Grey Mask

by Patricia Wentworth

  Margaret gave herself a mental shake. It was like a ridiculous argument in a dream. It meant nothing; it could not possibly mean anything. She laughed a little.

  “I don’t really know which of her names came first; but these are her initials, and this is her desk.”

  “What’s in it?” said Greta.

  “It’s empty. I’m going to put it away.”

  “Margaret, do open it! I want to see if it’s like mine inside. Mine opened like this.”

  She slid the lock to one side, and the lid came up as she pulled at it.

  Margaret came round the table.

  “There’s really nothing in it, Greta-just a pencil or two.”

  The pencils were plain cedar pencils. Only one had been cut. Margaret lifted out the tray.

  “You see, there’s nothing more.”

  Greta bent closer.

  “Mine had a little drawer down here-a little thin drawer, in under the place where the ink goes. That’s where my letter was-the bit with Esther Brandon on it, you know. I shouldn’t have found my little drawer, only I dropped the desk carrying it down, and a bit of the wood broke, and I saw there was a drawer. And I hooked it out with a hairpin, and there was a tiny little scrap of scrooged up paper wedged in under it. It came out when I got the drawer out. Margaret yours has got a drawer there too-I can feel it wobble! Ooh! It’s coming out! Margaret, there’s something in it!”

  Margaret pushed her aside. The little drawer had started from its place. There was a folded paper in it. She pulled the drawer right out.

  The paper was a long envelope, doubled to fit the drawer. The minute her fingers touched it, the fear came back. She stood looking at the wrong side of the envelope, dreading to turn it around.

  “What is it?” said Greta. “Margaret, do look-do look quickly!”

  Margaret Langton turned the envelope. It was of thick yellowish paper. It had a long crease down the middle, and three creases running across it. At one end there was an endorsement in a bold, clear hand:

  “Our declaration of marriage.

  E.S.”

  “Oh!” said Greta. She pinched Margaret violently. “Oh, -Margaret! How thrilling!”

  Margaret frowned at the bold, clear writing. It was utterly strange to her. Who was E.S.? Esther Brandon had become Esther Langton, and then Esther Pelham. Who was E.S.? It wasn’t her mother’s writing at all. She hardly felt Greta’s clutch on her arm.

  “Margaret-Margaret! It’s my father’s writing!”

  She said, “Nonsense!” in a deep, loud voice that filled the little room and made an echo there.

  Greta let go of Margaret’s arm and snatched the envelope.

  “It is! It is! It’s poor Papa’s very own writing. It is really! And it’s his initials too-E.S. for Edward Standing.”

  Margaret put a rigid, steady hand on the paper.

  “Give it back to me, please.”

  “It says ‘Our declaration of marriage.’ Margaret, it’s my father’s writing! Open it-open it quickly! Don’t you see how frightfully important it is? It’s what Mr. Hale was looking for. It really is Papa’s writing. Do-do open it!”

  “Hush,” said Margaret.

  Greta flung her arms about her; and it was only when those warm arms touched her that Margaret knew how cold was. She was very cold, and very much afraid.

  Greta hugged her.

  “Oh Margaret darling, it was your mother’s desk! Oh, Margaret, wouldn’t it be thrilling if we were sisters?”

  Margaret pushed her away with violence.

  “You little fool! Hold your tongue!”

  Greta stared, most innocently aggrieved.

  “Why, I’d love to be your sister. Do-do open it!”

  Margaret lifted the flap of the envelope. It had been stuck down, but only very lightly; the flap came up without tearing.

  The envelope was empty.

  CHAPTER XXVTI

  Margaret, why do you look like that?”

  “There’s nothing in it-the envelope’s empty.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Look for yourself.”

  Greta held the envelope up to the light, turned it over, shook it. There was nothing inside.

  “What a funny thing! It is Papa’s writing, you know- and his initials, and-look here! Something’s been rubbed out! Look-under the E.S.! Can’t you see the paper’s all rubbed?”

  She pressed against Margaret, pushing the envelope into her hand, pointing with a plump pink finger. Under the initials E.S. the paper was roughened as if it had been scraped-very carefully and lightly scraped.

