The Secret of Greylands (16 page)

“Ah, now we must tell Miss Hammond the other half of our story,” Sir Donald interposed. He turned back to Cynthia.

“You may have heard of Gleeson—my aunt's confidential maid, who was with her all through my childhood?”

“Ay, and before that—before you were ever thought of, Sir Donald!” the woman tearfully interpolated.

“Though my aunt had refused to hold any communication with me after our quarrel,” Sir Donald pursued, “I wrote several times to Gleeson, who had always stood my friend, asking her to give me news of my aunt and to let me know if there was any sign of a reconciliation with me, but whether Gillman discovered that Gleeson was working with me, or whether her presence in the house interfered with his plans in some other way, I do not know, however that may be, her dismissal followed very shortly.

“When I went back to England my first care was to seek her out, and when I heard from her my aunt's story it struck me as so serious that, failing to obtain any satisfactory information about her through ordinary channels, I resolved to come down under another name and see what I could discover for myself. The idea commended itself to Gleeson as so eminently satisfactory that she resolved to do the same. This little cottage was to let; we took it, and
voilà tout
!” with a comprehensive wave of his hand.

Cynthia drew a long breath.

“You are Sir Donald Farquhar and Mrs Smithson —Gleeson?”

Mrs Smithson—or Gleeson—took the answer upon herself.

“Yes, indeed, miss! Many is the time since that day you came by and told us of my lady's illness that I have not been able to sleep at nights for thinking of what she might be going through, and me not there to help her!” She was wiping her eyes as she spoke. “I beg your pardon, miss! I had been in her ladyship's service for years; she had treated me almost as a friend, and it is sore trouble to me not to be with her now.”

“I am sure it is,” Cynthia said sympathetically; “but you must not think that she is not well looked after. Mr Gillman and Miss Sybil are most attentive and devoted to her, though I am sure she must miss you, and no doubt you would be a great help. I am sorry you left.”

Gleeson put away her handkerchief.

“I didn't leave till I was pretty near turned out of the house by main force, miss. Mr Gillman, he was determined that nobody should be with her ladyship except himself. He resented her affection for me as if it had been a personal affront to him, and when he found out that my lady was talking to me of Sir Donald and wishing he was back, he made up his mind that I should go, in spite of all she could say. Poor lady! How she cried and clung to me when she heard I was going, for he turned me out of the house at a moment's notice. I begged her to leave him, to come with me, and for a moment I thought she was about to yield, and then he came on the scene. ‘Why, Hannah, my love, what is the matter?' he says in that oily voice of his. ‘I have just heard of a maid for you that seems most suitable. She will be able to do your hair better than Gleeson has done, for you know you have lovely hair, my dear.'

“She tried to smile at him, but I could see her lips tremble, and as I went away she whispered to me, ‘I am frightened, Gleeson—so frightened!' Ah, many a time since my heart has ached thinking of those words!”

“She said exactly the same thing in her letter to me,” Sir Donald confirmed. “I made up my mind then that I would not relax my efforts until I had seen her face to face and heard from her lips, in Gillman's absence, what she wished to do.”

“Ah, you had the letter, then? I am so glad!” Cynthia said quickly.

He looked surprised.

“What, you know?”

“She gave it to Mrs Knowles to post.” Cynthia told the circumstances in which it was sent. “She expressed herself in precisely the same way when she wrote to me,” she added, “but when I spoke to her about it she explained it by saying that it was written when her illness was coming on and when she could not realize what was the matter with her.”

“Do you think that accounts for everything?” Sir Donald demanded abruptly.

Cynthia paused and wrinkled up her brows.

“I don't know,” she said slowly. “It does not seem to me to be altogether adequate, yet I cannot form any other theory.”

Sir Donald nodded gravely. His eyes looked absorbed and speculative as he mechanically watched the shaft of sunlight that fell athwart Cynthia's head and turned her glory of chestnut hair to burnished gold.

