Authors: Kathryn Blair
CHAPTER EIGHT
TONY flipped shut his notebook and dropped it into his jacket pocket. .
“Thanks, Lindsey, you’ve been a wonderful help. As women’s clothes take less and less material they become more and more difficult to describe. If you like, as soon as your call comes through I’ll take you home.”
Lindsey nodded. From her
corner
of the reception room she gazed upon the dancing crowd frin
ge
d by gossiping groups. Suddenly she laughed.
“Tony, have you ever seen the homely leek in a cosmopolitan salad? There are two over there, and how glad I am to see them. Mind if I join them?”
“Not a scrap. I have to take my photographs, anyway.”
As Lindsey approached the divan upon which, like a couple marooned on a rock, sat Ivor and Gwen Roberts
. T
he Welsh couple made gratified noises, and Gwen shifted to make room.
“Lindsey! The very last person I expected to meet in this madhouse. Isn’t it appalling? What I go through for the sake of Ivor’s career!”
Lindsey explained her presence. “Tony tells me that these parties don’t really warm up till after
mi
d
nigh
t
and I’m hoping to be in my bed by then.”
“Why shouldn’t we leave soon?” suggested Ivor, his gloom lifting. “I’ve made my bow to Baumann and flattered his other half. I have to go out of town ea
r
ly tomorrow morning.”
“I shall be in the same boat as you, Lindsey,” groaned Gwen. “Ivor’s staying in Graaff Reinet tomorrow night.” She brightened. “Would your mother-in-law object if you came to our house till Thursday? We’d have a lovely time together mourning our absent husbands.”
For a minute or two Lindsey could not answer. Was good luck really coming her way at last? Was she to be delivered from Adrienne without the risk of u
psetting
Mrs. Conlowe. Gwen Roberts took her silence for assent. Happily, the Welsh girl criticized the dancing and the music while Lindsey sat wordless and grateful.
At a quarter to ten Tony found her again. He was smiling in a miserable sort of way.
“They fluked your call,” he told her. “It went through to ‘Komana’ again.”
“Oh.” Lindsey contrived a curve of the lips. “It wasn’t your fault, Tony. You’ve met Ivor and Gwen?”
T
ony had met everybody. “They’re leaving now, and I’m
going
with them. Good night.”
Once clear of what he termed “the circus,” Ivor Roberts did not turn towards home. Instead he drove out to the edge of one of the headlands and shut off his engine. The women talked in the back seat while he dozed and listened, reviving whenever he considered the masculine point of view was being sidestepped. For Lindsey, the next hour slipped away more pleasantly than any similar period in the last ten days, and when they reached “Komana” the drive was empty and the terrace lights out.
“Come early tomorrow,” urged Gwen through the window. “Not later than mid-morning. We’ll have lunch out and search the shops for some rust-colored linen. I’m sure you know all about lunch cloths and how to make drawn-thread table napkins. Ivor, bach, I shan’t miss you much alter all.”
Lindsey let herself into the house and stood in the hall. The stillness gave her confidence. Mrs. Conlowe would be in bed, but there was a light in the lounge. She went forward and rested a hand on the door frame. Adrienne looked up from the glossy leaves of a magazine.
“Was the party good?”
“No, dreadful. Tony has to keep queer company, but luckily I found some acquaintances who were just as much out of it as I was.”
A quivering pause.
“Oh, yes,” Adrienne replied to the unspoken question. “Stuart rang up. He said he won’t telephone again before he comes home. No other message.”
“I see,” said Lindsey coolly. “Thank you. Good night, Adrienne.”
A minute after Lindsey’s bedroom door had dosed, Adrienne hurried to her own room and took down a wrap. Noiselessly, the skirt of her black gown held high above speeding feet, she left the house. In any other part of the town a solitary white woman would have caused conjecture. On the Esplande, where visitors still chatted on hotel verandas, no one attached importance to the running figure.
Once inside the Baumanns’ garden her pace eased. She nodded to people and exchanged polite remarks with Rita Baumann. Tony, she learned, was on the back veranda. He came down the moment she appeared and moved with her into the darkness beyond the cars. She clutched his cuff.
