Dorothy Eden (15 page)

Was she wrong to read all that in Dundas’s intense gaze?

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked urgently. ‘What goes on in your mind? Tell me quickly!’ Then, forsaking his modest old-fashioned courtesy, he cried, ‘Alice, you are my ideal woman! I never thought I would meet her. One so seldom does realize an ideal. But here you are and I’m crazy for you.’

As Alice, struggling with her thoughts that held a picture of a mocking jeering Felix, looked at him dumbly, he went on more soberly,

‘You’re wondering about my first wife. She was a fine woman, but marriage is a thing that sometimes catches one almost unawares when one is very young. I married her when I was only twenty-one. I realize I never really loved her. The way I feel about you only happens once to a man.’

Alice wanted to see the humorous side of the situation. He was so intensely solemn, this nice little man, and she should laugh at him kneeling now before her like Solomon before the Queen of Sheba.

But she couldn’t laugh. The queer thing was that she didn’t know whether she was being herself or Camilla as she answered, ‘You’re so kind. How can one refuse you?’

She was almost sure she would never have answered a proposal of marriage in those words. It was as if Camilla had spoken them. Yet she had not been thinking particularly of Camilla. It was almost as if a similar situation had occurred, perhaps in this room… No, no, that was being fanciful. Dundas’s brilliant eyes, filled with the mystery of their enlarged pupils that blacked out the irises, were full of absolute sincerity. It was she, Alice Ashton, she only, whom he had proposed to since the death of his first wife.

I wonder if it’s true what they say about Dundas…
From nowhere that haphazard comment out of Camilla’s diary came to nag at her.

But her words were spoken now, and Dundas had got eagerly to his feet and was bending over her to kiss her. For one frantic second she had a feeling of suffocation. Then she let his lips press on hers and she put her arms round his neck and closed her eyes to shut out the picture of a jeering Felix.

She visualized her future reaching, soft and cushiony, before her. She would be mistress of this tall old house, mistress of the duster that attended to the daily requirements of the Satsuma and Cloisonné bowls, the Venetian glass, the Georgian silver and the little Dresden ladies. She would help Dundas with his photography, she would learn to go up the glacier with him beneath the towering snowpeaks. She would dress on Saturday nights to dine at the hotel, and smile with complete confidence at Dalton Thorpe and his beautiful sister. As Dundas’s hungry lips pressed on hers she was seeing all that with the speed of a dream. There was not time to think of the ultimate obligations of a wife before Dundas at last lifted his head and murmured intoxicatedly, ‘Ah, darling, darling!’

Alice moved worriedly and pushed him away.

‘Before we make decisions, Dundas, what about Margaretta? She doesn’t like me particularly, and I admit it’s difficult for a girl of her age to be suddenly inflicted with a stepmother not much older.’

‘Margaretta will be all right,’ Dundas said confidently. He nuzzled his lips against her neck. ‘Ah, my tiny beautiful darling.’

‘No, Dundas, you must think about this. Margaretta—’

‘I have thought about it. Margaretta was very fond of her mother and has always been afraid of anyone taking her place. Since her mother’s death she has transferred her affection to me, and I am the object that inspires her jealousy.’ In his stilted language he went on, ‘That’s understandable, and it explains her hostility to you. But I have just made her a promise, and you’ll see when she comes up that she’ll be quite different.’

‘What did you promise her?’ Alice asked curiously.

‘I told her that I was going to ask you to marry me, and if you consented I would allow her to study to become a doctor, as she has always wanted to.’ He twinkled happily. ‘She will be overjoyed at our news. Even I will be cast aside now.’

I
T APPEARED THAT MARGARETTA
had had a passionate wish to study medicine ever since she had been very young. It was true, as Dundas had said, that her antagonism for Alice seemed to have left her, but now there was some other emotion in her eyes. It was not enthusiasm, and it was not excitement about her own longed-for dream coming true. Rather, it was pity.
Could
it be pity? She was an incomprehensible person. It seemed one could never find out what really went on in her mind. Alice only had a feeling of remorse, and a little humiliation, that Margaretta had had to be bribed to accept a stepmother.

Dundas had brought her in and warmly told her the news, and then had left her with Alice. He had gone out of the room confidently, sure that his future wife and his silent awkward daughter were going to make friends. But Margaretta would say nothing except her stiff polite, ‘I hope you will be happy.’

