The Master of the Priory

by Annie Haynes

  As she went downstairs she heard voices and recognized that there were visitors with Sir Oswald. Of course Maisie would be there too. She was sure of that, and she hesitated, frowning a little. Of all things she hated meeting strangers, yet Sir Oswald might expect her to look after the child.

  As she stood there a voice said quickly, “No, don’t you bother, Davenant, old man. I will find it myself. First floor, second room on left, you said, didn’t you?”

  Commonplace words enough, yet the very sound of them was enough to drive the blood from Elizabeth’s cheeks, to make her catch at the balustrade for support as though her very limbs were paralysed. She cast one horrified glance around, then she turned quickly, her one thought for flight, she must at all hazards get away and hide herself from the gaze of the man below.

  Her very haste brought about the catastrophe she was most anxious to avoid. The long end of her scarf caught in the carved edge of the balustrade. She tugged at it; the man, leaping upstairs two at a time behind her, paused, seeing she was in difficulties, and moved to help her. As he bent forward she gave one desperate wrench, there was a tearing sound, and she was free.

  “Oh, I wish you had let me help you,” the man said regretfully. “I am sure I would have done it without that—”

  He stopped suddenly, the words on his lips dying away in horrified amazement.

  For as Elizabeth bent forward her glasses had slipped down. He had looked right into her eyes.

  “You!” he breathed, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. “You! What are you doing here?”

  The governess thrust back her glasses, her breath coming in long painful gasps.

  “I am Maisie’s governess. Let me go, Mr. Carlyn.”

  Frank Carlyn fell back a step. “You are Maisie’s governess! Good heavens!”

  But the governess was hurrying away from him upstairs. Below in the hall Sir Oswald was waiting. Sybil Lorrimer and Barbara Burford stood in the doorway talking to Maisie. He sprang after that tall, dark figure already gaining the shelter of the corridor.

  “This won’t do,” he said eagerly. “Don’t you know that I have been searching everywhere for you?”

  “I know that you will drive me from my poor little refuge,” Elizabeth answered him bitterly. “Listen, Sir Oswald is calling you. Indeed I cannot talk to you now.”

  “Another time, then,” Frank Carlyn pleaded. “We are dining here to-morrow. Will you be in the garden by the fountain afterwards?”

  “If—if I can.” Elizabeth caught the echo of Sybil Lorrimer’s voice coming upstairs with Barbara. She burst away desperately. “But go—go now. Do you want to ruin me?” she gasped.

  Chapter Seven

  THE MOON was shining brightly—too brightly, Elizabeth Martin thought, shivering as she stood just inside the open library window. Dinner was practically over, she had heard Lady Davenant and her guests go into the drawing-room, but she could catch the sound of voices, the odour of tobacco smoke from the dining-room. She knew, however, that Sir Oswald never sat long over the wine, it was time she made her way to the summerhouse near the fountain if she meant to keep her appointment with Frank Carlyn.

  She let herself out quietly and stole across the lawn, taking care to keep within the shadow of the trees. Opposite the house there was the wall overlooking the Dutch garden, with a flight of steps leading down. Elizabeth glanced round fearfully as she hurried on, and started nervously as some nocturnal bird rustled among the trees. She ran across the garden. In the moonlight it was possible to see the softened radiance of the flowers gleaming like jewels in their quaint, stiff beds. At the farther side stood the summer-house; it was a favourite resort with the Davenants and their guests, combining as it did with a view of the Priory a glimpse of the distant Welsh hills.

  Elizabeth drew a deep sigh of relief as she reached it, then she loosened the lace shawl in which she had shrouded her head and shoulders. As usual, she wore her smoke-coloured spectacles, and her hair was drawn low over her forehead, but even in the moonlight it was easy to see that her face was white, and that she was trembling all over.

  She had not long to wait. Very soon she saw a dark form strolling across the lawn, and in another moment Frank Carlyn stood in the doorway.

  Elizabeth moved forward.

  “Well, I am here,” she said quietly.

