Nightfall Part 1

Nightfall.

by Anthony Pryde.

CHAPTER I

"Tea is ready, Bernard," said Laura Clowes, coming in from the garden.

It was five o'clock on a June afternoon, but the hall was so dark that she had to grope her way. Wanhope was a large, old-fas.h.i.+oned manor-house, a plain brick front unbroken except in the middle, where its corniced roof was carried down by steps to an immense gateway of weathered stone, carved with the escutcheon of the family and their Motto: FORTIS ET FIDELIS. Wistarias rambled over both sides, wreathing the stone window-frames in their grape-like cl.u.s.ters of lilac bloom, and flagstones running from end to end, shallow, and so worn that a delicate growth of stonecrop fringed them, shelved down to a lawn.

Indoors in the great hall it was dark because floor and staircase and wall and ceiling were all lined with Spanish chestnut-wood, while the windows were full of Flemish gla.s.s in purple and sepia and blue. There was nothing to reflect a glint of light except a collection of weapons of all ages which occupied the wall behind a bare stone hearth; suits of inlaid armour, coats of chainmail as flexible as silk, a.s.segais and blowpipes, Bornean parangs and Gurkha kukris, Abyssinian shotels with their double blades, Mexican knives in chert and chalcedony, damascened swords and automatic pistols, a Chinese bronze drum, a Persian mace of the date of Rustum, and an Austrian cavalry helmet marked with a bullet-hole and a stain.

Gradually, as her eyes grew used to the gloom Laura found her way to her husband's couch. She would have liked to kiss him, but dared not: the narrow mocking smile, habitual on his lips, showed no disposition to respond to advances. Dressed in an ordinary suit of Irish tweed, Bernard Clowes lay at full length in an easy att.i.tude, his hands in his pockets and his legs decently extended as Barry, his male nurse, had left them twenty minutes ago: a big, powerful man, well over six feet in height, permanently bronze and darkly handsome, his immense shoulders still held back so flat that his coat fitted without a wrinkle--but a cripple since the war.

Laura Clowes too was tall and slightly sunburnt, but thin for her height, and rather plain except for her sweet eyes, her silky brown hair, and--rarer gift!--the vague elegance which was a prerogative of Selincourt women. She rarely wore expensive clothes, her maid Catherine made most of her indoor dresses, and yet she could still hold her own, as in old days, among women who shopped in the Rue de la Paix. This afternoon, in her silk muslin of the same shade as the trail of wistaria tucked in where the frills crossed over her breast, she might have gone astray out of the seventeenth century.

"Tea is in the parlour," said Mrs. Clowes. "Shall I wheel you round through the garden? It's a lovely day and the roses are in their perfection, I counted eighty blooms on the old Frau Karl. I should like you to see her."

"I shouldn't. But you can drag me into the parlour if you like,"

said Bernard Clowes--a grudging concession: more often than not he ate his food in the hall. His wife pushed his couch, which ran on cycle wheels and so lightly that a child could propel it, into her sitting-room and as near as she dared to the French windows that opened without step or ledge on the terrace flagstones and the verdure of the lawn. Out of doors, for some obscure reason, he refused to go, though the garden was sweet with the scent of clover and the gold sunlight was screened by the milky branches of a great acacia. Still he was in the fresh air, and Laura hastily busied herself with her flowered Dresden teacups, pretending unconsciousness because if she had shown the slightest satisfaction he would probably have demanded to be taken back. Her mild duplicity was of course mere make believe: the two understood each other only too well: but it was wiser to keep a veil drawn in case Bernard Clowes should suddenly return to his senses. For this reason Laura always spoke as if his choice of a coffined life were only a day or two old. Had he said--as he might say at any moment--"Laura, I should like to go for a drive," Laura would have been able without inconsistency to reply, "Yes, dear: what time shall I order the car?" as though they had been driving together every evening of their married life.

"What have you been doing today?" Clowes asked, sipping his tea and looking out of the window. He had shut himself up in his bedroom with a headache and his wife had not seen him since the night before.

"This morning I motored into Amesbury to change the library books and to enquire after Canon Bodington. I saw Mrs. Bodington and Phoebe and George--,"

"Who's George?"

"Their son in the Navy, don't you remember? The Sapphire is in dry dock--"

"How old is he?"

"Nineteen," said Mrs. Clowes.

"Oh. Go on."

"I don't remember doing anything else except get some stamps at the post office. Stay, now I come to think of it, I met Mr.

Maturin, but I didn't speak to him. He only took off his hat to me, Bernard. He is seventy-four."

"Dull sort of morning you seem to have had," said Bernard Clowes.

"What did you do after lunch?"

"With a great want of intelligence, I strolled down to Wharton to see Yvonne, but she was out. They had all gone over to the big garden party at Temple Brading. I forgot about it--"

"Why weren't you asked?"

"I was asked but I didn't care to go. Now that I am no longer in my first youth these expensive crushes cease to amuse me."

Bernard gave an incredulous sniff but said nothing. "On my way home I looked in at the vicarage to settle the day for the school treat. Isabel has made Jack Bendish promise to help with the cricket, and she seems to be under the impression that Yvonne will join in the games. I can hardly believe that anything will induce Yvonne to play Nuts and May, but if it is to be done that energetic child will do it. No, I didn't see Val or Mr.

