She Died a Lady Read Online Free Page B

things only in a flash, a sliding past the eye, before I hurried on.
    But I saw them.
    Perhaps you think that an old duffer like myself shouldn’t have been embarrassed. But I was, badly. Probably more so than those two. It wasn’t the actual fact: which was, after all, only a good-looking woman being kissed. It was the rawness, the grimy floor of the summer-house, the sense of forces now released and beyond control.
    Look out: danger , something kept saying. Look out: danger. Look out: danger …
    Behind me a husky voice called: ‘Dr Luke!’
    If Rita hadn’t called out, I shouldn’t have stopped. I was pretending not to have seen them. They should have played up to this, but their consciences wouldn’t let them.
    I turned round. My head felt light and my voice was thick, partly from shock and partly from wrath. It wasn’t as bad as Rita’s voice or Sullivan’s, but it was noticeable.
    ‘Hullo, there!’ I found myself saying, in such a tone of hypocritical surprise that I could have kicked myself. ‘Is there somebody inside?’
    Rita stepped out. Her dusky skin now had a colour, especially under the eyes, which showed the rate at which her heart must have been beating. She drew her breath with difficulty. Her light tweed suit and white blouse were rumpled; she brushed surreptitiously at the skirt. Behind her in the doorway lurked Sullivan, clearing his throat.
    ‘We – we were in the summer-house,’ cried Rita.
    ‘We were talking,’ said her companion.
    ‘We intended to come in straightaway.’
    ‘But we got to talking. You know how it is.’
    Barry Sullivan coughed abruptly as his voice grew husky. I had not remembered him as looking quite as callow or young. He was a handsome fellow beyond any doubt, straightforward of eye if somewhat weak of jaw. But all the confident self-assurance of a year ago had gone: unless I much misread the signs, he was as badly gone on Rita as she was gone on him, and ready for anything.
    A breeze stirred in the vines of the summer-house. The emotional temperature between those two was so strong that it surrounded them like a fog; they could not get rid of it. A drop of rain fell, and then another.
    ‘I’m – I’m not sure if you’ve met Barry?’ Rita went on, in a voice as though she were calling on tiptoe over a fence. ‘I think you were there when we first met, though? Dr Luke Croxley.’
    ‘How do you do, sir?’ muttered Sullivan, and shuffled his feet.
    ‘I remember Mr Sullivan very well, I believe’ – it was impossible to keep acid out of this – ‘I believe he’s one of our most promising West End actors?’
    Sullivan’s handsome forehead wrinkled.
    ‘ Me ?’ he exclaimed, and tapped himself on the chest.
    ‘You are, too!’ cried Rita. ‘Or you will be!’
    The boy looked even more uncomfortable. ‘I don’t want to sail under any false colours, sir,’ he said.
    ‘I’m sure you don’t, Mr Sullivan. I’m sure you don’t.’
    ‘He means …’ cried Rita.
    ‘He means what, my dear?’
    ‘Look. I’ve never played in the West End,’ said Sullivan. ‘Just a couple of provincial engagements, and not very good ones at that. For the past two years I’ve been selling automobiles for Lowther & Son.’ His dark eyes, with the hollows drawn slantwise under them, moved to Rita. ‘I’m not worthy …’
    ‘You are too,’ said Rita. ‘Don’t say things like that!
    They were in such a state of mind that they might have poured out the whole story (or so I thought then), if Barry Sullivan had not suddenly noticed it was beginning to rain. He looked up at the sky. He looked at his immaculate sports coat and grey flannels, with the silk scarf knotted and thrust into the neck of the shirt. All his confused frustration rushed out in some form of activity.
    ‘I’ve got to get those beach-chairs in,’ he shouted. ‘They’ve been rained on before. Excuse me.’
    ‘Darling, you’ll get wet !’ cried Rita, with such passionate naïveté that it