The Secret of Greylands (12 page)

“Now look under the bed!” the invalid ordered fretfully.

“It is all right, Cousin Hannah,” Cynthia said reassuringly as she lifted the valance, “there is nobody here. I must have been mistaken. It was very stupid of me!”

“Yes, yes, you were mistaken,” Lady Hannah agreed more quietly, “but you should be more careful! I—I think I would rather be left alone for a time, Cynthia. Lock the door and put the key in your pocket; perhaps I may go to sleep by and by.”

Cynthia looked at her doubtfully.

“Indeed I do not like to leave you alone, Cousin Hannah! May I not sit over there by the window? I will be quiet.”

“No, no, I wish you would do as you are told,” Lady Hannah said peevishly. “You do contradict so, Cynthia! Now, Sybil—where is she? I wish she would come back!”

Cynthia looked hurt.

“No doubt she will be back soon. I will leave you if you wish it.”

“Lock the door and take the key with you,” her cousin repeated feverishly, “then I shall know that nobody can get in.”

Cynthia felt more than doubtful of the wisdom of this suggestion but, in face of the invalid's urgency, she had no choice but to obey. After carefully following Lady Hannah's directions she made her way to the dining-room and sat down to think over the situation, which was, as far as she could see, daily becoming more complicated. Her own position—that of a wife and no wife, an undesired dependant upon her cousin's bounty—was one which her own common sense told her would be untenable for long, and yet she was unable to make up her mind as to what her next step should be.

The sound of steps upon the stairs roused her as she was seeking to solve the puzzle, and she sprang to her feet, her eyes dilating with terror, her hand catching at the door. The echo of the refrain of a gay little French 
chanson
, sung in Sybil's clear, blithe voice, made her look round in amazement.

Sybil threw the door open.

“Cynthia, will you give me the key of Cousin Hannah's room? She called to me just now as I went past.”

Cynthia felt for it mechanically.

“How did you get into the house, Sybil?”

“You forgot to fasten the side-door after Cousin Henry. I had no difficulty.”

“Did I?” Cynthia said, looking intensely puzzled. “I—I quite thought I had locked it.”

“Did you?” said Sybil carelessly.

She passed the parrot's cage and inadvertently shook it. Much incensed, the bird sat up and preened itself.

“Poor Hannah!” it croaked, eyeing the girl vindictively. “Where is Hannah? Stop your snivelling, I tell you!”

“Horrid thing!” Sybil said, turning from it pettishly. “I shall make Cousin Henry get rid of it. I sneaked upstairs while you were holding that colloquy with the interesting young man at the front door, Cynthia. I—I was rather surprised at you,” she added mischievously.

“I
AM
afraid I am very late this morning— I slept so soundly.”

A. Gillman was crossing the hall as Cynthia came downstairs, and he smiled at her.

“I am glad you had a good night! As for being late”—with a little deprecating movement of his shoulders—“you know this is Liberty Hall; we only want you to please yourself in all things, my dear child!”

“Thank you very much; you are very kind!” Cynthia said hurriedly. There was something in the quasi-paternal manner that Gillman adopted at times that she disliked intensely. “How is Cousin Hannah?” she went on as he still waited.

The smile died out of his eyes.

“I am afraid she is not so well; the excitement of hearing that that young scapegrace Farquhar was attempting to open up communication with her again seems to have been too much for her. She can talk of nothing else since.”

“I am very sorry,” Cynthia said penitently, “but I did not know what to do. She made me go to the door, and then I thought I ought to tell her.”

Gillman passed his hand over his forehead with a weary air.

“I was not blaming you for a minute, my dear Cynthia. I am sure, on the contrary, that you acted for the best, but the fact is none the less unfortunate. However, it cannot be helped.”

Cynthia did not find this exactly a comforting speech.

“Do you think I may go to her this morning? It is a week since I have seen her.”

Gillman pulled his moustache slowly for a minute before he spoke.

“I know it is; but I am not going to let even Sybil in this morning. I find that she is quieter alone with me.”

“Mr Gillman,” Cynthia said timidly, “don't you think that if Cousin Hannah is so ill she ought to have a doctor called in?”

Gillman's expression altered a little, and he glanced sharply at the girl's concerned face.

