The Adultress (27 page)

I dozed. Then I was awake. I wondered what Dickon was doing now. He was hardly likely to be in bed. Would he try to see Evalina? I could imagine what would happen if he did. But I didn’t want to think of Dickon. I was just angry that he had dared to follow me here, pretending that it was his mother and mine who had insisted that he come. As if anything would ever get Dickon to do what he did not want to.

No, he was fascinated by Eversleigh. Perhaps he wanted to see Evalina again. I was sure the fact that she now had a husband would have little effect on his plans.

I had dozed again and awakened startled.

I had been dreaming and my dream had been vivid. I was in the room. It was the night which had just passed. Jessie was at the bedside and so was Dr. Cabel. I was looking down at my uncle and his hand was lying on the coverlet.

I was staring at his hand—at the signet ring with the unmistakable Eversleigh crest on it. But it was his hand which held my attention. It was pale, unblemished. Where the flowers of death had been there was just plain white skin.

I sat up in bed.

No, I was imagining it. But I had it so clearly in the dream. Why should I dream that? I could really believe that the hand I saw in my dream was exactly as I had seen it that night. Had a faint surprise come to me then? It had been disturbed by the sudden realization that Dickon was in the room.

No. It was just imagination. I had just not noticed.

I lay down and tried to sleep, but it was a long time before I was able to.

When I got up next morning the imaginings of the night seemed not worth thinking of for a moment. My main concern was to avoid Dickon. I went for a walk almost to the sea and back. I was hoping I would meet someone from Enderby but I thought it was too soon to call yet—which I should have liked to do.

We met for the midday meal. Dickon was in high spirits. He told us he had explored the house and called on Amos. He had ridden out with Amos for about an hour and he was delighted to be back.

“Eversleigh!” he cried. “What a mine of treasure! Well, I suppose it has been collected through the centuries. I couldn’t find one or two of my favorite pieces from last time I was here. I suspect
you
, Mistress Jessie!” He paused and wagged a finger at her. She blanched and I saw her fingers catch at the table. “Yes,” he went on, “I suspect you of that female habit of changing things round.”

She relaxed a little. “Well, I like a bit of change … now and then.”

“Don’t we all,” said Dickon. “Variety adds flavor to the monotony of the day. When I was last here I was very taken with the jade collection. Uncle Carl traveled a great deal and picked up some pieces, as they say. I reckon his jade is worth a good deal.”

“He acted a bit strange before his seizure,” said Jessie.

“That’s not unusual,” put in the doctor. “You did tell me something about that. Didn’t he have an obsession about being short of money and talk of selling some of his possessions … pictures, I thought you said.”

“I wasn’t sure,” said Jessie. “He’d have people to the house …and then perhaps you’d notice something wasn’t there. … You’d just find it gone. But he used to hide things. Put them in different places.”

“How very disconcerting,” said Dickon. “Well, there is that piece of jade I missed. I’ll go hunting. I expect he’s put it somewhere. It’ll be a pleasant exercise. I do hope he didn’t
sell
the incense burner. That was a very special piece, I believe, and a great favorite of mine.”

“It’s very likely here somewhere,” said Jessie. “You must describe it to me and I’ll get the maids to look. It’s very likely hidden away in some place you’d least think to find it.”

“We’ll have a new game … hunt the jade,” said Dickon. “By the way, I hope he wasn’t upset last night.”

“Well, he was a little disturbed,” said the doctor.

“Because I appeared, you mean. He didn’t even look at me. He couldn’t have seen me with that nightcap right down over his eyes.”

“I don’t think he was actually aware of you exactly,” said the doctor, “but he might know something unusual was going on and be vaguely uneasy. Believe me, his condition is so precarious that I can’t have that. I want him kept quiet, and I do think it is best that I supervise the visits.”

“Not too many visitors at one time, eh?”

“I think that is understandable.”

“It’s very understandable,” said Dickon flashing his smile on them. He changed the subject abruptly. “There was an old chest I was rather interested in. Not a very good one … but the brass fittings were fine. The wood was a bit rotten in places, though. The worm had got in. I noticed it. It was Tudor, I think. I was always interested in furniture, wasn’t I, Zipporah … ? The trouble with me is that I’m interested in the wrong things. Never mind. I’m only a boy, as the family are fond of saying.”

