by Ngaio Marsh
“I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I’m going. I’ve got orders to report at—”
“Orders my foot! You’ve got the wind up and you’re doing a bolt. You’re so damn’ frightened, you’d rather die in a snow-drift than face the music here. You’re not going.”
“Unusual solicitude!” Nicholas said, and the lines from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth deepened.
“Don’t imagine I care what happens to you,” said William, and his voice broke into a higher key. He used the clumsy vehement gestures of a man who, unaccustomed to violence of speech or action, suddenly finds himself consumed with rage. He presented a painful and embarrassing spectacle. “You could drown yourself and welcome, if it weren’t for Mother. D’you want to kill her? You’ll stay here and behave yourself, my bloody little Lothario.”
“Oh, shut up, you fool,” said Nicholas and made for the door.
“No you don’t!” William said, and lurched forward. His brother’s elbow caught him a jolt in the chest and the next moment Nicholas had gone.
“William!” said Jonathan sharply. “Stay where you are.”
“If anything happens to him, who do you suppose she’ll blame for it? For the rest of her life his damned dead sneer will tell her that but for me… He’s not going.”
“You can’t stop him, you know,” said Mandrake.
“Can’t I! Jonathan, please stand aside.”
“Just a moment, William.” Jonathan’s voice had taken an unaccustomed edge. He stood, an unheroic but somehow rather menacing figure, with his plump fingers on the door-knob and his back against the door. “I cannot have you fighting with your brother up and down my house. He is determined to go and you can’t stop him. I am following him to the first drift in the drive. I am quite convinced that he will not get through it and I do not propose to let him come to any grief. I shall take a couple of men with me. If you can behave yourself you had better accompany us.” Jonathan touched his spectacles delicately with his left hand. “Depend upon it,” he said, “your brother will not leave Highfold to-night.”
Mandrake’s bedroom windows overlooked the last sweep of the drive as it passed the east wing of Highfold and turned into the wide sweep in front of the house. Through the white-leopard mottling on his window-pane he saw Nicholas Compline, head down, trudge heavily through the snow and out of sight. A few moments later, Jonathan and William appeared, followed at some distance by two men carrying long-handled shovels. “Nicholas must have delayed a little, after he left here,” Mandrake thought. “Why? To say good-bye to Madame Lisse? Or to Chloris?” And at the thought of a final interview between Nicholas and Chloris Wynne he experienced an unaccustomed and detestable sensation, as if his heart sank with horrid speed into some unfathomable limbo. He looked after the trudging figures until they passed beyond the range of his window, and then suddenly decided that he could no longer endure his own company but would go downstairs in search of Chloris Wynne.
“The difference,” Jonathan observed, “between a walk in an ordinary storm and a walk in a snow-storm is the difference between unpleasant noise and even more unpleasant silence. One can hear nothing but the squeak of snow under one’s feet. I’m glad you decided to come, William.”
“It’s not for love of dear little Nicholas, I promise you,” William muttered.
“Well, well, well,” said Jonathan equitably.
They plodded on, walking in Nicholas’ steps. Presently Highfold Wood enclosed them in a strange twilight where shadow was made negative by reflected whiteness and where the stems of trees seemed comfortless and forgotten in their naked blackness. Here there was less snow and they mended their pace, following the drive on its twisting course downhill. At first they passed between tall banks and heard the multiple voices of tiny runnels of water, then they came out into open spaces where the snow lay thick over Jonathan’s park. It stretched away before their eyes in curves of unbroken pallor and William muttered: “White, grey, and black. I don’t think I could paint it.” When they entered the lower wood, still going downhill, they saw Nicholas, not far ahead, and Jonathan called to him a shrill “Hello!”that set up an echo among the frozen trees. Nicholas turned and stood motionless, waiting for them to overtake him. With that air of self-consciousness inseparable from such approaches, they made their way towards him, the two farm-hands still some distance behind.
“My dear Nick,” Jonathan panted, “you should have waited a little. I told you I’d see you as far as the first obstacle. See here, I’ve brought two of the men. They know more about the state of affairs than I do. My head shepherd and his brother. You remember James and Thomas Bewling?”