“I really do not know what to say,” he began, toying with the hunting-crop he was carrying. “The specialists we summoned at the time of the attack were quite the highest authority we could obtain, and I am in constant communication with them and carrying out their treatment; but I do think it might be advisable to have a local man to watch the case also. The unfortunate part of it is, though, that my wife objects so strongly, and when she once makes up her mind it is no easy matter to persuade her to change it, as you know!” with a short laugh.

“I do, indeed!” Cynthia agreed heartily. “Still, in that case—”

“The whole affair seems beset with difficulties,” Gillman finished with a sigh. “I do not know what to do for the best.”

He passed on, and Cynthia went into the dining-room. Her solitary breakfast stood at one end of the long table; as she poured herself out a cup of tea Mrs Knowles entered, carrying the parrot's cage.

“I made bold to see if Polly would let me clean her out this morning, miss,” she observed. “My lady was always that particular about it. I don't say it is as she'd have had it, but I done the best I could, and I do think the bird looks more comfortable. Poor Polly, there!” as she replaced it on its stand.

“I am sure it does,” Cynthia said absently, buttering her toast and paying but scant heed to the charwoman.

That functionary, however, seemed in no hurry to depart; she straightened the sideboard cloth and put one or two little things into the cupboard.

“I have been wondering whether I might make so free as to speak to you, miss,” she went on at last, twisting her hands together beneath her white coarse apron. “It is a matter that I have had on my mind for some weeks, in a manner of speaking, and I thought if you would allow me to ask your advice, miss—” She paused apparently for want of breath.

Cynthia looked slightly bewildered.

“Certainly, if I can do anything, Mrs Knowles.”

“It is about my lady,” Mrs Knowles proceeded volubly. “Mr Gillman, he says to me when I first come, ‘Mrs Knowles,' says he, ‘if her ladyship should ask you to take any messages or post any letters, you are always to bring them to me,' he says, ‘and if it is advisable they should go I will post them myself.' Well, in course my wages being paid by him I obeyed him, as the saying is, but when she come to me and says, ‘Mrs Knowles, I want you to post this letter for me; it is to my cousin as is going to be married, and it is just to wish her joy and to ask her to come and see me before the wedding if she can spare the time,' it did not seem to me as there could be any harm in it, me knowing as the master kept her close and did not encourage no visitors. It was only natural as the poor lady should pine.” She paused and looked at Cynthia for encouragement.

Cynthia, on her part, felt curiously bewildered. She recalled her first feeling when she received her cousin's letter that Lady Hannah must be under some species of coercion, that she was appealing for help; and then she contrasted this impression with Lady Hannah's present attitude towards her. It appeared to her inexplicable.

“I think you were quite right, Mrs Knowles,” she said at length, “but I cannot understand—”

“Which is not at all, miss,” the charwoman proceeded, casting an anxious glance at the open door as if fearful of being overheard. “That being over and done with, I should not have ventured to trouble you with it; but the last day as ever she spoke to me before she was took the poor lady gave me another. ‘Post this for me, Mrs Knowles,' she says, ‘and I will make it worth your while.' I was just going to say I'd rather have no more to do with it, when Mr Gillman he come down the passage.

My lady, she were standing just where you are now and she says to me, so pitiful like, ‘Put it away, quick, Mrs Knowles, for my sake.' I slipped it in my pocket, miss, and there it has been ever since. For when I got home that night one of my children was took ill with croup, and I never give the letter a thought—it would ha' meant walking a mile to the post, and I couldn't leave Tommy for a minute. Then—it's no use disguising it from you, miss—the letter went clean out of my head till I happened to put my hand in my pocket last night and felt it there. Then I made up my mind as I would take counsel with you. Here is the letter, miss,” drawing it out and handing it to Cynthia. “You shall say whether I am to post it or not—you being the poor lady's cousin and there being often a look about you as reminds me of her.”

Cynthia took the letter in her hand with an odd species of reluctance. It was directed in her cousin's handwriting to Sir Donald Farquhar, to the care of her solicitors, Messrs Bolt & Barsly, Lincoln's Inn, and the words “To be forwarded immediately” were underlined with two thick uneven strokes that seemed to tell of the writer's inward perturbation. Cynthia looked at it dubiously; the envelope was by no means improved by its sojourn in Mrs Knowles's pocket, and was further decorated by sundry smudgy imprints of a thumb and forefinger.

