The Charmers (25 page)

“Not
going
, Miss Lennox?” actually cried out Christine, who was lingering in the hall in case of late arrivals, “Why, you’ve only just come!”

“Oh yes … I simply must … it’s a lovely party but I’ve got a date … ‘for sheer delight!’”

Laughing, she ran down the steps, and Christine stood at the door, smiling sympathetically as she watched her hail a cruising taxi and scramble into it and be borne away.

Really, she looked so nice it was a pleasure to see her. What a pity she didn’t always take the trouble, thought Christine, with some complacency smoothing the jacket of her polished cotton burgeoning with its orange and purple flowers.

A moment later, Antonia Marriott came into the hall.

Her movements were never truly hurried, but she came towards Christine in such agitation that her dress, of black chiffon that in its clinging lines and wraith-like drifting panels was almost a parody of current modishness, seemed to swirl about her like smoke from some miniature explosion: the loops of ash-blonde hair drooping from her lovely head seemed about to cascade down in disorder.

“Oh … Christine … what … did you see anyone go out just now—just this minute?”

“Only Miss Lennox. She just went off, by taxi. Said she had a date. I was surprised; she’d only just …”

“No—no—a man …”

“Nobody went out except her, Miss Marriott.” Christine was already imagining burglary, an inclusive haul of all those fur coats, for Antonia’s manner was agitated enough to suggest headlines in next morning’s papers.

They stood looking at one another. Miss Marriott’s heartbeats were shaking the chiffon covering her breast; Christine could see it trembling, and suddenly she glanced wildly up the staircase to the landing, where under Mrs. Traill’s instructions the electric light had been replaced by a solitary tall candle burning in an old pottery sconce on her little brass-rimmed
table
, in front of an open window where the moon was shining through.

“Did you hear anyone singing? she demanded. “A … a man’s voice?”

Christine shook her head. Irritation began to replace alarm.

“I never heard anything, Miss Marriott, and there was only Miss Lennox … I told you. I’m sure I should have seen anyone go out. I haven’t left the hall this evening except just to see his lordship—” Christine, not having had occasion to use these words before in their proper context brought them out with satisfaction, though they did remind her of the unsatisfactory Smith nephew always thus referred to—“down the steps, and I was ever so careful to shut the door after anyone came in … has anything been missed, then?”

Antonia laughed hysterically.

“Of course not. It …” she hesitated, and went on with more her usual manner, “it isn’t that kind of thing at all … Has anyone been up in the Long Room, do you know?”

They were both looking up the staircase now, at the stilly-burning flame of the candle, blue and yellow as the ancient glass in some cathedral window, and the motionless folds of the curtain behind it, and the whitening moon floating out there in the remote sky. It all looked so peaceful. Christine’s heart grew calmer as she watched it. She shook her head.

“I don’t think so, Miss Marriott.” Her eyes were fixed—kindly now—on Miss Marriott’s white face. “I should have seen them, if they had …”

“Will you come up there with me?” Antonia said suddenly; in a pleading tone like a child’s, “I … I just want to look at something … it won’t take a minute …”

“Of course!” Christine Smith said sturdily. “It’s always best to have a look … and there’s plenty of men in the garden.” Recollecting the years of most of the guests, she added, “Those waiters, too … shall I just nip out and ask two of them to come along with us?”

“Oh, no … no …” Antonia was already poised on the stairs. Christine glanced towards the corner where Clive and James kept the sticks they took with them on their walks, but,
in
response to a distracted shake of Antonia’s head, gave up any idea of arms, and silently followed. Miss Marriott suddenly turned and smiled tremulously at her and said, “Don’t be frightened, Christine, there’s nothing to be frightened of, really … You’re sure you’re all right?”

Christine could only smile and shake her head.
She
was all right; she was more concerned about Miss Marriott than anything that might be in the Long Room. Only, as she opened its door, she did for a second wish that one of those waiters, the stout one with the thick neck, was standing behind her. Surprised, she felt chilly fingers steal into her own; Antonia was holding her hand.

The room was empty, of course. It was lit by candles, like all the house that evening, and it looked peaceful and charming and not even lonely, and of course it was empty. It looked just as it had two hours ago, when Christine had shut its door, with the satisfactory thought that if was quite ready for company.

Yet something was different; just a little different. They stood, Christine slightly in advance of Antonia with the latter peering over her shoulder, and Christine, her senses made more perceptive, perhaps, by her months in Pemberton Hall did feel that something was different …

“The piano …” Antonia said in a low voice. Christine could feel her fingers trembling, as she pointed with the other hand. “Didn’t you leave it shut?”

“Oh, no, Miss Marriott.” Christine glanced at her over her shoulder in a little mild surprise. “I did want to. I thought it looked tidier, but Mrs. Traill said to leave it open, and she put out some music in case anyone should want to play.”

Antonia dropped her hand and went slowly, draggingly, across to the piano and began to turn over the music stacked there. Christine stood by the door, watching. The room had felt different, she decided, because there was a feeling someone had just been there … a second before they came in. But how could you tell? The other feeling had gone before you had time to make up your mind that it was really there.

“It’s here.” Antonia looked across at her and spoke in the same rather low voice.

“The song … he … was singing. ‘A Feast of Lanterns’. It was one of … I thought I heard it … perhaps I imagined the whole thing … I don’t know.” She turned away from the scattered music, “Let’s go back, shall we? And I could use a drink … couldn’t you?”

“I would like some of that cup, Miss Marriott. I made it, so I know it’s good.” Christine laughed as she shut the door.

“Well, let’s …” Miss Marriott put her hands up to her hair. “Mercy, what’s happening … I must look an utter mess, I’ll go and fix myself … I’m sorry about all this, Christine. I must have been dreaming … Oh, I
wish …
Mr. Lennox were here …” She drifted away, towards her own flat.

