Well, sir, of course, if you put it like that—*' Two or three notes changed hands. *'i*m sure I wouldn't want anybody to be out on a night like this. **
"Quite. It's extremely kind of you."
"And there's a meal all ready in the dining room there." Through an open door they saw a very temptingly set table, which suddenly reminded them both that their cold adventures had made them ravenously hungry, in spite of dinner an hour or two ^go. "The other lady and gentleman can^t be coming now. You might iust as well eat it. And the bedroom upstairs is very comfortable.**
Lucas said thank you rather quickly, and then asked if there were any way of getting the car off the road.
"You could push it through the gate at the side, into the field,** the woman said. "1*11 show you." She picked up a powerful flashlight, which was evidently used for her journeys to and fro between the house and the cottage. And while Leoni thankfully sat down in an armchair by the fire, Lucas and the woman went out into the night to see about the disposal of the car.
Takmg off her hat, Leoni leaned back and pushed her fingers through her hair. The Dagrams would be bound to be extremely anxious, though no doubt they would guess that it w^s the fog that had delayed her. But they also knew that she was with friends and that they would look after her.
This was an extraordinarily unconventional position in which she and Lucas found themselves. They couldn *t help it, of course. It was not, in the remotest degree, their own fault. But the fact remained—here they were, about to spend the night together in an isolated house, which was, to all appearances, frequented by rather doubtful weekenders.
The sound of voices told her that the other two were now returning, and she sat up and tried not to look as though she had made herself so shamelessly at home.
"Well, that's settled." The woman came in, followed by Lucas, and Leoni saw for the first time that his dark hair was curling damply and untidily over his forehead and, even in the midst of all her anxiety, she found that she liked it. "Now I'll be getting along." The woman was evidently
J 36 Take Me With You
now perfectly satisfied with the situation. "You'll find coffee ready to heat on the stove, and the kitchen's through there. You'd best make yourselves at home. I can't see anything else for it."
They both thanked her again and accepted her assurance that she would be back before eight tomorrow.
Feeling suddenly rather self-conscious, they stood together at the back door, watching her disappear into the fog. For all the world, thought Leoni, as though we were honeymooners—or suchlike.
"Come on in and let's shut the door now," Lucas said beside her. "She's gone too far for the light to be any guide to her now, and her torch is a good one."
They shut the door and went back to the fire in the hall.
For a minute or two they both stood in front of it, warming themselves. Then Leoni said, "Do you think it would be too awful of us to eat that meal?"
"I was just wondering the same thing." Lucas grinned. " I 'm ravenous. Are you?''
"Indecently so. And she did say we could."
"I know. I was just wondering what we say if Mr. Gordon's friends turn up just as we're swallowing the last crumbs of their meal."
"They can't be coming as late as this, Lucas. It's eleven o'clock, and no one in their senses would drive down from London through this.''
"We were presumably in our senses when we decided to drive up to London in it," Lucas pointed out regretfully.
"Yes—that's true. But it wasn't at all thick when we started."
"Perhaps it wasn't with them either."
"You mean we'd better leave the meal alone?"
Lucas laughed and took her by the arm. "Let's go and see what there is. Perhaps there's enough for four of us. And if not—well, I must say I'm ready to take the risk."
They went into the pleasant little dining room, and the most cursory inspection of the table decided them. Even if they did justice to the excellent appetites they had both developed, there would still be enough left for the two who were really entitled to the meal.
"And anyway, I don't really believe they'll come," de-
clared Lconi, as they went into the kitchen to make, the coffee.
"Nor I.** Lucas leaned against the white, scrubbed table with his hands in his pockets, and watched Leoni with frank pleasure. '* Funny sort of person, our Mr. Gordon seems to
"Yes. Evidently that woman's used to some odd couples turning up. She didn't even seem to know the names or the people wno were coming. And I loved the idea that the people who come here would naturally not want a telephone."
