Silence in Court

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Well, my dear, what sort of an evening have you had?”

  “Very nice, thank you.”

  “Get on all right with my young people?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  To her relief, Mrs. Maquisten did not pursue this. She said,

  “I told Ellen I wanted to see you. Thank God, she does what she’s told—at least in that sort of way. Nurses don’t. They tell you you won’t sleep or something like that and begin to be soothing. But Ellen’s been my maid for long enough to do what she’s told. Thirty-five years—it’s a long time. And I’ve got my own bell that rings in her room, so I’m not quite at any nurse’s mercy yet.” She screwed round in bed, made a schoolgirl grimace at the door in the wall. “So you may put that in your pipe and smoke it, Magda Brayle!” She turned back, to see Carey laughing. “You’ve got to keep your end up with a nurse or she’ll down you. I’m not ready to be downed—not yet anyhow. There—be off to your bed! And if anyone isn’t nice to you, put them in their place. You’ve as much right here as the rest of them, and you can say I said so.”

  Carey went upstairs soberly. She was so tired that she fell asleep at once, but something followed her into her sleep and cast a shadow there which never quite became a dream. Only in the shadow something moved and someone wept—inaudibly, bitterly, dreadfully. She woke to a dark morning and Molly bringing her a cup of tea.

  Jeff Stewart fetched her at twelve. She was surprised and a little bit shocked to find herself so glad to see him, because what he wanted was to be taken down a peg or two. It is very difficult to take people down when they can see with their own eyes that you’re as pleased as Punch. For moment she thought that Jeff was going to kiss her, but she got a rather frozen look into her eye just in time and he thought better of it, but she could see right away that she was going to have trouble. Before they were out of the Square he was asking her what she thought would be the right sort of Christmas present for a girl if you were going to marry her but hadn’t broken it to her yet. The bother about Jeff was that he made her angry—at least she supposed he did—but he also made her want to laugh. Something about his impudent, lazy voice and his impudent, lazy eyes. And of course quite too fatal to laugh. She said in a nicely detached voice,

  “Well, I don’t know—it would depend on the man, and on the girl.”

  She heard him laugh.

  “Helpful—aren’t you! What about a fur coat?”

  Carey chilled the voice down.

  “You can’t give a girl a fur coat unless you’re engaged to her—at least not the sort of girl—”

  “I’ve made a break—I told you I was liable to. The fur coat’s out. Pity, because I’ve got the coupons for it and all. How much engaged do we have to be?”

  “Wedding-present engaged.”

  “Well, that’s where it gets difficult. I suppose you’d say I’d got that far, but she hadn’t. Of course the coupons will keep. What sort of fur do you think would be best?”

  “That would depend on the girl.”

  “Well, take a blonde—people generally do take them, don’t they?”

  Carey said sedately, “Fair girls are very lucky about furs. They can wear all the kinds that make you look like a fiend if you’re dark.”

  “As?”

  “Squirrel, mole—sable, only practically nobody can afford it—I can’t see who does.”

  “I’ve got quite a lot of money. Didn’t you know?” Mr. Stewart’s slight drawl had become more pronounced. “And my blonde is the platinum sort—practically albino, except of course she hasn’t got pink eyes.”

  “Then she’ll look hideous in anything. The less you spend the better.”

  There was a pause, after which he said mournfully,

  “I could always change her. It’s a pity I don’t like them dark. Of course I could compromise and look out for something half and half—say dark hair and blue eyes. What do you think about that?”

  “I don’t have to think about it. It isn’t my business—is it?”

  He said, “It might be.” He slipped his hand inside her arm and began to laugh. “Carey—let me give you a coat.”

  “Certainly not!”

  “But I want to very badly.”

  “That has nothing to do with it.”

  “But it might have—you said so yourself. You said I could give a girl a fur coat for a wedding present.”

  Carey’s colour burned.

  “I’m not having a wedding.”

  “You might think about having one, and then we could go and choose the coat.”

  She detached herself.

  “Now, Jeff Stewart—”

  He looked at her solicitously.

