I hesitated, for I felt it was like a betrothal ring. I couldn't understand myself, for on most matters I made up my mind very quickly. What did I feel about Jago? If I went away I would think of him constantly. I would be sad and there would be a yearning within me for his company. I wanted to be with Jago more than anyone I knew—and yet I was not sure that I really knew Jago.
I left him and went to my room and the first thing I did was to open my mother's sketchbook at the pages on which she had painted his portrait. There were two people there. I had seen the kindly protective Jago often, the guardian who had welcomed me so warmly. What of the other one?
I turned to Silva's picture and I thought: Oh Silva, what a lot you could tell me if you were here!
I turned the pages. The book opened easily at the one I wanted. The room—the homely, pleasant room; and even as I looked at it depicted so accurately there on paper, the feeling of doom which I remembered so well from the dream crept over me.
My eyes went to my reflection in the mirror and I saw about my neck the chain of Island stones.
I knew so little and there was so much to know.
The Ellen Is Found
When I went down to breakfast next morning Gwennol was there alone. She smiled at me in a more friendly fashion than she had done for some time and I hoped that she realized that her jealousy regarding Michael Hydrock was unfounded. She asked me if I had fully recovered from my accident and I told her I thought I had.
"What an ordeal!" she said, helping herself to deviled kidneys and bacon. "It's enough to put you off going to sea for a long time, I should imagine."
"I went for the first time yesterday. Jago rowed me to the Sanctuary Island."
"You felt safe with him, I daresay."
"Perfectly. Oh, I shall get over it. I do wonder what happened to the boat and if it will come in."
"It seems hardly likely now. I expect it's well out in the Atlantic Ocean. It might be washed up on the coast of France though."
"It would be interesting to examine the leak."
"When you consider it, they're frail craft, these boats. I wonder men ever trusted themselves in them."
"They wouldn't have got very far if they hadn't."
"Particularly those on Kellaway Island," she laughed. "I suppose one day you'll be taking a boat out on your own."
"I expect so. It doesn't do to give up just because something like that happens."
"It's a good day today. I noticed how smooth the sea was as soon as I awoke."
I wondered whether she was telling me she was going to Hydrock Manor and that I should, therefore, remain on the Island.
We chatted easily during breakfast and as we came out of the dining room and through the hall, Slack ran across the courtyard. He had a piece of paper in his hand.
Gwennol ran on ahead of me. "It's a message for me, is it, Slack?" she asked eagerly.
He looked uneasy. "No, Miss Gwennol. 'Tain't for you."
She looked bitterly disappointed and Slack stood uncertain for a moment. Then he said: "It be for Miss Ellen."
"For me?"
I took the paper. On it was written my name and then: "Fenwick found. I'll be at the inn this morning to take you to him. M.H."
Fenwick found! I felt the color rise to my cheeks. If Fenwick would talk to me about my father then I really would begin to learn something. I had forgotten Gwennol in the excitement of the news.
I said: "Slack, will you row me over to the mainland this morning?"
"Why yes, Miss Ellen. In half an hour I'll be ready."
"Good." I was about to go to my room to change into riding kit when I remembered Gwennol and hesitated. I wondered whether to tell her what the message contained and while I was pondering she turned and went off.
Perhaps I could explain later that it was not just an ordinary invitation. It was too late to do so now. I went to my room and changed.
Slack was ready with the boat and in a short time we were at sea.
"Slack," I said, "you can go and see your parents at the inn and row me back when I'm ready to go."
Slack was always delighted to have a few hours with his parents and as we rode into the innyard Michael came out to greet me.
"I've already told them to get a horse ready for you," he said, "so we can start at once if you like. But perhaps you would like some refreshment first."
"I can't wait to see Fenwick," I said.
"Very well. We'll start immediately. It's about eight miles inland, close to the moors. Ready?"
We rode out of the inn together. It was a lovely crisp morning with a touch of frost in the air—which was rare in these parts. The winter sun shone on the thin layer of ice on the puddles on the roadside—it had rained on the previous day. The bare branches of the trees stretched upwards towards the sky like supplicating arms. I had often thought that trees were even more beautiful in winter than they were in summer. The leaves of the conifers glistened and for me there was excitement in the air because I believed I was on a voyage of discovery.
"He wasn't easy to find," said Michael. "It seemed as if the man was determined to hide himself. But he has agreed to talk to you."
"So you have warned him of my coming."
"I felt that was necessary."
"Of course you are right. I'm so glad he will see me."
We had left the sea behind us and the countryside was less lush here for there was a hint of moorland in the uncultivated stony ground.
And then the glory of the moors burst upon us. Bright sun shone on the streams, which a few days before had been trickling over the boulders and were now frozen into immobility. We skirted the moor and came to the little hamlet of Karem-on-the-Moor.
"This is the place," said Michael, "and Moorside Cottage is Fenwick's place."
