“Lovely stones—aren’t they? They belonged to James’s mother. The old man paid a fortune for them. She was a good-looking woman—dark, with a fine bust. Nobody’s got anything to prop a necklace up on now. People knew how to show off their jewels in the eighties. I’ve never worn them, you know, because of my hair, but I’ve wanted to, even though I knew I’d be a figure of fun if I did.” A ruminating, confidential tone came into her voice. “It’s a funny thing, but I don’t believe there’s a red-haired woman breathing who doesn’t hanker after wearing crimson and pink. It’s a regular craving, and I’ve never given way to it like some of them do, but oh, how I’ve wanted to—you’d never believe it! And the rubies are the worst temptation of all. I’d almost have dyed my hair to wear them, but I believe James would have divorced me. I used to plan dresses to wear them with—ruby velvet with a yard of train, dead plain and just the colour of the stones.”
Carey couldn’t help it. She said, “Oh, Cousin Honoria!” And all at once Honoria Maquisten was grinning at her like a schoolboy.
“Sets your teeth on edge, doesn’t it? Well, it ought to set mine, but it don’t.”
She opened the two round cases and showed matching bracelets nearly two inches wide, alternate bows and fleurs-de-lis with rubies set between. Carey had to put them on. They looked garish but rather exciting against the sapphire blue of her dress.
“You girls can’t be bothered to show your arms in the evening now—nothing but long sleeves. Skinny elbows and bony wrists that won’t bear showing—that’s about the size of it.”
Carey laughed, and handed the bracelets back.
A corsage ornament came next, three square rubies entangled in more diamond bows; a couple of brooches, one with a design of fleurs-de-lis, the other an enormous bow draped round a ruby; three rings, solitaire, half-hoop, and marquise; and, the one thing Carey really liked, a charming slender necklet with single diamonds and three diamond-circled rubies.
“Pretty, isn’t it? Put it on and look at yourself in the glass. The big necklace makes into a tiara, and when she wore it that way she used this light necklet. Of course it ought to be on your neck and not over a stuff dress, but put it on.”
The diamond chain sparkled against the blue, the rubies hung down low. The effect was ridiculous but rather charming—Carey’s hair so black and shining, her skin so white, the eyes that matched her dress, her mouth that repeated the colour of the rubies.
She came back to the bed, pleased and smiling. Honoria Maquisten smiled too.
“I’m leaving them to you, Carey.”
“Oh, no!”
“Oh, yes, my dear.”
All this time Ellen had been standing on the other side of the bed, her hands folded at her waist, her face without expression, her eyes hooded. She opened them now, poked her head forward, and said,
“Miss Carey’s in the right of it.”
Mrs. Maquisten reproved her in a perfunctory manner which bespoke long practice.
“Hold your tongue, Ellen!”
Ellen pursed her lips and repeated the remark.
“Miss Carey’s in the right of it. Mrs. Maquisten’s they were, and it’s to Mr. Robert’s wife they did ought to go.”
Carey lifted the necklet over her head and dropped it on the bed. Honoria Maquisten took no notice of it or of her. She did not turn her head in Ellen’s direction, but she addressed her indifferently.
“Mr. Robert hasn’t got a wife.”
Ellen tossed her head.
“That’s not to say he won’t never have one, is it?”
Mrs. Maquisten laughed.
“And it’s not to say I’d want to give her my rubies if he had. Perhaps I shouldn’t like her.”
“Then you should let Miss Honor have them. They come from Maquistens, and you didn’t ought to leave them out of the family.”
Carey said, “Please, Cousin Honoria—” and saw a flare of temper send up danger signals to burn Honoria Maquisten’s cheeks. Curiously enough, the colour made her look old, accentuating the cheek-bones, giving the effect of patchy make-up. In a voice edged with anger she said,
“Keep quiet, both of you! When I want advice I’ll ask for it, and when I want a sermon, Ellen, I’ll tell you. Put the things away and be done with it!”
