Fear by Night: A Golden Age Mystery Page 3

  “Do you want one?”

  “Darling Charles! Do I? As a matter of fa I hope I’m getting one this afternoon. Someone sent me a paper with a marked advertisement.”

  “Who did?”

  “I don’t know. Mary Duquesne, I expect. She’s just gone off to India.”

  “What’s the job?”

  “Secretary to an old lady, I should think—Westley Gardens. I’m going to be interviewed this afternoon. But in case it falls through, if you have got an aunt up your sleeve—”

  Charles frowned a little.

  “Must it be an aunt?”

  Ann put three lumps of sugar into her coffee.

  “A cousin would do. I’m sure all your relations are fearfully respectable.”

  He frowned a little more. It is all right to have respectable relations, but they do not make a good starting-point for a proposal. Quite definitely a respectable cousin lacks romance. He stirred his coffee with ferocious energy. The idea of Ann as a companion or a secretary filled him with wrath. And then he looked up and met her smile. It began in her eyes with a half sleepy gleam of mischief and then just lifted the corners of a very attractive mouth. His anger vanished. He leaned his elbows on the table.

  “If you really want a job—”

  “And I really do,” said Ann.

  “I think I know of one—but I don’t know if you’d like it or take it on.”

  Ann sighed.

  “Oh well—one’s got to live.”

  “You mightn’t like it.”

  “I’d like to be an Idle Rich, but as I can’t—what’s your job?”

  “Me,” said Charles.

  Ann felt as if someone had hit her. How mean! The traitor in her mind bobbed up and said “Hooray!”

  “You!” said Ann.

  “Won’t you?” said Charles, and at the change in his voice something happened to Ann’s heart. It was something very unexpected and disconcerting. There was a throbbing and a softness, and a feeling as if she might burst suddenly into tears. It was most frightfully disconcerting. Fortunately the feeling only lasted for a moment. She said,

  “Charles darling, that doesn’t sound at all respectable. I think it had much better be a cousin or an aunt.”

  Charles blazed into a dark fury.

  “What do you suppose I’m asking you?”

  Ann put her elbows on the table too. Her face, with its teasing eyes and the lips which were not quite as steady as they might have been, was only a few inches away.

  “Is that a proposal?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Charles, how nice of you!”

  “You will?”

  “Oh no, darling. It’s terribly nice of you all the same.”

  “Ann!”

  Ann drew back.

  “Oh no.” She spoke a little too quickly, and Charles leaned nearer.

  “Why?”

  “No experience,” said Ann, and the mischief looked out of her eyes again. “It’s the very first thing they always ask: ‘What experience have you?’ And if you haven’t any, you either don’t get the job, or else they take away the number they first thought of, and offer you about five shillings a week to do about twice as much as the last person did.”

  “It’ll run to more than five shillings,” said Charles. “If Bewley sells, we should be quite well off. There’s a worthy and wealthy boot-manufacturer after it.”

  The “we” hit Ann hard. She turned rather pale and her mood changed. She said seriously,

  “Charles, how long have you known me? Two months—three? And what do you know about me? You met me in June with the Duquesnes at Ciro’s. Mary introduced us—you’d only met her twice before. Since then we’ve danced, gone on the river, bathed, and danced again. What do you know about me really?”

  “What does one know about anyone?” said Charles. “I love you. I’m asking you to marry me, and we’ll have the rest of our lives to get to know each other really well.”

  “Aren’t you rather rash?”

  Charles smiled.

  “I know you rather well already, but I’m quite willing to know you better.”

  “What do you know, Charles?”

  “You’re proud, practical, generous, idealistic—a bit of a flirt, a bit of a tease, a bit of a mystery, and—” He hesitated.

  “What?”

  “I don’t think I’ll say.”

  “Yes, you must.”

  “You’ve been—disenchanted.”

  Ann nodded. She dropped one hand in her lap and leaned her chin in the other.

