The Alington Inheritance

by Patricia Wentworth

  “She said it was in here-that’s what she said.”

  “Well, you can look and see if there is anything there, but don’t be disappointed if there isn’t.”

  Jenny went up close to the chest of drawers and stood there. The little chest had two small drawers at the top and three below. It was very well made with beautifully turned ivory handles. But Jenny was not thinking of that. She drew out the two top drawers first. The right-hand one had some pink beads in it, and the left-hand one was empty. Jenny put them down carefully. Her hands were steady because she made them be steady, but her heart was not steady at all-how could it be?

  The top long drawer was full. It had in it all those things which Jenny had fashioned with her unsteady childish fingers for Garsty’s birthday and for Christmas. The next drawer was full of them too. But in the bottom drawer there was only one thing, a photograph frame with a picture of a laughing baby in it-Jenny at two years old.

  And that was all. There was no letter from her father to her mother. There was nothing more at all.

  “Well, are you satisfied?” said Miss Garstone.

  Jenny was putting the things back.

  “Yes-it’s not here.” She turned and looked straight at Miss Garstone. “If it turns up anywhere, you will let me have it, won’t you?”

  She expected a quick response, but she did not get it. Miss Garstone bit her lip and actually hesitated.

  “Well, I suppose so,” she said at last. “But if it does turn up, I advise you to burn it straight away, and without reading it. That’s my advice, but I suppose you won’t take it.”

  No, she wouldn’t take it. It was too much to ask of her. She did not make any reply out loud. In her own mind she said secretly and firmly, “It’s mine. And what I do with it is for me to say. Not for you, or for anyone else.”

  Miss Garstone remained looking at her for a moment or two. Then she said,

  “I don’t approve of keeping things-I’ve seen too much of it. But that’s a thing you’ll have to find out for yourself, Jenny. If you want to, you may have that little chest of drawers and the things in it.”

  Jenny turned round, her hands clasped, the colour high in her cheeks. She couldn’t speak. Miss Garstone looked at her with disapproval-and something else. She didn’t quite know what the other thing was. She tidied it away quickly and wouldn’t let herself look at it. She told herself that she despised sentiment, and that girls were full of it and shouldn’t be encouraged. She said briskly,

  “Well, that’s all, I think. If you want the chest of drawers you had better take it to Alington with you, then it won’t get mixed up with the things that are to be sold.”

  Jenny said, “Oh, thank you.” She didn’t know how she got it said. It was somehow so difficult to speak, and Miss Garstone had turned round and gone briskly out of the room before she had done more than say her “Oh, thank you.” She picked up the little chest and held it tightly, tightly. It wasn’t just a little box with drawers in it. It was her life with Garsty-the whole seventeen years of it.

  Miss Garstone was to go away that evening. She was to go back to her school, so they said good-bye at the door of the cottage. At the last moment she did a thing that surprised her. It really surprised her very much. She put out a hand and stopped Jenny at the front door.

  “There’s just one thing-” she said.

  Jenny stood still.

  “What is it, Miss Garstone?”

  “It’s not my business-I know that,” said Miss Garstone. “But my sister was very fond of you, and I just want to say-” She stopped and broke off. What did she want to say? She didn’t know. She was behaving like a fool. She took up her words again with a feeling that they were not her words at all.

  “I just want to say that if at any time you don’t want to stay with the Forbeses, I shall be very pleased to do anything I can to help or advise you for my sister’s sake. I should like you to feel that I don’t say things that I don’t mean. Good-bye.”

  Miss Garstone did not shut the door at once. She stood with her hand on the knob and watched Jenny cross the road and pass into the grounds of Alington House.