The garden was neat and looked as though it had recently been made so; the cottage was small but charming. Ivy climbed its walls, against which leaned an old water butt to catch the rain. A small path of crazy paving ran from the front gate to the door across a miniature garden.
We tethered the horses to a stake and Michael led me through the gate to the door; and when we knocked this was opened by a man of medium height very neatly dressed in every detail.
"Mr. Fenwick," said Michael. "I have brought Miss Kellaway to see you."
"Come in," said Fenwick. "I understand you want to talk to me, Miss Kellaway."
"I should very much like to and it is good of you to allow me to come."
"By no means," he said.
Michael explained that he had business to attend to in the neighborhood and would like to take the opportunity to do that now. He would call back for me in about an hour. Would that be all right?
Mr. Fenwick said it would and I realized that Michael's impeccable good manners had made him realize that what we had to discuss might be of a private nature and therefore he had no wish to intrude.
Fenwick took me into a small room in which a fire was burning. There was a great deal of brass about the place and it was very brightly polished; in fact the impression was of complete cleanliness everywhere.
"Do sit down, Miss Kellaway," he said. "Sit near the fire. It's a cold morning."
I sat down and he took a chair opposite me.
"Now what is it I can do to help?"
"I think there is a great deal you can tell me. You see, I have only recently come to Kellaway Island and I had never heard of it before I came."
He nodded. "I know the story," he said. "I was so long in your father's employ that I am well conversant with family matters."
"You knew my mother, of course."
"Yes and your father's first wife."
"And you knew my half sister."
"Indeed, yes."
"What sort of a man was my father?"
He hesitated.
"You knew him well," I prompted.
"I was with him every day and in his confidence to a certain extent."
"Then you must have known him
as well as anyone in the castle. I can't understand why he was so indifferent to his family ... to my half sister, to myself, to my mother."
"He was not indifferent to your mother nor to you . . . until she left him."
"But why did she leave him?"
"She could not settle down in the Island. She was constantly trying to get away. She wanted him to take her away but he wouldn't. He said he had his duty to the Island."
"But when she ran away he didn't care."
"He did. She had tried to go before but he had stopped her. He had ordered that no boat was to leave the Island without his permission. We never knew how she got away, but she did."
"Someone must have helped her then."
"It was something we never discovered."
"What about my half sister? What do you know of her?"
"She was a strange girl who gave a great deal of trouble."
"I've heard that. Why did she?"
"It seemed her nature to do so."
"Did my father not care for her at all, didn't he try to make her happy? After all she was his daughter."
Fenwick paused as though he were considering whether he should tell me what he knew.
I prompted him gently: "It's my family, you know. We're talking about my father. If there is anything strange about the family, I should know it, surely."
He said: "Your father was not sure that Silva was his daughter."
"Not sure!"
"She was known as such. Well, his first wife, Effie, was unfaithful to him. That was when things began to go sour. He went away on business and was sometimes gone for as much as three or four months. Silva was born seven months after his return. She was a perfectly well formed child but at first it was thought that she was a seven months' baby—and later people said that accounted for her ways. Whether she was or not is not certain. But your father discovered that her mother had had a lover and he half believed that Silva was the result of that liaison. Your father was not a forgiving man. He himself had followed a strict moral code and he felt it was incumbent on others to do likewise. There were violent scenes and during one of them Effie broke down and confessed that she had been unfaithful. She wouldn't admit though that Silva was the result of this. The fact was that your father was never sure and the sight of the child roused all his suspicions and he could not bear to look at her. Effie died of pneumonia when the child was quite young; she had never taken very much care of herself. Her life was unhappy but she did worry a great deal about Silva."
"Poor Silva! Couldn't my father see that whatever had happened wasn't her fault?"
"He could see that of course, but he didn't want to see her all the same. He used to say: 'Keep that child out of my sight.'"
"She knew it," I cried. "It warped her life. It was cruel of him."
"Self-righteous people are often cruel, Miss Kellaway. And I didn't think you'd really like to hear too much about your father's life."
"But I want to know. Then he married my mother. What of their life together?"
"He hoped for something from that. He met your mother on one of his trips to London and he changed a little when he brought her back to the Island. But she found the place oppressive. She felt cut off and was far from happy here. They weren't compatible and I think he was very disillusioned when he realized he had made another mistake. The fact is, Miss Kellaway, he was not a man for marriage. His temper was too short; he expected too much. It was the same with the Island. He was not popular with the people. He was too stern. He called himself just and he was, but people like human feelings in their relationships. If they get that, they'll forgive a little injustice now and then. As a matter of fact, the Island is a much happier place now—and oddly enough more prosperous—than it was in your father's time."
"Jago is for the Island heart and soul," I said.
