Dorothy Eden (17 page)

“For some reason Arabia won’t tell me about that,” Cressida went on. “She’s suddenly putting Lucy right out of her mind, almost as if she had never existed. She’s even dismantling that room and shutting it up.”

“Why?” Jeremy asked.

“I don’t know. I think I found out more than she wanted me to know. Apparently there was to be a baby that was never born. Oh, it’s all so pathetic. I’m very happy to help her to try to forget the whole story.”

“But there is still no grave,” Jeremy said, more to himself than to Cressida. “Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“Unless it’s in this house.”

Cressida came quickly and knelt at his bedside.

“What makes you say that?” Her voice was a whisper of horror.

He had instantly regretted his words. He said lightly, “I’m beginning to imagine things, too.”

“You’ve no idea how awful it was at the cemetery today, in the mist, with only those few words on Larry’s tombstone—beloved son of—no mention of his wife. And he must have loved her. He must have. She was so gay and pretty, and there are all those happy paragraphs in her diary about Larry and flowers and dances. And now all that’s left is that single tombstone.” Cressida was crying, the tears running heedlessly down her cheeks.

“Fine way this is to cheer me up,” Jeremy grumbled. “First Mimosa, then you.” His hand rested for one instant on her hair, then he took it quickly away. “I’m sorry I was in such a lousy temper. I’ll be better tomorrow.”

“Don’t—take your hand away.”

“If you’re pretending it is Tom’s—”

“Actually I wasn’t. Jeremy, Arabia shutting that room—it’s as if she’s at last shutting the coffin. Oh, where is Mimosa’s last strip cartoon? For goodness’ sake let me cheer myself up. Is it over here?”

But as she went she had to pass the easel, and on it was her own half-finished portrait. She looked at the slender girl with the fly-away hair, the too-wide eyes, the just-beginning smile.

“I look as if I’m listening to a fairy story,” she said involuntarily.

“So you always are.” His voice had got back its dry mocking quality. “And it’s not Lucy’s. Or Tom’s. It’s mine. And you don’t listen to it, anyway. You listen to all the other voices that get in the way.”

She looked at him wordlessly. He suddenly waved his long hand in angry impatience.

“Forget it. I’m ill. I’m delirious. Go and get me something to eat before I die.”

“An omelet,” said Cressida happily. “I can really make very good ones.”

“And tomorrow,” said Jeremy, “there is something you have to do.”

“You have to tell Arabia everything that has happened.”

“But she knows. She knows Mrs. Stanhope thinks she was poisoned, and then Mimosa tonight.”

“Does she know you were locked in Lucy’s room the other night? Or about the death notice you got?”

“Or that someone tore my notes up,” Cressida added. “No. I haven’t told her those things.”

“Then you must.”

“But if they were her own idea of a joke—she has a very extraordinary sense of humour, Jeremy—it might embarrass her—”

“Embarrass her or not, tell them to her. Tomorrow. And also tomorrow remind me to send you red roses.”

“Red roses!”

“For the illustration I told you about. I want you to be holding them. Don’t look so startled. You will have time to pose for me, won’t you?”

Cressida tried to shake off her absurd feeling of apprehension, not because Jeremy planned to send her red roses, but because she was to get red roses in this house. This significant house.

“Tom said I ought to be paid.” She was speaking to fill in the silence, to shut out her ridiculous and unfounded apprehension. She wasn’t aware of what she had said, but her remark had successfully destroyed the brief truce, and Jeremy was shouting.

“I’ll pay you the usual model’s fees, and Tom can write them down in neat figures and tot them up and you can both have fun spending them. All I ask in the meantime is that Tom keeps his smug fingers out of my business.”

T
HE ROSES WERE IN
Cressida’s room the next evening—two dozen long-stemmed, dark-red beauties wrapped in cellophane. Her first reaction was one of pleasure. How very extravagant of Jeremy to buy such exquisite ones. That morning she had slept late, and there had been time only to ascertain that Jeremy was almost completely recovered from his attack of ’flu before rushing off to work. She had seen no one else except Miss Glory, who had clattered in and out in a great hurry, flinging over her shoulder in her flat humourless voice, “That old woman, she’ll drive me crazy. Who’s to eat all that stuff tonight? You’d think it was baked meats for a funeral feast.”

There had been no opportunity to obey Jeremy’s injunction to tell Arabia about all the odd things that had happened, even supposing Arabia, to whom the story of Lucy, was now a closed book, would have listened.