Then, as Ellen went round to the safe again, she caught at Carey’s hand and held it against her cheek for a moment.
“Proud, obstinate creature.”
Carey nodded. She had to bite her lip to keep back a smile. All at once it beat her.
Honoria Maquisten smiled too, and said in mock reproof,
“Pride goes before a fall, Carey.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
November 16th was like any other November day—a dark reluctant morning, a touch of fog in the heavy air, the disintegrating damp and cold which mark the slow decay of autumn. There was nothing to single it out. Yet it was a day whose shadow was to stretch a long, long way. No one in the house would ever see the date again without an inward shudder and recoil. It began pleasantly enough. Nora went off gaily to drive her general. Honor departed to pack parcels, and as Dennis remarked, that cleared the air. And presently, after some time spent with Cousin Honoria, Carey and he went out to lunch together.
It is from lunch-time onwards that the shadow begins to fall across the day, darkening and confusing its happenings. Some points emerge beyond dispute. Molly James, passing through the hall, saw a letter lying on the mat just inside the front door, the metal cage originally in use having been given in for salvage. She picked it up, saw that it had no stamp, and that it was addressed to Mrs. Maquisten. She went upstairs with it, knocked at the bedroom door, and took it in. She puts the time at between a quarter and half past two. On her way back to the door Mrs. Maquisten called her with a dreadful voice. In all the times she had to tell her story Molly never varied from this word—Mrs. Maquisten’s voice was dreadful, and she looked dreadful too. She asked if either of her nieces was in, and Molly said that they were not. Then she asked for Mr. Harland, and Molly said he was out to lunch. Last of all she asked for Miss Carey, and Molly said she was out too. Then Mrs. Maquisten said, “Tell her to come to me the minute she comes in,” and Molly said, “Yes, ma’am,” and got herself out of the room as quick as she could go. She told Mrs. Deeping not once but many times that she was glad to be the other side of the door—“And somebody’s going to catch it—you see if they don’t. I wouldn’t be Miss Carey.”
Carey came home at a quarter to three. She wore a blue coat with a faint over-check of green and black buttoned right up to her chin, and a small tilted blue hat with a bright green quill. Her eyes shone and her cheeks glowed. Lunch had been very amusing. Dennis had been very amusing. Life was very amusing. She ran up the steps of No. 13 and let herself in with the latch-key which Cousin Honoria had given her. She was humming a tune. And then Molly was telling her that she was wanted at once, and she stopped humming and ran upstairs, a little disquieted, a little dashed from her morning brightness.
Since Honoria Maquisten did not live to give any account of the interview which followed, it rests upon what Carey said about it afterwards, and upon what Magda Brayle overheard. What is not in dispute is that Mrs. Maquisten was in a state of excitement and anger, and that she ordered Carey to ring up Mr. Aylwin and command his immediate attendance with a view to altering her will. That Carey demurred is certain. The loud, deep voice was raised and the command repeated. There is really no difficulty in believing that Magda, in the bathroom beyond the communicating door, could hear not only that command but a good deal more. In the end Carey rang up Mr. Aylwin’s office, to be told that he was out of town for a couple of days. With the receiver still at her ear, she turned to repeat the information. She met blazing eyes and an imperious look.
“Ask where he is! He must come back!”
The telephone muttered. Carey turned again.
“They say he’s in Scotland. He won’t be back till late tomorrow night.”
&nb
sp; Honoria Maquisten beat with her hand upon the bed.
“You think you can get me to put it off, do you? But you can’t—nobody can! Who are you talking to? Ask for the managing clerk, Mr. Hood! Tell him to come round at once! At once, I say! And he’s to bring my last will with him—the one I signed the other day!”
The message delivered, Carey turned again. “That was Mr. Hood speaking. He says he will come round as soon as he can, but your will is in the safe and Mr. Aylwin has the keys.”
All this conversation could be heard in the office, and is not in dispute. Carey rang off, and after a little went up to her room to take off her things. It was then a little after three.
