Читать книгу Whispering Lodge - Alan Sullivan - Страница 5

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LADY NETLEY, a tall, thin, austere woman of fifty-five, with greyish hair, squirrel teeth and a cold-storage manner when not in action, finished balancing her monthly accounts. She noted with disapproval that the grocer’s bill slightly exceeded that of the previous month, checked the figures, made a note in her diary, and took a thoughtful glance at her son Bruce, who was deep in the sporting columns of the morning paper.

“Bruce,” she said suddenly, “I suppose you know that the new people have moved into The Dene?”

He nodded. “Yes, and I also see the Beaufort killed twice yesterday.”

She rapped with her pencil—short, commanding raps that as a signal he was too experienced to disregard.

“Canadians—ain’t they?”

“Yes, but they can’t help that. There’s a girl of twenty or thereabouts, and a son at Oxford. I believe they’re quite nice, and am told that the father is spending a fortune on the place. I’m going to call.”

“Why so keen?” he asked cynically.

She gave him a look that seemed to question his intelligence. “Why shouldn’t I?” Then, with the shadow of a smile, “One can never tell.”

Bruce, a masculine edition of his mother, put aside his paper. “Not inspired by maternal solicitude, I hope. Nothing doing here.”

She did not laugh, nor did he expect it. “I don’t cotton to strangers very much,” he added casually, “so please don’t make any commitments for me.”

She pondered a moment, then took from a locked drawer a letter that, after a careful reading, she held out to him. Presently he looked up sharply and frowned.

“I say, I didn’t know things had gone as far as this!”

“I couldn’t be sure of it myself until this month; but now we’ve reached a point where—where——” She paused, and set the rapping pencil in motion again.

“Where, with me in the back of your head, you’ve decided to run over the ground, eh?”

Their eyes met—blue-grey Saxon eyes that at this moment reflected nothing either parental or filial.

“Well,” she said coolly, “why not?”

He picked up his paper. “Thanks—but I don’t fancy the imported article.”

She opened another drawer and took out a small bundle of papers. “I would like half an hour’s serious talk with you, Bruce.”

******

“Dear Mrs. Charters,—

“I have not disturbed you by calling, knowing how busy you must be, but since we are such near neighbours may not the usual formalities be put aside? There is to be a meet here on Friday next, and if your daughter rides and would like to hunt, we will gladly lend her a mount. My son would be happy to look after her. A lot of young people will probably turn out, so it seems a good beginning point.

“Sincerely yours,

“Joan Netley.”

Mrs. Charters smiled contentedly as she read this. “Mr. Netley brought it himself, Manders?”

“Yes, madam; he’s in the drawing-room now.”

“Please ask Miss Tonia to come there.”

Two minutes later Tonia was talking to a tall young man with reddish hair, reddish face, small brown moustache, a mouth which she thought rather like a rabbit’s, with its slightly protruding teeth, and a rather indefinite air. Yes, he hunted every winter—they usually killed—ought to get a fox on Friday—there wasn’t too much wire—and so on.

He volunteered this, quite at his ease, and measuring her with eyes distinctly sharp and that betrayed nothing of the growing surprise he really felt. She did not know whether she liked him or not, but was quite ready to explore. She thought she didn’t. A bit patronizing.

“I can ride a little, but I’ve never hunted.” As a matter of fact, she rode like a cowboy, having learned on the western prairie.

“That’ll be all right if you just follow me.”

“Awfully kind of you,” she said, dangerously demure. “I hope I won’t make a fool of myself before a lot of strangers.”

Mrs. Charters recognized the symptom with apprehension, but Netley only gave a satisfied laugh.

“Do what I do and you’ll find it perfectly simple. Do you ride side or astride?”

“Either—it doesn’t matter.” She was measuring him now, not definitely antagonistic as yet, but with a rising tingle in her blood. Then she felt secretly amused, because here might be an admirable foil for Rodney.

His reddish brows lifted a shade. “You can try both before we start. Please come over a little before ten and I’ll motor you back. Main thing,” he added casually, “is not to ride down the hounds.”

“I’d assume that—since one is hunting a fox.” Her voice was quite devoid of expression.

