Winterwood (30 page)

“Someone,
not
a ghost, must have rung that bell tonight. It couldn’t have been Eliza come back. Eliza, who had so missed Lady Tameson’s bell-ringing. It is strange she didn’t answer my letter. Perhaps it is too soon yet to expect an answer. I was hoping to see her at her sister’s in Norfolk, and ask her advice about a new position. We are both casualties of Winterwood, if one could describe us so.

“I have so loved Winterwood…”

The fire gave a dying flicker and Lavinia laid down her pen to get her handkerchief. She was crying. Such a useless thing to do. This was not the moment to remember the touch of Daniel’s lips against hers. She had to be practical, as Daniel had said she must, and face bleak reality.

She was about to get undressed at last when there was the sound of scratching at the door. At first she thought it was Sylvie wanting to get in, until she saw the little dog curled up in her basket as usual, though the sound had wakened her, and she was whimpering softly, her delicate nose quivering.

Daniel! The wild hope leaped in Lavinia, only to sink when she opened the door a cautious crack and saw Jonathon, still in evening dress, and carrying a candle in a silver candlestick. Behind its wavering flame his face looked curiously shadowed and a little grotesque. He was smiling, as always, and when Lavinia whispered, “What do you want?” he suggested that she come out and close the door lest Flora wake.

“I don’t think you would like her to overhear our conversation.”

Lavinia, about to shut the door in his face, realized that he was more than capable of creating a stir and waking not only Flora but everyone else.

She knew all too well why he had come. Christmas was over. He wanted his answer.

She knew that she would have to bargain. She had come to that decision some time ago.

She closed the door softly, and stood in the passage, shivering.

“Couldn’t you have waited until the morning?”

“It is the morning.” He laughed softly, and added, “I can see that you have been sitting up reflecting, just as I have. When the clock struck three, I realized that I couldn’t wait a moment longer for your answer. What is it to be?”

“I am leaving here,” she said rapidly. “Tomorrow I intend giving my notice to Mr. Meryon. If you will remain silent, I promise to meet you in London at a specified time and place.”

“Oh, no, my dear. I will have nothing to do with a bargain like that. How do I know you will be at this specified place when I come?”

“I happen to keep a promise,” Lavinia said frostily.

“Then how do I know what you will say? That you will have none of me, most likely.”

She looked at him in disbelief.

“Can you really want a wife who marries you under threats?”

“When it is you, and it is the only way I can get you,” he said coarsely. “No, the original arrangement remains. We leave Winterwood betrothed, or the whole sad story comes out.”

“You are a monster!”

“Am I?” He seemed to enjoy her loathing. “I admit I would like you less if you meekly submitted. But you will submit, my dear. You won’t leave Daniel and that spoiled brat in there with unpleasant memories of their dear Miss Hurst. You see, I know you very well. You are an idealist. A foolish and quite impractical thing to be.”

“And how do you think you are going to look, telling this story about me?”

“Oh, a man in my position has nothing to lose. That’s the advantage of it. Others have—a very great deal.”

“Others? Such as Mrs. Meryon?”

He laughed less softly. His expelled breath nearly blew out the candle. She shrank against the door, fearful lest he should touch her. If he did, her control would break—as once before it had…

“Knowing secrets can be profitable,” he said. “It’s an invisible asset that I recommend. But you’re shivering. I mustn’t keep you here in the cold. It’s Christmas morning, so I’ll be generous. I’ll wait until midday for your answer. I promise conversation won’t lag at the luncheon table, for once. But it depends on you what turn it takes. Be kind to me, Miss Hurstmonceaux.”

“I would rather die!”

“Hush! Such melodrama so early in the morning. It’s tempting to tease you. Your eyes sparkle like very frosty stars. But I’ll leave you in peace now. Goodnight, my love. Sleep well. Look your best tomorrow. I want to be proud of you.”

I
T WAS CHRISTMAS
MORNING. BEFORE
breakfast Daniel said prayers, and then one by one the servants came forward to receive their gifts. There was a general air of excitement about the miracle that had happened to Miss Flora. Joseph carried her down as usual, but when, on her command, he set her in the middle of the room and, quite unsupported, she walked on thin unsteady legs to her chair, there was a plentiful mopping of eyes and exclamations of wonder.

