THE STORY OF IVY (Murder Mystery). Marie Belloc Lowndes
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the people she passed turned and looked after her with unaffected admiration and one man—she felt instinctively that he was some important person—followed her for quite a long way. But it was very hot, and in time she grew weary of the crowded streets. Taking as her guides a couple who were carrying their bathing costumes and towels, she went after them up a shady by-way and so through the old gateway leading to the wide lawns along the sea-front, which are the great charm of Dieppe.
What an amusing, lively, delightful place! Against the deep blue sky rose the white Casino, and the parking place was crowded with serried rows of motors. Along the front groups of Frenchwomen, for the most part wearing white coats and skirts, strolled about with their attendant cavaliers.
Her spirits bounded up; she felt herself to be once more what she had not felt herself to be at all on Rushworth’s yacht, in her own natural atmosphere again. And, to add to her satisfaction, she soon spied out the Hotel Royal, brilliant with flowers and blue and white sun-blinds.
The Angelus chimes rang out from one of the old churches, and the gay crowd began to move slowly towards the villas and hotels which form the sea-front side of the incongruously-named Boulevard de Verdun.
Ivy walked into the cool hall of the hotel, and sat down in an easy chair with a sigh of pleasure.
How she wished she was staying here instead of on the yacht! She delighted in the atmosphere of gay bustle and care-free wealth and prosperity of all the happy-looking people who were strolling past her on their way to the restaurant. She enjoyed the glances of covert, and in some cases of insolent, admiration thrown her way; in fact she was kept so well amused that she gave quite a start when she heard Rushworth’s voice exclaim, “So here you are, little lady! I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I thought you’d be out of doors.”
She got up, and then he said something which filled her with dismay.
“Among my letters this morning there was one from a very old friend of mine, a man with whom I worked during the war. He and his wife have a room in some back street, for they’re not at all well off. So I thought it would be a good plan to take them for a drive this afternoon. I felt sure you wouldn’t mind?”
“Of course not!”
She felt bitterly disappointed, but she would have been more than disappointed had she known that Rushworth had deliberately asked these old friends to join them, in order to put temptation out of his way.
He added, a little quickly, “I felt rather a brute not asking them to lunch, but I was so looking forward to my lunch alone with you.”
“I’d been looking forward to it, too,” she said in a low voice.
And then there did come across him a sharp, unavailing pang of regret that he had been so stupidly quixotic, and instantly he made up his mind that their drive should not last more than two hours. After all, he and Ivy were both decent people, and dear friends to boot; why shouldn’t they go back to the yacht to spend a quiet happy hour or two, alone together, before the others returned?
They had a delicious lunch, the sort of lunch that Ivy enjoyed, in an airy room full of chattering, merry, prosperous-looking couples.
Then, after they had had coffee, they went out and slowly sauntered to the little garden at the foot of a great cliff on which stands an ancient stronghold. It was cool and quiet there, and the only person with whom they shared the garden was an old lady exercising her Persian cat on a lead.
They sat down in silence. Rushworth was smoking a cigar, Ivy a cigarette. Suddenly he threw away his cigar, for there had come over him a wild, mad impulse to put his arms round her. But, instead, he moved a little farther away.
She, too, suddenly flung away her cigarette, and turned to him, “I sometimes wonder, Mr. Rushworth, if you know how awfully grateful I am to you for all you’ve done for me—and for Jervis.”
He saw that tears were in her eyes, and he took her hand and clasped it closely. He was saying to himself, “Poor little darling, it would be the act of a cad, of a cur, to take advantage of her gratitude and—and loneliness.”
“You’ve nothing to be grateful for,” he said quietly, and then he released the soft hand he held. “It’s a great privilege to meet someone who really deserves a little help. A man who is known to have money is there to be shot at,” he smiled a little grimly. “Any number of what are called deserving objects are presented to his view. The real problem is to find the people who want helping, and who won’t ask for help.”
He sincerely believed that the woman to whom he was addressing those words fell within that rare category.
Suddenly he got up. “I see the Actons,” he exclaimed. “I told them three o’clock in front of the Casino—they’re a little before their time.”
It was a wonderful drive to Tréport, and Ivy, rather to her own surprise, enjoyed it. Partly, perhaps, because Rushworth’s old friend, James Acton, “fell for” her at once, to the amusement of his good-humoured, clever, middle-aged wife. They stopped at the Trianon Hotel on their way back and had some early tea; but even so it was only five o’clock when they returned to Dieppe and dropped the Actons.
Dismissing the car, they began walking towards the harbour. At last—at last they were alone.
In the Grande Rue Ivy stopped, instinctively, before a minute shop, a branch of a famous house of the same name at Cannes and Deauville.
The window contained but one object, to Rushworth’s masculine eyes a rather absurd-looking trifle, for it consisted of a lady’s vanity bag which looked like a tiny bolster of mother-of-pearl. The clasp consisted of a large emerald set with pearls.
“What a lovely little bag!’ exclaimed Ivy ecstatically.
“D’you like it?” Rushworth was filled with a kind of tender amusement. What a baby she was, after all!
“Like it? I adore it!”
“Then I’ll give it you—for next Christmas!”
“You mustn’t! It must be fearfully expensive,” she cried.
But he had already gone into the shop. With something like awe, she watched him from the pavement shovelling out bundles of thousand franc notes on to the narrow counter behind which stood a white-haired woman.
How rich, how enormously rich Miles Rushworth must be!
As he joined her, Ivy saw that the precious bag was now enclosed in a soft leather case which had evidently been made for its protection. He put his delightful gift into her eager hands, and said, smiling:
“The elegant old dame in there—she looked like a marquise herself—declares that the clasp of this bag was once a brooch belonging to the Princesse de Lamballe, Marie Antoinette’s friend.”
“How wonderful!”
He looked at her quizzically, “I said I hoped it wouldn’t bring you bad luck! She quite understood the allusion,” which was more than Ivy did.
“It was made, it seems, to the order of a lady who supplied the jewel for the clasp. She’s suddenly gone into mourning, and as they had made it they consented to try and sell it for her. It was being sent on to their Deauville branch this very afternoon. It’s been here a week, and the old lady admitted that she hadn’t had a single inquiry for it!”
Ivy had now opened, the case and taken out the wonderful little bag, her eyes dancing with pleasure and gratitude. She told herself with satisfaction, that, given the right kind of frock, she could use it by day as well as by night.
There was a very practical, shrewd side to Mrs. Jervis Lexton. But it was a side of her nature which she was slow to reveal to her men friends.
As they went on board the yacht a telegram was handed to Rushworth. Carelessly he tore it open, read it through, and then handed it to his guest:
Tremendous affair taking place here tomorrow midday. French President unveiling monument to fallen. We propose