  Carlyn started. “I ought to have been here first, but I couldn’t get away before,” he said apologetically, “I hope you have not been waiting long.”

  The words were commonplace enough, but the man’s face was tense and strained, his hands were clenched nervously.

  “Oh, what does that matter?” Elizabeth broke in impatiently. “The question is what do you want from me? Why did you bring me here at all? That is all that matters now.”

  “All that matters,” Carlyn echoed hoarsely. “It seems to me that everything matters. Can’t you see that something must be done—that things can’t go on like this?”

  Elizabeth put up her hands and threw back her shawl with a quick, impatient gesture as if it were stifling her. Then she moved a step nearer.

  “What does that mean exactly? What things can’t go one like this?”

  Carlyn looked at her for a moment, his eyes resting on the sleek dark head, then his face hardened.

  “You cannot stay here as Maisie’s governess,” he said abruptly.

  Elizabeth did not move, not a muscle in her face stirred.

  “Why not? Am I not in every way satisfactory? Has not Lady Davenant told you what a jewel of a governess she has secured? One with the highest references from her friend, Mrs. Sunningdale?” There was an indescribable bitterness in her tone.

  Frank Carlyn’s boyish face was downcast, his eyes sank before those of the woman opposite.

  “Of course I have heard it,” he burst out. “It seems to me that I have heard nothing else since I came here, but don’t you see that all this makes it impossible for you to stop here?”

  “All what?” There was no meekness in the governess’s attitude now, her tone was both passionate and imperious.

  Young Carlyn groaned aloud.

  “You must know—you must understand that I can’t keep silence when I know—the Davenants are Barbara’s friends—”

  “I think I do understand now,” Elizabeth spoke in a dangerously quiet tone; she took off her glasses and threw them on the little rustic table beside her. “I am not good enough to be governess to Miss Burford’s friend; but you—you are good enough to marry Miss Burford.”

  The scorn in her tone made the man wince as though he had been lashed.

  There was a momentary silence, Elizabeth watching his changes of expression contemptuously. At last he spoke, and his tone was curiously changed:

  “Heaven knows I don’t want to minimize my share in the matter. If the worst had happened I should have spoken out, I should have—”

  “You would have been very brave, doubtless,” Elizabeth interrupted him mercilessly. “But, as matters stood, you choose the easier path. I congratulate you on your wisdom, Mr. Carlyn.”

  Frank Carlyn passed his hand over his forehead. He thought wearily that never before had man been placed in so horrible a dilemma. He had thought, as they drove to the Priory, that his duty was clear here, there could be no doubt about it. But here, looking at the woman’s white face, at her blazing eyes, it seemed quite a different matter.

  “I don’t know what I ought to do,” he capitulated weakly. “But I am sure, Mrs.—”

  “Hush!” Elizabeth interrupted him sharply. “Not that. Never that name again. Remember that even the trees and bushes have ears sometimes. I will tell you what you must do, Mr. Carlyn. You must go your way and leave me to go mine. Believe me, I shall not hurt the Davenants, or Maisie, and you—you can marry Miss Burford and forget all about me.”

  “That is so likely, is it not?” young Carlyn questioned moodily. “You don’t know how the thought of that past day has haunted me ever since.” He kicked a loose s
tone about carelessly, apparently watching that and not Elizabeth. “I couldn’t imagine how you had got away. I thought—feared that some evil had befallen you.”

  “That I was dead, you mean?” Elizabeth said bitterly. “No, I was not so happy. I got out at the next station and by walking across country got on to another line, then I reached a friend and was safe. It isn’t so difficult to escape the police as you think, Mr. Carlyn. And I couldn’t stay to face things out. There were people”—she put up her hands to her throat as if the simple collar were about to choke her—“living then that it would have killed—”

  “You couldn’t have been blamed,” Frank Carlyn began hotly.

  “No?” Elizabeth laughed bitterly. “Yet I am not good enough to teach little Maisie. You are not very logical, Mr. Carlyn.”

  The man’s face altered indefinably. “That seems quite different,” he muttered sullenly. “And Davenant is such a good chap.”