Even more moving was Daniel’s grave voice giving thanks in his prayers for her recovery. For a little while it seemed as if the queer cloud over Winterwood had lifted and a peaceful happy atmosphere prevailed. Lavinia avoided meeting Jonathon’s eyes. That way, she could almost convince herself that nothing mattered except Flora’s recovery. Nothing, at least, was more important, though she wasn’t selfless enough to regard her own uncertain future as unimportant. Her sleepless night showed on her face, and even Flora, in spite of her absorption in herself, had wanted to know why she was so pale.

“You are not ill, Miss Hurst? You can’t be ill when I am so happy!”

“I thought of you too much to sleep. There. Does that please you?”

“Oh, you always hide other feelings beneath what you say.” Flora was too perceptive. And also maddeningly complacent this morning. “I expect you are still worrying that I won’t need you anymore. I thought I had given you my assurance about that last night.” Then Flora lost her precocious manner, and became a child again. “I shall be able to ride again. Isn’t that truly wonderful? I shall ask Papa to find us two good horses so that you can always ride with me. You do ride, don’t you, Miss Hurst?”

“I have ridden, yes.”

“You will need a riding habit. We must go to Dover—”

“Flora! Stop treating me like a puppet to be clothed and to behave for your amusement! Don’t you realize how unbearably patronizing you are?”

The words had burst out uncontrollably, but when Lavinia saw Flora wince she was instantly contrite.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, you should not have. You are not employed to speak to me like that.”

“Neither am I employed to accept constant presents from you.”

“Other people like presents. Why are you so different?”

“Other people—this is a stupid conversation. Anyway, I am not other people.”

Flora sulked for five minutes. Then she said in a small voice, “I didn’t know I was being patronizing.”

“Then let us say no more about it—except that I will not be needing a riding habit.”

“Perhaps you will change your mind.” Seeing Lavinia’s look Flora added hastily, “It is wicked to quarrel on Christmas Day. We should be full of love.”

In spite of that bad beginning it was Flora’s day, and everyone did appear to be full of love for her. Charlotte kissed her tenderly; Sir Timothy said, “By Jove, Flora, tell me the secret and I might get back my eyesight,” and Flora answered seriously that perhaps he had better say a prayer to Great-aunt Tameson.

“Yes, by Jove, perhaps she’s not dead, after all. Ringing bells in the middle of the night. Deuced queer.”

Jonathon Peate laughed loudly, as was to be expected. But a little later his ready laughter deserted him.

It happened when Daniel distributed the mail at the breakfast table. It had come up from the village last evening, and had been overlooked in the general excitement.

He delved into the bag and produced a handful of letters.

“Here’s one for you with a foreign postmark, my love.” He looked closer at the envelope. “Italian. Venezia. Who is writing to you from Venice?”

Charlotte opened the letter, looked at it, then let it flutter from her hands. She was ashen white. She could make no attempt to hide her shock.

“What is it?” Daniel asked.

“What is it, Mamma?” demanded Flora.

“From—from Aunt Tameson,” Charlotte managed to say. “It must be a mistake.”

Daniel stared.

“It certainly must. Dead women don’t write letters. Let me see it. I suppose it has been lost in the post all these months.”

“Foreign post offices,” Sir Timothy said, as if no more comment were needed.

“She says she’s coming,” Charlotte said shakily. “The date is—only last week. Look, Daniel.”

“December the twelfth,” Daniel read. “Dear Charlotte, As I wrote to you earlier in the summer, I have a great wish to die in England and be laid to rest with my little Tom. I have now made my plans for traveling and hope to be seeing you within a very short time. But I beg you not to inconvenience yourself on my account. I shall arrive quietly and without any fuss. Forgive me for not writing more. I am not very strong; the weakness is particularly in my hands. It is the way my poor husband went, too. I am shutting up the palazzo. The pink jade cupid you admired I am bringing for you; other things are too large to travel with. I apologize for difficult writing. It is my bad hands. Your loving aunt, Tameson Barrata.”

Flora suddenly began to whimper.

“You told me Great-aunt Tameson was dead!”

“So she is!” Charlotte cried violently. “This letter is a hoax. A horrible wicked hoax.”

