In all the books that she had ever read the secretary or companion invariably wore a dinner dress of black silk made, preferably, out of one which had belonged to a grandmother or some even more remote relative. In this garb she outshone all the other women and annexed the affections of at least two of the most eligible men.
Renata did not possess a black silk gown.
“Thank goodness, for I should look perfectly awful in it,” was Jane’s thought.
With almost equal distaste she viewed the white muslin sacred to prize-givings and school concerts. Attired in this garment Renata had played the “Sonata Pathétique” amidst the applause of boarders and parents. With this pale blue sash about her waist she had recited “How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix.” Jane tied it in a vicious knot. Her only comfort as she went downstairs was that it was impossible to look more like a schoolgirl and less like a conspirator.
Sir William and Henry were in the hall—Mr. Ember too, close to the fire as usual.
Sir William jerked his head in Jane’s direction and grunted, “Miss Molloy, my daughter’s secretary.” Henry bowed. Jane inclined her head.
Next moment they all turned to watch Raymond Heritage come down the stair.
She wore black velvet. Her neck and arms were bare. A long rope of pearls fell to her knee.
Jane wondered whether the world held another woman so beautiful, then looked quickly at Henry, and the same thought was visible upon Henry’s face.
Dinner was not a cheerful meal. Lady Heritage hardly opened her lips. Sir William sat hunched forward over the table; when addressed, the remark had to be repeated before he answered; he drank a good deal.
Jane considered that a modest silence became her, and the conversation was sustained with some effect of strain by Captain March and Mr. Ember. They talked fitfully of politics, musical comedy, the weather, and the American Exchange.
It was a relief, to Jane at least, when she and Lady Heritage found their way to the drawing-room.
Henry wondered at their using this large, formal room for so small a party. His aunt, he remembered, had kept it shut up for the most part. The sense of space was, however, grateful to Jane. The small circle of candlelight in the dining-room had seemed to shut them in, forcing an intimacy for which no one of them was prepared.
The Yellow Drawing-Room was a very stately apartment. The walls were hung with a Chinese damask which a hundred years had not robbed of its imperial colour. Beneath their pagoda-patterned blue linen covers Jane knew that the chairs and sofas wore a stiff yellow satin like a secret pride. Electric candles in elaborate sconces threw a cold, steady light upon the scene.
Lady Heritage sat by the fire, the Revue des Deux Mondes in her hand. Her eyes were on the page and never left it, but she was not reading. In fifteen minutes her glance had not shifted, and the page remained unturned.
Then the door opened, and the two younger men came in. Lady Heritage looked up for a moment, and then went back to her Revue. She made no attempt to entertain Captain March, who, for his part, showed some desire to be entertained.
“You are using the big rooms, I see. Aunt Mary always said they were too cold. You remember she always sat in the Blue Parlour, or the little oak room at the head of the stair.”
Raymond’s lip lifted slightly.
“I’m afraid the Blue Parlour would not be very comfortable now,” she said without looking up.
Henry possessed a persevering nature. He produced, in rapid succession, a remark about the weather, an inquiry as to the productiveness of the kitchen garden, and a comment upon the pleasant warmth of the log fire. The first and last of these efforts elicited no reply at all. To the question about the garden produce Lady Heritage answered that she had no idea.
Mr. Ember’s habitual expression of cynicism became a trifle more marked.
Jane had the feeling that the pressure in the atmosphere was steadily on the increase.
“Won’t you sing something, Raymond,” said Henry. His pleasant ease of manner appeared quite impervious to snubs.
Lady Heritage closed the Revue des Deux Mondes and, for the first time, looked full at Captain March. If he was startled by the furious resentment of that gaze he did not show it.
“And what do you expect me to sing, Henry?” she said—“the latest out of the Jazz Girls?”
“I don’t mind; whatever you like, but do sing, won’t you?”
Raymond got up with an abrupt movement. Walking to one of the long windows which opened upon the terrace, she drew the heavy yellow brocade curtain back with a jerk. Beyond the glass the terrace lay in deepest shadow, but moonlight touched the sea. She bent, drew the bolt, and opened half the door.
“The room is stifling,” she said. “Jeffrey, it’s your fault they pile the fire up so. I wish you’d sometimes look at a calendar and realise that this is April, not January.”
Then, turning, she crossed to the piano.
“If I sing, it will be to please myself, and I shall probably not please any one else.”
Ember came forward and opened the piano. He bent as he did so, and said a few words very low. She answered him.
Henry, left by the fireside with Jane, leaned forward conversationally, the last Punch in his hand.
“This is a good cartoon,” he said. “Have you seen it, Miss Molloy?”
And as she bent to look at the page, he added in that low, effaced tone which does not carry a yard:
“Which room have they given you?”
“I like the line,” said Jane in her clear voice, “and that very black shadow.” Then, in an almost soundless breath—“The end room, south wing.”
“Don’t go to bed,” said Henry. “Wonderful how they keep it up, week after week. I mean to say, it must put you off your stroke like anything, knowing you’ve got to come right up to time like that.”
