Ward of Lucifer Page 12

  It was a charming party. But then all Justin Yorke's parties were charming. He was an admirable host, and you could be pretty sure of meeting interesting people there. And his beautiful ward, who acted as hostess, though a little naive and youthful, was a delightful girl. Richard Inworth would have been asked on her account, of course. Certainly he seemed attentive enough.

  As Norma talked with Richard almost passionately glad of his uncomplicated character which made social intercourse with him blessedly free from problems and shocks she was aware that one or two of the older guests glanced their way with a certain air of indulgent interest.

  She supposed it was fairly obvious that she liked talking to Richard. At that moment, she felt there was no companion she would have preferred. You knew exactly where you were with him, and he sprang no surprises upon you, made no disquieting disclosures. To talk to him after sparring with her guardian was like walking along a broad gravel path, after picking a perilous way over bright green marshland, which looked beautiful but held hidden menace at every step.

  "Oh, sorry, Richard!" She found suddenly that she had not been giving even the perfunctory attention necessary to follow his good-natured, forthright conversation. "II was thinking of something else."

  "That's all right." He grinned at her. "Hostess's duties weighing a bit heavily on you?"

  "They do rather," Norma said with a smile, guiltily aware that they did nothing of the sort.

  "You don't need to worry, really, you know," Richard told her. "You're splendid at all this sort of thing. I dare say it's partly Yorke's training, but you've a natural air with you that makes for social success."

  "It's probably because I really mind whether people enjoy themselves or not," Norma said seriously. "I couldn't bear it if someone went away feeling miserable or bored or slighted."

  "You're a sweet kid. I expect that's what it is," Richard declared, reducing the recipe for social success to even simpler terms. "I bet you could make a success of almost anything, Norma.- I mean be a hostess on a really big scale, and all that sort of thing, you know."

  "I don't know that I'd like that very much," Norma said soberly, and then turned to speak to one of the other guests.

  In a way, she was glad to be continually distracted b her duties, and by the conversation of other people.

  She found, with something of a shock, that she even avoided looking at her guardian more than was absolutely necessary.

  Did fie realize that, just before their guests had arrived, she had flung down something of a challenge? And, if so, would he take it up?

  Surely even he must feel faintly disturbed at the hint that she knew more than he had meant her to know.

  Or did he think the whole business too unimportant to bother about?

  But it wasn't unimportant. It fundamentally affected their relationship. Surely he must see that?

  While Norma chatted and smiled and listened, she also contrived to follow the line of her own thoughts, from time to time.

  Suppose he didn't say anything further, could she possibly leave things as they were?

  On the whole, she thought she could not. If he had not meant much to her, it would have been reasonably easy to go on being agreeable to each other on the surface, living in the same house, and yet thinking one's own rather resentful thoughts underneath.

  But, with someone of whom one was fond, it was impossible to have a perpetual barrier even a barrier of glass.

  "Perhaps there'll be a chance when everyone has gone," Norma thought. "I'll be quite calm about it.

  I shan't rage, or upbraid him or anything. I'll just point out very coolly that I know now about his putting off Paul, and just letting me remain in ignorance of the fact, and that I think it was pretty paltry of him to do things that way."

  She trembled a little at the thought of applying the word 'paltry' to her guardian, and finally decided that there was probably a better word, which she would think of later.

  But, even when their guests began to depart, it seemed that Norma was still not to have her opportunity of a private talk. It was Richard who got his word in first, and she heard him say a little nervously, she thought to her guardian: "D'you mind if I stay behind for a short chat?

  There's something I want to speak to you about."

  "Of course. Do," she heard her guardian say politely. Then he turned to her and added: "We won't keep you up any longer, Norma. Good night, my dear."

  "Good night," Norma said, and, with a smile and a nod to Richard, she went away.

  As she mounted the stairs, she was shockedly aware that she had deliberately avoided kissing her guardian good night, using Richard's presence as a slight excuse. It was true that it was not her invariable custom to kiss turn when she went to bed. In fact, he probably had not even noticed the omission himself. What did shock her was that she should deliberately have sought an excuse for avoiding it.

  "It's no. good," thought Norma sadly. "I can't feel the same about him until I've got this business about Paul straight."

  In her own room, she took off her beautiful brocade dress and slipped on a cardinal red house-coat. Like all her clothes, this emphasized the warmth and richness of her colouring, and, as she zippered herself into it, Norma subconsciously enjoyed afresh the feel of the superfine wool and the dramatic flare of the voluminous folds which swept from the close fitting waist to her instep.

  She had taken off her earrings, and she loosened the clip that held-back waves of her black hair, so that it tumbled forward, shadowing her troubled young face. Then she sat down in a chair beside the fire and slowly went over in her mind all that had happened since she had run into Paul that afternoon.

  Just for a moment, she wondered if she were exaggerating the importance of what might have been a quick, irritated impulse on her guardian's part. But he did not, she knew, act on irritated impulse. Everything almost everything he did was coolly calculate and done for a purpose.

