Danger Point (2 page)

THE train slowed down to the curve by Cranfield Halt. Sometimes it stopped there, and sometimes it did not. Today it was going to stop. There were half a dozen passengers waiting in the open country platform, and four of them precipitated themselves into the carriage in which Miss Silver had hoped to continue a very interesting conversation. They pushed between her and the pale girl who had just been saying such startling things — a hearty, comely mother and three children from six to sixteen, all off to town for the day to visit their relations. The carriage became filled with their voices, their opinions, their criticisms, their anticipations. They all talked at once.

Lisle Jerningham leaned back in her corner and shut her eyes. Why had she ever gone down to Mountsford? The Cranes were not really her friends at all. She hardly knew them. They were Dale’s friends. And in the end Dale had cried off and made her go alone. Business in Birmingham — Lydia’s money. There wasn’t very much of it now — she knew that. Lydia’s money… She tried to stop thinking about Lydia. Mr. Crane was nice — she liked him — big, and jolly and kind. Mrs. Crane always made you feel as if you had a smut on your nose. She liked Dale — woman generally did — but she had a grudge against him for marrying. She liked men to be single and faithfully adoring. She liked a court. She was devoted to her husband, but she liked other men to be devoted to her. And Dale had broken away and married Lisle, so she didn’t like Lisle.

Dale oughtn’t to have made her go down to Mountsford alone. She ought to have refused to go — then none of this would have happened. She would never have stood with the sun on her back, and smelled the yew hedge, and heard the voices say, “A lucky accident for Dale.”

She jerked her thought away. This time yesterday she was seeing Dale off. And then shopping and lunch with Hilda. And then in the late afternoon the hot train journey down to Mountsford. She had left it as late as she could. She had even left it a little too late, because she had had to hurry over her dressing. She saw herself in her silver dress, with the emerald which had been her mother’s. Some people’s eyes would have taken a green shade from the green stone, but hers were never anything else but grey. They didn’t change. There was something in herself which didn’t change either. Even if it was all true, she couldn’t change. Even if Dale wanted her dead, she couldn’t change.

She wrenched away from that. Dinner. Marvellous food. Mr. Crane telling Scotch stories very badly and laughing at them so heartily that it didn’t seem to matter whether anyone else laughed or not. A crowd of people whom she didn’t know. A fat man who wanted her to come and see the rose garden by moonlight, and who said “All the better” when she pointed out that there wasn’t any moon. Bridge — much wearisome bridge. And at last bed. She had dreamed about Dale — Dale looking at her — Dale’s eyes laughing into hers — Dale kissing her… She mustn’t think about that—

But whatever she thought about, it came back to Dale.

This morning, lovely, with the mist rolling up off the sea, dissolving, thinning away, clearing away from the pale, bright, perfect blue of the sky, and the sun so hot on her back where she stood in the shelter of the hedge.

A lucky accident for Dale—

It was no good. It all came back to that.

In the opposite corner Miss Silver had put down her knitting and had once more opened Ethel’s magazine. She looked at the same page which had engaged her attention before. It displayed the full-length photograph of a girl in a silver gown. Underneath, in italics, the legend, “Lovely Mrs. Dale Jerningham in her loveliest frock.” All round the photograph, in lines of varying length, there meandered a gossip letter which began with an italicised “Darling”, and ended with “Yours ever” and a large question mark. Anonymity may mean that you are either too well known or not known at all. It has certain advantages, and the writer of this letter exploited them to the full. Dale Jerningham became Dale as soon as his surname had been got on record. “A lucky man, not only because he owns Tanfield Court which costs the earth to keep up, but he has married two quite rich wives — oh, not both at once of course — that would be too much luck even for lucky Dale, and he really was a widower for a surprisingly long time. His first venture was poor Lydia Burrows who was killed climbing in Switzerland umpteen years ago. The present Mrs. Dale was Lisle van Decken. And has she got plenty of the needful? Oh, boy! She’s as pretty as her picture, or even a bit prettier. Father American and dead. That’s where the cash comes from. A Scandinavian grandmother. Hence the platinum hair which looks too good to be true, but isn’t really…”

Miss Silver permitted an expression of distaste to change the set of her lips. Vulgar — very vulgar indeed. She really did not know what the press was coming to. She looked across at Lisle and saw her leaning back. Her eyes were closed, but she was not asleep. The hand in her lap was clenched upon itself, the knuckles showed bone-white. No, not asleep, only withdrawn into a desperate unhappiness.

A little later, as the train slowed, the eyes opened and met Miss Silver’s. There was a long moment before the eyelids dropped again.

Miss Silver unhasped her bag and extracted from it a neat professional card inscribed:

Miss Maud Silver

15 Montague Mansions,

West Leaham Street, S. W.

Private Investigations Undertaken.

