Cousin Sophy stroked her hand with a soft fluttering touch.
“Don’t look like that, my dear. It was a long time ago, and if Oliver had gone on with the engagement and married her, they would both have been most unhappy, because Agnes was always very intelligent, and she would have known quite well that he didn’t really love her.”
Miss Sophy went to bed at half past nine. At a quarter to ten the telephone startled Laura from her book. She picked up the receiver, and heard Carey Desborough say,
“Can I speak to Miss Fane?”
“Oh, Carey!”
She sounded warm and pleased, and all at once she hoped she didn’t sound too pleased. That was the worst of the sort of things Tanis had said—you pushed them out of your mind and tidied it up, and then you found some lurking trail of slime.
Carey was asking, “Are you alone?”
“Yes. Cousin Sophy’s gone to bed.”
“My head spy told me she went at half past nine. Laura, are you going down to the Priory?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Tanis said so. She doesn’t tell the truth unless it suits her, so I thought I’d rather have it from you. Because I’m not going unless you are.”
The little trail of slime caught the light in Laura’s mind. She said easily,
“Thank you. What a lovely compliment!”
“It wasn’t a compliment—just a plain statement of fact.”
Laura said nothing. It was absurd that a voice travelling along a wire should reach the strings of your heart and shake them.
The voice said her name insistently.
“Laura—”
“Yes?”
“Have you seen Tanis?”
“Yes. She came in just before dinner to fix up about going down to the Priory.”
“I thought so. What did she say about me?”
“About you?”
“Yes, darling—me. I know she said something. What was it? She didn’t by any chance warn you against me, did she?”
“Why should she? I mean, is there any reason why she should warn me?”
Laura was rather pleased with this. Then she heard Carey laugh.
“She did—I knew it! Kind cousin warns debutante.”
“I’m not a debutante!” said Laura, revolted.
“Compared with Tanis you are, my child. I’m sure she did it with the utmost charm and delicacy. What did she say?”
Laura’s voice changed. She stopped trying to be light and indifferent, and spoke with simplicity.
“She said you were never serious.”
There was a pause.
He said, “I see—” And then, “She didn’t by any chance say or suggest that I was engaged to her?”
“She said, ‘Not exactly.’”
There was an angry laugh.
“What a convenient phrase! Laura—listen. I asked Tanis to marry me six months ago. I was under the impression that she had accepted me. A month ago when I came out of hospital I found out that I was not the only man who was under that impression. She said then that she couldn’t imagine how I had got it. She had never intended anything of the kind. She didn’t want to marry anyone, but why not be friends? Well, I was fool enough to agree. Since then I’ve been gradually coming to my senses. When I met you last night—” He paused, whilst they both gazed astounded at the fact that it was only last night that they had met.
Laura found the receiver shaking a little in her hand. She heard him say, “It doesn’t seem possible,” and she heard herself say, “No.”
He gave an odd eager laugh.
“Well, thank God it happened! Laura, when I met you it was like coming out into the open air. I woke right up, and I shan’t go to sleep again. Now, about tomorrow. I’ve got some petrol. Let me drive you down.”
“Tanis suggested that I should go down with Petra North.”
She heard him whistle.
“That means she’s annexed Alistair.”
“I think I’d better go with Petra really.”
“I’ll take her too, and we’ll collect Robin. I’ll fix it. I’ll be round for you about half past two. Is that all right?”
Laura said, “Yes.” It was rather pleasant to have it all taken out of her hands.
“All right. Wait a moment, don’t hang up. About this business of my not being serious, an important announcement follows immediately. Are you listening—Miss Laura Fane?”
Laura said, “Yes.”
“Well then, my intentions are serious, honourable, and dreadfully premature. Goodnight!”
CHAPTER 9
FOUR PEOPLE AND their suitcases were a tight fit in Carey’s car, but they piled in, Laura behind with Petra, and the two men in front. It was Laura who had insisted on this arrangement. She wanted to talk to Petra, and there would be more room for the luggage. But the real reason was that she couldn’t—no, she really couldn’t sit there in front with Carey under the eyes of a girl who was losing her lover. She felt most desperately sorry for Petra, who appeared, vividly made-up, in a scarlet leather coat and a green and scarlet bandeau round her dark curls. Her eyes were the unhappiest things in the world, but she laughed and chattered nineteen to the dozen until they were clearing London, when she fell silent and sat staring at the long, straight road.
In front of them Carey and Robin were deep in Air Force shop. To all intents and purposes the two girls were alone. Presently Petra looked sideways and said,
“She’s gone down with Alistair.”
Laura didn’t say anything, but she had a very speaking look. The air was suddenly full of kindness.
Petra bit a scarlet lip.
“I expect you know all about it—everybody does. And I expect you’re wondering why I go tagging after them.” There was a note of defiance in the voice which hardly rose above a whisper. Laura was reminded of the kitten again—a kitten at bay, ready to scratch and fly. She said,
“No.”
Petra looked past her.
“You don’t waste words—do you?” She laughed. “I’m a fool to play her game. She loves an audience, and I’m helping to provide her with one. Do you know why?”
Laura nodded gravely.
