Menfreya in the Morning (34 page)

Victoria Holt

231

Sometimes I wanted to get away from the house and I liked to wander away from Menfreya along the cliff path to Menfreystow. There I would sit, overlooking the sea, and think about the past—my past with Bevil, being discovered by him on the island when I had run away, the joy of meeting him at Lady Mellingfort’s ball. But chiefly I thought of that occasion when he had come to my Aunt Clarissa’s house to see me and I had stopped to change my dress. That was before Jenny’s death, ‘before I had inherited so much money. If only he had asked me to marry him then I I wanted so much to believe that was what he intended to say to me.

Suspicions colored all my thoughts, all my memories of the past

And while I was sitting on the wooden bench, which had been set on the cliffs for the use of weary walkers, old A’Lee came along the path and saw me.

He greeted me and I saw his chin wagging involuntarily, which was a sign that he was amused.

“Why, if it’s not Mrs. Menfreyl”

“How are you?” I asked.

“Oh, we’re fighting fit up at Chough Towers, Mrs. Men-frey.”

Fighting fit! He was reminding me of the rivalry between us and on whose side he was.

“Mind if I take a rest awhile, Mrs. Menfrey?” he asked. “It’s long since you and me had a little chat like. Regular friends we was, once upon a time.”

“Why not now?” I asked.

His chin started to wag. “You being one of them, and me being on the other side, like …”

“Mr. Harry and my husband are good friends,” I said.

That made the chin wag more furiously than ever. He changed the subject and nodded to where the island jutted out of the sea.

They say it be haunted by the spirits of men as died violent deaths there.”

“Several men?”

“I did hear it were a regular practice for men to go onto that island and never be heard of no more—but maybe they was, when their bodies were washed up on the shore.”

“How could that have been?”

“The house was said to be used as a dumping ground for smugglers, and that it was the excise men who went

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searching for contraband in Little Menfreya who never came back again alive.”

“One of your Cornish legends?”

“Like as not. There’s plenty on *em. And now this clock have stopped. I don’t like the sound of that, Mrs. Menfrey.**

“Well, you see we’re all still here.”

“Don’t ‘ee laugh at it. Tain’t lucky to laugh. That dock ain’t stopped for years and years. Menfreys wouldn’t let it, so ‘twas said.”

“So it hasn’t stopped before in living memory!”

“There’s stories enough. Don’t ‘ee go out when the weather be rough, Miss Harriet.” He had slipped into the use of my old name, and I fancied his attitude changed towards me when he did. I had become the child for whom he had been sorry and was no longer one of the enemy. “I remember a story my grandfer told me about one of the Menfreys. There was an accident. A gentleman who was staying there was took out in a boat by Sir Bevil, and this fine gentleman couldn’t swim. Sir Bevil, he were a fine swimmer like all the Menfreys. I used to watch young Mr. Bevil … our one, you know, m’dear … darting in and out of the sea. Like a fish he were.”

“Yes, and what happened to this other Bevil?”

“He took the fine gentleman out for a row, and the boat capsized. The fine gentleman were drowned and Sir Bevil swam ashore.”

“He didn’t attempt to save his friend?”

“The sea were high and ‘tweren’t possible … so he said. Though he said he’d tried. But ‘twasn’t so. Years passed and he took to religion. It would have made you split your sides with laughing. He’d have all the girls and boys taken in fornication, as he’d call it, and punished. The boys would be whipped and the girls shamed in the church. That were how religion took him, although some of the girls and boys might have been his own flesh and blood, for he had the Menfrey taste for lovemaking—in his sinful days. Well, it so happened that he came near to death and knew it, and he was afraid that all his latter-day goodness wouldn’t make up for this big sin of his, and on his death bed he confessed. He’d gambled with the fine gentleman w^io had won his estates from him, and that included Menfreya itself. He wanted the fine gentleman’s wife. So there was only one thing he thought he could do, and that was remove the

fine gentleman. So he bored a hole in the boat and filled it with something … he didn’t tell what … be couldn’t go into details, for his breathing were getting shorter and there wasn’t much time left … and he took the gentleman out, and soon the boat started to fill with water. The fine gent panicked and the boat overturned. All Sir Bevil had to do was swim for the land and hope the fine gent wouldn’t be rescued. And if he was, it was an accident … that was all.”