She closed her bag again with a decisive snap as the train slid into the gloom of the terminus. A porter flung the door open. The woman with the three hearty children gathered her brood and got out. Mrs. Dale Jerningham rose to her slim height and turned to follow them.

She had reached the platform and had walked a few steps, when she became aware of a hand on her arm. The little dumpy woman to whom she had talked in the train was walking beside her. She had talked to her, but she could not remember just what she had said. She didn’t want to talk to her now. She looked down vaguely and saw that she was being offered a card. She took it and put it in her bag. The voice which reminded her of all the governesses she had ever had said kindly and distinctly,

“If you need help at any time, that is my name and address.”

The hand dropped from her arm. Without looking round she went forward to the barrier and gave up her ticket.

THE sun blazed down on the tennis courts at Tanfield. There were three of them, two under beautiful turf, and the third a green hard court. A high mixed hedge of hornbeam, holly and thorn shut them in. The great mass of the house, except for its high flanking towers, was out of sight.

On the farther grass court Alicia Steyne was finishing a hotly contested set with Rafe Jerningham. The ball skimmed the net and went low and straight past Rafe’s backhand. He ran, reached for it vainly, and came down sprawling. Alicia threw her racket in the air and called in her high, sweet voice, “Game and!”

Rafe got up and saw her laughing at him. She was as little and light as a child, with dark tossed curls and a vivid, wilful face. All her colouring was brown, but the quick blood gave brilliance to lip and cheek. Her teeth were as white as hazel nuts. She came round the net tossing her racket and laughing.

“Pouf! I can always beat you!” She pursed her lips and blew him a kiss. “And for why? Because I play much, much better than you do. And I don’t lose my temper.”

Rafe laughed too. He was as brown as she — medium size, very slim, very good-looking in something of a gypsy way. He had slender black eyebrows with an odd kink in them. The brown-skinned, well-set ears were a little pointed like a faun’s. There was something that was not quite a likeness between him and Alicia Steyne. They had, in fact, the same grandmother, and the same very white teeth. He shewed them as he said,

“But I don’t lose my temper.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“Not even secretly! Most men do when a woman beats them.”

“Not even then.”

She flung her racket down with a sudden impatience.

“Well, I’ve got a beast of a temper, and I don’t care who knows it! Only I don’t lose it at games — I keep it for something better worth while.”

“Such as?”

A stormy look came over Alicia’s face. Rafe went on in a light, teasing voice.

“Like your own way, don’t you, and cut up rough when you don’t get it — even at games.”

She flashed into brilliance.

“That’s not true, anyway!”

“Not? Sure?”

“You know it’s not true!”

He laughed lightly.

“Well, you do generally manage to get your own way.”

The brilliance went out like a blown flame.

“Not always.”

She jerked round and ran to pick up her racket. Rafe watched her with a curious teasing look. His thin, mobile lips showed the white teeth again. It amused him to consider that Alicia, who had taken her own way as a right ever since she was a baby, couldn’t take it, and would probably never be able to take it, where his cousin Dale was concerned. She could have had him once when she was nineteen and he was twenty, and he had no money and she had no money and Sir Rowland Steyne had a great deal. Well, she had let Dale go and married Rowland. So what had she got to grouse about? It was her own doing, and ten years stale at that. Dale had married Lydia Burrows under some pressure from his family and Lydia’s family, and by the time he came in for Lydia’s money Alicia was Lady Steyne. It amused Rafe quite a lot.

He wondered what would have happened if Rowland had smashed up himself and his car a month or two earlier. By the time that obituary notices appeared Dale was already engaged to Lisle van Decken. They were married before Alicia could decently enter the lists.

She came back swinging her racket, her eyes bright on his face.

“Why do you look at me like that? I hate you!”

His smile widened.

“I was thinking you didn’t look like a widow.”

This made her laugh.

“Would you like me to put on black streamers?”

“Not at all. I like you as you are.”

“I wonder if you really do, Rafe.”

“I adore you.”

Alicia shook her head.

“You don’t adore anyone. You love yourself and Tanfield. You like Dale — you don’t like Lisle. And sometimes I think you hate me.”

He slipped an arm around her waist, brought his lips close to her ear, and said in a low, seductive voice,

“You don’t believe any of that really.”

“Don’t I? I think it’s all true.”

He put his cheek against hers.

“Darling!”

She said, “You hate me — really.”

“Yes —like this.”

She pulled away from him angrily and then burst out laughing.

“You like making love to me because it’s quite safe. I wonder what you’d do if I suddenly fell into your arms.”

“Try!”

“Too public.” She laughed again. “You are a fool, Rafe! Some day, you know, you are going to be taken seriously, and you won’t like that at all.”

A curious expression passed over his face.

“All right, let’s make a start here and now. In sober earnest, why do you say I don’t like Lisle?”

She said in a lazy, teasing voice,

“Because you don’t, darling.”

