The Devil in Clevely (Afternoon of an Autocrat) (36 page)

'Good evening,' she said coldly. 'What are you doing here, Danny Fuller?' As she spoke she lifted one slim, white, beringed hand and settled the gauzy scarf which lay, light as mist, over her curls and then encircled her neck. She had felt the pulse in her throat leap to life and pulled the scarf closer to hide it.

'I wanted to have a word with Miss Parsons. Is she at home?

'She's always at home. But you can't see her now. She never sees anyone unless I am there, and I am just going out. What did you want with her?'

'Just a bit of business.' Be demned if he'd tell her, acting so high-handed. 'I'll come another time.'

'You might just as well tell me now and save yourself a long walk. I handle all her business now.'

'I don't mean housekeeping. I mean business. And it isn't a long walk--we're back in the old house. Didn't you know?'

'No. I...why, I...' She collected herself quickly. 'I'm out of touch with village gossip nowadays. No, I hadn't heard. Did you get the land back too?'

'Why, no. Just the house. I've got some land--nineteen acres your own father sold me. Didn't you even know that? Nineteen acres, but that's no enough. That was why I was calling on Miss Parsons. She got her share of the Waste and I wondered whether she'd rent me a bit. You see, I...'

'I can answer that now. None of Miss Parsons' land is for hire.'

'Now you can't answer for that, Damask. Not without even asking. I'd pay a good rent and get the land in good heart...'

'Not Miss Parsons' land you won't.'

'I don't see how you can be so sure ...' By this time she was completely mistress of herself again and be able to meet his eyes. She looked at him, and strangely, since nothing in the situation had altered, he was certain that Miss Parsons had no land for hire. 'Well, if you're so sure,' he said, all the spirit and hope and fight seeping out of him.

'I'm sure. And now if you'll excuse me ...' She began to walk along the drive again. He turned and began to walk in the same direction, not quite with her, about half a pace behind as a dog might.

'You're angry with me, aren't you? Rightly so, I reckon. It was just--aw, something I couldn't talk about, Damask. But I...well, I'm sorry if I...if I made you angry.' It was the best he could do on the spur of the moment, taken aback as he'd been by the way she looked and then shattered by that cold, strange stare. And so much had happened during the last eighteen months, and he himself had changed so much, was now so worn down by work and worry, that he could hardly remember exactly what had been between them...at least, that was not quite true; he could remember her saying 'I don't want to be one of your jilts'--that was at the beginning; and he could remember the scene in the wood--that was at the end; but there were blanks.

She gave a little light laugh, a lady's laugh, and said: 'Why should I be angry with you? You did me no wrong. And the girl you did wrong you married, didn't you? Why should anybody by angry?'

She was still slightly ahead of him, walking so quickly, so lightly and not turning her head, that he forgot that look she had given him and remembered only his land hunger.

'No,' he said in eager agreement, 'I never did you much wrong, Damask. And if you feel that way and aren't angry with me you might put in a word with Miss Parsons. Her bit of the Waste now, it's fenced but not ploughed...'

'It is being ploughed on Monday,' Damask said. They had reached the gate and she halted and waited as a lady should so that he could open it for her. She passed through, and while he was engaged in closing the gate again she said 'Good night' and was gone, walking swiftly, I lightly in the direction of the Waste Cottages.

On the next evening, which was Sunday, she went to the Manor House. All her fury and discomfiture had now focused itself, and the voice in which she spoke to the footman who opened the door and the glance she gave him cancelled out the small consideration that ladies of importance did not arrive alone, on foot, after dark. He sped to announce her.

Richard, Mr Mundford and Mr Montague were playing cards, and interest had been lent to the game by Mr Mundford having 'taken back' his luck. Just before Mr Montague had arrived Richard had said, 'You were right, as usual. It is tedious to play and know that you will win.'

'Tedious in the end, not the beginning, you will agree? Well, it was only a loan--give it back!' Alec said lightly. He cupped his hand, seemed to pluck something from the back of Richard's left and then paused, holding his hand as though something indescribably fragile and precious were balanced in his palm. 'And if I lend it to dear Monty, then we shall know how every game will go! Never mind, I'll think of something.'

