The Silent Pool

Chapter Ten

Meeson came knocking on the nursery door just as Stella was ready for bed.

‘Please, Miss Johnstone, Miss Ford would like you to come up and have coffee with her after dinner. She is not coming down tonight.’

It was a royal summons and admitted of no refusal.

As she went downstairs half an hour later she found Ninian at her elbow.

‘So we are bidden to the presence. You seem to have made a hit with Adriana.’

Janet frowned.

‘Have you seen her?’

‘Oh, yes – I have the entrée. The polite guest loses no time in paying his respects to his hostess.’

‘You’re not staying here!’

‘Darling, where else? I do, you know, from time to time. Adriana and I are buddies, and after all she is “my aunt”, as our dear Edna says. A horrid title – even Stella won’t use it!’

The meal was certainly enlivened by Ninian’s presence. He placed himself between Edna and Janet and kept a stream of conversation flowing. Geoffrey responded, Edna thawed, and really things might have been very pleasant if it had not been for Meriel, who sat wrapt in silence, her gaze set darkly upon Ninian’s face. It was plain that she resented his choice of a seat and the fact that she had not been quick enough to reach the place next to him in time to take it from Janet, who had been sitting on that side of the table at previous meals. Meriel had been last into the room, and she just hadn’t had a chance. By the time she was in a position to see what was happening Ninian was pulling out Janet’s chair and fairly putting her into it. There was nothing left for Meriel to do but fall into a gloom.

It was halfway through dinner before she suddenly found her voice and, leaning half across the table, began to remind Ninian of this, that, and the other.

‘That dance at Ledbury – wonderful, wasn’t it? Do you remember, you said I was the best dancer in the room?’ She gave a low reminiscent laugh. ‘Not that it was such a very great compliment, because of course most English women can’t dance at all – no fluidity, no grace, no temperament. You know, I always feel I might have done something with my dancing if Adriana had recognized my possibilities and had me trained – one must begin young. But of course she was entirely taken up with her own affairs – she always is. And now it is too late.’ Her eyes dwelt soulfully upon Ninian, her voice went down into tragic depths.

He extricated himself deftly.

‘Oh, well, you would soon have got bored with having to practise seven or eight hours a day. A great deal too much like hard work, I should say.’ He turned to Geoffrey. ‘Did you see that Russian girl when she was over? I thought she was pretty good myself.’

As they came out of the dining-room, Ninian announced to all and sundry,

‘Janet and I have got to tear ourselves away. Coffee with Adriana.’

‘Do you mean she asked you – both of you?’ Meriel’s voice was angry.

‘She did.’

‘I shouldn’t have thought she would go out of her way to ask a stranger.’

‘Wouldn’t you? But then you don’t think very much, do you?’

She said,

‘What’s the use? It doesn’t get you anywhere.’ Her eyes were suddenly imploring.

Janet looked away. She murmured an excuse to Edna and turned towards the stairs. After no more than half a dozen steps Ninian came up with her. She waited until the hall below was empty before she said,

‘All she wants is to have a scene. You shouldn’t bait her.’

‘There is nothing for her to have a scene about.’

He glanced sideways at her. Her head was high. She looked, not at him, but straight ahead. She said,

‘Do you expect me to believe that you haven’t been flirting with her?’

He gave a rueful laugh.

‘I don’t know about expecting you to believe it, but it happens to be the truth. As you say, all she wants is to have a scene, and it doesn’t very much matter what it’s about. She’s bored stiff, and she wants a spot of limelight and a nice juicy emotional part. Honestly, she scares me! I’d as soon flirt with an atom bomb!’

Janet said severely, ‘Why doesn’t she get herself a job? I’m not surprised she’s bored down here with nothing to do.’

He laughed.

‘Better keep off telling her that if you really don’t want a scene!’

‘Why?’

‘You’re being stupid. A job would mean work, and our darling Meriel has no urge to work. Money to spend and nothing to do, with rows of admirers helping her to do it – that, quite frankly, is her ambition. And she’ll never leave Adriana, because out of sight could be out of mind, and she might get left out of The Will. That is all we think about in this house, darling. No one knows how much Adriana has got, and nobody has any idea who is going to get it when she is gone, so naturally no one thinks about anything else. Geoffrey would like a flat in town and his freedom. Edna dwells fondly on the thought of a nice little all-electric house full of the gadgets from exhibitions like Beautiful Homes For The Million. Meriel wants a film world in which she glides about in marble halls and sleeps on a tiger skin.’

‘And you?’ said Janet. ‘What do you want?’

