“Derek,” she said, “I want you to find Mark and see that he takes one of the dowagers in to supper. I’m sure that he’ll get hold of a pretty girl if we don’t watch him.”
Derek agreed with a sigh.
“All right, Olivia.” He turned to Lois. “We’ll go in a little later, please The third dance after this one, what?”
Lois saw Olivia’s face harden.
“Unless you ought to take in one of the guests,” she suggested.
“I’ve done my duty,” he replied. “This is the first dance I’ve had with you.”
Lois was silent for a moment.
“Make it the fourth from now,” she said.
Olivia was at that moment claimed for a dance. But as she danced she kept her eyes open. She saw Mark lead into the supper-room a matron of the county.
“That’s all right,” she said to herself.
She saw Derek dancing with the matron’s daughter.
“That’s all right too,” she said. “Now whom has Lois picked up?”
But she could not see Lois anywhere.
“And that’s all right,” she concluded, and began to dance with enjoyment.
But Olivia managed her house. Mark, after supper, would clamour for a hefty cigar, and would seek the privacy of his library in which contentedly to smoke it. And Heaven knew whether in the general upset of the evening the fire in that unused room had been tended. So after the next dance she hurried across the hall to the library. The better to ensure the room’s exclusion, no lights were to be burning in it beyond the firelight. Yet when Olivia opened the door, a light was burning at the very end of the room in a bay made by the projecting bookcases. Olivia no doubt made a trifle of noise as she opened and shut the door behind her. And she had just time to see a flicker of pale green — a dress and a satin slipper pushed back with the instep bent, as though someone seated in a chair was bending laboriously forward over some work at the table. Just for a second she saw ripples of pale green like sea-water in a shallow, and then suddenly there was a tiny click. The light in the alcove vanished. The library was in darkness but for the ripe glow of the fire upon carpet and rug.
Olivia stood stock-still. What in the world was the meaning of that, she asked herself? There was no doubt who was in the alcove at the end of the room. But why should Lois switch off the light in a hurry — in a panic because she had heard the door open and shut? Olivia waited just inside the door, seized by an odd kind of excitement. She was expectant of she knew not what; and the longer she stood in the darkness and waited, the more tense her expectation grew. Olivia actually held her breath that she might listen the better. But she heard nothing; the girl in the alcove was modulating her breathing too, no doubt was listening to make sure whether someone had looked into the library and gone away — or had looked into the library and remained. But why? Was it possible — the question flashed into Olivia’s mind — that Lois was not alone in that hidden corner of the house? Olivia had not seen Derek during the last dance. Was he there with Lois? Were they together, huddled in the darkness in doubt whether they were alone again — in a panic lest they had been caught?
A cruel little smile distorted Olivia’s face. For nothing in the world would she move now. This was her house. Youth had more of freedom in these days, but there were still standards of conduct. And the breach of them was still visited upon the woman — happily, thought Olivia. She had the right to send any girl packing, whoever she might secretly be — if she caught her amongst the vulgarities of an intrigue. The moment must come when they would move. Olivia stood with her fingers on the switch ready to flood the room with light at just the right moment. She stood with her senses so concentrated that the crash of a lump of coal falling from the grate upon the hearth startled her like an explosion.
Did it startle the guilty couple in the alcove too, so that they must clap hands to their mouths to cover a cry? Olivia had persuaded herself that there were two of them now. The greater therefore was her disappointment, when one alone moved slowly forward into the mouth of the alcove, and looked about the room — Lois. Her eyes travelled to the door by which Olivia stood, her dress of flame-coloured taffeta relieved against the dark bindings of the books; and suddenly Lois stiffened. She stepped forward in a flurry into the firelight, and was suddenly aware that she had made a mistake which was fatal. For nothing in the world should she have moved and left her table as it was. Olivia switched on the light; and the girl and the woman stood watching one another like antagonists in an arena.
Olivia moved towards the bay, stopped suddenly, and turned with a little cry of amazement at the impertinence of this girl. For Lois had started swiftly back as if she meant to stop her by force. Lois checked herself, however; and turned back to the fire.
“I am alone,” she said.
From the spot which she had reached Olivia could see that the corner by the window was empty. Yes, certainly Lois was alone. Why then had Lois had that first quick impulse to hinder her? What secret did that corner hide?
Olivia walked back to the fire-place. Now that she stood side by side with Lois, she could see that the girl was trembling from head to foot.
“It’s very curious, isn’t it, Lois?” she asked.
But Lois would not help her by asking in return what was curious. She stood with her eyes upon the red coals and suddenly she shuddered violently.
“I’m afraid that I have a chill,” she said in a low voice.
“Oh, no! It’s not a chill. People don’t tremble like that from a chill,” Olivia answered coldly.
Again Lois did not help her by any argument. She stretched out her hands and took hold of the mantel-shelf; Olivia noticed that she clutched it. She noted a foot upon the fender. Olivia saw that it still shook.
“It’s curious that a young lady so popular and so very charmingly dressed should hide herself away in a corner of an empty room during a dance.”
There was no answer.
