The Listening Eye

Chapter 20

SALLY FOSTER was engaged in wondering why she had been such a blithering fool as to come down to Merefields. If she hadn’t been very nicely brought up she would have used a worse word. Early association with a great-aunt whom she had really loved with all her heart was still a handicap when it came to availing herself of a free modern idiom. Well, here she was at Merefields-here they all were, Wilfrid, David, Moira, and herself, with Clay Masterson breezing in when he felt like it. Like Wilfrid and David, he had no time for anyone but Moira. Nobody had time for Sally Foster, nobody wanted her. Nobody would have turned their head or taken the slightest notice if she had dropped down dead at their feet or just melted into the surrounding air.

The question as to why she had been asked had resolved itself when Lucius Bellingdon displayed a passionate interest in her last interview with Paulina Paine. He wanted to know all about it, and she really hadn’t got anything to tell him. Paulina had come in on the Monday evening just as she and David were going out, and she had stopped them and talked to David about his cousins the Charles Morays. She asked David for their telephone number, and they had gone up to Sally’s room, all three of them, and David had put through the call. What Paulina wanted was Miss Maud Silver’s address, and David had taken it down for her. And that was simply and absolutely All.

After Lucius had done a bit of cross-examination and had become convinced that it really was all, he had only too obviously lost interest and gone back to concentrating upon Annabel Scott, with occasional time off for interviews with Miss Silver and, or, the police.

Naturally, by this time there wasn’t much about Miss Silver’s position that Sally didn’t know. What she had not been able to guess for herself she had wormed out of David Moray. And it had got her exactly nowhere at all. The week-end was still a total loss. Sally gritted her teeth and meditated getting someone to send her a telegram, or to ring her up and say she was urgently wanted in town. She had got as far as sitting down to write to Jessica Meredith, when she remembered that Jessica was being bridesmaid at a cousin’s wedding in Wales. On this she decided that she had better dress for dinner. A glance in the mirror brought it home to her that she must do what she could about her face. Sometimes the harder you tried the less effect it seemed to have. Of course nobody could pretend that yellow walnut made a becoming frame for a looking-glass. All the furniture in this room was constructed of yellow walnut, and the walls were covered with a yellow paper which had bunches of daffodils on it. It was a north room, and in theory all this yellow was supposed to make it look as if it faced south. In practice, Sally decided that all it did was to make her look yellow too. The really awful thing was that she had brought a new dress down with her and the very minute she put it on she knew that it wasn’t going to do. Not here, not now. Because it was almost exactly like the wallpaper, only the yellow bunches on an ivory ground were primroses instead of daffodils. She had loved it in the shop, and she had loved it when she put it on at home. It had thrown up the chestnut in her hair and made her eyes look warm, it had flattered her skin. It didn’t do any of these things now.

She snatched up her hand-glass, went to the window, pushed back the amber curtains as far as they would go, and faced the light. The yellow room receded and her spirits rose. The dress really was pretty, and she definitely didn’t look as if she was getting jaundice. She finished herself off and went downstairs feeling better.

She was going to need all the moral support that she could get, because when she got into the drawing-room Moira was there with Wilfrid and Clay Masterson, and none of them took the least notice of her. They were grouped round the fireplace, and as the temperature had in the last hour decided on one of those melodramatic drops which make the English spring so delightful, the hearth had its attractions. The fact that nobody made room for her set a spark to Sally’s temper. She walked up to them, was stared at by Moira, and greeted by Wilfrid with an insulting “Darling, you look cold.”

Sally said, “I am cold.”

“Darling, so am I. And I was here first!”

Wilfrid was naturally capable of anything. She had always known that, and as far as he was concerned her feelings were armoured. She got between him and Clay Masterson and felt pleased with herself. No one had introduced them, but Moira never did introduce anyone. All her set were supposed to know each other. Sally wasn’t really in her set.

Clay said, “What were we talking about?” in the kind of voice which means that someone has butted in and spoiled whatever it was you were going to say. In the circumstances, it was perhaps not surprising that she did not find herself attracted to him, but she supposed that some people might have found him attractive. He had rather the air of expecting it himself. Of medium height, not handsome and not plain-Sally found herself summing him up as very sure of himself. She supposed that would go down with some people. With Moira for instance. Moira was a trampler. If you gave her an inch, she would take an ell and despise you from the depths of whatever did duty for a heart, and she liked someone who would stand up to her and give as good as he got. Clay was saying,

“It was a marvellous piece of luck! And the fool hadn’t the slightest idea of what he’d got. Said he’d done the place up proper when he got married somewhere about fifty years ago-bought a nice upholstered suite and shoved the old stuff away in the attic! And there it was-oak dresser, very good lines, and a lovely corner-cupboard. Handles all gone of course.”

