Jill Read Online Free Page B

a gramophone playing distantly. He wondered who the Founder was and who Mr. Warner was—perhaps he was a poor scholar, like himself.
    There were three staircases on the right-hand side of the quadrangle, and the last one was number 14: the numbers had been newly painted. New also were the names of the occupants painted in a list at the bottom of each stair: he read them apprehensively, Stephenson, Hackett and Cromwell, the Hon. S. A. A. Ransom.
    The next was 14. Kemp and Warner.
    What alarmed him was not so much the sight of the door (room number 2 was on the ground floor), but the fact that he could hear laughter and the sound of teacups coming from it. There were people there! He listened, first at one door, then at another, but it was undoubtedly coming from his own room: cautiously he put his suitcase down, and was just preparing to creep away—for he would as soon have intruded as rung the doorbell of a strange house—when the door suddenly opened and a young man came out holding a kettle.
    John retreated. “Er—I——”
    “Hallo, did you want me?”
    The young man was taller and stronger than John, with dark dry hair brushed back from his forehead, and a square, stubbly jaw. His nose was thick and his shoulders broad; John felt a twinge of distrust. He wore a dark grey lounge suit and dark blue shirt and on his right hand was a square-faced gold ring. There was a swagger in his bearing, he held himself well upright.
    “Er …” John made a taut, inexpressive gesture. “That is, I think this is—my name’s Kemp.”
    “Oh, you’re Kemp? How d’you do? I’m Warner—Chris Warner.”
    They shook hands.
    “We’re just having tea: there’s rather a crowd inside, I’m afraid I’ve sort of taken possession.” He began filling the kettle from the tap. “Come from Town?”
    “From Huddlesford,” said John, not knowing that Town meant London.
    “Oh, yes. Good journey?”
    “Yes——”
    He was acutely aware that the conversation in the room hadstopped and that the unseen tea-party was listening to the colloquy outside.
    “Well, come in and have some tea, if there’s anything left.” John followed him in. “Friends, my better half has arrived, Mr. Kemp. These are Elizabeth Dowling, Eddy Makepeace, Patrick Dowling and Hugh Stanning-Smith.”
    He smiled blindly from face to face. They looked at him, and smiled too.
    The room was large and airy, and in a terrible mess. Tea was laid on the hearthrug and dirty cups and plates were littered about, while the table was covered with wrapping paper, crumbs from a half-loaf, a pot of jam, a pile of books, and other things recently unpacked from the trunk that stood open under the window. A fire burned brightly in the grate. The room was bigger than any in his own house.
    He looked at Elizabeth Dowling first, because she was a girl and because hers was the only name he had caught. She was broad-shouldered, with a regular face, and sat in one corner of the sofa. She was powdered carefully, had a reddened mouth, and her golden hair was brushed fiercely up from the sides of her head, so that it formed a stiff ornament, like a curious helmet. Her right hand lay quiescently holding a burning cigarette, and she wore a check tweed costume.
    Then he looked at Eddy Makepeace, who wore a yellow silk tie with horseshoes on it. He had a youthful, spotty face, that expressed great confidence and stupidity, and his eyes bulged.
    Patrick Dowling lounged foxily, with a faint resemblance to Elizabeth that showed they were related, and stared back at John with unpleasant candour: Hugh Stanning-Smith was quiet-voiced and white-fingered.
    “Chris, you are impossible,” said Elizabeth fretfully. “Filling it so full.… It’ll take hours to boil. Simply hours . And I’m dying for another cup.”
    John stared at her, never having heard before this self-parodying southern coo, and a sense of his alien surroundings came over him. “I think …” he muttered, casting about for an