She knows, Alice thought uncomfortably, that I’m not in love with her father. I’m very fond of him, certainly, I admire and like him, but Margaretta knows I’ve slipped into this because I’m tired and want security. Even perhaps that I’ve been tricked by some influence that I don’t understand into saying yes.

She tried to joke.

‘I’m really afraid it was this lovely nightdress that precipitated things,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Margaretta. ‘It would be.’ She spoke with complete finality, and yet there was an innocent child-like look in her eyes as if she had no conception of the effect of sex on a man’s behaviour. If she misinterpreted Alice’s remark, then there must be another reason connected with the nightdress.

Suddenly Alice was impatient with herself for all this tortuous thought. Why couldn’t she simply accept things as they were? If she had accepted Camilla’s first letter for the truth she would have saved herself a great deal of worry and doubt. She would have saved herself that wild flight from the Thorpe house because of a practical joke, and in turn have avoided that painful accident that had brought her as an invalid here.

But now she was remembering Dalton Thorpe’s low threatening voice,
I shall have to take steps…

‘I suppose concussion tends to make one a bit nervous and apprehensive of things,’ she said tiredly, scarcely aware that she was speaking aloud.

That exasperating pity flickered again in Margaretta’s eyes.

‘Yes. It affects one’s whole nervous system. Nerves are the cause of far more illnesses than most people would believe.’

‘How long ago should you have been at university, Margaretta?’ Alice asked.

‘A year. Daddy thought medicine an unsuitable career for a woman. Anyway, he couldn’t very well manage without me. But now—’

‘And you wanted me to go away,’ said Alice. ‘You really did, didn’t you? I thought you must be awfully jealous.’

‘I wasn’t what you thought,’ Margaretta muttered.

‘Well, never mind,’ said Alice, feeling she couldn’t bear any more complicated statements that night. ‘You must let me come to town with you and help you buy clothes. You’ll need a lot of things, because really you are rather shabby. You will let me, won’t you?’

‘Well—all right.’

‘Good. One day next week, perhaps. If it comes to that I’ll have to get things myself. Shall I have a white wedding?’

Downstairs the telephone was ringing, and before Alice could dwell on the unreality of a white wedding or any wedding at all in this wet green stormy country Dundas called that she was wanted on the telephone.

‘It’s Dodsworth,’ he said. ‘If you don’t feel like coming down, love, I’ll tell him to ring in the morning.’

‘No, no, I’ll come down.’

The descent of the stairs made her breathless. Too much was happening, too much. Now Felix ringing, as if he knew of her faithless action. How silly that she should feel this guilt.

She picked up the receiver and said, ‘Hullo’, in her breathless voice.

Dundas was standing a little way from her, solicitously. Would he stand there all the time?

‘Hullo, little Alice.’ Felix’s voice was gay and caressing. He hadn’t called her that, or spoken in that tone of voice, for so long. What had happened?

‘Hullo, Felix. What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing at all. Are you going back to England?’

‘No. I thought you definitely understood all that.’

‘I underestimated your stubbornness. You’re so like a little soft lamb, I didn’t think you could be so stubborn.’

‘Felix, have you been drinking?’

‘No, only Dundas’s whisky to toast Camilla. Lucky Camilla. Supposing we call on her in Sydney.’

‘But she’s going to America.’

‘She didn’t say when. She may still be in Sydney when we arrive.’

‘Felix, what
are
you talking about?’

His gay warm voice that she had forgotten how much she loved came over the wire.

‘I gave you quite a long time to decide you had better go back to England, because it’s really more fun having some cash. But you seem to be quite sure you can get along with practically none, so I thought we’d better get out of here and go to Australia. I may still have to do a spot of bus-driving over there, but Charlie Ross writes saying they’re forming a company to tour the big cities. Doing Shakespeare and Shaw. It sounds right up our alley. Don’t you agree?’

Alice licked her lips. Dundas had moved into the dining-room and was standing looking broodingly at one of the Dresden figures, no doubt seeing in its static limbs the image of her own. Dundas, with his ideals, his kindness, his longing for her.

But if only he would go out of earshot while she explained to Felix… If he were not in earshot she could not have said what her words would have been, but the knowledge that he was there held her in that peculiar spell that made her speak almost without her own volition.

‘Felix, I can’t. Much as I would like to—to be in the plays, I mean—I can’t.’

