Dancers in Mourning

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2Afterwards, when the tide of circumstance had reached its flood and there was no telling what were the secrets beneath its turbulent waters, Mr. Campion tried to remember every moment of that long and catastrophic day. Details which had seemed unimportant at the time flitted about in his mind with exasperating vagueness and he strove to catch at them in vain.

Yet the whole story was there, so clear to read if only he had been looking for it.

On the momentous Sunday Mr. Campion went to White Walls in the morning. On that day Chloe Pye plumbed the final depth of inconsideration, entirely outclassing all her previous efforts. This, in itself, was a remarkable feat since her total disregard for those who entertained her was a byword among the host of near friends who composed her circle.

Uncle William Faraday sat beside Mr. Campion in the Lagonda and pointed out the way with most of the pride of ownership. It was July and the roads were hot and scented, cow parsley making a bridal avenue of every lane. Uncle William sniffed appreciatively.

“Twenty miles from London. Nothing in a car. But feel you’re in the heart of the country. He runs a flat, of course, but gets down here most evenings. Don’t blame Sutane. Sensible feller, at heart.”

He glanced at his companion to make sure he was attending.

“Dear old place,” he went on, receiving a nod of encouragement. “You’ll like it. Used to belong to his wife’s uncle. Girl wanted to keep it when it came to her and Sutane suddenly thought, ‘Why not?’ That music writer, Squire Mercer, who did the stuff for my show, has a little house on the estate. Had it for years. Matter of fact, it was at his place that Sutane met Linda, his wife. She was stayin’ with her uncle up at White Walls and Jimmy came down to see Mercer. They fell in love and there you are. Funny how things work out.”

He was silent for some little time, his old eyes speculative and his lips moving a little as though he rehearsed still further details of Sutane’s private life. Mr. Campion remained thoughtful.

‘This persecution business has got on his nerves, has it? Or is he always as excitable as he was last night?”

“Always a bit mad.” The old man pulled the large tweed cap he affected for motoring more firmly over his ears. “Noticed that as soon as I saw him. Don’t think he’s very much worse than usual. Of course you can understand it when you see the life the feller leads. Most unnatural . . . overworked, thinks too much, no peace at all, always in the thick of things, always in a hurry . . .”

He hesitated as though debating on a confidence not quite in good taste.

“It’s a rum ménage for a decent house,” he remarked at last. “Don’t know what the old servants make of it. My own first experience of Bohemia, don’t you know. Not at all what I thought.”

He sounded a little regretful and Campion glanced at him.

“Disappointing?” he enquired.

“No, my boy, no, not exactly.” Uncle William was ashamed of himself. “Freedom, you know, great freedom, but only in the things that don’t matter, if you see what I mean. Very rational, really. Like you to meet ’em all. Turn down here. This is the beginnin’ of the estate. It’s a modern house on an old site. This is the park.”

Mr. Campion turned the nose of the car down a flint lane leading off the secondary road. High banks, topped by a chase of limes and laurels so dear to the privacy-loving hearts of an earlier generation, rose on either side. His passenger regarded these screens with satisfaction.

“I like all this,” he said. “Since it’s a right of way, very sensible. Notice this?”

He waved a plump hand towards a high rustic bridge overgrown with ramblers which spanned the road ahead of them.

“Pretty, isn’t it? Useful too. Saves havin’ steps down to the road. The house, the lawns and the lake are over here to the right and there’s an acre or two of park on the other side. Must cost him a pretty penny to keep up.”

They passed under the bridge and came on to the drive proper, wide and circular, leading up to the house. Campion, who had entertained misgivings at the term “modern,” was reassured.

Standing on high ground, its wide windows open to catch a maximum of sun, was one of those rare triumphs of the sounder architects of the earlier part of the century. There was nothing of the villa in its white walls and red-tiled roof. It possessed a fine generosity of line and proportion and succeeded in looking somehow like a great white yacht in full sail.

“French-looking,” commented Uncle William complacently. “Take the car through into the yard. Like you to see the stables.”

They passed under the archway of the stable buildings on the left of the house and came into a brick yard where several cars were already parked. Apart from Sutane’s own black Bentley there were two small sports cars and one remarkable contraption of considerable age on which a young man in overalls and a cloth cap was at work. He grinned at Uncle William.

“It’s back again, sir,” he said. “Universal joint gone this time.” He nodded to Campion with impartial friendliness, indicated a parking spot, and returned to his work.

“See what I mean?” said Mr. Faraday in one of his disastrous asides. “No formality in the whole place. That’s Petrie’s car he’s at work on. Feller they call ‘Sock.’ Can’t quite understand him. Like your opinion.”

As they emerged from the archway Mr. Campion became aware of a certain hesitation in his companion’s manner and, looking up, he saw the cause coming down the drive towards them. It was Chloe Pye.

She was dressed in a small white swim suit, high-heeled shoes and a child’s sunbonnet, and managed to look every one of her forty-odd years. Off the stage she, too, presented some of that self-exaggeration which had been so noticeable in Sutane. Her body was hard and muscular and one saw that her face was old rather because of the stuff it was made of than because of any defect of line or contour. She was swinging a long bright scarf and carried a book and a deck chair.

