'Very good. Then I shall sit here and howl like a wolf.'
Jane started to move to the door. A long, low, eerie howl broke from his lips. She came back.
'Are you going to sit down? Or will you have the second verse?'
Jane sat down, conscious as she did so of a feeling which, when she analysed it, she was disgusted to recognize as uneasiness. For the first time, she began to appreciate in this young man a something that was menacing to her peace of mind. She was not, perhaps, actually as the dust beneath his chariot wheels, but he had undeniably made her sit down when she did not want to, and it was disturbing to become aware that in one on whom she had been looking as a genial clown she had found a personality stronger than her own. He stood revealed as a young man who got what he wanted.
'If you like to make an exhibition of yourself—'
'I love it. Ah, here's your fruit salad. Eat it reverently. Three bobs' worth. And now about my reasons for parting company with the Princess Dwornitzchek. I left because I have a constitutional dislike for watching murder done – especially slow, cold-blooded murder.'
'What do you mean?'
'My father. He was alive then – just. She didn't actually succeed in killing him till about a year later.'
Jane stared at him. He appeared to be serious.
'Killing him?'
'Oh, I don't mean little-known Asiatic poisons. A resourceful woman with a sensitive subject to work on can make out quite well without the help of strychnine in the soup. Her method was just to make life hell for him.'
Jane said nothing. He went on. There was a brooding look in his eyes, and his voice had taken on an edge.
'How well do you know her?'
'Not very well.'
He laughed.
'If you want to know her better, go and see that play of mine. I've put her in it, hide, heels and hair, with every pet phrase and mannerism she's got and all her gigolos and everything, and it's a scream. Thank goodness she is – or was when I knew her – a regular theatre-goer, and she's sure to see it when she comes back. It'll take the skin off her.'
Jane was feeling cold and unhappy.
'You're very bitter,' she said.
'I am a little bitter. I was fond of my father. Yes, she's going to get a shock when she sees that play. I'm counting on it to have much the same effect as the one in Hamlet. There was a good dramatist, too, by the way – Shakespeare. But I'm afraid that's all it will do – give her a jolt. It won't cure her. She's past curing. The time I'm speaking of was years ago, but she's still at it.'
'At it?'
'Making a fool of herself with boys half her age. She was doing it when father was alive, and she's doing it now I suppose if we looked up the recent Von und zu Dwornitzchek, we should find he was a lad in the twenties with lavender spats and a permanent wave. She's undefeatable. She'll be just the same when she's eighty. Or maybe she'll decide to settle down before that, and I shall find myself with a step-stepfather half a dozen years younger than myself who looks like a Shubert chorus boy. When I saw Tubby a year ago, he seemed to think that everything pointed to a man named Peake, who apparently never leaves her side. I trust not. I have met this Peake once or twice, at parties and so on, and he appeared to me a most kickworthy young heel. But I'm afraid he's the next in line. He's just her type. But I mustn't bore you with this family gossip. Will you have a cigarette?'
He held out his case, and was surprised to see that his guest had risen and appeared to be making preparations for departure.
'Hello!' he said. 'The party isn't over?'
Jane was seething internally with an electric fury that made her want to scream and claw and scratch, but because girls of her class are taught to discipline their emotions, she forced a wintry smile.
'I must go.'
'Oh, don't go yet.'
'I must. I hadn't realized it was so late.'
'It isn't late. Three o'clock. The shank of the afternoon.'
'I promised I would be home early.'
'But coffee? How about coffee?'
'No, thanks.'
'Only one-and-six.'
'I don't want any coffee.'
'Well, it's all most upsetting. I had been looking forward to another couple of hours of this.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Still, if you must go, you must. And now to make plans.'
'Plans?'
'For our next meeting. When do we meet again?'
'I don't know. I'm never in London. Good-bye.'
'But listen—'
'I'm sorry,' said Jane. 'I can't wait. Thank you very much for everything. Good-bye.'
