The Black Benedicts

by Anita Charles

  Mallory followed the direction of her gaze.

  “Miss Martingale is, I believe, a wonderful dancer,” she observed, wondering whether Jill had her in mind as a mother for Serena.

  Jill’s answer was uttered with sudden, and unexpectedly vicious disdain.

  “Oh, most people can do something, and quite a few can do a lot of things! In this life I think it is better to do a lot of things averagely than one thing superbly—better for other people, I mean! And Miss Martingale is, of course, a superb dancer!”

  Mallory looked at her in mild astonishment.

  “But there are not many superb dancers in the world,” she reminded her.

  Jill shrugged her shoulders carelessly.

  “Just as well, if you want my candid opinion!”

  She looked away and saw Adrian, standing a little disconsolately before one of the tall windows, parting the heavy velvet curtains and looking forth into the night.

  “Poor Adrian!” she murmured, with sudden sympathy, her brown eyes— so many shades lighter than Adrian’s own— softening miraculously. “How terribly out of it he always looks, and there’s nothing very much anyone can do about it. It was a dreadful thing that happened to him.”

  “Was it?” Mallory asked. “I haven’t been told a great deal about it, but I gather there was an accident.”

  Jill nodded.

  “And he lost his wife and his earning capacity all in a single evening! There is only one interest left to him in life, and that is his piano, and he really plays quite divinely.”

  “I know,” Mallory told her. “I’ve heard him.”

  Jill looked at her in slight surprise.

  “Did he play for you, or did you just overhear him?”

  “I overheard him, and he played for me,” Mallory admitted.

  At that moment Adrian turned and caught sight of them and gravitated over to the settee on which they were both seated.

  “You two girls look as if you might be holding some sort of a conference,” he remarked, with his gentle smile—but it was a smile which was largely for Mallory. “Have you any objection if I break it up and join you?”

  “None whatsoever,” Mallory assured him, but she thought that Jill made rather a wry little face.

  “You honour us, Adrian,” she told him, in a very distinct voice. “It isn’t often you work up enough interest on an evening such as this even to wish to break up a conference, as you term it. And I’m wondering whether it’s some particular magic Miss Gower possesses?”

  “As to that,” Adrian returned, quite gravely, his eyes dwelling thoughtfully on his daughter’s governess’s face, “I think Miss Gower has got some sort of magic which has certainly had its effect on Serena. I was having a chat with the child a few minutes ago, and she tells me that she is already ‘in love’ with Miss’ Gower. And she certainly never fell in love with Miss Peppercorn, or any of the others who have had temporary charge of her.”

  Mallory felt herself colouring slightly, for some reason which she could not quite fathom, under the influence of this compliment, but Jill Harding looked at her with the faintly rueful smile still clinging to her lips.

  “There you are, Miss Gower! Serena has fallen for you! I wonder how many more conquests you will make in Morven Grange before you depart from it?”

  Her tone was light, but Mallory decided it was the moment to go in search of her small charge and take her upstairs to bed.

  “It’s late for her,” she said. “She’s accustomed to being in bed much earlier than this.”

  But before she left the room with Serena she saw that Adrian was no longer sitting beside Jill on the settee. He was back looking out of the window, that remote, lost look on his face.

  Serena retired to bed with Belinda as usual, and it was arranged that Mallory should have the new kitten in its basket with her, in case, as Serena phrased it in some anxiety, Belinda should “suddenly wake up and eat it in the night.”

  “Oh I don’t think Belinda has any cannibalistic tendencies of that order,” Mallory reassured her; “but it’s such a wee thing, it might be better it I took charge of it for a day or so, particularly as we don’t even know whether it’s house-trained.”

  Long after Serena had fallen into a state of quiet sleep and blissful dreams in her own room, with Belinda dreaming of strange white kittens and emitting uneasy little whimpers in her basket beside her, Mallory sat before the drawn-back curtains in her own room, and listened to the sound of music and voices which reached her from the drawing-room immediately below her.

