“Henry saw me after he saw you,’ said George Patterson’s voice. “He thought it might be a comfort to you to know there is a friend on the spot; but I’m afraid I gave you a fright yesterday.”
“You did,” said Jane, “but I don’t know why. I was a perfect fool, and I ran right into Mr. Ember’s arms.
“Did you tell him what frightened you?” said Patterson quickly.
“No, I wasn’t quite such a fool as that. Please, who are you?”
“My name here is George Patterson. I’m a friend of Henry’s. If you want me, I’m here.”
“If I want you,” said Jane, “how am I to get at you?”
Mr. Patterson considered.
“There’s a wide sill inside your window.” (And how on earth do you know that? thought Jane.) “If you put a big jar of, say, those yellow tulips there, I’ll know you want to speak to me, and I’ll come here to this potting-shed as soon as I can. You know they keep us pretty busy with roll-calls and things of that sort. I only got back yesterday by the skin of my teeth—I had to bolt.”
“Did you—you didn’t pass me.”
“No, I didn’t pass you.” There was just a trace of amusement in Mr. Patterson’s voice.
Jane pulled her shoe-lace undone, and began to tie it all over again.
“Hush!” she said very quick and low. “Some one is coming.”
Just where the path ended, not half a dozen yards away, the red-brick wall was pierced by a door. Two round, Scotch rose-bushes, all tiny green leaf and sharp brown prickle, grew like large pin-cushions on either side of the interrupted border. Bright pink nectarine buds shone against the brick like coral studs. The ash-coloured door, rough and sun-blistered, was opening slowly, and into the garden came Raymond Heritage, pushing the door with one hand and holding a basket of bulbs in the other. She was looking back over her shoulder, at something or someone beside her.
From inside the potting-shed came Patterson’s voice—just a breath:
“Who?”
“Lady Heritage.”
Jane was up as she spoke and moving away. She reached the door just as Raymond closed it and, turning, saw her.
“Oh, Miss Molloy—I was really looking for you. Is Garstin anywhere about?”
“I haven’t seen him,” murmured Jane, as if the absent gardener might be blooming unnoticed in one of the borders.
“He’s not in the potting-shed? I’ll just look in and see. I want to stand over him and see that he puts these black irises where I want them to go. They come from Palestine, and the last lot failed entirely because he was so obstinate. I’ll get a trowel and mark the place I think.” She moved forward as she spoke, and Jane, horror-struck, stammered:
“Let me look. It’s so dusty in there.”
She was back at the door of the shed, but Lady Heritage was beside her. “I want a trowel, too,” she said, and Jane felt herself gently pushed over the threshold.
They were both just inside the door. It seemed dark after the strong light outside. There was a row of windows along one side, and a broad deal shelf under them. There were piles and piles of pots and boxes. There were hanks of bass and rows of tools. There were watering-cans. There was a length of rubber hose. But there was no George Patterson.
Jane put her hand behind her, gripped the jamb of the door, and moved back a pace so that she could lean against it. The pots, the tools, the bass and the rubber hose danced before her bewildered eyes.
Lady Heritage put her basket of bulbs down on the wide shelf and said:
“Garstin ought to be here. He’s really very tiresome. That’s the worst of old servants. When a gardener has been in a place for forty years as Garstin has, he owns it.”
“Shall I find him?” said Jane.
“No, not now. I really want to talk to you. I’ve just been speaking to Jeffrey Ember, and he tells me you had a fright yesterday. What frightened you?”
“Nothing—my own silliness.”
Jane felt as if she must scream. George Patterson had disappeared as if by a conjuring trick. Where had he gone to? Where was he? It was just like being in a dream.
Raymond Heritage seemed to tower before her in her white dress. Her uncovered head almost touched the low beam above the door.
“Jeffrey said you were blind with fright—that you ran right into him. He said you were as white as a sheet and shaking all over. I want to know what frightened you.”
“A stone—it fell into the sea—”
“What made it fall? A man? What man?”
Jane leaned against the door-post, her breath coming and going, her eyes held by those imperious eyes.
“A stone,” she said; “it fell—I ran away.”
