Dancers in Mourning (16 page)

‘That's quite obvious, you know,' he said gently.

‘Is it?'

‘I think so.'

She smiled at him in a grateful, watery fashion which unaccountably turned his heart over, reminding him inconsequentially and therefore irritatingly of its exact position in his body.

‘I couldn't get to see the doctor because of Mrs Pole,' she explained earnestly. ‘There's such a lot of that sort of thing. I haven't got any definite work but I never seem to be able to be on hand at the right moment. It seems absurd to talk about the house, with an army of servants, but in a place like this, with crowds of people rushing in and out perpetually, all of them without warning, there's a lot of managing to be done. Servants don't expect to have to think, you know. If you can give them a curriculum they can carry it out, but when you can't you've got to think for each of them whenever thought is required. And anyway they're alternatively overworked and bored stiff. Then there are little odd things like arrangements, trains to be met and people to entertain when the others aren't actually needing them. I don't neglect Sarah, honestly I don't. I'm with her every spare second I have. I'm not much good, though. It's so difficult to get your mind to work like a child's and if it doesn't the child's either bored or puzzled. She's so lonely.'

She paused for breath and, catching sight of his face, seemed to remember for the first time that he was a comparative stranger.

‘I'm sorry,' she said with a certain youthful stiffness. ‘I've been so exasperated all day because I couldn't see Doctor Bouverie about Sarah. It was all so ridiculously unjust that it's been rankling and you were about so I threw it all at your head. I'm so sorry.'

Campion sought in his mind for some suitable rejoinder at once graceful and pacifying. It did not present itself to him, however, and instead he made the observation uppermost in his mind, stating it baldly and without art.

‘You're lonely yourself, aren't you?' he said.

The girl shot him a single comprehending glance.

‘You're clever,' she said. ‘Much cleverer than I thought. That sounds rude. I don't mean it to be. Eve and Mercer should be back soon. It's awfully good of her to drive him about.'

He accepted her clumsy change in the conversation politely and watched her profile against the window. She went on, talking a trifle hurriedly.

‘They went in to Birley to get some music manuscript paper. No one in the world but Mercer would insist that he wanted manuscript paper at a time like this. Nothing ruffles him. His man was out, so I'm afraid Eve was forced into offering to drive him. He doesn't touch the car himself. They'll all be back soon. It will be an accident verdict, won't it? Sock said you'd fixed everything.'

‘I did nothing,' said Campion, rather too truthfully, he thought. ‘But yes, I think it'll be accident.'

Linda nodded. ‘Why should she take her life?' she said. ‘Poor girl! I thought she seemed so pleased with herself. And she was very much
en grande tenue
. It seems so extraordinary.'

‘
En grande tenue?
'

She looked a little embarrassed.

‘In full regalia, sexually speaking,' she said. ‘Sort of energy people put on, or put out rather, when they're hunting. You know what I mean. Some people do it subconsciously the whole time and some just adopt it when they have someone particularly in mind. It's one of those things you notice instinctively.'

Mr Campion raised his eyebrows.

‘Chloe Pye was in full regalia, was she?'

‘Yes, I think so.' Her quiet voice was thoughtful. ‘I wondered whom she was interested in. Sock, I imagined. Lots of women like Sock very much. He looks as if he could do with cherishing. Not exactly dirty; unbrushed, if you see what I mean.'

Campion grinned.

‘That would hardly do for Chloe Pye, would it?' he suggested.

‘I don't know.' Linda eyed him gravely. ‘I only met her once before she came down here. I was alone in Jimmy's dressing-room one day last week and Sock brought her in to see me. She said she'd like a week-end in the country and I offered her a tentative invitation which she seized. Jimmy was rather upset when he heard of it and wanted me to put her off, but I didn't like to because it would have been so rude. I wish to God I had.'

She paused. ‘Perhaps it was an accident,' she said at last, but her voice carried no conviction. ‘It's all very horrible and frightening.'

‘Frightening?'

She looked up at him and he caught a fleeting expression in her eyes which jolted him.