“Played by whom?” asked Daniel in a genuine mystification.

“How should I know?” Charlotte was twisting her hands agonizedly. “The only thing I do know is that it isn’t from Aunt Tameson. How
could
it be? Did she get up off her deathbed? You saw her. Doctor Munro—Jonathon—you all saw her.”

“What about the handwriting?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look at it.”

Daniel thrust the sheet of paper before Charlotte and her curiously unwilling eyes stared at the awkward sprawling writing. Jonathon peered over her shoulder. He was no longer laughing. His coarsely handsome face had grown ugly. Only its jovial expression had ever saved it from ugliness, Lavinia realized. But now she saw it as it could be, just as the strain in Charlotte’s face had edged its beauty into that uncomfortable eeriness. The two of them, the niece and nephew of the old lady in Venice, were highly disturbed.

“I suppose the writing is like—I’m not good at remembering. I destroyed the other letters I had from Aunt Tameson.”

“What about the signature on her will? You watched that being made, Miss Hurst. What do you think?”

It was Lavinia’s turn to look closely at the black scrawl. She lifted her eyes in deep perplexity.

“It’s awfully similar. Without comparing them I would say they are the same. Could the Contessa have made a mistake in the dates, and written this letter before you were in Venice? Perhaps she forgot to post it. Perhaps someone found it and posted it only a week or so ago.”

“That’s what’s happened,” exclaimed Jonathon in patent relief. “Trust Miss Hurst’s clever brain.”

“Why, yes, it must be.” Charlotte began to laugh shakily. “Well, what a fright we’ve all had.”

“Then it isn’t true that Great-aunt Tameson is alive?” Flora asked. “It wasn’t her ringing her bell last night?”

“We must assume that was an accident,” said Daniel. “Otherwise we have a practical joker both here and in Venice. A little unlikely, don’t you think? Incidentally, Charlotte, was” someone left living in the
palazzo?
I understood the Italian maid was to leave immediately after we did.”

“Fernanda? So she was. But the place was to be put up for sale after Aunt Tameson’s death. Mr. Mallinson knows all about that. I expect it has been opened up to show prospective buyers, and the letter was found.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps.” Daniel was still not satisfied. “We’ll find out what Mallinson has done. But I can’t understand the date on the letter. The twelfth of December. Thirteen days ago. Why on earth should your aunt, whose brain had remained quite unaffected by her illness, date a letter written in midsummer six months ahead?”

“The old lady was weak on figures,” said Jonathon. “That I do know. She could scarcely add two and two. Edward could have done better.”

“Adding figures is nothing to do with writing the name of the month,” said Daniel coldly. He stared at Jonathon, seeming to expect to read something in his face.

“All that vagueness of the brain is connected. Surely you must know that medical fact.”

“Perhaps. But whatever you say, this needs looking into. We need facts, not suppositions.”

Charlotte sprang up.

“What are you going to do?”

“Write to Mallinson. See if he can throw any light on the matter. There’s no doubt that the letter was posted in Venice. But by whom?”

It seemed that Flora, in wishing that Lady Tameson were there to share their party, had set some strange forces in motion. The old lady had returned to haunt Christmas.

Doctor Munro had been sent for to observe and pronounce on Flora’s great improvement. The faithful old man was touched and delighted.

“So there you are, lassie. You’ve done for yourself what none of us slow old doctors could do. How did it happen, would you mind telling me?”

“Yes, Great-aunt Tameson rang her bell and I got such a fright I jumped up immediately.”

“Aye. The shock would have done it. Released the paralysis, so to speak. But what is this you’re saying? Did the old lady have her ghost conveniently to hand to pick up that bell?”

“It was an accident, doctor,” Charlotte said quickly. “One of the servants knocked the bell over, and is afraid to admit to it since no one had any business in that room.”

Doctor Munro nodded.

“Then I think you should seek out the culprit, Mrs. Meryon, and give her a medal. Poor Lady Tameson, eh? And she peaceful in her grave this three months.”

But was she? The strange mystery, far from clearing, became intensified after a visit from the vicar, Mr. Clayton. He was extremely puzzled. He produced a letter written in the same shaky black writing as the one received by Charlotte and said that someone signing herself the Contessa Tameson Barrata was making inquiries about the grave of her son.