“Miss Molloy,” said Lady Heritage, “you walked to the end of the headland, out of sight of the house. Whilst you were there something gave you a serious fright. Something—or somebody. This is all nonsense about a stone. Whom did you see on the headland, for you certainly saw somebody? No, don’t look away; I want you to look at me, please.”
“I don’t know why I was so frightened,” said Jane. “It just came over me.”
Lady Heritage looked at her very gravely.
“If you saw any stranger on the headland, it is your absolute duty to tell me. Where secrets of such value are in question it is necessary to watch every avenue and to neglect no suspicious circumstance. If you are trying to screen any one, you are acting very foolishly—very foolishly indeed. I warn you, and I ask you again. What frightened you?”
“I don’t know,” said Jane in a little whispering voice. “Why, why do you think there was any one?”
“I don’t think,” said Lady Heritage briefly. “I know. Mr. Ember went up to the headland after he left you, and there were footmarks in the gravel. Some man had undoubtedly been there, and you must have seen him. Mr. Ember made the entire round and saw no one, but some one had been there. Now will you tell me what you saw?”
“Oh'” said Jane. Rather to her own astonishment she began to cry. “Oh, that’s why I was frightened then! The stone fell so suddenly, and I didn’t know why—why—”
The sobs choked her.
Lady Heritage stood looking at her for a moment.
“Are you just an arrant little fool,” she said in a low voice, “or…”
“Oh, I’m not!” sobbed Jane. “Oh, I’ve never been called such a thing before! I know I’m not clever, but I don’t think you ought to call me a f-f-fool.” Lady Heritage pressed her lips together, and walked past Jane and out into the sunshine. She stood there for a moment tapping with her foot. Then she called rather impatiently:
“Miss Molloy! Dry your eyes and come here.”
Jane came, squeezing a damp handkerchief into a ball.
“Bring your flowers in; I see you’ve left them over there to die in the sun. I’m driving into Withstead this afternoon and you can come with me. I have to see Mrs. Cottingham about some University extension lectures, and she telephoned just now to say would I bring you. She has a girl staying with her who thinks she must have been at school with you or one of your cousins. Her name is Daphne Todhunter.”
Jane stood perfectly still. Daphne Todhunter? Arnold Todhunter’s sister Daphne! Renata’s friend! But Daphne must know that Arnold was married? The question was—whom had Arnold married. Had his family welcomed (by letter) Jane Smith or Renata Molloy to its bosom? If Renata Molloy, how in the world was a second Renata to be explained to Miss Daphne Todhunter?
“Miss Molloy, what’s the matter with you?” said Lady Heritage.
Jane could not think quickly enough. Supposing Lady Heritage went to Mrs. Cottingham’s without her; and supposing Daphne Todhunter were to say that her brother Arnold had married a girl called Renata Molloy?
It was too much to hope that Arnold had carried discretion to the point of telling his own family that he had married an unknown Jane Smith.
Jane suddenly threw up her chin and squared her shoulders. The colour came back into her cheeks.<
br />
“Nothing,” she said, with a little caught breath. “I’m sorry I was so silly, and for crying, and if I was rude to you. It’s most awfully kind of you to take me into Withstead.”
If there were any music to be faced, Jane was going to face it. At least the tune should not be called behind her back.
Chapter Thirteen
A feeling of exhilaration amounting to recklessness possessed Jane as she put on the white serge coat and skirt sacred to the Sabbath crocodile. Attired in it Renata, side by side with Daphne Todhunter, had, doubtless, walked many a time to church and back. In front of her two white serge backs, behind her more white serge, and more, and more, and more. Jane’s head reeled. She detested this garment, but considered it appropriate to the occasion.
They drove into Withstead across the marshes. The sun blazed, and all the tiny marsh plants seemed to be growing and stretching themselves.
Mrs. Cottingham lived in a villa on the outskirts of the town, and was ashamed of it. She had married kind little Dr. Cottingham, but imagined that she had condescended in doing so. Her reasons for thinking this were not apparent.
