The Benevent Treasure (12 page)

Candida went to bed, but it was some time before she put out her light. When she thought of putting it out there was an echo of what Nellie had said about the cold hand that had touched her face and the thing that went crying in the dark. It was frightfully stupid of course, but she had a horrid feeling that if she told her hand to go out and turn off the bedside light there would be some pretty dogged opposition. She went barefoot to the bookshelves which filled the whole of the recess between the fireplace and the window. If she were to read for a little, the pictures in her mind would change and she would be able to sleep.

She took down a book of verse and turned the pages. A couple of lines started to her eye :

‘Alone and warming his five wits,

The white owl in the belfry sits.’

That brought up a picture of cold moonlight and a frosted world. She remembered:

‘The owl for all his feathers was a-cold.’

Not just what she wanted at the moment. She turned the leaves, and saw four lines at the bottom of a page:

‘I saw their starved lips in the gloom,

With horrid warning gaped wide;

And I awoke, and found me here

On the cold hill-side.’

She clapped the book to and put it back upon the shelf. If all that Tennyson and Keats had got to offer were things about cold owls and horrid warnings, to say nothing of starved lips in the gloom, then they were definitely off.

She found a book of short stories and chanced upon one about a coral island. With a hot water-bottle at her feet and the glow of a reading-lamp at her left shoulder, it was possible to be transported to the tropics and to warm the imagination at a description of blue water, rainbow fish, and exotic blooms. After two or three stories all set amongst surroundings where the temperature never fell below eighty degrees she actually found the bottle too much and pushed it away. A little later on she was so nearly asleep that the book slipped from her hand. The sound that it made as it slid to the floor roused her just enough to make her reach out and turn off the light. She passed at once into one of those indeterminate dreams of which no real impression remains.

A long time afterwards she came back to the place where the dreams that come are remembered. She was in the midst of one, and there was no comfort in it. A wide moor and a blowing wind and the hour before the dawn. There were voices in the wind, but what they said went by. Only if she didn’t know what they were saying, how did she know that it was something that she must not, must not hear? In her dream she began to run so as to get away from the wind, but she tripped and fell, and the wind went over her and was gone.

It hadn’t been dark in the dream — just grey, and the clouds racing. But now when she opened her eyes it was very dark indeed. She was awake and in bed in her own room, and the room was full of darkness. She lay on her back, with the head of the bed against the wall, the door to the right, the windows to the left, and in the opposite wall the bulging chimney-breast and the recess which held the books. She knew where all these things were, but as far as seeing them they might just as well not have been there, except that the shape of the windows showed against the denser blackness of the wall. Outside and away from the hill the darkness would not be absolute. There would be at the very least the remembrance and the promise of light. But it couldn’t get into the house. It couldn’t get into the room, because the darkness filled it to the very brim.

Candida lay there in the dark and was afraid. Moments went by, each one more dragging than the last, and as they dragged, the fear weighed on her and held her down. She had only to put out her hand to the switch of the reading-lamp and turn it on and a golden light would fill the place. Darkness had no power against light. She had only to put out her hand. But she couldn’t move it from where it was clenched upon the other, hard up against the slow beating of her heart.

And then all of a sudden there was a sound and there was light.

The sound was the faintest in the world. Something moved. She could get no nearer to it than that. The sound came first, and afterwards the light — a thin white streak like a silver wire stretched upon the darkness of the recess.

Rows of black books in the shelves which she could not see and a line of light dividing them. Between one heart-beat and the next it came, and was gone. She heard the sound again, and this time she knew it for what it was — the bookshelves masked a door and someone was opening it. And quite suddenly the terror that froze her gave way to the instinct to shield her eyes from the searching light, to cover herself with the semblance of sleep. She turned with one quick movement and lay upon her side with her face turned into the pillow and the bedclothes caught up high about her head.

She was just in time, because the light was in the room. It was the light of a torch. She could see it between her lashes — just the glint of it where the bedclothes fell away and the pillow was pressed down. She could tell that it was a torch by the way it slid and swung. Someone had come through the wall in the recess. Someone was crossing the floor. Someone went out of the door and closed it softly.

