The Truants Part 9

"Is Millie Stretton here?"

"Yes," replied Frances Millingham. "She has been here a week."

"I couldn't come before," said Pamela, rather remorsefully. "My father was at home alone. How is Millie? I have not seen her for a long time.

Is she enjoying herself?"

Pamela's conscience had been reproaching her all that afternoon. She could plead in her own behalf that after the arrival of Tony's letter with its message of failure, she had deferred her visit into the country and had stayed in London for a week. But she had not returned to London since, and consequently she had not seen her friend. She had heard regularly from her, it is true; she also knew that there was yet no likelihood of the hoped-for change in the life of that isolated household in Berkeley Square. But there had been certain omissions of late in Millicent's letters which began to make Pamela anxious.

"Yes," Frances Millingham replied; "she seems to be happy enough."

Lady Millingham related the names of her guests. There were twelve in all, but the first ten may be omitted, for they are in no way concerned with Pamela's history. The eleventh name, however, was that of a friend.

"John Mudge is here, too," said Frances Millingham; and Pamela said, with a smile--

"I like him."

John Mudge was that elderly man whom Allan Warrisden had seen with Pamela at Lady Millingham's dance, the man with no pleasure in his face. "And Mr. Lionel Callon," said Frances; "you know him."

"Do I?" asked Pamela.

"At all events, he knows you."

It was no doubt a consequence of Pamela's deliberate plan never to be more than an onlooker, that people who did not arouse her active interest pa.s.sed in and out of her acquaintanceship like shadows upon a mirror. It might be that she had met Lionel Callon. She could not remember.

"A quarter past seven," said Frances Millingham, glancing at the clock. "We dine at eight."

Pamela dressed quickly in the hope that she might gain a few minutes before dinner wherein to talk to Millicent. She came down the stairs with this object a good quarter of an hour before eight, but she was to be disappointed. The stairs descended into the big inner hall of the house, and just below the roof of the hall they took a bend. As Pamela came round this bend the hall was exposed to her eyes, and she saw, below her, not Millicent at all, but the figure of a man. He was standing by the fireplace, on her left hand as she descended, looking into the fire indeed, so that his back was towards her. But at the rustle of her frock he swung round quickly and looked up. He now moved a few steps towards the foot of the stairs with a particular eagerness. Pamela at that moment had just come round the bend, and was on the small platform from which the final flight of steps began. The staircase was dimly lit, and the panelling of the wall against which it rested dark. Pamela took a step or two downwards, and the light of the hall struck upon her face. The man came instantly to a dead stop, and a pa.s.sing disappointment was visible upon his upturned face. It was evident that he was expecting some one else. Pamela on her side was disappointed, too, for she had hoped to find Millicent. She went down the stairs and stopped on the third step from the bottom.

"How do you do, Miss Mardale?" said the man. "You have arrived at last."

The man was Lionel Callon. Pamela recognised him now that they stood face to face; she _had_ met him, but she had retained no impression of him in her memory. For the future, however, she would retain a very distinct impression. For her instincts told her at once and clearly that she thoroughly disliked the man. He was thirty-three in years, and looked a trifle younger, although his hair was turning grey. He was clean shaven, handsome beyond most men, and while his features were of a cla.s.sical regularity and of an almost feminine delicacy, they were still not without character. There was determination in his face, and his eyes were naturally watchful. It was his manner which prompted Pamela's instinct of dislike. a.s.surance gave to it a hint of arrogance; familiarity made it distasteful. He might have been her host from the warmth of his welcome. Pamela put on her sedatest air.

"I am quite well," she said, with just sufficient surprise to suggest the question, "What in the world has my health to do with you?" She came down the three steps, and added, "We are the first, I suppose."

"There may be others in the drawing-room," said Callon, with a glance towards the open door. But Pamela did not take the hint. For one thing no sound of any voice was audible in that room; for another Mr. Callon was plainly anxious to be rid of her. Even as he was speaking his glance strayed past her up the staircase. Pamela disliked him; she was, besides, disappointed by him of that private talk with Millicent which she desired. She was in a mood for mischief. She changed her manner at once, and, crossing over to the fireplace, engaged Mr.

Callon in conversation with the utmost cordiality, and as she talked she began to be amused. Callon became positively uneasy; he could not keep still, he answered her at random. For instance, she put to him a question about the number of guests in the house. He did not answer at all for a moment or two, and when he did speak, it was to say, "Will the frost hold, do you think?"

"There's no sign of a thaw to-night," replied Pamela; and the sounds for which both were listening became audible--the shutting of a door on the landing above, and then the rustle of a frock upon the stairs.

Mr. Callon was evidently at his wits' end what to do; and Pamela, taking her elbow from the mantelpiece, said, with great sympathy--

"One feels a little in the way----"

"Oh, not at all, Miss Mardale," Callon answered hurriedly, with a fl.u.s.tered air.

Pamela looked at her companion with the blankest stare of surprise.

"I was going to say, when you interrupted me," she went on, "that one feels a little in the way when one has brought a couple of horses, as I have, and the frost holds."