“What happened, Tony? Why didn’t you bring Lindsey home?” '
“She met some friends
—
”
“I trusted you to hold her here at least till
midnight
,” she said fiercely. “You might have kept your word. Heaven only knows I’ve done enough for you at different times.”
“Don’t let’s get personal, darling, or I may be tempted to remind you that your commission cheques are paid irrespective of whether I snaffle an order from your introductions. What you hope to get out of the crazy scheme I can’t imagine, but of one
thing
I’m certain. You’re not using me any more.”
Her tone altered. “We mustn’t quarrel, Tony. Can’t you see how important it is that I stay on with Mrs. Conlowe? I ... I don’t think I could bear to leave her now.” The quaver was most effective, and gave point to her next statement: “You see, I’m in love with Stuart” Tony was stunned. He leaned towards her, trying to decipher what lay behind the pale blur of her face in the darkness.
“You can’t be,” he muttered. “You’ve no right to be.”
“Love isn’t very reasonable, is it? Now you know why I’m jealous of Lindsey. She has everything that I want
...
everything. Tony, darling, you said you were on my side. Please prove it.”
“Lindsey’s his wife,” he exclaimed.
“I wonder,” she murmured, and shrugged. “If you’d seen as much as I have, you, too, would doubt. I’m sure their marriage only needs the lightest push to shatter it. With your assistance, I could give it that push, Tony.”
He jerked back from her. “Leave me out. Lindsey’s too nice to be hurt.”
“The Galahad guise doesn’t suit you,” she burst out angrily. “Since when have you cared about women’s feelings, or about anything that didn’t bring you publicity and money!”
“The difference between you and me, Adrienne,” he took her up evenly, “is that I know just how big a rotter I am, while you’re blind to your rottenness. I’ll do nothing to injure Lindsey. And get this. Her name will not appear in the published list of visitors here tonight.”
“But you promised!”
“That was before I understood your game. If you’re so anxious to damage the girl, you must do it alone.”
He brushed off her hand and twisted away. Adrienne, white about the mouth, her teeth clamped, saw him speak to someone on the veranda and go inside. A murderous fury rose in her throat. So Lindsey, with her modesty and reticence, had even cracked Tony’s plated exterior. It would be laughable if it did not affect herself so closely. Well, she was not too squeamish to act alone. She had intended the whole thing to come out naturally; Lindsey’s name among those of the lower strata at one of the notorious Baumann parties; Mrs. Conlowe pained and perplexed, turning to Adrienne for comfort
...
and further enlightenment. Her plan needed revision, that was all.
In the hall at “Komana” she stood still, as Lindsey had done, but instead of straining her ears she let her eyes rove over the crystal chandelier, the rich damask and brocade, the van Gogh and the M
o
net upon the walls, the carved surface of the table where a scatter of detached petals still crisp with life lay about the base of the rose bowl. The thick red carpet snuggled warm and promisingly about her feet. On a quick-drawn breath she snapped off the lounge light—signal to Julius that all had retired—and shut herself into her room.
The house stirred at its usual time next morning, but Adrienne breakfasted alone. She knew that Lindsey had had ten minutes with Mrs. Conlowe in her bedroom, and gone back to her own room carrying a cup of coffee. But she was unprepared for the sight of the saloon on the drive complete with colored chauffeur. Julius carried out Lindsey’s suitcase. Mrs. Conlowe came out and kissed the girl, and the car glided through to the Esplanade.
As Mrs. Conlowe came back into the sun lounge, Adrienne shook up a cushion and patted it invitingly.
“Where’s our Lindsey off to?” she asked companionably.
“To a house on the Cape road. A young friend
o
f hers whose husband will be away tonight has asked her to keep her company. Lindsey couldn’t refuse. She’ll stay there till Thursday.”
While adjusting the footstool, Adrienne remarked, “I’m afraid she’s tired of being with us. I suppose she met this friend last night ... at the party?”
“Yes; she did.”
Restlessly, Adrienne crossed to the veranda wall and toyed with a spray of bougainvillaea. When she returned to her chair her mouth was drawn into lines of distress.
“Mrs. Conlowe, I feel frightful about telling you this, but I’d be a poor creature if I couldn’t repay a little of what I owe you with
...
loyalty. That party Lindsey attended last night...”
