Silence in Court (7 page)

Carey blushed, and was laughed at.

Honor disappeared after dinner. Carey and Dennis spent a companionable evening. They had reached the stage of intimacy at which you talk if you want to, and sit silent if you have nothing to say or if what you would like to say is not ready to put into words. She discovered that he sang charmingly to the guitar.

“Pity Aunt Honoria doesn't like music, or I might be able to sing my way into being residuary legatee.”

Carey sat up straight.

“Don't any of you ever talk or think of anything but Cousin Honoria's will?”

He smiled affably.

“Oh, sometimes—just to fill in odd moments.”

“Because it's frightfully bad for you, and frightfully boring.”

He twanged a soft descending arpeggio.

“Boring? Oh, no, darling—we're passionately interested. It's the golden link that binds us.”

“That's what I mean. It's horrid, and it's dull.”

He shook his head.

“Not dull, my sweet. It combines a really good gamble with the excitement of the chase. There's only one thing that offers a bigger thrill, and that is making love. Combine the three, and you have the perfect situation.”

Carey looked at him with an odd little smile.

“You do like talking nonsense, don't you?”

“That's not nonsense—it's a profession of faith. And I'm one of those rare people who translates faith into works.”

“I suppose you know what you're talking about. I don't.”

“You will, darling. I'm leading tactfully up to the fact that now you are an heiress I shall probably make love to you.”

Carey's chin lifted.

“How kind!”

“Yes, isn't it? I'm a little handicapped, but I can still put one foot forward, and the wounded hero stunt is said to go down well. If I were to come over faint, would you go down on your knees beside me?”

“No, I shouldn't. I should call Magda.”

“A heart of stone! I must think again.”

“I'd much rather you went on singing.”

Rather to her surprise, he complied, and after a little put down the guitar and took up a book. But when Carey got up to say good-night he reached for his crutch and limped to the door with her. She thought he was going to open it, but he stood there, looking at her and smiling.

“Pleasant dreams.”

“Thank you.”

“About me.”

“I see quite a lot of you in the day.”

His eyes held a spark of malice.

“There are several answers to that—but perhaps better not. Kiss me good-night?”

“Certainly not!”

“I shouldn't have asked, should I? What's a girl to say? Be brave—it's quite painless!”

His hand came down on her shoulder, steadying him. You can't step back and let a cripple fall. Carey didn't know whether she wanted to step back or not. She ought to have known—she didn't. She was pulled up close and kissed. It was rather disquieting, but not at all unpleasant. She gave a little laugh, and was kissed again.

“Dennis—I'm not a crutch!”

“All right—all over.” He let go of her, “Going on well?” He stepped back from the door as he spoke and opened it.

Carey stood and tried to look severe.

“It wasn't fair!”

“Wasn't it?”

Something in his teasing look brought the colour flaming to her cheeks. She said, “You know it wasn't!” and ran out of the room.

His voice followed her, pleasant and cousinly for anyone to hear.

“Good-night, darling!”

CHAPTER TEN

Jeff Stewart was kept busy out of London. He wrote most days, and sometimes twice—funny scraps, not real letters at all. One was just, “Honey, I wish I was back.” Some of the others weren't much longer, but there was one which affected her oddly—a long, serious letter all about his job, the sort of letter he might have written to another man. It gave Carey a queer jolted feeling, she couldn't for the life of her tell why. It might have been because the letter was dead serious and she wasn't prepared to take him seriously yet.

Meanwhile she was having the pleasantest time of her life. Cousin Honoria was affectionate, Nora friendly, and Dennis the best of escorts. He kept his word and made love to her in the most agreeable manner. It was impossible to believe him serious, so her conscience did not bother her at all. He amused himself and her, and when Jeff came back it would be very, very good for both of them. The days of the second week slipped by.

