Danger Point

Chapter 9

WHEN Lisle looked back on the day that followed she saw it as a bright panel dividing darkness from darkness. It was like a window through which she could see the sun though the room was dark. But as she lived through it, it was just one of those days when everything goes right. The sky was blue and cloudless, the sea was blue and waveless, and the hours just slipped pleasantly by with nothing to mark them. Dale came back from the air-field in high good humour and talked technicalities to her all through lunch. Rafe never got back until the evening, and Alicia had taken herself off for the day, so that they were alone. Later on they bathed and he gave her a swimming lesson. Time just slipped away like light flowing by. That night she slept the perfect dreamless sleep which rests and satisfies.

They were at breakfast next day, when Alicia was called to the telephone. Rafe had finished, and sat with his chair pushed back, smoking a cigarette. He worked in the designing department of the firm which had bought a site for their new aircraft factory from Dale a couple of years ago. He sat with his eye on the clock, dallying, as he always did, until the last possible moment.

Alicia came back into the room with a bright, mocking smile. She dropped into her chair and addressed herself to Dale.

“That, darling, was Aimée.”

“Aimée who?”

She laughed.

“Have you got more than one? I should have thought she was enough and a little bit over. Aimée Mallam, darling. And she’s staying with the Crawfords, and she wants to come over to lunch today.”

“What fun!” said Rafe. “Devastating for me to have to miss her. But there’ll be all the more for you.” He got up lazily and blew Lisle a kiss. “My child, you don’t know your luck. Give her my fondest love.”

“If you don’t hurry,” said Alicia, “you’ll be late.”

“Not quite,” said Rafe. “I cut it fine, but I don’t overstep. That’s what old Mallaby said to me no later than Saturday morning. Good-bye, children – enjoy yourselves.” He went out, leaving the door open.

Dale got up and shut it. He had a controlled, angry look.

“What did you say to her, Alicia?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“What does one say?” She put on a polite mimicking voice. “ ‘My dear, how wonderful! We shall simply love to see you – especially Dale.’ That’s what I said.”

“Don’t be a fool, Lal! She can’t come here today. I’m flying this morning, and I’m going up to town this afternoon. Lisle’s driving me into Ledlington, so unless you want to have Aimée all to yourself-” His eyes met hers, and saw them brighten.

“Oh, no, you don’t, darling! Aimée’s not my pigeon.”

“Then you’ll just go back and tell her she can’t come!”

Lisle sat there, a little bewildered, a little out of it. Aimée Mallam – For a moment the name stayed on the surface of her mind, then sank into it like a stone. That was the woman who had talked on the other side of the hedge – Rafe’s wasp in treacle. A cold, faint shudder went through her. She looked at Alicia and saw her shake an emphatic head.

“I can’t do that. The Crawfords are going over to see Joan at her school – she’s got into some scrape or other – so of course they don’t want to take Aimée.” She dropped her mocking manner. “Look here, you’d much better let her come and get it over. She won’t be here till one o’clock, and if you’re catching the three-twenty – I suppose it is the three-twenty – we can push off at a quarter to.”

“We?”

Alicia laughed.

“I’m not going to be thrown to the wolves. Besides. I want to fetch my car. Langham said it would be ready any time after three, so I’ll do some shopping and drive myself home.”

She came round the table to Dale, standing close to him and letting her voice fall to a confidential murmur.

“Honestly, darling, you’d better let her come. She was full of hints about why hadn’t she seen you at the Cranes, and why had Lisle gone off in such a hurry – she so particularly wanted to meet her. You know the kind of thing – the more you try and put her off, the more determined she’ll be. And she’ll go away and say you wouldn’t let her meet Lisle.”

The words were pitched for his ear, but Lisle caught them. They made her feel as if she were eavesdropping. She saw Alicia’s look and Dale’s black frown. Her cheeks burned as she pushed back her chair and ran out of the room.

