"Oh, I understand perfectly, sir." The inspector cut him short because he could not bear to hear any more of it. When the complaint had arrived at the station it had promised something interesting and it was exasperating to find this explanation. "I understand what you're telling me. She did it to annoy and now she's changed her mind. We often get that sort of thing, but usually," he added spitefully, "in a rather different walk of life. In the ordinary way, an old woman calls in a constable and hands him out a lot of nonsense, and he tells her to have a drop of hot comfort and sleep it off. I came round myself today because when we get a serious charge from this kind of address there's usually something in it." He paused and added heavily: "I think I can say that I've practically satisfied myself that there is nothing in it, but it's a very funny little incident, you will allow that."
"An unfortunate incident," corrected Sir Kit gently.
"Queer," persisted Lee, partly to get his own back. "It does make one wonder what her relations are with her grandsons, you know, and then-" He broke off abruptly.
Margot had turned the corner and was coming toward them. She wore a dark blue dinner dress whose colour echoed her eyes and effect was considerable.
Kit, who adored her and had been longing to see her, could have wished her anywhere else. She came forward, her hands outstretched.
"Here I am."
"Margot, my dear child!" Lee watched the embrace with gloomy interest.
"This is the adopted granddaughter, I suppose?" he said.
Kit frowned. The man was in the right and had a grievance, but he was taking advantage of the position.
"This is Mademoiselle Robert, Inspector," he said stiffly. "A young friend and heir of Madame Zoffany's. Margot, I shall be with you in a moment. It's good to see you, my dear. The trip doesn't seem to have hurt you, thank God."
It was on the tip of Lee's tongue to say that the young lady looked bonny wherever she had been, but he checked it. The girl looked human enough, but they were all alike, these people. When one of them created trouble they all crowded round and made a screen like players on a football ground round the man who has lost his shorts. Just as she was moving off, however, an idea occurred to him. As she passed him he turned on her.
"You're the young lady who made Madame Zoffany change her mind, are you?" At once he was aware of scoring. The girl looked startled but wary, and the old man coloured but recovered himself at once.
"You underestimate Madame Zoffany, Inspector," he said easily. "No one on earth has ever changed her mind for her. It-er-follows some weathercock law of its own, don't you know. Mademoiselle Robert has only just returned from a trip abroad and has not yet heard anything of the mistake which brought you here tonight. I was rather hoping she never would. And now, Inspector, there's nothing I can do but repeat my sincere apologies. Margot, I think dinner has gone in. I'll join you in the dining room, my dear."
Lee recognised dismissal. Deep in that quiet voice of the old school lay a chorus of other voices, neither so soft nor so courteous, voices of lawyers, voices of magistrates, voices of high-ranking police officials addressing subordinates who had exceeded their duty. He gave in regretfully.
Margot smiled good-bye and went off down the corridor, leaving a breath of L'Heure Bleu behind her. Lee followed Sir Kit to the front door, where they parted amicably. But the inspector went out into the rain wondering if he had not perhaps stumbled on something after all. Had the old man been far too anxious for him not to question the girl? Lee could not be sure. The household would bear keeping in mind.
Sir Kit hurried back through the hall. He felt tired and heartily ashamed of the whole shocking business. It was not fair of Zoff, it really was not fair. He was very angry with her. He brightened a little as he entered the dining room. Of all corners of the house it had most nearly escaped the tenant's innovating hand. The worn Chinese wallpaper and austere late Georgian mahogany remained much as he remembered them as a child, and the atmosphere was warm and safe and polite still as it had been long ago when his aunt Birdwood, who had left him the house, had first entertained him at her luncheon table.
Victor and Margot were already seated when he came in, a place left empty for him between them. Evidently Zoff had decided not to appear. She seldom came down to dine these days, but Kit understood that she was keeping out of his way tonight. It was even just possible that she was a little ashamed of herself. He hoped so. At the same time he missed her. She might have come down, he thought, she might have come down. Margot was pleased to see him, that was some compensation. She was laughing across the room at him now and patting the chair beside her.
