Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/213

 scene a silent one, because three figures sat in the living room. In one corner sat Elizabeth, the old woman, dozing over a book. On a chair next to the table, where the lamp’s circle of light fell on him revealingly, sat Teck. The conversation, Val could see, was desultory. Jessica glanced once at her wrist watch, a little troubled, while Val looked, and he knew of what she, was thinking. Teck sat there, suave, smiling, and a little bland, carrying the bulk of the conversation. Outside crouched Val, a dark figure making one with the still darker background.

Far off, at the other end of the track, Val could see a darker blotch against the sky, which he was pretty sure was the old Pomeroy house, the one he was to explore this night. The track showed, a little lighter in the gloom than the surrounding country. Around Val twittered the night life of the countryside, and somewhere in the rear of the house a mandolin rang into being, shattering the night softly with an old sea song, in the quavering voice of old Germinal, who had followed the sea in his youth.

Val smiled at the incongruity of the song, a song which should be roared by the combined chorus of the forecastle; Germinal squeaked and quavered, accompanied by the clicking of his mandolin, in a great deal less than the proper volume and fullness of voices.

Yet it combined with the darkness, and the yellow