My Heart Has Wings (11 page)

Slipping away from her partner at the end of a rather heavy-going tango, she went through the open french windows on to the terrace beyond. It was almost dark now and there was a heavenly scent of dew-wet flowers. The fairy lamps in the lime branches began to appear, like glowing tropical fruits. How beautiful it all looked—the twilight lawns and rose gardens, with the massed trees of a small beech coppice dark and mysterious behind them. Jan drew in a long breath of night
-
scented stock and felt curiously aloof—and at peace. It was so much better out here than in the heated ballroom where Mike, unaware of her existence, danced with Erica.

And then suddenly he was at her side. It was so unexpected that for a moment he seemed quite unreal, an unfamiliar figure in the immaculate tails that made him look taller than ever. His white bow tie, she noticed, was a little askew, his blue-grey eyes looked down at her unsmilingly and with an odd intentness. “At last,” he said, “I’ve run you to earth! All evening I’ve been trying to beat my way through the ranks of your numerous partners.” He took her hand in a purposeful way and tucked it into the crook of his arm. “Let
’
s get out of it all for a bit,” he said, and take a turn in the garden.
“
I want to talk to you.”

She withdrew her hand from his arm as they walked across the lawn. He was so tall it wasn’t easy to keep in step with him; walking alone was easier. For a great many reasons! Jan told herself, dryly. Being too close to Mike disturbed her. But he wouldn’t guess that. Indeed at the moment he seemed sublimely unaware of her, making no comment when she abandoned his arm, strolling beside her over the beautifully kept turf. In the rapidly gathering darkness his face, dimly seen, wore a look of dreamy remoteness—as if his thoughts were miles away. Why had he pretended he had wanted to dance with her? He didn’t have to make excuses for the fact that he had not come near her all the evening. The truth was he had been far too much occupied to bother about her—dancing with Erica as often as he could, or with Helen. He’d made a special point of looking after Helen
...
and Jan was glad he had. Poor Helen in her beautiful new frock, being so desperately gay!

What did he want to talk to her about? Jan wondered. And hoped it was Merecombe. She was longing to hear how the tests were progressing and when the E.106a was to have its maiden flight. But it wasn’t her business to ask about these things.

Skirting the rose garden, Mike took the narrow path through the shrubbery that led to the beech woods. “How is the magnum opus coming along
?
” he inquired suddenly, breaking the silence.

Jan had to think for a moment before she replied: “Oh, the play
?
I don’t really know. Father seems to keep at it
...
” She didn’t want to talk about her home affairs. Bills and more bills accumulating; Carole’s pinched, worried little face when they discussed her future—or lack of future—at the art school; Hart’s unexplained evening absences when they were sure he was seeing Gerda Byrrsen. She wanted to forget all that tonight.

The beech woods were silent and mysterious, filled with a deep twilight gloom. You could feel the colour of green rather than actually see it in the thick interlacing branches overhead. The path they trod was soft with beech mast, layered with leaf mould. Jan’s heel caught in a hidden sprawling root and she stumbled against Mike. His arm went around her, holding her lightly. She drew away from him, her heart beating furiously. “When are you going back to Merecombe?” she blurted, the question springing unbidden to her lips. Merecombe filled her mind—she had not known how completely. Suddenly a cold fear engulfed her. It was as though the awful unleashed power of the great jet prototype lurked here
in
the green darkness—like some crouching jungle beast. If only the E.106a tests were over!

“Monday, I expect,” Mike said.

“And the tests?” she asked, ignoring all caution; horrified to find her teeth were chattering.

“Oh, coming along. It’s hard to say just when.” He turned to her and stood still, taking her two hands into his own. They were ice cold. “You’re not panicking, by any chance, are you, Jan?” She tried to laugh. To panic was rank treason. Pilots hated it. “I’ll just be glad when it’s
all
...
in the bag,” she said. “We’ve been such ages working up for it.”

“I know,’ he agreed softly. “But I don’t want you to think about it like that. Don’t let Daker infect you with his fussing. Not to worry, Jan! Not
you
. Just hold everything for me ... quietly steadily, the way you always do. I like to think of you when I’m on a job like this—sitting at your desk in the office—waiting for me to come back to you; certain I’ll be along; never a doubt.”

