‘James absent without leave, I should think,’ he said rather shortly. Then, after a pause, ‘There’s probably nothing in it. But I’ll tell Lewis the light was off.’
ELEVEN
IT WAS LATER ON when they were heading for Ledlington that Charles said in an airy voice,
‘Who is the unfortunate chap?’
Stacy said, ‘What do you mean?’
‘The object of all the staff work about the key — the current boy friend — the fellow who’s going to take you out on the razzle-dazzle.’
‘Well, you said it was going to be you.’
‘Oh, no, you put in the staff work before I came along. You needn’t have any inhibitions — I’m all friendly attention. Who is he?’
Stacy said,
‘Why do you call him unfortunate?’
The words came tumbling out, and the moment they were said she knew that she had let Charles score. He did it easily, lazily, with a smile for his own reflection in the driving-mirror.
‘Fellow feeling, darling.’
Stacy bit her lip. She ought to have bitten her tongue off before she gave him that opening.
The easy voice went on.
‘Are you having him for keeps? You must let me know when you’ve got the day fixed. Not quite good taste for me to come to the wedding — but some little offering perhaps. I get a nice line of saucepans at wholesale rates for the flats. They’re all furnished you know. Much more lucrative, and you can get rid of people if you don’t like them. What about an aluminium set, with a double saucepan thrown in, and some appropriate lines on a card attached by a silver ribbon — “Thanks for the memory”, or something like that?’
She was almost too angry to speak, but she wasn’t going to let him score again.
‘It sounds delightful. I’ll remember when it’s your turn. I suppose you will be marrying almost at once?’
‘I suppose so. Do you mind telling me who I am going to marry? I should rather like to know.’
Stacy looked sideways. He was looking straight ahead at the Ledlington road as if he would like to murder it. Charles in a temper was Charles in a temper, a most ugly, black and exhilarating sight. Stacy felt very properly exhilarated. She said,
‘Lilias, I suppose.’
The car swerved right across the road. Charles swore, straightened out, and burst out laughing.
‘Another crack like that and you’ll have us in the ditch! Lilias—’
‘It’s no use your saying she’s your sister, because she isn’t. Your mother adopted her, which is a very different thing. The Archbishop of Canterbury would marry you tomorrow.’
‘I don’t think so, darling. He’s got views about divorce.’
‘Well, she isn’t your sister.’
‘As you say. But there are about twenty million other women in England who are not my sisters either. Almost any of them would be more likely than Lilias, you know. Because when you’ve been brought up to the brother and sister business it gets in your bones, so to speak.’ He laughed again. ‘The fierce light that beats upon a throne is nothing to the light that beats upon a nursery. One has had all the quarrels, heard all the fibs — what would be the point of getting married?’
Under the jesting tone there was something, she didn’t quite know what. She said in a hurry,
‘I never told you any lies.’
‘You hadn’t much time, darling, had you? Life’s full of these wasted opportunities. Never mind, there are lots of good fish in the sea.’
‘I don’t tell lies!’
‘A neglected education. But it’s never too late to mend.’
He turned into the Market Square and drew up in the parking-place beneath the statue of Sir Albert Dawnish. The first of the famous Quick Cash Stores had struggled into being in one of the old houses in the direction of which he now waves a podgy hand. It has been said that he wears the worst suit of any statue in Britain. He liked an easy fit, and the sculptor had rendered it with heroic realism. But Ledlington reveres his memory, dances in the hall he built, and sends its sons to compete hopefully for the scholarships he endowed.
Charles locked the car, took Stacy by the elbow, and proceeded across the cobblestones to the Cat and Mouse. Only the name was new — a mere twenty-year-old upstart with a wrought-iron sign upon which a fierce green-eyed cat curved horrid claws about a small and shrinking mouse. The house had been a mercer’s shop when James I was on the throne. Great ladies of the county had bought changeable silks there, and fine Lyons velvet. It was now a tea-shop, with as many of its small rooms thrown together as was compatible with safety.