Callon grew red. He had fallen into a trap; his very hurry to interrupt what appeared to be almost an apology betrayed that the lady upon the stairs and Mr. Lionel Callon had arranged to come down early.

He had protested overmuch. However, he looked Pamela steadily in the face, and said--

"I beg your pardon, Miss Mardale."

He spoke loudly, rather too loudly for the ears of any one so near to him as Pamela. The sentence, too, was uttered with a note of warning.

There was even a suggestion of command. The command was obeyed by the lady on the stairs, for all at once the frock ceased to rustle, and there was silence. Lionel Callon kept his eyes fixed upon Pamela's face, but she did not look towards the stairs, and in a little while again the sound was heard. But it diminished. The lady upon the stairs was ascending, and a few minutes afterwards a door closed overhead.

She had beaten a retreat.

Callon could not quite keep the relief which he felt out of his eyes or the smile from his lips. Pamela noticed the change with amus.e.m.e.nt.

She was not in the mind to spare him uneasiness, and she said, looking at the wall above the mantelpiece--

"This is an old mirror, don't you think? From what period would you date it?"

Callon's thoughts had been so intent upon the stairs that he had paid no heed to the ornaments above the mantelshelf. Now, however, he took note of them with a face grown at once anxious. The mirror was of an oval shape and framed in gold. Under the pretence of admiring it, he moved and stood behind Pamela, looking into the mirror over her shoulder, seeing what she could see, and wondering how much she had seen. He was to some extent relieved. The stairs were ill-lighted, the panelling of the wall dark mahogany; moreover, the stairs bent round into the hall just below the level of the roof, and at the bend the lady on the stairs had stopped. Pamela could not have seen her face.

Pamela, indeed, had seen nothing more than a black satin slipper arrested in the act of taking a step, and a black gown with some touches of red at the waist. She had, however, noticed the att.i.tude of the wearer of the dress when the warning voice had brought her to a stop. The lady had stooped down and had cautiously peered into the hall. In this att.i.tude she had been able to see, and yet had avoided being seen.

Pamela, however, did not relieve Mr. Callon of his suspense. She walked into the drawing-room and waited, with an amused curiosity, for the appearance of the black dress. It was long in coming, however.

Pamela had no doubt that it would come last, and in a hurry, as though its wearer had been late in dressing. But Pamela was wrong. Millicent Stretton came into the room dressed in a frock of white lace, and at once dinner was announced. Pamela turned to Frances Millingham with a startled face--

"Are we all here?"

Frances Millingham looked round.

"Yes;" and Lord Millingham at that moment offered his arm to Pamela.

As she took it, she looked at Millicent, who was just rising from her chair. Millicent was wearing with her white dress black shoes and stockings. She might be wearing them deliberately, of course; on the other hand, she might be wearing them because she had not had time to change them. It was Millicent, certainly, who had come down last. "I beg your pardon, Miss Mardale," Callon had said, and it was upon the "Miss Mardale" that his voice had risen. The emphasis of his warning had been laid upon the name.

As she placed her hand on her host's arm, Pamela said--

"It was very kind of Frances to ask Millie Stretton here."

"Oh no," Lord Millingham replied. "You see, Frances knew her. We all knew, besides, that she is a great friend of yours."

"Yes," said Pamela; "I suppose everybody here knows that?"

"Mrs. Stretton has talked of it," he answered, with a smile.

The "Miss Mardale" might be a warning, then, to Millicent that her friend had arrived--was actually then in the hall. There was certainly no one but Millicent in that house who could have been conscious of any need to shrink back at the warning, who would have changed her dress to prevent a recognition; and Millicent herself need not have feared the warning had there not been something to conceal--something to conceal especially from Pamela, who had said, "I have promised your husband I would be your friend." There was the heart of Pamela's trouble.

She gazed down the two lines of people at the dinner-table, hoping against hope that she had overlooked some one. There was no one wearing a black gown. All Pamela's amus.e.m.e.nt in outwitting Callon had long since vanished. If Tony had only taken her advice without question, she thought. "Millie's husband should never leave her. If he goes away he should take her with him." The words rang in her mind all through dinner like the refrain of a song of which one cannot get rid.

And at the back of her thoughts there steadily grew and grew a great regret that she had ever promised Tony to befriend his wife.

That Millicent was the lady on the stairs she no longer dared to doubt. Had she doubted, her suspicions would have been confirmed immediately dinner was over. In the drawing-room Millicent avoided any chance of a private conversation, and since they had not met for so long such avoidance was unnatural. Pamela, however, made no effort to separate her friend from the other women. She had a plan in her mind, and in pursuit of it she occupied a sofa, upon which there was just room for two. She sat in the middle of the sofa, so that no one else could sit on it, and just waited until the men came in. Some of them crossed at once to Pamela, but she did not budge an inch. They were compelled to stand. Finally, Mr. Mudge approached her, and immediately she moved into one corner and bade him take the other. Mr. Mudge accepted the position with alacrity. The others began to move away; a couple of card-tables were made up. Pamela and John Mudge were left alone.

"You know every one here?" she asked.

"No, very few."

"Mr. Callon, at all events?"