  Chapter V

  Jenny walked slowly up the drive. It was done. It was finished. It was all over. She was starting a new life. There wasn’t any letter which would change everything for her. Poor darling Garsty had just imagined it. It was silly of her not to have thought of that for herself. And there were Miss Garstone’s eyes too… But she was glad about one thing. No, there were two things to be glad about. Miss Garstone had let her look for the letter her own self, and just at the end she had been quite astonishingly nice. “Quite human,” said Jenny to herself, and with that she came round the last corner of the drive and caught her breath. Because there at the front door stood Mac’s little red car, and that meant that Mac was there, and perhaps Alan, too. In the back of her mind was the thought, “They wouldn’t have come down in time for the funeral. It wasn’t so very clever to come down the same day.” Because the funeral had only been that morning, and it would have been better to let a day or two go by.

  There was anger in her as she had that thought. Didn’t he care what people would think? And the answer was plain enough. It was no, he didn’t, he didn’t care a jot. What he wanted to do he did. What the village thought about him didn’t matter at all. He could get away with it.

  As she came across the hall, Meg darted at her and caught her wrist.

  “Ssh-they’ve come! Did you see the car? Mac and Alan-they’ve both come! I do think they might have got here in time for the funeral-don’t you? I said so to Alan, and he pinched my arm and said, ‘Ssh!’ I expect I’ve got a black and blue pinch mark on it, and if I have-” She paused dramatically.

  Jenny could not help laughing a little.

  “What will you do?”

  Meg hopped on one leg.

  “I don’t know, but I’ll think of something. When I’m in bed and there’s nothing to disturb me. Oh, what have you got there? What is it-may I see? Oh, it’s a little chest of drawers!”

  Jenny nodded.

  “Yes, it was Garsty’s. Her sister gave it to me. It-it was very nice of her.”

  “Well, she’s got everything else,” said Meg in a tone which dismissed Miss Garstone with finality.

  They were half way up the stairs, when Mac came down them. As always when she saw him again, he made the same deep impression on Jenny. He was so terribly good-looking. He took after his mother, but where she wore her good looks with an air of being disillusioned, in him everything was heightened by a most visible air of enjoyment. And why wouldn’t he enjoy his life? He had looks, and health, and youth, and an adoring mother. And he had Alington.

  He came down two steps at a time with both his hands out.

  “My poor little Jenny!” he said in his warm voice. “I was just coming down to dig you out of the Garstone woman’s clutches. I hear she’s a terror.”

  It was the old trick. When she was with him she forgot everything she had been thinking about him. He had only to smile, to say two words in his sympathetic voice, and she stopped thinking. And that wasn’t right. That was just glamour. Like the fairy stories. Life wasn’t a fairy story, it was real-not fairy gold which had turned into withered leaves when you took it out and looked at it next day. And these thoughts were together in Jenny’s mind. They made a strange confusion there. And then, before she knew what she was going to say, she spoke. She heard herself speaking.

  “Why didn’t you come down in time for the funeral?”

  She saw the flash in his eyes which meant that she had made him angry. He stood there a couple of steps above her and looked down at her. There was an antagonism between them. For the moment it was stronger than the attraction which had always been there and was sometimes very strong.

  He gave a little laugh.

  “My dear Jenny! Not really in my line, you know-not funerals! But I’ll come and dance at your wedding if you ask me.”

  “I sh
an’t ask you,” said Jenny. The confusion in her had melted into a steady flame of rage. She looked up at him with a burning look, and then passed him by and was gone.

  Mac was rather taken aback. Jenny had always been easy. Too easy really for his taste. This change lent interest to her. So he wasn’t going to have it all his own way? Well, so much the better.

  Jenny went on to the top of the stairs, where Meg was waiting for her.

  “Were you quarrelling?” she asked. “You sounded as if you were.”

  Jenny laughed. It was an angry little laugh. She felt angry. She looked angry. She also looked astonishingly pretty, but she didn’t know that. She tidied her hair, washed her hands, and put the little chest of drawers down on the middle of her big one where she could see it from her bed. Meg was very much interested.

  “Oh, what a darling little chest of drawers! Is it yours? May I look at it? Is there anything in it?”

  “There are the things I made for Garsty for her birthday and for Christmas when I was a little girl. I’ll show you some time. Not now.”