Charles had not exaggerated the gloom, but he threaded it with some assurance and arrived at the farther side of the long straggling room. Here privacy was catered for by orange curtains and palms in tubs. Each small screened cubicle contained a hard wooden settle, a table, and two chairs. Only the slim and agile could get round the table to the settle. A dim orange light lurked here and there between the black beams of the old ceiling.
Stacy achieved the settle, and was deserted. Charles had murmured, ‘Personal selection of buns,’ and disappeared. She was left to think what a fool she had been to put the idea of Lilias into his head. Perhaps she had — perhaps she hadn’t. If Charles had been passionately in love with Lilias and going to marry her next minute he might have put on just that kind of act. Carefree indifference — that was the line. But he had swerved and very nearly run the car off the road. Charles didn’t do that for nothing. Something had got right home — he had very nearly lost control of the car. And then he laughed. She tried to remember just what she had said.
She was still trying, when from the other side of a bristly palm and some dusty orange curtains a voice said,
‘Oh, yes, Charles will play if I want him to.’ There was a pretty, enraging laugh.
If Stacy had been in a more normal frame of mind she would have reflected that Charles is one of the commoner English names. She didn’t reflect at all — she jumped to a conclusion. The voice was one of those low, husky ones rendered popular by the films, and she thought there was a red-haired sound about it. The conclusion to which she jumped was that only a cheap orange curtain and a leaf or two of palm separated her from Maida Robinson, and that Maida was talking about Charles Forrest. She thought about coughing, she thought about moving the table, but she didn’t do either. There was the indistinguishable murmur of a male voice, and then the woman again.
‘It’ll be all right. You needn’t worry — he’ll play—’ There was just about half of some other word, interrupted by an exclamation. ‘Gosh — here he comes! What do we do?’
This time the man’s reply was audible.
‘We’re only having tea. Even Lewis—’
She said, ‘Shut up! We’ll go. We’ve finished anyway.’
Stacy sat where she was and saw them emerge. She had been perfectly right. Maida Robinson it was, in white linen, her hair glinting copper under the orange lights. And the man was Jack Constable. Encountering Charles midway amongst the little tables, they greeted him gaily, fleetingly, and were gone.
Charles came on and set a plate of buns on the table. Stacy wondered what it was all about and held her tongue.
She had plenty of time to dress before Tony Colesfoot came to call for her. He was in fact a little late, and more than a little sorry for himself. Long before they reached Ledlington it was evident that the evening was not going to be a success. Arrived at the Crown and Sceptre, he complained about the draught from the tall dining-room windows, which were all open at the top and could only be shut by the united efforts of three waiters. After changing their table twice he hunched his shoulders and shivered ostentatiously.
The dinner wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad. Tony shuddered some more, and began to tell her all about the influenza he had had last winter, and just where it differed from the influenza he thought he was getting now, drawing the gloomy conclusion that he was in for a much worse go. He ate nothing, drank
three cups of black coffee, and at twenty past eight announced that he thought he had better go home to bed.
‘My aunt said I wasn’t fit to come out.’
Stacy found herself agreeing with Miss Colesfoot. She wasn’t quite prepared to find herself cast as the vamp who had lured poor Tony from his bed, but one glance at the angry solicitous lady who opened the door to them was enough to tell her that this was, in fact, her role.
‘He should never have gone! I told him so, but he said he must keep his appointment. Most thoughtless, I must say. No, there isn’t anything you can do, Miss Mainwaring. Straight to bed, Tony! I have the kettle on, and you shall have a boiling drink and two hot-water bottles.’
There was really nothing to be said or done. Tony was coughing his head off, and Miss Colesfoot, stout and formidable, would have been glad to fry her in boiling oil. Thankful to find that the taxi had waited, Stacy climbed back into it and was driven to Warne House.