  “You didn’t finish that. Couldn’t you think of anything to say?”

  He got an ominously sparkling glance.

  “Plenty, but you’d better not make me say it. Now, are you going to talk sense, or do I turn round and go home?”

  “I talk sense. Here’s the first instalment. Have you taken a vow of celibacy or anything like that?”

  “Of course I haven’t!”

  “Then would you like to think about marrying me?”

  Carey stood still, jerked up her chin, and directed a repressive glance at him. It didn’t seem to get there. She produced a reinforcement of words.

  “I’m not considering marrying anyone. And if you think I’m going to be proposed to in the street, well, I’m not!”

  “But I don’t ever see you alone except in the street,” he said in a reasonable voice. “You don’t want me to propose to you in front of Cousin Honoria and all the rest of them, do you?”

  Carey stamped on a very hard pavement. Pins and needles ran up her leg, but the moral effect was good.

  “I don’t want you to propose to me at all!”

  “But I have proposed to you. You don’t want me to take it back, do you?”

  “I think I’m going home.”

  He took her by the elbow.

  “All right, all right—don’t get mad. We’ll call it off. What about putting the fur coat in cold storage and getting down to buying a handbag—what we call a purse. Could you use one?”

  They walked on again. Looking down at the bag which, like herself, had been damaged by enemy action and, unlike herself, would never be the same again, she had a horrid suspicion that all this talk of blondes, weddings, and fur coats was so much Machiavellian overstatement in order to undermine her resistance to being given an expensive handbag.

  Whilst she was considering retaliatory measures Jeff’s voice began again overhead.

  “You know, you’ve got this proposal business all wrong. I’ve been reading a lot since I came over—what you might call sound escapist literature, all about how people lived before they started having European wars—late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century stuff. When the girls in those books were proposed to they appreciated it—no jibbing and saying they were going home. Even if they were going to come back with the offer of being a sister to the fellow they did it as kindly as they could. There were some nice blushes and a lot of pretty remarks about its being an honour and they would always remember it and hand it down as a sort of an heirloom.”

  The corners of Carey’s mouth began to twitch. A lazy downward-glancing eye may have perceived this. The voice overhead continued.

  “I won’t say you didn’t blush. Maybe you did the best you could, but it didn’t look right to me. It could easily have been mistaken for just ordinary temper. These girls I was talking about, they had a kind of melting look with it. Some of them got their eyes brimming over, and a tear or two trickling down over the blushes.”

  A wave of laughter broke through Carey’s guard. It wasn’t any good being angry, and she wanted to enjoy herself.

  She said, “Oh, Jeff—you fool!” and heard him chuckle.

  They bought a bag, they lunched, they went to a show. They quarrelled once or twice, and found it an exhilarating adventure. There were no dull moments. No shadow of th
ings to come lay across their path.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was in the evening that Honoria Maquisten gave her the brooch. Carey had changed when she came in, and proceeded by order to the bedroom, where Cousin Honoria sat in state by the fire robed in silver tissue hemmed with fur, diamonds in her ears and at her throat, diamonds on the long, thin fingers. None of the jewels were the same as she had worn yesterday. Carey blinked at the splendour, and felt herself very sober in her blue woollen house-gown. She sat obediently on a chair placed for her by Ellen, who then retired, noiseless and lizard-like. She seemed scarcely to open the door or to close it again, but since she was there one minute and gone the next, it was reasonable to suppose that she had done both.

  With a feeling of discomfort it came to Carey that she had never been in a house where people made so little noise. Cousin Honoria’s deep voice and the jarring tap of Dennis’s crutch stood out against a curiously muffled background. Of course curtains and carpets being so thick had something to do with it. No, not something—everything. And then she remembered Nora calling the house a tomb the night before and flinging out of it with a banged door to break the silence.

  Honoria Maquisten put a hand in a fur-trimmed pocket and held it out with something on the palm.