  They were dancing now, the friends and the visitors who were there for the evening, dancing to the music of gramophone records played on a powerful radio-gramophone which Mallory had glimpsed in a corner of the lovely room. That is to say the visitors were dancing, but the host and Miss Martingale, who was still convalescent, were sitting comfortably in an alcove, screened by sheaves of the pure white lilac which sent forth all the perfume of the South of France into the softly lit and deliciously-warmed atmosphere.

  Miss Martingale, who looked like something out of an old French painting, and about whose looks as well as her dancing so many enthusiasts raved, predicting a future as great as Pavlovas, was almost constantly in Mallory’s thoughts and she kept asking herself—would such a one be willing to give up adulation and applause and endless success in order to become the wife of such a man as Raife Benedict? He had so much to offer her, and if she looked ahead into the future she might decide that security—complete security—would be worth far more than even the certainty of many more triumphs in the years which might lie ahead. And if she happened to be in love...

  Hugging the kitten in her arms, Mallory stood up and approached her window. Footsteps on the terrace below her caused her to look down, taking care to remain screened by her own curtains, and there were two figures emerging on to the terrace, despite the bright, starlit chill of the night, and the woman’s figure was shrouded in a soft fur coat—probably mink, Mallory thought!—over her long gold evening dress, with which she wore emerald ear-rings, and elbow-length gloves of emerald velvet. The man beside her was tall and arrogant, and with his hands in his pockets disdained even a scarf about his neck as they wandered forth and crossed the smooth lawns, disappearing finally into the denser darkness which meant that they had been swallowed up by a maze of shrubberies.

  Mallory let her curtains drop back into place and decided that she had better begin her preparations for bed. But she found herself sighing suddenly.

  It must be rather nice to be a ballet dancer...!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Spring came in with a really determined rush less than a week later. Everything was early, even the azaleas in the winding drive ware putting forth every evidence of displaying the full perfection of their beauty within a very short space of time. Mallory was looking forward to seeing them at their best, for Mrs. Carpenter had told her that they formed a solid wall of colour mining almost from the drive gates half-way up to the house, where the rhododendrons began, and that amongst them was every delectable tint imaginable, from creamy pink to burnished copper.

  The wallflowers were out, too, under the south terrace, and their perfume filled the air on that side of the house. Wave after wave of daffodils danced in the wind beneath the still bare-branched trees which guarded the carefully kept lawns, and the long-stemmed purple irises formed splashes of colour in the shade. The orchard grass was rapidly lengthening, and amongst it the birds-eye narcissi waved graceful heads and simply demanded to be gathered into scented armsful for the house, and on the terrace the picturesque stone vases were sending out trails of aubretia emboldened by the deceptively early spring.

  Mallory, during her daily walks with Serena, sometimes caught sight of Miss Martingale reclining on the terrace, well wrapped-up and protected by rugs, her extended chaise-lounge offering the restful ease for one who was recovering from what the newspapers had described as a breakdown as a result of overwork. She was obviously m
aking the most of the sunshine, from which she nevertheless protected her eyes by wearing dark glasses, and usually her host was beside her, either reclining less elegantly in a chair or straddling one of the stone lions which also decorated the terrace.

  Sometimes the other members of the house-party were scattered about the terrace, too, or Mallory and Serena would meet them on their walks, well turned out by London tailors and shoemakers who had little idea of what were the real needs of life in the country. The white-haired John Carmichael, Miss Martingale’s closest shadow next to Raife Benedict, who sometimes drove a high-powered car, and seemed to find the district rather absorbing, never neglected to wave a cheerful hand to the governess and her charge whenever he caught sight of them, and the plump Mrs. Ainsworth, Sonia’s slightly incongruous friend, even joined them on one of their walks.

  “I’m getting fat,” she admitted—and her voice had just the faintest trace of a Lancashire accent which Miss Martingale had striven hard to eradicate—“and I must have exercise. But these shoes”—usually she hobbled about on unsuitable high-heeled ones—“are going out of their way to kill me!”

