The Chinese Shawl (10 page)

Petra came in in her scarlet frock, and the two girls went down together.

“I’m glad you’re wearing the same dress again too. But it wouldn’t really matter what either of us wore, because Tanis would make it look like something off a bargain counter anyhow.”

Laura considered the gay little figure and laughed.

“It would be a marvellous bargain counter.”

“Soothing syrup! It’s all very well for you, with that lovely Chinese shawl. But you wait—Tanis will go all out tonight. The Madisons are coming.”

“Yes, she told me about them.”

Petra’s voice sharpened.

“Did she tell you she was smashing up their marriage, and that Sylvia is pretty well off her head with jealousy, poor kid?”

“No.”

The Madisons arrived early. They came into a room which contained neither Tanis nor Agnes Fane. They seemed to know the Maxwells and Carey Desborough very well. Laura was the only stranger. By the time Petra had explained her Miss Fane was making her entrance, very fine indeed in ruby velvet with the twinkling earrings, and a great ruby and diamond jewel at her breast.

Laura had time to consider the Madisons. She saw a stocky man with a sailor’s walk, a hot blue eye, and a perfect conflagration of red hair. He hadn’t a tenth of Alistair Maxwell’s good looks, but when he came into the room something came in with him—something daring, resourceful, stick-at-nothing. The nearest Laura got to it was, “He looks like a pirate.” The little Sylvia was quite eclipsed. She was young, and she had no manner to cover her obvious unhappiness. She had been pretty in a blond, fragile way, and she would be pretty again when she was happy again. Her looks were not of the kind to stand a strain. She wore a pale blue dress which was neither smart nor very well cut. The colour, which had once been flattering, now emphasized a pallor which she had done nothing to mitigate.

Laura’s eye, travelling from her to Petra North, approved her defiant scarlet and the make-up which accompanied it. If you must wear the willow, it is better to carry it gallantly.

Tanis Lyle came in. She wore a white chiffon frock. It was of a breath-taking simplicity, and, as Petra murmured, it had probably cost the earth. It was a young girl’s dress. Tanis, wearing it, was a young girl again, her hair in simpler waves, a string of pearls her only ornament. They were all to remember her like that.

She came smiling to the Madisons, laid a caressing touch on Sylvia’s shoulder, and bent to kiss a pale averted cheek. Laura had never seen her kiss anyone before. It went through her mind as sharply as a knife that the kiss was a weapon, as surely as the knife would itself have been. The hand, with its emerald and diamond ring, stayed for a moment where it had rested. In that moment Tanis raised her eyes to meet Tim Madison’s.

Laura felt rather than saw the spark which leapt between them. She wanted to do something, say something. But it was the entry of Lucy Adams which broke the tension. Flushed with hurry, on the edge of being late, clanking with chains, bangles and assorted brooches, she plunged into the midst of the situation without the slightest idea that it existed.

“How do you do, Sylvia? Are you quite well? You’re looking dreadfully pale. You should drink more milk and go to bed early. You really look quite run down. She’s quite lost her colour—hasn’t she, Tanis? Mr. Madison, you should make her go to bed quite early, and she should have a cup of milk at eleven, and another the last thing. You mustn’t let her lose her colour, you know. I remember it was the first thing I noticed about her when she came here.”

The gong sounded in the hall as Miss Silver made a composed and unhurried entrance, knitting-bag in hand.

After dinner they rolled up the rugs and danced in the drawing-room. Tanis had all the latest records, and the floor was good. Laura danced with Carey. Tomorrow she would be gone. All day long she had been counting the hours, but now for a little while in Carey’s arms she could have wished them to stand still. She said in an almost soundless voice,

“I’m going back to Cousin Sophy tomorrow.”

“I’ll drive you up.”

“Better not.”

“I’ll drive you and Petra then.”

Laura nodded.

“That might do.”

Tanis danced with Tim Madison. Three dances—then one with Carey. And then Tim Madison again. Carey, with Sylvia Madison, saw Miss Fane look up and frown, then back to her game of chess again. Miss Silver had finished her baby’s vest and was starting another. Alistair and Petra had disappeared. Laura was dancing with Robin, whom she liked very much. They were laughing.

Sylvia said in a small, tired voice,

“I didn’t want to come. He made me.”

“Would you rather not dance? We can go and sit out somewhere if you like.”

She shook her head.

“It wouldn’t be any good—I should go on seeing them. I do, nearly all the time, you know. I think it’s worse when it isn’t real, because then I feel as if I’m going queer in the head. Do you think I am?”

“No—of course not.”