  Margaret held it close under the light. Something had certainly been erased-initials? As she turned the paper, a faint marking just showed here and there. Two letters had been written and then erased. Of the first initial she could make nothing. The second-no, there was nothing to be made of that either. No one could make anything of those faint marks. Why should she think that the second letter was a B?

  She went over to the walnut bureau and unlocked one of the drawers. And then, as she stood there with her back to Greta, she had a moment of sudden, vivid memory. The endorsement on the envelope caught her eye, and instantly that flash of memory followed. She was a child of five or six pushing open the door of a room. The door showed the sun streaming in from a long window. The light fell across her mother’s white dress. The picture was quite extraordinarily clear-Esther Langton in a white muslin dress that swept the ground and was edged with little gathered frills; she had a black velvet ribbon at her waist, and a bunch of clove carnations where the muslin fichu crossed her breast; she was bare-headed; the sun shone on her black hair. There was another woman in the room, little and plump, in a lilac dress. They did not see Margaret. She pushed the door, and she heard her mother say, “It was marriage by declaration.” She did not know what the word meant, but she liked the sound of it. She said it to herself like a song, accenting it very much: “Declaration-declaration.” The child’s pleasure in the rhythm came back sharply. Then her mother said, “Lesbia-the child!” and they saw her.

  There was no more of the picture than that. It did not come back to her in words, but as a single momentary impression. It came, and went again even as she put the envelope into the drawer and locked it away.

  The bell rang, and she turned to find Greta’s attention distracted.

  “I expect it’s Archie. He said he’d come round. I was just thinking he wasn’t coming, and wishing he would- only I shan’t tell him that.”

  Margaret went to the door. On an impulse she shut the sitting room door behind her and took half a step on to the landing to meet Archie Millar.

  “Archie, you have read all sorts of books. I’m being teased by something I don’t know the meaning of-you know how bothering that is. I heard it somewhere, and I want to know what it means.”

  Archie stared.

  “Why this sudden thirst for knowledge? And why out here in the cold? Isn’t it fit for the child’s young ears?”

  “Don’t be silly!” Margaret managed to laugh. “It just came into my head.”

  “What is it?”

  “Declaration. What’s marriage by declaration?”

  “Scotch marriage by declaration. The old Gretna Green business-only now-a-days you have to have a Scotch domicile. Beautifully simple arrangement-no parsons-no relations-no fuss.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Are you thinking of doin’ it? You can’t in this benighted country. Most inferior place, England.”

  “I’m Scotch too, every bit as much as you are. My mother-” Margaret’s voice failed suddenly. She forced it and asked another question: “Is it legal?”

  “Oh, perfectly. Not exactly smiled on, you know, but perfectly legal.”

  The sitting-room door opened. Greta appeared.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Discussin’ the Scotch marriage laws,” said Archie. “I’m all Scotch, and Margaret’s half-Scotch; and when Scot meets Scot, it’s
about ninety-nine to one that they’re talkin’ about law or theology. We were combinin’ them.”

  Greta giggled and then pouted.

  “I don’t know any theology. Must you talk it to me?”

  “You’re not Scotch.”

  “Oh, but I am-at least poor Papa was. Margaret, aren’t you frozen? Can’t we shut these doors?”

  As they went into the sitting-room, Margaret said in a startled voice;

  “Was your father Scotch? I thought you said you didn’t know where he came from.”

  “ ’I know he lived in Scotland when he was a boy, because once when I said how cold it was, he said, ‘Ah! You ought to have been brought up in Scotland like I was.’ And I said, ‘Oh, were you?’ and he wouldn’t say any more. But I’d rather not be Scotch if I’ve got to know about frightful things like laws.”

  “We’ll talk about anythin’ you like,” said Archie.

  “I’d like to talk about cars. Have you got a car? And will you take me out in it? Charles took me out to-day, and I can very nearly drive.”

  Archie cocked his eyebrows up and sang through his nose:

  “Don’t you ever take your sweetie in an auto!

  Don’t you ever take your girlie in a car!

  When she gently murmurs Charlie,

  You tread on the gas, and then-finale!

