“Carr?” He picked up the name as any stranger might.
“Margaret’s boy. You remember she married Jock Robertson. They left Carr with me when they went out East, and they never came back, so I brought him up.”
“Carr Robertson-” It was said as you might say any name. “I’m sorry to hear about Margaret. How old is the boy?”
“Beyond being called one. He’s twenty-eight.”
“Married?”
“He was. She died two years ago.”
“Bad luck. I seem to be asking all the wrong questions.”
She said, “These things happen.”
Catherine leaned sideways to put down her coffee-cup.
“You needn’t mind, James. None of us really knew Marjory-she wasn’t interested in Melling. I don’t suppose Rietta saw her a dozen times. And as for Carr, I think we may say he is in process of being consoled. The friend whom he has brought to stay is a particularly dazzling blonde.”
Rietta said, “That’s cheap, Catherine.”
Her old downright voice, her old downright anger. Pallas Athene disdaining a mortal. A handsome creature Rietta, probably not too comfortable to live with. He began to ask about people in the village.
Some twenty minutes later when she got up to go he said,
“I’ll walk round with you.”
“There’s no need, James.”
“Pleasant things are not always necessary. I’ll come back if you’ll let me, Catherine, so I won’t say goodnight.”
It was dark outside-no moon, but no clouds, the stars a little veiled by what might be a mist before the September sun came up again, the air mild and moist, with a faint smell of wood smoke and rotting leaves.
They had gone about a third of the short distance before he said,
“I really wanted to speak to you, Rietta. I don’t quite know what arrangements my mother made with Catherine about the Gate House. I wonder if you can help me.”
She slowed her step to his.
“I don’t know that I can. Why don’t you ask her?”
He sounded amused.
“Do you really think that would be the best way to find out? I was thinking of something a little more impartial.”
“Then you had better ask Mr. Holderness.”
“I’m going to. But I’ve an idea that he mayn’t know very much about it. You know what my mother was-she had her own ways of doing things-very much the autocrat, very much the grande dame.” He gave a short laugh. “It might never have occurred to her to mention a private transaction between herself and Catherine. What I should like to know is whether she ever mentioned it to you. Here, let’s turn and walk back again. Did she?”
“Yes, when Catherine came back here after her husband died she said, ‘Aunt Mildred’s letting me have the Gate House at a nominal rent.’ And next time I saw your mother she told me, ‘I’m letting Catherine have the Gate House. Edward Welby seems to have left her with about twopence-half-penny a year.’ ”
“Nothing about rent?”
“No.”
“Anything about furniture?”
“Yes, your mother said, ‘I’ve told her she can have the two groundfloor rooms knocked into one, and I suppose I shall have to let her have some furniture.’ ”
“That might mean anything. What I want to know is, was the furniture given or lent?”
“I don’t know.”
“Some of it’s valuable.”
“I suppose it is. The Mayhews might know.”
“They don’t. There seems to have been a sort of drift going on for years. Every now and then my mother would say, ‘I’m letting Mrs. Welby have this or that, or the other,’ or Catherine would say, ‘Mrs. Lessiter says I can have so-and-so,’ and off it would go down to the lodge-absolutely nothing to show whether the thing was being given or lent. And mind you, I don’t believe my mother would have given her some of the things she’s got down there.”
“She might have. I suppose the only person who can say whether she did or not is Catherine herself.”
He laughed.
“My dear Rietta!”
There was so much sarcasm in both voice and laugh that it really was not necessary to add anything to those three words.
They reached the lodge gate and turned again. Back out of the past came the memory of the many, many times they had walked like this-under the moon, under the stars, under the shadowing dusk, too much in love to be able to say goodnight and go in. The love was gone with their youth and those faraway hours. What was left as far as Rietta Cray was concerned was an odd haunting sense of familiarity. In Catherine’s room James Lessiter had seemed like a stranger. Here in the darkness she recaptured, not the old love, not any emotional feeling, but the old sense of a familiar presence. It prompted her into hurried speech.
