Out of the Past

CHAPTER 11

James Hardwick drove up from the station, and thought that for once in a way the tail end of an English summer was doing itself proud. The weather looked like lasting too. Tomorrow he and Carmona would swim out to the Point and take their time about coming back.

Carmona! In less than ten minutes he would be seeing her again. When he was away from her, this was what he looked forward to-this moment of anticipation when he could savour to the full the thought that he was coming home. Every meeting held the romance and the promise of the first time when they had not really met at all but he had looked across the crowded theatre and loved her.

They turned in at the hot cement drive. He paid off his taxi and walked up the steps between the empty urns and into the hall, which seemed dark and cool after the outside glare. As he set down his suit-case, the grandfather clock at the foot of the stairs was striking seven. It was very large and very ugly, and it struck with a whirring note which had alarmed him very much when he was a little boy. He waited for it to stop, and caught the sound of voices through the open drawing-room door. Esther Field said,

“Oh, no, Alan.”

James stood where he was. Unbelievable that Alan Field should be here in this house. Esther must have been speaking about him, not to him. He went on down the hall and into the room.

There were seven people there having drinks, but the one he saw first was Carmona, in a white dress, with her hat thrown down upon the arm of a chair beside her. Her dark hair was a little ruffled, and she was pale. She had a lemon drink in her hand with lumps of ice in it frosting the glass. He saw her first, but in the next instant he saw Alan Field at her elbow. The others in the room were the Trevors, Adela Castleton, Esther Field, and Pippa Maybury.

Carmona came to meet him. She was much too pale. He put his hand on her shoulder and just touched her cheek with his lips-any husband greeting any wife in the presence of a party of old friends. But inwardly he was the lover who wished them all at Jericho so that he might catch her up in his arms and hold her close. It was the lover who was aware that there was no response. He might have been touching one of those wax models which you see in a shop window. She didn’t look at him. As soon as he had touched her cheek she drew away. Whilst he was speaking to the Trevors, to Adela, and Esther, whilst Pippa Maybury was telling him he must be dying for a drink and mixing him one, she had gone back to her old position and stood there aloof and withdrawn.

He came with his drink in his hand to stand beside her and speak to Alan.

“You here, Field? How very unexpected!”

“Oh, I don’t know. One is bound to come back some time. I had business with Esther, but it shouldn’t take very long. I’m at the Annings’. You will remember Darsie in the old days. Shockingly gone off, poor thing, and no wonder. What a life-trying to scrape halfpennies out of cranky old women! I’d rather shoot myself!”

He put down his glass and turned to Carmona.

“Well, I’m afraid I must be pushing off-they dine at half past seven. In this weather! Esther, old dear, I’ll see you in the morning. Oh, just a moment, Pippa-”

They went out of the long window together. Presently Pippa came back. There was a flush of colour in her cheeks. She was fingering her pearls. The party melted away to change.

James arrived from the bathroom to find Carmona pinning an old-fashioned pearl brooch on to the front of her thin yellow frock. She turned from the glass and put out a hand to hold him off.

“No-I want to talk to you. But not now-there’s no time.”

“Carmona, what is the matter? What is that fellow Field doing here?”

“He came to see Esther. You heard what he said-he has business with her.”

“I suppose he wants money.”

“I suppose he does.”

Right up to this moment she had gone on feeling numb or, rather, not feeling anything except a kind of cold emptiness. Now there began to be pain-hot stabs of it. Her heart shook and was afraid. She said quickly,

“Esther is upset. I can’t talk about it now-I don’t want to. We must get through the evening first.”

There was a heavy gilt clock on the mantelpiece. He glanced at it and said,

“I’d like to know what all this is about. It isn’t only Esther who is upset. You can tell me while I dress. We’ve got thirtyfive minutes.”

“No-James, I can’t.”

He looked at her keenly.

“Darling, what is all this? You’d better get it off your chest, you know. Has Field been annoying you?”

“Not-like that.”

He gave a short half-angry laugh.

“Not like what? Come along, out with it!”

His voice rasped, because in the very moment of speaking it came to him what Alan Field might have done. If he had told Carmona the thing which he, James, had always hoped she would never know, it would account for that shocked look. Difficult to believe the fellow would give himself away to that extent. Difficult, but not impossible where Field was concerned. It could be his idea of paying off an old score.

Carmona went back a step. They had never talked about Alan. Why were they talking about him now? She could not remember that James had ever used such a tone to her before. Something in her shrank, and then sprang into anger. He saw her eyes widen and go bright.

“Carmona-what has he said to you?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I think you had better tell me.”

She went back again until the foot-board of the bed brought her up short. She stood against it with a trapped feeling and said, “No.”

James Hardwick came over to her and dropped his hands lightly on her shoulders.

“Tell me what he said.”

It had been a mistake to touch her. The gentlest creature will fight if hands are laid on it. Something very old came up in Carmona. Her anger flared. She looked at James as if she hated him and said,

“He told me you paid him to go away and let you marry me!”

And on the last word she twisted loose and ran for the door. The handle left a bruise across her palm, but she didn’t feel it until afterwards. She was any wild thing wrenching free from the trap, sense and reason gone. If he had touched her, tried to hold her back, she might have screamed.

The door fell to behind her. She had a moment’s horrified realization that she really might have screamed if he had tried to hold her back. But he had not. He had made no move to follow. She stood there with the door between them, and was glad that she was angry.

James Hardwick remained where he was. He was barefoot, with a thin dressing-gown over his under pants. He could hardly pursue Carmona through a house littered with guests. Now that he knew what was wrong he could wait. There had always been the possibility that she might come to know. He would much rather it had not happened, because Field would certainly have put it in the most offensive light, and she was bound to be hurt. It was really a good thing that she should have had that spurt of anger. It would hurt her less that way. He hated her to be hurt.

He went on with his dressing.