Danger Point

Chapter 4

THE sun blazed down on the tennis courts at Tanfield. There were three of them, two under beautiful turf, and the third a green hard court. A high mixed hedge of hornbeam, holly and thorn shut them in. The great mass of the house, except for its high flanking towers, was out of sight.

On the farther grass court Alicia Steyne was finishing a hotly contested set with Rafe Jerningham. The ball skimmed the net and went low and straight past Rafe’s backhand. He ran, reached for it vainly, and came down sprawling. Alicia threw her racket in the air and called in her high, sweet voice, “Game and!”

Rafe got up and saw her laughing at him. She was as little and light as a child, with dark tossed curls and a vivid, wilful face. All her colouring was brown, but the quick blood gave brilliance to lip and cheek. Her teeth were as white as hazel nuts. She came round the net tossing her racket and laughing.

“Pouf! I can always beat you!^” She pursed her lips and blew him a kiss. “And for why? Because I play much, much better than you do. And I don’t lose my temper.”

Rafe laughed too. He was as brown as she – medium size, very slim, very good-looking in something of a gypsy way. He had slender black eyebrows with an odd kink in them. The brown-skinned, well-set ears were a little pointed like a faun’s. There was something that was not quite a likeness between him and Alicia Steyne. They had, in fact, the same grandmother, and the same very white teeth. He shewed them as he said,

“But I don’t lose my temper.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“Not even secretly! Most men do when a woman beats them.”

“Not even then.”

She flung her racket down with a sudden impatience.

“Well, I’ve got a beast of a temper, and I don’t care who knows it! Only I don’t lose it at games – I keep it for something better worth while.”

“Such as?”

A stormy look came over Alicia’s face. Rafe went on in a light, teasing voice.

“Like your own way, don’t you, and cut up rough when you don’t get it – even at games.”

She flashed into brilliance.

“That’s not true, anyway!”

“Not? Sure?”

“You know it’s not true!”

He laughed lightly.

“Well, you do generally manage to get your own way.”

The brilliance went out like a blown flame.

“Not always.”

She jerked round and ran to pick up her racket. Rafe watched her with a curious teasing look. His thin, mobile lips showed the white teeth again. It amused him to consider that Alicia, who had taken her own way as a right ever since she was a baby, couldn’t take it, and would probably never be able to take it, where his cousin Dale was concerned. She could have had him once when she was nineteen and he was twenty, and he had no money and she had no money and Sir Rowland Steyne had a great deal. Well, she had let Dale go and married Rowland. So what had she got to grouse about? It was her own doing, and ten years stale at that. Dale had married Lydia Burrows under some pressure from his family and Lydia ’s family, and by the time he came in for Lydia ’s money Alicia was Lady Steyne. It amused Rafe quite a lot.

He wondered what would have happened if Rowland had smashed up himself and his car a month or two earlier. By the time that obituary notices appeared Dale was already engaged to Lisle van Decken. They were married before Alicia could decently enter the lists.

She came back swinging her racket, her eyes bright on his face.

“Why do you look at me like that? I hate you!”

His smile widened.

“I was thinking you didn’t look like a widow.”

This made her laugh.

“Would you like me to put on black streamers?”

“Not at all. I like you as you are.”

“I wonder if you really do, Rafe.”

“I adore you.”

Alicia shook her head.

“You don’t adore anyone. You love yourself and Tanfield. You like Dale – you don’t like Lisle. And sometimes I think you hate me.”

He slipped an arm around her waist, brought his lips close to her ear, and said in a low, seductive voice,

“You don’t believe any of that really.”

“Don’t I? I think it’s all true.”

He put his cheek against hers.

“Darling!”

She said, “You hate me – really.”

“Yes -like this.”

She pulled away from him angrily and then burst out laughing.

“You like making love to me because it’s quite safe. I wonder what you’d do if I suddenly fell into your arms.”

“Try!”

“Too public.” She laughed again. “You are a fool, Rafe! Some day, you know, you are going to be taken seriously, and you won’t like that at all.”

A curious expression passed over his face.

“All right, let’s make a start here and now. In sober earnest, why do you say I don’t like Lisle?”

She said in a lazy, teasing voice,

“Because you don’t, darling.”

The expression deepened. It was quite evidently distress.

“But I do – I like her awfully. I’d want to like Dale’s wife whoever she was, but I’d like Lisle if she wasn’t his wife at all. She’s my type on the face of it, fair and tall. Why shouldn’t I like her?”

“Because she doesn’t like Tanfield,” said Alicia.

Rafe laughed at her.

“Well, nor do I – so that’s a bond, anyhow.”

Alicia nodded.

“You don’t like Tanfield – yes, that’s true – you love it.”

He shook his head.

“I suppose I did – when I was a kid. A good big lump of masonry like that is the sort of thing a kid understands. One gets a bit more practical as one gets older. No one wants a place this size nowadays – it’s just asking for bankruptcy. You’ve only got to look back into the family history to see what a drain it’s been. Five of the last seven Jerninghams married quite respectable heiresses, and who’s any the better off for it? I haven’t a stiver. Dale would have been on the rocks without Lydia ’s money. That saved him, but Tanfield has swallowed it, and now it’s opening its mouth for anything he can get out of Lisle.”

“She hates the place,” said Alicia. “She’d like him to sell.”

“So would I,” said Rafe. “It’s the only sensible thing to do. The Manor has been in the family just as long. It’s a much more comfortable house, and to my mind a much more beautiful one. If Dale had a grain of sense, he’d close with Tatham’s offer – it won’t hold good for ever. The trouble is he hasn’t got a grain of sense where Tanfield is concerned. We’ve been here for five hundred years, and he expects us to go on being here for another five hundred – any sacrifice being only an obvious and natural tribute.”

Alicia looked startled. Rafe actually was serious. She could not remember having ever seen him so much in earnest before. It impressed her a little – against her will. She turned and looked in the direction of the house. The tower windows caught the sun and held it. They were all that could be seen. The long front with its eighteenth-century portico, the two wings running forward to enclose a paved courtyard where stone lions kept guard about a fountained lily pool – all these, though out of sight, were most familiar and present to her mind.

“You make it sound like a sort of Juggernaut.”

Rafe Jerningham broke into sudden mocking laughter.

“My sweet, the car of Juggernaut rolled over its devotees. Tanfield Court, I think, may be trusted to stay put.”