Patricia Wentworth - Ladies’ Bane

They drove right through the village past the church and what was obviously the parsonage, and turned in between grey stone pillars. There was a lodge, but the gates were open. The drive rose a little and came out upon a modest sweep. They had arrived.

Standing there ringing the bell, seeing her luggage off the car and paying the driver, Ione was too close to the house to get any real view of it. She had a general impression of grey walls and tangles of creepers. And then the door was opened by a man, and she came into a square hall with a single small light burning at the foot of a stair going up between dark panelled walls. The man was youngish. He had a sharp hatchet face and light eyes.

She had just got as far as this, when a door on the right of the hall was thrown open and a girl ran out. It was Geoffrey’s ward, Margot Trent. Ione knew her at once. She had been the unwanted bridesmaid at Allegra’s wedding-a lumpy girl in her middle teens with the misplaced sense of humour which runs to practical jokes. She had stuck a drawing-pin through Allegra’s train at the wedding, but had fortunately been detected in the act by one of the Miller twins. She was still plump and still hearty. She advanced upon Ione with a boisterous “Hullo!” and then just stood in the middle of the hall and shouted,

“Geoffrey-Allegra-she’s come!”

They emerged from the room out of which Margot had come, in that order.

Ione felt a quick unreasonable resentment. Everyone in that room must have heard the car drive up, but it was left for a servant to open the door. And after the servant Margot,-Geoffrey who had to be shouted for, and only at the long last of it Allegra.

What was the matter with Allegra that she couldn’t be the first to meet her sister? All the time she was shaking hands with Geoffrey and touching Allegra’s cold hand and colder cheek the question repeated itself-what was the matter with Allegra? She had always been a little creature, small and pale and slight, but now she looked as if any breath of wind might blow her away. The fair hair, thistledown-soft and light, was cut in a square bob to frame the little pointed face. Two years ago there had been a delicate, elusive charm, and the grey-blue eyes had had their moments of being really blue. Now there was a greyness over all the soft pastel tints. Ione told herself that it was the gloomy hall, the sparse lighting, and the stupidly bright lipstick which Allegra had applied to her pallid mouth. But when they came into the drawing-room the greyness was still there, like mould on a sickly plant.

Geoffrey Trent could not have been more charming. If Ione’s welcome had been momentarily delayed, it could hardly have been warmer now.

“We began to think that you were never coming to see us-weren’t we, Allegra? And she has wanted you so much. You know, we are planning to buy the house if the trustees will let us. It really is an opportunity not to be missed. It is the most delightful place. The dower house of the Falconers, you know. Another of our good old families come to an end. They trace their descent from Robert, Head Falconer to Edward III, who gave him these lands. Pity, isn’t it, but the last poor chap was killed in the war, and there’s no one left but an old spinster aunt. The big house was bombed during the war, and she can’t afford to live here, so she is willing to sell. It’s a case of one man’s misfortune being another’s opportunity, I’m afraid. But of course we should really be doing her a good turn, because she needs the money. Now don’t you call this a perfectly charming room? Put on all the lights, Margot, so that she can see it properly!”

The lights were in the ceiling and in two clusters of candles held by gilt sconces on either side of a white marble mantelpiece. As they all came on, the grey sky outside darkened and receded, and the room sprang into light and faint, delicate colour. A lovely room, with its brocaded curtains, its carpet in soft pastel shades, the loose covers upon its chairs and the deep comfortable couch taking up the dim hyacinth and rose and lilac of the curtains. A very charming room, and one which should have been just the right background for Allegra. And it wasn’t. Amidst all these lovely gradations of tone she was like a false note in a melody-off the note and out of key where she ought to have been in her own right place.

The impression deepened painfully as Ione listened to Geoffrey talking about the house, and about how much Allegra loved it. When he appealed to her she said, “Yes” or “No” in a little flat voice. When Ione spoke to her she answered her with dragging words. Of course she had never been a talker, and Geoffrey talked so much. Ione thought, “He is sinfully goodlooking.” It was Elizabeth Tremayne who had said that at the wedding. And a lot more too! “Darling, I wouldn’t marry him for anything in the world! It would be like having to live with the Crown Jewels! I mean, someone is simply bound to be trying to snatch him all the time!”

She pushed Elizabeth away with resentment. What a thing to remember! And Fenella had quoted it too-Anyhow it wasn’t any good Geoffrey thinking he could get round her by turning on the charm-not while Allegra looked like a little disintegrating ghost.

Margot came bouncing into the room with a plate of hot scones in her hand.

“Cheer up!” she said with her mouth full. “Tea’s coming! And you’d better start on the scones while they’re hot. There’s real butter in them-I saw Mrs. Flaxman put it in. And here’s Fred with the tea!”

Geoffrey Trent turned a little, put his hand on a plump shoulder, and said in a low but quite audible voice,

“I really should prefer you to call him Flaxman.”

She broke into one of her noisy laughs.

“How snob you are, Geoff! And it’s no use-I’m just not made that way!” She thrust her plate of scones at Allegra. “Have one-they’re scrumptious!”

Geoffrey turned back to Ione with a very creditable smile.

“She’ll grow up some day,” he said indulgently. “It’s a pity she looks older than she really is.”

“She was about fifteen at the time of the wedding, wasn’t she?”

“Not so much. She is not seventeen yet.”

Flaxman had come into the room and was setting down the tray which, with the handsome tea-service it supported, had been Cousin Eleanor’s present to Allegra. Ione thought she had never seen silver better kept. The rather aloof-looking butler obviously knew his job. She reflected that Allegra was lucky. The word dropped out of her mind like a stone falling through water.

Allegra was pouring out. When she lifted the teapot her hand shook under the weight of it and the tea splashed over on to the tray-even the milk-jug wavered. Ione came forward to take her cup and turned with it to see Jacqueline Delauny come into the room. She knew of course that they had a governess for Margot-just that, and the name, which sounded French. But Geoffrey was introducing her as Miss Delauny, and when she spoke her accent was as English as his. She did not quite know why, but she received a shock. She had, perhaps, expected someone older, but Miss Delauny was not so very young. Her voice when she spoke was deep, the words quiet and measured-nothing in fact to give Ione this feeling of having run into something quite unexpected.

She had black smooth hair breaking into a wave or two over the small, finely proportioned ears. Dark eyes with just the suspicion of a slant-or was it only the eyebrows that slanted? A mobile face without any natural advantages of feature or colouring, but all very ably assisted-the skin creamed and powdered to a magnolia pallor, the wide mouth rendered decorative by a shade of lipstick which was new to Ione. For the rest, a plain dark skirt and jumper.