sally gave him her wide, warm smile.

  “Medusa wouldn’t. And I should think she would be the perfect model. But it was the other people who got turned into stone wasn’t it-not Medusa herself?”

  His quick frown merged into a considering look. He said with an eager note in his voice,

  “I got the idea as soon as I saw her, and I’ve been watching her.”

  Sally said briefly, “That would have been difficult to miss.”

  He went on as if she had not spoken.

  “I got a sketch or two of her this afternoon. Now I want her to sit. I’ve got to get that cold look-you know what I mean.”

  Sally nodded.

  “She has always had it. I told you I was at school with her.”

  She wanted to say a great deal more than that, but of course she couldn’t. Moira had always been poison. He would have to find it out for himself.

  He said,

  “You see. Medusa, she’s human. At least she was, but she’s lost the human touch and whatever she looks at loses it too. She drains it out till there’s no warmth or feeling left. Just poison and bright ice-that’s what I’ve got to try and paint, not snakes in the hair.”

  Sally heard herself say, “Can you do it?”

  “Oh, I think so. I’ve got a feeling about it. If it lasts, I can do it. If it doesn’t-” He frowned and broke off. “It’s quite strong. I expect it will last.”

  Sally did not admire herself for what she said next, but she said it all the same.

  “How pleased Moira is going to be.”

  He looked at her very directly under those frowning brows and said,

  “I don’t care whether she’s pleased or not. I want to paint her.”

  Chapter 22

  IT was no more than nine o’clock when Hubert Garratt got up and made his way to the door. As far as Miss Silver could tell he had not spoken to anyone either during dinner or since they had come into the drawing-room and the young people had begun to dance. When addressed, his replies had been monosyllabic and as nearly as possible inaudible. As the dancers required most of the floor space, he was more or less forced into the group of those who were looking on. They had their little coterie around the hearth-Miss Bray with some rather aimless crochet work, Miss Silver with her knitting, Mr. Garratt barricaded behind The Times. He now folded the paper neatly and left it lying across the arm of the chair. Looking after him, Miss Silver observed that he did not appear to be at all well, and went on to enquire whether he was always as silent. Miss Bray’s reply was a little confused. She had dropped a stitch and was not being very successful in her attempts to pick it up again.

  “Hubert? I don’t think I noticed. He isn’t a person you notice very much. Did you say you thought he looked ill?”

  “He does not look well. This affair has been a great shock to him.”

  Miss Bray had retrieved her stitch. The threads all round it were strained and the pattern would be spoiled, but she did not seem to mind. She said with a sort of bright vagueness, “Oh, yes, indeed,” and began to talk about something else.

  At the far end of the room, where curtains of green brocade screened the two long windows which overlooked the park, Lucius Bellingdon stood with Annabel Scott. They had been dancing, but had come to a standstill here. With a brief “It’s hot” he sent the curtains sliding to right and left and opened a window in the recess behind them. The air came in softly and was grateful. The moon was up and nearly full. By day the prospect would be bright with colour-green of the grass and a hundred other shades of green in swelling bud and breaking leaf-now all muted, all half seen as something in a dream. From the room behind them a panel of light slanted between the curtains and met the moonlight. As they stood there, Annabel moved a step nearer and said,

  “ Arnold is back.”

  He took some time to answer. When he did so, it was to say,

  “What makes you think he’s back?”

  “I saw him.”

  “Where?”

  “Coming out of the station in Ledlington.”

  “When?”

  “A couple of hours ago.”

  “What were you doing in Ledling
ton a couple of hours ago?”

  “I was taking Minnie Jones to catch her train.”

  “Minnie Jones!”

  “Yes. She is Arthur’s aunt.”

  “I know that. What was she doing here?”

  “You’ll have to ask Miss Silver about that. I gather she found the poor thing fainting in the park. She is quite terribly discreet, and she wouldn’t have told me that if she hadn’t been obliged to. But there was I with a car and an obliging disposition, and there was Minnie with no car and a train to catch, so Miss Silver forthcame, which she wouldn’t have done if there had been any other way of getting Minnie to the station.”

  He was frowning in the manner which most people found intimidating.

  “What on earth made her come here?”

  “Minnie Jones? Your guess is as good as mine. Mine would be that she came to see Moira.”

  The intimidating quality was in his voice as he said,

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I’m not saying it-I just told you it would be my guess.”

  “Your reason for a guess like that?”

  She gave him a fleeting look. There was anger in him. She wasn’t afraid of his anger-she would never be afraid of it. She said,

  “Guessing and reason don’t go together.” And then, “Don’t you really know that there was something between her and Arthur?”

  He gave a half contemptuous laugh.

  “There was something on his side-any fool could see that. But on hers-I certainly never thought-”

  The things that Annabel could have said remained unspoken. They burned in her, but she kept them back. What she did say was,