Will O’ the Wisp (5 page)

Eleanor, in the same pale light, was beautiful enough. She had the very white skin which sometimes goes with black hair. The line of neck and shoulder was a free and noble one. She looked sometimes at Betty, and sometimes at her rainbow silks. She had cut her hair, but it had its old crisp wave; there were little dark curls that hid her ears.

Folly March rocked the singing notes and said:

“David—
David!
”

He turned his head.

“Do you think Eleanor is beautiful?”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

David looked back at Eleanor and agreed in silence.

“David—
David!
”

“What is it?”

“Shall I grow my hair?”

David frowned and said “Yes” rather impatiently.

“You don't like it short?”

“No.”

“David.”

“Well?”

“Shall I stop putting stuff on my face?”

She went on playing with her left hand, drew a finger down one smooth cheek, and held it out covered with ivory powder.

David made a face of disgust.

“Shall I leave it off?”

“Yes.”

“And not paint my lips?”

The gondola was rocking steadily again. Folly's black lashes were cast down; the scarlet mouth trembled a little.

“Yes,”
said David impatiently.

Then his heart smote him. Suppose she began to cry. Girls did.

Folly went on playing very softly. Suddenly she looked up at him, her eyes alive with green malice.

“Why don't you marry, David?”

“You'd better ask Grandmamma.”

“I'd rather ask you. Why, David?”

“You can have three guesses.”

Something a good deal older than Folly peeped at him. David received rather a shock. Folly was what? Nineteen? Where did she get that look—hard, knowing?

She said quite softly, watching him:

“She won't marry you—
or
you won't marry her—
or
you're married already.”

She had the satisfaction of seeing his look of black anger. Then he turned his back on her and went over to the fire.

Folly hit the keyboard with both hands and produced a medley of screaming notes. Then, to a series of discords, she sang in a husky, penetrating whisper:

“My baby's a scream,

My baby's a dream,

She's a hula mula wula girl,

She's a crazy daisy nightmare—ula

My baby's a scream.”

CHAPTER VI

Eleanor came into Folly's room that night after they had all gone upstairs. She found three electric lights on and Miss Folly in her shift practising barefoot dancing. Her black frock lay in a heap on the floor. There was one stocking by the washstand and another at the foot of the bed. The high-heeled black shoes were in opposite corners of the room. One scarlet garter decorated the bedpost.

Folly went on dancing without taking any notice of Eleanor, who said, “Untidy little wretch!” and then watched her indulgently. In the end Folly turned her head over her shoulder and inquired laconically:

“Pie-jaw?”

“Do you deserve one?”

“Prob.” She rose on her bare toes, clasped her hands above her head, and yawned.

“Folly, what did you say to David? He hardly spoke for the rest of the evening. What on earth did you say to him?”

Folly looked sleepy and innocent. Then she laughed. The laugh was not so innocent.

“I ran a pin into him—I ran three pins, and one of them pricked him. I wish I knew which pin it was.”

A look of distress crossed Eleanor's face.

“I wanted David to like you—but you're such a little fool.”

“They should have called me Flora. I should have been perfectly good if I'd been called Flora—I get no end of moral uplift every time Grandmamma does it. But when I'm Folly—ooh! Eleanor, I'm going to tea with a nice young man the day after to-morrow. I met him this morning, and he asked me. I think he's a farmer.”

“Nonsense!”

“His name is Matthew Brown. You can't say that isn't respectable, and you can't say I didn't tell you. He's got a sister called Gladys Ann—she lives with him. And if I can't go to a night club with Stingo to-morrow, I do think I might be allowed to go and have a respectably chaperoned tea with Matthew Brown.”

“Rubbish!” said Eleanor. “Look here, Folly.”

Folly was leaning out of the open window, the chintz curtain held aside.

“I think I shall go for a moonlight ramble. Perhaps I should pick up something more exciting than Matthew Brown.”

“Folly—it's icy! Do shut that window.”