  “That’s clever of you! I suppose it’s true. I’ll tell you about it if you like. Then you’ll be able to see why it wouldn’t do for us to marry.”

  “I don’t want to hear,” said Charles quickly.

  Ann laughed under her breath.

  “Darling Charles—how chivalrous! But I haven’t got a lurid past. I’m respectable through and through. I’d like you to listen if it won’t bore you dreadfully.”

  “It won’t bore me,” said Charles.

  “I’ll make it nice and short,” said Ann in her most reassuring voice. “Tabloid tales. Number one.… No, I can’t joke about it, because it’s not my tragedy—it’s my father’s and mother’s. He was an American engineer, and he ran away with my mother. I don’t think he had any near relations. She had an uncle who never forgave her. They took a cottage in the country, and he went up and down to his job. They were frightfully happy for a year, and then he was killed in a street accident. I was a month old. My mother wrote once to her uncle, but he never answered the letter, and she wouldn’t write again. I believe he was rich. She never spoke about him. His name is Elias Paulett. I don’t know if he’s still alive.”

  “I know someone called Paulett,” said Charles—“a girl, Hilda Paulett.”

  “Perhaps she’s a relation. Do you know, I haven’t got a single relation in the world that I know about except the wicked uncle, and he’s probably dead. Is this Hilda person nice?”

  Charles said, “So so. She stays near Bewley with people I bar.”

  “I don’t really want to know any of my relations,” said Ann. “If any of them had been human, they’d have helped my mother.”

  “What did she do?” said Charles

  Ann’s colour rose.

  “She worked—” There was a pause, and then she added, “very hard—charing—anything she could get. When I was about five, she was doing regular daily work at the big house of the village. Mary Duquesne’s people lived there. They let her bring me too. I played in the nursery with Mary. Sometimes my mother was there sewing—she sewed beautifully. Then Mary had a governess, and I shared her lessons. Mary was delicate. I was supposed to be good for her. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was a prescription—like some thing in a bottle, to be taken daily, but take care it doesn’t become a habit.” She gave a little laugh. “Darling Charles, don’t frown like that.”

  “It sounds damnable!” said Charles.

  “Not a bit. Everyone was kind, and I was very happy. I loved Mary, and I didn’t know that my mother was working herself to death. She died when I was fifteen, and Mary’s mother took me up to live at the Hall. Mary had a finishing governess, so I had a really expensive education. Everything went on all right until Mary came out. Then there was a crash, because a man who had been asked down for her went off the deep end about me. I was such an ass that I thought he wanted to marry me. He didn’t of course.”

  Charles said something under his breath.

  “Thank you,” said Ann. She was smiling. “That’s when I learned what it meant not to have a background. You see, there wasn’t really anything to choose between Mary and me. We’d done exactly the same things since we were five years old. A stranger wouldn’t have known which of us was the daughter of the house and which—the prescription.”

  “Ann, do stop!” said Charles.

  She nodded.

  “I’m nearly done. Mary went to town for the season. Her m
other got me the job of secretary to Mrs. Twisledon—Helena Forbes Twisledon. She was some sort of connection of theirs.”

  “Did you like it?”

  Ann made a face.

  “She was the most appallingly efficient person, not really human. You know, everything on a system. It was awfully good training, but a bit grim. I was with her four years. Then she died quite suddenly, and I had three rotten jobs one after another—a woman who drugged, an old horror who expected me to maid her, and a man who suggested week-ends at Brighton. I met Mary again in June. She’d just married Sir Henry Duquesne. They were quite nice to me. I was out of a job, and they took me about a bit. That’s how I met you. Now we’re up to date, and you know why I won’t marry you.”

  “Do I?”

  “You ought to.” Ann took her elbow off the table and sat back. When Charles looked at her like that, it was very difficult to go on being cool and detached.

  “If you wouldn’t mind explaining—”

  “I thought I had.”

  “Well, I’ve not got it.”

  Ann sighed.