“I think so.”
“He’s dreadfully unhappy too.” Petra looked at her. Her eyes dazzled with tears. She put out a hand, clutched for a moment at Laura’s, and let it go. She looked away and nodded. “She tortures him. I can’t bear it. I could give him up if she really wanted him, or if there was any chance that he’d be happy. But she doesn’t want him—she doesn’t want anyone, except to play with, and make fools of, and pull them about on a string. She’s had enough of being married.”
Laura exclaimed, “Married?”
“Didn’t you know? It was when she was on the stage. She married an actor, a man called Hazelton—he used to be quite well known. They kept it quiet for a bit, and then she found out he doped or something. I expect she drove him to it. Anyhow she was through with him, and she got a divorce. The aunts threw a thousand fits, and then settled down to being thankful she’d got rid of him. It’s about six years ago now, and no one ever mentions it. I expect you were at school and they kept it from the child.” There was a delicate darting malice in voice and look, but no sting.
Laura laughed, and said, “I expect they did. What happened to the man?”
Petra shrugged.
“Oh, he’s around somewhere. Someone told me he’d cropped up again. As a matter of fact he was at the Luxe last night. He came up and spoke to her.”
“What did she do?”
“Oh, nothing—got rid of him—it’s the sort of thing she’s particularly good at. I wonder what he thinks about it all. He used to go about saying he’d get even with her some day. He’s got it in for her all right. I know someone who used to know him awfully well. She says he’s like the elephant—you know, the never-forgets touch—and that some day he’ll make Tanis wish she hadn’t. But people don’t do that sort of thing six years afterwards—do they?”
“I shouldn’t think so.”
Petra laughed.
“I wish someone would do her in! I can’t think why they don’t. I can’t think why I don’t myself. I’d like to, but there would be nobody left to hold Alistair’s hand.” Her laughter ran up to an odd high note.
It was Laura’s turn to put out a hand.
“Oh, don’t!”
Petra dropped to a low murmur.
“That’s why I go tagging round. Sometimes, even now, he wants me. If it wasn’t for this damned war, I might get a little proper pride together and let him want, but you can’t do it when you never know which time is going to be the last.”
Laura didn’t say anything at all. The men’s voices went on all the time, loud, cheerful, argumentative. They seemed to be discussing a gadget sponsored by one Nicolson which Robin thought well of, whilst Carey considered it rotten. They were obviously perfectly happy to go on arguing about it.
Petra made a sudden movement. She wisked open her bag, got out her compact, and busied herself with repairs. Presently she said,
“I’ve really got a bit too much on, haven’t I?”
Laura nodded.
“Just a bit, but it’s awfully well done.”
Petra made a face like a cross kitten.
“That’s the snag—it gives you confidence, but if you overdo it, it gives you away. I’ve put on so much that Tanis will know why.”
“Take a little off. Not the lipstick—you’d only make a mess of that.... Yes, that’s a lot better.”
Petra snapped the compact to.
“You must think I’m pretty odd, talking to you like this after only seeing you once. I wouldn’t believe it myself. It’s not the sort of thing I do as a rule, but I suppose I’ve got to the point when I’ve got to talk or blow up, and—you’re easy to talk to.” She laughed suddenly. “A stranger is really much the best person, because they don’t give you advice like a relation would straight away. Don’t you hate your relations?”
Laura laughed and said, “No.”
“I do. They’re full of good advice, and it’s all the same—
‘Let him alone till he comes to his senses.’ And the reason I hate them is that it’s damned good advice.... Let’s talk about cooking. Can you cook?”
“Can you?”
“A treat! I do an omelette that would make a French chef turn green.” She reached forward and poked Robin in the back. “Don’t I?”
“Don’t you what?” He looked over his shoulder with an interrupted air.
“Don’t I cook beautifully? Aren’t my omelettes the cat’s whiskers?”
“I hope not—it sounds foul.” He turned back to his conversation.
Petra put out her tongue at him.
“Well, they are!” She flung Laura a gay smile. “Don’t men like talking about the most extraordinary things?”
CHAPTER 10
LAURA’S FIRST SIGHT of the Priory was etched indelibly upon her mind. There was no sun. The clouds hung low. The January day was darkening already, though it was not four o’clock. They came up a drive between sombre evergreens and under leafless trees, and then out upon a great rectangle of gravel with the house on its farther side—a grey house with a central block and two wings enclosing a paved courtyard with a fountain in the middle, and the right-hand wing was the ruined Priory church. She looked at it with all her eyes, letting down the window and leaning out. The ruined arch of the east window faced them as they turned into the court. Sky and trees showed briefly through the empty windows. The effect was startling and graceful. The ruins were grey and clean and bare, but the house was dark with ivy and festooned with the light dry stems of Virginia creeper and the large trunk of a huge wistaria whose branches ran right up on to the roof and sprawled there.
Carey turned round as he stopped the car and said, speaking to her for the first time,
“Like it, Laura?”
She met his eyes. Hers were shining.
“I love it!”
“Love at first sight? How unreliable!” His look teased her, asked a question.
Laura said, “Dreadfully. But I always know at once—don’t you?”
