Poison in the Pen

CHAPTER 7

The old rooms at the Manor lighted up well. The dining-room with its panelled walls and its portraits, its draw-table and its high-backed chairs, the drawing-room with its French carpet and the brocaded curtains which might look shabby in the daytime but whose ageing beauty preserved a lamplit splendour. Fifty years before their tints of peach and gold would have been repeated in the coverings of chairs and couches, but to-day the patched remnants were hidden under loose chintz covers too often cleaned to do more than hint that they had once displayed pale wreaths of flowers. There were portraits here too-a charming graceful creature with a look of Valentine, Lady Adela Repton in the dress she had worn at the famous Waterloo ball-her husband Ambrose, shot down by the Duke’s side next day and painted with an empty sleeve pinned up where the arm had been. He had a lean face and an irked, angry look.

Roger Repton resembled him strongly, even to the expression. It was Scilla’s idea to give this party, and in the two years that they had been married it had been borne in upon him that when Scilla wanted anything he might just as well let her have it and be done with it. But that wasn’t to say that he was prepared to look as if he was enjoying himself, because he wasn’t. The house was upside down, and there had been that damned silly business of the rehearsal in the afternoon. He wanted to sit down peaceably by the fire and read the Times, and if he went to sleep it wouldn’t be anybody’s business. Instead of which, here was this damned party. A fuss on the wedding-day he was prepared for. Weddings were damned uncomfortable things, but he knew what was the proper thing to do and he was prepared to go through with it. It was this thing of having a dinner-party the night before that got him. The bridegroom should be entertaining his bachelor friends, and the bride should be getting her beauty-sleep. Val looked as if she needed it. She was like a ghost in that pale green floating thing. He frowned at Lady Mallett, and discovered her to be saying just that.

“Valentine looks like a ghost.”

Since it was his habit to contradict her, he did it now.

“I can’t think why you should say so!”

“Can’t you?” She chuckled. “Hating all this, aren’t you? Scilla’s idea of course, and very nice too! What’s all this about Gilbert’s friend having driven them both into a ditch?”

“You’ve got it wrong! It wasn’t a ditch, it was the hedge into Plowden’s field!”

“Had they been celebrating?”

“Not noticeably.”

“Well, he must be a shocking bad driver! It was he who was driving-not Gilbert? Because if it was Gilbert, I should advise Valentine to break it off! You can’t go marrying a man who drives you into ditches!”

“I told you it wasn’t a ditch!”

She gave her rolling laugh.

“What’s the odds? Here, what’s the matter with Valentine-stage fright? I remember I nearly ran away the day before I married Tim. I must go over and cheer her up. Or is it you who want it more than she does? As I said, you’re hating it all like poison, aren’t you? The fuss and the bother- and Val going off-I don’t suppose you’re feeling too cheerful about that, are you? You’ll miss her in more ways than one, I expect.”

Her grandmother had been a Repton and she ranked as a cousin. If she didn’t mind what she said, it was astonishing how often other people didn’t mind it either. Her large dark eyes held an unfailing interest in her neighbours’ affairs. She dispensed kindness, interference, and unwanted advice in a prodigal manner. Her massive form, clad in the roughest of tweeds, was to be seen at every local gathering. Her husband’s long purse was at the disposal of every good work. Tonight she was handsomely upholstered in crimson brocade, with an extensive and rather dirty diamond and ruby necklace reposing on a bosom well calculated to sustain it. Large solitaire diamond earrings dazzled on either side of her ruddy cheeks. Her white hair rose above them in an imposing pile. Her small and quite undistinguished-looking husband had made an enormous fortune out of a chain of grocery stores.

Roger Repton said, “Yes.” It was no good getting annoyed with Nora Mallett. She said what she wanted to say, and no one could stop her. If she wanted to talk about his financial position, she would. She was doing it now.

“Eleanor did you pretty well in her will, didn’t she! Six hundred a year until Val was eighteen, and another two hundred after that as long as she made her home here! Poor Eleanor-what a mess she made of her life marrying that man Grey! Anyone could see with half an eye that he was after the money. You know, I always thought she had a bit of a soft spot for you. Of course you were first cousins and all that, but nobody thought anything of their marrying in Victorian times-in fact it was quite the thing to do when the estate went in the male line and there were only daughters.”

“My dear Nora, Eleanor and I were not Victorians.”

“Much better if you had been-you would almost certainly have married.”

He said abruptly, “Well, we didn’t, and that’s that!”