She had been at No. 13 for just a fortnight when Honoria Maquisten showed her the rubies. It was quite a performance,' and it did not begin until she was satisfied that Magda Brayle was out of the way. She had two hours off in the afternoon, and sometimes, at her own request or by Mrs. Maquisten's decree, the time was shifted. Once a week she went off duty at six and took the evening out. On November 15th Mrs. Maquisten sent her out at half past five, telling her not to come back for a couple of hours, and presently she sent Carey to see whether she was gone. After which she reached up to the head of her bed and pressed the bell which rang in Ellen's room across the passage.

Then the performance began. Ellen was sent to rummage at the back of a drawer and bring out a curious inlaid box. It was quite small, about five inches by four, with different coloured woods inlaid to make a pattern. Mrs. Maquisten gave it to Carey with a curt “Open it!” But there wasn't any opening. She turned it over and over, but it wasn't like any box she had ever seen, and there wasn't an opening anywhere. She looked up from it to find herself being laughed at.

“I can't open it, Cousin Honoria.”

“No? I didn't think you could. Give it to Ellen.”

Carey held it out, but there was no answering movement from the woman beside her. Ellen stood with her hands together, large knuckles prominent, nails cut down to the quick, fingers not reddened but bloodless, the forefinger very much pricked. She poked her head forward like a tortoise coming out of its shell and said,

“I can't open it either.”

Mrs. Maquisten turned a mocking look on her.

“Can't you really?”

The small, cold eyes met sparkling hazel ones.

“You know very well I can't open it.”

“So I do!” said Honoria Maquisten. “Well, give it to me.” She took the box, and with one of her rapid movements twisted it, and parted her hands again with a piece of the box in each. A little brass key fell between them upon the green coverlet. “There you are, Ellen,—open the safe!” She turned to Carey. “You're privileged, my dear. Of course they all know I've got a safe somewhere in my room. At least I suppose they do, but they don't know where it is, and they've never seen it open. No one ever has except Ellen.”

Carey felt dreadfully uncomfortable.

“But Cousin Honoria—”

“Don't be a goose, my dear! If I choose to trust you it's my own affair—you needn't let on to the others.”

Ellen stood there hostile, the key in her hand.

“It's Mr. Robert you should trust, or Mr. Dennis,” she said—“not those that haven't been in the house no more than a fortnight. All right, you needn't look at me like that—I know my place! If everyone did, it would be all the better, but there's some that don't and never will.”

Honoria Maquisten said incisively,

“That's quite enough, Ellen. Get on with it!”

The grumbling continued, but almost inaudibly. Carey could see the old woman's lips moving as she turned away and went round to the far side of the bed. When she passed out of sight behind the green and silver curtain, Mrs. Maquisten put out a hand and slid it back, but it went no farther than to admit a view of Ellen's black dress and the knob of hair at the back of her head.

“The safe,” said Mrs. Maquisten, “is there in the wall. A bit of the panelling slips away. I'll show you how it works some day when I'm up.” She dropped her voice to an exasperated murmur. “Ellen's a jealous old pig. Don't take any notice. I'll put it across her when I've got her alone.”

There was the click of a turning key and a swishing sound as if a door had fallen back against the brocade of the curtain. The little brass rings up under the canopy tinkled. Ellen's head came round the pleated folds, mouth puckered up, eyes cold and bright among disapproving wrinkles.

“What were you wanting?”

“I want the rubies. You know that perfectly well.”

“And how was I to know when you never said a word?”

Mrs. Maquisten laughed.

“Didn't I? Well then, I say it now. Rubies, Ellen—rubies for Miss Carey.”

Ellen's eyelids came half down over her eyes. Through the slits something looked out, as malevolent as a snake.

Carey kept her feet firmly where they were, but she would have liked to step back—even with the width of the great bed between them she would have liked to step back. She wasn't going to, of course, but wanting to do it made her angry. What did it matter to her how the cross old tortoise looked?

The cross old tortoise turned away, but slowly—slowly. Carey felt a little cold, a little sick. She was reminded horribly of the way a reptile moves. Once, by a pond, she had seen a snake asleep and watched it wake like that with a slow, sluggish motion, the head first and then the coils, until suddenly it was gone, like the lash of a whip, like water running. And then she had to laugh at herself. Tortoise or snake, she couldn't see Ellen running.