"Hm. I take it Mr. Gordon either lets or lends his charming little residence as a sort of love nest, respectable or otherwise, as desired, *' Lucas said thoughtfully.
"Lucas! It's rather frightful, isn't it?" Leoni paused with a pan of steaming coffee m her hand.
"That we should find ourselves here? Yes, it's appalling. In fact only the thought of the fog outside keeps me from rushing out again into icy respectability," Lucas declared.
She wondered if his flippant air were meant to reassure her or if—suddenly she recalled some of the things Norman Conby had said—if he really didn 't care.
Her face was rather serious as she set the coffee and milk on a tray, to carry it into the next room.
But he came forward and took the tray from her, and as he did so he said, "Don't worry, darling. And don't think I'm not genuinely horrified at having involved you in this. But I can't for the life of me think what else we could have done. They say a clear conscience means a quiet mind, and I can only think that's why I'm prepared to accept the situation for the moment and just enjoy to the utmost having supper a deux with you."
She looKed up quickly, and found that his smile was so reassuring that she smiled involuntarily in her turn.
"I think you'd better regard me as the forcibly adopted uncle for the next twelve hours,' he said lightly. "After all, that was the role you cast for me the very first moment you saw me."
Over the meal, as though by common consent, they returned to the subject that the fog had interrupted, and Lucas told her quite a lot about his childhood and boyhood. He could be extraordinarily amusing and entertaining
when he was talking of anything that had happened before he had made such a mess of his Ufe, and from his gay reminiscences there emerged a very clear picture of the boy Leoni would have liked to know.
"Lucas, you were a bit like that when I first saw you," she declared.
"No.'* He laughed and shook his head. "Td just entered the conceited stage by then. Felt myself very grown up and was extraordinarily impressed by the figure I tnought I cut. I was deeply mortified when you wanted to kiss me, you know."
"I know. But you accepted the mortification for yourself rather than mortify me by refusing."
"Um." He smiled thoughtfully. "Perhaps you're right. I couldn 't have refused you, anyway."
She was a good deal touched by the simplicity of that, and to hide the fact she jumped up and said. We've both eaten about all we can. Let's go and sit in front of that gorgeous fire in the hall."
They strolled out into the little square hall, and Lucas threw a fresh log on the fire.
"How do we propose to spend the night?" he asked, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece and standing looking down at her. "Sitting in front of this fire talking? Or will you go so far as to take the advice of our vanished attendant and try the bedroom upstairs? I'll be perfectly comfortable here.'^
"Oh, I don't think I'll go so far as to take the bed,"Leoni said. "It seems—well, it seems the last imposition, doesn't it?"
"Still afraid that the rightful tenants may turn up and throw you out?" he inquired with a smile.
"Oh, no," Leoni declared. "Not in the least. I'm sure there's no question of that now. But—"
"By jove, I'm afraid you've spoken half a minute too soon, my dear."
In absolute silence they listened to the unmistakable sounds of a
car coming to a standstill outside the gate. There followed the shght click of the gate latch, the sound of voices and footsteps up the path and, finally, a peremptory and insistent knock on the door.
"You'd better open it," Leoni said in a whisper. She had
risen to her feet, her eyes wide and anxious, and her whole air as guilty as if they had indeed been detected in an attempt to clear all the valuables from the house.
"All right.** Lucas smiled at her. **Don't look so scared. We've got a perfectly good story, you know. And they won't need any explanations about the fog, considering they must have been lost in it for long enough themselves.'
He crossed the hall and threw open the door, while Leoni leaned forward anxiously to see what manner of people they had to deal with.
To her astonishment neither they nor Lucas said a word. It was as though some spell had bereft them all of speech. Then the two people outside came forward into the light, and, with a gasp, Leoni realized what was the matter.
The woman was Sophie Rayter.
CHAPTER NINE
In all her stage career, Sophie Rayter had probably never made a better or more dramatic entry than she made at that moment.
