'All things are relative, of course. Is it possible for you to set aside a room in the house solely for my use as a consulting-room?'
'That presents a slight difficulty. I have to find sleeping accommodation for eight extra people, as I think Judith told you, and as only two of them can be asked to share, space is at a premium. I wonder whether you could use your own room? It is spacious, and I can supply you with a table on which to write your notes, and a couch on which Trilby could lie. I thought that, if you had your sessions with Trilby between tea and dinner, you could still take your afternoon walk, or your nap, or anything else you choose to do, between lunch and tea, and so have that time and your mornings and evenings to yourself or with us.'
'That would appear reasonable. Very well. I will see her at a quarter to six.'
'Excellent. Then we will dine at eight, if that will suit you. I don't know how long you will spend with her each day?'
'Not more than an hour, and it may be a good deal less.'
'I suppose you use the "stream of consciousness" method.'
Dame Beatrice did not reply to this. She said, as though she had not heard him, 'Or we could use Rosamund's own sanctum, I suppose. She might be more at ease there than in my bedroom.'
Romilly laughed.
'She might, but I do not think you would,' he said. 'She is the most untidy young creature in the world. The servants try to maintain some kind of law and order among her things, but I'm afraid it's a thankless task. However, they are quite devoted to her in their bucolic, country-bumpkin way. Not over-blessed with intelligence, I'm afraid, but there seems to be so much inbreeding in small villages that it is scarcely surprising to find the indigenous people not much better than morons.'
Dame Beatrice thought of the willing, kindly Amabel, who 'loiked poertry' and who, with her sister, had given George some information which he, a notably intelligent man, had certainly accepted at its face value, and she found herself by no means in agreement with Romilly's summing-up of his servants' mentality. However, she did not contradict him. She was interested to hear that she was expected to turn her bedroom into a consulting-room. She had not been shown the whole house, but it was a three-storey building and, even allowing for the long gallery which went from the front to the back of the house on the first floor, and the loss of the floor or floors over the great hall which had been demolished to leave the three-sided inside balcony from which her own and other rooms opened, Galliard Hall must contain at least twenty bedrooms, apart from those occupied by the servants.
The only conclusion she could come to was that possibly all the rooms on the second floor, except the servants' quarters, were unfurnished and out of use. With only two maids, a manservant, a cook (whom Dame Beatrice had not seen) and a housekeeper, it was probable that not nearly all the rooms in the mansion received attention.
She went up to her room when the trip to Swanage was over, taking with her the newspaper which Romilly had bought for her. It was almost time for lunch, so she tidied herself and listened for the sound of the gong. While she waited she walked over to the picture of the two young men and studied it afresh. For some reason, her thoughts turned to her secretary Laura, who displayed at times a vivid imagination and a sense of the dramatic. Laura she thought, having been apprised of the fact that the household was, in some respects, a strange one, and having encountered Rosamund, with her complaints, fears and suspicions, would have regarded the picture with a prejudiced and jaundiced eye. On impulse, she reached up and took it down. Behind it there was a neat, foot-square hole in the party wall, and the picture, which was on thin canvas with no protecting glass, had been put up to conceal this.
It was clear, she thought, why her own room had been chosen for her treatment of Rosamund Lestrange. Somebody-most likely the master of the house-must be determined to overhear all that passed between Dame Beatrice and her patient. She realised now why Rosamund had sought her out while Romilly was downstairs. Rosamund must also know that there was an opening in the wall behind the picture.
She was far too old and experienced to be surprised by the lengths to which human curiosity can go, but, in view of the facts in this particular case, so far as she knew them, the large, neat hole seemed to indicate something a little more reprehensible than mere curiosity. She replaced the picture and, hearing the gong sound for lunch, went thoughtfully down the stairs. Once again there were only the three of them at table.
'Well,' said Judith brightly, 'how did you think Swanage was looking?'
'I saw little of it,' Dame Beatrice replied. 'It is a pleasant town, and I am thinking of taking my patient to visit it this afternoon. It will help with the beginning of her treatment.'
