Deception Page 15

  Sniffing the sharp air, with its scent of grass and woodsmoke, Alvey thought, I am growing like Isa; even one night in a town, encircled by other people, leaves me with a feeling of restraint and confinement.

  She began to walk fast, to and fro along the terrace, with her arms folded inside the pelisse, planning the next adventure of her hero, who had been somewhat neglected this last week. What nonsense it is! she thought, and how I enjoy it. How can people endure the monotony of daily life when they do not have a story to plan?

  Engrossed in her story, she had taken half a dozen turns when she became aware, with no inconsiderable surprise, of a person emerging from the iron gate that gave on to Lady Winship’s private garden. It was a man—a stranger—hatless, but wearing a caped greatcoat.

  Alvey was too far advanced along the terrace to retreat without positive ill-manners; she therefore bowed to the newcomer in a distant, haughty manner, as Louisa might, but without speaking.

  He, however, approached and addressed her with politeness.

  “Good morning! I am obliged to introduce myself: I am James’s friend, Guy Fenway. I have already met Sir Aydon and Lady Winship and the younger children, so I guess that you must be Miss Meg, Miss Isabel, or Miss Louisa. I believe—” studying her—“from James’s description, that you must be Miss Louisa. Have I guessed correctly?”

  “Yes; you are perfectly correct,” said Alvey coolly. “How do you do, sir?”

  She had already half turned away from him, and hoped he would take this as a hint that his company was not welcome to her; but with a total lack of sensitivity he turned and walked along the terrace beside her.

  “You will be wondering, I daresay, how I come to be visiting Lady Winship’s garden—which I am well aware is an honour restricted to a very few,” he went on sociably. “But I must explain that my own mother is just such another enthusiastic gardener, and she had entrusted me with a gift of some hellebore roots for your Mamma, and a most vehement demand for a minute description of her ladyship’s garden. In case an early fall of snow should frustrate my purpose by concealing its features, I requested permission to inspect it without delay.”

  “I see,” said Alvey calmly. “I understand that no considerable fall of snow is expected for some weeks yet. And I wonder that my mother did not wish to escort you in person.”

  Covertly she studied this easy-spoken individual who walked beside her so imperturbably, as if they were the oldest of acquaintances. He was not particularly tall, no taller than Alvey herself; his hair was a nondescript colour, between dull brown and fair, cut short in military fashion; he was clean-shaven and far from handsome, having a pale complexion and an undistinguished, though animated countenance; what redeemed him from the commonplace was a pair of pale, remarkably intelligent, green-blue eyes; they were as clear as glass, Alvey thought, clear as ice; and then she scolded herself for a pair of hideously trite similes while endeavouring to find a less hidebound description for Major Fenway’s unusually piercing glance. This man should get on excellently with old Mrs Winship, she thought; he is certainly no fool.—She could not help contrasting his air and manner very favourably with those of her partners at last night’s Hexham Assembly.

  “Ah,” he said, smiling. “I see how it is. You marvel at my impertinence in walking out of doors and making myself so much at home not half an hour after my arrival in a completely strange house.”

  “Not in the slightest, sir; why should I do so?”

  “The truth is,” he went on confidentially, “that—added to my wish to visit the garden—there was also a family scene being enacted in which I felt that I, as an outsider, had no part; so it seemed proper to withdraw.”

  “I am sure that your feelings did you credit, sir.” Alvey delivered these words with a cold composure worthy of Louisa at her most supercilious, but at that moment she had the misfortune to slip on a patch of ice coating a hollow in one of the flagstones; if Major Fenway had not caught her elbow she must have fallen ignominiously.

  “Take care!—That is the danger of these flags. They seem dry, but many of them are coated with ice.”

  “I thank you sir; I am perfectly all right. In no danger whatsoever.”

  Ignoring this hint, he persisted in holding her arm as he guided her along the terrace and the cobbled path, until they were safely arrived on the gravel sweep in front of the house.

  “I am obliged to you, sir,” Alvey said again, coldly, shaking herself free of his clasp. “And I will leave you here. Amble has, I trust, shown you your chamber?”

  “Oh yes. But I shall take another turn outside.”

  Retreating indoors, Alvey could feel him looking after her with an amused and slightly puzzled stare. Had he not been taken in by her performance?

  The scene in the library still continued. Wishing no part in it, and dismissing James’s friend from her mind, Alvey ran upstairs, and, returning to hers and Meg’s room, where a new-lit fire crackled pleasantly on the hearth, flung open the table drawer where she kept her Lord Love notebook, and pulled out pen and paper. Several admirable ideas had occurred to her during that ten-minute walk on the terrace; this was often, she found, how the creative process worked, new material emerging in a sudden spate after a period of enforced inactivity.—She could feel her story unfold, like a great tent above her as she hauled on the guy-rope, swaying about, crumpling a little, then rising higher and taking its angular shape. Eager to note her new plot elements down as fast as possible, before she set to writing the next scene, she began to scribble at speed, ignoring the slight rearrangement of articles in the drawer, pencils, wax, notebooks and sandbox in unaccustomed places. Had Grace been tidying? But Grace never touched the drawer, had strict instructions to leave it undisturbed. Never mind, it was of no consequence. Here was Lord Love, face to face with the scheming pair, the Duchess of Smithfield, author of a shady plot co discredit him but herself an impostor, and the fraudulent nun, Sister Lutilla, who was really an assassin in disguise—

  There came a timid tap at the door.