Candida was not frightened any more, she was angry. There was someone who was playing tricks — on her, on Nellie. Nellie’s room was in the old part of the house too. Secret passages were useful in the seventeenth century. People were persecuted for their religion. There were wars and rumours of wars, conspiracies and plots. A turn of the wheel and you were up, and another turn and you were down. It would be useful to have somewhere to hide yourself or — your treasure. She wondered whether the Benevent Treasure was guarded by one of those secret doors. And she wondered who it was who had come soft-foot through the wall tonight. Nellie’s visitor could have been no one more frightening than poor Miss Cara, wandering in the dark of a dream, looking perhaps for the boy of whom she had been so dearly fond. But she didn’t think it was Miss Cara tonight, or if it was, then she wasn’t walking in her sleep. Mary Coppinger had walked in her sleep at school, but she didn’t need a torch to light her way. Candida had followed her once, and she had gone downstairs in the dark and into one of the classrooms, walking confidently and without hesitation where she herself had had to grope her way. By the time she caught Mary up there was just enough light from the row of windows to make out that she was sitting at her desk. She had the lid open, and she took out a book, and shut down the lid, and went back by the way that she had come. She didn’t remember anything about it in the morning. The book was under her pillow. It was a French grammar, and it turned out that she was worrying about an exam she was taking. Poor Aunt Cara was worried about something much worse than an exam.

But whatever had come through this room with a torch wasn’t walking in its sleep. It was when she was confronted with the word her in her own mind and found she couldn’t be sure it was the right one that she snatched at the non-committal it. Because she couldn’t be sure, she really couldn’t be sure, that it was a woman who had come out of the wall and gone away by the door. It could have been a man. Whichever it was had gone soft-foot and silent.

It could have been Joseph. When had she ever heard him come or go? He walked like a cat — an admirable thing in a butler, but not if he used it to prowl in secret passages and come drifting through one’s bedroom at dead of night. It was all in her mind in a flash, and in another she was out of bed and the door open under her hand. There was no light in the passage and no movement, but at the right-hand corner there was, not a glow, but some thinning of the darkness which made the corner visible.

On an angry impulse she ran barefoot down the passage. It turned left-handed and she looked round the turn. There was a faint glow which showed the next bend, and then quite suddenly it was gone. She went towards the place where it had been, her hands stretched out, her foot feeling before her. Even after a fortnight in the house its twists and turns could still play her a trick. There were steps that went up and steps that went down. There were cupboards that were nearly as large as rooms, and rooms that were as small as cupboards. It was easy enough to lose yourself at Underhill. And there were never any lights in the passages at night. One of Miss Olivia’s little economies.

The hand that was feeling before her came up against something which rose like a cliff. It barred her way, but it wasn’t a wall. Her fingers touched wood, the surface deeply carved. At once she knew where she was. There was a big carved press at the top of the stairway which led from the hall. It was old and black, and most inconveniently placed. The landing was narrow, and the press jutted out and cramped what space there was. There was a choice of three passages here, the one by which she had come, one that went on to the servants’ wing, and a wider one which led to Miss Olivia’s room and Miss Cara’s — twin rooms side by side with a bathroom in between. If it was Joseph whom she had been following, he must be well away — the whole wing was cut off by a connecting door. She skirted the press and looked towards it. There was neither light nor movement. Useless to go any farther. The anger had gone out of her. She went a little way in the direction of the Miss Benevents’ rooms. The passage lay dark before her — dark and still. And all at once it came over her that her chance was gone, and here she was in her nightgown a long way from where she had any business to be. She had a horrifying picture of Miss Olivia opening her door and switching on the light. Just what she would say or do was one of those things that don’t bear thinking about. And she wasn’t going to think about it, because it wasn’t going to happen.

She turned, keeping wide of the stairs. Her feet were cold on the carpet and a shiver went down her back. When she had passed another corner she felt for a switch and put on the light. She would have to come back and turn it off, but it would show her the way to her room, and once that was lighted she couldn’t lose herself.

When it was all done and she had locked her door, she pushed a chair against the bookshelves in the recess and got back into bed. It was twenty past three, and the hot water-bottle was still faintly warm. As she looked across at the chair she remembered the proverb about locking the stable door after the steed is stolen. She called in another proverb to rout it — ‘Better late than never.’