Ernest Hood arrived and was shown up to Mrs. Maquisten’s room at half past three. He remained for three quarters of an hour.
At half past four Nora Hull ran in for a cup of tea, leaving her car outside. She was in a hurry as she had to take General Ferguson out of town and they both hoped to be back in reasonable time for dinner—“He’s just round the corner seeing another brass hat, and I’m to pick him up in twenty minutes, so you’ll have to fly, Molly.” To which Molly replied that tea was just going in to Mrs. Maquisten’s room, and that Mrs. Maquisten wanted to see either Mrs. Hull or Miss Honor, whichever came in first—“And I was to say it was very particular.”
Twenty minutes later Nora banged out of the house again. She had certainly drunk at least one cup of tea, but neither she nor Mrs. Maquisten had eaten anything.
Carey had a cup of tea in the study, and found it bitter to her taste. She heard Nora’s noisy departure—“Gosh, I’ll be late!”—and the slam of the door, and a little later on a much quieter opening of the same door, and Molly, evidently on the watch—“Oh, Miss Honor, please go up to Mrs. Maquisten at once.”
She heard these things because she had set the door ajar to listen for Dennis. But it was not till six o’clock that Dennis came home.
Carey had meant to go out to him, but when the moment came she couldn’t do it. She had waited too long, the shadow lay too heavy on her. She was tired, and cold, and frightened. She heard him cross the hall, and then the slow tap of his crutch moving from step to step as he went up the stairs.
It was nearly half past six before he came down again.
“Well, well—” he said, and then he let himself down into his chair with a twisted smile. He got his foot up on to the leg-rest, dropped his crutch on the floor, and said “Some shemozzle! You look battered, darling. We don’t take them as seriously as that, you know. She’ll calm down.”
“Is she—any better?”
He laughed.
“Not noticeably. What did she say to you?”
Carey pressed her hands together.
“She sent for me. Molly said she had a letter, but I don’t know what was in it, or who it was from. When I got there she was all worked up. She said she had been deceived, and that was the one thing she never could forgive, and I was to ring up Mr. Aylwin and tell him to come round at once because she was going to alter her will. I tried to soothe her down and get her to wait, but she simply wouldn’t listen. I was afraid she would make herself ill, so I did it. But Mr. Aylwin is in Scotland, so then she said she would have Mr. Hood, and he came round and was there a long time—at least it seemed like it.”
“Have you seen her since?”
“No. Nora came in and had tea with her. And then Honor, and she saw her too. That was after Nora went out again. What did she say to you just now?”
“The same as she said to you—someone had deceived her, and she was going to put it across them. Theme with variations. All very temperamental and not at all what the doctor would order. And right in the middle of it Magda had to come in and say of course she couldn’t take her evening, Mrs. Maquisten was so upset. And then the fur did begin to fly. She told Magda just where she got off—said Ellen had put her to bed for thirty-five years and she supposed she could do it again, and if there was another word about it, Magda could take herself off for keeps. I think she’d have loved to knock up a row, but Magda stayed perfectly calm—the triple shield of starch. It emerged that she thought Aunt Honoria ought to have a sleeping-draught after all the excitement, and she thought she ought to be in to give it to her. She doesn’t like taking anything, but if she gets too excited she’s supposed to take these tabloids—only she can’t swallow them, or she thinks she can’t, which comes to the same thing, so they have to be melted down, and she takes them in coffee, with a dash of brandy to take away the taste. Well, I said, ‘Look here, you’re making no end of a song and dance about this. What’s wrong with your putting the stuff ready and Ellen can give it to her?’ I could see Aunt Honoria was mad keen to get Magda out of the way. She’s working up for a major family scene and she wants a free hand and no eavesdropping.” He paused, shifted his position, grimacing as if the movement jarred him, and said, “Did she tell you who she was cutting off with a shilling?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“No hint—nothing to guess on?”
“No.”
“Nor she did to me—just raged and said they’d be sorry they’d ever been born.”
“Did she say they?”
