Look to the Lady (8 page)

He lumbered off. Mr Campion stood at the window and looked over the shadowy garden, still scented in the dusk. There was nothing more lovely, nothing more redolent of peace and kindliness. Far out across the farther fields a nightingale had begun to sing, mimicking all the bird chatter of the sunshine. From the bar beneath his feet scraps of the strident Suffolk dialect floated up to him, mingled with occasional gusts of husky laughter.

Yet Mr Campion was not soothed. His pale eyes were troubled behind his spectacles, and once or twice he shivered. He felt himself hampered at every step. Forces were moving which he had no power to stay, forces all the more terrible because they were unknown to him, enemies which he could not recognize.

The picture of Val and the two girls standing smiling in the bright old-fashioned room sickened him. There was, as Lugg said, something unnatural about the whole business, something more than ordinary danger: and the three young people had been so very young, so very ignorant and charming. His mind wandered to the secret room, but he put the subject from him testily. It could not have any significance in the present business or he would surely have been told.

Presently he closed the window and crossed to the table, where the best dinner that Mrs Bullock could conjure was set waiting for him. He ate absently, pausing every now and then to listen intently to the gentle noises of the countryside.

But it was not until early the following morning, as he lay upon a home-cured feather bed beneath an old crocheted quilt of weird and wonderful design, that the storm broke.

He was awakened by a furious tattoo on his door and raised himself upon his elbow to find Mrs Bullock, pink and horror-stricken.

‘Oh, sir,' she said, ‘as Mr Val's friend, I think you ought to go up to the Tower at once. It's Lady Pethwick, sir, Mr Val's aunt. They brought her in this morning, sir – stone dead.'

—

T
HE
Tower at Sanctuary managed to be beautiful in spite of itself. It stood at the top of the hill almost hidden in great clumps of oak and cedar trees with half a mile of park surrounding it in all directions. It was a mass of survivals, consisting of excellent examples of almost every period in English architecture.

Its centre was Tudor with a Georgian front; the west wing was Queen Anne; but the oldest part, and by far the most important, was the east wing, from which the house got its name. This was a great pile of old Saxon stone and Roman brick, circular in shape, rising up to a turreted tower a good sixty feet above the rest of the building. The enormously thick walls were decorated with a much later stone tracery near the top, and were studded with little windows, behind one of which, it was whispered, lay the room to which there was no door.

In spite of the odd conglomeration of periods, there was something peculiarly attractive and even majestic in the old pile. To start with, its size was prodigious, even for a country mansion. Every age had enlarged it.

The slight signs of neglect which a sudden rise in the cost of labour combined with a strangling land tax had induced upon the lawns and gardens had succeeded only in mellowing and softening the pretentiousness of the estate, and in the haze of the morning it looked kindly and inviting in spite of the fact that the doctor's venerable motor-car stood outside the square doorway and the blinds were drawn in all the front windows.

Val and Penny were standing by the window in a big shabby room at the back of the west wing. It had been their nursery when they were children, and had been regarded by them ever since as their own special domain. There were still old toys in the wide cupboards behind the yellow-white panelling, and the plain heavy furniture was battered and homely.

The view from the window, half obscured by the leaves of an enormous oak, led the eye down the steep green hill-side to where a white road meandered away and lost itself among the fields which stretched as far as the horizon.

The scene was incredibly lovely, but the young people were not particularly impressed. Penny was very pale. She seemed to have grown several years older since the night before. Her plain white frock enhanced the pallor of her face, and her eyes seemed to have become wider and more deep in colour. Val, too, was considerably shaken.

‘Look here,' he said, ‘I've sent word down for Campion to come up as we arranged before. It was just Aunt's heart, of course, but it's awkward happening like this. I thought she was disgustingly full of beans at dinner last night.' He pulled himself up. ‘I know I ought not to talk about her like this,' he said apologetically, ‘still, it's silly to pretend that we liked her.'

He was silent for a moment, and then went on gloomily, ‘The village will be seething with it, of course. Being picked up in the Pharisees' Clearing like that. What on earth did she want to go wandering about at night for?'

