The Unfinished Clue (3 page)

Dinah curled herself up on the window-seat, frankly enjoying Miss de Silva. "I know," she said sympathetically. "Men are so thoughtless, aren't they? I don't suppose he explained about his father either."

"But no: you mistake," Lola corrected her. "It is all explained to me. He is of a type difficult to manage. That one sees."

"Yes," said Dinah, "but - but I'm afraid Geoffrey's father is a little more than difficult."

"There is no need that I should disturb myself," replied Lola, attending carefully to her eyelashes. "I do not know where is Geoffrey, and why he does not bring me my cocktail?"

There did not seem to be much hope of impressing upon Miss de Silva the need to deal tactfully with her host, so Dinah, never one to waste time in pursuing lost causes, abandoned the subject, and asked curiously: "Are you very fond of Geoffrey?"

She was right in supposing that Lola would not in the least resent so personal a question. Lola replied with great promptitude: "Naturally, I love him extremely. I love very often, you understand, and always passionately. It is not so with the English, I find, for you have in general very cold hearts. It is not at all so with me. I have a very warm heart, very profound."

A knock on the door interrupted her. Geoffrey appeared carrying a tray, with glasses and shaker on it. "I say, we shall have to keep this dark," he said. "Father would have a fit if he knew. Darling, I'm so frightfizlly sorry, but there's no absinthe."

The look of rigidity which Dinah had noticed before instantly possessed Lola's face. "But it is to me incomprehensible that when you know that I wish absinthe in my cocktail you do not at once arrange it, my dear Geoffrey. Perhaps it is that you do not concern yourself with what I like, but only with what you like?"

"It's sickeningly careless of me, sweetheart," Geoffrey apologised. "Of course I ought to have brought a bottle down with me, but when I get near you I clean forget everything else. Darling, do forgive me, and just taste this mixture. Finch made it, and he's sure you'll like it."

"I do not know Finch, and it is not at all clear to me how it is that he can know what I like. I am quite unhappy, quite wounded that you can love me so little you wish to make me sick with gin."

"There isn't a drop of gin in it, Lola. I swear there isn't! Of course I wouldn't give you gin. Good God, if anything happened to you through my fault I should be fit to shoot myself."

"Well, I will taste your cocktail," Lola said, relenting, "Because I do not wish to make trouble, and I see that through the fault of your papa this house is not well-run. But when you have told him that I wish absinthe he will attend to it. Only you are to tell him with tact, my dear Geoffrey, for I do not desire him to feel uncomfortable."

Dinah gave a sudden gurgle, hastily choked, and began to pour out a delicately pink liquid from the shaker. Lola looked inquiringly at her, but she shook her head. "Nothing. I only coughed. What do you call this roseate mixture, Geoffrey?"

Inspired, Geoffrey said: "It's a brand-new cocktail, a super-cocktail, made for the most beautiful creature in the world, and I'm calling it La Lola."

Lola was so much pleased by this compliment that she held out her hand to Geoffrey, and said that it was a pretty idea, and he should tell her how the cocktail was made so that she herself (supposing that she liked it) could adopt it. After two cautious sips she said graciously that it was quite agreeable, and would be a very good cocktail indeed if a little absinthe were added.

Then the missing Concetta erupted into the room with many voluble ejaculations delivered in a foreign tongue. She was followed by a train of dress-boxes, and Lola at once became extremely animated, and ordained that everything should be unpacked at once, and her bath prepared, and a certain box of powder found immediately.

"I think we'd better leave her now," Geoffrey said reverently. "You'd like us to clear out, wouldn't you, darling?"

Yes, Lola would like them to go at once; it was terrible that her trunks had arrived so late; there was no time at all to make a suitable toilette for dinner.

Geoffrey signed to Dinah to go, and followed her, very softly closing the door behind them.

On the landing Dinah leaned against an oak chest, and rather thoughtfully regarded him. A lock of his long, fair hair hung over his brow, and his face was flushed with nervous excitement. He was a handsome, slightly effeminate youth with large eyes, and a mouth that quivered a little when he was at all agitated. He affected a style of dress which was considered by his set to be artistic, and was addicted to large-brimmed hats, polosweaters, and pleated dress shirts. He had always been delicate, a subject in his boyhood to nerve-storms, which were the dread of all who came in contact with him. He was frightened of his father, and except amongst his chosen intimates he was not very popular with other men. His air of highly strung fragility, and a certain charm of manner, however, appealed to a great many women, and quite a number of sympathetic matrons felt a distinct desire to mother him.

