VII

From my high place at the rear window the plan of the topiary chessboard lay spread below me, with every piece standing neatly on a square. This was a curious game, since those who had designed the garden so long ago had wanted to keep most of the pieces still in play. I had known nothing about chess until Justin had taught me the game, and even then I lacked the patience to learn it well. But at least I understood what was supposed to be happening down there on the grass chessboard.

Because all the figures were carved from the same dark yew, Daniel had followed the old plan for distinguishing between the opponents. Black was black, but around every “white” piece he had placed a circlet of seashells as an identifying border. Even the grass played its role, with alternate patches clipped short, to form the dark and light squares of a chessboard.

The possible end of a game was represented, rather than the beginning—perhaps because this seemed more dramatic. The black rook was in position to check White’s king in the next play, but convention decreed that it was White’s turn. If White succeeded in blocking the rook, then the game would continue. But if White was not clever and alert, the game would be over with Black’s next move.

One rainy Sunday afternoon Justin had set up a board in the library to match the game in the garden. He had taken White’s side, easily blocking my black rook from its move to checkmate. We had gone on from there to the ignoble defeat of my black chessmen. Justin could always beat me and he never hesitated to win impatiently, so that I had liked better to play with Nigel Barrow. Nigel, too, had come late to the game of chess, but he had learned it far more expertly than I, and he was willing to point out strategy, and even help me at times to win against him.

As I looked down upon the garden from Maggie’s window, the yew chessmen stood in place with the battle endlessly arrayed, and never a man moving. Only once, thanks to a cruelly mischievous prank, had the black rook moved. That had happened long ago one summer when the boys had been home from school on holiday. Maggie had told me the story a bit ruefully. One morning the family had been wakened by Daniel’s cries of outrage. He had not been “Old” Daniel then, but he was as deeply devoted to his topiary masterpiece as he was in later years.

Maggie had rolled out of bed and rushed to the rear window of her sitting room to look down upon a garden that was still wet with early morning dew. Daniel was in a frenzy of rage, dancing about the place where the black rook should have stood ready for its strategic play. Instead, a yawning hole in the turf was all that showed where a rooted yew had once stood. The rook was gone, its roots torn out—and the game on the chessboard meant nothing.

There was a considerable uproar. That summer Marc had been at his irresponsible worst, constantly playing tricks upon Daniel, tormenting him in one way or another. Yet when the gardener had accused him, Marc had simply laughed in his face. The man went into such a fury that it was only Justin’s generous act which saved Marc from Daniel’s rage. Justin calmly took the blame upon himself and admitted to digging up the rook. It was not Marc at all, he said. He had done it on a bet and he was sorry. He had not expected such a rumpus. He would buy a new yew tree himself and Daniel could transplant it.

Maggie had told me that she believed not a word of Justin’s “confession,” nor did she think Daniel believed him either. The gardener hadn’t it in his heart to be angry with Justin, however, so Marc was let off scot free. It had taken a long while for the new yew to take hold and grow properly so that it would accept the ministrations of Daniel’s shears. But with patience this end was achieved and the rook’s castle-crowned head once more rose in its ordained place.

Now, as I looked down from the window, the black rook seemed to stand in triumphant readiness, like a hunter ready for the kill, while the old man who had for so long trimmed the garden was dead. I wondered if anyone else had the skill to take over this exacting task, or if anyone could be found who would give it the endless, loving patience Old Daniel had.

“It’s the rook’s play,” he had warned me yesterday. I was to remember, he told me, that Old Daniel had reminded me that it was the rook’s play next, and the king had better watch out.

Once before the rook had moved, and it was Marc who moved it. Was this what Old Daniel meant? Had he tried to tell me in a sort of code that Marc was once more to be feared and that the white king—Justin, of course—had better be careful? Perhaps he had meant me to go directly to Justin with the message, but when I tried to tell Justin what the old man had said, he had shrugged the whole thing off. Now Old Daniel was dead, and I was unable to believe that his sudden death had been wholly accident. Someone else must have been there in that place of ruin. Perhaps the snapshot I’d taken recorded the hidden truth, which I had not been able to recognize.