Christine marched down to the hall. The thought of that cup had suddenly become more attractive. Miss Marriott ought to get a good tonic; it must be all the worry at that place that had upset her nerves—and even now, when all the fuss seemed to be over, Christine had not a real clue as to what it had been about. Some man singing a song in the Long Room …?

She turned back, prompted by some instinct which she did not think about, for a last look at the landing. The candle burned on, the far moon sailed, the curtains hung straight and full. Suddenly, the one on the left floated straight out, hung there a second revealing the empty sill behind it, and subsided again just as if a hand had given it a quick, impudent flick. Funny, thought Christine, smiling; you had to smile, it was only a breeze but it was just as if someone was teasing …
can’t catch me … had you that time
… but all in good nature, as it were. Well, we couldn’t have had better weather for our party, could we?

Silly of me, just as if I was asking someone, she thought; I suppose I’d better go and find that cup.

SOMETIME IN THE
small hours, Clive Lennox’s little car drove into the Square and stopped outside the iron gates. Hell, he thought, glancing at the lighted windows, they’re still at it—though he had expected them to be. He locked the car and pushed open the gates and went, rather slowly, up the steps.

The door opened before he could put in his key.

“Darling …” Antonia said agitatedly, standing there alone, and almost on tiptoe in her smoky draperies … “Thank God you’re here …”

“Something wrong?” with a tired smile.

“Not wrong, really, but … Oh, Clive … I heard Maurice singing.”

“
Maurice
?”

“Well, a voice so like his I could have sworn … in the Long Room … and it … he … was singing … Oh, darling … he was singing ‘A Feast of Lanterns’.”

He took her by the elbow and steered her down the passage.

“Let’s get a drink … then you can tell me
all
about it.”

The ‘all’ held the note he would have used to a child, but when they were almost at the door of the room overlooking the garden, in which most of what was left of the party had collected, he burst out, “My God, Antonia, you are extraordinary … don’t you want to know how it went?”

“Of
course
, darling,” looking back at him contritely over her shoulder, “how awful of me … only I’ve been in such a state … how did it go?”

“Oh, like a bomb … ten curtain-calls … I got four and some of them were still shouting for me when they brought Max out in front … I think we’ve got a smash hit … and I had an encore …”

“Fab, darling,” she said with her Christmas-card angel’s smile.

“Darling! Well, how did it go?” Mrs. Traill disengaged herself from four men to totter up to her old friend and peer into his face.

“Oh, marvellously …
I
got an encore … bless you …” he ended suddenly, stooping to kiss her.

Mrs. Traill was always ready to be kissed and she returned his with warmth. People came up, questioning and eager; James Meredith clapped him on the back with the hand that wasn’t holding the bottle he had been carrying around since midnight, repairing oversights on the part of the drowsy waiters; Diana Meredith started a small burst of clapping; and Clive’s spirits, which had dropped on the homeward drive because he was in his sixth decade, began to climb up like a column of mercury.

“Now you’re here—” said someone, “couldn’t we go to that Long Room—”

“Clive, won’t you sing for us?”

“Oh, yes, do.”

“Sing the thing you had to encore … what is it? …”

“‘Me and My Ego’…”

“Yes … yes … ‘Me and My Ego’ …”

“No, no,” Antonia called lightly, taking him by the fingers, “we’re going to sit in the garden. He doesn’t want to sing any more, do you, sweetie-pie, and he must be starving”—

“Starving! Don’t anyone mention food for days—he gave us a party at the ‘Yellow Bird’. But drink is another story …”

‘He’ must be Mr. Noël Coward, Christine thought, watching the pair—so tall, so romantic—going down the iron steps. She was very pleased that the first night had been a success. Dear Mr. Lennox, thought Christine.

“‘Me and My Ego’ … is that one of Noel’s?”

“I don’t think so …” The voices began to fade into the distance.

Antonia led Clive to a table beside a syringa bush in flower, where a solitary candle burned. While he went to find them
some
drink, she sat upright on the edge of her chair, staring straight ahead, with hands tightly clasped, and when he came back with a bottle of champagne she impatiently waved away him and his glass and his question as she burst out—

“Oh, do let me tell you … I’m dying to …” and began at once on the story.

Clive sat listening. He was very tired; his throat was taut; his eyes were stinging; he felt as if the sixty-year-old machine that housed him were rattling like a vintage car at the end of the run to Brighton; and the story was just absurd enough—told in Antonia’s little-girl voice with her enormous eyes silly with wonder—to irritate him; there was pain, too; of several kinds.

“Nonsense,” he said flatly, when she had finished.

“I had a feeling you’d say that. I do know it
sounds
like nonsense … Open that, will you?” indicating the neglected bottle.

“I don’t know what to say, Antonia. I’m damned tired and … I don’t know what to say.” He untwisted the last wire and began cautiously to ease out the cork.

“Well you might
say something
… I’ve been so longing to tell you … I was … oh, thrilled and scared and so excited, and I thought Clive’s the person to share this with … You were so fond of him … You were such friends.”

“Can’t you see …” he paused while he deftly steered the wine into their glasses “… it’s just because of that that I can’t take it quite as you do … You see, darling, I can’t feel certain you heard anything at all. Did you ask anyone else if they’d heard it?”

She shook her head. “I thought if I did it would start silly rumours—you know people love that sort of thing—and most of the people here didn’t know Maurice well, it would just have been a kind of stunt …”

“But Fabia—or Diana or James? Didn’t you ask any of them?”

“Fabia’s been so high all the evening I thought she’d start telling everyone—and I couldn’t get at Diana. She and James have been stuck in that shed showing people her wretched pots and twizzling that wheel round … I did ask Christine …”