“Is it possible to bore a hole in a boat and make it seaworthy for a time?”

“Certain sure it is. If the hole were filled, well twould be like the bunghole in a barrel, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, but it would be obvious if a hole was bored …**

He lifted his shoulders. “Sir Bevil, so ‘twas said, filled up the hole with some’at as would slowly melt.”

“Is there such a thing?”

“Salt packed tight, maybe. Sugar. That would be better. Tight-packed sugar would take a little time to melt in cold sea water.”

“What an idea!”

“Yes, b’ain’t it.”

“Well,” I said, “that happened long ago. Or perhaps it didn’t happen at all.”

“I allus had to make up stories for ‘ee, Miss Harriet, didn’t I now? When you was a little ‘un and come to the Towers … a sad little ‘un on account of your Papa never having the time to be nice to ‘ee … I used to say to myself, *Now how can I amuse Miss Harriet?*”

“You were good to me, A’Lee.”

“Aye, I were.”

“And it was a good story. Did it really happen?”

“Which one, Miss Harriet. The ghosts on the island or Sir Bevil and the boat?”

“Both.”

“Well, that be a queer thing about us Cornish, m’dear. We do love a tale, and the more ghostly it be the better we do like it I often think on them days when we used to be friends like. Tis a pity …”

“We’re still friends, A’Lee.”

“Yes,” he said. “Nought on ‘em can alter that.” There was some truth hi it, for he was worried, and I knew he was thinking about the clock’s stopping.

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There was a knock on my door. It was eleven in the morning. Bevil had gone off to Plymouth for the day on special business.

“Come in,” I said, and Jessica entered, looking coolly beautiful in a gown of lavender cotton and white lace collar and cuffs. I could never see her without imagining her and Bevil together as lovers, and it was difficult to compose myself in these circumstances.

“There is someone asking for Mr. Menfrey.” I saw now that she was paler than usual and that she was greatly disturbed. “It’s most extraordinary.”

She held out a card to me and I read,

“J. HAMFORTH AND SONS, UNDERTAKERS

FORE STREET

LANSELLA**

“I don’t understand it at all,” she went on. “I thought per-haps you…”

I said: “I will go down to see what he wants.”

He was waiting in the library, black-coated and solemn, and when I entered he started and turned pale. We knew each other slightly, for his premises were in Fore Street close to BeviPs chambers, and naturally Bevil and I were well known in the district.

“Mr. Hamforth … what is it?**

“Excuse me, ma’am … I … This was a shock, and I couldn’t believe it when I received the letter.”

“Letter,” I said. “What letter?”

“The letter telling me to call to … er … to see about the … arrangements.”

“What arrangements?”

He bit his lips; he lowered his eyes because he simply could not look at me. I had a feeling that when I had entered the room he looked as though he were seeing a

ghost.

A ghostl There was something very strange going on here.

“You came to make arrangements about a funeral?” I said sharply.

“Er … yes, ma’am, Mrs. Menfrey.’*

“Whose … funeral?”

He did not answer, but I knew.

“You thought it was to be mine?*

“Well, ma’am, that was what.. .**

“What you were told?”

“That I was to come at once to Menfreya, that I was to make the arrangements.”

“For me?”

He was embarrassed, poor man. He had never before had to face the task of preparing a woman for burial before she was dead.

“I was upset,” he said. “So were my wife and my clerks. They’d been to some of the meetings and they’d seen you there.”

So they all knew. In Lamella they would be talking about my “death.” It would be all over the town. News like that traveled quickly. I was certain that Mr. Hamforth’s trap would have been seen coming to Menfreya. Death at Menfreya! The clock which had not stopped for a hundred years had stopped recently. And now the undertaker was up at Menfreya.

*Thts is the most extraordinary affair,” I said.

“I’ve never known anything like it before in all my experience, ma’am.”

“No, I don’t suppose you have. But I want to know how it happened.”

“There was a letter came this morning. It was a queer sort of letter. But I didn’t think of that then.”

“A queer sort of letter? Where is it?”