The expression deepened. It was quite evidently distress.

“But I do — I like her awfully. I’d want to like Dale’s wife whoever she was, but I’d like Lisle if she wasn’t his wife at all. She’s my type on the face of it, fair and tall. Why shouldn’t I like her?”

“Because she doesn’t like Tanfield,” said Alicia.

Rafe laughed at her.

“Well, nor do I — so that’s a bond, anyhow.”

Alicia nodded.

“You don’t like Tanfield — yes, that’s true — you love it.”

He shook his head.

“I suppose I did — when I was a kid. A good big lump of masonry like that is the sort of thing a kid understands. One gets a bit more practical as one gets older. No one wants a place this size nowadays — it’s just asking for bankruptcy. You’ve only got to look back into the family history to see what a drain it’s been. Five of the last seven Jerninghams married quite respectable heiresses, and who’s any the better off for it? I haven’t a stiver. Dale would have been on the rocks without Lydia’s money. That saved him, but Tanfield has swallowed it, and now it’s opening its mouth for anything he can get out of Lisle.”

“She hates the place,” said Alicia. “She’d like him to sell.”

“So would I,” said Rafe. “It’s the only sensible thing to do. The Manor has been in the family just as long. It’s a much more comfortable house, and to my mind a much more beautiful one. If Dale had a grain of sense, he’d close with Tatham’s offer — it won’t hold good for ever. The trouble is he hasn’t got a grain of sense where Tanfield is concerned. We’ve been here for five hundred years, and he expects us to go on being here for another five hundred — any sacrifice being only an obvious and natural tribute.”

Alicia looked startled. Rafe actually was serious. She could not remember having ever seen him so much in earnest before. It impressed her a little — against her will. She turned and looked in the direction of the house. The tower windows caught the sun and held it. They were all that could be seen. The long front with its eighteenth-century portico, the two wings running forward to enclose a paved courtyard where stone lions kept guard about a fountained lily pool — all these, though out of sight, were most familiar and present to her mind.

“You make it sound like a sort of Juggernaut.”

Rafe Jerningham broke into sudden mocking laughter.

“My sweet, the car of Juggernaut rolled over its devotees. Tanfield Court, I think, may be trusted to stay put.”

THE two big drawing-rooms at Tanfield Court looked out upon a very low terrace from which wide, shallow steps descended to the famous Italian garden. Lisle Jerningham hated it — a couple of acres of arabesques and geometrical patterns, hard, formal, set with cypresses and statues, and flowers which looked too tidy to be real. Beyond its confines Nature, though still dragooned, had been permitted to produce turf and trees — at first the more carefully clipped varieties, but as the distance from the house increased these gave place to spreading branches and unchecked growth. Dale’s grandfather had been a lover of trees, and the beeches, coloured sycamores, oaks, and maples of his planting had grown and flourished. There were tall conifers too, gold-tipped, deep emerald and blue — cypress, cedar, and deodar.

Lisle walked among them and waited for Dale to come home. Yesterday was yesterday and a long way past. Her colour had come back, and enough courage to make her think very slightingly about yesterday’s panic flight. The sense of shock having passed, she considered her own behaviour with amazement and some shame. Dale had sent her down to the Cranes for the weekend, and she had run away after a single night. He was going to be angry about that, and he was going to want an explanation.

She walked between the trees and wondered what she was going to say. Easy enough if you didn’t mind telling lies. She could say that she felt suddenly ill and didn’t want to be laid up away from home. Rafe and Alicia, horrified at her yesterday’s looks, could very well be trusted to bear her out. But she hadn’t been brought up to lie her way out of a fix. Lies were — rather horrid, and lies to Dale unthinkable. The truth then? Unfortunately the truth was rather unthinkable too. How was she going to say to Dale, “I stood behind a hedge, and two women were talking — I don’t know who they were. They said that Lydia had an accident because you wanted her money, and they said perhaps I would have one too?”

All at once she was shuddering with the recollection of how cold the water had been coming up over her chin, over her mouth, over her eyes — ten days ago — only ten days ago. She steadied herself against the thought and went out from the trees to get the warmth of the sun. She couldn’t tell Dale a lie, and she couldn’t tell him the truth.

She turned to see him coming towards her, and at once the whole thing slipped from her and was gone. It always gave her such a quick pleasure just to see him. Right from the first time there had always been a sense of being warmed and lifted up. It was something to do with the way he looked, the way he held his head, the confidence in his voice, the smile which his eyes kept just for her. Dark eyes, but not as dark as Rafe’s; a brown skin too, but not as brown as either Rafe’s or Alicia’s; and where they were lightly and gracefully built Dale had a tall, hard strength. When he put his arms round her she felt how easily their strength could have crushed her, and always until today the feeling had thrilled and pleased her. Now she felt something else. Even while he kissed her and she gave him kiss for kiss there was a small cold tremor of fear which nothing would still. She was glad when he let her go — glad and rather breathless.

