Darkwater (31 page)

‘He might be away,’ suggested Fanny.

‘Oh, no. He’d have told me if he were going away. Anyway, let’s do this, Fanny. We must do
something
this long dark afternoon. Why don’t you dress up Dora and Lizzie too? And I’ll take Marcus.’

It was a very long time since Fanny had been up to the long narrow room in the very eaves of the house where a miscellany of articles over the years had been stored. She and Amelia and George had used to go there as children, opening the old chests to explore the musty and quaintly old-fashioned clothing stored in them, and playing carriages with the discarded furniture. But one day a rat had run across the floor and scared them out of their wits, and they hadn’t been up there since.

Now, when Fanny took Dora up the final almost vertical flight of stairs, she found that the door to the attic room was stuck, or locked.

This was odd, since no one ever went there nowadays. Both girls pushed valiantly, but the door remained fast shut.

‘Perhaps Hannah has a key, miss,’ Dora suggested.

‘Yes, run and find her, Dora.’

But Hannah, when she came said she had never had a key to that particular door. She didn’t know there was one.

‘Anyway, I wouldn’t have locked the room,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing but old junk in there.’

‘Shall we get Barker or one of the gardeners?’ Fanny asked.

‘Wait a minute, Miss Fanny. Sometimes these keys I have fit two or three locks. All the linen cupboards can be opened with the same one, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this one for the ironing room fits here.’

After a little manipulation, to everyone’s delight, the rusty lock gave and the door creaked open.

‘Goodness, it’s dark,’ said Fanny. ‘And musty. Dora, run down and get candles. How cold it is in here. Ugh!’

The long dim room with its peaked ceiling was full of strange shapes. Fanny knew that they were made only by upturned furniture and chests, but she waited with Hannah on the threshold until Dora returned with the branched candlestick.

Quickly the candles were lit, and the wavering light made the conglomeration of rocking chairs, tables, a child’s high chair and wooden cradle, a paint-faded rocking horse, dark pictures in heavy frames, and old-fashioned travelling trunks quite unsinister.

‘Put the candles there,’ Fanny instructed, indicating a dusty table. ‘Goodness, here’s the old newspaper reporting the Battle of Waterloo. I remember reading that years ago, and George made me be Buonaparte and Amelia the King of Prussia, while he, of course, was the Duke of Wellington. We knocked over the furniture while we fought and made a terrific noise. Do you remember, Hannah?’

‘That I do, Miss Fanny. Master George was never happy without a sword in his hand. He should have ended up a general, if—well, then, he’s shed his blood for his country, and we must just remember that.’

‘Yes, Hannah. I do. Always.’ There was no need to explain that that was the only reason she had tolerated George’s persecution. Hannah was not blind. She must know, too, by the servants’ infallible grapevine, what had happened this morning.

In the candlelight, in the dark musty room, Fanny found Hannah’s unspoken loyalty more comforting than anything that had happened today.

Dora had opened a chest and was exclaiming over the smell of the clothes.

‘Faugh! They do need an airing, Miss. If you knew what things you wanted I could take them out and give them a good shaking.’

‘Yes, there’s a ball gown that I think was Lady Arabella’s—it’s the Empire style, in white lace. There should be a shawl and shoes and a fan that goes with it. I know, because I wore it once at Amelia’s birthday party when we dressed up. I don’t suppose it’s been touched since. And I remember a velvet cloak—I think that was in one of these chests—’

She was engrossed now in the clothes and the old memories. She impatiently pushed the wrong trunk aside, and there was a little cascade as several boxes slid down. This disclosed two unexpectedly new-looking travelling bags, quite modern in design.

Fanny looked at them in surprise.

‘These must have been put here by mistake. They’re not in the least antique. I wonder what’s in them.’

She lay one on its side and undid the straps and fastenings. The lid opened and displayed the neatly folded Norfolk jacket, which lay on top of a miscellany of masculine clothing. ‘Goodness!’ said Hannah. ‘That’s certainly got here by mistake. It’s a good new garment. I wonder who it belongs to, miss.’

Fanny was staring at the neat brown checks of the good expensive tweed in a fascination of horror. She could almost feel the boat rocking beneath her, see those hot eager red-brown eyes-fixed on her, the freckled hands reaching towards her. She knew every detail of the jacket Hamish Barlow had worn that day because she had had to keep her eyes fixed on it rather than on his face.