TWELVE
SHE MEANT TO GO straight to bed, but as she came into the hall there were quite a lot of people there. They were apparently coming out of the drawing-room and moving in the direction of the annexe, shepherded by Lewis Brading. He wore an air of importance. Even before Lady Minstrell slipped a hand inside her arm and spoke, Stacy guessed that the Collection was on view.
‘I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it, but it’s well worth while. Lovely things — most of them with stories attached. And models of all the really famous jewels.’
Before Stacy could answer, she was calling to Lewis.
‘Miss Mainwaring has just come in. May I bring her too?’
He turned, and Stacy met his cold, disliking eyes — even colder and more disliking than they had been when she was Charles’ wife. He inclined his head in the slightest of bows, said, ‘Certainly,’ in that rather grating voice, and they were all moving down the passage. She did murmur something about going up to bed, only to hear Myra Constantine say, ‘Nonsense!’ just behind her.
She looked round and saw her, quite square in crimson brocade, with Jack Constable on one side of her and her daughter Hester on the other. Myra said heartily,
‘You’ve seen ’em before, and so have I, but I can always do with seeing them again. Gives me something to covet. It’s as good as a tonic.’
The door at this end of the glass passage was like any garden door at the side of a house, the upper half of it glass, so that the whole length of the passage beyond could be seen from the hall of the house. It was not lighted yet, because it was still broad daylight, but Stacy could hear Lewis explaining.
‘I take my precautions, you see. At sunset we light the passage up... We? Oh, Moberly or I. I have a sitting-room over on this side in the house... Yes, this door on my right. It was my study, and I’ve kept it. But Moberly and I both sleep in the annexe... No, there aren’t any windows, but it’s all air-conditioned.’
They were in the passage now. A fine steel chain swung from his hand. He fitted the key to which it was attached and opened a door at the far end. It was very different from the one through which they had just come — a metal door painted green — not a house door at all, the door of a safe. There was a small lobby, and then a second door equally strong.
Lewis went on explaining.
‘The whole building is guaranteed burglar-proof. This is the only way in. The glass passage was my idea. Anyone having a shot at these doors would be a bit conspicuous. And the light is projected from inside this building — it can’t be tampered with. Quite ingenious, I think.’
The second door swung in. He touched a switch, and they came into a brightly lighted room, long and narrow in shape and hung from ceiling to floor with curtains of black velvet. Round the sides there were glass-topped show-cases, and in the middle, set about with chairs, a long narrow table like an old-fashioned trestle table covered by a black velvet cloth. The effect was macabre. The change from the brightness of the summer evening, where the blue of sea and sky were shot through with golden light, was so great as to produce a mental shock. It was bright enough in this strange room, but there was no life in the brightness. The impression made upon Stacy three years ago was repeated. Now, as then, a shiver went down her spine and she had a childish impulse to run away. A breath stirred her hair. Charles’ voice murmured at her ear,
‘The mortuary chamber—’
She very nearly screamed. She hadn’t heard him come in, she didn’t know there was anyone behind her. She stopped the scream, but she hadn’t time to stop her body jerking with the start she gave.
Charles’ hand came down on her shoulder. He said in the same murmuring way as before,
‘Stupid little thing — you needn’t jump right out of your skin.’
His hand felt warm through the thin silk of her dress. He left it there for a moment, and for that moment everything in her rocked. Whatever Charles was or whatever he had done, he had only to touch her and the past was back again. The thought was there and gone. She wrenched from looking after it.
Lewis Brading was continuing the personally conducted tour.
‘Those two doors on the left as we came in lead to Moberly’s bedroom and the bathroom. The one on the long side of the room gives on to a passage which serves my bedroom and the laboratory. Now here —’ he led the way to the show-case — ‘here is a very interesting part of the Collection — models of famous stones.’ He paused and quoted, as he always did at this point, ‘ “Too dear for my possessing.” ’ The self-conscious note in his voice robbed the words of their poetry and made a pun of them.
Everyone crowded forward to look where he was pointing.
