Nightfall

Anthony Pryde

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• Publié par: obbu
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 40
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, Nightfall, by Anthony Pryde
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Title: Nightfall
Author: Anthony Pryde
Release Date: June 30, 2005 [eBook #14489]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIGHTFALL***
E-text prepared by Harry Graham Liston
NIGHTFALL
by
ANTHONY PRYDECHAPTER I
"Tea is ready, Bernard," said Laura Clowes, coming in from the garden.
It was five o'clock on a June afternoon, but the hall was so dark that she had to grope her way. Wanhope was a large,
old-fashioned manor-house, a plain brick front unbroken except in the middle, where its corniced roof was carried
down by steps to an immense gateway of weathered stone, carved with the escutcheon of the family and their Motto:
FORTIS ET FIDELIS. Wistarias rambled over both sides, wreathing the stone window-frames in their grape-like
clusters of lilac bloom, and flagstones running from end to end, shallow, and so worn that a delicate growth of
stonecrop fringed them, shelved down to a lawn.
Indoors in the great hall it was dark because floor and staircase and wall and ceiling were all lined with Spanish
chestnut-wood, while the windows were full of Flemish glass in purple and sepia and blue. There was nothing to
reflect a glint of light except a collection of weapons of all ages which occupied the wall behind a bare stone hearth;
suits of inlaid armour, coats of chainmail as flexible as silk, assegais and blowpipes, Bornean parangs and Gurkha
kukris, Abyssinian shotels with their double blades, Mexican knives in chert and chalcedony, damascened swords
and automatic pistols, a Chinese bronze drum, a Persian mace of the date of Rustum, and an Austrian cavalry
helmet marked with a bullet-hole and a stain.
Gradually, as her eyes grew used to the gloom Laura found her way to her husband's couch. She would have liked to
kiss him, but dared not: the narrow mocking smile, habitual on his lips, showed no disposition to respond to
advances. Dressed in an ordinary suit of Irish tweed, Bernard Clowes lay at full length in an easy attitude, his hands
in his pockets and his legs decently extended as Barry, his male nurse, had left them twenty minutes ago: a big,
powerful man, well over six feet in height, permanently bronze and darkly handsome, his immense shoulders still held
back so flat that his coat fitted without a wrinkle—but a cripple since the war.
Laura Clowes too was tall and slightly sunburnt, but thin for her height, and rather plain except for her sweet eyes, her
silky brown hair, and—rarer gift!—the vague elegance which was a prerogative of Selincourt women. She rarely
wore expensive clothes, her maid Catherine made most of her indoor dresses, and yet she could still hold her own,
as in old days, among women who shopped in the Rue de la Paix. This afternoon, in her silk muslin of the same
shade as the trail of wistaria tucked in where the frills crossed over her breast, she might have gone astray out of the
seventeenth century.
"Tea is in the parlour," said Mrs. Clowes. "Shall I wheel you round through the garden? It's a lovely day and the roses
are in their perfection, I counted eighty blooms on the old Frau Karl. I should like you to see her."
"I shouldn't. But you can drag me into the parlour if you like," said Bernard Clowes—a grudging concession: more
often than not he ate his food in the hall. His wife pushed his couch, which ran on cycle wheels and so lightly that a
child could propel it, into her sitting-room and as near as she dared to the French windows that opened without step
or ledge on the terrace flagstones and the verdure of the lawn. Out of doors, for some obscure reason, he refused to
go, though the garden was sweet with the scent of clover and the gold sunlight was screened by the milky branches
of a great acacia. Still he was in the fresh air, and Laura hastily busied herself with her flowered Dresden teacups,
pretending unconsciousness because if she had shown the slightest satisfaction he would probably have demanded
to be taken back. Her mild duplicity was of course mere make believe: the two understood each other only too well:
but it was wiser to keep a veil drawn in case Bernard Clowes should suddenly return to his senses. For this reason
Laura always spoke as if his choice of a coffined life were only a day or two old. Had he said—as he might say at
any moment—"Laura, I should like to go for a drive," Laura would have been able without inconsistency to reply,
"Yes, dear: what time shall I order the car?" as though they had been driving together every evening of their married
life.
