The Varleigh Medallion

by Sylvia Thorpe

  Dione chuckled. “My dear sir, I am past the age of needing a chaperone.”

  “My dear girl,” he retorted calmly, “that is nonsense, and you know it.” He watched, with tender amusement, the color rise suddenly to her pale cheeks, but kindly refrained from pursuing the subject. “Where do you wish to walk?”

  “Let us go into the rose garden.” Dione had control over her voice, if not her complexion. “It is very pleasant there, though shockingly overgrown, of course.”

  The rose garden, surrounded by old stone walls, was sweet with perfume and loud with the humming of bees. The roses, unpruned for years, rioted everywhere in a triumphant medley of color, and at the far end, where a great bush of them had climbed and spread to form a sort of bower, a curved stone seat was built into the wall. To this they made their way, but when they had sat there for a minute or two in silence, Greydon prompted gently:

  “What did you wish to discuss with me?

  “I scarcely know how to begin.” Dione, who had furled her parasol when they entered the shadow of the rose-bower, prodded with the end of it at the moss growing between the flagstones at their feet. “You will think me deranged, or, at the very least, one of those tiresome females for ever imagining all sorts of absurdities.”

  “I can think of no circumstances which would cause me to do either,” he replied with a smile. “Something happened last night, did it not? Something which you hesitate to confide to your family?”

  “Yes,” she admitted. “At least, I think it did. I cannot be sure, and that is what is worrying me more than anything else.”

  Haltingly she described what had happened, watching him anxiously as she spoke. When she had finished, and he did not immediately reply, she added despondently:

  “You do not believe me. I do not wonder at it.”

  “My dear, of course I believe you.” He laid his hand briefly over hers as it rested on the handle of the parasol, and pressed it reassuringly. “What we have to determine is whether there was, in fact, some intruder in your room, or whether fatigue merely caused you to imagine that you saw someone.”

  “It could have been imagination,” she admitted. “I was exceedingly tired. In fact, I could scarcely keep my eyes open as I went upstairs—you know how it is when one is almost asleep on one’s feet. Yet I have a distinct impression that someone went past me out of the room.”

  “Let us assume that you are right. We may rule out, I think, the possibility of an intruder, and that leaves only Ibstone. What, then, was he doing in your room?”

  “Trying to frighten me by pretending to be Cousin Jonathan’s ghost,” she replied promptly. “Then, when I neither squealed nor fainted, he knocked the candle from my hand and made his escape.”

  “Which brings us to the next question. Why try to frighten you?”

  “I have been thinking a great deal about that,” she said confidentially, “and I believe it may be because of that letter from Mr. Birkett. Ibstone must know very well that if Garth House were sold, or hired out to a tenant, he and his family would have to leave, but if a rumor were put about that it is haunted—” She saw that he was looking skeptical, and added apologetically: “It sounds absurd, I know, but can you think of a more plausible explanation?”

  “To be honest with you, ma’am, I cannot,” he admitted ruefully, “though if what you suppose is correct, I find it a trifle puzzling that he should seek to impose upon you.” He encountered a suspicious glance, and laughed. “Do not look daggers at me! I meant merely that he must by now be sufficiently well acquainted with your family to realize that it would be far easier to alarm Mrs. Mallory or Miss Cecilia. Unless, of course, it was Theodore whom he intended to frighten, and you arrived in time to prevent him.”

  Dione laughed. “No, no, Sir Greydon! You are quite out there, for nothing would please Theo more than to be convinced that Cousin Jonathan’s ghost walks Garth House. He could then boast of it to Jem Durridge—!”

  She broke off, and they looked at each other in silence as the same thought occurred to them both. Sir Greydon said softly:

  “And young Durridge would tell the other boys in the village, and so the tale would be spread. Yes, if one accepts that Ibstone is fool enough to suppose that such a scheme would work, he could find no better way of spreading the rumor.”

  “Well, that makes everything very simple,” Dione said with relief. “All I need to do is to make it plain to the Ibstones that we have no intention of selling or leasing Garth House.”

  He looked quizzically at her. “In spite of what Birkett and your cousin say?”