Not being of these, Dinah felt no such desire, but she was sorry for him, and treated him with a mixture of forbearance and bracing common sense.

He turned to her now in his impetuous way, and stammered: "Isn't she wonderful? Isn't she lovely? Have you ever seen anything so enchanting as the way she looks at one?"

"Never," said Dinah accommodatingly.

"I knew you'd say so! I knew you'd only to set eyes on her! There are hundreds of men absolutely mad about hcr, and she's going to marry me! I tell you, Dinah, I can hardly believe it's true. Everything's changed for me; I feel like a different person since she said yes."

"I expect you do," agreed Dinah.

"Of course you know she's simply throwing herself away on me." Geoffrey said anxiously. "I mean, her career, and all that, because she's practically a genius at dancing - everybody who knows anything at all about it says so. It's the most ridiculous rot for Fay to talk about Father not liking it. Why, when he realises -"

"Look here, Geoffrey," interposed Dinah, "I expect it's all just as you say; in fact, I can see Lola's a stupendous person; but you ought to pull yourself together. It's no use, waffling about your father in that idiotic way, bccause you know perfectly well he's a stinker, and he won't realise anything at all."

Geoffrey's face fell. "But now he's seen her? I knew it would be no good just telling him, but when he sees her for himself, and talks to her - why, she'll twist him round her little finger! She can twist anybody!"

"She won't twist Arthur," said Dinah flatly. "She isn't in the least his type. Besides, he's got off with the Halliday wench."

"Who?" asked Geoffrey vacantly.

"The blonde woman. You saw her on the terrace."

"Oh, did I? I don't know. I was looking at Lola. She has a way of dropping her eyelids, Dinah -"

"Stop being maudlin!" commanded Dinah. "She's got a way of saying the wrong thing too, and that's the way Arthur will notice, let me tell you."

"But you don't understand!" said Geoffrey. "She's utterly natural. That's part of her fascination."

"All I can say is that it didn't seem to be fascinating Arthur - noticeably."

Geoffrey's underlip began to quiver. "If Father tries to stop it - if he's foul to Lola - if he's beast enough to - well, look out, that's all! He's been rotten to me ever since I was a kid, and if he thinks he's going to muck up my life now by refusing to consent to my marrying Lola — not that he can do it, because he can't - but if he does - well, I shall do something desperate, and he may as well know it!"

"Don't get so excited," said Dinah severely. "Do you think there's any hope of persuading Lola to do the shy violet act? I know it's a bit late in the day, but it might keep him fairly cool. I'm chiefly concerned for Fay. You know, it really is rather asinine of you to bring Lola down here, and it'll all react on Fay. Can't you have a talk with Lola? I did try myself, but I daresay you'd be able to do it better. Tell her what'll go down with Arthur and what won't."

"I couldn't possibly," said Geoffrey. "She'd be most frightfully hurt. She simply wouldn't understand. Of course you're only a girl, and probably you wouldn't see it, but Lola's the type of woman who drives men absolutely mad about her."

"Well, if she goes on as she's started, I should say she'd drive Arthur mad enough to be put into a looney-bin," said Dinah with asperity, and withdrew to her own room.

Chapter Three

In their several bedrooms at the Grange eight people were engaged in dressing for dinner, and perhaps only one of these bore a mind untroubled by worry, or vexations. That one was surely Miss Lola de Silva, and even she experienced feelings of slight annoyance at finding that not only had she to share her bathroom with Miss Fawcett and Mr. Guest, but that it was unprovided with a shower, further proof of Sir Arthur's incompetence.

Stephen Guest, occupying the bathroom after her, found it full of steam, rather damp underfoot, and redolent of an exotic perfume. It repulsed him; he found it impossible to enter the bath until he had washed any lingering taint of scent away, and since he was never one to require another to wait on him, he performed this disagreeable task himself. It did not improve his temper, which was already gloomy.

He had loved Fay for two years, at first in silence and from a distance, but with the unwavering tenacity of the very taciturn. With the exception of an incident in his youth, there had been no other woman in his life; he knew beyond need of averring it, that there would never be another. For Fay, so fragile and helpless, he had all a naturally rugged man's devotion, and without attempting to put such feelings into impassioned words he had long made up his mind that there could not be - indeed, must not be - anything that he would not do for her.