  “That’s a hideous garment you’ve got on—as much like a dressing-gown as makes no difference. All the clothes are hideous nowadays, but at any rate it’s long. I can’t get used to things above the knee in the evening. And I won’t say the colour doesn’t suit you. I suppose you matched your eyes. You’d better have this to cheer it up. I took a fancy to it in a second-hand shop and bought it to give to Julia on her twenty-first birthday—a week before she died. It’s been put away for fifty years. I’d like you to have it.”

  Carey lifted the brooch from the thin, dry palm. Her feelings were rather mixed. The word tomb cropped up again—it was like being given something out of a tomb. But it was very kind, and she had never had such a pretty brooch. Pleasure came to the top and stayed there. She put the brooch against the blue stuff of her dress, and saw how the colour deepened the big pale sapphire set round with small rose-diamond points.

  “It’s lovely, Cousin Honoria.”

  Mrs. Maquisten nodded.

  “It looks nice on your frock and on you, but it isn’t worth twopence—the sapphire is too pale. It’s just pretty—that’s all. I suppose you’d rather have diamonds?” The sharp eyes were lively and searching under quizzical brows.

  Carey shook her head. “Oh, no, I wouldn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, what’s the good of diamonds when you’ve got your living to earn?”

  Honoria Maquisten fingered her necklace.

  “Do you mean to say you wouldn’t say thank you for this?”

  Carey met her look with a laughing one.

  “What would I do with it? I couldn’t wear it.”

  “You could sell it.” The voice was dry and cold.

  Carey flushed. “Please, Cousin Honoria—”

  There was a rainbow flash as a hand came out and patted her.

  “There, child—I’d no business to tease you. Put on the brooch and give me a kiss.”

  Nora was at dinner, vivid and ornamental in emerald green.

  “Got to match Aunt Honoria’s room,” she explained. “I don’t see why she should have it all her own way, and it might stir her up to give me an odd emerald or two. She’s got oodles of them.”

  When Magda did not appear, Carey asked where she was, and was answered by Dennis.

  “Evening out. Only one of our rays of sunshine tonight. Honor darling, be twice as sparkling as usual, won’t you. We don’t want our new cousin to think us dull.” His eyes came back to Carey and dwelt, sparkling, upon the sapphire brooch. “Where did you get the gewgaw?” Then, without waiting for an answer, “Elementary, my dear Watson. Aunt Honoria has begun to part—the thick end of the wedge.”

  Carey said, “It belonged to my grandmother.”

  “Meaning that Aunt Honoria didn’t give it to you—or that she did, but it used to belong to your grandmother?”

  “It used to belong to my grandmother.”

  “A little disingenuous of you, darling.”

  “Well, it isn’t your business,” said Nora.

  Honor’s hand had gone up to the neck of her dress. There was no brooch there. She said nothing. Her hand dropped into her lap again. Carey laughed, partly because Honor gave her the creeps, and partly because she didn’t see why Dennis should have it all his own way. He shook his head at her reprovingly, his eyes bright and malicious.

  “Tomorrow it will probably be diamonds which didn’t belong to your grandmother but were bought by Uncle James out of money made from armaments in the last war. And then perhaps it will be cheques—or the famous rubies.… Darling, don’t tell me you don’t know about the rubies! Too, too unnaturally innocent of you! They’re marvellous, and it’s been the tragedy of Aunt Honoria’s life that she’s never had the nerve to wear them. The hair, you know. She won’t leave them to Nora for the same reason, and I seem to remember her saying something rather biting to Honor about what she would look like in them. Do you remember what it was, my sweet?”

  Honor kept her eyes on her plate and did not speak.

  Nora said, “Come off it, Den!”

  He caught Carey’s frowning gaze and laughed.

  “I’ve had serious thoughts of swearing to marry a black-haired wench to see if that would bring down the scales on my side. What are your views about rubies?”

  “I haven’t got any.”

  “Just as well, because the original Latin proverb about woman being variable was composed with a prophetic eye upon Aunt Honoria. Diamonds today, rubies tomorrow, and nothing the next day. She’ll probably leave the whole caboodle to Robert just because he’s got plenty without.”

