Amabel’s head lifted. Really, Agatha could be very ill-bred.
“We’re very old friends,” she began.
Mrs. Moreland laughed aloud.
“Good gracious, Amy, how Victorian you are! Anyone can see that the man’s in love with you.” She stopped there because of what she saw in her sister’s face.
“Agatha! Really!” Her voice was not quite steady.
All at once Agatha sighed heavily.
“Well, my dear, it’s your affair,” she said, “and I won’t butt in. At any rate, you’ll have the satisfaction of being sure that it’s you he wants and not your money—sure,” she repeated. She stood up straight and looked aside. “You don’t know what it is not to be sure. You’ll never know—and you may thank God for it. No, please don’t say anything. I’m a fool; but you’re safe.” She pressed a handkerchief to her face for a moment and went quickly to the door; but, just as she reached it, she turned, came back again, and spoke, her voice amazingly softened:
“I really only wanted to say that I’d be very glad if it was Julian Forsham. You—you haven’t had much of a show up to now. That’s all.”
When she was gone, Amabel lay for a long time, thinking. The fact, patent to all the world except Agatha, that Cyril Moreland—described by Daphne as “that little worm”—had married her in order to be comfortably provided for for life, had now begun to dawn upon Agatha herself. Poor Agatha!
Just on the edge of sleep, Amabel remembered that she had not bolted the door between the two rooms. She hesitated; then got out of bed and shot the bolt.
Chapter XV
“How did you sleep?” said Julian in the morning.
“Perfectly. So did Agatha. And you?”
“Oh, I never moved—but then I never do.”
They walked up to Forsham Old House in the afternoon.
“A special tea-party in your honour,” suggested Julian.
“Or in yours. Are you prepared to be lionized?”
“No, I’m safe in Forsham. Nobody bothers about the lion when they’ve known him from a cub.”
“Mr. Bronson didn’t know you when you were a cub. Has he changed the house much?”
“I should think he had.”
“How?”
“I shan’t tell you. I want to see how it strikes you.”
When they came into the drawing-room Amabel found it striking enough. She remembered it very stiff, with polished tables and gilded mirrors, the whole effect rather colourless except for an atrocious crimson carpet. To come into it now was like entering a black and white engraving. She had never been in a room at all like it. The floor was black, dull black, with here and there on its large expanse some very dark-toned Persian rug. The walls were white. There were no mirrors. The three long windows that looked upon the terrace were hung from ceiling to floor with draperies of inky violet. The Adam mantelpiece held three exquisite pieces of black Wedgwood. There was one very fine engraving on each wall. The sofas and chairs were covered in some lustreless black stuff.
Amabel wondered very much whose choice these things had been. Not Angela Bronson’s, she thought as she shook hands with her. Angela, in the roughest of tweed skirts and the most staring of jade-green jumpers, looked a good deal out of place against this mausoleum-like background. Mademoiselle Lemoine, on the other hand, fitted into it as if it had been designed for her—perhaps it had. Amabel was human, and the thought certainly sprang into her mind, though she dismissed it. Mademoiselle was in black like the room, black of a singular and expensive elegance. Seen without a hat, she gained from the contrast between a very white skin and the black hair, satin-smooth, which swathed her head like a tight turban, quite hiding her ears. An odd type, and attractive; yet Amabel was conscious of preferring Angela.
She was very pleased to see the Berkeleys come in. The Millers followed; he fair and indeterminate looking, she very large and untidy, with a friendly smile. Lady Susan annexed her immediately, and they appeared to pass without effort into a highly technical argument on the proper preparation of rosebeds; at intervals such words as basic slag, bone-meal, and kainit reached the outer world. Nita King came in late, and fastened upon Edward Berkeley. She was all smiles and fluffy black frills, her hair as red as burning wood. She wore a string of very large sham pearls.
Amabel found herself beside her host, and rather at a loss for a subject. He asked her again how she liked the Dower House; and when she said that she liked it very much, he had the same air of surprise which she had noticed on the occasion of his call.
“You don’t find it damp?”