  “You’re not trying,” she said. Then, leaning forward again, “Charles, don’t you see? I haven’t got a single one of the things which your wife ought to have—background—standing—family—money. What’s the first thing all your aunts and cousins will ask? Who are her people?”

  “Ann!”

  She gave a little angry laugh.

  “It’s true! And if I was fool enough to marry you, I should never be allowed to forget that I didn’t belong. There’s only one thing that would make them open their arms to me, and that’s money. If I was a simply tremendous heiress, I don’t suppose they’d bother about my father and mother, especially as they’re dead.” Her colour had risen and her eyes were a dark angry blue, but her voice was cool and sweet. She looked away from Charles to the clock on the other side of the room and pushed back her chair. “I must rush,” she said.

  Charles said nothing. He paid the bill and walked silently beside her to within a couple of yards of the swing-door which led into the street. Then he said,

  “Just a moment if you don’t mind. When am I going to see you again?”

  “Next year—sometime—never—”

  “Will you dine with me to-night?”

  She shook her head.

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t think why you want me to”

  Charles looked at her.

  “I haven’t nearly finished proposing to you.”

  Ann felt happier. She loved the cut and thrust of a clash like this.

  “Haven’t you? But I’ve quite finished refusing you.”

  “I don’t feel refused,” said Charles.

  “I’ll put it in writing, if you like.”

  Charles shook his head.

  “I might hold you to it, and then you’d be sorry. Eight o’clock here? Or would you like to do a show, in which case—”

  Ann panicked. In half a minute she would say yes, and if she said yes, she was lost. She felt it in her bones. She said,

  “I can’t. Charles, I shall be late for my appointment.”

  “I’m driving you there—it’s much too hot to walk. We can talk as we go along.”

  In the taxi he returned to the charge.

  “Why can’t you dine with me to-night? Is it because you’re afraid?”

  Ann flushed brightly. She opened her mouth to speak and then shut it again.

  “Yes?” said Charles.

  “No,” said Ann.

  Charles sighed heavily.

  “I suppose you’re trying to make me lose my temper. I’m not going to—it’s too hot. Why won’t you dine with me?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Well, I rather hoped I’d made that clear.”

  Ann sat well back into the corner of the taxi.

  “I haven’t got an evening dress.”

  “Why haven’t you?”

  “Pawned,” said Ann.

  There was a short electric silence, and then Charles’ hand came down hard on her wrist.

  “Why?”

  Ann tingled, but she kept her voice cool.

  “Well, I’m out of a job—I’ve been out of one since June. Of course I ought to have saved whilst I was with Mrs. Twisledon, but I didn’t. Charles, you’re breaking my wrist!”

  “No, I don’t think so. Ann, call this damned appointment off and come somewhere where we can have the whole thing out.”

  “It’s not a damned appointment. It’s a lifebuoy in a howling storm. You’ve no idea how difficult it is to get a job.”

  His hand tightened on her wrist.

  “Haven’t I offered you one? Look here, Ann, there’s only one good reason for refusing it, and that is that you hate the sight of me and never want to see me again.”

  “Perhaps I do.”

  “Oh no, you don’t.”

  “You can’t marry everyone you don’t hate.”

  “You can marry me,” said Charles.

  Ann sat up, suddenly white and hard.

  “Please let go,” she said, and as Charles’ grip relaxed, she took her hand away and laid it in her lap.

  Charles said, “Ann—”

  And Ann said, speaking low but very distinctly, “It’s no, Charles, and it will always be no.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The taxi stopped. Ann jerked at the handle and jumped out. She had run up three steps to a small pillared porch and was ringing the bell, when she heard the taxi start again and Charles come up behind her. She looked over her shoulder and smiled. She could afford to smile now that the door might open at any moment.

  “Ann, will you ring me up? I suppose you won’t let me wait for you?”

  “No, you mustn’t wait. I’ll ring you. Please Charles.”

  “Ann, don’t take this job. There’s no need. Wait!”

