The Castleford Conundrum Read online

  Hilary led the way into the study, placed a reading-lamp beside her chair, and prepared to begin her sewing. Her father, when she had settled herself, chose a deep armchair near hers and dropped into it with a faint sigh of satisfaction. Here at least he was free from all the little pin-pricks and petty discomforts which made up the background of his life.

  For some minutes Hilary busied herself with her work. Then, without looking up, she made an apparently casual observation:

  “I didn’t know the Glencaples were coming to dinner tonight.”

  “Neither did I, till the dressing-gong rang,” Castleford admitted. “She only told me as I was going upstairs.”

  Between father and daughter, the stepmother was never given a name. Winifred was always “She” or “Her” to them. When she married Castleford, eight years back, she had suggested that her stepdaughter should call her “Mother”; but Hilary, without a direct refusal, evaded the point by omitting any form of address when she spoke to Winifred. To third parties she spoke of “Mrs. Castleford.”

  She made no comment on her father’s last remark. As she sat intent upon her sewing, Castleford watched her for a moment or two with quiet satisfaction. They might despise him, in that house, but they could find no fault with Hilary’s appearance, at any rate. The reading-lamp showed up her profile, clean-cut as a cameo, and he studied it, feature by feature, with regret that his days of miniature painting were over. She would have made a better model than most of those he had used in the old days. No wonder Winifred kept Hilary out of the way when men were about, he mused with a certain grim satisfaction. A girl like this was hardly the foil for his wife, who looked her full thirty-five years. And Winifred had no intellectual gifts to throw into the scale. All her talk, in that affected drawl of hers, was the merest chatter about trifles; her knowledge of current events was drawn entirely from the pictures in the illustrated papers; her enthusiasms were all for shams of one sort or another—anything that seemed “out of the common.” Her one engrossing topic was dress; and yet, though she spent a small fortune on her wardrobe, she never seemed to get a result which Hilary achieved on her tiny allowance.

  Castleford pulled his pouch from his pocket and began to fill his pipe. He paid for his own tobacco. It, at any rate, was not bought with Glencaple money, and could therefore be enjoyed without afterthoughts. He stuffed the bowl left-handedly, for his right hand lacked the index and the top joint of the middle finger; but the injury was evidently of long standing, since he showed no awkwardness in his manipulation.

  “She allowed that cub to stay up for dinner tonight,” he observed when he had got his pipe well alight. “I suppose that was because his father was here. His manners don’t improve.”

  The “cub” was Kenneth Glencaple’s boy. Kenneth lived in a town some fifty miles away and the child had been sent to stay with the Castlefords during his school holidays to give him a chance to get over a recent illness. He was a flabby, pasty-faced youngster; but Winifred, who had no children of her own, had taken a fancy to him; and Castleford had a suspicion that young Francis might be a pawn in the game the Glencaples were playing.

  “Connie Lindfield’s given him a present—a rook-rifle,” Hilary explained briefly. “It came by the late parcel post, and I expect he was burning to get dinner over so that he could get back to it.”

  “I’m not sure it’s quite the toy for him,” her father said doubtfully. “See that you keep out of his neighbourhood if he starts shooting round about here. He’s a thoroughly careless little brute. He might easily do a lot of harm.”

  “He’s a horrible little creature!” Hilary broke in. “I caught him this morning, round by the garage, when I went to get out the car. Guess what he was doing. He’d got hold of a wretched little black kitten. He was drowning it in a bucket of water, holding it under with a mop. Then, when it was at the last gasp, the little fiend took it out and let it revive again before he put it back. ‘Making the fun last longer,’ he said quite seriously when I caught him at it. I’m in his black books because I stopped him.”

  “I hope you didn’t make a fuss with her about it,” Castleford muttered, avoiding her eyes.

  Hilary caught the note of apprehension in his voice and bent over her work again as she answered.

  “Not I. What good would it do? Of course she’d have backed up her little Frankie. It would just have been raising trouble for nothing. He’d lie his way out of any scrape. He doesn’t know what truth is, that child.”

