Will O’ the Wisp

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Where are you?”

  “Milly March found me a flat—just a furnished one, whilst I look round.”

  She stepped down into the hall and laid the violets back on the oak chest from which David had taken them.

  “I’ll give you a card with the address. When will you come?”

  “When may I come?”

  “To-morrow. Can you get away at tea-time?”

  “Yes, I can get away.”

  She wrote on her card with a little violet pencil.

  “There—that’s the address, and the telephone number. If you can’t come, call me up.”

  “I shall come.”

  He held her coat for her and watched her take the flowers again. Then Milly March came heavy-footed down the stairs, a little out of breath.

  “Grandmamma kept me!” she panted. Then she saw David, and had an access of tact: “Are you sure you’ve got room for me, Eleanor? Because if you haven’t—I mean if you’re taking David—”

  “I’m not taking David,” said Eleanor Rayne.

  CHAPTER IV

  A Grandfather clock struck the half-hour as David crossed the hall of Eleanor Rayne’s temporary flat. A piercing silver chime sounded from what he took to be the dining-room.

  The maid who had let him in threw open a door on the right and announced him to an empty drawing-room. As she murmured “I’ll tell Mrs. Rayne,” and withdrew, a gilt clock with a painted face struck two deep whirring notes from the mantelpiece, where it stood amongst a medley of china cups, Chelsea figures, ivory elephants, wooden bears, and silver peacocks. The room had a great many chairs in it. There were two walnut bureaux, three china cabinets, a tea-table set with tea things, a marble table supported by monstrously fat gilts Cupids, an Empire card-table with brass claw feet, and a frankly Victorian walnut pedestal table upon which stood a large group of stuffed birds under a glass dome.

  David wrinkled his nose at the room and disliked it a good deal. The carpet had once displayed magenta roses wreathed with blue ribbon on a pearl-grey ground. The magenta was now just a wine-coloured smear, and the pearl had darkened to smoke. The walls were covered with satin stripes that had once been white. From three of the walls a gloomy ancestor stared from his or her discoloured frame. Two of the ancestors were male, and one, the least attractive of the three, a female with an elderly simper.

  David disliked the ancestors even more than he disliked the room. He was frowning ferociously when the door opened and Eleanor came in. She wore a short grey skirt and a white jumper, and she was holding a smoke-coloured Persian kitten the kitten took both her hands. It had orange eyes, and it mewed fiercely and unremittingly because it wished to sit on Eleanor’s shoulder.

  Eleanor did not shake hands with David; she held the kitten, and she smiled, and said:

  “You got here.”

  David said: “What a beastly room!”

  And then Eleanor laughed.

  “Thank you, David!”

  “Nonsense! It’s not your room. How does the same person manage to have wooden bears, and ivory and apes and peacocks, and poisonous ancestors, and ormolu tables?”

  “It’s quite easy, really. The flat belongs to an old Miss Johnson. She left a much bigger house to come here; but she wouldn’t leave any of her furniture. Some of the things are inherited, and some were given to her—a brother in Burma sent her the peacocks long ago when she was young. And she simply loves the bears because she bought them herself in Berne.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Milly told me. Milly knows her. She got me the flat by guaranteeing that I should be careful of the ancestors and kind to the bears.”

  Eleanor sat down beside the tea-table and put the kitten in her lap with a little pat.

  “Timothy, be good. Isn’t he a lamb, David?”

  “Where did you raise him?”

  “Milly raised him. She is a good sort—she thought I’d be lonely. Oh, Timmy!”

  After being patted, Timothy had crouched; his eyes glowed, his two inches of furry tail twitched. The moment that Eleanor looked away from him to David he leapt, took a clawing hold of the white jumper, kicked himself upwards, and landed, growling in a fierce whisper, in the hollow between Eleanor’s neck and Eleanor’s shoulder.

  Eleanor rubbed her cheek against him.