“Your department doesn’t work by the calendar, then? You don’t have to bother about results?”
Ember strolled back to his favourite place by the fire as he spoke, and Lady Heritage broke into a resounding chord. She played what Henry afterwards described as “an infernal pandemonium of a thing.” It appeared to be in several keys at once, and marched from one riot of discord to another until it ended with a strident crash which set up a humming jangle of vibrations.
“Like that, Henry?” said Lady Heritage.
“No,” said Henry, monosyllabic in his turn.
“No one ever likes to hear the truth,” said Raymond. “You all want something pleasant, something smooth, something like this”—her fingers slipped into the “Blue Danube” waltz. She played it exquisitely, with a melting delicacy of touch arid a beautiful sense of rhythm. After a dozen bars or so she stopped suddenly, leaned her elbow on the keyboard, and through the little clang of the impact said:
“Well?”
“That’s topping,” said Henry. He looked across at her admiringly—the long sweep of the ebony piano, the white keyboard with the black notes standing clear, Raymond in her velvet and pearls, and behind her the imperial yellow of China.
“Soothing syrup,” she said. “You’re not up to date, Henry, I’m afraid. The moderns show us things as they are, and we don’t like it, but the soothing syrups lose their power to soothe once you find out that they are just… dope.”
“I wish you’d sing,” said Henry.
She looked across him at Ember, and an expression difficult to define hardened her face.
“This isn’t modern, but will you like it?” she said, and preluded. Then she began to sing in a deep mezzo:
“The Worldly Hope Men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face
Lighting its little Hour or two—is gone.
Hera in this battered Caravanserai,
Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
Abode his destined Hour, an
d went his Way.”
The notes came heavy and tragic. In her voice there seemed to be gathered all the tragedy, all the emotion of human life. The sound fell almost to a whisper:
“The Worldly Hope Men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face
Lighting its little Hour or two—is gone.”
Suddenly the voice rose ringing like a trumpet, a great chord crashed out:
“Waste not your Hour!”
The deep octaves followed. Then she passed into modulating phrases and began to sing again.
“Her voice is nearly as beautiful as she is,” thought Jane, “but somehow—she shakes one.”
“Ah Love, could you and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would we not shatter it to bits, and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire?”
With the last word she rose, turned from the piano and the room, and went out to the terrace.
Henry got up, strolled casually across the room, and followed her. She was standing by the low parapet looking over the sea. The night was still, the scent of hyacinths was heavy on the air, but every now and then a breath—something not to be called a wind—came up from across the water and brought with it cold, and a tang of salt.
The moon was still behind the house, but near to clearing it, and though they stood in the dusk, Henry could see Lady Heritage’s features as though through a veil.
Her icy mood was broken; the tears were rolling down her cheeks. She turned on him with a flame of anger.
“Why did you come? Why did you come? Do you know what Father said to me yesterday? I said I wouldn’t have you here, and he said—he said, ‘Good heaven! How can I keep the man away from what is practically his own house?’ Is it yours now?—have you come to see your property?”
Henry looked at her gravely.
“No, it is not mine yet,” he said, “and I came for a very different reason, as I think you know.”
“And you expected me to welcome you… as if it wasn’t enough to be here, to live here—without—” She broke off, gripping the rough stone of the parapet with both hands. “You ask me why I don’t use the Oak Room—do you forget how you and I and Tony used to roast chestnuts there, and tell ghost stories—till we were afraid to go to bed? If there were no worse ghosts than those.… Do you know, every time you come into the room I expect to see Anthony behind you, and when you speak I catch myself listening for his voice?… Do you still wonder why I don’t use the Oak Room? What are men made of?”
“I don’t know,” said Henry. “Did I hurt you, Raymond? I’m sorry if I did, but it wasn’t meant.” She sank down upon the parapet. All the vehemence went out of her.
“You see,” she said in a whispering voice—“you see, I can’t forget. God knows how hard I’ve tried. Every one else has forgotten, but I can’t forget. If I could, I should sleep—but I can’t. Henry, have you ever tried very hard to forget anything?”
“Yes,” said Henry.
“Will you tell me what it was?”
“I’m afraid I can’t.”
“Oh well, it doesn’t matter, and if you really understand, you know that the more one tries the more vivid it all becomes.”
“It’s Tony?” asked Henry.
“Yes, it’s Tony,” said Raymond, in an odd voice—“but it’s not because he’s dead—I don’t want you to think that. I could have borne that; I could have borne anything if I could have seen him once again, or if he had known that I cared, but he went away in anger and he never knew.”
“I didn’t know,” said Henry—“I’m sorry.”
Lady Heritage looked away across the sea. The moonlight showed where the jagged line of rocks cut sharp through the sleeping water.
