by Dorothy Eden
Fanny realised this even more after she had sought out George in the billiard room, and found him in one of his quiet and contented moods.
‘Hullo, Fanny. Come to have a game with me?’
‘No, I haven’t time. I must stay with the children.’
‘Can’t the servants do that? What about the Chinese—oh, but she met with an accident, didn’t she? I forgot for the moment.’
Were servants really of such little importance to him as human beings, or hadn’t it penetrated his mind that Ching Mei was dead? Watching him place the balls with skill, his handsome face completely absorbed, Fanny was genuinely bewildered.
‘George, you do remember being in the garden last night?’
‘When I bumped into you? Sorry if I scared you. I was only fooling.’
‘Fooling!’
‘Lord, Fanny, you don’t think I’d kill a woman, do you? I thought you were the escaped prisoner, until I got my hands on you. Knew then you were a woman—skirts and things.’
‘George!’ Fanny breamed. ‘Ching Mei wore trousers.’
‘What’s that got to do with it? Dash it, Fanny, you don’t think I go about fumbling an oriental!’
The horror in his voice was convincing. He looked so affronted that Fanny almost found the situation comical. She compressed her lips. She found herself longing to laugh, light-heartedly, carelessly, at anything. Laughter seemed a very long way away.
‘No, you save those favours for an English woman,’ she said with asperity. ‘And I won’t have it, George. I told you last night.’
George looked abashed. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘Lost my head. Guess the opportunity won’t come again. If it does—can’t promise—’
At this moment it was impossible to imagine George a murderer, he was merely lovesick and embarrassing. But his moods changed, and he was, perhaps conveniently, unable to remember. Sometimes he was still pursuing Russians. Asking him questions got one nowhere at all.
To Amelia, the day had been intolerable. She had had to spend most of it alone, for Mamma was with Papa, talking first to Doctor Bates, and then to the hastily summoned police. Grandmamma, on an occasion like this, was someone to be avoided. She would have been talking about omens and portents, and probably that ghastly bird in the chimney. And Fanny wouldn’t let Amelia come into the nursery, because she had foolishly wept (not for the strange little Chinese woman, but from shock and depression, and curious strung-up state of expectation), and her eyes were still reddened.
‘I won’t have the children upset,’ Fanny had said. ‘They think their amah has gone back to China, but they’re quick enough to guess anything. Anyway, why are you crying?’
Amelia sniffed and mopped at her eyes.
‘Fanny, you’re getting altogether too bossy. Mamma says so, too. And why must you spend all day with the children? I need some companionship as well.’
‘But, Amelia, they’re so little!’
Amelia pouted.
‘Then they don’t understand this terrible thing. I do. I can’t bear to be alone. I keep thinking—’
‘Thinking what?’ Fanny asked curiously, seeing Amelia’s furtive and frightened eyes.
‘That that dreadful man might break into the house. You know—that a curtain might draw back and there he would be.’
‘Oh, Amelia, darling! Hunted people like him don’t come into houses. They hide on the moors, in caves, under hedges. He’ll be miles away by now. Sir Giles says so.’
‘I wonder where,’ said Amelia fearfully.
The day, of course, did end. Even dinner was over. Only Amelia and Lady Arabella had stayed downstairs afterwards. Lady Arabella had fallen asleep by the fire, and Amelia unable to face the thought of her bedroom all alone, stayed at the piano, picking out tunes, singing a little, but only halfheartedly. To cheer herself up, she had put on her best blue silk, and tied blue ribbons in her hair. She had expected Mamma to scold, but no one, not even Papa, had made any comments, or seemed to notice her. It had been a horrible day, and thank heaven it was almost over.
A log fell with a muffled crash in the big fireplace. Lady Arabella didn’t stir. Amelia gave an exclamation of exasperation and bad temper. She brought her fingers down on the keys with a resounding chord, but still Grandmamma, sunk deep in her slumber, didn’t wake. Something made a pecking sound at the window behind her. A bird? A branch of the wisteria climbing the wall? Amelia turned and stared fascinatedly at the drawn curtains.
Actually, they were not quite drawn. There was a space of two inches that showed dark window pane—and was that something moving?
