Tragedy at Beechcroft (Musaicum Murder Mysteries). Dorothy Fielding

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      "Why not a ray of light?" Lavinia put in hurriedly. "Surely that's the swiftest thing there is."

      "And can be extremely dangerous too, when it falls on something you want kept dark," Moncrieff added, with his deep-throated laugh.

      Santley was conscious of something below the surface in that sound—of an inner as well as an outer laugh.

      "Not so quick as thought," he said now, looking full at the other.

      Moncrieff returned the look with the effect of pricking up his ears.

      "How would you paint a thought?" he asked with apparently real interest. "What symbol would you use?" His grin, a pleasant grin, said that he had the other beat there.

      "A corkscrew,"—began Santley gropingly. He got no further. The word was to be an adjective, but explanations were drowned in the burst of laughter. The talk went on. Santley's friend had drifted out with some relations who had turned up unexpectedly, and Santley, for the moment, remained attached to the Moncrieffs. He was studying the Major. Those eyes of his, for instance, Santley had no idea how he would paint them, paint what, to his mind, lay behind them, except that he must render an impression of a remarkably strong will. In some ways...not all. Whatever this man wanted to do, he would want tremendously...But rather blindly, Santley thought. He doubted if Moncrieff would care for his picture. There was nothing subtle here. Therefore anything subtle would be beyond the man, and Santley's portraits were always illusive, suggestive. On the whole, the artist was disappointed. From Mrs. Phillimore's terrible words, from the strange incident in the park, he had, illogically, expected something very complex, deep...hidden. But Santley caught no glimpse of this. He saw Moncrieff as a fighter born. A man who would be at his best facing overwhelming physical odds...

      "About Brussels," Lavinia suddenly broke in, giving Santley an impression of speaking with care. "Do you know it well?"

      He explained that he had had to run over a good many times lately, as there was some trouble in carrying out his colours.

      "I'm getting quite chummy with the douaniers," he went on. "At first they used to unpack my little bag of coloured wools with tremendous care. Now that they know I'm designing something for one of their own churches, they're awfully obliging. But then Belgians are, when you know them—and they know you. At least the Walloons are."

      Lavinia had been listening with most flattering attention. Now she jumped up with a quick cry of greeting to some one who had just entered and was passing near them. It was her mother. Mrs. Phillimore was with some friends, but she hurried across to sit for a moment on a chair which her son-in-law drew out for her with every appearance of solicitude. He began talking to her too, with really noticeable devotion, but she promptly turned a shoulder toward him and spoke to her daughter.

      "I've been trying to get you on the 'phone all day, to explain that I shan't be able to return to Beechcroft for weeks and weeks. In fact, to be blunt, dear child, I shall be due for my visit to Scotland to the Mackenzies before the dentist has finished with me."

      Sounds of grief and disappointment came from both Moncrieffs. They looked crushed. Genuinely so, any one would say, who had not heard what Mrs. Phillimore had told Santley only that morning.

      "But I wondered," Mrs. Phillimore went on, "whether you would let me send an old friend of yours down to stay with you, who needs quiet and rest after an attack of 'flu."

      Santley realised that he was watching Mrs. Phillimore going into action, and felt amused.

      "Certainly! Charmed, mother!" came from Lavinia.

      "We can have her, or him, or them, any time after to-morrow week," the Major said with what sounded like warm hospitality.

      "Why not till then?" asked Mrs. Phillimore with a sharp ring in her voice.

      "The drains have gone wrong," Lavinia said promptly. "Didn't I tell you this morning? Ah, you rushed off before I could. Yes, it'll be to-morrow week before everything's in order again. But who is the old friend?"

      "You know her quite well. She adores you...oh, here she is!"

      Mrs. Phillimore would make a good stage-manageress, Santley thought, as she sprang up with every appearance of pleased surprise as a tall, slender young woman came in with a group of young people. Yes, it was Flavelle Bruton, but Mrs. Phillimore was right, she had changed, Santley thought, looking at her—changed enormously. A certain dreamy, hesitating something that used to envelop her was gone. This face was both hard and cold. She had painted her skin, which he remembered as a warm ivory, to a dead matt white, her mouth to a pillar-box scarlet. She had plucked her thick eyebrows to slender half-moons, and put purple shadows under those strange eyes of hers. Even the way her hair grew on her forehead seemed to have been altered. But there was no denying that the effect was striking. In the old days, few people in that smart gathering would have given her one glance. Now people looked many times. She was beautifully dressed, Santley thought, in something black that gleamed with gold threads as she moved. It was swathed tightly around her lovely thin figure, leaving her shoulders and all of her back quite bare, Her hair, in two thick dark plaits, was still wound tightly around her small head, but over some sort of gold tissue which shone between the braids. A great splash of jewelled flowers was on one shoulder. Another at one hip.

      Santley as a rule refused to paint the faces of young women. He would not have refused to paint Flavelle Bruton as she stood there smiling at Lavinia, a blue light, like the light shining on a wave, in her eyes. He remembered that blue glint in her eyes when she looked at any one of whom she was fond, and how green they could seem when they looked at any one whom she disliked. Even in the old days, when she had been a plain young woman, he had thought, now and then, that a man might do strange things for the sake of Flavelle Bruton's eyes. The old days...it had been Lavinia then who had seemed to him much the more subtle of the two. He would not say so now. That white, painted face, with the heart-shaped painted mouth, and the half-moon brows were very difficult to read. It had lived, this face. His aunt would say that it had entered the booth called sorrow in life's fair, or was the booth called suffering?

      Lavinia was greeting her with effusiveness. A horrid word.

      "You 'phoned to me to say you were in London? My dearest thing, I never got the message! You wrote? But I haven't opened any letters for ages—we've had the most awful times with the drains—nothing but builders' estimates and sizes of pipes...darling, how delightful it will be..."

      "It's all settled," Mrs. Phillimore said gaily, "you're to go down, Tuesday week, if you can manage it."

      Lavinia joined in. The three women laughed and talked on, making, it must be admitted, quite a stir around them.

      And to think this was quiet Flavelle Bruton, with her look of self-effacement, her manner that had always suggested diffidence, self-distrust. Well, Santley thought, success changes all of us. The curious thing about the change in Flavelle to him was, that he would not have said that happiness had had anything to do with the alteration. Quite the other way.

      He made some idle remark to Moncrieff beside him. The Major did not reply. Glancing at him Santley saw that he was standing rigid, his eyes on the floor and had evidently not heard. Santley repeated the sentence. Still no reply from Moncrieff; still quite obviously, he had not heard what was said.

      Santley decided that it was high time to go, but Lavinia was chattering too fast for him to get in a word. "Oh, it's a beast of a house," she was saying. "It's only the fag-end of a lease. You mustn't mind a spot or two of discomfort. You can have СКАЧАТЬ