The Black Opal (26 page)

She came over to us and Lawrence went to talk to the Hysons and Gertie. I heard them speaking of Australia.

Dorothy said to me: “Now that we have met, you must come again. It would be rather nice if you could have a weekend with us at the cottage.”

“I should very much enjoy that.”

“Do you think your friends would mind?”

“Oh no, no. As a matter of fact, I sometimes feel that I’m encroaching on their hospitality. You see, I’m there because I’m Gertie’s friend.

I sometimes think I ought to be making other arrangements. “

“You are not planning to go back to Australia yet?”

“No, not yet. But I think perhaps I have been letting things drift. I feel rather uncertain. When my father died …”

She patted my hand.

“We must talk,” she said.

“Let’s have this weekend. That will give us more time. I tell you

what I’ll do. I’ll look out those cuttings about the Marline case, you know. But you’ll find the case was more or less ” shut” as soon as it was ” open”. You’ll see what I mean.”

“I shall look forward to that.”

“Good. I’ll check with Lawrence.” She gave a little roguish smile.

“I

think it will fit in with his plans if we make it fairly soon. “

The invitation came next day. Gertie was amused.

“I say, you have made a hit. Lawrence is a darling. What you had to do was conquer Sister Dorothy. A hard nut to crack, that one as the saying goes. But you managed it … first go. I’d say Lawrence will have her approval. So, it is full steam ahead.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Why ask when you know? Lawrence is no longer young, and Sister Dorothy has come to the conclusion that it might be a good idea for him to settle down, providing he can find the ” right girl” and that means one of whom Sister Dorothy approves. Well, it seems she approves of you. And I do not think there is any doubt that Lawrence does too.

How could he resist Sister Dorothy’s choice? “

“How ridiculous!” I said.

“I must write and tell James that he must do something quickly. He has a rival.”

“Please do nothing of the sort.”

She burst out laughing.

“I was just joking. But you are beginning to see the daylight … coming out of the dark tunnel. I think he’s too old for you and you don’t want Sister Dorothy managing you for ever after, so don’t rush it. But it’s nice that there’s someone.”

“I wish you’d concern yourself with your own matrimonial affairs.”

She opened her eyes wide.

“Don’t you think I do? I had the idea that you thought I was concerned with nothing else.”

She flung her arms round me.

“Only teasing. I’m glad you’ve got your Lawrence, even with ” Big Sister” in control. He’s nice. 1 like him. In fact, I wouldn’t be averse to the match. It would keep you here, and I am rather fond of you. I’d hate you to go back down under, even if you would in time be my sister-in-law. I’d rather have you as a friend here than a sister-in-law on the other side of the world.”

“You are ridiculous,” I said.

And she gave me another hug.

But she did make me think about Lawrence. I believed that he was fond of me and it was true what she had said about Dorothy. It was all very interesting, and I suppose everyone likes to feel wanted.

However, it was with pleasurable anticipation that I set out for that weekend at the Emmersons’ cottage.

The cottage was something of a misnomer. It was a house in grounds -not exactly large, but with spacious airy rooms and the gardens were a delight. There was a small cottage more or less adjoining the house and in this lived Tom and Mary Burke, who looked after the house. It was of two storeys and I guessed it had been built at the beginning of the century, for it had a certain Georgian elegance and charm.

I thought it was very pleasant and I was not surprised by Dorothy’s fondness for it. It was run with the efficiency 1 expected from Dorothy, and I thought once more how fortunate Lawrence was to be in her care, for, even if she were perhaps a little forceful at times, everything was done for his good.

1 was sure Lawrence appreciated her.

The house was just outside the small town of Cranston. Dorothy had gone on ahead to make sure everything was in order for my visit. I was given a charming bedroom overlooking the garden, and I prepared to

enjoy a very pleasant weekend, telling myself how fortunate 1 was to have renewed my friendship with Lawrence Emmerson.

