“Well, the Professor began by saying what a dependable man he was, and that his word was his bond. He said there wasn’t a man living who could say he had let him down, and that he was a sure friend in trouble. Then there was some whispering from the other. I think he wanted to shut the door, and the Professor had his foot in the way. Anyhow he said he was just going, and grumbled about being turned out in the fog. He said it was as black as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat, and I remembered our old Scotch nannie saying that about a very dark night. Then there was some more talk-whispering on one side, and the Professor talking about the fog. And then he said, ‘All right, all right-I’m going! And I haven’t said I’ll do it yet, but I’ll give it my careful consideration and let you know.’ I’m not trying to do his Scotch, but I think I’ve got the words right. And then he went on-and I’m quite sure about this-‘But mind, you’ll have to think again-about the remuneration. I’ll not do it for any less than two thousand. It’s my neck I’ll be risking, and I’ll not risk it for a penny less than two thousand.’ And with that he came down the steps and went away up the road whistling, ‘Ye’ll tak the high road, and I’ll tak the low road.’ And I followed him.”
“Why?”
“He seemed to know where he was going, and I wanted to get away from that house and the whispering creature. But I don’t want him to know that I followed him, because then he would know that I could have heard what he said about risking his neck.”
“That frightened you?”
“It would have frightened you too if you had heard it, sitting in a slimy area in the middle of a fog.”
“It would certainly make it easier to put a sinister construction on the words. But you know, they might have had a perfectly innocent meaning. The Professor is in the show business. I gather he is what is called an illusionist, with a spot of hypnotism thrown in, and I daresay he is as phoney as you please. But don’t you see all that about risking his neck could apply to almost any dangerous stunt?”
“Two thousand pounds? I shouldn’t think that the price ran as high as that in the show business!”
“Well, what did you think at the time?”
“I thought he was being asked to get someone out of the way, and that he wasn’t turning it down-it was just a matter of whether it would be worth his while or not.”
“And now?”
There was quite a long pause. Then she said very low,
“I don’t know-I’m frightened-”
CHAPTER 14
The raindrops stopped pattering upon the pond and rushing down the windscreen. The clouds were lifting. Between them there appeared first streaks, and then a broad expanse of a pale, lovely turquoise, January’s gift to the English winter sky. Presently there was that clear shining after rain which makes amends for the wettest day.
They drove slowly back to Bleake, not talking very much but happy. Ione had a sense of release. She was ready to believe that it was the fog, the shaking she had just received, and her own sense of being lost which had given a sinister tinge to the Professor’s words. She was ready to believe anything so long as she didn’t have to see him again, or to listen to that rolling voice. It went through her mind that he had produced the story of the unknown Chinese mandarin-if by pressing a button you would cause the death of this person, and at the same time benefit three-quarters of the human race, would you, or would you not, be justified in pressing that button? And she remembered that Jim Severn had said, there in the fog, when they were huddled together on the stairs of the empty house and she was drowsing and waking against his comfortable shoulder-he had said that he felt pretty sure the button-pusher was really only interested in one member of the human race-himself.
A warm sense of security flowed between her and the recollection. She chose her friends with a sure instinct, and she always knew at once what the possibilities of that friendship were going to be. There were the people to whom you responded on the artistic, the practical, the purely personal side. There were the people with whom it was quite possible that you might fall in love, and yet at the same time there would be an inner conviction that you could not imagine spending your life with one of them. But with Jim Severn-this sense of intimacy and security. It was as if they had known each other for so long that the security was a thing tried and proved, and the intimacy a bond which could never be broken.
When they drove into the garage of the Ladies’ House-converted stabling, very roomy and spacious-Ione saw that Geoffrey’s car was out. He had said something about taking Allegra for a drive if it cleared, and she supposed that he had done so. Well, it was lovely now, with the clouds all drawn away to a rampart along the horizon and the whole sky of that magical rain-washed blue-
Jim Severn put a hand on her arm.
“Like to show me the gardens? Or is it too wet?”
She lifted a foot in a sensible country shoe for his inspection.
“It’s not the wet, but what Geoffrey will say. He’s sure to want to take you round himself.”
He laughed.
“Well, so he can. No need to tell him I’ve been round with you. It’s rather nice with everything clear and the trees dripping. Those birches look as if they had been strung with diamonds.”
They wandered down the terraces. Looking back at the house, Ione said,
“Do you know, the garden almost persuades me. Those Americans must have loved it a lot.”
“What became of them?”
“He was killed in the war, like the last male Falconer, and she went back to the States. End of a dream.”
“Yes.”
She turned to him abruptly.
“Don’t you see, the house is simply hung about with old sad stories. Allegra oughtn’t to have that kind of atmosphere. There’s the decaying family just petering out after five hundred years, and goodness knows how many crimes and horrors piling up all the way. If you are well, and happy, and strong-minded, you can take it all in your stride like Geoffrey does. But Allegra is neither well nor happy, and she certainly isn’t strong-minded. I can just see it seeping into her and getting her down.”
He said very gravely,
“You will have to say all that to Mr. Sanderson, my dear.” Ione took a moment before she said, “Yes.” She felt as if she had made a momentous decision, and that once made, she was pledged to it. A weight lifted from her spirits, colour came up in her cheeks, and she turned to him with a gaiety which surprised them both.
“I’ve been letting myself get too intense. I do when I haven’t got anyone to talk things over with. Come along and see the marvellous rock garden that the Americans made out of a disused quarry.”
She began to tell him about the trick Margot Trent had played on Geoffrey and herself the day before.
“It really was horrible. She took us in completely. And when we got to the foot of the cliff, there she was, roped to a tree near the top and laughing her head off.”
“Does she make her home permanently with your sister and brother-in-law?”
“Yes, she does. That is one of the things that worries me. She isn’t normal, and it isn’t good for Allegra, but there’s just nothing to be done about it. Schools won’t keep her, and Geoffrey seems to be the only relation she has got in the world.”
They were approaching the quarry from rather a different angle to that which she had taken with Geoffrey on the previous day. She began to point out how beautiful it would be when the aubrietia was in flower and the bare stems of the wistaria were clothed in their feathery green and the long drooping tassels of lavender and white. She had turned back to point to a clump of wanda primroses already in bloom, when she found that he had not turned with her. He was standing on a boulder above the path and staring in the direction of the cliff. Her own view blocked by a clump of rhododendrons, she had no idea of what he was looking at. She said, “Jim!” on a surprised note, and he jumped down from the rock.