“James, couldn’t you-just let it go?”
He laughed again.
“Let her get away with it?”
“Why not? You’ve done without the things all this time. You’ve made a lot of money, haven’t you? And no one can really be sure what your mother meant. Catherine will be- dreadfully upset-if there’s a row.”
“I dare say.” He sounded amused. “But you see, it isn’t so easy as you seem to think. I’ve had a very good offer for Melling House, and I’ll have to give vacant possession. That goes for the Gate House too. If it was let to Catherine as a furnished house, that’s all right-I can give her notice and she’ll have to go. But an unfurnished let would be quite a different pair of shoes. Well, here we are at your gate again. I’ll have to go back and see what I can get out of Catherine, but unless she’s changed a great deal more than I think she has, it’s not likely to be anywhere within a street or two of the truth.”
“James!”
He gave another laugh.
“You haven’t changed either. You’re still a good friend, and I’m still a bad enemy. You don’t owe Catherine much, you know. She did her level best to queer your pitch.”
“That’s all past and gone.”
“And you don’t want me to be hard on her now. Well, well! It doesn’t pay to be made your way, Rietta, but I quite see you can’t help it. You don’t try, do you, any more than I have any intention of trying to alter my own way? It’s served me quite well, you know. If there’s an uttermost farthing due, I’m out to get it.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you? Well, I’m just wondering whether Catherine’s acquisitiveness has stopped short at a mere transfer of furniture. I’ve an idea it may have carried her well over on to the wrong side of the law.”
“James!”
“I’ve an extremely good memory, and it seems to me that there are quite a lot of things missing of the small, expensive kind which would be rather easily turned into cash. Let me open the gate for you.”
“James-”
“Goodnight, my dear. As I said, you haven’t really changed at all. It’s a pity.”
CHAPTER 7
On the morning following her arrival Mrs. Voycey took her friend Miss Silver shopping. Melling had a butcher, a baker who also sold buns, cake, biscuits, fruit preserved in glass bottles and sweets, and a grocer whose groceries merged by tactful degrees into the appurtenances of a general shop. You could, for example, start at the left-hand side of the counter and buy bacon, coffee and semolina, and work gradually to the right through apples, potatoes and root vegetables, till you arrived at twine, garden implements, shopping-bags, and boots and shoes hanging like strings of onions from a nail high up on the wall. Somewhere midway there was a stand of picture-post cards and a blotting-pad, the latter an advertisement of the fact that the shop was also a branch post office, and that stamps and telegraph forms could be obtained.
With so many different attractions, it was naturally a very general meeting-place. Miss Silver was introduced to Miss Ainger, the Vicar’s sister, a formidable lady with iron-grey hair, a Roman nose, and the sort of tweeds which suggest armour-plating. It might ha
ve been the size of the check, black and white upon a ground of clerical grey, or it might have been something about Miss Ainger’s figure, but the suggestion was certainly there. She was scolding Mrs. Grover about the bacon, and detached herself with difficulty.
“Yes, much too thick, and with far too much fat-Did you say a school friend? Oh, how do you do?-Don’t let it happen again or I shall have to tell the Vicar.”
Mrs. Grover’s colour rose. She pressed her lips together and restrained herself. Mrs. Voycey moved a step nearer the post cards and caught Miss Cray by the arm.
“Rietta, I want to introduce you to my friend Miss Silver. We were at school together.”
Rietta said, “Oh-” She was in a hurry, but, with twenty years’ experience, she knew that it wasn’t any use being in a hurry with Mrs. Voycey. The large, firm hand upon her arm would remain there until she had done her social duty. She said, “How do you do?” to Miss Maud Silver, and was invited to tea that afternoon.
“And it’s no use saying you can’t come, Rietta, because I know perfectly well that Carr and Miss Bell have gone up to town for the day. The baker saw them start. He mentioned it when he called, because there was a very black cloud overhead at the time and he noticed that Miss Bell hadn’t got an umbrella so he hoped she wouldn’t get wet. He said he told her she’d better take one, but she only laughed. How long are they staying with you?”
