The Chinese Shawl (5 page)

Four people and their suitcases were a tight fit in Carey’s car, but they piled in, Laura behind with Petra, and the two men in front. It was Laura who had insisted on this arrangement. She wanted to talk to Petra, and there would be more room for the luggage. But the real reason was that she couldn’t— no, she really couldn’t sit there in front with Carey under the eyes of a girl who was losing her lover. She felt most desperately sorry for Petra, who appeared, vividly made-up, in a scarlet leather coat and a green and scarlet bandeau round her dark curls. Her eyes were the unhappiest things in the world, but she laughed and chattered nineteen to the dozen until they were clearing London, when she fell silent and sat staring at the long, straight road.

In front of them Carey and Robin were deep in Air Force shop. To all intents and purposes the two girls were alone. Presently Petra looked sideways and said,

“She’s gone down with Alistair.”

Laura didn’t say anything, but she had a very speaking look. The air was suddenly full of kindness.

Petra bit a scarlet lip.

“I expect you know all about it—everybody does. And I expect you’re wondering why I go tagging after them.” There was a note of defiance in the voice which hardly rose above a whisper. Laura was reminded of the kitten again—a kitten at bay, ready to scratch and fly. She said,

“No.”

Petra looked past her.

“You don’t waste words—do you?” She laughed. “I’m a fool to play her game. She loves an audience, and I’m helping to provide her with one. Do you know why?”

Laura nodded gravely.

“I think so.”

“He’s dreadfully unhappy too.” Petra looked at her. Her eyes dazzled with tears. She put out a hand, clutched for a moment at Laura’s, and let it go. She looked away and nodded. “She tortures him. I can’t bear it. I could give him up if she really wanted him, or if there was any chance that he’d be happy. But she doesn’t want him—she doesn’t want anyone, except to play with, and make fools of, and pull them about on a string. She’s had enough of being married.”

Laura exclaimed, “Married?”

“Didn’t you know? It was when she was on the stage. She married an actor, a man called Hazelton—he used to be quite well known. They kept it quiet for a bit, and then she found out he doped or something. I expect she drove him to it. Anyhow she was through with him, and she got a divorce. The aunts threw a thousand fits, and then settled down to being thankful she’d got rid of him. It’s about six years ago now, and no one ever mentions it. I expect you were at school and they kept it from the child.” There was a delicate darting malice in voice and look, but no sting.

Laura laughed, and said, “I expect they did. What happened to the man?”

Petra shrugged.

“Oh, he’s around somewhere. Someone told me he’d cropped up again. As a matter of fact he was at the Luxe last night. He came up and spoke to her.”

“What did she do?”

“Oh, nothing—got rid of him—it’s the sort of thing she’s particularly good at. I wonder what he thinks about it all. He used to go about saying he’d get even with her some day. He’s got it in for her all right. I know someone who used to know him awfully well. She says he’s like the elephant—you know, the never-forgets touch—and that some day he’ll make Tanis wish she hadn’t. But people don’t do that sort of thing six years afterwards—do they?”

“I shouldn’t think so.”

Petra laughed.

“I wish someone would do her in! I can’t think why they don’t. I can’t think why I don’t myself. I’d like to, but there would be nobody left to hold Alistair’s hand.” Her laughter ran up to an odd high note.

It was Laura’s turn to put out a hand.

“Oh, don’t!”

Petra dropped to a low murmur.

“That’s why I go tagging round. Sometimes, even now, he wants me. If it wasn’t for this damned war, I might get a little proper pride together and let him want, but you can’t do it when you never know which time is going to be the last.”

Laura didn’t say anything at all. The men’s voices went on all the time, loud, cheerful, argumentative. They seemed to be discussing a gadget sponsored by one Nicolson which Robin thought well of, whilst Carey considered it rotten. They were obviously perfectly happy to go on arguing about it.

Petra made a sudden movement. She wisked open her bag, got out her compact, and busied herself with repairs. Presently she said,

“I’ve really got a bit too much on, haven’t I?”

Laura nodded.

“Just a bit, but it’s awfully well done.”

Petra made a face like a cross kitten.

“That’s the snag—it gives you confidence, but if you overdo it, it gives you away. I’ve put on so much that Tanis will know why.”

“Take a little off. Not the lipstick—you’d only make a mess of that… Yes, that’s a lot better.”

Petra snapped the compact to.

“You must think I’m pretty odd, talking to you like this after only seeing you once. I wouldn’t believe it myself. It’s not the sort of thing I do as a rule, but I suppose I’ve got to the point when I’ve got to talk or blow up, and—you’re easy to talk to.” She laughed suddenly. “A stranger is really much the best person, because they don’t give you advice like a relation would straight away. Don’t you hate your relations?”

