jane ran straight up to her room when they got back, but she was no sooner there than it came into her mind to wonder whether she had put away the files which she had been working on just before she went into the garden. think as she would, she could not be sure.
she ran down again and went quickly along the corridor to the library. the door was unlatched. she touched the handle, pushed it a little, and stood hesitating. lady heritage was speaking.
“it’s a satisfaction to know just where one is. sometimes i’ve been convinced she was a fool, and then again ... well, i’ve wondered. i wondered this afternoon in the garden. that man on the headland gives one to think furiously. who on earth could it have been?”
“i ... don’t ... know.”
“but i don’t believe she saw him. i don’t believe she saw anything or knew why she was frightened. she just got a start ... a shock—began to run without knowing why, and ran herself into a blind panic. she looked quite idiotic when i was questioning her.”
“oh,” thought jane. “it’s horrible to listen at doors, but what am i to do?”
what she did was to go on listening. she heard lady heritage’s rare laugh.
“then this afternoon—my dear jeffrey, it would have convinced you or any one. the friend—this daphne todhunter—well, only a fool could have made a bosom friend of her, and, as i told you, even she had the lowest opinion of her adored renata’s brains.”
“i don’t know,” said ember again. “you say she’s a fool, i say she’s a fool, her friend says she’s a fool, but something, some instinct in me protests.”
“womanly intuition,” said lady heritage, with a mocking note.
there was silence; then:
“these girls—were they alone together?”
“no. they conducted what appeared to be a curiously emotional conversation at the other end of mrs. cottingham’s dreadful drawing-room, which always reminds me of a parish jumble sale.”
ember’s voice sounded suddenly much nearer, as if he had crossed the room.
“emotional? what do you mean?” he said quickly. lady heritage laughed again.
“mean?” she said. “does that sort of thing mean anything?”
“what sort of thing? please, it’s important.”
“oh, hand-holding, and a tearful embrace or two. the usual accompaniments of schoolgirl schwärmerei.”
jane could hear that ember was moving restlessly. her own heart was beating. she knew very well that in ember’s mind there was just one thought—“suppose she has told daphne todhunter.”
“which of them cried?” said ember sharply.
“i think they both did—miss todhunter most.”
“and you couldn’t hear what they were saying?”
“not a word.”
“i must know. will you send for her and find out? it’s of the first importance.”
“you think....”
“she may have told this girl what we’ve been trying to get out of her. i must know. look here, i’ll take a book and sit down over there. she won’t notice me. send for her and begin about other things, then ask her why her friend was so distressed....”
jane heard ember move again and knew that this time it was towards the bell. she turned and ran back along the way by which she had come. five minutes later she was entering the library to find lady heritage at her table and ember at the far end of the room buried in a book.
“i want the unanswered-letter file.” lady heritage’s voice was very businesslike.
jane brought it over and waited whilst raymond turned over the letters, frowning.
“i don’t see lady manning’s letter.”
“you answered it yesterday.”
“so i did. miss molloy—why did your friend cry this afternoon?”
“daphne?”
“yes, daphne. why did she cry?”
“oh, she does, you know.”
“but i suppose not entirely without some cause.”
“she was angry with me,” said jane very low.
“yes? i noticed that she did not kiss you when you went away.”
“no, she’s angry. you see”—jane hung her head—“you see, she thinks—i’m afraid she thinks that i didn’t treat her brother very well.”
“her brother?”
“yes. she wanted me to be engaged to him, but he’s married some one else, so i think it’s rather silly of her to be cross with me, don’t you?”
“i really don’t know.”
out of the tail of her eye jane saw mr. ember nod his head just perceptibly. lady heritage must have seen it too, for she pushed the letter file over to jane.