“It’s still more curious,” Olivia continued, “that the moment anyone else opened the door, she should turn off her light in a panic.”
Lois lifted her head.
“I am afraid that I can do nothing which is right,” she said, and Olivia laughed.
“I really shouldn’t take that tragic tone,” she answered disdainfully.
She was conscious that she had the mastery of the girl who had upset the pleasant order of her life and made her a stranger in her own house. Lois was actually trembling before her; she was afraid. Olivia looked her over in her dainty equipment and savoured a sharp new pleasure. She was repaid for these months of humiliation. There she stood, decked out in her pretty clothes, and abjectly afraid, like a child who is going to be punished. Olivia’s eyes narrowed and she smiled.
“You can certainly do one thing which is extremely right,” she said. “You can go back at once to the ball-room.”
It was a command, not a request, and it was precisely the command which Lois dreaded at that moment more than anything else in the world. She hadn’t a doubt that if she obeyed and went out of the room, if the door closed upon her, very few seconds would pass before the light above her table in the corner would be burning again. Yet how could she refuse? She had a desperate thought of saying: “Yes, but I’ll put my table straight first.” It would take a moment only to place a book on a shelf. If the book did not belong to that shelf, had a definite place upon another shelf in another part of the room — that might easily escape notice.
“But if I do act like this, I shall call Lady Olivia Thewliss’ attention to what I am doing. She won’t understand. But she’ll be puzzled and she’ll set herself to find out.”
Lois could see no escape, unless chance served her. She blamed herself for one unnecessary blunder. She had chosen the best time, she had not a doubt of that. There had been a moment when she had considered waiting until the house was asleep and the lights out. But the danger was greater that way. Someone might be still awake, however late the hour. A light s
een flashing from a window, her step heard upon the stair, the bark of a dog — and she would have been caught without an excuse. These minutes when Mark Thewliss was at supper and the room reserved for him — that had been the likelier way. But she had switched the light off in a panic — that was the stupid blunder, and she must pay for it or chance must serve her.
“Well?” said Olivia. She was at her ease now, more than at her ease. Some little strain of cruelty, hidden even from herself until this moment, made her contemplate the girl’s distress with a delicious enjoyment. “Are you going to do what I wish? I am asking nothing more from you than I have a right to ask.”
“Yes,” Lois answered. “I am going.”
She walked slowly and reluctantly towards the door; and before she reached it chance played her its worst turn of all. For it was opened from the outside and Mark Thewliss stood upon the threshold. His face broke into a smile.
“Why, the whole family’s here, neglecting its duties,” he cried, and it is difficult to conceive any more inopportune remark. “Ouf!” he added, dropping with relief into a big chair. “I’m going to smoke a very large cigar. Lois, will you give me one?”
Lois fetched the box from a sideboard and placed an ash-tray and a stand of matches on an occasional table at his elbow. She hardly knew what she was doing, her head so span and such a fever of anxiety burned in her. Olivia had already moved across the room to the corner, and whilst Mark was selecting a cigar from the box which she held for him, she heard the snap of the light switch. The light was shining now down upon her writing-table. Lois replaced the cigar box, and returning to Mark’s side, struck a match, stooped and held it to his cigar. And still no word was spoken in that corner of the room. But Lois heard the pages of a book rustle, and her heart leapt and stopped.
Mark inhaled the tobacco and settled back in his chair, surveying this big daughter of his with delight. He had never felt so much pride in her, so much tenderness for her as at this last moment, before pride and delight and tenderness all crashed down in misery.
“Do you know that Derek’s searching the whole house for you, Lois?” he asked. “I don’t wonder one little bit. There’s not a girl here who can hold a candle to you.”
“Gibe, gibe, gibe,” Lois returned, counterfeiting, not very successfully, a playful mockery. “You’re jeering at me.”
“Not a bit of it. In that green frock you’re a nymph fresh from the seas,” he answered, and then at last Olivia’s voice broke in.
She was coming across the room, holding in her hands a book from which a sheet of white note-paper protruded.
“All the more odd, therefore,” she said, “that Lois should choose this particular time to study the plays of Mrs. Aphra Behn.”
Olivia had drawn a bow at random, and she had pierced a heart. She should have been happy. She was appalled. For the heart which she had pierced was Mark’s. She saw him staring at the book she held like a man who knows that some irremediable calamity has befallen him, and yet will not accept it. He stretched out a shaking hand and after failing twice to speak, whispered in a broken voice she had never heard before:
“Give it to me! Give it to me!”
Olivia put the book in his hand. He did not look at her. He looked at no one. There was stealth in the eager avoidance of his eyes. A stranger would have thought that if anyone were guilty of treachery, it was he himself. His fingers fumbled at the pages as though they were numbed with cold, and the sheet of paper fluttered down upon the floor. There it remained. There it might have remained for God knows how long. For Mark did not dare to touch it and Olivia was still held fast in a dreadful spell by the spectacle of the misery her words had caused. But suddenly Lois moved very swiftly. She stooped on a knee and picked the paper up and laid it on the open pages of the book before his eyes. She stood up again, very quiet, and her face like a white mask with a pair of burning eyes. All her agitation had gone from her. In the anticipation of peril she could feel her heart flutter and sink, her legs give beneath her as though her bones melted into water. Now that the peril had become actual disaster she was cold and firm as ice itself.
