The Shrouded Walls (8 page)

But before I could move Ned spoke from the other side of the room. “It’s as she says.” His voice shook a little, but he was on his feet again without swaying, the tears wet on his cheeks. “I didn’t mean what I said,
George. It was all lies—all wickedness
...
suddenly I missed Rodric so much that I allowed my grief to cloud my mind and said terrible things which I knew were untrue
...
Please forgive me and don’t send me away. Tell me how I can apologize to you and make amends for what I said, for I swear before God in all truth that I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to offend you this evening and want only to act better in future.”

There was a silence.

“Please, Axel, please don’t send him away—”

“My dear,” said Axel to me in a voice of ice. “I have asked you twice to leave the room. I trust I do not have to ask you a third time.”

I curtsied wordlessly and went through into the bedroom where I immediately pressed my ear to the panel of the closed door. But the panels were thick, and although I could hear the murmur of voices I could not distinguish what was being said. Presently I sat down at my dressing table and began fidgeting idly with the silver brushes and combs, but my mind was numb and my thoughts became confused when I tried to think clearly. It occurred to me then how exhausted I was. Marie-Claire had laid out my night clothes so I undressed as quickly as possible and was just sitting before the mirror in my nightgown and brushing my hair when the murmur of voices ceased, a door closed far away and the next moment Axel himself came into the room.

I felt afraid suddenly. I could not look at him. But to my relief he went through to his dressing room without speaking, and I was left alone to brush out my hair and creep between the sheets of the huge double bed.

But still my nerves would not let me sleep. My limbs began to ache with tension and then at last he came back into the room and slid into bed beside me.

I had of course expected him to reprove me for my forward behavior in the sitting room when I had tried to comfort Ned; I had also half-expected some sort of explanation of the scene there, or at least a comment on what had happened. But he said nothing.

I waited rigid, scarcely daring to breathe, but he was silent beside me, so motionless that I felt I dared not move either. After a while the loneliness was even greater than my fear and muddled bewilderment. I whispered his name.

He turned sharply. “I thought you were asleep! What’s the matter?”

“Oh Axel, I didn’t mean to make you angry, I didn’t mean it, I promise—” Exhaustion made me tearful; my voice broke a little and forced me to silence.

“My dear child,” he said astonished. “Who spoke of me being angry with you? My anger was directed against other people and my mind was occupied with other things.” And he drew me to him in an abrupt, not unkind way and kissed me on the forehead. “This has been a difficult evening for you,” he said at last, “but I must insist that you don’t worry about matters which concern me alone. The problem of Ned is entirely my responsibility and there is absolutely no need for you to share it.”

“Is—is he to be sent away?”

“Not at present. He has apologized for his lies and his abuse and has promised to mend his ways. He is, after all, merely an overgrown schoolboy who has never been accustomed to any discipline at all from his family. Now, go to sleep and stop your worrying, and you’ll see how much better everything will seem when you wake tomorrow morning.”

But when I slept at last I dreamed turbulent nightmares, and saw Rodric drowning in the Marsh while Vere clapped his hands in glee and Alice whispered “We must make the toadstool poison to feed the mice in the cellar;” and suddenly Axel was standing smiling in the hall of Haraldsdyke and Esther was handing him a gun smeared with blood, and Mary was saying to me: “Rodric was such a wonderful murderer, you see.” And the word
murderer
seemed to reverberate until its echo filled the hall, and all at once Ned was chasing me to my death in the marshes and calling after me in Alexander’s voice:
Axel killed him! Axel’s a murderer, a murderer, a murderer
...

But when I woke up gasping with the sweat moist on my forehead I found myself alone with the sun shining peacefully through the curtains and Axel’s laugh ringing in my ears as he joked with his valet in the dressing room next door.

Three

From the window I had my first view south across the Marsh in daylight, the flat expanse of green ending in the blue line of the sea not far away, the twin towns of Rye and Winchelsea seeming very near as they basked in the pale autumn sunshine. It was all so peaceful, so serene. I turned aside, feeling strangely reassured, and rang for Marie-Claire.

However presently I was aware that I was not as strong as I had anticipated and I slipped back to bed.

“Ask for a tray to be sent up to me,” I told Marie-Claire in French. “I would like some coffee, very black, and a thin slice of burned toast.”

She departed for the kitchens.

I was just lying back on the pillows and thinking that if all was well I would be sufficiently recovered by the afternoon to dress and go downstairs, when Axel returned to the room.

“How are you this morning?” He came over to the bed and stooped to kiss me on the lips. Some element in his expression when he looked at me seemed to suggest he found my appearance pleasing in the extreme, but although before I would have felt gratified I now felt an inexplicable desire to remain beyond his reach.

“I’m feeling a trifle delicate this morning,” I replied truthfully. “I wondered if you might apologize to the rest of the family for me and say I shall come downstairs this afternoon.”