He lifted her hands to his shoulders, drawing her close. “Jan,” he said unsteadily, “dear Jan! You’re my luck. My courage. I’ll be depending on you. I wish I could tell you just what you mean to me
...
”

“Mike! Mi
...
ke!” It was Erica calling.

CHAPTER
NINE

Abruptly Mike dropped
Jan's hands, and they started apart. Jan’s heart was racing, her thoughts
in
confusion. What was it Mike had been trying to say to her
?
Merely that she had (in some way obscurely connected with an airman’s superstition) become mixed up with the luck of the coming flight. Nothing earth-shaking. Nothing new. And yet Erica’s interruption seemed cruelly an anticlimax.

Wraith-like in her ice-blue frock, she stood at the end of the path, peering into the gloom. “I saw you sneaking off with Jan a few moments ago.” She sounded none too pleased.

She said to Jan. “Disappearing in the middle of works parties at which he is supposed to be helping is one of Mike’s annoying little habits. Don’t
encourage him. He’s really a most unsociable creature. Really Mike,” she
admonished
him,
“you are the
limit
! Mother says she gave you the last two clues to plant for the treasure hunt.”

“Good Lord, so she did!” With a contrite air Mike produced two small envelopes from a waistcoat pocket. Erica seized on them. “They’ve got to be hidden in the maze. Come and help me do it. It’s quite a complicated business, and the pack will be on our heels pretty soon. Mother is just getting it all organized. Or at least she will be when she has moved the band to the terrace. It’s such a gorgeously warm night that we thought we might have the rest of the dancing on the
lawn.”

T
hey were out of the wood now, approaching the house. In the short interval they had been absent the garden had blossomed with fairy lamps. Floodlights illuminated the te
r
race, competing with an enormous full moon which had just appeared over the tall Tudor chimney stacks.

“The mystery guest has arrived,” Erica said to Mike in a cryptic aside. “Pa is hiding him in the study, mellowing him with sherry.”

“Oh, good show!” Mike returned in an enthusiastic undertone.

This confidential exchange made Jan feel a little
in the way.

“I’ll leave you to plant your clues,” she said lightly, and would have moved away, but Mike caught at her hand and pulled her back. “Come and see the maze,” he invited. “It’s quite a place!”

His arm was about Erica’s shoulder as they skirted the rose garden. A stonily silent Erica now. She doesn’t want me tagging along, Jan thought uncomfortably. But Mike was holding her hand very firmly. “It won’t be fair for me to join in the hunt tonight if I help to plant the clues,” she pointed out, making another attempt at a tactful withdrawal. But Mike was singularly obtuse. “You needn’t see where we put them,” he assured her.

The treasure hunt, like the raspberries and cream, was an annual feature of the works party. It wasn’t everyone who enjoyed dancing solidly hour after hour, Lady Scott-Manly said, and she liked to vary the amusement, keep it at high pitch. The treasure hunt was very popular, the presents concealed generous and invariably worth having. Last July Jan had found a beautiful picnic set in a wicker hamper, which the Ferraby family had used ever since on their river outings.

What would she find tonight, she wondered, without much interest, tinglingly aware of the pressure of Mike’s strong fingers, enclosing her own. The moment in the beech wood came back to her, with a sharp nostalgic pain; Mike drawing her close, lifting her arms about his neck. In the green twilight his eyes had held a burning intensity. A look with a challenge in it, and a hint of recklessness. If Erica hadn’t come upon the scene just then—would he have kissed her?

I’m losing my mind, Jan pulled herself up sternly. A casual embrace in the intimacy of the darkening wood with dance music throbbing in the distance—a summer evening party made for easy romance. And he had been wrought up—talking about the tests.

They had reached the maze now, dark and old and twisted as the Tudor chimney pots. “Though I know it inside out, I’m still quite capable of getting lost in here
,”
Erica announced on a hushed note of awe as they went soundlessly along the winding grassy path.

Deeper and deeper they pene
t
rated, in single file now, the walls of clipped yew closing in on them. These thick black hedges were hundreds of years old; there was something faintly menacing about them, Jan felt, and was relieved when they came to an archway, opening on to a small clearing. “We’ve got to plant the clue at the fifth archway,” Erica said, and on they went through the tunnels of inky gloom.

