Dorothy Eden (61 page)

Simon dropped the bags and made a rush forward, his face scarlet with apprehension.

“Iris! I told you what would happen! He’ll frighten them to death.”

Iris, too, sprang forward to clutch the cat and fondle him in her arms. He struggled and showed his claws, the pupils of his eyes blacking out the green. Above him, Iris’s eyes, the same green, were bland and a little amused.

“Now, darling, don’t get upset. He can’t get your precious birds. He’ll soon learn to leave them alone.”

“No he won’t. A cat goes on stalking.”

“Well, and if he does he can’t get at them.” Iris began to pout. “Surely I’m to be allowed a pet when you have all those.”

The birds’ screeching died down and Simon’s face became contrite.

“Of course you are. I’m sorry. That was mean of me. I guess we can make sure Ptolemy can’t get through the wires. There you are, Antonia. I haven’t even got round to saying hullo to you. I say, that’s a nasty bruise you’ve still got.”

Simon’s change from anger to anxious placation was curiously disturbing. If Iris got too domineering he would lose all his spirit. It almost seemed as if she had procured this cat out of jealousy of Simon’s birds.

“Yes, isn’t it,” said Iris. “Antonia, you must tell us exactly what happened that night.”

“Later,” Antonia said. “First, Bella has tea ready, and then I’m afraid we have to tell you about an unfortunate episode. Bella blames Gussie for it, but he denies it.”

“He would. It will be him, of course. The little horror! What has he done now?”

“He’s made rather a mess with your lipstick. We’ve tried to take it off, but the paper hangers say the only thing is to paper over it.”

“Where?” Iris demanded. “Not in my room?”

It was unfortunate that they hadn’t been able to erase the words. The spiteful message across Iris’s wall was quite plain. As Iris read it her mouth tightened and she went rather white. Simon beside her slipped his hand through her arm.

“The little hound. I’ll whip him.”

To Antonia’s surprise, Iris shook her head. She spoke a little breathlessly, as if a boy’s mischief had made her more frightened than angry.

“No. I’ll see Bella. Gussie’s just ignorant. Anyway, I guess it was my fault for leaving lipstick about. Thanks, Tonia, for doing what you could. And now what about the other rooms? Joyce and David Halstead are arriving tomorrow morning, and Doctor Bealey in the afternoon.”

Antonia told them what had been done, and Iris became absorbed in her plans. It seemed as if she were determined to make little account of Gussie and his rude message. She had come back filled with energy and goodwill. Her little pointed face sparkled. If she had never been still before now she moved about twice as restlessly. All the time her eyes held a look of intense excitement.

The first night she was loving to Simon, kind to Bella and Gussie, and full of enthusiasm for Antonia’s efforts in preparing two bedrooms in the empty wing. She got out furniture catalogues and planned colour schemes, and discussed extra staff, waitresses, maids, and gardeners. Simon looked bewildered but quite amenable and content. This was Iris’s show and she was bound to make a success of it. As long as it made her happy she could turn the place inside out. But he was tired from travelling all day and wanted to go to bed early. Perhaps, too, he was eager to share the wide bed in Iris’s room and not trudge down to the hotel in Sumner. It was the new regime, Antonia thought, not entirely with amusement, for it disturbed her to think of Simon lying in the big bed reading the splotched red writing on the wall, “You are a wicked woman!” and knowing that it referred to his wife.

After he had gone upstairs Iris picked up the white cat and wandered about in her long green housecoat, her sharp chin tucked into the cat’s fur. She seemed reluctant to follow Simon. She was too restless. When Antonia, too, rose to go it seemed as if the excitement in her eyes turned to apprehension. For a moment she had a look of silently begging Antonia not to leave her alone.

But that must have been Antonia’s imagination, for she said lightly, “Have a good night. No sleep-walking now.” She rubbed her wind-burnt nose. “I must do something about this atrocity if I can keep my eyes open long enough. Simon sleeps like a
log.”

In spite of her professed tiredness, however, Antonia heard Iris walking about on her slippered feet long after she herself was in bed. Was it Simon who slept like a log in her bed that kept her up, or was she too excited, too apprehensive of something, to sleep?

The Halsteads arrived in the morning. They were a nice enough couple, quite undistinguished, he with a round unintelligent good-humoured face and she loud-voiced, talkative, and inclined to laugh a lot. She had a very new permanent wave, the tight curls emphasising the lines in her face, and her clothes lacked imagination, to say the least. Antonia was a little mystified as to why Iris had exerted herself for such ordinary people.