“It is my belief her ladyship wanted Sir Donald back almost as soon as he was gone,” Gleeson interposed. “I noticed how she was fretting for him before we went to Brussels. Then Mr Gillman came on the scene; and from the first that ever he saw her he laid himself out to please her. He wanted the spending of her money, the villain!” she concluded vindictively. “It was just pure loneliness made her take him, poor lady! I made no doubt she has regretted it often enough since. However, here's your tea getting cold while you are talking, miss, and I am sure a drink of it would do you good.”

She poured it out and brought it to Cynthia with a tempting plate of thin bread and butter. To please her the girl put the cup to her lips and then, surprised to find how thirsty she was, drank a little feverishly.

Sir Donald took a cup and stirred the contents absently.

“You saw Bolt & Barsly's clerk when he came over, he told me?” he said. “The interview seems to have been enough to convince him that matters were all right.”

“Yes, I was in the room a good deal of the time,” Cynthia replied, toying with a piece of the scone which had been so urgently recommended by Gleeson. “Cousin Hannah was terribly averse to seeing him. Mr Gillman had hard work to persuade her, but it did not do her any harm, and afterwards she said she was very glad she had done it.”

“Dear, dear, yes,” Gleeson went on volubly as Sir Donald relapsed into silence again, “that she would be, for she was always trying to write to Mr Barsly without Mr Gillman knowing! You'll excuse me, miss, but you do feature her; I noticed it the first time I saw you. No need to tell me she is a Miss Hammond, sir, I said to Sir Donald here; she carries it written in her face. I came to my mistress when she was not such a great deal older than you are now, miss, and the way you remind me of her is something wonderful! You will be one of Mr Basil's children, I made no doubt, miss—him as settled in Ireland?”

Cynthia glanced away from the woman's kindly interested eyes.

“I—yes, we were in Ireland,” she replied evasively.

“I knew it!” Gleeson said triumphantly. “Eh, well, I remember your father, miss! A fine, personable gentleman he was, and a great favourite with my mistress; I'll go bail that it was the remembrance of him that turned her thoughts to you when she became ill!”

“I do not know, I am sure!” Cynthia said, plaiting two or three of the folds of her dress together. She shrank intensely from the friendly inquisition. Above all things she wished to keep her identity a secret; and her adventure of the afternoon, her knowledge that her husband was in the neighbourhood, had increased her previous desires tenfold. “It—it is very sad for Cousin Hannah,” she went on quickly, anxious to change the subject. “She must feel her helplessness terribly after the active life she has led.”

“Ay, ay, poor dear lady!” Gleeson shook her head mournfully.

“The spectacle of her helplessness seems to have impressed Fowler—Mr Barsly's clerk—considerably,” Sir Donald went on. “One remark of his, though, struck me as rather overshooting the mark; he spoke of the pathos of seeing her pretty white hands lying helpless. Now—”

“I should just have laughed in the man's face,” Gleeson broke in with withering scorn, “when I remember how the poor thing was crippled with rheumatism! If it hadn't been for that we shouldn't have spent our time wandering from one watering- place after another, and she might never have met that scamp Gillman, for, saving your presence, miss, I can't mince matters when I remember what he made my poor lady suffer while I was with her!”

Cynthia was sipping her tea, and, feeling intensely thankful that the conversation was thus diverted successfully into fresh channels, she looked up in surprise.

“Cousin Hannah's hands are pretty and delicate,” she said, “I have often thought how beautifully white and unwrinkled they are for an old lady's, though she cannot use either of them—I mean that though she can just manage to sign her name, it's a matter of great difficulty; her power of grasping seems gone.”

“Dear! You surprise me, miss!” Gleeson said slowly, her wrinkled face looking troubled and perplexed. “I'm not denying that one's hands may turn white in illness, but that knuckles distorted by rheumatism should regain their comeliness is what I cannot understand!”

Cynthia finished her tea without making any comment; then, after a short pause, she rose.

“I am very much obliged to you for the tea and rest,” she said gratefully, “but I think I must be going back now, or they will be getting alarmed about me.”

Gleeson began an animated remonstrance, but Sir Donald quietly picked up his cap.

“I will come with you,” he said. “We will walk through the pine-wood where you found Spot's body. Was my aunt very much troubled when she heard of his death?”