Coming slowly forward, with that graceful, rather deliberate walk for which she was famous, she stood before the fire, warming her hands and ignoring both Leoni and her husband. When she spoke it was to the man with her, and even then she didn't bother to turn and face him.
''Well, Basil, it's the first time I've known Bob Gordon to make a mistake on dates, but he certainly seems to have installed two more of his friends ahead of us.'' ^
"That's not true!" Lucas spoke sharply, in a voice Leoni hardly recognized as his, and at the same time the other man exclaimed with nervous irritability, "What in God's name^ are you doing here, Morrion? Is this a trap or something?" and he glanced around with bright, uneasy eyes, which took in the whole scene without his being able to understand it.
"I might ask you the same question with at least as much reason," Lucas retorted comtemptuously.
"We—we got lost in the fog," Leoni volunteered at that moment, in a small and—she felt—extremely insignificant voice.
Sophie gave her beautiful laugh.
"How odd! So did we."
"No, no. I mean—we weren't coming here. We just got lost in the fog—on our way back to London—and then we found this house."
Sophie Rayter stared at her with a coolness which bordered on insolence.
*'I suppose we could tell the same tale," she said reflectively. 'Nit fits us just about as well.'*
"Suppose you sit down and we talk this thing out,'* Lucas interrupted rather gratingly. "I don't pretend to know what you and Basil Hurton are doing here, but I suppose if you're the couple to whom Bob Gordon lent this place I can draw my own conclusions without doing you an injustice."
"I suppose I can draw mine, too, Lucas.''
*'No. ithink not. I know the sort of conclusions you're apt to draw. And, as Leoni said, the simple truth is that we were driving up from my parents' place outside Woking and got Jost in the fog. We came on this place after a couple of hours' wandering around in a circle—"
"Woking? You're nowhere near Woking," grumbled the other man suspiciously. _^
"I didn't imagine we were," Lucas told him curtly. "To tell the truth, I don't know where the hell we are. But my gas was giving out—"
"It's quite like a story book, Lucas," Sophie murmured, smiling dangerously.
"—and any roof seemed better than none when we found this," he continued doggedly.
"Oh, Lucas! That's ungrateful of you. 'Any roof,' indeed! Why, this is one of the most charming weekend cottages within fifty miles of London. But Bob must have told you that when he lent it to you.''
"Bob had nothing to do with my being here," Lucas said stonily. "I wouldn't take any favor from that scoundrel."
"We seem to be going around in a circle," Sophie murmured protestingly. Then she added energetically, "And I'm starving. Isn't there anything to eat? I can't possibly argue domestic problems on a starvation diet."
"Oh, we—we left you plenty to eat," Leoni hastened to assure her, more than ever glad now that they had. Somehow, it would have been the last ignominious complication if they had eaten up the supper mtended for Sophie and her—well, perhaps companion was the safest word.
Sophie turned to go mto the dining room and, as she did so, she came full face opposite Leoni. She paused, raking her with a contemptuous but penetrating glance.
"Don't I know you? Haven't I seen you before?" she said.
" Y-yes. In your dressing room. Lu—Mr. Morrion brought
me in one evening and introduced me,*' Leoni explained rather timidly.
"I remember now.'How cool of you, Lucas. One of your little typists, didn 't you tell me? "
It was the sheerest attempt at a guess, or even more likely, just a piece of casual cattiness, for she obviously didn't remember what she had been told about Leoni. But the fact that she should hit on the brutal truth and make it sound so cheap and nasty made Leoni turn pale.
'You're mistaken. I didn't tell you that at all," her husband said coldly. "I told you that Leoni was a friend of my young cousin Julia."
"Julia! Julia's just a schoolgirl. You baby snatcher! "And Sophie laughed as she passed him on her way across the hall. "Come on, Basil, let's see what they have left us."
After a moment's hesitation, the man followed her, with a muttered exclamation, which sounded more worried than anything else to Leoni's ears. Evidently he greatly feared that he had become involved in something that was about to develop into a scandal and, quite obviously, it was the last thing he wanted.