Honoria Maquisten patted her hand.

“They're pretty. You'll like them,” she said.

Carey had a blank moment before she remembered that they were waiting to see the rubies. And then Ellen was setting faded red morocco cases out—a very large case, two round ones, and a lot of others, all with C.M. upon the lids in Gothic letters from which the gold had almost vanished. Mrs. Maquisten pressed the spring, threw back the lid of the largest case, and displayed a Victorian necklace with a design of diamond bows and fleurs-de-lis with half a dozen enormous rubies embedded in the pattern. She gazed at them with a passionate admiration which Carey felt quite unable to share. The rubies were a lovely colour, and the diamonds made rainbows about them, but what in a modern world could you do with a thing which must be almost as hard and heavy to wear as a drawing-room fender?

“Lovely stones—aren't they? They belonged to James's mother. The old man paid a fortune for them. She was a good-looking woman—dark, with a fine bust. Nobody's got anything to prop a necklace up on now. People knew how to show off their jewels in the eighties. I've never worn them, you know, because of my hair, but I've wanted to, even though I knew I'd be a figure of fun if I did.” A ruminating, confidential tone came into her voice. “It's a funny thing, but I don't believe there's a red-haired woman breathing who doesn't hanker after wearing crimson and pink. It's a regular craving, and I've never given way to it like some of them do, but oh, how I've wanted to—you'd never believe it! And the rubies are the worst temptation of all. I'd almost have dyed my hair to wear them, but I believe James would have divorced me. I used to plan dresses to wear them with—ruby velvet with a yard of train, dead plain and just the colour of the stones.”

Carey couldn't help it. She said, “Oh, Cousin Honoria!” And all at once Honoria Maquisten was grinning at her like a schoolboy.

“Sets your teeth on edge, doesn't it? Well, it ought to set mine, but it don't.”

She opened the two round cases and showed matching bracelets nearly two inches wide, alternate bows and fleurs-de-lis with rubies set between. Carey had to put them on. They looked garish but rather exciting against the sapphire blue of her dress.

“You girls can't be bothered to show your arms in the evening now—nothing but long sleeves. Skinny elbows and bony wrists that won't bear showing—that's about the size of it.”

Carey laughed, and handed the bracelets back.

A corsage ornament came next, three square rubies entangled in more diamond bows; a couple of brooches, one with a design of fleurs-de-lis, the other an enormous bow draped round a ruby; three rings, solitaire, half-hoop, and marquise; and, the one thing Carey really liked, a charming slender necklet with single diamonds and three diamond-circled rubies.

“Pretty, isn't it? Put it on and look at yourself in the glass. The big necklace makes into a tiara, and when she wore it that way she used this light necklet. Of course it ought to be on your neck and not over a stuff dress, but put it on.”

The diamond chain sparkled against the blue, the rubies hung down low. The effect was ridiculous but rather charming—Carey's hair so black and shining, her skin so white, the eyes that matched her dress, her mouth that repeated the colour of the rubies.

She came back to the bed, pleased and smiling. Honoria Maquisten smiled too.

“I'm leaving them to you, Carey.”

“Oh, no!”

“Oh, yes, my dear.”

All this time Ellen had been standing on the other side of the bed, her hands folded at her waist, her face without expression, her eyes hooded. She opened them now, poked her head forward, and said,

“Miss Carey's in the right of it.”

Mrs. Maquisten reproved her in a perfunctory manner which bespoke long practice.

“Hold your tongue, Ellen!”

Ellen pursed her lips and repeated the remark.

“Miss Carey's in the right of it. Mrs. Maquisten's they were, and it's to Mr. Robert's wife they did ought to go.”

Carey lifted the necklet over her head and dropped it on the bed. Honoria Maquisten took no notice of it or of her. She did not turn her head in Ellen's direction, but she addressed her indifferently.

“Mr. Robert hasn't got a wife.”

Ellen tossed her head.

“That's not to say he won't never have one, is it?”

Mrs. Maquisten laughed.