Stephen was kept very busy for the next two days. He had an urgent summons from Colonel Gatling couched in a somewhat military style. Having made up his mind to the demolition of all except the original seventeenth-century manor house, he was insistent to know how soon the work could be begun, how long it would take, and what it would cost, and whether he would have to have ‘any of those damned permits’. On the top of that there was a telephone call from his uncle to say would he ring up the Castle and make an appointment with Lord Retborough. Following out these instructions, he found himself committed to a long and confidential interview with a worried old man.

‘The fact is, Eversley, no one — no one is going to be able to keep up this sort of place for another generation. We’ve been here a long time and we’ve tried to do our best by the place, but the situation has become impossible. The upkeep of the Castle alone’ — he lifted a weary hand and let it fall again — ‘it just can’t be done. Both my sons were killed in the war, but there’s a grandson to come after me, and I don’t want to hang a millstone round his neck. Now what I had in mind was this. I’ve had a tentative offer for the Castle — one of these new Colleges. I should have thought it highly unsuitable myself, but my grandfather modernised the plumbing, if you can call Victorian plumbing modern, and my father put in electric light, so I suppose it might be worse. Jonathan will join me in breaking the entail. He is prepared to go in for farming in a big way and on the latest scientific lines. He is in his last year at an agricultural college and as keen as mustard. What I want you to do is to get out plans for the sort of house one can live in and run without landing in the bankruptcy court. We’ve picked the site, and I’d like you to come over and look at it.’

With the two other small jobs which he had on his hands, Stephen had plenty to occupy him. He was full of enthusiasm when he rang his uncle up that evening. Yet he had hardly cradled the receiver before he was aware that the dead weight upon his mind had not really lifted. He had been able to ignore it in the interest of his work, but with the first movement of relaxation the old burden was back again — the heaviest and least bearable burden in the world, the fear which will not come out into the open to be proved or disproved, accepted or destroyed.

His room at the Castle Inn had a comfortable chair and, specially imported for his benefit, a good-sized table at which he could work, but neither the chair nor the table attracted him now. He got to his feet, picked up a book and threw it down again, walked to the window, looked out upon the market place, and watched the lights go by. Shocking for one’s tyres these old cobbles, and as noisy as a riveting yard.

The telephone rang in the room behind him, and he turned with a quickened pulse. There was no reason on earth why Candida should ring him up, and probably every reason why she should not. She had been angry when they parted, and they had made no plan to meet again. He had a sense of immeasurable loss as it came to him that he would pay forfeit with every treasure of his heart if he never saw her again. He lifted the receiver, and was aware of a woman’s voice that was not Candida’s. His Cousin Louisa said,

‘Oh, is that you? I mean, is it Mr. Eversley?’

‘It is.’

‘Oh, my dear boy — how nice to hear your voice! Ringing up an hotel is always so tiresome, don’t you think? You can never be sure that you have really got the person you want!’

‘And did you want me, or am I just another wrong number?’

She had one of those rather high, sweet voices. It sounded quite shocked as she said,

‘Oh, no. It was you whom I wanted — and most particularly. I was afraid that you might be out. You see, Mrs. Mayhew is having one of her musical evenings at the Deanery tomorrow. They are really very agreeable, and it is such a beautiful old house. She had asked me to bring Maud Silver, and this afternoon she rang up and said she heard I had a young cousin staying with me, and why had I not let her know, because she would be glad if you could find time to come too.’

‘But Cousin Louisa — ’

‘My dear boy, not a word! Of course I explained that you were not really staying with me, but she was most kind, and she hoped I would bring you all the same. Lord Retborough will be there. He plays the violin. Not in public of course, but it makes him take an interest. And it seems he has spoken of you in very high terms.’

Stephen said,

‘Very nice of him — but you know, I am most awfully busy.’

Louisa dropped to a confidential note.

‘Too busy to meet some friends? The Miss Benevents will be there, and I am so much looking forward to meeting Candida Sayle. I really was very fond of her grandmother.’

