‘Then, if you like, while you are alone here I’ll come
and camp over the stable. There is a room, unused. Then
if at any time your imagination produced any fears you
could shout or blow a whistle and summon my imagination
to produce the explanation. I assure you the arrangement would not inconvenience me at all.’
‘It is extremely kind of you to suggest it,’ she said. ‘I do thank you; very much. But of course I’m not really frightened, and I have the dog; and the servants are not far away. I wouldn’t dream of putting you to such inconvenience—for it would be that, whatever you say.’
‘Very well; as you wish, my lady. There are times when it is a convenience for me to be on the spot, and I had marked that room for my purpose. So if you ever look out and see a light rather late, you’ll know.’
After that the time when it was convenient for Hadstock to sleep over the stables appeared to recur very frequently. Seldom, for the rest of that winter, during Richard’s absences did she look out and fail to find the faithful little light.
PART FOUR
Night
of a
Necromancer
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
During March of that year Linda received three letters from Richard, all urging her to spur on the workmen as he expected to find the alterations completed in April when he returned. The letters also contained detailed instructions for the placing of various articles of furniture —new carpets, mirrors and ornaments—which began to arrive at Clevely in almost daily consignments. The enclosure had gone as Richard had desired and his income would be larger in the coming year; also, as he wrote, in a moment of unusual expansion, his luck at cards since Christmas had been phenomenal. (He did not mention that shortly after his return to London he had again mentioned to Alec Mundford the matter of luck, and that Alec had said, ‘Well, as I said, I’m bored with it. I’ll lend it to you and see how you like it.’ He had bunched the tips of his tallowy fingers and thumb together and lightly touched the back of Richard’s left hand, using his left too. And that evening Richard’s luck had changed and had continued good.)
On the second day of April Linda received another letter. Richard wrote that his plans had changed; he and Alec were going on a short visit to France, to a place called Loudon. They would return in May and come direct to Clevely, bringing company with them: two gentlemen and five ladies. ‘Now that the house is habitable—or shortly to become so or there will be something to be said—we can begin to entertain a little, at least enough to leaven the lump of local company. These are a lively crowd—you, my dear, will probably think them too
lively; but, as you are well aware by this time, I do not insist upon you sharing my interests any more than I enquire too closely into yours I So long as you have an eye to the material comforts and needs of our guests you may abstain from their company if you so desire and gather your primroses and catkins in peace! I will advise you of the date of our arrival nearer the time….’
Linda read this letter with an emotion which it was not written to evoke—a deep relief. Save for the finishing touches the house was ready—that was a comforting thought; and so was the plain implication that when the ‘lively company’ arrived she would not be expected to participate in their activities.
Inevitably, as April passed, alternating days of warm sweet promise with others of biting wind, and Richard’s final letter arrived, and then May came and at last the day of the arrival dawned, Linda’s relief gave way to a mounting anxiety. It was the first time in all her life that she had been responsible for a houseful of guests; and she feared Richard’s censure if anything was unsatisfactory; she also became timid of the guests, especially the female ones. She knew Richard’s taste in female company; the pattern had been set long before her time by that Mrs Davison who had been the cause of one of the first quarrels between old Sir Charles and his son. Richard favoured married women—smart, sophisticated women who for some reason or another had fallen from or abandoned the strictest standards of ‘ladyhood’. They were usually past their first youth, not too financially secure, widows, or married to men who were merely shadowy figures in the background; but they were, invariably, what was called ‘well-bred’— and that meant that they would know and notice if in any detail the housekeeping and service at Clevely Manor should fall short of standard. Quite humbly Linda admitted to herself that life at the Didsborough Rectory, in Cousin Maud’s comfortable middle-class establishment and in the places where she had lived with Richard during their married life had not equipped her to make good showing as the hostess of a country house.
So on first sight she was relieved, and at the same time, being human, slightly annoyed, to find that all five ladies were extremely young and what the French called ‘women of the people’. All were very pretty, well-dressed, exquisite and even elegant in their equipment; but they were all of humble origin, and each pair of pretty, high-heeled feet was set on the bottom rung of the ladder which Angelina had scaled successfully. On the first evening, looking at all the lustrous young eyes, the slim young waists, the rounded young bosoms, the full, painted young lips, and listening to the voices, frankly rustic or painfully genteel, Linda thought to herself, with the inward honesty which was at once her curse and her salvation, Here we have the makings of a very superior brothel, and any minute now one of them is going to call me ‘Madam’ which will put me in my place!
That notion, followed to its conclusion, brought dismay. Was it right to be so compliant? Suppose Sir Evelyn Fennel turned up at Ockley with five such guests; what would Lady Fennel say, do? What ought Lady Shelmadine to do?
Lady Shelmadine sat there, weakly, feebly glad that her guests were not more intimidating. They seemed, indeed, to be in awe of her; and this attitude was encouraged— almost deliberately, it seemed—by the behaviour of the male guests towards their hostess. They treated her with the most elaborate civility, as Alec Mundford had always done, and as Richard was doing. Both the men were ‘gentlemen’; one old and rather shabby, with a cynical face and—it was revealed—a cruel, witty tongue; the other young and foppish, not unlike Mr Montague, who was, Linda was not surprised to learn, invited to make the tenth member of the party.
On the first evening, tired by travelling, everyone went to bed early. On the second, at about nine o’clock, Richard said, ‘We are going to play cards and shall be late. If you prefer to retire my dear, we will excuse you.’
‘If you propose to be late you will need some refreshments. Shall I order them?’
‘That would be as well. Have them brought here and tell the servants they can go to bed. We can wait upon ourselves.’
The extension of the front of the house had resulted in more bedrooms, but still, in order to accommodate properly the ladies whom she had imagined would be critical, Linda had remained in the room which she had used during the alterations; and to it, having ordered cold food and wine and brandy, she retired. Hadstock’s faithful little light still burned in the window above the stable. She had not seen him since Richard’s return and probably would not see him as long as the visit lasted. Looking at the light, she now wondered what explanation Hadstock had given for his change of sleeping place, or whether he had indeed given any; and also why he had not taken the opportunity to return to his cottage, the house now being full enough of company to reassure the most insanely nervous person.
And yet, to her, dismissed to bed like a child—for the outwardly considerate words which Richard had spoken were nothing less than dismissal from her own drawing-room—the little light was, obscurely, a comfort, a recognition of her identity; proof that she mattered to someone. Upon that thought she slept.
She was awakened by Simon, who was moving about and growling that same low, stifled growl which he had emitted so often outside the door of Mr Mundford’s room. She roused herself and listened. Quiet movements in the next room, muffled by the thickness of the old walls, reassured her. She did not trouble to make a light, but spoke softly to the dog.
‘Don’t be silly, Simon. Come here and lie down. It is only Mr Mundford going to bed.’