by Mary Stewart
‘All right, I was interested before. Who wouldn’t be? After that business on Sunday . . . oh, well, skip it. Call it curiosity if you like, I’m only human. But my heaven, there’s no reason why it should go further than curiosity! This – proposition – you appear to be suggesting, takes my breath away. No, no, I don’t want to hear any more about it. I can’t even believe you’re serious. Are you?’
‘Quite.’
‘Very well. But can you give me any conceivable reason why I should be?’
She looked at me almost blankly. There it was again; that merciless all-excluding obsession with their personal problems. ‘I don’t understand.’
I found that I was reaching, automatically, for another cigarette. I let it slip back into the packet. I had smoked too much that evening already; my eyes and throat felt hot and aching, and my brain stupid. I said: ‘Look, you approach me out of the blue with your family history, which may be intriguing, but which can really mean very little to me. You propose, let’s face it, that somehow or other I should help you to perpetrate a fraud. It may mean everything to you; I don’t see how, but we’ll grant it for argument’s sake. But why should it mean a thing to me? You tell me it’ll be “easy”. Why should I care? Why should I involve myself? In plain words, why on earth should I go out of my way to help you and your brother Con to anything?’
I didn’t add: ‘When I don’t much like you, and I don’t trust him,’ but to my horror the words seemed to repeat themselves into the air of the room as clearly as if I, and not the tone of my voice, had said them.
If she heard them, she may have been too unwilling to antagonise me, to resent them. Nor did she appear to mind my actual rudeness. She said, simply: ‘Why, for money, of course? What other reason is there?’
‘For money?’
She gave a slight, summing, eloquent glance round the room. ‘If you’ll forgive me, you appear to need it. You said so, in fact to my brother; that was one of the reasons why we felt we could approach you. You have so much to gain. You will forgive my speaking so plainly on such a short acquaintance?’
‘Do,’ I said ironically.
‘You are a gentlewoman,’ said Miss Dermott, the outmoded sounding perfectly normal on her lips. ‘And this room . . . and your job at that dreadful café . . . You’ve been over here from Canada for how long?’
‘Just a few days.’
‘And this has been all you could find?’
‘As far as I looked. It took all I had to get me here. I’m marking time while I get my bearings. I took the first thing that came. You don’t have to worry about me, Miss Dermott. I’ll make out. I don’t have to work in the Kasbah for life, you know.’
‘All the same,’ she said, ‘it’s worth your while to listen to me. In plain terms, I’m offering you a job, a good one, the job of coming back to Whitescar as Annabel Winslow, and persuading the old man that that is who you are. You will have a home and every comfort, a position, everything; and eventually a small assured income for life. You call it a fraud: of course it is, but it’s not a cruel one. The old man wants you there, and your coming will make him very happy.’
‘Why did he remove the photographs?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You said earlier that he used to keep a “whole gallery” of this girl’s photographs in his room. Doesn’t he still?’
‘You’re very quick.’ She sounded appreciative, as of a favourite horse who was showing a pretty turn of speed. ‘He didn’t get rid of them, don’t worry; he keeps them in a drawer in his office, and he still has one in his bedroom. He moved the others last year, when he had one done of Julie.’ She eyed me for a moment. ‘She’ll be coming up for her summer holiday before very long. You see?’
‘I see why you and your brother might want to work quickly, yes.’
‘Of course. You must come home before Julie persuades him to be reasonable about Annabel’s death . . . and to put Julie herself in Annabel’s place. Whatever happens, it’ll happen soon. It’s doubtful if the old man’ll see the year out, and I think he’s beginning to realise it.’
I looked up quickly. ‘Is he ill?’
‘He had a slight stroke three months ago, and he refuses to take very much care. He’s always been strong and very active, and he seems to resent any suggestion that he should do less. He takes it as an encroachment . . .’ Her lips tightened over whatever she had been going to say, then she added: ‘The doctor has warned him. He may live for some time, but he may, if he does anything silly, have another stroke at almost any moment and this time it might be fatal. So you see why this is so urgent? Why meeting you like that seemed, to Con, like a gift from heaven?’