A little later, as Linda moved to take her place at the end of the dinner-table, Mr Mundford reached out and touched the lace of her sleeve with fingers which looked, she thought, in some way afflicted. 'Beautiful,' he said, 'beautiful. Venetian, is it not?'

'I don't know.' she said. 'I'm afraid I don't know much about lace.'

'Nor about luck,' said Richard, with what seemed like complete irrelevance, and dropped into his own chair laughing. Mr Mundford, for some reason, seemed displeased and shot him a quelling glance.

The devil's own luck' was thus safely away, gone with Linda who had said good night and left the three men to their play, and Richard was enjoying the game more than any he had played for a long time when the door-bell sounded an urgent peal and presently a footman came and said, rather breathlessly, that Miss Greenway wished to see Sir Richard.

'Greenway...Greenway,' said Richard, looking up from his cards. 'Oh yes, I remember.' She'd done him a favour, persuaded the old lunatic to sign, and he'd kept his bargain, given her father twenty acres--not the best; and sacked somebody she had a grudge against. What did she want now?

They were playing in the library; Linda, unless she had gone to bed unusually early, would be in the small sitting-room.

'Ask her to wait in there,' he said, indicating the door of the breakfast-room, which lay between the library and the room which Linda used most. He laid his cards on the table and said, 'Excuse me. I shan't be a minute.'

Damask stood, very straight and still, with her back to the branching candlestick on the side-table, so that her face was in shadow. Richard said with his easy, spurious pleasantness: 'Good evening, Miss Greenway.'

She waited just long enough so that he began to wonder whether she had heard him, and then said: 'I do not wish you good evening or anything good, Sir Richard. You cheated me.'

'Cheated.' He savoured the word, disliked it, and said with some vehemence, 'That is no word to use. If you remember rightly, I promised to see that your father received an allotment of land and that the...'

'Fullers.'

'...the Fullers should receive notice. Both those conditions I performed to the letter. What do you mean,' he demanded, his anger rising, 'by coming here and abusing me? You are a very insolent young woman.'

'I'm very angry,' she said coolly. 'The Fullers are back in Clevely.'

'God in Heaven.' he said. 'Who cares whether you're angry or not? Who cares where the Fullers are? You coaxed your lunatic mistress to sign her name and I rewarded you, and that is the end of that! Lunacy must be contagious.' He moved to the hearth and pulled the bell-rope. 'The servant will show you out,' he said, and went towards the door of the library. As he put his hand on the knob Damask turned and lifted the candlestick and said: 'Sir Richard.'

He was aware of the shifting light and turned, and seeing the candlestick in her hand imagined that the half-jibing remark about the contagion of lunacy was sober truth and that she planned to set fire to something.

'Put that down!' he exclaimed. 'What in hell do you think you're doing?'

She set the candlestick on the table so that it flowered with its seven golden blooms between them. He saw her face clearly for the first time that evening and noticed, half idly, that her eyes, instead of reflecting the light as one would have expected, seemed to glow, yellow and transparent as though the light were behind them. A most curious effect, he thought, even while his mind was busy framing a sentence which would really hurt her. The desire to hurt her had, he suddenly realised, lurked in him ever since that first interview.

'You should, you know, ask Miss Parsons to add to her other favours by teaching you some rudimentary manners.' he said silkily, and watched to see the barb strike.

Her face remained impassive; she hardly heard him. Her mind reached backwards: the Saunders, scoundrels with a bad conscience between them; poor old Miss Parsons, unsound of mind; Mr Turnbull--but there possibly Miss Parsons' authority had borne some weight; Matt Ashpole, just an ignorant lout. This was the real test; and the power welled up to meet the challenge.

'Sit down,' she said gently. 'Sit down, Richard Shelmadine.'

He fought for a moment; delayed so long, despite the weakening of his knees, that in the end he had only just time to drag a chair under him and prevent himself from sitting on the floor.

'Insolent,' she said musingly. 'Wouldn't you be?' He went red, and then white with rage, gripped the edge of the table, and tried to heave himself up, then put his hands on the edge of the chair and tried to lever himself to his feet. It was useless; he might have had no legs at all. Damask watched his struggles with an expressionless detachment that was more wounding than mockery. At last he slumped in the chair and muttered: 'All right. What do you want?'