**I brought it with me and showed it to the young lady.”

“To Miss Trelarken?”

“Yes. She was puzzled and asked to see it. You see, I told her that I had come to make the arrangements, and she couldn’t make out what, so I showed her the letter and she said she would take me to you, as Mr. Menfrey was not at home.”

I was relieved. There was a letter. This was some sort of practical joke, and we could get to the bottom of it if there was a piece of tangible evidence like a letter.

“Give me the letter, please, Mr. Hamforth.”

He took out his pocketbook and fumbled through it. He looked puzzled; then that expression lifted and he said: “Of course, the young lady took it and didn’t give it back.”

I went to the bellrope and when a maid appeared said: “Tell Miss Trelarken to come here without delay.”

She could not have been far away for she came almost immediately.

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I said: “We want the letter.”

“The letter?” she repeated.

“The one Mr. Hamforth gave you. The one which was sent asking him to call here.”

“Oh yes. But … I gave it bade to you, Mr. Hamforth.”

“No, Miss, you didn’t,”

“But surely …”

They looked at each other in amazement, and I felt a sick fear rising within me.

“It must be somewhere,” I said sharply to Jessica. “Look in your pocket.”

She tried the two pockets of her gown and shook her head. She appeared to be very distressed—or was she putting on a good act? That was the thought that occurred to me then: She was acting.

What did this mean? Had she and Bevil arranged this? Were they together hi some diabolical plot against me? If I were no longer here, there would be no obstacle in her way … and perhaps his.

“It must be somewhere about,** I said. “I am very anxious to see that letter and to know who wrote to Mr. Hamforth telling him to come and bury me.**

We searched the library, and men Jessica said: “But it was hi the hall. I was about to go out into the garden when you came, Mr. Hamforth, and we stood in the hall for a while. It was after you had given me the letter that we came into the library.”

I led the way to the haD and we searched everywhere, but we could not find the letter.

“It’s very strange,” I said, and the terror was growing in me. “At least, you both saw the letter. How was it worded?**

They looked at each other.

“It was written in a hand I did not recognize,** said Jessica. “It asked Mr. Hamforth to come and make arrangements for the funeral of Mrs. Menfrey.”

“There must have been a signature,** I insisted.

“It was, I thought, written by Mr. Menfrey’s secretary,** said Mr. Hamforth.

“By Mr. Lister?”

“It was not written by Mr. Lister,** put in Jessica. “I know his handwriting well. It was signed for B. Menfrey, and there was an initial which I couldn’t read.” ‘I looked from Mr. Hamforth to Jessica.

Who had done it and why? Could it be that someone had chosen this macabre way of warning me?

Bevil came back from London that night. I was hi bed but not asleep. I had been lying awake, going over the events of the day. I kept seeing Mr. Hamforth’s horrified and bewildered face and Jessica’s, not smiling now, but as unfathomable as ever.

Bevil came into the bedroom.

“Wake up, Harriet. I’ve some exciting news. Balfour has invited me to a weekend party. There’ll be several others there.”

“That’s wonderful. But … have you heard about Ham-forth?”

“Hamforth? What’s Hamforth got to do with the Prime Minister’s invitation?”

“Nothing. He came today to measure me for my coffin.**

“What!”

I explained.

“Good God! Who would do such a thing?**

**I should like to know that There was a letter, but Jessica Trelarken put it down somewhere . . , and it was lost.”

“But what was the idea?”

“First the clock stopped … and now this. It’s evident mat I’m the victim.”

“Harriet, for God’s sake, don’t even think such a thing.**

“It seems as though someone’s warning me.”

“Well get to the bottom of this nonsense. Ill go and see Hamforth tomorrow.”

“He can tell you no more. If we could find the letter … But, you see, Jessica had it … and lost it It seems so odd.*’

“She must have been as unnerved as you.”

“At least they hadn’t come to measure her for her coffin.**

“What a macabre notion of a joke. My poor Harriet.” He had his arms round me soothingly. I wanted to lie against him, to sob out my fears.

He put out the light and came to bed, and we talked for a long time about the Hamforth affair and of what the Prime Minister’s invitation could mean*