The Alington Inheritance (The Miss Silver Mysteries Book 31)

by Patricia Wentworth

  It was Sunday. It seemed such a long, long time since Saturday afternoon.

  Caroline went on talking.

  ‘Then, he says, you started up out of nowhere and stood in the middle of the road with your arms out to stop the car.’

  Jenny felt she had to explain.

  ‘I felt desperate. The bag wasn’t heavy to start with, but it was getting heavier and heavier. I knew that if I didn’t get a lift I shouldn’t be able to get far enough not to be caught. I knew they would try to catch me. Has he told you who I am?’

  ‘He told me your name – that you were Jenny Forbes.’

  Jenny repeated the words.

  ‘Yes, I’m Jenny Forbes. But I didn’t know it till yesterday afternoon. I knew that Richard Forbes was my father and Jennifer Hill was my mother, but I didn’t know that they were married. They kept it a secret. It was the war, you know, and my father was killed, and my mother was struck on the head in an air raid – she never spoke again. They sent her to Garsty.’

  ‘Who is Garsty?’

  ‘She had been Jennifer’s governess. She took her in. Her house was just opposite the gates of Alington House. When the Forbes came there – Colonel Forbes inherited, you know – Mrs Forbes came to see Garsty. She wanted her to move right away, and to take me with her, but Garsty wouldn’t.’ It all came pouring out – Garsty’s accident, and how she had said that the letter from her father to her mother was in the little chest of drawers, and how she had looked for it after Garsty was gone, and how she couldn’t find it, and how Mac had taken it. ‘I heard him say so. I wouldn’t have believed it from anyone else. You just can’t believe that sort of thing about the people you know, can you?’ The truthful eyes looked into Caroline’s. ‘You just can’t. But I heard him say it. I was behind the curtain, and they didn’t know I was there, and he said it. He took my father’s letter, the one in which he called her his wife.’

  Caroline looked back. Was the child really as unworldly as she seemed? It didn’t seem possible, not at this time of day. She said,

  ‘He called her his wife? But –’ she hesitated – ‘it may only have been that that was how he thought of her. That wouldn’t make a marriage.’

  ‘No – I know it wouldn’t. I’d known about the letter when Garsty died. She told me about it, and I thought, like you said, it was just that he thought of her like that. But Mac said when I was behind the window curtain and he was talking to his mother and they thought they were alone – Mac said he’d been to Somerset House and he had seen the certificate. They had been married five months when my father was killed.’

  ‘Oh, my dear child!’

  Jenny went on looking at her.

  ‘It’s a sad story, isn’t it? My mother died the night after I was born. I’ve thought about it a lot, and it seems as if it was sad for me and for Garsty, but not really sad for them – for my father and mother. I think they loved one another very much, and they would be together again. So it wasn’t sad for them, was it? Do you think that Mac burned that letter?’

  ‘I don’t know, my dear. I think he would do what was safest for himself.’

  ‘Yes, I thought so too.’ She gave a deep sigh and said, ‘It doesn’t really matter, does it? He wrote to her and she saw it, and that is all that really matters.’

  There was a little stir at the door and Richard came in with a tray. There were large cups on it, and a big teapot, and a gold and white milk-jug. On a plate there were slices of plain cake and piledup biscuits.

  ‘I’m frightfully hungry,’ he said.

  Jenny suddenly felt hungry too. Her spirits rose. Everything was all right. She was quite, quite safe.

  FOURTEEN

  THEY WERE JUST finishing the plate of biscuits and the cake, and Richard was drinking his third cup of tea, when there came a tapping at the door.

  ‘Oh, no!’ said Richard. He finished his tea in a hurry and put down his cup. ‘Not at this hour! It’s not decent! Shall I tell her so?’

  Caroline laughed. ‘It’s no use,’ she said. Then she turned to Jenny. ‘It will be my next-door neighbour, Mrs Merridew. I wonder what she’ll have thought up this time. I’d better go and see.’