She was out of the room before he could push his chair back and get up. Reaching the courtyard a few moments later, he found no signs of her. He stood, looking this way and that, feeling a little bewildered. It might be his imagination, but it seemed to him that in her departure there had been something almost abrupt.
Remembering that there was a bill to be paid and that his absence might be occasioning the grillroom authorities anxiety and concern, he returned to his table, where he ordered coffee for one and an A.B.C. Railway Guide.
Sipping thoughtfully, he began to turn the pages till he came to the W's.
CHAPTER 6
JANE Abbot did not loiter on her homeward journey. She pushed her two-seater along at a rare pace. It ruffles a girl of sensibility, who shortly after breakfast has heard the man she loves called a twerp and a gigolo, to hear him, a few hours later, at luncheon, described as a kickworthy heel; and when a girl of sensibility is ruffled, she finds a certain release of spirit in ignoring the speed laws and keeping the needle up to the fifty-five mark. Teeth clenched and eyes smouldering, she sent her Widgeon Seven shooting through the quiet English countryside like a lambent flame.
The results of this whirlwind drive were twofold. It unquestionably relieved her feelings, and it brought her to Walsingford Parva, the little village that stood on the river-bank some half a mile from the gates of Walsingford Hall, so expeditiously that, glancing at her watch, she saw that she would have time to pay a brief visit to the houseboat Mignonette before going on to prattle and play clock golf with Mr Chinnery.
Halting the car at the gate which gave entrance to the water meadows, she hurried along the towpath, and was presently in sight of her objective.
The Mignonette, attached to the mainland by a narrow and rickety plank, lay off a willow-bordered field dappled with buttercups and daisies at a point where the stream widened out into a sort of miniature lagoon. It was a small squat craft; in its early youth a snowy white, but now, owing to never having received the lick of paint which it had been wanting for years, a rather repellent grey This dinginess of exterior, taken in conjunction with the fact that the low rail which ran round its roof was broken in places, gave it a dishevelled, dissipated appearance, as of a houseboat which has been out with the boys.
At the moment of Jane's arrival Adrian Peake was in the little saloon which was to serve him for the next six weeks as a combined living and sleeping apartment. He was prodding the bunk with a dubious forefinger, and there was on his beautiful face the unmistakable look of a man who has been let in for something unpleasant by a woman and has just begun to realize the magnitude of the unpleasantness of what he has been let in for. Passionately fond of his creature comforts, he was finding out that the houseboat Mignonette was no luxury hotel.
Adrian Peake was an extraordinarily good-looking youth, slender of build and rather fragile of appearance, with wistful expressive eyes which somehow seemed to emphasize and underline his fragility. Women thought him delicate, and often told him to sit quiet while they rubbed his forehead with eau-de-Cologne. The Princess Dwornitzchek thought he needed feeding up, and had been doing it for months with caviar and truite bleue and minced chicken and pêche Melba at the more expensive class of restaurant. But though he must have absorbed very nearly his weight in these delicacies, he went on looking wistful and fragile.
Tubby Vanringha
m, as we have seen, thought him a twerp. And though Jane Abbott had denied this hotly, the charge is one which should, perhaps, be weighed and inquired into.
Much would seem to turn on what a twerp really is. Adrian Peake was one of those young men, with whom London nowadays is so bountifully supplied, who live, like locusts, on what they can pick up. Sometimes they sell cars on commission, dabble in gossip writing, do a bit of interior decorating, make film tests which never come to anything and, if they can find somebody to put up the money, run bottle-party night clubs. But mostly they prefer to exist beautifully on free lunches, free dinners, free suppers and free cocktails with little sausages on sticks.
If 'twerp' is the correct word to describe one who acts thus, then unquestionably Adrian Peake was a twerp in good standing. It is significant, in this connection, to recall that Tubby's brother Joe had spoken of him as a heel, for, as all students of humanity are aware, a heel and a twerp are practically indistinguishable.
He had ceased to prod the bunk and was looking about him at the furnishings of the saloon, which were of a simple austerity which sent a chill down his spine, when Jane's voice brought him out on to the roof.
