Barbara Vane seated herself, drew at her cigarette for a moment, then asked a question in her languid voice.
“I believe you write, Miss Farraday, under the name of Hardy Strong? So Clive was telling me.”
Elsa nodded. “Yes, but I shan’t feel offended if you’ve never heard the name. I do fairly well, but I’m not a world-beater by any means—”
“Oh, but I do know your books. In fact I’ve read two of them, but....” Barbara frowned and examined the end of her cigarette.
“But what?” Hexley asked, turning. “It’s the first time I’ve ever heard you mention Miss Farraday’s work. You never said anything about it to me yesterday.”
“No, chiefly because I wanted to ask Miss Farraday herself Do you really mean,” Barbara asked deliberately, “that you—an obviously refined girl—write that awful stuff?”
“Awful?” It seemed a hard glint crept into Elsa’s eyes.
“Not in the usual sense of ‘awful’ I don’t mean. You write quite well—but the material is horrifying. In fact I should think you’ve started a new vogue in terror stories! I frankly admit, Miss Farraday, that after reading two of your books I got so nauseated I resolved never to read any more! I even pictured to myself what kind of a mind this Hardy Strong could have to conjure up such elaborate ways of murdering people and disposing of them— Then out of a clear sky you have descended upon me! Not a big-fisted man but a retiring young woman. I just don’t understand it.”
“I simply write what the public wants,” Elsa responded, with a shrug. “And it pays. Certainly my work is in crime-horror thrillers, but that doesn’t imply that I have the mind of an assassin, does it? As a matter of fact I only write at all as a sort of escape.”
“Escape?” Clive repeated, puzzled. “From what?”
“Myself.”
At that moment the water in the kettle boiled and Barbara jumped up to attend to it. By the time she had prepared the tea and served it for the three of them the topic of Elsa’s writing had slipped out of focus. They talked instead of Clive’s work and everyday affairs, until Elsa was obviously at home enough to begin to pose for the portrait.
Under Clive’s directions she took a seat by the window where the light fell diagonally across her face, and she found herself forced to gaze at the uninteresting view outside. From the tail of her eye she had a vision of Clive’s right arm working at the canvas and, more remotely, Barbara moving about as she attended to odd jobs in the studio.
Elsa found that her first sitting occupied, in stages, about two hours, which brought the time close to noon—then Clive suddenly “downed tools” and insisted on taking her out to lunch. It was a suggestion that seemed to give Barbara some cause for thought, though she did not make any comment.
“I know an ideal place—the Artists’ Club—only a few streets away,” Clive insisted. “Surely you can’t refuse? Then I’ll see you safely back to your hotel.”
Elsa did not refuse: she accepted the invitation quite willingly, though she could not help but notice the queer light in Barbara’s blue eyes. It was an impression that remained with her so strongly she mentioned it over lunch.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about Babs,” Clive smiled. “She isn’t jealous, if that’s what you mean. Matter of fact, she’s no need to be. She’s friendly with a young actor—Terry Draycott. You’ll probably meet him soon. Come to think of it,” he reflected, “This makes a triumvirate of the arts, doesn’t it? Artist, actor, and writer.”
“Is he a well-known actor?” Elsa asked.
“Well, he’s a pretty celebrated supporting player, though he isn’t in the star class as yet. Just working his way up. At the moment he has the villain’s part in that new murder thriller at the Adelphi—‘Robert Had Two Knives.’”
Elsa nodded. She had seen the play advertised, but that was all.
“It isn’t very long since we met,” Clive resumed presently. “No more than twenty-four hours, yet we seem to be hitting it off all right, don’t we?”
“Well, I suppose a certain amount of co-operation is essential between artist and model,” Elsa replied evasively. “Just the same I do think, Mr. Hexley, that—”
“I wish you’d call me Clive.”
“Perhaps I will—later on. As I was saying, it’s imperative that I leave London within the next few days. I have my own work to do, you know. You can finish that portrait of me in that time, surely?”