“put this away. no, i don’t want anything more at present.”
tea came in as she spoke.
afterwards in her own room jane sat down on the broad window ledge with her hands in her lap, looking out over the sea. the lovely day was drawing slowly to a lovelier close, the sun-drenched air absolutely still, absolutely clear. the tide was low, the sea one sheet of unbroken blue, except where the black rocks, more visible than jane had ever seen them, pierced the surface.
jane did not quite know what had happened to her. her moment of exhilaration was gone. she was not afraid, but she felt a sense of horror which she had not known before. she had thought of this adventure as her adventure, her own risk. somehow she had never really related it to other people. for the first time, she began to see formula “a,” not as something which threatened her, but as something that menaced the world. it was ridiculous that it was mrs. cottingham and daphne todhunter who had caused this change.
it is one thing to think vaguely of civilisation being swept away, and quite another to visualise some concrete, humdrum tom, dick, or harry being swept horribly out of existence. jane’s imagination suddenly showed her formula “a”—the process, whatever they chose to call the horrible thing—in operation; showed it annihilating fussy mrs. cottingham, with her overcrowded drawing-room and her overcrowded talk; showed it doing something horrible to fat, common daphne todhunter. the romance of adventure fell away, the glamour that sometimes surrounds catastrophe shrivelled and was gone. it was horrible, only horrible.
jane kept seeing mrs. cottingham’s ugly room, and raymond heritage standing there, as she had seen her that afternoon, like a statue that had nothing to do with its surroundings. all at once she knew what it was that lady heritage reminded her of—not mercury at all, but medusa with the lovely, tortured face, stone and yet suffering.
as she looked out over that calm sea she had before her all the time the vision of medusa, and of hundreds and hundreds of quite ordinary, vulgar, commonplace mrs. cottinghams and daphne todhunters being turned to stone. a tremor began to shake her. it kept coming again and again. then, all at once, the tears were running down her face. it was then it came to her that she could not bear to think of daphne as she had seen her at the last, with that hurt, angry, puzzled look.
“she’s a fat lump, but arnold is her brother, and renata is her friend, and she thinks they’ve failed each other and been horrid to her. i can’t bear it.”
at that moment jane hated herself fiercely because daphne’s tears had amused her.
“you’ve got a brick instead of a heart, and, if you get eliminated, it’ll serve you right.”
she dabbed her eyes very hard, straightened her hair, and ran downstairs to the library again.
ember was the sole occupant, and jane addressed him with diffidence:
“mr. ember, do you think i might ... do you think lady heritage would mind ... i mean, may i use the telephone?”
“what for?” said ember, looking at her over the edge of his paper.
“i thought perhaps i might,” said jane ... “i mean, i wanted to say something to my friend, the one who is staying with mrs. cottingham.”
“ah—yes, why not?”
“then i may?”
“oh yes, certainly. do you want me to go?”
jane presented a picture of modest confusion. it was concern for daphne todhunter that had brought her downstairs, concern and the prickings of remorse, but at the sight of ember, she experienced what she would have described as a brain-wave.
“if you wouldn’t mind,” she said. “i’m so sorry to disturb you, but i did rather want to talk privately to her.”
“oh, by all means.” ember’s tone was most amiable, his departure most courteously prompt.
jane would have been prepared to bet the eighteen-pence which constituted her sole worldly fortune to a brass farthing that upon the other side of the door his attentive ear would miss no word of her conversation.
she gave mrs. cottingham’s number, and waited in some anxiety.
the voice that said “hullo!” was unmistakably miss todhunter’s, and jane began at once:
“oh, daphne, is that you? i want to speak to you so badly. are you alone? good! i’m so glad.”
at the other end of the line daphne was saying grumpily:
“i don’t know what you mean. there are three people in the room. i keep telling you so.”
“good!” said jane, with a little more emphasis. “i want to speak to you most particularly. i’ve been awfully unhappy since this afternoon; i really have. and i wanted to say—— i mean to ask you not to be upset about arnold. it’s all for the best, really. please, please, don’t think badly of him. it’s not his fault, and i know you’ll like his wife very much indeed. he’ll tell you all about it some day, and you’ll think it ever so romantic. so you won’t be unhappy about it, will you? i hate people to be unhappy.”
without waiting for miss todhunter’s reply, jane hung up the receiver. after a decent interval she opened the door. mr. ember was at the far end of the passage, waiting patiently.