“There’s a verse in the Bible—do you ever read the Bible, Henry? I don’t, but I remember this verse; one was taught it as a child. ‘Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.’ I let the moon rise and go down on mine.” She spoke very, very quietly. “Anthony stood there, just by that urn. He said, ‘You’ll have all the rest of your life to be sorry in.…’ That was the last thing he said to me. He never forgave, and he never wrote. I didn’t think any man would let me go so easily, so I married John Heritage to show that I didn’t care. And, whilst we were on our honeymoon, I saw Anthony’s name in the list of missing. Now, do you wonder that I hate you for coming here, and for being alive, and taking Tony’s place? And do you wonder that there are times when I hate everything so much that I’d like well enough to see this whole sorry scheme shattered to bits—if it could be done?”
“I’m not so keen on this shattering business, Raymond,” said Henry. “Don’t you think there’s been about enough of it? There are a lot of rotten things, and a lot of good things, and they’re all mixed up. If you start shattering, the odds are you bring down everything together.”
“Well?” said Raymond, just one word, cold and still.
There was a little pause. Then she laughed.
“Is Henry also among the preachers?” she said mockingly. “You should take Orders; a surplice would be becoming.”
Henry was annoyed to feel that he was flushing.
“Shall I go on preaching?” he said, and as he spoke, Mr. Ember came through the open glass door with a cloak over his arm.
“I am a relief expedition,” he announced. “You must be frozen. Never trust a moonlight night.”
He put the wrap about Raymond’s shoulders, but she did not fasten it.
“I’m coming in,” she said.
She and Ember passed into the lighted room. Henry stood still for a minute, listened acutely; then he followed them.
There was a hedge of stiffly growing veronica bushes at the foot of the terrace wall. After Henry had gone in, the man called George Patterson came out from behind the bushes at the far end of the terrace. He walked slowly with a dragging step, keeping in the shadow of the house, and he made his way to the far end of the north wing.
Inside the Yellow Drawing-Room Henry was bidding his hostess good-night, and announcing his intention of taking a moonlight stroll.
Presently he emerged upon the terrace, descended the steps on the right, and made his way in the direction taken by George Patterson.
Chapter Nine
When Jane reached her own room, she stood a long time in front of the glass frowning at herself. It might be safe to look so exactly like a schoolgirl, but it was very, very humiliating. Henry had never glanced at her once. That, of course, was all in the line of safety too. Also, why should Henry look at her? Why should she wish him to do so? She was not in love with him; she had, in fact, refused him—could it be that there was a little balm in this thought? What did it matter to her how long he looked at Raymond Heritage?
She took off the white muslin dress and put it away.
The worst part of being Renata was, not the risk, but having to wear Renata’s clothes. All the things were good, horribly good, and they were all quite extraordinarily dull. “If your shoes want mending, and your things are threadbare, every one knows it’s because you’re poor, and not because you like being down at heel and out at elbows. But Renata’s things must have cost quite a lot, and, of course, every one thinks they are my choice.”
By some deflected line of reasoning “every one” meant Henry.
Jane folded up the pale blue sash and shut it sharply into a drawer. Then she put on Renata’s dressing- gown. It was made of crimson flannel, very thick and soft, with scalloped edges to the collar and cuffs—“exactly like one’s grandmother’s petticoat.”
She rumpled the bedclothes and disarranged the pillows. Then she put out the light, sat down on the window-seat, and waited.
The blind was up; she had slipped behind the chintz curtains. The terrace lay beneath her, only half in shadow now. There was no sound in the house, no sound from the sea. The line of shadow mo
ved backwards inch by inch.
When Jane sat down to wait, she told herself that she would not listen and strain; she would just sit there quite peacefully, and if anything was going to happen—well, let it happen. But as she sat there, she became afraid against her will, aware once more of that sense of pressure which had come upon her in the drawing-room. It was as if something was steadily approaching not her alone, but all of them—as if their thoughts and actions were being, at one and the same time, dictated by an outside force and scrutinised—watched—spied upon.
With all her might she resisted this sensation and the fear that it suggested. But, as the night passed to midnight and beyond, a strange feeling of being one watcher in a slumbering household detached itself from the general confusion, and she began to long with great intensity for something—anything—to happen.
Once something moved in the foot-wide strip of shadow against the house. Jane caught her breath and then saw that it was only a cat, a half-grown kitten rather, beloved of the cook. It came out into the moonlight and walked solemnly the entire length of the terrace with delicately taken steps and a high waving tail. It was as soundless and black as the shadow out of which it had come, and presently it was gone again, and second by second, minute by minute, slow, interminable, the night dropped away. In the hall a clock struck the quarters. The silence, shattered for a moment, closed again.
When the rapping came, it brought the oddest sense of interruption. Jane sprang to her feet, stood for a moment catching at her self-control, and then went noiselessly to the door. She listened before opening it, and could hear nothing; and, as she listened, the knocking came again, but from behind her.
Bewildered, she edged the door open and looked out. A shaded light burned far away to the left. The long, dim corridor was empty. She shut the door.
Some one was knocking—somewhere—but where?
The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith: A Golden Age Mystery Page 8
