Linnet Oakley sat looking into her mirror with frightened eyes. She was dressed, but she didn’t know even now whether she meant to go or not. She had not been in the same mind about it for half an hour at a time all the day, or all the night, or all the day before, or all the night before that.
Sometimes she saw herself going-getting into the car, driving a little way, getting out again, going into the Grange, which was a strange house of which she could make no picture-and she felt she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t go into that house and meet Glen. She couldn’t touch his hand. Perhaps he would take her in to dinner… She couldn’t, couldn’t do it-not with Martin there-not with Martin looking on.
Sometimes she saw herself staying at home-saying she felt faint, saying she had a headache. But Glen would know it wasn’t true. Martin would go without her, and how did she know what Glen would do or say? He might be angry… The something inside her which never stopped shaking shook a little more at the thought of Glen’s anger. And Martin would want to know why she had a headache, why she felt faint. He wouldn’t be angry-Martin was never angry with her. He would be kind. And if he was kind, she wouldn’t be able to help crying, and then, however hard she tried, she wouldn’t be able to help telling him.
Something called out in her, “No-no-no!” She saw Martin turning her out. She saw herself in the street, in the dock, in prison-quite cast off, quite ruined, quite lost.
She stared into the glass and saw her own reflection in rose and silver. Hooper was a good maid. The fair hair had been made the most of, the delicate make-up had been applied with artistic discretion. It seemed impossible to believe that that pretty tinted image really belonged to the trembling, hunted creature she felt herself to be. In some very feminine way it gave her courage. The things that were frightening her so much didn’t seem to have anything to do with that picture in the glass. It was the first time she had worn the dress. It was very becoming. The new lipstick was just right with it, and the nail polish. She pushed back the dressing-stool and stood up to get the full-length effect. The line was perfect.
Hooper put one drop of her own special scent on a tiny handkerchief and gave it to her. It was a new creation-faint, fresh, delicious. Then she remembered that it was called Souviens tu? She put out a hand to the dressing-table to steady herself. She couldn’t go-she couldn’t stay-
Martin Oakley came into the room, frowning.
“Damned nuisance having to go out! A nice quiet evening at home-that’s what I feel like.”
She managed a smile for him. The discreet Hooper had vanished.
“Do you like my dress?”
“It’s the one I always do like, isn’t it?”
“Silly! You’ve never seen it before. It’s new.”
“All right, let’s have a look. Turn round!”
She did a graceful dancing turn and dropped into a curtsey.
“Do you really like it?”
She didn’t need to ask-not when he looked at her like that. He put both arms round her and held her close. The terrible trembling was stilled. She could go with Martin. Martin would take care of her. She needn’t be frightened any more. Martin wouldn’t let anyone hurt her.
Chapter XV
Dorinda followed the Oakleys into the big old hall with its great beams, its deep roomy hearth, and jutting chimney-breast. A log fire burned between iron dogs. The old flagstones under foot were softened by rugs, the sconces on the panelled walls now held electric candles. Otherwise she was seeing what any winter guest might have seen any time in the last three hundred years. The thought came to her as she slipped out of the fur coat which Mrs. Oakley had lent her. She would have liked to go up the staircase and follow the gallery which ran round three sides of the hall, but Mrs. Oakley was saying, “Oh, no-we have come such a little way.”
The stair ran up on the left-hand side with bare polished treads as black as the old beams. She dropped her coat on a big carved chair and turned reluctantly to follow Mrs. Oakley’s rose-and-silver to the drawing-room. It was a pretty dress, and it had probably cost the earth. She wondered whether Mrs. Oakley ever wore anything but pink. You’d think she’d get tired of it- just one pink thing after another. Why not blue for a change, or green-
She had got as far as that, when she saw Gregory Porlock coming to meet them. There was a scatter of people round the fire, but she really only saw him. Coming to meet them with an outstretched hand and a charming smile. It would have been plain to anyone that he was their host, and that he was Gregory Porlock. It was perfectly plain to Dorinda that he was Glen Porteous, Aunt Mary’s husband-the Wicked Uncle. She mightn’t have been so sure if it hadn’t been for the Rowbecker photograph. Seven years is a long gap, as Gregory himself had concluded. If it hadn’t been for the photograph, she might not have taken so confident a leap, or landed with so much certainty upon the other side. As it was, she had no doubts at all. But Aunt Mary’s training held. She heard Mrs. Oakley murmur her name, met Gregory’s smiling eyes, and put her hand in his.
If she had remembered nothing else, she would have remembered that warm, strong clasp. She had always remembered it. It was one of the things she had loved, and afterwards hated. Her colour deepened, her eyes sent him a steady look, and he knew just as well as if she had spoken his name that she had recognized him. Well, it would be more amusing that way. He said,
“But we have met before-on the telephone. And do you know, I think I could have described you. You are just like your voice. Now tell me-am I at all like mine?”
“I think so.”
There was something of the gravity of the child he remembered, something of her simplicity and directness. If she wouldn’t make a scene, neither would she play a game with him. Really quite an entertaining situation.
And then she looked past him and saw Justin Leigh. Gregory Porlock did not doubt that the surprise was as complete as it was delightful. It was so delightful that she forgot everything else. She went to meet him with a bloom and radiance which couldn’t possibly escape the experienced observer. He had to turn from their meeting to introduce the Oakleys to the Totes and Mastermans. How they were going to mix, he had no idea, and whilst his social sense, functioning quite automatically, would do its best with six people of whom at least two were hating him furiously and two more were badly frightened, the sense of humour which very seldom left him drew its own detached amusement from the scene.
When Leonard Carroll added himself and his crooked smile to the already ill-assorted group he contributed a touch of the bizarre. Watching him cross the floor, Gregory wondered, by, no means for the first time, whether the impression of some slight physical deformity arose from fact or fancy. Was one shoulder really a little higher than the other, or did it only appear to be so because the left eyebrow tilted whilst that on the right was straight? Did the left foot halt in the least perceptible limp, or was it a mere affectation akin to a drawling speech? Carroll could drawl when he liked, just as he could find a pungent phrase for point-blank rudeness. For the rest, he had very fine brown hair and not too much of it, a face rather oddly lined for what appeared to be his years, and a physique at once slight and full of nervous energy. His bright sardonic eyes passed over the five elderly people to whom he was being introduced in a manner which made it perfectly clear that as far as he was concerned they were so much furniture, dwelt for a moment upon Linnet Oakley, and was done with her. Gregory, prompt in hospitality, hastened to alleviate the situation with cocktails.