‘What I can get.’

They had reached the top of the stairs and were standing there. His voice had a very undermining sound in it. She said,

‘It used not to be money.’

He laughed.

‘We’ve changed all that. Every sensible person wants money.’

‘A sensible person knows that you have to earn it.’

‘Janet, you’re a prig!’

‘I daresay.’

‘It’s a revolting thing to be.’

She made a small pushing movement with her hands.

‘Very well then, away with you!’

He burst out laughing.

‘Come along! We’re keeping Adriana waiting.’

They found her on her couch, the velvet spread drawn up to her waist, rings on the long pale fingers, no other jewelry except the double row of pearls. The coffee had not yet arrived. She wanted to talk to them first. She would ring for it when she was ready.

‘And I’ll see you one at a time to start with.’ She spoke to Ninian. ‘You can go into my dressing-room and wait. There’s a comfortable chair, and a book of my press notices.’

He laughed.

‘Do you think I need press notices to tell me how wonderful you are?’

The door shut. Janet was waved to a chair. She thought, ‘It’s like being in some kind of a queer dream.’ And then Adriana was saying,

‘I am going to ask you a question. I want an honest answer to it. Is that agreed?’

There was no change in Janet’s face, or in her voice as she said,

‘It would depend on what you asked me.’

‘Meaning you wouldn’t undertake to be honest?’

‘I mightn’t know the answer.’

‘Oh, I think you would, or I shouldn’t be asking. Well, here it is. You and Ninian and Star grew up together. There isn’t much that children don’t know about each other, and I want to know just how far you think Ninian is to be trusted.’

Janet sat there silently. Adriana’s eyes searched her. The question echoed in her mind. In the end she said,

‘There are different kinds of trust.’

‘That is true. Did he fail you?’

Janet did not speak. After what seemed like a long time Adriana said,

‘That is not my affair? I suppose not. But this is – would he fail me?’

‘I don’t think so.’ The words sprang to her mind, to her lips. She gave them no conscious thought. They were there.

Adriana said,

‘You didn’t take long over that. In other words, he would play fast and loose with a girl, but he wouldn’t pick a pocket.’

Janet said, ‘No, he wouldn’t pick a pocket.’

Adriana’s voice went deep.

‘Sure about that? He wouldn’t play a lying part for money? He wouldn’t try and scheme, and pull strings for his own advantage.’

Janet heard her own voice very clear and steady,

‘Oh, no, he wouldn’t do that.’

‘Why?’

‘It isn’t in him.’

‘As sure about it as that?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘That is how you thought of him when you were children. How do you know he hasn’t changed?’

‘I should know it if he had.’

Adriana laughed.

‘Well, you don’t beat about the bush, anyhow! How well do you know Robin Somers?’

If Janet was startled, she did not show it. If the change of subject was a relief, she did not show that either. She said,

‘It’s two years since I’ve seen him.’

One of Adriana’s pale hands rose and fell.

‘That is no answer at all. It’s two years since Star divorced him. How well did you know him before that?’

Janet considered.

‘I used to see him – not very often. He could be charming.’

‘Did he charm you?’

‘Not very much.’

‘What did you think of him?’

‘I don’t see that matters, Miss Ford.’

‘I don’t care about being Miss Ford. Call me Adriana. And if it didn’t matter, I shouldn’t be asking you.’

Janet said, ‘I didn’t like him very much. I thought he was selfish.’

Adriana laughed.

‘Men are – and so are women.’

‘He was making Star unhappy.’

‘Was he fond of her?’

‘In his own way’

‘And of Stella?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘And what do you mean by that?’

‘Well, he didn’t bother about her, did he? She was down here, and he was up in town – how often did he come and see her?’

‘Not very often.’

Janet said with finality,

‘She talks about Ninian, but she doesn’t talk about her father.’

Adriana smiled.

‘That might mean that she cares too little – or too much. She is an odd child – it might be quite difficult to tell. Well, you don’t like him, and he made Star unhappy, and of course that damns him!’ The smile mocked her. ‘Would you take his word about anything?’

There was no hesitation at all about Janet’s ‘Oh, no.’

Adriana laughed.

‘So now we know! Well, that’s all for the moment, and it’s your turn for the dressing-room. Send Ninian in. You needn’t read the press notices if you don’t want to.’

She found Ninian absorbed in them and reluctant to put them down. He went through to the sitting-room with a laughing ‘I’m like all her other adorers, I can’t be torn away!’ As he shut the door between the two rooms, Adriana said sharply,

‘Don’t stand there muttering behind my back! What did you say?’