I said, after a pause: ‘And when he’s gone?’
She said patiently: ‘It’s all thought out. We can go into details later. Briefly, all you have to do is to establish yourself at Whitescar, be Annabel Winslow, and inherit the property – and her share of the capital – when the old man dies. I tell you, there’ll be no question. Don’t you see, you’ll not actually be coming back to claim anything, simply coming home to live? With luck you’ll be able to settle quietly in and establish yourself, long before there’s any sort of crisis, and by the time the old man does die, you’ll have been accepted without question. Then, after a decent interval, when things seem settled, you’ll turn over your legacy to Con. You’ll get your cut, don’t worry. Annabel’s mother left her some money, which she could have claimed when she was twenty-one; it brings in a nice little independent income. You’ll have that – in any case, it would look absurd if you attempted to hand that over. As for the main transaction, the handing over of Whitescar, that can be arranged to look normal enough. You can say you want to live elsewhere . . . abroad, perhaps . . . whatever you’d planned for yourself. In fact, you’ll be able to lead your own life again, but with a nice little assured income behind you. And if “Annabel” decided to live away from Whitescar again, leaving the place to her cousin, who’s run it for years anyway, there’s no reason why anyone should question it.’
‘The young cousin? Julie?’
‘I tell you, you needn’t be afraid of her. Her stepfather has money, there’s no other child, and she’ll certainly also get a share of Mr Winslow’s capital. You’ll rob her of Whitescar, yes, but she’s never given the slightest hint that she cares anything about it, except as a place to spend a holiday in. Since she left school last year, she’s taken a job in London, in the Drama Department at the BBC, and she’s only been up here once, for the inside of a fortnight. All she could do, if the place was hers, would be to sell it, or pay Con to manage it. You needn’t have Julie on your conscience.’
‘But surely—’ it was absurd, I thought, to feel as if one was being backed against a wall by this steady pressure of will – ‘But surely, if the old man realised that he was ill, and still Annabel hadn’t come back, he would leave things to Con? Or if he left them to Julie, and she was content to let Con go on as manager, wouldn’t that be all right?’
Her lips folded in that soft obstinate line. ‘That wouldn’t answer. Can’t you see how impossible – ah, well, take it from me that it wouldn’t work out like that. No, my dear, this is the best way, and you’re the gift straight from the gods. Con believes he’ll never get control of Whitescar and the capital except this way. When you’ve said you’ll help, I’ll explain more fully, and you’ll see what a chance it is for all of us, and no harm done, least of all to that stubborn old man sitting at Whitescar waiting for her to come home . . .’
Somehow, without wanting it, I had taken the cigarette, my hands fidgeting with carton and lighter in spite of myself. I stood silently while she talked, looking about me through the first, blue, sharp-scented cloud of smoke . . . the sagging bed, the purplish wallpaper, the wardrobe and dressing-chest of yellow deal, the tablecloth with the geometric flowers of Prussian blue and carmine, and the stain on the ceiling that was the shape of the map of Ireland. I thought of the high moors and the curlews c
alling and the beeches coming into leaf in the windbreaks. And of the collie-dog waving his tail, and the straight blue stare of Connor Winslow . . .
It was disconcerting to feel the faint prickle of nervous excitement along the skin, the ever-so-slightly quickened heartbeat, the catch in the breath. Because of course the thing was crazy. Dangerous and crazy and impossible. This silly, stolid pudding of a woman couldn’t possibly have realised how crazy it was . . .
No, I thought. No. Go while the going’s good. Don’t touch it.
‘Well?’ said Lisa Dermott.
I went to the window and dragged the curtains shut across it. I turned abruptly back to her. The action was somehow symbolic; it shut us in together, storybook conspirators in the solitary, sleazy upstairs room that smelt of too much cigarette smoke.
‘Well?’ I echoed her, sharply. ‘All right. I am interested. And I’ll come, if you can persuade me that it can possibly work . . . Go on. I’ll really listen now.’