  “Who is it?” Alvey said crossly, scribbling down “Mother Superior goes every night to Quincey’s Gaming Rooms—”

  But the tap had been very timid and supplicating and was not repeated; with immense impatience Alvey rose, walked swiftly to the door, and pulled it open.

  Outside stood Nish and Tot.

  “You two?” Alvey said, astonished. “Why, I thought you would be downstairs welcoming your—our brother James?”

  “We were,” Tot said forlornly. “But Mamma sent us and Parthie out of the room. Matters were being discussed that weren’t suitable for our ears, she said—”

  “All about Annie Herdman and her baby, you know,” supplemented Nish.

  “Papa told us to go up to the tower room and study our Latin. But we saw you come in—”

  “We thought—”

  “We hoped you might read to us.”

  Their eyes fell, almost with incredulity, on the window table, heaped with new books. They stood silent, staring.

  “Oh,” Alvey sighed. “That was what you thought, was it? Well—” she paused, and drew a long, resigned breath. “Oh—very well. But only for half an hour, mind!”

  Their eyes began to sparkle. Nish jigged up and down a little.

  “Shall we stay here?” she said hopefully. “The fire here is better than the one in the tower room; that went out while we were downstairs.”

  Chapter VIII.

  Meg and Isa, like their younger siblings, had been dismissed from the library, and Sir Aydon was saying heavily, for perhaps the tenth time,

  “But Annie Herdman herself said—”

  “Sir, it is not of the least consequence to me what she said. If she—”

  “James! The poor girl is dead!”

  “Ma’am, would you be so obliging as not to interrupt me?”

  “Ay
don! Would you do me the kindness to request your son not to address me in that tone of voice, if you please?”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake!” Sir Aydon, goaded, thrust a whole pile of papers relating to estate business off his desk and on to the floor. Both father and son were ashy pale, in signal contrast to Lady Winship, whose customary high colour was even higher than usual.

  “Charlotte, you did interrupt James, you know. It would be better, in my opinion, if you took less part in this discussion. Since you—”

  “As to that, sir, I cannot agree,” said James stormily. “Since Lady Winship seems to have initiated the step—the disastrous step—entirely for her own convenience—of introducing this unhappy girl into the house—I regard it as perfectly germane that she should be included in the discussion and hear what I have to say. If Lady Winship will occasionally permit me to speak, that is all I ask.”

  “Oh!” ejaculated his stepmother in tones of outrage, but her husband held up a silencing hand.

  “Well, James?”

  “Sir, I am as sorry as can be that the poor girl and her child are dead. I have said so before and I say so again. But I can only assure you again that at no time did I have anything to do with her—that the child was none of mine. How, how can I convince you of this?” he cried wildly, staring into their shocked and disbelieving faces. Lady Winship, that is, with her lips pressed tight together, looked wholly sceptical and disgusted; Sir Aydon, his son thought, grieved and haggard, seemed to have aged ten years in as many minutes.

  “It is rather cowardly behaviour to deny an accusation when your accuser is no longer here to refute you.”

  “I would deny it equally, ma’am, if she were here.—Annie Herdman! Good god, I hardly knew the girl by sight. I suppose she selected me for a father because I was far away and not likely to return and contradict her story. Or because—” Because of the proclivities of my grandfather and great-uncles, he might have been about to say, but Lady Winship interrupted again.

  “I regret, James, but I fear we see no reason to believe you. I remember, all too clearly, that occasion when, as a boy, you played such an unkind trick on your poor sister Louisa—with the pail of water—you might have injured her severely—and then obstinately refused to own up and apologize. You told a falsehood then. How can you expect us to believe you now?”

  “What? You bring that up again—a stupid prank when I was no more than fourteen years old? For heaven’s sake, ma’am!”

  “As the shoot grows, so does the tree.”

  “I can see I have my sister Louisa to thank for your part in this,” muttered James, disregarding his stepmother’s horticultural dictum. “Coming home, losing no time in raking up old scores—I wonder I do not see her here, adding her sanctimonious voice to the chorus.”

  “We may as well terminate this discussion, if you are so stubborn and rancorous over old grudges that you cannot bring yourself to admit your culpability,” said the lady. “It is shockingly distressing to your father—and all to no purpose, apparently. But if you are so resolved—what more can be said?”

  Lady Winship left the room, slowly and with dignity.

  James clenched his fists as if he could only just restrain himself from flinging a book after her erect, retreating back. He had stood up, out of an automatic courtesy, as she withdrew; but then, turning even whiter than before, he was obliged to lower himself to a sitting position once more, grasping convulsively at the edge of the table.