What good was it going to do him to sit in a packed room, or even quite possibly to stand, and look at Candida across a sea of strangers whilst the amateur talent of Retley displayed itself? Candida on the other side of a gulf, and Miss Blank not quite hitting a high note or Mr. Dash scooping lugubriously upon the cello! None that he could see, but he knew that he would be fool enough to chance it. He had, in fact, arrived at the point where he could no longer keep away from her. If she was still angry, he had to know it and rekindle his own anger at the glow. At the first moment of their meeting, at the briefest encounter of their eyes, he would know what it had become imperative for him to know. He said,

‘Well, it’s very kind of you, Cousin Louisa — and of Mrs. Mayhew.’

When it came to the point, the Deanery was not so crowded as Stephen had feared. Mrs. Mayhew was a woman of taste and discretion whose aim in entertaining was to give pleasure to her friends. She did not, therefore, pack them like sardines or oblige them to shout themselves hoarse in order to be heard above the competing voices of a crowd. He found her an agreeable woman with an air of breeding and competence.

‘Lord Retborough has told me about you, Mr. Eversley. You cannot think how much he is looking forward to the house which he tells me you are to design for him. Old places may be interesting, but one cannot pretend that they are easy to run.’

He passed on, Louisa Arnold introducing him here and there, until she and Miss Silver became absorbed into one of the groups already provided with seats. There would be no music until everyone was settled and the first flow of conversation had had its way. Stephen was listening to a tall, thin old man who was one of the Canons, and who might have been interesting enough if it had been possible to hear what he said. He appeared to be imparting architectural information about the Cathedral, but as a naturally soft manner of speech was impeded by the kind of dentures which produce a lisp, all that was possible was to maintain an attentive attitude and be on the alert for a chance to get away.

It came at the moment when the Miss Benevents were shaking hands with Mrs. Mayhew and the Dean and introducing their grand-niece. For once they were not dressed alike. Miss Olivia was in violet brocade with a stole of Brussels point. A necklace of very large amethysts came up tight about her throat. The matching bracelets clasped her wrists. A massive corsage ornament reposed upon her chest. Stephen was reminded of the pictures in a book of old French fairy tales, but he couldn’t be sure whether she was the Beneficent Godmother or the Wicked Fairy. He thought it was the Godmother, because now he came to consider it the Wicked Fairy had a retinue of toads and bats. Miss Cara, behind her, was small and shrunken in black velvet and a scarf of heavy Spanish lace. She wore one of those early Victorian necklaces of seed pearls fashioned into little flat roses.

Candida was in white. It was a new dress, a present from the Aunts. Stephen wasn’t to know that. He only saw that she was beautiful, and that she looked at him and smiled. There was a bright, pure colour in her cheeks and her hair shone under the lights. All the drag and strain of their quarrel was gone. She carried beauty with her. The look between them was a long one, but he would have to wait before he could speak to her. Miss Olivia was making a procession of their advance, Cara a little behind her on the left, Candida on the right, and Derek bringing up the rear. There were gracious bows and an occasional pause for the appropriate courtesies — ‘How nice to see you, Lady Caradoc! May I introduce our great-niece, Candida Sayle?… Canon Verschoyle, it is far too long since we met! This is our great-niece.’ And so forth and so on.

Candida was smiled upon by the Bishop, a large old man with a kindly face and a comfortable figure, and by the Bishop’s wife, who had seventeen grand-children and an air of placid indulgence. Everyone to whom she was introduced was kind, and there were one or two who remembered Candida Benevent and the stir it had made when she married John Sayle. Candida had been to a small dance or two, but never before to a large formal party in a beautiful old house like this. And she had a new dress for it. The Aunts had really been noble about the dress. They had escorted her in state to a small exclusive shop, where Miss Olivia handed her over to Mme. Laurier — ‘who will know just what you ought to wear’. A rather intimidating opening, but fully justified by the result. The white dress was produced, tried on, and acclaimed, Miss Olivia’s ‘Very suitable’ being followed by Aunt Cara’s ‘Oh, my dear — how pretty!’ Candida had no words. If she had tried for any, they would have failed her. The dress did everything that a dress can do. She flushed and turned a swimming look of gratitude upon the Aunts, only to be shocked into dismay at the sound of the price.