Neither Dale nor Alicia noticed whether she stayed or went. There was a struggle between them – or rather, a new version of an old struggle. He frowned, but he couldn’t frown her down. The bright malice of her glance said, “Why are you frightened of Aimée? You are. I could have protected you – I’m her match. Why should I protect you? You didn’t wait for me. You chose Lisle – let her protect you.” The malice melted into soft mocking laughter. “Better make a virtue of necessity, darling – she’ll come anyhow,” she said, and stood on tiptoe to kiss the point of his chin.

Lisle spent the morning trying to arm herself with a valour which she did not possess. She put on a new dress, straw-coloured linen to match her hair, and was heartened to see how she looked in it. She used a little more colour than she generally did, because whatever happened, Aimée Mallam wasn’t going to see her looking pale. After all, what could she do or say at Dale’s table and to his very face? She was making herself wretched for nothing at all. The treacle would probably hide the wasp, and there would be an end of it.

Mrs. Mallam arrived in a snappy little car and too smart a dress. It had a very short flared skirt and tight bodice of an emerald green and white striped material. She wore it with green shoes and a twisted emerald hair-band under which her hair showed overpoweringly thick and golden. There was too much hair, and too much gold to be true – a great deal too much. There was also too much bust to be so tightly encased in such vivid stripes. There was too much calf to be so freely displayed. But in curious contrast to all this overemphasis there was too little of it elsewhere. The eyes, which should have been large and blue, were narrow, rather closely set, and of a light uncertainty of hue. The lips were thin and hardly showed their colour. The cheeks were pale and inclined to heaviness.

She embraced Alicia, put a hand covered with rings on Dale’s arm, and said, looking up at Lisle,

“So this is the bride. Which of you do I congratulate?”

It was the voice which had said “A lucky accident for Dale.” It drawled, as if clogged with its own heavy sweetness.

For a moment Lisle was numb and dumb. And then, like an automaton, she was shaking hands and saying “How do you do?” Mrs. Mallam’s hand, plump and warm in a wash-leather glove, clung to hers, pressing it. Her voice drawled,

“I shall congratulate Dale.”

Her other hand was still on his arm. She turned to him.

“But I’m about six months too late. I expect you’ve heard it all hundreds of times.”

He smiled down at her.

“The more the merrier, Aimée. I know how lucky I am – I can’t hear about it too often.”

Aimée Mallam laughed.

“Oh, my dear, but you always were lucky. How do you do it? I wish I had the secret.”

Lunch went pleasantly enough, at least for Aimée Mallam. She and Dale did most of the talking. Alicia, not in the best of tempers, came darting in when it pleased her. She ate nothing but fruit.

“But, darling, you don’t have to slim, ” said Aimée Mallam.

Alicia’s eyes rested for a moment upon Aimée’s well filled plate. She said,

“My dear, when you have to it’s too late. I’m keeping my figure.”

Mrs. Mallam burst out laughing.

“I can’t be bothered about mine. If it wants to go back on me it must. I adore my food, and I don’t care who knows it.” She turned to Lisle. “You don’t know how disappointed I was to miss you at the Cranes’. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard you were gone. You see, I didn’t get down there till nearly midnight on the Friday, because I dropped in on my cousin Lady Lowstock on the way, and she insisted on keeping me to dinner. Very naughty of her, and very naughty of me. Marian Crane was furious, but, as I said to her, ‘Pamela and I were cousins for about twenty years before you and I ever met, and she simply insisted.’ ” You’ve met the Lowstocks of course?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t.”

Mrs. Mallam looked shocked.

“Whatever has Dale been doing? He ought to have taken you all round and introduced you to everyone. Wanted to keep you all to himself, I suppose. But he must take you over to see Pamela Lowstock. She’s such a delightful creature – and a very old friend of Dale’s. In fact there was a time – but we mustn’t rake up old stories now, must we?”

Alicia’s light laugh rang out.