“Yes, of course,” said Nicholas. “Sorry you’ve both been dragged out on my account.”
“If there is a way through Deep Bottom,” said Jonathan, “the Bewlmgs will find it for you. Eh, Thomas?”
The older of the two men touched his cap and moved nearer. “I do believe, sir,” he said, “that without us goes at it hammer and tongs with these yurr shovels for an hour or so, they bain’t no way over Deep Bottom.”
“There, you see, Nick, and in an hour or so it’ll be dark.”
“At least I can try,” said Nicholas stiffly.
Jonathan looked helplessly at William, who was watching his brother through half-closed eyes. “Well,” said Jonathan on a sudden spurt of temper, “it’s beginning to snow quite abominably hard. Shall we go on?”
“Look here,” William said, “you go back, Jonathan. I don’t see why you should be in this. Nor you two Bewlings. Give me your shovel, Thomas.”
“I’ve said I’ll go alone, and I’m perfectly ready to do so,” said Nicholas sulkily.
“Oh, damn!” said Jonathan. “Come on.”
As they moved off downhill, the snow began to fall even more heavily.
Deep Bottom was at the foot of a considerable slope beyond the wood and was really a miniature ravine, extending for some two miles inside Jonathan’s demesnes. It was crossed by the avenue which dipped and rose sharply to flatten out on the far side with a level stretch of some two hundred yards, ending at the entrance gates. As they approached it the north wind, from which they had hitherto been protected, drove full in their faces with a flurry of snow.
Thomas Bewling began a long roaring explanation: “She comes down yurr proper blustracious like, sir. What with being druv be the wind and what with being piled up be the natural forces of gravitation, like, she slips and she slides in this-yurr bottom till she’s so thick as you’d be surprised to see. Look thurr, sir. You’d tell me there was nothing but a little tiddly bit of a slant down’ill, but contrariwise. She’s deceptive. She’s a-laying out so smooth and sleek enough to trap you into trying ’er, but she’s deep enough and soft enough to smother the lot on us. You won’t get round her and you won’t make t’other side, Mr. Nicholas, as well you ought to know being bred to these parts.”
Nicholas looked from one to another of the four faces and without a word turned and walked on. Half a dozen strides brought him up to his knees in snow. He uttered a curious inarticulate cry and plunged forward. The next second he was floundering in a drift, spread-eagled and half-buried.
“And over he goes,” William observed, mildly. “Come on.”
He and the two Bewlings joined hands and by dint of extending the shovel handle brought Nicholas out of his predicament. He had fallen face first into the drift and presented a ridiculous figure. His fine moustache was clotted with snow, his cap was askew, and his nose was running.
“Quite the little snow-man,” said William. “Ups-a-daisy.”
Nicholas wiped his face with his gloved hands. It was blotched with cold. His lips seemed stiff and he rubbed them before he spoke.
“Very well,” Nicholas whispered at last. “I give up. I’ll come back. But, by God, I tell you both I’d have been safer crossing Cloudyfold in the dark than spending another night at Highfold.”
“Francis,” said Madame Lisse, “we may
not be alone together again this evening. I cannot endure this ridiculous and uncomfortable state of affairs any longer. Why do Nicholas and William Compline and the Wynne girl all avoid you? Why, when I speak of Mr. Mandrake’s accident, do they look at their feet and mumble of other things? Where have they all gone? I have sat by this fire enduring the conversation of Mrs. Compline and the compliments of our host until I am ready to scream, but even that ordeal was preferable to suffering your extraordinary gloom. Where is Nicholas Compline?”
Dr. Hart stood inside the “boudoir” door, which he had closed behind him. In his face was reflected the twilight of the snowbound world outside. This strange half-light revealed a slight tic in his upper lip, a tic that suggested an independent life in one of the small muscles of his face. It was as if a moth fluttered under his skin. He raised his hand and pressed a finger on his lip and over the top of his hand he looked at Madame Lisse.