“I really do not know what to say, Mrs Knowles,” she began in some perplexity. Then the remembrance of Mr Heriot's description of Sir Donald's anxiety for a reconciliation with his aunt recurred to her mind. This letter could be nothing less than a message of forgiveness, she decided, and it seemed to her that if before her seizure his aunt's thoughts had turned lovingly towards him assuredly Sir Donald ought to know it. “I—I think I should post it just as it is,” she ended with decision. “After all, if she wished to write it to her own nephew, why should she not?”

“Which I have said to myself a many times, miss,” Mrs Knowles said, taking back the letter carefully, and somewhat unnecessarily, considering its condition, in the cleanest corner of her apron. “Post it, I will, and it is to be hoped as me having forgotten it all this time hasn't made any difference. Thanking you kindly, miss!” as something passed from Cynthia's hand to hers. “I will walk down to the office with it soon as I have got my day's work over.”

And she left the room just as Sybil came in from the hall ready dressed for walking.

She danced up to Cynthia.

“Lazy girl! Haven't you finished breakfast yet? You must make haste now, for I have set my heart on a good long walk this morning.”

“I don't know that I feel inclined to go out today,” Cynthia said absently, her mind still busy with Mrs Knowles and the letter. “Besides”—Sybil's disappointed face recalled her to the realities of the situation—“I do not think, since Cousin Hannah appears to be worse, we both ought to be out of the house at the same time.”

A curiously impatient expression crossed Sybil's face.

“Oh, I am sure Cousin Henry can look after her!” she remarked slightingly, her pretty rosy lips pouting. “To tell you the truth, Cynthia, I am getting just a little tired of Cousin Hannah. She is so capricious and exacting.”

There was some truth in this, as Cynthia knew, but something in Sybil's accent displeased her.

“At any rate, I shall stay in this morning, in case I can be of any use—” Cynthia was beginning, when Gillman opened the door.

“Ah! Going out for a walk, I see,” he remarked. “That's right. It will do you both good.”

“It would, but Cynthia is so tiresome,” Sybil said pettishly. “She says we can't both leave Lady Hannah. You know, Cousin Henry, you said—”

“Oh, my dear child, this is absurd!” Gillman turned to Cynthia, and for one moment she fancied that there was a look in his eyes that betokened anything but amiability; his tone however was urbanity itself. “I shall be at home, and Mrs Knowles is in the house if anything is wanted. However”—as Cynthia's face showed no signs of yielding—“I want a note left at Flaxman's, the veterinary surgeon's; there is something wrong with the mare's leg, and I should like him to look at it. The nearest way is across the moor. I am sure Sybil would be afraid to go alone, for I know of old that courage is not one of her chief characteristics!” with a kindly laugh at Sybil's flushed face.

“I do not know that I am more of a coward than other people,” the girl said defiantly, “but I think it is horrid of Cynthia—”

“Oh, I will go!” Cynthia yielded at once. “It is not nice to cross the moor alone. Sybil is much too pretty to do so, I am sure.”

All Sybil's ill-humour left her and the dimples peeped out round her mouth.

“That is a nice speech, you are a nice old thing, and I forgive you all your reluctance now, Cynthia.”

“That is all right, then!” the other girl remarked with a smile, as she went away to put on her hat and coat.

As Cynthia went up the stairs, though, insensibly her step grew slower. The more she thought of it the more curious did the episode of her cousin's letter to Sir Donald appear. It was quite evident from Mrs Knowles's story that Gillman had endeavoured to exercise a control over his wife's actions which must have been irksome in the extreme. That her cousin could willingly have submitted to such a system of espionage and surveillance as was implied by Gillman's warning to the charwoman that her mistress's letters were not to be posted Cynthia could hardly bring herself to believe. The more she thought it over the more curious it appeared. That Gillman seemed to be genuinely attentive to his wife now, and that she preferred his ministrations to those of anyone else, was perfectly obvious; but, open and above-board though everything appeared, Cynthia could not rid herself of an idea that there was some secret connected with the curious
ménage
at Greylands, some mystery the clue to which lay in her own hands, though so far it had eluded her.