Читать книгу Death and the Dancing Footman - Ngaio Marsh, Stella Duffy - Страница 17

‘Not very propitious weather for looking at a bathing pool,’ said Mandrake, ‘but I insist on showing it to you.’

He had sent the guests off at a round pace to go through Highfold woods, where the rides were heavy with sodden leaves, down to Jonathan’s model farm, and back up a steep lane to the north side of the house, where he limped out to meet them. Here they came on a wide terrace. Beneath them, at the foot of a flight of paved steps flanked by bay trees, was a large concrete swimming pool set in smooth lawns and overlooked by a charming eighteenth-century pavilion, now trimmed, like a Christmas card, with snow. The floor of the pool had been painted a vivid blue, but now the water was wrinkled, and in the twilight of late afternoon reflected only a broken pattern of repellent steely greys flecked by dead leaves. Mandrake explained that the pavilion had once been an aviary, but that Jonathan had done it up in keeping with its empire style, and that when summer came he meant to hold fêtes galantes down there by his new swimming pool. It would look very Rex Whistlerish, Mandrake said, and would have just the right air of formalized gaiety.

‘At the moment,’ said Chloris, ‘it has an air of formalized desolation, but I see what you mean.’

‘Wouldn’t you like to come for a nice bracing plunge with me, Chloris, before breakfast tomorrow?’ asked Nicholas. ‘Do say yes.’

‘No, thank you,’ said Chloris.

‘It would have been awkward for you,’ said William, ‘if Chloris had said yes.’ It was the first remark William had addressed directly to his brother.

‘Not at all,’ rejoined Nicholas, and he made his stiff little bow to Chloris.

‘I’ll bet ten pounds,’ William said to nobody in particular, ‘that nothing on earth would have got him into that water before or after breakfast.’

‘Would you?’ asked Nicholas. ‘I take you. You’ve lost.’

Mrs Compline instantly protested. She reminded Nicholas of the state of his heart. William grinned derisively, and Nicholas, staring at Chloris, repeated that the bet was on. The absurd conversation began to take an unpleasant edge. Mandrake felt an icy touch on his cheek and drew attention to a desultory scatter of snowflakes.

‘If that was our brisk walk,’ said Chloris, ‘I consider we’ve had it. Let’s go in.’

‘Is it a bet?’ Nicholas asked his brother.

‘Oh, yes,’ said William. ‘You may have to break the ice, but it’s a bet.

To the accompaniment of a lively torrent of disapprobation from Mrs Compline they walked towards the house. Mandrake’s interest in William mounted with each turn of the situation. William was as full of surprises as a lucky-bag. His sudden proposal of this ridiculous wager was as unexpected as the attitude which he now adopted. He looked hang-dog and frightened. He hung back and said something to his mother, who set that tragically distorted mouth and did not answer. William gave her a look strangely compounded of malice and nervousness, and strode after Chloris who was walking with Mandrake. Nicholas had joined them, and Mandrake felt sure that Chloris was very much aware of him. When William suddenly took her arm she started and seemed to draw back. They returned to the accompaniment of an irritating rattle of conversation from Nicholas.

As soon as they came out on the platform before the house, they found that someone else had arrived. Nicholas’s car had been driven away, and in its place stood a very smart three-seater from which servants were taking very smart suitcases.

‘That’s not Hersey Amblington’s car,’ said Mrs Compline.

‘No,’ said Nicholas. And he added loudly: ‘Look here; what’s Jonathan up to?’

‘What do you mean, darling?’ asked his mother quickly.

‘Nothing,’ said Nicholas. ‘But I think I recognize the car.’ He hung back as the others went into the house, and waited for Mandrake. He still wore Jonathan’s cape over his uniform, and it occurred to Mandrake that since Nicholas allowed himself this irregularity he must be very well aware of its effectiveness. He put his hand on Mandrake’s arm. The others went into the house.

‘I say,’ he said. ‘Is Jonathan up to anything?’

‘How do you mean?’ asked Mandrake, wondering what the devil Jonathan would wish him to reply.

‘Well, it seems to me this is a queerly assorted house-party.’

‘Is it? I’m a complete stranger to all the other guests, you know.’

‘When did you get here?’

‘Last night.’

‘Well, hasn’t Jonathan said anything? About the other guests, I mean?’

‘He was very pleased with his party,’ said Mandrake, carefully. ‘He’s longing for it to be an enormous success.’

‘Is he, by God!’ said Nicholas. He turned on his heel and walked into the house.

Mrs Compline and Chloris went up to their rooms; the three men left their overcoats in a downstairs cloakroom, where they noticed the twin of Jonathan’s cape. When they came back into the hall they could hear voices in the library. As if by common consent they all paused. There were three voices – Jonathan’s, a masculine voice that held a foreign suggestion in its level inflections, and a deep contralto.

‘I thought as much,’ said Nicholas, and laughed unpleasantly.

‘What’s up?’ William asked Mandrake.

‘Nothing, so far as I know.’