The sight of him, standing there gleaming in white flannel and the blazer of the dining club to which he had belonged at Oxford, completed the restoration of Jane's peace of mind. Joe was forgotten, and the poisoned dart which Tubby had planted in her bosom ceased to smart. Whatever slight defects of character Adrian Peake may have possessed, he was undeniably ornamental and, gazing at him, she was herself again. She marvelled how anyone, even a Theodore or a Joseph Vanringham, could possibly think him anything but perfect, and attributed their attitude to a sort of mental kink. It was a kink which she had noticed in some of the male guests at the Willoughbys' during that weekend which had brought him into her life. Men, it appeared, did not much like Adrian, and it showed, she considered, how crass and blind men as a sex were.
'Darling!' she cried.
'Oh, hullo,' said Adrian.
A slight sensation of flatness and disappointment came momentarily to mar Jane's mood of ecstasy. At a reunion like this, she had expected something warmer. It occurred to her that it might be pique at her belated arrival that was causing this lack of effusiveness. Adrian, she knew, was inclined to sulk a little on occasion. He was a ready pouter when things did not go just as he could have wished them to go.
'I'm terribly sorry I couldn't get here earlier, angel,' she said. 'I had to go to London. I've only just got back.'
'Oh, yes?'
'I had a luncheon engagement, and Buck wanted me to see a man for him who had sent him a hundred-pound bill he didn't think he ought to pay.'
This struck Adrian as a little odd. From the houseboat Mignonette an excellent view of Walsingford Hall was to be obtained, and he had been looking at it quite a good deal, thinking how rich its owner must be. The vast, salmon-hued pile offended every artistic instinct in him, and looking at it made him feel as if he were listening to an out-of-tune piano, but it suggested large sums of money in the bank. And he would have supposed that a man of Sir Buckstone Abbott's opulence would simply have tossed a trifling account like that to his secretary and told her to make out a cheque.
Then he reflected that it is always these very rich people who make the greatest fuss over small amounts. He could remember the Princess Dwornitzchek questioning a two-shilling cover charge with a passionate vehemence which had nearly wrecked one of London's newer night clubs.
'It must have been warm in London,' he said. 'Where did you have lunch?'
'At the Savoy Grill.'
Adrian winced.
'I had mine,' he said with gloom, 'at the Goose and Gander. Gosh!'
'Wasn't it good?'
'Garbage. Have you ever had lunch at the Goose and Gander?'
'No.'
'They give you ham and eggs. And what they do to the ham, to get it that extraordinary blackish-purple colour,' said Adrian, brooding coldly on the past, 'I can't imagine.'
Once more, Jane was conscious of that sensation of flatness. She had been looking forward to this moment for weeks, dreaming of it, counting the minutes to it, and now that it was here, something seemed to have gone wrong with it. She had pictured their conversation, after these weeks of separation, having something of a lyrical quality. This note had not yet been struck.
She fought the insidious feeling of depression gallantly.
'Oh, well, what does all that matter? You're here. That's the great thing. Come on down.'
'All right. Stand clear.'
He jumped with a lissom grace, floating down to her side like something out of the Russian ballet. They walked away, and came through buttercups and daisies and the meadowsweet that lay in their path like snow to a small spinney fragrant with the warm scent of ferns and blackberries.
'I say,' said Adrian, who had been wrapped in thought, 'are there mice on that boat?'
Jane was gallant, but she could not fight against this. Depression had its way with her.
'I don't know. Why? Would you like some?'
'I thought I heard a scratching noise.'
'Probably just rats.'
'Rats!'
'Water rats. I believe they use the Mignonette as a sort of club.'
Adrian turned and subjected the Mignonette to an anxious scrutiny. His sensitive features were a little twisted, and his wistful eyes sadder than ever. He was telling himself that he might have expected this sort of thing from that raffish, out-at-elbows pleasure craft.
'Rats?' he said thoughtfully. 'I wonder if any of them have died on board.'
'Do you want to send a wreath?'