As usual, Felix was waiting on them. He had been in Zoff's service for something like thirty-five years and had never, by Sir Kit's standards, ventured within assessable distance of becoming a reasonable servant. He was an old man now, thin and slightly seedy, with greasy hair and depressed eyes. Kit said he was like a waiter in a boulevard café and in the early days had remonstrated with Zoff about him.
"But he never sleeps, mon ami," she had protested. "It is such an accomplishment."
So Felix had remained and here he was still, creeping about in black felt slippers, serving sloppily, and listening to the conversation without pretence. Tonight he did remember to pull out the chair, however, and Kit sat down gratefully to tepid soup and his dear Margot.
"I started," said Victor. "I hope you'll forgive me. I sat watching a slice of carrot congealing and I felt it or I should be put out of our misery. The Law has departed, has it?"
"At last." Kit scowled over his spoon. "An unfortunate business, safely concluded," he added with a finality calculated to silence even Victor. "Zoff given us anything to drink?"
Felix filled his glass with sherry. "Imported by the Government, m'sieu."
Kit received the bad news philosophically. "And then?"
"Then the Latour, m'sieu, since Mademoiselle has returned."
Kit's smile re-emerged and he dropped a hand over Margot's.
"So nice to see you, my dear," he said, meaning it. "Nice about the Latour too, eh? I cursed Zoff's baggage when she arrived, but I see her wisdom now. We had a furniture van to bring her trunks from the docks. The war had started to-God bless my soul, I don't know how she did it."
"Les pourboires." Fortunately Felix did not speak aloud, although his lips formed the words. Experience had taught him not to interject remarks when Sir Kit was at table, but he still made a token of doing so to prove to himself that he was not subservient. When Zoff noticed the manoeuvre it amused her immensely.
"This may be the wrong moment, but I should like to hear-" Victor was beginning when Margot shook her head at him.
"The meal is special for me," she said. "We're having everything I like best, as far as it's possible these days. How's that for a welcome home?"
Victor shrugged his shoulders. "Have it your own way," he said irritatingly, "but I can't see that this is a thing we can laugh off. At least someone ought to warn Denis not to come here."
"My dear fellow," Sir Kit passed a weary hand over his forehead "my dear, dear fellow, not with the Latour, eh?"
"As you wish." Victor seemed determined to behave like a spoilt child. "I only feel you're making a dangerous mistake in taking it for granted that Zoff didn't realise quite what she was saying. I can't put it any plainer than that, can I?"
Sir Kit laid down his knife and fork. "Zoff has withdrawn her disgraceful accusation against Denis," he said slowly. "She has taken back every word of it in front of the police. Really, you know, I think we must leave it there."
"I heard about that from Genvieve. All the same, if Zoff ever believed-"
"Really, Victor." Sir Kit's fury was mounting dangerously. "I shall be obliged if you will let this disgraceful subject drop. Young Cotton has been slandered, actionably so, don't doubt that. The very least we can do is to be silent. Zoff must be out of her mind and Denis has my profound sympathy."
"That's very nice of you, Sir Kit." T
he voice from the doorway behind them was very deep. The tone was casual and friendly, but the actual timbre was characteristic and unforgettable. Margot swung round at it, Victor was silenced, and the atmosphere of the room changed as a new force flowed into it.
"Denis, my dear fellow." Sir Kit placed his glass in safety and prepared to rise.
"Please don't, sir." The newcomer advanced to shake hands, the light from the candles on the table lending him an elegance which was not his by right. He was strong and compact, taller than Victor and a shade more heavily built. In face he bore no likeness whatever to his cousin. He was fair, with a firm, ugly jaw and grave, deep-set eyes, and he did not belong to Victor's world nor yet to Kit's. There was a modern utilitarian sturdiness about him which made them both look a little old-fashioned. "I'm sorry I'm late," he said, "but the trains were against me. Genvieve let me in and sent me straight here. Hallo, Margot. Hallo, Soubise. I'll come and sit over there by you, Victor, if I may-so I can look at you, Margot."