  Mallory offered her a pair of her own stout walkers, and the older woman was grateful. The ballerina, observing them, did not look so pleased.

  “If you want shoes, why don’t you buy some, Lottie?” she suggested. “You shouldn’t borrow things from a governess.” She uttered the word ‘governess’ as if it had associations in her mind with an under-housemaid.

  “But she’s such a nice little thing.” Mrs. Ainsworth defended Mallory, who had just passed on into the house. “Why, she’s even quite pretty—really pretty! She ought to have a job in London, where she could be seen, not just running around after some stupid, spoilt child.”

  “Serena is Raife’s’ niece, don’t forget, Soma reminded her, with a displeased curl to her scarlet upper lip, “and if Miss Gower chooses to act as her governess that is entirely her affair. Her position doesn’t call for any sympathy.”

  “Well, perhaps not,” the amiable Lottie agreed; “but she’s so nice and ladylike—one can’t help liking her...”

  “She doesn’t affect me with any tremendous enthusiasm,” Sonia said, in her slow, cold drawl, and shifted a slender and beautifully arched foot in a sheer silk stocking and unpractical shoe in order to ensure its greater ease.

  Mrs. Ainsworth, who had known her for years, had the sense to say no more.

  On Sunday—the first fine Sunday since she had arrived at Morven—Mallory took Serena to church, which was certainly an experience for Serena, who had not been encouraged to visit the sacred edifice. The church was in the very heart of the village, and it was old and grey and beautiful, with a squat Norman tower and a centuries old view in the churchyard. When they emerged from the morning service, with Serena carrying Mallory’s prayer book, and the sound of the organ came stealing out through the open doorway behind them into the sunshine of a glad, cool, sparkling March day, with flying clouds overhead, Jill Harding and her mother stopped to talk to them for a moment. The doctor had received one of his Sunday morning summonses and was not with them.

  “Come to supper to-night,” Jill invited. “That’s all right, isn’t it, mother?”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Harding replied at once. “And the doctor will run you home afterwards,” she promised Mallory.

  “Come early,” Jill called, as a big grey car drew up before the lych-gate through which they had all four just emerged, and Serena instantly recognized her uncle at the wheel, with Sonia Martingale beside him. “About six-ish!”

  “All right,” Mallory called back, smiling gratefully. “Thank you very much.”

  She was wearing her neat tweed coat with the bluish fleck, and her little blue hat that sat on the back of her head like a Juliet cap, and she looked very clear-eyed and content as, with her small charge’s hand held fast in her own, she moved towards the car.

  Raife Benedict bent backwards to open the rear door for them, and Serena instantly scrambled in. Sonia Martingale, her dark hair uncovered but protected to the chin by her luxurious mink coat, gave her a smile out of her green eyes.

  “Just in time to give you a lift,” Benedict observed. “I forgot,” he added, to Mallory, “that you were a parson’s daughter.”

  She looked at him in some astonishment.

  “Do you mean,” she asked, “that you think that’s the only reason why I go to church?”

  He shrugged slightly. As usual his eyes, or rather the expression in them, seemed to deride her, and his voice held that subtly mocking note.

  “How should I know why, or what it is that compels you to go to church? I’m not a churchgoer myself, but I’ve no objection at all to my niece being instructed along the right lines. Did you enjoy the service, Infant?”

  “Oh, very much,” Serena admitted with enthusiasm. “I sang,” she added, “and so did Miss Gower. We both sang the hymns at the tops of our voices.”

  “That must have been nice for all the other members of the congregation,” he commented. He slid in his gears noiselessly. “And how is Mark Anthony?”

  Mark Anthony was the new Siamese kitten, and the name was the one he himself had given it.

  “Oh, he’s lovely,” Serena enthused again. “He sleeps with Miss Gower, and he’s already growing quite big.”

  “Still adhering to his early attachment,” her uncle observed, but his eyes were on the road ahead this time, and Mallory was rather thankful that she could not see whether or not they twinkled slightly.

