Darkwater

by Dorothy Eden

  ‘Completely, my dear. It is a pity you were such an avaricious woman. Always wanting, wanting, wanting.’

  ‘I had to have something!’ Aunt Louisa cried thickly.

  ‘You had me. And I had never told you about Marianne—always there behind your eyelids. You didn’t know my private ghost. Fanny sometimes reminds me of Marianne. That long white throat.’ He curved his strong thick fingers thoughtfully. ‘It’s a matter of love and hate. You can kiss and kill—yes, almost simultaneously. But there it was. I comforted myself by marrying an earl’s granddaughter and acquiring property. I bought diamonds for my wife. My son had a commission in a famous regiment and my daughter a dowry. But finally Fanny’s fortune was not sufficient for the needs of my extravagant family. I hardly knew where to turn when the second plum fell in my lap. My brother’s orphaned children, and a bag of uncut emeralds. How was that for luck? And the intricate plotting, the timing, the manipulating of people. The stimulation of it! But of course one’s luck couldn’t last forever. Time runs out.’

  ‘Edgar, you are mad!’ cried Aunt Louisa, horrified.

  The shrunken man, with his enormous calm, said, ‘Don’t let those men you brought knock all the copse down, Marsh. I can take them to the exact spot. I agree that I did a careless job on that. I never realised the fellow would be so heavy. I had to risk leaving the body concealed by leaves and do the burying the next night when I could wear suitable clothes. Even so, it was quite a task getting garden debris cleaned off myself so as to present myself back in the ballroom. Luckily there was no blood. I have strong hands. And a man taken by surprise—I had asked him to step outside to discuss some business—has little defence. I must have a discussion with Sir Giles about these spontaneous crimes. They seem to be the most successful. Haphazard, but unsuspected.’ Uncle Edgar seemed almost to relish re-living the success of his macabre tactics. ‘Barlow was an unlikeable fellow, anyway. I can’t think how my brother trusted him. Well, that’s how it was. And now,’ he moved wearily, ‘I suppose I had better be getting along.’

  ‘Where are you going, Edgar?’ Aunt Louisa cried.

  ‘To the police, naturally. Marsh will perhaps accompany me, since he has already assumed so much responsibility. One knows when the game is over. One must behave with dignity. Time—oh, speaking of time, Fanny,’ he had taken the large, gold watch, as yellow as a pumpkin, from his pocket, ‘give this to Marcus in the morning. The little fellow was always fascinated by it.’

  He wound it absently, and the tiny delicate tune hung in the air, as frail as a dream.

  ‘Don’t fret, Louisa.’ Uncle Edgar spoke with a shadow of his old pompousness. ‘I haven’t wasted my time with a petty crime. The case will be a cause célèbre, of course. And it isn’t as if we have a son able to inherit the estate. Poor George is finished. We both know it.’ He stood a moment surveying his wife’s highly-coloured and tear-stained face dispassionately. ‘It’s a great relief to tell you my true feelings at last. I trust you to see that Amelia’s life isn’t ruined by an unfortunate marriage.’

  ‘Papa!’ cried Amelia in a heartbroken voice.

  ‘My little girl—’

  But Lady Arabella dismissed the one emotional moment with an authoritative movement of her hand.

  ‘Let him go, Amelia. He is your father, but he is a monster.’

  Something made Fanny re-wind the watch she was holding and listen again to the tinkling tune. The shortish stout figure going out through the door into the hall was nothing without his watch, she realised. How strange. He had simply diminished away.

  26

  SO THERE IT WAS at last, the voice of her father speaking. Fanny re-read the much-creased letter that had been concealed in Lady Arabella’s pincushion.

  Dear Uncle Leonard,

  How can I express my gratitude for your intention to leave me your property and capital. I fear my ownership will be of short duration for I am a dying man with perhaps one, perhaps two years to live, but if only you could know how you have eased my mind. Now I can die confident that my daughter Francesca is well provided for. She is only a baby who looks like her mother, but is a true Davenport in spirit. I am making my cousin Edgar, a man of the highest integrity, her guardian…’

  It was quite impossible to sleep. At some time in the night, she wasn’t sure how late, Fanny got up and tiptoed down the dark passages to Lady Arabella’s rooms.