‘But he’s gone. His things were sent on!’ she whispered in desperation.

‘Whose things, miss?’

‘Mr Barlow’s. The gentleman—from China.’ She couldn’t bring herself to touch the jacket. She stared at it in horrified distaste.

Hannah had caught her feeling of unreasoning horror. ‘But he did go. His things were packed. The master gave orders.’

‘He couldn’t have travelled to London in his evening clothes!’

‘Then who brought the bags up here? To a room locked for goodness knows how long.’

‘Why hasn’t he sent for them? What’s he been wearing in the meantime?’

Dora, who had said nothing, only stared with enormous eyes, suddenly exclaimed, ‘I heard rats, one night. Don’t you remember, Hannah?’

‘Yes,’ said Hannah derisively. ‘And you thought you heard the peacock, too! In the dark, long before morning.’

‘The peacock!’ whispered Dora. ‘Screaming!’ And clapped her hand to her mouth.

‘W
HAT WILL YOU DO,
Miss Fanny?’ asked Hannah at last.

‘I don’t know.’ (Ching Mei had left her shoes, Nolly kept saying. But compared to that, Mr Barlow was practically naked. He had gone out into the world in a set of evening clothes which, no matter how distraught or even drunk he may have been, would have to have been changed by morning when he took up his ordinary life.)

‘I’ll have to tell my uncle,’ she added. ‘I wish we hadn’t come here. I wish that door had stayed locked.’ Again, her eyes met the fearful eyes of the two servants. Who had locked the door?

‘I’ll go down now,’ she said at last, standing up and brushing her skirts. ‘Lock the door again, Hannah, and Dora, go to the children. Suggest another game for them to play. Not dressing up. Tell Miss Amelia I said so.’

Was she only twenty-one today? She felt older than Hannah, older than Lady Arabella. She walked down the three flights of stairs and along the twisting passages as slowly as if already her body were fragile, and dried-up. She moved in a dream and for the first time in her life forgot to knock as she entered the library.

The two men looked up in surprise. Sir Giles Mowatt’s expression immediately changed to a welcoming smile, Uncle Edgar’s to an annoyed frown.

‘Fanny, my dear—here is Sir Giles—we were having a private conversation.’

‘I’m sorry, Uncle Edgar! But I must speak to you at once. There’s been a—a strange discovery. Uncle,’ she burst out, ‘where is Mr Barlow?’

There was the smallest silence—of surprise, of consternation?

‘Gone back to where he came from, I believe. And entirely due to you, young lady.’ Uncle Edgar was fiddling with a paper knife. His voice was slightly jesting and affectionate because Sir Giles was there. Fanny knew that he would not have been so tolerant, otherwise. ‘I hope you haven’t suffered a change of heart at this late day.’

‘No, uncle. We only wondered how he could have travelled without luggage.’

‘We?’ said Uncle Edgar sharply.’

‘Hannah and Dora, and me. We found his bags and all his clothes in the attic room. They looked as if they had been hidden there. The door was locked. Hannah had a key that opened it. Uncle Edgar, he
couldn’t
have travelled in his evening clothes!’

‘Is this the gentleman from the East who was your brother’s trustee?’ asked Sir Giles with interest. ‘Why, Davenport, you didn’t tell me this young lady had sent him packing with quite so much speed that he abandoned his luggage.’

‘But I didn’t mean to,’ Fanny cried. ‘He had seemed to accept my decision with fortitude. I thought—’

‘Never mind about your female intuition just now, Fanny,’ Uncle Edgar interrupted. ‘And Mr Barlow’s bags will keep. They seem to have done so for some time already. Sir Giles and I—’

‘Let us know what she thought,’ put in Sir Giles. ‘I’m interested in this. It sounds quite a mystery.’

‘Yes,’ said Fanny. ‘I think perhaps you should know. Every one should know. Uncle Edgar, you heard George say this morning that he would kill anyone who came between him and me. Well, it isn’t the first time he has said that. And he warned me about Mr Barlow, I’m so afraid—’

‘Of what?’ asked Uncle Edgar, smiling, amused by the nervous imagination of the feminine sex.

‘The peacock screamed that night. Both Dora and I heard it. But it was still dark, and the sound came from the yew Garden. I have never seen the peacock in the yew garden. And it never calls after dark. Then, in the morning, Mr Barlow—had gone.’

Sir Giles sprang up with a decisive movement.