The Miss Benevents did not turn a hair. They nodded, and Miss Olivia said,

‘It will do very nicely. You will put it down to my account, madame.’

It was not until the last of the guests had arrived that Stephen and Candida met. The first item on the programme was about to begin. The Miss Benevents were already seated. Just behind them Louisa Arnold leaned forward and introduced ‘My cousin, Maud Silver.’ There was a moment when everyone’s attention was taken up, and in that moment Stephen slipped a hand inside Candida’s arm and drew her away. It really was very skilfully done. He had two chairs marked down, set back against one of the recessed windows and well away behind the Aunts and Cousin Louisa. They reached them just in time and with the sense of adventure achieved. And then a tall young cleric with a fine carrying voice was announcing that Mr. and Mrs. Hayward and Miss Storey would play Mr. Hayward’s own trio in A major. Everyone clapped politely. All those passionately addicted to chamber music settled down to enjoyment, while those who did not care for it resigned themselves to some twenty minutes of boredom.

Mr. Hayward’s trio was not unknown. A good deal to his own surprise, Stephen found it to his taste. There was vigour and melody, there was a triumphing note. It went well with his mood. The three executants played remarkably well. He had felt obliged to drop his hand from Candida’s arm, but their chairs were so close together that her shoulders touched his sleeve. It was tantalising, but they were together and she wasn’t angry any more. They sat in silence side by side and the music filled the room. There was an enthusiastic burst of clapping at the end.

Stephen said, ‘Candida,’ and she turned her head and looked at him. The people in front of them were standing up. There was, for the moment, a small private place where they were alone. He touched her hand and said,

‘You’ve finished being angry?’

‘Yes.’

His voice came low and abrupt.

‘You mustn’t do it again. It does things to me.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Damnable.’

‘Why?’

‘You know why.’

‘How can I — if you don’t tell me?’

‘I have told you. It does things. Candida, you know — don’t you — don’t you?’

She looked away. Her lips trembled into a smile.

‘You’ll have to say it, Stephen.’

The people in front of them were moving — their moment was almost gone. He said in an angry whisper,

‘I can’t — not here. Candida, you know I love you horribly!’

‘How can I know — when you don’t tell me?’

He could hardly catch the words. The hand he was touching shook.

‘Did you want me to tell you?’

‘Of course.’

Their privacy was gone. There would be a quarter of an hour’s interval. People were walking about, talking to their friends. He pulled her to her feet and held aside the curtain from the recess behind them.

‘Come and look at the Cathedral by moonlight. It ought to be worth seeing.’

And all in a moment they were there alone together, the curtain dropped and all the world shut out. Neither the moon nor the Cathedral received any attention. Both had been deemed worthy of a good deal of it in the past, but this was not their hour. The moon shone coldly down upon the stone, and the cold stone took the light in all the beauty that men’s hands had given it, but Stephen and Candida had no eyes for them.

Miss Louisa Arnold and Miss Silver had kept their seats, and so had the Miss Benevents. Louisa desired nothing better than an opportunity of conversing with her old friends. As soon as it was politely possible she stopped trying to applaud and leaned forward to touch Miss Cara’s arm.

‘My dear Cara! How long is it since I have seen you? Have you been ill?’

Cara Benevent turned round with a rather too hurried, ‘Oh, no, Louisa — I am very well.’

‘You don’t look it,’ said Miss Arnold without any tact.

She was, in fact, a good deal startled. No one would have taken Miss Cara for the younger sister now. She had always been small and slight, but she looked as if she had shrunk. The bones of the face showed through the sallow skin. And all that unrelieved black! Neither black velvet nor black lace had been considered mourning in the days when such observances were more strictly regulated, but the plain, solemn folds of the gown and all that heavy Spanish lace presented quite a funerary appearance.

She began to talk about Candida.

‘How pretty she is — really quite charming! And how nice for you and Olivia! Young people do make such a difference in the house, do they not?’

It was not possible for Miss Cara to lose colour. A tremor went over her. Louisa Arnold became aware that she had said the wrong thing. She had for the moment forgotten about Alan Thompson. She hurried on, her voice a little higher and more flute-like than usual.