“You’re the mistress of the house,” was all he said. “You need not excuse your absence to anyone except me. And I, of course, am merely sorry to hear you’re indisposed. Perhaps I should send someone to Winchelsea to ask Dr. Salter to come and see you
...”

“
No, no—it’s nothing really. I shall be quite recovered in two or three hours. I just feel somewhat tired and would prefer to remain in bed a little longer.”

“I understand.” He kissed me again and stood up. “I have business to do,” he said abruptly. “Vere and I will be riding to Rye this morning to see my father’s lawyer James Sherman. There’s a possibility that we may be some time.”

“I see. Will you be dining at Rye?”

“Possibly. It depends how long our business takes ... I shall tell Alice you’re indisposed and ask her to continue to supervise the household today.
”

“Oh yes
...
yes, thank you.” I had forgotten I was supposed to be in charge of running the house now. After Axel had gone, I lay thinking about the difficulties of assuming a large responsibility about which I knew very little of practical value. I was just wondering if Alice would not perhaps like to continue to supervise the more mundane household details when there was a knock on the door, and Alice herself appeared.

“George told me you weren’t well,” she said anxiously. “We were all so sorry ... if there’s anything I can be doing for you—” She paused inquiringly.

I repeated the assurance that I had given Axel that I would soon be quite well, but Alice still seemed anxious.

“If you feel at all sick,” she said, “I have an excellent herb recipe which I often take during the early months.”

I saw she had misunderstood. “No, no,” I said, feeling slightly embarrassed. “It’s not a question of—” I stopped.

“You’re sure? of course you haven’t been married long, but sometimes
...
But if you’re quite sure that there can be no question of such a thing—”

“Absolutely positive,” I said so firmly that she evidently realized at last why I had decided to rest for a few hours further, and at that moment Marie-Claire entered the room with the coffee and burned toast.

I half-hoped Alice would leave then, but she must have thought I needed companionship for she sat down on the chair by the bed and began to talk of the menu she had planned for dinner that evening.

“I hear Vere and Axel may not be here for dinner,” I said.

“There will still be ourselves, Vere’s mother, Mary and Ned. Unless Ned stays away. He saddled a horse early this morning and rode off over the Marsh.”

I was silent.

“Vere says,” said Alice, “there was an unfortunate to-do last night between Ned and George.”

“I believe everything is all settled now.”

“Poor Ned,” said Alice. “He does miss Rodric so.” She gathered up her skirts and began to rise to her feet. “Well, I must go and see the children and let you rest—”

“No—please,” I said suddenly. “Stay and talk for a while—if you can spare the time, of course ... I am anxious to hear more about Rodric.
Everyone seems to have been so fond of him.”

Alice hesitated and then sat down again, rearranging her skirts carefully. “Yes,” she said, “everyone was so fond of Rodric. Both his parents preferred him to Vere. Vere’s mother doted on Rodric and wouldn’t even hear a word against him.”

“Not even when he got into trouble?” I remembered Axel’s references to Rodric’s wildness and the Watch at Rye.

Alice’s green eyes widened. “You heard about that?”

“Axel mentioned it.”

“Ah.” She hesitated. Then: “There was nothing Rodric wouldn’t dare do,” she said. “He was bold. Nothing was sacred, nothing beyond his reach. He used to act the highwayman for his own amusement till rumor reached the ears of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. But nothing was proved against him. At the end he was with the smugglers, working with Delancey the great French smuggler, and in the night he would ride to Dungeness and dodge the Revenue Men on the watch there.”

I was amazed. “This was common knowledge?”

“It—was revealed at the inquest
...
Rodric used to despise Vere because Vere would have none of his childish pranks. Highwaymen and smugglers indeed! Such play-acting! Vere was more of a man then he was. I always thought so from the beginning, even when they were boys.”

“You knew him then?”

“Yes, I lived in the little village of Haraldsford a mile from here. My mother is a witch.” She said it as prosaically as I might have said: “My mother was French.” “Rodric and his big rough friends rode up to our cottage one morning and ducked my mother in the witch’s ducking-stool over the village pond. They thought it a great joke. My mother put a curse on him afterwards and prayed he would die by water within ten years.” She was very sedate, very undisturbed. “He died in the Marsh nine and a half years later,” she said. “I wasn’t altogether surprised.” She straightened the coverlet absentmindedly. “Vere was quite different,” she said. “He was always serious and eager to acquit himself well in whatever he undertook. He came to my mother when he was sixteen and asked for a spell which would make all the girls fall in love with him instead of with Rodric.” She smiled suddenly, her broad face lightening with humor. “My mother said: ‘Here is a girl who cares nothing for Rodric’ and led him straight to me. We were very happy, right from the beginning.”

“But how old were you then?”

“Thirteen. It was two years before we could be wed, and then Vere’s father nearly killed him when he heard the news of our marriage. He wouldn’t
speak to Vere for two months and Vere worked on a neighbor’s farm as a hired hand as his father wouldn’t have him at Haraldsdyke. Then I was with child and the winter was cold and Vere sent word to his father asking if he wanted his first grandchild to die of starvation and cold, and so we returned to Haraldsdyke. But the baby died,” she said, all trace of humor vanishing from her face. “Poor little thing. He only lived a few hours.”