“Dale — I didn’t stay—”

“I see you didn’t.”

He wasn’t angry yet. Perhaps he wouldn’t be angry at all. If only she could think of the right thing to say — But she could only stammer out,

“I wanted to come home. ”

His hand was on her shoulder. She felt its pressure there.

“Why?”

“Dale—”

She was half turned away, and he pulled her round. His voice was rather rough as he said,

“What’s all this about? I rang up last night, and Marian Crane said you’d rushed off after breakfast. When I said “Why?” she said she thought you’d had a telegram. I suppose that’s what you told her?”

“Yes.”

“Did you have a telegram?”

“No — Dale—”

She wouldn’t lie to him.

“Then why did you come away?”

She had not looked at him till then. Now she raised her eyes. They were steady and sorrowful.

“I don’t want to say. ”

“That’s nonsense! You’ve got to!”

“Dale—”

He laughed angrily.

“What’s come over you? The Cranes are my friends. You go down for the weekend, and you run away next day. You can’t do a thing like that and make no explanation. Did you have a row with Marian?”

Her colour rose — with relief, not embarrassment.

“Of course I didn’t! I don’t have rows with people.” She stepped back, and he let her go. “It was nothing to do with Mrs. Crane. I’ll — I’ll tell you what I can. It was —after breakfast. I went into the garden, and I — overheard two of the other women talking. I don’t know who they were — it was a very big house-party—”

“What did they say?” His tone was scornful.

She had a moment of sick wonder as to what he would say if she told him. But she couldn’t tell him. Her breath failed her at the thought.

“I don’t know who they were—”

“You said that before. I want to know what they said.”

Good heavens — why couldn’t she tell him and have done with it? Some stupid bit of scandal about his friendship with Marian! He had at no time a patient temper. The thought that Lisle had run away from some rubbish of that kind stirred it sharply. She saw his face darken, and said, hurrying over the words,

“It was stupid of me, but I didn’t feel as if I could meet them afterwards — I didn’t want to know who they were. Oh, Dale, can’t you understand that? It was a horrid thing to hear, and I didn’t want to know who had said it, or — or — to meet them. But if I had stayed I should have had to, and as soon as I heard them speak I should — I should have known who they were. Oh, don’t you see?”

The dark look settled into a frown.

“Not yet, but I’m going to. You haven’t told me what they said. You heard something which made you treat the Cranes with a good deal of discourtesy. Well, just what did you hear?”

Her colour had all gone again.

“It was something about Lydia. Dale, please don’t be angry. I wasn’t expecting it — and it was a shock. I couldn’t stay.”

“Lydia?” said Dale Jerningham. “Lydia”. It was something about Lydia that stampeded you? That doesn’t make sense! What did you hear?”

Lisle’s voice fell low.

“They said she had — an accident—”

His eyes considered her from under those frowning brows.

“But you knew that.”

Her hand went up to her cheek.

“Yes. It was the way — they said it—”

How little could she tell him? How much would she have to tell him? He was waiting, and she forced herself on.

“They said — it was — a lucky accident — for you—”

She had meant to go on looking at him, but she couldn’t do it. Her eyes dazzled. She looked away and a pulse beat hard in her throat.

He was very still for a moment. Then he said in a controlled voice,

“So that was it? A pretty old story! I should have thought they’d have done with it by now. I don’t really think you need have run away.”

She looked at him then, and was frightened. She had seen him angry, but not like this. This was anger iced over with contempt. Most terrifying was the thought that the contempt was for her. Because she had first listened to calumny and then run away from it. Her only comfort was that he asked for nothing more. If he had gone on questioning her she would have had to tell him everything, and her very inmost heart fainted with fear at the thought. Because if he once knew just what shock had sent her on that panic flight, there would be an end between them. She did not think this. She had not yet come to the place where she could think. She only knew it with a deep, unreasoning conviction.

Dale Jerningham walked a little way and came back again.

“You’ll have to learn not to fly off the handle every time you overhear a bit of spite,” he said. His voice was almost careless now. “People say that sort of thing, you know. They don’t expect it to be believed — they don’t even believe it themselves — but there’s poison in them somewhere, and that’s the way it works out. You won’t be able to go through the world running from everything you don’t like — better make up your mind to that, or I’m afraid we shan’t have much of a social life. Marian won’t bear malice, but you’ll have to think out as convincing a reason for that telegram as you can. Pity I rang up, or you could have said it was from me and left me to do the explaining. I expect I’m a very much better liar than you are.”

She looked up quickly at that to see if the words had been spoken with a smile, but in spite of the casual tone his eyes were hard and dark. He said abruptly,

“I’ve been in trains and offices for two days. I’m going for a tramp.” And with no more than that went striding off among the trees.