The Dower House Mystery

by Patricia Wentworth

  Daphne was leaning forward now and listening eagerly.

  It was difficult to go on. The past began to rise up vividly. The emotions, the hopes of twenty years before, stirred and came alive—the girl of seventeen in a rapture of hero worship; the parents, affectionate and delighted at the honour done their child; and Ethan Grey at the height of his fame, acclaimed by all Europe as the leading man of science of his day.

  Amabel began to speak quickly and steadily:

  “He had to go to Vienna to the big congress there. I went down into the country to pay a visit to a school friend. She was living with a brother and his wife. They were all very kind to me, and there was a lot going on. I had never met many young people, and I enjoyed it all tremendously. Everyone was so young and gay. It was all quite new to me. She paused for a moment, and took a hurried breath. “It was just that, you see, Daffy—they were all so young. And one of them fell in love with me, just in a headlong, young sort of way. It—it carried me off my feet. I can’t think how I came to do it, but I did say that I would break off my engagement; and I went home meaning to do it. We were both very young, Daffy, and it took us off our feet. But when I got home, I found I didn’t have to break off my engagement because your father had broken it off. He—he had just found out that he was going blind—an oculist in Vienna had told him so,—and he went straight to my parents and broke it off.”

  “But—I don’t understand.” Daphne was puzzled, frowning, and certainly interested.

  The colour had rushed into Amabel’s face. Her eyes shone. She looked like a girl—like the girl who had given everything in her generous enthusiasm.

  “Oh, Daffy, don’t you see?” she cried.

  “They persuaded you?” said Daphne.

  “No, no—of course not. Just think what it meant to him. Oh, Daffy, I was only too thankful that I hadn’t said anything first. It would have been too dreadful.

  “I don’t understand a bit,” said Daphne. “Do you mean to say you just gave in?”

  Amabel got up. Daphne’s tone, with its hint of scorn—Daphne’s obvious lack of comprehension—

  She spoke very simply.

  “Daffy dear, try and understand. If you remembered him it would be easier. When you love someone, and they are in frightful trouble, there’s no room for anything except the wanting to help, and being so very thankful that one can.”

  Daphne got up too.

  “Oh, well,” she said, and stretched herself. “You’re the self-sacrificing sort, Mummy: I’m not. It’s a vice, really—all the best modern philosophers say so.” She laughed lightly, and flung an arm about Amabel’s shoulders. “Mummy, let me go to Egypt,” she said.

  Chapter II

  Amabel sat up very late that night. She finished the orange-coloured curtains, and then sat quite still, her hands folded on the brilliant stuff, thinking.

  Daphne was her only child—and Daphne was not hers at all. She could love her; but she couldn’t reach her. Why were there such gulfs between people who loved one another? She simply could not reach Daphne at all. Yet the child loved her. Amabel always clung to that—Daphne did love her. When she was at her naughtiest; when she flared with rage, or looked at Amabel with the half-pitying contempt which was harder to bear, there was still that curious, unbroken strand of love linking the two together. Daphne chafed under it, resented it; but it was there.

  Amabel sat very still, while the fire died and the lamplight began to fail. When at last she moved, it was to go to the window, open the shutter, and lean out.

  The rain had ceased. There was a damp mist rising from the ground, thin, and white, and cold; a faint shaft of moonlight silvered it. The trees rose out of the mist like the cliffs of some black, unknown shore. The stillness and the silence were grateful.

  Try as she would, Amabel could not still her thoughts or silence the echoes of those scenes with Daphne. “Self-sacrifice is your strong suit. Suppose you do a little sacrificing for me this time”—that was Daphne angry. “You gave him up pretty easily, didn’t you? I don’t wonder he was furious. Your affair of course; but I’d have stuck it out and had him in spite of everyone”—that was Daphne half casual, half contemptuous. Oh, it hurt, it hurt; after all these years it hurt most frightfully.