‘They are only models, of course, without the fire and brilliance of the originals. The Star of the South, found in eighteen-fifty-three in the mines of Bogagan by a poor negress. It weighed two hundred and fifty-seven and a half carats before cutting. It is, as you see, faintly tinted with rose, and must be one of the most beautiful diamonds in the world.... The Koh-i-noor weighed seven hundred and eighty-seven and a half carats before cutting according to Tavernier who saw it at the court of Aurungzeb. It has, of course, been re-cut, and can be seen in the Queen's crown at the Tower... Here is a model of the famous Rajah of Mattan’s diamond. It was found in Borneo, and weighs three hundred and eighteen carats. It is, as you see, shaped like a pear and without facets.’
He continued to enumerate the diamonds. The Nizam. The Regent, carried by the first Napoleon in the hilt of his state sword. The Sancy, lost on the battlefield by Charles the Bold, found by a Swiss soldier and sold for two francs, recovered from the dead body of a faithful servant who had swallowed it to prevent it falling into the hands of thieves. The Pigott. The Orloff, shaped like half an egg, and once the eye of a famous idol. The triangular Nassac. The famous Hope diamond, blue as a sapphire.
All this information was being punctuated by questions and cries of admiration. Myra Constantine’s deep voice commented on the Sancy.
‘Well, I shouldn’t fancy wearing a thing that had come out of a dead body — not myself, I wouldn’t. Anyhow, I’ve never been all that struck on jewellery. Never had the face nor the figure for it — perhaps that’s why. What’s going to happen to all these pretty things, Lewis?”
‘I have left this part of my Collection to the Ledlington museum. It is, of course, of great interest, but of no particular monetary value.’
His grey face had no expression. Without further comment he passed on to the next showcase and began to discourse on rubies. From there to the sapphire, the emerald, the topaz, the amethyst, to famous engraved stones.
Stacy had heard it all before. It brought a horrid feeling that there had been a kind of time-slip — that they had been caught back again, she and Charles, to where they were three years ago. It was, of course, sheer nonsense. The one thing nobody could do to you was to make you live the past over again. She turned and said to Charles,
‘I want to get out.’
His eyes smiled into hers.
‘
Too, too reminiscent?’
‘No. There’s no air.’
He laughed a little.
‘Lewis will be mortally offended — he’s frightfully proud of his air-conditioning. And you know you’d like to see the real stuff. He’ll be getting round to it any time now.’
‘I don’t — want to —’
‘Darling, I promise to catch you if you faint.’
She could not have looked less like fainting. Her cheeks burned. She moved abruptly away from him as Lewis passed behind one of the velvet curtains and disappeared from view. James Moberly followed him. After a moment or two they could hear an unseen door swing back, and then the two men came out again, carrying between them a long tray covered with black velvet and heaped with jewels.
This was the moment which Lewis Brading particularly enjoyed. He liked to hear his guests draw in their breath, he liked to watch awe and greed come up in the women’s eyes. The whole thing was, of course, very carefully stage-managed. These necklaces, bracelets, pendants, and rings had each its own place on the shelves of his inner safe, but when he was going to show his Collection it pleased him to produce this Arabian Nights effect.
Stacy found Charles at her elbow again.
‘Nubian slaves are indicated, don’t you think? I always feel that James and Lewis strike a jarring note. But there’s going to be a Sultana all right. Just watch!’
Her eyes followed his. James and Lewis had set down the glittering tray just at the centre of the long table. Maida Robinson faced them across the narrow black velvet strip which covered it. Everyone had moved that way, but it was she who held the eye. Her black dress melted into the background. Her arms, her neck, and her dazzling copper hair stood out against it. She was leaning forward, her two hands on the table, her eyes on all those shining stones. For a moment Stacy had a flash of recognition. The hazel eyes had gone green. They had a slitted look. She thought of a cat watching a bird. It was gone in a moment, but it was horrid while it lasted.
Maida broke into a low laugh, lifted her hands from the table, and clapped them softly.
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