“What about this chest?” I asked.

“Oh, I just looked for it, that’s all. I thought it was in that winter parlor … but I must have been mistaken because you’ve got that one of a much later period there now. Perhaps it was somewhere else I saw it. What do you propose to do this afternoon, Zipporah? I suppose you are not going to see Uncle Carl.”

We were both looking at Dr. Cabel. “Unthinkable,” he said. “I am not sure that you will be able to see him today at all. He’s not had one of his good days.”

“Too many strangers in the house,” said Dickon.

“How would he know that?” I asked.

“You never know,” said Dickon showing all his teeth. His eyes glittered so strangely that it could hardly be said that he was smiling.

I was glad when I could leave the table. I wanted to get away from the house, away from Dickon. My dream had disturbed me more than I would care to admit. I went for a long ride, not to the sea this time, and it was past four when I decided I should return. I came back by way of Grasslands—a very pleasant house this, about the same size and type as Enderby but very different, surrounded by grassy lawns from which I suppose it derived its name.

A horse was tethered near the mounting block. I recognized it as Dickon’s.

He has lost no time, I thought. I hesitated. My impulse was to ride away as quickly as I could. I did not want to see Evalina and be reminded of the last time I had seen her and the words she had directed at me. Then I wondered whether I should speak to Dickon. After all he was of the family; he had come down here on my account; he was not really much more than a boy. It was very different frolicking with an unmarried girl but if that girl had a husband he might land into serious trouble.

Perhaps, I thought, turning my horse away, it is just a friendly call and I am misjudging him. Misjudge Dickon! It was hardly likely.

But no. I would call. I tied up my horse and walked boldly to the front door and pulled the bell rope.

It was opened by a maid who looked questioningly at me.

I said: “Is Mistress Mather at home?”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Will you tell her Mistress Ransome has called.”

“Please to come in,” said the maid and I was taken into a hall slightly smaller than that at Enderby and lacking the minstrels’ gallery which was such a feature of that place.

“Mistress has a guest now,” said the maid, “but I’ll tell her.”

A short while after she came back. “Please to step this way, mistress.”

I followed her up the wide staircase to the landing. The maid opened the door and I walked in.

Evalina came toward me, her hands outstretched. She was somewhat elaborately dressed in a rose-colored gown, her face delicately painted and her hair elegantly arranged. She was beaming with satisfaction. She certainly enjoyed playing the lady of the house. Seated in a chair was a man whom I guessed to be Andrew Mather, and in another, his well-shaped legs encased in finest hose spread out before him, was Dickon.

“What a pleasure,” she said in a lightly affected voice. “Do come in and meet my husband. I have told Andrew quite a lot about you.”

I thought I detected an undercurrent of meaning in her words but pretended I did not. Andrew Mather had risen. He walked toward me with the aid of a stick.

“I am so pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said.

I was looking into a pair of mild blue eyes. His smile was pleasant and really welcoming.

“My other guest, you know,” went on Evalina.

Dickon stood up and gave me a mocking bow.

“Yes,” I said. “I saw your horse.”

“Such detection,” murmured Dickon, raising his eyes to the ceiling. “Do you know they sent me here to keep an eye on her, but I fancy she is keeping an eye on me.”

“It would be quite impossible to follow all your activities.” I said.

Evalina gave a little giggle. “Sit down, dear Andrew love,” she said. “You know how tiring you find it standing.” She took his arm and led him tenderly back to his chair.

“She fusses over me far too much,” he said to me.

“Not more than you deserve,” Evalina had forced him into his chair and planted a kiss on his forehead.

He looked very happy.

“Now please sit down, Mistress Ransome,” said Evalina. “I am longing to hear how you find it at the Court.”

“I believe Lord Eversleigh is very ill indeed,” said Andrew.

“My mother takes good care of him.”

“Excellent care,” murmured Dickon. He exchanged a glance with Evalina.

“She always has … as I do of my own Andrew.”

