Mallory rose like a demure grey moth in her grey gown and followed him out on to the delectably smooth surface of the lawn. Once they had descended the terrace steps the crisp turf seemed to receive their footsteps like velvet, and rise up as if anxious to caress their ankles. There were so many sweet scents floating in the atmosphere around them that they were like a particularly heady perfume which caught at Mallory’s nostrils and made her feel temporarily a little light-headed, and the almost sensuous warmth and stillness of the night wrapped her about like a garment.
But, nevertheless, as they drew near to the first belt of shrubbery, Raife Benedict looked down at her, and, lightly touching her bare arm to feel whether it was cold, he asked with a sudden note of concern in his voice:
“You’re not cold? Oughtn’t you, perhaps, to have fetched a wrap?”
She shook her head. She didn’t really want to speak because she felt it would shatter something peaceful and magical between them.
“You’re—sure?” he asked.
“Quite sure,” she answered, and then, as they were descending slightly crumbling steps to the rose-garden, caught the toe of her evening slipper in a hollow formed by the disappearing brickwork, and but for his arm which came out instantly to prevent her from falling she would have completed the descent of the rest of the steps by tumbling down them to the flagged walk at the bottom, and probably landing flat on her face.
“That was my fault!” he exclaimed, holding her so strongly that his arm felt like iron about her. He sounded utterly vexed with himself and concerned because of the danger she had escaped. “I ought to have warned you, and I’ll have to speak to one of the gardeners about these steps and see that they’re made safe. Are you quite all right, or did you hurt your ankle?”
She assured him that she had not hurt herself in the very slightest, but, peering down into her face in the light of the steadily-rising moon, he did not seem quite satisfied. She looked so small and fragile in her gauzy grey dress, and her small face looked ethereally pure. She could see his eyes studying her, very close to her own, and all at once the violent beating of her heart made her afraid that he would hear the wild thunder of its beats, and the fact that this moment while he refused to let her go was a moment she would treasure as if it was a precious gem entrusted to her care all the rest of her life was something that she simply had to keep from him.
She shut her eyes for a moment, and a kind of panic assailed her. Oh, no...! she thought. Surely she wasn’t so foolish, so utterly stupid, as to be upon the very verge of—falling in love with him?
No; she wasn’t upon the verge of falling in love with him—she had fallen in love with him weeks ago, when he had lain helpless in his big four-poster bed and had thanked her for letting the light into his room! Perhaps even before that...!
“You look pale,” he said slowly, as she opened her eyes and looked up at him rather helplessly. “Are you quite sure you didn’t give your ankle a twist?”
But she assured him emphatically that there was nothing wrong with her ankle, and then quietly but determinedly she freed herself from his arm, and moved a foot or so away from him.
“I’m letting you make a fuss about nothing,” she said. “Shall we—shall we go on...?”
But to her surprise he shook his head.
“No, we’ll go back to the house and I’ll have a look at your ankle.”
And considerably to her disappointment they went back, returning across the lawns in absolute silence this time, and she felt rather than saw that he was frowning as he kept his hands firmly in the pockets of his dinner-jacket and stared straight ahead through the silvery light, and when they re-entered the library he made her sit down in one of the deep arm-chairs while he knelt at her feet and examined her slender ankle.
“Well, it looks all right to me,” he observed at last, as he stood up, and then as she started to reaffirm that it was perfectly all right he turned almost indifferently away from her and walked back to the fireplace.
“Well, in that case, I think you’d better go to bed,” he said. “I’ve probably kept you up rather late as it is,” glancing at the clock, “and I don’t think you’re used to late hours.”
She said nothing. She felt as if already the atmosphere between them had changed, and instead of being friendly and pleasant and companionable, it had the same degree of frostiness and unbridgeable aloofness that had characterized their earlier meetings, when she had felt almost afraid to come face to face with him. The old, slightly disdainful look was back on his face, and his voice was cool like the drip of ice.
