by Annie Haynes
“That’s all right, then, Brookes,” Letchingham said thankfully. “I was beginning to think it would be a case of walking to Glastwick and sending some one out to you, for I do not see much chance of getting help out here on the moor.”
Meanwhile Cynthia, rushing headlong away, did not heed where her steps were taking her; she only realized that at all hazards she must get away, she must put as much distance as possible between herself and the man whom she dreaded above all things on earth.
After that one backward glance she never turned her head, but hurried along, catching her gown on the gorse, stumbling over the rough ground, her breath coming in long-drawn sobs.
“What is the matter? Where are you going?” It was a man’s voice; a man’s hand was laid on her arm.
With a shriek of terror the girl tore herself away.
“Let me go! Let me go!” she cried.
“What is wrong? Where are you going?”
Cynthia’s heart gave a great throb of relief as she recognized Heriot’s voice.
“Oh, there was somebody, a man!” she began. “He—he frightened me!”
Heriot’s eyes lighted up with anger.
“A man—where?” he asked laconically, his hand involuntarily gripping the handle of his stick.
“I—do—not—know!” she said, with a great breathless gasp between the words. “I suppose I have come a long way. I seem to have been running—for hours. They—they frightened me so terribly.”
“Poor child!” Heriot’s face was very pitiful. After another long look round he drew her trembling hand through his arm. “Lean on me; I will take you to the cottage; you can rest there. You are completely done up.” He guided her carefully.
“I thought you had gone,” Cynthia said, recovering after a few minutes. “The cottage was shut up.
“I have been away,” Heriot said laconically, “and my landlady has been visiting friends. There she is—look.”
Cynthia was surprised to see how near she was to the cottage; in her fright she had run a far greater distance than she had imagined. The elderly woman whom she had seen before sat in the porch knitting; everything looked exactly the same as it had done on the first day of her stay at Greylands.
Heriot unlatched the garden gate and drew her in authoritatively.
“You will be better when you have rested and had a cup of—er—my landlady’s tea. Later on I will walk home with you, but in the meantime,” grimly, “I will look round and see whether I can find anything of the gentlemen who have annoyed you.”
Cynthia uttered a cry of alarm; her hot fingers clutched his arm imploringly.
“Oh, you must not—indeed, you must not! Promise me you will not! Besides you will not find them; they—they had a motor. By now they are far away.”
“Well, in that case it is not much good looking for them,” Heriot conceded reluctantly. “Mrs Smithson”—as his landlady, becoming aware of their approach, laid aside her knitting and regarded them with some surprise—“I have brought you this young lady, Miss Hammond, whom you have seen before; she has had a fright and is rather knocked up. You must give her a cup of tea and let her rest quietly a while.”
“Bless you, sir, certainly I will!” Mrs Smithson responded heartily as she rose. “Eh! Dear, dear, miss, you do look bad!” she went on, raising her hands. “It was owing to that that I didn’t recognize you at first, for I have often thought of you and wondered if you would come in to see me again. Sit down, miss”—drawing forth her chair—“I will soon bring you a cup of tea.”
Cynthia hesitated and glanced round nervously.
“Would you mind—I would so much rather come indoors if you would let me?” she said pleadingly, her eyes looking big and frightened.
“Come inside and welcome, miss!” Mrs Smithson said. “Myself I am very fond of sitting in the porch; I see all that there is to be seen here anyway, but I know some folks never can abide having their food out of doors.”
Cynthia could not help laughing in the midst of her agitation.
“It is not that at all; but if I sat there and that man came by again to ask the way or anything he would see me.”
“You would be safe enough if he did, miss,” Mrs Smithson remarked reassuringly. “Mr Heriot would take care of that; don’t you trouble yourself! Why, I declare you are all of a shiver! You ought to have a dog to go about with you—there’s nothing for keeping tramps off like a dog—”
“I think I must get Mr Gillman to let me bring Nero,” Cynthia assented. “But he is a mastiff, so big and strong that I am half afraid of him myself. Now, Spot, the little dog they had when I came—the one that was killed—was a different matter.”