  The tapping continued – three taps and a pause – three more taps and another pause. It suggested what Caroline knew only too well was behind it, inquisitiveness and pertinacity. She opened the door, and was aware as she did so that it was being noted that this was not the first time it had been opened that day. Oh dear, no – Mr Richard had been in and a girl. Now why a girl so early in the morning? The words, unspoken, floated almost visibly on the air.

  Mrs Merridew stood there with a jug in her hand. She was dressed. She had tidied her hair, and she had put on a hat. She was a small woman with little grey eyes which were sharply aware of everything in range and suspicious of everything beyond it. She held out the jug and began at once on what was obviously a prepared speech.

  ‘Oh, my dear Miss Danesworth, do forgive me, but I am short of milk for my early morning tea, and you’ve always been so kind about obliging me. The fact is that Timmy has been a very naughty cat. You know, I told you how clever he was at knocking off the top of the milk-bottle when he wanted a drink—’

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  ‘He’s too clever about it – he really is. But this morning he knocked a little too hard, and the bottle fell down and all the milk was spilt. So if you could just let me have enough for his breakfast – and perhaps for my early tea—’

  Caroline had not a suspicious nature, but the excuse had served before and she had her doubts – she had her very grave doubts about it.

  Mrs Merridew stepped over the threshold, jug in hand.

  ‘Your nephew came back this morning? Very early, very early indeed?’

  ‘Yes, he did. Come this way, Mrs Merridew, if you will. I’ve got plenty of milk.’

  ‘Was he alone?’ said Mrs Merridew, cocking her head on one side.

  ‘Oh, no. He brought Jenny Forbes to stay with me.’

  ‘Jenny Forbes? And who is she? It’s not a very usual name in these parts – Scotch, I believe. But of course it’s his name too. How stupid of me! Really so very stupid! Is she a relation?’

  Caroline said with a calm born of long practice, ‘I suppose you may call her that. She’s a connection at any rate.’

  ‘Oh, that sounds quite exciting!’

  They had reached the kitchen at the back of the house. Caroline said,

  ‘I haven’t been able to get excited about it, but then I haven’t your imagination.’

  Mrs Merridew took this remark as a compliment, a little to Caroline’s relief. She didn’t want to give offence. She wanted peace. She remembered with a slightly guilty feeling that Richard was wont to accuse her of preferring peace at any price. She went rather quickly into the larder and fetched out a big jug of milk.

  ‘How much do you want? I’ve got heaps.’

  ‘Oh, you have! Did you know this girl was coming?’

  ‘Jenny? Well it was always possible.’

  This was as far as Caroline could go in the direction of concealment. She argued against her own sense of guilt. Well, it wasn’t quite true, but it was very nearly true, Richard being what he was. Anything was possible.

  And then Mrs Merridew was saying, ‘They must have made a very early start – very early indeed. Why, you’re not dressed!’

  She had been aware of that from the first moment when Caroline had opened the door. She herself was dressed. She had flung on her clothes in record time, and she had combed through her neat grey curls, so different from Caroline’s large untidy ones, and she had put on her shoes and stockings, and thought of the story about Timmy, and taken the milk-jug, all in less than a quarter of an hour. She had been very clever, she had been very clever indeed.

  ‘No,’ said Caroline. ‘I must have overslept. I’m not dressed, and I must get dressed.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course you must. I’m just going.’

  But Mrs Merridew di
dn’t go. She didn’t even pick up the jug of milk which she had borrowed. She came a step nearer, and she said in a confidential undertone,

  ‘It’s a very early hour. They’re not – not engaged—’

  There were two courses open to Caroline, she could laugh or she could lose her temper. She chose to laugh.

  ‘I haven’t the least idea,’ she said, ‘and I shouldn’t dream of asking.’

  Mrs Merridew picked up the milk-jug, and then set it down again.

  ‘Oh, no – no. Of course not. I didn’t mean – it’s just – so very early in the morning – I couldn’t help wondering—’

  ‘I don’t think there is anything to wonder about. We can go in and ask them why they started so early if you’d really like to know.’

