Blue Murder (21 page)

He arrived downstairs a few minutes before Charity arrived, and it was with an unaccountable feeling of pleasure that he greeted her again.

She wore the same filmy black gown in which she had been dressed on her previous visit. It was, indeed, her only evening-gown, for in every other house in the district—even, it was said, up at the Castle—it was considered out of place to wear anything more elaborate than an afternoon frock even for dinner.

This was war-time, and you could not deal effectively with incendiary bombs, or stand by with a First Aid Party, in a gown which swirled around your ankles. There was, in fact, little scope at all for femininity in Total War, which for the time being, and possibly for all time, had destroyed the slogan that Woman's Place is in the Home.

Arnold thought it strange that Leda, who had always derided her father's insistence on dressing formally for dinner, should now be equally insistent on the habit although it could no longer concern him.

But tonight he was grateful for it, for the black dress fitted closely to Charity's lovely figure, framed her into the prettiest picture he had seen for some time.

Nor was he the only person thus affected.

Stanton Hardstaffe who, until that evening, had seemed little more than a stuffed shirt to Arnold, became imbued with a sudden animation which showed him to be a genial dinner-companion and something of a wit, as he leaned sideways and breathed on Charity's shoulder.

Yes, Charity certainly
did
something to a man, but whether she was aware of it or not, was a thing about which no woman knew and no man cared.

As the meal went on, and Stanton's jokes became slightly daring, the other two women fell silent, and Arnold, seated between them, grew uneasy. He wondered whether Betty was already regretting her invitation to Charity, wondered also, what impulse had prompted her to give it.

For Stanton had brought no friend with him, and they were five at dinner, with Leda seated in upright disapproval at the opposite end of the table to her brother.

When Stanton had arrived earlier in the evening, she had greeted him coldly as usual, offering a reluctant cheek to his equally reluctant lips. Then she had asked where his friend was.

Before he could reply, Betty had sailed into the conversation.

“Captain Homes had to put Stan off at the last minute—some Service duty, you know. Such a bore, because it completely ruins our numbers for dinner; and you've had all the trouble of getting a bedroom ready. I'm awfully sorry, but there it is!”

“But—well, it sounds funny to me,” remarked Leda. “Of course I know he used to be Regular Army and got the M.C. in the last war, but he's only in the Home Guard now, isn't he? I don't see what duty could possibly crop up to keep him away like this.”

“You'd be surprised,” replied Stanton. “I know the Home Guard has become the lowest form of military life since the Observer Corps became Royal, but, strange to relate, we do have rules and we do have to obey them. Homes is a corporal like me, in spite of his retired rank, and he does what he's ordered to do. You wouldn't understand that though, would you, sister?”

“Of course I understand,” said Leda irritably. “You forget that I'm entitled to wear three uniforms myself, if you include The Girl Guides. And please don't call me ‘Sister' as if I were something out of a hospital ward.”

“Or a nunnery,” suggested Betty spitefully.

But that had been some hours ago, and now, instead of being at loggerheads with each other, Leda and her sister-in-law seemed to be united in their disapproval of Charity.

Of this, Charity herself had no knowledge, for Stanton held her attention persistently, while, when she looked up-, Arnold was ready to return smiles and badinage from the side of the table opposite to her, and Leda and Betty were constantly jerking up from their chairs to collect plates or pass food around.

Frieda was still in the house and was now the only maid, since Briggs had left to carry out Mr. Ernest Bevin's admonition to Go To It. But Leda, mindful of her behaviour when Charity had dined before at the house, had ordered her to come no nearer to the dining-room than the dumb-waiter outside the door, and to remain equally dumb.

Arnold felt greatly relieved at Leda's decision to keep her out of sight, for one never knew what the girl might do or say. He had given up his study of her as a character, for although he had originally intended to put her into his hook, he had since decided that such a passionate creature could have no place in the world of unreality which housed the scintillating figure of Noel Delare. Besides, he doubted whether anyone would believe that such a person as the little Jewess could really exist in England, even during a war, which, proverbially makes strange bedfellows.