Adrienne’s agitation had the desired effect. Mrs. Conlowe’s hand flew to her dainty pearl collaret.
“Yes, Adrienne
... the party last night?”
“You were aware it was at the Baumanns’?”
“The Baumanns’? Impossible! Lindsey wouldn’t go there unless she were ignorant
o
f the kind of people they are.”
“That was my belief, too. But she t
ook
every care that we shouldn’t know she was going. Apparently, she arranged f
or
Tony to call at ‘Elliotdale’ for her, rather than here.”
Mrs. Conlowe had gone white. “Tony Loraine ... at ‘Elliotdale’? Has he visited there often during the last ten days?”
“Twice, to my knowledge. There may have been other times.” Her
fin
ge
rs
locked. “What can I say, Mrs. Conlowe? T
o
ny’s my cousin—I’m half responsible.”
“Nonsense, Adrienne,” she said mechanically. “I can’t take it in.”
But she
was
taking it in, in large gulps. Neither before nor since the party had Lindsey mentioned the Baumanns or Tony Loraine. She had gone off this morning to a woman chance-met in that unsavoury house.
Adrienne was saying: “Unfortunately, Tony’s a little in love with her; he’d lie to save Lindsey embarrassment, but he’s not bad all through. If it had appeared a normal marriage, Tony would never have made advances.” On a desolate note, she ended: “It cuts both ways. One can’t blame Lindsey for seeking a change from Stuart’s indifference.”
Ah, it had come back to that again. Mrs. Conlowe felt choked and ill.
“He wouldn’t have married Lindsey if he hadn’t loved her,” she said weakly, more to convince herself than her companion.
“He might have liked and pitied her,” Adrienne gently, relentlessly reminded her. “She was alone, needing a home and protection. But how does one account for his marrying her at sea?”
This new blow almost annihilated Mrs. Conlowe. She said she must lie down. Her slackness and pallor alarmed Adrienne into wondering if she had gone too far. She helped Mrs. Conlowe to her room and slipped off her shoes.
“May I bring you some brandy?”
“No, thank you, my dear,” came the weary response. “Shock always treats me this way. I’ll rest for a while.” Adrienne drew the curtains. Her voice infused with compassion, she whispered, “You musn’t worry. Perhaps Lindsey was the wrong woman for Stuart
.
When this is all over, he’ll many again—maybe someone you know and approve of.”
When she had crept out, Mrs. Conlowe lay with her eyes closed. She knew that as soon as the shock had diminished she would be angry and bitter over Lindsey, and impatient for .the hours to pass till Stuart home. She had been prepared to give the girl a
lasting mammal
love. At first it hadn’t mattered that Lindsey was shy and withdrawn; she would alter when time and a happy marriage had had their way with her, and meanwhile they would gradually grow closer. That she could behave so ... so carelessly with another man while Stuart was absent burned into her consciousness like vitriol. Wantonly, she had flung away Stuart’s affection and trust
.
Even if it were true that his emotions where Lindsey was concerned went no deeper than friendship, her behavior could not help but wound
him
terribly. And as his mother, hers must be the unhappy duty of telling
him.
Lindsey lifted the cakes from the oven, three trays of them. Delicious pale gold buns ready for splitting and cramming with whipped cream, almond fingers and apricot tarts. She would have liked to make some doughnut rings—Stuart had enjoyed her first attempt—but the hands of the Dutch
china
clock were moving up to five, and Gwen had insisted
on
an early dinner because, within an hour
o
f his return from Graaff Reinet, Ivor had arranged a musical evening.
The idea of an evening of piano and song pleased Lindsey. Music would help to stall off thought, and she could really find nothing fresh to brood about. Her meditations, if one might so describe the hectic writhing of her brain, perpetually left her at precisely the same spot: her whole future depended on Stuart. Which meant
that
separation had do
n
e her no good at all.
When the cakes were set out to cool, her mind went over the dinner they would share. A nice selection of
hors d’oeuvres,
which were already in the frig, alongside the chicken Daniel had ordered, curled crisp potatoes, asparagus (another miracle wrought by Daniel) a savory omelette and the apricot tarts. Their eyes would meet across the table, telling each other
...
what?