The Secret of Greylands (29 page)

Sybil held out her hands.

“He—they have taken him away, Cynthia?”

Cynthia moved her head in assent.

“I—I think so; but I cannot understand—only I know he hurt you, Sybil.”

The injured girl stirred restlessly.

“That does not matter,” she said loyally. “He was right. I—I had deceived him, because I could not bear—If I die, Cynthia, you will tell him, some day, I loved him too much to let him do that. It was for his sake.”

“I will tell him,” Cynthia promised. “But you are not going to die, Sybil,” though she felt a terrible misgiving as she saw the girl's ashen face, heard her terrible gasps as she drew her breath.

“I think I am—I hope I am,” Sybil said painfully. “Stay with me a while, Cynthia. I have a fancy that I should like to have you near me—that I should like to hear you say you forgive me before I die.”

“I have nothing to forgive,” Cynthia said, bending over her. “You saved me, Sybil; but tell me—where is Cousin Hannah?”

With a little cry Sybil shrank away among the cushions.

“It—oh, I don't know—don't ask me, Cynthia! I am frightened, so frightened! She—she”—trying to still the terror in her voice—“she went away to Biarritz, you know.”

Cynthia did not answer, but slipped her arm under the pillows and raised them to ease the terrible gasping breath, noting with a shudder the dark stain on the cushion, the matted golden hair.

Sybil seemed to find some comfort in her proximity, and very gradually her weak hand stole out to find Cynthia's, her eyes sought the other girl's.

In vain Farquhar remonstrated. Cynthia would not leave her post until at length a cheery little man bustled into the room, whom Mr Barsly addressed as Dr Campbell. He at once took command of the situation and relieved Cynthia.

“Now you must leave us for a time, my dear young lady,” he said peremptorily. “This is the district nurse from Glastwick,” as a business-like, capable-looking woman came in. “What is that you say?” as Cynthia began an almost inaudible remonstrance. “Dying? Not a bit of it, young lady! My patient has had a nasty knock on her head, I understand. She had a blow that sent her backwards—that is the worst of the damage. She has given herself an ugly cut near the temple”— his deft fingers parting the hair—“but dying—pooh! She will be as well as ever she was in her life in a month. Dear, dear! What is this?” as Cynthia, feeling the room was going round with her, swayed slightly.

“I don't know!” she said faintly. “I can't see anything—Donald!”

The darkness seemed to close in around her; the doctor's voice seemed to come from a long way off. She put up her hands, staggered blindly for a few steps, and would have fallen had not Farquhar stepped forward quickly and caught her in his arms.

The doctor looked at her.

“The best thing that could have happened—the very best!” he remarked with professional sang-froid. “We might have had some difficulty with her but for this. Now all we have to do is to pack her in the carriage outside and send her to Lady Duxworth's, and she will not know anything until she awakes to find herself comfortably in bed!”

“I
WISH
we knew what has become of Cousin Hannah!” Cynthia raised herself a little among her cushions.

Lady Duxworth sighed and said:

“I wish we did indeed!”

Cynthia was silent for a minute; her eyes wandered to the window; through it she could see a range of hills, on the other side of which she knew that Greylands lay.

“It seems so strange that she does not write to anyone—if—if she can,” her face paling. “I wonder whether they have asked Mr Gillman, whether he has said any more about her.”

Lady Duxworth shivered; her eyes filled with tears.

“I believe he asserts that she will come to Glastwick for the examination before the magistrates on Saturday, but—I don't know.”

“Then he must have heard from her!” Cynthia said quickly.

“I don't think he has.”

Cynthia stirred restlessly.

“If I could only go over and search her drawers I feel sure I could find some trace of where she is. It is getting on my nerves. You—you do not know what horrible thoughts come into my head sometimes as I lie here. If Dr Campbell would only let me get up—and it is absurd making me lie here, for I feel quite well—I would go to Greylands at once.”

“Dear Cynthia, Dr Campbell must know best,” Lady Duxworth said softly. Personally, she was inclined to think that, being aware how highly strung was Cynthia's nervous temperament, Dr. Campbell was stretching a point in order to keep from her the reports that were current everywhere concerning her cousin's fate, to prevent her from seeing Greylands as it was now.