Not that ‘bedfellow' was a word to use in connection with Frieda.

Never attractive, she had lately deteriorated in many ways. Although always clean in her person—for this was a matter of religion to her—she had grown careless about her dress and general appearance. Dirty collars and cuffs had been ripped off her once neat frocks and not replaced, her hair was unbrushed and tangled; her shoes were down at heel.

No. “Bedfellow” was certainly not the word to use. It had come unbidden into his mind for no reason that he could see. Unless—

He glanced up, and saw Charity smiling at him. His gaze lingered over the smooth, white skin above the heartshaped neckline of her low cut gown.

Unless—

The ladies rose, and he and Stanton raced for the door. Both reached for the knob at the same time, then stood side by side at the opened door, looking rather foolish.

They did not linger over the port, and when they joined the ladies, it was obvious that Stanton was again intent on monopolising Charity. Arnold felt unreasonably annoyed at this, until he remembered, with a new sense of shock, that everyone believed him to be Leda's fiancé.

Once settled round the breakfast-room fire with their coffee, however, their conversation became general, and after a scurry to find unsalvaged paper and blunt pencils, they finally settled down to a series of Parlour Games after the pattern of those brought back into fashion by the B.B.C. Arnold and Charity, having read more books in five years than the others had read in their lives, entered into a friendly rivalry which brought them into pleasant sympathy with each other.

When Charity said she had had a lovely evening but it must be getting late and she really must go, they discovered that it was pouring rain, and they all agreed that some one must drive her home.

“There's nothing I'd like better,” said Stanton with obvious sincerity, “but I'm afraid it can't be done. I haven't got an ounce of petrol to spare. I really ought not to have driven over this week-end, but the trains are so crowded and so slow, and it's a wretched journey with so many stops, to say nothing of having no First Class passengers. With this new cut in the basic petrol ration I've only got enough petrol to get me home and I daren't risk an extra mile or two.”

“If I could be of any use—” began Arnold, but Leda interrupted him.

“You'd be only too pleased, dear, of course,” she said, playing ostentatiously with the solitaire diamond ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. “You see,” she explained, turning to Charity, “he's taking me over to the one remaining dog show this month, and we shall only just do the double journey on his petrol ration. In the old days it would sound too mean for words to say this, but we've all got to Do Our Bit now, haven't we? I know that dogs sound rather a luxury these days but this show's rather an important one for Cherub.” She picked up one of the many dogs which were lying on chairs and carpet, and held it near her face so that it could lick her mouth. “If ze 'ickle girlie wins a Savings Certificate for her Mummy, den Mummy can sell her wee bitchie for lots of doodledums!”

She kissed the Sealyham's wiry head, smacked it behind, and deposited it roughly on a chair, where it curled round and began to attend noisily to its toilet.

“Oh, please don't worry about me,” said Charity. “There's no need really. I'm used to the rain, and I can easily walk.”

“My dear girl, you can't go out in this,” said Stanton. “It's raining cats and dogs. You'll have to wait a bit. Let's have another game.”

“Oh, but I can't.” Charity sounded upset. “I really must go. It's past eleven, and if I'm not in by twelve, I shall be locked out.” She perceived their astonishment, and went on. “She'll think I'm in bed, you see—the old woman I lodge with. She's as deaf as a post, and once she's in bed, I shall never be able to rouse her. She won't think of me being out after twelve. I never am. I really shall have to go.”

Betty glanced at Charity's little gold, high-heeled slippers.

“In those shoes? You can't!” she exclaimed. “And both mine and Leda's are sizes too large for you.” She looked suddenly at Leda, and to Arnold it seemed as if she had asked a silent question, for Leda gave a quick nod. “What about that bedroom you got ready for Captain Homes?” she asked aloud. “Wouldn't that be the best solution? Miss Fuller doesn't have to go to school tomorrow, and we could send Frieda to fetch her shoes and a skirt or something. Anyway it will all be much easier in the morning.”

