“Not a bit like Aunt Winton’s house in London,” Theodore observed with deep satisfaction. “And there is a stream, is there not, Mama?”
“Yes, my love, the stream that feeds the pool flows down through the woods behind the house in little waterfalls and cascades.”
“And it all belongs to us? It is really our own?”
“It belongs to you, my dear son. You inherited it when Mr. Jonathan Mallory died.”
Dione, who had been paying little attention to the conversation, at this point lost interest in it altogether and allowed her thoughts to wander, remembering the astonishment they had all felt when they learned of Theodore’s inheritance. The news had not reached them until some ten months after old Jonathan Mallory’s death, for the family tie between the two cousins had not been strong, and after her husband died Mrs. Mallory had lost touch with his surviving kinsman. When the information finally reached them it seemed to Dione like a sign from Providence.
At that time the family was living in London with Mrs. Mallory’s elder sister. Amelia Winton was also a widow, but there the similarity ended, for Amelia’s late husband had left her amply provided for. True, he had been what fashionable people contemptuously termed a cit; the Winton fortune had been made in banking and Amelia’s stepson, Eustace Winton, was still engaged in that line of business. Amelia, in fact, was thought to have married beneath her, but if this ever troubled her she was always able to console herself with her large house, her carriages and horses and fine clothes. Not for her the financial difficulties experienced by her younger sister as the wife, and then the widow, of an impecunious naval officer struggling to maintain a family on an inadequate income.
Mrs. Winton had always been generous to her less fortunate relations, but since this generosity went hand in hand with a desire to organize their lives, Dione had always faintly resented it. When her husband died, Aunt Amelia announced that since she had no children of her own and her stepdaughters were married, she was in need of company and they must come to live with her. Eustace Winton was quite happy with the proposed arrangement, but Dione, then seventeen and already of an independent spirit, was only won over by her mother’s plea that it would be better for Theodore. She could not like it, but there was no denying that the delicate little boy would enjoy in his aunt’s house a greater degree of care and cosseting than even the most loving mother and sisters could provide in their hand-to-mouth existence.
Yet Theodore had not thrived as they had hoped. The heat and dust of London summers drained him of strength, while winter fogs left him with a racking cough; he grew frighteningly frail after a really serious illness, and the doctor told Mrs. Mallory bluntly that what the boy needed was country air. He would never be well while he lived in the city.
Then came the lawyer’s letter informing Mrs. Mallory of old Jonathan’s death and that Garth House now belonged to her son.
When the first astonishment had subsided and Mrs. Mallory, drawing upon her almost forgotten memories of the place, had described it to them, Dione was seized by an inspiration. Why, she suggested, did they not go to live at Garth House?
The suggestion was not well received. Mrs. Mallory, after five years under her sister’s wing, shrank from the responsibility of a household of her own; Mrs. Winton, outraged and reproachful by turns, declared that her niece must be out of her mind; Eustace said gravely that he could not agree to his aunt and cousins living alone in a strange place with no man to advise and protect them. He would, he said, find a reliable tenant for Garth House for the next ten years, which would help to pay for Theodore’s education. Then, when the boy came of age, he could decide for himself what he wished to do with the property.
Eustace, however, had his own reasons for wishing his cousins to stay in London. For more than a year he had been trying to persuade Dione to marry him, and though during that time he had won the support of the other adult members of the family, Dione herself remained adamant. Mrs. Winton was particularly eager for the match, the mercenary streak that had prompted her own marriage making her eager to keep the Winton wealth in the family. Mrs. Mallory said that Dee was old enough to make her own decision, but as time went by and Mrs. Winton constantly prodded her with all the advantages of such a marriage, she said it less and less frequently. Even Cecilia made no secret of the fact that she felt Dee ought not to be guided by duty rather than inclination.
