The Summons Part 50

The consternation in the girl's voice was so p.r.o.nounced that every eye in that hall turned to her in astonishment. There was consternation, too, most legible in her widely-opened eyes. Her cheeks had lost their colour. She stood for a fleeting moment before them all, an image of terror. Then she caught at an excuse.

"Stella's ill then--since she's not going."

"It's not as bad as all that, dear," Lady Splay hastened to rea.s.sure her. "She complained of a racking headache at dinner. She has gone to bed."

The blood flowed back into Joan's cheeks.

"Oh, I see!" she observed slowly. "That is why her maid came to the library for a book!"

But she was very silent throughout the quarter of an hour, which it took them to drive to Harrel. There was somebody left behind at Rackham Park that night. Joan had overlooked one possibility in contriving her plan, and that possibility, now developed into fact, threatened to ruin all.

One guest remained behind in the house, and that one Joan's rival.

CHAPTER XXIV

JENNY PRASK IS INTERESTED

Rackham was a red Georgian mansion with great windows in flat rows, and lofty rooms made beautiful by the delicate tracery of the ceilings. It has neither wings nor embellishments but stood squarely in its gardens, looking southwards to the Downs. The dining-room was upon the east side, between that room and the hall was the library, of which the window faced the north. Mrs. Croyle's bedroom, however, was in the south-west corner and from its windows one could see the smoke of the train as it climbed from Midhurst to the c.o.c.king tunnel, and the gap where the road runs through to Singleton.

"You won't be going to bed yet, madam, I suppose," said Jenny.

She had not troubled to bring upstairs into the room the book which she had picked out at random from the stand that was lying on the hall table.

"No, Jenny. I will ring for you when I want you," said Stella.

Stella was dispirited. Her week was nearly at an end. To-morrow would be the last day and she had gained nothing, it seemed, by all her care.

Harry was kind--oh, ever so much kinder than in the old days when they had been together--more considerate, more thoughtful. But the skies of pa.s.sion are stormily red, and so effulgent that one walks in gold.

Consideration, thoughtfulness--what were these pale things worth against one spurt of fire? Besides, there was the ball to-night. He would dance with _her_, would seek the dim open s.p.a.ces of the lawns, the dark shadows of the great elms, with her--with Joan.

"I'll ring for you, Jenny," she repeated, as her maid stood doubtfully by the door. "I am quite right."

"Very well, madam."

Stella Croyle's eyes were drawn when she was left alone to that cupboard in which her dressing-bag was stowed away. But she arrested them and covered them with her hands.

"This is my last chance," she said to herself aloud in the anguish of her spirit. If it failed, there was nothing in front of her but a loneliness which each year must augment. Youth and high spirits or the a.s.sumption of high spirits--these she must have if she were to keep her place in her poor little circle--and both were slipping from her fast.

"This is my last chance." She stood in front of her mirror in her dancing frock, her dark hair exquisitely dressed, her face hauntingly wistful. After all, she was beautiful. Why shouldn't she win? Jenny thought that she could.

At that moment Jenny was slipping noiselessly along a corridor to the northern side of the house. The lights were all off; a pencil of moonlight here and there from an interstice in the curtains alone touched her as she pa.s.sed. At one window she stopped, and softly lifted the blind. She looked out and was satisfied.

"Thought so!" she murmured, with a little vindictive smile. Just beneath her was that long window of the library which Joan had been at such pains to arrange.

Jenny stationed herself by the window. The night was very still. She could hear the voices of the servants in the dining-room round the angle of the house, and see the light from its windows lying in frames upon the gra.s.s. Then the light went out, and silence fell.

From time to time the hum of a motor-car swelled and diminished to its last faint vibrations on the distant road; and as each car pa.s.sed Jenny stiffened at her post. She looked at her watch, turning the dial to the moonlight. It was ten minutes past nine now. The cars had left Rackham Park well before nine. She would not have long to wait now! As she slipped her watch again into her waistband she drew back with an instinctive movement, although the window at which she stood had been this last half-hour in shadow. For under a great copper beech on the gra.s.s in front of her a man was standing. The sight of him was a shock to her.

She wondered how he had come, how long he had been there--and why? Some explanation flashed upon her.

"My goodness me!" she whispered. "You could knock me down with a hairpin. So you could!"

Whilst she watched that solitary figure beneath the tree, another motor whizzed along the road. The noise of its engine grew louder--surely louder than any which, standing at this window, she had heard before.

Had it turned into the park? off the main road. Was it coming to the house? Before Jenny could answer these questions in her mind, the noise ceased altogether. Jenny held her breath; and round the angle of the house a girl came running swiftly, her skirt sparkling like silver in the moonlight, and a white cloak drawn about her shoulders. She drew open the window of the library and pa.s.sed in. A few seconds pa.s.sed.