“The ground floor rooms are rather damp, but I am not using them.”
“Every house ought to have proper cellars,” said Mr. Bronson. “And you are really quite comfortable? Other tenants have not stayed as long as you.”
“No?” said Amabel.
“No,” said Mr. Bronson.
She broke the silence by admiring the engraving on the opposite wall, and was amazed at the sudden change in the man’s face.
“You like engravings? Do you understand them at all? They are my hobby. I have a portfolio over here which might interest you—if you care for such things.”
“I don’t understand them, I’m afraid; but I like them.”
He nodded, crossed the room, and came back with a large portfolio.
“I have them out one at a time,” he explained. “I won’t put more than one on each wall—it spoils them. That’s something we had to learn from Japan.” He dropped his voice. “You’ve no idea what the room was like—the crowd!”
Amabel dropped her voice too.
“I remember it.” She felt like a detected conspirator as Julian and Mr. Miller joined them.
Mr. Miller pointed at the engraving on Amabel’s knee. The subject was a wood—black pine trees with straight stems in endless perspective.
“I saw the fellow of that in Paris the other day,” he said. “Fleury has it.”
“Have you just been in Paris?” Amabel asked the question quite idly.
“I got back yesterday.”
“And how’s Paris?” said Julian as idly as Amabel.
“A little fussed,” said Mr. Miller—he stooped and pointed again, “Just look at that shadow. You can’t get the depth by the photographic process—This bank-note business, it’s fussing them a good deal. There’s an absolute flood of forged notes, and they can’t stop it. And it’s hitting their credit, besides making no end of a feeling of unrest everywhere. Talk about engraving—the man who did that job must be pretty useful!”
Mr. Bronson nodded.
“I’d like to meet him,” he said. “But what beats me, is how they’ve managed the water-mark.”
There was a little crash of china, a woman’s sharp exclamation; and then apologies and protestations.
“So stupid of me, so careless! Your lovely china! And Angela’s—”
“It doesn’t matter a bit. It really doesn’t matter.”
Three women were standing at the tea table, and it was the middle one of the three, Miss Miller, who had dropped her cup. It lay, rather hopelessly broken, in the midst of a puddle of tea on the dull black floor. Nita King, on one side, bent to pick up the fragments, whilst Mademoiselle Lemoine, on the other, echoed Angela’s assurance that it didn’t matter at all.
Chapter XVI
There was a little changing of seats after that, and Julian, after supplying Miss Miller with a fresh cup of tea, found that he was expected to take a vacant chair between Mrs. King and Miss Lemoine.
“Tell me,” said Nita King, “do tell me, Mr. Forsham, how does one forge a bank-note?”
“I haven’t an idea,” said Julian. “You must find a really competent forger, and get him to explain exactly how he does it.”
She looked up at him through her eyelashes.
“You’re laughing at me. People always do—I can’t think why. I heard you talking about forged notes, and I did so want to know how it was done. You know, I never
can understand why it’s wrong to do it. It always seems to me that everybody gets into trouble because there isn’t enough money. Just look at the things in the papers about unemployment, and trade depression, and there not being enough to go round anywhere. And it seems to me that if you can make more money, why, there’ll be more to go round and everybody will be better off. Yes, I knew you’d laugh at me if I said that, because I said it to Mr. Bronson and he laughed. But, really and truly, I do think that your mysterious forger is a public benefactor, and I can’t see why anybody should try and stop him.”
“He’s not my mysterious forger,” said Julian.
Mrs. King came a little nearer, and assumed a confidential whisper:
“Mr. Forsham, I’ve been simply dying to ask you what you think of your old home. It must be so strange for you to come here and find it all quite different. This room, for instance—do you really like it?”
“Well,—it’s impressive,” said Julian.
Nita King shivered, came nearer still, and dropped her voice to a thread.
“It’s like a tomb. But then I’m a sensitive—I feel these things directly. Are you psychic?”
“I hope not,” said Julian. “I’ve never shown any signs of it. But you know, you’re the last person who ought to complain of this room; it’s simply made for a red-haired woman.”