  Mrs Merridew picked up the jug again in a hurry.

  ‘Oh, no – no, of course not. It’s so very good of you to oblige me with the milk. Timmy will be most grateful. I won’t keep you. So thoughtless of me – and you must be wanting to dress.’

  Caroline saw her to the door and shut it after her. Then she came back to the sitting-room.

  The two young people were standing at the window which looked out on the apple trees and the flowery border. They turned as she came in.

  ‘That was Mrs Merridew.’

  ‘It would be!’ Richard’s tone was exasperated.

  ‘Yes, I know. She is very inquisitive, and I’d love to snub her, but it’s no use. If you live next door to someone you’ve just got to get on with them, and I don’t think she knows how inquisitive she is. Now I’ve got to go up and dress. I shan’t be long. Would Jenny like to come up with me? And you can put the car away, Richard.’

  FIFTEEN

  MEG WAS THE first of the children to wake at Alington House. It was only half past six, and she wasn’t supposed to wake Joyce until a quarter past seven. She wasn’t really supposed to wake her up then, especially when they had been out to tea the day before. Joyce was not really supposed to be woken up before half past seven. A quarter past was as far as Meg would go, and if she was awake earlier – well, there were ways. You couldn’t say she was waking Joyce up if she got out of bed and pulled out a drawer and then shut it again with a good vigorous push. She tried this twice, and Joyce just lay there and slept. It was too aggravating.

  Suddenly she thought about Jenny. She would open her own door very softly and creep across to Jenny’s door and open that, and there she would stay. She would get into Jenny’s bed, lovely and warm. And it would serve Joyce right if she woke up and found she was alone. She wouldn’t like that.

  She got out and went tiptoe to the door and across the passage. She wouldn’t feel safe until she was inside Jenny’s room with the door shut. And she must go slowly, slowly. It was all she could do to restrain herself, especially when she got near the door into Jenny’s room, but she managed it.

  She was well inside the room with the door shut behind her before she saw that Jenny wasn’t there. She stood just a yard inside the door. She had stopped to turn round and fasten the door very carefully. She had been so intent on what she was doing that she hadn’t noticed the bed. And it was empty. There was no Jenny. It was empty, and the bed was made. It was quite made. The eiderdown was on and a chintz coverlet over it. Meg came slowly forward and put her hand on the blue roses of the coverlet. They were quite, quite cold. There was no warmth left in the bed. Jenny must have been up a long, long time.

  Meg was frightened, and she didn’t know why. If she had known why, it wouldn’t have been so frightening. She didn’t know why she was frightened, but she was frightened. She stood quite still and thought. It was Sunday morning. Perhaps Jenny had gone to church. Then she remembered that she had asked Jenny if she was going to church early, and Jenny had said no. Perhaps she had changed her mind. Perhaps she had gone to church after all.

  She hadn’t. She hadn’t gone to church. Meg knew it. And then her eyes fell on the clock which stood on the mantelpiece. It was an old-fashioned clock in a brown leather case, and it said half past six. The early morning service wasn’t till eight o’clock. She had woken up early, and Jenny had been earlier still. Where had she gone to? Where had Jenny gone?

  Meg was shivering. She went to the dressing-table. Jenny’s comb and brush were gone. They had been her mother’s, and the brush had a little J.H. on the back. The comb had a silver ridge, but no initials. Meg looked in the drawers. She looked desperately, but she did not find anything. Jenny had gone. Her washing things were gone too – her toothbrush, her nailbrush, her nail-scissors. And her shoes.

  It was no use looking any more. Jenny had gone away. She hadn’t said she was going, and she hadn’t said good-bye. She had just gone.

  Meg crept back to her room.

  Things you can’t understand are always the hardest to bear. To know why is the first step to consolation. Meg didn’t know anything at all except that Jenny had gone. It seemed like the end of the world. She lay and cried until she couldn’t cry any more.