  “He’s not exactly straight, I know,” her father admitted. “But after all . . .”

  Now that Hilary had had her say, it was safer to change the subject. One never knew who might happen to overhear an incautious remark in that house. The less said, the better.

  “Making a new evening frock?” he asked, leaning forward to examine her work.

  Hilary saw that he wanted to change the subject. She lifted the fabric from her knee and held it out for inspection. But though Castleford looked it over with apparent interest, his thoughts were elsewhere. Hilary had clever hands. If he had been able to give her some proper training and set her up with capital, she might have made herself independent. But things had turned out very differently from what he had hoped.

  He came back with a start to the present, to find Hilary’s big hazel eyes fixed upon him. She was hesitating over something she wanted to say, and wondering if this was the best moment to approach the subject. Her father looked more than usually worried tonight. Perhaps she had better postpone things. But then, nowadays, he never seemed to be anything but worried, though he tried to put a good face on it. Apparently something encouraged her, for after a second or two she decided to risk it.

  “I suppose you couldn’t increase that allowance of mine, Father?”

  Then, at the involuntary blink which he gave as he heard her request, she hurried on to tone down her demand.

  “Oh, I don’t mean double it, or anything like that. But just a little more, if you can spare it. I’m frightfully hard up.”

  The change in his expression showed her that she had embarked on a forlorn hope.

  “It’s no odds, really,” she assured him, without waiting for the verbal confirmation of his decision. “I just thought I’d ask, in case . . .”

  She began fervently to wish that she hadn’t broached the subject. She hated to add another worry to those he had already. And he would worry at having to refuse, she knew quite well. After all, it would just be possible to scrape along on her present allowance, though it meant using the same frock a good deal oftener than she cared about. The pin-money that had served for a girl of sixteen or seventeen didn’t seem to go far when you added four or five years to her age. It was a very tight squeeze, nowadays, even if she could make some things for herself to save expense. And she was fond of clothes. Some girls dress to attract men; others like to outdo other women. Hilary dressed to please herself first and foremost; and in doing so, she managed to achieve in a great measure the other two aims. Still, if her allowance couldn’t be increased, there was no good in whining. She suppressed a natural sigh of disappointment and bent over her work again.

  Castleford was spared the awkwardness of an immediate reply. The study door opened, and they both glanced up at the unexpected intruder: Winifred’s half-sister.

  Constance Lindfield was one of the powers behind the throne in that divided house. She was handsome, in a hard way, rather than pretty. Firm lips and a businesslike manner gave her an air of competence and decision. At thirty-three, she had lost the freshness of youth; but she did her best to replace it by scrupulous attention to her appearance. Her dark hair, in some mysterious manner, always seemed to have been freshly waved. Her lips and eyebrows were, if anything, a shade too carefully tended. The polish on her nails was almost obtrusively evident. Perhaps she overdid it a trifle. Her natural advantages seemed a little lost under that brilliant finish. Yet she did not spend undue time over the battery of toilette appliances which crowded her dre
ssing-table. She had the knack of doing things quickly, systematically, and thoroughly.

  Her women-friends did not deny her a certain degree of charm. Some men she attracted by her looks or by her quick intelligence. Others were repelled by a certain insensitiveness and by her obvious desire to exert what she termed “sex-attraction.” But this desire she took care to curb when Mrs. Castleford was present. Then, quite naturally, she slipped into the background, leaving the field to her senior.

  She did not come farther than the threshold of the room.

  “Oh, Hillie, you’re to bring the car round at half-past eleven tomorrow. Winnie wants you to drive her over to Sunnydale.”

  Hilary glanced up, evidently unpleasantly surprised.

  “But she told me this afternoon that she didn’t want the car tomorrow. I’ve fixed up a foursome for the morning.”

  Miss Lindfield shrugged her shoulders almost imperceptibly, as though to indicate that she cared nothing about the matter.

