“What have you been doing!” Barbara exclaimed. “Why haven’t you been over? I haven’t seen you for ages…and so much has happened! How is poor Markie?”
“Better,” said Jerry, who was glad she could answer the last question and ignore the first two. “Much better, really. She had it out on Sunday—it was rather more serious than they expected; the poor darling had let it go on so long—not saying a word about it because she didn’t want to be a bother.”
“You must miss her.”
“Yes, frightfully. But of course I’ve got Jane.”
“I must go when Markie is better,” said Jane. She looked at Archie as she spoke, but, finding that Archie was looking at her, she looked away again.
The tea table was groaning with food, for Archie’s idea of hospitality was to stuff his guests with the best of everything. His farms furnished him with cream and butter and eggs, and his bees with honey. Mrs. Frith had put her best foot foremost and had spent most of the day baking scones and cakes—it was a perfectly marvelous feast.
“I haven’t seen anything like it for years!” declared Barbara, looking at the table in amazement.
“I haven’t either,” said Archie hastily. “I mean I don’t live in luxury all the time—I mean—”
“Of course not,” agreed Barbara. “You’ve just done it for us. It’s very kind of you, Archie.”
“I don’t have a tea party every day…now, sit down. Where would you like to sit? Ah, here’s Mrs. Frith with the eggs!”
“Goodness!” exclaimed Barbara, gazing at the large brown boiled egg suddenly placed before her. “Goodness, is it really an egg!”
“Eat it and see,” said her host in delighted tones.
“I don’t feel as if I ought to eat it,” she replied, taking up her knife and hesitating.
“Put it in a glass case,” suggested Jerry, who had started to eat hers. “I think you ought to, Barbara. I mean you would be able to show it to your grandchildren.”
“Yes,” nodded Melanie. “You could show it to them and say, ‘That is a hen’s egg, my dear. We used to eat them, you know.’”
“They would be horrified, of course,” continued Jerry, taking up the tale. “They would say, ‘Eat them, Granny! How disgusting! Didn’t you have nice clean egg powder in those days?’”
Barbara laughed (she was always ready to laugh at herself) and Jerry was so pleased with her and loved her so much that she was able to master her repugnance and inquire after Lancreste’s health in quite a pleasant tone.
“Oh, he’s gone,” said Barbara. “It’s rather funny, really. I thought he would have come and said good-bye.”
“Didn’t he?” asked Melanie in surprise.
“I expect he was busy,” said Barbara hastily.
“He went off in a great hurry, of course,” said Melanie. “They wired for him to report immediately—but I’m surprised that he didn’t find time to go and see you, Mrs. Abbott. He’s very fond of you.”
“It was horrid of him,” put in Jerry.
“Didn’t he leave a message or anything?” asked Melanie.
“No, but it doesn’t matter.”
“He was a bit fussed, you know,” declared Melanie, trying to make things better. “It was a frightful scramble, really—and then, when he arrived at the airfield, he found they weren’t expecting him until next day.”
“Oh, you’ve had a letter from him?”
Melanie nodded. “Just to say he had arrived and everything was marvelous. He seems perfectly happy and contented. He’s delighted to be back at work.”
“Must have been trying for him hanging about here with nothing to do,” suggested Archie.
“Oh, it was,” agreed Melanie. “He was getting quite worried. Poor Lancreste, I was so sorry for him.”
By this time Jerry was regretting the generous impulse that had moved her to inquire for Lancreste—what a fool she had been to mention his name!
“Wasn’t it clever of Markie to catch the spy?” asked Jerry, changing the subject firmly.
“Tell us about it,” said Barbara. “We heard all sorts of rumors. You know how stories get changed and twisted.”
“And magnified,” added Archie. “Wandlebury is a wonderful place for stories—it always was.”
“But it isn’t just a story,” declared Jerry. “It’s all true. He really was a spy and a very dangerous spy—wasn’t he, Jane?”
“And Markie caught him?” asked Barbara incredulously, for although she had always admired Markie tremendously she could scarcely believe that Markie had captured a dangerous spy.
“Markie disarmed him,” said Jerry. “She took away his revolver while he was asleep—and of course he was helpless—and then ‘B’ Company surrounded the wood and captured him. It was rather a muddle really because they had left off looking for him.”
“Why?” asked Archie.
“Because of Mr. Boles. It was like this, you see,” said Jerry, frowning in her effort to explain. “They had been warned about the man and they found Mr. Boles and they weren’t sure whether he was the man or not. Of course I knew it wasn’t Mr. Boles because he said it wasn’t—and Colonel Melton agreed—but some of the others thought he was telling lies and it was him all the time.”
There was a short silence.
“Sounds rather muddled,” said Jerry apologetically.
“It sounds like double Dutch to me,” said Archie in a resigned voice.
“Don’t be silly, Archie,” said his sister. “You could understand it if you tried.”
“I never was any use at acrostics.”
“Listen, Archie. They were warned about a spy and they caught Mr. Boles, but Mr. Boles wasn’t the spy at all.”