“It’s debatable,” Hexley mused. “I’ve hardly done anything yet—only sketched in the rough outlines. I may as well be frank and tell you that you are a disturbing influence. I can’t concentrate on the painting because I’m concentrating on you. That never happens when I have Babs as a model. She registers blank negative on my emotions.... Anybody ever tell you that you have aura—a queer sort of personal magnetism?”
“No. I don’t believe I have, either. I’m one of the most retiring people imaginable.”
“Yet you write what Babs calls ‘horrific’ stuff. And she’s a hard nut, believe me. Isn’t frightened of anything as a rule. I think I’ll grab myself a Hardy Strong novel and see what all the fuss is about.”
“I can’t stop you doing that, of course,” Elsa said, “but I’d much rather you didn’t. You might get the wrong impression. I haven’t really got a criminal mind, honestly.”
“I never thought for a moment that you had,” he said, looking at her in some wonder.
“I know, but after reading my work you might think otherwise. And I wouldn’t like that—not now we’ve become friends.”
Clive smiled and almost unconsciously patted her hand as it lay on the table.
“All right, it’s a promise. I won’t look at your stuff. Not that I want to. I’d much sooner preserve the memory of the charming girl you are.... Tell me, whereabouts in Surrey do you live? You said Midhampton, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but Midhampton’s only a village, too small for mention on any map. I live in a small detached house called Tudor Cottage about a mile away from the village itself. I was born there, raised there, and when my parents died recently, within two months of each other, the place automatically became mine.” Elsa mused for a moment or two and then added slowly. “They didn’t leave me any money. What I have I’ve earned from my writing. But they did leave me something much more valuable than cash—freedom, and the opportunity to be somebody.”
“You mean they tried to prevent that when they were alive?” Clive asked interestedly.
Elsa nodded but she did not elaborate on the subject.
“The people in Midhampton have got to thinking of me as a kind of recluse—chiefly because I stay at home such a lot to do my writing and don’t mix in the affairs of the village. Only on rare occasions do I visit London on business. And this time it seems to have developed into something more than just business, doesn’t it? I’ve been given a chance to become famous through having my portrait in the Academy.”
“Well, there is that possibility,” Clive admitted, “but don’t put too much store on it. Critics are tough to please, sometimes. If my picture doesn’t rate as high as it should, nobody will care tuppence who the subject is.... All in the luck of the game.”
“You must make it a masterpiece!” Elsa insisted, with an unusual earnestness. “Promise me that you will? I so want to be known and talked about— And yet I also want to stay in the background and listen to the comments flying back and forth. I—I get a sort of sense of omnipotence that way.”
“Which is pretty much what you said yesterday, and I still don’t get the angle.” Clive gave a shrug. “However, I’ll put my best into the job; be sure of that. But promise me that you’ll give me time to do the thing properly. One can hardly rush a masterpiece,” he added dryly.
Nor did he. In three more days, during which Elsa sat for him on three mornings and had three lunches, he still only had the rudiments of the painting in being. But the fact did not seem to worry him. To even be with her seemed to satisfy him—and
though she would not admit it she found herself, when away from him, thinking almost constantly of his dark hair, amused blue eyes, and the clean-cut line of his jaw.
On the fourth morning Barbara Vane had a few comments to make, and she made them in the forthright fashion that Elsa had come to know was characteristic of her.
“I begin to think that I’ve stopped around here long enough!” she declared.
The remark, coming into the midst of silence whilst Clive was painting, made him cease work and gaze at her in astonishment. Elsa too turned her head and noticed that Barbara was in her hat and coat instead of her normal smock.
“Since when did you become a stooge?” Clive asked, trying to and sound patient.
“Apparently since Miss Farraday came! If you think I enjoy playing around here as a sort of chaperone—a job one usually associates with a middle-aged dowager—you’re vastly mistaken! I’m sick of it, Clive! If you’re so keen on ethics you’d better find a new way to make them operate. I’ve had enough.”
