The Dower House Mystery (7 page)

It was at this moment that he took a step forward and saw her coming down the path towards him.

Julian stood, shocked into a stillness so absolute that his very breath halted. For one instant it seemed to him that what he saw must be a projection of his own thought; and then, hard upon that, the realization that this was not the girl Amabel whom he had kissed under a May moon, but Amabel, the woman and the stranger. She was bare-headed, and the moonlight showed every feature. It was she past all doubt, and yet not Amabel Ferguson, but this new Amabel of whose very name he was ignorant.

He made a movement, and she stood still. One hand held a dark cloak about her. She put up the other to push aside a drooping bough, and spoke.

“Is anyone there?”

He came forward, still in the shadow of the tree.

“I hope I didn't startle you.”

“Who is it?” said Amabel.

“I'm afraid I have no business here. I'm living in the gardener's cottage, and I heard somebody calling.”

“I was calling to my dog. You haven't seen him, have you—a dachshund? He has been away for hours, and I'm afraid he may be lost. I am Mrs. Grey,” she added. “I have just come to the Dower House.”

“Mrs. Grey—George's old lady—Amabel! Good Lord, what a surprising trick for fate to play them all!”

Julian came nearer with more than a little reluctance. His incognito must go by the board; and he regretted it frankly. He said,

“I really must apologize. The fact is, I recognized you at once, but I suppose you will hardly recognize me.”

He was about to name himself, but a spice of malice made him pause.

“Who is it?” said Amabel in a bewildered voice.

He turned to face the light. Her hand dropped slowly from the apple bough. Julian saw her face change. He felt a queer excitement, and still that hint of malice. But Amabel's discomposure was momentary. She said quite simply,

“It Julian Forsham, I am sure,” and held out her hand—the pretty, slim hand that he remembered.

At its touch the sarcasm passed from Julian's mood. He experienced real pleasure, real emotion, both in a degree which surprised him, and which made speech difficult. He said,

“Yes.”

It was she who withdrew her hand.

“But I thought you were abroad.”

“Only officially,” said Julian.

“I thought you were in Italy.”

“Or you wouldn't have come here? Quite right. One should always keep one's old illusions.”

Amabel gave a little, shaky laugh.

“I think I would rather keep my old friends,” she said; and Julian's heart went out to the dignity and simplicity with which she spoke. That was the old Amabel. He said quickly,

“You'll find more than one down here—the Berkeleys—”

“Yes, I know. I want to see them so much.” And then, “Julian, I'm so distressed about Marmaduke. He's been away for such hours. Does anyone in the neighbourhood set traps?”

“Not that I know of. He'll turn up all right. Dogs always do.”

She turned to go.

“Ellen will think I'm lost too,” she said with a little laugh. “Will you come and see me?”

“May I? To-morrow?”

“Yes, to-morrow. Come to tea.”

Chapter VII

It was very late before Amabel slept. The open door between her room and Ellen's irked her. She would have liked to shut herself in and be alone, really alone. Her hearing, always acute, was to-night distressingly so; every movement that Ellen made fretted it. She felt disturbed and troubled, almost afraid, and the thought of Marmaduke astray and frightened weighed on her continually.

It was just as she was falling asleep that she heard the sound for the first time. She sat up and listened, switching on the light. Next moment she was out of bed, thrusting her feet into slippers, and pulling her dressing-gown about her. The sound was the unmistakable sound of a dog thudding against the front door. As she came out into the passage and turned on the lights there, it came again—scratch, scratch, rattle, thud. And then thud, thud it came once more.

She ran down the stairs without troubling about the light in the lower hall, struggled with bolt and chain, and pulled the door open upon an empty porch. The silence, the blackness, the emptiness were like a blank wall. She called, “Duke! Duke! Marmaduke!” and heard the rain drip from the eaves.

“But he was here—he
was
here—he
was
,” she said, speaking aloud to the emptiness; and as she spoke she moved across the threshold out into the porch, and stood there, searching the darkness, listening.