  “Oh, of course, if you can’t manage it . . .” she said. “I’ll tell Winnie you can’t go.”

  Her tone implied quite plainly: “Refuse if you like. You’ll catch it; and I shan’t care.”

  Hilary glanced across at her father and saw a mute appeal in his eyes. Mrs. Castleford was a fool in many ways, but in others she manifested a certain cunning. If Hilary displeased her, she left the girl alone but vented her spite on her husband, counting on the girl’s affection for her father to bring her to heel rather than have him badgered on her account. It was a shrewd bit of tactics and almost invariably it proved successful.

  On this occasion, however, Hilary set some store by her golf fixture. She made an effort to save it.

  “I’m partnered with Dick Stevenage. Last week we’d arranged to play a single and I had to cancel it. I don’t like to let him down twice running.”

  Miss Lindfield seemed to consider for a moment.

  “I’ll play instead of you, if you like,” she suggested with the air of making a concession, though a faint undertone of eagerness was apparent in her voice.

  Hilary did not seem to welcome the proposal.

  “Wouldn’t it do just as well if I ran her over to Sunnydale later on in the morning?” she asked.

  Very occasionally Miss Lindfield would condescend to intervene on her behalf; but she could never count on it. It depended on Miss Lindfield’s mood. She was sparing in her favours to Hilary and freakish in her choice of the occasions when she bestowed them. Tonight, evidently, she was not in a helpful frame of mind.

  “You’d better go and ask Winnie herself,” she suggested.

  This time the shrug she gave was unconcealed. It meant: “Well, if you won’t take my way out of the difficulty, find one of your own.” The suggestion of a direct application to Winifred was obviously not meant seriously. Hilary knew quite well what would happen if she tried that. She would have to go, that very moment, into the hostile atmosphere of the drawing-room; and there her petition would be curtly refused under the cynical eyes of the two Glencaples. To take that course would be merely courting humiliation.

  “It’s hardly worth it,” she said, ambiguously, concealing her chagrin as well as she could. “I’ll ring up someone to take my place in the foursome.”

  If Miss Lindfield wouldn’t help, Hilary decided, then she should not have the chance of replacing her as Dick Stevenage’s partner. What a fool she had been to mention Dick’s name at all! She ought to have remembered that Miss Lindfield might want to play with him and would seize the chance of keeping Hilary out of the way instead of helping her.

  Miss Lindfield betrayed no disappointment at the sidetracking of her proposal. Her faint gesture said quite plainly: “Just as well you’ve caved in.”

  “I’ll tell Winnie you’ll be ready at half-past eleven, then,” she rejoined, as she closed the door behind her.

  Castleford had been a silent and embarrassed spectator of the scene. To intervene would merely have been to throw away the last chance that Constance Lindfield would take pity on Hilary. She had no love for him, and would have seized the occasion to strike at him through his daughter. As for persuading his wife to change her whim, he knew from experience how futile any attempt on his part would be. It would simply mean a peevish argument with a foregone conclusion. His convenience or Hilary’s meant nothing to Winifred. In many ways she was more like a spoilt child than a grown woman. Opposition to even her lightest caprice was sure to rouse her obstinacy.

  He hunched his shoulders into the yielding back of the deep armchair and pulled nervously at his pipe. It was mortifying to see this sort of thing going on, and yet be unable to lift a finger to stop it. He glanced covertly across at his daughter, whose eyes were fixed on her work. What could Hilary think of it all? She must look on him as a poor sort of father to have, a man who couldn’t even assert himself in a case like this. He saw that long-postponed explanation would have to be made. Hilary was old enough to draw her own conclusions about the worst side of the position; and if she could do that, she might as well hear what could be said for the defence. After all, there was nothing actually discreditable in the affair.

  Hilary looked up, caught his eye, and looked down again. When she spoke, it was characteristic of her that she left the major grievance unmentioned and concentrated on a minor point.

  “I wish they wouldn’t call me ‘Hillie.’ I hate the sound of it.”

