Chapter 11

GOING through the hall, Lucius Bellingdon picked up a letter or two lying ready for the post. The one on the top attracted his attention. It was addressed to Miss Sally Foster, 13 Porlock Square. He stuck there, frowning at the number and the name of the square. In the end he called Moira and waited for her to come to him. She arrived without hurry, stared, and said,

“What are you doing with my letter?”

“I was going to post it-I’m going down into the village. Who is Sally Foster?”

Those curious light eyes of hers dwelt upon him without affection. She said,

“Why?”

He had been used to her for so many years that he was conscious of no fresh chill. There was no warmth in her, no kindness. You couldn’t get blood from a stone. What he meant to get was an answer. He said,

“I know the address-that is all. I couldn’t help seeing it. Who is this girl?”

“She was at school with me. Why do you want to know?”

“I have a reason. It’s some time since you left school. Have you seen anything of her since?”

“She is Marigold Marchbank’s secretary. One of the girls married Freddy Ambleton. I see quite a lot of them. Sally is a friend of theirs-I met her again like that.”

“Do you know her well enough to ask her down here?”

She gave an odd laugh with a flavour of contempt,

“There’s no harm in asking!”

He had continued to frown at the letter. Now he turned the same look on her.

“What is she like?”

“Very much the same as other people.”

“About your age?”

She shrugged.

“More or less.”

“And you know her fairly well. What were you writing to her about?”

“She asked me to make a four to go dancing. I said I couldn’t.”

He said, “Look here, I want you to ring her up and ask her down for the week-end.”

She opened her eyes so widely that the dark line about the iris showed clear.

“But I don’t want to.”

His voice roughened.

“She needn’t be in your way.”

“Why do you want her?”

He said,

“Too long to go into. She comes from the same house as David Moray. I told you I’d asked him for the week-end-that is why I was struck by the address on your letter. She can help to entertain him, and to prevent your being bothered.”

Moira considered the question in a leisurely manner. She didn’t want Sally down at Merefields, but she didn’t want this David Moray person either. She wanted Wilfrid, and she didn’t really trust Wilfrid where Sally was concerned. On the other hand it might be a good plan to have a show-down. There would have to be one soon anyway. If Wilfrid was in the same house with her and Sally he would have to show his hand. If David Moray was at all presentable he might come in usefully, either to distract Sally’s attention or to flirt with herself and put Wilfrid on his mettle. Because the one thing she was really sure of in the whole situation was that, Sally or no Sally, Wilfrid had no intention of letting himself be cut out with Moira Herne. That was a development which he simply couldn’t afford, and he knew it. Having reached this point, she said in a flat uninterested voice,

“Oh, well, I can ring her up if you want me to. Ellen will say it makes it more of a party, but I suppose you don’t mind about that.”

Lucius Bellingdon said, “Not a bit.”

She was not prepared for his following her into the study and standing there looking out of the window with his back to her whilst she telephoned. Her voice came through to Sally without any more than its usual lack of expression.

“Is that you?… Moira Herne speaking. Look here, Wilfrid is coming down for the week-end, and another man. I expect you know him, because he seems to live in the same place as you do-David Moray. He is an artist. Probably too uncivilized, but Lucy has just bought one of his pictures, and he has asked him down, so I thought we had better make it a four, and then we could dance, or play something and it won’t be too unutterably mouldy.”

If it had been just Moira and Wilfrid, Sally would have found an excuse, but David was another matter. Moira had her own way with attractive men. It was an odd way, but it appeared to get results. They became mesmerized and fell into vicious circles like moths about a lamp. Saily was unable to bear the thought of David as a moth. She mightn’t be able to prevent the mesmerizing process, but at least she wouldn’t be about thirty-five miles away enjoying the pleasures of the imagination. Sally’s imagination could do wicked things when it really got going, and she didn’t feel like giving it its head. Better be there on the spot and see for herself than have to listen to its insidious whisperings in Porlock Square. It was always possible that David might take against Moira. By all the rules he should. There was his Scottish common sense, and the detached and critical manner in which he regarded the female sex. He was wary, he was intolerant, and he thought well of his own judgment. He was, in fact, an odiously cocksure young man who wanted taking down quite a number of pegs. Only how could she bear to see anyone doing it? Especially Moira. The answer was that she couldn’t. And that, illogically, was the reason why nothing would stop her from going to Merefields.

Chapter 12

MISS SILVER was able to make considerable progress with the pale blue baby shawl intended for a young friend and former client, Dorinda Leigh, now expecting her third child. Miss Bray, who was engaged in the domestic work of darning pillow-cases, bore her company and was most helpful and informative in her conversation. To many this perpetual trickle of talk might have seemed dull, but not to Miss Silver. She had a very genuine interest in the lives and the problems of other people, and when occupied upon a case nothing that she could learn about those concerned in it could be dismissed as trivial or worthless. As her needles moved rhythmically above the pale blue cloud in her lap and Miss Bray jerked at her linen thread, a picture of the Bellingdon household began to take shape.

“Of course he is a very clever man and he has been very successful, but I’m not sure that it didn’t all come too suddenly for Lily. She wasn’t ever what you would call strong, and when he began to go over to America on his business she fretted a lot-she was that kind, you know. There was some patent he had got for one of those new materials they keep making out of such very odd things. I really can’t remember whether it was seaweed, or milk, or wood pulp, but he made a lot of money out of it and he had to go over to America about the patents. I remember his telling Lily they were going to be rich, and she cried about it afterwards and said she would rather have her husband.”

Miss Silver had been turning the shawl. She looked up brightly.

“It was not possible for her to accompany him?”

Miss Bray shook her head in a mournful manner.

“Oh, no-she didn’t like travelling. Not at all! And there is such a lot of travelling in a big place like the United States! He used to say she would get used to it, but I told him he hadn’t the right to expect her to go. He didn’t like my saying it of course, but if I didn’t stand up for Lily, who was going to, I should like to know!”

“So she stayed at home?”

“And moped,” said Miss Bray, digging into a darn in a haphazard way which Miss Silver found distressing. She was using far too thick a needle. The mended place would be sadly conspicuous. Miss Bray gazed at it disapprovingly, but it was evident that it was really Mr. Bellingdon who was being disapproved of. “Men are all the same,” she continued. “He was free enough with the money, but you can’t live on money, can you? What she wanted was company. That’s why I came to live with them. And of course it’s been very comfortable and all, but a big house is a lot of trouble, and I sometimes think-” Her voice trailed away.