The Black Benedicts

by Anita Charles

  The knock was not repeated, but the door opened, and as Raife Benedict stood looking with arched brows into the room Mallory made her escape from the arms that had held her imprisoned, and, darting a little towards him, she exclaimed with a sob of relief in her voice:

  “Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come! I—I...”And then as she saw he was looking at her with a cold and almost contemptuous look on his hawk-like face a flood of brilliant crimson rolled up over her face and neck, and she put both hands in a bewildered fashion up to her eyes and stood there for a moment in front of him as if she was quite despairing.

  Then she lifted her head from her hands, and without meeting his eyes she breathed in a husky voice quite unlike her own:

  “Do you mind if I—if I go back to my own room...?”

  “Not at all,” he answered, the note of ice in his voice causing her to wince inwardly.

  He stood aside from the doorway, and she passed him and fled along the corridor, feeling more abjectly humiliated and more bitterly, unhappy than she had ever felt in her life before.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The next day Mallory waited for the summons to the library which she felt certain would be the result of the night before, and although the morning passed without the expected tap on the schoolroom door followed by the appearance of Rose requesting her to go at once to the private and particular sanctum of the master of the house, it was not until late afternoon that the summons actually came.

  Then it was Mrs. Carpenter, and not Rose, who put her head round the school-room door and looked at Mallory a little oddly as she said:

  “Mr. Raife would like to see you in the library, Miss Gower, if you’ll go down.” She looked more severely at Serena, who, taking this as a signal that lessons were over for the day, was sweeping her school books together preparatory to tossing them into the cupboard where they lived when they were not in active use, and added with a much primmer note in her voice: “And you, Miss Serena, have been invited to have tea in the drawing-room by Miss Martingale!”

  “Oo, lovely!” Serena exclaimed, and barely waited for Mallory to give her permission before she scampered off to wash her hands and get Darcy to brush her hair.

  Mrs. Carpenter remained in the school-room for a few minutes longer, looking once again at Mallory, who she thought looked a little pale and unlike herself to-day.

  “I don’t suppose it’s anything very dreadful,” she said, with sudden sympathy, to the girl whose oddly frozen expression troubled her. “Mr. Raife can bite very hard when he feels like it, but I’m quite sure you haven’t done anything to cause him to be more than a little peevish.” It was her private opinion that ‘Mr. Raife,’ as she called him, was looking extremely peevish to-day, but she did not pass this information on to Mallory. “It’s all this upset in the house that’s getting on his nerves, and it’ll be a good thing in my opinion When it’s all over, and Miss Martingale gone back to Town.”

  But in the minds of both women, as they looked at one another, was the thought that Miss Martingale’s return to Town might very easily be the prelude to more lengthy visits to Morven—perhaps even a permanent visit!

  This was a thought which shook Mrs. Carpenter, for in that event it was fairly certain that her own days at Morven would be numbered, since the ballerina made no secret of the fact that she disliked the housekeeper—almost certainly because she was aware that the housekeeper disliked her, and, what was more, disapproved of her. But Mallory was in the state of mind when nothing greatly mattered to her, and whether or not Sonia Martingale became mistress of Morven, she knew that the day when she herself said good-bye to it could not be far distant.

  As she rose and mechanically tidied herself before making her appearance in the library, she was quite prepared to receive her dismissal on the spot.

  In answer to her nervous tap on the heavy oak door her employer called to her to enter. He was seated in his favourite position before his roll-topped desk, engaged apparently in sorting the evening’s mail, and he did not look up as he ordered her rather curtly to sit down.

  It was the kind of reception she had anticipated, and it merely made her go a little colder inside. She had made up her mind beforehand that there was little point in putting any blame upon Adrian—she did not blame him in her own heart, for, according to his lights, he had received encouragement from her, and it was she who was to blame for taking her employer’s request that she should be a little friendly to his brother rather too literally. She imagined he was furiously indignant, and she clasped her hands together tightly in her lap and waited for him to condemn her.

