Drop of the Dice (55 page)

I might be, but my mind was too full of strange impressions for me to be sleepy. I went up and sat for a while at my window while various images chased themselves round and round in my head. I felt as though I had been catapulted out of a sane world into one which was vaguely bizarre.

I thought of Sabrina’s saying that she thought she detected a cry for help in Uncle Carl’s letter. It
was
a cry for help in a way, though he was in no physical danger. On the other hand I had a feeling that Jessie could be capable of a great deal of deception and roguery to get her way, but unless Uncle Carl made a will in her favor—though even she must know that in view of the estates involved it would be unthinkable for him to do such a thing—it was better for her to keep him alive, for only as long as he lived could she enjoy this sybaritic existence. But that he should be obliged to go about the matter of making his will in this secretive manner was monstrous. He was afraid of a housekeeper—well, a little more than a housekeeper! It was amazing in what situations people’s sexual desires could involve them.

I would try to complete this matter of the will as soon as I could. Then I would go home and consult with Jean-Louis. Perhaps I could get him to come to Eversleigh for a visit and see the state of affairs for himself. After all, if I were going to inherit our lives would be disrupted and it might mean that as Eversleigh would be of greater importance than Clavering we should have to come and live here. I believed that was what Uncle Carl would really want if he made me the heiress of the Eversleigh estates.

It would be a great upheaval in our lives and one I am sure which Jean-Louis would not want.

In the meantime I felt that my uncle should be rescued from this harpy. But how did one set about rescuing someone who so clearly did not want to be rescued?

Let well alone, perhaps, was the best thing. Go back home and hope that Uncle Carl lived on for many years. I put on a cloak and went out of the house. The gardens were still beautiful though somewhat neglected. I looked back at the house and wondered if I were being watched from the windows. The thought made me shiver. Yes, I should be glad when I had completed the business and was on my way home. It was possible that when I moved out of the picture I would be able to see it more clearly. After all, what was it but an old man who had been something of a rake in his youth, and was still trying to be one, with a voluptuous housekeeper who was trying to get what she could while the state of affairs lasted and to satisfy her physical needs, which I imagined must be overwhelming, took a lover at the same time.

A sordid situation, perhaps, but not such an unusual one. Certainly not one to give a practical woman—as I prided myself I was—this feeling of menace.

I wanted to get away from those windows which seemed like so many prying eyes. I walked to the edge of the garden and through the shrubbery.

It was a pleasant evening. The sun was just beginning to set—a great red ball in the western sky. The clouds were tinged with pink merging into a fiery red.

I remembered an old rhyme.

Sky’s red,

Billy’s dead

Fine day tomorrow

It was invariably right. Such a sky heralded a warm day to come. But who was Billy? I wondered, and why should they sing so happily about his death?

Death! Carlotta had died young. How uncle did brood on her! He must have been greatly impressed when he saw her. She was a legend in the family. Someone admired for her beauty, and the hope was always there that none of the girls would take after her. None had, presumably. Carlotta had been unique. She had lived here, though she had died in Paris.

Strange… in these fields and lanes many years ago Carlotta had once walked when she was in her early teens. She used to go over to Enderby and there met her lover. They had carried on their passionate liaison there—and he was murdered in time… deservedly, and his body buried somewhere nearby.

I found my footsteps were leading me toward Enderby.

It was not very far. Ten minutes’ walk—perhaps even less. I would walk to the house and then back. The air might make me sleepy, and I should be back just when it was beginning to get really dark.

I could see the house in the distance… a shadowy building in declining light, for the sun had now disappeared below the horizon and the clouds were fast losing their rosy glow.

I had come to that stretch of land close by the house which had once been a rose garden. Some of the bushes still remained. They were tall and overgrown but the flowers still bloomed on them. Few people had gone there in the old days. It had been said to be haunted. It was somewhere in that patch that the remains of Carlotta’s murdered lover lay. It had been fenced in at one time when it had been a rose garden but the fence was now broken down in several places. I don’t know what prompted me to step over the broken pales, but I did so.

