Hue and Cry (5 page)

“I hope you had a pleasant evening.”

Sir George was still frowning. He put his hand to his chin and said, “He asked me if I knew Varney.”

CHAPTER VI

Mally made Mr. Craddock's acquaintance at breakfast next morning. Having been implored to hate him, she was naturally a good deal predisposed in his favor. He was taller than most men, and broad-shouldered, but he had a long, thin neck, and a small, rather pear-shaped head upon which the hair was already wearing rather thin. He shaved very clean indeed, and had the brilliantly pink and white complexion which had provided Barbara with a nickname for him. To any one who had once heard it, Pinko he was, and Pinko would remain to the end of the chapter.

“He's such a comfort to my brother,” said Mrs. Craddock when Paul had gone out. “Such a comfort in every way—and so much nicer than having a stranger in the house, which is always a great trial. Oh, my dear Miss Lee, I do beg your pardon—I do indeed. A most unpardonable thing to say. But I always do say the wrong thing without meaning it. It used to vex my poor husband most dreadfully—he was such a tactful man himself. And it vexes George quite terribly, too. I remember my husband saying to him once——No, I've forgotten what he said. I've a shocking memory, and it doesn't really matter. But you will forgive me, won't you?”

Mally felt quite breathless. She said, “Oh yes, yes,” and fled with Barbara to the chintzy schoolroom, where they did highly amusing and unconventional lessons until it was time to go for a walk. The walk was amusing too, and no real governess would have approved of a single minute of it.

Instead of walking in the Park and combining fresh air and exercise with a lesson in deportment, they strayed down Bond Street, looking at the shops and playing the entrancing game of buying in make-believe all the things they liked best. By the time they had furnished a castle in the air with everything from Crown jewels to chocolates, they were both very hungry.

Barbara, rushing joyously upstairs, bumped into Sir George, coming down.

“Hallo!” he said, and then became aware of Mally just behind. He looked from Barbara to Mally, and back again to Barbara—a Barbara with pink cheeks and eager eyes. “You're in a great hurry.”

“We're so hungry.” Barbara was hopping on one leg.

“Well, that's new. What have you been doing to her, Miss Lee?”

Mally only laughed, but Barbara poured out a torrent of excited words.

“We've had lovely lessons and a lovely, lovely walk. And we're going to do it all over again tomorrow, or else something nicer. And she told me a story in bed. And she says she will every day if I'm good. And she isn't a bit like a governess. And oh,
please
may we go and have our lunch, because we're so
frightfully
hungry.”

The days went on very pleasantly. It is agreeable to be adored—and Barbara made no secret of her adoration. It is also agreeable to feel that one is pleasing one's employer and one's employer's sister. Mally told herself that she was in luck, and became daily in less of a hurry to marry Roger and settle down at Curston. She was like a child in her enjoyment of London. She and Barbara explored together, and ranged enthusiastically from Museums to the Zoo.

She had been installed for about a week, when Roger Mooring rang up. Mally, arriving breathless from the top of the house, was surprised to find a little glow of pleasure warming her. She said, “Roger!” and then, “How near you sound!”

“I
am
near—I'm in town.”

“For the day? What energy!”

“No, I'm up for some weeks settling up Aunt Catherine's affairs. I'm at her flat, which is just as she left it. You'd better take the address and the telephone number.”

“How do you know I want them?”

Roger took no notice of this impertinence. He said, quite eagerly for him, “I want you to come out and dine with me to-night. We'll go somewhere where we can dance.”

“Do governesses dance?” said Mally with a little gurgle. “I'm a governess now, you must remember—and my employer mightn't like it.”

Roger said something cross under his breath.

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘Ask him.'”

“No, you didn't. But I will. You'd better hold on.”

She ran down to the study and stood for a moment by the door, wondering whether Sir George would be alone. Then as she turned the handle she heard him say in a harsh voice, “I've not the slightest idea whether he meant anything or not,” and with that she came into the room and felt a sudden chill, a sudden constraint. The chill was in Sir George's voice, and the constraint in his manner as he asked:

“What is it, Miss Lee? Do you want anything?”