  Elizabeth drew her shrouding cloak closely round her once more.

  “Oh, yes, I quite appreciate your point of view,” she said with a hard laugh. “But I shall not act upon it. I shall stay here until I am driven out. That is all there is to be said between us. For the future we are strangers.”

  “Oh, but—” Frank Carlyn protested weakly. “I shall want always to know where you are. And if you are in any difficulty you know I owe you—”

  Elizabeth’s slight figure stiffened. “Please do not go on. There are some things best left unsaid. Be assured that I, at any rate, am in no danger of forgetting what I owe to you.”

  She drew her shawl closely over head and shoulders and made a movement to pass him.

  “One moment.” He stepped before her quickly and then for the first time she saw that he held a small packet.

  “This is yours. I have kept it ever since—that day, hoping that sometime I might have the opportunity of restoring it to you.”

  Elizabeth took it from him rather gingerly. “What is it? I don’t know.” Then, as she opened it and saw the three miniatures inside her expression changed. “My father’s and mother’s portraits. Oh, how did you get them?”

  Neither of them heard a faint rustling among the trees behind the summer-house, no instinct warned them that they had an unseen auditor.

  “I brought them away that day,” Carlyn answered. “I knew that they might have led to your identification.”

  “I see.” Elizabeth’s tone was perceptibly altered. “Yes, I have wondered sometimes that they did not,” she added. “Well, Mr. Carlyn, I could forgive you a great deal for bringing me these.”

  She slipped them inside her frock and with a slight inclination of her head moved away. Frank Carlyn followed her.

  “But when shall I see you again? How shall I know where you are and what you are doing?”

  A sarcastic smile played about Elizabeth’s mouth.

  “Is there any necessity that you should do either?” she questioned. “You seem to forget what lies between us, Mr. Carlyn. Best for you and best for me that we never hear one another’s name again.”

  She walked quickly away from him, carefully keeping in the shadows that skirted the house.

  Carlyn waited for a minute or two. He lighted a cigar and the end made a tiny, tapering light against the darkness of the trees. But presently he, too, went back to the house, walking openly across the lawn. When he had stepped inside the French window of the small drawing-room a third figure crept out from the bushes near the summer-house, a slight figure this and one that kept more carefully out of sight than even the governess had done.

  Meanwhile, as Elizabeth was crossing the hall, she heard her name called in Sir Oswald’s voice. He was just coming out of the library.

  “Could you spare me a few minutes, Miss Martin? Three letters have come for me by the last post. I should be much obliged if you would read them to me.”

  “Certainly, Sir Oswald.” The governess was breathing more heavily than usual, otherwise she betrayed no sign of the exciting interview through which she had just passed.

  She followed Sir Oswald into the study, and opened the letters. There was nothing in them of importance, but she made brief notes of the answers he wished sent. Then she rose.

  “If that is all, Sir Oswald, I will write the replies in the schoolroom.”

  “Thank you. And I suppose I must return to my guests, though a blind host is not sufficiently useful to be much missed. Why wouldn’t you dine with us to-night, Miss Martin?”

  The sudden question took the governess aback.

  “I—Lady Davenant was kind enough to ask me,” she stammered. “But I had a headache.”

  “Not bad enough to have prevented your dining, if you had wished, I fancy,” Sir Oswald said shrewdly. “Do you know that I have promised to read you a lesson on unsociability, Miss Martin? Lady Treadstone—”

  “Ah!” Elizabeth caught her breath sharply.

  “Lady Treadstone tells me you have refused every invitation she has sent you,” Sir Oswald pursued. He was looking faintly amused in spite of the apparent sternness of his tone. “What excuse can you make for yourself?”

  “None!” Elizabeth, answered him sharply. I do not wish to visit Lady Treadstone, Sir Oswald.”

  Sir Oswald raised his brows. “Are you not a little unsociable, Miss Martin? Lady Treadstone has taken a great fancy to you, she told me as much. Even if it should not be reciprocal—”

  “It is not!” Elizabeth interrupted him, holding up her head with a little proud gesture that had once been habitual with her. “I do not like Lady Treadstone”—her hand straying to the front of her bodice, clutching at the miniature case—“I—I hate her.”