  But when he spoke at last, although his voice was forbiddingly cold, his words surprised her.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” he said. “I’m sure Adrian’s sorry, too—although his intentions were strictly honourable! He is very anxious to marry you.”

  “I—I know,” Mallory answered, and her voice was so dry that it was like la whisper of withered leaves in her throat.

  He glanced at her for an instant sideways. “But you are not anxious to marry him?”

  “No.”

  This time the leaves all but impeded utterance. He picked up a handsome gold fountain-pen and toyed with it while he spoke again.

  “I’m sorry for Adrian, because you appear to have a tremendous appeal for him, and his life has not been happy up to date. But if you do not return his interest and his attentions were thrust on you, as apparently they were, then I feel that as the head of the family I owe you an apology for what took place last night” He stood up and pushed back his chair and started to pace restlessly up and down the room, never once really looking deliberately at her, although he passed very close to her chair, and as she watched him with dull eyes once again the thought leapt to her mind that there was something pantherishly graceful in his agile stride. “It was my fault,” he concluded, “for asking you not to go out of your way to snub him if by chance he displayed a desire to talk to you when you were not otherwise occupied.”

  Mallory said nothing, only moistened her lips a little, and suddenly he turned and looked directly at her.

  “You’re quite sure you don’t wish to marry my brother? He’s not a poor man, you know—at least, he wouldn’t be if he desired to set up an establishment of his own. I would see to that. And at least you appear to have a great love of music, which is something you apparently have in common,” a curiously cynical twist distorting his lips.

  Mallory’s eyes betrayed a spark of indignation. If he thought that by offering to provide for her future and the future of his brother he would supply her with an inducement to consider marriage to the younger Benedict he was more or less offering her a direct insult. And the insult stung, and made her quiver inwardly.

  “I’m quite sure I don’t wish to marry your brother—quite, quite sure,” she answered, hoping the dismayed tremble was not noticeable in her voice.

  “In that case,” and she saw his eyebrows lift as he stopped again in front of her, “why did you choose to spend the evening with him last night instead of accepting an invitation which was sent to you to have dinner in the dining-room with the rest of us?” His tone was clipped, and cold, and condemning. “You allowed Serena to join us in the dining-room, but although it was actually your duty as her governess to attend her, you preferred to more or less ignore the invitation and slip up to Adrian’s room with the intention of spending several hours with him. He told me that you agreed to spend a musical evening together, and yet you expect me to blame him and him alone for what occurred last night, and exonerate you altogether. Well, I’m not at all sure that I feel like exonerating you!”

  His face was dark and almost frightening with anger, and she leapt to her feet and confronted him.

  “I don’t—I don’t expect you to exonerate me at all,” she cried, her sudden surge of anger and resentment almost as great as his own, “and in fact I realize perfectly that it was probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life t
o spend whole evenings in your brother’s room, although I honestly thought it was only his music he lived for, and I knew that he was lonely—terribly lonely! And downstairs you were none of you lonely—and the invitation to me to have dinner in the dining-room was issued only out of politeness, and I was well aware that Miss Martingale at least would infinitely prefer it if the governess kept her distance! Governesses do not fit in well with dinner parties, and it was Serena’s company that was desired—not mine! Serena is not a baby—she was able to behave herself without having me at her elbow, and in any case I couldn’t dress the part...”

  “What do you mean by that?” he asked, with upraised brows, as she paused for breath.

  “I have only one evening dress,” she answered at once, “and I have worn it on several occasions already. It would probably amuse Miss Martingale to see me wearing it again and again, but I— I have a little pride of my own...”

  She bit her lip so hard to prevent herself going on in the same manner that a tiny spot of blood spurted, and When she touched her lip shakily with her handkerchief the tiny square of cambric was marred by a faint smear of red.