Accustomed during a life spent largely, as he himself said, in the tough spots still remaining in the world, to grasping what he wanted with a strong hand, he found himself now enmeshed by a net of conventions. This he would have torn ruthlessly down for his own ends, but he served not them, but Fay, and she had a shy woman's respect for conventions. To come as a guest into her husband's house and to remain passive in sight of her unhappiness was a greater test of his power of self-control than anyone merely observing his doggedly calm front could have imagined. He came because Fay wanted him. He did not accuse her even in his heart of selfishness; he was untroubled by qualms of conscience; if he could persuade her to it he would steal her from under her husband's very nose, and never, in the future, look back with the least sentiment of remorse.

But she seemed as far as ever from consenting to a step thatt seemed to her so dreadful, and ahead lay a week-end likely to be worse than any he had spent at the Grange. As he wrestled with a collar stud he wondered how best he could help Fay, whether by monopolising Lola, a prospect that filled him with alarm, or by trying to interpose his own solid person between Sir Arthur and the immediate scapegoat of his wrath. He thought perhaps Dinah would help: she was a good sort, Dinah.

Dinah too, slipping an evening frock off its hanger, foresaw a stormy week-end, but an irrepressible sense of humour prevented her from looking forward to it with unreasonable dread. Saving only her protective affection for Fay she could have enjoyed the situation provoked by 1Geoffy. and would have sat with folded hands, as an appreciative onlooker. But since Fay, incapable of fighting her own battles, would be the chief sufferer it behoved her to do what she could, even if the best she could do was only to draw Sir Arthur's fire.

Stalking through the communicating door between his room and Fay's, Sir Arthur was, in his own phrase, clearing the air. Every annoyance of this disastrous weekend was Fay's fault, from the unwelcome arrival of Dinah to the ill-assorted party assembled for dinner in half an hour's time. Anyone but a fool would have had the wit to wire regrets both to Dinah and to Guest. No otic but a fool would have invited the Vicar and his wife to dine on this of all evenings.

She faltered that the invitation had been given a week belore; he snarled at her, and she thought, with a frightened leap of her heart, that he looked at her almost with dislike. She was wrong. He did not dislike her; he was even, in a contemptuous way, fond of her, but she had lost her charm and become instead of the blushing, adoring girl he had married, a shrinking, exasperatingly virginal woman who tried nervously to placate him, and whom it was impossible not to bully. Her worst crime in his eyes was that she had brought him no children, no promising son to console him for the disappointment of Geoffrey, that thorn in his flesh, child of the wife who had dragged his name through the mud twenty-one years ago, running off with some worthless civilian who had not even married her when it was all over.

There was his nephew too to annoy him. He was fond of Francis; Francis had gone into the Cavalry, just as all decent young fellows should, and his colonel spoke well of him. He wore the right clothes, looked a sahib, rode to hounds, and was a good man to ask down for a day's shooting. No damned humanitarian nonsense about Francis; he came of the right stock, not a doubt of that. But he was extravagant; seemed to think his uncle had nothing to do but to pay his debts. That would have to be stopped. If Master Francis had come to beg he would be taught a sharp lesson for once.

He could not blame Fay for Francis's visit. Francis had arrived without invitation. It irritated him that Fay should be blameless. He asked her why the devil she could not put some stuff on her face as other women did instead of going about looking pasty and colourless.

If Geoffrey and Francis and Dinah had only chosen some other week-end he would not have minded so much. But he had looked forward to the Hallidays' visit, and it was all spoiled. He had no objection to Guest's presence. Guest could sit and adore Fay as much as he liked; she was too damned chaste to let harm come of that; knew which side her bread was buttered on, too. He would have entertained Fay while her husband engaged in flirtation with Camilla. She was a seductive little woman, Camilla; out for what she could get, probably, but ready (or he was much mistaken) to pay for what she wanted. That husband of hers was a dull dog. Hadn't the sense to get a man's job, and blamed the War for it. Just like this damned puling generation, always grumbling at fate; no guts to 'em; he'd like to have a few of 'em in his old regiment.