  So don’t you take your sweetie in a car!”

  Greta uttered a shriek of delight.

  “What a lovely one! Do you know any more? Have you got a ukelele? Can you play it? Will you teach me? Oh, do say you will! I want to have one most frightfully, and Mrs. Beauchamp said they weren’t ladylike, and Madame wouldn’t let any one have one at school, though we simply pined.”

  Margaret lost Archie’s answer. She put the old desk away in a corner and then sat down at the bureau and began to sort and tidy the pile of miscellaneous papers. Her thoughts frightened her. The picture of her mother standing in the sunlight kept coming back. It was astonishingly clear and distinct, astonishingly full of light and colour. Esther Langton’s black hair and brilliant bloom; the white dress; the red carnations; and the sunshine. The little lady in the lilac dress whose name was Lesbia. Her mother’s voice saying, “It was marriage by declaration.”

  She tore up a couple of letters and dropped them in the wastepaper basket. Words and sentences kept forming in her mind-Our declaration of marriage. E.S.-It’s poor Papa’s writing-it really is-and his initials-He was brought up in Scotland-I thought you didn’t know where he was brought up-Of course you have to have a Scotch domicile-I am half Scotch because of the Brandons-My mother had a Scotch domicile-Our declaration of marriage. E.S.-It was marriage by declaration.

  Margaret’s hand shook so much that the letter she was holding dropped from it. Why should she have thoughts like these? What had come over her? She tried to stop the thoughts, to fix her attention on the letters that had to be sorted. She tried to listen to Greta’s chatter.

  Greta and Archie were sitting very close together, Greta gazing earnestly into his face.

  “Charles has a moustache,” she said. “Why haven’t you got a moustache?”

  “Poor old Charles looks better when a good bit of his face is covered up.”

  “He doesn’t!”

  “How do you know? I know, because we played together in infancy, I knew the lad when he had a chin not yet enriched by one appearing hair-misquotation from Shakespeare.”

  Greta giggled.

  “What a frightful lot of Shakespeare you know! I don’t know any except ‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen’; and I always get that wrong after the first three lines. I do think Shakespeare’s silly. Don’t you?”

  “Poor old William!”

  “Frightfully silly,” said Greta.

  The words reached Margaret; but it was just as if Greta and Archie were a long way off-people in a play, talking about things which hadn’t anything to do with her. She thought strangely, passionately of her mother. It came over her how little she knew of her early life. What she remembered was Esther Pelham; and Esther Pelham never spoke of the time when she was Esther Langton or Esther Brandon. There seemed nothing strange about it. If Esther Pelham had never looked back into the past, it was because she was so abundantly satisfied with the present, a life full of enthusiasms, always offering fresh zest, colour, interest, new worlds to enjoy and conquer. Why should any woman with all this before her turn a remembering glance backwards? The one inexplicable thing in Esther Pelham’s life was poor little Freddy. That he should be the most devoted of her adorers was quite natural. But that she should have chosen him as a husband-He adored, and for seventeen years she had contentedly accepted his adoration. Margaret could never remember a break in this strangely happy relationship.

  Presently, when Freddy came in, she looked at him with puzzled eyes. One got fond of Freddy. But there was nothing romantic about him; and Esther Pelham had breathed and diffused romance.

  Freddy was cheerful and affectionate.

  “Well, well, it’s very nice to see you-and Miss Greta. No, no-I must remember my privileges. It’s Greta, isn’t it? And you’re remembering to call me Freddy, I hope. What? Nonsense! You must, or I shall think I’m getting old-and that won’t do-will it? Now, there’s Moreley Milton- Margaret, you remember Morley Milton-five years older than me and getting fat. Well, no one can say I’m getting fat. Well, old Morley’s just gone and got engaged to an heiress-done uncommon well for himself too, I heard-a Miss Gray-or is it May, or Way? I’ve got a shocking head for names. Why, only yesterday I met Jack Crosbie, and said to him ‘How’s Polly?’ and I give you my word he looked glum. And then I remembered Polly jilted him, and I took a plunge and said, ‘No-of course-of course-I mean Sylvia-how’s dear little Sylvia?’ And he looked-oh, dreadfully annoyed, and walked away, and the next man I met told me he and Sylvia don’t speak. But there, I hope he won’t bear malice, for I wouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings for the world-now would I?”