Penny shuddered and suddenly covered her face with her hands.

‘Oh, Val,' she said, ‘did you see her? I was the first to go down into the hall this morning when Will and his son brought her in on a hurdle. That look on her face – I shall never forget it. She saw something dreadful, Val. She died of fright.'

The boy put his arm round her and shook her almost roughly.

‘Don't think of it,' he said. ‘She'd got a bad heart and she died, that's all. It's nothing to do with – with the other thing.'

But there was no conviction in his tone and the girl was not comforted, realizing that he spoke as much to reassure himself as to soothe her.

Their nerves were so taut that a tap on the door made them both start violently. It opened immediately to admit old Doctor Cobden, the man who had brought them both into the world, and whose word had been the ultimate court of appeal ever since they could remember.

He was a large, benign old gentleman with closely cropped white hair and immense white eyebrows and he was dressed in an unconventional rough tweed suit fitting snugly to his rotund form.

He advanced across the room, hand outstretched, exuding a faint aroma of iodoform as he came.

‘Val, my boy, I'm glad to see you,' he said. ‘You couldn't have come back at a better time. Your father and the estate have needed you very much lately, but never so much as now.' He turned to Penny and patted her hand gently as it lay in his own. ‘Pull yourself together, my dear,' he said. ‘It's been a shock, I know, but there's nothing to be afraid of. I'm glad I found you two alone. I wanted to have a chat. Your father, good man, is not much assistance in an emergency.'

He spoke briskly and with a forthrightness that they had learned to respect. Val shot him a glance under his eyelashes.

‘There'll have to be an inquest, I suppose, sir?' he said.

Doctor Cobden took out a pair of pince-nez and rubbed them contemplatively with an immense white handkerchief.

‘Why no, Val. I don't think that'll be necessary, as it happens,' he said. ‘I'm the coroner of this district, don't you know. And whereas I should perhaps have felt it was my duty to inquire into your aunt's death if I hadn't been in attendance on her quite so often lately, I really don't see any need to go into it all again.' He paused and regarded them solemnly. ‘There was always a danger, of course. Any severe shock might have aggravated this aortic regurgitation, don't you know, but she was a nervy creature, poor soul, and I never saw any reason to frighten her.'

‘But, Doctor, something did frighten her. Her face –' Penny could not restrain the outburst. The old man's mottled face took on a slightly deeper tone of red.

‘My dear,' he said, ‘death is often ugly. I'm sorry you should have had to see your aunt. Of course,' he went on hastily as he saw the doubt in their eyes, ‘she must have
had
a shock, don't you know. Probably saw an owl or trod on a rabbit. I warned her against this stupid wandering about at night. Your aunt was a very peculiar woman.'

He coughed. ‘Sometimes,' he added, ‘I thought her a very silly woman. All this semi-mystical nonsense was very dangerous in her condition. And that's where I come to the business I wanted to discuss with you. I don't want your father bothered. I've persuaded him to take things easily. It's been a great shock to him. He's in his own rooms and I don't want him disturbed. Now, Val, I want all this crowd of your aunt's friends out of the house before tomorrow.' He paused, and his little bright eyes met the boy's inquiringly. ‘I don't know how many there are,' he said, ‘or who they are. Some – ah – some Bohemian set, I understand. They've been getting on your father's nerves. I don't know what your aunt was doing filling the place with dozens of strangers.'

Penny looked a little surprised.

‘There's only seven visitors, and they're at the Cup House now,' she said. ‘We don't see much of them. Aunt used to keep them to herself.'

‘Oh, I see.' The doctor looked considerably relieved. ‘I understood from your father that there was an army of lunatics encamped somewhere. Oh, well, it won't be so difficult. I don't suppose they'll want to stay, don't you know.'