  “It’s a baby chest of drawers! It’s got a bow front, and it’s got darling little ivory handles too! Oh, I do love it! Don’t you?”

  Jenny said, “Yes.” It was just the one word, but there was something in it that stopped Meg’s chatter.

  They took hands and went down to the schoolroom, where Joyce was curled up in the sofa corner with a picture book and Alan sat strumming at the piano. He wasn’t as tall as his brother, and he certainly wasn’t as good-looking. He was, in point of fact, very much like his father. Jenny was struck with the resemblance as he swung round to meet her.

  He said, “Jenny-” in a moved tone, and then, “I was so s-sorry-I really was.”

  She said, “Thank you,” in a little voice. There was a warm feeling at her heart-there always was for Alan.

  And then Meg broke in with “She’s got the darlingest little chest of drawers from Garsty! She brought it home with her just now! It’s all round in front, and it’s got the dearest little ivory handles on it!”

  Joyce scrambled down off the sofa.,

  “I want to see it! I want to look! Where is it?”

  “It’s in her room on the chest of drawers!” Meg called back to Jenny, “I won’t let her touch it till you say we may,” and was gone.

  “I’m so s-sorry, Jenny,” said Alan. He only stammered when he was upset, so she knew that he really meant it.

  Jenny said, “I know. But it’s no good talking about it, Alan-it’s happened.” And then the door opened and Carter came in with the tea.

  “What are you doing here, Mr. Alan?” she said, putting down the tray.

  “I’m going to have tea with the children.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t. You will have tea in the drawing-room with Mrs. Forbes and Mr. Mac. This is schoolroom tea this is, and not for grown-up young gentlemen like you are now and have been these four years past. Get along with you, for I heard the mistress calling, you, and she won’t be a bit pleased if she finds you here!” She turned to Jenny. “Will that be all, miss?”

  “Yes,” said Jenny. “Thank you very much, Carter.”

  Carter turned and went out of the room. Alan took a couple of steps towards the door, and came back again.

  “I’d better go if they’re expecting me,” he said, and paused, hesitating. And went.

  Jenny turned round to the table and sat down.

  Chapter VI

  Mac and Alan only stayed for a bare twenty-four hours. Mac was two years down from Oxford and in process of becoming a barrister. Jenny was still not quite sure how this giddy height was to be attained, but she had very exciting visions of Mac scintillating with talent and good looks, sweeping all before him in some spectacular trial. This was when she wasn’t angry with him, when he charmed, and she let herself be charmed. It had not got very far. He had kissed her once when she had a tray in her hands and couldn’t stop him. She hadn’t wanted him to kiss her- not like that. She had very nearly dropped the tray, which she wouldn’t have been carrying if Carter hadn’t come over queer just as she was going to take it in. Mrs. Bolton, the cook, didn’t carry trays-she was very firm about that. And Mary, the house-parlour maid, who didn’t live in but came up from the village, certainly wasn’t going to do anything about it when it was her afternoon off and she was going with her young man to the pictures. Jenny had come out of the dark passage which led to the kitchen, and he had taken her by surprise. At the time it had just been fun, but when she remembered, it hurt. But then everything did hurt now. She didn’t want the touch-and-go game, the here-today-and-gone-tomorrow kind of thing that had been fun in the past. She wanted something she could lean on and trust. There had been Garsty for that, and now there wasn’t Garsty any more, and she wanted Garsty-oh, how she wanted Garsty!

  She didn’t think a great deal about Alan. He was a boy, just down from Oxford. Quite a nice boy if he could get over being so afraid of his mother-and of Mac. He was very like his father to look at. She wasn’t so sure if he was really like him. She had been very fond of Colonel Forbes, and she had been aware of something in him which she missed in Alan. Colonel Forbes had not so much given way to his wife as stood out of her way. More and more as the years went on, he had avoided her, not in the way of offence or bad temper, but where their opinions differed-well, he made a point of not being there to be differed from. And more and more he had withdrawn into his library.