Which was all very well for Cecy, Dione reflected now, shifting Theodore’s weight a little to ease her cramped arms. Cecy was gentle and biddable, always willing to have decisions made for her, which Dione herself was not. Cecy was not a person of strong emotions, never even fancying herself in love with the young men who regularly expressed an admiration for her, but rather being alarmed by such declarations. Dione had never been in love either and did not expect to be, but she knew that to enter into the married state she would need to feel something warmer for her bridegroom than the mixture of tolerance, exasperation, and resentful gratitude that constituted her feelings where Eustace was concerned. The idea of committing herself to him for the rest of her life was something she could not accept, for he was overbearing, self-opinionated, and totally lacking in humor.
Yet she could appreciate the impossible situation that would arise if she continued to live in his house and did not accept his proposal—sometimes she even feared that that circumstance alone might force her into an unwelcome marriage. Garth House had offered a heaven-sent means of escape, and she had taken it as much for her own sake as for Theodore’s, winning her mother’s assent with the force of her own enthusiasm and not hesitating to quarrel so violently with her aunt that Mrs. Winton flatly refused to advance money for the journey, which was why they had been obliged to travel uncomfortably by stagecoach. A matter of business had taken Eustace to the north, and Dione had seized the opportunity of avoiding further argument by leaving London while he was away.
Her thoughts darted ahead to the new home that awaited them. Since the bulk of Mr. Mallory’s income had apparently died with him, Garth House brought with it only a meager sum, but that, together with their own modest means, should enable them to live in some degree of comfort. They ought to be largely self-supporting, for Mrs. Mallory’s recollections of the property included a kitchen garden, an orchard, and poultry yard. Dione knew herself to be an efficient housekeeper, and though they might lack some of the luxuries they had enjoyed at the Winton house, she felt sure they would get on prosperously enough.
She had almost succeeded in quieting her recent doubts and recovering the mood of happy optimism with which she had set out that morning, when there was the sound of another vehicle coming up fast behind them and a few moments later a curricle dashed past. Dione had a fleeting impression of four perfectly matched black horses, of a groom sitting statue like with folded arms, of a tall driver in a many-caped coat, his profile dark below the brim of a tall beaver hat. Theodore, who was passionately interested in horses, sat upright and peered eagerly after the sporting carriage, but Dione made no response; all her misgivings had sprung to life again, revived by that brief glimpse of Sir Greydon and the memory of the blank disbelief in his eyes when he learned where they were bound.
It was dusk by the time the chaise turned from the road along a drive which, as Mrs. Mallory had described, wound upward to the lower slopes of the hill looming on their left. It was nearly dark beneath the trees, for the spinney of twenty-five years before had become a wood, and the chaise lurched along at a snail’s pace over bumps and ruts while branches scraped the luggage on the roof and even brushed against the windows. An uneasy silence descended on the occupants of the carriage.
At last the drive leveled out and they emerged from the shadows of the wood; gravel crunched beneath the wheels and the chaise came to a halt. There was a pause, and then the post boy opened the door and let down the steps. Theodore, revived by curiosity, slid from his sister’s lap and scrambled out. Dione followed and immediately froze into stillness, staring about her
.
Before her loomed a tall old house with a many-gabled roof and diamond-paned windows. A vast wisteria, its stems as thick as tree trunks, smothered the facade in a mass of leaves and pendant blossoms, overhung windows whose panes showed either cracked or broken, and encroached even upon the great iron-studded door. The gravel beneath her feet was thick with weeds; the gardens were a tangle of greenery where flowers wild and cultivated flourished together. To her right, a murky pool reflected the last of the day’s light. No illumination showed at any window, nor was there the least sound to suggest that the house was inhabited. In the gathering darkness it seemed hostile and almost sinister, resenting their intrusion.
For a moment Dione thought that the post boy had made a mistake and brought them to the wrong place, but even as this idea formed in her mind she realized that the desolate, abandoned structure before her resembled her mother’s description of Garth House. The only mistake, she thought wretchedly, was her own, in committing them all to this sad venture.
The post boy, who had been staring about him open-mouthed, said blankly: “Be you expected, miss? Don’t seem to be no one here.”