From the wet darkness in front of her there came a sound, but it was not the sound that she expected to hear. The sound that came was a laugh, shaky and thin. It seemed to come from so near at hand that she stepped back sharply and slammed the door. As she leaned against it, panting a little, she heard behind her a very faint mewing cry. It seemed to come from the foot of the stairs. “It was a cat—it must have been a cat,” she said to herself. But when she crossed the hall and came back to the stairs the sound ceased.

She was frankly glad to come back into the full light. At her own door she stood for a moment, listening, before turning out the passage light. There was not a sound anywhere. But, as her fingers touched the switch, and the darkness fell, she heard the cat mew again with a long, wailing cry.

Amabel shut her door. She laid her dressing-gown over the back of a chair, set her slippers ready to put on if she should need them, and was about to get into bed, when she noticed that the door between her room and Ellen's was shut. After a moment's hesitation she opened it. She could hear Ellen's deep, regular breathing; and now she no longer felt worried by it or wished to be shut in by herself. She put out her light, and in ten minutes was asleep.

Ellen came in at half-past seven with a cup of tea, and a grievance.

“I'm sure, ma'am, that I'm the last person to wish to impose myself,” she said. “And I'm sure, ma'am, that you need only to 'ave mentioned it and not just took and done it, which I know there's people that can't take a hint, but I'm not one of them and never 'ave been, and it's a thing that I don't 'old with.”

Amabel sat up and straightened her pillow.

“Good gracious, Ellen, what do you mean?” she said.

Ellen stood rigidly by the bed and sniffed.

“I'm sure my meaning's plain enough,” she said. “Seeing I never was one to beat about the bush, and brought up to believe that a double meaning was an abomination to the Lord, I thinks what I says and says what I thinks.”

Amabel laughed.

“Well, you'll have to say it again this time, Ellen. I'm not there—I'm not really.”

Ellen sniffed again.

“I'm sure I spoke plain enough,” she said. “And if the door shut is more to your liking, I'd be the last to say a word.”

“What door?” asked Amabel.

Ellen pointed to the door between the two rooms.

“I'm sure I'm more than willing to 'ave it shut,” she repeated.

Amabel looked surprised.

“But I don't want it shut. I opened it in the night.”

“I left it open when I went to bed,” said Ellen reproachfully.

Amabel saw the shut door, and herself opening it.

“Wasn't it open this morning?” she asked, and tried to make her tone as casual as possible.

Ellen stood still, looking at her, her face suddenly frightened.

“Didn't you shut it? It was shut when I woke up.” Her voice wavered and fell to a whisper. “Who shut it?” she said.

Julian Forsham came to tea. He was not at all sure that he wished to come; but he came. Last night's encounter had disturbed him strangely, but he had the feeling that, after all, it fitted well enough into his old romance. What he dreaded was the cold light of common-sense and everyday. To meet an old love in the dusk of a ruined garden is one thing; to confront her over a tea-table by electric light is another. Nevertheless, after the briefest period of mental adjustment, he found himself very glad that he had come.

Amazing how some women bring to any place that they are in the atmosphere of a home. Julian remembered the few days that he and George had spent in the Dower House three years before. They had used this room, and very dreary and bleak they had found it. Now, after three years of added neglect, the room was suddenly not only tolerable, but homelike. Amabel's smile and voice; the firelight on her hair; her pretty hands touching the tea things—all these things had their intimate charm.

They talked, filling in the twenty years' blank with light touches.

“I have a daughter, you know—Daphne. She's just grown up and very modern—not a bit like me. She has gone to Egypt for the winter.”

“Why do you say ‘not a bit like me'?”

“Because I'm Victorian. You are, you know, if you've lived in a village for fifteen years. Daphne teases me about it.”

Julian made an impatient movement. Fifteen years in a village smaller than Forsham on next to nothing a year! He said impulsively,

“Good Lord, how did you stick it?”

She smiled.

“I minded at first. But one makes interests. I wasn't unhappy.”