Amelia’s hands flew to her throat. The tapping came again, peremptorily.
She didn’t know where the courage which impelled her to the window came from. She really wanted to scream until Papa or George or Barker, or anyone, came. Instead, she was drawing aside the curtain, and looking into the wild shining eyes of the man outside.
He made urgent motions for her to. open the window.
Again she didn’t know what kind of hypnotism compelled her to obey. But in a moment the window was open, the cold wind in her face, and the man, pressed against the wall, under cover of the wisteria was whispering harshly, ‘Get me some food! I’m starving. You look like an angel.’
‘You’re the p-prisoner!’ Amelia gasped.
‘Never mind what I am. Shut the window and get me the food. Quick! Don’t wake her.’
He nodded towards Lady Arabella, still fast asleep, her cap tilted sideways, her chin sunk into her plump breast.
Amelia suppressed an hysterical giggle.
‘Nothing wakes Grandmamma.’
‘Then hurry! You wouldn’t let a man starve.’
Just for one horrifying thrilling moment his fingers, cold and hard, touched hers. Amelia snatched her hand away and held it pressed in her other palm as if it had been wounded.
‘Will you promise not to get into the house?’
‘Yes, yes, I promise. Shut the window. Draw the curtains again. I’ll be here. But hurry.’
Suddenly Amelia realised that her fright was really intense excitement. She did as he told her to, closing the windows softly, and pulling the curtain across. Then she flew out of the room and down the stairs to the kitchen where the lamps were lit and a fire burning cosily in the big stove. Lizzie was washing dishes, and Cook sitting at the long scrubbed table finishing her supper.
The kitchen was familiar and comforting territory to Amelia. Her plumpness was largely due to her fondness for coming here to be petted by the maids, and consume freshly made biscuits and hot scones.
‘Cook, make me a sandwich, please. A big one.’
Cook, who also found food the chief pleasure in life, threw back her head and shouted with laughter.
‘Miss Amelia, you’ll never get an eighteen inch waist this way, bless your heart.’
‘Please, Cook. Cold meat, if you have it, and a piece of plum cake. Honestly, I couldn’t eat a thing at dinner. Everyone was so quiet and glum, as if it was one of us who had died.’
(And was that the murderer crouched beneath the wisteria, trustfully waiting for her?)
Cook was shaking her massive head. ‘We couldn’t make anything of that heathen idol. She gave us the creeps, to tell the truth. All right, Miss Amelia, don’t fidget so. I’ll make your sandwich. Lizzie, get me that cold joint out of the safe. And the bread. Lizzie will bring it up to you, Miss Amelia.’
‘No, I’ll wait and take it. But hurry. I’m so tired, I could die.’
She yawned convincingly. She hoped the high colour in her cheeks was put down to over-tiredness by Cook and the inquisitive Lizzie. They seemed to dawdle so over cutting the bread and buttering it that she could have screamed with impatience. But at last it was ready, with the large slice of plum cake, and Cook was chuckling with admiration at the thought of Amelia’s unashamed greediness.
Clutching the plate to her, praying she wouldn’t encounter anybody, and that Grandmamma hadn’t woken, she haste
ned back to the drawing room.
Everything was as she had left it, the songbook open on the piano, the fire crackling, Lady Arabella snoring gently. It was such an innocent scene. She scarcely believed that when she drew back the curtain and opened the window the hungry hand would enter and snatch at the food.
Indeed, for a moment, when she had undone the catch, there was no movement without. She had a crazy feeling it had all been a dream. She was wildly disappointed.
Then the leaves rustled, and the shock of dark hair, the thin face, appeared.
He didn’t snatch at the food. Instead, he looked steadily into Amelia’s face.
‘I think I have never seen anyone so beautiful,’ he said.
Amelia felt the hot flush of startled pleasure flood her whole body.
‘Here’s your food. Take it and go.’
He emptied the plate quickly, putting the sandwiches and the cake carefully in his pocket. Then, much as she wanted him to go, taking the fearful excitement with him, Amelia detained him.
‘Have you been hiding about here all day? How was it the dogs didn’t find you?’