I stared at the dark yew shapes as though they might tell me something, studied the expert carving of a knight’s equine head, considered the mitered crown of a bishop—and returned always to that rook which was not black in reality, but dark green, even in the bright sun of noon. The garden was not the shadowy place it could be at dusk, or by moonlight. All stood open and revealed and quiet. Yet when I looked at the topiary forms I felt more uneasy than ever. “Unnatural,” Justin had once called them. He liked trees to be trees. He liked the forest and the park about Athmore better than he did the manicured lawns and ordered flowerbeds—or this topiary garden.

Then, quite suddenly, breaking the dreaming spell of quiet, there was movement on the board. A woman in a light dress came running toward the house, darting between the carved chessmen. She was Maggie’s secretary, Caryl Davis, and there was a look of alarm upon her face.

The back stairs for this wing opened across from Maggie’s rooms, and I ran down one flight to meet her at the back door. She saw me and flew toward me breathlessly.

“Do you know where Mrs. Graham is? Or Mr. North?”

I shook my head. “No, but I can help you look for them. Is it important?”

She gestured behind her. “I was walking in the woods—and I saw a man. Not one of our people. When I came on him he stood and stared at me insolently, and he walked off rudely when I asked him what he wanted. He had very black hair and a strange sort of look in his eyes. With all that’s been happening around here, someone ought to discover who he is and what he’s doing on Athmore ground. He gave me quite a fright.”

She hurried away toward the front of the house and I let her go. If I went with her the intruder would be gone, and I wanted to be useful to Justin for once. I ran through the back door, wound my way through the topiary figures and crossed the lawn to a path leading in among the trees at the rear of the house. But though I looked behind every shrub and tree as I walked, I saw no black-haired man. Instead, I met Maggie Graham coming through the woods toward me, walking fast, so that her face was pink with effort—and agitation.

“That dreadful woman!” she murmured when she saw me. “I suppose it was a mistake to confront her—but I had to try.”

I remembered that the path leading off behind Athmore was a shortcut to Grovesend—if you were a walker, as Maggie was. She wore the same gray trousers and sweater she had worn when she came downstairs last night during the fire, and she wore them well, for all that she was a big woman.

“Did you see a man when you came through the woods?” I asked. “Miss Davis has had a fright, running into an insolent stranger.”

Maggie nodded carelessly. “Yes, I saw him. It was Leo Casella, down from London. Alicia bought the Club Casella from him, and he still manages it for her. He said she had sent him to Athmore with a message for Justin. Sometimes he comes around, though I don’t like him. I suppose Caryl has never seen him before.”

That mystery explained, I walked back with Maggie. She turned toward the drive that led behind garages and workshop, seeming far more perturbed than I’d ever seen her, striding beside me, rather aggressively, now and then putting absent hands to her head, rumpling her hair thoroughly in a gesture I had seen only on those rare occasions when something upset her.

“What is it?” I asked. “What has happened?”

She was too indignant for caution. “I went to see Alicia because of Marc. He’s been running with a gambling crowd in London that he can’t afford. And the Club Casella’s his favorite casino. I wanted to have it out with Alicia as to how much he owes the club by this time, but she wouldn’t tell me. She only smiled in that maddening, superior way of hers when I asked her to keep him out of the club. She’s encouraging him to gamble—I’m sure of it. And I don’t like it one bit.”

“Can’t you tell Justin?” I asked.

“He believes I’m prejudiced against Alicia—which is perfectly true. Besides, I don’t want him worrying about Marc now. He needs his mind free for his work. Alicia knows I won’t tell him so she feels safe in what she’s doing. But why is she doing it? I can’t see that it’s to her interest to let Marc go on like this, yet she won’t agree to bar him from the club.”

“Isn’t it time Marc finds a way to pay his own debts?” I asked impatiently. “Hasn’t there been enough of his leaning upon other people?”

Maggie was still too upset to be cautious about what she told me. “I don’t believe he can. He’s more deeply in debt than any of us suspected. Justin mustn’t know how bad it is—so don’t say anything to him, Eve. I’m worried because I don’t know what Alicia means to do, and I don’t trust her.”