He was sitting at his table, and Mr. Craddock was standing beside him. Mally came to a standstill a yard from the door.

“I'm sorry—you're busy. I'll come some other time.”

“No, no. Let's have it now. What is it?”

She felt the strongest possible desire to get out of the room.

“It's only—Roger. He rang up. He wanted to know if I could dine with him to-night.”

Sir George laughed a little; but it seemed to Mally that the chill was still there—in the laugh, in Mr. Craddock's pose, in the way Sir George looked at her when he said, “Of course, of course—arrange it with my sister.”

“Thank you,” said Mally, and was gone. It was nice to have the door between her and the study. As she ran upstairs again, she remembered that Paul Craddock had never once raised his eyes or looked in her direction.

The telephone lived in its own telephone room, very nobly installed, with directories, reference books and tablets in profusion. Mally left the door open, and caught up the receiver.

“It's all right—he says I can. What time?”

“Eight o'clock at The Luxe.”

“Where's that?”

Roger restrained himself. He—he, Roger Mooring—was engaged to some one who had never heard of The Luxe! He said patiently:

“I'll come and call for you at a quarter to eight.”

Mally hung up the receiver and went to find Mrs. Craddock. When Roger was patient with her he roused all her worst passions. She thought of several things which she would have liked to say, and felt inordinately virtuous because she had not said them. She opened the door to Mrs. Craddock's sitting-room upon a sight so odd that she forgot Roger and his misdeeds.

Mrs. Craddock, on her hands and knees, seemed to be slowly prowling across the carpet, patting it as she went. Her knitting lay half under a chair, and three balls of fleecy wool trailed with her as she went, and became more inextricably entangled at every moment. She looked up vaguely at Mally and said:

“Oh, Miss Lee, have you—I mean—I suppose you haven't seen it anywhere—but it really must be somewhere, mustn't it?”

“What is it? Your knitting? It's under the chair.”

“Oh no, not my knitting. It's really very careless of me, indeed, because I certainly knew the pin was loose. But it must be somewhere.”

“Your wool?”

Mrs. Craddock sat back on her heels. She looked very flushed and unhappy.

“Oh
no,
not my
wool.
I thought I'd explained.”

“No, you didn't. Do let me help you up—you look so frightfully uncomfortable. What have you dropped? I'll look for it.”

Mrs. Craddock allowed herself to be assisted to a chair. When her knitting and her fluffy balls of wool had also been picked up, she said, “I thought I'd told you all about it. I must have dropped it last night, because I know I was wearing it on the front of my dress. But the catch must have come undone. And my brother is dreadfully vexed—quite, quite
angry,
in fact.”

“You haven't told me now what it is that you've lost,” said Mally.

“My
dear
Miss Lee! My grandfather's diamond of course. That is to say, the pendant was really my grandmother's. She was a Miss Warrender, and he met her in Grand Canary. But my grandfather had the diamond put in the centre instead of the ruby that was there before. He brought it—I mean the diamond—from the East Indies. And I believe it belonged to a great Mogul or some one else with one of those names that one really can't be expected to remember, though George
does
get annoyed with me about it.”

“Oh,” said Mally, as the poor lady stopped to take breath. “And is it the diamond you've dropped, or the whole pendant?”

“Well, it isn't exactly a pendant now, because my mother had it made into a brooch. And the pin has never really been very secure. And what with the diamond being so valuable, and my brother so put out——But then I keep on saying to myself it must be
somewhere.
Oh, my dear Miss Lee, it really must, mustn't it?”

“You dropped the whole thing?”

“Oh, yes, the whole thing.”

“And when did you miss it?”

“About half an hour ago. At least I didn't miss it, but my maid did. And she asked me if I'd taken it to be mended. And of course I
ought
to have. And if I
had,
it would have been safe—wouldn't it? Only I
keep
saying to myself that it
must
be somewhere.”

“Of course it must,” said Mally cheerfully.