'An apology--for breaking your word.'

'I swear until you told me I didn't know the Fullers were back. Where are they? You see, I don't even know that.'

'They're back in the same house. They've some land already and are looking for more.'

'It was without my knowledge.' Surreptitiously he pressed his hands against the sides of the chair again and tried to lever himself up. Sweat sprang in little shining drops on his brow. 'Without my knowledge,' he repeated. 'I remember now, Hadstock, my bailiff, wrote that he had found a tenant for the empty house; he gave no name. How should I know?'

'Oh well,' she said, accepting the explanation. 'It would have been better if you had told me that in the first place instead of calling me insolent."

Deliberately she removed her gaze and stared about the room with a naive and puppyish interest. Apparently now she had the power to make the spell hold even when she was not staring at her victim. Presently she ventured a move and went over to the sideboard to inspect something which had roused her curiosity: a silver dish with a silver grid over it and three short stout candles under the grid. What was its purpose? Oh, of course, to keep dishes warm while they waited. What an excellent idea! What extreme luxury! Not even at Muchanger had she seen such a contrivance. They must have one at the Dower House. The sweat had gathered now and was running down the harsh lines of the Squire's yellow face. His spruce white neck-cloth was greying with damp and collapsing upon itself. She looked at him without amusement but with immense satisfaction.

'The word,' he said, as though he were being throttled, 'was ill-chosen. I retract it. I apologise.'

Delicately she smoothed her gloves and adjusted the filmy scarf which covered her hair.

'You can't,' he gasped out, 'just go away...and leave me here. I'll put the Fullers out again. I'll do...I'll...What do you want of me?'

'Nothing. Nothing at all but just to sit there until I let you up.'

'He's a damned long time,' Mr Montague said, glancing at the door which led into the breakfast-room.

'Wench trouble, I suspect,' said Mr Mundford. 'Miss Greenway, I noticed, and Richard looked blank for a moment and then remembered something and went with some alacrity.'

'And they're suspiciously quiet,' said Mr Montague, who was not without experience. 'Some women shout and thwow things and then you get angwy yourself and you're saved. But when they cwy, quietly, that is dangerous; you begin to pwomise them things. Do you think, that perhaps Wichard would welcome an intewuption?'

'I should welcome a glimpse of the lady,' said Mr Mundford.

'To the wescue then!' cried Mr Montague. He got up and opened the door into the breakfast-room tentatively and politely, saying, 'Wichard, we are waiting for you'; then he saw the way the girl was standing, plainly triumphant, and the way Richard was sagging, sweating profusely in his chair. Too late, he thought; he's promised her a hundred a year.

Mr Mundford had taken a look too and interpreted the scene otherwise. As Mr Montague stepped back from the doorway he moved forward.

'We,' said Damask, turning the stare upon him, 'are having a private conversation.'

'Which one member of the party seems not to be enjoying very much,' said Mr Mundford smoothly. 'Sometimes, you know, an impartial third person ...' He moved towards the chair and said in a bantering voice, 'Manners, man, manners. Get up and introduce me.' Richard looked at him with agonised eyes and scrabbled with his fingers on the table's edge and sweated more profusely.

Mr Mundford looked at Damask, who looked back at him. Blundering fool...just when she was proving ...

'We have no wish to be interrupted,' she said brusquely. They fought one another over the candles for a moment.

'And I have no wish to be intrusive,' said Mr Mundford blandly. 'Helpful, yes.'

Then for God's sake help me, if you can,' said Richard thickly.

"Is it not remarkable,' said Mr Mundford, with his eyes on Damask, 'how, in an extremity, people not ordinarily attentive to the Deity appeal to other people in His name?' He smiled as he spoke and, reaching out one leg, kicked the leg of the chair in which Richard sat. 'Get up,' he said. And Richard was in possession of his legs again.

'Monty is alone, and you need a drink,' said Mr Mundford, ushering Richard out of his own breakfast-room.

'Try on me,' said Mr Mundford before Damask could speak. As proof of his willingness to be 'tried on' he moved to stand conveniently for dropping into the chair.

'It would be no use,' she said, rather sullenly.