“Stuffy old thing!” The words came just above a whisper in a little child's voice. Then the window banged and the curtains fell. “It must be frightfully odd to be a widow. I expect it adds years to one's natural stuffiness. I'm going to grow my hair and do it in curls. David would like me to.”

“Did he say so?” Eleanor's tone was dry.

“'M—he
did
. He thinks you're beautiful.”

Eleanor laughed.

“I suppose he told you that too?”

“'M—I said, ‘Do you think Eleanor is beautiful?' And he said—no, I shan't tell you what he said—and then I thought I'd grow my hair and have it in curls like you, and not put any stuff on my face, or do my lips, and always be
goood
. You and David were engaged, weren't you?”

“Folly, what a little idiot you are!”

“You
were
engaged, weren't you?”

“Ancient history,” said Eleanor.

“Why didn't you get married?”

“We were infants—there was nothing in it.”

Folly looked through half-closed eyelids; and something in the look set a spark to Eleanor's temper.

“Perhaps if I'm very good, and let my hair grow, and wash my face with yellow soap—Do you wash your face with yellow soap, Eleanor darling?”

“Do I look as if I did?”

“Sometimes. No—not really. What a temper you've got! It jumped out of your eyes like red-hot knives. Does David like people with tempers? I could grow one whilst I was growing my hair if he does.”

She stood on one foot and caught the heel of the other in her left hand. With the fingers of the right she blew Eleanor a kiss.

“I haven't quite made up my mind whether I'll have David,” she said. “I might get bored with him.”

Eleanor was conscious of colour in her cheeks.

“It's time you stopped talking nonsense and went to bed.”

“Of course, if
you
want him,” said Folly, twirling on one bare foot.

Eleanor went out of the room; the door shut sharply.

By the time she reached her own room she was wondering why she had so nearly lost her temper. Folly had scored instead of being coolly snubbed as she deserved. She moved about the room for a little without undressing. There was a pleasant fire. A fire-lit room and a still house. There was something about Ford that felt like home. She sat down by the fire and let the stillness and the firelight and that home feeling have their way.

It might have been half an hour later that she heard the sound and raised her head to listen. It was quite a little sound, faint and distant. As she listened, she heard another sound, fainter still. Someone had opened one of the long windows in the room below; she had heard the bolt move and the catch slip. She sprang up and went to the window.

The shadow of the house lay black upon a flagged path and a stretch of turf. She pushed the window open and leaned out, listening. In the shadow someone was moving. She could not see the movement, but she could hear it. The sound grew fainter.

The shadow lay twenty feet wide. Eleanor's window looked upon the path and a steep grassy slope that fell away to woodland. The terrace lay on the right, and the moon shone on it. The edge of the shadow was very sharp and black. It crossed the flagged path at an angle.

Eleanor leaned out, and heard the footsteps pass; someone was going in the direction of the terrace. She watched the edge of the shadow and held her breath.

Quite suddenly a black-cloaked figure crossed the line between shadow and moonlight. Eleanor saw blackness—movement—a cloak that covered everything. And then the figure was gone. Just short of the terrace the path descended by a dozen steps; the wall of the terrace shadowed them.

The figure that had come out of the darkness dropped down the steps and was lost in the dark again.

Eleanor shut her window and snatched a fur-lined cloak from the tall mahogany wardrobe. That little idiot Folly! Who could have imagined that she really meant to go out? Of course, it might be one of the maids. No, that wasn't likely. She slipped out of the room and felt her way noiselessly down the stairs and through the hall.

The room immediately below her bedroom was Betty Lester's sitting-room. Eleanor felt her way across it until her hands touched the chintz curtains. They were cold and shiny, and as she pulled them back, the draught that came from behind them was colder still. The window was a French window, opening to the ground, and it stood a hand's breadth ajar.

“Little idiot!” said Eleanor to herself. Then she pulled her cloak round her and ran to the corner of the house.