“There must be!” Dione tried to speak calmly, but was aware that a rising panic sounded in her voice. She swallowed hard and drew a deep breath before going on. “There are servants—a housekeeper and her husband and daughter. I wrote to tell her we were coming. Will you be good enough to knock upon the door?”
He looked doubtful, but went up the two shallow steps and beat a resounding tattoo with the heavy iron knocker. The sound woke an echo from the far side of the pool and reverberated hollowly within the house, but there was no response. Mrs. Mallory, following her other two daughters from the chaise, looked about her in a dazed fashion.
“Oh!” she said faintly. “Oh, heaven preserve us! Dee, what have we done?” She burst into tears.
“It does not look quite as you told us, Mama,” Theodore said doubtfully, “but never mind. It is my house, and I like it.”
“Pray do not cry, Mama.” Dione put her arm round her mother’s shoulders, trying to conceal her own dismay. “The house is neglected, of course, but—”
“Neglected?” Mrs. Mallory was searching in her reticule for her handkerchief; her voice rose hysterically. “It must have been going to rack and ruin for years! Eustace was right—men always know best in such matters—but you are so headstrong, Dee!”
“Hush, love!” Dione was acutely aware that the post boy, having ceased his assault upon the knocker, was listening with deep interest to this exchange. She addressed him with some asperity. “Knock again, if you please.”
He did so, though with an ill grace. As the echoes died away, Theodore said excitedly:
“Look! Someone is coming.”
A light was glimmering faintly behind the tall windows flanking the door. There was the sound of rusty bolts being drawn, and then the door opened a few inches to reveal a masculine figure, holding a single candle and peering suspiciously out at them.
“Who be there?” demanded a surly voice.
Quite suddenly Dione began to grow angry. No matter what state of decay Garth House had fallen into, or how inadequate the resources upon which the late Mr. Mallory’s servants had to depend, there was no excuse for a reception of this kind. She went briskly up the steps, saying sharply:
“It is Mrs. Mallory. You were informed that we should be arriving this evening, so I demand that you open the door immediately!”
After an instant of stunned silence the command was obeyed, and the door opened with a squeal of rusty hinges. Dione, wincing at the discordant sound, added in the same brisk voice:
“The first thing tomorrow, be good enough to grease those hinges. We cannot have that noise every time the door is opened.” She turned, holding out a hand to her brother and saying in a rallying tone: “Come, Theo! You are the master of the house, you know.”
He came promptly, looking about him with eager curiosity, while Mrs. Mallory and the girls followed with less enthusiasm.
Dione shepherded them all into the hall and then turned to survey the man who had admitted them.
His appearance matched the surroundings. He was middle-aged and slightly stooped, with an untidy thatch of gray hair. His greasy-looking coat was of some indeterminate color, and his linen was by no means clean. The feeble light of the candle he held did little to enhance his appearance.
“You, I collect, are John Ibstone?” Dione inquired, and received a grunt of assent. “I am Miss Mallory. Pray be good enough to light some more candles, and then fetch Mrs. Ibstone. After that you may help the post boy with the baggage.”
Mr. Ibstone looked as though he would have liked to argue, but was daunted by the self-possession of the young lady confronting him. He muttered something under his breath, but used his candle to light three others on a massive table in the middle of the room and then slouched off toward the back of the house.
Dione picked up a candle and held it aloft. They were standing in a large, stone-flagged hall paneled with age-blackened oak. A staircase of the same dark wood rose in short, right-angled flights at the far end of the room; a huge stone-arched fireplace gaped midway along one wall; dust and cobwebs were thick everywhere.
“This is incomprehensible,” Edwina said flatly.
“It is indeed,” Dione agreed. “It appears to me that no preparation at all has been made for us.” She put down the candle and turned to her mother, who had sunk into a chair and was weeping quietly into her handkerchief. “Mama dear, this must be a horrid shock for you, but it will look differently in the morning, I promise you.”
“It is my fault!” Mrs. Mallory lifted a tear-streaked face. “If I had not described Garth House as I did, you would never have thought of removing here. But it was a charming place, Dee, just as I told you.”