  A curious little jag of anger ripped through Ann’s self-control. She said,

  “Wait? I’ve been living on dry bread since Saturday.”

  And with that the door opened.

  Chapter Four

  A tall young footman preceded Ann up a thickly carpeted stair. He wore a chocolate-coloured livery with brass buttons. The carpet was of that bright shade of crimson preferred by hotels. The house was quite extraordinarily like an hotel—a sort of sublimated commercial hotel.

  At the turn of the stair a mirror with a gilt border about half a yard wide reflected the footman’s splendour and Ann’s shabbiness. There was something about the chocolate and gold which made her look and feel most terribly shabby. There was a good deal of gold everywhere. The wall-paper had an immense gold pattern. It was improbable that the design was intended to represent golden cauliflowers trained up a crimson trellis, but it certainly conveyed this impression. On either side of the drawing-room door stood a shiny palm on a bright blue china pedestal.

  The footman opened the door and announced, “Miss Vernon.”

  Ann came into the most dreadful room she had ever seen in her life. There was a great deal more crimson carpet, and a great deal more gilding. There were seven aspidistras, each in a brightly-coloured china pot. One of the pots was blue, and two were pink, and two were yellow, and two were green. There was a drawing-room suite very tightly upholstered in old-gold satin. There were at least five mirrors, and there were Nottingham lace curtains. The fireplace held a billowy mass of gilt shavings and a gilded firescreen.

  From one of the old-gold chairs there arose a stoutish man of middle age with sandy hair that was beginning to turn grey. He advanced within a yard of Ann and made her a formal bow.

  “Miss Vernon?”

  “I came to see Mrs. Halliday,” said Ann. “I wrote about this advertisement.” She had the cutting in her hand and held it out.

  The man nodded.

  “Yes, yes—and you received an answer signed J. Halliday. I am James Halliday.”

  Ann felt the oddest sensation. Just for the fraction of a second it see
med to her that all this had happened before. There was a strange familiar unreality about the whole thing. It had happened before, or it had never really happened at all.…

  Then in a flash all that was gone, and she was saying,

  “But I came to see Mrs. Halliday.”

  “Quite so,” said the man. “Mrs. Halliday, as you say—my mother. Now won’t you sit down, Miss Vernon?”

  Ann sat down on one of the gilded chairs. It was even more unyielding than it looked.

  Mr. Halliday resumed his own seat. He put a hand on either knee and bent a business-like gaze upon her.

  “What Mrs. Halliday wants is a companion—and when I say a companion, that’s just exactly what I mean. She’s got her maid who looks after her—gets her up and puts her to bed and all that kind of thing—and if she should be ill, which I hope she won’t, there’d be no expense spared. But what she wants is a companion, someone that will keep her bright, and make a bit of a fuss of her, and listen to her when she wants to talk, and let her be when she doesn’t want to be bothered.” He ran his hands suddenly through his hair and rumpled it. “I don’t know if you take me?”

  “Oh yes, I think so,” said Ann.

  Mr. James Halliday smoothed his ruffled hair.

  “You wouldn’t believe the trouble it is to get her suited. She likes them bright, but she don’t like them uppish.”

  “I’d do my best to please her,” said Ann.

  “Well, there it is,” said Mr. Halliday. “You see, it’s this way—she’s an old lady and she likes her own way. I suppose most of us do, but she’s come to a time of life when she expects to get it, and if she doesn’t get it there’s trouble. I don’t grudge a good salary to anyone who’ll make her happy. There, you’ve got it in a nutshell, Miss Vernon. That’s your job—to make Mrs. Halliday happy. When could you come?”

  Ann was a little taken aback.

  “I could come any time—I’m free now.”

  “Ah!” said Mr. Halliday. “That’s right! Now, I’ve been on to that reference you gave—that Lady Gillingham who said you’d been brought up with her daughter—and I don’t mind saying she spoke very highly of you. Let’s get this clear. You say you’re free. Does that mean you’d be free to come today?”