“Of course it was a joke you were playing on me. You wanted to frighten me...and for a moment, upon my word, you did.”
The words came falteringly from Mark Thewliss’ mouth, whilst his gaze wandered from this to that figure in the carpet’s pattern. No one heard the door open or was aware that Derek Crayle now stood within the room. No one heard the door close again, for, aware at once that some grave business was in debate, he shut it behind him ever so noiselessly.
“That’s just what it was, of course — a laugh at my precautions,” Mark continued.
“No.”
“But I’m sure of it. Nothing else would be endurable.”
It was a prayer he was uttering, a prayer winged on a tremulous weak laugh. Olivia was mortified by it horribly. Here was her giant of a man changed into a craven. She felt that she would never get the odious scene out of her memories.
“No,” Lois repeated; and Mark lifted his eyes to her with so sharp a look of pain in them that it must surely bring her to her knees.
But Lois would not see. The truth was out, and nothing could bury it again. Her life at Upper Theign was broken off to-night. She threw her thoughts forward and imagined them, Olivia, Mark, Derek Crayle and herself, sitting together at meals with the spectre of her crime a fifth at the table, keeping them company as they walked, making all their talk a formality and an effort. The pretence could not last for a week.
“No. I was in dead earnest,” she said.
“This is your handwriting, Lois?”
Mark’s voice was growing stronger at last.
“Yes.”
Now a note of anger was heard.
“You were going to sell it?”
“To Hoyle.”
It seemed that the name uttered in so matter-of-fact a tone restored Mark Thewliss. He rose up from his chair and stood erect.
“Face me, if you can,” he cried, and catching Lois by the elbow he swung her round.
His face was terrible in its wrath. Olivia feared that he would strike the girl to the ground. But Lois did not shrink from him. She turned and looked him in the face.
“A fine return you make to me,” Mark began — and broke off.
He would not charge her with ingratitude, would not heap up the items of his kindness. He would spare himself that want of dignity. Moreover, just at that moment Derek Crayle thought it time to intervene. He moved forward and joined the little group.
“Derek!” cried Mark. “You here? It’s as well,” and the blood rushed into Lois’ face, and for the first time she bent her head, so that her eyes might not meet Derek’s gaze.
“Look,” continued Mark, and he held out the sheet of paper to his partner.
“Lois robbed me,” he cried in a gust of anger and grief. “My stolen formula.”
And Lois in her turn struck, capping his accusation.
“Yes, and my mother’s stolen happiness. And my stolen birthright. And you, my father, robbed us.”
To the other three in the room the words were little less than appalling. They stood dismayed, confounded. Yet the young, hard voice had uttered its challenge without a trace of Mark’s violence. Not a tremor of passion shook it. The words dropped one after the other icy-cold, icy-clear, and for a while no other word was spoken. Then with a gasp Mark Thewliss asked in a whisper — and how foolish and trivial the question sounded:
“Then you know — ?”
“I have known for eight years. I was just sixteen when Henry Perriton told me that I was your bastard. It’s true,” she added with a wintry smile, “that Henry Perriton was in a bad humour that morning.”
Again silence followed upon her words, but this time it did not last. There came suddenly a noise of voices. The door was opened, and the music of a dance lilted through the opening and filled the room.
“It’s all right! The room’s lit up,” a youn
g man exclaimed as, followed by another youth and a girl, he entered the room. But even the most impervious man that ever breathed could not but have realised that something here was gravely amiss.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said to Mark Thewliss. “We oughtn’t to have barged in here.”
For a second or two Thewliss gazed at him blankly, and then recognised him for the son of a neighbouring squire.
“That’s all right, Hammond,” he said, and managed to produce a smile. “Come straight in!”
Young Hammond’s eyes fell upon Lois.
“Oh!” he exclaimed reproachfully, “I have been looking for you everywhere.”
But Derek took a step and hid Lois from him.
“I’m sorry, old man. But Miss Perriton promised to have supper with me during this dance. I came here to fetch her.” He had a suspicion that Lois, calmly though she spoke, was nearing the limits of her strength. She was very white. “Let us go!” he said.
For a moment she stood undecided. Then he felt her hand tremble on his arm and cling as though she feared that she would fall. There was a look of wonder in her eyes, as he led her straight from the room.
“That was kind,” she said gratefully when they stood together in the corridor.
“Kind—” Derek dismissed the word contemptuously. “Kindness is a word for acquaintances.”
Lois stood and gazed at him whilst the wonder grew in her eyes and the hardness died out of them. Her hand tightened on his sleeve and at last her voice broke.
“Oh, thank you, Derek,” she whispered, and snatching her hand away she hurried to the foot of the stairs and thence ran up to her room.
Derek Crayle was taken by surprise. She was gone before he could stop her. He drove his hands ruefully into his pockets.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 609