  Twenty years were wiped out as Amabel looked into the mist. The urge of youth to youth had been very strong. The gold and the glamour of romance had not been easily renounced. One may stand in the fires of self-sacrifice and sing aloud there; and yet—and yet—Daphne couldn’t understand that at all. Julian had not understood it either. The fire would not have been so hard to bear if Julian had understood. “We were both so dreadfully young.” The echo of her own words to Daphne came back upon Amabel now. Just for a moment Julian might have been there before her; she had such a vivid impression of his blazing scorn, his furious resentment. The very ring of his “You’re afraid to face up to it. You’re afraid of what people will say,” was in her ears.

  With a quick movement she closed the shutter, fastened it, and, crossing to the hearth, began to rake out the last remnants of the fire. The log, as she stirred it, sent out a little shower of brilliant sparks. She looked at it with a touch of rather sad humour. You think a thing’s dead; and then, all of a sudden, the sparks fly up—hot, burning sparks. Why, it was years and years since she had thought of Julian with pain like this. Curious how memory will stir. Julian’s name in the paper this morning had not hurt at all; she had been interested, pleased to think that his work had been crowned with success after so many ups and downs. She picked up the Times, and read the paragraph again, the lamplight flaring and falling across the page:

  “Mr. Julian Forsham is to be congratulated upon the results of his arduous labours in Chaldæa. Just how remarkable his discoveries will prove to be will only emerge upon the publication of his eagerly awaited book. Pending this publication, Mr. Forsham is declining to grant interviews or to make any statement to the Press. He is, we understand, remaining in Italy for the present.”

  Amabel laid the paper down again.

  Agatha’s indiscreet gossip had not included Julian’s name, for the simple reason that Agatha had never known it. At least she was thankful for that. She could follow Julian’s career, hear his discoveries talked of, and note the growing interest in them without being exposed to comment. She felt pleasure and pride in his achievement. Whence then this pain, this stirring of things long buried? It was Daphne that had stirred the past. It was what Daphne demanded of life that had called up a past in which, for a moment, she too had stood on the threshold of things and had stretched out her hands to take. It was Daphne’s pain that had waked her own. The one was inextricably mixed with the other.

  Amabel felt all that was passionate and vital rise up in her at Daphne’s call. She had suffered; but why should Daphne suffer? Why should Daphne turn back from the threshold of life and take the shadowed way? Amabel stood there, her hands just touching the table. She felt a rush of emotion that changed slowly into something harder—something calm and determined. She put out the lamp with a steady hand. The flickering light leapt once, and died. As she stood there in the dark, her thoughts ordered themselves.

  “I’ll let the house—that’ll help. And I’ll find something to do. I could ask three guineas a week for the house. I’ll do it. She shall have her chance. I’ll manage it somehow. Mr. Berry might know of something for me. I could catch the ten-thirty, and go and see him. I’ll do anything. But the child shall have her chance.”

  She lit her candle, and went upstairs. At the door of Daphne’s room she paused for a moment, then turned the handle and went in, the candle shaded by her open hand.

  Daphne was asleep, curled up like a kitten, with one hand under her cheek, her little head looking round and very black against the white pillow; her eyelashes were black too—black and wet.

  “She’s been crying!” The thought pricked like a sharp thorn.

  Amabel set down the candle, using the huge, framed photograph
of Amber Studland to screen it. She bent over Daphne, her heart soft against that pricking thought. And suddenly Daphne turned with a sob, and woke. The wet lashes showed blue eyes drenched with tears. Daphne’s hands came out with a groping gesture, and clutched at her mother’s wrist.

  “Daffy! Daffy darling!” Amabel’s arm went round her and felt the slight figure tremble violently.

  “Mummy, oh, Mummy, if you could!”

  “My Daffy dear.”

  “Mummy, I love him so—so dreadfully. I swear it isn’t the money—I know you think it is, but it isn’t—it’s me and him.” The words came in gasps. “It’s everything—it’s my whole life. I was a beast to you—but it’s everything. Oh, Mummy!” Daphne’s scalding tears were on Amabel’s hand. There was a long, trembling pause. Then Daphne’s clutch relaxed. With a violent movement she pushed the bed-clothes back and sat up. “Oh, Mummy, isn’t there anything we can do?”

