London Calling by Anna Elliott Page A

taken their leave of Admiral Tremain’s household soon after the Halidays’ arrival that morning. They had returned to the house and spent one of the most tedious days Susanna had ever endured in unpacking and arranging the rented house. Though she tried not to let Ruth see how tightly her nerves were stretched.
    Finally, the hour had come to dress and ready themselves for the Admiral’s dinner invitation. Susanna wore a white muslin gown with a beaded silver overdress, and her aunt a deep russet-orange satin. The coachman had driven them to the Admiral’s house in Berkeley Square. And now they were all assembled in the drawing room, awaiting the gong that would announce dinner.
    “A handsome couple, yes,” Susanna said slowly in answer to Mrs. Careme. “But not, I think, a very happy one.”
    “Happy?” Mrs. Careme gave a sudden laugh. “Do you think any woman would be happy with such a husband as that?”
    There was an underlying harshness in Mrs. Careme’s beautifully modulated tones as she spoke, and as Susanna turned, she saw that Mrs. Careme, too, was staring fixedly at the couple across the way. She looked suddenly older, and her face, above a splendidly draped evening gown of emerald silk, was hard and set.
    Susanna studied her face more closely.
    “Have you met them before?”
    Instantly, Mrs. Careme’s eyes fell, thick lashes veiling the slanted green eyes.
    “No. I was speaking generally. Major Haliday is a very common type. So many men are, do you not agree?”
    Mrs. Careme’s eyes came up, then, to meet Susanna’s in a long, guileless look that was studiously square and level.
    Before Susanna could reply, the gong sounded.
    Mrs. Careme’s eyebrows lifted. “Dinner time already. Shall we go in?”
    She moved towards the door, and Susanna was left, still watching the Halidays. Helen Haliday was dressed in a flame-colored gown of watered silk, her lush dark hair swept back from her brow, and a turban of matching silk wound round her head. Her face was sullen and closed, and she stood consciously a little apart from her husband, eyes turned steadfastly away.
    As Susanna watched, the Admiral came up and offered Mrs. Haliday his arm, and she, still without looking at her husband, took it, moving off in the direction of the dining room.
    Brooke Haliday stood alone a moment, looking slightly foolish, and, at the same time, angry. His eyes, as he watched his wife move off, were hard, and Susanna saw his jaw tighten. Then his gaze lighted on Mrs. Careme, and his eyes kindled. He smiled a queer, almost triumphant smile.
    “May I escort you in?” He offered her his arm.
    Susanna had moved to take her own place in the procession, but still she saw the sudden flush of color under Mrs. Careme’s skin, then saw it ebb and fade just as abruptly, leaving it white as wax. When she replied, though, her voice was perfectly controlled and cool.
    “Thank you. I should be delighted.” And, taking his arm, she swept forward through the open double doors.
    The Admiral’s dining room was a lofty, handsome chamber, with paneled wood walls and heavily carved, high backed chairs. A vast canvas of a hunting scene, painted in oils, hung on one wall, while on the others were ranged a series of what Susanna took to be family portraits, men and women in the tri-cornered hats and long-waisted dresses of a generation past.
    Mrs. Careme sailed to the hostess’s place at the foot of the table. Susanna noticed Miss Fanny, in grey with a white spinster’s cap, watching resentfully. She had wound a string of cheap onyx beads about her neck, and fingered them nervously, her long, bony fingers moving over and over, twining the chain this way and that.
    As Mrs. Careme seated herself, Susanna saw the hand tighten and clench on the beads. Miss Fanny turned to her brother-in-law and said, in slightly too loud a voice, “Charles, I have been meaning to speak to you about the footman, Albert. He is really getting to be quite