Lucas looked after them both. Then they heard Sophie say, "Push the door too. There's a draft." And the door was pushed, though not actually shut. '
For a moment there was silence between the two left behind in the hall. Then Lucas, whose head had been slightly bent, looked up, his face dark with anxiety, and said, "It's a futile thing to say, but I'm most desperately sorry, my dear."
"Don't, Lucas. Don't look like that" She touched his arm gently. "It wasn't your fault. You couldn't possibly help it."
"I know, I know." He sighed impatiently but covered her hand gently and absently with his. "But I feel I should have handled it better. God knows, there wasn't much opportunity to think what to do but—"
"There was nothing to do but tell the truth, and that you did," Leoni said firmly. "After all," she smiled faintly, "what was that you said yourself earlier on this the evening? A clear conscience means a quiet mind."
"I was thinking of Sophie then," he retorted grimly.
There was another awkward little silence at that. Then Leoni said, "She just doesn't want to believe us, does she?**
"No. Of course not.**
"But why, Lucas? Is it because she—she dislikes you?**
"No! Can*t you see her position? However well she tries to carry it off, it's perfectly obvious that she came down here to spend the weefcend—or part of the weekend— with this Hurton fellow. The last thing she wants is that I should have any reason to make trouble—perhaps even sue for a divorce. Her only chance is to pretend for all she's worth that she thinks I m doing the same sort of thing. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander."
"You mean she's going to insist that you and I—that you andl-"
"Yes, Leoni. That's exactly what she's going to insist."
"But we can prove that we hadn't any such intention. There's the woman at the cottage. There's the evidence of your own family. I mean—the time we left your home—and the fact that they knew all about our going back to London by car simply because otherwise I 'd have had to go by train alone. Why, it was Mrs. Vandeem's arrangement, really— not ours at all."
"I know, I know."
"Well, then?"
"I'm just wondering how much all that weighs with someone who doesn't want to believe it."
There was still eag
er protesting in Leoni's face, showing how much she wanted to argue the point. But somehow all she got out was one rather timid query, "But what can she do. Lucas?"
He set his mouth with all of the old grimness. "Hasn't it struck you yet, my dear, that she's a very dangerous woman?" he said, with a touch of kindness for her inexperience and a good deal of dryness for the unpalatable fact he was disclosing.
Leoni was silent. She suddenly felt that explanations and arguments were futile. Lucas had said the one thing that mattered. Sophie was dangerous.
The burning logs slipped farther down into the fireplace, and two of them fell together, sending up a shower of sparks. At the same time the Dutch wall clock struck midnight, reminding Leoni sharply that time was passing
and that there were even more urgent questions than that of Sophie's future actions to be settled.
What were they going to do next? Where—not to put too fine a point upon it—were they all going to spend the night?
Leoni gave a quick sigh—the only outward indication that she had found the situation more than she could cope with, even in theory.
At almost the same moment, the door into the dining room swung back and Sophie came out again, followed by tier companion, who was obviously enjoying himself less and less.
Leoni waited rather breathlessly for the first word from them, but it was Lucas who spoke first, and he addressed himself to Basil Hurton with the one curt query. "How much gas have you got?"
"How much gas? Why the hell do you want to know? Enough to get me back to London and more."
"Good. That's what I wanted to know. If it's really more, will you oblige us with enough to get us back to London too? Miss Frendall's people must be abominably worried about her already, ancf you and your fuel represent our only chance of getting her back there tonight."
"And what," inquired Sophie with amusement, "about me?"
Lucas gave her one glance. "My dear, Sophie, I won't do you the injustice of supposing you're not perfectly capable of looking after yourself I don't know what your plans are. I don't really care. My business is to get Leoni back to her home tonight if it's humanly possible.''
The second collection of 3 great novels by Mary Burchell Page 15