MARIE BELLOC LOWNDES - British Murder Mysteries Collection: 17 Books in One Edition. Marie Belloc Lowndes
I wish you’d tell her they don’t look, somehow, the right thing on a yacht.”
Bella Dale smiled and shook her head. “If you want me to make friends with her, that would be a very poor beginning——”
He said suddenly, “I am afraid Lady Dale doesn’t care for Mrs. Lexton?”
The colour deepened in his companion’s cheeks, and she looked embarrassed.
“Mother hasn’t had much of a chance of talking to her yet.”
Bella Dale was uncomfortably aware that her mother had taken an instant dislike to Ivy Lexton on the evening they had first met at the Savoy; and she knew that Lady Dale’s feeling had increased, rather than lessened, since the Lextons had joined Miles Rushworth’s yacht, for she had exclaimed to her daughter in the privacy of their state-room: “It’s foolish to be too good-natured, Bella. That young woman is a regular little minx!”
But Bella Dale, at this time of her life, saw everything through Miles Rushworth’s eyes. She liked what he liked, admired what he admired, and at any rate tried to believe good what he believed good. He had asked her earnestly to make friends with Mrs. Lexton, and he had told her something of the struggle the poor, pretty, little thing had gone through. Also he had let her see how great was his contempt for Ivy’s worthless, extravagant, idle husband . . . .
Rushworth had always had from childhood a passion for the sea. His had been an old-fashioned home, and everything had been done by his parents to promote what they thought was for his happiness from the day he was born; but not once had he been asked what he wished to do in life. His path had been marked out for him almost, it may be said, before his birth. His father would have been surprised as well as dismayed to learn that, both as a child and as a youth, his great wish had been to enter the Navy. During the war he had given to naval charities what would have crippled a lesser fortune than his own.
His fine yacht was his one personal extravagance, and on the Dark Lady he spent by far the happiest hours of his life. But he had deliberately so arranged the accommodation that it was impossible for him to have a really big party aboard. Eight to ten, including himself, was his limit, and the same people were generally asked by him each year. Lady Dale and her daughter, together with an old-fashioned couple belonging to a rather older generation than himself, who looked forward the whole year through to this August yachting fortnight, always came. To these he had added this summer the flying man, the latter’s bride, and the Lextons.
Acting as hostess was a middle-aged spinster cousin of his mother’s, who, like himself, had a passion for the sea. Charlotte Chattle was a pleasant woman of the world, speaking both French and Italian well, and clever in organising expeditions for those of his guests who cared for land jaunts. But the only people who counted in Rushworth’s mind on this summer cruise were Lady Dale and her daughter, and Ivy Lexton and Ivy Lexton’s husband.
Ivy’s half-presentiment at the Savoy had been perhaps a case of thought transference, for Miles Rushworth, just about that time, had been thinking seriously of marrying Bella Dale. Indeed, had that meeting with the Lextons not taken place, he would almost certainly have been engaged by now to Bella, and he still so far deceived himself as to wish that the girl he thought he loved, and whom he intended to become Mrs. Miles Rushworth, should make friends with Ivy Lexton.
Bella Dale had done her best in the last three days to fall in with his wishes, but she found it difficult to get further than a mild acquaintanceship with Miles Rushworth’s beautiful guest. She knew nothing of the night club, dancing, racing life, which was all that both the Lextons knew and thought worth living for. And Ivy, on her side, was entirely ignorant of, and would have despised, had she known of them, the manifold social and general interests which filled the life of even so quiet a girl as Bella Dale. Also Bella, who was no fool, realised with some discomfort that Mrs. Lexton had very quickly become aware that Lady Dale did not like or approve of her.
And Ivy herself? Ivy was counting the hours—to her intense relief they had now become hours instead of days—to the time when Lady Dale and her daughter would leave the yacht at Dieppe.
During the three weeks that had elapsed since their memorable meeting at the Savoy, Ivy Lexton and Miles Rushworth had been constantly together. It had all been very much above board—indeed, quite as often as not, Jervis Lexton had been of the company when the two lunched or dined, went to the play, or, pleasanter still, motored down to Ranelagh to spend an enchanting evening.
But Rushworth had a definite philosophy of life. To pursue a woman who, whatever the undercurrents to her life might be, appeared happily married, would have seemed to him a despicable, as well as a cruel and unmanly thing to do. Also, he prided himself on being able, when he chose to do so, to resist temptation, and he felt convinced he could handle what might become a delicate situation not only with sense, but even with comfort to himself. This was made the easier to him because he put Ivy Lexton on a pedestal. God alone knew how he idealised her, how completely he believed her soul matched her delicately perfect, ethereal-looking body.
While Ivy was chatting gaily to her companion, she was yet almost painfully aware of the two who stood talking together in so earnest and intimate a way. She was feeling what she had never felt in her life of twenty-six years: that is, bitterly, angrily jealous of a girl whom she thought stupid, dull, and unattractive.
Miles Rushworth’s attitude to herself disconcerted her. She could not, to use her own jargon, get the hang of him. It was so strange, in a sense so disturbing, that he never made love to her. Then, now and again, she would remember Mrs. Thrawn, and Mrs. Thrawn’s predictions.
She had followed the fortune-teller’s advice with regard to Roger Gretorex. She had insisted that it would be better for them both neither to see nor to write to each other till she came back to London in September; and he had had perforce to agree to her conditions.
The yacht made Dieppe the next morning, and at breakfast there rose a discussion as to how the party could spend their time on shore to the best advantage. Rushworth at once observed that he would not be able to take part in any expedition ashore. He had received important business telegrams, and he had a number of letters to dictate to a stenographer whose services he had already secured.
Miss Chattle, who knew he would value a quiet working day, suggested a motor expedition to a celebrated shrine a hundred kilometres inland from Dieppe. She declared that if they started at once they could be back in comfortable time for dinner.
And then it was that Ivy, as in a lightning flash, made up her mind as to how she would spend today.
“I get so tired motoring, so I’d rather stay behind.” She turned to her host, “While you’re doing your work, I can take a walk in the town. Though I’ve been to Paris two or three times, I’ve never been anywhere else in France.”
“That’s a good idea! We might meet at the Hotel Royal about one o’clock, and have lunch together.”
Half an hour later Miss Chattle shepherded the rest of the party into two roomy cars, while Rushworth escorted Lady Dale and her daughter on to the quay, where a carriage was waiting for them.
Lady Dale went forward to speak to the driver, and Rushworth turned to the girl he still intended should be his wife.
“If we don’t meet again before the end of September, I do want just to say one thing to you, Bella.”
He spoke in so peculiar, and in so very earnest, a tone, that Bella’s heart began to beat.
“What is it you want to say?” she asked, her voice sinking almost to a whisper.
“I’ve said it before, and now I want to say it again——”
Bella looked at him fixedly. Thank God, she hadn’t betrayed herself. But what was this he was saying?
“I do want you to make real friends with Mrs. Lexton—I mean, of course, after you and Lady Dale are back at Hampton Court, when Jervis Lexton will have begun work in my London office. His wife, poor little soul, hasn’t any real friends, from what I can make out.”
“Yet