Wilfrid laughed.

“Well, take care you haven’t been had!” he said. “That’s quite a good confidence trick, you know-reproductions well weathered and knocked about a bit and shoved away in an attic or an out-house.”

Clay Masterson said,

“I wasn’t born yesterday.”

And then the door opened to let in Annabel Scott with David Moray, and Hubert Garratt silent and depressed. They too came over to the fire, Annabel with her smiling charm, David the tallest of the men, his fair hair always a little rough no matter how much it was brushed. Sally’s heart gave an angry jerk. He was a thoroughly tiresome creature. He wasn’t in the least the sort of man she had ever meant to fall in love with. She wasn’t in love with him. She hadn’t any intention of being in love with anyone for years and years and years. It was a pleasant thing to play with, but go in head over ears and get drowned in it-no thank you!

They were talking and laughing now. Annabel’s entrance had made the conversation general. Sally spoke and laughed, and saw that David did neither. He just stood there on the outer edge of the group and looked at Moira Herne. Her glimmering hair was like an auriole. She was wearing something that was the colour of splintered ice. Her hands were ringless and her neck was bare. Her eyes were like pale jewels, water-bright.

He went on looking whilst Lucius Bellingdon came in. He was followed by Miss Bray in a hurry. She must have been in a hurry when she dressed too, for her old-fashioned black lace was done up crooked and her hair was wispy. Behind her came Miss Silver, quiet and composed, in the neat dark blue crepe-de-chine which her niece Ethel Burkett had persuaded her to buy during their holiday at Cliffton-on-Sea. The price had shocked her at the time, but the dress had proved to be a Stand-by. It was suitable, it was ladylike.

Moira Herne turned her gaze upon Miss Bray and said,

“Late again, Ellen? What about the example to the young? I expect Mrs. Hilton will give notice. She will if it’s something that’s going to spoil. It must be damnable to be a cook and have people late for meals. I should want to throw the soup at them.” Her voice drawled a little. It had no inflexions.

Miss Bray flushed in an unbecoming manner. She began an indistinguishable murmur in which most of the words were lost, but it was broken in upon by David Moray, who took this moment to cross over to Moira Herne and to say without any preliminaries, “I would like to paint you.”

Moira did not appear to be displeased. The pale bright eyes were turned upon him. Since he was so tall, she had to look up, which enhanced the effect.

“You want to paint my portrait? What would you want for doing it-a frightful lot? What about it, Lucy? You would have to pay for it. I’m broke.”

David was looking at her between narrowing lids. Without waiting for Lucius Bellingdon to speak he said in quite a casual way,

“No, not a portrait. A head. Medusa.”

She stared.

“Medusa? What do you mean? Was she somebody?” She looked round the group. “Does anyone know who she was? Because I don’t. I never could be bothered with things like history. After all, it’s now you have to live. I can’t see any sense in cluttering your mind up with who people were or what they did hundreds of years ago.”

Annabel Scott laughed her attractive laugh.

“Medusa goes back a long way farther than that!”

“Does she? Why does he think I’m like her?”

Annabel said, “I don’t know. She was a priestess in the temple of Pallas Athene. She took a lover there, and the goddess punished her by turning her into a gorgon.”

Moira said, “Oh-” and Annabel went on sweetly.

“They had clashing wings and they were horrible to look at, but Medusa kept her beautiful face, only snakes, grew out of her hair, and her eyes turned people to stone.”

Moira appeared to consider this information. Then she stared at David.

“Were you going to paint snakes in my hair?”

“Oh, no.”

“Or clashing wings?”

“No-just the head.”

She said without any change in her voice or expression,

“It might be rather fun. You could start tomorrow.”

The door opened. Hilton appeared on the threshold. He looked like a man whose wife had just been speaking her mind. He said, “Dinner is served.”

As they went in, Lucius Bellingdon said to Annabel Scott,

“Just what did all that mean?”

“That he wants to paint her.”

His eyebrows rose.

“As Medusa?”

“So he says-but without the snakes.”

“Then why Medusa?”

“Darling, if you don’t know, I can’t tell you.”

At the moment he could only be aware that Annabel had called him darling. All these young things called everyone darling and it meant nothing at all, but it was the first time Annabel had said it to him.

They had reached the dining-room before he had himself enough in hand to say,

“We’ll see what he makes of it. That young man can paint.”