  Freddy flowed happily on. He paid Greta flowery compliments, and told endless pointless stories about people whom the others had never heard of, and in whom no one could possibly have taken any interest. Margaret had not seen him so like himself since her mother’s death. When he got up to go, she drew him on one side and asked the question which she had been waiting to ask.

  “Freddy, did Mother ever have a friend called Lesbia?”

  Freddy wrinkled his brow.

  “She’d such a lot of friends. I don’t think I ever knew anyone who had so many friends as Esther did.”

  “Yes, she had. But I remember someone called Lesbia when I was a little girl.”

  “What about her?”

  “Nothing. I just wondered who she was.”

  “Lesbia?” said Freddy. “Lesbia? You’re sure it was Lesbia, and not Sylvia?”

  “Quite sure.”

  “Because there was Sylvia Flowerdew who married Nigel Adair. No-no, that’s wrong, because Nigel married Kitty Lennox, so it must have been Ian who married Sylvia. Only I seem to remember Ian being married to a dark girl with a bit of cast in her eye-and of course some people admired it, but I don’t myself, and Sylvia-”

  “It wasn’t Sylvia-it was Lesbia.”

  Freddy brightened.

  “It wasn’t Lesbia Boyne?”

  “I don’t know. Who was Lesbia Boyne?”

  “She was Esther’s great friend about the time we married. But I think she went out to America -yes, I think so.”

  “I never heard of her.”

  “She used to write-yes, yes, it all comes back-she used to write. And then she stopped writing-these things drop off, you know. Now there was Janet Gordon about the same time, always writing to Esther. No, not Janet-Joan- Jean-Jane-hanged if I can remember the girl’s name! But I’ll swear it began with a J. No-Elspeth-that’s it-Elspeth Gordon! Or was it Campbell? Bless my soul. I can’t be sure. But she used to write a dozen times a week, and now I can’t even remember her name.”

  Archie was sayin
g good-night to Greta. He whispered something, and Greta blushed and dimpled. Freddy turned on them, shaking his finger.

  “Don’t you believe a word he says. I don’t know what he’s saying, but don’t you believe it. Young men are all alike. Don’t forget you’re all dining with me tomorrow.”

  Archie was quite unabashed.

  “Am I dinin’ too?”

  “Didn’t I ask you? D’you want to come? The more, the merrier-what? Half past seven, and don’t be late. Good-night, everybody. Good-night Greta.” He pressed Greta’s hand and held it for a moment. “Aren’t you going to say ‘Good-night, Freddy’?”

  Greta giggled, caught Archie’s look of disfavour, and gave Freddy a beaming smile.

  “Good-night, Freddy,” she said.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  I’ve never been to a dinner-party before,” said Greta. “I’m frightfully excited. I was afraid we were going to be late, because Margaret was kept hours over time at her horrid shop. She had simply to whisk into her dress in about three minutes. I’d been quite ready for half an hour before she ever came in.”

  Freddy Pelham beamed on his arriving guests.

  “Your first dinner party? And my last in this house.”

  “Your last?”

  “Didn’t Margaret tell you I was going?”

  It was Charles who said, “Yes, she told me, but I didn’t know you were off so soon.”

  Freddy looked pathetic.

  “What’s the good of my staying on? I can’t bear it, and that’s the fact.”

  “You’re not selling the house?”

  “No, I’m taking a leaf out of your book. I shall just lock it up and leave it standing, and then if I want to come back, I can. This is a little farewell party, just to keep me company my last night.”

  Even Margaret looked surprised.

  “I thought you weren’t going till the end of the month.”

  “I’m moving over to my club to-morrow-letting the servants go and all that. And I may pop off any day without saying good-bye. Hateful things good-byes. I shan’t say any-I shall just pop off, and the next you know you’ll be getting picture postcards of Constantinople or Hong Kong – what? And now let’s enjoy ourselves.”