Dorothy Eden (22 page)

‘You were smiling.’

‘Dundas, how can you watch my expression when you’re driving on a road like this?’

The road was climbing tortuously over Mount Hercules. The wooded slopes stretched on either side, forests of beech and rimu and matai, tangled, crowding, ceaselessly green.

‘When we’re over this hill I know where we can have a picnic lunch. I brought some food. You didn’t know I would think about it, did you?’

Indeed, she hadn’t known. No one, she thought, had been in less of a mood for a picnic.

‘No, I didn’t. I thought you were too worried about Margaretta.’

‘Oh, Margaretta.’ He gave a sigh. ‘One has to be fair. Perhaps I haven’t always been.’

Alice was tremendously relieved about his change of mood.

‘That’s sweet of you, Dundas. I knew you’d begin to see it that way. After all, Margaretta is grown up now and entitled to do as she wants.’ She diplomatically changed the subject. ‘A picnic lunch will be lovely. But we’re in a hurry. Don’t we want to get back to see Camilla?’

‘Camilla can wait an hour or two. We can’t allow her to intrude on our time. What were you thinking of when you were smiling?’

‘Oh, nothing much. I’m a notorious day-dreamer.’

‘Was it by any chance that bus-driver? An impudent likeable fellow I thought he was.’

Alice felt the colour creeping into her cheeks.

‘Felix?’ she said innocently.

‘There was something between you two once, wasn’t there?’ Dundas said pleasantly.

Alice resented his right to question her—besides the fact that that spot was too sore for probing.

‘Perhaps there was, just as there was between you and Miss Jennings. I had never got to the stage of getting a wedding dress,’ she added.

Instantly she was sorry, not because she had hurt his feelings but because his lips were clamped shut in that frightening manner again.

‘What’s over is over,’ she ventured. ‘Anyway, I wasn’t thinking of Felix, but of poor Katherine Thorpe. I hadn’t guessed what was wrong with her, and yet now it seems astonishing that I never did. She had that awfully neurotic manner.’

‘I knew at once,’ Dundas said. The amiability was still in his voice, as if he were determined to keep it there.

‘You knew! And you never told me!’

‘My dear girl, can’t you realize the dark secret they were making of it? One had to respect that.’

‘But that night—you knew I was terrified out of my wits—you knew I thought they had done something to Camilla.’

‘But you couldn’t seriously have thought that for long, could you?’

Dundas patted her knee with his heavy square hand and smiled at her amiably.

‘In about half an hour we are coming to a tiny, very beautiful lake. I thought we would have lunch there. I wangled a bottle of Sauternes out of the barkeeper. Look, the sun’s going to shine, too.’ Again his hand stole over her knee and he used her own words, ‘What’s over is over, eh?’

Alice nodded a little hypnotically. She was trying hard to follow his line of reasoning. He loved her, yet he preferred her to spend several days in miserable apprehension and dread rather than betray the secret of people who meant nothing to him.

She wanted to wriggle away from his hand, but couldn’t persuade herself to do so. He was such a volcanic person today. The least irritation set him scowling.

(It could be that he had been glad for the incident that caused all her suspicions to rest on the Thorpes… But no, Camilla was safe, safe!)

‘You do love me, don’t you, my sweet? Say you do, just to let me hear it in your voice.’

Alice was intensely uncomfortable.

‘Dundas, I—’ She abruptly stopped what she had been going to say and began to chatter. ‘Do you know, when I first got here I thought you were in love with Camilla. I thought everyone was—Dalton Thorpe and Felix, too. And now I find that none of you were. Poor Camilla was a complete dupe, wasn’t she? But you must have led her to believe you cared about her from the things she wrote in her diary. The poor girl! It wasn’t fair. And she had that money, too. If it was found that she had been bumped off for her money I am afraid it would be you they would suspect, Dundas.’

‘Why me?’ came his deep lazy voice.

‘Because you are the hoarder. Felix hasn’t a bean and cares less, and the Thorpes seem to have pots of money. So there you are. Elementary, eh?’

It had been a roundabout way to take him off the subject of whether or not she loved him, but it seemed to have succeeded. For he was smiling in his old pleasant way and saying, ‘What a fascinating creature you are. What a mind inside that pint-size body! But if you are going to say horrible things like that about me I think perhaps it would be better if you went right back to sleep.’

