Lowndes From Out the Vast Deep

Supernatural Thriller
1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-80-268-9454-4
Verlag: e-artnow
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 196 Seiten

Excerpt: 'As I looked down, ma'am, I had an awful turn. There seemed to me to be something floating about in the water, a little narrow thing like a child's body-and-and all on a sudden a small white face seemed to look up into mine! Oh, it was 'orrible!' Pegler did not often drop an aitch, but when she did so forget herself, she did it thoroughly. 'As I went on looking, fascinated-like'-she was speaking very slowly now-'whatever was down there seemed to melt away.'

Marie Lowndes Belloc (1868-1947) was a prolific English novelist, and sister of author Hilaire Belloc. Active from 1898 until her death, she had a literary reputation for combining exciting incidents with psychological interest. Lowndes Belloc produced mainly mysteries, well-plotted and on occasion based on real-life crime, though she herself resented being classed as a crime writer. Her best known work is The Lodger, a haunting mystery tale that revolves around the Jack the Ripper murders.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lowndes, Marie Belloc

Leseproben

Chapter 2

Table of Contents

The book Miss Farrow held in her hand was an amusing book, the latest volume of some rather lively French memoirs, but she put it down after a very few moments, and, leaning forward, held out her hands to the fire. They were not pretty hands: though small and well-shaped, there was something just a little claw-like about them; but they were very white, and her almond-shaped nails, admirably manicured, gleamed in the soft red light.

Yes, in spite of this stupid little contretemps about Pegler, she was glad indeed that circumstances over which she had had rather more control than she liked to think had made it impossible for her to go out to Monte Carlo this winter. She had been sharply vexed, beside herself with annoyance, almost tempted to do what she had never yet done—that is, to ask Lionel Varick, now so delightfully prosperous, to lend her a couple of hundred pounds. But she had resisted the impulse, and she was now glad of it.

After all, there’s no place like dear old England at Christmas time. How much nicer, too, is a bachelor host than a hostess! A bachelor host? No, not exactly a bachelor host, for Lionel Varick was a widower. Twice a widower, if the truth were known. But the truth, fortunately, is not always known, and Blanche Farrow doubted if any other member of the circle of friends and acquaintances he had picked up in his adventurous, curious life knew of that first—now evidently by him almost forgotten—marriage. It had taken place years ago, when Varick was still a very young man, and to a woman not of his own class. They had separated, and then, rather oddly, come together again. Even so, her premature death had been for him a fortunate circumstance.

It was not Varick who had told Blanche Farrow of that painful episode of his past life. The story had come to her knowledge in a curious, accidental fashion, and she had thought it only fair to tell him what she had learned—and then, half reluctantly, he had revealed something of what he had suffered through that early act of folly. But they had only spoken of it once.

Varick’s second marriage, Miss Farrow was almost tempted to call it his real marriage, the news of which he had conveyed to his good friend in a laconic note, had surprised her very much.

The news had found her far away, in Portugal, where, as just a few English people know, there is more than one Casino where mild gambling can be pursued under pleasant conditions. Blanche Farrow would have been hurt if someone had told her that in far-away Portugal Lionel Varick and his affairs had not meant quite so much to her as they would have done if she had been nearer home. Still, she had felt a pang. A man-friend married is often a man-friend marred. But she had been very glad to gather, reading between the lines of his note, that the lady in question was well off. Varick was one of those men to whom the possession of money is as essential to life as the air they breathe is to most human beings. Till this unexpected second marriage of his he had often been obliged to live on, and by, his wits.

Then, some months later—for she and Varick were not given to writing to one another when apart, their friendship had never been of that texture—she had received a sad letter from him saying that his wife was seriously ill. The letter had implied, too, that he ought to have been told, before the marriage had taken place, that his wife’s family had been one riddled with consumption. Blanche had written back at once—by that time she was a good deal nearer home than Portugal, though still abroad—asking if she could “do anything?” And he had answered that no, there was nothing to be done. “Poor Milly” had a horror of sanatoriums, so he was going to take her to some quiet place on the south coast. He had ended his note with the words: “I do not think it can last long now, and I rather hope it won’t. It is very painful for her, as well as for me.” And it had not lasted very long. Seven weeks later Miss Farrow had read in the first column of the Times the announcement: “Millicent, only daughter of the late George Fauncey, of Wyndfell Hall, Suffolk, and the beloved wife of Lionel Varick.”

She had been surprised at the addition of the word “beloved.” Somehow it was not like the man she thought she knew so well to put that word in.

