by Annie Haynes
“Oh, please say no more about it! It must have inconvenienced you far more than it did me. After all, I had a very pleasant walk and the air on the moor was delightful.”
“You are very good to make excuses for me, but how did you find your way? That path is rather complicated.”
“I called in to ask directions at a pretty, ivy-covered cottage, and a man who was working in the garden offered to guide me,” replied Cynthia disingenuously.
“Oh, I know where you mean!” Cynthia fancied for a moment that Gillman did not look pleased. “The people have only just come there to live. Well, I am very glad that matters are no worse, and that you found a guide of a sort. Now, I am just going up to see how my wife is, and then, if she feels equal to it, I am going to let you in for half an hour.”
He smiled down on her as he spoke, and then with a little nod left the room.
Cynthia nestled in her chair with a sigh of content; she slipped her feet out of her shoes and held them out to the warmth of the fire, they felt so sore and swollen. As she contemplated them ruefully she thought that life at Greylands had promised to become distinctly more attractive since Sybil’s arrival. She was pleased too that she was going to see her Cousin Hannah; it seemed to her that when she was able to explain matters to her cousin and ask her advice the worst of her difficulties would have disappeared. The parrot’s harsh voice broke across her meditations:
“Poor Hannah! Now stop that snivelling! Poor Hannah!”
Startled, Cynthia turned. With its head cocked rakishly on one side, the bird was surveying her with one beady, unwinking, black eye.
“Poor Hannah!” it repeated raucously. “Stop snivelling, will you?”
As the last word died away Gillman opened the door.
“Your cousin would like to see you, Cynthia,” he said.
With a heightened colour the girl shuffled into her shoes. “Poor Hannah!” the parrot interjected, almost, as it seemed to Cynthia, with sarcastic emphasis. She laughed as she stood up, in spite of her obvious embarrassment.
“Polly seems to think that Cousin Hannah is to be pitied for having this interview forced upon her,” she said lightly.
Gillman frowned.
“I shall kill that wretched bird before I have done with it, I know!” he said. “I hate parrots and this is a particularly disagreeable one.”
He held the door open and Cynthia limped through.
“What is the matter?” he asked, looking at her. “Have you hurt yourself?”
“Only in going out in shoes not fitted for walking across the moor.”
“My fault again!” Gillman said penitently. “I do not know what you can think of me.”
He certainly was distinctly good-looking, the girl thought as he led the way to the door which, from Spot’s scratching, Cynthia had previously concluded to be her cousin’s. He paused before he opened the door and bent his head nearer hers.
“I shall not leave you more than half an hour to-night, and you must try to avoid exciting her as she is very weak.”
“Certainly, I will be very careful,” Cynthia promised.
He turned the handle.
“Well, Hannah,” he said in a loud, resolutely cheerful voice, “here is Cynthia, very anxious to see you!”
The room was a large one, handsomely furnished; a large alcove at the farther end formed a sort of dressing-room, pretty shaded lamps stood on the mantelpiece, a bright fire burned in the fire-place; but Cynthia only had eyes for the quiet figure that lay propped up by pillows in the great, hearse-like looking bed that stood in the middle of the room. She went forward quickly.
“Dear Cousin Hannah, how glad I am to see you!” taking one of the stiffened, unresponsive hands in hers and chafing it as she bent over and pressed a warm kiss upon the woman’s cheek.
“Cynthia!” Lady Hannah said faintly, in a low, thick voice. “You should have written—you should not have come like this. Sit down, child, and tell me what brings you here?”
Feeling chilled and thrown back upon herself, Cynthia took the chair that stood by the bed.
Gillman leaned against the heavy carved oaken posts at the bottom.
“I think I shall leave you two to have your talk out now,” he said. “You must give Cynthia a better welcome than that, Hannah.”
“Don’t be away long!” the invalid implored, the whispering, husky tones suddenly becoming agitated. “I don’t like to be left with a stranger without you, Henry.”
“Cynthia is not a stranger, and I shall not be away long,” Gillman answered soothingly as he moved to the door.