  Raife Benedict’s strange sherry-brown eyes seemed to narrow a little.

  “You don’t appear to have a great deal of liking for Miss Martingale,” he observed.

  Mallory did not deny the charge, but at the same time she felt bitterly ashamed of herself because she had permitted that dislike to become evident. He probably despised her for her lack of control, and added to that she felt certain he must resent even the slightest criticism of his No. 1 guest.

  He turned away from her and walked to the window, looking out at the softened green lawns, with the slanting light of the setting sun gilding the edges of them, and the blithe figure of Serena suddenly appeared from the house and started to chase a butterfly over the velvet turf.

  “And what about to-morrow night?” he asked suddenly, without turning. “What are you proposing to wear for the dance to-morrow?”

  “Nothing,” she replied to this, without hesitation. “I don’t propose to be at the dance.”

  “I see.” He turned and surveyed her curiously, as if she interested him. “Then how will you spend the evening?”

  “I’ve promised to help Mrs. Carpenter in the kitchen, and by making myself generally useful. The maids are going to have a great deal to do, in spite of all the hired help, and an extra pair of hands will come in useful. Besides,” she added hastily, “in that way I shall hear the music, and see quite a lot of the dancing without...”

  “Without making your appearance in your one evening frock!” he finished for her, very dryly. “Very well—so long as I know exactly what you are doing, and there is no danger of a repeat performance of last night. Adrian is attending the ball as a buccaneer—a costume he fancied, even if the role is a little beyond him—and I fancy you will be quite safe from any attentions from him. But I should like to know exactly where you are, and what you are doing, at given periods throughout the evening.”

  “Very well,” she answered, almost meekly, and then felt more insignificant than she had ever felt in her life as he turned his back upon her deliberately and walked back to his desk.

  “You may go now, Miss Gower,” he said, almost casually, and without waiting for anything further from him she left the room with burning cheeks. But her hands were cold with humiliation as she started to climb the stairs.

  The whole of the next day until the dance started at nine o’clock there was no sense to be got out of anyone, certainly not Serena. She was so excited that by the time Mallory commenced to dress her she was already a little fractious, and Mallory thought how much wiser it would have been if, instead of being allowed to have a part in the dance itself, she had been given something extra tempting for her supper and allowed to sit up for about an hour beyond her usual bed-time and permitted to view the arrival of the guests. After that, securely tucked up in her own bed, she could not have missed hearing the lilt of the orchestra, and would probably have been lulled to sleep by it at last.

  Instead of which, because Miss Martingale thought it an excellent idea, and had adopted a policy of currying favour with the child, she was to be allowed up until goodness knows what hour, and the following day She would be so tired and cross that she would be well-nigh unmanageable.

  But when she was dressed she looked so delightful that Mallory had to tell her honestly that no one could look nicer, and that she would almost certainly be the belle of the ball. Then, after giving herself another lengthy admiring glance in the mirror, she hugged Mallory and told her that she was sorry she hadn’t got a fancy dress costume, too, and then pulled on her white lace mittens and tore downstairs as if she was anxious not to miss a moment of what was going on, looking exactly as if she had stepped out of one of Romney’s most enchanting studies.

  Mallory watched her go with a little twinge at her heart, because there were moments when she was quite sure Serena was fond of her, yet to-night she was quite happy to leave her alone upstairs. Then she told herself sternly that she was employed as a governess, and a governess’s role was not to seek to emulate the ways of those who employed her.

  She had dinner with Mrs. Carpenter in her little sitting-room, and as soon as dinner was over the guests began to arrive. The house was transformed by flowers, and in addition to Phipps in his best black there was a bevy of other men servants and hired waiters hurrying backwards and forwards from the domestic quarters.