'Oh, but, my dear Beatrice,' said Romilly, in the utmost dismay, 'surely that would be most unwise! The very thing we have to watch most carefully is that she does not go near the sea!'
'That may be your opinion, but it is not mine, and, as I am in charge of the case, I must be permitted to conduct it in my own way. My theory is that we should give your wife every opportunity to drown anything she pleases. It is the best way to cure her of her obsession. I have decided to follow the principle laid down by makers of cream cakes and sweetmeats, that of allowing their workpeople to eat as much as they wish of the product they are making. The novelty wears off and the appetite is very soon satiated. In my opinion, the frustration which your wife must feel in not being allowed to follow a course of conduct which satisfies her-'
'But there is the risk that Trilby may drown, not merely trivial objects and small mammals, but herself!' exclaimed Romilly.
'That risk, in any case, will be considerably less from a bathing-beach, where I shall be in charge of her, than from the cliffs, for instance, above Chapman's Pool, or-according to the photographs I have seen-I do not know the place-the rocks of Dancing Ledge. As you yourself have told me, she has been able, on occasion, to elude your vigilance and to reach that part of the coast alone.'
'Well, I think it's a lot of nonsense!' Judith blurted out. 'Of course she mustn't go near the water!'
'My dear girl!' said Romilly. 'You must not talk like that! My cousin Beatrice, in her own field, is an expert. If,' he went on, turning to her, 'you feel that to take poor Trilby to the seaside will help her in any way, of course you must do as you wish. The only thing is that either Judith or myself must come with you. I could not permit you to take the risk of being alone there with my poor, misguided little girl.'
'Even at this time of year, we should hardly be alone at Swanage. Besides, my chauffeur will be there if I need any help. The worst thing for Rosamund, in my opinion, would be for those nearest her to be eavesdroppers on our conversations,' said Dame Beatrice equably.
'Eavesdroppers?' cried Judith, indignantly.
'For want of a more euphemistic term, yes, eavesdroppers,' Dame Beatrice repeated firmly. 'That is how the patient would interpret your presence, I'm afraid.'
Judith rose from the table.
'I give up,' she said. 'The whole idea is crazy, and your reference to Uncle Romilly and myself is extremely offensive.'
'Sit down at once, Judith,' said Romilly, in a mild tone but with a clear command behind the softly-spoken words. 'We must allow Beatrice to act in the way she thinks best. After the first time, I doubt whether she herself will wish to continue the experiment alone.'
Dame Beatrice had no hope that she would be able to see her charge before the other two had spoken to her. She also wondered whether Rosamund would appear in the Joan of Arc costume. Before they rose from table-Judith having preserved a sulky silence after her last outburst, and Romilly having avoided the disputed subject and chatted with apparent amiability on trivial matters-Dame Beatrice said smoothly:
'Can Mrs Romilly be ready to join me at half-past two?'
Judith shrugged her shoulders. Romilly bowed and replied:
'Of course, of course, my dear Beatrice. I am afraid you'll find her incredibly costumed. Sh
e refuses to wear modern dress, and flies into a paroxysm if I suggest it.'
'Well, I'm often incredibly costumed myself,' said Dame Beatrice, accurately. At half-past two, then, I look forward to meeting her.'
'I wonder how she'll get herself up?' said Judith. 'Oh, well, it's her affair-and yours. Not that she hasn't plenty of sensible clothes if she chooses to wear them.' She turned to Romilly. 'Why don't you make her unlock that wardrobe and get out some respectable clothes and insist she put them on?'
'How does one insist, my dear? I can hardly threaten her, and, even if I did, I doubt whether she would take much notice.'
'You're far too soft with her, don't you think so, Dame Beatrice?'
'Oh, come, my dear girl! How can Beatrice answer such a question when, so far, she knows nothing whatever about Trilby?'
'I would not say I know nothing whatever about her,' objected Dame Beatrice. 'You yourself have been most informative. As for insisting on what a patient does or does not do, well, that depends either upon the patient's intelligent and friendly cooperation or, of course, her fear of death.'
