by Annie Haynes
Mr. Hurst read out the foregoing sentences in his usual calm voice.
His auditors looked at one another in consternation. They heard little of the legacies to the servants with which the will ended; all their thoughts were for the tall, pale girl in black who sat at Mr. Hurst’s right, and who was apparently less affected by what had passed than anyone in the room. The silence that followed the reading of the will was broken by an exclamation from Mrs. Trewhistle.
“Well!”
She and Joan were the only women in the room. The men included Septimus Lockyer, K.C., the dead woman’s brother; her nephew, Reginald Trewhistle; two distant cousins and a younger brother of Reggie’s; and Sir Edward Fisher, who, like Septimus Lockyer, had been appointed executor.
“That is all,” concluded Mr. Hurst, with a dry cough.
“I may add that the documents, with blanks I left for the names, were prepared for Mrs. Davenant three weeks ago; the names were inserted and the will was signed and witnessed on the evening of her death.”
“Could it not be upset?” Cynthia inquired eagerly. “She could not have been sane when she did it, you know, Mr. Hurst.”
The lawyer shook his head.
“I fear we have no ground for interfering with the will, Mrs. Trewhistle. I assure you that I regret its provisions extremely. I am as much taken by surprise as anyone. In a will made soon after Miss Davenant’s arrival here the positions were reversed.”
“Could not we act on that?” Cynthia asked hopefully.
Again Mr. Hurst shook his head.
“We are powerless. The will must stand.”
“I call it a shame!” Cynthia exclaimed passionately. “Here has Joan been brought up on the understanding she was to inherit Davenant, and now she is thrown on the world penniless—for what is a hundred a year?”
“A good deal to some people,” Joan interposed quietly. “No, Cynthia, don’t say any more,” laying a restraining hand on her cousin’s arm. “It—it hurts me rather. I cannot help thinking that it was—it must have been my fault that she never cared for me.”
“It was not!” Cynthia cried indignantly. “Aunt Ursula was—”
But her husband was looking at her warningly.
Septimus Lockyer was clearing his throat. He was considerably the dead woman’s junior, and no one looking at him would have taken him for her brother. He was a big, burly man, with a wide, florid face and prominent grey eyes. He took off his eyeglasses, rubbed them, and readjusted them at a comfortable angle as he looked at his grandniece.
“There is only one thing to be done now, Joan, my dear,” he said kindly, “You must come and keep house for me; I have been thinking of settling down. In fact, I have had my eye for some time on a likely house in Queen’s Gate, only I had no one to look after me,” giving a regretful sigh as he thought of his luxurious bachelor chambers.
“No, no, Uncle Septimus!” Cynthia spoke quickly, “I can’t spare Joan. She will come to us of course.”
“There is one point that we are overlooking, as it seems to me,” Sir Edward Fisher interposed, leaning forward as Joan was about to speak. “This young lady to whom the estate is left is Miss Davenant’s elder sister, I presume. Ought she not to have been here to-day?”
“Undoubtedly!” Mr. Hurst took the answer upon himself. ‘“But I regret to say that we are in total ignorance of her whereabouts. She left home many years ago in consequence of a disagreement with her stepmother, and, later on, resenting, we imagine, her sister’s practical adoption by Mrs. Davenant, ceased to hold any communication with her. A week or two ago Mrs. Davenant began to institute inquiries with a view to discovering what had become of her, but so far with little result.”
“Do you mean that you don’t know where she is?”
Mr. Hurst bowed.
“That is precisely the situation, Sir Edward.”
“And—and, supposing you don’t find her—or—or she is dead, or anything?” pursued Sir Edward in a slightly lower tone. “Who comes in to the estate then?”
“Miss Joan Davenant undoubtedly, provided we obtained permission to presume the death,” Mr. Hurst answered. “The Squire’s will distinctly stated that the estate was to go a child of his daughter’s. Only, in the case of there being more than one, was Mrs. Davenant at liberty to choose.”
“I see.”
“Of course she will turn up now when she hears that she has had money left her—people always do,” Cynthia said pettishly. “Come, Joan, there is nothing for us to stay for, it seems to me.” She put her arm affectionately round her cousin.