“Sometimes I think I must be. I hear them talking—when I’m quite alone. That’s why I came tonight. It’s better than being alone.”

Carey was desperately sorry for her. He said very kindly,

“It won’t last, you know—it’s just a flare-up. Stick it out. She doesn’t really want him.”

They were moving to the rhythm of the dance. Her next words came on a faint fluttered breath.

“He comes up here—to see her—at night—”

“Nonsense!”

“No—it’s true. Not last night, because I wouldn’t go to bed. He wanted me to, and I wouldn’t. We had a dreadful row. That’s why I’m so tired. It kills me to have rows with Tim. I shall go to bed tonight, and he’ll come up here to her.” Her thread of a voice had taken on a kind of dreamy finality. She might have been talking in her sleep.

“My dear girl, you’re all in. Get him to take you home early, and go off to bed with the cup of hot milk Miss Adams was prescribing.”

Sylvia said faintly,

“We won’t talk about it any more. Can you think of something to say? Tim’s looking at us. I don’t want him to be angry. I get frightened.”

Carey began to tell her about Laura.

“The place belongs to her, but I don’t suppose she’ll ever live here. It’s too big. This sort of house was out of date after the last war, and when this war’s over we’ll all be doing quite different things and living quite different lives. The old-country-house tradition has been dead for a generation. There’s nothing left of it except a ghost or two. Laura—”

His voice changed on her name, and Sylvia caught him up.

“Laura—are you in love with her?”

His face changed too, softening, breaking into a smile as he nodded.

“Dead secret. Don’t tell anyone.”

She looked up at him, her blue eyes suddenly wet.

“You’ve got away. I’m glad.”

It was a little after this that Alistair came back into the room alone. He had the look of a man under a heavy strain. Even to Laura’s inexperience it was obvious that he had been drinking, but instead of being flushed he was exceedingly pale. He walked straight up to where Tanis was standing with Tim Madison and said in a voice which anyone could hear,

“When are you going to dance with me?”

She gave him a fleeting glance, green and bright between black lashes.

“You haven’t asked me.”

He said, “That’s a lie!” And then, “I’m asking you now.”

Her fingers closed about Tim Madison’s wrist. She said “No!” to him in an emphatic undertone. And then, with her sweetest smile, she said it to Alistair,

“No, thank you, darling.”

Just for the moment the thing hung in the balance—it might blow up, or it might not.

The moment passed. Alistair turned and went out of the room, walking as if he were drunk. Between the opening and the shutting of the door Laura, at an angle to it, caught a glimpse of Petra’s scarlet in the hall beyond. The door shut heavily.

As Robin Maxwell put on another record, Miss Fane caught Carey Desborough’s eye and beckoned imperiously. He came round to the far side of her chair between her and the fire, because Miss Silver was on the nearer side. She turned, and as he bent towards her she said, not whispering but low and deep,

“Have you and Tanis quarrelled?”

Carey smiled.

“What makes you think so? I was dancing with her just now.”

“Once,” said Agnes Fane. Then, with a further drop of the voice, “You should be dancing with her now. Mr. Madison never leaves her alone. He’s making her conspicuous. Go and get her away from him! Who are you dancing with?”

He thought, “She knows perfectly well.”

His hand had been at Laura’s waist and the music starting when she beckoned him.

He said, “Laura,” and felt the dark eyes searching him.

“You’re very friendly with her all of a sudden.”

He said, “Yes.”

The dark eyes held his. They were stern. He felt a fixity of purpose, an inescapable will.

He was dismissed.

He danced with Laura, and was solaced. They moved to music which was in their hearts. The moment was a brief, enchanted one.

He danced with Tanis, and was at once aware of a change which took him a long way back in time, and a longer still in mood. That hers was heightened, quickened, was plainly to be seen. She had an air of victorious expectancy. It was not for him—he knew that with relief—but it brought a return of her old smiles and glances, a softening of the voice. If he had not been in love with Laura he might have been in danger. Her hand pressed his. She said,

“You’re not angry with me? We’re friends?”

Carey laughed.

“Excellent friends. That’s what you’ve got to tell your Aunt Agnes.”

She nodded.

“Yes, of course. We mustn’t quarrel, must we? We’ve had good times—let’s remember them. But, darling—you won’t let Laura stick me with this place, will you? She’ll listen to you. I’d die if I was tied up here, or else I’d bust the whole place wide open with some frightful scandal.”

“You’re doing that now.”

She looked up, vividly amused.

“I know. It’s marvellous, isn’t it? But that’s just what I mean—you dance three times with a man and you’re damned, in a place like this.”

“Three times—” He smiled agreeably.