It was a warm day, and after lunch Iris suggested that they all go down to the beach for a swim. Antonia, because her ankle still pained her and she didn’t think she could manage the steep path down the cliff, excused herself. Inevitably Iris fussed, and insisted on her lying on the couch in the lounge with her foot up for the afternoon. She drew the blinds so that only chinks of sunlight came in, and in yellow gloom her fair face floated like an inverted flower.

“You have a sleep, dear. The house will be absolutely quiet. We won’t be back until the sun has gone.”

The house was so alive with sleepy sounds, the ticking of a clock, the muted chattering of Simon’s birds, the gentle hushing of the wind and the distant crash of the sea on the rocks that Antonia did fall asleep. She thought she was on a little boat, dipping up and down on the sparkling waves, the sun as warm as firelight on her face. She stirred because a chink of sunlight through the Venetian blinds did in reality lie across her eyes, and at the same moment she was aware of the face bending over her.

A narrow pale face curiously disembodied.

She was still half in her dream, and the face, shadowy in the gloom, seemed full of menace. She thought she heard a voice murmuring with a gloating sound, “Don’t be afraid, my dear. It’ll soon be over.”

Opening her eyes wide she scrambled up, drawing herself back on the couch.

The man’s form moved.

“Don’t be afraid.” He really was speaking and he really was saying those identical words. But they had no menacing quality now. They were polite and apologetic. “Did I startle you? I thought you were Mrs. Mildmay. I shouldn’t have barged in like this, but the door was open. There seems to be no one else home.”

“They’re all down at the beach,” Antonia said breathlessly. Then she was instantly sorry she had made that admission. For although now she was fully awake the queer sense of danger persisted. She had an overwhelming desire to get out of the room quickly. But one couldn’t do that. It was absurd.

She limped to the windows to pull up the blinds. The sunlight flooded in, and with the reassurance that gave her she said, “You must be Doctor Bealey. I remember now. Iris said she was expecting you this afternoon.”

“That’s right,” said the man, and Antonia turned from the windows to look at him, her equanimity recovered.

Then she had her second shock. For the youngish man with a slightly crooked thin nose, the close-set dark eyes and the yellowish pallor was the man who had stared at her so persistently in the plane the other day. How did he come to be here at the Hilltop? Surely it was not by accident. Surely it was by design.

“And you’re Miss Webb,” he was saying easily.

“How do you know that?” Her voice was sharp with suspicion.

“Why, Iris told me about you, of course.”

Of course that would be how it was. Doctor Bealey couldn’t have deliberately spied on her and followed her here.

“I noticed you were limping,” he was saying. “Have you hurt yourself?”

“Just a sprained ankle.”

“A fall?” Was his voice more than politely interested? Was there that gloating note in it?

Before she could answer, however, footsteps clattered in the hall. Iris came hurrying in crying, “Oh, Ralph! I didn’t think you would be here until this evening. What a good thing someone was here to welcome you. I see you and Antonia have made yourselves acquainted.”

“Oh, but we’d met before today,” Antonia said levelly.

Iris flashed her a startled glance. Ralph Bealey gave a small smile. His lips were a straight line, neither turning up nor down when he smiled.

“Ah, in the plane the other day. Is that what you’re referring to, Miss Webb? But one could hardly have called that a meeting, much as I would like it to have been one. I’m flattered that you remembered me.”

(He’s talking like a book, Antonia thought, as if he’s studied his part. Who and what is he?)

“But how extraordinary!” Iris was exclaiming. “What a coincidence. Well, there you are, Ralph, I told you Antonia was an attractive girl.”

“Surely you didn’t advertise me as part of your cuisine,” Antonia said lightly.

“No, indeed! I tried to discourage him from coming. But accommodation in town is impossible this week, with the flower festival on. I’m afraid you’ll have to rough it here, Ralph.”

The man’s dark eyes rested on Antonia. As in the plane his gaze made her feel acutely uncomfortable. She couldn’t connect him with anything that had happened, his voice didn’t remotely resemble the one on the telephone, yet his presence persisted in giving her this odd feeling of danger.

“I’ll sleep on straw, if need be,” he said. “Ah, there’s Simon. Hullo, old man. I’ve arrived, as you see.”