Joan rose slowly. Since the shock of hearing of her grandmother’s death she had felt singularly inert and languid. In time her splendid vitality would reassert itself but for the present there was no doubt that she was suffering even more than she realized. Though her grandmother had never been affectionate, never indeed more than tolerant of her, it seemed now to the girl, looking back, that she understood more of that strange, warped nature than any of these people who discussed her testamentary disposition with scarcely a word of regret for the woman who had loved and sorrowed in that great house through many lonely years. She could guess something of the intense humiliation her mother’s marriage must have been to that proud nature, and she could be very pitiful to the paltry revenge that had been taken upon her—that dead daughter’s child. She had been made to suffer in her mother’s default. The will was not so much of a surprise to her as to her relatives; she had always suspected that her succession to the estates was exceedingly precarious, and lately she had seen how her grandmother’s mind had reverted to Evelyn.
Mr. Hurst blinked at her over the top of his glasses. He was little changed since the day he brought her to Davenant Hall. He did not see quite as well as in those days perhaps, that was all—all except that now it was he who looked up and Joan-—tall Joan—who looked down.
“I am sure I need not say how grieved I am, Miss Davenant,” he began nervously, fumbling with his papers. “If any efforts of mine—”
Joan held out her hand.
“I am sure it was no doing of yours, Mr. Hurst. You have always been most kind to me. Nor must you think, any of you”—raising her head with a new accession of dignity—“that I grudge her good fortune to my sister or blame my grandmother. She has a perfect right to please herself.”
“I blame her, though,” Cynthia murmured beneath her breath, as, with her hand through her cousin’s arm, she drew her through the door. “I should just enjoy telling her what I think of her now,” she added when they stood outside in the hall.
“Please don’t, Cynthia,” protested Joan. “I can’t bear to hear you speak like that. It seems so unkind just after we have left her alone in that dreadful vault. I—I am sure it must have been my fault that we were not more intimate.”
“Your fault indeed,” Cynthia exclaimed resentfully. “When you have been a perfect angel! Joan, you have never grumbled—or—or anything. Why, in your place I should have flown out at her long ago—I know I should!”
Meanwhile in the room they had left the men drew their chairs closer together and looked very uneasy.
Reggie Trewhistle was the first to break the silence.
“Well, this is a pretty kettle of fish!” he ejaculated. “The old lady must have been as mad as a March hare!”
“Mad!” Mr. Lockyer permitted himself a smile. “My sister was as sane and level-headed a woman as I ever knew, I would have you understand, Reggie. Not but what I think she has been wrong over this. But insanity—pouf! There has never been any of that in the Lockyer family. Now, with regard to this other sister, the one that comes into the property now. I am ashamed to say I have never made any inquiries about her. Do I understand that you do not know where she is?”
Mr. Hurst hesitated.
“Personally,” he explained, “I have no idea of her whereabouts, but a private detective, whom, against my advice, Mrs. Davenant consulted, discovered that a short time after Miss Evelyn Spe
ncer left her home a family named Molyneux took with them to Montreal a young nursery governess who signed her name in the passengers’ book as ‘E. Spencer.’ Her description leads Hewlett, the detective, to think it is the same girl. That is practically the only clue we have.”
The great K.C. looked thoughtful.
“And that may be no clue at all. Spencer is a common enough name. How long ago is this, Mr. Hurst—that the girl left home, I mean?”
The solicitor consulted his notes.
“As far as I can ascertain it will be fifteen years next March, Mr. Lockyer.”
“Fifteen years ago! Phew! I had no idea it was so long as that. Why, how old is the girl?”
“I believe Miss Spencer will be thirty-five next month.”
“Thirty-five! Good heavens! And you don’t know what she has been doing for fifteen years?” The K.C. was startled out of his calm for once. “Why—anything may have happened to her!”
“Precisely!” Sir Edward Fisher agreed. “Mr. Hurst, I am of opinion that it was your duty to have submitted this to Mrs. Davenant.”