The old man had brightened visibly. Clearly a weight was off his mind. ‘There's just one other thing,' he went on rather more slowly than usual, evidently choosing his words with deliberation. ‘With regard to the funeral, I should – ah – get it over quietly, don't you know. As little fuss as possible. I don't think there's any necessity to fill the house with visitors. No last looks or any morbid rubbish of that sort. I'm sorry to speak frankly,' he went on, directing his remarks to Val, ‘but it's your father we've got to think of. It's getting near your twenty-fifth birthday, you know, my boy, and that is a very trying time for both you and your father.' He paused to let his words sink in, and then added practically: ‘There's no near relative that you'll offend, is there?'

Penny considered. ‘There's Uncle Lionel's brothers,' she said dubiously.

‘Oh, no need to worry about them. Write to them and leave it at that.' The doctor dismissed the family of the late Sir Lionel Pethwick with a wave of his hand.

Penny laid her hand upon his arm affectionately.

‘You dear,' she said. ‘You're trying to hush it all up for us.'

‘My dear child!' The old man appeared scandalized. I've never heard such nonsense. There's nothing to hush up. A perfectly normal death. I'm merely considering your father, as I keep on telling you. You young people are too eager to listen to the superstitious chatter of the country folk. There's no such thing as a look of horror on a dead face. It's death itself that is horrifying. A case of a sudden end like this is always shocking. I'll make you up a sedative, Penny. One of the men can come down for it. Take it three times a day, and go to bed early.

‘I'll speak to Robertson too, Val, as I go through Sudbury. You can leave everything to him. I should fix the funeral for Wednesday. Without appearing callous, the sooner you get these things over the better. You're modern young people. I'm sure you'll understand me. Now I'll go,' he added, turning briskly towards the door. ‘Don't trouble to come down with me. I want to have a word with Branch on my way out. I believe that old rascal is more capable than the whole lot of you. Good-bye. I shall drop in tomorrow. Good-bye, Penny, my dear.'

He closed the door firmly behind him and they heard him padding off down the parquetted corridor. Penny turned to her brother, her eyes wide and scared.

‘Val, he suspects something,' she said. ‘All this quiet funeral business – it's so unlike him. Don't you remember, Mother used to say that he was as proud at a funeral as if he felt he was directly responsible for the whole thing? He doesn't like the look of it. Poor Aunt Di, she was a thorn in the flesh, but I never dreamed it would all end so quickly and horribly as this. I'd give anything to be able to hear her explain her psychic reaction to sunset over Monaco again.'

Val was troubled. ‘Do you mean you think it wasn't heart failure?' he said.

‘Oh, nonsense,' said Penny. ‘Of course it was. But I think the doctor feels, as I did, that she must have seen something terrible. There
is
something terrible down in Pharisees' Clearing. There's something round here that we don't understand – I've known it for a long time. I –'

A gentle knocking silenced her, and they both turned to see a pale ineffectual face, half-hidden by enormous glasses, peering in at them from the doorway.

‘Enter Suspicious Character,' said Mr Campion, introducing the rest of himself into the room. ‘By the way, I met an irate old gentleman downstairs who told me there was a goods train at 6.15 from Hadleigh. I hope that wasn't your father, chicks.' He paused, and added awkwardly, ‘I heard a rumour in the village that something rather terrible had happened.'

Val stepped forward to meet him. ‘Look here, Campion,' he said, ‘it's all infernally mysterious and it is terrible. Aunt Di was brought in by two yokels. They found her in a clearing in the woods quite near here. She was dead, and they insist that she had an expression of absolute horror on her face, but of course we know that's impossible. That was the doctor you saw just now. He's giving a certificate, but I can't help feeling he wouldn't be so sanguine if he didn't know the family so well. Father has shut himself up in the library and the doc says we're to clear Aunt's crowd out as soon as we can.'

He paused for breath.

‘An expression of horror?' said Mr Campion. ‘This is where we get out of our depth. I'm terribly sorry this has happened, Gyrth. How do you stand with your father?'

‘Oh, that's all right.' The boy spoke hastily. ‘I ought to have come home before. I had my own affairs too much on the brain. I think the old boy was worrying about me. Anyhow, he's very grateful to you. He wanted to send for you last night. I had to hint who you were – you don't mind that, do you? He seems to understand the situation perfectly. Frankly, I was amazed by his readiness to accept the whole story.'