Mrs Smithson looked troubled.
“Is Spot dead, miss?”
“Yes, Mr Heriot and I found him in a wood; somebody had killed him. Did you know Spot, Mrs Smithson?”
The expression of the woman’s rosy face changed.
“I have heard of him,” she said evasively. “Please come right in, miss; this is Mr Heriot’s own sitting- room, and a pleasant enough room it is, though I suppose I should be the last to say it.”
Cynthia agreed with her unreservedly as she followed her into the room at the right of the door; its raftered ceiling and quaint latticed windows, now thrown wide open, gave it a charming old-world air, while the brightly-polished table and the book-case and the light clean chintz with which the couch and chairs were covered presented an impression of dainty freshness which was delightful to the girl’s tired brain.
Mrs Smithson drew the longest, most comfortable arm-chair up beside the open window.
“Sit down, miss, and I’ll bring you a cup of good tea; that will be the best thing for you,” she said and lingered a minute, bringing forward a little tea-table and arranging it beside the girl. “You’ll excuse me, miss, but I was told that her ladyship had taken a turn for the better. I hope it is true.”
“I do not see much difference, myself, thank you,” Cynthia said listlessly, laying her head back against the cushions, “but she may be a little better perhaps. I know Mr Gillman thinks she is.”
“I am sure I am glad to hear it, miss!”
Intent on her tea-making, the good woman bustled out of the room, and Cynthia was left alone.
At first she was too much exhausted to do anything but lie perfectly still; but after a while she revived, and, with some fear that she might be seen from the road, drew her chair back behind the curtains. Her eyes wandered slowly over the room; finally they rested on a picture over the mantelpiece, and, with a cry of surprise, she rose from her seat and went over to it. It was evidently a portrait of husband and wife, but what startled Cynthia was the feeling that the face of the lady seemed perfectly familiar to her; she looked at it again.
Yes, she had made no mistake; it was the same face, a little older, perhaps, of one of the three sisters portrayed in the large oil-painting in the disused drawing-room at Greylands. Hardly grasping the significance of this discovery, she was still gazing upwards and speculating as to the identity of the tall, dark man pictured behind the lady, with an odd feeling, too, that his features were not entirely unknown to her, when there was a step in the passage behind her.
She turned and saw Heriot standing in the door-way, a curiously embarrassed expression on his face as he watched her. As she met his eyes in a moment enlightenment came to her; she held out her hands; her face paled.
“You—you are not Mr Heriot,” she said with instant conviction. “You are Sir Donald Farquhar!”
Chapter Twelve
THE MAN hesitated; there was a minute’s tense silence; then he stepped forward and took the outstretched hands in his.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “I am your cousin, Donald Farquhar; I have often wondered that you did not guess it before!”
A great bewilderment was struggling with the comprehension in the girl’s eyes.
“I do not understand! Why have you not given your true name? Why have you been hid
ing like this?”
Farquhar looked down at her gravely.
“I have found it quite impossible to gain access to my aunt; from my correspondence with her solicitors I had learned that they were uneasy about the large demands she had been making for money, and I thought that by staying here under another name I might learn more about her and possibly obtain an interview with her; but I have not succeeded, as you know, so far.”
Cynthia slowly drew her hands from his and went back to her chair. Sir Donald crossed to the mantelpiece and took up his position before it, leaning his broad shoulders against the high wooden ledge and smiling a little as he looked down at the girl’s troubled face.
“I have often thought that my anxiety about my aunt must have given me away to you, that you must have guessed my secret.”
Cynthia’s eyes drooped.
“No, I never guessed; I never thought of such a thing!”
There was the sound of tea-cups cheerfully rattling on the tray, and Mrs Smithson made her appearance.
“I have made it strong, miss, and I have brought a few of the hot scones that Mr Heriot is so fond of,” she said as she set her load on the table before Cynthia.
“You are very kind,” the girl said absently.