  As she had guessed, a night light was burning in the bedroom. She tapped, and went in swiftly.

  ‘Great-aunt Arabella? I thought you wouldn’t be asleep!’

  The old lady was propped up with pillows. She had been reading her large shabby Bible. She closed it, her finger holding the place she had been reading.

  ‘Naturally I wouldn’t. Sleep is for the innocent. What do you want?’

  ‘You were never really my enemy, were you?’

  ‘And what makes you think I am turning soft in my old age? Of course I was your enemy, until I realised I was wasting my time. Your will was stronger than mine. Which makes it formidable. I pity the man who marries you.’

  ‘I would like to think kindly of you,’ Fanny said earnestly. ‘I know you would have sacrificed me for George, but I can understand that because you loved him. And you did, in the end, give Nolly the pincushion so I would find Papa’s letter. I want to thank you eternally for that.’ She looked very young, with her black hair tumbling over her shoulders, and tears on her lashes.

  Lady Arabella said impatiently, ‘Pshaw! You and your extravagant emotion. You thank me eternally for something I should have done months ago. It could have saved lives. Do you realise that? I am a wicked old woman. But I’d do the same again.’ Her husky voice broke between a sob and a chuckle. ‘My son-in-law should have made more of a study of the human mind. He didn’t even bother to discover that his great-uncle Leonard loved poetry and that his favourite was Chaucer. A well-worn volume of the Canterbury Tales was marked at the place where the old man had stopped reading with your father’s letter. I thought such carelessness on your Uncle Edgar’s part deserved a little punishment. I always did hate the pompous little man, anyway. Daring to marry my daughter! But he was George’s father, and—I apologise to you, Fanny—at that time that was far more important than demanding justice for you. Anyway,’ she said irritably, ‘you were to marry George and be mistress here, and it would all have come to the same thing.’

  ‘Uncle Edgar must always have wanted me to die,’ said Fanny sadly. ‘Do you remember the day I fell out of the boat? Perhaps he hoped I had inherited my father’s delicate constitution, and would catch a chill and go into a decline. But I suppose he really thought it was tidier to let me come of age and make my will, almost as if he enjoyed the years of anticipation.’ She buried her face in her hands, shuddering. ‘It’s all so horrible. How can a man’s ambitions and ego turn his mind so? He would have killed, and killed again.’

  ‘They say it’s easy after the first time,’ the old lady said. ‘I believe it even grows on one, like gambling, or drinking. And one doesn’t look for a criminal where none is suspected, as your uncle pointed out. Besides, no one cared about the Chinese woman, no one was unduly concerned about that detestable fox Barlow. My death would have been an unfortunate accident caused by age and senility. Senility, ho!’

  ‘And mine?’ Fanny whispered.

  For a moment the old lady’s hand rested on her head.

  ‘That was a habit of thought in your uncle’s mind, a task that must one day be done. He would blame that wretched girl who once jilted him, and my daughter for her demands and her extravagances, caused, as he very well knew, by discontent in her emotional life. He would have retained a singularly innocent mind. But it didn’t happen. Let us not talk of it. Here, sit beside me, and we’ll read together.’

  Her stubby finger found the place. She began to read, ‘They are like chaff which the wind scattereth away…No sugar plums, tonight,’ she said. ‘George was always the one who liked them best.’ Her voice was
full of desolation.

  George, very flushed and unsteady, had come in late the previous evening, and gone straight to his room. In the morning he came downstairs dressed in the uniform of an officer of the 27th Lancers. He was shouting for his horse to be brought to the door. It seemed dangerous to oppose him, so the groom brought the magnificent animal, his father’s last gift to him, to the door, and George mounted, and sat still in the saddle for a moment, very young and heroic and incredibly handsome. Then he shouted wildly, ‘I can smell the cannon smoke. Goodbye all!’ and with his superb horsemanship, he galloped madly away, the sun gleaming on his helmet, his white plumes streaming. When he came back hours later his horse was exhausted, and he was dazed and muttering something about the Cossacks and the deadly fire of the cannon.

  ‘You realise, Louisa,’ Lady Arabella said with great gentleness, ‘that he will have to go away for a time, at least. We must find a suitable hospital. Come, George. Come Georgie, my lamb. Retreat has sounded.’