He was more at ease than any of them, and the most outstanding thing about him was a certain authority, as vigorous in its way as Zoff's own. They were all attracted to him and all resented it. The clash stimulated the conversation and yet constrained it, and the faint note of uneasiness, almost of danger, which had been sounding in the house ever since Margot entered it became more apparent as the meal progressed. Kit kept the ball rolling gallantly and Denis assisted him, but the other two were unusually silent. And yet it was on Felix that Denis had the most visible effect. For a time, at any rate, he waited almost well, exhibiting a most uncharacteristic deference. So Felix remembered a jaw and a voice like that also, did he? Sir Kit had forgotten the ruffian had been in service so many years.
With the ices came Zoff's second surprise for the homecomer, a bottle of pink champagne. It was far too sweet for Kit's taste, but the sight of it delighted him. For a minute or two it brought back to him a lost world which had been very lovely, so that there he was again in it with a beautiful girl laughing at him over a tall glass while little scented bubbles danced between them. He was suddenly so happy that he had forgotten the trials of the day, and it was with a wave of pure rage that he heard Victor breaking into the chatter.
"How much longer have you over here, Cotton?"
"At the hospital? About three weeks."
"And you go back at once after that?"
"Good heavens, yes!" The youngster was fervent. "I've been away too long already."
"Is there so much to do?" It was Margot. She was sitting up straight, watching him with eyes as darkly blue as the china of her plate.
"So much that I-" he began, and broke off, laughing. "I told her," he said, turning to Kit. "I sat and told her until the waiters put the chairs on the café tables. I talked and talked until my voice gave out and she was white with exhaustion. There is a lot to do, of course. The upheaval has unleashed God knows what. It'll take a lifetime to get it under, and that means hurry."
He spoke without affectation, and Sir Kit warmed to him. "I saw my old friend Anthony Watkin the other day," he remarked. "He tells me you're doing rather brilliantly at St. Mark's. That so?"
Denis coloured. "That was very handsome of him," he said. "I had a certain amount of experience with the Maquis, of course."
"You're a surgeon?"
"I hope to specialise on that side."
"Good luck to you," said Sir Kit, making the cliche heartfelt.
"Good luck to you, indeed," agreed Victor seriously. "As a life it sounds like hell to me. I don't think I could face Europe these days. People in the mass give me the horrors, even when they're not displaced. Three weeks, you say? Then you probably won't be coming down here again. I think that's wise." He spoke with apparent sincerity, and Denis turned in his chair.
"You mean that kindly, I hope?" he said, laughing.
"I do." Victor's heavy lids disappeared into his head, leaving his eyes unexpectedly disarming. "I do. I simply felt you ought to be told. And the others ought to realise it too. Zoff wouldn't do a really dreadful thing like this out of mere caprice. You don't know Zoff."
The final injustice was too much for Sir Kit, who all but choked. Margot intervened.
"Zoff's is a world of italics," she said. "Don't let's be muddled by it. I haven't gathered the exact details of the present excitement, but I suppose Zoff has been to the police again about her jewels. Isn't that it? And I suppose that this time she's mentioned Denis, because he's the newest arrival. It's very awkward, I know, but then it always is, isn't it? Zoff's jewellery has been the centre of family crises ever since we were children. Practically the first thing I remember is Zoff losing an emerald earring and accusing Genvieve of selling it to buy candles to coax a husband out of St. Catherine."
There was an uncomfortable silence as she finished, and even the clatter Felix made with the fruit plates sounded nervous. Denis drew a pattern with his forefinger in a patch of salt which had been spilled on the polished wood. When at last he looked up at her his smile was apologetic.
"My grandmother isn't very keen on me," he said, evidently attempting to make the statement as light as he could. "I'm afraid she feels I may be over-anxious to inherit the money I need for my clinic in Caen, and when I told her I was coming down today she appealed for police protection. I'm afraid she thinks I may attempt to kill her. That's it, isn't it, Sir Kit?"
"Oh-oh dear," said Margot inadequately. "She couldn't have meant it. I mean, I've never known her to do anything quite so dreadful as this. But she wouldn't really honestly mean it. Zoff-well, Zoff does do things."