That pleased her too. He thought to himself, “Good lord— has she gone off the deep end about the fellow?”

She said in a melting voice, “Poor Tim! There’s nothing in it, you know—just Irish fireworks. Too amusing—while it lasts—” Her voice went suddenly down and away.

The music stopped. She stood leaning against him, her hand still on his arm, and shivered.

Carey said, “Cold?”

Her fingers tightened and clung, then let go. She stepped back, smiling and shaking her head.

“Somebody walking over my grave,” she said.

The evening ended. Alistair had not returned. Petra came back to the drawing-room about twenty minutes after Laura had seen her in the hall. She stood for a moment with Carey and Laura, and said lightly,

“Alistair’s walking it off. He’ll come back like a lamb. How bad was it? Did he make a scene?”

Carey said, “It might have been worse. He called Tanis a liar, and marched out of the room when she wouldn’t dance with him. I don’t think Miss Fane heard what he said.”

“Someone’s bound to tell her,” said Petra briefly. “Let’s look on the bright side. They’ve had some awful row, and he’s fit to cut her throat. Perhaps they won’t make it up.” She gave a small forced laugh and added, “What a hope!”

The Madisons made their farewells and went out into a cold, windy night. “Blowing up for rain, but it won’t come before morning,” was Tim Madison’s comment as a swirling gust came in at the open lobby door. He took Sylvia by the arm, and they went off together to walk the quarter of a mile between the Priory and their cottage.

By ones and twos the others said goodnight and went upstairs, Robin Maxwell last, with Alistair, who walked in without explanation or apology at a little after one. The house quieted. There were no sounds except the wind like a rising tide coming out of the distance and thundering by, rocking the straining trees, beating against the ruined church, dying to a moan, and then hurling itself against the house in some tremendous gust of sound.

Laura slept, her last waking thought relief because the visit was over. She would look back on it and remember only that Carey and she had found each other. And everything else— the strain, the old cousins disliking her, Tanis—would all be forgotten. She did not know that they would never be forgotten by her, by Carey, or by anyone else.

She woke some time late in the night, coming suddenly broad awake, and remembering that she had left her Chinese shawl downstairs. It seemed so odd to wake up like that and remember it, when she had not thought about it at all before she went to sleep. She had come upstairs with Petra, but they had not talked. She had undressed, and got into bed, and gone to sleep without ever remembering the shawl. And now it filled her mind, urgently and to the exclusion of everything else. She thought, “How silly—but I shan’t go to sleep again unless I go down for it.”

She got out of bed without putting on a light, because the curtain was drawn back from a partly opened window. It blew in the wind, the casement creaked. But the thunderous gusts had ceased. The gale had passed. There was no more now than a high wind blowing. She found her dressing-gown and slippers, put them on, and came out into the corridor. A light burned dimly at the far end.

Laura went the other way, towards the stairs, holding the banister rail and feeling before her with a slippered foot. Once round the turn, there was a glimmer of light from the hall.

She considered where the shawl might be. The drawing-room… no… she had had it after they all came out of the drawing-room, because she remembered Robin looking at it and saying something about one of the embroidered butterflies. He was keen on butterflies and he knew this one’s name. Well, if she had had it in the hall, why hadn’t she taken it upstairs? It came to her that she had left Robin standing beside the newel, turning the embroidery this way and that, butterfly hunting, whilst she said goodnight to Lucy Adams and Miss Silver. And then Petra had caught her by the arm with a quick “Come along, Laura!” and she had gone up without giving another thought to the shawl, because she was afraid that Petra had suddenly come to the end of what she could bear—ghastly under make-up, and her hand shaking on Laura’s arm. The shawl just went right out of her mind.

And now she could think of nothing else. She thought how odd that was. But when she came to the newel where Robin had stood, the shawl wasn’t there. It wasn’t anywhere in the hall. She switched on the lights and looked everywhere. It wasn’t in the hall, and it wasn’t in the drawing-room. Robin must have put it somewhere. He might have taken it upstairs. She began to feel rather silly, hunting for a shawl in the dead end of the night, and quite sure that it wouldn’t go down at all well with Cousin Agnes and Cousin Lucy.

She switched off the lights and began to climb the stairs. The big hall clock struck three. She regained her own room with relief.

There is something strange about being the only person awake in a sleeping house. It is all right if you are in your own room, but to go out and wander in untenanted places whilst those to whom they belong are withdrawn in sleep is the loneliest thing in the world.

She stood inside her door and closed it softly. Standing there in the dark for a moment before she turned away, there came to her, faint but unmistakable, the sound of another closing door.