Читать книгу Who Pays the Piper? - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 12

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That hour was the strangest one in Susan’s life. She could not have told how it went. It was like the time in a dream, when moments lengthen into ages or contract to a dizzy flash. She tried to rouse Cathy, to get an answer from her, but achieved nothing but a dull state of distress without coherent speech. Dr. Carrick had always told them to let her alone and she would sleep it off. In the midst of all that was so unreal she had the clearest picture of Bill’s father saying that in his warm, reassuring voice.

She began to walk up and down in the long room. Two windows on to the terrace and the glass door between them. Everything grey and misty outside. The ray of sun had gone. She turned and walked back, leaving the windows behind her. The door on the right, Dale’s writing-table, the chimney-breast, the logs on the hearth fallen down in a bed of white ash. Above, on the panelling, Lazio’s picture of Millicent and Laura Bourne. On the left the recess, Cathy’s writing-table. Cathy lying motionless on the window-seat very small and frail. She walked on to the end of the room. There was another door on the right. It led by a narrow passage to a back stair.

Susan turned and came back again. Her eyes went to the picture. Millicent and Laura Bourne.... How lovely and serene they looked—Aunt Milly who was a fretful invalid—Laura who was dead.... She thought. “I’m twenty-two. I’m older than she was when she died.” She thought how easy it would be to be dead and not to have to break your heart.

She stood there and thought about Bill——“I’ve got a right to break my heart for Cathy, but I’m breaking Bill’s heart too——” A small, cold voice answered her. It said, “He’ll get over it. Cathy wouldn’t. Men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love.” Cathy could be broken like a leaf. Bill would suffer, but he wouldn’t break. She didn’t think about herself at all. There was no feeling there—it was all numb. She thought about Bill, and Cathy, and Aunt Milly. She thought Aunt Milly would crumple up if anything happened to Cathy. She sat down in the big leather chair and stopped thinking.

The door near the windows opened. Mr. Vincent C. Bell looked in. When he saw Susan he came right in.

“When I had the pleasure of meeting you the other day I called you out of your name, so I’m very glad to have the opportunity of saying how do you do all over again. I’m very pleased to meet you, Miss Lenox.”

Susan looked at him vaguely—the man she had met, coming up from the rose garden—Cathy had said he was staying——She said,

“Are you looking for Mr. Dale?”

He said, “Mr. Phipson.”

“If you go out by that other door you will see the back stairs on your left. Mr. Phipson’s room is at the end of the long passage at the top of the stairs.”

“Well, there’s no hurry,” said Vincent Bell.

Susan said in a tired voice, “My cousin is ill. I am just waiting to take her home. I think if you don’t mind——”

He seemed a long way off as he apologized and went.

Susan waited. It was a relief when Dale came into the room. She stood up to meet him and said what she had planned to say.

“You know I am engaged to Bill Carrick——”

“You have been engaged.”

“You know we love each other—very much——”

“I love you too,” said Lucas Dale.

“But I love Bill. I shall always love him.”

“Always is a long time.”

Susan shivered.

“What good will it be to you if I don’t love you—if I love Bill?”

He gave her a strange look.

“I think that’s my look-out. Are you going to marry me?”

Her control broke.

“Don’t make me—don’t make me!”

Dale said, “I’m not making you do anything. I’ve come here to get your answer.”

She said, “I can’t!” and saw him go to the table and pick up the telephone.

“Is that your last word? Once I call up the police station there’ll be no going back.”

“No—no—don’t ring! I didn’t mean that. You mustn’t ring.”

“Well, I don’t want to,” said Dale. “But you’ll have to know your own mind, because, you see, I’ve got to trust you. I’ve got to be sure that you won’t let me down. I’ve got to take my decision right away. If I don’t ring up the police now, it’s not going to be easy to ring them up later on, in a day or two, if you come to me and say you’ve changed your mind. How am I going to guard against that?”

Susan’s lips said stiffly, “If I say I’ll do it——”

“I could guard myself,” said Dale. “I could get you to sign a statement to say you’d found my pearls in your cousin’s bag. But I’m not going to do that—I’m going to trust your word. You see, that’s how I think of you. If you gave your word you wouldn’t go back on it. Are you going to marry me, Susan?”

“Yes.”

“Next week?”

“No.”

“Yes, Susan—yes.” His voice changed suddenly, softened. “What’s the good of putting it off, my dear?”

That was true. It was no good putting it off.

“Well? Is it yes?”

Susan said, “Yes.”

“Is that your word of honour?”

“Yes.”

He went to the bell and pressed it.

“The car is waiting. I’ll carry Cathy out.”