His wife twisted her head round.
“Lock the door, Henry, and take the key away. Yes! Yes! You must!” her manner threatening to become hysterical as Gillman hesitated. “I have told you that I will not be left with the door unlocked!”
Gillman shrugged his shoulders and glanced deprecatingly at Cynthia.
“She always will have it so, and it is not for long,” he answered as he passed.
As she heard the key turned in the lock Lady Hannah gave a sigh of relief.
“That is better. I hate to think that the door is not fastened, that anybody—anything could get to me, and I could not do anything—could not move—that I should lie like a log ” her voice dying away in a sob of terror.
Cynthia glanced compassionately at the limbs lying so straight and motionless beneath the bed-clothes.
“No one will come to you. Mr Gillman—we all—would take care of that.”
“Um! I do not know about that.” The invalid moved her head restlessly. “Should you have known me, Cynthia? Am I like what you expected?”
Cynthia hesitated. This quiet figure, in which the head seemed to be the only thing alive, was so sadly unlike the Cousin Hannah whom she could dimly remember as a brisk, active woman who carried her about and nursed her as a child. She glanced at the small aquiline features a little drawn on one side, at the grey hair that was brushed back in bands beneath a quaintly-fashioned black lace headdress, at the large tinted spectacles that shaded the eyes, and paused.
“Well?” Lady Hannah went on irritably. “I know I was not a helpless log in those days! You don’t remember me?”
“Yes, I do a little,” Cynthia said slowly, “and I have heard of you often.”
“What have you heard?” The tone was abrupt, almost harsh.
Cynthia bent forward.
“Dear Cousin Hannah, principally of your kindness to your relatives, I think. That was what emboldened me to come to you when I was in trouble—that and your letter.”
There was a moment’s silence and then the invalid said slowly:
“Ah, my letter! I had almost forgotten it. I wrote it when I was feeling ill and lonely. Henry is very good to me, but when you are ill a man is not everything, and I wanted some of my own blood, so I wrote to you. You did not come, so I then sent for Sybil. What is your trouble, child? I think—I have a feeling that I ought to know, but my memory is bad, I forget everything now; I—I can’t recall it.”
Cynthia’s head drooped.
“I—I don’t think you have heard of it, Cousin; Hannah, but when you wrote to me you said you were going to give me a present. A great change was coming in my life. I was—”
“You were going to be married,” the low, harsh voice finished. “It is coming back to me now, Cynthia. That is your trouble, child? Your engagement was broken off?”
“No!” said Cynthia in a dull, shamed voice. “It—it was not broken off!”
“What do you mean?” Lady Hannah’s tone sounded hopelessly puzzled. “It was not broken off, and yet you are here!”
Cynthia’s head sank lower and lower. “An hour after the ceremony I found that he—my husband—had deserted and betrayed my greatest friend. I”—she put up her hand to her throat—“could not bear it. I left him. Then I thought of your letter—it only reached me that morning—and I came here. You will not send me away—you will protect me!”
Lady
Hannah drew a deep breath.
“I—I don’t know what to say, Cynthia. I never thought of this. He will be looking for you—your husband—and if he finds you, what can I do? I am only a poor weak woman—” beginning to shake violently. “I don’t think you ought to have come, Cynthia.”
Cynthia stood up, her hands loosely linked before her; she looked very tall and slim in the flickering firelight.
“If this is how you feel about it, Cousin Hannah, I am sorry I did; but,” faltering, “I was so lonely and so frightened of him—Lord Letchingham. Your letter was very kind, and I thought you really wanted me. Perhaps I ought to have applied to my solicitors in the first place. However, it is not too late to remedy my mistake. I will go back to-morrow.”
“Do not be foolish, child,” Lady Hannah said fretfully. “It is not that. I do want you; but it is such an extraordinary position. I never thought of anything like this. However, you will stay here, while I think what is best to be done. My husband tells me that your trunk was marked ‘Hammond.’ I think while you are here you had better keep to that name; it will at least make it more difficult for you to be recognized.”