  The drive, which Mallory viewed from her bedroom window, was lined with cars, and almost every one of the guests had taken advantage of the opportunity their invitation cards presented them with to don fancy dress. There were cavaliers and columbines, pierrots and shepherdesses, Cleopatras and Bonnie Prince Charlies, as well as more original and ambitious characters, and only the host apparently appeared to be in ordinary evening dress. When Mallory encountered him in the hall as she was carrying a tray of sherry glasses through to the buffet in the ballroom, he was looking his usual impeccable self in white tie and tails, but he made no attempt to join in the true spirit of the evening by adopting a gay pretence at disguise.

  He stopped short and looked at her with a sharp frown as she very nearly cannoned right into him with her tray of glasses, and as she apologized hurriedly Sonia Martingale came gliding sinuously towards him from the foot of the great carved staircase, looking the most alluring eastern houri it was possible to imagine. She was heavily made up, her eyes smeared with kohl, and her all but diaphanous floating trousers and breast-plates were scattered like star-dust with sequins. She slipped a possessive hand inside her host’s arm, but her eyes reflected a look of surprise.

  “But, darling,” She exclaimed, “what has happened to your costume? You were to be an Elizabethan like that ancestor of yours in the library, but here you are wearing ordinary evening things.”

  “As a matter of fact,” he answered, a little shortly Mallory thought, as she moved away from them. “I changed my mind about wearing fancy dress yesterday. I feel more like myself, and a trifle less conspicuous, as I am.”

  But by that time Mallory was out of earshot, and she did not hear Sonia’s rather wailing protest made in answer.

  Much later Mallory seized the opportunity to enjoy a brief period of rest and quiet inside Phipp’s pantry, normally a positive blaze of silver, although it was almost all being used to-night. She was sitting on a high stool and sipping a cup of strong coffee and listening to the delectable strains of a Viennese waltz, to which she imagined Raife Benedict and Sonia dancing with effortless grace, which readied her clearly from the ball-room, when a shadow appeared in the doorway, and she discovered that it was her employer who was looking in at her, a quite unreadable expression on his face.

  She put down the cup of coffee hastily—so hastily that it spilled into the saucer, and some of it splashed on to her dress—as if she had no right to it, and he observed in a very dry voice:

  “Trying to keep up your strength
on coffee? Surely Phipps could provide you with something more suited to the occasion than that!” Then he looked at her more closely, noting the rather pronounced pallor of her face—for she had been on her feet for quite a while now, carrying all sorts of trays, heavily loaded and otherwise—and as it was a warm night, and the pantry was rather airless, there was even a bead or two of perspiration on her ‘brow, and her hair formed moist, feathery curls about her face. “I want you to go upstairs and change into that grey dress of yours,” he said, “and then come down and join us in the ball-room. Will you do as I ask?”

  She looked at him in astonishment, for there was no arrogance in his voice—only something polite and rather earnest, as if he hoped she would do as he wished.

  “If—if I must!” she murmured.

  “You don’t have to, but I’d like you to,” he answered.

  “Very well,” and she slid from her stool and slipped past him in the doorway.

  She felt too tired to take very much pains with her dressing, but a dab of eau de cologne behind her ears and at her temples freshened her up considerably. When she crossed the hall to the corridor which led to the ball-room everything seemed suddenly very quiet, and when she reached the ball-room the reason for the quietness was explained to her at once.

  Couples were no longer dancing on the glistening floor, and instead they were all seated round it on the elegant chairs and couches, and the lights had been lowered. At one end something in the nature of a stage had been rigged up, with velvet curtains falling before it from ceiling to floor. Just as she entered the ball-room, tip-toeing softly because of the expectant hush, the curtains were just about to part and rise, and then the whole stage became softly flood-lighted and revealed an elegant backcloth, depicting a Grecian temple and a starry night sky.

  Then the flood-lighting was switched off, and a spot-light replaced it—a spot-light which focussed on and followed the movements of an exquisite graceful figure, clad in flesh-pink tights and a brief ballet costume, with slender, weaving white arms, and a coronet of silken black plaits wound about a perfect, patrician head.