by Q. Patrick
As soon as the two women were inside their home, Mrs. Lubbock slumped heavily into a chair without taking off her bonnet, and stared straight in front of her in silence. There was a vacant and utterly bewildered expression on her face.
“Did you have any tea at the hall, mother?” asked Lucy, looking at her anxiously.
The old lady shook her head, but sat still, making no effort to move towards the kitchen, though it was past her usual tea-time.
“I’ll get you some, dear, it will do you good.” The girl went out of the room and presently returned with a cup of strong tea. She added milk and sugar and passed it to her mother.
Mechanically Mrs. Lubbock raised the cup to her lips and drank feverishly. The tea seemed to revive and stimulate her to speech.
“Lucy,” she said at last, looking at her daughter with an expression of fear and horror which was entirely alien to the usual placidity of her countenance, “there’s things been going on as are too much for my old brain. Dark, terrible things, child, as I don’t rightly understand, but I can’t help feeling as how it’s my duty before God and to my dear girls to tell all I know, and perhaps—” she choked over her words and started to cry softly. Lucy poured another cup of tea and passed it to her.
“Tell me, mother, if it would relieve your mind,” she said gently.
Mrs. Lubbock again looked at her daughter strangely, and as though she were seeing her for the first time, “No, Lucy,” she said, in a tone that was almost severe, “you’d probably laugh at me, and I may be all wrong. I may even have misunderstood my own ears—anything seems possible after what’s been happening these last few days—but it’s that man from London, the one who looks like a reverend, as I want to see. So when you’ve finished your tea, child, just run out and ask him to step in here some time. There’s no hurry—or well—perhaps there is—I don’t rightly know. I’m old and stupid and I can’t reckon it all out, and even if I could, it wouldn’t bring back my two girls as are in heaven, God rest their souls.” Her voice, though faint, now sounded firm and resolute.
Lucy got up with a sigh and patted her mother’s shoulder abstractedly—the events of the past week seemed to have passed over her like a forest fire, leaving her—emotionally, at least—parched and dry.
“All right, mother, if you’ve been keeping some little thing to yourself that you feel the Inspector should know, I’ll fetch him at once. But you look tired and worried, dear, I wish you’d lie down a while.”
“Not till I’ve seen the Inspector,” said the old lady with unsuspected obstinacy. “Just leave me alone and I’ll be all right.” Lucy looked at her mother quizzically, finished her tea, and then left the cottage without a word.
She made her way as quickly as possible to the Crosby Arms where the barmaid informed her that the Inspector had left some little time ago and had gone on foot in the direction of Edith’s Ford. Hesitating as to whether she should follow him or leave a message with the village Constable, Lucy stood on the inn porch, pondering. As she paused there a moment, a Morris Cowley came tearing down the road and passed her—then stopped with a mighty screeching of breaks and a honking of horns. A hatless, red-headed young man emerged, yawned and stretched himself prodigiously, then waved cheerfully at Lucy.
“Hullo, Lucy,” he said airily, as he wiped the dust from the corner of his eyes, “what are you doing at the pub? Looking for me by any chance?”
“No, Doctor Crosby,” there was a mischievous gleam in the weary grey eyes, “I shouldn’t choose the Crosby Arms to look for you at this hour. The bar’s not open yet! I’m trying to find the Inspector. They tell me he’s gone to Edith’s Ford.”
“Fine, I’ll take you there in the car and we’ll run him to earth together. What’s a few more miles when one has just gone over two hundred in a non-stop personally conducted Cook’s tour around England! Jump in.”
“Thank you, you’re very kind. But, are you sure—?”
“Nonsense, jump in before everyone in the village thinks I am trying to carry you off to Timbuctoo.”
The two young people looked at one another with a sudden burst of sympathy and understanding. It was a beautiful midsummer afternoon and the air was soft and untainted, as in the world’s infancy.
The young doctor backed his car dexterously and headed it in the direction of Edith’s Ford. He looked travel-stained and tired, but there was an irrepressible twinkle in the eye that contorted itself constantly in Lucy’s direction as she sat back in her corner without speaking.