He laughed, not in the least offended, being privately and unexpectedly attracted. She was totally different from anything he had expected, and positively refreshing compared to a dozen girls he could mention. She was electrical and stimulating. Something in this, after all, he concluded, remembering the serious half-hour with his mother.

After a little more talk, in which there was more than a little open sparring, he went off. Mrs. Charters looked at her daughter and shook her head.

“I wouldn’t—really. It’s most kind of them both, and you must take people as you find them.”

“But, mother, he began by thinking I was a fool, and I wanted to give him something else to think.”

“It’s only his manner, and he doesn’t think that at all.”

“He doesn’t—now.”

“Why didn’t you tell him that you rode perfectly?”

“Does one—in England? I’d sooner keep something up my sleeve. And he came prepared to be patronizing and looking as though his mother had sent him. Didn’t you notice that?”

Her mother, who fancied she had noticed something of the sort, only smiled. “Shall I write to Julian about the shoot, or will you? It’s settled for Saturday week, and if possible, they ought to be here on the Friday.”

Tonia grinned broadly, and strolled off to her own room.

“Dear Old Jule,—

“The shoot is fixed for the 10th, and you’re wanted. Mother says it’s best to arrive Friday night. Hammond’s pets—I mean the pheasants—are as tame as turkeys. You can almost walk over them, so I don’t see where the fun is coming in.

“I’m asking a man called Netley. He lives near here with his mother, who has a big place, is rather nice-looking for an Englishman, and doesn’t do anything but kill things. I’m going to hunt with him on Friday. And father says he will be very glad to see Rodney if he can come, too.

“There’s another reason for your being here. I want to see you privately. There’s something in which you’ve simply got to help me. I can’t put a word of it on paper, but it’s the one thing that so far has reconciled me to living in cold-storage in Kent.”

She read this, her head a little on one side, then added:

“About Rodney—if he tries to sound you about me, all you know is that he’s quite welcome, as far as I’m concerned, but he hasn’t any more privileges than anyone else. In other words, I’m feeling rather independent.

“Tonia.”

She read this over, lips twitching a little, then went out on the wide lawn fronting The Dene. At 10.28 came a low familiar drone, and she saw the twin-engined Paris machine heading like a great grey gadfly straight for Lympne.

Queer to think that her father was in that metal box of hurricane speed. In three minutes it was over the elms, dipped into a gentle swoop, regained its elevation and hurtled on. Another three minutes and it was out of sight.

She struck off down the drive with a feeling that life in some odd fashion was about to unfold into something unexpected. Also it would be amusing to see Rodney and Netley together.

She had no idea of matching them in a sort of sentimental dog-fight, but had read with remarkable accuracy what went on in young Netley’s head during that first short meeting, and decided that his further reactions would be interesting.

Then, of a sudden, as she was passing the high stone wall of the Whispering Lodge, she wondered what Julian would have to say about that. How fortunate that he was not impressionable.

Walking thoughtfully under the great arched gateway of St. Cyprian’s College, Julian crossed the quad, with its stone-slabbed paths and symmetrical turf, and made his way to Rodney’s rooms. He found that youth divided between a pot of strong tea and a book of logarithms.

“Huloo, Charters; sit tight a minute, will you?”

Julian took a battered chair near the fire. The room was comfortable, the furniture nondescript. A pair of sculls were hung over the mantel above a print of Beatrice D’Este. No frills or ornaments here, and everything testified to hard and continuous usage. Rodney was running his fingers through his flaxen hair and murmuring unintelligible fragments of higher mathematics. Presently he pushed away the book, gulped some cold tea and grinned at his visitor.

“How that stuff is going to help my future career beats me. What’s doing in your shop?”

“Nothing to keep one awake. I’ve had a letter about that shoot. It’s on Saturday week.”

“We are interested—but Saturday week—well—I don’t know.”

“My mother wants us to turn up on the Friday, if possible.”

“Anyone else coming?”

“Tonia’s asked a man called Netley.”

Rodney’s brows went up a little. “Who’s Netley?”

“Some neighbour—I don’t know him. She’s going to hunt with him this week.”

“She’s in luck,” said Rodney cheerfully, but thinking very hard. “I suppose they’re getting settled down by now?”