  Aunt Louisa was a ghost of herself, listening to everything her mother said, and agreeing mechanically. Yes, she would go and live in the Dower House on the Dalston estate. Although it was small and dark and inconvenient. It was no place for a young girl just beginning life, but with the change in Amelia’s fortunes she must be thankful for a place to which to retreat until some of the terrible scandal had blown over.

  It was then that Amelia surprised everyone.

  ‘No, Mamma. I’m not coming with you.’

  ‘And what, pray, are you planning to do? Live on Fanny’s charity?’

  ‘Aunt Louisa, please!’ Fanny protested. ‘I have tried to tell you all morning how welcome—’

  Amelia didn’t let her finish. She lifted her round young chin, unexpectedly stubborn, and said that she had quite made up her mind, she was going to find a position as lady’s maid with some nice family going to Australia.

  ‘I know I can’t sew very well,’ she said, ‘and I know almost nothing about starching and ironing. But Hannah is going to teach me, and I can learn quickly if I set my mind to it. I shall be quite a success.’

  Aunt Louisa was completely shocked.

  ‘Australia! Are you mad? There’s no need to go to the other side of the world. I know your father’s case will be a terrible scandal, but people soon forget. There are plenty of young men who will admire you for yourself.’

  Her expression, overfond and distraught, did not deter Amelia.

  ‘Yes, Mamma. I know one of those men already. But he is now in Australia, I believe, hoping to make his fortune in the goldfields. I am going out to find him.’

  ‘Amelia!’ Fanny exclaimed. ‘You can’t mean the escaped prisoner! But you only talked to him for a moment.’

  Amelia’s eyes were shining brilliantly. There was nothing of the plump immature girl left about her. She was a woman, with a proud confidence that at that moment made her beautiful.

  ‘It wasn’t just a passing thing. It was more. It was like—you might almost say like a moment in eternity. I told myself I was foolish and romantic. I tried to forget about him and fall in love with Adam. I thought I had. But I hadn’t. I can’t forget this man.’

  Fanny took her hand.

  ‘I believe I see now what he saw. I believe you will find him. I pray that you do.’

  ‘I will,’ said Amelia.

  ‘And anyway,’ Amelia had added after that conversation, ‘who is Adam Marsh?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Fanny. (But I know how his heart feels beating against my cheek…)

  ‘Papa was right when he said he was interfering and inquisitive. Is he a fortune-hunter? Or is he a policeman in plain clothes? Would you marry a policeman, Fanny?’ Amelia asked, in her old inquisitive way.

  ‘I would marry Adam whoever he was. If ever he asks me,’ she added under her breath.

  For the first time the house oppressed Fanny. She dressed the children in their outdoor things and said they were all going for a walk. Marcus could bring his hoop if he wished, but Nolly was to pay attention to everything Fanny told her. She was to learn more about English birds.

  She didn’t miss the flicker of fear in Nolly’s eyes, and went on calmly, ‘You are deplorably ignorant about them, my love. You scarcely know a robin from a crow. We’ll take some crumbs to feed them.’

  ‘Put our hands on their beaks!’ Nolly gasped. ‘Touch their feathers!’

  ‘After weeks of patience you may perhaps entice one of them to eat out of your hand. You must remember that they’re much more frightened of you than you are of them.’

  Nolly looked extremely sceptical.

  ‘How can they be? They have beaks and claws.’

  But she allowed herself to be buttoned into her warm cape and gaiters and Fanny, half way through the task, thought how absurd this was. She was the mistress and doing the nursemaid’s work.

  ‘And I always will,’ she said aloud.

  ‘Always will what? Cousin Fanny, why are you smiling?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps I was thinking how happy I am to have you and Marcus.’

  Nolly made her usual attempt to scoff.

  ‘Marcus doesn’t care for being here. He would rather be in China. But I shall tolerate it’—Nolly’s mouth pursed judiciously—‘if I learn not to be afraid of birds.’

  It was a cold windless day, the sun shining from a clear colourless sky. The children raced across the garden, kicking up flurries of leaves fallen in yesterday’s gale. Inevitably, their destination was the lake where there might be wild ducks and perhaps a swan.