  “Timmy, you’re the worst kitten in the world!”

  Timmy stopped growling and began to purr. Just for a moment that soft triumphant purr was the only sound in the room. Then the door opened and the maid brought in tea.

  After a moment’s frowning consideration David pushed a chair up to the table and sat down with his back to the female ancestor.

  “They’re all bad, but she’s the worst,” he explained. “I should think her name was Sophronisba. If I’ve got to look at one of ’em, I prefer the old buster whose top has faded into the general gloom. I say, mustn’t those tight white breeks have been the limit?”

  Eleanor laughed and gave him some tea. There was another little pause. Then he said, without looking at her:

  “I expect you’re glad to get home. Where are you going to live?”

  “I don’t know. I used to think I’d like London, but now I’m sure I shouldn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a lonely place—there are such a lot of people, and they’re all so busy. And oh, David, I do hate the crossings. I think I’ll just stay here till the country warms up, and then I’ll get a little car and run round till I find a house that I really love.”

  “Let me build you one,” said David.

  “Would it be all bathrooms? Aunt Editha seemed quite worried about the number of bathrooms you put into houses. She said that Grandmamma said it was just a modern craze, and in her young days nobody ever had bathrooms at all. She said Grandmamma thought such a lot of washing was most unwholesome, and that everybody would feel much warmer if they didn’t wash so much.”

  “I’ve made three new bathrooms at Ford,” said David. “They’re topping. Come and see them. When will you come? I told Betty I’d find out. And she says, would you like a party, or just us?”

  Eleanor did not answer him at once.

  “It seems funny to think of Ford belonging to you.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know—it does. Your father was so strict; we all had to do exactly as we were told, and nobody was allowed to be a moment late for meals. Oh, it just seems odd.”

  “I’ve got used to it.”

  “Betty keeps house for you?”

  “More or less.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means she’s rotten at it. But she will do it.”

  “Poor Betty! She told me Dick had just gone to school. I thought she was going to cry. She must miss him dreadfully.”

  “She spoils him dreadfully. It’s a jolly good thing for Master Dick that he’s a boy and bound to go to school.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Not a bad little ruffian. Quite good stuff—a stocky little chap—wants licking.”

  Eleanor put out her hand and took his cup.

  “Do you still take three lumps of sugar? I put them in without thinking the first time. Help yourself to cake, and give me a bit.” She gave him back his cup. “David, what’s happened about Betty’s husband?”

  “Nothing.”

  “How do you mean—nothing?”

  “Well, just that.”

  “Aunt Editha said—”

  David laughed.

  “Grandmamma and the Aunts probably know a lot more about it than Betty and I do. The plain fact is that Francis went off into the blue just after I got back to England five years ago. As far as I know, nobody’s heard of him since. It leaves Betty rather high and dry; but, honestly, she was well rid of him at any price. If ever there was an out-and-out rotter—and how on earth he got round my father I can’t imagine. Poor old Betty had an absolutely poisonous time of it, and she took it very hard. It’s bad luck
, that sort of thing. I mean with any number of good fellows about, it’s hard lines when a girl gets let down by an out-and-out rotter.”

  “Yes,” said Eleanor. Her lips felt a little stiff, but she wanted to say something quickly.

  And then all of a sudden the dark colour ran up into David’s face. To Eleanor’s horror, the tears rushed scalding to her eyes. She clenched her hands and leaned back, struggling for composure. After all that she had been through, to break down at a chance word!

  Timothy nuzzled softly against her ear; his orange eyes peeped at David between the curls of Eleanor’s hair.

  She got up quickly and went over to the hearth. As she stooped and pushed a log down on to the red embers, the two burning tears fell.

  David’s voice sounded from behind her:

  “Eleanor—my dear—I didn’t mean—”

  “No, of course you didn’t.”

  He got up.

