He hung up and turned to Kate. “Damned efficient idiot—”
She was not there. She had slipped away into the twilight as though she were made of mist. He strode from the room through the door where she had stood and went down a wide stone corridor into the far end of a passageway. The place was empty and his footsteps echoed as though he were alone in the castle. He looked about the vast spaces now sinking into the shadows of approaching night. By what outer door had she escaped and how could she have gone so far? He listened and imagined that he heard voices too distant to be recognized, a man’s voice and then a soft answering voice. He went to the far end of the hall and opened a small wooden door bound in iron. It gave onto a short passage and there another door stood open, this one wide and heavy, and facing a wall. He went out and found himself in a dim street of cobblestone, stretching in both directions. At one end he saw a winding staircase of huge blocks of wood leading to an upper floor in one of the towers. Near the foot of the staircase two figures were silhouetted against the light of an old iron lantern swaying from a beam, the thin bent figure of Wells and near him Kate, leaning against a gnarled oak tree, her arms folded across her breast.
He stood for a moment, seeing them like ghosts in the setting of history. This narrow cobbled street between low stone buildings — here, he supposed, the servants of kings had lived, the maids surrounding queens and carrying on their secret hidden life in the vicinity of the great. Wells could have lived in any age, a thousand years ago as today, and Kate, who so short a time ago in the library had seemed miraculously near and real — it took no reach of the imagination to see her long ago in this very spot. He felt suddenly chilled and alien and was about to return to the great hall when she saw him. She nodded to Wells, who left her and went up the stairs while she walked surefooted on the cobbles now growing damp with dew.
“Can I help you, Mr. Blayne?” she inquired as she drew near.
“No, thank you, Miss Wells,” he replied.
“Then we had better go in. There’s rain in the air.”
She led the way and he could only follow until in the great hall they hesitated, she not knowing what to say, he determined not to speak. She moved to light the tall candles on the table. Her face was lovely in the flaring candlelight, a girl’s face, very young and intent. … Twenty-four candles in all, he counted, and she was now on the fourth.
“And do you love Louise?” she asked, in a cool voice as controlled as the hand that held the long wax taper.
“That, Miss Wells, is not for me to say now, but what I shall say is that I am just beginning to know something about the difference between a merger and a marriage.”
“I don’t know what a merger is, at all,” Kate said honestly.
Thirteen more candles to go. … She was lighting them slowly, taking pains to see that the wicks were cleaned of ash and that the flames burned bright.
“A merger,” he said absently, his eyes upon the slender white hand that tended the candle, “a merger is the union of two firms. It has nothing to do with marriage, except in such cases as my own, where it happens there is a son in one firm and a daughter in the other. My father has the biggest steel company in — oh, hell, never mind. Her father has the biggest coal company. I told you all this, didn’t I? And coal and steel — they go together like — love and marriage, as the song goes. Now you know what a merger is. Understand it?”
She lit the eighteenth candle. “Yes.”
He stood up and leaned both hands on the table. “I’m glad you understand, for suddenly I don’t. None of it makes any sense to me at this moment. Does it to you, really?”
She answered gravely, intent upon her task. “Yes, of course it does. … In England the prince marries the princess. Only it’s not called a merger — it’s called a marriage of convenience. Oh yes, we’re quite accustomed to that sort of thing.”
She lit the last candle as she spoke. He did not hear her. He was gazing at the lighted candles, her face glowing between them.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she said, and lingered upon the question.
He sighed and straightened himself and stood for a moment, half-bewildered. How could he keep her here? How could he explain — but what had he to explain? His glance fell upon his briefcase, dropped when he came in and forgotten. He crossed the room and, hesitating, opened it.
“I have some photographs I brought to show Sir Richard,” he murmured. “You might like to see them, too.”
He came to the table where she stood watching him. He spread them before her. “They’re Connecticut. The landscape isn’t too different from England, as you see — a bit more rugged, perhaps — rocks and stone walls. The castle was to stand on this low hill above the river, the forest in the background. … There’s the sketch. I made it myself, imaginary, of course.”
He shuffled several sketches. “Here it is, the great hall. … Pretty good since I hadn’t seen it, don’t you think? Even to the chandelier—”
She saw the castle there in Connecticut as though it were a dream in a far country. The great hall was full of strangers, Americans, gazing up at the beamed ceiling. They were sketched in, tiny figures, blank faces.
“That chandelier,” she said suddenly, “it isn’t just a chandelier. You’ll have to be careful about people standing under it. It makes me shiver to think of it.”
“Why?” he asked.
“It’s dangerous,” she said in a half whisper. “It has a voice, Lady Mary says. ‘I’ll drop it — I’ll drop it.” She imitated a faint far-off voice with a Scottish accent.
“Ah, don’t laugh,” she cried, when she saw him smile. “Lady Mary insists she’s heard it.”
At this he laughed aloud, diverted. “What an attraction for the tourists! And have you heard this voice?”
“No, but I’ve seen the chandelier shiver and shake until the crystals sing!”
“You’re not serious!”
“Perhaps I am—”
“Come now — look into my eyes and tell me the truth!”
He seized her by the shoulders, still laughing. She was half laughing, by now, but before she could reply they heard the strong steps of booted feet and Sir Richard stopped in the doorway and stared at them. John Blayne dropped his hands and Kate stepped back.
“I’ve just put an idea to Mr. Blayne,” she said.
“Indeed!” Sir Richard did not change his expression.
It was not enough to placate him, she could see, and she hurried on. “I suggested that he consider again the idea we had at first — to make the museum here, you know, Sir Richard.”
Sir Richard lifted his heavy eyebrows, came in and stood beside them. “And what did he say this time?”
She glanced at John Blayne. “He refused again — not yet, anyway.”
Before John Blayne could speak, Lady Mary entered. She had changed her tweed suit to a long gown of pale gray satin with a ruff of white lace and had touched her cheeks with rouge, a lovely, fading rose.
“Wherever have you been, Richard?” she inquired in her sweet childlike voice. “I’ve been fearfully worried about you. And what are you doing here? And in your riding things at this late hour? It’s nearly time for dinner and Wells will be cross if we’re late. We’re dining in the small hall, Richard.”