The steps were at her foot, very black; they went down to a path which wound back along the slope and then lost itself in the darkness of the woods. Eleanor stood on the top step and called softly:

“Folly—Folly!”

She waited a moment, and then called again:

“Folly!
Folly!
Are you there?”

An owl hooted in the wood. Eleanor hated owls. She shivered a little; and the owl cried again, on an unearthly, floating note that sounded nearer. She decided that it would be ridiculous for her to follow the little wretch; besides, she might quite easily miss her in the wood. The sensible thing to do was to go back into Betty's room and wait for her there.

She drew back from the steps and walked to the edge of the terrace. It was such a lovely night—so still, so clear, with the moon coming up over the edge of the little hill away on the left—a golden moon very nearly full. It was just clear of the tree-tops, and half the lake below the terrace shone in a light between gold and silver; the other half lay black in the shadow of the wooded hill.

Eleanor looked at the water and moved along the terrace until she came to the head of the stone steps which led down to it. They were bathed in the soft light. She went down a little way, and then stood for a while letting the beauty in upon her troubled thought.

Folly—what had possessed her? How lovely the tracery of bare boughs against the moon-flushed sky! Why had Folly kept to the dark path instead of coming this way?

Her hand moved on the wall that followed the steps. There were little dry stalks and withered leaves on it. In a month or two there would be arabis, and aubretia, and alyssum, in sheets of white, and lilac, and violet, and yellow.

“Perhaps I ought to have gone after Folly. The wood's so dark—and I do hate owls. Why did she go into the wood? It's dark. I ought to have gone after her. Why on
earth
did she go into the wood? I'm a coward. I ought to have gone after her.”

She took her hand off the wall, and, as she turned, something moved where the wood ran down to the lake.

It wasn't Folly; it was a man.

Eleanor's heart thumped, and then quieted. It was David. It was only David. She ran down the steps to meet him; her “Have you seen her?” was a little breathless.

“Her?”

“Folly—have you seen Folly?”

“No—why should I? It's a topping night—isn't it?”

She nodded.

“Yes. Folly—Folly's gone for a walk.”

“Nonsense!”

“But she has. She said something about it, and I thought she was joking. But I heard the morning-room window open, and I saw someone go down the steps.”

“These steps?”

“No.”

“How do you know it was Folly?”

“Well, I can't think of anyone else who'd be so idiotic.”

David laughed unexpectedly.

“Well, I'm out, and you're out. As a matter of fact, I often go for a walk before I turn in. I shouldn't bother about that little image if I were you.”

“David, she oughtn't to.”

He laughed again.

“Do you think you or anyone else'll ever stop her doing the things she oughtn't to? Don't you worry about her—she'll come back all right. Naught comes to naught.”

“Don't!” said Eleanor quickly. “David, I did want you to like her.”

“Did you?” His voice was dry. “Look here, we'd better be getting up on to the terrace.”

“Oh yes—I mustn't be locked out!”

“Don't run—I've got a key.”

They had reached the topmost step when David asked:

“Why do you want me to like her?”

“She wants friends. She's picked up with a perfectly rotten crowd.”

“I'm afraid I can't compete.”

Eleanor slipped her hand into his arm.

“No, David, listen! She
does
want friends. She—you know her mother ran away?”

“Vaguely. I shouldn't be surprised at anyone running away from George. Oh, he's a bore!”

Eleanor shook the arm she was holding.

“Don't!”

“My dear girl, that George is an unqualified and undisputed bore is the sort of thing you can't argue about—it's simply a bed-rock fact, and every time I meet George I stub my toe on it.”

“Well, you can't say Folly's a bore, anyhow.”

“No—she's not a bore—I'll give her that. Is she like her mother?”

“No, she isn't. Why must people be like someone? She's herself.”

“She's a little devil. What was the mother?”

“Big—fat—fair—sleepy—looked at you sideways—fat white hands. I loathed her.”