THE STORY OF IVY (Murder Mystery). Marie Belloc Lowndes
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“There isn’t much doing during August and September.”
His voice sounded strangely caressing and possessive, even to himself. But he felt sure that Ivy, a “nice” woman, had no suspicion of how much he had been moved by that casual, unexpected touch.
Miles Rushworth told himself that he must mind his step, for this seductive little creature, God help him, was another man’s wife, and he “wasn’t that sort.” Neither, he would have staked his life on it, was she.
And yet? Was it he?—sensible, prudent, nay, where women were concerned, over-cautious—Miles Rushworth, or some tricksy, bold entity outside himself which uttered the words: “By the way, what are you doing next month? If you’re doing nothing in particular, I do wish you’d both join my yachting party. Lady Dale and her daughter are coming, together with two or three others.”
A look of real, almost child-like, joy and pleasure flashed into Ivy Lexton’s face and, once more, the man sitting so closely by her side felt shaken to the depths. Tenderness was now added to the feeling of passionate attraction of which he was already half uncomfortably, half exultantly, aware. How young she looked, how innocent—now, at this moment, like a happy little girl.
“D’you really mean that?” she cried. “I’ve always longed to go yachting! But I’ve never even been in a yacht. Jervis is awfully fond of the sea, too; he was at Cowes when the war broke out!”
“Then that settles it,” exclaimed Rushworth delightedly. “We join the Dark Lady at Southampton on August the 5th! By the way, perhaps I ought to tell you that we’re not going on any specially wonderful trip. We’re only going to cruise about the coast of France. I’m afraid Lady Dale and her daughter will have to leave us fairly soon—they’ve promised to stay with some people near Dieppe.”
“It will be heavenly—heavenly!”
Ivy whispered those five words almost in his ear, for she was exceedingly anxious that Roger Gretorex should hear nothing of this delightful plan. She had promised the young man she would spend a week, during August, alone with him and his mother in the Sussex manor house which was still his own, though all the land up to the park gates had been sold.
As she gave a quick surreptitious glance at the host who was her dangerously jealous lover—even jealous, grotesque thought, of her husband, entirely unsuspicious Jervis—a feeling of sharp irritation again swept over Ivy Lexton.
She told herself angrily that, though Roger Gretorex might belong by birth to grand people (to her surprise he made no effort to keep up with them), he had never been taught to behave as a young man should always behave in pleasant company. Even now, he still had what Ivy called “his thundercloud face,” and he was scarcely paying any attention to the girl sitting by him.
Ivy, not for the first time, realised that she had been a fool indeed to allow herself to become attracted to a man who was so little of her own sort. And yet Gretorex had been such a wonderful wooer! And his ardour had moved and excited her all the more because, at times, he had been as if overwhelmed with what had seemed to her an absurd kind of remorse at the knowledge that the woman he loved was another man’s wife.
Dismissing the distasteful thought of Gretorex from her mind, she turned to Rushworth.
“Don’t say anything to my husband about this delightful plan,” she murmured. “I shall have to bring him round to the idea. You see, he’s so awfully eager to start work at once.”
The lights were now being turned off one by one, so Ivy smiled across at Lady Dale, and rose from the chair which touched that on which Rushworth was still sitting as if lost in a dream.
As, a few moments later, they all stood together outside in the cool night air—all, that is, but Roger Gretorex who, after having uttered a curt good-night, had gone back to the now fast-emptying restaurant to pay his bill—Miles Rushworth exclaimed: “We can all squeeze into my car, or, if not, I’ll go outside.”
Ivy was delighted. She very much disliked the spending of any unnecessary ready money just now; and the thought of going home in a crowded omnibus on this fine July night had been unbearable.
In the end it was Jervis Lexton who sat outside by the chauffeur, while inside the car the other four discussed their coming yachting tour.
At last the Rolls–Royce drew up before the shabby-looking, stucco-fronted house in Pimlico, and Rushworth helped Ivy Lexton out of his car with a strong, careful hand.
“Don’t ring,” she said hurriedly; “Jervis has a latchkey. This house belongs to an old servant of the Lexton family; that’s why we are living here.”
As Ivy’s husband opened the door, Ivy’s new friend caught a glimpse of the dirty, gaslit hall, and his heart swelled with mingled disgust and pity. He must get this sweet, dainty little woman out of this horrible place at once—at once. Taking her hand in his, he held it just a thought longer than is perhaps usual even when a man is bidding good-night to an exceptionally pretty woman.
Long, long after Jervis Lexton was fast asleep in his crowded little back room, Ivy lay awake on the hard, lumpy, small double bed which took up most of the space in the front room.
She was tired, and with fatigue had come a feeling of depression. Miles Rushworth had said nothing as to their next meeting. He had forgotten her before—he might forget her again. As for Mrs. Thrawn—all that woman had told her might be fudge. The hard, shrewd side of Ivy’s nature came uppermost, and whispered that she had probably been very silly to spend a pound on a fortune-teller, and sillier still to believe in her predictions.
As she lay there, moving restlessly about, for it was a hot night, there came over her a feeling of revolt, almost of despair, at the conditions of her present day-to-day life. She was vividly aware of her own beauty—what beautiful young woman is not? In a certain set, the world of the smart night clubs, she was known as “the lovely Mrs. Lexton.” Further, she was popular, well liked by all sorts of people, women as well as men, and dowered by nature with a keen appreciation of all that makes civilised life decorous, orderly, and attractive.
Unlike some of her friends, she hated and despised Bohemian ways. She had tasted something of what Bohemia can offer her subjects during the few weeks she had spent in the chorus of a musical comedy. Yet now she was condemned—she sincerely believed through no fault of her own—to lead an existence full of sordid shifts, and of expedients so ignoble that even she sometimes shrank from them, while always on her slender shoulders lay the dead weight of her husband, a completely idle, extravagant, and yes, well she knew it, very stupid young man.
With angry distress she now asked herself a question of immediate moment. How was she to procure even the very simplest clothes suitable for life on a yacht? For a long time, now, she had had to pay ready money where she had once been welcome to unlimited credit.
Then in the darkness her face lightened. She had remembered Roger Gretorex! Poor though he was, he could always find money for her at a pinch. He had done so this very morning, and would of course do so again.
Then her face shadowed. Though Roger had his uses, he was becoming a tiresome, even a dangerous, complication in her life. Yet had it not been for him, had he not taken them to the Savoy to-night, she might never again have seen the man on whom now all her hopes centred.
Ivy Lexton had an intimate knowledge of the ugly, sinister sides of human nature. Her own father, a big man of business, had failed when she was seventeen. He had killed himself to avoid legal proceedings which would have led to a term of imprisonment. Their large circle of acquaintances (of real friends they had none) were some kind, some cruel, to the feckless, foolish, still pretty widow, and her lovely young daughter. The widow had soon married again, to die within a year. Ivy, after drifting about rudderless for a while, had obtained the “walking-on” part which had introduced her to an idle, pleasure-seeking, rich class of young men. By the time she was twenty she could have married half a dozen times. Her choice finally fell on Jervis Lexton, partly because he was of a superior social world to the other men who made love to her, but far more because at that time he had been undisputed owner of