  “You are far from well yet, my boy,” said his father concernedly. “Your leg—”

  “Oh, it is nothing, father.”

  “It is all a bad business, a dreadfully bad business,” muttered Sir Aydon. “If only you could have acknowledged that—”

  “My dear sir, I have not the slightest intention of owning to an act I did not perform, however convenient that might be for Lady Winship and yourself.—Oh, I am sorry, father—” Racked and sick as he felt himself, by no means equal to support this painfully distressing scene, James could not but feel considerable pity for his father who seemed, he thought, to have suffered grave physical deterioration since his last visit home. And there was another piece of news which must be broken to him—

  “I am truly sorry for you, sir,” James added in a gentler tone. “I know—Lady Winship said—how particularly attached you were, yourself, to the little lad—”

  Sir Aydon waved a dismissing hand.

  “Never mind. Never mind that. The thing is—it is all so—Charlotte herself—oh it has all been so very dreadful!” he cried out in a shaking voice to his dismayed son. “Much, much more dreadful than you can conceive! And now you come home—and with only one leg—and all this dissension begins at once—oh, how am I supposed to endure it?”

  And, before James’s aghast eyes, Sir Aydon bowed his grey head in his hands and fairly burst out crying. Sobs shook him. Tears spurted between his fingers.

  “Don’t be like this, sir—pray don’t do so! Matters will come about in time—to be sure they will, they must.” Though not for poor Annie Herdman, James thought, uttering these platitudes. Nor, perhaps, for my insensitive stepmother, whose callous treatment indirectly brought about these deaths; if the girl had been permitted to keep her child by her, none of this need have happened. I daresay Lady Winship may be haunted by that thought for a good few years to come. As may this wretched old man.

  It was the first time James had considered his father as an old man. Good god, he thought, the poor devil’s life is almost over. And then came a corollary to the thought: Father has aged so very suddenly. He has felt so violently about the child’s death. Could the child have been his?

  Was that why he was so anxious for me to admit paternity?

  Was that why she was so anxious?

  Apart from my father, perhaps, thought James, I am the only person who knows for sure that wee Geordie was not my child. But I am not going to tell a lie about that, even if it would relieve my father and his wife of anxiety.

  Do I have the heart, at this juncture, to go on and break my next piece of news?

  Indecisively, he stood up and limped on his crutches to the window, where he stood with his back turned on Sir Aydon, looking out.

  After a while the distressful sounds behind him diminished. Sir Aydon sat up, shook his head as if to clear it, and blew his nose.

  “Try not to think about it any more, sir. Try not to grieve. What’s done is done. And we have Meg’s wedding upon us, and we are all supposed to rejoice and be jolly.”

  James did his best at an encouraging smile, meeting his father’s reddened eyes, and thought: No, I cannot tell him yet. After the wedding. That will be time enough.

  Sir Aydon made some kind of indescribable noise, denoting, his son hoped, an attempt to respond to this encouragement. Then the door opened; James turned in relief, welcoming the distraction, whoever it might be.

  It was his grandmother, unwontedly resplendent in black satin of antique mode, Mechlin lace, and a Paisley shawl.

  “Well James!” she jerked out in her gruff voice as he limped to embrace her. “So you left a leg behind at Waterloo? That is certainly a bad misfortune, but still, a great deal better than leaving yourself. We are very happy to have you home, even deficient of a leg. I daresay Carey can soon fettle you up another one, made out of yew wood; I understand yew is the most durable.”

  “Trust you, Grandmother, to have the matter at your fingers’ ends.” James looked at his grandmother with affection. “I will apply to Carey without delay.”

  “Where are your sisters?” demanded the old lady, who, after one swift scrutiny of her son, had ignored him, leaving him to gather himself together as best he might. “Have the girls not greeted you?”

  “Meg and Isa and Parthie did. And the little ones. But Mrs Galt called them off; something to do with bridesmaids’ dresses.”

  Sir Aydon rose
and tottered towards the door. From it he faintly said, “Make what arrangements you wish, James, for your friend’s comfort. Major Fenway seems a very pleasant, gentlemanlike fellow—I suppose he is from the Leicestershire branch of the family—?”

  Then he left the room.

  “Grandmamma,” murmured James, softly and urgently, “was the child his? The child who died?”

  “Humph! That would not wholly surprise me. But I have no information.” The old lady’s words were brusque; it was an admission she disliked being obliged to make. “I think it possible that she believed so.”

  “My stepmother?”

  She nodded.

  He whistled silently, in dismay, comprehension, pity.

  “I see.—Then—”

  “Hush!”

  The door, which Sir Aydon had left only half closed, opened wider, and Parthie minced into the room. She was rigged out in a bridesmaid’s dress of white velvet with crimson ribbon trimmings. The colour scheme, designed to offset Meg’s dark piquant prettiness, had a disastrously opposite effect when contrasted with her younger sister’s lank fair hair, pallor, and lashless no-colour eyes; the pretty costume hung on her like a bedizened shroud. She, fortunately, appeared unaware of this and announced joyously, “Look, Grandmamma! Look, James! Am I not fine! Look!”