Was the old lady perhaps a schizophrenic? It was beginning to seem very like it.

But there was no time now to worry about that because the house was unexpectedly full of gaiety. All the lights were on. The large glittering chandelier in the hall blazed, and from the open double doors of the ballroom, cleared of Miss Glory’s meagre possessions, the parquet floor shone glossily; there were large bowls of flowers, and someone was picking out a dance tune on the piano.

Cressida had a moment of illusion when it seemed to her that the house was waiting for crowds of Lucy’s gay, noisy and very young friends to come bursting in. And for Lucy herself to come running down the marble staircase, her skirts flying, her feet swift and excited.

She knew in her heart that this was the illusion Arabia was creating for herself, even though she said stubbornly that the story of Lucy was finished. The story was unfinished until Arabia’s own death. The leading, part had merely been transferred to Cressida herself, and it was because of Arabia’s strange, compelling spell over her that she was willingly playing the part.

She would put on her prettiest dress and wear one of Jeremy’s roses. The rest would remain fresh in water until tomorrow, when she would keep her part of the bargain by sitting for him so that he could complete his picture.

Who had used to send Lucy red roses?

Cressida, like Arabia, decided briskly to dismiss Lucy from her mind, temporarily at least, and ran down the steep stairs to the basement to see how Jeremy was, and to say her polite thank you for the roses which, exquisite as they were, were only part of a business deal.

At her knock he came to the door; and almost before Cressida could observe that he was fully dressed and looked well though still pale, Mimosa bounded past her legs and up the stairs, a blond torpedo.

“Nothing much wrong with him,” she commented.

“He’s in one of his moods,” Jeremy said. “Quite uncontrollable. I told him he was going to Paris.”

“Is he?”

“Only on paper. Unless you come, too. No, don’t say it. Tom wouldn’t approve. Is the almighty shadow of Tom to hang over us forever?”

“I don’t think there’s much wrong with you, either,” Cressida said dryly. “I believe both you and Mimosa have been pretending, to get a little attention.”

“It looks as if you’re not lacking for attention yourself,” Jeremy said, looking at the sheaf of roses, still in their cellophane.

“Yes, it really was too extravagant of you. I hope the author or the magazine pays for these. I know they don’t mean a thing beyond business, but they really are beautiful.”

“Hang on a moment!” Jeremy’s mobile eyebrow was rising towards his hair again. His face was both amused and curiously distressed. “You’re saying thank you to the wrong person. I haven’t sent you any roses. Mine were ordered for tomorrow, and I’m afraid only a meagre dozen. Tom has rather spread himself. Is this a bribe, do you think, or is he naturally inclined to buy large sheafs of out-of-season flowers?”

“No, of course he isn’t. He would spend his money to better purpose.” Cressida’s voice was suddenly sharp, because she was realising, guiltily, that for the first time there had been no letter from Tom, and she hadn’t even missed it. “These can’t be from Tom,” she added definitely. “Unless he has suddenly gone out of his mind.” She began tearing at the cellophane covering the flowers, in her attempt to get at the enclosed card. “Once he sent me a gardenia,” she said. “That was to wear at the annual dinner of his firm, and we had just become engaged. He thought that was very festive. Oh-h-h…” The card trembled in her suddenly nerveless fingers. Jeremy caught it as she was going to drop it.

It was a black-bordered square, and it simply said, “In Memoriam.”

The house was suddenly hostile. Something cold and frightening in it had moved closer. It was no use to look at the bright lights or listen to the tripping waltz that was now coming from the ballroom, or even to notice the faint savoury smells that occasionally wafted through the air. There was to be a ghost at the feast after all, the ghost of a young, gay and foolish girl who had once loved red roses.

“Did you tell Arabia what I told you to?” Jeremy was demanding sternly.

“No, I haven’t. I haven’t had time. This morning she wasn’t up when I left, and tonight—how can I tonight?”

“Tonight may be the very time.” But now Jeremy was turning away and refusing to explain his muttered words. “Unless you’d like to go now, while the going’s good.”

“Go!” Cressida repeated stupidly.

“To Euston or Paddington or wherever you catch your train home to Tom. I’ll see you there if you can pack quickly.”

“Now!”
said Cressida. “But you’re mad! How can I leave before the party has even started? Why, it’s my party!”