I murmured something sympathetic.

“It was hard for Vere at Haraldsdyke,” she said after a while. “Nothing he ever did was right. His father would shout and roar at Rodric, but it was Rodric he loved the best. He never took any trouble to listen to Vere.”

“How strange,” I said, “that Rodric, whom everyone says was so delightful and charming, never married.”

“Yes,” she said dispassionately. “He was very handsome. He was tall and strong with a straight back and flat stomach, and his hair was dark as a crow’s wing. But his complexion was fair. He had blue eyes, as blue as Vere’s, and an easy smile and when he laughed, everyone laughed with him.”

I was just deciding that after giving such an attractive description she must have been fonder of him than I had supposed when I saw the hate glitter
unmistakably
in her eyes.

My heart bumped unevenly with the shock, but she was already looking away. “Yet he never married,” she was saying. “He was too busy trying to seduce other men’s wives.” And as I stared at her she shrugged and smiled again as if to make light of the entire conversation. “He was like that,” she said. “It was no fun for him to get a woman who was easy. Everything had to be difficult so that the experience could be turned into a game, a sport, some new prank to amuse him. He was like that.”

There was a silence. Then:

“Like the day he died, for instance,” she said, and there was a distant expression in her eyes now and I guessed she was seeing other scenes of months ago. “It was Christmas Eve. George had arrived from Vienna three days earlier to spend Christmas with us, and this pleased Vere’s father who had had an argument with Vere over the estate and discovered Rodric was up to some fresh nonsense; I think it was then old Mr. Brandson turned to George.

“I was in the parlor on the morning of Christmas Eve to prepare the menus for Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Rodric found me there. I saw at once that he was anxious for sport—any sport—which would relieve his boredom, but I was expecting Vere to join me and I knew he wouldn’t be long. When Vere came minutes later he found me struggling with Rodric and crying for help.

“I have never seen Vere so angry. He would have tried to kill Rodric, I think, but George was with him and restrained him. Then George took Rodric out shooting over the Marsh and they were gone from the house till late afternoon.

“Vere went out afterwards; he had business to attend to on the estate and didn’t return to the house till much later. That was a terrible day! I shall never forget when Vere returned to the house and I had to tell him his father was dead.”

“I suppose Rodric had already gone by then?”

“Why, yes, Rodric had gone and George had gone too, to try to bring him back. Rodric left the house directly after he quarreled with his father
—
after his father was dead, we learned later. Esther, Vere’s mother, found Mr. Brandson perhaps quarter of an hour after Rodric had gone to the stables and, according to Ned who was there at the time, saddled his horse in haste and rode off into the winter dusk. Poor woman! I heard her screams even though I was in the nursery with the children and I ran at once to the hall.”

“It must have been a fearful shock for her.”

“Indeed it was. Fortunately George was close at hand, for he and Mary reached Esther before I did. Mary had been in the drawing room while I had gone to the nursery. To begin with we were in the saloon downstairs by the library but then when Rodric began to quarrel with his father in the library we became embarrassed being as we could hear so clearly through the wall. Mr. Brandson’s voice when he was roused was louder than the Town-Crier at Rye, and Rodric’s not much quieter.”

I longed to ask her what she had overheard but had no wish to appear too inquisitive.

“I suppose Mr. Brandson had challenged Rodric about his relationship with the smugglers,” I said carelessly.

“There was rather more said than that,” said Alice.

“Oh.”

There was a pause. Alice rearranged herself comfortably in her chair. “Mr. Brandson swore he would disinherit Rodric without delay,” she said. “He swore he would alter his will.”

“But hadn’t he already done so?”

“Yes, that was strange. I expect George told you that in fact Mr. Brandson had altered his will shortly before his death to disinherit all his sons save George himself. But no one knew that at the time of his death. When Rodric faced his father that afternoon he must still have thought himself due to inherit the money and property one day, and Mr. Brandson never told him he was already disinherited.”

“Wasn’t it considered strange that Mr. Brandson disinherited his other sons like that?”

Alice shrugged. “He never really favored George,” was all she said. “I don’t know what made him draw up a will such as the one he made before he died—the will where he left George everything. He and George were never close after George went against his wishes and returned to Vienna.” There was a knock at the door. I was so deeply engrossed in the conversation that I was unaware of the knock until Alice called out: “Who is it?” “Mary. The rector’s wife has called, Alice, and is downstairs in the morning room. Shall I tell her—”

“I shall see her.” Alice stood up. “Our church is at Haraldsford,” she said to me, “and the parish includes the villages of Haraldsmere and Conyhurst-in-the-Marsh. I expect we shall have several visits this morning from people who wish to call upon you and welcome you to Haraldsdyke. I’ll explain that you’re indisposed and ask them to call again later.”