The Black Benedicts

by Anita Charles

  So far as she had been able to discover, there were very few books in the school-room, either for pleasure or for the purpose of educating a youthful mind. Copies of the Wind in the Willows, Edward Lear’s Nonsense Rhymes, and Alice Through the Looking-Glass were on a shelf beside the fireplace, together with some very well thumbed and definitely childish books, but that was all. “We’ll have to discuss this matter with your uncle when he comes back and get him to buy you some new books,” Mallory, standing in front of the book-case, remarked to her pupil.

  Serena looked up at her without betraying very much interest.

  “There are heaps and heaps and heaps of books in the library,” she said, “and Uncle Raife gave me permission to take whatever I want from there. But they are all so old, and so dull, except one or two, which I rather liked.”

  “And what were those?” Mallory asked, with curiosity.

  “There was one called East Lynne, and another”—she named a somewhat sensational Victorian novel which had been popular in its day— “which I thought rather silly, very silly...”

  “Upon my word, Serena,” Mallory exclaimed, amazed that so little real supervision had ever entered into the child’s life, “do you mean to tell me that no one—no one—has ever organized your reading, and that you were allowed to take books of that sort out of the library? And to bring them up here?”

  “Why, of course,” Serena answered mildly, her glorious eyes a little perplexed, and inclined also to twinkle slightly. “But I mostly read them in bed, and kept them under my pillows so that they would be handy.”

  “And Darcy said nothing about them?”

  Serena shook her head.

  “Why should she?”

  Mallory gave it up. But this going to bed at six o’clock at night after a day which included little exercise and staying awake until midnight, if she felt so disposed, was another of the things which would have to be stopped. She foresaw that the battle of wills with Darcy would have to be sooner than she, personally, would have wished.

  “Well, now,” she said, “as it’s a wet afternoon, and you have literally no school books, we’ll have a nice wholesome game of Ludo until tea-time, and then afterwards, If you’re good, we’ll dip into some of the Nonsense Rhymes. And tomorrow I’ll find out what you do know about such straightforward subjects as history, geography and arithmetic.”

  Serena sprang up to get the Ludo board.

  “I can tell you how many wives Henry the Eighth had, but I’m no good at arithmetic,” she admitted candidly. “And if we’re going to have the Nonsense Rhymes, do let us have the one about ‘Bingy Bongy Bo’.” And she started to recite:

  “In the middle of the woods

  Lived the Bingy Bongy Bo,

  Two old chairs and half a candle,

  One old jug without a handle,

  These were all his worldly goods,

  In the middle of the woods.”

  “I said after tea,” Mallory remarked quietly, deliberately setting forth the Ludo men.

  After dinner that night she felt oddly restless. Serena was in bed, and she had no one at all to talk to. She supposed that if she wished she could have gone downstairs and talked to Mrs. Carpenter in her sitting-room, but that would have looked as if she was without the power to entertain herself in her own room, and Mrs. Carpenter was not a woman who really enjoyed conversation.

  Her sitting-room was warm and comfortable at that hour. Outside rain lashed against the windows, and the great trees in the park were tossing a mad dance encouraged by the elements. But within the four walls of her little room her electric fire glowed strongly, simulating the appearance of logs in an old-fashioned basket, and on the little table beside her chair Rose had set down her coffee cup, and there were the magazines she had not yet had a chance to look at. There was also a letter to be written home to her mother, and she thought she had better get on with it.

  But she lay back in her chair and, presently, during a lull in the wind, she found herself listening—without at first realizing that she was listening—to the music of a piano someone was playing not so very far off in the house. And, of course, that someone must be Adrian, since both his daughter and his brother had told her that music was almost his only form of relaxation and pleasure. And once again he was improvising, his touch so delicate said delightful that after a few minutes Mallory found herself deserting her chair and stealing across to open the door a little, so that she could hear him that much better.

  As if compelled by the music she stole forward a little way along the corridor. There was no one about in that part of the house at that hour, and the thick carpet allowed her to move soundlessly. At intervals softly-shaded lights shone down upon her as she moved, a slender figure in the dark dress with the little white collar and cuffs which she had adopted as a badge of her position in the household. Anyone meeting her would not have mistaken her for a domestic, but they would have recognized that she was in some way a dependent, despite the pale aureole of soft, feathery-tipped curls, and the grey eyes that were wide open and ardent and never anything but straight-gazing.

  All at once the piano-playing grew louder, and she realized that she was standing outside the door of the room behind which the pianist sought to while away a long and possibly lonely evening. She began to realize that she had better retreat at once, for although it was only the playing which had drawn her thus far, anyone coming upon her suddenly might have decided that she was behaving a little oddly. Regretfully, therefore—for it was a Chopin Nocturne now that was filling the corridor with beauty—she turned and started to retrace her steps.

  But before she had taken more than six steps back to her own room the playing suddenly ceased abruptly, in the middle of a bar, and the door behind her was whisked open.

  “Who’s there?” called Adrian Benedict into the dim tunnel of soft light and softer carpet.

  Mallory wheeled round at once.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I hope I didn’t disturb you...?”