“Yes, but the governor says there’s a lot to be done. Can you come for that shoot? They’re expecting us both.”

He asked this with a shrewd suspicion of what was going on in Rodney’s mind. “Had difficulty with Rodney.” That was what Tonia confided the day he left The Dene. There was nothing unusual about this, and her brother knew personally of six others with whom there had been difficulties. But they all got safely over it.

Suddenly, Rodney swung round and sent his friend a straight stare.

“I say, Charters?”

“Well?”

“It’s awfully kind of your mother, but do you, as between ourselves, think I’d better come?”

“Sure!” said Julian heartily.

“You know she’s furious with me?”

“My mother!”

“Don’t be an ass.”

“She’s been furious with several others,” remarked Julian reminiscently.

Rodney scanned the teapot with a reflective eye. “I know that, and suppose you just regard me as another lamb being led to the slaughter—but you may take it that I’m in earnest about this thing.”

“That’s what they all said—and so she was—only more so.”

“I gathered as much, but it makes no difference in my case. And what’s more, I don’t expect to get anything without fighting for it.”

“You’ll be accommodated in this case all right. And there may be others.”

Rodney laughed, but his jaw was projecting a little. He pictured Netley—older than himself—established—a man of evident means—a neighbour. Serious competition this, however one looked at it. He himself would have six hundred a year in two years, and a job in the shipping office of a man who traded with South America.

But already most of the things he aspired to were in the possession of this Netley—who probably never did a day’s work in his life. He began to dislike the very name of Netley. Then, since beneath his exterior calmness he was really very disturbed, he ventured greatly:

“How would you feel yourself suppose—well—supposing——”

“All right as far as I’m concerned,” said Julian promptly, “but I’m the wrong sex.”

“Ever been knocked out yourself?”

“Not on your life—that’s left out of me.”

Rodney regarded the book of logarithms with positive loathing. “Perhaps you’re fortunate. I never felt this way myself before, but there’s something about her that no brother could see.”

“They all said that,” murmured Julian, “and, what’s more, they all came to me when they got stuck, were frightfully civil, and asked if there was any little thing I could suggest.”

“What then?” demanded Rodney, startled with the similarity to his own condition.

“I told ’em all the same thing—cut it out. You can’t influence that girl—which perhaps you’ve begun to notice—you can’t drive her—and I very much doubt if you can lead her either. She settles things for herself.”

“Right! You can count on me for Saturday week,” said Rodney crisply.

******

Bruce was waiting when Tonia stepped out of her car. Beside him a groom held the bridles of a roan mare and a big raking bay.

“Morning!” he said briskly. “We ought to get away.”

She glanced about with keen interest. Hounds and huntsmen were in an adjoining field. This was the New Kent pack. Through the cool air came their first faint whimpering and the whinny of horses. A near-by road was filled with a line of cars. Groups of men and boys stood back against the hedges or hung over stiles. Mounted folk formed into clusters, broke up restlessly and reformed. Riders examined their girths. It was the first picture of the kind Tonia had seen, and she felt fascinated.

“Give you a leg up?” asked Netley impatiently.

She shook her head, and, making love to the roan, liked her on sight—clean-built—a sensitive mouth and large, intelligent eyes. The girl stroked the silky neck and slid into the saddle as a fish slides into water. She felt her knees gripping leather, and became very contented.

“Any instructions?” she asked demurely.

“Don’t rush your fences,” said Netley, eyeing her very hard, “and lean well back when you land. You’ll dislocate your neck if you don’t.”

“Thanks—I’ll try and save my neck.”

“Right! It’s too nice to risk.”

He said this with no change of voice, and was mounted before she could think of an answer. “Not so slow,” she reflected. Perhaps it was an English beginning, and more would follow when he was ready.

She admitted that he looked extremely well in pink, and his critical brown eyes missed nothing of her own appearance. Then they joined the rest of the field, and she got her first view of the hard-riding set of the New Kent. Six women, about thirty men and some of the finest horses she had ever seen.

“I’ll tell you who most of ’em are later on. There we go!”