  “I could go and see Mr. Berry—and I could let the house, perhaps,” said Amabel.

  “Yes, yes, of course you could.” The words came headlong and without a thought. “And Mr. Berry—perhaps he’ll offer to lend you the money.”

  Amabel laughed.

  “Lawyers don’t build up flourishing businesses on lending money to their poorer clients. If I let the house, I shall have to find something to do. Don’t build on it, Daffy; but I’ll go and see Mr. Berry, and find out whether anything can be managed.”

  Daphne caught at her mother’s hands.

  “Mummy, you angel!” she cried. “I knew—I knew you could manage something if you would only try.”

  Amabel lay awake till the dawn. How had she and Ethan managed to have a child so full of passionate impulses, so little disciplined? Was it all ingrain, or was her upbringing—Agatha’s upbringing—to blame? Such a violence of feeling; so much self-pity; such a strength of wilful determination—these things terrified Amabel for the future. Everything in herself which she had locked away behind iron bars of self-control seemed to live in Daphne. She lay awake, and felt that the night was long, and dark, and cold.

  Chapter III

  “Just so,” said Mr. Berry, “just so.” He said the words with that air of bland interest which had done so much to establish his reputation.

  Mr. George Forsham, sitting opposite to him, finished signing his name to the document which lay before him, blotted the signature, and passed the paper to Mr. Berry, all in frowning silence. When he frowned his thin lips tightened—a tall man, stiffly built, with a long nose and a high forehead—the aristocratic type, with rather the effect of having faded, as an old photograph will fade.

  Mr. Berry, with his thick white hair, black eyebrows and florid complexion, presented as complete a contrast as possible. He continued to smile whilst his client frowned.

  Mr. Forsham put down his pen, looked across the table, and said in a tone of deep annoyance:

  “It is, of course, a perfectly preposterous position.”

  “Oh, entirely,” said Mr. Berry.

  George Forsham’s frown deepened. He did not wish to listen to Mr. Berry; he wished to speak.

  “Unfortunately,” he continued, “the fact that the position is preposterous does not—er, does not, in fact, help us to—er, well, in fact, to let the house.”

  “It has been unlet for so long?”

  “Since my Aunt Georgina died there—in fact, for four years. I decided to let Forsham Old House and the Dower House at the same time. I had no difficulty in doing so. Mr. Bronson took the Old House, and has been, I must say, a most satisfactory tenant. Yes, I must say that I have no possible fault to find with Mr. Bronson as a tenant. He is, in fact,—er, most satisfactory.”

  If Mr. Berry felt that his valuable time was being wasted, he concealed that feeling with the aptitude born of very long practice.

  “You are to be congratulated,” he said.

  “The Dower House,” said Mr. Forsham, in a slightly repressive voice,—“the Dower House I—er, also let to two Miss Tulkinghorns—er, terrible name, Tulkinghorn—but admirable women, prepared to interest themselves in the parish, and—er, in point of fact, most desirable tenants—quiet, estimable ladies. Yet, one fortnight after moving into the house, they vacated it, declaring it to be haunted. The preposterous rumour dates from that time.”

  “Old ladies are sometimes nervous,” said Mr. Berry.

  Mr. George Forsham leaned forward and tapped upon the table. He desired Mr. Berry’s full attention.

  “They had taken the house for three months, furnished, it being understood that they would stay on if they liked the neighbourhood. Their hurried departure had a most deplorable effect. Technically speaking, the Dower House has been let twice since then. I—er, use the word technically quite advisedly, Mr. Berry, because, in point of fact, although the house was let on those two occasions, it was only occupied once for forty-eight hours, and once for a bare twenty-four—and each time the same perfectly preposterous tale as to the house being haunted. I never in my life heard such a—well, such a perfectly preposterous story. The house my grandmother occupied; the house my aunts, Georgina and Harriet, lived and died in—the most blameless women, absolutely devoted to good works! Why, it’s preposterous beyond belief!”