“Why did they think he was?”
“They didn’t,” said Jerry wearily. “They just thought the whole thing was a washout—at least some of them did—they thought that people had seen Mr. Boles and thought he was a spy.”
“I’m beginning to see daylight.”
“I should hope so,” said Jerry sternly. “Everyone else saw it ages ago.”
“They’re sure this man is the real spy?” asked Barbara, who was anxious to be reassured on this point.
“Absolutely real. Sergeant Frayle found all sorts of gadgets in the wood. A little wireless set with a transmitter, and a thing with lights for signaling, and a sort of stove for cooking his food. Colonel Melton says he must have been there for at least a week—perhaps more—sleeping in the daytime and wandering about at night.”
“Horrible!” exclaimed Barbara with a shudder.
“Yes, it is rather. He took things out of the larder,” said Jerry. “I mean we missed things and Markie couldn’t think where they had gone—it must have been him.”
“Horrible for him, too,” said Melanie, thoughtfully. “Think of being isolated in a strange country and knowing that everyone was trying to kill you!”
“He knew the country,” said Jerry. “He used to come to Wandlebury quite often before the war—and he can speak English as well as I can.”
“Probably a good deal better,” said Archie dryly.
“Markie is wonderful,” continued Jerry, who was inured to brotherly insults. “There’s practically nothing that Markie can’t do if she puts her mind to it—and it just shows that people shouldn’t laugh at Markie for being interested in skulls because it was the shape of the man’s skull that put Markie on his track.” She looked very hard at Archie as she spoke, for Archie was by no means innocent of the crime of laughing at Markie. Archie was often very naughty about Markie, and it was one of Jerry’s sorrows that these two—both of whom she loved very dearly—did not appreciate one another as she could have wished.
“He should have disguised his skull,” said Archie. “He should have fixed on bumps in the right places. I expect he would have d
one it if he had known he was going to meet Markie.”
“Must you really go away?” said Barbara to Jane. Barbara hated people to quarrel and she felt the air growing sultry.
“Yes, I must,” said Jane. “I’ve had a lovely holiday.”
“We must make the most of you while you’re here,” declared Barbara. “Perhaps you and Jerry could come over to tea on Wednesday.”
“I should love to, but I can’t,” replied Jane with regret. “I’ve got to go to the dentist on Wednesday afternoon.”
“She’s having a tooth stopped,” added Jerry. “Mr. Clare is frightfully busy and Wednesday was the only day. I’ll come if you like, Barbara.”
“Of course,” said Barbara, nodding. “Perhaps Jane could come to tea after the dentist, and you could go home together.”
Archie had listened to these arrangements with interest. He now said with a serious air, “Barbara is quite right, Miss Watt. We must make the most of you while you’re here. What would you like to do after tea? Would you like to see around the house—it’s rather an interesting old house—or would you rather walk around the garden?”
“The house, I think,” replied Jane, with a smile, for Archie’s elaborate camouflage did not deceive her in the least and she was aware that she had been asked to tea for no other reason but to be shown the beauties of Chevis Place.
“Melanie would like to see it, too,” said Jerry.
“Of course,” agreed Archie, hiding his annoyance with a forced smile.
It appeared that everyone wanted to see around the house. Barbara and Jerry had seen it before, but neither of them wished to be left out of the expedition, so the whole party started upon a tour of inspection. This was not what Archie had hoped for, but he accepted the inevitable with a good grace, leading his guests from room to room, pulling up the blinds and opening the shutters and displaying the furniture and the pictures. Most of the pictures were portraits of members of the Chevis family—dead and gone—and they varied considerably in beauty and value. There was a Gainsborough and a Reynolds, for instance, and there were portraits scarcely worth the canvas upon which they were painted.
“You’ve altered the furniture,” said Jerry.
“I’ve sold a lot of junk,” admitted her brother. “It makes more room for the really good stuff…and incidentally I got quite a lot of money for it.”
“You bought some more cows, I suppose,” said Jerry.
“I used some of it to repair the roof,” replied Archie with a smile.
“And the rest?”
“Wait and see, Jerry.”
“It’s a great improvement, anyhow,” said Barbara, looking around in approval. “There was so much furniture that you couldn’t see it properly.”
“I’ve never seen the house looking so nice,” added Jerry. She had never seen it looking so nice, nor had she ever heard its owner discourse about his treasures in such an interesting fashion. Archie was at his best. He went from piece to piece, fingering it lovingly and telling its history. He told them about the house, too, and this was quite as interesting in its way.
“It has been altered and enlarged,” said Archie. “You can see where the new building has been grafted onto the old. I just wished I could take it all away—all the new part,” declared Archie, waving his arms.
“The old part would be quite a nice-sized house,” agreed Barbara.
“Amply big enough,” said Archie. “It was old Sir Roger Chevis who did most of the building. He lived about a hundred years ago and had an enormous Victorian family so he had to make room for them. Unfortunately he had more money than taste.”
