Patricia Wentworth - Danger Point

Lisle went past the hounds and their slavering jaws, and Actæon with his tortured face, and along the right-hand gallery to her bedroom. She felt a sudden urge to change, to brush her hair until it shone, to put on her prettiest dress. Something in Alicia’s smile made her feel like that. She threw off the rainbow coat, dropping it carelessly over a chair and liking herself better without it. The soft green of her linen dress was all right, but the greens and reds and yellows of the coat were too strong for her colouring. They gave her skin a washed-out look and made her hair seem pale instead of fair. She thought, “I was stupid to get it – I’ll give it away,” and as the words went through her mind she heard Dale call her name.

That meant he wasn’t angry any more. She forgot everything else and ran. But he wasn’t in his room next door. It opened upon the gallery. She ran out to lean upon the marble balustrade and look down into the hall. She couldn’t see Dale, but Rafe and Alicia stood there just below. Alicia’s voice came fluting up to her, high and sweet, with every word distinct.

“Pity Dale doesn’t teach her how to dress. That ghastly coat!”

She drew back startled, and hurt, and saw Dale coming along the gallery. He must have been on the stair, hidden from her by one of the marble groups.

He came up to her, frowning a little.

“Where have you been?”

“Down by the sea wall. Rafe brought me my coat.”

And then she wished she hadn’t spoken about the coat. She hated it now. She wouldn’t keep it an hour longer than she need. She must find someone to give it to – quickly, so that she could say quite lightly and casually in Alicia’s hearing,

“Oh, that coat of mine? I’ve given it away. A horrid thing. I can’t think why I got it.” Yes, that would be the right tone. That was the sort of thing Alicia said, and Alicia’s friends.

Dale was still frowning. He said,

“You’d better hurry up and dress. Alicia’s gone down.”

He was still angry. Her heart sank sorrowfully. She went into her room and shut the door.

FOR some little time now Lisle Jerningham had got into a way of reckoning days which a few months ago she would not have believed possible. It was a good day if Dale was pleased with her. It was not such a bad day if she only vexed him a little. It was a bad day if he talked about Tanfield and how there had always been Jerninghams there. It was a dreadful day when he laboured with her to persuade old Mr. Robson, who was her trustee, that some of her capital should be devoted to keeping Tanfield in the Jerningham family. At first all the days were good. Then, when she was silly and tactless enough to let him see that Tanfield chilled her to the bone, the good days became fewer and fewer, and the bad days more and more frequent. She had done all she could to please him – tried to hide what she felt about Tanfield – and sometimes everything cleared up and there were happy times again, just as there had been at first. The week before the visit to the Cranes had been a really happy time.

Lisle lay in bed and thought about what a happy time it had been, and tried not to think that the happiness had begun on the day she signed her new will in Mr. Robson’s office. And yet, why shouldn’t she think of it? She had done it to please Dale. Well then, why shouldn’t she be pleased? And she had no near relations, so what other sort of will could she make?

“Your father has left you the power of appointment, Mrs. Jerningham. Failing children, you can leave the whole estate to your husband. If there are children, you can leave him a life interest in half the estate. You can, of course, make any other dispositions you please. Have I made myself quite clear?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Robson.”

Dale had smiled at her over the old man’s head with a deep, warm look which was like sunshine to her heart. She heard herself say in a happy, spontaneous voice.

“Then that’s what I’d like to do – leave most of it to Dale.”

The happiness had lasted all through the week. Looking back into it was like looking into a sunny garden full of flowers. Even the fact that she had very nearly been drowned didn’t spoil it, because when she thought of that she could only feel Dale’s arms round her as she opened her eyes, and Dale’s voice choked with feeling saying her name over and over again:

“Lisle – Lisle – Lisle !”

The fears and doubts which had shocked her into talking to Miss Silver in the train had no longer any place. They had gone up like mist and vanished.

If only she hadn’t run away from the Cranes… Dale had come to look for her. He had kissed her as if he loved her. And then, as soon as he knew that she had run away, the happiness was gone. He hadn’t looked at her once all the evening. He had hardly spoken to her, though he had been gay and affectionate with Rafe and Alicia. And when they came upstairs he had given her the curtest of good-nights as he went into his dressing-room and shut the door.

She lay and looked out into the shadowy room. The bed was a great four-poster, heavily carved. At first sight it had reminded Lisle of a catafalque. She hated it, but when Dale was there and Dale was kind she forgot about that. It was when she was alone and unhappy that all the dark, heavy furniture seemed to belong, not to her, but to the dead Jerninghams who had been born and married and had died here before Lisle Van Decken was thought of. There were three tall windows on her left, two of them curtained and the third with the curtains drawn back. Dale’s door faced her, and the moonlight coming in through the uncurtained window laid a pale rectangle upon the floor. The light stretched to the very threshold of the door. If it opened, she would see it catch the light. But it wouldn’t open now. Dale wasn’t coming. He had said his curt good-night and left her.

She lay quite still and slowly, steadily, her mind darkened. The moonlight passed from the window and the room darkened too. Some time between midnight and one o’clock Lisle’s darkness slid into sleep.

In the next room Dale Jerningham woke up. He came straight from deep sleep into a state of listening alertness. It was his way to sleep from the time his head touched the pillow until seven o’clock. If he waked between these times, it was because something had waked him. He rose on his elbow, heard again what he must have heard already, and throwing back the bedclothes, went barefoot to the door between his room and Lisle’s. Frowning in the darkness, he threw the door open and stood there looking in. There was no light except what came from that one uncurtained window – a vague half light, for the moon had run into cloud. The bed, deeply shadowed, looked like a black island in a misty sea. Lisle’s voice came out of the shadow, crying his name in a pitifully shaken tone:

“Dale – Dale – it couldn’t be Dale-” He closed the door behind him and came to stand at the foot of the bed between the two black pillars. He could see her now, very dimly, lying high against heaped pillows. She said in a rapid murmur of sound,

“It’s no use your giving me your card because I shouldn’t want to use it. I don’t see how I could really – because of Dale – Dale wouldn’t like it. And it couldn’t be Dale. You do see that, don’t you? It couldn’t possibly be Dale. So I’ll just put your card in my bag – but it’s no good thinking I could do anything about it, because I couldn’t.” She flung out her hands in a groping gesture. “She said – lucky because Lydia died. That’s what she said – ‘a lucky accident for Dale’ – ” The voice went trembling into silence on his name. She fell back. He heard her gasp for breath. She drew herself up in the bed as if she were crouching there. “I nearly had an accident too. She said perhaps I’d have an – accident – like Lydia… It couldn’t be Dale-” She was going back to that rapid mutter. “Oh, no, no – it couldn’t be Dale.”