Jane followed Lady Heritage into the dark, rather stuffy drawing-room, and beheld a middle-aged woman with a rigidly controlled Victorian figure, a tightly netted grey fringe, and a brown satin dress with a good many little gold beads upon it. She had a breathless sense of the extraordinary way in which the room was overcrowded. Every inch of the walls was covered with photographs, fans, engravings, and china plates. Almost every inch of floor space was covered with small ornamental tables crowded with knick-knacks. There was a carved screen, and an ebonised overmantel with looking-glass panels. There was a Japanese umbrella in the fireplace.
Jane’s eyes looked hastily into every corner. There were more things than she had ever seen in one room before, but there was no Daphne Todhunter. Mrs. Cottingham was shaking hands with her. She had a fat hand and squeezed you.
“And are you Daphne’s Miss Molloy?” she said. “She was wildly excited at the prospect of meeting you, and I said at once, ‘I’ll just ring up Luttrell Marches, and ask Lady Heritage to bring her here this afternoon.’ I thought I might do that. You see, I only happened to mention your name this morning, and Daphne was so excited, and she goes away to-morrow, so it was the only chance. So I thought I would just ring up and ask Lady Heritage to bring you. I said to Daphne at once, ‘Lady Heritage is so kind, I’m sure she will bring Miss Molloy.’”
Jane saw Lady Heritage’s eyebrows rise very slightly. She moved a step, and instantly Mrs. Cottingham had turned from Jane:
“Why Lady Heritage, you’re standing! Now, I always say this is the most comfortable chair.”
Her voice went flowing on, but Jane suddenly ceased to hear a word she said, for a door at the far end of the room was flung open. On the threshold appeared Miss Daphne Todhunter.
In common with most other Daphnes, Cynthias and Ianthes, she was short and rather heavily built. Her brown hair was untidy. She wore the twin coat and skirt to that which was adorning Jane.
With an exclamation of rapture, she rushed across the room, dislodging a book from one little table and an ash-tray from another.
(“Her eyes are exactly like gooseberries which have been boiled until they are brown,” thought Jane, “and I know she’s going to kiss me.”)
She not only kissed Jane, she hugged her. Two stout arms and a waft of white rose scent enveloped Jane’s shrinking form.
After a moment in which she wondered how long this embrace would last, Jane managed to detach herself. Mrs. Cottingham’s voice fell gratefully upon her ears:
“Daphne, Daphne, my dear, come and speak to Lady Heritage.—She’s wildly excited, as I told you—the natural enthusiasms of youth, dear Lady Heritage, so beautiful, so quickly lost; I’m sure you agree with me.—Daphne, Daphne, my dear.”
Daphne came reluctantly and thrust a large hand at Lady Heritage without looking at her. Raymond looked at it for a moment, and, after a perceptible pause, just touched the finger-tips. Mrs. Cottingham never stopped talking.
“So it is your friend, and you’re just too excited for words. Take her away and have a good gossip. Lady Heritage and I have a great deal to talk about.—You were saying…”
“I was saying,” said Lady Heritage wearily, “that you must write at once if you want Masterson to lecture for you next winter.”
Daphne dragged Jane to the far end of the room.
“Oh, Renata, how perfectly delicious! But how did you come here? And what are you doing, and where’s Arnold, and why aren’t you with him?” She made a pounce at Jane’s left hand, and felt the third finger.
“Oh, where’s your ring?” she said.
“Hush!” said Jane.
They reached a sofa and sank upon it. Immediately in front of them was an octagonal table of light-coloured wood profusely carved. Upon it, amongst lesser portraits, stood a tall photograph of Mrs. Cottingham in a train, and feathers, and a tiara. The sofa was low, and Jane felt that fate had been kinder than she deserved.
“Oh, Renata, aren’t you married?” breathed Daphne.
She breathed very hard, and Jane was reminded of Arnold on the fire-escape.
“Oh, Renata, tell me! When she… Mrs. Cottingham said, ‘Miss Renata Molloy,’ I nearly died. I said, ‘Miss Molloy?’ And she said, ‘Yes, Miss Renata Molloy,’ and oh, I very nearly let the cat out of the bag.” She grasped Jane’s hand and pressed it violently. “But I didn’t. Arnold told me not to, and I didn’t, but, of course, I’m simply dying to know all about everything. Now, darling, tell me… tell me everything.”