Hounds disappeared into a spinney, a whip cantered round either end of it, and there followed a tense silence, broken only by the uncertain voice of an excited hound.

“One marked in there yesterday,” said Netley coolly. “I bet——”

He cut off at the note of a horn—then a long-drawn “Gone away.” Forty dancing horses woke into furious life. Netley got away first of them all, and Tonia made after him. At the corner of the spinney she had a glimpse of a brown speck a quarter of a mile off travelling very fast. She found herself next to Netley, and had not dreamed that the roan could move so fast and with so little effort.

Ahead, the countryside dipped gently to the southward; fair, open country, with wide sheep-scattered pastures and low hedges. The pace was hot, and the roan’s polished hoofs drummed rhythmically over the springy turf. Tonia, utterly exalted, thought nothing of the rest of the world, when suddenly the roan rose to a hedge, took it like a bird and landed heavily. She felt a violent wrench in back and neck. Her jaws clicked together, her spine seemed dislocated, and she recovered herself with an effort.

“Darn it, he was right,” she admitted through gritting teeth. “Now I’m going to show him something!”

******

Tonia pushed on, the roan buckling to her work as though she loved it, and drew alongside Netley. He waved a hand and grinned.

“How’s your neck—why didn’t you do as I told you?”

She was too breathless to answer, which made her angrier than ever, so touched the roan with her heel. The result was like being shot out of a gun, and the wind whistled past her face. She heard the soft tumult of many hoofs behind. Then Netley, who was a little way ahead, waved his arm, shouted to her to follow, and, knowing his country like a book, made for a low gate in the corner of the big field they had just entered.

Tonia wondered why. Two hundred yards directly in front was an innocent-looking hedge, not as stiff as the one she had jumped. The pack had swarmed straight through, but she was aware that the rest of the field had struck off on Netley’s tangent.

She darted a look at the hedge, and the thing settled itself in her brain with a twang. This time, she vowed, she would not do as she was told. A sort of madness took her, and she patted the great throbbing neck. The mare twitched her silky ears forward.

“Now, you beauty, let’s take it,” whispered Tonia in a sort of prayer—and used both heels for the first time.

The mare became a roan thunderbolt and hurled herself on. Tonia heard a thin singing in her ears. Suddenly the roan’s flanks gathered under her and she was launched into the air. Then, and not till then, did she understand. Past the hedge lay a wide, water-filled ditch. In the fraction of time that the hedge was directly beneath she sent up a wild supplication, clutched the pommel and leaned sharply back.

Came a dead shock that otherwise would have thrown her headlong. She felt the mare’s hind legs splashing viciously at the sloping sides of the ditch. The barrel body gave a side-twist—a lurch—she found herself calling queer, foolish, encouraging things—and with a final effort the mare stood on sound ground, shivering. Presently she began a spasmodic trot.

At that moment Tonia saw Netley riding furiously toward her, his face like chalk.

“Why the devil did you try that?” he called shakily.

Tonia, really very frightened, gulped down the lump in her throat. “Try what?” she called back, and urged the mare into a gallop. Her blood was up.

He forced his own horse close alongside. “You might have killed the mare!” he shouted, his eyes large and round and hot.

Tonia blinked. Killed the mare! So that was what struck him! Never in her life had she been so completely astonished.

“Follow me for a change!” she flung back, and pressed on.

A sharp twenty minutes’ burst and the pack ran down their fox in the open. Tonia was well up. She saw what happened, saw the small, draggled furry thing at bay, and turned away feeling green. Netley, whose eyes had never left her, moved close.

“What’s the matter?” he said quietly.

“Get me out of this,” she whispered, “or I’ll make a fool of myself.”

He took another look, understood perfectly, and thought it very foolish. Unusual, too, nowadays. Their horses were walking down a quiet lane when she gave him a grateful glance.

“You got me away just in time.”

“A bit odd why you hunt at all in that case, eh?”

She was cornered, and his cool way of taking it made it worse.

“Never have any impulses of mercy yourself?” she countered, not grateful any more.

He shrugged his pink shoulders. “Sport is sport. No sport without killing something or other.”

She swallowed that, but couldn’t digest it. “I don’t agree—and you weren’t very nice about that jump.”