His voice subtly changed. It was still friendly, but now it had a hint of the contempt to come.

‘What have you done that is as serious as that?’ he asked.

‘Felix, Dundas—Dundas wants me—’

‘Don’t we all?’ His voice was definitely colder, harder. She was overwhelmingly conscious of Dundas’s presence, of his listening ears.

‘Felix,’ she said with a trace of desperation, ‘Dundas has asked me to marry him and I have agreed.’

For a moment or two it seemed as if Felix might have walked away from the telephone. But presently he said heartily, ‘You
do
surprise me. Congratulations! Congratulations, indeed.’

If one hadn’t known him so well one would have thought his voice was genuinely hearty. One would not have been conscious of the subtle undertones of contempt that was meant to hide his intense hurt. Felix thought he could behave to women as thoughtlessly as he pleased, but when a similar thing happened to him he was ridiculously sensitive. Perhaps the male ego was greater, Alice told herself desperately. Perhaps that was all it was.

‘Thank you, Felix.’

‘Then Australia is off?’

‘I’m afraid so.’ No regret sounded in her voice, did it? It mustn’t, because of the two pairs of ears listening.

‘Well, well!’ Felix ruminated. ‘Both you and Camilla in one week. It’s quite overwhelming.’

The mention of Camilla stiffened Alice’s resistance to his mocking blandishments. She remembered, too, his tendency to telephone attractive girls, and she succumbed to the temptation to be a little petty.

‘I agree that you must find it so. But there’s still Katherine.’

‘Katherine?’

The innocence in the upward inflexion of his voice could only be assumed.

‘She’s on tiptoe with anticipation. Don’t disappoint her, will you, Felix dear? Don’t confine your attentions to the telephone.’

‘I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about. The only time I have telephoned Katherine Thorpe was to enquire if you were there. But let it pass. To change this enthralling subject, did you notice anything odd about that letter of Camilla’s?’

The cold finger of apprehension was on her again.

‘No. What?’

‘Do you know that never in her life has she called me Felix. Isn’t it odd that she should do so now?’

Of course, in her diary it had always been Dod.
Dod says he would kill me if I play fast and loose with him…
Was that the significant thing about the letter of which she had been half aware?

‘Perhaps she had never written to you before,’ she suggested.

‘I admit she hadn’t. By the way, does it occur to you the hotel here has a very transient population? Someone could have been leaving for Australia a day or two ago and obligingly taken a letter to post.’ He paused a little. Then, ‘Well, never mind. But if you’re in Hokitika in the next week or so you might be interested to call on that parson in Rutland Street. The Reverend Adam Manners. He said Camilla called on him the day she failed to come home. He said she was tentatively enquiring about marriage arrangements. She was going to be living at the glaciers, she told him. In her naïve romantic way she was wondering whether to have a white wedding…’

T
HAT NIGHT THE THREE
men trooped through Alice’s dreams. Dundas saying in his deep caressing voice, ‘My little beautiful darling!’ Felix leaning over her hissing,
‘Thou wretched rash intruding fool!’
Dalton Thorpe as thin and attenuated as a ghost making his mysterious threat, ‘I shall have to take steps.’

In between her dreams she lay awake staring at the dark ceiling and wondering why this house suddenly seemed as hostile as the Thorpes’. At intervals the voice of the cuckoo clock, a comic little ghost trying to get some fun out of his haunting, sounded. Rain beat softly on the window. Everything was muted, even, when they began, the slow footsteps overhead.

Dundas’s sleepless footsteps were somehow the most disturbing of all.

What was it that he had been burning the previous night? Why sort out things in the dead of night if they were innocent articles that Margaretta or anyone could see? Did he have to hide something from the gaze of his future wife?

No one, she thought, as she at last awoke, could feel less like a girl who had just had and accepted a proposal of marriage. But it hadn’t been her voice that had answered that proposal; it had been one that had come to her for no reason. One from her instinct to act, perhaps, or from the queer compulsion she had when she was in this house to be Camilla. But Camilla hadn’t been going to marry Dundas. If she had been going to marry anyone in the valley it would have been Dalton Thorpe. Was it for him that she had discussed a white wedding? And then had this American come along and swept her off her feet with the prospect of a glamorous future? Dalton would be a man of such intense pride that he would never admit he had been jilted. He would make great efforts to prevent such information getting out. That could be why he had made those peculiar threats.