"What did you say to her upstairs that made her change her mind?" Victor put the question curiously, his eyes on her face. They were all looking at her and she spread out her hands.
"Nothing. I didn't even know about it, you see. I only had ten minutes or so with her when I was changing." Her voice died away as the truth dawned on her with sudden brutality. Zoff knew. Of course. In some terrifying intuitive way of her own, Zoff had found out. As soon as Zoff had seen her she had known about the humiliating thing that had happened to her, the same thing which even now was tying up her tongue and playing exasperating tricks with her breath.
Zoff had not been surprised, that was one mercy. There was no folly in the whole repertoire of womankind which was unknown to Zoff. It would never have struck her as incomprehensible that a successful, sought-after young woman, experienced and sophisticated, should find herself helpless and unhappy because she could not forget even for an hour a fanatic with a pleasant voice whose heart was set on other things. Even the fact that this miracle should have happened after only two meetings would not have astonished Zoff. She would have seen it as a disaster but not an improbability.
Her first act had been typically practical. Immediately on the discovery she had withdrawn at once an accusation which was so outrageous that it must increase the young man's interestingness to any attracted eye. Margot felt a stab of apprehension. Zoff was never discreet. It was bad enough to suffer this lovely cruelty without the knowledge that it was being discussed.
She crept guiltily out of her thoughts, to find Kit doing his best to save the ruin of a fine dinner.
"Felix," he was saying, "as the oldest guest present, I think I might tell you to go and find some of our hostess's Courvoisier."
"Madame said to serve the Napoleon tonight, m'sieu."
"Good heavens, has she still got some?" Sir Kit was startled out of all his troubles. "An amazing woman," he said reverently. "Well, well, Margot, my dear, you must come home again."
So Zoff had raised her little finger and twiddled poor Kit round it once more. Yet damage had been done. The three young people were quiet and there was constraint between them, while the rain on the windows made angry little patches of sound in the long silences.
THREE
The drawing room at Clough House, Bridgewyck, had been designed in a quiet age. Its white panelled walls were not very tall but in their time they had embraced with
ease twenty couples at the polka, and they were hung with old colour engravings in delicate oval frames. Kit's aunt Birdwood had left her best walnut there and, dotted about on the flowered carpet nice vast old ladies picnicking, were companies of wing armchairs with wide, hard seats and chintz petticoats half hiding their stout claw feet.
Into this prim haven Zoff had crammed her own more flamboyant treasures, and the effect was both disturbing and a mite exciting, as if Madame de Pompadour had come to tea with Jane Austen.
Felix served coffee there after dinner, another concession to Sir Kit, who enjoyed the small formality. There was a coal fire on the hearth, the faded silk curtains were drawn against the rain, and when Margot was safely settled behind the silver tray the old man came sauntering in, neat and happy, a cigar between his lips. She glanced up at him slyly and thought how charming he was and yet how pathetic, as he enjoyed so eagerly the little scraps of elegance left in a world from which the silver plate had almost worn away.
"They've gone out to look at Victor's car," he said, smiling down at her from his halo of blue smoke. "They'll be in in a moment. It's an extraordinary thing how young men always want to inspect the fashionable method of locomotion the moment they've been properly fed. In my day we always trotted out to look at each other's horses, the things truly nearest our hearts, I suppose. Very interesting. You look very beautiful, my dear."
"Thank you, darling. Or isn't that right? What ought one to say to that remark? I never know."
"Nothing clever," he said promptly. "No sugar, my dear. Just the black coffee. Well, that passed off very well, considering, didn't you think? Denis behaved excellently, I thought."
Margot lay back in her chair, the deep blue of her dress enhancing the whiteness of her arms as they lay upon it.
"Not one of Zoff's jollier performances, though," she said at last.
"No," he agreed, "but still a Zoff. That made it all right, you know. It always has, and please God it always will. You were quite right when you said she lives her life in italics. She does, and everybody knows it, so it doesn't matter."
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