The Bungalow Mystery (7 page)

“Lord Luxmore has seen him several times,” Mrs. Melville went on. “And though he, too, was of the opinion that the engagement must be broken off, his pity for Daphne's distress is such that he has done his best to induce James to see her. To no purpose though. I believe James told him that he would rather die than be seen as he is now by her. Lord Luxmore has thought all along, though, that when he is stronger, when the terrible shock to his nervous system has to some extent worn off, he will probably alter his mind with regard to that. What do you think, Roger?” She looked up sharply amid her fast gathering tears.

Roger hesitated. It seemed to him that the time had come when at least some measure of the truth should be spoken.

“I can't help thinking, Ethel, it is best that you should see things as they are, as I feel sure Courtenay has realized. The injuries were so terrible that they could hardly fail to affect the heart; the pain from which he suffers is not altogether neuralgic; there is grave organic mischief.”

“You mean that there is danger?” Mrs. Melville stood up. “Tell me all, please, Roger. I am going to lose my brother.”

Lavington retained her hand in his.

“It is impossible to say more than that there is serious mischief with the heart; such cases may last for years. They may even, in a measure, recover. But think, Ethel, of the existence to which he is doomed. Would you wish to prolong it, to delay the release for which he is longing?”

Mrs. Melville was struggling with her tears.

“I cannot bear to think of it. We were all so proud of James. He was my mother's favourite child; she was always so interested in his work. If she could have known how it would end! And Daphne”—breaking down utterly—“I was forgetting Daphne. This will break her heart!”

“I would much rather stay with you, really, James.”

Courtenay's face was twisted in a satirical smile.

“I am such an agreeable companion, am I not? Nonsense, Ethel, of course you must go. The rector would never forgive me if I disappointed him. Roger will escort you.”

Lavington looked up from his papers.

“Delighted as I should be to be of any service to Ethel, I cannot say that school-treats are much in my line, old fellow.”

“Oh, this is the one great function of the year at Oakthorpe, when all classes in the neighbourhood meet for once on an equality,” Courtenay observed cynically. “You will have to go, my dear Lavington, or you will be set down as an absolute misanthrope. Here's the programme for you!” He tossed it over lightly.

Roger caught it and glanced over it casually. It did not seem to offer anything very startling in the way of novelty.

“Assembly of the children at the school; march to church; tea at four o'clock, after which the prizes gained for good conduct and punctuality during the year will be distributed by Miss Luxmore.” Roger wondered whether Courtenay had observed this last item.

“If I go it will only just be to tea and to see the prizes given; I really couldn't stand the whole afternoon there,” Mrs. Melville complained fretfully. “When I come to see you, James, I like to spend as much time as possible with you. I shall grudge every moment at the school-treat.”

Courtenay's lips curled a little at the corners.

“You must remember what a satisfaction it is to me to get my good works performed by proxy. And now, since I feel rather inclined for a nap, if you good people would let me be quiet—”

Mrs. Melville rose at once and, after a few words with his patient, Roger followed her. He found her standing in the hall, gazing wistfully at the green freshness of the park beyond. Through the open door they could catch the distant echo of the village band. Evidently the children were already meeting.

“Well, Courtenay seems to have set his mind on our participating in this village festivity, so I suppose we must e'en obey,” he said lightly. “What time is it your wish that we should set out?”

“I don't know, I am sure,” Mrs. Melville sighed. “I don't feel in tune for any rejoicings. I wish James hadn't taken such an unaccountable fancy. I cannot imagine why he should want us to go.

“It has occurred to me,” said Roger hesitatingly, “that perhaps the fact that Miss Luxmore is giving away the prizes may have a little to do with it. He may wish to hear something of her, though he will not admit as much.”

“Miss Luxmore giving away the prizes!” Mrs. Melville echoed. “I do not understand— Oh I see what you mean!” breaking off suddenly. “But it is not Daphne who is coming to the rectory—poor girl, she hardly goes anywhere now—it is Elizabeth the younger sister. Surely you have heard of her; she is quite a society beauty. I believe she was considered one of the belles of last season.”