“I don’t quite know. Carr has brought down some manuscripts to read.”
“He looks as if he needed a good long holiday. Then you’ll come to tea this afternoon? I’ll ring Catherine up and ask her too. I want Maud Silver to meet you both.” She leaned closer and said in a throaty whisper, “She’s quite a famous detective.”
Miss Silver was examining the stand of post cards. She looked so much less like a detective than anything Rietta could have imagined that she was startled into saying,
“What does she detect?”
“Crime,” said Mrs. Voycey right into her ear. She then let go of the arm she had been holding and stepped back. “I’ll expect you at half past four. I must really have a word with Mrs. Mayhew.”
Mrs. Mayhew was buying onions, and a stone of potatoes.
“I’m sure I never thought I’d come to having to get either from anywhere else except the garden, but it’s all Mr. Andrews can do to keep the place tidy, and that’s the truth, Mr. Grover-indeed he can’t, and there’s no getting from it. So if Sam can bring them up after school-” She turned, a little meek woman with a plaintive manner, and was immediately cornered by Mrs. Voycey.
“Ah, Mrs. Mayhew-I suppose you’re very busy with Mr. Lessiter back. Quite unexpected, wasn’t it? Only last week I said to the Vicar, ‘There doesn’t seem to be any word of Melling House being opened up again,’ and I said it was a pity. Well, now he’s back I hope he isn’t going to run away again.”
“I don’t know, I’m sure.”
Mrs. Voycey gave her hearty laugh.
“We must all be very nice to him, and then perhaps he’ll stay.” She came a step nearer and dropped her voice. “Good news of your son, I hope.”
Mrs. Mayhew darted a frightened glance to the right and to the left. It was no good. She was in the angle between the counter and the wall, and get past Mrs. Voycey she couldn’t. Her own tone was almost inaudible as she murmured,
“He’s doing all right.”
Mrs. Voycey patted her kindly on the shoulder.
“I was sure he would-you can tell him I said so. Things are different to what they used to be thirty or forty years ago. There wasn’t any second chance then, whether it was a boy or a girl, but it’s all quite different now. He’ll be coming down to see you, I expect.”
Mrs. Mayhew had turned dreadfully pale. Mrs. Voycey meant well-everyone in Melling knew how kind she was- but Mrs. Mayhew couldn’t bear to talk about Cyril, not right here in the shop with people listening. It made her feel as if she was in a trap and couldn’t get out. And then the little lady who looked like a governess coughed and touched Mrs. Voycey’s arm-“Pray, Cecilia, tell me something about these views. I should like to send a card to my niece, Ethel Burkett”-and she was free. Her heart was beating so hard that it confused her, and she was half-way up the drive before she remembered that she had meant to buy peppermint flavouring.
When the two ladies came out of the shop and were walking home across the Green, Mrs. Voycey said,
“That was Mrs. Mayhew. She and her husband are cook and butler at Melling House. Their son has been a sad trouble to them.”
Miss Silver coughed and said,
“She did not like your talking about him, Cecilia.”
Mrs. Voycey said in her hearty way,
“It’s no good her being so sensitive. Everyone knows, and everyone feels kindly about it and hopes that Cyril has made a fresh start. He was their only one and they spoilt him-a dreadful mistake. Of course it makes it hard for Mrs. Mayhew the Grover boy having turned out so well-that was Mrs. Grover serving Dagmar Ainger at the end of the counter. Allan and Cyril used to be friends. They both took scholarships, and Allan went into Mr. Holderness’s office-a very good opening. But Cyril took a job in London, and that’s what did the mischief. He isn’t a bad boy, but he’s weak and they spoilt him. He ought to have been where he could keep in touch with his home. It’s terribly lonely for boys like that when they first go out into the world, and the only company they can get is just the sort that isn’t likely to do them any good. You know, Maud, I used to be dreadfully disappointed about not having children, and I dare say I missed a great deal, but it’s a tremendous responsibility-isn’t it?”