  “I heard your footsteps stop outside the door,” he replied. His large dark eyes had a queer, almost eager brightness in them. “It’s Miss Gower, isn’t it?”

  Mallory stood silent, wondering what to say. She felt like a child caught in a guilty act.

  “I hope my playing didn’t bother you? Can you hear it in your room?”

  “That was why I came along, to find out where it was coming from,” Mallory admitted. “It was—you play beautifully,” she finished simply.

  “Do you think so?” he asked, and he sounded pleased. “It’s one of the few things I do do beautifully,” he told her, with equal simplicity.

  “That variation on the theme ‘Greensleeves’— it’s fascinating,” she said.

  He bowed to her.

  “All my own work,” he assured her, his voice quite grave.

  “You must love music.”

  “There’s not very much, else to love in life,” he replied immediately, and somehow he succeeded in shocking her greatly, for he obviously meant what he said. And then he stood aside from his doorway. “Won’t you come inside and let me play to you for a little while if you like listening? If you’re feeling lonely...? I suppose it is rather lonely for you here when Serena’s in bed?”

  Mallory hesitated. She was not quite sure whether the room into which he invited her was a music-room, or whether it was his own sitting-room. But in any case her employer had bidden her not to snub him, if it was possible for her to do otherwise. And there was a faintly pleading rather lost look about him as he stood there—something pathetic, like a dog anxious to be friendly, and fearing, perhaps, a rebuff.

  “Thank you,” she returned, after a moment. “It’s very kind of you, and if you’re going on playing I would like to listen. I’m very keen on music myself.”

  “I had already gathered that,” he told her quietly, and gestured towards the interior of his room with one very slender and beautifully-formed hand. “Apres vous, Mademoiselle!”
/>
  CHAPTER FIVE

  His room was one of the most delightful rooms Mallory had ever found herself in. There was a green carpet, like a carpet of moss, and curtains of moss-green velvet flowed before the tall windows. The piano occupied a most prominent position across a corner of the room, and was so beautiful that Mallory caught her breath at first sight of it. Behind it a standard lamp that diffused a mellow golden light reflected in the polished wood, also shone across a little occasional table and an arm-chair drawn up close to the brightly-burning fire. And on the little table there was a decanter and glasses, and a handsome silver cigarette-box.

  Adrian Benedict indicated the arm-chair beside the little table, and Mallory sank into its capacious depths. But when he also offered to provide her with a drink she shook her head.

  “No?” He looked surprised.

  Mallory smiled at him and explained. She had been brought up in a vicarage where there was never enough money to provide anything more exciting in the way of liquid refreshment than a very occasional bottle of rather cheap sherry which her father—not only for reasons of economy—kept solely for his own use after a particularly tiring day, and such a doubtful indulgence was not permitted to his family.

  Adrian stood before the fireplace studying her for several seconds in silence before he spoke, and she began to feel mildly embarrassed. His look was not in the least offensive, but he appeared to be appraising her feature by feature, which made her feel a little odd.

  “Forgive me for saying so,” he remarked at last, “but you do look rather young for a governess.”

  Mallory smiled at him again. So that was it!

  “I’m twenty-two,” she told him. “Almost twenty-three!”

  “Almost twenty-three!” he echoed. There was nothing vague about his expression to-night, but in his dark eyes there was a look which she found it difficult to analyse. It could, she decided, have been a wistful look. There was something slightly wistful about his whole fragile appearance, and he looked almost boyishly slender in his well-cut dinner jacket. His shoulders stooped a little, and she had discovered that he dragged one foot slightly, as if his accident had inflicted upon him a limp. “I can remember how I felt when I was twenty-three, as if there was nothing in life I could not achieve, and the world was mine for the grasping!” He gave a short sigh. “What dreams we have when we are young, Miss Gower, and ten years later they are most of them crumbled into ashes!”

  Ten years, thought Mallory—then he must be thirty-three, and his brother was possibly a couple of years older.

  “Isn’t that just typical of life?” she asked, in a gentle voice. “It isn’t what we decide that we will be and do, but what we actually become. And frequently our development has nothing to do with our tastes and inclinations.”

  “Which means that we are most of us frustrated?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Her grey eyes still retained their smile. “But sometimes we have to make do with second best, and that means a lot of adjustment, which naturally isn’t easy.”

  “You talk as if you were years older,” he observed, looking at her in a good deal of surprise. “Is that the result of being born in a vicarage?”

  She shook her head, laughing a little.

  “Being born in a vicarage means learning to do at an early age a lot of things which your instincts do not compel you to do, and which you probably wouldn’t do otherwise, but it is no guarantee that the instincts won’t have their own way later on, when, for instance, you’re away from the fold.” She hoped she hadn’t sounded a little preachy, and added quickly, changing the subject: “What a bright child Serena is! You must be very proud of her.”

  “Must I?” But his voice was cool and unenthusiastic. “The general opinion is that she is sometimes a little too bright for her years.”