Never in her life had Jane felt so much aloof from any human creature. There was something so inexpressibly comic in the idea of pouring out her heart to Daphne Todhunter that she did not even feel nervous, only aloof—aloof, and cool. She looked earnestly at Daphne, and said:
“What did Arnold tell you?”
“It was the greatest shock,” said Daphne, “and such a surprise. One minute there he was, moving about at home, and not knowing when he would get a job, and perfectly distracted with hopelessness about you; and the next he rushed down to say good-bye because he was going to Bolivia, and his heart was broken because you wouldn’t go too.…” She stopped for breath, and squeezed Jane’s hand even harder than before. “And then,” she continued, “you can imagine what a shock it was to get the letter-card.”
“Yes,” said Jane, “it must have been. What did it say?”
Daphne opened her eyes and her mouth.
“Didn’t he show it to you? How perfectly extraordinary of him!”
“Well, he didn’t,” said Jane. “What did he say?”
“I know it by heart,” said Daphne ardently. “I could repeat every word.”
“Well, for goodness’ sake do!”
“Renata! How odd you are, not a bit like yourself!” Fear stabbed Jane.
“Tell me what he said—tell me what he said,” she repeated.
With an effort she pressed the hand that was squeezing hers.
“What, Arnold, in the letter-card? But I think it was just too weird of him not to have shown it to you—too extraordinary.”
Jane felt that she was becoming dazed.
“What did he say?”
“I know it all by heart. I could say it in my sleep. He said, ‘Just off; we sail together. We were married this morning, and I’m the happiest man in the world. Don’t tell any one at present. If you love me, not a word to a soul. Will write from Bolivia.—ARNOLD. P.S.—On no account tell Aunt Ethel.’ So you see why I nearly died when she said Miss Renata Molloy, for of course I thought you were in Bolivia with Arnold, and oh, Renata, where is he and what has happened? Tell me everything.”
She flung her arms about Jane’s neck as she spoke and gave her a long, clinging kiss. Jane endured it under pressure of that, “You are not a bit like yourself.” When she had borne it for as long as she could, she drew back.
“Listen,” s
he said.
“Tell me—tell me the worst—tell me everything. Where is Arnold?”
“Arnold is in Bolivia,” said Jane.
“And why aren’t you with him?”
Jane produced a pocket-handkerchief. It was a very little one, but it sufficed. In her own mind Jane described it as local colour.
“We have parted,” she said, and dabbed her eyes.
“Renata! But you’re married to him!”
“No,” said Jane, quite truthfully.
An inward thankfulness that she was not married to Arnold supported her.
Daphne stared at her with bulging eyes.
“You’re not! But he said, ‘We were married this morning.’ I read it with my own eyes, and I could repeat it in my sleep. I know it by heart.…” Jane checked her with a look that held so much mysterious meaning that the flood of words was actually stemmed.
“He didn’t marry me,” said Jane, in a tense whisper. She looked straight into the boiled gooseberry eyes, and then covered her own.
“He didn’t marry you?” repeated Daphne, gasping.
“No,” said Jane, from behind the handkerchief.
“But he’s married?”
“Y—yes,” said Jane.
“Oh, Renata!”
Miss Todhunter cast herself upon Jane’s neck and burst into tears. The impact was considerable and her weight no light one.
“Daphne, please—please—Lady Heritage is looking at us. Do sit up. I can’t tell you anything if you cry. There’s really nothing to cry about.”
Daphne sat up again. She also produced a handkerchief, a very large one with “Daphne” embroidered across the corner in coral pink. A terrific blast of white rose emerged with the handkerchief.
“But he was so much in love with you,” she wailed. “I don’t understand it. How could he marry any one else and break your heart!”
“My heart is not broken,” said Jane.
“Then it was your fault, and you’ve broken his, and he’s got married just to show he doesn’t care, like people do in books. I don’t believe you love him a bit.”
The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith: A Golden Age Mystery Page 12