“And, by the way, Miss Gower,’ he added, as she rose to leave him, “you won’t forget what I asked you to do this morning, will you? And don’t waste any time about it, will you, please? I’m rather anxious to go ahead with all the arrangements, and Miss Martingale will probably be arriving quite soon. I’d like everything cut and dried by the time she arrives, as this is something she’s looking forward to.”
“Of course, Mr. Benedict,” she answered, but as she slowly mounted the grand staircase in the hall her thoughts were a bewildering torment. He had been kind—so different—and his concern for her had surprised her so much. And then all at once he had altered, and she had felt almost snubbed.
But out there in the moon-bathed loveliness of the night she had known what it was like to have his arm about her, and she wished ardently that she had not. Because in future the memory of it would be haunting her all the time, and obviously there was only one woman in the world who claimed the whole of his thoughts, and that was Sonia Martingale!
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
For the next week Mallory worked feverishly on the task that had been set her, and in this connection she was helped greatly by Mrs. Carpenter, who had most of the families in the district graded according to importance. Mrs. Carpenter was not very enthusiastic about the idea of a costume ball, especially when she heard that it was to gratify a whim of Miss Martingale’s, and she looked doubtfully at Mallory, entrusted with the task of getting the invitations out. But Phipps thought it was high time something really sensational was held at Morven, and he was secretly very disapproving of his master because he had remained a bachelor for so long and so little entertainment was provided by the Grange for the neighbourhood.
Serena, when she heard, was thrown into instant transports of delight, and she assumed immediately that if a dance was to be held she would be permitted to make an appearance at it, even if it was only brief. And she dragged Mallory along the picture gallery and insisted on making a close study of the portraits in order to decide which one of the costumes worn by her ancestresses could be faithfully copied and worn by herself on the great night.
“If Uncle Raife won’t have it made up in London for me,” she said, “we’ll go into Beomster and buy the material and Mrs. Howland can come up here and make it.”
Mrs. Howland was the local seamstress who was quite clever at renovating chair covers and darning sheets, but whether she could copy a period gown once worn at Court by a Benedict beauty Mallory doubted. However, Serena was so filled with enthusiasm that he hadn’t the heart to damp her until she had discussed the matter with the child’s uncle, and in the end the somewhat precocious nine-year-old decided that she would like to look like a Gainsborough lady.
“And you?” Serena then wanted to know. “What will you wear, Miss Gower? Shall we pick one out for you?”
But Mallory was so horrified by the notion that having faithfully fulfilled her task of organizing the countless details of the dance with the assistance of Mrs. Carpenter, she would be expected to put in an appearance at the dance itself, that her expression amazed Serena. For one thing—and this she did not think it necessary to explain her charge—it was beyond the limit of her purse-strings to afford a really suitable dress for such an occasion. And for another, she could imagine the faintly disdainful expression on Sonia Martingale’s exquisite face when it was explained to her that the governess had been allowed
a share in the evening’s festivities because Serena had to have someone to keep an eye on her.
No; whatever happened, she would not attend the dance, and in order to prevent Serena talking to her about a costume she explained to her, without any feelings of self-pity, that she was employed by her uncle as a kind of upper servant, and upper servants did not receive invitations to county balls.
But Serena looked at her with an odd expression in her large dark eyes.
“Does Uncle Raife know that you won’t be going?” she asked.
Mallory shook her head.
“It just wouldn’t occur to him that I would expect to go.”
“But he asked you to have dinner with him and me the other night, and he’s never asked Mrs. Carpenter.” She surveyed Mallory with a faintly triumphant look in her eyes. “And Mrs. Carpenter is a servant—so that means you’re not!”
Mallory gave it up. But she also gave Serena clearly to understand that on the night of the dance she would be spending the evening upstairs in her sitting-room, and it would be entertainment enough for her to hear the music of the dance band.