  The house woke slowly. Carter brought Mrs Forbes her tea at half past seven. As she passed the little girls’ door on her way back she saw Meg standing there barefoot and trembling.

  ‘What is it? Meg, what is it? What’s the matter? Is Joyce ill?’

  Meg shook her head. The tears came rushing from her eyes again.

  ‘No, not Joyce. She’s still asleep. How she can! It’s Jenny – she’s gone!’

  It was a shock. Carter’s temper flared.

  ‘What nonsense are you talking, Meg? And Jenny had better be punctual in the mornings, or she’ll have your mother after her!’

  Meg dissolved into helpless weeping.

  ‘She’s gone! Oh, Carter, she’s gone! Oh, Carter!’

  Carter ran across the landing and opened Jenny’s door. Its neatness, its silence, its emptiness, seemed to paralyse her. It looked as it had done before Jenny came there to live. It just wasn’t Jenny’s room any more.

  As they stood there together, Mrs Forbes opened the door of her room. She wore an expansive dressing-gown, and her hair was as neat as if she had spent the preceding hours at a ball. She frowned, told Meg to go to her room, and asked Carter what she was looking for. Meg, with her door opened a chink, listened, ready to run and get into bed if her mother’s attention should turn her way. At the moment it was all taken up with Carter.

  ‘Where’s Jenny?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What nonsense is this? Isn’t she with the children? She ought to be!’

  Carter shook her head dumbly.

  ‘She’s – she’s gone,’ she said.

  A cold fear sharpened Mrs Forbes’ voice. She said quickly,

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Her brush and comb’s gone, and her washing things. Oh, ma’am, I think she’s gone!’

  ‘Nonsense!’

  At the tone of her mother’s voice Meg trembled and ran for safety to her bed. Out on the landing Mrs Forbes pushed past Carter, who was too dumb-founded to get out of her way, and herself made a quick and thorough search of the room. When she had finished she knew very well that Jenny was gone, and she knew what she had taken with her. That meant a case. Jenny had brought up a case with some of her things in it. It had been in the cupboard. It was not there now. Without a word she turned and went along the passage to Mac’s room.

  He was awake, lying on his back with his hands behind his head. Mrs Forbes shut the door and came to the foot of the bed.

  ‘She’s gone!’

  When she spoke the anger came up in her so strongly that she could have killed Jenny. For a moment she knew it and exulted in it. The next she commanded herself. She was even a little shocked. She must take care. Yes, she must take care.

  Mac did not move. He said in a voice which he kept lazy with an effort,

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said Jenny had gone.’

  ‘What makes you think so?’

  ‘I don’t think anything
. It’s the plain fact.’

  ‘I asked you what made you think that she had gone.’

  His eyes were on her. He was the stronger of the two. She threw out her hands in a gesture and said,

  ‘I don’t think anything about it. I know she has gone. She has taken the small case that she brought here with her night things in it. Her brush and comb have gone, and her washing things. Her bed has not been slept in, but the dress she wore last night is hanging in the cupboard. Her coat is gone. She has gone.’

  There was a pause. Then he said,

  ‘Why?’

  Mrs Forbes stared.

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure.’

  ‘You didn’t come into her room last night and say anything?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t!’

  Their eyes met. She sustained his look and was inwardly thankful that she had nothing to hide. Mac took his hands from behind his head and got up.

  ‘I’d better get dressed,’ he said. ‘She can’t have gone very far. What money has she got?’

  ‘I don’t know. Not very much.’

  ‘You don’t know how much?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘All right, I’ll get dressed, and then we can decide what to do. We shall have to be careful. If she’s Jenny Hill, we have no control at all. But if she’s Jenny Forbes—’

  Mrs Forbes said, ‘Hush! Are you mad?’

  He laughed.

  ‘No, I’m not mad. It just wants thinking about, that’s all. Now go along and let me get dressed.’

  She turned and went out of the room. There were things she wanted to say, but she did not say them. She was a strong high-handed woman, but there were times when her eldest son frightened her. This was one of those times. She turned and went.