But the hours passed, and still a most rigorous search failed to discover that somewhere.

CHAPTER VII

Roger Mooring was quite surprised to find how eagerly he was counting the minutes until Mally came. It was a matter of minutes now, because he was waiting amongst Sir George's cold statuary, with a taxi ticking by the curb outside.

When he was with Mally, he quarrelled with her most of the time, or rather she quarrelled with him; but when he was away from her, other people seemed dull and life went stodgily.

He stood amongst the statues and watched the staircase with quite an ardent gaze, yet his first glimpse of Mally brought a faint line of disapproval to his brow. He had made a pleasant picture of a Mally chastened by absence coming sedately down the shallow steps, with the modest light of welcome in her eyes, and perhaps—so far had fancy led this misguided young man—perhaps a slight, delightful blush upon her cheeks.

Actually, Mally whisked round the corner by Sir George's bust and took the remaining steps three at a time with a laughing, “Am I late? Have you been waiting? I don't want to lose a single instant.
Do
let's come along quick! We
are
going to dance, aren't we?”

The pleasant vision of Mally fled. Roger looked at the actual Mally, and for a moment wished that he had not suggested The Luxe. Mally's one evening dress, known familiarly as Old Black Joe, was certainly not up to Luxe standards; and Mally herself, with her short dark hair, cut by a country hairdresser, and her little pale face, had neither the beauty nor the distinction that can carry off an old frock.

The thought was hardly there before it was gone again. Mally's odd greenish, dancing eyes, with the eager something that was half laugh, half sparkle, met his; Mally's little nose wrinkled at him; and Roger ceased to be aware of anything but that she was Mally and that he had not seen her for a week.

Mally came home between one and two in the morning in a sort of delightful golden dream. She had never enjoyed herself so much in all her life before—never. The Luxe was like a fairy palace, and she herself exactly like Cinderella at the King's ball, except that the whole delightful dream went on in spite of the clock striking twelve. Such an amusing dinner. Such thrilling things to eat. And Roger to tell her that the fat, bald man at the corner table was the terrifically rich Mr. Marcus Aurelian, and that the lady in pearl ropes and a very little silver tissue was Mlle. Tanga Miranda, the world's most sinuous dancer. Then the dancing floor—you
couldn't
really have a floor like that except in a dream. And whatever Roger was or was not, he certainly could dance. Yes, the whole evening was like a dream. And wonderful beyond all other wonders, she and Roger had not quarrelled even once.

Mally passed the statues, all coldly awake and staring, and went up the stairs, leaving a sleepy-eyed young footman to the congenial task of putting out the lights. As she turned by Sir George's bust, she saw them vanish one by one, leaving her in semi-darkness, with all the light there was coming from above.

At the top of the stairs she stood for a moment looking along a rather dim corridor. The door of the telephone room was ajar. Light streamed out of it, and just as she was wondering who could be telephoning at this hour, Mr. Paul Craddock opened the door wide and stood there looking at her.

Mally was friends with all the world to-night. She beamed at Paul and said:

“How late you are! I'm so glad some one else is late besides me. I've had such a
frightfully
lovely time.”

He switched off the light and opened the door of the next room.

“Come in and have a sandwich and tell me about it. There ought to be coffee and sandwiches here.”

Mally hesitated. She knew very well that she ought to go to bed. If you are a governess you don't eat sandwiches with strange secretaries at two in the morning.

She sniffed the coffee and was lost. There was a lovely fire too, and the room had crimson curtains and looked so warm after the marble staircase. Before she could make a good resolution she was eating a sandwich and telling Paul Craddock about Tanga Miranda and her pearls.

Paul Craddock listened with an amusement which began to pass into interest. He had had a very dull evening, and he found Mally stimulating. He had asked her to share his sandwiches on an impulse born partly of boredom, and partly of something else.

“I must go,” said Mally, finishing her coffee. “I don't want to, but I must. I hate going to bed after a party—don't you? I would have liked this evening to go on, and on, and on, and on, and on.”