  “In spite of what anyone may say,” she retorted with a touch of defiance, resolutely ignoring the specters of leaking roof and broken windows which forced themselves into her mind. “This is the first time in our lives that we have lived in a house of our own, and nothing is going to persuade me to leave it.”

  “Nothing, Miss Mallory?” Recklessly, Greydon decided to put his fortune to the test. “It is my hope—!”

  “Dee!” Theodore’s clear treble rang out, not far away and coming closer. “Dee, where are you? Dee!”

  “Here, Theo! In the rose garden,” she replied, while Sir Greydon with difficulty suppressed an exclamation of annoyance. “What do you want?”

  Her brother appeared under the stone archway which formed the entrance to the garden, then came down the steps and along the path towards them. He had all the appearance of a bearer of ill tidings.

  “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he announced aggrievedly. “Mama sent me to find you. Dee, the horridest thing has happened! Cousin Eustace has just arrived.”

  No interruption, in Sir Greydon’s opinion, had ever been more inopportune, yet his vexation was as much on Dione’s behalf as his own. She was staring at Theodore in blank dismay.

  “Eustace? Oh, not today, of all days! Theo, you are funning, are you not?”

  “No, of course not! Cousin Eustace is nothing to joke about,” her brother retorted indignantly. “He drove up in a post chaise just after you and Sir Greydon came into the garden.” He fixed an anxious gaze upon her. “Dee, he cannot make us go back to London, can he?”

  “No, love, of course not! Where we live is no business of Eustace’s. Go back now, and tell Mama that I will come directly.” She watched him trudge away, shoulders hunched, and then added with an attempt at lightness: “How like Eustace, to arrive when I feel least able to deal with him! I must go in. Poor Mama will not know what to say.”

  Resignedly Greydon got up and offered his arm. It seemed to him that she leaned upon it more wearily than before as they went toward the house, and he mentally consigned Eustace Winton to perdition.

  “I do not believe, ma’am,” he ventured to say, “that you are equal today to an argument with your cousin. Can you not go up to your room unobserved, and send word that you are not well enough to see him until tomorrow?”

  “What, when he must know very well that I have been in the garden with you?” she protested. “For shame, Sir Greydon! Besides, if I did that, Mama would be obliged to invite him to stay the night, and I am hoping very much that he will take himself off after dinner. I dare say he will. He cares a great deal for his comfort, and Garth House is not at all what he has been used to.”

  He could not help laughing a little at this, but amusement in no way lessened his concern for her. He found it very difficult to believe that Jack Ibstone had evolved an elaborate scheme to prevent Garth House passing into other hands, and thought it far more likely that Dione, being, on her own confession, asleep on her feet, had imagined or dreamed the mysterious presence in her room. This was disturbing, since it seemed to indicate that she had taken upon herself too heavy a burden of responsibility, and was even more worried than she cared to admit.

  “Do not refine too much upon what happened last night,” he said as they went into the house. “Even if what we were supposing is correct, Ibstone has probably been sufficiently frightened by the consequences of h
is trick to abandon the scheme. He is a surly, ne’er-do-well rogue, but I believe there is no real villainy in him.”

  “Oh, I am not in the least afraid of Ibstone,” Dione assured him. She glanced toward the door of the parlor and added in a lower voice, and with a little grimace: “I am much more afraid that it will be almost impossible to convince Eustace that we have no intention of returning to London with him. He has the most antiquated notions, and firmly believes that all females are helpless, hen-witted creatures who must be tyrannized over by men for their own good.”

  Greydon looked down at her, his dark eyes full of laughter. “Then I can only say, Miss Mallory, that if long and close acquaintance with you has not shown him the error of that belief, he is past praying for.” He saw the answering laughter in her own eyes, and bent his head to murmur in her ear: “I will come tomorrow to see how you go on, and if the tiresome fellow is still plaguing you, I promise to rid you of him. Very civilly, of course!”