“Perhaps you could alter it—take it down,” suggested Jerry.
“It would cost thousands,” said Archie with a sigh.
He talked on, showing them everything, and presently they arrived at the room where Queen Elizabeth had slept—or was said to have slept—when she visited Chevis Place. It was Archie’s pièce de résistance, and like a good showman he had kept it to the last.
Jerry remembered this room as a cobwebby attic, filled with discarded furniture, so she was very much surprised when Archie threw open the shutters and disclosed the room to view.
“There,” said Archie. “What do you think of it! I’ve removed everything except what should be here. I wanted to have it right. Of course it may not be quite right—I don’t know enough about it.”
The room was long and rather narrow with a low ceiling and an uneven wooden floor. It was paneled in dark wood, but it was not a dim room for it faced west and the setting sun filled it with a mellow light. In one corner there was a large fireplace with iron fire dogs standing in the grate. The furniture consisted of a four-poster bed with curtains, a huge oak chest, and several carved chairs with high backs and leather seats.
On the north wall hung a magnificent portrait of Queen Elizabeth herself, clad in rich brocade and decked with jewels.
“It’s new!” exclaimed Jerry, in amazement.
“It’s new, but it’s old,” replied Archie, smiling. “I bought it with some of the money I got for the furniture. Rather extravagant of me, but I wanted to have it here, in this room…and it really is rather interesting because one of the rings in the picture—you can see it on her finger—was given to my ancestor, Sir Godfrey Chevis, and has been in the family ever since. I’ll show it to you.”
The ring was in an old-fashioned jewel case, locked inside the chest. It was an emerald in a very heavy setting.
“Most attractive!” exclaimed Barbara taking it up and turning it this way and that so that the jewel sparkled in the light.
“It is,” agreed Jerry. “Archie said I could have it but it ought to be kept at Chevis Place—besides it’s too small for me.”
“Try it on, Barbara,” suggested Archie.
They all tried it on in turn but none of them could wear it—except Jane who found that it fitted her little finger. She was a trifle embarrassed at this discovery and removed it at once—as if it were red hot—and dropped it into Archie’s palm. He was smiling to himself in a significant way as he locked it up in the box.
“The room has the right kind of feeling,” declared Barbara, breaking the little silence that had fallen.
“She can’t have been very comfortable here,” said the practical Jerry. “No carpet, I suppose.”
“Did they have rushes on the floor?” asked Melanie, looking around with interest and appreciation.
Archie was not sure. He had an idea that there might have been a carpet or at least a large rug. “I’m going to find out,” he said. “I hope the poor lady had a carpet, it would have made all the difference, wouldn’t it?”
Jane had not said anything, but now she sighed, like a person waking from sleep. “There’s atmosphere in this room,” said Jane in a dreamy voice. “It’s the sort of place where one could write a historical novel…if one could write, of course,” added Jane hastily.
“Exactly,” agreed Archie with fervor. “It’s what I thought myself, when I was arranging the room. It would make a splendid study for an author. It’s so quiet and peaceful and, if I could get the right kind of carpet, it would be quite comfortable. One would want a large table, a solid table, near the window—and a wastepaper basket, of course.”
“You’ve thought it all out,” said Barbara in surprise.
“What a pity you don’t know any authors,” said Jerry.
“Yes, isn’t it?” agreed Archie smiling.
When they had all admired the room and discussed its arrangement they turned to go. Barbara and Jerry went first, followed by Melanie; Jane remained to help Archie to shut the shutters. Jane was sorry for Archie, he had behaved very well under somewhat trying circumstances and he deserved a little consideration. They shut the shutters, bolting them firmly with the heavy iron bar, and now the room was dark save for a narrow band of sunli
ght pouring through a slit.
“Like a sword,” said Jane, pretending to grasp the blade.
Archie took her hand and held it, “I’ve been very good, haven’t I?” he said in a low voice.
“You’ve been very kind indeed,” replied Jane primly, withdrawing her hand. “It has been most interesting.”
“And instructive,” suggested Archie, imitating her polite tones. “I do hope you have found it instructive, Miss Watt.”
Jane did not reply. She turned to go, rather hastily, for she felt anxious to overtake the rest of the party, whose voices could be heard in the distance, growing fainter and fainter. She turned to go, but her foot became entangled with the leg of a chair she had not seen in the dim light and she almost fell.
Archie caught her, and holding her in his arms he kissed her very gently but very firmly on the mouth. It was the second time, of course, and Jane was not so surprised. In fact she was not surprised at all.
“Don’t, Archie,” said Jane, struggling feebly.
“It’s too late,” said Archie, kissing her again.
“Too late?”
“Yes, your reaction came a few seconds too late. You liked it.”
“No.”
“Yes, you did. You liked it—and then you thought of Helen.”
This was so true that Jane found it difficult to deny. She disengaged herself and tried to arrange her hat. “I wish you’d be sensible,” she said.
The Two Mrs. Abbotts Page 22