‘I talk too much to you,' she said. ‘It's a gift of yours, making people talk, because you understand what they say, you know.'

Campion sat down.

‘I'm quite trustworthy,' he said briefly. ‘Why are you afraid?'

She hesitated and suddenly turned to him.

‘Have you ever had rats in the house?' she demanded unexpectedly. ‘If you get mice they're just a nuisance, like flies or too many old magazines, but once you get rats you're aware of an evil, unseen intelligence which is working against you in your house. It's an inexplicable feeling if you haven't experienced it, but if you have you'll know what I mean. It's the “enemies about” sensation. That's what I've got now. There was something wrong about that woman's death, and it came on top of a lot of wrong things.'

She remained looking up at him, curled up on the window seat. Her gold skin was warm against the dark satin of her dress and her small face was alive and intelligent. She was chic, compact, very much a definite person, and it dawned upon Campion that he was in love with her and that he would never again be completely comfortable in her presence.

She was quite right about the situation at White Walls. There were enemies about, and if he deserted her now it would be a desertion indeed. He did not take his eyes from her face but he ceased to see her. The discovery he had just made was not an overwhelmingly astonishing one, for it had been knocking at the door of his mind ever since he had first seen her. He found it shocking, however, not because she was Sutane's wife and Sarah's mother, and therefore not for his pursuing, but because a phenomenon which he had hitherto believed to be more than half an old wives' tale had been at last revealed to him as a fact instead of a fashion. He knew that he had come down to White Walls in a normal state of mind, and yet within an hour an outside force had conquered and possessed him.

‘You're looking at me as though I'd done something blasphemous,' said Linda Sutane.

Campion stiffened as though she had boxed his ears. Presently he grinned at her. His eyes were dancing and the long creases down his cheeks had deepened. He looked suddenly very much younger and very much alive.

‘Fair comment,' he said lightly, and added, ‘the cruellest observation you could possibly have made.'

She stared at him curiously for a moment and he saw a certain timidity creep into her expression which delighted and invigorated him even while it appalled him.

Linda shook her head, an involuntary childish gesture to shake away a thought.

‘Perhaps it's all imagination,' she said.

‘Perhaps it is,' he agreed. ‘Whatever it is I'll see it through.'

She put out her hand.

‘I don't think it is,' she said. ‘Do you?'

He got up and walked aimlessly down the room.

‘No,' he said, looking down at the empty fireplace. ‘I know damn well it isn't.'

Hughes startled them both and looked a little bewildered himself when he came in an instant afterwards.

‘Mrs Paul Geodrake, Madam,' he murmured. ‘I told her you were out, but she caught sight of you through the window. She told me to tell you she was sure you would spare her a moment. She's in the dining-room. I had no other place to take her.' He glanced reproachfully at the open double doors.

‘Who is she? Do we know her?' Linda seemed surprised.

Hughes sank his voice confidentially.

‘She lives in the Old House on the lower road, Madam. You were out when she called originally and so was she when you returned cards.'

Linda drew back.

‘I can't see her now, because the others will be here at any moment.'

‘Her husband's father, old Mr Geodrake, was friendly with your late uncle, Ma'am.' Hughes seemed hurt. ‘She said only for a moment. She's a rather determined lady.'

Linda capitulated and he went off satisfied.

Mrs Paul Geodrake came into the room as if it were a fortress she had stormed. She was a fresh-faced, red-haired woman in the mid thirties, smartly if not tastefully dressed, and possessed of a voice of power and unpleasantness unequalled by anything else Campion had ever heard. It occurred to him at once that the fashion for well-dressed stridence was out of date. Also he wished that she were less determinedly vivacious.

She swooped upon Linda, her hand outstretched.

‘I had to come,' she said, her bright intelligent eyes fixed searchingly on the other woman's face. ‘I've been sitting at home thinking of you and I suddenly made up my mind to run up and tell you you're not to worry. After all, we're next-door neighbours, aren't we?'

Linda looked at her blankly. A lesser soul would have been silenced by that expression of frank bewilderment, but Mrs Geodrake was of stern stuff. She looked at her small hostess with a compassion that was not altogether untinged with satisfaction.