“Undoubtedly I should have done so had Mrs. Davenant consulted me with regard to her intentions,” the lawyer answered.
Septimus Lockyer rose and buttoned his coat.
“Well, she must be found; that is the first thing, Mr. Hurst. Of course you will set the detectives to work at high pressure. Hewlett, you said? Of Hewlett and Cowham’s, I suppose—a very good firm! By the way, what is she like? Does she resemble her sister at all? I suppose you have not a photograph?”
The lawyer took out his pocket-book.
‘“Miss Joan has supplied us with one her sister sent her, taken a few weeks after she left home. Here it is.” He handed a small oval frame to the great lawyer. “It is practically the only clue we have. Miss Joan has been unable to find any of her sister’s letters, though she knows that a year or two ago she had one—the last, received only the day before she came to the Hall.”
Septimus Lockyer studied the faded photograph the frame contained for a minute or two in silence; then he walked over to the window and turned it about to get the best possible light. The frame was tarnished and dull now, but it had been bright enough once, and little Joan had been proud of it and thought it the purest silver. The photograph was old and faded too. It represented a girl dressed in the fashion of a bygone day, sitting in an affected pose at an open window, beside a table on which stood a great vase of flowers. The attitude was stilted and unnatural. But it was on the face that Septimus Lockyer’s gaze was fixed. He could see no resemblance to Joan; nevertheless it did seem to him that he saw a curious likeness to some one he knew in the big eyes set far apart, in the small tip-tilted nose, in the rather wide mouth and the little pointed chin. The elaborately-curled fringe was fair. As far as could be judged from the photograph, Evelyn had been very fair, entirely lacking her sister’s colour and vitality.
Mr. Hurst glanced a little curiously at the K.C.
“Do you see a look of Mrs. Davenant, Mr. Lockyer?”
Septimus gave the photograph another scrutiny.
“No,” he said slowly, “I don’t think so. But the extraordinary thing is that, though she is quite unlike Joan, though I see no resemblance to anyone, this face is perfectly familiar to me.”
“What, you know her? You have seen her?” burst, from Mr. Hurst and Reggie Trewhistle simultaneously.
Septimus Lockyer put the frame down on the table, knitting his brows together thoughtfully.
“Certainly I have seen her somewhere—I am convinced of it! She was not dressed like that, but the face is the same. Now where”—staring before him into vacancy—“the deuce could it have been?”
Chapter Six
“WITH LORD Warchester’s compliments, madam.”
Celestine presented a great bunch of orchids to Cynthia. “His lordships is waiting below.”
Mrs. Trewhistle bent over them with a little cry of delight.
“Oh, how perfectly lovely! You must wear some to-night, Joan. These pale mauve cattleya will look lovely against your black gown.”
Joan’s face had regained all its old colour. She laughed.
“They are sent to you.”
“Me—pouf!” Mrs. Trewhistle made a little airy gesture of contempt. “Many kiss the child for the sake of the nursemaid. Make haste and get into your things, Joan. I will go and entertain Warchester till you come down.” With a light laugh she left the room.
Joan, who had been out with the dogs for a ramble, and been overtaken by a thunderstorm, looked at her wet skirts with distaste as she slipped them off.
“Let me help you, miss.” Celestine came forward and took the wet garments from her, replacing them by a chiffon gown.
For the last two months—ever since Mrs. Davenant’s death, in fact—Joan had been staying with the Trewhistles. There had been so far no response to the advertisements for Evelyn which had been inserted in all the principal newspapers. Messrs. Hewlett and Cowham had apparently made small progress with their inquiries, and Cynthia was beginning to exult openly and assume that Joan’s inheritance was assured.
Downstairs in the drawing-room Warchester was watching the door with eager eyes, and the momentary shadow that darkened them as Cynthia entered alone did not escape that lady’s keen eyes. He had been a very constant visitor since Joan’s coming. Cynthia could only guess how often her guest had encountered him in the course of her daily walks and drives.
“What perfectly lovely flowers, Lord Warchester! How good of you to bring them! Joan has just come home soaked. She will be down directly. What is this—a telegram for me, Barstow? She hurriedly tore open the orange-coloured envelope. A clue at last!” she cried. “‘Hope to be with you to-morrow morning with particulars—Francis Hurst.’”