“And more’s the pity. Such a shame for you to come in for the Manor without the money to keep it up properly. Stupid things those old entails. Much better really for Valentine to have come in for the place and have done with it. With the money she had from her mother, everything would have been easy enough.” She became aware of his lowering look and added, “Well, well, I daresay it’s all for the best if one only knew it, so cheer up!”

“I can’t see that there’s very much to cheer up about.”

She laughed.

“Wait till the champagne has been round!”

She moved away and left him thinking morosely. Champagne two days running! And the one thing he wouldn’t do was to offer cheap wine to a guest. He wished the whole thing over and done with. But there would still be the bills to come in.

Mettie Eccles came up in a purposeful manner. She wore the black dress which had figured at every evening party for the last ten years, but she had a long floating scarf of bright blue that matched her eyes, and she seemed, as always, very much pleased with herself. Her looks went darting here and there, taking everything in, approving, criticizing.

“What is Gilbert Earle doing here? He ought to be having a party of his own in town, then he wouldn’t have been run into a hedge by-what’s the man’s name-John Addingley. I hear he’s got three stitches in his lip-the Addingley man, not Gilbert-and he couldn’t have been any beauty to start with. What is he-something in the Foreign Office like Gilbert? They used to go in for looks and manners, but now they only need to have brains. So dull! But Gilbert hasn’t done so badly. I suppose he has the brains, and he certainly has the looks. Between you and me, Roger, isn’t he just a bit too goodlooking? I suppose Valentine doesn’t think so. Or does she? If she does, she is about the only woman he knows who would rather have him plain. Of course it makes a difference when you are considering a man as a husband.”

He said stiffly, “I don’t really know what you mean.”

Her eyes were brightly blue.

“Nonsense, my dear man! You know as well as I do! He would be the answer to any maiden’s prayer, only it doesn’t always work out in the domestic circle. I suppose the money is all tied up?”

“Naturally. Really, Mettie-”

She nodded.

“Yes, yes, I know-most improper to speak of it! But what’s the good of being old friends if you can’t? And whilst we are being indiscreet you might just as well tell me why Valentine looks-”

“My dear Mettie, I haven’t the slightest intention of telling you anything! Not that there is anything to tell. Valentine has been run off her legs. She is tired out and no wonder.”

“Oh, well, if that is all-Brides ought to look their best but they very seldom do. Gilbert seems devoted enough. He’s got rather a knack of it, hasn’t he? Too charming to too many people. But I suppose with Valentine it’s the real thing, so all the others will be thinking how lucky she is. And of course he will be the next Lord Brangston. Too tiresome for the poor people having all those daughters, but very nice for Valentine. Not that a title does you much good nowadays, but it’s decorative and she can afford to keep it up.”

Gilbert Earle had crossed the room to where Valentine stood with John Addingley, a tall hatchet-faced young man with a strip of plaster crossing his upper lip. Valentine stood between them. She had used rather a delicate lipstick, because when she tried the brighter shade it made her look too pale. She had put a little colour on her cheeks, and it looked all right upstairs, but when she caught a glimpse of herself in one of the long mirrors between the windows down here she could see that it stood out on the smooth white skin like a stain.

Gilbert said, “Am I allowed to take you in?” and she smiled a little and said, “Yes, I think so. We are only waiting for Scilla. It’s shocking of her to be late, but she always is.” Her voice was sweet and quiet. It sounded as if she was too tired to raise it or to accent the words. There was no feeling behind them.

In the pause that followed Maggie Repton was heard to say, “Oh, dear-” and Sir Timothy Mallett took out his watch and looked at it.

Then the door opened and Scilla Repton came in in a gold dress with the least possible amount of top to it. Arms, shoulders, and breast were as white as milk. Her hair was golden under the light. She came in without hurry and stood a moment, smiling, before she said in her languid voice,

“Oh, you’re all here. And I’m late again-how dreadful of me! Maggie, who do I go in with? Is it the bridegroom, or Sir Tim-I can’t remember.”

Gilbert met her eyes with a laughing look.

“Oh, not with me, I’m afraid. Valentine and I are on show as a pair tonight-aren’t we, darling?”

Valentine said gravely,

“I suppose we are.” There was a faint note of surprise in her voice, as if it had only just struck her. And it was true. They were on show like exhibits in a glass case with all the lights turned on so that everyone might see. But after tomorrow they would be alone. A stab of fear went through her, a sense of the irrevocable.

Scilla was smiling, her head a little tilted back, her lashes drooped.

“Oh, no,” she said, “-have a heart! After all, you’ll be going off together for the rest of your lives. It’s our turn tonight. Val can do her best to soothe Roger’s lacerated feelings, and you, darling, are coming in with me, so that is all about it.”