He watched the mare’s paces for a critical moment before answering.

“I was scared stiff that you’d lamed the roan, and it wasn’t your fault you didn’t. I suppose you know it was a whale of a jump?”

“I—I thought it pretty good at the time,” she said casually.

He pulled down his reddish brows, examined her as he had the mare, came to what was apparently a similar conclusion, then gave a chuckle.

“Rather set out to pull my leg, haven’t you?”

“I’ve other things to occupy me, Mr. Netley.”

He laughed outright. “Well, you did, but for a minute only. The thing didn’t work. As soon as you got on that horse I knew you were at home. Look here, I wouldn’t bluff any more if I were you. You can have a corking time in Kent if you’ll take us as you find us.”

This left her oddly silent. She could not lie, and she had been bluffing. He kept shooting at her curious little sidelong glances, finding in her face a magnetic attraction quite new to him, and arguing to himself that when she got over her Colonial nonsense she’d be one of the best, and a sight more interesting than any girl he knew.

Money, too, from all one heard of what was going on at The Dene. And, as matters stood, money would be veritable manna to Bruce Netley.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to go home,” said Tonia after a long pause.

He did mind, minded a good deal, and had counted on keeping her for most of the day, but thought it wiser to agree.

“And I do hope I haven’t hurt the mare. I’d feel awful, and what would your mother say? Her horse, isn’t it?”

He could imagine what would have been said, but didn’t tell her, and only laughed.

“The mare’s all right,” he grunted. “I’ll drive you back.”

That was as far as he got in expressing any relief on her own account, which, concluded Tonia, was probably the view of the average hunting man. Horse first! In the car she occupied herself chiefly in watching his profile. Well-bred, she thought, with a shade of contempt about it, and perhaps a little cruel.

“We’re having a shoot next week,” she hazarded, “and you’re being asked. Will you come?”

His eyes glinted. “Rather!”

“Fond of it?”

“Next to hunting. Funny old place that Lodge of yours. Know the Danellos?”

“Yes, they called the other day.”

He seemed surprised. “All three of ’em?”

“Yes.”

“What do you make of ’em?”

“Nothing yet. Why do you ask?”

“Because they generally keep that girl shut up.”

“How queer—and why should they?”

She spoke almost with indifference, but this growing evidence had deepened the fascination of the mystery. Netley was the fourth who knew something. But how much? There seemed to be a point they all reached and at which they all stopped.

“Funny sort of thing any way you look at it,” he ruminated. “I believe the girl is a beauty, but they don’t take her anywhere, and don’t leave her quite alone—at least, that’s what they say in Charterden. They told someone she was weak-minded. See any signs of that?”

“No—but she’s very quiet.” Tonia was going to add, “And frightened,” but checked herself.

“Well, there’s something out of joint there. And what does Danello want with two hundred acres he never uses? They don’t farm it—don’t graze it—and never shoot over it, though he got the shooting. Looks as though he doesn’t want anyone near him. And those spinneys are stuffed with pheasants.”

“Oh,” she said thoughtfully, not letting him see how sharply the thing had taken hold of her.

“It’s that bit directly in front of the Lodge. However, perhaps most of what one hears is only village talk—except that murder. That wasn’t talk.” He pointed. “There’s about the spot.”

They had swung in past the Gate House, where old Mrs. Goddard was busy on her doorstep with a birch-broom. Farther south was the Weald of Kent, ancient and very opulent, dotted with fat farms, hopfields, grazing ground and spinneys, and stabbed with the steeples of many a greystone village church. Tonia marked carefully the spot he indicated and gave a little nod.

“It all seems too old and peaceful to be very formidable.”

He did not say anything more, and, presently halting at The Dene, waited to be asked in. But she had other things in mind.

“Thanks so much, and we’ll see you next week. Julian, my brother, will be here, and a Mr. Bethune.”

“A Canadian?”

“No. He’s English, and a great friend of the family. He was staying with us this last summer. He’s twenty-two.” She said this with an inflection that suggested that Bethune’s coming meant a great deal to her. “I do hope you’ll like each other,” she added sweetly.

Netley, driving himself home, thought that never had her voice sounded so soft as when she said this.