“But, Babs, this is absurd!” Clive protested. “You’ve always hung around here when it’s been necessary for me to have a girl as a model—”
“And I’ve always disliked it!” Barbara snapped. “Hang it all, the position’s ridiculous! Isn’t it unethical enough that I’m here alone for days on end, acting as your model—”
“Of course it isn’t! You’re a professional model. That’s no more unethical than a doctor and his patient— And all that apart, we’re good friends who understand each other. I just can’t think why you want to let me down.”
Barbara moved forward a little, a gleam in her blue eyes.
“How can you be so intolerably stupid, Clive?” she demanded. “Do you think I like seeing you taken away from me?”
Clive put down his brush and gave Elsa a glance as she rose from her chair. Barbara looked from one to the other of them.
“It sounds to me,” Clive told her curtly, “as though you’re deliberately trying to create trouble, Babs. What about Terry Draycott? He’s the one you’ve really fallen for, and you know it.”
“Him!” The girl threw up her hands. “Good heavens, is that what you think? Because he pays me a great deal of attention and takes me out sometimes? I never even give him a second thought when he isn’t present. It’s you, Clive, and always has been.... Oh, I know it isn’t customary to bare one’s emotions in this fashion,” she went on petulantly, “but I’m the type who speaks her mind. The thing that I’ve seen growing before my eyes these last few days has finally got too much for me. I can’t stand any more of it.”
“What thing?” Clive asked ominously.
“Don’t act the innocent! You know perfectly well you’re in love with Miss Farraday—even if you do still call her by her surname! And she with you, or I don’t know my own sex.”
There was silence for a moment, Elsa gently biting at her lower lip and looking at the angry girl pensively; then suddenly Clive banged his fist on the bench.
“All right I am in love with Elsa!” he declared loudly. “And I’ll go on being so, whether you like it or not! I still don’t believe you ever had the slightest regard for me, beyond ordinary friendship, that is. I know I haven’t for you.”
Barbara took a deep breath. “But for this—this woman, how much I might have done,” she whispered. “I could have made you see that we are indispensable to one another. As it is it’s ruined—for good. I’m clearing out, Clive,” she finished curtly. “And I’m never coming back.”
“But, Babs, you can’t! You’ve an unfinished contract and there are some pictures which—”
The door slammed behind the girl and there was the sound of her footfalls receding down the stairs. Clive rubbed his chin slowly and then turned as he realized Elsa was beside him.
“Let her go,” she said quietly. “If she has a nature as jealous as that you’re well rid of her, don’t you think?”
“Well, I suppose so, but it’s a bit of a shock. I’ve known her for such a long time, and she’s right about being indispensable, you know—”
“Nobody is indispensable, Clive. If it’s a model you’re after, then what about me?”
Elsa turned gently on her heel and, delectable though her youthful figure was, Clive hardly seemed to notice it. He frowned hard to himself.
“Funny thing,” he mused. “I never even guessed that she felt that way about me.”
“I did,” Elsa said, coming to a halt in her gyrations. “I saw it in her eyes: that was why I asked you about her. It just so happens that we are a better match, that’s all. Can’t alter Nature, can you?”
Clive looked at her steadily. “A moment or two ago, when Babs was here, I referred to you as Elsa—and I’m going to go on doing it. Just the same as you’ve taken to calling me Clive. The formalities are finished with, aren’t they?”
“Of course.” Elsa took his hand and gripped it gently. “Clive, since you’ve openly admitted that you love me, I’ve nothing to gain by hiding my love for you, have I? I mean that,” she insisted. “These last few days I’ve been falling more heavily every minute, but I held off until I saw how Barbara reacted. Now we know where we stand.”
“Yes, of course we do,” he breathed, kissing her impulsively. “And if it comes to needing a model—”
“I’m ready and willing,” she smiled. “You have only to teach me whatever tricks there are.... Oh, the whole thing’s so simple,” she went on. “You a great artist, I a writer. That sort of combination can focus attention on me as nothing else could.”
