Ladies’ Bane

CHAPTER 11

Oh, no, we never scold her,” said Jacqueline Delauny. Her tone was that of the civilized person who is addressing a member of some backward tribe.

Ione’s reactions were of the simplest. She felt an inward glow of fury, and she said,

“Why?”

Miss Delauny’s superiority became a little more pronounced.

“It would not help.”

“Have you tried?”

“Oh, no. Any harshness would only make things worse.”

“Well, I think you should see what a good scolding would do. I quite agree that she doesn’t mean any harm, but she ought to be made to realize that this sort of thing isn’t funny. I never had such a shock in my life, and I don’t suppose Geoffrey had either. Well, that’s all right-we can take it. But supposing Allegra had been there-are you going to tell me she is fit to have a shock like that, or that she ought to be in the house with someone who is liable to give her that kind of shock at any moment? Margot probably won’t do that particular thing again, but can you, or can Geoffrey, guarantee that the next thing she does may not be equally horrible and even more dangerous? Because that rope might have slipped or broken, you know. The whole thing makes me feel quite sick.”

Jacqueline Delauny maintained the calm level of her voice.

“Miss Muir, I understand your feelings and have every sympathy with them, but you must be aware that I am not the authority in the matter. If you care to speak to Mr. Trent about it, he will, I am sure, be able to satisfy you that we are all doing our best. It has been an unfortunate occurrence, and it has naturally upset you. It has upset Mr. Trent, and I think it would be kinder not to discuss the matter with him for a few days.” Ione became aware that she was being put in the wrong. All the tolerance, the kindness, the consideration for others, were on Jacqueline Delauny’s side. Ione Muir was the visitor who was disturbing the harmony of the household. It was a completely infuriating situation, and she must get herself out of it as best she could. She produced a kind, tolerant smile of her own and said,

“Poor Geoffrey! It’s a frightful millstone to have tied round his neck, isn’t it?”

By the evening Allegra had relapsed into the little pale ghost of yesterday. Margot was on her best behaviour. She had changed into a well-cut frock of dark blue velvet, her hair had been brushed until it shone, and her hands and nails were spotlessly clean. She giggled to herself every now and then as if her thoughts were pleasurably occupied, but on the whole her manner was more restrained than Ione had seen it yet, and she wondered whether Geoffrey’s temper had not carried him into giving her the dressing-down she had asked for. He was certainly in very much better spirits. She saw him for the first time as the gay and charming host, leading the talk with great skill but never monopolizing it. He had been in some unusual places, he had a gift of description, and he could make a story come alive.

Allegra drooped in her sofa corner as the talk flowed round her. If Geoffrey included her in some passing allusion, he did not make the mistake of expecting an answer. It was this which gave Ione her most painful impression. The lifeless apathy, the silence, which were to her so startling and so new, were nothing of the sort to Jacqueline Delauny or to Geoffrey Trent. They were something to which they had become accustomed. With these thoughts in her mind, it said much for the charms of Geoffrey’s conversation that the evening passed with so little sense of strain.

At half past ten the following morning Ione set out to walk into the village. Geoffrey was apologetic over letting her go alone.

“I’d come with you, only I’m expecting this chap about the house. The church is always open, and you can buy picture-postcards at the general shop.” He laughed. “In fact a perfect riot of entertainment!”

She had not got very far beyond the gate, when the taxi which had brought her from Wraydon came into view at the end of the street. She was looking at it with interest and wondering what the expert was going to say about the Ladies’ House, when the car stopped a few yards away and Jim Severn jumped out. Ione was surprised to find how pleased she was to see him. Startled too. Because of all the unexpected things! Or was it?

He held her hand and forgot to let it go.

“Ione! Were you coming to meet me? How extraordinarily nice of you!”

“I’m afraid I wasn’t. You see you are a Dreadful Shock-because I hadn’t the faintest idea you were coming.”

“Didn’t your brother-in-law get my letter?”

She laughed.

“If you are ‘the chap he was going to see about the house,’ he did. But that’s all I knew. He didn’t mention your name.”

“Well, it was put up to our firm, and I thought I’d come myself. It’s a very interesting place by all accounts. And you told me you were going to be here on a visit.”

It was at this point that she became aware of the interested scrutiny of a stout woman with a mop of grey hair, an old man with a clay pipe between his teeth, a lumpy boy on a bicycle which he was balancing against a cottage wall, and the taxi driver. Jim Severn was still holding her hand, and the taxi’s meter was ticking up. With a fine bright colour in her cheeks, she detached herself and said,

“Hadn’t you better pay your taxi? You are just there, and I can show you the way.”

Jim Severn extracted a case from the back of the car and overpaid the driver, watched with the greatest interest by the little knot of sightseers, to whom a woman in a pixie hood and a little girl with her thumb in her mouth had now added themselves.

Just inside the gates of the Ladies’ House he stopped.

“Your brother-in-law seems very keen about getting this place. Do you know, we’ve had it to look over before-in ’33. There was an American who wanted to buy it then, and the owner wouldn’t sell-couldn’t in fact, because the heir was a minor. But the guardian, who was a Miss Falconer, gave the American a seven years’ lease with the option of renewal and let him make a lot of improvements-hot water system and all that sort of thing. My Uncle John went down himself, and he has dug out all his notes for me, and the plans. He was very anxious not to spoil the character of the place, and it’s no joke working a modern hot water system into one of these old houses, but I gather he made a pretty good job of it.”

“There is really hot water!”

They began to move again. The drive was quite a short one. It was too short. They reached the front door before either of them wished to.

Ione walked back to the village and bought picture-postcards.

She returned to find Geoffrey Trent in the highest of good humours. To have an expert to share his enthusiasm for the Ladies’ House, to talk about it to his heart’s content and to so agreeable a fellow as Jim Severn was an experience in which he was obviously revelling. And when he discovered the elder Mr. Severn’s previous connection with the house, and the fact that his nephew was a friend of Ione’s, nothing would serve him but that Jim must make a week-end of it and stay with them.

“It’s a sheer impossibility to get the hang of a place like this in an hour or two. You want to live with it, in it-you want to steep yourself in the atmosphere, before you can even begin to think of making a report.”

Jim Severn made no demur. He had, as a matter of fact, intended to put in the week-end in the neighbourhood-at the Station Hotel at Wraydon if nothing better turned up. He could take Ione out to lunch and see whether that strong sense of attraction held. The circumstances of their first meeting had been of the kind to stir the imagination. He found himself thinking about her in a very persistent way, and he wanted to check up on it. Sometimes these curious first impressions held, and sometimes they did not. It was a matter of ten years since he had been so disturbed over a woman, and he wanted to know where he stood. Love at first sight-well, it happened. Or love at the first sound of a voice which was not like any other. If he had only met her under the shroud of the fog and never seen her face, he would have known her anywhere and at any time the moment she opened her lips and spoke.