Eric Haile’s dark eyes went dancing from face to face. They saw George Considine on the edge of embarrassment, a record in his hand. His wife, her attention caught by the rasp in the Professor’s voice, her hand at a fluttering end of hair, the desire to be helpful plainly written upon her face. It gave her rather the look of an anxious hen. Lila and Adrian bending over those eternal sketches. Amiable fellow, Adrian, but a bit of a bore. Come to think of it, so was the lovely Lila. Probably just as well. Beauty and brains would be a formidable combination-too formidable for Herbert Whitall. Sybil Dryden had had both. Wasn’t there something about ‘the monstrous regiment of women’? He thought the cap would fit her pretty well. But she could meet her match in Herbert. A cold devil-a cold, calculating, sneering devil. If he went on baiting Richardson, there would probably be a brawl. Better black them out.
He put on a magnificent orchestral record of a Bach toccata and fugue and turned up the volume control. An ocean of sound surged out and filled the room.
CHAPTER XII
It was at half past ten, when the Considines were saying goodnight in the hall, that Miss Whitaker came down the stairs in her outdoor things-dark navy coat, small navy hat, umbrella and handbag. She went up to Herbert Whitall and spoke to him in a low voice. No one could hear what she said, but everyone could see that he was not pleased. He frowned, set his thin lips in a disagreeable line, and said, ‘Very sudden, isn’t it? Suppose I say no?’
George Considine, who was the nearest, did hear that. He also heard the reply, in which Miss Whitaker’s voice was a little raised.
‘I should go all the same.’
She turned abruptly and went over to where Mabel Considine was winding her head in a wisp of scarlet chiffon and pinning an elderly Shetland shawl across her chest.
‘Mrs. Considine, I wonder whether you would kindly give me a lift as far as the village? I can catch the last bus into Emsworth. I have just had a telephone message from my sister. She is ill, and I think I ought to go to her.’
‘Oh, my dear-of course! But so late! And if you miss the bus-Are you sure you must go?’
‘Quite sure. My sister is all alone there with her little boy. And I shan’t miss the bus-there is plenty of time.’
Mabel Considine thrust her arms hurriedly into the sleeves of what looked like a gardening-coat, added a massive scarf in the colours of the golf club of which George was a member, and said good-night all over again.
The door was opened, admitting a gusty draught. Someone said it was blowing up for rain. Lady Dryden moved back towards the drawing-room. The door banged, and Professor Richardson was understood to say he must be getting along.
Adrian and Lila had remained in the drawing-room, where Eric Haile was stacking the records preparatory to putting them away in the study. As Lady Dryden came in, Lila got up. The moment which she always dreaded had arrived. It was bedtime, and Herbert would kiss her good-night. She said in a fluttering voice,
‘I’m tired-I think I’ll go up now-’
Aunt Sybil wasn’t pleased. She looked down her nose and said,
‘I think you had better wait and say good-night to Herbert,’ and all at once it came over Lila that she would have to. Because if she tried to go up now she might meet Herbert in the hall and have to say good-night to him there, and that would be much, much worse, because they would be alone, and when they were alone he kissed her in a way that was indescribably different and dreadful. A little shudder passed over her. She went to the hearth and stood there, holding out her hands to the fire.
She turned with a start as someone came into the room, but it was only Marsham to help with the records. It came to her to wonder what a man like Marsham would be like when he wasn’t being a butler. She had no idea why this thought should have come to her. He was a very good butler. Everything in the house went as smoothly as clockwork. But underneath, when he wasn’t making up the fire, waiting at table, drawing the curtains, and putting the cushions straight, what would he be like then?
It was only just lately that Lila had begun to have thoughts like this. They came to her sometimes when she looked in the glass and saw herself in one of her new frocks. No one who looked at her as she was looking at herself would know how she was feeling deep down underneath. So every now and then when she looked at somebody else-at Miss Whitaker, at Eric Haile, at Sybil Dryden, and, just now, at Marsham, she had a queer frightened feeling that perhaps they were really quite different underneath. Just as she herself was different and they didn’t know it.
Marsham came over to the fire, trimming it, pulling the logs together. He looked exactly as he always did.
And then Herbert Whitall came in, and she forgot everything else. Lady Dryden moved to meet him.
‘We were just waiting to say good-night. I’m taking Lila off to bed. Your country air makes us all sleepy.’
He smiled.
‘You mean my country air-or my country guests?’
‘My dear Herbert! The Professor is anything but soporific. Do you really enjoy quarrelling with him?’
‘Oh, immensely. You see, I have a number of things which he would give his eyes to get, so he crabs them. If he could persuade me that they were fakes, I should get rid of them, and then even if he didn’t manage to get them himself he wouldn’t be aggravated by seeing them in my possession. Even if he can’t persuade me, he can perhaps plant a thorn here and there, or at the very least he can blow off steam.’
She looked at him curiously.
‘And what do you get out of it?’
He laughed.
‘My dear Sybil-can you ask? What used you to get out of it when you came into a room and knew that none of the other women could touch you? Wasn’t it meat and drink to you to be envied and-hated?’
Under the impact of the past tense her features had sharpened. He smiled.
‘Pleasant-wasn’t it? Well, that’s what I feel like when I see Richardson, Mangay, and the others full of envy, hatred, and malice over my ivories. Petty of course, but that’s how we are. Any toy is good enough to fight over. And a thing that isn’t worth fighting for isn’t worth having.’
He looked past her at Lila. It was a long look without passion in it-the look of the connoisseur in the auction room, cold, appraising. As he came towards her, she felt sick and shaken. Now he was going to touch her, kiss her. She couldn’t scream or run away. If she did-would Aunt Sybil still make her marry him?’
His hand fell upon her shoulder. He bent and kissed her cheek.
‘Good-night, my lovely Lila. Sleep well and dream of me.’
It was over. Her heart always seemed to stop for the moment of the kiss. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe-everything in her was tight and cold. But now it was over.
She went upstairs with Sybil Dryden and said good-night. When five minutes had gone by it would be safe to lock the door. Aunt Sybil wouldn’t come back.
When the key had turned she took a long breath, tipped hot water into the basin, and washed away Herbert Whitall’s kiss.
CHAPTER XIII
For a time all the normal sounds of an occupied house went on-water running; a door opening and closing again; footsteps on the stair, on landing and passage; the sound of voices muted to the edge of what could just be heard; small hushed movements in this or that of the bedrooms; the shutting of a drawer; the click of an electric light switch. And then, with a gradual fading out of all these things, that curious transition state during which the silence of a house which is still awake passes imperceptibly into the silence of a house which is very deeply asleep.
It was just before this transition period that Marsham made his final round of the house. The windows had all been fastened hours before, and the front door locked when Professor Richardson had followed the Considines. He shot the two bolts, top and bottom, and turned into the passage dividing the rooms which looked out upon the gravel sweep from those which faced the terrace and the view.