Читать книгу The Brading Collection - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 10

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Major Constable was a hearty soul and a good if daring dancer.

“Look here, I’ll show you a new step you can do to this tune. Rather amusing—picked it up in Chile. I danced it with the belle of the local party, and her boy friend got so worked up he ran a knife into me.”

Stacy said,

“You must find Warne dull—no new steps, no boy friends with knives.”

“But a much better floor.”

He had missed his chance to say, “A much better partner”. It seemed to come over him suddenly. He dodged between two couples in a very agile manner, and said,

“I missed my cue there, didn’t I? Take it as said. You really are a better partner than the girl friend.”

Stacy couldn’t help being amused, but she thought she would probably have to watch her step. One of those fast workers. She said, “Thank you”, and put a touch of frost into her voice. More to change the subject than for any other reason, she added,

“Have you known Charles long?”

Because if he had, it was odd that she hadn’t heard of him before.

It appeared that they had knocked about together in the desert—Tobruk, Hell Fire Corner, Alamein, and so forth. He sounded all over Charles, and began to tell her stories about him, the sort that had made it so easy to fall in love with him three years ago, concluding with,

“Very dashing fellow. And always something to say to make you see the funny side. Pity about that girl he got tied up with.”

Stacy said,

“Perhaps girls are always rather a pity.”

He laughed.

“Oh, well, Charles likes them. She wasn’t the first, and she won’t be the last.”

Conversation with Jack Constable seemed to involve a constant change of topic. Her colour becomingly heightened, Stacy enquired whether he was staying at Saltings. It appeared that he was.

“I ran into old Charles the other day in town, and asked myself down. I say, he’s done pretty well out of converting the house into flats. Lucky to have had the capital to do it with.” Stacy’s heart did a horrid sort of sidestep. But he hadn’t any capital, he hadn’t any capital at all. That was just the trouble. She said,

“I thought he sold Saltings.”

Jack Constable shook his head.

“Oh, no, he did much better for himself than that. Sold the family diamonds or something and put the proceeds into converting the place. He’s made an awfully good job of it. Haven’t you been up there to see?”

Stacy said, “I only came this afternoon.” She leapt for yet another subject. “Talking of diamonds, have you seen Mr. Brading’s Collection?”

He laughed.

“Sounds like the sort of thing nobody’s got enough money for nowadays. Who is he—and what about it?”

She made the Collection last until the dance was over.

She did get away after that. Pausing to say goodnight, she had a brief interchange with Mrs. Constantine, who wanted her to stay, but finished up with saying,

“All right, all right—you go and get a good night’s rest. There’s always another day tomorrow, isn’t there? There was a little German Jew fellow played the piano in a road-show I was in, he used to say that—in German, you know, ‘Morgen ist auch ein Tag’,” She produced an accent fearfully and wonderfully British. “Sounds funny, don’t it? All right, my dear, off you go! And you can start doing my picture tomorrow. Half past ten, if that suits you.”

As Stacy looked back at the room before she left it she saw Jack Constable dancing with Lilias, and Charles with the red-haired girl in his arms. Lewis Brading was standing against the wall watching them.

Her room was the small one at the end of Mrs. Constantine’s suite. It was really the dressing-room of a bigger room next door. Hester Constantine slept there, and Myra had the bedroom and dressing-room opposite, with the sitting-room beyond. Like her bedroom it looked out towards the sea. Stacy’s room looked sideways to the annexe, built against the hill to house Lewis Brading’s Collection. Thirty feet of bare glazed passage connected it with the house, and in that passage a light burned all night long.

When Stacy was ready for bed she pulled back the curtains and looked out. It would not be dark for half an hour yet, and she was in no hurry for sleep. She looked out to the annexe and the dark trees surrounding it. There were no windows. Electric light and an excellent air-conditioning plant did away with the need for natural light and air. Even the light-hearted Stacy of three years ago had found something rather horrid about that. And Lewis Brading didn’t live there then. Now, she gathered, he did, or at any rate slept there—he and the humourless secretary who had stepped on her feet. Gosh—What a party!

She went on thinking about Lewis Brading because she didn’t want to think about Charles. It had been dislike between them at first sight, and she wondered why. Most people liked her all right. Charles had loved her. Or had he? Had she ever really been the theme, or just one of the variations with which he amused himself? At any rate he hadn’t married any of the others.... “For God’s sake—are you priding yourself on that? The worst day’s work you ever let yourself in for. Why do you want to go and rake it all up now when you’ve got clear of it?” Jack Constable’s voice came back—“He’s made a good job of the house.... Sold the family diamonds.” She had a quick horrifying picture of Charles with the diamonds in his hand and the life freezing at her heart. How many times could you die?

Horrible to have it come back like that. She picked up a book which she had bought for the train and began to read aloud from it quick and low. You can think if you are reading to yourself, but you can’t think if you are reading aloud. That was one of the things she had found out three years ago. She hadn’t had to do it for a long time now, but she had to do it tonight. She stood there in the light breeze from the open window and heard her voice go monotonously on and on without sense or meaning. It didn’t need to have sense or meaning. It was just a barrage against thought.

She put down the book at last with a deep sigh. The wind from the sea had freshened, she was cold in her thin nightgown. Her feet were like ice, and she was deadly tired. It was too late to read any longer. The passage to the annexe was lighted from end to end. She got into bed, covered herself to her chin, and almost at once she was asleep.

She didn’t know how long it was before she woke up, or what it was that waked her. One moment she was deeply, dreamlessly asleep, and the next she was up on her elbow, wide awake in the dark. She stayed like that for a moment listening, and then got out and went over to the window. The wind was cold and everything was dark. But it oughtn’t to be dark. Why not? There wasn’t any moon. The sky was dark, and the hill, and the trees. And the annexe was dark because it had no windows to show a light. But the passage from the annexe to the house—that ought to be lighted. Myra Constantine had talked about it—“There’s only that one way in, and it’s a steel door, so it wouldn’t be an easy proposition for a burglar.” But of course she knew all that three years ago. Lewis Brading’s precautions against being robbed were public property and the more public the better. Burglars keep out!

Stacy frowned at the darkness. The passage had been lighted when she turned from the window to her bed. It wasn’t lighted now. And then from just beneath her there came the smallest possible sound. She thought a door had been closed, softly and carefully, but the latch had clicked. She was sure it was that sound and no other, and she was sure that it came from the door between the passage and the house. Someone had pulled it to, but the handle had slipped and the latch had gone home with a click—right there, underneath her window. Quick on that the light in the passage came on and showed it bare from end to end.

And this time Stacy wasn’t sure. She wasn’t quite sure. She thought the steel door to the annexe moved as the light came on. She thought it was closing too. But she wasn’t sure.