It was so nice that Dundas was in a pleasant mood again. Alice relaxed and began to think of the possibility of joining Felix in Australia. But what was Dundas going to say? She had to tell him soon. There was no doubt that he would be deeply hurt, but that he would behave in a decent gentlemanly way. She would tell Camilla of the stupid fix she had got into, indirectly because of Camilla herself. Camilla would giggle and give her some airy advice…

‘This is where we turn into the lake,’ came Dundas’s voice. He directed the car into a soft rutty track that ran beneath low-hanging trees for half a mile or so until it came out into an open space on the shores of the miniature lake. There was a tumbledown boathouse and a rowboat pulled up on the shingle bank—that was all.

‘No one comes here,’ said Dundas. ‘Isn’t it an enchanting spot?’

Alice looked at the stretch of water shining darkly from the reflection of the surrounding bush. In the very centre, like a picture in a frame, there was a small patch of shining blue, and one white lovely mountain peak. It was a mirage in the dark green water, a jewel, the kind of thing one would dive deep to reach.

‘If no one comes here, who owns the boat?’ Alice said practically.

‘It belongs to a neighbouring farmer. But he’s away at present. Shall we have lunch first or shall we have a row across the lake?’

‘Eat,’ said Alice contentedly. She threw herself down on the sun-warmed shingle. ‘If you give me some of that Sauternes I’ll think I’m in heaven.’

‘That’s what—’ Dundas stopped rather abruptly, as if his tongue had momentarily been going to betray something. ‘That’s where I am now,’ he finished blandly. ‘Sunshine, food, a beautiful stretch of water, the loveliest girl I have ever seen…’

‘Come off it,’ said Alice. ‘I’m not even pretty.’

‘My dear, to me you are matchless. So little, so perfect. Maybe we had better eat before I grow too lyrical.’

He produced the package of sandwiches and the bottle of wine from the car. It was worthy of record, Alice thought humorously, that for the space of fifteen minutes Felix’s dark-browed face did not come into her mind once. Some day she would tell him that. She would say, ‘I was lying on the shore of a marvellous lake with a man who loved me passionately, getting slowly and delightfully drunk.’

‘What would you do if you found I didn’t love you after all, Dundas?’ she asked lightly, when it no longer seemed to matter what she said.

He eyed her with eyes grown yellow in the sunlight. Tiger’s eyes, Alice thought lazily.

‘I would row you out and tip you into the bottom of the lake. And it’s a very deep lake. Deep and cold.’ He was giving his mild little laugh. ‘Come along, let’s row, anyway, before we go to sleep.’

‘Camilla,’ Alice murmured.

‘What about her?’

‘We have to get back to see her.’

‘Oh, she can wait. Waiting won’t hurt her.’

He pushed the boat into the water, and she climbed in. It was a very small boat and it rocked as they pushed off. Dundas grasped the oars competently. They made a pleasant cool sound in the water. The distance from the shore steadily increased. Alice trailed her hand. It was true, the water was very cold, icy cold, as if that mirrored snowpeak had frozen it.

‘In the middle,’ Dundas said, ‘the depth hasn’t been measured.’

‘That was where that lovely picture of the sky and the mountains was. I wonder if we can see it when we are over it.’

‘Lean over and see,’ Dundas suggested. ‘See, I’ll stop rowing. The ripples spoil the reflections. Let’s sit here absolutely still.’

The ripples on the water widened and widened and vanished. Alice leaned over. The boat rocked softly. The dark-green water moved.

Suddenly the rocking of the boat increased violently. Dundas half fell against her. She was plunged to the arm-pits in the icy water. Then he was dragging her back, panting, trying to steady the boat.

She fell back into her seat, wet and shivering. Dundas’s face was splashed with water, too. Or was it perspiration? His eyes were quite black.

‘God! You nearly fell in. You nearly upset the boat when you leaned over so far.’ He held out his arms as if he wanted to take her into them. His face was distraught.

‘But I didn’t,’ Alice said practically. It had been so quick, too quick to be really frightened. ‘So don’t get so upset. Anyway, I can swim.’

‘Not in that water,’ he said. ‘You’d be frozen before you got to the bank.’

‘But you’re here with the boat, silly. You’d rescue me. All the same, I’m glad I didn’t. It looks so dark down there. Let’s go back to the shore, shall we?’

After a minute Dundas grasped the oars. His face was still white and twisted.