‘Davenport, I don’t know what this means but you’ll have to have it investigated.’ Uncle Edgar made to interrupt him, but he motioned him to be silent. ‘Miss Fanny, you’re an observant young woman. I wonder if you can throw any light on another affair. It has just come to my knowledge that that escaped prisoner was seen in another area altogether on the night he got away. A farmer in the Okehampton district, an illiterate fellow, has chanced to mention it at this late day. That was the night, you will remember, that the unfortunate Chinese woman died.’

‘What does this mean?’ Fanny breathed.

‘It’s up to the police, whether they decide to re-open the enquiry or not. But your suggestion that your cousin George is, let us say, not entirely responsible for his actions, throws another light on the affair.’

‘He was in the garden that night,’ Fanny said. ‘I know, because I ran into him.’ She caught her uncle’s eye, and declared agitatedly, ‘I must say this, Uncle Edgar! I must. George isn’t safe. He will kill sometime—if he hasn’t done so already…’ Her voice died away. She was shuddering at the thought that she had been kissed by a murderer, almost with the blood still on his hands…

‘Now if I may at last be allowed to speak,’ Uncle Edgar said mildly. ‘First, George had nothing to do with Hamish Barlow’s bags. He hadn’t furtively disposed of a body—forgive me, Fanny, but that is what you intended to suggest—and then tried to dispose of the evidence. No, it was I who put the bags in the attic room.’

‘You, Uncle Edgar!’

Uncle Edgar smiled, as if he were enjoying the effect of his revelation.

‘Yes, I. At the dead of night and like a criminal. But my intentions were innocent, I assure you. It was merely to stop gossip among the servants. The wretched fellow, in his hasty departure, promised to let me know where to have his bags sent, but he never did so. So I merely had them put out of sight, pending hearing from him.’

‘You mean he’s never let you have a word!’ Sir Giles said in disbelief.

‘Well, he had a broken heart, so I suppose we must forgive him. And he did have an overcoat, Fanny. He would have arrived in London, or wherever he went, quite respectably. Also, he was a man of means, you know. A little lost luggage would scarcely worry him. These fellows seem to make their fortunes in the East, Sir Giles.’

‘But your brother failed to, I understand?’

‘Ah, Oliver. My brother, I am sorry to say, was always the exception to the rule. But there’s your little mystery explained, Fanny. You see, there was no need to exercise your very fertile imagination over it. You and that child Olivia are a pair. Now Amelia may be a little flighty, but she has a sensible head on her shoulders. None of these melodramas for Amelia, thank heaven.’

‘But where is Mr Barlow, Uncle Edgar?’

‘Oh, forget the man. It was you who sent him packing. If you must know, I wrote to the shipping company enquiring for his whereabouts, and they replied that they thought he had decided to travel back to China overland. Adventurous fellow. I suppose it’s as good a way as any of getting over a broken heart.’

Uncle Edgar stood up. ‘Can I offer you a little brandy, Sir Giles?’

‘No, thank you. I must be getting on my way. I thought it only fair to warn you about this other matter in case the police should call.’

‘Thanks, my dear fellow. Very good of you. But you can put that poppycock about my son out of your head. What on earth was the Chinese woman to him? I don’t believe he’d ever spoken to her. She was only a servant, you know.’

Fanny couldn’t help lingering after Sir Giles had gone. At the risk of completely offending her uncle she had to say, ‘I don’t believe a word of what you said, Uncle Edgar!’

His eyes narrowed, and became a foggy unfathomable grey.

‘So?’

‘No, I believe you made it all up to protect George. And that you’re just as afraid as I am.’

She clenched her hands. She could hardly put into words her final fear.

‘Mr Barlow is still here, Uncle Edgar. I know.’

N
OLLY AND MARCUS WERE
in Lady Arabella’s sitting room where Nolly was painstakingly finishing her sampler. They were pleased to see Fanny come in, but too occupied to pay much attention to her. Fanny sat quietly beside Lady Arabella on the other side of the room. The high back of the sofa separated them from the children. She didn’t want to talk, or even to think, but neither of these things could be escaped.

She should have asked Uncle Edgar to show her the letter from the shipping company saying that Mr Barlow was on his way by overland route to China. But Uncle Edgar would merely have said he couldn’t lay his hands on it. Fanny was quite certain that no such letter existed.

‘The child has the wrong text on her sampler,’ Lady Arabella said suddenly. ‘It should have been one about charity.’