  “Exactly,” said Mr. Berry. “Only you can’t let the house? Ever tried living in it yourself?”

  “My dear sir, I can’t get a servant to go near the place. The village is full of—er, the most ridiculous tales, and not a soul would sleep in the house if you paid them a fortune. My brother Julian and I spent a couple of nights there last time he was at home. Naturally, we saw nothing; but that hasn’t put a stop to the tales. I—er, believe that—er, in point of fact, the experiment merely made matters worse. The village—er, believes that any Forsham is immune. That, at least, is what I am informed. The ghosts, being—er, Forsham ghosts, won’t, in point of fact, haunt us.” George Forsham gave a short, angry laugh, and pushed back his chair with a grating sound. “I must be off. I’ve got an appointment,” he said, and got up, tall and thin.

  Mr. Berry got up too.

  “You mentioned your brother Julian,” he said. “The Times informs me that he is in Italy; but I rather thought that I passed him on the Embankment this morning. I won’t ask any questions, of course; but if, by any chance, he is not in Italy, I should be glad if he would spare me half an hour—I will undertake that there shall be no reporters on the premises.”

  George Forsham’s manner became distant. He looked over Mr. Berry’s head, and said “Yes. Ah, yes,” in a vague sort of way. Then he moved to the door. With the handle in his hand, he turned:

  “To revert—er, to the—er, proposition which I put before you. You understand that it was—er, made seriously. I feel”—the door had fallen an inch or two ajar, and now, as he took half a step forward, it opened a little further still—“I feel the untenanted condition of the Dower House as a—a reflection upon my family. The proposition that I made to you was a serious proposition. I should like you to—er, take a note of it. I am prepared to pay two hundred pounds as—well, in point of fact, as a premium, to any suitable tenant—and by suitable I mean a tenant whose references and—er, social position shall be satisfactory to you. You are getting that down? I am prepared, I say, to pay a premium of two hundred pounds to such a tenant, provided—provided they stay six months in the house, and—er, put a stop to all these preposterous rumours. If they don’t stay, they must pay the money back. You must have a guarantee to that effect. But I can leave all that to you—the power of attorney will cover everything of that sort, and—er, I shall be seeing you again, of course, before I go.”

  “Yes, on Friday.” Mr. Berry came round the table, and shook the rather limp hand that was extended. “You don’t sail till Monday, do you? I rather envy you that trip to New Zealand. I’m sure it’s three months since we’ve seen the sun at all. Au revoir, then, and don’t forget the message to your brother—if he isn’t in Italy.” Mr. Berry’s dark eyes twinkl
ed.

  Mr. George Forsham turned abruptly and went out. He passed through the ante-room with no more than a momentary impression of the woman who was standing near one of the windows. He was aware that she was tall; for the rest, he was in a hurry and considerably annoyed—very considerably annoyed—both with Mr. Berry who had appeared to question him about Julian, and with Julian who had put him in what he characterized as a—well, in point of fact, a damned awkward position. He went out fuming, and as soon as the door had closed upon him, Mr. Berry came out of his office. The woman at the window turned to meet him with both hands extended.

  “Oh, Mr. Berry,” she said.

  Mr. Berry, taking the hands in his own, was conscious of a good deal of pleasure.

  “My dear Mrs. Grey, I’ve kept you waiting. A thousand apologies. It wasn’t because I wanted to, I assure you. Between you and me and these walls, that’s rather a tedious gentleman.”

  Amabel laughed as she preceded him into the next room. It was not till she had seated herself, and had seen Mr. Berry seated, that she said:

  “It was George Forsham, wasn’t it?”

  “You know him?”

  Amabel laughed again. Mr. Berry thought she looked charming—bright eyes, nice colour, better than half the girls. She was a little more animated than usual—he thought she seemed younger.