“There ought to be a ghost to complete the picture,” Jan whispered presently.

“There is,” Erica whispered back. Somehow it was natural to speak only in undertones. “A beautiful lady who was stabbed to death by a jealous lover in Elizabethian times. She is supposed to haunt the maze when the moon is full, weeping bitterly.”

“With her head tucked underneath her arm!” Mike suggested, irreverently.

And it was just at that moment the sound of sobbing came to them—so aptly that they stared at one another incredulously, the two girls stifling a nervous giggle. Though it didn’t sound at
like
ghostly sobbing; vigorous, lively, mingled presently with angry shrill feminine protestations—in French. A man’s voice answered, soft and conciliating.

Before they had time to think of retreat the opening in the wall of yew was before them, revealing a clear space of moonlit grass where Paleski stood, with Anne-Marie in his arms. Erica made a startled sound and turned as if she would have fled, but Mike and Jan were blocking her path, irresolute with the surprise of this unexpected and dramatic development. For an instant they all stood in frozen silence, then Anne-Marie came slowly towards them, leaving Paleski looking sullen and a little foolish.

“So! Mees Erica!” she cried out in a sneering tone. “You follow us! I am glad that you come. All the evening I have tried to speak wiz you, but Ladislaus prevent me
.
It is because I must talk wiz you that I make Lionel bring me here tonight; he do not want to bring me because he think I am Ladislaus’ girl-friend and will make you much trouble. That is what Ladislaus tell him. What maybe he tell you too. His girl-friend!” Anne
-
Marie’s hoot to derisive laughter ended in a hiccoughing sob. “
That is how he speaks of me ...
his wife
!”

Jan was aware of Erica’s stifled exclamation, of the swift instinctive movement she made towards Mike, as though for protection. He put a steadying arm about her shoulder. “Let’s get out of here
,”
he said harshly, but Erica shook her head, and Anne-Marie was off again in full spate. “F
o
r two years we are married. When Ladislaus come to Paris poor, without a sou, I give him all my savings. It is I who rent the apartment, and buy all the furniture and work in an office ten hours a day so
that we can eat
...
And now he want that I divorce him so he can marry you. But this I will never do!” Her voice rose shrilly.

Jan, feeling more and more uncomfortable, began to edge away down the dark path.

“Better wait for us, Jan,” Mike called after
her. “It’s a bit tricky getting out of the maze
—
”

The interruption passed over Anne-Marie’s head unnoticed.
“
Mon mari
!”
she shrieked. “It is me he love. Not you. This he tell me now at this moment—here in this garden. He marry wiz you only because you are rich, with the father who makes aeroplanes. He thinks you help him with his charter air-service, that you give him planes, money
...
everything
...
and you run after
him
he say, throw yourself at him, lure him away from me
...
”

“
Tais-toi
!”
Paleski shouted, goaded at last into action. Seizing Anne-Marie by the arm, he pushed her aside. “Don’t listen to her, Erica,” he cried. She is crazy. Jealous.
Mechante.
I can explain you everything.”

“
I don’t think I need any more explanations,” Erica said, with a short mirthless laugh. “This is all very painful and stupid ... and quite unnecessary. I think you had better take your wife home. It
’
s she who seems most in need of your explanations. Meanwhile,” she turned to Mike,
“we’ve
got to plant that final clue. It goes somewhere here, I think—by the fifth opening. This
is
the fifth, isn’t it?”

Her composure was superb. Jan was filled with admiration.

“But you cannot leave me like this, Erica
,
” Paleski was expostulating. “Please listen to me, darling! I can make you understand
...”

“I
understand perfectly,” Erica broke in coldly. So now will you kindly
go.
And I never want to see you again. I hope that’s clear?”

“
If it isn’t,” Mike broke in angrily, “I can perhaps assist Mr. Paleski’s powers of perception with a quiet sock on the jaw!”

Somehow the whole sorry encounter dissolved in undignified disorder then, Paleski and Anne-Mari
e
disappearing in a mutter of French through the far side of the opening; Erica, Mike and Jan
g
oing back through the maze by the way they had come. For a while they walked in awkward silence. This is ghastly, Jan thought. If ever there was a time when a third person was
de trop
it is this hideous moment in this hideous maze! The winding paths seemed never-ending.