“Twenty-five years ago!” Dione said wryly. “You must not blame yourself, Mama. You were not to know that everything has changed here.”
“We shall have to make the best of it,” Mrs. Mallory said woefully, wiping her eyes. “At least we have a roof over our heads, and that is something to be thankful for, I suppose.”
From the general appearance of Garth House, Dione felt that it might be unwise to trust too much on the roof in question, but she refrained from saying so. Footsteps were approaching from the back of the house, and she turned to confront the housekeeper.
Mrs. Ibstone was enormously fat. She wheezed from the effort of walking from the kitchen, and her broad face was florid and shiny, framed by untidy gray curls beneath a limp and grubby cap. She came clearly prepared to do battle, her hands folded across a wide expanse of greasy apron, her mouth small and hard in the fleshy folds of her face. Her belligerence wilted a little before the cool, critical regard of Miss Mallory’s expressive gray eyes.
“Good evening, Mrs. Ibstone.” Dione spoke pleasantly though with some firmness. “Did you not receive my letter telling you that we would arrive this evening?”
“Not till this morning.” The housekeeper saw Miss Mallory’s brows lift, and added grudgingly, “Miss.”
Dione glanced round the hall. “You do not appear to have acted upon it.”
“We’ve took our orders from Mr. Birkett ever since the master died.” There was insolence in the woman’s voice. “He never said nothing about anyone coming to live here.”
Birkett was Jonathan Mallory’s lawyer, and he lived in the little market town where they had alighted from the stagecoach. When he had written to Mrs. Mallory to tell her of Theodore’s inheritance, Dione had replied in her mother’s behalf, but there had seemed no need to inform him in advance of their intention to remove to Garth House.
“Mr. Birkett must have told you that the house now belongs to my brother,” Dione said sharply, for she had no intention of being browbeaten by Mrs. Ibstone. “However, there is no time to go into that now, for if nothing has been made ready to receive us, there is a great deal to do. Wait a moment while I settle with the po
st boy.”
As she turned toward the door again she saw the woman exchange a glance with her husband, who had followed her back to the hall and was now hovering indecisively nearby. Dione received a distinct impression of their mutual surprise and dismay, and knew, as surely as though it had been put into words, that her letter had been deliberately ignored in the hope that one look at the state of the house would be enough to send them away again in search of more comfortable quarters at an inn. As it might well have done, she reflected ruefully, if they had possessed sufficient funds.
Having paid off the post boy and seen him, grudgingly assisted by Ibstone, begin to carry the baggage into the house, Dione returned to join issue with the housekeeper, who would, she fancied, prove a more formidable opponent than her husband. Mrs. Ibstone had not moved. She still stood with folded hands, positively radiating hostility. Mrs. Mallory drooped in her chair, and Theodore, his brief excitement spent, leaned wearily against her. The other two girls were standing silently by. The little family group seemed intimidated by the housekeeper’s baleful presence, and Dione felt her anger bubbling up again.
“Now, Mrs. Ibstone,” she said briskly, “we cannot sit here in the hall, so, first, please be good enough to show us where we may be more comfortable. Wherever it was that Mr. Mallory used to sit, perhaps.”
The woman looked at her for a moment, found that she could not stare her down, and reluctantly picked up the candles. Dione helped her mother to her feet, took Theodore by the hand, and with her sisters trailing after followed the housekeeper toward a door at the rear of the hall.
This proved to lead to the parlor, a square, low-pitched room that might have been pleasant had it been less dusty and dilapidated. The window was long and low, with a broad seat below it, and the fireplace, though framed by an arch of stone like the one in the hall, was much smaller. A high-backed chair piled with worn cushions stood beside it, and Mrs. Mallory sank into it with a sigh of relief. Dione pushed a table back against one wall to make room for some chairs. All the furniture was of heavily carved oak and looked, Dione thought, as though it had been selected when the house was built and scarcely altered or added to since, but the parlor was appreciably warmer than the hall and had a more lived-in atmosphere.
The Varleigh Medallion Page 2