'Fear of death?' echoed Romilly, forcing himself to laugh. 'Good heavens, there's no question of her fearing death! Why should there be?'
'Most people fear death to a greater or a lesser degree, and for a variety of reasons, do they not?'
'Oh, I see what you mean,' said Romilly. 'Yes, well, look here, Judith, my dear, if Beatrice is going to take Trilby out, it will be a convenient time for me to go over the household accounts with you.'
Judith pouted at this, and said that it was quite unnecessary.
Dame Beatrice went to her room to get ready for the outing, then she rang the bell.
'Oh, Amabel,' she said, 'will you ask my man to bring the car round? I am taking Mrs Romilly for an outing to Swanage.'
'Be rare and cold on the beach this toime of year, Dame Beatrice, mum. Swanage be bracen. Face east, that do, more nor south.'
'Yes, I had thought of that. We may need rugs. Will you tell George to get them out of the boot, and perhaps you or Violet will make sure that they are aired before he puts them ready for us on the back seat.' (If Rosamund's costume were a little too bizarre, she thought, the rugs would cover it up to some extent.)
'Oi'll do that, Dame Beatrice, mum. Be noice for poor Messus Trelby to go out proper. A fair old lettle hen en a pen her be, I do believe. Can't thenk how she aboide et, really Oi carn't.'
'She looks well enough on it,' said Dame Beatrice carelessly. Feeling herself dismissed, which was indeed the case, Amabel went downstairs to rout out George and the rugs. As soon as she was out of hearing, Dame Beatrice stepped out on to the gallery and turned the handle of the door next to her own. It was locked. This she found especially intriguing in view of the hole which had been made in the wall.
She went back to her own room, took down the picture and studied the hole again. It was not cut flush with the wall, which was of brick, but had been made in the form of one of those so-called squints in old churches which are cut obliquely through a wall or a pillar to give a view of the high altar from a side-chapel or a transept.
The purpose of the squint in her bedroom seemed to be to give a view of the head of the bed. Again she thought of the romantically-minded Laura. Anybody pointing a gun through the squint from the room next door would stand a pretty fair chance, she decided, of putting a bullet through the head of anybody asleep in the four-poster. Although its frame-work, consisting of four tall posts and the tester they supported, was complete, there were no curtains to the bed.
'I wonder how many persons have been done to death in this room since the early days of the seventeenth century?' she asked herself pleasurably. Then she reflected that the squint might have been made for beneficient purposes-to watch over a sick person or to make certain that a beloved child was sleeping soundly. She replaced the picture once more and then went across to the bed and attempted to move it out of the line of fire. She realised that, apart from George and the two maids, there was nobody in the house whom she could trust. This included Rosamund, although why she felt so deeply suspicious of the apparently friendless and lonely girl she would have found difficult to explain.
She went over in her mind the last night's interview. 'I don't know how they're going to kill me, but they will.... They're having lots of people to come and stay, you know. They hope in that way to frighten me.' Neither expression rang true. 'They don't like me to meet people from outside.' That remark was illogical, to say the least, considering that Dame Beatrice herself, and the number of people who were to come and stay, were all from outside. 'I like to keep my room to myself.' Why did she, Dame Beatrice wondered. Rosamund had noticed that the picture which hid the squint had not been there before the room was prepared for Dame Beatrice. If that were so, it seemed to indicate, even more clearly than her surreptitious visit had done, that she must have known of the squint. Yet, this being so, she had still chosen to come, in apparent secrecy, to the room, knowing all the while that anybody in the adjoining apartment could have heard her voice, known who she was and listened to the conversation between herself and Dame Beatrice.
Dame Beatrice could not move the bed. It appeared to be fastened to the floor, like a bed in a cabin at sea. Dame Beatrice borrowed another of her secretary's favourite quotations. 'Curiouser and curiouser,' she murmured, and, having studied the iron clamps, she straightened up, hearing footsteps on the wooden floor of the gallery.
