April Lady Read online

  ‘What the devil,’ wrote Dysart, without preamble, ‘is the use of setting up a squawk for me to come and see you if the next thing you do is to go jauntering off to a picnic? I can’t wait to see you, for I’m going out of town for a day or two, but you may as well stop fretting and fuming, because I have hit on a way of setting all to rights, and more besides. I shan’t tell you what it is because ten to one you would not like it, for I never knew anyone with more buffleheaded scruples. I daresay you would have tried to throw a rub in the way, had you been at home, so I am just as glad you are not. If that hog-grubbing mantua-maker of yours starts dunning you again before I get back to town tell her she shall be paid before the week’s out. Now, don’t be in a pucker, my dear Sister, for we shan’t fail this time, and don’t get to wondering if I’ve sold your precious sapphires, or anything else you doat on, for I have not. Your affectionate brother, Dysart. P.S. I greased Farley in the fist not to tell Cardross I was in the house, and your porter too – at least, I shall – so don’t go blurting it out to him like a ninny-hammer.’

  Having read this twice, Nell’s spirits rose a little. There seemed to be no doubt that Dysart really had discovered a way of paying her debt, though what it could be she had not the remotest guess. It made her uneasy to read that she would not like it; but since he had been indignant with her for supposing that he would play the highwayman in earnest, and had now assured her that he had not taken her jewels, she did not think it could be anything very bad. He wrote with such certainty that her first sharp fear died: even Dysart would not have stated so positively that they would not fail this time had the matter rested on the turn of a card, or the fall of the dice. The worst would be if he had backed himself to perform some crazy exploit, and his going out of town made this appear rather probable. Nell knew that he had jumped his horse over that famous dinner-table because someone had betted heavily against his being able to perform the feat. She knew also that no dependence could be placed on his refusing a dangerous wager, because he was so much a stranger to fear that his anxious relatives had more than once entertained the unnerving suspicion that he was incapable of recognizing peril, even though it stared at him in the face. Vague but hideous possibilities began to suggest themselves to her, but before she had made herself quite sick with apprehension common sense reasserted itself, and she thought what a fool she was to suppose that even the most totty-headed of his cronies would offer him a wager the acceptance of which would put him in danger of breaking his neck.

  For twenty-four hours she hung between hope and fear, and then a blow more crushing than any she had thought possible almost annihilated her. She had come in to find a message awaiting her that called for an immediate answer, and taking it upstairs with her, sat down at the tambour-top writing-table in her dressing-room to scribble a reply before ringing for Sutton to dress her for dinner. She had just signed her name and was about to shake the pounce-box over the single sheet of paper, when the door opened behind her, and Sutton’s voice said: ‘Oh, my lady!’

  Sutton sounded agitated. Thinking that she must suppose herself to have been sent for long since (for the only thing that ever ruffled her stately calm was the degrading suspicion that she had fallen short of her own rigid standard), Nell said cheerfully: ‘Yes, I am come home, but I had not pulled my bell, so don’t be thinking you are late! The India mull-muslin with the short train will do very well for tonight.’

  ‘It’s not that, my lady!’ Sutton said. ‘It is the necklace!’

  ‘The necklace?’ Nell repeated uncomprehendingly.

  ‘The necklace of diamonds and emeralds which your ladyship never wears, and which we placed for safety in this very cupboard!’ said Sutton tragically. ‘Between the folds of the blue velvet pelisse your ladyship wore last winter, where no one would think to look for such a thing! Oh, my lady, it is more than an hour since I made the discovery, and how I have found the strength to keep me on my feet I know not! Never in all my years of service has such a thing happened to any of my ladies! Gone, my lady!’

  Nell sat turned to stone. As the appalling implication flashed into her brain she found herself unable to move or to speak. The colour drained away from her very lips, but her back was still turned to her dresser, and Sutton did not see how near she was to fainting.

  ‘I took your ladyship’s winter garments out to brush them, and be sure there was no moth crept in, which is always my practice, for too often, my lady, and particularly when a garment is trimmed with fur, will it be found that camphor does not prevail! The case the necklace was laid in was there still, but when I lifted it I thought it felt too light, and the dreadful suspicion came to me – My lady, I opened it, and it was empty!’

  A voice which Nell knew must be her own, for all it did not seem to belong to her, said: ‘Good God, what a fright you put me into, Sutton!’

  ‘My lady?’

  Sutton sounded startled. Nell set the pounce-box down with a shaking hand, her underlip gripped between her teeth. She had overcome her faintness: one must not faint in such an extremity as this. ‘But surely I told you, Sutton?’ she said.

  ‘Told me, my lady?’

  She was beginning to see her way: not more than a few steps of it yet. ‘Did I not? How stupid! Yet I thought I had done so. Don’t – don’t be afraid! It hasn’t been stolen.’

  ‘You have it safe, my lady?’ Sutton cried eagerly.

  ‘Yes. That is – no, it – I took it to Jeffreys.’

  ‘You took it to Jeffreys, my lady?’ Sutton repeated, in an astonished tone. ‘Indeed you never told me! And to remove it from the case – ! Never say you stuffed it into your reticule! My lady, it is not my place to say so, but you should not! Why, you might have dropped it, or had it snatched from you! It gives one palpitations only to think of it!’

  ‘Nonsense! It was safer by far in my reticule. I hope you may not have told anyone – any of the other servants – that it was stolen? If you have, it must make them very – very uncomfortable – in case they should be suspected of having taken it!’

  ‘Not to a living soul have I opened my lips!’ declared Sutton, drawing herself up rather rigidly. ‘I should think it very improper, my lady, to make such a disclosure to anyone other than your ladyship.’

  ‘I am so glad! The thing is, you see, that I have some notion of wearing it – at our own ball here. I thought, perhaps, with the pale green gauze I might not dislike it. So – I put it on, to see how it would be – yes, on Thursday last, when you went to visit your sister! – and it seemed to me that the clasp was not quite safe. That is why I took it to Jeffreys.’

  ‘Well, my lady,’ said Sutton, rapidly recovering her poise, ‘it is a prodigious relief to me to know that my alarm need not have been. I am sure I was never nearer in my life to suffering a spasm.’

  She then folded her lips tightly, dropped a stiff curtsey, and withdrew to the adjoining room to lay out the evening-gown of India mull-muslin.

  Nell tried to rise from her chair, found that her knees were shaking, and sank back again. She had staved off immediate discovery, but what to do next she had no idea, nor could she, for many minutes, force her stunned mind to think. Only pictures as useless as they were unwelcome presented themselves to her: of herself, taking the necklace from its hiding-place to show it to Dysart – oh, months ago! of Dysart, seated at this very desk, and writing to tell her that he had not taken her sapphires, or anything else she doted on; of Cardross’s face, when he had spoken to her so harshly about Dysart, and then, quite suddenly, had checked himself. She uttered a stifled moan, and covered her eyes with her hand. Dysart knew she didn’t like the Cardross necklace, but how could he have supposed that it was hers to dispose of at will? Or didn’t he care?

  It was fruitless to ask herself such questions as that: no answer could be forthcoming until Dysart himself gave it to her. And that at once raised another question, and a far more ur