Vanishing Point

“It is rather a late hour to call, I’m afraid, but I was passing this way, and I hoped that it might be possible for me to see her. I ought to have been here earlier, but I had a puncture, and then I lost my way in your winding lanes.”

She took a step back.

“Je

“Miss Je

“Yes-”

Her voice had a doubtful tone. A perfectly strange man coming in out of the night and wanting to see Je

“I am her sister, Rosamond Maxwell. Do you mind telling me why you want to see Je

He said, “She wrote to me.”

“Je

He nodded.

“She didn’t tell you?”

“No-no-”

“And you don’t know who I am?”

He produced a card and held it out. She read, “Mr. Craig Lester.” Under the words a second name was added in pencil- “Pethertons.”

Rosamond began to understand. She stood back a little farther. He came across the threshold, took the door from her hand, and shut it behind him.

“You mean you are from Pethertons the publishers? Je

He laughed.

“I seem to be betraying a confidence! But she isn’t very old, is she?”

Rosamond said,

“Je

He was so much intrigued that he would have accepted an invitation to the arctic circle. Certainly he would have done a good deal more than follow her across the glimmering hall to a door which opened under the sweep of the stair.

As she switched on a single overhead light, the room sprang into view, small, with panelled walls whose ivory tint had deepened with age almost to the color of café-au-lait. There were cracks in the paint, and there were worn places in the pale flowered carpet. That was the first effect that struck him, the cool pallor of the room-brocaded curtains and coverings so faintly tinted that they might have been wraiths of their own forgotten beauty-mirrors framed in tarnished gold, the glass too dim to reflect anything more substantial than a mist. But there was no dust on the exquisite old china which graced the mantelpiece, on the William and Mary cabinet, on the elegant pie-crust table between the windows. If the room breathed the very atmosphere of disuse, it was to the eye most beautifully kept. Craig Lester’s eye was a discerning one. At a single glance it provided him with a good deal of food for thought.

He saw Rosamond seat herself, took the big winged chair which she offered him, and observed with satisfaction that her eyes were, as he had hoped, not brown or grey, but that very dark blue. But like the room, she was pale. Her lips should have been redder, and there should have been colour in her cheeks. And she was thin-the delicate line of the cheek fell in a little. He saw that her clothes were shabby-an old tweed skirt, an old blue jumper, thick country shoes. The shoes looked damp, and there was moisture caught in her hair. He felt suddenly ashamed of his own warm coat. If she had been out in those thin clothes, and he was sure she had-

To her “You really won’t be too cold here?” he found himself replying roughly,

“But it’s you. I’ve got a coat, but what about you? If you’ve been out with no more on than that-”

There was something about the way she smiled that wasn’t like anyone else. It had a quality which eluded him. Afterwards he thought that it was kindness.

She said,

“It was only to the bottom of the garden. There’s a wood there-I like to walk in it.”.

“In the dark?”

“Oh, yes. It’s so restful.”

… He knew then how tired she was. She was pale because she was tired. An extraordinary fierce anger sprang up in him. It left him astounded at himself, and with the feeling that what had started out as a momentary whim was about to turn, or had already turned, into a dangerous venture. He said nothing because there was nothing to say, unless he said too much. To have come here at all was an act of incredible folly. Or the wisest thing he had ever done in his life.

She looked at him, a little surprised, a little doubtful. The impression she had had of him when she opened the door was borne out now in the lighted room. Some of the bulk was accounted for by the heavy tweed coat, but there was breath and strength beyond the common. His features too were broad and strong and very deeply ta

“You wanted to talk about Je

The dark look vanished. Laughter sparkled in his eyes. She liked the way they crinkled at the corners.

“She sent us some of her work.”

“Oh-” The soft sound breathed dismay.

“She wrote-a very precise and grown-up letter. She didn’t say how old she was-after all, one doesn’t in a business letter. It was rather on the lines of, ‘Miss Je

Rosamond’s eyes widened, her lips twitched. She said,

“Oh dear!” And then, “That’s rather the way my aunt writes business letters. She is my great-aunt. She dictates to me. There was one a little while ago about a lease-the last bit sounds as if it had come out of that. She was writing to her solicitor, and she begged to submit it for his consideration.”

He threw back his head and laughed. She said at once in a tone of distress,

“You won’t laugh at Je

He saw the muscles of her face tighten and the moisture come to her lashes. He began to speak, but she put out a hand to stop him.

“I don’t know why I said that-they don’t think so now. My aunt offered to take us in, and Je

He said, “No, no, of course not. But I am afraid-”