As we walked along the banked pavement of the test course, I could sense her tension, her very real concern. When Maggie’s poise was upset, something serious was undoubtedly wrong.

“Dacia says that Alicia’s marriage to Justin would bring in the money to settle Marc’s debts,” I said. “But surely it can’t be as bad as all that. If it’s Alicia Marc owes, then—”

“The problem mustn’t be solved that way!” Maggie broke in. “That’s why I want to know the exact sum. I want to tell Nigel exactly what he might have to take on when he marries me.”

I gave her a quick look. “Maggie, you’re not sacrificing yourself to rescue Marc?”

“Don’t be an idiot! Nigel and I are fond of each other. We respect each other. Neither of us expects romantic love at our age. It means a great deal to me to have his companionship and guidance. And it means something to him, I think, to come to Athmore belonging here, as he never could as a schoolboy. But I want to play fair with him. I want him to know just how much trouble Marc is in. I must be responsible—not Justin. There’s nothing left for Justin to be responsible with, though I know he’d take the thing on in a moment, no matter how angry with Marc he might be. But let’s not talk about this now. I must stop being furious before I speak to Nigel. So tell me about you, Eve. What have you decided?”

“I don’t seem able to decide anything,” I said. “Not even to go home today.”

She tucked her hand through the crook of my arm companionably. “If you’ll just stay from day to day, perhaps we’ll still rout Alicia. And by the way—she has some curious notion that she wants to talk to you. She told me she would get in touch with you soon.”

Any thought of seeing Alicia dismayed me. “We met briefly this morning and I don’t want to see her again.”

Maggie shrugged. “It’s up to you, of course. But she has something on her mind, and it might be wise to find out what’s up. She’s the enemy, you know, so it’s better to discover what she intends.”

We were nearing a place where the road made a wide loop around a clump of trees that obscured our view and added an obstacle to the test course. Suddenly and almost silently, a car came from behind the trees, bearing down upon us. Maggie grasped my arm and we both leaped for the side of the road. Justin was at the wheel and he drove past, braked to a stop, and then backed up to us. The car was not one of those plush models driven by Marc and Dacia, but the long gray one I had glimpsed through a window in the small separate garage. It had a rather strange look because of a bumper that seemed to run all around it, as well as an unusual hood—bonnet, Justin would say—to accommodate the engine.

The moment Justin stopped, Maggie ran to him contritely. “Don’t scold,” she begged. “Eve couldn’t know this was a dangerous spot. I’ve been careless again!”

The passing glance Justin gave me was chill. “She knows. No one is to walk in the middle of these drives under any circumstances. The test courses are here to service the cars, and for no other reason. There are other footwalks. Neither of you heard me coming, did you?”

“No—which is very clever of your car,” Maggie said. “No uproar, no nasty smells. Now do forgive us and take us for a spin. Eve hasn’t had a taste of what you’re up to yet.”

She did not wait for a probable refusal, but opened the door to the front seat, pushing me unceremoniously in beside Justin. Then she got in herself and pulled the door shut.

“Justin, did you see Leo Casella?” she asked. “I met him in the woods just now and he said he’d come over to give you a message from Alicia.”

“Leo?” Justin put the car in gear smoothly. “I’ve had no message. I didn’t know he was around.”

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Maggie said. “I’ve never cared for the fellow, and apparently he gave Caryl a fright.”

“I’ll see about it,” Justin said, and we went off quickly, with scarcely a purr of sound.

“It’s the new fuel that’s responsible for the quiet,” Maggie informed me. “You’ve really got it, haven’t you, Justin?”

He shook his head. “Only in the crudest possible form. It works quietly enough and it won’t burn or explode, but it’s nowhere near ready for any sort of mass production. Too impossibly expensive now. The problem is to get on with it before someone else cuts in with the answers. Whoever arrives first will have the world market, and of course they’re working on various approaches everywhere.”

“You’ll get it,” Maggie said as we picked up speed. “Nothing must stop you now.”

