The crystal sparkled in the air. Rafe reached up, caught it deftly, and put it back in Lisle’s lap. But before she could touch it Dale got up and came over to her.

“You don’t like it?”

“I – Dale-”

“It’s a bit sinister,” said Rafe.

Alicia laughed. Lisle, tongue-tied and distressed, put out a hand towards her husband.

“Dale – you’ve got it all wrong. I – it was sweet of you to get it for me – please-”

There was a moment of discomfort and strain. The dark colour came up into Dale’s face, as it did when he was angry. But before he or anyone else could speak one of the men-servants came into the group. Lisle looked at him with relief.

“What is it, William?”

“If you please, madam, it’s Miss Cole. She says could you see her for a moment?”

Dale went back to his chair.

“Miss Cole from the post office?” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“I wonder what she wants. You’d better go, Lisle,”

Lisle got up and went.

She felt as much in disgrace and as glad to escape as if she had been seven years old instead of twenty-two. She held the crystal in her hand. Alicia’s high, floating laugh followed her across the lawn.

Chapter 15

THE one room that Lisle really liked in the big house was her own sitting-room. It was small, and the panelled walls had once been painted white. They had deepened now to the tone of old ivory. It had curtains of faded green brocade, and an old Chinese carpet which had gone away to the colour of grey-green water. Everything in the long slip of a room was old – a bureau of bleached mahogany; a high-back couch; a book-case; a little upright piano with flutings of ash-green silk so tender that it tore at a touch, and a fretwork scroll which displayed the signs of the treble clef on the one hand and the bass on the other. It had a very sweet, faint tone, and when Lisle was quite alone it gave her pleasure to touch the yellow keys and make them sing. There were three windows looking to the lawn, the cedar and the sea.

Lisle came in through the middle one, which was a door, and Miss Cole rose from the edge of an upright chair and advanced to meet her. Nobody would have taken her for Cissie Cole’s aunt. Where Cissie was long, limp, and straw-coloured, Miss Cole was small, plump, and brisk. Her eyes were as bright and brown as a bird’s. She had a high, fixed colour and a darting way with her head. She began to speak at once, all in a hurry, and as she spoke she got out a handkerchief and dabbed her face and neck.

“How do you do, Mrs. Jerningham. Very hot today, I’m sure, isn’t it? And I do hope you’ll pardon me bringing you in from the garden, and a lovely tree to sit under and all, and the breeze from the sea – most enjoyable, I’m sure. You wouldn’t hardly credit how hot it is in the village, but there – we get the shelter in the winter, so where you lose one way you gain the other, and I’m sure we’ve all got something to be thankful for if we take the trouble to look for it.”

Lisle said, “Oh, yes, ” and, “Won’t you sit down?”

Miss Cole sat down on a small Victorian chair worked in cross-stitch with a pattern of roses, thistles, and shamrocks. The groundwork had once been purple but was now grey. A little dull red still lingered about the petals of the full-blown rose, but the shamrock and the thistle were mere wraiths. Miss Cole laid a bright brown handbag on the carpet beside her, smoothed down the skirt of her best dress, a rather lively blue artificial silk, and broke into polite enquiry.

“I hope you’re none the worse, Mrs. Jerningham. I’m sure I’m as pleased as pleased to find you up and about. I’m not one to go to bed myself. You must have had a shocking turn with the car all smashed to bits like it was, and next door to a miracle you’ve not been hurt, so it stands to reason it must have been a shock and no saying when it’ll come out. My own sister-in-law’s sister had a fright with a tramp some time in December, and six months to the day she had to have two good back teeth out, and right or wrong, that’s what she put it down to, because all her family had wonderful good teeth, and as she said to me herself, ‘Why should I lose mine, if it wasn’t for me having a shock?’ And I’m sure we must all hope you won’t have any effects like that.”

Lisle smiled at her.

“Oh, I’m sure I shan’t.”

“Nobody can’t be sure,” said Miss Cole briskly. “And of course a shock it’s bound to have been. All broken up the steering was, so they say, but of course what everyone wants to know is what call had it got to break. Things don’t break of themselves – that’s what everyone says, and begging your pardon, I’m sure, for repeating it. There’s some that think maybe Pell might know more about it than he’s any right to-”

“Miss Cole!”

Miss Cole darted her head like a bird pecking at a worm. She wore a shiny black hat with a bunch of bright blue cherries at the side. Every time she made one of her quick movements they rattled on the brim like hail.

“I’m sure I beg your pardon, Mrs. Jerningham, but you can’t stop people passing remarks-and when it’s an accident right there in the village and that Pell in the bar of the Green Man no more than a week ago letting on that those that went against him never had no luck after. Tom Crisp heard him with his own ears. ‘No one never did me down, and got away with it’ – that’s what he said, and, “Mark my words, there’s some that’ll get what’s coming to them, no matter what high horses they’re riding now.” And I’m sure I beg your pardon for repeating such language, but I thought Mr. Jerningham ought to know.”

“I thought Pell had gone away,” said Lisle.

Miss Cole darted again.

“That Pell? Not he! He’s one of those that’ll hang about as long as there’s any mischief to be done – and boasting how he can get a job as easy as kiss your hand!”

Lisle felt an uneasy distaste. She wanted to change the conversation, but found herself helpless. Miss Cole had come here determined to talk about Pell, and talk about him she would. Almost without her own volition Lisle found herself asking the question which Miss Cole intended her to ask.

“Has he got a job?”

“Up at the aerodrome,” said Miss Cole portentously. “And in the Green Man every night, talking big about the money he gets, and what a lot they think of him up there.” She dabbed at the beads of sweat on her forehead and chin. “And if that was all, he’d be welcome and none of my business – and I’m sure no one can say I’ve ever been one to push myself into other people’s affairs. But there it is and you can’t get away from it. Cissie’s my niece and a poor orphan girl without a father or a mother to stand up for her. And I’ve not got anything against my brother James, but he’s not one to look beyond his own family, and what with the business, and nine children, and Ellen no manager, I’m not saying he hasn’t got his hands full. So if I don’t look out for Cissie, there’s no one else will, and she’s not one to look out for herself.”

“Is Pell annoying her?” said Lisle.

Miss Cole bridled.

“If he annoyed her, I wouldn’t be worrying. He don’t let her alone, and it’s got so she don’t want to be let alone.”

Lisle said, “I’m sorry.”

“She’ll be sorry herself when it’s too late, ” said Miss Cole with a dart. “And how she can – a good girl like Cissie – brought up the way I brought her up! I’ll say this for her, if she’d known he was married from the first of it, she’d never have looked his way, but it wasn’t but a fortnight ago it come out, as you know. And there she sits and cries, and says she’s got herself so fond of him she don’t know what to do. That’s when I came up to see Mr. Jerningham – and most kind he was, I’m sure – a real feeling heart, and might have been the girl’s father. And ‘Out he goes!’ he said, and went straight off and had it out with him. And what I’ve come up about now is whether Mr. Jerningham could get him out of the aerodrome, and I didn’t like to trouble him after he’d been so kind and all, but I thought perhaps if you were to say a word-”