‘Come on,’ said Nicholas. ‘What are we waiting for? Let’s go in.’

He led the way into the library.

Jonathan and his new arrivals stood before a roaring fire. The man had his back turned to the door, but the woman was facing it with an air of placid anticipation. Her face was strongly lit by a wall lamp, and Mandrake’s immediate reaction to it was a sort of astonishment that Jonathan could have forgotten to say how spectacular she was. In Mandrake’s world women were either sophisticated and sleek or hideous and erratic. ‘Artificiality,’ he was in the habit of saying, ‘is a fundamental in all women with whom one falls in love, and to so exquisite an extreme has artifice been carried that it sometimes apes nature with considerable success.’ This subtlety of grooming appeared in Madame Lisse. Her hair was straight and from a central parting was drawn back and gathered into a knot at the nape of her neck. It lay close to her head like a black satin cap with blue highlights. Her face was an oval, beautifully pale, her lashes needed no cosmetic to darken them, her mouth alone proclaimed her art, for it was sharply painted a dark red. Her dress was extremely simple, but in it her body seemed to be gloved rather than clothed. She was not very young, not as young as Chloris Wynne, not perhaps as pretty as Chloris Wynne either, but she had to the last degree the quality that Mandrake, though he knew very little French, spoke of and even thought of as soignée. And, in her own vein, she was exceedingly beautiful.

‘Madame Lisse,’ Jonathan was saying, ‘you know Nicholas, don’t you? May I introduce his brother, and Mr Aubrey Mandrake? Hart, do you know –?’ Jonathan’s introductions faded gently away.

Dr Hart’s bow was extremely formal. He was a pale dark man with a compact paunch and firm white hands. He was clad in the defiant tweeds of a firmly naturalized ex-Central European. Mandrake gathered from his manner that either he had not met Nicholas Compline and didn’t wish to do so, or else that he had met him and had taken a firm resolve never to do so again. Nicholas, for his part, acknowledged the introduction by looking at a point some distance beyond Dr Hart’s left ear, and by uttering the words ‘How do you do?’ as if they were a malediction. Madame Lisse’s greeting to Nicholas was coloured by that particular blend of composure and awareness with which Austrian women make Englishmen feel dangerous and delighted. With something of the same air, but without a certain delicate underlining, she held out her hand to William and to Mandrake. Mandrake remembered that Nicholas had known Madame Lisse was coming to the party, and saw him take up a proprietory position beside her. ‘He’s going to brazen it out,’ thought Mandrake. ‘He’s going to show us the sort of dog he is with the ladies, by heaven.’

Mandrake was right. Nicholas, with a sort of defiant showmanship, devoted himself to Madame Lisse. He stood beside her in an attitude reminiscent of a Victorian military fashion-plate, one leg straight and one flexed. Occasionally he placed one hand on the back of her chair, while the other went to his blond moustache. Whenever Dr Hart glared at them, which he did repeatedly, Nicholas bent towards Madame Lisse and uttered a loud and unconvincing laugh calculated, Mandrake supposed, to show Dr Hart how vastly Nicholas and Madame Lisse entertained each other. Madame was the sort of woman whose natural habitat was the centre of a group of men and, with the utmost tranquillity, she dominated the conversation and even, in spite of Nicholas, contrived to instil into it an air of genuine gaiety. In this she was ably supported by Jonathan and by Mandrake himself. Even William, who watched his brother pretty closely, responded in his own odd fashion to Madame’s charm. He asked her abruptly if anybody had ever painted her portrait. On learning that this had never been done, he started to mutter to himself, and Nicholas looked irritated. Madame Lisse began to talk to Mandrake about his plays, Jonathan chimed in, and once again the situation was saved. It was upon a conversation piece, with Madame Lisse very much in the centre of vision, that Mrs Compline and Chloris made their entrances. Mandrake thought that Mrs Compline could not be aware of the affair between Nicholas and Madame Lisse, so composedly did she acknowledge the introduction. But, if this was the case, what reason had Chloris given for the broken engagement with Nicholas? ‘Is it not impossible that everybody but his mother should be aware of l’affaire Lisse?’ Mandrake speculated. ‘Perhaps she sees him as a sort of irresistible young god, choosing where he will, and, without resentment, accepts Madame as a votaress.’ There was no doubt about Chloris’s reaction. Mandrake saw her stiffen and go very still when Jonathan pronounced Madame Lisse’s name. For perhaps a full second neither of the women spoke, and then, for all the world as if they responded to some inaudible cue, Chloris and Madame Lisse were extremely gracious to each other. ‘So they’re going to take that line,’ thought Mandrake, and wondered if Jonathan shared his feelings of relief. He felt less comfortable when he saw Mrs Compline’s reaction to Dr Hart. She murmured the conventional greeting, looked casually and then fixedly into his face, and turned so deadly white that for a moment Mandrake actually wondered if she would faint. But she did not faint. She turned away and sat in a chair farthest removed from the light. Caper brought in sherry and champagne cocktails.