There was a hushed feeling in the air—no wind at all, just a silence so deep that I was immediately aware of it. I took a few steps among the overgrown trees and then I saw what I took to be an apparition.

So startled was I that I gasped in dismay and felt myself turn cold, as a shiver ran through me. A man was standing a few yards from me. It was as though he had risen from the ground.

He was splendid. I did not meet many elegant men in the country but my father had been noted for his attention to dress, and I recognized at once that this apparition must be attired in the height of fashion, although I had no idea what that was.

His coat was full, spreading round him: it was velvet in a shade of mulberry as far as I could see in the fading light; it had huge cuffs which turned back from the wrists almost to the elbows. Beneath the coat was a waistcoat heavily embroidered, fringed and laced, open to show a white cravat, a mass of frills. His wig was a profusion of white curls and on top of this he wore a cocked hat.

He took a few steps toward me. My impulse was to run but my limbs seemed numb and I was unable to move.

He spoke then. “Are you real?” he said. “Or one of the ghosts that are said to haunt this place?”

He took off his hat and bowed gracefully in a manner which was a little different from that to which I was accustomed. I noticed that he spoke with a faint accent which was not English.

I heard myself stammer: “I was thinking that of you. You seemed to rise out of the ground.”

He laughed. “I was kneeling searching for a fob I had dropped. See… my eyeglass is attached to it.” He waved the eyeglass before me. “It’s a cursed nuisance to be without a fob and I doubt I can get a new one here. On my knees I was and then suddenly… I perceived an apparition.”

“Oh.” I said with a laugh. “I am so pleased that there is a logical explanation.”

A faint odor of sandalwood wafted toward me. I could not explain what had happened but from the moment I met him I was possessed by an extraordinary excitement which was quite alien to me. It really was as though I had suddenly become some other than quiet, practical Zipporah.

“I’m afraid I shall have to give up the search for the time being,” he said. He looked up at the sky.

“It will shortly be too dark to see anything,” I agreed.

“A clear sky and there will be a crescent moon. But as you say. too dark to find anything in the grass.”

There was a brief silence between us and I said: “Good night. I must be getting home. Good luck with the fob. Perhaps in the morning …”

He had moved round me, almost as though he were barring my way.

“Home?” he asked. “Where is that?”

“I was referring to Eversleigh Court, where I am staying. Lord Eversleigh is a kinsman of mine. I am here on a visit.”

“Visitors both. I am here…
en passant
too.”

“Oh… where do you stay?”

He waved his hand. “Close by. The name of the house is Enderby.”

“Oh… Enderby!”

“Oh yes, a haunted house, they say. My hosts snap their fingers at ghostly legends. Do you?”

“I have had very little concern with them.”

“You have some way to go back.”

“It’s only a short walk.”

“You are allowed out… so late.”

I laughed, a little uneasily, for there was something about this encounter which was disturbing me a great deal. “I am not a young girl,” I said. “I’m a married woman.”

“And your husband allows… ?”

“My husband is at the moment a long way from here. I am just on a brief visit and shall return very soon. I imagine.”

“Then I think,” he said, “that you should allow me to escort you to Eversleigh Court.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He put out a hand to help me over the broken pales and gripped my arm tightly. “They could be dangerous in the dark,” he said.

“Very few people come here in the dark. They wouldn’t dare.”

“We are brave, eh?”

“When I saw you rise up so suddenly I felt far from brave.”

“And when I saw you I was overcome by excitement. At last a ghost, I said to myself. But I will tell you this: I am relieved that you are flesh and blood after all… which is so much more interesting, don’t you agree? than the stuff that ghosts must be made of.”

I agreed. “So you are visiting the owners of Enderby,” I went on. “I don’t know who they are. The place changes hands now and then, I believe.”

“My friends are not at the house now. They have allowed me to stay there—with their staff of servants—while I have to be in England.”

“It is only for a short time, you say?”

“A few weeks possibly. It is very convenient for me to have this house for my stay here.”

“You are here on… business?”

“Yes… on business.”