‘Oh, just that I couldn’t put your notices down. The critics certainly did you proud.’

‘Well, I was good – I was damned good. And the gallery could hear my lowest whisper, which is more than you can say about practically anyone on the stage today. Oh, yes, I was good all right. And now I’m a has-been, and no one cares how good I was.’

He came and sat down beside her.

‘Darling, don’t wallow! I know you get a kick out of it, but I don’t. You enriched your generation, and what can anyone do more than that, I don’t know. It’s an achievement – and how many people achieve anything at all?’

She put out a hand, and he lifted it to his lips and kissed it lightly.

‘Well, what do you want with me?’

‘Oh, just to ask you a question or two.’

His dark eyebrows rose.

‘About?’

‘About that girl Janet.’

‘What about her?’ His eyes still smiled, but she thought they had a wary look. He said, ‘Darling, her life is an open book – there is simply nothing to tell. She is one of those incredible creatures who just go on doing things for other people and not bothering about themselves.’

‘It sounds dull.’

‘She is a great deal too intelligent to be dull.’

‘Well, you have made her sound as if she had all the dull virtues.’

‘I know. But she isn’t dull. You didn’t really think so yourself.’

‘You would say, then, that she was reliable?’

‘Do you see Star having her down here to look after Stella if she wasn’t?’

‘Star isn’t exactly a model of common sense.’

‘No, but she knows Janet. When you’ve grown up with people there isn’t much you don’t know about them.’

‘Would you say she was a good judge of character – Janet, I mean, not Star.’

‘Oh, yes, she looks right through you and out at the other side. At least that is what she has always done with me.’

Adriana’s large dark eyes were fixed upon him. She said with devastating frankness,

‘Why didn’t you marry her?’

‘You had better ask her.’

‘No use – she wouldn’t tell me.’

‘And what makes you think that I will?’

‘Are you going to?’

‘Oh, no, darling.’

She said,

‘You might do worse. All right, go and fetch her in. And tell Meeson we are ready for our coffee.’

When Meeson came in with the tray she had a beaming smile. It was plain that she thought the world of Ninian. He jumped up, put an arm round her, and told her she got better looking every year, to which she replied that so did he – ‘And get along with you, ducks! No good telling the tale to the old uns. They’ve heard it all before, and if they don’t know what it’s worth by now they never will. All the same, I always did say if there’s a dangerous time in a woman’s life, it’s when she’s just about made up her mind she’s been through the wood once too often and come out with the crooked stick.’

‘Gertie, you talk too much,’ said Adriana.

‘When I get a chance I do – stands to reason! Nobody wants just to stand and look on, now do they – not if they can help it! All right, all right, I’m going!’

‘No, wait! You made the coffee up here?’

‘On me own gas ring.’

‘And where did you get the milk?’

‘Out of the big jug in the fridge. And the sugar is what I got in Ledbury last time I went shopping there for Mrs Simmons. So what?’

Adriana waved her away, and she went out, shutting the door with some unnecessary force.

Ninian raised his eyebrows.

‘And what is all that about?’

‘Oh, nothing at all.’

‘Meaning if I don’t ask questions I won’t be told any lies?’

‘If you like to put it that way. Do you still take all the sugar you can get?’

‘I do. Especially when it’s the fancy barleysugar kind. I’ll even go so far as to have Janet’s share when she’s given up taking it.’

Janet said, ‘I haven’t.’

‘But a really unselfish woman would let me have it all the same.’

‘Then I’m not really unselfish.’

Adriana watched them. She was weighing what each had said about the other, and weighing just how far it would bear the very considerable strain that might be placed upon it. They were young, they had everything before them – trouble and heartache, and the moments which make up for it all. She had had her share of them. She had walked among the stars. If she was offered her life over again, she wondered if she would take it. She supposed she would, so long as she didn’t know what was coming. That was what sapped the strength and slowed the heart – to watch the inevitable approach of something which casts its threatening shadow across your path, stealing up behind you, reaching forward to darken the coming day. Stupid to think of that when she had made up her mind that the shadow was only a shadow and held no threat. Stupid to have these moments when nothing seemed to be quite worth while. Oh, well, when you were up you were up, and when you were down you were down. That had always been her way, but nobody had ever got her down for long. And she had had a good run, a long run. A long run had its drawbacks – you got stale. And yet you were sorry when it came to an end. But it wasn’t the end yet, and what was the use of thinking about it? She pulled herself up against the cream brocade cushions and said,

‘I’m going to throw a party. Gertie and I have been making out lists.’