“What do you want?”
Lydia Crewe came into the room and shut the door.
“What are you doing out of bed like this?”
“I got up.”
“So I see.” Lydia ’s tone was cold and measured. The look was dark. “Where did you get that bead?”
“I found it.”
“Where?”
Jenny went back a step. She closed her hand upon the bead and put it behind her.
“I just found it.”
“And I asked you where.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Why do you not want to tell me? Shall I tell you? Because you have been getting out of the house at night and running about, you don’t care to say where.”
Jenny’s eyes met hers and wouldn’t give way. She was made of harder stuff than Rosamond. When people tried to bully her it got her back up and she didn’t care. There was defiance between them, and for a faint faraway moment there was something in Lydia Crewe which felt a spark of pride. Jenny had the Crewe blood, if she hadn’t the name. Something stirred and was gone again. She went on harshly.
“You must be quite aware that this sort of thing can’t continue. I don’t intend it to continue. I have made all the arrangements, and you will have to go to school. Rosamond will take you there immediately.”
“I don’t believe it!”
Miss Crewe said coldly,
“Rosamond should have told you. But of course she thinks she knows best. I advise you to be sensible and to make the most of the advantages I shall be giving you. Since you will have your living to earn, it is very important to make up for all the time you have lost. And now give me that bead!”
As the dark figure advanced, Jenny could go back no farther. The chest of drawers was behind her, and the wall upon her right. What she could do she did. With her hand clenched on the bead she dodged an outstretched arm and ran towards the window. When she was a yard away from it her hand came up and the bead went flying. It was all over in a moment. The blinding anger that was in Lydia Crewe was like lightning in the room.
But there was no thunder. That formidable will could hold it back, and did. There was a terrible silence. Jenny leaned on the window-sill, the cold night air about her. Her heart knocked at her side. Lydia Crewe went to the door and took the key. Then she went out, and the door was shut without sound or haste. The sound came afterwards-the little sound of the key turning in the lock and shutting Jenny in.
CHAPTER 33
Lucy Cunningham sat behind her locked door. She had gone up early, but she had not undressed. She was waiting for something to happen, she did not know what. The feeling that she must wait was heavy and cold inside her. It wasn’t a thing about which she could think or reason, it was something felt and to be endured. Like fear, or grief. It was fear itself. With what remained of her conscious thought she tried to cover it up. Nicholas would be coming home-she wouldn’t be alone with Henry any more. When she had heard Nicholas come in and lock the door she would go to bed, and perhaps she would sleep. And in the morning everything would be different.
There are always some to whom the morning does not come. She could almost have thought that someone had said that aloud-here in the room with her. There wasn’t anyone of course. It was only her own frightened mind playing tricks. She got up and began to move about. It was a mistake to sit and listen to the silence. The church clock struck eleven… and then the quarter… and the half hour-
Nicholas was late. She wondered what was keeping him. He had never been as late as this before, not at Dalling Grange. Why, everyone must have gone home hours ago. She felt as if she could not stay here waiting any longer. If anything was going to happen, it was better to let it happen and get it over. The sensible everyday Lucy Cunningham spoke in a sensible everyday voice and asked her what she was afraid of. Or of whom. Since there was only one other person in the house, there was the answer-
Henry.
Put like that, it shocked her into courage. She couldn’t be afraid of Henry-not really. She had let her nerves take charge and frighten her into a nightmare. And the way to come broad awake was to go down and do what she ought to have done hours ago-have it out with Henry-tell him that someone had tried to trip her, and see what he made of it.
She went to the washstand, sponged her face, and felt the better for it. The dreadful helpless feeling was gone. But she put on the landing light and stood looking down the long flight of the stairs before she set a foot upon it. And she put on a second light in the hall. Then she went along to the study and opened the door. Nothing could have been more ordinary than the littered table, the strong overhead light, and Henry with his back to her leaning forward above the specimens laid out before him. The table was so large that it took up nearly half the room, but every inch of it was occupied. There was a tray of fine instruments with a row of little bottles, there were cardboard sheets upon which were displayed the corpses of moths, butterflies, caterpillars, and spiders. There appeared to be rather more of the spiders than of any of the other creatures. Most of them were large, and some of them were hairy. Even at this moment Lucy found herself capable of a shudder. Things with more than four legs had that effect on her-she didn’t like them, and she never would. But as far as Henry himself went there was nothing that was in the least out of the way. With one of those fine instruments in his hand he was bending over the table and doing something to the corpse of the largest and most repulsive of the spiders. It might have been any evening of any day, and the specimen might have been a butterfly, a moth, or even a lizard or a frog, but the general effect would have been the same, and the prevailing smell of antiseptic.
At the sound of the opening door Henry Cunningham made his accustomed protest.
“If you don’t mind-I’m busy.”
Lucy had often minded before, but this time she was making no bones about it.
“I’m sorry, Henry, but I’ve really got to speak to you.”
He said in a mild worried voice,
“Some other time, don’t you think?”
“No, Henry-now.”
He sighed, laid down the fine instrument, and sat back in his chair, where he pushed his glasses up and ran a hand across his eyes.
“I thought you were in bed.”
She went round to the other side of the table and pulled up a chair.
“Well, I’m not.”
He sighed again.
“So I see. But it is very late, and I am really very busy. I have these specimens to get off to a Belgian correspondent. He is giving a lecture on spiders, and I am able to supply him with the specimens he needs for it. Slides will be prepared and thrown upon the screen greatly magnified. The series illustrates Lelong’s theory-but that won’t interest you.”
Lucy Cunningham said, “No.”
Since he appeared to be about to relapse into concentration upon the spider, she repeated her previous remark, only in a louder and firmer tone,
“Henry, I must speak to you.”
He sat back again and said,
“I am really very busy. What is it?”
“Henry, someone tried to kill me last night.”
His spectacles were half way up his forehead. He peered at her and blinked.
“Someone tried to kill you! What do you mean?”
As she leaned towards him, one of her hands was on the table. They could both see that it was shaking. She snatched it back into her lap and said in a voice that he would hardly have known,