The Coldstone

by Patricia Wentworth

  “And you fell in love with him at once?”

  Mrs. Bowyer tossed her head.

  “I never thought nothing about him, though there was others that did. That Cis Dickson fair stared her eyes out of her head at him. I never fancied Dicksons afore nor since, and never thought as any son of mine would ha’ looked twice at one, and what Thomas ever saw in the girl is more than I can tell you. But there, he never had much sense, Thomas hadn’t. Some has sense, and some has looks—and Thomas hadn’t neither, and he took up with Cis Dickson’s youngest when he was old enough to know better, and I don’t never feel that their childern’s my flesh and blood. There’s only one of them left now.”

  “Gran!”

  “I don’t—never did, and never shall.”

  “But Cis Dickson didn’t get William.”

  “It wasn’t for want of trying though. A boldfaced hussy and a runabout, that’s what she was.”

  “But he married you.”

  “I married him,” said Mrs. Bowyer—“after he’d asked me eleven times, without counting the time parson come right into the middle of, nor the time I wouldn’t listen to him because I wouldn’t demean myself after I seen him talking to Cis.”

  “How harsh of you!”

  “Harsh or no, I got him—and I kep’ him,” said old Mrs. Bowyer, with a triumphant nod.

  Susan turned away and touched a pink geranium petal, stroking it half absently with the tip of her finger.

  “You lived a long time together.”

  Mrs. Bowyer looked back over her hundred years.

  “Not so long—fifty years—it’s not so long. William died young, my dear.”

  “But you were happy—” Susan did not look at Mrs. Bowyer, but Mrs. Bowyer looked at her.

  “Middling, my dear, middling,” she said. The old voice was very sweet.

  Susan began to speak, stopped, and began again:

  “What makes people happy, Gran? When they’re married, I mean.”

  “Theirselves—just their own selves. There’s a lot of foolish talk about making folks happy. They got to make themselves happy—nobody can’t do it for them. Nobody can’t eat your dinner for you—you’ve got to eat it yourself. Only you mind this, Susan—don’t you go marrying a lad because he’s good company, or because there’s other girls wants him, or because he’s saved a bit. You take the lad that’s got a kindness for you—for there’s a deal of kindness wanted when you’re married.”

  In at one side of Susan’s mind and out of the other there slipped a vivid impression of Anthony Colstone’s voice changing when he said, “I don’t want you to tell me anything you don’t want to.” She moved away from the window with a little laugh.

  “When anyone has asked me eleven times, I’ll bring him along for you to vet!”

  She stopped suddenly by the table. A large bible reposed in the midst of it, flanked by a jar of roses and a pot of purple stocks. In front of the bible lay a small crumpled handkerchief. Susan picked it up and turned it this way and that. She felt startled. She had picked up a handkerchief last night; she had left it folded neatly in the top right-hand drawer of the chest of drawers in her bedroom. And here it was, on the table in front of the bible, all crumpled up—plain fine linen with three wavy lines round the edge.

  Susan stepped back and held it up.

  “Where did this come from, Gran?”

  “Miss Arabel dropped it.”

  Susan turned it over, looking down at it, not looking at Mrs. Bowyer at all.

  “When did she drop it?”

  “She’s been in this morning. She often comes, Miss Arabel does, when there’s ought going on.” Mrs. Bowyer laughed. “Never knew her equal for seeing into things.”

  “And she left her handkerchief?”

  “Never knew her go away without leaving something. If ’tisn’t her handkerchief, ’tis her bag, or maybe ’tis a letter she was meaning to post, and then by-and-by she’ll come in all of a fluster and—’ Oh, Susan, now did I leave—now I wonder whether—did you notice—I’m afraid I must have left my handkerchief!’ ’Tis mostly her handkerchief. She’ll be in along of that by-and-by, you’ll see.”

  Susan folded up the handkerchief slowly.

  “What do you mean by ‘seeing into things?’”