Sir Donald laughed.
“Ah, Mr Heriot is done for!” he said. “Miss Hammond has guessed our secret—half of it, at any rate!”
For a moment Mrs Smithson looked embarrassed; then her countenance broke into smiles.
“Real glad I am to hear of it, Sir Donald!” she said with emphasis. “Now that Miss Hammond knows that we are here in my lady’s interests she will help us all she can, I know, in a manner of speaking.”
“Ah, now we must tell Miss Hammond the other half of our story,” Sir Donald interposed. He turned back to Cynthia.
“You may have heard of Gleeson—my aunt’s confidential maid, who was with her all through my childhood?”
“Ay, and before that—before you were ever thought of, Sir Donald!” the woman tearfully interpolated.
“Though my aunt had refused to hold any communication with me after our quarrel,” Sir Donald pursued, “I wrote several times to Gleeson, who had always stood my friend, asking her to give me news of my aunt and to let me know if there was any sign of a reconciliation with me, but whether Gillman discovered that Gleeson was working with me, or whether her presence in the house interfered with his plans in some other way, I do not know, however that may be, her dismissal followed very shortly.
“When I went back to England my first care was to seek her out, and when I heard from her my aunt’s story it struck me as so serious that, failing to obtain any satisfactory information about her through ordinary channels, I resolved to come down under another name and see what I could discover for myself. The idea commended itself to Gleeson as so eminently satisfactory that she resolved to do the same. This little cottage was to let; we took it, and voilà tout!” with a comprehensive wave of his hand.
Cynthia drew a long breath.
“You are Sir Donald Farquhar and Mrs Smithson —Gleeson?”
Mrs Smithson—or Gleeson—took the answer upon herself.
“Yes, indeed, miss! Many is the time since that day you came by and told us of my lady’s illness that I have not been able to sleep at nights for thinking of what she might be going through, and me not there to help her!” She was wiping her eyes as she spoke. “I beg your pardon, miss! I had been in her ladyship’s service for years; she had treated me almost as a friend, and it is sore trouble to me not to be with her now.”
“I am sure it is,” Cynthia said sympathetically; “but you must not think that she is not well looked after. Mr Gillman and Miss Sybil are most attentive and devoted to her, though I am sure she must miss you, and no doubt you would be a great help. I am sorry you left.”
Gleeson put away her handkerchief.
“I didn’t leave till I was pretty near turned out of the house by main force, miss. Mr Gillman, he was determined that nobody should be with her ladyship except himself. He resented her affection for me as if it had been a personal affront to him, and when he found out that my lady was talking to me of Sir Donald and wishing he was back, he made up his mind that I should go, in spite of all she could say. Poor lady! How she cried and clung to me when she heard I was going, for he turned me out of the house at a moment’s notice. I begged her to leave him, to come with me, and for a moment I thought she was about to yield, and then he came on the scene. ‘Why, Hannah, my love, what is the matter?’ he says in that oily voice of his. ‘I have just heard of a maid for you that seems most suitable. She will be able to do your hair better than Gleeson has done, for you know you have lovely hair, my dear.’
“She tried to smile at him, but I could see her lips tremble, and as I went away she whispered to me, ‘I am frightened, Gleeson—so frightened!’ Ah, many a time since my heart has ached thinking of those words!”
“She said exactly the same thing in her letter to me,” Sir Donald confirmed. “I made up my mind then that I would not relax my efforts until I had seen her face to face and heard from her lips, in Gillman’s absence, what she wished to do.”
“Ah, you had the letter, then? I am so glad!” Cynthia said quickly.
He looked surprised.
“What, you know?”
“She gave it to Mrs Knowles to post.” Cynthia told the circumstances in which it was sent. “She expressed herself in precisely the same way when she wrote to me,” she added, “but when I spoke to her about it she explained it by saying that it was written when her illness was coming on and when she could not realize what was the matter with her.”
“Do you think that accounts for everything?” Sir Donald demanded abruptly.