“Yes, I think so,” Cynthia replied doubtfully. “She did not say much to me. Mr Gillman had buried him under the oak saplings he has been moving in the plantation. Cousin Hannah did say that if Greylands passed into other hands she should make a stipulation that the poor little grave should not be disturbed; but she has not mentioned him to me lately. I have sometimes thought from little things I have noticed that her memory is failing her a good deal.”

“That is very likely,” Farquhar assented. “I believe that when paralysis has affected the body to the extent it has in her case it usually ends by attacking the brain, and of that loss of memory is one of the first symptoms. Poor old Aunt Hannah! You do not know how I blame myself for this quarrel, Miss Hammond! It is true she demanded an obedience which I was compelled by my own manhood to refuse, but I knew that her bark was worse than her bite, that very soon she would regret her hard and bitter words and be glad to have me back. I was angry too, though I vowed I would not retract until she sent for me, and I betook myself to the other end of the world in a dudgeon.”

He pulled his cap down over his eyes and walked along by Cynthia's side, apparently absorbed in gloomy reflection. There was a pause; Cynthia's eyes wandered across the moor, strayed over the sunlit gorse, past the pine-woods to the clump of dark firs that represented Greylands.

“I am very sorry about it all,” she said, “but perhaps it will come right some day. Even if Cousin Hannah in her illness remembers only her feeling of anger against you she must have forgiven you before —her letter shows that. I think—I am sure I have heard that when the brain is affected people are often angered with those whom in health they have loved the best.” She glanced up wistfully at Farquhar as she finished.

Meeting the look of sympathy in her eyes, some of the hardness died out of his.

“Thank you!” he said softly. “You are very good to me, Cynthia—for I may call you that, may I not?”

A curious look, half fear, half repulsion, came into the eyes he was watching; an involuntary tremor shook Cynthia as she remembered the name that was hers by right.

“Yes, yes, please do!” she said hurriedly. “Always call me Cynthia—I like that best.”

They were nearing Greylands now, and in the shadow of the pine-wood the girl stopped.

“Please do not come any farther now! Indeed, I would rather you did not!” as the man made a gesture of refusal. “If Mr Gillman saw us together he might be angry or perhaps suspect who you are, and I do think it would be better for Cousin Hannah's sake and everybody's that it should not be known at present.”

“Perhaps you are right,” Farquhar conceded reluctantly. He held her hand for a minute. “You will stand my friend now that you know all, will you not, Cynthia? You will tell my poor old aunt that I am not ungrateful for all her love and kindness; you will win some message of forgiveness for me; you will persuade her to see me again?”

“I will do my best,” Cynthia promised, looking up at him with dewy eyes.

Sir Donald retained her hand in his.

“Thank you! Some day, if I find you alone in the house, as I did before, I think I shall put your promise to the test by asking you to let me go up to her room and plead my cause with my aunt in person!”

“I doubt whether I could,” Cynthia said hesitatingly, “or whether I ought after what she said then. Since that day I have never been left alone in the house with her. Mr Gillman and Sybil never go out together.”

“Ah, well, perhaps there may be an opportunity some day! In the meantime it is much to know that I have your sympathy, little cousin!” Farquhar stooped low over the slender, ungloved hand lying in his; then, as the brown fingers grew restive, he released them, and straightening himself, stood upright. “I shall stay here until I see you safe within the gate of Greylands, to make sure that you meet with no annoyance.”

“Oh, but there is no need!” Cynthia said quickly. “Indeed—”

Farquhar made no reply; something in the set of his mouth told the girl that his mind was made up, and, with a slight shrug of her shoulders, she turned away. Sir Donald watched the slender figure until it disappeared from sight beneath the firs; then he slowly walked back to the cottage on the moors.

Gleeson was leaning over the little wicket watching for him; her comely face looked troubled. As Sir Donald came up she gripped his arm.

“Ah, Sir Donald, what have they done to my poor lady?”

Sir Donald's own face was dark, but he looked at her kindly.

“We must hope for the best, Glee! It may be all the illness, you know.”