‘Because I haven’t been here. I went the other way last night, then at midday I doubled back to fool them. I’m making for Plymouth. I’ll get aboard a ship.’
‘You—weren’t in this vicinity last night?’
He grinned, showing remarkably good white teeth.
‘Sure, I was not. I slept under a boulder stinking of sheep.’
‘Why do you trust me?’ Amelia whispered.
‘Because when I saw you sitting at the piano there, with the light in your hair, I knew you could be nothing but an angel. I’ll never forget you. Now I’m off. God bless you.’
There was an infinitesimal rustling in the leaves, and he was gone. He was as quick and silent as a fox. Amelia had no doubt he would get to Plymouth, and get safely aboard a ship sailing for France or Holland, or perhaps one of the Americas. She was glad she had helped him, glad! She would never breathe a word about him having been there. If necessary, she would lie until the day she died. For he had done something for her that so far no other man had done. He had made her feel beautiful, and a woman. She didn’t think she could ever talk to a schoolboy like Robert Hadlow again.
As she softly closed the window, Lady Arabella woke.
‘Ugh!’ she exclaimed, shaking herself. ‘It’s cold. The room’s full of draughts. What are you doing at the window?’
‘Just looking to see if it’s a clear night,’ Amelia said.
‘And is it?’
‘Yes, the moon’s shining.’
‘Then they’ll most likely catch that criminal. He won’t have the fog to hide in. Ugh!’ She shuddered again. ‘It’s cold. I feel as if I have that dead woman’s blood in my veins. Now what is it, child? Why are you looking so frightened?’
Amelia pressed her hands to her pounding heart. She had just realised a terrible thing. Only she knew that the prisoner had not killed Ching Mei, but by keeping her secret, no more effort would be made to find the real culprit. And who was it? Who?
10
THE HUNT MOVED THE other way, towards Okehampton and Ashburton, and the Somerset border. Trains going to London were searched, and shopkeepers in small villages warned to be watchful. It seemed as if the prisoner’s break for freedom might have been a success.
The episode had passed like a disastrous storm over Darkwater. The villagers, from having been hostile and unfriendly towards the little foreign woman, were now belatedly sympathetic and shocked. It was arranged that she should be buried in the village churchyard, her grave lying between honest Joseph Briggs, a blacksmith, and Old Martha Turl, centenarian, dead a few weeks previously. She was in respectable company now, people said with satisfaction, but Fanny kept thinking of how Ching Mei, Chinese to her core, must be fretting for the paper house, the food and the cooking utensils, which she would require for her long journey. Even her feast day sandals, which Hannah had briskly bundled up, together with her other modest belongings, and taken away to be destroyed.
There couldn’t be letters written to her family in Shanghai because no one knew who they were. Hamish Barlow’s arrival would have to be awaited, to see if he could produce any information. Fanny had the strange suspicion that Adam Marsh, too, might have been able to throw some light on the subject.
But Adam Marsh remained as great a mystery as Ching Mei’s Chinese relatives, and the gloom hanging over life at present was hard to dispel.
Strangely enough, Amelia seemed to be touched by it, too. She was restless and distrait. Amelia without her boisterous talkativeness was another person. Lady Arabella noticed the change in both girls and although she approved their extreme sensibility—delicately-reared young woman must naturally be deeply shocked by violent death—she finally grew impatient of it.
‘Louisa, those girls either need a good dose of rhubarb or a change. Why don’t you take them to London for a week or two? I’ll speak to Edgar if you like.’
‘Thank you, Mamma, but I’m quite able to speak to my husband myself. Why should he listen to you more than to me?’
Lady Arabella rocked back and forth in her rocking chair, smiling gently.
‘Because he has a respect for old age, probably.’
Louisa looked at her mother suspiciously. The reply was too innocent. She hadn’t noticed her husband’s respect for age lead to any great generosity. Though there was the matter of George’s new hunter which Mamma had wheedled out of him.
‘Anyway, there’s no need to speak to him. He has agreed that we may go to Plymouth and shop, particularly for Amelia. This is her year, after all. Edgar has been very generous.’