That was just over a year ago. But when she had met Varick again she had seen with real relief that he was quite unchanged—those brief months of wedded life had not apparently altered him at all. There was, however, one great difference—he was quite at ease about money. That was all—but that was a great deal! Blanche Farrow and Lionel Varick had at any rate one thing in common—they both felt a horror of poverty, and all that poverty implies.

Gradually Miss Farrow had discovered a few particulars about her friend’s dead wife. Millicent Fauncey had been the only child of a rather eccentric Suffolk squire, a man of great taste, known in the art world of London as a collector of fine Jacobean furniture, long before Jacobean furniture had become the rage. After her father’s death his daughter, having let Wyndfell Hall, had wandered about the world with a companion till she had drifted across her future husband’s path at an hotel in Florence.

“What attracted me,” Lionel Varick had explained rather awkwardly on the only occasion when he had really talked of his late wife to Blanche Farrow, “was her helplessness, and, yes, a kind of simplicity.”

Blanche had looked at him a little sharply. She had never known Lionel attracted by weakness or simplicity before. All women seemed attracted by him—but he was by no means attracted by all women.

“Poor Milly didn’t care for Wyndfell Hall,” he had gone on, “for she spent a very lonely, dull girlhood there. But it’s a delightful place, and I hope to live there as soon as I can get the people out to whom it is now let. ‘Twon’t be an easy job, for they’re devoted to it.”

Of course he had got them out very soon, for, as Blanche Farrow now reminded herself, Lionel Varick had an extraordinary power of getting his own way, in little and big things alike.

It was uncommonly nice of Lionel to have asked her to be informal hostess of his first house party! Unluckily it was an oddly composed party, not so happily chosen as it might have been, and she wondered uneasily whether it would be a success. She had never met three of the people who were coming to-night—a Mr. and Miss Burnaby, an old-fashioned and, she gathered, well-to-do brother and sister, and their niece, Helen Brabazon. Miss Brabazon had been an intimate friend, Miss Farrow understood the only really intimate friend, of Lionel Varick’s late wife. He had spoken of this girl, Helen Brabazon, with great regard and liking—with rather more regard and liking than he generally spoke of any woman.

“She was most awfully kind to me during that dreadful time at Redsands,” he had said only yesterday. And Blanche had understood the “dreadful time” referred to the last weeks of his wife’s life. “I’ve been to the Burnabys’ house a few times, and I’ve dined there twice—an infamously bad cook, but very good wine—you know the sort of thing?”

Remembering that remark, Blanche now asked herself why Lionel had included these tiresome, old-fashioned people in his party. Then she told herself that it was doubtless because the niece, who lived with them, couldn’t leave them to a solitary Christmas.

Another guest who was not likely to add much in the way of entertainment to the party was an enormously rich man called James Tapster. Tapster was a cynical, rather unpleasant person, yet on one occasion he had helped Varick out of a disagreeable scrape.

If the host had had his way there would also have been in the party a certain Dr. Panton. But at the last moment he had had to “chuck.” There was a hope, however, that he might be able to come after Christmas. Dr. Panton was also associated with the late Mrs. Varick. He had attended her during the last long weeks of her life.

Blanche Farrow’s face unconsciously brightened as she remembered Sir Lyon Dilsford. He was an intelligent, impecunious, pleasant kind of man, still, like his host, on the sunny side of forty. Sir Lyon was “in the City,” as are now so many men of his class and kind. He took his work seriously, and spent many hours of each day east of Temple Bar. By way of relaxation he helped to run an Oxford College East–End Settlement. “A good chap,”—that was how Blanche summed him up to herself.

Lionel had asked her if she could think of any young people to ask, and she had suggested, with some hesitation, her own niece, Bubbles Dunster, and Bubbles’ favourite dancing partner, a young man called Bill Donnington. Bubbles had arrived at Wyndfell Hall two days ago. Donnington had not been able to leave London till today.

Bubbles? Blanche Farrow’s brows knit themselves as she thought of her niece, namesake, and godchild.

Bubbles was a strange girl, but then so many girls are strange nowadays! Though an only child, and the apple of her widowed father’s eyes, she had deliberately left her home two years ago, and set up for herself in London, nominally to study art. At once she had become a great success—the kind of success that counts nowadays. Bubbles’ photograph was always appearing in the Sketch and in the Daily Mirror. She was constantly roped in to help in any smart charity affair, and she could dance, act, and sell, with the best. She was as popular with women as with men, for there was something...