Laura laughed and said, “No.”

“I do. They’re full of good advice, and it’s all the same—‘Let him alone till he comes to his senses.’ And the reason I hate them is that it’s damned good advice… Let’s talk about cooking. Can you cook?“

“Can you?”

“A treat! I do an omelette that would make a French chef turn green.” She reached forward and poked Robin in the back. “Don’t I?”

“Don’t you what?” He looked over his shoulder with an interrupted air.

“Don’t I cook beautifully? Aren’t my omelettes the cat’s whiskers?”

“I hope not—it sounds foul.” He turned back to his conversation.

Petra put out her tongue at him.

“Well, they are!” She flung Laura a gay smile. “Don’t men like talking about the most extraordinary things?”

Laura’s first sight of the Priory was etched indelibly upon her mind. There was no sun. The clouds hung low. The January day was darkening already, though it was not four o’clock. They came up a drive between sombre evergreens and under leafless trees, and then out upon a great rectangle of gravel with the house on its farther side—a grey house with a central block and two wings enclosing a paved courtyard with a fountain in the middle, and the right-hand wing was the ruined Priory church. She looked at it with all her eyes, letting down the window and leaning out. The ruined arch of the east window faced them as they turned into the court. Sky and trees showed briefly through the empty windows. The effect was startling and graceful. The ruins were grey and clean and bare, but the house was dark with ivy and festooned with the light dry stems of Virginia creeper and the large trunk of a huge wistaria whose branches ran right up on to the roof and sprawled there.

Carey turned round as he stopped the car and said, speaking to her for the first time,

“Like it, Laura?”

She met his eyes. Hers were shining.

“I love it!”

“Love at first sight? How unreliable!” His look teased her, asked a question.

Laura said, “Dreadfully. But I always know at once—don’t you?”

And then they were all getting out, and she had a moment to stand and look at the ruins before the door opened and they were coming in to the hall with a big fire of logs blazing on the hearth and a broad stairway running up out of the shadows beyond it. Coming out of the daylight and the cold, she thought the hall was like a cave—dark—warm—enclosed. There was a little light from the three narrow windows set rather high on either side of the door, but where it met the firelight it seemed to fade, and the shadows had it their own way.

Then all in a moment there was light—bright, warm, and glowing. It came from high up, where crystal sconces were held above the line of the dark panelling. The stairway, rising by a dozen shallow steps and then dividing to sweep up to right and left, sprang into view. Tanis Lyle was coming slowly down from the right. She reached the half-landing, smiled, put out both hands, and ran down the rest of the way. In a high-necked cinnamon jumper and a rough tweed skirt to match, she was the country hostess to the life. If her entrance had been planned, it was certainly very effective. If it had not, she was the darling of coincidence. Laura had not the slightest doubt that it had all been planned to the last detail, from the sudden burst of light, to the suggestion that it was Tanis who was welcoming her guests, and welcoming them with the greatest possible charm.

Laura found herself crossing the hall with a guiding hand upon her arm.

“The aunts are longing to see you. Come along before the others disentangle themselves. The drawing-room is at the back. It looks south and west across the garden. Aunt Agnes adores her flowers, and it has all been planted so that she can see as much as possible without going out.”

“Doesn’t she go out at all?”

“Oh, yes—every day. As soon as it’s warm enough she’ll be in and out all day in her chair. She has one of those self-propelling ones, and she’s really very clever with it.”

She opened a door as she spoke, and brought Laura into a long room panelled in white, with violet curtains already drawn across the three windows facing west and the two at the far end which looked to the south. The effect under the light of electric candles set in old gilt sconces was sombre and unusual, but it was relieved by chintzes gaily flowered in purple, blue, and rose, and by the Persian rugs of which the prevailing shade was a deep-toned rose melting into ruby.

There were two women in the room, sitting on either side of the rather chilly-looking marble hearth with its white pillars rising to support a narrow slab which might appropriately have adorned a tomb. Upon this slab there stood two bronze horses with lashing tails, and a black marble clock. But at the moment Laura was not really aware of anything except Agnes Fane, who sat watching her approach from an invalid chair.

There were no shawls or mufflings, no appearance of invalidism, about the fine erect figure. She wore what any other lady might have worn in her own house at tea-time, a dress of some wine-coloured woollen stuff and a loose corduroy coat of the same shade. She had pearl studs in her ears, a string of pearls at her throat, and a fine ruby on the third finger of her right hand.

She put this hand out slowly as Laura came up. It took hers, and was cold to her touch—very cold. The dark eyes under their strongly arched brows were lifted in a long regard. Laura thought them as cold as the hand which had just relinquished hers.