“Ah, the beauties of last season are not much in my line,” Roger said dryly. He felt somewhat unreasonably disappointed; unconsciously he had woven a halo of romance around Daphne Luxmore; her tragic story, her pathetic devotion to the memory of her lost love, had fired his fancy.

“Daphne was always my favourite of the two naturally,” Mrs. Melville went on placidly, “though Elizabeth is a sweet girl; but Daphne has the gentler, more clinging disposition. Elizabeth is all fire and spirit. Still, with all that, there is a great likeness between the sisters. Well, Roger, since we have to go, I suppose it is no use putting off the evil hour. Can you be ready by a quarter to four? That will give us time to get to the Rectory before they begin tea.”

“Certainly; I am entirely at your service this afternoon.”

“A quarter to four, then.” And Mrs. Melville ran upstairs.

True to her word, Mrs. Melville appeared at the right time.

She looked very fresh and dainty in her pretty white cloth gown, with a big black picture hat, and a bunch of malmaisons tucked in her belt. Roger was struck afresh by her likeness to her brother as he remembered him at college; there was the same bright complexion, the same glossy brown hair and square, white teeth. There, however, the resemblance ended. Courtenay had been a tall, broad-shouldered man with a hearty laugh and an infectiously gay manner; his sister was slender and petite, with big, appealing eyes and a plaintively sweet smile.

The clock had already struck four, and the school-treat was in full progress when they arrived upon the scene. The children had been marshalled to either side of the white-covered tables, and willing helpers were hurrying to and fro laden with plates of bread and butter and jugs of tea. Roger was bending over a small boy who appeared to be too much overcome by the surroundings in which he found himself even to eat, when a voice near him struck some half-dormant chord of memory:

“Yes, Jane Mason has done the best this year. Is it not curious how all the Masons in turn have been model scholars?”

He raised himself sharply. Surely, he said to himself, he had made no mistake: it was the voice of the girl who had played the part of the geisha in the Freshfield theatricals, the voice of the girl whom he had found in Rheinhart's room on the night of the Bungalow murder!

He looked round; in the midst of the babble of tongues that surrounded them, it was impossible to be certain from which direction the voice had come. He fancied, however, that the speaker had stood behind him, and depositing his burden of cake with scant ceremony on the table he faced round rapidly. But there was no one in sight who at all answered to his recollection of the girl of whom he still thought as Zoe. There was only one girl, it seemed to him whose hair was at all the right colour, and in her case, instead of being arranged in the artistic tangle that “Zoe” had affected, it was drawn closely together and fastened in a network of plaits at the nape of her neck; and he thought too that the girl herself was taller, stouter than “Zoe.”

She was walking away from him. As he stood gazing after her, Miss Marchand touched his arm.

“There is a little girl here who wants a piece of your cake, Dr. Lavington,” she said sweetly.

“I beg your pardon,” Roger responded vaguely, his eyes still fixed on the golden hair. “I was wondering whether you could tell me the name of that lady in grey over there, the one with the yellow hair. I can't help thinking that I know her.”

Miss Marchand did not look pleased as she leaned forward.

“She is talking now to that man in Navy blue with a sailor hat,” Roger prompted.

“Oh, you mean Phoebe Gill.” Miss Marchand laughed affectedly. “She is our butcher's daughter, Dr. Lavington. I should think it very unlikely that you have met her; only, of course, doctors, like clergymen, have to know every one, don't they?”

Lavington, however, was not looking at her. His eyes had not relaxed their eager gaze.

“A butcher's daughter,” he echoed. “No, I do not think—”

“Of course I ought to have said that she has been brought up in an absurd way,” Miss Marchand went on eagerly. “My mother always says it has been a mistake. But it appears that Mrs. Gill has a sister who married considerably above her and Phoebe has been invited a great deal to stay with her and naturally has acquired notions which are quite out of place in her position. It is a great pity, but what can one do?” shrugging her shoulders with the air of repudiating all responsibility with regard to Miss Gill's education.