  Even Mrs. Parry knew that. Well, one need not say "even Mrs. Parry." She probably knew more than most, having been at Bishopstone all his life. And it was obviously her considered opinion that he always got what he wanted in the end.

  "I wonder what decided him to have me there, in the beginning," thought Norma, suddenly going off at a slightly disturbing tangent. "It wasn't just pure kindness of heart or pity for the poor orphan's state or anything." She knew him well enough for that by now "And it wasn't because people might think he ought to have me. He never cared a brass farthing what people thought."

  And yet he had been quite deliberately determined have her and to make a success of having her.

  That he had grown fond of her and therefore chose to keep her with him was a belief to which Norma obstinately clung. That explained the kindnesses and the indulgences which had come after he had accepted her into his home.

  But what had induced him to make the initial decision?

  Norma sighed, and ran her fingers through her short dark hair.

  That was the worst of being made suspicious on one point. You began to seek hidden reasons and ulterior motives in everything, after that.

  Why not just leave it at supposing that he reluctantly felt he ought to take on his half-sister's ward, and, once having done so, he liked the job better than he had expected? He had behaved abominably over Paul, of course, but that might have started with genuine, though obstinate, prejudice. If he did though for what reason one could not imagine think Paul an unsuitable companion for her, he probably also thought that he would have as little trouble as possible about severing the connection.

  There had already been enough trouble about that friendship! With a sudden flash of something like tenderness, Norma wondered if her guardian, like herself, had so hated the coldness between them over Paul, on the earlier occasion, that he rather dreaded a repetition, and decided to avoid that at all costs.

  But a little further reflection reluctantly convinced Norma that there were few things her guardian deigned to dread.


  No. It could not really be explained away. That meant that she would have to have it out with him tomorrow Or Norma got up and went to the door of her room and stood listening. There was the subdued murmur of voices in the hall below, and then the sound of the front door closing.

  That must mean that Richard had gone.

  Then her guardian might come straight upstairs to bed, or he might, as he so often did, sit up late reading.

  If he came upstairs, she would leave over the discussion until tomorrow. If he stayed downstairs that might be as good an opportunity as any.

  For several minutes Norma stood there, listening to the beating of her own heart, which seemed unnaturally loud.

  There was no further sound from below. He must have decided not to come up to bed just yet.

  Swallowing a rather unexpected lump in her throat, Norma quietly opened the door and went downstairs, her slippers, and the soft woollen folds of her gown making no noise as she went.

  He was sitting by the fire as she herself had been doing in her own room only a few minutes ago but he was not reading, as she had supposed. He was like herself once more deep in thought. And, with a curious little wrench at her heart, she thought she detected that it was melancholy thought.

  Then, even as she watched him, he curled his lip in that scornful little smile, which might have meant contempt for himself or for someone else. And Norma came forward into the room.

  He looked up.

  "Hallo, my dear." He sounded surprised, but only slightly so. "Did you want to talk to me?"

  'Yes," Norma said, with rather dry lips. "I wanted to talk to you. II dare say you're not very much surprised, are you?"

  He considered that with a perfectly cool smile, and then said, indulgently rather than resentfully: "No. I suppose I'm not much surprised. Come over here and sit down."

  He leant forward and pulled up a chair for her, but she ignored it and came and sat on the rug at his feet, the folds of her red gown billowing round her as she sank down beside him.

  As he looked down at her dark head, his eyes wide] ed slightly. Then he said: "Well, I want to talk to you too. Which of us begins?"

  Norma thought she could not bear to wait while he presented a cynically built up case, so she said quickly: "In a way, I had already begun, hadn't I?" "Had you?" He looked surprised and amused. "Why, yes before our guests arrived."

  "Dear me, I hadn't realized that," he said coolly. "How stupid of me."

  "You had realized it!" cried Norma, suddenly hot with the anger she had so wisely intended to control. "You knew perfectly well what I was talking about, only you chose to ignore it in a smooth, smiling way. You thought that was the clever thing to do. You always think that's the clever thing to do with me! Have no trouble with the child make everything pleasant and arrange behind her back that everything happens the way you want it! It was hateful and unworthy of you. Why couldn't you have been frank? It's insulting to my intelligence to treat me like that, and it belittles the affection between us. People don't behave to each other like that when they're fond of each other and respect each other!"

  And, overcome by nervousness and a flood of emotion, Norma suddenly began to cry. Only, instead of turning away from him, she put her dark head against his knee and sobbed childishly.

  "My dear child!" He put his hand on her hair. And then, as her sobs continued, he bent down suddenly and gathered her up in his arms. "Hush, don't cry like that! Nothing is worth so much distress."

  "Oh, yes, it is," sobbed Norma, though she was immediately comforted by the feel of his arms.

  "Well, try to take it a little more calmly, darling, or you can't possibly help tell me what is the matter. And, at the moment, I'm completely at sea," her guardian said.

  Norma's sobs stopped abruptly.

  "Do you do you mean you don't know what I'm talking about?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about." He smiled and touched her wet cheek with his lips.