“Don’t you find Enderby isolated… for business?”

“I find it very much to my taste.”

“They say it’s gloomy… ghostly. …”

“Ah, but I have some very pleasant neighbors, I discover.”

“Oh… who are they?”

He stopped and, laying his hand on my arm, smiled at me. I could see the gleam of very white teeth and felt again that faint embarrassment.

“A delightful lady whom I shall always think of as my very own specter.”

“You mean me. Oh… well, we are scarcely neighbors. Birds of passage, shall we say?”

“That is a very interesting thing to be.”

“So you don’t know anyone at Eversleigh Court? Lord Eversleigh? The housekeeper… ?”

“I know no one. I am a stranger here.”

“How long have you been here?”

“A week.”

“You have beaten me. I shall have been here a day and night.”

“How fortunate that we met so soon.”

That remark disturbed me so I decided not to pursue it.

I was faintly relieved and yet disappointed to see that we had come to the edge of the Eversleigh gardens.

“I am back now,” I said. “Through the shrubbery and then across the lawns to the house. Thank you for escorting me… I do not know your name.”

“It is Gerard d’Aubigné.”

“Oh… you are… French?”

He bowed.

“You are thinking that perhaps in view of the relations between our countries I should not be here.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I know little of politics.”

“I am glad. Could you tell me your name?”

“Zipporah Ransome.”

“Zipporah! What a beautiful name.”

“Its only distinction is that Moses’ wife had it before me.”

“Zipporah,” he repeated.

“Good night.”

“Oh, I must take you through the shrubbery.”

“It’s perfectly safe.”

“I should feel happier.”

I was silent as we walked through the trees, and then we were onto the lawn.

I turned rather determinedly and firmly said “Good night” again. I wondered what would be said if I were seen bringing him across the lawn to the house.

“Au revoir,” he answered, taking my hand and kissing it.

I withdrew it quickly and ran across the lawn.

I was so disturbed that I had forgotten Uncle Carl’s will and it was sometime after I had been in my room that I thought of the papers. I immediately went to the cupboard to reassure myself that they were still there. They were.

What a strange encounter that had been! I couldn’t stop thinking of him. A Frenchman. Perhaps that accounted for the elegance and strangeness, yet the manner in which he had risen from nowhere was explained by the lost fob. But it had certainly given me a shock at the time and I supposed I hadn’t recovered from that during the entire encounter.

I undressed thoughtfully; I was wide awake. My walk had done little to induce sleep. Everything about me was taking on an unreality. I could hardly believe that I had not been two nights in this place yet. I felt a sudden desire to be home where everything was quiet, and strange things did not happen.

I locked my door and went to the window to draw back the curtains as I liked to wake to the full light of day. He was standing there on the lawn looking up at the house. He saw me at once and bowed. I felt unable to move for some seconds and stood still, staring at him. He put his fingers to his lips and then threw his hand outward.

For a few seconds we stood still looking at each other. Then I turned abruptly and moved away from the window.

I was trembling, which was foolish; but he had a strange effect on me.

It was, I told myself, because I could not forget the way he had risen before my eyes. It had seemed so uncanny because I suppose it was on that haunted ground that a man was said to have been buried after he was murdered.

I blew out the candle and got into bed. But sleep evaded me. I kept going over the events of the day. I thought of Uncle Carl and his instructions and told myself I must get to the lawyer on the following day. But my nocturnal adventure imposed itself on those early impressions and I found myself going over it detail by detail.

Finally I rose and went to the window. I don’t know if I was foolish enough to expect he would still be there. Of course he was not.

I went back to bed but it was nearly dawn before I finally slept.

W
HEN I AWOKE NEXT
morning I had made up my mind how I would act. I would see my uncle at eleven o’clock, for if I failed to do that Jessie’s suspicions would be immediately aroused. So I had decided that I would choose the afternoon to go into the town and see Messrs. Rosen, Stead and Rosen. That would give me plenty of time, and when I saw Uncle Carl at eleven o’clock I could drop a hint to him as to when I should be going.