  It was perhaps unfortunate that Eustace Winton, instead of awaiting Dione in the parlor, should have taken it upon himself to inspect the rest of the ground floor rooms, and at that moment emerged into the hall from a totally unexpected direction. He did not hear what Sir Greydon said, but he did hear Dione’s little choke of laughter. He also saw, with outraged disapproval, that her hand was tucked confidingly into the arm of the tall, black-haired Corinthian who was whispering so intimately into her ear, and that, when she saw that they were no longer alone, she displayed none of the guilty embarrassment proper to a modest young woman discovered in a compromising situation. She merely withdrew the offending hand and extended it toward him, saying with cool civility and no pleasure whatsoever:

  “Well, Eustace, this is indeed unexpected. I trust you left my aunt well?” She turned to her companion. “Sir Greydon, may I present my cousin, Mr. Winton? Sir Greydon Varleigh.”

  The two men bowed, Sir Greydon with careless grace and Eustace stiffly, with disapproval in every line of his body. He saw in the man before him the personification of a world which a narrow, nonconformist upbringing had taught him to abhor. He would have disliked and disapproved of Greydon Varleigh on sight whatever the circumstances of their meeting; the present situation merely exacerbated those feelings.

  Sir Greydon had no difficulty in recognizing this antagonism. Mr. Winton was something of a surprise to him, for Dione’s reference to Eustace’s regard for his own comfort had led him to expect a plump and probably foppish sybarite. Instead Winton was a man of spare build and somewhat dyspeptic appearance, and his clothes, though of excellent quality, had absolutely no pretension to fashion. He was, in fact, looking with undisguised contempt at the perfectly tailored riding-coat which fitted Varleigh’s powerful frame like a second skin, at the intricately tied neckcloth, elegant buckskins and highly polished boots; he made no audible comment, but his expression implied a disparaging sniff.

  Sir Greydon regarded him thoughtfully, with an infuriating glimmer of amusement lurking in his eyes, and then turned to Mrs. Mallory, who had followed Eustace into the hall and was now hovering around them like an anxious and agitated butterfly.

  “This is a family reunion, ma’am, and I must not intrude upon it,” he said, with an irony that only Dione appreciated, “and so I will bid you good-day.”

  He then bestowed on Dione herself a look of comically mingled commiseration and dismay which was almost too much for her gravity, and took leave of her and of Mr. Winton. When he had gone, and they had rejoined the younger members of the family in the parlor, Eustace said to Mrs. Mallory with an air of grave displeasure:

  “I am sorry, ma’am, to find you upon terms with Sir Greydon Varleigh, whom I can only describe as an idle and worthless member of a world with which you and I, happily, have nothing to do.”

  “Oh, dear!” Mrs. Mallory stared at him in dismay. “But he has been most kind to us, Eustace, indeed he has.”

  “And you can scarcely condemn as idle and worthless a man who served under the Duke of Wellington in Spain and in Belgium,” Dione added in a tone of barely suppressed anger, red danger signals flying in her hitherto pale cheeks. “He spent twelve years in the army, you know.”

  “I am aware of it, cousin, and I had no intention of decrying his military career,” Eustace replied stiffly. “More recently, however, he has established himself as a leader of the Corinthians, a set of persons whose extravagant way of life cannot fail to disgust anyone not of an incurably frivolous turn of mind.”

  “Sir Greydon’s a great gun!” Theodore indignantly entered the fray in defense of his hero. “He’s not for ever prosing on and on about duty and application and high principles. He drives prime cattle, too!”

  “That, of course, is a recommendation of the highest order!” Eustace said acidly. “Allow me to tell you, Theodore, that I perceive a sad deterioration in your manners in the short time since you left my house—an indication, if any were needed, of the justice of my observation.” He turned again to Mrs. Mallory. “Have the children no lessons they should be minding, ma’am? We have important matters to discuss.”

  “Edwina,” Dione said hastily, before her youngest sister could voice the indignation she undoubtedly felt at being dismissed as a mere child, “I have not yet felt equal to hearing the passages I set Theo to learn yesterday. Will you do it for me? You may take the books into the garden.”

  “Of course, Dee. I will do anything I can to help you,” Edwina replied with dignity. “Come along, Theo!”

  They went out; Eustace turned an astonished and deeply disapproving look upon Dione.

  “In to the garden?” he said, as though she had suggested instead the taproom of the village inn. “What, may I ask, is the matter with the schoolroom?”