“There is no need—” Cynthia began, her voice sounding cold and steady; somehow she felt even her cousin’s weakness left her untouched; she wished more heartily than ever she had not come to Greylands. “I—if I had put Densham on the box I should have been traced at once, and Hammond seemed the only name I could think of,” she confessed.
“Yes, it is best. Let people think that you and Sybil are cousins. Oh”—with a queer sound between a moan and a sob the invalid slipped down among her pillows—“I feel ill!” she gasped. “Call Henry. I—I think I am dying. Henry, quick, quick!”
Cynthia seized the bell-rope that hung beside the bed and tugged at it violently. Then she poured some water in a tumbler and tried to raise the invalid.
“Dear Cousin Hannah!” she pleaded. “Do let me give you a little—”
Her cousin turned her head away.
“No! No! Not you—Henry!”
At this moment, to Cynthia’s great relief, she heard Gillman’s step in the passage. He threw the door open.
“You were ringing?” he said. “Is there anything the matter?”
“I am afraid Cousin Hannah is worse,” Cynthia said desperately. “I—she will not let me do anything for her.”
Gillman gave one look at his wife’s face, then laid his hand on her arm.
“Come, this will not do, Hannah!” he said quietly. “You know the harm you may do if you over-excite yourself.” Then he turned to Cynthia. “You had better go downstairs; she will become quieter alone with me.”
Something in his tone forbade argument, and Cynthia obeyed in silence. She heard Gillman lock the door behind her and caught the echo of her cousin’s voice; then she went slowly back to the dining-room.
There Sybil found her when, half an hour later, she ran downstairs.
“Cousin Hannah was rather tiresome to-night, was she not?” she questioned, perching herself on the arm of Cynthia’s chair. “Now I suppose she will keep Cousin Henry with her for hours; nobody can manage her like him, and he is so wonderfully patient with her.”
“Yes, he seems very kind,” Cynthia acquiesced slowly. “He—he is very unlike what I expected.”
Sybil bubbled into airy laughter as she patted the cheek next to her with one pink finger.
“Oh, you are a funny girl, Cynthia! I—really I shall begin to think you are quite deep.”
Chapter Six
“COME for a walk this morning, Sybil?”
“Can’t!” Sybil playfully shook the flour from her hands in Cynthia’s face. “I am going to make a pudding for dinner. There! You didn’t know I was so domesticated, did you?”
Cynthia looked at her dispassionately.
“I do not expect it will be much of a pudding! You had better come, Sybil.”
Sybil pouted, as with pursed-up lips she measured out a portion of butter.
“Rude person. No, it is no use teasing, Cynthia. I am going to make a great culinary success to-day, and you will not persuade me to put it aside even to frivol with you.”
“Well, if you are really determined—” With a shrug of her shoulders Cynthia resigned herself to the inevitable. She turned from the big, old-fashioned kitchen to the open door leading into the neglected garden beyond. Notwithstanding the tangled growth of grass, the moss upon the walks, it looked very pretty in the bright sunlight, she thought. Coaxed out by the warmth, here and there a brightly coloured tulip was peeping forth. At the edge of the long, narrow borders the blue forget-me-not and the hardy London Pride were beginning to raise their heads. Farther away, over the tall hedge, she caught a glimpse of the flowering cherry-trees in the orchard. She drew a long breath of the delicious fresh air. “I think it is much too lovely to stay indoors, even to cook. You are very tiresome, Sybil! I wonder”—as a loud howl from the distance reached her—“whether I might take Spot?”
“You will have to take him on the lead if you do,” Sybil responded as, having secured all her ingredients, she began to mix them together with a vigour that spoke volumes for the strength of the muscle in her white, shapely arms. “There he is,” she added, with a backward jerk of her head at the wall. “He will tear back to Cousin Hannah’s room if you don’t, and he does worry her so.”
Cynthia took the lead down doubtfully.
“I don’t suppose he would follow me without, but he won’t like it much, poor little dog!”