Jeremy looked at her with his cryptic gaze.

“I suppose I couldn’t expect you to disappoint the old lady. In spite of what she may be happy to do to you. Well, don’t blame me if your soft heart gets you into trouble. Go and dress up and be Lucy for them. Satisfy them once more. And then perhaps we’ll be able to lay those damned roses on
your
grave.”

“Jeremy!” She was gripping his arm. “You keep saying them! Who is them?”

“I wish I knew,” he said softly. “I wish I knew.”

Only Miss Glory knew anything about the roses, and she just said that she had taken them from the messenger boy at the door. There was no florist’s name on the card.

“My word, he must think a lot of you,” she said to Cressida. “They’d cost a fortune this time of the year. Look at those stems.”

“But I don’t know who sent them.”

Miss Glory did not believe her. She winked and looked coy, and said, “Lucky girl. Have you so many admirers? And all of them wealthy?” and then whisked away to the kitchen to see to the dinner.

Wealthy? Was that the clue? Arabia was the only wealthy person in this house. Were the roses her final gesture of farewell to Lucy, and of welcome to Cressida, the new Lucy? Jeremy thought so, only Jeremy seemed to think there was something more sinister than a poignant gesture of farewell in this particular bouquet. Why did he suddenly think that?

There was no time to talk about them now. Everyone was dressing for dinner and she would be late. Some time this evening she had to get Arabia by herself and insist on her being honest. There was so much to be explained. The roses, nostalgic reminders of Lucy, were surely the climax.

Cressida, refusing to be perturbed by the disturbing gift, wore one of the roses in the bosom of her dress, and went out gaily to the party.

The dinner table was laid in the curve of the tall ball-room windows. Half an hour later they were all seated round it. Miss Glory, looking more than ever like a flat figure cut out of cardboard, in a narrow black dress with a virginal string of pearls round her thin neck, bustled backwards and forwards from the kitchen with food. Mr. Moretti, explaining that he had to leave early to go to his night-club, wore a dinner jacket, but Mrs. Stanhope and Dawson could not approach this grandeur. Mrs. Stanhope looked more inconspicuous and owl-like than ever in grey, and Dawson wore the tweed jacket, presumably his only respectable garment, which he wore every day to work.

It was Arabia, of course, who stole the show. She must have put on every jewel she possessed, and she glittered like a Burmese temple god. Her taste had obviously never been for inconspicuous jewellery. She liked large opulent stones in heavy settings. Most of them were only semi-precious, and on a second look Cressida realised that she was not worth the fortune she would seem to be. Garnets were not rubies, nor turquoises emeralds. Indeed, some of the large stones glittering on her bosom or her fingers may simply have been glass, but they did not take away her appearance of fabulous richness.

Dawson, at least, was hypnotised by her, and could not take his eyes from her sparkling figure. Arabia was fully aware of his fascination, and of being the focal point of the party. It was the kind of attention she loved, and to which she responded in her inimitable way.

“Yes, look at me,” she chuckled. “You’ll never have another landlady who looks like this. Oh, I don’t say that some of them don’t have fortunes hidden away in teapots, probably much larger ones than mine, but they come out looking about as exciting as pieces of darning wool. Now me, I adore looking opulent. Do I look opulent tonight? Tell me, boy, do I?”

She chucked Dawson beneath his sharp chin, and the embarrassed colour flowed into his cheeks.

“You look wonderful, Mrs. Bolton,” he muttered.

Well pleased, for, although she might despise Dawson as a weedy and singularly unattractive youth, she never failed to respond to a compliment, Arabia proceeded to enlarge on the subject.

“It was really my old friend, the sheik, who taught me not to be miserly about my appearance. He adored magnificence, and secretly I always had, too. So I blossomed in the desert. Ah, how I blossomed! Jeremy, stop raising your eyebrows! You think I’m romancing?”

“Most entertainingly,” said Jeremy.

Arabia rapped the table.

“Naughty boy! All I tell you is true. True! Look at this ring. It was a present from an Indian rajah. And this brooch my second husband gave me on our tenth wedding anniversary. My earrings my third husband bought me in Peking after we had travelled by the old silk route into China. And this adorable necklace was the dear sheik’s gift. Yes, I know it is a little vulgar and showy, but opulence, opulence is all! I remember that jewel shop in Baghdad—But you are all laughing at me! A foolish bedizened old woman!”