  "Why, about Paul Cantlin and your telling him to go away and not letting me know, but just leaving me to suppose he'd cooled off and"

  "Good God!" Her guardian sounded genuinely astonished. "Do you mean to say these floods of words and tears are about young Cantlin?"

  "Yes. At least, they're about the disgusting way you behaved about him," Norma amplified, not very lucidly.

  Justin Yorke flashed a peculiar look of sarcastic tenderness at her.

  "I see. It was the discovery of my feet of clay which really occasioned the tears. My dear child, what an odd moment to choose for raking up all this. I thought you wanted to speak to me about something much more interesting and urgent. The same thing I wanted to discuss with you, in fact."

  "I don't understand, this time," Norma said, staring at him with large, rather mournful dark eyes.

  "Don't you? Didn't you know why Inworth stayed behind to speak to me just now?"

  "Richard?" exclaimed Norma, who had forgotten Richard's existence. "No. Why did he?"

  Her guardian gave a half-vexed laugh.

  "Sometimes I think you're almost too ingenuous, Norma," he said, a little impatiently. "Richard stayed behind to tell me he wants to marry you, and to ask me whether I thought you too young to consider marriage yet."

  Norma was suddenly very still against him. "And what did you say?" she said slowly, at last.

  "I said that I didn't consider you too young, and that there were few things which would please me better than to see you married to him," replied her guardian coolly.

  "But it isn't true, is it?"

  "Of course it's true."

  "But I thought you didn't specially want me to go away from you yet."

  "Darling, I don't want you to go away from me.

  That's why I'm only too anxious for you to marry a man who lives in the neighbourhood. So that I'll always have you near me."

  "Do you mean," Norma said slowly, "that you you'd like to have me living at Munley Towers?"

  There was a queer little silence. Then he said calmly: "That isn't necessarily how it would be, you know.

  I've been thinking things over since Inworth went. Neither of you care much about Munley and I do. It's possible we might come to an arrangement, by which you and Richard started your married life in Bishopstone, and I did what I have always wished " he stopped and then deliberately changed the word "intended to do. I should return to Munley."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  NORMA had never before felt faint but, afterwards, she thought she must have turned faint for a few moments when her guardian's voice ceased speaking. At least, there seemed no light in the room, and the only thing of which she was distinctly aware was that she was still in the circle of his arm and she could feel his heart beating a little unevenly.

  Possibly he had not expected an immediate reply. P any rate, she thought it was quite a long time before she could find any words.

  She felt exactly as though the ground had been torn open in front of her, disclosing a chasm which she had never remotely contemplated finding there.

  Didn't he know that he had laid the whole thing bar before her horrified gaze in that moment? Or did he think, as he had said a few minutes before, that she was so ingenuous that she would not see where everything had been leading.

  He had meant, all along, that she should marry Richard, that she should persuade Richard to live at Bishopstone, and that he himself should return to the home of his family. The home for which he had schemed with almost ferocious intensity.

  He could not have known, of course, that Richard would fall for her with quite such satisfactory thorough ness. But he had probably had her there on approval which accounted for his being pleased with her standard of looks and thrown her in Richard's way. No wonder the advent of Paul, and their immediate liking for each other, had been so unwelcome!

  Why, she had played straight into his hands when she babbled innocently about preferring Bishopstone t Munley, and believing that Richard did the same.

  "Norma, child, h
ow quiet you are," her guardian said softly, just above her head. And, if he knew that all his hopes were being put to the test, at least not the slightest tremor of his voice betrayed the fact.

  "I was thinking," she whispered inadequately. "I'd never thought about marrying Richard."

  "But, my darling child, you've quite definitely encouraged him." Her guardian sounded amusedly impatient.

  "Oh, no! Now as that the impression I gave?" "Why, certainly. I was moderately sure that you meant to have him."

  Norma was appalled afresh. Then she suddenly realized that she was not listening to a disinterested opinion and went cold at the thought that he might be deliberately misleading her.

  "I'll have to talk to Richard," she muttered. "Of course." Her guardian laughed and lightly kissed the top of her head. "I imagine there will be a great deal to say to Richard."

  "I'm not at all sure that I want to marry him." "Well, that rests entirely with you, my dear."

  He said that with such unruffled sincerity that, for a wild moment, Norma wondered if she had built up her fears and beliefs on hysterical imaginings. After all, did twentieth century guardians manoeuvre their wards into marriages which suited their own pet desires?

  Norma knelt up on the rug and put her arms round him.

  "You do want me to choose what will really make me happy, don't you? Don't you?" she repeated, almost pleadingly.

  "Why, Norma dear, of course! Though you must allow me to advise you about what I think will make for your happiness."

  "Yes, of course, of course. I know that. But, if I really didn't want to marry Richard not even when I'd thought it all over carefully, I mean you wouldn't make me, just because you wanted to live at Munley Towers, would you?"

  She knew that he stiffened slightly, and that those cold, blue eyes glittered strangely for a moment. But all he said was: "Darling child, I can't make you do anything. Even if I wished to which of course I don't. You are perfectly free to accept Richard, or think it over until you are a little older. Probably that would be the wiser course, in any case," he added carelessly.