Dancers in Mourning (7 page)

Dick Poyser carried Sutane and his guest off again after the meal. Like most people directly concerned with the management of money, he had a curious preoccupied mannerlessness, as though he and his mission in life were somehow sacrosanct and privileged. He did not speak to anyone outside his two charges and ignored his hostess completely, yet there was no deliberate rudeness in the man.

After the meal Campion cornered Uncle William.

‘Leave, my dear fellow?' The old man was aghast. ‘Of course you haven't made any progress yet. Haven't had a moment. No, no, wait a little while. Must see Sutane before you go, anyway.'

He stumped off, anxious to avoid further conversation.

Campion sat down in a corner of the living-room. There was a restlessness in the big house which had nothing to do with noise. Outside the garden was warm and scented, a light wind playing in the lime trees.

On the lawn below the terrace he could see Chloe walking between Petrie and Benny Konrad, and her high, thin laugh came up to him every now and again.

The others had disappeared.

He sat there quietly for a long time until the yellow light died on the tree-tops and the colder shadows of the approaching night swept over the garden.

Once he heard voices in the hall and the closing of doors, but then all was quiet again. He lit a cigarette and smoked it thoughtfully, his long thin hands loosely clasped across his knees. He was angry and dissatisfied with himself.

The hand on his sleeve and the voice so passionate in its inquiry startled him considerably.

‘What's your name?'

It was a child in a big old-fashioned overall. She was not pretty, but her plump face was eager and flushed with excitement, and she had round eyes with startlingly familiar gold flecks in them.

Mr Campion, who was a little afraid of children, regarded her with something akin to superstition.

‘What's your name? Tell me your name.'

Her demand was vehement and she clambered over the chair towards him.

‘Albert,' he said helplessly. ‘Who are you?'

‘Albert,' she repeated with satisfaction. Having attained her objective she was now inclined to shyness as violent as her first overture had been. She wriggled away from him and stood hesitating. ‘Albert's a dog's name,' she said.

‘Who are you?' he repeated, and wondered at his dislike of her.

She stared at him as if she guessed his antagonism.

‘I'm Sarah Sutane. I live here. I'm not allowed to talk to you or anybody, but I want to. I want to. I want to.'

She flung herself sobbing into his arms and rubbed a wet, unhappy face against his tie. He sat her up on his knee, doing his best to look as if he were not pushing her away from him, and felt for a handkerchief, which seemed the moment's most pressing need.

‘How old are you?'

‘Six.'

‘Sarah!' Miss Finbrough and a woman in nurse's uniform appeared at the French windows. ‘I'm sorry, Mr Campion. She ought to be in bed. Come along, child, do. She ran away just before bedtime. Where have you been hiding? In the garden?'

Sarah shrieked and clung to her link with the outside world who rose, embarrassed and dishevelled. In the end the nurse took her and carried her off, kicking. Her angry screams echoed faintly and more faintly as a succeeding procession of doors closed after her. Miss Finbrough raised her eyebrows.

‘She's a nervy child,' she said. ‘Still, what can you expect? She wants other children to play with. She's lonely, but you can't have the place overrun with kids. It's not like an ordinary house. D'you know I haven't been able to get hold of Mr Sutane all day?'

‘Doesn't Sarah see anyone?'

‘Oh, well, she sees her mother and her nurse, and me. Her mother spoils her, but she agrees with Mr Sutane that she can't run loose among the guests. She'd get spoilt and precocious and pick up I don't know what words. Mr Sutane has a horror of her becoming what they call a stage child. I keep telling them she ought to go to boarding school.'

‘At six?'

‘That's what her mother says.' Miss Finbrough showed her impatience. ‘Still, if a child's got an overworked genius for a father it's got to take the consequences.'

Mr Campion felt his usual urbanity deserting him.

‘You're a little hard, aren't you?'

‘Hard? Have you seen him dance?' The plain woman's face was flushed and her eyes were bright. ‘You can expect
him
to upset his health, filling the place with children.' She checked herself. ‘Mrs Sutane's out in the garden looking for the child,' she said. ‘It would run away just when we were so upset already. I wonder if you'd mind telling her?'