CHAPTER THREE
MORRIS DANCE-BEANSETTING
'...some to dance, some to make bonfires...'
Othello, the Moor of Venice.
(1)
Amabel had returned with a message.
'Mr Straker says O.K. about the rugs, Dame Beatrice, and well et be all roight ef he breng the car round to the soide door, as Mester have gev orders Messus Trelby ent to be seen front the house.'
'Oh, you all call her Mrs Trilby, not Mrs Lestrange, do you? She is still in fancy costume, then?'
'Never don't wear nawthen else nowadays, though there's a beg locked-up wardrobe in her room.'
'I see. Tell George that I will be at the side door in five minutes' time. Where do I find this door, by the way?'
'Roight through the hall, along the corridor off to the roight, through the arch as ee'll foind there, and there et be. Carn't mess et, ef you go loike Oi say.'
Dame Beatrice found Rosamund under guard, as it were, with George standing on one side of her, the elderly, sour-faced Luke on the other, and Amabel's younger sister hovering in the doorway just behind the other three. This time Rosamund was wearing a heavily-caped George III costume, with a tricorne on her head and buckled shoes on her feet. Her brown wig, Dame Beatrice noted, was not powdered, but was loosely tied at the back with a black, watered silk ribbon. She looked extremely attractive.
George opened the door of the car, saw his employer seated and then went round to the other side and helped Rosamund in.
'Swanage, George,' said Dame Beatrice, for Luke's benefit, in case he had been told to report back to his master. George saluted, shut the car door with the brisk click of a man who cares for his car's doors sufficiently not to slam them, and took his seat at the wheel. The gravel side-path up which he had backed the car (for there was no room to turn) was narrow and weedgrown, and, as he drove slowly towards the main drive, overhanging branches struck the car on both sides. At each sharp crack Rosamund flinched and glanced quickly at Dame Beatrice. Over-acting again, her companion thought.
'Surely,' said the latter, 'they don't offer you violence, do they?'
'Not yet, but I feel it's only a matter of time,' the girl responded. 'It's the car. It makes me nervous. I haven't been in a car since Romilly brought me back from Dancing Ledge.'
'Where you drowned what?'
'I don't drown things. I told you I don't! That's just a story they put about. They try to convince me, too. They're trying to prey on my mind.'
'I see. What were you doing at Dancing Ledge, then?'
'I was running away.'
'When was that?'
'Just over a year ago. It was soon after Romilly became my guardian.'
'You mean your husband. And it was three years ago.'
The girl stared at her.
'Romilly isn't my husband. I'm his ward,' she said. 'I've only lived with him and Judith for about a year.'
'I see.' Dame Beatrice betrayed no surprise at receiving this information. 'Why did you want to run away?'
'Wouldn't you want to run away if you knew that they were after your money, and would get it, even if they had to kill you first?'
'You mentioned money and murder to me yesterday. What money would this be?'
The girl pulled off hat and wig, flung them down and kicked at them. As she did so, something heavy in the pocket of her long travelling-coat struck her companion on the knee.
'My money,' she replied. 'It was left me, but there are some silly, unfair conditions. You see, when I die, unless I have children, Romilly and Judith will have it all. That's why I'm so frightened. Of course, until I'm twenty-five, I can't have it, but neither can they, so I'm sure they want to keep me alive until then. After that, unless someone will help me, I think I'm doomed. Those two are capable of anything, and, alone and friendless, I'm helpless against them.'
'You say that until you reach the age of twenty-five you cannot claim your inheritance. That I can understand. Many families prefer the heir to be older than twenty-one before trusting him or her with a fortune. I also understand that the next heir, should you die without issue, is Romilly Lestrange. What I do not understand is why he cannot inherit if you die before you are twenty-five.'
'I don't understand it, either. It's something to do with my grandfather's will. It's all very unsatisfactory and puzzling. It seems, according to the lawyers, that if I die before the age of twenty-five, all the money goes to some old lady called Bradley. That's as much as I know. That's if Romilly has told me the truth, of course.'
'I thought you said that the lawyers had told you all this.'
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