4
Or take me by the body so meek,
Follow, my love, come over the strand—
And throw me in the water so deep,
For I darena go back to Northumberland.
Ballad:
The Fair Flower of Northumberland.
It took three weeks. At the end of that time Lisa Dermott vowed that I would do. There was nothing, she said, that she or Con knew about Whitescar and Annabel that I, too, didn’t now know.
My handwriting, even, passed muster. The problem of the signature had been one of Lisa’s worst worries, but she had brought me some old letters, written before Annabel’s disappearance, and when I showed her the sheets that I had covered with carefully practised writing, she eventually admitted that they would pass.
‘After all, Lisa —’ I used Christian names for her and Con, and made a habit of referring to Matthew Winslow as ‘Grandfather’ – ‘I shan’t be doing much writing. The person who matters is Grandfather, and I shan’t have to write to him. As far as the bank’s concerned, the signature is all that’s needed, and I’ve got that off pretty well, you must admit. In any case, even a signature might change a bit in eight years; it’ll be easy enough to account for any slight differences, one would think.’
We were in another boarding-house room, this time in a big house in the tangle of busy streets east of the Haymarket. I had left my previous lodgings the day after my first meeting with Lisa, and, on her recommendation, had taken this room under the name of Winslow.
‘Because,’ said Lisa, ‘though I don’t imagine for a moment that anyone will see us together who knows me, or knew Annabel, if they should happen to see us before you turn up at Whitescar, or if they do make enquiries, at least they won’t find that Lisa Dermott and Con Winslow were seeing an awful lot of one Mary Grey just before “Annabel” turned up at home to eat the fatted calf.’
‘You seem awfully sure of that fatted calf,’ I said drily. ‘Let’s hope you’re right. You’ll have to be completely honest with me, both of you, about Grandfather’s reactions when he gets the news I’m coming. If he seems to have the slightest suspicion of a doubt – and if he so much as mentions having me investigated – you’re to tell me, and—’
‘We’ll think again, that’s understood. You don’t imagine we’d be too keen on an investigation, either? We’ll look after you, you know. We have to. It cuts both ways.’
I laughed: ‘Don’t think I haven’t realised that! The possibilities for mutual blackmail are unlimited, and quite fascinating.’
She gave her faint, unreadable smile. ‘The point is, surely, that it is mutual?’ She patted the book which lay on the arm of her chair. Brat Farrar had become, for her, the textbook of our enterprise. ‘It was the same in this book . . . only you’ve less to worry about than the impostor there; you’re not coming back just to claim a fortune, and it’s easier to make your story – the reasons for your flight and your return – hang together.’
‘Is it? You know, Lisa, there is one point at which the story doesn’t hang together at all well.’
I thought she looked wary. ‘Where?’
‘Well, unless Con intends to come through with some pretty convincing reasons for a most almighty row the night she went, I can’t believe that a normal “lovers’ quarrel”, however bitter, would drive a girl away for good, from the only home she had, even if her grandfather didn’t side with her over it. I’d even have thought that Con might have been the one to be shown the door.’
It was a moment or two before she replied. Then she said slowly: ‘I expect that Con intends to tell you exactly what passed, when he – when he gets to know you better. I don’t know it all myself, but I believe it does – what was the phrase? – hang together, quite well, really.’
‘All right. We’ll leave it to Con. Well, at least,’ I said cheerfully, ‘I’ll be able to relax and tell the truth about my travels abroad. The truth, wherever possible . . . There never was a better alibi. Let’s go through our stuff again, shall we?’
And, for the fiftieth time, we did.
She was the best possible teacher for the purpose, with an orderly mind, and very little imagination. Her patience, her almost Teutonic efficiency, never failed to amaze me, and her matter-of-fact calmness began to have its effect on me. In her company, any doubts I had seemed to become merely frivolous; moral quibbles were hardly worth the trouble of thought; apprehensions were baseless, mists to be blown aside by the steady gusts of common sense.