“But I...” protested Charity.

“Of course you must stay,” said Leda cheerfully. “It's no trouble. The bed's made up, and you'll even find a hot-water bottle in it. We were expecting a friend who didn't come.”

“It's awfully kind of you,” replied Charity, “but—”

“That's settled then,” said Leda in tones with which Arnold had grown only too familiar.

If Leda said anything was settled, then settled it was.

“I can lend you anything you want for the night,” said Betty. “Which bedroom is it, Leda?”

“Father's,” she replied. “You'll like it, Miss Fuller.”

Arnold went to bed feeling, not for the first time or last time, that the ways of woman are incomprehensible.

After Leda's extraordinary remark, Charity had flashed an appealing look at him, and he had come gallantly to the rescue—or so he thought.

“Yes, it's a charming room,” he had said. “Quite the prettiest in the house, and it's all been rearranged. I'm sure you'll sleep well there.”

Charity had looked grateful. One of the most attractive things about her was, she thought, the expressiveness of her face. She did not need to put into words the emotion she was feeling, it was written in her lovely eyes and mobile mouth.

Then they had all had a drink together, and Betty had taken Charity up to her room. Stanton had followed, fifteen minutes afterwards, while Arnold, feeling that he had shown too little attention to Leda during the evening, stayed downstairs for a little longer and tried to make conversation. But Leda did not seem anxious for his company, and he soon said goodnight.

His bedroom lay beyond Stanton's and Betty's, and as he approached their room, he saw that the door was open.

“And now, young lady,” Stanton was saying in his loud Hardstaffe voice, “perhaps you'll explain what all this lying is about. What on earth made you tell Leda that I was bringing old Homes here for the weekend? You know perfectly well that I never suggested such a thing when I phoned yesterday morning. What's the big idea?”

The door was slammed, and Arnold walked past it into his own room.

He switched on the light, then walked across to the window to make sure that the black-out was perfect. Frieda was often careless about it.

He took off coat, waistcoat, and trousers, then sat down on the edge of the bed to unfasten his sock suspenders which were garishly coloured in a riotous design of purple, red, and gold.

He could have sworn before tonight that there was nothing sinister about Betty Hardstaffe. But what possible reason could she have had for wanting to get Charity into the house tonight? It must have been a strong reason that made her plan it as far ahead as yesterday, when she had lied about her husband's visitor in order to provide an excuse for inviting Charity to dinner.

She could not have foreseen, of course, that the weather would provide her with the excuse she needed to keep Charity here overnight, but, no doubt, she had some other means of ensuring it, even if the rain had not proved such a good ally.

Wait a bit, though, he thought. Had it really been raining quite as hard as Stanton had said? He was the only one who had ventured outside.

But surely the words he had just heard showed that Stanton knew nothing about his wife's plan. Unless—unless they had heard him coming upstairs, and had staged the scene for his benefit.

It all seemed such a fuss about nothing. He could make no sense out of it at all.

And so he buttoned himself into his pyjama jacket, got into bed, and, still pondering on the inscrutable behaviour of women, fell asleep to dream that he was treating Charity in a way in which he had never before treated any woman throughout his life.

He thought that he had been awakened by a scream.

He lifted his head from the pillow, and listened.

It came again: a woman's scream, high pitched, terrified.

He leapt out of bed, struck his elbow against the bedside table, his chin against a chair, and stood in numbed agony for a second, before finding his dressing gown and torch, and making his way on to the landing.

He heard Charity's voice.

“If you don't let me go, I shall throw myself over this balcony!”

She screamed again, and Arnold forgetting the torch in his hand, fumbled, swearing, for the switch, and turned on the corridor light.

At the end of the corridor outside Mr. Hardstaffe's room stood Charity, clinging to the carved balustrade, and gazing with unseeing eyes down to the marble floor of the hall below.

She was clad in a pink night-gown of diaphanous material, which revealed details of a figure that was even more lovely than it had seemed to be in Arnold's dream.