And Basil Halliday, unhappily brushing his coat, Trying to think that his dress trousers were not so shiny after all, was despising Sir Arthur - hating him too, the libidinous old swine - and wondering what Camilla was up to. She couldn't like the man; of course she couldn't likes him. It was just her way to flirt with anyone who was handy, and it was no use worrying about that. It wasn't that he didn't trust her. Lord, hadn't she stuck by him when, God knew, she'd had chances enough to chuck him over? But he did wish he hadn't let her persuade him into coming down here. It was all very well to talk about free board and lodging, and naturally he saw the force of that argument, for that was the way one lived nowadays, making oneself agreeable to people for the sake of a dinner that hadn't been prepared by a slut of a cook who ruined everything she touched. If you liked soft living and pretty things you had to swallow your pride to get them when you were saddled with a rotten crock of a husband who couldn't earn more than five hundred a year if he lived to be ninety. He didn't blame Camilla; only this bloody soldier, with his money-bags and his loud voice and his greedy hands longing to paw her was surely coming it a bit thick. The man was stupid, too; one of those officers - he'd seen a lot of them during the war who thought the whole world was bounded by the British Army.

He cast a worried glance towards the door that led out of the dressing-room into the bedroom, where Camilla sat before the dressing-table, making up her face. He could just see her, absorbed, plucking a hair from the thin line of her brows. He didn't know what was in her mind; didn't like to ask. There was a little nagging ache behind his eyes. If he said anything to Camilla now it would lead to one of their frequent quarrels. Better to keep quiet; not play the jealous husband.

Camilla was making an elaborate toilet, determined to put Lola in the shade. She had chosen to wear the pink chiffon frock which wasn't paid for yet, but which might be soon — with luck. It had bands of pink sequins that glittered when she moved, and was cut very low across her breasts. Really it was rather too low; she had to pin a piece of silver lace inside it. All the other women would know that it was the wrong frock to wear at a country dinner party, but she didn't care what the women thought. The General would like it; it would make him want to fondle her (amorous old idiot!) and he could if he felt like that. It was a damned nuisance that this wretched cabaret dancer had turned up, putting the old boy in a bad temper. She'd need to handle him carefully, leading him on, listening to his ghastly stories about India, which always began "When I was at Peshawar," or Wellington, or some other damned place, and always ended with a hearty laugh. She'd have to give him a chance to mess her about a bit. She rather hated being kissed by men with toothbrush moustaches, but it couldn't be helped, and anyway in these days, when half the men you met arrived at kissing terms within half an hour, you soon got over that kind of squeamishness. In a way he was fairly easy to deal with. That was the best of these conceited men. She'd only got to play up to him for him to start hinting at things, and if she couldn't touch him for something handsome then she must be a pretty good fool. Only she'd have to take care not to let him give her some rotten trinket. Jewellery was no good these days; you got nothing for it, and God knew if she didn't lay her hands on solid cash soon she'd be in a nasty mess.

If only Basil would be sensible, everything would be allright. But he'd been looking like a sick herring the whole afternoon, poor old thing, and it would be just like him to get into one of his jealous rages and muck the whole show. He ought to know by now that her head was screwed on the right way. The trouble with him was that he'd got a lot of pre-war ideas about women and honour. lt was rather sweet of him, of course, but utterly pathetic in these hard times. Damn! it was ten to eight already, and she hadn't done her eyelashes. Oh, well, they'd have to stay as they were: no sense in putting the old man's brick up by being late for his filthy dinner-party.

Downstairs, in the long white-panelled drawing-room, Fay, drilled into punctuality, had been awaiting her guests since twenty minutes to eight. She was looking tired, but pretty, in a flowered frock that was like the chintzes on the chairs - cool, and mistily tinted. Stephen Guest had come into the drawing-room behind her. She smiled at him, that wistful smile that tore at his heart, and put her hands to arrange his tie - a lamentable bow, already askew.

"Dear Stephen!" she murmured, the hint of a tender laugh in her voice. "Why don't you buy one with broad ends? It would be so much easier to tie."

He couldn't bear it when she stood so close to him, looking up at him with her gentle blue eyes. Suddenly he put his arms round her, holding her tightly to him. "Fay, you've got to come to it. We can't go on like this. I'm only n mortal, you know." His voice was thickened and rough, his mouth was seeking hers.

"Please don't, Stephen!" she said faintly. "Oh, please don't! Arthur - the servants. Stephen, be kind to me; be patient with me!"

He let her go, breathing rather fast, his square face flushed. "See here, Fay! You love me, and I love you. We're all hedged in here by these God-darned conventions. One of these days things'll get too much for me, and I'll go plumb through the lot of them, and there'll be one fine show-down. Can't you make up your mind to face the music, and come away with me? We won't stay in England - the Lord knows I've had enough of the place. Too much stiff shirt and kid gloves about it. I'll take you any place you say. We won't defend the case; you don't need to set foot inside the Divorce Courts."