Campion went out into the dusk. On the lower lawn he encountered Chloe and Sock Petrie, who was carrying a portable gramophone and a case of records. The woman was excited, he noticed. The twilight softened her face and her eyes were brilliant.

‘I'm going to dance by the lake,' she said. ‘This warm, passionate,
exulting
night!'

She threw out her arms to the opal sky.

Petrie scowled. ‘I'll put on a couple of records for you and then I've got to have a look at my bus,' he said ungallantly. ‘She's got to get me to Town tonight, poor old trumpet.'

Chloe laughed at him.

‘So you think,' she murmured.

‘So I damn well know, my dear,' he retorted. ‘Hullo, what's Donald Duck want?'

Benny Konrad sprinted across the lawn towards them rather too consciously like a young faun.

‘I say, Sock, Sutane's gone,' he began with a hint of relish. ‘Yes, he took a fancy to one of the guests who came today, and he's gone tearing off in the Bentley to see him. After his invitation card, I expect.'

Sock put down the gramophone and swore.

‘He would,' he said finally. ‘Oh, my God, he would. Here, Benny, take these blasted things and go and put on records for Chloe. I'm going round to the garage to see if Joe knows where the lunatic's gone.'

‘I think you're insufferable,' said Miss Pye to his retreating figure and spoilt the dignity of her reproach immediately afterwards by shouting: ‘Come back when you've finished!'

Sock did not reply, and Benny picked up the gramophone.

‘I'll dance, too,' he said. ‘I say, what was the matter with Eve?'

Chloe turned on him with unexpected interest.

‘When?'

‘Just now. After food. She was crying divinely, all alone under a little rose-bush. When she saw me she ran away.'

‘Where to?'

‘I don't know. Up to her room, I suppose.'

He giggled and for an instant Chloe Pye stood irresolute. Then she shrugged her shoulders.

‘Be careful with the records,' she said.

Albert Campion went on his way to find Linda. She was in the park. He came on her as she stood shouting for Sarah in a small, appealing voice.

‘Please, darling, come out! Sarah, pet, come out. Please come out for Mummy.'

He dropped into step beside her.

‘Sarah's in bed,' he said.

She turned to him with relief and he was gratified to see welcome in her eyes. They strolled back through the garden to the house and sat on the terrace talking until it grew dusk, when they returned to the morning-room, too engrossed in each other to notice the continued absence of the others.

Campion was not conscious of the time. His carefully trained powers of observation were temporarily in abeyance. He had ceased to be an onlooker and was taking part. He was extraordinarily happy. His good conceit of himself grew. He felt capable and intelligent and he talked with all the old animation of his early youth. All trace of vacuity vanished from his face and his eyes became alive and amused.

Linda was sparkling at him.

As they talked of the disastrous party of the afternoon the affair began to present its purely humorous side and a frankly hilarious note crept into their consideration of the entire problem.

They were each aware of a new sense of freedom and discovered together, as they paid each other the irresistible compliment of complete comprehension, the most delightful and most dangerous quality of mutual stimulation.

The rest of the household and their weary, worried and excitable personalities were forgotten. It was a long and supremely satisfying evening.

The inevitable ending of such a spring dance came when neither of them expected it. He looked across at her and grinned.

‘This is very good,' he said.

She laughed and sighed and stretched herself like a small yellow cat.

‘I'm very happy.'

‘I believe you are,' he murmured and got up lazily with every intention of kissing her. It was a completely casual, unpremeditated movement, arising naturally out of the unselfconscious exuberance of his mood, and he was half-way across the rug towards her when the world returned to him with a rush and he became acutely aware of himself and who and what and where he was.

For the second time that day he was seized by a sudden terror that he had gone completely out of his mind.

He shot the girl a startled glance. She was looking at him gravely. The gaiety had died out of her face and a faint bewilderment had taken its place. It occurred to him that she had shared his experience. She rose and shivered a little.