We drove in swift silence after that—down the middle bar of the course and around the outer edge of the loop that encompassed the house. I was more conscious of being close to Justin than I was of the wind roused by our speed, or the smooth banking of the curves, the silence of the engine. I stared at his familiar long-fingered hands on the wheel—strong hands, well in control. The car of course was an English righthand drive, so his bandaged left arm was next to me and I tried not to touch him.

As we rounded the loop and turned toward the house, Maggie stopped him.

“Let me out here, will you, dear? I’ve played long enough. I must get back and look up Caryl. She’s probably frantic by now because she can’t find me. No, Eve—stay where you are.”

The moment Justin braked to a stop, she was out of the car, slamming the door behind her, running across the grassy verge in the direction of the house.

Justin did not start the car again, but waited for me to follow her. “That was pretty obvious of Maggie. Perhaps you’d like to get out here too?”

I looked at him, seeing the pale silver streak in his hair, the strong shape of his nose, the firm mouth I remembered too well.

“Don’t be angry with me,” I said. “Tell me what you’re doing—tell me about the car. It’s been so long—I’m out of touch.”

For a moment I thought he might put me relentlessly out on the road and drive off without me. The motor still idled and at length he set the gray car into motion. This time he drove more slowly and after a few minutes he began to talk to me. But instead of the technical detail that would be over my head, he spoke of what this car might mean in a wider sense than concerned his personal fortunes. I listened intently, wanting to understand.

“Whether I succeed with these experiments with fuel or not, there’s more to this car. Everyone’s been afraid to build for safety in the past because the public has rejected such cars. But the ghastly facts of highway slaughter are beginning to get through the hardest heads and there’s a more receptive climate now. What we hope for is a car that will put England into top competition in the world market.”

Woods and parklands flowed by without haste, so that one could encompass them visually, instead of losing everything in a blur as we’d done when I drove with Dacia. I listened and Justin talked.

“There was a day when England had command of the world market,” he went on. “But countries, like people, grow old and too set in their ways. We began to lose out to young, more aggressive nations. I suppose this is as it should be. Fortunately, nations can be reborn and we’re not without recent resurgence. But what we’ve accomplished in radar, and with the jet plane and a few other things has to be multiplied all across the board.”

“There’s another rebirth,” I said, smiling. “There’s a whole fresh, new, young spirit coming to life in England. You have only to think of the Beatles and Mary Quant and the rest—the way they’ve had London popping these days!”

Justin had relaxed a little as we talked. “I admire these youngsters. They’ve put a few older industries to shame with their eagerness and hard work. They’re doing what they believe in, following their own creativeness, instead of grasping merely for themselves, as too many of their elders are doing. I’d like to think this car of mine may shake things up a bit too—if it gets there in time. Recently these malicious disruptions of my work have set me back. They’ve got to be stopped—and soon.”

He turned the car into the home stretch. His coolness toward me had not really lessened, even though for a little while he had warmed to his subject. Now silence lay between us again and I sought for some way to break it.

“What did you make of that wine bottle and the cigarette packets Marc brought you?” I asked. “What do you think they mean?”

He threw me a startled look. “What bottle? He’s brought me nothing.”

I tried to explain. “Nigel got suspicious of someone hiding out on the roof and he went up there to search. He found these things and gave them to Marc, who said he’d take them directly to you.”

The car picked up speed. We rounded the last curve with the wind in our ears, and drew up before the garage.

“I’ll talk to Marc at once,” Justin said, and barely waited for me to get out of the car before he hurried toward his workshop.

I climbed the embankment between the row of beech trees and crossed the side lawn. Marc came toward me from the front terrace.

“So you’ve been out for a ride in Justin’s masterpiece?” His eyes were bright with familiar malice.

“He’s looking for you now to ask questions about the things Nigel found on the roof,” I said.

“I’ll talk to him.” Marc was curt. “There was something I had to look after first. I’ve a message for you, by the way. Alicia wants to see you. This evening, if you can make it. Dacia and I will drive you over.”

I stared at him, astonished at his calm assurance that I would do as she expected. “Why should I see Alicia?” I demanded.