They drove through the village—past soft, green meadows, sleepy thatched cottages and freshly made haystacks, until they came to the top of a slope which showed a view of the Mendip Hills stretching out in the distance like a Perugino landscape. Christopher stopped the car and lit a cigarette.
“Have one, Lucy?” he asked. “I know you do sometimes, don’t you?”
“Yes. ” She took a cigarette and stared at the beautiful vista through the blue haze of smoke.
“Lovely, isn’t it,” she murmured, so softly that he could scarcely hear what she said. “I just can’t believe that death and wickedness exist in a world that’s as beautiful as this.”
He nodded sympathetically.
“It’s been a beastly week,” the girl continued gently and in a matter-of-fact tone. “I’ve hated it all—all the ugliness and useless tragedy of it. Of course, I’m not going to be hypocritical enough to pretend that I was passionately devoted to my sisters. As a matter of fact I scarcely knew them, but it’s all made me feel so—so utterly arid! I’ve needed just this—the open country, and a glimpse of our own dear Mendip Hills more than anything. They make me feel sane again. Why,” she whispered, “they make me feel almost happy!”
The color had come back to her pale cheeks and her eyes were shining as if with some inner exaltation. Christopher thought that she had never looked lovelier than at this moment.
“Yes,” he said, as he puffed long spirals of smoke into the clear, steel-blue air, “you’ve had a rotten time of it lately, Lucy, and you’ve been awfully brave. I’ve been worried to death myself, about you and about—Oh, well, everything!” He smiled elfishly and continued in a bantering tone, “But, you know, there’s one thing that has worried me more than anything else. I’ve been racking my brains about it while I was away, trying to puzzle it out.”
“Worried about me—puzzled, what do you mean?” she said, laughing, “am I such a mystery?”
“No,” said Christopher with mock solemnity, “I’m afraid I can’t flatter you by saying you are a mystery to me, though I know all women long to be one. I feel I know you awfully well—everything about you, in fact, at least everything that matters. But there is one little thing on which I am entirely and utterly ignorant.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know your middle name—you never told me!” The girl gave a puzzled smile and then laughed happily. His facetiousness was sometimes a bit too subtle for her. “Well, Doctor Crosby, since you usually (and, incidentally, without my permission) call me Lucy, I don’t see that my middle name is of very vital importance. But, if you really want to know, it happens to be Jane.”
“Jane—thank God!” cried Christopher triumphantly, as he wiped imaginary beads of sweat from his forehead, “that’s just what I guessed. You see, it’s really quite important.”
“I’m afraid I don’t quite follow you.”
“Here, take a look at this and you’ll understand. I’ve been to endless trouble getting it. I hope to heaven that I’ll never have to get another!”
He drew from his pocket a formidable-looking document and passed it to Lucy. She stared at it for a minute and then blushed a flaming crimson.
“How dare you,” she gasped at length. “What unutterable and absolute—cheek! How dare you!” It would have been hard to tell from her voice whether she was nearer to laughter or tears.
“Pretty, isn’t it,” said Christopher placidly, “and expensive—O my hat! A special m
arriage license made out for Lucy Jane Lubbock (notice the question mark after Jane, my dear) and Christopher Howard Burwell Crosby. Ought to be several question marks to break up that little mouthful! But, what’s in a name? Age—Full. I suppose your age is full, Lucy. That means over twenty-one, my dear, and it’s good for any registry office in the British Isles, exclusive of the Irish Free State. Signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury himself—doesn’t that allure you? I thought I’d have to beard the old boy in his palace, seize him by the beard (if he has one) and force him to sign it. I raced to and from London several times to get this little bit of paper—and just as I thought everything was O.K. and I came to sign our names on the dotted line, I suddenly remembered that I didn’t know what came after Lucy. I rushed up and down in a mad fit of conjecture, saying to myself Lucy Alice, Lucy Elizabeth, Lucy Ann—none of them seemed to fit and everyone must have thought that I was crazy—then suddenly I hit on Jane. I felt certain it was Jane, when all’s said and done, it couldn’t very well be anything else—I just had a hunch and I was right—Hurrah!” He grinned boyishly.
