LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER 1 ‘And There Were Present…’

      Nigel Bathgate, in the language of his own gossip column, was ‘definitely intrigued’ about his weekend at Frantock. At twenty-five he had outgrown that horror of enthusiasm which is so characteristic of youth-grown-up. He was actually on his way to Frantock, and in ‘colossal form’ at the very thought of it. They were doing it in such grandeur, too! He leant back in his first-class corner seat and grinned at his cousin opposite. Odd sort of fellow, old Charles. One never knew much of what went on behind that long dark mask of his. Good-looking bloke, too; women adored him, reflected Nigel, mentally wagging his head—still flattered and made up to him although he was getting on in years…forty-six or -seven.

      Charles Rankin returned his young cousin’s ruminative stare with one of those twisted smiles that always reminded Nigel of a faun.

      ‘Shan’t be long now,’ said Rankin. ‘The next station is ours. You can see the beginnings of Frantock over there to the left.’

      Nigel stared across the patchwork landscape of little fields and hillocks to where a naked wood, fast, fast asleep in its wintry solitude, half hid the warmth of old brick.

      ‘That’s the house,’ said Rankin.

      ‘Who will be there?’ asked Nigel, not for the first time. He had heard much of Sir Hubert Handesley’s ‘unique and delightfully original house-parties’, from a brother journalist who had returned from one of them, if the truth be told, somewhat persistently enthusiastic. Charles Rankin, himself a connoisseur of house-parties, had refused many extremely enviable invitations in favour of these unpretentious weekends. And now, as the result of a dinner-party at old Charles’s flat, here was Nigel himself about to be initiated. So: ‘Who will be there?’ asked Nigel again.

      ‘The usual crowd, I suppose,’ answered Rankin patiently, ‘with the addition of one Doctor Foma Tokareff, who dates, I imagine, from Handesley’s Embassy days in Petrograd. There will be the Wildes, of course—they must be somewhere on the train. He’s Arthur Wilde, the archaeologist. Marjorie Wilde is…rather attractive, I think. And I suppose Angela North. You’ve met her?’

      ‘She’s Sir Hubert’s niece, isn’t she? Yes, she dined that night at your flat with him.’

      ‘So she did. If I remember, you seemed to get on rather pleasantly.’

      ‘Will Miss Grant be there?’ asked Nigel.

      Charles Rankin stood up and struggled into his overcoat.

      ‘Rosamund?’ he said ‘Yes, she’ll be there.’

      ‘What an extraordinarily expressionless voice old Charles has got,’ reflected Nigel, as the train clanked into the little station and drew up with a long, steamy sigh.

      The upland air struck chill after the stale stuffiness of the train. Rankin led the way out into a sunken country lane, where they found a group of three muffled passengers talking noisily while a chauffeur stowed luggage away into a six-seater Bentley.

      ‘Hullo, Rankin,’ said a thin, bespectacled man; ‘thought you must be on the train.’

      ‘I looked out for you at Paddington, Arthur,’ rejoined Rankin. ‘Have you met my cousin, all of you? Nigel Bathgate…Mrs Wilde…Mr Wilde. Rosamund, you have met, haven’t you?’

      Nigel had made his bow to Rosamund Grant, a tall dark woman whose strange, uncompromising beauty it would be difficult to forget. Of the Hon. Mrs Wilde he could see nothing but a pair of very large blue eyes and the tip of an abbreviated nose. The eyes gave him a brief appraising glance, and a rather high-pitched ‘fashionable’ voice emerged from behind the enormous fur collar:

      ‘How do you do? Are you a relation of Charles? Too shattering for you. Charles, you will have to walk. I hate being steam-laundered even for five minutes.’

      ‘You can sit on my knee,’ said Rankin easily.

      Nigel, glancing at him, noticed the peculiar bright boldness of his eyes. He was staring, not at Mrs Wilde, but at Rosamund Grant. It was as though he had said to her: ‘I’m enjoying myself: I dare you to disapprove.’

      She spoke for the first time, her deep voice in marked contrast to Mrs Wilde’s italicized treble:

      ‘Here comes Angela in the fire-eater,’ she said, ‘so there will be tons of room for everybody.’

      ‘What a disappointment!’ said Rankin. ‘Marjorie, we are defeated.’

      ‘Nothing,’

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