And then they were all getting out, and she had a moment to stand and look at the ruins before the door opened and they were coming in to the hall with a big fire of logs blazing on the hearth and a broad stairway running up out of the shadows beyond it. Coming out of the daylight and the cold, she thought the hall was like a cave—dark—warm—enclosed. There was a little light from the three narrow windows set rather high on either side of the door, but where it met the firelight it seemed to fade, and the shadows had it their own way.
Then all in a moment there was light—bright, warm, and glowing. It came from high up, where crystal sconces were held above the line of the dark panelling. The stairway, rising by a dozen shallow steps and then dividing to sweep up to right and left, sprang into view. Tanis Lyle was coming slowly down from the right. She reached the half-landing, smiled, put out both hands, and ran down the rest of the way. In a high-necked cinnamon jumper and a rough tweed skirt to match, she was the country hostess to the life. If her entrance had been planned, it was certainly very effective. If it had not, she was the darling of coincidence. Laura had not the slightest doubt that it had all been planned to the last detail, from the sudden burst of light, to the suggestion that it was Tanis who was welcoming her guests, and welcoming them with the greatest possible charm.
Laura found herself crossing the hall with a guiding hand upon her arm.
“The aunts are longing to see you. Come along before the others disentangle themselves. The drawing-room is at the back. It looks south and west across the garden. Aunt Agnes adores her flowers, and it has all been planted so that she can see as much as possible without going out.”
“Doesn’t she go out at all?”
“Oh, yes—every day. As soon as it’s warm enough she’ll be in and out all day in her chair. She has one of those self-propelling ones, and she’s really very clever with it.”
She opened a door as she spoke, and brought Laura into a long room panelled in white, with violet curtains already drawn across the three windows facing west and the two at the far end which looked to the south. The effect under the light of electric candles set in old gilt sconces was sombre and unusual, but it was relieved by chintzes gaily flowered in purple, blue, and rose, and by the Persian rugs of which the prevailing shade was a deep-toned rose melting into ruby.
There were two women in the room, sitting on either side of the rather chilly-looking marble hearth with its white pillars rising to support a narrow slab which might appropriately have adorned a tomb. Upon this slab there stood two bronze horses with lashing tails, and a black marble clock. But at the moment Laura was not really aware of anything except Agnes Fane, who sat watching her approach from an invalid chair.
There were no shawls or mufflings, no appearance of invalidism, about the fine erect figure. She wore what any other lady might have worn in her own house at tea-time, a dress of some wine-coloured woollen stuff and a loose corduroy coat of the same shade. She had pearl studs in her ears, a string of pearls at her throat, and a fine ruby on the third finger of her right hand.
She put this hand out slowly as Laura came up. It took hers, and was cold to her touch—very cold. The dark eyes under their strongly arched brows were lifted in a long regard. Laura thought them as cold as the hand which had just relinquished hers.
She returned the look with an interest which heightened her colour and brightened her eyes. She did not know what she had expected, but whatever it was, Agnes Fane was different—quite different.
She was a very handsome woman—handsomer now than she had been when she was young. The high dominant features, the proud carriage of the head, sat better on the woman in her fifties than they had ever done on the girl. She had the same fine, white skin and springing dark hair as Tanis and Laura herself, but there were deep lines about the eyes and mout
h—lines of pride and suffering—and the hair was frosted. It framed her face in waves, beautifully arranged.
With skin and hair the resemblance ended. The features were of a bolder type, the face narrower, the line of cheek and jaw a harder one, and the eyes under their beautifully modelled brows a very deep brown, instead of Tanis’s green darkening to grey, and Laura’s grey brightening into green.
“How do you do, Laura?”
The voice was the voice of the telephone, grave, and deep, and rather cold. Something in Laura admired its dignity, its restraint.
There was a polite enquiry for Theresa Ferrers, and then Tanis was introducing her to Lucy Adams.
Laura saw a plump woman of middle height and middle age. Cousin Sophy’s remark sprang unbidden to her mind—“Lucy always was a very stupid woman.” For stupid was just what Cousin Lucy looked. She had a flat, well cushioned face of no particular colour, small blinking grey eyes, and a very palpable auburn front. She wore grey, of all colours the least becoming. A gold-rimmed pince-nez hovered uncertainly on her nose. It was attached to the right-hand side of her bodice by a fine gold chain and a gold bar brooch. Her noticeably thick ankles were encased in grey woollen stockings, and her feet in rubbed black glace shoes with ribbon bows. She shook hands frigidly with Laura and turned at once to Tanis, her voice gushing and her manner exuberant.
“But where are the others? I am simply longing to see them. Fetch them in, and—oh, yes, I will just ring the bell—for I’m sure they must all be simply dying for their tea. The car wasn’t open, was it? Oh, no, of course not—in January. Even Carey wouldn’t do that, though I remember his bringing you down on a very cold autumn day with everything open, and I told him he ought to be more careful—and so he ought.” She turned towards Laura with a jerky movement. “Do you know Carey Desborough—but of course you came down in his car, didn’t you?”
Laura said, “I met him last night,” and thought how strange that sounded.
The Chinese Shawl Page 5