  The water was not dark and sinister today, but the colour of the sky, pale and translucent. The floor of the pavilion was littered with dead leaves. It looked as if it had not been visited for years. The summer tea parties had vanished as completely as the yellow flag irises and the water-lilies from the lake.

  Fanny suggested a reward for the first person to see a robin, then forgot to look herself as she became lost in thought. She was so tired, so crushed by the weight of events, and yet so full of a sense of joy which surely she had no right to feel in the midst of tragedy.

  ‘Cousin Fanny! I saw one. In that tree. He flew away. Cousin Fanny, Lizzie’s coming down. Don’t let her make us go back to the house yet.’ Nolly’s face, healthily pink and happy, looked out from her blue bonnet. ‘You promised we could feed the birds.’

  ‘Miss Fanny!’ That was Lizzie, breathless, scarcely knowing yet how to speak to the new mistress. ‘Mr Marsh has arrived with the old gentleman from London. Barker has put them in the library.’

  Fanny sprang up. ‘I will come at once.’ But in the next instant she saw Adam strolling across the autumn-yellowed grass. She waited, her heart beating too fast, until he came up.

  He bowed and said good morning, and added that he hadn’t the patience, like Mr Craike, to wait in the library.

  Fanny was almost as breathless as Lizzie, but had the presence of mind to say, ‘Lizzie, ask Barker to be kind enough to pour Mr Craike a glass of Madeira. Mr Marsh and I will be up immediately.’

  ‘In fifteen minutes, Lizzie,’ Adam amended. ‘Miss Fanny and I have things to discuss.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ said Fanny. ‘Poor Uncle Edgar—poor George. And Amelia planning to go to Australia. Did you know?’

  ‘And you?’ said Adam softly. ‘Are you going to slap my face if I kiss you?’

  Fanny strove for composure.

  ‘Mr Marsh, naturally I can’t keep those very valuable earrings. I realise the gift was a gesture—’

  ‘You said you couldn’t keep the Bactrian camel, either. That was mine. The earrings were my sister’s.’

  ‘Your—sister’s!’

  Adam’s smile was quizzical, a little amused.

  ‘You shouldn’t always have been accusing me of ulterior motives. The explanation is so simple. I merely wanted to observe, incognito, whether my brother-in-law had made a suitable choice of guardian for his children. When I saw you in London my doubts were completely allay
ed. I knew that if you had the care of the children they would be happy. But I still wanted to make the acquaintance of Edgar Davenport. And when I received the letter from Ching Mei—’

  ‘A letter from Ching Mei!’ Fanny had to interrupt. ‘Nolly said she had written to you and I didn’t believe her.’

  ‘The letter was written with Nolly’s help. I had arranged it with Ching Mei in London. If anything troubled her she was to let me know. Naturally, your uncle taking possession of the children’s fortune alarmed her very much.’

  ‘Of course,’ Fanny breathed, remembering the conversation in the Chinese language between Adam and Ching Mei.

  ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘I came at once, intending to state my business immediately. But you will remember I chanced to meet you in the church. You were so different from the fashionable young lady I had seen in London. You were plainly, even poorly dressed. My curiosity, and, I must admit, my suspicions, were aroused. When I made the discovery that you, too, were a ward of Edgar Davenport I began to wonder. I knew about my niece and nephew’s fortune for a great part of it was my sister’s. Had you, too, perhaps had one? Meeting your uncle increased my suspicions. He was too hearty, too affable, too apparently generous, a façade, I suspected, that hid the real man. I decided the only way to remain on the scene and make investigations was to go on concealing my identity and cultivate the family, particularly the charming garrulous Amelia. Fortunately your uncle displayed no curiosity at all about the family of the girl his brother had married, or my game would have been up. He shouldn’t have so under-rated Oliver who was a nice fellow, and who made Anne Marie, whom he met when she travelled with my father on one of his trips to the East, very happy.’

  ‘Oh, how glad I am about this!’ Fanny cried. ‘You will be able to talk to Nolly and Marcus about their mother. They will have someone to keep her alive for them.’

  ‘More than one person. My Aunt Martha is longing to have them with her at Heronshall. We will apply for their guardianship, Fanny, and bring them up with our own children.’