  When they reached the Grange, Adrian was standing at the foot of the steps, and he looked smilingly at Mallory. His brother, when he had alighted from the car, laid a friendly hand on his shoulder.

  “I was wondering,” Adrian said, a trifle diffidently, “whether I might borrow the car this afternoon, Raife? If you’re not going to use it? I thought about running out and having a look at White Cottage, and I thought perhaps Miss Gower—as it’s such a fine day...?”

  He sounded even more diffident as he looked again towards Mallory.

  “Why, of course, old chap.” But for an instant even Raife Benedict was surprised, and then Mallory saw him look quickly at Miss Martingale, and her slender dark eyebrows rose just the fraction of an inch. “If we want to go out we’ll take the other car. And certainly you can have this one.”

  “Then you’ll come, Miss Gower?” Adrian asked quickly, and rather urgently.

  Mallory hesitated for perhaps half a second, “Well, if Serena ... I expect Serena would like it, too...”

  “Oh, yes, of course we’ll take Serena.”

  “Oo, lovely!” exclaimed Serena, and started to execute a little un-Sunday-like dance on the broad gravel sweep. “White Cottage is such a pretty little house, and the country is lovely, too. You’ll like it, Miss Gower,” she assured her.

  Before they went in to lunch the master of the house laid a detaining hand on his niece’s arm and then spoke to Mallory.

  “Since you two seem to have behaved yourselves while I was away I’ll take you both down to see Saladin. Would you like to come, Sonia? Or do you want a little rest before lunch?”

  “If you don’t mind,” she replied, for her ankle was hurting her a little, but she did not look too pleased to see all four of the others move off in the direction of the stables.

  Serena was lifted up by her uncle to caress Shamrock, a shapely young chestnut without any vices, but he would not permit her to approach anywhere near to Saladin’s stall. Mallory leaned across the half-door and spoke to it softly, Adrian remaining close to her elbow, but only the owner of the big black went actually up to it and placed a strong, sensitive hand on its muzzle.

  “It’s a wicked-looking brute, isn’t it?” he observed at last, over his shoulder to his brother and Mallory.

  “I don’t think it’s so much wickedness as perversity that is its besetting sin at the moment,” Mallory voiced it as her opinion, “and the cure for that is a tremendous amount of exe
rcise.”

  Her employer glanced round at her with an odd smile on his lips.

  “And I take it that you’d like to make yourself responsible for the exercising?”

  “Oh, no, not me!” Mallory sounded quite genuinely horrified by the bare idea. “I couldn’t ride a horse like that—it would be much too strong for me—but I do admire it all the same.”

  “How much do you really know about horses?” Raife inquired, looking at her curiously.

  “I’ve told you—quite a lot.”

  “But you wouldn’t care to ride this one?”

  “No; but I’d ride the chestnut.”

  “Have you any clothes with you?”

  “I’ve got jodhpurs.”

  “Good! Then you shall have your wish, and one day you shall ride Shamrock. I’m getting a pony for Serena, and the two of you can get some exercise that way.”

  “I think that’s a very nice idea,” Mallory told him, pleased, and Serena of course was delighted. Adrian looked on at them both as if he approved because they so obviously approved, and it was his wish that they should both be happy.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The afternoon drive through a countryside coming alive with all the delights of Spring was, Mallory found, most enjoyable. She was a little surprised that Adrian drove so well, and that he seemed to have so much more confidence in charge of a car than he did at any other time—save, of course, when he was playing his piano—and also because he already looked younger than when she had seen him first. His eyes held none of the vagueness she had first surmised in them, and his smile was quick, and warm, and interested. Even to Serena he was much more affable, and she succeeded in amusing him at times just as much as she did Mallory.

  The house they were to visit lay tucked away in a fold of steeply undulating country. Around it in the summer there would be golden fields of wheat and every other sort of grain, and above it rose wooded heights. Below it a river twisted and sparkled in the changing light, and beyond the river there were green water-meadows where the peaceful cattle browsed.