Lucy put her hands to her ears in dismay, “Stop,” she cried, “you are talking nonsense, absolute nonsense. Please, oh please don’t be frivolous and ridiculous just now—I can’t bear it.”
“But I am not being frivolous—heavens! I’m in dead earnest or I wouldn’t have gone off and left you at a time like this. It’s no season for practical jokes. You must listen to me, Lucy. I mean what I say. We ought to get married at once—this afternoon would be fine if it weren’t after three o’clock—for with all this battle, murder and sudden death going on, the Lord alone knows whether I shall live long enough to be your widower or you to be my widow.” There was a note of earnestness beneath the apparent jocularity of his words.
“But you’ve never even spoken to me of marriage,” said the girl, looking at him from troubled grey eyes. “Why, I never even knew that you cared about me—”
“Fiddlesticks, dear,” he replied tenderly, “you know I love you, and I know that you really love me, though you probably don’t admit it, not even in the virginal fastness of your prim little mind. It all happened on the day when Doctor Hoskins was doing that op. for multiple tumors three weeks ago. You know—I was giving the anaesthetic and you were handing him the instruments while he worked—darn cool and efficient you were too, considering what was happening to both of us!—you remember, don’t you?”
The girl nodded slowly.
“I hadn’t even noticed you properly before—in fact I felt I’d never seen you in my life until that minute. Then I gave you one look and it was all UP with me. I was gone—sunk up to the neck. I thought it must be the ether at first, then I realized that it must be love—love coming to us both like that in the very middle of a major operation! I felt so excited I almost put the poor devil to sleep for ever—and you, you little minx—you gave me a look that meant business if ever anyone did!”
“Stop, oh stop!” cried Lucy tremulously. “I can’t listen to you, Christopher. It’s all true what you Say, and I felt just the same as you did. I do love you, but I can’t marry you and I won’t”
“Obstinate child, of course you will—what else could we do about it?”
The girl flushed and her eyes were misty. “Oh, don’t you see how impossible it is,” she said dejectedly, “I haven’t anything. I’m poor and stupid, while you are rich and clever—and—oh, your family would never hear of it—”
“Nonsense, Lucy,” he answered gently. “I owe nothing to my family—nothing at all. I don’t even like their way of living, and I’ve never been happy at home. How could one be happy when, until two years ago, the entire household was under the thumb of my detestable harpy of a grandmother? Father’s too much taken up with his turnips to bother about me, and poor mother has always had far too many troubles of her own”
“You may feel that you don’t owe anything to your mother, Christopher, but I owe everything to her—everything. I couldn’t do it, my dear,—at least I couldn’t marry you against her wishes. Why, I promised her this very day—”
“Promised her—what do you mean?” Christopher’s brow darkened.
Lucy hesitated in some embarrassment, “Well, if you must know,” she said at length, “your mother brought up the question this afternoon and I promised her that I’d never marry you unless she—er—wanted me to, or unless it was obvious that you could not lose by it in any way. Unless, by some miracle it was I who was conferring the favor in the eyes of the world.”
“Well, that’s very nice and dramatic of her,” he said grimly. “Reminds me of the girl in ‘Framley Parsonage.’ It puts the whole thing up to me, I suppose, and now all I have to do is to prove to you that it would be a condescension on your part to marry me. Somehow or other I have to get so badly disgraced that no one else will touch me, not even with a barge pole—is that right?”
Lucy nodded, smiling, but the tears were dangerously near the surface. “I’m afraid that’s about it,” she said brokenly, “but oh, how I wish you were poor, or in trouble or that your family—!”
“Well, that’s easy!” the young man’s tone was strangely jubilant. “I can soon show you that in every way I am the world’s worst match—especially for a nice-looking girl like you. But you’ve got to promise me one thing, Lucy. I know I can easily convince you, and Mother too, if necessary, but you’ve got to give me the chance to make my little demonstration any time I ask you. You’ve got to up and follow me when I whistle just like the meek, submissive little wife you are eventually going to be!”