‘You poor child,' she said. ‘It's been frightful for you, of course. The village is full of it. They get things so exaggerated, don't they? And they will talk.'

Linda said nothing. She had not spoken since her visitor's arrival and Mrs Geodrake, taking pity on her gaucherie, helped her out.

‘Aren't you going to introduce me?' she said, dropping her voice a tone or so and eyeing Campion with a frankly appraising air which he found disconcerting.

Linda performed the ceremony politely and Mrs Geodrake repeated the name, doubtless committing it carefully to memory.

‘Not your husband?' she said, and shot an arch twinkle at the other woman.

‘No,' said Linda.

‘He's at the inquest, of course,' said Mrs Geodrake, aware of but not in the least disconcerted by the absence of conversational support. ‘My dear, do you know old Pleyell, the Coroner? A perfect sweetie. Awfully stiff, of course, but quite a darling. You'll love him. He'll see you through and do the decent thing. Frightfully unfortunate for you – only your second year here. Whom did you have? Doctor Bouverie, wasn't it? Such a charming old character, isn't he? How is your little girl? I heard in the village a dog bit her. Children never ought to have dogs. They're so frightfully cruel to them, don't you think? I'm dying to have a borzoi, but my husband doesn't like them. Do you have to obey your husband, Mrs Sutane? I cut the word out of our marriage service, but it hasn't made any difference.'

She laughed and they joined her politely if rather breathlessly. Campion had the uncomfortable feeling that he ought to do something to stop her and wished it were his own house.

Mrs Geodrake opened her bag and produced a cigarette-case.

‘I'll smoke my own, if you don't mind. I sing,' she said with a brief artificial smile as Linda produced the box somewhat belatedly from the mantelshelf. ‘Tell me, was she a great friend of yours, this girl who was killed?'

The concern in her voice was so superficial that it reached the cipher-point.

‘No,' said Linda helplessly. ‘I'd never met her before.'

‘Oh, I see. A friend of your husband's. How interesting!'

The bright eyes suddenly reminded Mr Campion of those of his old friend, Superintendent Stanislaus Oates.

‘No, no.' Linda was forced on to the defensive now. ‘She was simply appearing in his show, so I asked her down, don't you see?'

‘Oh, a business friend?' Mrs Geodrake filed the hard-won fact for future reference. ‘How terribly awkward for you. Still, it's so much better than someone you knew well and rather liked. Do tell me, how did she come to be nude? The village is too intrigued. The policeman's blushing all over, my dear. Were you having a nudist party?'

They both stared at her blankly, but before their honest astonishment could turn to irritation they saw something wistful behind her shrewd, hard eyes. Campion found himself thinking of the original Miss Hoyden of the play, not the tempestuous vulgarian which generations of exuberant actresses have made of her, but the author's own over-healthy and tragically unentertained piece whose energetic imagination fashioned from the half-heard gossip from the gay world a life of idyllic licence and excitement which only the freshest spirit and the strongest constitution could possibly survive for a couple of days. The stage, Bohemia, parties, romance; Mrs Geodrake evidently saw them all as synonyms.

He stole a glance at Linda. She still looked a little bewildered.

‘Oh, no,' she said. ‘She'd been rehearsing down by the lake. She wasn't nude. She was in a bathing-dress for dancing, you see.'

‘Alone?'

Mrs Geodrake seemed disappointed.

‘Yes, quite alone.'

The sound of voices floated in from the hall and Linda got up with determination.

‘It was very kind of you to come,' she said, and held out her hand.

‘Not at all. I felt I had to.' Mrs Geodrake ignored the hand and turned towards the door with expectant interest. ‘Is this your husband coming?' she said. ‘He'll know about the verdict, won't he? I'm dying to hear it, aren't you?'

She smiled at them disarmingly as she spoke, and it occurred to the indignant Mr Campion that the ‘superb self-possession' ideal extolled by the novelists of the last generation had been a serious mistake. Linda's hand dropped to her side and the door opened and Mercer looked in.