  It would have given Carey the greatest pleasure to throw something at him—the salt cellar, a full glass of water—but she restrained herself. She looked past Honor, who was eating fish a crumb at a time after the manner of Amina in the Arabian Nights, and said scornfully,

  “I can’t think why you bother about it. You’d all be much more comfortable if you didn’t.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Jeff Stewart was out of town for the next few days. As a result Carey was a good deal thrown with Dennis. Quite frankly, she enjoyed this very much. He was a charming companion. His eyes said flattering things, but his tongue only amusing ones. She could relax and be entertained without having to worry about his taking several ells where she wasn’t prepared to part with more than half an inch. It was nice to be admired without being, so to speak, under any obligation. Jeff had to be staved off all the time and kept in his place, with a constant back and forth struggle going on as to just what that place should be. It was very exhausting, and what made it worse was that deep down underneath she didn’t really know how serious he was. He had that lazy way of saying things which made them sound as if he was amused, and that lazy way of looking which might be waiting to catch you out. Sometimes she wanted to get behind what he sounded and looked like, and sometimes she didn’t. Because there might be just a teasing cousinly fondness, or.… She never pursued the alternative very far, but there had been times when a picture came up in her mind of a lion she had seen as a child—a big drowsy beast blinking lazily, a placid handsome creature half asleep. And then the rattle of a stick in the hand of an adventurous boy—jab, rattle, jab—and before the keeper could interfere, an enormous weight and energy of rage hurled with a deafening roar against the bars.

  Dennis would certainly never hurl of roar. It was Very reposeful to be sure of that. He liked her, he thought her easy to look at, and he flirted with reassuring dexterity. No one who hadn’t had plenty of practice could possibly do it so well. And it was being awfully good for him.

  On the third day Honoria Maquisten Sent for her solicitor and was closeted with him for a long time.

  The au
dience terminated, tea was taken in, and in its wake the family assembled by command—Robert Maquisten father chafed and on his dignity, Nora mutinous, Honor more like a white mouse than ever, Carey and Dennis to bring up the rear.

  As they neared the threshold, he whispered,

  “Grand disinheriting scene—I don’t mind betting you that’s what we’re in for. Robes of state, and all the diamonds. She always lumps them on when she’s going to cut anyone out of her will.”

  Nora looked back over her shoulder to make a face and say,

  “That brocade she’s wearing was eight pounds a yard—she told me so herself. I’d be a dream in it.”

  Dennis said, “You’d better keep awake, darling, and well on the toes in case this is going to be one of those ‘Fly, all is discovered’ events.”

  She whisked round too quickly to betray a change of expression and tugged at Robert’s arm.

  “Hi, Bob—what’s your fancy? Have you got a crime up your sleeve? It would be rather funny if we all had, and gave ourselves away.”

  He sent her a repressive look which she seemed to find exhilarating.

  From behind her Dennis said softly,

  “Think up a good one, Honor darling.”

  And then they were all trooping up and saying how do you do to Mr. Aylwin. Carey saw a stout man with a rugged face and sandy hair mixed with grey. He looked at her with interest as he shook hands.

  “Julia’s granddaughter,” said the deep voice, introducing her.

  “Just so. I am afraid I don’t remember her.”

  “No—you would only be ten years old when she died.” She turned to Carey. “Mr. Aylwin is a connection of yours as well as of mine. My great-aunt, Harriet Harland, became his grandfather’s second wife.” Her bright, penetrating glance moved on, resting in turn upon Robert, Dennis, Nora, Honor, and Magda Brayle, who had come in from the other side. “I wish to tell you all in front of Mr. Aylwin that I have added Carey’s name to the beneficiaries under my will. I don’t wish anyone to say that it was done in a hole-and-corner way, or as a result of undue influence, or in weakness of intellect. If anyone has any doubt about my being of sound mind, I’ll trouble them to say so now, and not go raising hares and blackening my reputation and their own after I’m gone. There are plenty of you here, so there are plenty of witnesses. If any of you have got anything to say, you can say it.”