Read Online The Echoing Grove by Rosamond Lehmann - Free Book Online

you?’
    ‘No, never. At least I don’t remember—perhaps you have. Did you go to your club?’
    ‘No, the old man’s. He collared me just as I was leaving. Kept me jawing for an hour and a half, blast him.’
    ‘What a nuisance. He is inconsiderate. Didn’t you—couldn’t you get a taxi? Or did you? I didn’t hear one stop. Darling, for goodness sake do hurry. We shall be hideously late.’ He nodded, swallowed down the last of the whisky at a gulp. ‘Tired?’ She searched his face, the tumbler, all of him with controlled intensity, frantic, he could feel it.
    ‘I had a twinge or two this afternoon. Nothing much. Had to bolt my lunch, that’s why.’
    ‘Oh dear !’She bit her finger, barely able to muster even a false show of sympathy. ‘I wish to God you’d see Drysdale again. You are a fool, Rickie, to drink spirits—that amount too, neat. You know what he said.’
    ‘I know what he said and to hell with it. If you want me to get through this f — evening, leave me alone, for Christ’s sake.’
    He saw her close her lips in long-suffering wifeliness. She turned away and said in a thistledown voice:
    ‘I’ll give Clara a ring then, tell her we’ve got to be late. You know what she is.’
    ‘I know what she is.’
    At the door she hesitated, then said nervously: ‘If you could just say how long you’ll be I’ll have a taxi waiting.’
    He said with compunction:
    ‘Fifteen minutes, darling, to the second. Must have a shower. I’ve been in a muck sweat all day, this weather’s horrible.’
    She sighed and nodded.
    ‘Shout to the boys, they’re just gettting into bed. Anthony’s been asking for you, he’s stuck with his Meccano, but don’t let him hold you up. I’ve put your clothes out—soft shirt, but I didn’t know what links. Where are your jade ones? I couldn’t find them.’
    Almost, not quite imperceptibly to her, he gave a start; his hand moved towards his pocket, checked.
    ‘They must be around, I had them—oh, the other day. Never mind, I’ll find them. Thank you darling. Kind girl. I’ll be with you. If Clara squawks, tell her to boil her head.’
    He bolted for the door, catching as he passed her a whiff—too strong—of her expensive French scent, swerving blind through the dumb query which held her gripped, watching him; ran for the stairs, heard her voice pursuing, then cut off:
    ‘I hope they didn’t get left in a shirt and sent to the laundry, because if so …’
    On the half landing he stopped, searched rapidly through all his pockets. Not there. Not there. Left where?— where? He felt her cold hand dropping them into his. Without warning the trap sprang, bit his heart; anguish, physical, bursting his chest, kept him pinned by the long landing window.
    Look out: down: at an angle across the square to the opposite corner where the cab stopped. Look, it’s still waiting. Run to it. Run for your life.
    For five seconds he looked out, bewildered, into the vaulting branchy, green-swell of a surge of plane trees; let his gaze travel in hope and terror over the hallucinated square. The corner swam, appearing and disappearing through a screen of privet mixed with lilac; but by dint of focusing with a vast last momentary effort he thought he saw what he expected: nothing.
    When he came down she was standing in the hall. ‘On the dot,’ she said, and turned to open the door. ‘Taxi’s waiting.’
    Her smile now—surely her smile was triumphant, mocking, sly?
    Or was he going mad? Smiling she led the way towards the black box on wheels, towards the impassive driver, seen in profile. Thick neck, eye and nose bulbous, grizzled walrus moustache— the very same. He smelt a rat. Dinah was inside, in ambush, hugging herself with laughter, preparing with Madeleine’s connivance to disclose herself. In another moment he would be stripped, raked by their deadly crossfire. Strident voices would pierce him, claws seize him, drag him to and fro. The driver turned his head, was