“Yes. But not meant plural—meant to avoid saying he or she. At least that’s the way I took it. And you’ll see she won’t say anything to the others either—not to whoever it is, or anyone. She’ll just leave us all to simmer, searching our consciences and shaking in our shoes, wondering which of our sins has found us out, and then she’ll stage a grand scene of repudiation.” He laughed a little. “She’s deep. I wouldn’t put it past her to be fishing for a confession. Rattle people enough, and they do confess, you know. And wouldn’t it be meat and drink to her if we trooped up one by one and each got a different confession off our chests—” He broke off abruptly and asked, “When will Aylwin be back?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“Then I should think she’d wait for him. But I don’t know—she’s feeling very fierce, and there’s nothing she hates like waiting. She told me Ernest Hood had gone away with the draft of her new will, and he was to get it all ship-shape and bring it back tomorrow for her to sign. That looks as if she wasn’t going to wait. Of course she might sign the will and keep the terms up her sleeve until she could get Aylwin round to assist at the execution of the criminal. She likes a good full house when she puts on one of her acts.”
Carey said, “Do you mean she’s done it before?”
He burst out laughing.
“My innocent child! Of course she’s done it beforehand of course she’ll do it again, dozens of times! But it all depends on just what the criminal has done this time, and that is what only the criminal knows. You see, Aunt Honoria goes up in the air with such energy that you can’t tell what has touched her off. Up to now it has always been much ado about nothing and no harm done—the legacy that came out goes back and harmony reigns. But there’s always the chance of some real live dynamite. You never know, do you?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Nora rushed in again, and dined without changing. Honor came down looking scared, and whenever Molly was out of the room, and sometimes when she was in it, they went on talking about Mrs. Maquisten and the approaching family scene. Carey said as little as possible, and Honor more or less confined herself to saying at intervals how dreadful it was, but Dennis and Nora carried on a brisk and uninhibited interchange of views as to the identity of the culprit and the nature of the crime.
“She didn’t give you any clue? Honor, my sweet, bring the great mind to bear on what the Aunt said to you.”
Honor drooped and said oh, no, it was dreadful.
“How do you mean, dreadful?” Dennis said through a mouthful of fish.
But it was Honor who choked.
“She was so angry.”
“I expect she still is,” said Nora cheerfully. “What did she say?”
Honor took a small sip of water.
“She said she had been deceived.”
/> “And you wouldn’t deceive anyone for worlds, darling!” said Dennis. “None of us would—would we? But go on—was there any clue as to who had been deceiving her this time?”
“Oh, no—there wasn’t.”
“Did she say anything to you, Nora?”
“Only the same piece everyone else got—no clue. I plump for Robert.”
Everyone brightened. Dennis said,
“What do you suppose he’s done?”
“Embezzled. It’s always the frightfully respectable people who embezzle. And the letter was to tell Aunt Honoria about it.”
“Who wrote it?”
“Ask Aunt Honoria!”
“I call that a rotten guess. I say it’s bigamy.”
“Robert?”
“It’s always the most unlikely people who are bigamists.”
To everyone’s surprise Honor lifted her light lashes and said in a wavering whisper,
“Perhaps it’s Fifth Column—”
Dennis’s lips twisted.
“Oh, no—you must draw the line somewhere. My family pride draws it quite firmly at Fifth Column.”
Nora began to sing in a pretty, light voice:
“‘But family pride must be denied
And set aside and mortified
And mor-or-or-or-ortified.’”
Dennis said, “Shut up! You haven’t got the tune right anyway. And she’d have been a lot worse if it had been anything like that. No, it will be some paltry trifle like bigamy, barratry, or mayhem.”
Still in that quavering whisper, Honor said,
“What are they?”
“Bigamy, darling, is marrying two wives at one time. I haven’t an idea what the others are, but they sound good.”
Honor looked as if she was going to cry.
“They sound dreadful,” she said, and took another sip of water, whilst Molly removed the fish.
Silence in Court Page 6