Miss Silver coughed and said it was.
“Even a satisfactory boy like Allan Grover,” pursued Mrs. Voycey. “Well, I wouldn’t say it to anyone but you, and of course it’s too silly for words, to say nothing of being exceedingly presumptuous-”
“My dear Cecilia!”
“I was really shocked. And I can’t-no, I really can’t believe that she gave him any encouragement. Of course at that age they don’t need any, and she is a very pretty woman-”
“My dear Cecilia!”
Mrs. Voycey nodded.
“Yes-Catherine Welby. Quite too absurd, as I said. It began with his offering to go and put up shelves in her house, and then he said he would plant her bulbs, and she lent him books. And when she wanted to pay him he wouldn’t take a penny, so of course she couldn’t let him go on. He isn’t twenty-one yet, so she is more than old enough to be his mother.”
Miss Silver coughed indulgently.
“Oh, my dear Cecilia, what difference does that make?”
CHAPTER 8
James Lessiter sat back in his chair and looked across the table at Mr. Holderness, who appeared to be considerably perturbed. A flush had risen to the roots of the thick grey hair, deepening his florid complexion to something very near the rich plum-colour achieved by the original founder of the firm, a three-bottle man of the early Georgian period whose portrait hung on the panelling behind him. He stared back at James and said,
“You shock me.”
James Lessiter’s eyebrows rose.
“Do I really? I shouldn’t have thought anyone could practise as a solicitor for getting on for forty years and still retain a faculty for being shocked.”
There was a moment’s silence. The flush faded a little. Mr. Holderness smiled faintly.
“It is difficult to remain completely professional about people when one has known them as long as I have known your family. Your mother was a very old friend, and as to Catherine Welby, I was at her parents’ wedding-”
“And so you would expect me to allow myself to be robbed.”
“My dear James!”
James Lessiter smiled.
“How very much alike everyone is. That is exactly what Rietta said.”
“You have spoken to her about this-distressing suspicion of yours?”
“I told her there were a good many things missing, and that it wouldn�
�t surprise me to find that Catherine knew where they had gone, and-what they had fetched. Like you, all she could find to say was, ‘My dear James!’ ”
Mr. Holderness laid down the pencil he had been balancing and placed his fingertips together. It was a pose familiar to any client of long standing, and indicated that he was about to counsel moderation.
“I alluded just now to this idea of yours as a distressing suspicion. You cannot wish to precipitate a family scandal upon a mere suspicion.”
“Oh, no.”
“I was sure of it. Your mother was extremely fond of Catherine. If there is no evidence to the contrary, there would be a strong presumption that the furniture at the Gate House was intended to be a gift.”
James continued to smile.
“My mother left Catherine five hundred pounds. By a few strokes of the pen she could have added, ‘and the furniture of the Gate House,’ or words to that effect. Yet she did not do so. If it comes to presumptions, that would be one on the other side. The will never mentions the furniture. Did my mother ever mention it to you?”
“Not precisely.”
“What do you mean by not precisely?”
The fingertips came apart. The pencil was taken up again.
“Well, as a matter of fact, I mentioned it to her.”
“And she said?”
“She put the matter aside. She could be very peremptory, you know. I cannot pretend to give her exact words. The will was drawn more than ten years ago, but my recollection is that she said something like ‘That doesn’t come into it.’ Considered in the light of what you have been saying, it might be argued that her will had no concern with the furniture because she had already given it to Catherine-”
“Or because she had no intention of giving it to her. You didn’t ask her what she meant?”
“No-she was being extremely peremptory.”
James laughed.
“I’ve no doubt of it! What I shall continue to doubt is that my mother had any intention of letting Catherine get away with so much valuable stuff.”
Mr. Holderness rolled the pencil meditatively to and fro between finger and thumb.
Miss Silver Comes To Stay Page 4