“Why do you not answer me? Where is Nicholas?”
“Gone.”
“Gone? Where?”
Without shifting his gaze from her face, Hart made a movement with his head as much as to say: “Out there.” Madame Lisse stirred uneasily. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “Come here, Francis.”
He came and stood before her with his hands clasped over his waistcoat and his head inclined forward attentively. There was nothing in his pose to suggest anger but she moved back in her chair almost as if she were afraid he would strike her.
“Ever since we came here,” said Hart, “he has taken pains to insult me by his attentions to you. Your heads together, secret jokes, and then a glance at me to make sure I have not missed it. Last night after dinner he deliberately baited me. Well, now he is gone, and immediately I enter the room, you, YOU, ask for him.”
“Must there be another of these scenes? Can you not understand that Nicholas is simply a type? It is as natural to him to pay these little attentions as it is for him to draw breath.”
“And as natural for you to receive them? Well, you will not receive them again perhaps.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look out there. It has been snowing all day. In a little while it will be dark and your friend will be on those hills we crossed yesterday. Do not try to seem unconcerned. Your lips are shaking.”
“Why has he gone?”
“He is afraid.”
“Francis,” cried Madame Lisse, “what have you done? Have you threatened him? I see that you have and that they all know. This is why they are avoiding us. You fool, Francis. When these people go away from here they will lunch and dine on this story. You will be a figure of fun and what woman will choose to have a pantaloon with a violent temper to operate on her face? And my name, mine, will be linked with yours. The Amblington woman will see to it that I look as ridiculous as you.”
“Do you love this Compline?”
“I have grown very tired of telling you I do not.”
“And I am tired of hearing your lies. His behaviour is an admission.”
“What has he done? What are you trying to suggest?”
“He mistook Mandrake for me. He tried to drown me.”
“What nonsense is this! I have heard the account of the accident. Nicholas saw Mr. Mandrake through the pavilion window and recognized him. Nicholas told me that he recognized Mandrake and that Mandrake himself realizes that he was recognized.”
“Then you have seen Compline. When did you see him?”
“Soon after the affair at the swimming-pool.”
“You did not appear until nearly lunch-time. He came to your room. You had forbidden me and you received him. Is that true? Is it?”
“Cannot you see—” Madame Lisse began, but he silenced her with a vehement gesture and, stooping until his face was close to hers, began to arraign her in a sort of falsetto whisper. She leant away from him, pressing her shoulders and head into the back of her chair. The movement suggested distaste rather than fear, and all the time that he was speaking her eyes looked over his shoulder from the door to the windows. Once she raised her hand as if to silence him but he seized her wrist and held it, and she said nothing.
“… you said I should see for myself, and lieber Gott have I not seen? I have seen enough and I tell you this. He was wise to go when he did. Another night and day of his insolence would have broken my endurance. It is well for him that he has gone.”
He was staring into her face and saw her eyes widen. He still had her by the wrist but with her free hand she pointed to the window. He turned and looked out.
He was in time to see Jonathan Royal and William Compline trudge past laboriously in the snow. And three yards behind them, sullen and bedraggled, trailed Nicholas Compline.
Hersey Amblington, Mrs. Compline, Chloris Wynne and Aubrey Mandrake were in the library. They knew that Dr. Hart and Madame Lisse were in the “boudoir,” separated from them by the small smoking-room. They knew, too, that Jonathan and William had gone with Nicholas on the first stage of his preposterous journey. Hersey was anxious to have a private talk with Sandra Compline, Mandrake was anxious to have a private talk with Chloris Wynne; but neither Mandrake nor Hersey could summon up the initiative to make a move. A pall of inertia hung over them all and they spoke, with an embarrassing lack of conviction, about Nicholas’ summons to his headquarters in Great Chipping. Mrs. Compline was in obvious distress and Hersey kept assuring her that if the road was unsafe Jonathan would bring Nicholas back.
“Jonathan shouldn’t have let him go, Hersey. It was very naughty of him. I’m extremely displeased with William for letting Nicholas go. He should never have allowed it.”