At the sight of the visitors she threw the scarf round her shoulders and stood hesitating, arch and helpless.

“How providential!” she called to Uncle William as soon as he was within earshot. “Come and help me, darling.”

Mr. Faraday bustled forward, self-conscious and incompetent. He raised his cap to her carefully before taking the chair.

“And who’s this?” Chloe Pye managed to pat Uncle William’s arm, hand him the chair and indicate that she was waiting for his companion to be introduced all in one movement.

Campion came up and was conscious of pale green eyes, a trifle too prominent, which looked up into his face and found him disappointing.

“They’re all in the house,” she said. “Shop, shop, nothing but shop the whole time. Shall I have the chair under the trees, Mr. Faraday? Or do you think it would be better by the flower bed?—that one over there with the silly little red thingummies in it.”

It took some little time to get her settled and themselves out of the reach of her tenacious conversational openings, but they broke away eventually and once again headed for the front door.

“You won’t believe a word they tell you, will you?” she shouted as they reached the path. “They’re all quite mad, my dears. They’re just seeing insults on all sides . . . Tell somebody to bring me some ice water.”

The front door stood open and from it came the sound of a piano. The unsuspecting Mr. Campion had just set foot on the lowest step when there was a roar above him and a gigantic Dane, who had been sleeping on the mat just inside the hall, leapt down, his neck bristling and his eyes uncompromisingly red.

“Hoover!” protested Mr. Faraday. “Down, sir! Down! Somebody call the dog!”

The thunderous barking shook the house and a woman in a white linen coat appeared in the doorway.

“Lie down, you little beast,” she said, hurrying down the steps and cuffing the animal with a broad red hand. “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Faraday? He ought to know you. Get back, Hoover. Go in and watch your mistress.”

The authority in her voice was tremendous, and Campion was not surprised to see the brute cower obediently and slink into the house, his tail drooping.

The newcomer came down another step towards them and suddenly became a much shorter, stockier person than he had supposed. She was forty-five or so, with red untidy hair, a boiled pink face and light eyelashes. Campion thought he had never seen anyone more self-possessed.

“He’s working in the hall,” she said, lowering her voice and giving the personal pronoun a peculiar importance. “Would you mind going round through the sitting-room windows? He’s been at it since eight o’clock this morning and hasn’t had his massage yet. I’m waiting to get hold of him.”

“Of course not. We’ll go round at once, Miss Finbrough.” Uncle William was deferential. “This is Mr. Campion, by the way.”

“Mr. Campion? Oh, I’m glad you’ve come.” Her blue eyes grew interested. “He’s depending on you. It’s a thoroughgoing shame. Poor man, he’s got enough worry in the ordinary way with this new show he’s producing without having all this trouble. You run along. He’ll see you soon.”

She dismissed them with a finality that would have daunted a newspaperman. It had done so, of course, on many occasions.

“An extraordinary woman,” confided Uncle William as they went round the side of the house. “Devoted to Sutane. Looks after him like a nurse. Come to think of it, that’s just about what she is. Went in the other day and she’d got him on a mattress, stark as a plucked chicken, pummellin’ the life out of him. Henry, the feller we saw last night at the theatre, is terrified of her. Believe they all are. Wonder if we’ll get in here.”

He paused outside a pair of very high french windows which gave out onto the terrace on which they stood. Here, too, there was music, but softer, the beat less insistent than the other which still sounded faintly from the hall. It ceased abruptly as a man at the piano caught sight of the visitors, and a voice so slovenly that the words were scarcely articulated welcomed them in.

Campion followed Mr. Faraday into a large light room whose original style of decoration had followed a definite modern scheme embracing pearl-grey panelling and deep, comfortable black chairs, but which now resembled nothing so much as a playroom devoted to some alarmingly sophisticated child.

Temporary tables ranged round the room supported piles of manuscript, sheaves of untidy papers, model sets, and whole hosts of glossy photographs.

In the centre of the polished floor was a baby grand and behind it, nodding at them, sat the man who had spoken. He was an odd-looking person; yet another “personality,” thought Mr. Campion wryly. He was extraordinarily dark and untidy, with a blue chin and wide bony shoulders. The jut of the great beak of a nose began much higher up than usual so that his eyes were divided by a definite ridge and his mild, lazy expression sat oddly on a face which should have been much more vivid.

He began to play again immediately, a mournful little cadence without beginning or end, played over and over with only the most subtle of variations.

The other two people in the room rose as the newcomers appeared. A large rawboned person who could only be described as disreputable disengaged himself from the chair in which he had been sprawling amid a heap of newspapers and came forward, a pewter tankard in his hand. He shook himself a little and his creased woollen clothes slipped back into some semblance of conventionality. He was very tall, and his cheekbones were red and prominent in his square young face.

“Hallo, Uncle,” he said. “This is Mr. Campion, is it? Sorry James is so very much engaged, but it can’t be helped. Sit down, won’t you? I’ll get you some beer in a minute. Oh, you won’t? All right, later on then. Do you know everyone?”