  Jenny used to come in by the window and talk to him. He was a wonderful friend to have. He knew a tremendous lot about birds, and beasts, and all the country things. She loved him very much, and she had grieved terribly when he died. Alan was grieved too, but not Mac. And not Mrs. Forbes. “She doesn’t mind a bit. I know she doesn’t,” she had said to Garsty when they came home after the funeral. “Jenny, you shouldn’t say that-you can’t judge.” That was Garsty all over. She was so kind, even to the people who had no kindness in them-and you can’t go farther than that. She remembered her own outburst-“How can you say she minds, when she’s got her hair so beautifully done!” Well, it was a schoolgirl’s judgment, but when she looked back on it Jenny was quite sure that it had been a true one. When people are broken-hearted they may see that their hair is neat, but they don’t bother about whether it’s becoming.

  She thought that Alan had cared-she hoped that he had. He was abroad when his father died, and she didn’t see him for three months. Mac didn’t care, or only just a little. But then Mac was different. Jenny didn’t explain to herself why she thought of Mac as different. That other sense which came from she didn’t know where stepped in and told her that he didn’t care. She believed that sense, but she didn’t analyse it. It lay under all her thoughts of Mac, but she didn’t often look that way.

  She settled easily enough into the routine of the house. It wasn’t so very different from what she had been accustomed to. Until she left school she had bicycled the four miles into Camingford every morning and bicycled back at tea-time. After that she had spent her days at Alington helping to nurse Joyce when she was ill and teaching Meg. She didn’t want to do anything else. She was quite happy. She had been head girl at her school, but she didn’t want to go on to college. She was quite content to look after Meg and Joyce, and to see the boys at week-ends. That they came home much oftener than they used to did not strike her at all. She took it quite naturally. But now there was a change. Living in the house, things struck her that she hadn’t noticed before. Or perhaps “struck” is the wrong word. There was nothing as definite as that. It was just that, the strangeness having worn off a little, there was something left that hadn’t been there before. She couldn’t get nearer to it than that.

  As the second Saturday came round, Meg and Joyce began to wonder openly whether Mac and Alan would come down for the week-end.

  “They don’t ever come two weeks running,” said Meg.

  “They did in the summer.”

  “That was on a special occasion. I remember
it quite well. It was for Anne Gillespie’s birthday party.”

  “August’s a stupid time to have a birthday. Everyone’s away.”

  “Mac and Alan weren’t away.”

  “Perhaps that’s why she was born then.”

  “When?”

  “In August, stupid!” Joyce made a face and put out her tongue.

  “I’m not,” said Meg with dignity. “And it’s very vulgar to make faces like that.”

  “Who says it is?”

  “Mother does.”

  “Oh-”

  Jenny thought it was time to interfere.

  “Who’ll get to the elm tree first?” she said in a laughing voice, and the three of them raced away over the lawn to the big elm which creaked so horribly in winter, and which the gardener, old Jackson, always said was only biding its time. “Nasty trees, ellums,” he would say. “No one ought to have ’em in the garden. Churchyard trees, that’s what they are, and there they may bide for me. That ’ere tree ought to come down, miss. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it fifty times for sure.”

  “Well, it’s no good saying it to me,” said Jenny.

  Jackson looked at her. He remembered her mother. “Features her proper,” he thought, “but more of a way with her.”

  It rained in the afternoon, so they didn’t go out. The little girls were going to have tea with their old nurse, Mrs. Crane, who lived with her daughter just on the other side of the village. They kept on going to the windows and looking out to see if it had stopped raining.

  Mrs. Forbes came in and gave orders that they were not to go unless there was a reasonable probability of their getting there dry.

  “It doesn’t matter so much about their coming back, but they must get there dry,” she said in her sharp, imperious way. “I shall be out in the opposite direction so I can’t take them-I’m going to the Raxalls. You’ll be going with the children of course.”