“As I see,” Simon repeated. He had on an old grey jersey and a pair of shapeless flannel trousers. His mouth was open a little. He looked quite stupid.

Iris gave him an impatient nudge.

“Simon! You look as if you’ve had too much sun. Take the bags up and show Ralph his room.”

“Oh, yes! Oh, yes!” Now Simon was offensively hearty. “Mine host, you see. Follow me, doctor. And don’t mind the bare boards. We’re not ready for guests yet. You’ve gate-crashed.”

Ralph Bealey went out with him and Iris turned to Antonia. Her face was narrowed and angry.

“If Simon’s going to behave like that how
can
I run an hotel?”

“He sounded as if he didn’t much care for Doctor Bealey,” Antonia observed.

“And that’s just childishness because Ralph monopolised a little, just a
little
of my time at the Hermitage. Really. Simon can’t go through life being that jealous.”

Then Iris’s face cleared. “But now he’ll see how silly he is because obviously it’s you Ralph likes. And he never said a word about seeing you on the plane.”

“Well, he wouldn’t be expecting to find me here,” Antonia said practically.

“Ah, yes, he would. If he were interested in a girl he’d find out who she was and where she lived, you can rely on that. He’s a shrewd one.”

“Why, who is he? Have you known him before?”

“I met him in Auckland at a party. So of course we recognised one another when we met at the Hermitage. He’s come down here to start a practice in Christchurch.” Her eyes gleamed suddenly. “We might get him to look you over while he’s here.”

In a vivid flash her queer meeting with the man came back to her, the strangely menacing pale face floating over her in the warm drowsy gloom. Her impressions had been distorted by sleep, they must be false, yet she knew she would never forget them.

“No, thank you,” she said definitely.

“Why not? You aren’t very well, you know. And Ralph’s a little of a psychiatrist, too.”

“No!” said Antonia firmly. “I don’t need any doctor.”

“All right, darling. It was only a suggestion. Actually, I think you are looking better. And we’re going to be much gayer here now. Supposing we begin by having a little celebration tonight. We’ve got all that gin and stuff. I’m sure Henrietta and Dougal would come up. It would be fun.”

Much as Antonia would have like it to be fun, and much as she tried to seem light-hearted, she couldn’t enjoy the dances Ralph Bealey requested of her. The tables in the dining-room had been pushed to one side and they were dancing to a gramophone. Iris moved dreamily in David Halstead’s arms, and Henrietta Conroy danced energetically with Simon, talking all the time in her penetrating voice. Dougal, with a curiously set expression on his face, guided another chatterer in Joyce Halstead, and Bella, assisted by Gussie, changed the records on the gramophone. It seemed as if Ralph Bealey’s long cold hands were on her back and her arm all the time. His black hair receded in a thinning line on his high pale forehead and dark bristle showed through the pallor of his chin.

Some people would think him good looking. She couldn’t explain the peculiar aversion she had for him. Probably it was quite unfair and unjustified. She ought to get to know him better before she decided so thoroughly that she disliked him.

Simon, as barkeeper, was lavish with the drinks, and gradually the evening blurred a little. Ralph Bealey’s face was white and black, Simon’s red, Dougal Conroy’s faintly golden. The other night she had wanted Dougal to kiss her. Now he was far off, always in that silly noisy Joyce Halstead’s or Iris’s arms. Bella was having drinks, too, and by mistake putting on an occasional minuet or nocturne instead of a two-step.

Antonia escaped from Ralph Bealey and went over to Simon. He thought she wanted to dance and held out his arms.

“Simon, where does Bella get her brandy from?” she asked.

His little bright eyes between their puffy lids looked at her in alarm.

“Brandy?”

“Yes. Dougal and I found her the other night dead drunk.”

Simon gave an embarrassed, “Tch! Tch! She must buy it.”

“Don’t be absurd! How could she afford to? Does she pinch it?”

“Well—” His eyes slid away. “As a matter of fact—mind you, I don’t approve. I’ve told Iris I don’t approve. But it’s damned hard getting a woman to stay up here. And if we put up with that awful young rascal of a son of hers I guess a bottle or so here and there—” His voice trailed away. Antonia thought, “The first night I was to spend here alone she had one. Was there any significance in that? No, of course not. It would be to celebrate their wedding. Simon would be feeling generous.”