‘I'll go down and see if I can cajole some coffee out of the baleful company in the kitchen,' she said lightly. ‘They're very much on their dignity after the fiasco this afternoon. I've done all I can. They've had their wireless on all night, which is against the rules on Sunday when Jimmy's at home – you can hear it, can't you? They've got a passion for military bands and they've been bribed with port and sweet words. Yet Hughes gave me notice this evening. He's outraged, poor dear. I'm doing my best to woo him back. I can't lose him. He was with my uncle.'

She went out quickly, closing the door softly behind her.

Left to himself, Campion stubbed out his cigarette and passed his hand through his sleek fair hair. Resentment not untinged with amusement at the utter unreasonableness of his own hitherto decently controlled emotions consumed him.

‘It doesn't happen,' he said aloud and looked round guiltily, terrified lest he had been overheard.

The cry across the park came so faintly at first that only a part of his mind was aware of it, but as it was repeated, growing steadily in volume and insistence, it burst into his thoughts with the force of an explosion.

‘Come, damn you! Somebody come! Come at once! Where is everyone? Somebody come!'

At the moment that Linda stepped back into the room the thudding feet came pounding on to the terrace and Sutane, his face livid, appeared at the open windows. Even then his sense of the theatre did not quite desert him. He paused and stared at them.

‘I've killed her,' he shouted. ‘Oh my God, Linda. I've killed her. I've killed Chloe Pye.'

T
HERE
are moments of acute sensation before the mind gets to work again when shock is no more than a feeling of physical chill, and at these times the detail of one's surroundings are apt to take on a peculiar vividness.

Linda became aware of the untidiness of the brightly lit room, of Chloe's red handkerchief folded neatly on the piano with her book upon it, and of Campion's long, dark, suddenly important back as he stood arrested, half-turned towards her husband.

Then there were footsteps in the hall behind her and Sutane's manager, Dick Poyser, his sad eyes inquisitive, came in.

‘I heard a noise,' he said. ‘What's the matter, Jimmy?'

Sutane stepped into the room. He was a little unsteady on his feet.

‘I've killed Chloe … she chucked herself under the car.'

‘For God's sake shut up!' Poyser looked round him involuntarily and his thought was as evident as if he had spoken it. ‘Where is she?' he went on, adding instantly: ‘Anyone see you?'

‘No. I was alone.' Sutane shook his head as he spoke, his naïveté almost childlike beside the other man's authority. ‘She's down in the lane on the grass. I put her there. I didn't like to leave her in the road. The car's there too because of the lights. I couldn't leave her in the dark. I cut across the park.'

‘Sure she's dead?' Poyser was staring at him in horrified fascination.

‘Oh yes.' The light pleasant voice was dull. ‘The wheels went clean over her. It's a heavy car. What the hell shall we do?'

There were other movements in the house now and Mercer's voice, lazy and inarticulate as usual, sounded from the little music-room across the hall. Uncle William's characteristic rumble answered him. Poyser turned sharply to Campion.

‘Are you something to do with the police?'

‘No.' Campion glanced down at him curiously.

‘Thank God for that!' His relief was heartfelt. ‘We'll go down. Where did it happen, Jimmy? Give him a drink, Linda. Pull yourself together, old boy. Steady now, steady.'

‘I should phone for a doctor and the police at once.' Mr Campion's quiet impersonal voice cut into the conversation.

‘Why the police?' Poyser pounced on the word suspiciously.

‘Because there's been an accident. It's the rule of the road, to start with.'

‘Oh, I see …' The little man looked up, a faint smile which was both knowing and appreciative twisting his mouth. ‘Yes, of course. I forgot that. Linda, that's a job for you. Give us three minutes to get down there and then phone. First a doctor, then the police. Just be perfectly natural. There's been an accident and someone's hurt. Got that? Good. Now we'll go. Jimmy, you'll have to come, old chap.'

Just before he went out after the others Campion glanced back at the girl. She was still standing half-way across the room. Her hand covered her mouth and her eyes were round and frightened. He realised suddenly that throughout the whole scene she had said nothing at all.