She crumpled up the telegram into a ball and threw it with vicious energy into the fire.
“Do you know what that means, Lord Warchester? It means that they think they have found this wretched Evelyn and that Joan will lose her inheritance. I wonder whether Mr. Hurst expects me to be pleased?”
Warchester smiled as he looked down at her crimsoning face.
“I do not know. But I wonder whether I shall incur your lasting displeasure, Mrs. Trewhistle, if I tell you that I am pleased?”
“You?” Cynthia looked at him incredulously. “I thought you, liked Joan—that you were her friend?”
“Perhaps it is for that reason that I am glad,” Warchester responded. There was an unusual light in his grey eyes as they met Cynthia’s. “I think you must have seen how it is with me, Mrs. Trewhistle—how it has been from the first. I—I dare say I am very selfish, but I want to give Joan all the good things of life myself.”
There was a pause; then Cynthia caught her breath.
“I—I think Joan is a very lucky girl,” she said impulsively, holding put her hand. “You have my good wishes, Lord Warchester.”
“Thank you!” he said, as he took the little hand, glittering with rings, in his. “You will stand my friend, Mrs. Trewhistle?”
“Certainly!” Cynthia said heartily. “And, to prove that, I am going to send a return telegram to Mr. Hurst now. Joan will entertain you until I come back,” with a mischievous laugh as she rose. “Oh, Lord Warchester,” turning back at the door, “is your cousin Basil at the Marsh now? Reggie heard that he came last night, and that he had been ill and had to bring home an attendant with him! I hope it is not true.”
Warchester turned abruptly to the window.
“I did not know he had arrived at the Marsh, though I had heard that he was expected shortly. But he had a bad accident—was seriously injured some years ago, and has never wholly recovered.”
“I am sorry,” Cynthia said regretfully. “He used be so jolly in the old days. And how handsome he was!” Joan came into the room a few minutes later. Her black chiffon gown had been a present from Cynthia; it had been made by that lady’s dressmaker, and though of unusually plain cut its severe line
s suited her slim figure perfectly. Her hair was dressed very simply, parted in front and waved to the back, where it was gathered in a great coil.
She looked a little surprised to find Warchester alone as he came forward to meet her.
“Mrs. Trewhistle has been called away to answer a telegram,” he explained. “I hear you have been caught in the storm, Miss Joan.”
As she sank into one of the big easy-chairs he moved to the fireplace, and toyed with one of the ivory ornaments on the shelf.
Some of his obvious unrest seemed to communicate itself to Joan; her colour deepened.
“The storm did not matter,” she answered. “I enjoyed it really, and see—I was rewarded by finding these violets—they were beneath the Home Wood hedge.” She touched the tiny bunch of violets tucked in the front of her gown.
There was silence. When Warchester spoke again, the intensity of his feeling made his voice sound broken, almost harsh.
“I wonder whether you would think me incredibly greedy if I asked you for the violets?”
“Why, no!” Joan laughed as she held them out. “After the lovely flowers you sent us, Lord Warchester, you are certainly welcome to these.”
Warchester caught them and the hand together.
“It is not only the violets—I want this too. Is there any hope for me, Joan? Is it possible you could ever learn to care for me?”
For a moment Join sat motionless; the man before her waited silently. Then she raised her beautiful eyes.
“I think perhaps—” she said, slowly. “Ah, I—I—did you not know—did you not guess?”
Warchester, raising her to her feet, held her before him.
“Know what?” he asked.
Joan’s eyes were veiled by their long lashes; the rich, warm colour flooded cheeks and throat and temples.
“I never had anybody to care for me much until—” She paused. “But when you came everything seemed changed. Oh, I know Cynthia and Reggie like me—they have been very good to me—but they have each other! This—this seems—different!”
“Different! I should think it is different!” Warchester’s grey eyes were full of triumph as he listened to the halting sentences. “There is all the difference in the world, Joan, my beautiful Joan! Tell me that this is real—that you will give your life to me.”