I was shown round the house and garden with great pride by the brother and sister, and we spent a pleasant evening gossiping in the garden after dinner. The following morning, I was taken into the village by Dorothy and introduced to some of her acquaintances in the little shops where she was well known. It had all been very friendly, very homely, a glimpse into the ideal country life.

Lawrence had an engagement with a friend nearby which had been arranged before my weekend had been settled upon, and Dorothy whispered to me that it would be a good time for her to show me the cuttings she had told me about.

We found a shady spot in the garden, well away from the little stream which ran through it.

“The insects can be a little troublesome,” she told me.

She settled me in a comfortable chair under an oak tree on the lawn with the newspaper cuttings.

Tea at four, my dear,” she said.

“We’ll have it just here on the lawn.

Plenty of shade there. I shall disappear until then. “

The cuttings had been pasted into a scrapbook and were easy to read, and, as I did so, the past came back to me so vividly that I was there in that house and I felt again the atmosphere of mounting tension and impending danger. Only now I understood it and what it was leading to.

There was an account of the inquest. How vividly I remembered the whispering about that. I could hear Nanny Gilroy’s voice: “I shall hold nothing back. You can’t at times like this.”

And it had been after that inquest that Dr. Marline and Miss Carson had been arrested.

Three weeks after the inquest, the trial had begun.

There were extracts from the opening speech of a Mr. Lamson, QC, in which he outlined what had happened, a great deal of which I was familiar with. Mrs. Marline had

suffered a bad accident in the hunting field, through which she had become an invalid confined to a wheelchair. Miss Kitty Carson had come to the house to act as governess to the three girls of the household.

A relationship had begun between the doctor and the governess. This had been discovered by Mrs. Marline when it was revealed that the governess was pregnant. Almost immediately after that had become known, Mrs. Marline had died of an overdose of a pain-killing pill which had been prescribed for her by Dr. Everest.

It all seemed, as Dorothy had said, ‘a clear case of murder’.

I studied the evidence. Nanny Gilroy’s was the most damning, as I had guessed it would be.

Yes, she was aware that there was ‘carrying on’ between the doctor and Miss Carson. So were others; Mrs. Barton and Annie Logan knew it.

“Thank you. Nurse Gilroy. They will give their evidence themselves.”

I pictured her nodding her head, self-righteously, glad because wickedness had been exposed and justice was being done.

“Let us go back to that day. Nurse Gilroy. Tell the court exactly what happened.”

And Nanny Gilroy told her story, how there had been the scene because Miss Adeline had been caught in Mrs. Marline’s bedroom and Mrs. Marline was scolding the girl when Miss Carson came in and said she shouldn’t, and Mrs. Marline was angry and was going to dismiss her. Then Miss Carson had fainted clean away. Annie Logan had examined her and it was clear what was wrong with her. That was, of course, no surprise. They all knew what was going on.

Annie Logan was called.

Yes, she had examined Miss Carson. There was no doubt that she was pregnant.

Then it was the turn of Mrs. Barton, the cook. She confirmed everything that Nanny Gilroy had said, though less venomously.

There was no doubt that Dr. Marline had been involved with Miss Carson and the whole household knew it.

Tom Yardley was called. He had found Mrs. Marline dead.

Shaken all of a heap, he was. Yes, he had known how things were.

Because of what he had seen or what he had heard from Nanny Gilroy or Mrs. Barton?

Tom Yardley looked surprised, the paper commented. I could imagine his scratching his head, as though it would help him find the answer.

“I knew her,” he told them.

“She was a bit of a tartar and led him a life …”

He was stopped and told to answer the question.

I could see that Nanny Gilroy and the others had helped Dr. Marline on the way to execution; but I had to admit what they had said had truth in it, even if it were reported in the most damning way.

Medical evidence at the post mortem revealed without doubt that Mrs. Marline had died through an overdose of the drug which was being supplied to her by Dr. Everest.

There it was . all the evidence needed to convict the doctor and, even if Nanny Gilroy had given the impression that Dr. Marline was a hypocritical seducer. Miss Carson a scarlet woman and Mrs. Marline a poor betrayed wife, nothing she had said could be proved to be an actual untruth. It was merely Nanny Gilroy’s version of what had happened.