She went slowly round the house to the out-buildings; as Spot saw her coming towards him his howling changed to noisy demonstrations of joy. He sprang on his hind legs and tried to lick her face; it was with difficulty that she got the chain off and the lead fastened to the collar. When that was accomplished she found, too, that it was no easy matter to persuade him to accompany her; with might and main he tugged at the lead, trying to induce her to return to the house, and it was only by putting forth all her strength that she was able to force him in the opposite direction.
As, almost exhausted, she turned to close the garden-gate she found herself face to face with a stout, hard-featured woman who was looking down on Spot with a bland smile.
“Going to take the poor creature out for a walk, are you, miss?” she observed. “Well, I am sure it is real charity in a manner of saying, for he must feel very lonely, now my lady is laid up.”
“My lady!” Cynthia repeated in surprise. “Oh”—with a flash of enlightenment—“you are Mrs Knowles, are you not?”
“Yes, miss. I hope the poor lady is better now?”
“I hope so,” Cynthia said doubtfully. “Mr Gillman thinks she is.”
Mrs Knowles raised her hands.
“Poor thing! I doubt she will never be herself again. Little I thought when I see’d her only last week as ever was walking in these fields with Spot there how soon she was to be took. As the saying is, one is took and the other left. Now, my poor mother ”
“Mrs Knowles,” Cynthia interrupted, “you are making a mistake. Lady Hannah was not out last week. She was not well enough.”
Mrs Knowles drew herself up with dignity.
“Which, if you know better than me what was on the spot, miss, I have no more to say. Monday in last week, it were. She were in this very meadow, with Spot jumping round her that pleased like; more by token that very day our Janet came back from London, so I couldn’t make no mistake about it. ”
“Oh, I thought Mr Gillman told me she had been ill a fortnight, but no doubt I was wrong,” Cynthia said, looking puzzled.
“Which you were, miss, if you thought that,” Mrs Knowles remarked. “Me, not being a person given to making mistakes, and always having a liking for me lady, and she for me, if I may say it without boasting, I was not likely to be out in my reckoning; but I see Mr Gillman looking out for me, so if you will excuse me, miss, I will wish you a pleasant walk.”
She bustled through the gate and up the narrow path.
Cynthia turned down the meadow, the unwilling Spot still dragging heavily at the lead.
In vain the girl coaxed and scolded; the dog could not be persuaded to enjoy the walk, and at length, her arms growing tired, she resolved to take him back and make a fresh start alone.
Now that her steps were turned homeward Spot became quieter, and Cynthia had more time for thought. Mrs Knowles had puzzled her a good deal; she knew that she had made no mistake. Gillman had certainly told her that her cousin’s seizure had occurred a fortnight previously; yet in this case how would it have been possible for her to be walking in these fields only a week ago? There was evidently a discrepancy somewhere, and, notwithstanding the woman’s positive assertion, Cynthia could only suppose that she had made a mistake of a week.
By and by the girl’s thoughts wandered off to her own affairs; what was Lord Letchingham doing, she wondered, with an irrepressible shudder as she recalled the scene in the train. That he would be searching for her she had little doubt, and though to the best of her belief she had successfully hidden her traces she feared it was impossible that her secret should remain for ever, and then she shrank like a frightened child from the thought of Lord Letchingham’s wrath and its probable consequences.
As her mind became more wholly absorbed her hold on Spot grew insensibly slacker, and after passing through the gate into the garden, the dog, with one wild jerk, freed himself and started off as fast as his legs could carry him, not this time in the direction of the house, but into the belt of dark pine-trees which surrounded Greylands on all sides but one.
Roused from her reflections Cynthia ran after him, only to find her progress obstructed by a tangle of undergrowth and brambles.
As, her face flushed, with dishevelled hair and burrs clinging to her garments, she sprang on to an intersecting path she found herself face to face with Gillman, who was apparently strolling along with bent head and hands clasped behind him, buried in thought.
“What in the world are you doing here?” he inquired, his eyebrows drawn together in a forbidding scowl—a scowl that deepened as he listened to Cynthia’s explanation. At its conclusion he muttered a fierce imprecation and hurried away in the direction in which Cynthia fancied the dog had gone.