But there was a great deal to be done before the night of the dance, and a great deal to be done before Miss Martingale returned to Morven. Everything had to be in a condition of readiness that she could approve, and with that object in view the big ballroom on the south side of the house that had been dust-sheeted for more than a year was opened up, and the crystal chandeliers and the wall mirrors were cleaned until they sparkled like a blaze of diamonds. It was such a lovely room that Mallory, when she first saw it, felt her breath catch with admiration. It was not the sort of room that could possibly be used often nowadays, for the expense of maintaining it at the pitch of perfection was too great. But when it was used, and its lovely garlanded ceiling and gilded cornices proclaimed that the period when it had been added to the house was about the middle of the eighteenth century, then it provided a highly fitting background for graceful dancers.
Mallory assisted Mrs. Carpenter and her band of other helpers collected in the village to wash paintwork and polish delicate examples of Hepplewhite furniture mid remove the covers from damask-covered couches, and when all the hard work was done there only remained the actual decoration of the room. But that was to be left to experts, and in any case the dance was not to take place until a week after Miss Martingale had arrived back at Morven.
Mallory knew that inwardly, and very secretly, she rather dreaded her return, and it was not only because once that happened she would have to watch Raife Benedict and the famous ballerina disappearing into sheltered corners of the grounds probably on several occasions during each day and evening, and if she was summoned with Serena down to the drawing-room watch them looking at one another from time to time in the way two people do look when they plan to spend their future lives together.
She had seen scarcely anything at all of her employer since that night when they had walked together in the moonlit grounds, and he had saved her from falling down the steps into the rose garden. It was not that she made any attempt to keep out of his way, but if they did meet he always appeared preoccupied, and, according to Mrs. Carpenter, he spent hours at a time shut up in the library where no one ever dared to disturb him. And it seemed clear to Mallory that he was missing the warm society of Miss Martingale and the friends who seemed always to accompany her wherever she went—since, again according to Mrs. Carpenter, they always arrived with the dancer at Morven—and he had no desire even for the society of his niece, who was too thrilled by all that was going on around her to notice for once that she was being neglected by her adored Uncle Raife.
Their morning ride had not been repeated, and if he rode by himself Mallory hoped—and she knew it was absurd to feel so much anxiety about a man who would have been amused if he had guessed at it—that Saladin could now be trusted to behave himself, and that there was no danger of a repeat performance of the incident which had broken the master of the manor’s collar-bone for him, and kept him in bed for several days.
The day that Miss Martingale was expected back, Mallory withdrew into her-own sitting-room and shut the door even upon Serena. This time she was determined that she was not going to share a vigil with Serena and watch for the moment when the cars came gliding smoothly up the drive, and Sonia Martingale emerged on to the gravel sweep looking lovelier than ever and faintly triumphant because this was almost as good as coming home for her.
Serena watched with Darcy from the schoolroom window, which overlooked the drive, and Mallory sat with the Siamese kitten, Mark Anthony, on her lap, and wished for the first time since she had come to Morven that she had never seen or heard of the place, and that she was safely back in her own home with her mother and her two brothers and sister.
She was not actively unhappy—but she was very certain that before many more months had passed she was going to be actively unhappy unless she did something about it. And the only sensible thing she could do about it was to go away from Morven.
Raife Benedict had said something about her job being only temporary, and now that she recalled his words she was thankful for it. But she also felt as if her inside had become suddenly very hollow, as if it was weighted down with something not easily described as misery, and that she shrank from every passing footfall outside her door or commotion on the stairs, and wished with all her heart that the moment would not arrive when Serena came bursting in on her with the information that ‘she’ had arrived.
But, inevitably, Serena did come bursting in, and she was full of the exquisite elegance of Miss Martingale’s clothes, and the fact that this time Miss Martingale had brought her dog with her. Mallory decided that that was almost certainly the animal who licked her face in the mornings, and she was a little surprised when she encountered it for the first time to discover that it was a large and rather fierce-looking Alsatian.
