The Summons Part 48

CHAPTER XXIII

PLANS FOR THE EVENING

The library at Rackham Park was a small, oblong room, with a big window upon the garden. It opened into the hall on the one side and into the dining-room on the other, and in one corner the telephone was installed.

At half-past eight on the night of the dance at Harrel, this room was empty and in darkness. But a second afterwards the door from the hall was opened, and Joan stood in the doorway, the light shimmering upon her satin cloak and the silver embroidery of her frock. She cast an anxious look behind her and up the staircase. It seemed as if some movement at the angle made by the stairs and the gallery caught her eye, for she stepped back for a clearer view, and listened with a peculiar intentness. She saw nothing, however, and heard nothing. She entered the library swiftly and closed the door behind her, so that the room fell once more upon darkness save for a thread of gold at the bottom of the other door behind which the men of the party were still sitting over their wine. She crossed the room towards the window, stepping cautiously to avoid the furniture. She was quite invisible. But for a tiny rustle of the lace flounces on her dress one would have sworn the room was empty. But when she was half-way across a sudden burst of laughter from the dining-room brought her to a stop with her hand upon her heart and a little sob not altogether stifled in her throat. It meant so much to her that the desperate adventure of this night should be carried through! If all went well, as it must--oh, as it surely must!--by midnight she would be free of her terrors and distress.

The laughter in the dining room died down. Joan stole forward again. She drew away the heavy curtains from the long window, and the moonlight, clear and bright like silver, poured into the room and clothed her in its soft radiance. She drew back the bolts at the top and bottom of the gla.s.s door and turned the key in the lock. She touched the gla.s.s and the door swung open upon the garden, easily, noiselessly. She drew it close again and leaving it so, raised her hands to the curtains at the side.

As she began carefully to draw them together, so that the rings should not rattle on the pole, the door from the hall was softly and quickly opened, and the switch of the electric lights by the side of the door pressed down. The room leapt into light.

Joan swung round, her face grown white, her eyes burning with fire. She saw only Jenny Prask.

"I hope I don't intrude, miss," said Jenny respectfully. "I came to find a book."

The blood flowed back into Joan's cheeks.

"Certainly, Jenny, take what you like," said Joan, and she draped the curtains across the window.

"Thank you, miss."

Jenny chose a book from the case upon the table and without a glance at Joan or at the window, went out of the room again. Joan watched her go.

After all, what had Jenny seen? A girl whose home was there, drawing the curtains close. That was all. Joan shook her anxiety off. Jenny had left the door of the library open and some one came running down the stairs whistling as she ran. Miranda Brown dashed into the room struggling with a pair of gloves.

"Oh, how I hate gloves in this weather!" she cried. "Well, here I am, Joan. You wanted to speak to me before the others had finished powdering their noses. What is it?"

"I want you to help me."

"Of course I will," Miranda answered cheerily. "How?"

Joan closed the door and returned to Miranda, who, having drawn the gloves over her arm, was now struggling with the b.u.t.tons.

"I want you, when we reach Harrel----"

"Yes."

"To lend me your motor-car for an hour."

Miranda turned in amazement towards her friend. But one glance at her face showed that the prayer was made in desperate earnest. Miranda Brown caught her friend by the arm.

"Joan!"

"Yes," Joan Whitworth answered, nodding her head miserably. "That's the help I want and I want it dreadfully. Just for an hour--no more."

"Joan, my dear--what's the matter?" asked Miranda gazing into Joan Whitworth's troubled face.

"I don't want you to ask me," the girl answered. "I want you to help me straight off without any questions. Otherwise----" and Joan's voice shook and broke, "otherwise--oh, I don't know what will happen to me!"

Miranda put her arm round Joan Whitworth's waist. "Joan! You are in real trouble!"

"For the first time!" said Joan.

"Can't I----?"

"No," Joan interrupted. "There's only the one way, Miranda."

She sat down upon a couch at Miranda's side and feverishly caught her hand. "Do help me! You can't tell what it means to me!... And I should hate telling you! Oh, I have been such a fool!"

Joan's face was quivering, and so deep a compunction was audible in her voice, so earnest a prayer was to be read in her troubled eyes, that Miranda's doubt and anxiety were doubled.

"I don't know what I shall do, if you don't help me," Joan said miserably as she let go of Miranda. Her hands fluttered helplessly in the air. "No, I don't know!"

Miranda was thoroughly disturbed. The contrast between the Joan she had known until this week, good-humoured, a little aloof, contented with herself and her ambitions, placid, self-contained, and this lovely girl, troubled to the heart's core, with her beseeching eyes and trembling lips touched her poignantly, meltingly.

"Oh, Joan, I don't like it!" she whispered. "What mad thing have you done?"

"Nothing that can't be put right! Nothing! Nothing!" Joan caught eagerly at the argument. "Oh, I was a fool! But if you'll only help me to-night, I am sure everything will be arranged."

The words were bold enough, but the girl's voice trailed off into a low, unsteady whisper, as terror at the rash plan which she had made and must now carry through caught at her heart. "Oh, Miranda, do be kind!"

"When do you want the car?" asked Miranda.

"Immediately after we get to Harrel."

"Joan!"

Miranda herself was growing frightened. She stood torn with indecision.

Joan's distress pleaded on the one side, dread of some tragic mystery upon the other. For the first time in her life Joan was in some desperate crisis of destiny. Her feet and hands twitched as though she were bound fast in the coils of a net she could not break. What wisdom of experience could she bring to help her to escape? On what wild and hopeless venture might she not be set?

"Yes, yes," Joan urged eagerly. "I have thought it all out. I want you to tell your chauffeur privately to return along the avenue after he has set you down. There's a road on the right a few yards down. If he will turn into that and wait behind the big clump of rhododendrons I will join him immediately."

"But it will be noticed that you have gone. People will ask for you,"

Miranda objected.

"No, I shall be back again within the hour. There will be a crowd of people. And lots won't imagine that I should ever come to the dance at all." Even at that moment a little smile played about the lips. "And if the ball had been a week ago, I shouldn't have gone, should I? I should still be wearing sandals," she explained, as she looked down at the buckles of her trim satin slippers, "and haughtily wishing you all good night in the hall here. No, it will be easy enough. I shall just shake hands with Mrs. Willoughby, pa.s.s on with the rest of our party into the ball-room and then slip out by the corridor at the side of the park."

"It's dangerous, Joan!" said Miranda.

"Oh, I know, but----" Joan rose suddenly with her eyes upon the door.

"The others are coming. Miranda, will you help me? I would have driven over to Harrel in my own little car. But it's open and I should have got blown about until everybody would have begun asking why in the world I used it. Oh, Miranda, quick!"

Her ears had heard the voices already in the hall. Miranda heard them too. In a moment the door would be thrown open. She must make up her mind now.

"Very well. The first turning to the right down the avenue and behind the rhododendrons. I'll tell the chauffeur."

"And no one else! Not even Dennis!"