In the midst of all this stiffness and pallor Helen Adrian looked as warmly alive as sunshine. Her hair was very nearly as golden. Her skin glowed with health, and her eyes were just that one shade deeper than sky-blue which makes all the difference. She shook her head and said,

“No, that’s enough.”

Felix jerked back the heavy lock of dark hair which was always falling into his eyes.

“Just let your voice out. I believe it’s better than ever.”

She was leaning over the piano towards him.

“No-I don’t want to.”

He said accusingly, “You’re scared,” and she nodded.

“I’m afraid of singing out. I don’t feel-”

“You don’t need to feel. Sing! It’s all there-just let it go.”

He struck the opening chords, but she remained leaning there, tracing an imaginary pattern on the dark wood and looking down at her own finger with its polished rosy nail.

“Felix-”

He banged out a bar and stopped.

“What is it?”

“It’s no good. I can’t go on to a concert platform and sing in a whisper, and I’m not going to let my voice out and crack it.”

“What are you driving at?”

“Oh, well-”

“You’ve got an engagement in Brighton in a fortnight’s time. How are you going to keep it if you won’t try your voice?”

“Well, that’s just it-I don’t think I’m going to keep it.”

“And all the rest of your engagements?”

“I don’t think-”

“You don’t think? You’ve got to think!”

“I’m not going to crack my voice.”

“There’s nothing the matter with your voice.”

She straightened up with a little laugh.

“Well, it is my voice, darling-I’m glad you admit that- and if I don’t want to sing, you can’t make me.”

He swung round on the piano-stool.

“Do you mean anything by that?” Then, with the blood rushing into his face, “What do you mean?”

She was watching him. Now she smiled.

“I just don’t want to sing, darling.”

He got up and came towards her quite slowly and deliberately.

“Do you mean now-or-”

“I mean now.”

“All right, then we try again tomorrow-is that it?”

“No, I don’t think so. Felix, do be reasonable.”

The blood had drained back. The lock of hair had fallen forward again. It emphasised his pallor.

“What do you mean by being reasonable?”

She laughed lightly.

“It’s not anything you’d understand very well, is it, darling?”

He said heavily,

“No, I’m not reasonable about you-you needn’t expect it. But you’re going to tell me what you mean.”

“Am I?”

He said with sudden violence,

“Some day you’re going to get yourself murdered!”

Quite involuntarily she flinched. It was only Felix in a temper; but just for the moment something in her wavered and was afraid.

She stepped back, and the movement brought the door into her line of vision. The ivory panels, the china handle and door-plates with their pattern of small pink roses, stood very slightly at an angle. The door was not quite shut. She went over to it, opened it, and looked out. A yard away Mrs. Bell was on her hands and knees in the passage, polishing the floor-boards.

Helen Adrian shut the door in a controlled manner and went back. Felix was still in a temper, but he didn’t frighten her now. She stuck her chin in the air and said,

“Next time you feel like murdering anyone, darling, I don’t think I should tell the daily first.” Then, with a laugh, “Oh, come off it, Felix! Let’s go down and see if it’s warm enough to bathe.”

Chapter 12

Richard Cunningham walked out along the cliff road. He knew that nothing in the world would have prevented him from coming down to Farne and going to see Marian Brand. If he had been twenty, he couldn’t have been more set on doing a foolish romantic thing. If he had been twenty, he wouldn’t have thought about it being foolish or romantic, he would have just done it. Since he was thirty-five, he was fully aware of the folly and on the edge of being able to laugh at the romance. No, that wasn’t true. He would have liked to be able to laugh at it, to keep a back way out in case the whole airy structure crashed and let him down flat after the manner of so many castles in Spain. But he couldn’t manage it. If the castle came down, it came down, but nobody or nothing was going to stop him walking into it with his eyes open.

He told himself, as he had done at intervals during the past month, that he was allowing an obstinate whim to drive him. To which there always came the spontaneous reply that it might not be a whim at all but an instinct. He had seen Marian Brand once as he passed the window of her compartment before the train was wrecked, and once for a moment before he fainted when they had just been dug out of the debris. There had been dust in her hair, and blood on her face. He had talked with her on and off for something like two hours with a smashed railway carriage tilted over them in the ditch which had saved their lives. He had sent her flowers, and a copy of The Whispering Tree. He had written to her three times. During the rush of his business in the States he had found it a refreshment to write those letters. They did not touch on intimacies, but they were intimate because they had been written without taking thought as to what was said or how it would be received. The whole world might have read them, but they could only have been written to one person.

There was the background. And now he was going to lunch with her. Either the thing was an instinct, or it was a folly. He would know at once. It was a lovely May morning with a blue sky and just enough light cloud moving to keep the sea in change instead of that eternal blue glitter which tires the eye.

He came to the white house standing behind its wind-driven shrubs, walked up to the twin blue doors, and knocked on the right-hand one. It was opened. He stood looking at Marian Brand, and she at him.

At once everything was quite easy. He might have been walking up to that front door every day of his life. There wasn’t any castle in the air. There was a welcoming house, and the woman he wanted. It was as simple, as inexplicable, and as comfortable as daily bread. He held her hand and laughed, and said,

“Take a good look at me! I’m clean, which is more than I was when you saw me before.”

She said, “I knew exactly what you would look like.”

“How?”

“I don’t know-I did.”

And then she was taking him through to the study, and they were talking about the house, about his journey, and each of them had so much to say that they were taking turns, catching each other up and laughing about it, interrupting and being interrupted, like friends who have known each other for a long time and don’t have to bother about being polite. It wasn’t in the least the way that Marian had thought it would be. She had been so pleased and proud about his coming, and then quite terrified. If she could have run away and kept a single shred of self-respect she would have done it. She had wondered what they would talk about, and been quite sure that, whatever it was, he would find it dull. And then it didn’t matter. They were easy and comfortable together. She could be just herself. It didn’t matter a bit.

When he asked about Ina she could say just what was on her mind.

“I’m worried about her. I told you about Cyril. He’s gone off in a temper.”

“Because you wouldn’t give him half your kingdom?”

“Something like that.”

“You won’t do it?”

“Oh, no-he’d only throw it away. But Ina’s fretting.”

“Is she fond of him?”

“She was.”

He whistled.

“Like that, is it?”

“She’s very unhappy. I’m afraid she won’t be here for lunch-she’s gone out-” She hesitated, and then went on. “She didn’t tell me-just left a message to say she was going down into Farne to see about a library subscription and wouldn’t be back. She didn’t know you were coming.”