Indeed, he had. He had thrown a pile of sovereigns on to the bed last night and said offhandedly, ‘See how far you can make that go. I don’t expect wild extravagance, but make Amelia—and Fanny, of course—look as they should. Eh, my love?’
Then he had kissed her on the cheek.
‘You see, I’m not such a bad husband after all.’
Louisa, for once, was at a loss for words. At that moment she found his portly figure impressive and admirable, his eyes not merely tolerant and a little facetious, but loving.
‘Have you overcome your financial difficulties?’ she asked.
‘Things are looking more optimistic, yes. There are still problems, but I hope and expect to overcome these.’
‘You will, I am sure. You always have.’
‘And then you will begin to think about your ermines?’ His eyes twinkled with the kindness he could show so many people, orphans, impoverished villagers, people struck by misfortune, but not always, Louisa had to admit, herself. Nevertheless, at this moment, he was showing it to her. She was sceptical but pleased.
‘Edgar, sometimes I believe you really are a good man.’
For some reason he found this remark diverting. His heavy jowls and his stomach shook as he chuckled rumblingly.
‘Then let us settle for that. Sometimes I am good, and sometimes you are tolerable. But I must admit’—he laid his hand on her shoulder—‘you pay for dressing. I expect you and my daughter to do me credit at this ball.’
‘Is Fanny to go to Plymouth also?’ Lady Arabella asked.
‘If she wishes to,’ Louisa replied shortly.
But Fanny didn’t wish to go on the shopping expedition. She couldn’t bring herself to leave the children. She didn’t know why she had this obscure dread that the tragedy of Ching Mei might spread to them…
So Aunt Louisa and Amelia, with Trumble on the coachman’s seat, went, and arrived home after dark, laden with silks and brocades, lawn and striped taffeta, also trimmings for bonnets, ribbons and braids, and feathers, and an enchanting white fur muff and bonnet to match for Amelia. The children had not been forgotten. Uncle Edgar had particularly asked that they be fitted out as became their new position in life, so there was a plaid coat and bonnet for Nolly, frilled pantaloons and petticoats, and shiny black-buttoned boots, and for Mar
cus a sailor hat and suit, and a cord with a whistle on it.
There was even a length of the new foulard silk for Fanny. It was for her ball gown, Amelia explained. Amelia had quite recovered her spirits and chattered endlessly.
‘We do hope you like the silk, Fanny. Mamma and I took ages to choose it. And the next time we go to Plymouth you’re to come, too, so that you can go to Miss Egham for your measurements to be taken. She’s to make all our gowns. Lady Mowatt says she’s terribly clever, and even makes things for the Duchess of Devonshire. Isn’t it jolly, because it means several visits to Plymouth, and although it isn’t London, at least it’s better than being cooped up here. Miss Egham has let us bring home some of her fashion books. Do you want to see them?’
‘Later,’ said Fanny, absently.
She had to admit that Aunt Louisa and Amelia had chosen well for her ball gown. The silk was a deep rose instead of the pastel colours worn so much, and it would set off very well her black hair and vivid colouring.
But they had had to choose carefully, because Amelia’s ball was going to be a large important one, and everyone belonging to the family must do her credit.
Fanny hated herself for her thoughts. She hated dressing the children in their new clothes and telling them that they were for Sundays only, when they would be going to church. Afterwards, they must be taken off and hung away carefully until next Sunday.
‘I don’t think Marcus likes his,’ said Nolly.
Marcus stood uncomplainingly in the sailor suit. Indeed, there was an innocent look of pleasure on his face.
‘I think he likes them very well,’ Fanny said.
‘Then Ching Mei won’t when she comes back. She doesn’t like us in any clothes but the ones she gets ready for us.’
This was all too true. Ching Mei had been extremely vain and particular about her washing and ironing of the children’s clothes. But how did one explain to a highly suspicious little girl that time didn’t stand still, that clothes wore out and unfamiliar hands had to prepare new ones. That Ching Mei was never coming back…
It seemed impossible that Nolly, aged six and a half years, could have divined what had happened and kept the knowledge to herself. Yet there was that look of austere acceptance in her face and she had never cried.