Belinda took particular exception to a stranger dog of such splendid proportions and commanding appearance being allowed to take up residence in the living quarters at Morven, and in order to avoid any possible trouble Serena was forced to keep her pet enclosed within the safety of the nursery-wing, as it was called, and which contained her own apartments and Mallory’s and the schoolroom.
It was not so difficult to keep Belinda shut up— although she sent up protesting howls from time to time—but Mark Anthony, who was inclined to regard himself as a free rover, was an entirely different matter. Mark Anthony, when incarcerated in Mallory’s sitting-room, managed to escape by the open window and swarm down the drainpipe and in that way gain the outside world. But his satisfaction at having achieved something did not remain with him for long, for hardly had he arrived with all four chocolate-tipped paws firmly planted on the gravel of the pathway outside the drawing-room window that Miss Martingale’s Alsatian made his appearance in the window and took the greatest exception to him immediately.
Mallory, who was upstairs at the time, having just entered her sitting-room to look for her work-basket and repair a rent in Serena’s crisp summer dress, heard the altercation which began below the window, and as soon as she realized that Mark Anthony was no longer in the room she thrust her head out of the window and saw to her horror that the Alsatian had the little cat petrified with terror, and was advancing towards it menacingly.
She waited to see no more, but raced out of the room and down the stairs and out on to the path outside the drawing-room window where the contestants were still facing one another. But Mark Anthony had recovered a little of his courage and was uttering alarming noises which seemed to come from somewhere deep inside him, and he was getting ready to spit venom the instant the powerful dog moved. But Mallory had no intention of waiting to see what would happen when that moment arrived, and she darted forward and snatched Mark Anthony up just as the beautiful cream-coloured Alsatian leapt through the air and sent them both flying—Mallory miraculously avoiding crashing her head against a solid stone ornamental urn cascading brilliant blossom,
and Mark Anthony on a return journey up the drainpipe from whence he eventually reached the roof, where he once more started to use his lungs and filled the air with protesting yowls.
Mallory picked herself up shakily from the gravel path just as the Alsatian looked as if he was about to concentrate his entire attention upon her, and take another leap at her. But before he could do so Raife Benedict appeared in the opening of the drawing-room windows and with a harsh command sent the animal cowering away, after which he turned to Mallory with the utmost concern written all over his dark face.
She looked up at him vaguely, feeling slightly sick because she had badly bruised one of her elbows, and the thought that she might so easily have split her head open on the stone urn gave her a nasty, empty feeling inside.
But hardly had she answered automatically—as she had done once before—that she was all right, than she remembered the Siamese kitten, whose fate was unknown to her just then, and she said urgently:
“But, Mark Anthony...! Please! I don’t know where he is! Will you get him for me...”
“Never mind Mark Anthony,” he answered, almost brusquely. “Phipps can locate him and bring him in, but you—your arm is bleeding!” he exclaimed, the concern on his face growing. “Let me have a look at it, and don’t attempt to pull down your sleeve like that,” as she attempted to cover up the graze.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Just a scratch from the gravel, and there’s no need at all to make a fuss...”
“I’m not making a fuss! But that brute Ajax might have caused you a serious injury if by ill luck you’d hit that urn over there!” He glanced at the urn with a kind of bitter animosity on his face, and then turned as Sonia Martingale appeared at his elbow, and slipped a hand inside his arm.
“What is it?” she asked, in a cool, disinterested voice. “And Ajax is not a brute, Raife, and I really can’t have you calling him one!” She looked at Mallory as if she was making a mental effort to recall who she was and at the same time despising her for creating such an unpleasant scene right outside the drawing-room windows. “Honestly, darling, any dog will attack a cat, and your silly little Mark Anthony would have escaped unscathed if Miss—Miss Gower, here, hadn’t done such a foolish thing as try to snatch him up in front of poor Ajax’s eyes! It was simply asking for trouble—and, in any case, I don’t think the trouble is very serious.”
The Black Benedicts Page 11