  “Why, my dear, just wanting to know the why and the wherefore of everything ’at’s going on. There’s times when I could have took up my best pot of geraniums and thrown it at her.”

  “How violent!”

  “That sort makes you feel violent.” Mrs. Bowyer nodded. “She’ll ask questions quicker ’n I can shell peas, and I’ve looked at one of they pots many a time and thought I wouldn’t grudge it, not if it was the best plant I’d got.”

  Susan put the handkerchief back in front of the bible. She laughed a little.

  “You’ll finish up in prison, Gran! What’s Miss Arabel been asking questions about?”

  “All sorts,” said Mrs. Bowyer in a mysterious voice.

  Anthony was just going out after lunch, when he met his Cousin Arabel. She emerged from the gate of the Ladies’ House, fluttered across to him, and looked up appealingly.

  “I was just coming over to ask—you won’t mind, I know—but I needn’t keep you—I see you are going out—I can just ask Lane—that is, of course, if you do not object.”

  He wondered what on earth this was all about. She had quite a bright pink colour in her cheeks. Under the shady black hat her eyes were bright and blue. A little fluff of silver hair stood out becomingly.

  “Did you want to see me, Cousin Arabel?”

  “Oh, but I needn’t trouble you—I couldn’t dream of troubling you—if you didn’t mind my asking Lane to let me go into the library and see if I dropped a handkerchief there—”

  Anthony’s attention was arrested. He had picked up a handkerchief in the library last night. Was it Miss Arabel who had cried out in the dark behind the door? How could it have been Miss Arabel?

  He said “A handkerchief?” because he simply had to say something.

  “Yes,” said Miss Arabel eagerly—“in the afternoon! I called to ask Mrs. Hutchins for her recipe for marrow jam—not, of course, that it’s time to make it yet, but I happened to think of it—and I also wanted to know whether she had heard from her cousin’s daughter, Mary Louisa Berry, who has gone away to service in Salisbury, and I’m afraid she hasn’t been writing home as regularly as she might, so we asked Mrs. Hutchins, who has been quite like an aunt to her, though only a cousin really—a second cousin once removed—we asked her to write and point out how wrong it was to cause her poor mother so much anxiety—a widow too, and a most respectable and worthy woman, but not very quick with her pen—but then, of course, education is so much better now than it used to be—isn’t it?”

  “I expect so,” said Anthony. He felt a little bewildered.

  “And I hope you don’t think it was a liberty?”

  “How could it be?”

  “My coming in to see Mrs. Hutchins when you were out.”

  “Oh, please, Cousin Arabel.” There was a genuine embarrassment in his voice.

  Miss Arabel fluttered a little.

  “Agatha said we ought to be most particular about not running in and out. She said we ought to make it a rule.”

  “I hope you will always come when you want to,” said Anthony.

  If she had dropped the handkerchief in the afternoon, she couldn’t have dropped it in the middle of the night. But he couldn’t help wondering why her inquiries about marrow jam and Mary Louisa Berry should have taken her into the library.

  Miss Arabel must have had the same thought, for she was already explaining:

  “And whilst I was there, I just popped into the library to put back a book which I had inadvertently taken away with me when we moved—I can’t think how I came to be so careless. It was—it was the second volume of The Newcomes. Thackeray is always so very delightful, don’t you think?—and improving too—only I find it takes me
rather a long time to read one of his books right through. I hope you don’t think I took a liberty.”

  Anthony escorted her back to the library and assisted her to look for the vanished handkerchief.

  She explained that she was sure she must have dropped it when she was putting the book back, because she remembered having it in her hand then—“So I’m sure I didn’t drop it in the housekeeper’s room, where I was talking to Mrs. Hutchins—no, I’m quite sure about that—but it doesn’t seem to be here—does it? And I mustn’t take up any more of your time, I know.”