She smiled possessively at her husband, who returned the smile.

I thought: She overacts … and that makes one begin to feel there is something not quite right. It is the same with her mother.

“I bet you were surprised to find me married.”

“I don’t know why I should be.”

“Well, married so well,” she said with a fond look at her husband.

“I am pleased to see you are so happy and it must be pleasant to be so near your mother,” I said,

“Well, there is that,” she said. “Would you like some refreshment?”

“No, thank you. I merely called to congratulate you.”

“It was kind of you,” said Andrew Mather.

He looked to me to be a deeply contented man, and I reminded myself that Uncle Carl had been contented with Jessie. What was it these women had which could make their men contented even though they must be aware that they were paying a price for their comfort? But I was being unfair to Evalina. She seemed as though she really were devoted to her husband. Then I thought of Jessie, so kind and tender to Uncle Carl, so solicitous of his comforts and slipping off to spend the afternoon with Amos Carew.

Perhaps I was prejudiced against Evalina. Perhaps she had changed and was no longer the same girl who had blackmailed me over the key, frolicked with Dickon in the barn and then thrown that remark at me on the very last occasion we had met.

“This is a very pleasant house,” I said.

“We like it, do we not, Evalina?” said Andrew. He had turned to Dickon. “You were quite complimentary about it.”

“I said what I felt,” said Dickon, “and that is that it had great charm. Your lady wife showed me everything. … It was a fascinating voyage of discovery.”

He was looking at her slyly and I saw the glance which passed between them. I believed then that they were continuing with that relationship of which I had had a hint in the barn. I was sure it was a situation which would appeal to Dickon—aging, uxorious husband, wife who was much younger than he was and decidedly loose in her morals … and the gay philanderer looking where he could for easy gratification of his ever demanding senses.

“I was telling your cousin … is he your cousin?”

“The relationships in our family are very complicated to explain,” I said. “Dickon’s mother is my mother’s cousin. I’m not sure what that makes us.”

“Cousins is good enough for me, dear Zipporah,” Dickon said.

“Well, I was telling your cousin that I want him to take a look at the chest in the second bedroom on the third floor of the west wing. I feel certain it is thirteenth century, very simple, decorated with chip-carved rondels. Really Gothic.”

“I’m interested to see that,” Dickon confirmed.

“Andrew is very taken with old things,” Evalina explained, pouting a little. “I think he would like me better if I were old.”

He smiled at her fondly.

Dickon sighed. “Alas, people do not grow more beautiful with age.”

“They may grow more interesting,” I suggested.

“Oh, Mistress Ransome,” cried Evalina, “you are telling me that, I am a foolish little thing. I think you are probably right, but that is the way Andrew likes me.”

I felt it was all rather nauseating and said quickly: “Is it just antique furniture which interests you, Mr. Mather?”

“Mainly,” he replied. “I’m also interested in art generally, pictures, statuary … objets d’art generally, I suppose.”

“I understand you have a very fine collection,” said Dickon.

“Well, not as extensive as I should like it to be. You are rather knowledgeable yourself, I see. Do go and have a look at that chest sometime.”

Evalina leaped up. “I’ll take him now,” she said. “Then he can give you his opinion right away. You will excuse us,” she went on. “It won’t take long, will it?” She looked archly at Dickon.

“We’ll be quick,” he said.

I was left alone with Andrew Mather. I was picturing those two and wondering what they would be saying as they studied the chest. That Dickon would cynically make some assignation with her, I was sure, and that she would accept seemed equally certain.

“I am surprised,” I said, “that Dickon is regarded as an expert on fine furniture. I can’t think where he could have acquired his knowledge.”

“He has a feeling for it. I sense that by the way he talks. He’s very young, of course, and therefore lacking in experience but some people have instinct. I think he might have that and I’d like his opinion on the effect it has on him.”

“It is a great interest for you, I’m sure.”

“It is. When one is crippled it is good to have those interests which are not too demanding physically. I have always had this love of art. I lived in Italy for a time, years ago. In fact it was there that I first met Lord Eversleigh.”

“Oh, I was not aware that you knew him.”