By Mr Barsly's order detectives had been busy for the past three weeks—ever since Gillman's arrest—in ransacking every hole and corner of the house to try and find some clue to Lady Hannah's fate. They had taken up flooring and sounded every inch of the walls, so far without the slightest result; or finding any clue to the missing lady's whereabouts.

This week the search had extended to the garden and the plantation round the house, and Lady Duxworth knew that Cynthia could not but read a sinister significance in the excavations that were going on if she should be allowed to carry out her wish and pay a visit to Greylands. For the rest, the long strain that she had undergone, and the terrible events of that last evening at Greylands, which had culminated in the fainting attack during which she had been brought to the Towers, had left Cynthia weaker than she quite realized, and though she chafed at Dr Campbell's restrictions she was not in reality strong enough to disregard them.

Sir Donald Farquhar had been a constant inquirer at the Towers since the night Cynthia was brought there, but so far the cousins had not met. Lady Duxworth was, to a certain extent, in Farquhar's confidence, but she knew that of late his overwhelming anxiety with regard to his aunt's fate had superseded all other interests, and her great hope now was that she might persuade Cynthia to become reconciled to her husband, and thus to show Farquhar the utter futility of any hopes that he might be cherishing with regard to her.

Gillman was still a prisoner in the county gaol; he had made his appearance before the magistrates to answer the charge of forging his wife's name on several occasions, and had been sent up for trial, but the prosecuting barrister made no secret of his opinion that unless Lady Hannah was found before the assizes it would be extremely difficult to secure a conviction.

Sybil had been moved to a nursing home at Clastor, where she was slowly making progress towards recovery.

“I can't understand how it all came about,” Cynthia went on after a pause. “How they found out, I mean, and how the policemen came to be there just in the nick of time.”

Lady Duxworth was doing some exquisite ribbon embroidery in a frame. She hesitated a little, and did a few stitches before she spoke.

“I really think my son and Lord Arthur St Clare had a good deal to do with it,” she said. “You remember, perhaps, that the day you lunched here Petre said he had met a Gillman abroad who was a pretty bad lot, and who was accompanied by a good-looking young wife. Well, it seems that Lord Arthur St Clare, to his amazement, recognized in the girl who passed as your cousin, Sybil Hammond, a young actress who had been extremely popular, and whose sudden retirement from the stage had occasioned much surprise. He taxed her with it, and she, finding subterfuge useless, finally admitted the fact, but declared that she had assumed the name for a time in order to support her mother when they were very poor, and that she really was Lady Hannah's cousin. He saw no reason to doubt her assertion at the time, but later on he heard Petre discussing the Gillman affair with me, and Petre, who had been thinking matters over, suddenly said that the girl who was with Gillman and who had passed as his wife was exactly like Delphine Meldrum.

“That made Lord Arthur think that there was something queer about the whole business. He told me that Sybil had acknowledged it to him, and by Lord Duxworth's advice we carried the whole affair to Mr Barsly. He, as you know, had been seriously uneasy for some time about the way your cousin was disposing of her property. He thought that even paralysis did not account for the difference visible in some of her signatures, and he submitted them to an expert, who unhesitatingly declared two of them to be in Gillman's handwriting. We can never be sufficiently thankful that they went down to make the arrest in time to save you, child.”

Cynthia covered her eyes with her hand.

“I can never bear to think of that time.”

Lady Duxworth's eyes were full of compassion as she glanced at the girl's white cheeks, hollowed now by illness and anxiety.

“It would be much better for you never to do so,” she agreed; “but if that is impossible it is just as well to talk about it, I think. The things that are never said are the ones that hurt the most, but there is another subject I should like to ask you about, Cynthia.”

Some prevision of what was coming tinged the girl's pale cheeks with colour. She did not reply, but she fidgeted about uneasily and drew the silken coverlet more closely round her.

Lady Duxworth watched her anxiously for a minute or two, then she said slowly:

“I think you have guessed what I mean, Cynthia. When are you going back to your husband?”