“Why shouldn’t you?”

“What does she want of me?”

“That’s up to her, but at least I can tell you one thing. She wants you to bring over the snapshot you caught of Old Daniel yesterday before the accident that killed him.”

I gaped. “How does she know there is such a picture?”

“When you tell Dacia, you tell the world,” Marc said wryly.

Somehow I did not like this. Alicia’s interest in this chance picture gave me an eerie, unsettled feeling in which there was a vague sense of threat.

“Why is Alicia interested in the picture?” I asked. “It’s only a blurred snapshot which may or may not be of Old Daniel.”

“May not be?” Marc was quick. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t mean anything except that it isn’t possible to tell who is in the snapshot. In any case, why should Alicia care?”

He shrugged. “She didn’t confide in me. Sentimental reasons, perhaps. The old man was devoted to her, you know. She used to flatter him over that topiary monstrosity, and he made no bones about thinking she ought to be mistress of Athmore.”

I knew this was true, but I doubted that Alicia possessed much sentiment in her character.

“You’d better see her,” Marc said softly.

I thought of the rook’s play. My distrust of him was increasing. “Why?” I said again.

Again he made that slight motion of shrugging. “Easier for everyone if you do. And it won’t hurt you.”

The desire to know what Alicia wanted, to know the reason for her interest in my chance snapshot, was stronger than my reluctance to meet her again. I did not care one way or another whether I eased anything for Marc, but I wanted to know more about her interest in the picture.

“All right, then. I’ll see her tonight, if she wishes. And if Dacia is coming with us.”

Marc cocked an amused eyebrow at me, but I sensed his relief. For some reason he had been worried lest I refuse.

“At least this will be interesting to watch,” he said and went off toward Justin’s workshop.

The terrace was empty and I crossed it to the front door. The Hall of Armor stretched bleakly on either hand, far more chill than the sunny air outdoors. I wondered, as I often had, where the Spanish bones lay that these helmets and breastplates once covered.

As I climbed the stairs Mrs. Langley’s worldly-wise gray eyes seemed to watch me from her portrait. She had been a far more gifted and imaginative woman than any of her daughters, but she must have been greatly beset by the difficult problems provided by them. I wondered how she had met those problems, what courses of action she had taken. Yet all the while it was my own course that concerned me. As Maggie had said, Alicia was the enemy and it was time to stop running from her and meet her face to face. She must not find me the same easily routed and quickly humiliated girl she had met in the past. This morning she had routed me again. Tonight it must be different.

Halfway up the curving flight the beautiful Cynthia regarded me with a veiled gaze, pouting a little. After Mr. Dunscombe had taken himself conveniently out of the way, Cynthia had become Lady Stanhope and moved away from Athmore for good, which must have given her mother a certain welcome respite. This time as I passed her picture I gave her look for look, as though it were Alicia herself with whom I crossed glances.

From the upper banister a voice came down to me. “That Cynthia was the worst of the lot, wasn’t she?” Dacia said. “Looking down her nose and all that. I keep wanting to tell her off properly. Though perhaps that look is only to hide how scared she was. What with all that knocking on her door late at night after her husband was dead. She must have been glad when Sir Gerald came along and took her away. And I’ll bet her mum was glad to see her go.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” I agreed as I climbed the last flight and stood beside Dacia, looking down at the great array of portraits, almost three stories high.

“Wonder if they’ll add Alicia to the lot someday,” she said slyly: “She’s beautiful enough. But she’s a phony.”

I caught her up at once. “What do you mean by that?”

Dacia could be slippery when she chose, and she wriggled away from the question.

“I’d rather see you up there, if you must know. Are you going to Grovesend tonight?”

“I’ve told Marc I would,” I said. “Providing you’ll be there too.”

She giggled softly. “I know what you mean. Oh, I’m not jealous, never fear. I know where I stand with old Marc. But he’s told me about you and him in the old days.”

“If I were you,” I said dryly, “I wouldn’t believe too much of what Marc tells you about the so-called old days. I was there too, you know, and I was never, as you put it, his girl friend.”