  Anthony was polite. He thought afterwards that he had been too polite, because she stayed for at least another twenty minutes. She wanted to know whether he had not enjoyed his friend’s visit very much, and whether he did not find the house very lonely now he was all by himself. “But of course you will be filling the house with young people.” She put her head on one side and looked at him questioningly.

  “Most of my friends are in India.”

  “But you will make others—people in the neighbourhood will call. I suppose, now, some of them have called already.”

  “Yes,” said Anthony.

  “The Pollens—or the Thane-Bromleys—have they called?”

  “Mr. Thane-Bromley has.”

  “He is very much respected,” said Miss Arabel. “I suppose Lord Haverton hasn’t called?”

  “He has asked me to go over to lunch there next week.”

  Miss Arabel fluttered.

  “Oh dear—and I suppose you will go. He had such a—such a regrettable quarrel with dear Papa—but of course he is a very charming man. You haven’t met him?”

  “He knew my uncle.”

  “Ah—your uncle. The one who brought you up?”

  “Yes.”

  “How strange! Such a different neighbourhood. It seems very odd. Did they meet abroad? I believe Lord Haverton has been abroad.”

  “They were college friends.”

  By the time Miss Arabel had informed herself as to his Uncle James’ school and college, together with his age, his tastes, his family connections, and other details, Anthony had begun to wonder whether life was long enough to see very much of his Cousin Arabel. When she had finished with Uncle James, she began about India. Her departure left him rather depleted. Not since he had struggled through his last promotion exam had he had so much information extracted from him.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A telegraph boy bicycled out from Wrane next day and rapped on Mrs. Bowyer’s door. Mrs. Smithers, looking out of her window, began to speculate pleasantly as to whose decease he had come to announce.

  “There’s Jenny—or it might be ’er mother—or one of the ‘Merican lot, though that’s a norful long way to send a telegram. Someone’s gone for certain sure. Always puts me ’eart in me mouth, telegrams do.”

  Susan took the telegram with calm, but her colour rose as she read it. It was handed in at Vere Street, and it was an answer to the urgent scrawl which she had posted to Garry O’Connell in Wrane the day before. It said: “Should adore to see you not only at once but continuously stop for the moment distance forbids stop business in metropolis stop K stop H stop O stop Garry.”

  “And please, miss, there’s two shillings to pay,” said the round-faced telegraph boy.

  Susan ran upstairs for the money. Two shillings for this characteristic bit of impudence!

  “Any answer, miss?”

  She would have loved to send an answer, but it would probably annoy Garry more if she didn’t. She said “No,” and shut the door. Then she read the telegram again, and boiled with rage. The cryptic letters at the end were particularly infuriating. They stood for “Keep hair on,” and she was not in the least mollified by the fact that Garry had condescended to camouflage this impertinence. She tore the telegram into little bits and put it in the kitchen fire.

  As she dropped the last bit in, there were three slow taps on the door. Mrs. Smithers stood there, her sleeves hastily pulled down, and an expression of decent gloom on her large white face. Her hair was still in curling pins, which were only partially hidden by an old tweed cap belonging to Mr. Smithers.

  “Ah—” she said. It was a voluminous sigh. “And ’ow’s she a-taking it, pore soul?”

  Susan looked blank.

  “How is who taking what, Mrs. Smithers?”

  “I see the telegraft boy,” said Mrs. Smithers reproachfully.” I see ’im out of the window, and I says to myself, ‘Oh, my good gracious me!’ I says, ‘That’s Jane gone for certain sure.’”

  Susan lifted her eyebrows. She wasn’t terribly fond of Mrs. Smithers.

  “Who’s Jane?” she said.