He had a wicked desire to see whether Susan Berkeley had misjudged the lady or not, and was rewarded by a distinctly flirtatious glance.
“My poor hair that so many people dislike!” sighed Nita.
“Soul-less beings! I adore red hair.”
“Do you really, Mr. Forsham?”
“Passionately!” declared Julian. “I always have; I always shall.”
Mrs. King looked up and then down again; and a curious thing happened. Something in the look, something in the angle at which the movement presented her features, brought another red-haired woman to his mind. The impression was gone in a moment, but it had been quite startlingly vivid. Jenny and Nita King—no, not Jenny—Annie. The likeness was to Annie, to the snapshot he had seen yesterday in Brownie’s Bible. “It’s the type. All red-haired women are alike,” he said to himself. But the malicious desire to tease Mrs. King had departed. He got up, gave his place to Agatha Moreland, and took a chair on the other side of Miss Lemoine.
He found her very easy to talk to. She had read his first book, and spoke with real insight and interest of the problems it had raised. To his surprise, Julian found himself talking to her as if they were old friends.
Nita King was finding plenty to say to Mrs. Moreland. She began by glancing across the room at Amabel and observing in her sweetest tones, “I do admire your sister,” and hardly waited for Agatha’s non-committal murmur before she went on eagerly. “I mean her courage. I think it’s so wonderful.”
Agatha’s expression here faithfully reproduced her inward thoughts. “My good woman, I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean,” was what she was too polite to say in so many words.
“I think she’s too wonderful,” Nita continued. She clasped her hands, and gazed at Agatha very much as she had gazed at Julian.
“Why?” said Agatha a little brusquely.
“Of course, I know everyone’s not so sensitive as I am. I’m really too psychic. I feel these things at once—pressing upon one, you know, from beyond the veil.”
“And why is Amabel wonderful?”
“My dear Mrs. Moreland, you don’t mean to say that you don’t know!”
“Know what?”
“The Dower House,” said Nita in a thrilling whisper. “Yes, haunted. Oh, I hope I haven’t been indiscreet.”
“No, Amabel didn’t tell me. I expect she thought I’d be nervous. As a matter of fact, these things interest me enormously.”
Nita nodded. “I know,” she said. “I could feel it. I think one always knows. There’s a perfectly marvellous medium that I go to in London—simply wonderful—, and I shall never forget her saying to me the very first time I went to see her, ‘You are psychic—a true sensitive.’ One knows at once.” She paused, and Agatha inquired:
“What’s the matter with the Dower House? Amabel seems quite comfortable there.”
“Oh, don’t ask me. I’m afraid I’ve said too much already, but I’d no idea that you didn’t know. Of course, if I was Mrs. Grey, I’d try and get right to the bottom of it. I should get Mrs. Thompson to come down and have a séance. She’s so marvellous—Mrs. Thompson, I mean. Why, a friend of mine went to her a few weeks ago because she was most awfully unhappy about her husband—she wanted to divorce him, you know, and she couldn’t be sure or get enough evidence. And Mrs. Thompson just looked in the crystal for her, and told her the whole story from beginning to end. It was wonderful, and, as Jacynth said, much, much cheaper than having a detective—because Mrs. Thompson’s fee is only two guineas, and detectives run you in for goodness knows what. And then another friend, Muriel Weston, she went to her when she lost her pearl necklace, and—oh, really she’s wonderful. If you’re interested in those sort of things, you ought to go and see her—you really ought. Do let me give you her address.”
Mrs. Moreland hesitated. There was no harm in having the address—she needn’t go and see the woman. She said, “Thank you. It might interest a friend of mine.” She put the address away carefully in her bag, and found that Nita King was addressing her as Mrs. Moorland. She corrected her, and Nita exclaimed,
“Any relation of Cyril Moreland’s? Not his wife! How strange! Why, I used to know him ever so well.”
It was just as they were all going that Mrs. King advanced upon Julian with an autograph book. It was heart-shaped, bound in pale blue suède, and bore upon it in silver lettering the words, My Friends’ Names.