Stafford. Val was over at Red Springs and Mr. Stafford was preparing his sermon."

"Have you written any letters?"

"I wrote to father and sent him fifty pounds. It was out of my own allowance. He seems even harder up than usual. I'm afraid the latest system is not profitable."

"I should not think it would be, for Mr. Selincourt," replied Bernard Clowes politely. "Monte Carlo never does pay unless one's pretty sharp, and your father hasn't the brains of a flea. Was that the only letter you wrote?"

"Yes--will you have some more bread and b.u.t.ter?"

"And what letters did you get?" Clowes pursued his leisured catechism while he helped himself daintily to a fragile sandwich.

This was all part of the daily routine, and Laura, if she felt any resentment, had long since grown out of showing it.

"One from Lucian. He's in Paris--"

"With--?"

"No one, so far as I know," Laura replied, not affecting to misunderstand his jibe. Lucian Selincourt was her only brother and very dear to her, but there was no denying that his career had its seamy side. He was not, like her father, a family skeleton--he had never been warned off the Turf: but he was rarely solitary and never out of debt. "Poor Lucian, he's hard up too. I wish I could send him fifty pounds, but if I did he'd send it back."

"What other letters did you have?"

Mrs. Clowes had had a sheaf of unimportant notes, which she was made to describe in detail, her husband listening in his hard patience. When they were exhausted Laura went on in a hesitating voice, "And there was one more that I want to consult you about.

I know you'll say we can't have him, but I hardly liked to refuse on my own imitative, as he's your cousin, not mine. It was from Lawrence Hyde, offering to come here for a day or two."

"Lawrence Hyde? Why, I haven't seen or heard of him for years,"

Clowes raised his head with a gleam of interest. "I remember him well enough though. Good-looking chap, six foot two or three and as strong as a horse. Well-built chap, too. Women ran after him. I haven't seen him since we were in the trenches together."

"Yes, Bernard. Don't you recollect his going to see you in hospital?"

"So he did, by Jove! I'd forgotten that. He'd ten days' leave and he chucked one of them away to look me up. Not such a bad sort, old Lawrence."

"I liked him very much," said Laura quietly.

"Wants to come to us, does he? Why? Where does he write from?"

"Paris. It seems he ran across Lucian at Auteuil--"

"Let me see the letter."

Laura give it over. "Calls you Laura, does he?" Clowes read it aloud with a running commentary of his own. "H'm: pleasant relations.h.i.+p, cousins-in-law. . . 'Met Lucian . . . chat about old times'--is he a bird of Lucian's feather, I wonder? He wasn't keen on women in the old days, but people change a lot in ten years . . . 'Like to come and see us while he's in England . . . run over for the day'--bosh, he knows we should have to put him up for a couple of nights! . . . 'Sorry to hear such a bad account of Bernard'--Very kind of him, does he want a cheque? Hallo! 'Lucian says he is leading you a deuce of a life.' Upon my word!" He lowered the letter and burst out laughing--the first hearty laugh she had heard from him for many a long day. Laura, who had given him the letter in fear and trembling and only because she could not help herself, was exceedingly relieved and joined in merrily. But while she was laughing she had to wink a sudden moisture from her eyelashes: this glimpse of the natural self of the man she had married went to her heart. "Is it true?" he said, still with that friendly twinkle in his eyes. "Do I lead you the deuce of a life, poor old Laura?"

"I don't mind," said Laura, smiling back at him. She could have been more eloquent, but she dared not. Bernard's moods required delicate handling.

"He's a cool hand anyhow to write like that to a woman about her husband. But Lawrence always was a cool hand. I remember the turn-up we had in the Farringay woods when I was twelve and he was fourteen. He nearly murdered me. But I paid him out," said Bernard in a glow of pleasurable reminiscence. "He was too heavy for me. Old Andrew Hyde came and dragged him off. But I marked him: he was banished from his mother's drawingroom for a week--not that he minded that much . . . Aunt Helen was a pretty woman. Gertrude and I never could think why she married Uncle Andrew, but I believe they got on all right, though she was a big handsome woman--a Clowes all over--while old Andrew looked like any little scrub out of Houndsditch. Never can tell why people marry each other, can you?" Bernard was becoming philosophical. I suppose if you go to the bottom it's Nature that takes them by the scruff of the neck and gives them a gentle shove and says 'More babies, please.' She doesn't always bring it off though, witness you and me, my love.-- But I say, Laura, I like the way you handed over that letter! Thought it would do me good, didn't you? Look here, I can't have my character taken away behind my back! You tell him to come and judge for himself."

"You'll get very tired of him, Berns," said Laura doubtfully.

"You always say you get sick of people in twenty-four hours: and I can't take him entirely off your hands--you'll have to do your share of entertaining him. He's your cousin, not mine, and it'll be you he comes to see."

"I shan't see any more of him than I want to, my dear, on that you may depend," said Bernard with easy emphasis. "If he invites himself he'll have to put with what he can get. But I can stand a good deal of him. Regimental shop is always amusing, and Lawrence will know heaps of fellows I used to know, and tell me what's become of them all. Besides, I'm sick to death of the local gang and Lawrence will be a change. He's got more brains than Jack Bendish, and from the style of his letter he can't be so much like a curate as Val is." Val Stafford was agent for the Wanhope property. "Oh, by George!"