Julian felt strangely touched. He had a glimpse of her building her life resolutely. He began to talk about his travels, and presently found himself using her name after the old boy and girl fashion. Her expression changed, and he caught himself up.

“Ought I to say Mrs. Grey? It's not easy.”

Amabel coloured, and laughed.

“I don't think I could say Mr. Forsham,” she said. “After all, we are pretty old friends.” He nodded, and she went on speaking. “I'm going to treat you like an old friend if I may. I want to talk to you about the house.”

“This house?”

She stretched out her hand for his cup, and as she put in the milk and sugar, she said seriously,

“Yes, I want to tell you how I came to take it, and to ask you some questions. To start with, your brother George is paying me two hundred pounds for being here; and I feel it's up to me to earn it. I want to earn it. If I can live here for six months, the stories about the house will all die away—at least that's what he thinks.”

“And if you don't stay here six months?”

“Then I have to give back the two hundred pounds,” said Amabel.

Julian drank his tea with a gulp and put the cup down.

“But it's preposterous!” he said. “What on earth was old Berry about, that he let you in for such an arrangement?”

“He didn't,” said Amabel—a dimple showed in her cheek—“he hated it. But don't let us begin about that. What I really want is to ask you some questions.”

“Berry oughtn't to have allowed it,” said Julian. “What questions do you want to ask me?”

Amabel left the tea-table and drew in a chair to the fire.

“Well, I want to know,”—she paused, picked up a small log, and bending forward, placed it carefully on the fire. Her face was very near him as she turned—“Julian, what is the matter with the house?”

“I don't know,” said Julian. “It used to be all right.”

“Yes.”

She drew back; there was a silence; then Julian said quickly,

“What's worrying you? You'd better tell me.”

“Yes, I want to. It's difficult to put into words—it comes to so little, really. And yet”—her laugh had a little shake in it—“I think I can understand why the other tenants ran away.”

“What's been happening?”

She hesitated; then spoke with her candid eyes fixed on his face:

“It's so little, really. I thought I heard Marmaduke at the door in the night, and ran down. When I got the door open he wasn't there, but—but something laughed. Julian, it was horrid—it was, really.”

She saw his face relax.

“An owl,” he said.

“No,
really
. I slammed the door. And then there was a cat mewing somewhere; but I couldn't see anything. I didn't like it a bit.”

Julian laughed outright.

“Brownie has probably got half-a-dozen cats.” He stopped suddenly and whistled. “No, by Jove,” he said under his breath; and Amabel met his eyes and nodded.

“Yes. I asked Jenny this morning, and she told me—Mrs. Brown can't stand cats, and they never have one in the house. Jenny said her mother would be taken ill at once if a cat came into the room.”

“You don't suppose Jenny's playing tricks?” He pulled himself up. “No, that's a shame. I'd bank on Jenny.”

“I know—she gives you that feeling”, said Amabel. “I did think, before I came, that perhaps she and Mrs. Brown wanted to keep the house empty, but after I'd seen them I simply couldn't think it any longer; there's something about them—oh, no, it's not Jenny; I think she's frightened too.”

“Yet they've been here all these years.”

“I know, but,”—Amabel hesitated, leaned nearer, spoke lower—“Julian, she's frightened all the same. She brings my tea, and clears it away, and then she doesn't come upstairs again. She—she won't. I asked her why, and she just drooped and said she couldn't. Ellen brings me my supper on a tray.”

As she stopped speaking the door opened and Jenny herself appeared, a drooping figure with downcast eyes.

“Mrs. King,” she said in her spiritless voice; and there came in a little person, in a vivid orange-checked coat.

Amabel saw red-brown hair and hazel eyes under a jaunty felt hat. Julian observed the ankles commended by Edward Berkeley.

Nita King advanced, all smiles.

“It is Mrs. Grey? I'm sure it is. And I must apologize for coming at such an hour; but I went to the station to inquire about a parcel, and they kept me an age, simply an age.”

She shook hands, and looked inquiringly at Julian, breaking into fresh smiles as soon as Amabel mentioned his name.