‘So near,’ he muttered. ‘And you’re the kind of woman I’ve looked for all my life.’ He gave a curiously wry smile. ‘Damn you!’ he said. He almost looked as if he were crying.

M
ISS WICKS DID NOT
seem to be at home. Neither did Camilla. Alice rapped at the front door, and felt the rain from rapidly gathering clouds begin to speckle her face. She could hear faintly the ginger cat mewing inside. She tried the door and found it locked.

With the last sunlight obscured by the clouds it was almost dark. Already moisture was beginning to drop off the shiny leaves of the ngaio tree. Although there was no wind, a cabbage tree was rustling. It sounded like taffeta skirts. It was only the cabbage tree, not Camilla running down the hall to open the door.

The little cottage was empty except for the cat. She was back to where she had been a fortnight ago, with all the oppressive gloom and mystery of the place surrounding her.

There was a step behind her and Dundas stood at her shoulder.

‘No one home?’ he said.

‘There can’t be. There are no lights. And I can hear the cat crying.’

In the gloom she realized that he was smiling. It was a peculiar smile, not happy, but knowledgeable, ironic, almost sadistic. No, surely that was a trick of the light. She edged away from him.

‘Dundas—’

‘Did you really expect Camilla to be here?’ he asked. ‘Come. We’ll go home.’

‘But—but the telegram—’

‘Someone has been playing a trick on us. Couldn’t you see that from the start?’

She watched his odd frightening smile.

‘Dundas—you sent it!’

He shook his head.

‘No. But I intend to find out who did. I think probably it was Margaretta. She would think it a very funny joke. You wouldn’t have suspected she would have a sense of humour like that, would you? Never mind, we won’t hold it against her.’

He took her arm. His strong fingers closed round it tightly. His voice was deeper than it had ever been, the thickest, softest, most suffocating black velvet. He was still smiling.

‘It must have been Margaretta,’ he said. ‘She was the only one who might have known.’

Alice tried to draw away from him. Her heart was beating violently.

‘Known what?’ she whispered.

‘What are you frightened of, love?’ came his velvet voice. ‘Don’t you know that I adore you? Come on home. Margaretta,’ he added, with a slight chuckle, ‘knew nothing at all.’

Now at last all her vague apprehensions and suspicions had crystallized into the deadliest fear. Her mind flung her chaotic sentences.
I wonder if it’s true what they say about Dundas. Margaretta adores her father. It’s getting a bit dangerous. To
1
flame-coloured nylon nightdress
£4. 4. 0.

She had sense enough to know that at this minute it was useless to resist him. She could only pin her slender hopes on the mysterious sender of that telegram (if it were not Margaretta), and the fact that Dundas, in his unbalanced way, really did worship her. What a blind fool she had been, she who thought she was being so clever and constructive. What a silly little lamb, Felix would have said.

‘Felix!’ she whispered desperately, as if his name on her lips might be a charm.

They were in the car and Dundas was driving rapidly round the bend in the road up to his own gate. He swept into the drive, the headlights flashing on the scarlet and yellow dahlias. There was a riot of colour, then the dark tree-trunks, then the lighted windows of the house.

Lighted! Who had turned on the lights?

Dundas stopped the car and sat quite still. The blinds of the windows were drawn, but chinks of light showed, and the dark-red glass in the hall door blazed crimson.

‘It can’t be Margaretta,’ Alice murmured aloud. ‘She’s gone.’

Excitement and relief were mounting in her. She was emerging from that brief nightmare.

‘Dundas, it really is Camilla.’

‘It can’t be Camilla!’ he snapped, and leapt out of the car.

Alice followed him as quickly as she could in view of the way her legs were trembling. She reached the front door just as Dundas had opened it and was stepping inside.

Someone was singing in a deep exaggerated croon.

‘Night and da-aay, you are the o-oone…’

Camilla’s theme song! They had always teased her about it. She had said it was her best parlour trick. There was no doubt at all that she still used it.

‘Camilla!’ Alice cried joyfully, pushing past Dundas and bursting into the hall.

The staircase ran up into the gloom of the unlighted first floor. Someone was coming down it—a woman. She paused just on the edge of the shadow. Then she gave a mischievous giggle, and, turning, ran back up the stairs.

It
was
Camilla. Alice had seen the grey squirrel coat and the long blonde hair. But how peculiarly she was behaving.