"Jago is a very ambitious man—in a great many ways more suited to rule the Island than your father was. Your father resented Jago in a way because he knew this. There was often a sort of tension between them. Jago, on the other hand, believes himself to be so much more capable of running the Island—which indeed he proved himself to be—and I suppose naturally he felt a certain bitterness because he belonged to the illegitimate branch of the family."
"My father realized this since he left everything to Jago, I suppose."
Fenwick looked at me incredulously. "But by now you must be aware of the contents of the will."
"My father's will, you mean?"
"Certainly. You are the heiress of the Island. I know your age, because I remember the year you were born. You will be twenty-one next year and that is when you will come into your inheritance."
"My inheritance?"
"Certainly. Your father was a man with a strong sense of justice.
You were his daughter. He was sure of that as he could not be sure of your half sister. Jago was to hold the estate in trust for you until you were twenty-one, when it becomes yours. If you died without heirs your half sister—because after all he was not entirely sure that she was not his daughter also—was to inherit. In the event of your both dying without heirs, everything was to go to Jago. So Jago now holds the Island until your twenty-first birthday."
I was astounded. I, who had thought of myself so often as the Poor Relation, had, all the time, been a considerable heiress.
"Your father was a very rich man, Miss Kellaway. Of course, his fortune is all tied up in the Island, but with the price of land as it is today and the prosperity of the Island—particularly in the last few years—you stand to inherit something in the region of a million pounds."
I... a millionairess!
"It's fantastic," I cried. "Are you sure this is true? I have heard nothing of it."
"I am astonished. Surely Jago informed you of all this when you came to the Island. I heard you were there and I thought you had come because of this."
"I knew nothing of it. I was invited to come on a visit because of something tragic which had happened in London."
He nodded. "Yes, I know. It was in the papers. It's most extraordinary."
"Are you sure you are not mistaken?"
"I may be, of course. I should be very surprised if I were though. Your father discussed these matters often with me. I was more than a secretary. I used to look after him personally. He trusted me. We were of a kind, and I understood his ways. He said it was unfortunate that he had not known you since you were three years old; he said that on his death you must return to the Island and learn about it and he hoped that you would come to love it. He knew how dedicated Jago was to the place and that he was leaving it in good hands, and he hoped that you would realize that Jago was necessary to the Island and to you. 'Of course,' he once said to me, 'she will marry no doubt and if she has a husband he might be able to do for the Island all that Jago does. That will be a matter for her to decide.'"
I was speechless. This had completely changed my outlook on everything that had happened. I, the heiress of the Island. I ... a millionairess on my twenty-first birthday—and that but a few months distant.
I said at length: "I came here hoping to learn something about my father and Silva, whom I believe to be my half sister, and instead I learn this."
"My great surprise is that you didn't already know."
"I thought I was there as Jago's guest. I was sure he was what I thought of as Lord of the Island. Perhaps you have been mistaken."
"There is a possibility of that. I will give you the address of your father's solicitors. Go and see them and hear the truth."
"Shouldn't they have been in touch with me if this were true?"
"Yes. Perhaps they have been looking for you. It was only since there was this publicity in the papers that it was known where you were."
"My mother went to her mother and then I went to a cousin of hers when she died. I shouldn't have been so very difficult to find."
"It may be that they are looking for you. It's only just a year since your father died and mills of the
law—like those of God—grind slowly."
"Well, I am quite bewildered."
"You must be to find yourself such an heiress."
"It is not that so much . . . although I have yet to consider what it will mean. It is the fact that I knew nothing. . . ."
He looked at me covertly. "Perhaps Jago had his reasons for not telling."
I felt myself flushing. I was seeing Jago on the Sanctuary Island and remembering the manner in which he had kissed me. Why, of course he wanted to marry me! The Island would be mine, and I fancied he loved the Island with a passion he might not be able to give to anything—or anyone—else.
My chief feeling was one of hurt bewilderment. But the scene was falling into place. How wise had I been to come to Mr. Fenwick. He was telling me too much for my comfort.
"Your father was generous to me," he said. "He left me enough money to live on in comfort for the rest of my life. It is not settled yet—these things take so long; but I had savings of my own and I bought a market garden which was a going concern. But I realized it was not the life for me, so I quickly sold it at a profit and bought this place."
"You have settled down very quickly in a short time."
He had risen and gone to a bureau in the corner of the room. He sat down at this and wrote on a piece of paper, which he handed to me. On it was written "Merry, Fair and Dunn"; and there was an address.
"Your father's solicitors," he said. "Why don't you pay them a call. They will be delighted to see you if they have been trying to contact you, which they must have been since you are the main beneficiary of your father's will. They will confirm—or deny—all that I have told you. All I can say is that your father discussed his intentions very thoroughly with me and I remember the representative of Merry, Fair and Dunn calling at the castle. That was about a year before he died."
"How strange that, having made such a will, he made no attempt to find me."
"He said he didn't want his life complicated at that stage."
"And when did Silva disappear?"
"Only a few months before his death."
Lord of the Far Island Page 26