Jenny imagined her stealthily opening the door into the hall, and listening to make sure that the servants were in their own quarters and this part of the house deserted. Then the girl reappeared at the window and made a sign. From beneath the tree the man ran across the gra.s.s. His face was turned towards Jenny, and the moonlight revealed it. The man was Mario Escobar.

Jenny drew a little sharp breath. She heard the window ever so gently latched. Suddenly the light blazed out from the room and then, strip by strip, vanished, as if the curtains had been cautiously drawn. The garden, the house resumed its aspect of quiet; all was as it had been when Jenny Prask first lifted the window of the corridor. Jenny Prask crept cautiously away.

"Fancy that!" she said to herself, with a little chuckle of triumph.

In the room below Mario Escobar and Joan Whitworth were talking.

CHAPTER XXV

IN A LIBRARY

"You insisted that I should see you. You have something to say to me,"

said Joan. She was breathing more quickly than usual and the blood fluttered in her cheeks, but she faced Mario Escobar with level eyes, and spoke without a tremor in her voice. So far everything had happened just as she had planned. There were these few difficult minutes now to be grappled with, and afterwards the ordeal would be ended, that foolish chapter in her life altogether closed. "Will you please be quick?" she pleaded.

But Mario Escobar was in no hurry to answer. He had never imagined that Joan Whitworth could look so beautiful. He had never dreamed that she would take so much trouble. Mario Escobar understood women's clothes, and his eyes ran with a sensation of pleasure over her delicate frock with its shining bands, its embroidery of silver and flounces of fine lace, down to her slim brocaded shoes. He had not, indeed, thought very much of her in the days when Linda Spavinsky was queen. She had been a sort of challenge to him, because of her aloofness, her indifference.

Women were his profession, and here was a queer outlandish one whom it would be amusing to parade as his. So he had set to work; he had a sense of art, he could talk with ingenuity on artistic matters, and he had flattered Joan by doing so; but always with a certain definite laughter and contempt for her. Now her beauty rather swept him off his feet. He looked at her in amazement. Why this change? And--the second question for ever in his mind--how could he profit by it?

"I don't understand," he said slowly, feeling his way. "We were good friends--very good friends." Joan neither denied nor agreed. "We had certain things in common, a love of art, of the finer things of life. I made enemies, of course, in consequence. Your racing friends----" He paused. "Milly Splay, who would have matched you with some dull, tiresome squire accustomed to sleep over his port after dinner, the sort of man you are drawing so brilliantly in your wonderful book." A movement of impatience on Joan's part perplexed him. Authors! You can generally lay your praise on with a trowel. What in the world was the matter with Joan? He hurried on. "I understood that I was making enemies. I understood, too, why I was no longer invited to Rackham Park.

I was a foreigner. I would as soon visit a picture gallery as shoot a pheasant. I would as soon appreciate your old gates and houses in the country as gallop after a poor little fox on the downs. Oh, yes, I wasn't popular. That I understand. But you!" and his voice softened to a gentle reproach. "You were different! And you had the courage of your difference! Since I was not invited to Rackham Park, I was to come down to the inn at Midhurst. I was to drive over--publicly, most publicly--and ask for you. We would show them that there were finer things in the world than horse-racing and lawn tennis. Oh, yes. We arranged it all at that wonderful exhibition of the New School in Green Street."

Joan writhed a little at her recollection of the pictures of the rotundists and of the fatuous aphorisms to which she had given utterance.

"I come to Midhurst accordingly, and what happens? You scribble me out a curt little letter. I am not to come to Rackham Park. I am not to try to see you. And you are writing to-morrow. But to-morrow comes, and you don't write--no, not one line!"

"It was so difficult," Joan answered. She spoke diffidently. Some of her courage had gone from her; she was confronted with so direct, so unanswerable an accusation. "I thought that you would understand that I did not wish to see you again. I thought that you would accept my wish."

Mario Escobar laughed unpleasantly.

"Why should I?"

"Because most men have that chivalry," said Joan.

Mario Escobar only smiled this time. He smiled with narrowed eves and a gleam of white teeth behind his black moustache. He was amused, like a man who receives ridiculous answers from a child.

"It is easy to see that you have read the poets--Joan," he replied deliberately.

Joan's face flamed. Never had she been addressed with so much insolence.

Chaff she was accustomed to, but it was always chaff mitigated by a tenderness of real affection. Insolence and disdain were quite new to her, and they hurt intolerably. Joan, however, was learning her lessons fairly quickly. She had to get this meeting over as swiftly and quietly as she could, and high words would not help.