  “Nothing, except that, as yet, we have had no opportunity of establishing one,” Dione replied crisply. “In fact, we have barely had time to settle into our new home, and you must forgive me for saying, Eustace, that it would have shown greater regard for our convenience if you had given us warning of your arrival. We are not really equipped to entertain guests.”

  “Except, of course, for Sir Greydon Varleigh!” Eustace snapped. He then paused, compressed his lips, and drew a deep breath as though to control his temper before continuing in a more moderate tone: “Cousin Dione, I did not come here to quarrel with you. I was appalled when I returned to London to find that you had embarked upon this ill-advised escapade, in spite of being very well acquainted with my views on the subject. It was not well done of you.”

  “And was it well done of you, Eustace, to write to Mr. Birkett instructing him to find a buyer or a tenant for Garth House, when you were very well acquainted with my views?”

  “My only desire,” he retorted loftily (and with very little regard for the truth), “was to relieve Aunt Mallory of the responsibility which had been thrust upon her. For Theodore’s sake the inheritance was to be welcomed, but the administration of an estate, however modest, is not a matter with which a woman is capable of dealing.”

  “Tell me, Eustace, have you yet made the acquaintance of Mr. Birkett?” Dione asked with deceptive mildness. “You and he should deal extremely together, for you both hold the same low opinion of female intelligence.”

  “If you mean, cousin, that we both feel there is a certain impropriety in a woman endeavouring to deal with matters of business, you are right, but I have never held a low opinion of your intelligence. Your greatest fault lies in being headstrong, and in refusing to be guided by the advice of those wiser than yourself.”

  “You are mistaken, Eustace. I am always prepared to listen to advice. What I will not submit to is tyranny.”

  “Is it tyranny to be concerned for your welfare? For the welfare of all of you?” he demanded indignantly. “To discover that you had left my house, had embarked upon a long journey—by stagecoach!—without a male escort, bound for a virtually unknown destination, filled me with the gravest misgivings. Even though you, ma’am,” turning to Mrs. Ma
llory, “had written to inform my stepmother of your safe arrival, I could not be easy without coming to see for myself how you went on. What I have found here shows me how right I was to be apprehensive.”

  “And I am sure, Eustace, that we are all truly grateful for your concern,” Mrs. Mallory assured him. “It is very good of you to put yourself to so much trouble, but you must not be uneasy on our account. We are contriving very well, even though the house is not in as good repair as we might wish.”

  “Not in as good repair?” he repeated. “My dear aunt, it is little better than a ruin! You cannot seriously propose to remain here?”

  “I could not seriously consider returning to London,” she replied. “You can see for yourself how greatly Theo has benefited even in this short while, and his health, you know, must always be my first consideration.”

  “He may benefit now, ma’am—and I will concede that he looks stouter than when I last saw him—but it will be a very different matter in winter. Even if the structure of this house is sound, which I doubt, it will be damp and draughty and almost impossible to keep warm. What will Theodore’s health be like then?”

  “No worse, and probably a great deal better, than in the London fogs,” Dione retorted. “You know Dr. Smithson told Mama that he would not answer for the consequences if Theo had to spend another winter in town.”

  “So I recollect, and I recollect also that I offered to send Aunt Mallory, with Theodore and Edwina, to Bath for the duration of the bad weather. Naturally, that offer is still open, provided you abandon your foolish notion of living here, and return with me to London.”

  “I am sure it is very generous of you, Eustace,” Mrs. Mallory said earnestly, “and we are very grateful, are we not, Dee? But we discussed this matter very thoroughly when we first arrived, and quite made up our minds that we are going to stay here.”

  To this determination she clung, with a tenacity which startled even Dione, and no argument that Eustace could advance—and he advanced many—could persuade her to change her mind. As always when his will was crossed, he began to lose his temper, and made several very cutting remarks on the subject of folly and ingratitude and conceit (in supposing that they could contrive without his help and guidance) which reduced Cecilia to tears and prompted Mrs. Mallory to remark that she must go and consult Mrs. Ibstone about dinner. She then got up and drifted out of the room, a method of avoiding argument which she had perfected during the five years she had lived in the Winton household.