that lance-like wake, “while we’ve got the place more or less to ourselves.”
They went down, and the house was wonderfully hushed and quiet about them. True, there were still one or two people around. The staff must be still washing up after lunch, Edward Arundale in his private quarters was collecting what he needed for his drive to Birmingham, there were two elderly ladies placidly reading in the gallery, and two more strolling between the flower-beds in the shelter of the enclosed garden; but with the withdrawal of some seventy people the whole house was changed, had reverted to its cat-sleep with eyes half-open, and lay deceptively still and harmless and helpless in the faint, stormy sunshine of April.
There was room in the grounds of Follymead to lose a thousand people, and still believe yourself alone. They walked away from the drive, turning towards the arched bridge that spanned the river in the distance. Crimson and orange alders showed the winding course of the stream, even when the flood-water itself was hidden from them. Clustering woods drew in to complete the picture like a blackcloth; and out of the trees, while they were still some hundred yards distant, came Felicity, her head down, her fleet, child’s running muted to a stumbling, rapid walk. She didn’t notice them until the sound of their feet whispering in the grass, and the hint of a shadow at the edge of her vision, made her fling up her head with a wild, wary gesture, like a startled colt.
She said: “Oh!… Hullo!” and her face put on its armour, settled narrow, clean-arched brows and quivering, irresolute mouth into arduous but instant serenity. “Going for a walk?”
“Why don’t you come with us?” suggested Tossa impulsively, and her eyes signalled apology to Dominic for a rash generosity he might not approve. But the girl was so solitary and gauche, and her grey eyes looked out so defensively from behind the delicate, half-formed face, like lonely wild things in hiding. “You know all the best places. We haven’t seen anything yet.”
“I’d love to, thank you… but I can’t. I’ve got to go in now. I’ve got some jobs to do for my uncle in the office. I only came out to run down and have a look at the swans’ nest. There’s a pair nesting down there under the alders, on a tiny island.” She pointed rather jerkily, turning her face away from them. “But be careful if you go to look, don’t go too near, will you? The pen’s all right, but if the cob’s there he can be rather dangerous.”
“We saw you come out,” said Dominic casually, and saw the faint colour flow and ebb again in her solemn face, and the grey eyes in ambush flare into panic for an instant. “We hoped you were going to have an afternoon off, you spend enough time indoors. Can’t the work wait for today?”
But she did not want it to wait, that was clear. She began to sidle round them, intent on escape. “No, I’d rather get it done. Things like the press-cutting book and the photographs get into arrears very easily, you see, and we don’t just keep them for interest, the record’s needed for reference. But, look, if you go on this way, along the river, you’ll come to the summer pavilion, and from there you can work round through the woods to the pagoda. There used to be a heronry there at the pool, but the last pair flew away last year. You will excuse me, won’t you?” She was backing away from them towards the house, ten yards distant before she stopped talking, and turned, and broke into a run. The feverish sound of her voice clung unpleasantly in their ears as she dwindled, sometimes running, sometimes walking hastily and unsteadily, her track a shaky line in the wet grass.
“It seemed only fair to let her know we’d seen her,” said Dominic dubiously, meeting Tossa’s eyes. “She hadn’t said anything that
“I know, I was glad you said it. I don’t think we’ll go and look for the swan’s nest, somehow, do you? It’ll be there, of course. She’s quick, she wouldn’t give herself an excuse that could be knocked down just by going and looking.” Tossa stooped and picked up from the grass a couple of tiny, cross-shaped blossoms that had fallen from Felicity’s hair as she combed it nervously with her fingers. “Lilac… look, what a colour! So deep, and really almost pure blue instead of purple…”
She stood for a moment holding them, and then turned her palm and let them fall again sadly into the turf. “I suppose he turned on her. Something happened.”
“I suppose so,” said Dominic. “Probably told her to run away and play with her dolls.”
“Isn’t it hell,” sighed Tossa, “being fifteen?”
The coach parties came back hungry and in high spirits just after half past four, and tumbled up the steps into the hall for tea. The noise, now that they had sorted themselves out into congenial groups and had plenty to talk about, was deafening. Arundale, if he had been there to hear, would have been satisfied of the success of the course by the soaring decibel count. There were no clouds, no shadows, no disagreements, no clashes of temperament, and nobody even wondered why; until five o’clock struck, and Professor Penrose came in to hasten the laggards along to the drawing-room for his next lecture, and looking round the emptying room, suddenly asked. “Where’s young Galt?”
He was not with the other artists, already on station in the window-embrasure of the yellow drawing-room. He was not in the hall, lingering with the scones and tea-cups. And now that the question arose, he hadn’t been in to tea at all.
“He wouldn’t stand us up purposely, would he?” asked the professor shrewdly, and in a tone which required confirmation of his own views rather than information.
“Surely not,” said Dominic, abandoning his self-imposed task of loading the huge tea-trolley; and: “No!” said Liri Palmer at the same instant, and still more positively, even scornfully.
“No, that’s what I thought. Boy’s a professional. No, I don’t think he’d welch on a session. So
There was a dead silence. No one had anything to volunteer. There were only a handful of them left there, in the strewn wreckage of tea, a china battlefield.
“He didn’t come out with us this afternoon,” said Henry Marshall. “Was he with your party?”
“No.” The professor sounded a little testy. Lucifer was not the kind of person who could pass unnoticed on board a coach.
“He stayed here,”‘ said Dominic. “Tossa and I saw him go out, soon after the coaches left. He started off towards the river, by that path that dives into the trees.”
“And you haven’t seen him since?”
“No. Felicity just might have. She was down that way this afternoon, we met her coming back.” No need to say she’d followed Lucien from the house; she knew there were others who knew, she’d be able to answer questions and keep her secrets, too.
“Shall I go and find Felicity?” offered Tossa, to fend off any other messenger.