  “Ah—” It was a deeper sigh than before. “Seems so strange me ’aving to tell you about your own relations—and not a thing I should like in me own family—not ’ardly right, it don’t seem to me, to ’ave to ask a stranger, ’owever near a neighbour—and Smithers and me we’ve lived next door to your Granny for twenty-five years, and old Mr. and Mrs. Smithers another forty years afore that. But that’s neither ’ere nor there, and it don’t seem ’ardly right for you to ’ave to ask, ‘Who’s Jane?’ and for me to ‘ave to tell you that she’s your Granny’s daughter-in-law, ’er son Thomas’s widow—Jane Dickson she was afore ’e married ’er, and ’er girl’s the very spit and image of ’er, pore thing. And many’s the time old Mrs. Smithers ‘ave told me ’ow your Granny took on when Thomas married ’er—such a ’andsome man as ’e was, same as all the Bowyers, present company always excepted, and no offence meant I’m sure.” Here Mrs. Smithers paused and drew breath.

  Susan seized her opportunity.

  “It’s not Jane,” she said.

  “Ah!” said Mrs. Smithers with increased interest. “Now who’d ’a thought that Jenny’d go before ’er pore mother?”

  Susan wanted to laugh.

  “It’s not Jane, and it’s not Jenny, and it’s not anyone. Can’t one get a telegram without someone being dead?”

  “Not in Ford St. Mary you don’t,” said Mrs. Smithers. She looked disappointed.

  “It was a business telegram,” said Susan firmly. Then she went out into the garden and told old Mrs. Bowyer that she would like to go and live on a desert island where people didn’t look out of their windows and ask questions every time you breathed.

  Mrs. Bowyer was sitting on a wooden bench in the shade of two tall lilacs. The bee-hives stood all along the opposite fence. She sat in the warm shade and watched the bees go busily to and fro.

  “Folks is all the same wherever you go,” she said placidly.

  Susan sat down on the bench too.

  “If they were all the same as Mrs. Smithers, I really would go and live on a desert island!”

  Mrs. Bowyer laughed noiselessly.

  “You wouldn’t think to look at her now as she was that thin that her mother went a-whimpering around saying as her Minnie didn’t eat enough to keep a sparrow and she was afeared she would lose her in a decline. A poor silly creature she was—one of those as is always telling you something they’re afeard of, so as you can contradict ’em.”

  A peaceful silence settled down upon Susan. It seemed to fall softly from the green of the lilacs. It was very pleasant. She began to wonder why Garry had gone to London—and when—and what was keeping him there. And she wondered what she was going to do next. She felt an inward certainty that it mattered very much what she did, and she could not for the life of her make up her mind what to do. She thought about Garry, and she thought about Anthony, and she thought about the handkerchief which lay neatly folded in her drawer upstairs, and she thought about the queer words she had listened to when she crouched at the door of the housekeeper’s room in the dark. They said themselves over in her mind, the faint murmur of the bees coming and going amongst them:

  “The second shield,

  The stone that Merlin blessed,

  To keep in safety

  The source of evil.”

  She turned
impulsively to Mrs. Bowyer.

  “Gran—are there any shields at Stonegate?”

  “Shields, my dear?”

  Mrs. Bowyer had, perhaps, been just a little drowsy. The air was warm and soft, the bees came and went, the shade was green.

  “Yes. I heard someone say a sort of rhyme-no, it wasn’t a rhyme—anyhow it said, ‘The second shield.’”

  Mrs. Bowyer watched the bees, pale honey-coloured bees with the sun on them.

  “And why did you think that had to do with Stonegate?”

  “I just thought it had. There’s more of it—‘The stone that Merlin blessed—

  Mrs. Bowyer woke up.

  “And where did you get that?” she said in a sharp, startled voice.

  “What does it mean, Gran?”

  “Where did you hear tell of it?”

  “I can’t tell you. I want to know what it means. What is the stone that Merlin blessed? Gran, tell me!”

  “What should I tell you for?”

  Susan chose her words carefully.

  “I think I ought to know, Gran.”

  “You’ve a reason for that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you can’t tell me?”

  “No, Gran.”

  “And you want me to tell you? You’ve a proper bold face on you, Susan, I’ll say that.”

  Susan laughed and blew her a kiss.

  “I expect I got it from you!”