Her house - party consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Fortune and two young friends of her son, negligible in the case and out of it. She announced an invitation to take them all to dine and dance and sleep at Letley Hall.
Horror made Mr. Fortune dumb, and, with some perception of his anguish, Mrs. Mead proceeded to explain the charms of the prospect. Letley Hall was occupied by Mrs. Healy, an Argentine widow of wealth. She was just giving it up, and her party was by way of farewell to the county. They would meet everybody - Mr. Fortune’s sad eyes grew larger - and it was sure to be a very pretty affair.
Letley Hall was one of the oldest houses in Midshire, beautifully Elizabethan; you could not find anything better. It was absolutely unspoilt, though the Maminots had brought it quite up to date. It still belonged to the Maminots. Of course, that poor boy, Oliver Maminot, could not afford to live in it. He was just farming the old home farm, the only land he had left. People had hoped Mrs. Healy would buy the Hall. Really much better for Oliver to have it off his hands altogether. But what would become of it now, or of him, Mrs. Mead shuddered - at some length - to think, and Mr. Fortune’s aspect was plaintive.
Letley was quite a legendary place. But the strangest story was about the Mrs. Maminot of Napoleon’s time. Her portrait was in the gallery - a lovely Romney; she must have been the sweetest girl. She was just married, and her husband brought her home to Letley Hall. He was called away on some false alarm of an invasion by the French, and the morning after he went she was found dead in her bed. It made a great scandal. She had brought her husband a fortune. Of course, people said he had just gone away to have her murdered by his servants. But there wasn’t a wound on her; the doctors couldn’t find any trace of anything wrong; she looked just beautifully asleep, just as she always did, only there was a story that she was blushing. At least, somebody made up a ballad with a refrain, “The blushing bride of Letley.”
“That’s horrible,” said Mrs. Fortune. She looked at her husband, but his round face did not awake from its plaintive weariness. “What did the doctors say?” she asked.
“My dear, they said the poor thing must have had spasms of heart; so it was called a broken heart - because her husband left her on the honeymoon, you see.” She also turned to Mr. Fortune. “Isn’t it a strange story?”
“Oh, yes. Yes. Happened a long time ago,” he murmured. “Let’s hope it isn’t true.”
When his wife went up to dress for dinner, she found him lying on the rug in front of the fire, with his eyes closed, over a volume of Paul Bourget - the most modern French literature in Mrs. Mead’s house. The eyes opened slowly to watch her get into a wrapper; slowly he rose and put his arms round her, and kissed the back of her neck.
She submitted; she disengaged herself and contemplated him severely. She crooned the nursery rhyme, “Was a lady loved a swine. ‘Honey’, said she. ‘Hunk,’ said he.”
“Oh, no. No, Joan,” he protested.
“Yes. She was being very nice to you and you were pig, merely pig.”
“My dear girl! Condemnin’ me to awful things. Dance of all the county, and Argentine widow an’ all. And why? Because there was a nasty little crime a hundred years ago. I ask you! Just wantin’ to put me through my tricks. Make me show off to the Philistines.”
“Vanity!” She pulled his ears. “My good child! Too much ego. Far too much ego. The poor lady wasn’t thinking in the least of the wonderful Reginald’s wonderful powers. You sat there like a bored cat, so she tried to bring up something about the place that would amuse you.”
“You think so? “Reggie moaned. “I wonder. But, anyway, I hate bein’ amused.”
“Nasty temper.”
“No it isn’t. She’s like the Highland fellow with Dr Johnson; when the doctor was feelin’ forlorn, made a lot of goats jump and said, ‘See! Such pretty goats.’ Don’t want to see the goats dance, Joan.”
“You will dance yourself, my child,” said she. He drew back. A piteous noise came from him. “Not me, Joan. No.”
“Yes. It is hard on the women.” She made an opprobrious gesture indicating the forward curve of his torso. “But I must think of your good, dear. Victims shall be found.” And it was so.
Letley Hall is at the other end of the county, among modern plantations on the primeval sand - heaths. To drive through the dense woods which surround it on a moonless winter’s night is to feel that you have run off the earth into a void of darkness.
With many windows alight, Letley Hall blazed out of the gloom less like a house than a shapeless illumination; As their cars came to the door, it was revealed as a building on the lines of a capital E, with an overhanging upper storey, and above that gables innumerable.
“What a pity you can’t see it,” said Mrs. Mead. “It’s all timbered red brick, you know, the loveliest rich colour. But the outside isn’t really the oldest part. There’s a great wall built into that western wing, part of a castle which was here before, and some of the rooms there are ages old.”
They went into a passage between two screens of elaborate carving; they were taken to a room in which the black panelling and the emblazoned ceiling glowed to constellations of electric chandeliers. Their hostess, the Argentine Mrs. Healy, a large, dark woman who had been handsome, also glittered with many decorations, and was exuberant. She had a number of people about her, she could talk to everybody at once, and there was a noise. But in her general attentions it appeared to Reggie that she made much of Mrs. Mead and of a man with a lot of brow and little features on a shrewd, coarse face, whom she called Clarence and introduced as Mr. Burchard.
The name stirred vague recollections in Reggie’s mind. Clarence Burchard was some sort of a money king. Just the sort of man Mrs. Healy would delight to honour. Reggie was not interested. There was something much better to look at.
Beside a man who was the incarnation of all the world’s retired colonels sat a girl like an early Italian madonna. Not the most ethereal of them - say a Lippo Lippi madonna - not wistful, but of a simplicity of childish beauty. She was old - fashioned, or of no fashion. Her hair, which was of the madonna gold, she had drawn back smooth and flat and strained from her full, white forehead, to bind in a heavy knot above her long neck. The delicate colours of face and lip were supplied by nature. The frock, of the blue of her eyes, was plain from neck to foot and hand. She sat very still. She looked straight before her, neither shy nor asking notice, not ill at ease but as if she found them all strange people… .
Mr. and Mrs. Fortune were taken to a room the walls of which were hung with tapestry of goddesses and the ceiling moulded into wreaths of cherubs. Out of it opened a bathroom like an operating - theatre.
Reggie sat down on the fourposter bed and found in it the resilience of box springs, and gazed with respectful admiration at a tall chest painted red and gold and the carving of strange beasts and birds on the chimney - piece above the great hearth which held an efficient electric fire.
“Well sir!” Mrs. Fortune’s tone menaced.
“Yes. Feelin’ like Queen of Sheba. The half had not been told me. Fine place. Wonderful place.”
“I thought so.” Mrs. Fortune was still severe.
“Did you notice the staircase? There’s richness. Grand design. And the detail - the little monsters on the pillars - very crafty.”