“Never!”

Cynthia's face was turned away now; Lady Duxworth could only see the great burnished knot of hair on the nape of her neck, and one of the little, shell-like ears.

“I am sorry to hear you say that,” she said gravely. “I know you think I ought not to interfere, but you have no mother. I knew and liked your father in the old days; your cousin, Lady Hannah, was my dearest friend. I cannot see you make a shipwreck of your life without at least trying to give you one word of warning. Your husband stayed with us a little time ago; he was looking sadly altered—aged and saddened. Do you not think your place is at his side?”

Cynthia put out her hands imploringly.

“No, no!” she said indistinctly. “Indeed I couldn't! He—he is not a good man, Lady Duxworth.”

There was a pause; Lady Duxworth's eyes looked puzzled and thoughtful. Lord Letchingham's reputation was well known to her. Not for worlds would she have urged on a marriage between him and Cynthia, but now that it was an accomplished fact it seemed to her that the only thing to be done was for the girl to make the best of the situation and return to him.

“He is your husband, Cynthia,” she said, “and I cannot but think that it is too late to talk of what he may have been in the past. You must remember that we are none of us perfect.”

“No, no! I know that!” Cynthia covered her face with her hands; her voice sounded muffled and thick. “But he—oh, I should like to tell you about it, if you do not mind, Lady Duxworth—if it will not bore you.”

“I should be glad to hear.” Lady Duxworth was not without her share of Eve's failing. The “
affaire Letchingham
” had been canvassed
ad nauseam
in the boudoirs of Mayfair, but she was much too tender-hearted a woman to be merely curious, and far deeper down there lay a very real affection for Farquhar, a sincere liking for Cynthia.

“I did not understand then,” Cynthia began, speaking with apparent difficulty and hesitation. “I did not love him—I never even fancied I did—but I thought he was a nice, kind old man who would be very good to me. Then, after the ceremony was over, I found out that he had ruined our greatest friend's life. She wrote to me to warn me against him, to beg me not to marry him—and the letter was delayed. I opened it when I came back from church—so I went away. It was the only thing to do.”

Lady Duxworth uttered a shocked sound.

“My poor child! I can understand how terrible it was for you; but still I feel it is my duty to say it to you, Cynthia, that that is over and done with; it is quite impossible that it has not been sincerely repented of, and we are not one another's judges. Besides, you have made certain definite vows, and it seems to me that Lord Letchingham ought to have an opportunity of explanation. Will you let me see him for you?”

“It would do no good.” She turned, and, catching Lady Duxworth's hand, pressed her lips to it gratefully. “How good you are to me! But indeed that would not help matters. I taxed him with it, and he—he only laughed at me, and—oh, it was dreadful! I cannot bear to think of it!”

Lady Duxworth's face was very grave and pitiful.

“Poor child! I am more sorry than I can say, Cynthia. At any rate you must stay with us as long as you like. I wish I could help you more effectually; but one thing must be done, dear. You must take your proper name; it is not fair either to yourself or others that you should pass as an unmarried girl.”

All Cynthia's pallor had vanished now; her cheeks had flushed a hot, guilty red.

“I know what you mean,” she whispered faintly. “I—I am so sorry, Lady Duxworth, but indeed I did not understand. I will do just what you think best in the future.”

“Poor child!” Lady Duxworth said tenderly, laying her hand caressingly for a moment on the bright bent head. “Then you will stay with us a while, and later on we will try to see what is best.”

Cynthia made no reply save by pressing another kiss on the soft hand. So long did she lie silent that Lady Duxworth thought she had gone to sleep, and only glanced at her occasionally as she went on with her embroidery, her thoughts busy with the story she had just heard.

It was difficult to see any way out of the tangle in which the unfortunate girl had involved herself. Look at it as she would, the situation seemed to Lady Duxworth beset with difficulties, and it seemed impossible to tell which was the right course to be pursued. Presently her busy needle ceased to fly in and out of her canvas, and she had fallen into a reverie, when she heard the sound of a horse and cart being urged up the avenue at the utmost speed.