When he had signed the book with as good a grace as possible, of course everyone else had to sign it too—the Berkeleys; the Millers; Angela; Mrs. Moreland; Amabel; and Mademoiselle Lemoine.
“What a lot of A’s,” said Nita. “I don’t think I know what they all stand for.” She ran her finger down the page: “Angela; and Miss Miller is Anne—or is it Anna; and you are Amabel; and your sister?”
“Agatha. We have very old-fashioned names, I’m afraid.”
“And I’m A too, because Nita is only short for Anita.”
“So is Mademoiselle an A,” said Angela in her loud, clear voice—she pointed at the last name on the page—“only she’s cheated, and put just M. She is really M. A.”
“And what does her A stand for?”
“Guess!” said Angela with rather a boisterous laugh. “You won’t though, so I’ll have to tell you. It’s Anastasie—Marie Anastasie. Now, I’m sure you’d never have guessed that.”
There was a little laughter. Mademoiselle Lemoine stood by, smiling faintly, but with a hint of constraint. Julian thought her distressed at Angela’s loudness.
“And what is Mr. Miller’s F?” said Nita gaily. “Come, Mr. Miller, confess. Is it Frederick, or Fergus, or—I can’t think of any other F’s except Philip, and that’s not one really.”
“It is Ferdinand,” said Mr. Miller. He touched his sister on the arm. “Come, Anne, we must be going.”
In the middle of their walk home Edward Berkeley surprised his wife by asking:
“What was that thing that Amabel was wearing under her coat? A lot of women wear them now, and I suppose I ought to know what they are called.”
“It was a yellow jumper,” said Susan Berkeley. “She knitted it herself.”
“It was a very pleasing colour—rather like the old rose on the north wall, the one my mother was so fond of—I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the name.”
“It’s a Gloire de Dijon.”
“Yes,” said Edward, “that’s it. My mother used to call them Glories. It’s a very pleasing colour. I remember, Susan, that you had a dress of that shade when we were engaged. When I was looking at Amabel this afternoon I remembered that it suited you very well. It is a colour that I am fond of. Y
ou don’t ever wear it now.”
“My dear Edward, you forget that I haven’t got Amabel’s complexion.”
“No, no, of course not,” said Edward innocently, “and you are older, some years older. Amabel is a very charming person—don’t you think so, my dear?”
“Oh, yes,” said Susan Berkeley.
“Yes, I thought a good deal about Amabel this afternoon. I felt sorry for her.” He put his hand inside his wife’s arm and patted it. “We’re so happy. It makes one sorry for all the other people.”
Half-way down the lane that led to the bungalow Mr. Miller said sharply to his sister, “One of those two women pushed you. Which was it?”
“Ferdinand, when?”
“At tea, when you dropped your cup. Mademoiselle was on one side of you, and Mrs. King on the other. One of them pushed you. Which was it?”
Anne Miller’s voice sounded distressed,
“Oh, Ferdinand, it sounds so stupid, but I really don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No, I really don’t. I was thinking about the front of the herbaceous border—and then something seemed to push against me, and I dropped my cup. It was dreadfully careless.”
Mr. Miller heaved a sigh of resignation. “You’d be a lot more use to me if you weren’t half asleep all the time,” he said.
Chapter XVII
“I didn’t know you’d got a haunted house on your hands, my dear.” Agatha was very comfortable in a chair before the fire; her tone was lazy.
“Who told you I had?” said Amabel. “No, I needn’t ask—I saw Mrs. King talking to you at the Bronsons’.”
“King—is that her name? I didn’t catch it. Everyone seemed to be calling her Nita.”
“What did she say?” Amabel was sitting on the floor, her elbow on the fender-stool, her chin propped in her hand. She looked quite self-possessed and amused.
“Oh, not very much. She thought I knew, and she seemed to think you deserved a V.C. for staying here.” She paused, then asked, “Is there anything wrong with the house?”
The Dower House Mystery Page 10