Suddenly Erica was laughing, shakily, gallantly. “You were terrific, Mike
...
with your tactful little offering of physical violence.”

“It got rid of the chap, anyway,” Mike muttered through clenched and angry teeth.

“Poor Anne-Marie!” Erica went on bravely,
pairing
it light and off-hand. “Ladislaus told me she was a girl he used to know slightly in Paris.”

“A remarkable understatement,” Mike growled.

“It was silly of him ... but quite unimportant as far as I’m concerned. I can’t think why he felt it necessary to work up all this atmosphere of unpleasant intrigue; simply because I liked him
...
wanted to help him
...
” The brave voice faltered and there was a sound suspiciously like a sob.

“Don’t, darling!” Mike said quickly.

“I’m not really crying,” Erica sniffed, “but it was so
...
humiliating; that dreadful girl shrieking at me. It doesn’t matter, Mike, really it doesn’t
...
” She was in his arms now, her head on his shoulder, and he was holding her tightly, murmuring words of
comfort ... or of love perhaps.
Jan didn’t wait to listen. Seeing the end of the maze blessedly at last ahead, she made a dive for it.

“I’ll tell Lady Scott-Manly we’ve planted the last clue and they can start the treasure hunt,” she called over her shoulder.

They didn’t answer her. She didn’t expect them to. They were lost in one another, caught up in the emotional turmoil of readjustment. Whatever Paleski had meant to Erica, he had cut himself out of her life now—with the finality of a surgical operation. What could she have seen in him? Jan found herself wondering as she came out on to
the brightly lit lawn. Poor, brilliant, impulsive Erica—so naive in some ways in spite of her bookish cleverness. Perhaps because of it. Too busy passing exams, Helen had said of her, to have found time to grow up. In those years crowded with academic interests, dominated by her father’s ambition for her, his pride in her, striving to please him, she had somehow by-passed the foolishness of adolescent “crushes”. And then she had lost her head over the handsome, excitingly “different” Pole. Taking it hard, Helen had summed it up, like a belated attack of some childish illness. The emotional measles she ought to have worked out of her system long ago.

Well, the “measles” were dramatically cured now, and with Mike for a doctor it would be a swift convalescence, Jan predicted, stifling a completely insane sense of loss. Ridiculous to feel that in the last half-hour something in her own relationship to Mike had subtly altered. Nothing had altered. They were the same placidly good friends they always had been.

But as she skirted the lawn with its throng of dancers, her eyes filled with tears. The band was playing an old-fashioned waltz, hauntingly familiar—a waltz from The
Pink Lady.
They had played it that night at the Flying Club when she had danced with Mike. Vividly the memory came back to her; Mike holding her against his heart saying, “You’re sweet, Jan. Don’t let anything change you!”

The swift rush of pain that came to her made her hold her breath. Oh, but it was idiotic to keep on going over these trivial encounters with Mike Carliss, treasuring them, magnifying them! Mike belonged to Erica. He always had belonged
...
he always would. Down there in the moonlit maze they were rediscovering the bond that had held them ever since, as a lonely boy, Mike had come to
Sheldrake
... to find love and kindliness
...
and Erica.

Blindly, as though she sought to escape from that nostalgic waltz tune, Jar hurried into the house. In the vast deserted entrance hall it was blessedly quiet. Sinking down on an oak settee she leaned back, closing her eyes. She felt sick and shaken, as though she had been through some tremendous emotional crisis. But it was Erica who had been through a crisis, she reminded herself. Opening her eyes she found herself staring into the vizored casque of a suit of armour, propped up in an angle by the cavernous hearth. It seemed to be grinning at her—with a mockery she entirely deserved! She remembered she was supposed to be finding Lady Scott-Manly to report on the progress of the clue planting, and stood up, mentally pulling herself together.

Absently, still absorbed in her own stormy mood, she became aware of a soft voice singing, somewhere nearby, shaking out little tentative trills, like a nightingale tuning up before the full cascade of song. It seemed to be coming from a room at the far end of a corridor opening out of the great hall. Then someone was playing a series of chords on a piano and presently the voice joined them, singing purposefully now and with design.