'I noticed a smell in the saloon.'
'What sort of smell?'
'A funny smell.'
'Well, we all like a good laugh, don't we?'
'I believe those sheets are damp.'
'They're not.'
'They felt damp. And the bunk's very hard.'
Jane's hair was not red, but she had a red-haired girl's quick temper.
'The Mignonette isn't the Princess Dwornitzchek's yacht.'
Adrian stared.
'Eh?'
'I hear that's one of your favourite haunts.'
'Who told you that?'
'Her stepson. Tubby. He's staying at the Hall.'
'What?'
'Didn't she tell you?'
'She did say he was staying down in the country somewhere, but I wasn't paying much attention.'
'Odd. I thought you hung on her lips, eager to catch her lightest word.'
Jane gave a little shiver of shame. Before her eyes there had risen a vision of Joe Vanringham, looking at her with an eyebrow cocked and a mocking smile on his lips. A remark like that was just the sort of remark which would have excited his derision. And though she had blotted out Joe Vanringham from her life for ever, she did not like to see visions of him grinning at her. It is not pleasant for a girl to be grinned at by wraiths from the underworld.
Her words excited in Adrian Peake, not derision but concern. He became plaintive:
'Jane, darling! What's the matter?'
'Oh, nothing.'
'But there is. You're funny.'
'Like the smell in the saloon.'
'Jane, my sweet, what is it? Do tell me.'
All the brightness had gone out of Jane's afternoon. Long after she had supposed its venom impotent, that poisoned dart of Tubby's had stabbed again, like a dying snake taking a last bite.
'Oh, it's nothing. Just an idiotic thing Tubby said to me.'
'What?'
'Oh, nothing. He was just drivelling. Are you very fond of the Princess?'
'Not so very.'
'Then why do you spend weeks on her yacht?'
'Oh, well. She invited me.'
'Her invitations aren't royal commands, are they?'
'No, no, of course not. But I couldn't very well get out of it. These rich women so easily take offence. One has to be diplomatic.'
'Oh,
Adrian!'
'I didn't want to hurt her feelings. She's a well-meaning old thing.'
'Not so very old. And not so very well-meaning. And I shouldn't think you could hurt her feelings with an axe.'
'Jane, darling, what's all this about?'
Jane melted. Her little gusts of temper were always like summer storms that quickly blow themselves out and leave the sky blue again. She perceived that she had been allowing her baser nature to come to the surface.
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'We're having what's technically known as a lovers' tiff, aren't we? It's my fault. I'm being a pig. I don't know why I'm talking like this. Original sin, or something, I expect. But it's your fault, too, really, my poppet. You're spoiling all the fun. It's a bit hard on a woman when she comes wailing for her demon lover, and finds that all he can talk about is mice and smells and damp sheets. Why not tell me you're glad to see me again?'
'But of course I am.'
'And it doesn't matter if the Mignonette is a bit uncomfortable? Can't you put up with a little discomfort for the sake of being near me?'
'But I'm not near you. I'm stuck away in a beastly boat, and you're up at the house. I should have thought it would have been so simple to have got your father to invite me to the Hall.'
'Not so simple as you think.'
They had sat down in the warm quiet of the spinney Jane plucked a fern and twisted it round her finger.
'Hold your nose still. I want to tickle it. How brown you are.'
'When I was at Cannes last summer,' said Adrian proudly, 'I got brown all over.'
'Were you at Cannes last summer?'
'Oh, yes. All August and most of July.'
'I'd love to have seen you paddling, with your little spade and bucket' Jane paused. 'But of course, I remember, you were on the yacht.'
'Er – yes.'
'You and your yachts! You and your Princess! I wish you wouldn't see so much of that woman, Adrian. It gives idiots like Tubby a chance to be idiotic.'
Adrian sat up.
'What was it Tubby said?'
'Well, if you really want to know, he's got the impression that you're engaged to her.'
'Engaged to her!'
'I told you he was just drivelling.'
'It's an absurd lie!'