  Castleford nodded a thoughtful agreement. He hated it too. Why should anyone want to corrupt “Hilary” into “Hillie” for the sake of saving a syllable? But in this house, no one ever seemed to be given their full name except by himself and his daughter. He lived in an atmosphere of diminutives. Constance Lindfield was “Connie”; Laurence Glencaple was “Laurie”; Kenneth was cut down to “Ken” or “Kennie” and his child was “Frankie” or “Frankie-boy.” Winifred liked people to call her “Winnie,” possibly because it sounded young. As for Castleford himself, he had never heard his own name since he came to Carron Hill. He was “Phil” to all of them, except when in moments of expansion—now grown rare—his wife addressed him as “Phillie.” It was like going back to the nursery. Some unconscious pedantry in his nature rebelled against all that sort of thing. It was a trifle, of course, just like a crumb in a bed; but trifles grow to exasperation-point if one has to suffer them for long enough. One loses perspective under the continual irritation.

  Hilary put aside her sewing and rose from her seat.

  “I’ll have to ring up somebody to take my place,” she said rather ruefully. “I’ll be back again in a minute or two.”

  Castleford turned slightly in his chair and watched her go out of the room. She seemed to have fought down her vexation, as she always did, nowadays. It wasn’t because she had a yielding nature, he remembered. As a small child she had been rather a spitfire. But since she grew up she had controlled her temper, so far as outward signs went, though he sometimes wondered what was going on behind that calm exterior.

  This business of the car was especially mean. Winifred could quite well afford to keep a chauffeur, but her spirit of petty economy had suggested to her that Hilary might serve instead. The girl was not asked to clean the car; the gardener had been taught to do that. But Hilary was expected to give up any of her own engagements if the car was needed. Winifred had always refused to learn to drive it herself; and though Constance Lindfield could drive when it suited her to do so, she generally left Hilary to take her stepmother out. There would have been no harm in it, had there been any spirit of give-and-take in the matter. After all, Hilary lived in the house at her stepmother’s expense and it was not unreasonable that she should do something to make herself useful. What made it hard was that Winifred cared for the convenience of no one but herself; and this car-driving demand was made without the slightest consideration for the girl’s feelings or for her private engagements.

  Castleford pulled moodily at his pipe and meditated, for the thousandth time, upon his situation. Only
one thing could set them both free from this entanglement. Hilary might get married, and then the problem would almost solve itself. Winifred held him in her grip only because of Hilary. Once the girl was safely provided for, he could fend for himself.

  “If I had my hands free,” he assured himself bravely, “I’d bring that woman to her bearings—and double-quick, too.”

  What Castleford feared was that Hilary, exasperated by her position, might take the bit in her teeth and marry the first man who asked her, merely in order to escape from Carron Hill. That might be merely a jump from the frying-pan into the fire. At twenty, a girl may fall in love with a detrimental just as readily as with a decent man. Dick Stevenage, for instance. And at the thought of him Castleford’s mouth twitched as though he had bitten on a sore tooth. Hilary seemed rather keen on that young scoundrel. He was always about Carron Hill, nowadays, hanging on to Winifred’s skirts, giving Constance Lindfield the glad eye when Winifred was safely out of the way, and, lately, running after Hilary when both the others were off the map. Stevenage! Castleford cared little enough for Winifred, but still . . . nobody likes to see another man coming between him and his wife. And even at the worst, he supposed he’d have to put up with it. A divorce would throw Hilary and himself on the world.

  “Damn the whole lot of them!” he cursed under his breath, with all the bitterness of a weak man who is denied any more direct outlet for his feelings.

  Chapter Two

  A Marriage of Convenience

  Hilary’s return interrupted his train of thought.

  “I’ve got someone to take my place,” she explained as she gathered up her work and settled herself again in her chair.

  She went on with her sewing in silence for a few minutes; but the quick, nervous movements of her needle betrayed her exasperation at this new display of her stepmother’s wanton disregard for her arrangements. At last she put her work on the arm of her chair and looked across at Castleford.