“I promise. I ask nothing better, but I know it’s hopeless—absolutely hopeless. My hands are tied.” The grey eyes met his clearly and with great sincerity.
“All right, all right, that’s enough for the present.” Christopher took her hand and pressed it gently. “But I shall hold you to your bargain. And now, dear, if the Mendip Hills will kindly turn the other way for a minute, I suggest that we ratify our little pact in the—er—usual way, and then we’ll drive on to find the episcopal gentleman who represents himself as a police inspector.”
Ten minutes later they turned into the courtyard of the Duchess of Somerset where they found the Archdeacon in close confabulation with George Burwell. Christopher alighted from the car and approached the two men. He was greeted with mildly intoxicated enthusiasm by his uncle, who shook him warmly and vinously by the hand, saying:
“O my prophetic soul, my nephew!—all grown up but still red-headed as a fox! I’m parlous glad to see you, my boy, and if by any chance you can convince the Inspector here that instead of being a slayer of innocent women your uncle is merely a harmless if somewhat tedious old fool—if you can….”
“If me no ifs and uncle me no uncles,” said Christopher impatiently. “I’m afraid there’s no time for Shakespeare now or any kind of a family reunion, Uncle George. I want the Inspector—urgently.”
“I’ll come with you right away, Dr. Crosby,” said the Archdeacon impressively, after Christopher had outlined the reason for Lucy’s visit. “My work here seems to be finished, and I’ll be grateful for the drive back.” He drew Christopher aside with an inquiring look at George Burwell.
“Mad, but quite harmless,” said the young man, answering his unspoken query with some distaste. “Not the most reputable of characters, I will admit, but an angel of peace and mercy compared with his mother, of whom I spoke to you yesterday.”
“Since you are so full of family information,” said the Archdeacon genially, “I wonder if you would mind telling me whether he—or any other member of your family for that matter—has been—er—in a position to be blackmailed recently. I might mention in strict confidence that Isabel Lubbock appears to have been blackmailing someone under an assumed name, and I wondered….”
“I know nothing of my uncle’s private life,” replied Christopher coldly, but there was a gleam of strange interest in his eyes which the Archdeacon did not fail to notice. “My old grandmother
kicked him out ages ago. The reason is obvious. Disinherited for dipsomania like the penny novelettes! Father won’t have him around on a bet, but he doesn’t do so badly when all’s said and done. My mother makes him a generous allowance and he might conceivably be a mark for blackmail on that account. For all I know there are a million girls who’d try and get a dishonest penny out of him, but I don’t imagine he ever so far forgot himself as to commit any violent indiscretions with a sour-faced spinster like Isabel Lubbock.”
The Archdeacon gave him a confidential nod and they joined Lucy and Burwell by the car. The latter was standing with his foot on the running-board and throwing admiring glances in the girl’s direction.
“Well, this is where we part I suppose,” he said when the others came up and the Archdeacon was climbing ponderously into the back seat. “I go back to my humble inn and off you go—on wings as swift as meditation—or the thoughts of—love!”—this last with a sly leer at Lucy.
Christopher glared at his uncle, started the motor and whirled them through the streets of Edith’s Ford with the speed and assurance which can come only from the knowledge that one has a police inspector in the back seat!
“Did you happen to notice that—er—relative of mine at the inn just now, Lucy?” whispered Christopher, as they got out into the open country.
The girl nodded gravely.
‘‘Well, isn’t he sufficient disgrace in the family to constitute just grounds for your changing your mind—matrimonially speaking?”
Lucy shook her head, smiling faintly, and the car sped on.
They had just come within a few hundred yards of their destination—Lady’s Bower—when they almost collided with a well known Daimler which was staggering across the road in a drunken fashion. Christopher slowed up and the Daimler followed suit. A man got down from the driving seat and shouted frantically in their direction. It was Briggs—but a pale, dishevelled Briggs, hatless and coatless—a very different figure from the smart young chauffeur who had driven Lucy and her mother home so jauntily earlier in the afternoon.