“William did his best to dissuade him,” said Mandrake drily.
“He should have come and told me, Mr. Mandrake. He should have used his authority. He is the elder of my sons.” She turned to Hersey. “It’s always been the same. I’ve always said that Nicholas should have been the elder.”
“I don’t agree,” said Chloris quickly.
“No,” Mrs. Compline said. “I did not suppose you would.” And Mandrake, who had thought that Mrs. Compline’s face could express nothing but its own distortion, felt a thrill of alarm when he saw her look at Chloris.
“I speak without prejudice,” said Chloris, and two spots of colour started up in her cheeks. “William and I have broken off our engagement.”
For a moment there was silence and Mandrake saw that Mrs. Compline had forgotten his existence. She continued to stare at Chloris and a shadow of a smile, painful and acrid, tugged at her distorted mouth. “I am afraid you are too late,” she said.
“I don’t understand.”
“My son Nicholas—”
“This has nothing whatever to do with Nicholas.”
“Hersey,” Mrs. Compline said, “I am terribly worried about Nicholas. Surely Jonathan will bring him back. How long have they been gone?”
“It has nothing whatever to do with Nicholas,” Chloris said loudly.
Mrs. Compline stood up. “Hersey, I simply cannot sit here any longer. I’m going to see if they’re coming.”
“You can’t, Sandra. It’s snowing harder than ever. There’s no need to worry, they’re all together.”
“I’m going out on the drive. I haven’t stirred from the house all day. I’m stifled.”
Hersey threw up her hands and said: “All right. I’ll come with you. I’ll get our coats. Wait for me, darling.”
“I’ll wait in the hall. Thank you, Hersey.”
When they had gone, Mandrake said to Chloris: “For God’s sake, let’s go next door and listen to the news. After this party, the war will come as a mild and pleasurable change.”
They moved into the smoking-room. Mrs. Compline crossed the hall and entered the drawing-room, where she stood peering through the windows for her son, Nicholas. Hersey Amblington went upstairs. First she got her own raincoat and then she went to Mrs. Compline’s room to fetch hers. She opened the wardrobe doors and stretched out her hand to
a heavy tweed coat. For a moment she stood stock-still, her fingers touching the shoulders of the coat.
It was soaking wet.
And through her head ran the echo of Sandra Compline’s voice: “I haven’t stirred from the house all day.”
In the days that followed that week-end Mandrake was to trace interminably the sequence of events that in retrospect seemed to point so unmistakably towards the terrible conclusion. He was to decide that not the least extraordinary of these events had been his own attitude towards Chloris Wynne. Chloris was not Mandrake’s type. If, in the midst of threats, mysteries, and mounting terrors, he had to embark upon some form of dalliance, it should surely have been with Madame Lisse. Madame was the sort of woman to whom Aubrey Mandrake almost automatically paid attention. She was dark, sophisticated, and — his own expression— immeasurably soignée. She was exactly Aubrey Mandrake’s cup of tea. Chloris was not. Aubrey Mandrake was invariably bored by pert blonds. But — and here lay the reason for his curious behaviour — Stanley Footling adored them. At the sight of Chloris’ shining honey-coloured loops of hair and impertinent blue eyes, the old Footling was roused in Mandrake. Bloomsbury died in him and Dulwich stirred ingenuously. He was only too well aware that in himself was being enacted a threadbare theme, a kind of burlesque, hopelessly out of date, on Jekyll and Hyde. It had happened before but never with such violence, and he told himself that there must be something extra special in Chloris so to rouse the offending Footling that Mandrake scarcely resented the experience.
He followed her into the smoking-room and tuned in the wireless to the war news which, in those now almost forgotten days, largely consisted of a series of French assurances that there was nothing to report. Chloris and Mandrake listened for a little while and then he switched off the radio, leant forward, and kissed her.
“Ah!” said Chloris. “The indoor sport idea, I see.”
“Are you in love with Nicholas Compline?”
“I might say: ‘What the hell’s that got to do with you?’ ”
“Abstract curiosity.”