She returned the look with an interest which heightened her colour and brightened her eyes. She did not know what she had expected, but whatever it was, Agnes Fane was different—quite different.

She was a very handsome woman—handsomer now than she had been when she was young. The high dominant features, the proud carriage of the head, sat better on the woman in her fifties than they had ever done on the girl. She had the same fine, white skin and springing dark hair as Tanis and Laura herself, but there were deep lines about the eyes and mouth—lines of pride and suffering—and the hair was frosted. It framed her face in waves, beautifully arranged.

With skin and hair the resemblance ended. The features were of a bolder type, the face narrower, the line of cheek and jaw a harder one, and the eyes under their beautifully modelled brows a very deep brown, instead of Tanis’s green darkening to grey, and Laura’s grey brightening into green.

“How do you do, Laura?”

The voice was the voice of the telephone, grave, and deep, and rather cold. Something in Laura admired its dignity, its restraint.

There was a polite enquiry for Theresa Ferrers, and then Tanis was introducing her to Lucy Adams.

Laura saw a plump woman of middle height and middle age. Cousin Sophy’s remark sprang unbidden to her mind— “Lucy always was a very stupid woman.” For stupid was just what Cousin Lucy looked. She had a flat, well cushioned face of no particular colour, small blinking grey eyes, and a very palpable auburn front. She wore grey, of all colours the least becoming. A gold-rimmed pince-nez hovered uncertainly on her nose. It was attached to the right-hand side of her bodice by a fine gold chain and a gold bar brooch. Her noticeably thick ankles were encased in grey woollen stockings, and her feet in rubbed black glacé shoes with ribbon bows. She shook hands frigidly with Laura and turned at once to Tanis, her voice gushing and her manner exuberant.

“But where are the others? I am simply longing to see them. Fetch them in, and—oh, yes, I will just ring the bell—for I’m sure they must all be simply dying for their tea. The car wasn’t open, was it? Oh, no, of course not—in January. Even Carey wouldn’t do that, though I remember his bringing you down on a very cold autumn day with everything open, and I told him he ought to be more careful—and so he ought.” She turned towards Laura with a jerky movement. “Do you know Carey Desborough—but of course you came down in his car, didn’t you?”

Laura said, “I met him last night,” and thought how strange that sounded.

Tanis took her up to her room after that. They took the right-hand turn of the stair and came by way of a short gallery to a corridor with doors on either side.

“Aunt Agnes is at the end there, on the left. Her room is over the drawing-room. Her maid, Perry, has the dressing-room, and Aunt Lucy the room beyond. I’m opposite Aunt Agnes, next to the octagon tower. It is the only bit of the old house. That’s the door, at the end of the passage. It’s very convenient for Aunt Agnes, because, owing to the octagon shape and the very thick walls, they’ve been able to fit in a lift between my bathroom and the tower. It just takes her chair, and there are doors through to my sitting-room and the drawing-room on the ground floor. She can manage it all herself, which is what she likes to do with everything. Here you are—I hope you will be comfortable. Petra is just beyond you. There’s a bathroom between the two rooms—you won’t mind sharing it with her, will you? Aunt Agnes has put in bathrooms wherever she can, but it doesn’t quite run to one for every room. Miss Silver is over on the other side of the house, and so are Carey and the Maxwells. She’s a girl friend of Aunt Lucy’s. They were at school together. She started life as a governess—and does she look like one! Just wait till you see her! I believe she’s a detective or something now. Completely useless, I should think, but not a bad old thing. You’ll see her at tea. Her name is Maud! Can you find your way down all right?”

Laura said she could. As a matter of fact only a mentally defective person could have failed to do so. She was very glad to be left alone. Her first overwhelming feeling that here was a house which she could love and which was friendly to her had given way to a lonely sense of estrangement. It was only the outside of the house which had any welcome for her. The inner self, the presence which lives in every habitation, was formidably antagonistic and aloof.

The room in which she found herself, with its pale blue chintzes patterned with ivory scallop shells, was a stranger’s room. It was charming, and it charmed her, but it had nothing to do with Laura Fane. Like all the rest of the house, it rejected her.

She went to the left-hand window and looked out. The curtains had been drawn. She put one of them back, noticing that it had been lined with black sateen to make it light-proof, and wondered whether they had had any raids down here. She looked out upon the courtyard. The dusk was gathering fast. There were shadows everywhere. The line of the ruined Priory church ran out on her left, with the last of the light coming over and through the shattered arches. She stayed looking at it for as long as she dared. Then she tidied herself in a hurry and went down.