  “Oh, well,” excusingly, “maybe she is just a little bit precocious, but that is nothing very serious. And she’s so lovely. I’ve no doubt that when she grows up she’ll be really beautiful, and you’ll have your work cut out stemming the rush of admirers.”

  “Do you think so?” But again there was no enthusiasm. “She’s a typical Benedict. All the Benedicts are dark as gipsies, as you’ve probably realized after seeing their portraits, and also after seeing myself and my brother. My brother Raife is probably the most typical of the lot of us, a worthy descendant of the gallant gentleman in the library who came near to losing his head when the first Elizabeth was on the throne. Maybe you haven’t yet had an opportunity of meeting that particular ancestor, but when you do you’ll almost certainly see the likeness. And believe me only a facial resemblance. Raife is all the things a true Benedict ought to be, and which I,” with unmistakable bitterness, “can never hope to be!”

  Mallory looked up at him in some surprise. He had invited her in to hear his music, but it was obviously on the subject of his brother that he wished to engage her as a listener, and on the subject of his brother he could even become enthusiastic.

  “I think I have already seen the portrait,” she told him. “After lunch to-day. It hangs over the fire-place, and .looks as if it might have been painted by Velasquez.”

  “Which of course it was not! But you probably remarked on the extraordinary likeness?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did,” Mallory admitted. “I think it’s rather an amazing likeness.”

  “One day someone will have to tell you the story of that gentleman.” He started to move about the room, dragging his lame foot soundlessly over the thick carpet, apparently affected by some of the restlessness of his brother, but unhappily without his brother’s curious feline grace. “Raife is the most extraordinary person. But for him we would none of us be living here at Morven Grange. He saved it for us! For Serena, and myself, and himself—and for his heirs if he ever marries, which I hope very much he will do!”

  “Oh, indeed?” Mallory murmured, beginning to grow interested.

  “Yes.” He looked at her with simplicity. “You see,” he explained, “the house was already heavily mortgaged, and there was hardly any money left, but Raife decided upon a gamble...! He actually made money out of the last little bit we had left, by investing it in something or other, which turned out well for him and us, and—and then he started to go in for running hotels, and it wasn’t long before he had a couple in Switzerland, and another on the Riviera, and all three doing well! And now, at least, we can sit back and feel that the house is safe at last, and every stick and stone of its contents. And to a Benedict that means a great deal, I can assure you—particularly to Raife!”

  “You mean that he loves Morven?”

  “He loves it more than anything else on earth!”

  Mallory was silent a moment.

  “That was rather a plucky thing to do,” she said at last. “I mean, to go in for hotel running, particularly if he had had no previous experience. He must be a very good business man.”

  “Raife is a first-class business man.”

  “And very shrewd—and far-seeing...”

  “Raife is all that, and he is hard-headed besides. Some people think he is hard-hearted—but those are only the people who do not really know him...”

  “Indeed...?” Mallory murmured again.

  She herself would have said that if he was not hard-hearted, he was certainly rather a ruthless specimen, unless, apparently, his affections were engaged...!

  That obviously made a difference...

  Adrian looked at her as if he hoped she was not one of those people who shared a doubtful opinion of his brother, and then he wandered over to his piano and, absent-mindedly almost, seated himself on the piano-stool. His hands drifted on to the keys as if drawn there by a magnet.

  “Everything I possess these days—my piano, my books, this room—I owe them all to Raife,” he said, offering a final tribute before losing himself in music.

  And what, thought Mallory, of Serena? Did he never count her amongst the advantages he possessed these days...?”

>   But in a moment she had forgotten everything save his playing, and for half an hour after that she sat listening to him while his whole expression grew very tranquil and he was obviously entirely happy. Liszt, Mozart, Debussy—half an hour of timeless magic which filled her, too, with unutterable contentment, behind which was the uneasy conviction that she had stayed here long enough, and that it was high time she departed to her own room She seized the opportunity when his hands remained motionless for a few seconds to stand up and move quietly but purposefully towards the door, and she looked back at him with gratitude in her eyes.

  “Thank you,” she said softly, “that was more than wonderful!”

  He answered her quite casually. “Any time you’re feeling bored, or lonely, or in need of entertainment, just come along here. I’d play to you half the night if you wished.”

  “Thank you,” she said again, and escaped from the room while he held the door open for her. When she was outside in the corridor she hastened to her own room, glad that no one was about to see her, and she thought that as a family these Benedicts were to from being ordinary. They were very much the reverse—they were completely unusual...

  CHAPTER SIX

  The next day and the following two days were very busy ones for Mrs. Carpenter, who gathered together her team of underlings for the purpose of turning out the drawing-room and the other main rooms of the house in preparation for the expected house-party. The bedrooms were already prepared, and Mallory had her first glimpse of the yellow guest chamber when she and Serena returned from their walk—this time confined to the formal gardens—on the morning after the master of the place had left for London.

  Mrs. Carpenter, with the assistance of Rose, was reverently removing a dust-cover from a striped satin-covered settee when Serena, seeing the door standing open, burst in to satisfy her curiosity. Mallory followed her, and then stood still, just inside the room, much more than struck by its appointments.