  “You hate her?” Sir Oswald was frankly amazed. Pleasant, kindly Lady Treadstone seemed to him the last person in the world to have inspired the depth of dislike of which the girl’s tone spoke. “But you know so little of her. Don’t you think you—”

  “I know quite enough of her.” Elizabeth’s tone was hard and resentful. To herself she was saying that it was cruel that all the mistakes in her past should meet her here, that never should she be able to live it down. “I beg your pardon, Sir Oswald. If you wish me to take Maisie to lunch with her, of course it is a different matter, but for myself I do not wish to visit or even to see Lady Treadstone.”

  Sir Oswald bent his head. Blind as he was, he could not help realizing that there was some hint of mystery here, but he was of too loyal a nature to question her.

  “As you like,” he said simply. “I certainly should not wish you to do anything you disliked. You believe that, I hope.” He moved forward a step as he spoke and held out his hand. Some forlorn note in Elizabeth’s voice had roused the instinct of protection that is dormant in every man.

  He did not understand that tone and gesture alike were a revelation to Elizabeth, the betrayal of a feeling whose very existence she had never suspected and from which she shrank as far from some deadly peril. A rush of crimson swept over her face, then receded, leaving it deadly white. She ignored the outstretched hand.

  “You are exceedingly kind, Sir Oswald,” she managed to say as she opened the door. “I hope I shall never forget the gratitude I owe both to you and Lady Davenant.”

  Chapter Eight

  “YOU ARE quite sure you don’t mind my having the car, Oswald?” Sybil Lorrimer looked in at the library door.

  Sir Oswald was sitting near the window. He raised his head.

  “Why, of course I don’t. I shall be only too delighted,” he said, speaking with more truth than Sybil guessed. That she had asked to have the car for a long day’s shopping in Birmingham meant that they would have a day without her at the Priory. And a day without Sybil was beginning to be a day of peace for Sir Oswald. The gratitude and mild liking he had formerly entertained for her was rapidly turning into something very like absolute dislike. It seemed to him that she was becoming ubiquitous, he found it impossible to stir out of doors without meeting her, and in the house she was alwa
ys at his elbow with offers of service.

  More than once Sir Oswald had tried to hint to his mother that Sybil’s stay had lasted long enough, but Lady Davenant liked the girl. In some way she had made herself necessary to her, and, noting her unwillingness, Sir Oswald had ceased to press the matter.

  To-day he had been sitting quietly in his chair, thinking of Elizabeth: of her sweet, low tones, of the faint, elusive fragrance that clung about her. He was asking himself what could be the cause of the coldness with which she was undoubtedly treating him; it was impossible that he could have offended her, and yet the difference was unmistakable.

  With a sigh of annoyance he heard Sybil come farther into the room. He wished he had gone into his study where he was less likely to be invaded.

  But Sybil was apparently not in one of her talkative moods. He heard her cross the room, then there followed a rustling of paper. He bore it in silence for a minute of two, then he said in a tone of mild exasperation:

  “What are you doing, Sybil? Surely you have the papers in the morning-room?”

  “Not the paper I want,” Sybil answered. “You only have one copy and it is brought here. I have found what I wanted now. It was only an advertisement I saw the other day.”

  “Of a new hat shop?” Sir Oswald questioned jestingly.

  “No, not that,” Sybil answered absently. She was copying an address into her notebook. It stood at the bottom of a paragraph which at first sight it seemed impossible to connect with pretty, dainty Sybil Lorrimer.

  “Private Detective Agency,” it was headed. “Messrs. Gregg and Stubbs are prepared to conduct inquiries on the newest lines. Delicate investigations arranged with the utmost secrecy. Highest testimonials can be given. Address: Messrs. Gregg and Stubbs, 2A, Palmer Buildings, New Fish Street, Birmingham.”

  Sybil closed her notebook and put it in her satchel. Then she hesitated a moment.