Then there were the letters.

Miss Carson had left Commonwood House and was away for a week.

She had said ‘visiting friends’, but it appeared that she had gone to a hotel in the town of Manley, some twenty

“5

miles away, and had stayed there for five days at the Bunch of Grapes.

While there, she had visited a doctor and pregnancy was confirmed.

During her stay there, she had received two letters from Dr. Marline, and she had kept those letters. They had been discovered when she was arrested and her belongings searched.

If any confirmation of Dr. Marline’s guilt had been needed, it could be found in those letters.

They were read in court.

My dearest Kitty, How I long for your return. It is so dismal here without you. Don’t fret, my darling, I’ll work something out. Whatever happens, we shall be together and, if there is indeed a child, how blessed we shall be.

You must not blame yourself. You say you should never have come here.

Well, my dearest, that would have been the worst of calamities, for, since you came, I have known such happiness as I had never thought would come my way. I am determined not to give up. Whatever has to be done, we will do it. Trust me, my darling. Yours for ever, Edward.

There was another letter on the same lines, vowing his eternal devotion, stressing the happiness she had brought him and his determination that nothing, nothing should stand in their way of keeping it.

I thought of what their feelings must have been when the letters were read in court, and the agony they must have suffered when they were on trial for their lives.

They were damning, those letters, and I was deeply moved. Oh, poor Dr. Marline. Oh, poor, poor Miss Carson. He had died ignobly in his misery, but she had had to live with hers.

I looked at my watch. It was half past three. I sat for a while, thinking of it all. There was a brief account of what happened afterwards. There had not been enough evidence to condemn Kitty Carson, and the fact that she was to have a child, as the press implied, meant that she could not be sent to the gallows.

What had happened to her, I wondered?

Dorothy came out and joined me.

“Well,” she said.

“You’ve read it?”

“Yes.”

“Obvious, isn’t it?”

“I suppose people would say so.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“It would seem it must be. But you see, I knew him.”

“I know how you feel: you can’t bring yourself to believe he’s a murderer. Jefferson Craig wrote about that. His book is fascinating. I wrote to him when I read it. I told him how much I had enjoyed it. I had a nice letter back.”

“What happened to Miss Carson?”

“I think he looked after her. He did that with some people he was interested in. Rehabilitated them. That’s what they call it. I did hear that he had helped her.”

“I wonder so much about her.”

“Well, we shall never know, but you see, don’t you, that there really couldn’t have been any doubt.”

“I suppose most people would say so.”

She laughed and patted my hand.

“You don’t like that verdict, do you? It was a pity that woman couldn’t have died by natural causes and then the lovers could have married and lived happily ever after. They would have been an ordinary couple then. Oh yes, it’s a pity life didn’t work out like that. It does sometimes.

“Look, Lawrence is coming in. I expect he wants his tea.”

There were stables nearby where horses could be hired and later Lawrence and I went riding together. I had improved

my riding considerably and he commented on my skill.

“One rode everywhere in Australia,” I told him.

“You are not thinking of returning, are you?”

“Not immediately.”

“Sometime?”

“Who is to say? Everything is so uncertain just now.”

“I can’t help thinking what a piece of luck it was that we both happened to be on that ship. If we hadn’t been there at precisely that time, we might never have met again.”

That’s true. But that is the way of life, isn’t it? So much is based on chance. “

He showed me the local beauty spots the vale, for which the place was famous, and the ancient ruined castle. We tethered our horses and climbed to the ramparts. We leaned over them, admiring the countryside.

“It would be difficult to find a more pleasant spot,” said Lawrence.

“Dorothy discovered it, of course. She thought we must have this country retreat. She was right, of course.”

I thought how right Dorothy always was.

“You and she get on very well together,” he said, smiling.

“She doesn’t usually take to people quite so quickly.”

“I’m glad,” I said.