April 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

gent one: where was Dysart? It seemed to her at first incomprehensible that he should have left London; but presently it occurred to her that it might be very dangerous to sell the necklace to any London jeweller or pawnbroker. She knew very little about such matters, but she believed it was quite a famous piece; and certainly there could be no mistaking it, if once one had seen it. It had been made a long time ago, in the time of Elizabeth, as a wedding-gift from the Cardross of that age to his bride, and it figured in more than one family portrait. It was, moreover, of unusual workmanship, for the jewels were set in the semblance of flowers and foliage, and every flower trembled on the end of a tiny spiral of gold. Nell had worn it once only, at a Drawing-Room, but although it had excited a good deal of admiration, and not a little curiosity (for no one could imagine what held the jewel-clusters quite half an inch clear of Nell’s breast, or what caused them to nod and quiver with every movement she made), she knew that it did not really become her; there were too many clusters, too much twisted gold in the foundation from which they sprang, too many leaves of flashing emeralds. She had once told Cardross that he ought to lend it to a museum, but although he had agreed that the proper place for it was in a glass case he liked her to wear it on state occasions, and so it had never gone to a museum. But even though it had not been publicly shown she supposed it must be well enough known to make Dysart seek a buyer for it in the provinces. She wondered hopelessly how he expected her to conceal the loss, whether he had found some craftsman skilled enough to copy the necklace, or whether (and this was the best she could hope) he had not sold, but pledged it.

She became aware of Sutton, coughing discreetly in the adjoining room. It was growing late, and though one might stand on the brink of a deep chasm of disaster one was still obliged to dress for dinner. She got up, steadier now, but with so white a face and such a look of strain in her eyes that Sutton, when she saw her come into the bedchamber, exclaimed that she was ill. She glanced at her own reflection in the mirror, and was startled to see how hagged she looked. She forced up a smile, and said: ‘Not ill, but I have had the headache all day. You must rouge my cheeks a little.’

‘If I may say it, my lady, I had as lief see you laid down in your bed. I am sure none knows better than I what it is to have the migraine.’

Nell shook her head, but she consented to swallow a few drops of laudanum in water, feeling that even though she had no migraine she had never stood in more urgent need of a composer.

The finishing touches had just been put to her toilette when Cardross sought admittance to the room. A sudden terror that Sutton might mention the disappearance of the necklace to him darted through Nell’s mind, and made her tongue cleave to the roof of her mouth; but Sutton did not speak. Her face was always rather immobile, and in Cardross’s presence it became mask-like. She dropped a slight curtsey, and at once withdrew, according to her correct practice. Nell remembered that she held men in abhorrence, and could breathe again.

Cardross was still habited in his morning-dress, and the sight of his blue coat and tasselled Hessians made Nell recollect, with relief, that he was not dining at home that evening. She said, with an effort at lightness: ‘Ah! Daffy Club, I collect!’

He smiled. ‘No: Cribb’s Parlour! You have no engagement for tonight?’

‘No, none. I am quite thankful for it! I have had the headache all day, and am not rid of it yet.’

‘For several days, I think.’

Her eyes flew to his, at once startled and wary. ‘No – but I own I am worn to a bone with dissipation!’

‘By something, at all events.’ He spoke very evenly, but his expression alarmed her. ‘I could almost suppose you to be love-lorn – as love-lorn as Letty!’

She looked rather blindly at him. A tragic little smile wavered on her lips, but she turned her head away, not answering.

‘I can only wish you a speedy recovery,’ he said. ‘Who is the man so fortunate as to have hit your fancy? No doubt some dashing sprig of fashion?’