“But why not, Aimée? There’s no lie like an old one – no one can check up on it, for one thing.”

She got a rap on the arm and a slow, slanting smile.

“Always so amusing, darling.” She turned back to Lisle. “You shall take me round the garden, and I’ll tell you about all Dale’s old flames.”

This entertainment did not, however, come off. When lunch was over and coffee disposed of, Dale announced that he had a train to catch, and that Lisle was driving him and Alicia into Ledlington. There was no time to go round the garden.

If Mrs. Mallam was disappointed she did not show it. She turned an unruffled smile upon Lisle and asked if she might go upstairs with her.

“Just a few running repairs, my dear Dale.”

If he had intended to prevent a tête-à-tête, he was now hopelessly at a disadvantage. Alicia, who might have afforded him some support, merely raised a sarcastic eyebrow and vanished in the direction of her own room. Dale had perforce to see Lisle and Aimée go side-by-side up the black and white marble steps. As they came towards him again along the gallery overhead, their voices reached him – or rather Aimée’s voice:

“There isn’t any place quite like Tanfield.”

Mrs. Mallam repeated the remark as she sat powdering her nose in front of Lisle’s mirror. It stood at an angle to the light and reflected the whole room. In spite of three long windows the effect was one of gloom. An immense mahogany wardrobe filled nearly the whole of the opposite wall. Its dark sliding panels, its immense height and depth, gave it the air of a cliff dominating the landscape. It drank the light, and reflected none of it. Between the two doors there was a massive tallboy. The carpet, one of those durable Victorian carpets, was patterned in shades of brown and green, all sunk together now in a general murk. The curtains repeated the same colours in a deep-toned damask. Everything in the room had been very expensive a long time ago, and was now undergoing a dignified decay. Dignified and very gloomy.

Mrs. Mallam turned a well powdered nose upon her hostess.

“My dear, why don’t you do it all up? It’s a beautiful room, but you’re not your great-grandmother. Doesn’t it give you the pip, all this boiled beef and spinach?”

Lisle found herself jarred, and yet with an inward response. She was getting used to Mrs. Mallam’s voice. Now that she had heard it say so many other things, the effect of what it had said from behind the yew hedge was wearing off. She thought Mrs. Mallam ill-bred and tiresome, but she was glad she had come, because the very fact that she was so obviously just a vulgar mischief-maker deprived what she had said of any real value. She spoke quite pleasantly and easily now.

“It’s rather dark and old-fashioned. But don’t you think it suits the room? After all, Tanfield Court is old, you know, and I don’t think Dale would like to have anything changed.”

When Aimée Mallam laughed her lips did not part. They stretched in a thin slanting line and the laugh came gurgling out like water from a close-necked bottle. No, not water – treacle. Rafe’s word – and Rafe was right.

“Well, my dear, Dale’s made one change for the better anyhow. You didn’t know Lydia, I suppose? Oh, no – you couldn’t have. You wouldn’t have been more than ten or twelve years old when she – died.”

Lisle said, “I suppose not.” She wanted to say something that would change the subject, but nothing would come.

Aimée looked at her out of narrowed eyes and smiled her tilted smile.

“You know, it really was astounding that he should have married her. Of course she had money, but Dale might have married anyone. My cousin Pamela Lowstock was crazy about him. But you needn’t worry about her now, because she’s devoted to her Josiah. Lowstock’s Peerless Ales, you know. Pots and pots of money. And she hadn’t a bean, so it’s just as well Dale didn’t fall for her, because of course he simply had to marry money. I always say Tanfield is like one of those monsters they used to make offerings to.” She laughed her treacly laugh. “The virgin sacrifice, you know. Jerninghams have always married money – they’ve got to – and Tanfield just swallows it and asks for more.”

Something in Lisle was stirred to anger. Something else bowed a weeping head and said, “Yes, it’s true.”

She turned pale, but she forced her lips to smile. “That sounds rather creepy. Are you ready? Shall we go down?”