  “Look here, we can be friends—can’t we? We always were friends. We wanted to be something more, and it didn’t come off. And one way and another we’ve both had a pretty thin time of it. We needn’t talk about it; but it’s not the sort of thing you forget. I’d like to start square on that basis. If we try and ignore it, we shall just feel uncomfortable. You see what I mean?”

  Eleanor turned. Her eyes were still wet, but it didn’t really matter. Tact and the social conventions seemed to have vanished. David had always been a singularly direct person. There was a sort of comfort about it. She said:

  “Yes, I see.”

  “Then, when will you come down to Ford?”

  “I don’t know. Do you go up and down every day?”

  “I do in summer, and when I’m not too busy. It’s only thirty miles. When will you come?”

  “Well—I’ve got Folly March coming to me.”

  David stared.

  “What for?”

  “To stay.”

  “My dear girl!”

  Eleanor laughed, sat down on the fender-stool, and removed a shrieking Timmy from her shoulder.

  “Timothy, you’re not to bite my hair! Oh, you little horror!”

  The kitten spat, scratched, and fled. After glaring defiance from the middle of the floor, he backed sideways to the marble table with its gilded supports and lurked behind a bulging Cupid’s foot.

  “George is going to pay visits—bachelor visits; so I said I’d have Folly. We came home on the same boat, you know. I expect George will be away for about a month.”

  “What are you going to do with her? You’d better bring her to Ford. She can’t get into mischief there, anyhow.”

  Eleanor looked resigned. The corners of her mouth twitched and something danced in her dark eyes.

  “Folly March can get into mischief anywhere,” she said.

  CHAPTER V

  It was over a hundred years since the Fordyces had crossed the Tweed. David’s great-grandfather bought the estate, to which he gave the name of Ford, and began to build the house, which was finished by his son.

  To Ford Anna St. Kern came as a bride; and at Ford she presently developed into Grandmamma. David’s father being a widower at the time of his succession, her rule endured until his death, after which, greatly to David’s relief, she announced a preference for London. With a masterly grasp of the situation she installed herself in the very middle of the Family web. She very seldom went out; but the Family came to her, and she directed its affairs with merciless decision.

  The house at Ford was a comfortable square Georgian building of modest size. It stood on a grassy spur which ran down gently into woodland on two sides, and on the third dropped sharply from an artificial terrace to a fair-sized sheet of water. The terrace was bounded by a low stone wall, and a long grey flight of steps led down to the water’s edge.

  Eleanor Rayne came down to Ford and brought Folly March with her.

  “And remember, Folly, you’ve promised to be good.”

  “I’m bored when I’m good—and I can’t be good when I’m bored.”

  “You can if you like,” said Eleanor, laughing.

  Folly was good for two days. She rode with David; she played golf with Eleanor; and she let Betty teach her a double patience in the evenings.

  Eleanor found it very pleasant to be at Ford again, and very pleasant to be with David. After a cold spell, January was playing at spring, with soft fresh winds, April showers, and exquisite pale turquoise skies.

  On the third evening Folly looked askance at Betty’s patience board. They were sitting in the drawing-room, “to air it,” as Betty said. She was one of the people whose rooms have no middle stage between stiffness and disorder; and the drawing-room, which David hated, was as coldly angular as a problem in geometry.

  Eleanor amused herself by thinking of how different it could be made. The cold, faded brocade curtains would go, of course. The room wanted bright chintzes; it wanted colour and life, more flowers, and a few dark rugs, instead of half an acre of prehistoric Brussels.

  Folly also had ideas of her own—the room was large; it had a parquet floor smothered by a frightful carpet. She came up to David with her hands behind her back, tilted her chin at him, and said:

  “Do get married and give a dance.”

  “An expensive dance!”

  “Not very.”

  “It would be if I had to get married as a preliminary—rather like burning down the house to cook the bacon.”

  “Do!” said Folly.

  “Burn the house down?”

  “That would be fun too! But I’d rather have a dance. I do dance well.”