“Of course not,” Roger rejoined abstractedly. People moving backward and forwards had come between him and the light hair. With a hurried apology to Miss Marchand, he strode off in the direction Miss Gill had taken. But Fate seemed against him. He had only gone a few yards when the vicar hailed him.

“I was just speaking about you to Lord Luxmore, Dr. Lavington. He wishes me to introduce you to him.”

Flattering as was Lord Luxmore's desire, Roger felt at this moment that he would willingly have dispensed with it. It was out of the question, however, to disregard it, and he had to control his impatience as best he could.

Lord Luxmore was a pleasant, kindly-faced man, considerably past middle age. His reputation as a philanthropist, a scholar and a scientist, was worldwide; but as a politician, a character in which of late it had been his ambition to shine, he was scarcely looked upon as a success, even by his own party.

In person he was tall and spare, with bright, eager-looking eyes, a clean-shaven face, save for the scanty mutton-chop whiskers which he had a habit of reflectively drawing through his fingers while he tried to think out some knotty problem.

He buttonholed Roger at once.

“I have been looking forward to meeting you immensely, Dr. Lavington. My attention has been directed to an article of yours in the current number of the
Lancet
, which seems to bear to a certain extent upon my work in the East End. I allude to your remarks upon the frequency of transmission of disease by second-hand clothing. Now do you mean to tell me that—”

Roger saw that, for the present at any rate, it was hopeless to think of escaping and, resigning himself as best he could to the inevitable, listened with admirable patience to Lord Luxmore's theories with regard to certain contagious diseases, and to his schemes for the regeneration of the poor.

Meanwhile, the tea was finished, the children were being got in order by their teachers. Look as he would, Roger could discover no sign of the girl in grey.

Presently Lord Luxmore turned.

“Why, bless me, I don't see Elizabeth! She was to give away the prizes too. Oh, I suppose we must go over there,” nodding in the direction of the Rectory.

A table covered with books and prizes stood on the grass; a group of people had gathered round it. Roger distinguished Mrs. Melville's white gown in close proximity to the rector's long black coat. Miss Marchand was talking to a girl in a blue linen frock.

“Well, I suppose we ought to join them,” Lord Luxmore said, moving nearer.

But Roger hesitated.

“I think I should prefer to stay in the background; I am quite a stranger here.”

Lord Luxmore halted a few steps in advance.

“Well, I don't know but you are right,” he remarked genially. “Elizabeth can manage quite well by herself, and old Marchand, though he is a worthy old chap, is a bit of a bore, while his daughter—dare say she is a good sort too, but the fact is”—with a burst of confidence—“I never can stand Constance Marchand myself.”

Roger made some inaudible reply; he was leaning forward, his eyes riveted on the girl to whom Miss Marchand was speaking. It seemed to him that there was something strangely familiar about the tall, svelte form, about the very turn of the head and the free, graceful carriage.

Lord Luxmore's flow of conversation fell on deaf ears.

“You must come up to the Hall one of these days, and we will talk over the matter further,” he was saying, with the air of bonhomie which made him a favourite with all classes of society. “I spend a good deal of my time down here, as you may have heard. Not that I am particularly fond of the place myself, and the house is little better than a shooting-box, but my daughters prefer it to Luxmore Towers, poor Daphne; I am hoping great things from your residence at Oakthorpe. Dr. Lavington, I am really! I think it is the best thing possible for poor Courtenay.”

“You are very kind,” Roger said absently. His eyes were still following every movement of the girl who was bending over the books. At last she turned and smiled at the rows of eager little faces upturned to her.

With a stifled exclamation Roger stepped forward. For one moment he fancied that he was back at the theatricals at Freshfield; that he was once more watching the Zoe of a day in her geisha dress. Then the mist before his eyes cleared a little; he saw that the tall girl to whom the rector was now speaking was strangely like and yet unlike that other girl who had been in his thoughts all the afternoon. Her smile, her large brown eyes, her very way of holding herself, all were the same.

But this girl had an air of dignity, a serious purposefulness of manner which were absolutely unlike the varying charm of the girl who had passed as Zoe, and, in place of her golden tresses, a wealth of dusky, nut-brown hair behind the ears and on the nape of the slim, stately neck.