With the methods outlined in Brat Farrar as our modus operandi, Lisa had taught me all the facts about Whitescar, its environs, and the house itself, in those afternoon sessions during my three-weeks’ apprenticeship. And, like the impostor-hero of the book, I soon found myself to be not only involved, but even excited by the sheer difficulties of the deception. The thing was an adventure, a challenge, and, I told myself (with how much self-deceit I didn’t pause to consider), I would, in the long run, do no harm. As for Julie . . . But I didn’t let myself think much about Julie. I shut my mind to the future, and kept to the task in hand, pitting my wits against Lisa’s day after day, hour after hour, in those interminable cross-examinations.
‘Describe the drawing room . . . the kitchen . . . your bedroom . . .’
‘What does your grandfather eat for his breakfast?’
‘What was your mother’s Christian name? The colour of her hair? Where was her home?’
‘The day your father was killed, and the news was brought, where were you?’
‘Go from the kitchen door to the hay-loft . . .’
‘Describe the front garden; what plants did you put in? Your favourite flowers? Colours? Food? The names of the horses you rode at the Forrest stables? The dogs? Your old cat? The name of the farmer at Nether Shields . . . the head cattleman at Whitescar . . . the housekeeper at Forrest . . . ?’
‘Describe Mrs Forrest . . . her husband . . .’
But, as a rule, the personalities of the game were left to Connor to bring to life for me.
He managed, on several occasions (once when Lisa was there, but usually alone), to come out for an hour or so while his great-uncle was resting in the afternoons.
The first time he came was when Lisa had already been with me for a couple of hours. We had expected him that day, and had been listening for the sound of his car stopping in the quiet street. When he came at length, I was absorbed, over the tea cups, in describing for Lisa the old Forrest Hall grounds as she had taught me them, and as Annabel would remember them, before the house had been burned down and the Forrests gone abroad.
I was concentrating hard on what I was saying, and had failed to hear anyone mount the stairs. It was the sudden change in Lisa’s impassive, listening face that told me who was at the door.
It was she who called ‘Come in!’ before I had even turned my head, and she was on her feet as he entered the room.
I saw then why we had missed hearing the car. He must have walked some distance from the place where he had parked i
t. His hair, and the tweed of his jacket, were misted with raindrops.
This was my first meeting with him since our strange encounter on the Roman Wall, and I had been half dreading it; but I need not have worried. He greeted me with imperturbable friendliness, and the same unquestioning acceptance of my partnership in his affairs that I had seen in his sister.
If my own greeting was a little uncertain, this went unnoticed in Lisa’s exclamation. ‘Con! Is it raining?’
‘I think so, I hardly noticed. Yes, I believe it is.’
‘You believe it is! Why, you’re soaking! And no coat on. I suppose you left the car three streets away. Really, Con! Come to the fire, dear.’
I had to stop myself from staring at her in amazement. This was a totally different Lisa from the one I had known up to now. Gone was the silent, stodgy-looking watcher of the Café Kasbah, the single-minded juggernaut of my Westgate Road lodgings, the crisply efficient tutor of the last few days. This was the hen fussing over its chick, or the anxious shepherd with the weakling lamb . . . She had bustled across the room to meet him, had brushed the raindrops from his shoulders with her hands, and drawn him nearer to the fire, almost before the door was shut behind him. She pressed him into the room’s best chair, which she had just vacated, then hurried (without so much as a by-your-leave to me) to make fresh tea for him. Con accepted the fuss without even appearing to notice it; he stood patiently while she fluttered round him, as a good child stands still while its mother fusses its clothes into order, took the chair she pointed him to, and the tea she had made for him. It was a totally new facet of Lisa, and an unexpected one. It also went, I thought, quite a long way towards completing the picture of Con that I had had in my own mind.
He was, in his own way, as good a teacher as Lisa. It fell to him to give me some sort of picture of life at Whitescar when Annabel had been there, and to round out, in his own racy, vivid way, the two most important portraits, that of Matthew Winslow, and of the girl herself.