For some reason she looked crestfallen. “You mean that part wasn’t true at all? Of course I know Marc tells a lot of whoppers but then—so do I.”

“That one was certainly a whopper,” I agreed.

“Well, it’s too bad in a way.” She cocked her head on one side as we walked toward the north wing. “I’d have felt a bit set up, you know, to think he’d settled for me instead of you.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Oh—that you’ve got looks and education—and you know how to do the proper thing. Besides, you believe in something. I don’t believe in anything except getting Dacia what Dacia wants.”

“If you see all that in me, perhaps I’m a phony too,” I said ruefully. “But I wish you’d tell me what you meant about Alicia being one. I’d like to be armed with whatever I need to know before I see her tonight.”

Dacia wrinkled her snub little nose in scorn. “Well—you know—she has family and loads of good breeding, but all the same, somewhere deep down she’s a fake—though I don’t know exactly what’s wrong. It’s just that I can smell that sort of thing a mile. I’ve had a lot of practice. You’re the one who’s a lot more real, even though sometimes you haven’t much sense. The way you keep cutting off your own nose. But at least you’re not pretending anything. But that’s enough from me. After all, I have to play Marc’s game, don’t I?”

“So this is Marc’s game too?” I said. “Why? What does he get out of it?”

“Only his life, so to speak,” said Dacia airily. “If Alicia decides to turn the screws it’ll be all over for Marc.”

We reached our corridor and I heard music blaring through the open door of Dacia’s room. There was no point in pursuing the subject of Marc, since I would not get very far with Dacia.

“You’ve a record player?” I asked.

“No—tape recorder. I like to pick up things from the telly, and sometimes from Radio Caroline. The pirate stations aren’t as stuffy as B.B.C. When I saw Petula Clark on telly doing that one, I took it off on tape so I could play it again. Do you like the song? It makes me ever so sad—all about tomorrow never coming. It will be that way for us one of these days, won’t it—the time when tomorrow never comes?”

“Let’s hope not for a while,” I said and went on to my room with the music wailing after me, more prophetic than I liked. All my tomorrows were bound up with Justin, and it was likely that they had already been cut off.

It was nearly time for one o’clock luncheon, and as I washed, combed my hair, freshened my lipstick, I thought over the events of the morning. The same troubling questions still nagged at me—whether the man in my snapshot was really Old Daniel, and why Alicia Daven was interested in seeing the picture. Tonight I must discover exactly what Alicia wanted.

I opened the bureau drawer and took out my handbag, felt inside the zippered pocket where I had put the picture. My fingers found nothing. Downstairs the gong that summoned Athmore to meals began to sound, but I paid no attention. I carried my bag to the bed and dumped out its contents.

The picture was not there. Someone must have come into my room to search for it and had taken it away. The theft answered one question that had been haunting me. Old Daniel could not have been the man in the picture, or no one would have cared. What I had snapped mattered to someone. Mattered so much that the picture had been filched from my bag. By someone who did not want me to show Alicia the snapshot when I went to Grovesend tonight? If such a person had reason to fear the existence of a picture, what might he fear from me—since I’d been in the very spot where the picture was taken. This was a new and completely unsettling thought.

Once more I removed my suitcase from the wardrobe closet and looked for the packet of pictures and film Nellie had brought me. This, at least, was where I’d left it. I opened the paper folder and took out the negatives. One by one I held the squares of film up to the light, discarding each until I came to the one that showed me the chapel stones of Athmore Hall arching against the sky, and shrubbery with a human figure fading into it. I would not be able to show Alicia the printed picture tonight, but I still had the negative. Now, more than ever, I wanted the answer to her interest in the picture. I could not believe it stemmed from any sentimental affection she might have felt toward Old Daniel.

This time I put the square of film into a pocket in my billfold, and took my handbag with me. For the moment I would say nothing to anyone about the missing picture. Let the hunter, whoever it was, be left wondering whether I had discovered the theft. A sudden intuitive picture flashed through my mind. I could see the castled green figure of the rook waiting on his square—waiting patiently to make the move which had been denied him for so long. As I went downstairs to join the others for luncheon I found that I was shivering.