“There you go again, talking in riddles,” he muttered.
“No.” She shook her head. “You’ll see what I mean as you understand me better.”
He studied her for a moment as though trying to analyze her, then he turned aside to pick up a duster for his paint-smeared hands.
“For this morning,” he said, “work’s finished. We’re going out this very moment for an engagement ring.”
She nodded eagerly. “And this afternoon I’ll go back home and clear up my affairs there. Then I can come back to London permanently.”
“I’ll come back to Midhampton with you....” Clive put an arm about her shoulders.
“But—but, dearest, that would be a waste of time! There’s really no need. I can clear everything up very quickly. Besides, it might look rather bad, you and I—”
“Oh, be hanged to that! We’ll be engaged officially by then. Anyway, what kind of a man do you think I am?” Clive asked in wonder, lowering his arm. “Since we’re on our way to being married it’s my job to help you fix up whatever you want. No reason why I shouldn’t, is there? There isn’t anything peculiar about this Tudor cottage you live in, surely?”
Elsa gave a worried smile. “No, of course not, only I really do think—”
“I’m coming,” he said, with quiet decision. “We’ll catch the train for Midhampton immediately after lunch.”
CHAPTER THREE
At four o’clock the rattling local train, which formed a connection from Guildford, had brought Elsa and Clive to the rural station of Midhampton with its profusions of summer flowers. Here Clive chartered the solitary horse-drawn cab and, since he clearly knew Elsa well, the driver had only to be told to take her home.
“Quaint place you live in, anyway,” Clive commented, looking out on to the sun-drenched and completely inactive village street.
“If you only knew how much I hate it!” Elsa clenched her fists in her lap. “I’ve seen it for as long as I can remember. It is one of the earliest of my recollections. It holds nothing for me except unpleasant memories—of scolding, of being told not to do this and not to do that.”
Clive gave her a serious, half puzzled glance.
“You mean your parents were strict? That it?”
“That’s it. They believed in the policy of a child being seen and not heard, but they carried it to excess, and being an only child I received the brunt of everything. I think,” Elsa finished
moodily, “I only started to live when they died. And twenty-five is a pretty late age to start living isn’t it?”
“Not if you do it properly,” Clive murmured, and patted her left hand on which was the clawed bulging diamond he had purchased for her in London prior to lunch.
Since she said nothing further he spent his time gazing out of the window again. The cab left the village presently and followed a solitary tree-lined road. On one side of it were meadows, golden with the summer light, stretching away to the distant blue line of the Hog’s Back. On the other side there was a peculiar darkness in the grassless soil. It looked as though an evil hand had spread itself over the landscape and commanded that no green thing should grow.
“That’s Barraclough’s Swamp,” Elsa explained, noticing Clive’s rather mystified expression. “It extends for about five square miles, and unless you know it thoroughly—as I do—it’s a death trap. There are two paths across it, one of them true—which I use sometimes myself as a short cut to my home—and the other false, which leads right into the mire. Get on that, and you never get out!”
“Charming thought,” Clive murmured, with a little shiver. “And where’s your place? Can we see it yet?”
“In a moment, when we’ve rounded the next bend.”
He looked ahead with interest and after a little while there came into view, well back from the road and completely isolated, a detached house in perfect replica of Tudor style, low-gabled, slanting-roofed in red tiles, with—he noticed as they came nearer—diamond-shaped window panes. It was evident, however, that the gardens needed attention. Cultivated flowers were foundering in a choking wilderness of weeds.
“I’ve no time to bother with gardening,” Elsa said, seeing Clive’s look. “And I don’t like a gardener prowling about the place when I’m all alone.”
The cab stopped and Clive sat looking at the house pensively. “Nice place,” he said approvingly. “Once it’s tidied up.”
Elsa stirred as he opened the door for her. As he alighted beside her in the road he asked a question.
Reflected Glory Page 2