Cynthia paused and wrinkled up her brows.
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “It does not seem to me to be altogether adequate, yet I cannot form any other theory.”
Sir Donald nodded gravely. His eyes looked absorbed and speculative as he mechanically watched the shaft of sunlight that fell athwart Cynthia’s head and turned her glory of chestnut hair to burnished gold.
“It is my belief her ladyship wanted Sir Donald back almost as soon as he was gone,” Gleeson interposed. “I noticed how she was fretting for him before we went to Brussels. Then Mr Gillman came on the scene; and from the first that ever he saw her he laid himself out to please her. He wanted the spending of her money, the villain!” she concluded vindictively. “It was just pure loneliness made her take him, poor lady! I made no doubt she has regretted it often enough since. However, here’s your tea getting cold while you are talking, miss, and I am sure a drink of it would do you good.”
She poured it out and brought it to Cynthia with a tempting plate of thin bread and butter. To please her the girl put the cup to her lips and then, surprised to find how thirsty she was, drank a little feverishly.
Sir Donald took a cup and stirred the contents absently.
“You saw Bolt & Barsly’s clerk when he came over, he told me?” he said. “The interview seems to have been enough to convince him that matters were all right.”
“Yes, I was in the room a good deal of the time,” Cynthia replied, toying with a piece of the scone which had been so urgently recommended by Gleeson. “Cousin Hannah was terribly averse to seeing him. Mr Gillman had hard work to persuade her, but it did not do her any harm, and afterwards she said she was very glad she had done it.”
“Dear, dear, yes,” Gleeson went on volubly as Sir Donald relapsed into silence again, “that she would be, for she was always trying to write to Mr Barsly without Mr Gillman knowing! You’ll excuse me, miss, but you do feature her; I noticed it the first time I saw you. No need to tell me she is a Miss Hammond, sir, I said to Sir Donald here; she carries it written in her face. I came to my mistress when she was not such a great deal older than you are now, miss, and the way you remind me of her is something wonderful! You will be one of Mr Basil’s children, I made no do
ubt, miss—him as settled in Ireland?”
Cynthia glanced away from the woman’s kindly interested eyes.
“I—yes, we were in Ireland,” she replied evasively.
“I knew it!” Gleeson said triumphantly. “Eh, well, I remember your father, miss! A fine, personable gentleman he was, and a great favourite with my mistress; I’ll go bail that it was the remembrance of him that turned her thoughts to you when she became ill!”
“I do not know, I am sure!” Cynthia said, plaiting two or three of the folds of her dress together. She shrank intensely from the friendly inquisition. Above all things she wished to keep her identity a secret; and her adventure of the afternoon, her knowledge that her husband was in the neighbourhood, had increased her previous desires tenfold. “It—it is very sad for Cousin Hannah,” she went on quickly, anxious to change the subject. “She must feel her helplessness terribly after the active life she has led.”
“Ay, ay, poor dear lady!” Gleeson shook her head mournfully.
“The spectacle of her helplessness seems to have impressed Fowler—Mr Barsly’s clerk—considerably,” Sir Donald went on. “One remark of his, though, struck me as rather overshooting the mark; he spoke of the pathos of seeing her pretty white hands lying helpless. Now—”
“I should just have laughed in the man’s face,” Gleeson broke in with withering scorn, “when I remember how the poor thing was crippled with rheumatism! If it hadn’t been for that we shouldn’t have spent our time wandering from one watering- place after another, and she might never have met that scamp Gillman, for, saving your presence, miss, I can’t mince matters when I remember what he made my poor lady suffer while I was with her!”
Cynthia was sipping her tea, and, feeling intensely thankful that the conversation was thus diverted successfully into fresh channels, she looked up in surprise.
“Cousin Hannah’s hands are pretty and delicate,” she said, “I have often thought how beautifully white and unwrinkled they are for an old lady’s, though she cannot use either of them—I mean that though she can just manage to sign her name, it’s a matter of great difficulty; her power of grasping seems gone.”