  “Aren’t you going to play patience to-night?” Betty’s voice was fretful and disapproving.

  “No, I’m going to dance.”

  She set her arms akimbo, whistled shrilly, and began to Charleston. She wore a singularly brief sleeveless garment that ended at the knee. It was black, and it was hemmed with monkey fur. There was a little string of bright beads round her neck, just the sort of thing that she might have worn with socks and sash when she was six years old. The socks had given way to very thin flesh-coloured stockings kept up by scarlet garters which showed every time she kicked. Her dancing had a sort of furious abandonment that was just on the edge of grace, but never overstepped it.

  All of a sudden she stopped quite close to David.

  “Do give a dance! Will you?”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “I’m bored with the Charleston—really. I want to learn the Black Bottom. It’s perfectly hideous, and no one knows how to do it properly yet. I do like being ahead of the crowd. Don’t you?”

  “Not specially.”

  Folly took him by the lapels of his coat and shook them.

  “You’re as dull as ditch-water!” Then she looked at him full out of her green eyes for just the merest fraction of a second. “I play the piano almost as well as I dance,” she said in her soft purring voice. “I’ll play you things you’ll simply adore.”

  She began to whistle again and danced backwards to the piano, a big lugubrious grand in an ebony case. After pushing at the lid with an ineffective little hand, she raised it half an inch and let it down with a bang.

  “David—come and open it, David.”

  Betty said, “What’s that?” and then went on telling Eleanor everything that Dick had done and said for the last six years.

  David went across to the piano, opened it, and then stood there, a little curious as to what Miss Folly’s taste in music might be. She settled herself demurely and began to play Mendelssohn’s “Gondellied” in a manner as softly sentimental as if she had been a Victorian miss in a crinoline.

  David glanced at the little sleek black head with the hair cut a good deal shorter than Dicky Lester’s. Then he looked across to where Betty and Eleanor sat under a tall electric lamp.

  Eleanor had on a black dress with long floating sleeves. She was working at a piece of embroidery stretched on a frame, and her lap was full of the brilliant coloured silks—the bl
ue and green of a peacock’s neck and breast; the rose of last year’s roses; the bright sapphire of the little ring he had given her long ago (perhaps she had lost it—or perhaps she had it still). The colours made a shimmering beauty under the lamp. It had a pale blue shade which made Betty look ghastly. He wondered idly whether she knew how unbecoming it was.

  Eleanor, in the same pale light, was beautiful enough. She had the very white skin which sometimes goes with black hair. The line of neck and shoulder was a free and noble one. She looked sometimes at Betty, and sometimes at her rainbow silks. She had cut her hair, but it had its old crisp wave; there were little dark curls that hid her ears.

  Folly March rocked the singing notes and said:

  “David—David!”

  He turned his head.

  “Do you think Eleanor is beautiful?”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  David looked back at Eleanor and agreed in silence.

  “David—David!”

  “What is it?”

  “Shall I grow my hair?”

  David frowned and said “Yes” rather impatiently.

  “You don’t like it short?”

  “No.”

  “David.”

  “Well?”

  “Shall I stop putting stuff on my face?”

  She went on playing with her left hand, drew a finger down one smooth cheek, and held it out covered with ivory powder.

  David made a face of disgust.

  “Shall I leave it off?”

  “Yes.”

  “And not paint my lips?”

  The gondola was rocking steadily again. Folly’s black lashes were cast down; the scarlet mouth trembled a little.

  “Yes,” said David impatiently.

  Then his heart smote him. Suppose she began to cry. Girls did.

  Folly went on playing very softly. Suddenly she looked up at him, her eyes alive with green malice.

  “Why don’t you marry, David?”

  “You’d better ask Grandmamma.”

  “I’d rather ask you. Why, David?”

  “You can have three guesses.”

  Something a good deal older than Folly peeped at him. David received rather a shock. Folly was what? Nineteen? Where did she get that look—hard, knowing?