"What have you been doing today?" Clowes asked, sipping his tea and looking out of the window. He had shut
himself up in his bedroom with a headache and his wife had not seen him since the night before.
"This morning I motored into Amesbury to change the library books and to enquire after Canon Bodington. I saw Mrs.
Bodington and Phoebe and George—,"
"Who's George?"
"Their son in the Navy, don't you remember? The Sapphire is in dry dock—"
"How old is he?"
"Nineteen," said Mrs. Clowes."Oh. Go on."
"I don't remember doing anything else except get some stamps at the post office. Stay, now I come to think of it, I met
Mr. Maturin, but I didn't speak to him. He only took off his hat to me, Bernard. He is seventy-four."
"Dull sort of morning you seem to have had," said Bernard Clowes.
"What did you do after lunch?"
"With a great want of intelligence, I strolled down to Wharton to see Yvonne, but she was out. They had all gone over
to the big garden party at Temple Brading. I forgot about it—"
"Why weren't you asked?"
"I was asked but I didn't care to go. Now that I am no longer in my first youth these expensive crushes cease to
amuse me." Bernard gave an incredulous sniff but said nothing. "On my way home I looked in at the vicarage to settle
the day for the school treat. Isabel has made Jack Bendish promise to help with the cricket, and she seems to be
under the impression that Yvonne will join in the games. I can hardly believe that anything will induce Yvonne to play
Nuts and May, but if it is to be done that energetic child will do it. No, I didn't see Val or Mr. Stafford. Val was over at
Red Springs and Mr. Stafford was preparing his sermon."
"Have you written any letters?"
"I wrote to father and sent him fifty pounds. It was out of my own allowance. He seems even harder up than usual. I'm
afraid the latest system is not profitable."
"I should not think it would be, for Mr. Selincourt," replied Bernard Clowes politely. "Monte Carlo never does pay
unless one's pretty sharp, and your father hasn't the brains of a flea. Was that the only letter you wrote?"
"Yes—will you have some more bread and butter?"
"And what letters did you get?" Clowes pursued his leisured catechism while he helped himself daintily to a fragile
sandwich. This was all part of the daily routine, and Laura, if she felt any resentment, had long since grown out of
showing it.
"One from Lucian. He's in Paris—"
"With—?"
"No one, so far as I know," Laura replied, not affecting to misunderstand his jibe. Lucian Selincourt was her only
brother and very dear to her, but there was no denying that his career had its seamy side. He was not, like her father,
a family skeleton—he had never been warned off the Turf: but he was rarely solitary and never out of debt. "Poor
Lucian, he's hard up too. I wish I could send him fifty pounds, but if I did he'd send it back."
"What other letters did you have?"
Mrs. Clowes had had a sheaf of unimportant notes, which she was made to describe in detail, her husband listening
in his hard patience. When they were exhausted Laura went on in a hesitating voice, "And there was one more that I
want to consult you about. I know you'll say we can't have him, but I hardly liked to refuse on my own imitative, as he's
your cousin, not mine. It was from Lawrence Hyde, offering to come here for a day or two."
"Lawrence Hyde? Why, I haven't seen or heard of him for years," Clowes raised his head with a gleam of interest. "I
remember him well enough though. Good-looking chap, six foot two or three and as strong as a horse. Well-built
chap, too. Women ran after him. I haven't seen him since we were in the trenches together."
"Yes, Bernard. Don't you recollect his going to see you in hospital?"
"So he did, by Jove! I'd forgotten that. He'd ten days' leave and he chucked one of them away to look me up. Not
such a bad sort, old Lawrence."
"I liked him very much," said Laura quietly.
"Wants to come to us, does he? Why? Where does he write from?"
"Paris. It seems he ran across Lucian at Auteuil—"
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