Bel Lamington

by D. E. Stevenson

  “You can’t possibly go back to your flat with that young rotter dropping in on you at any moment,” declared Rhoda in horrified tones. “It isn’t the right thing at all.”

  “It would be a frightful nuisance.”

  “A nuisance! It would be much more than a nuisance. It wouldn’t be safe. Honestly, Bel,” said Rhoda earnestly. “You simply aren’t fit to be loose.”

  “Not fit to be loose?”

  “You need a keeper,” explained Rhoda kindly. “You can’t rely upon your Guardian Angel being always on the job—but never mind, we don’t need to worry. You can stay at Tassieknowe as long as you like. James and I love having you and even when Flockie comes back she won’t be fit to do a great deal. I must have somebody to help her, and that somebody had better be you.”

  “But Miss Flockhart may not like me,” said Bel in doubtful tones.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  At Tassieknowe the midday meal was the main meal of the day and when it was over Bel was free to go out. Sometimes she walked along the river and sometimes she walked over the hills. Her favourite spot was a cranny in the hills high up above Tassieknowe. She came here quite often and sat in a sheltered place amongst the rocks. There was a wonderful view from here; she could see the road winding up the valley beside the river; she could look down upon the farm. It looked very small from here—like a toy farm—and the people who moved about on their lawful occasions looked like toy-people. There was a rowan-tree growing amongst the rocks; it was twisted and gnarled by the winter winds but it was immensely strong and sturdy. To Bel this tree was a mystery for there were no other trees near. Perhaps long ago a bird had dropped a rowan-berry amongst the rocks. How else could it have come? There was a tiny rivulet near by—a baby burn that welled into a bowl of moss and overflowed, trickling down the hill.

  One afternoon when Bel had been in her new job for about a fortnight she was sitting in her favourite nook. She saw a car come up the road from the direction of Drumburly and turn in at the gates of Tassieknowe and, after an interval of about ten minutes, she saw somebody come through the farm-gate and walk up the hill. It was a man—she could see that—and he was walking briskly as though he had a definite purpose.

  A bird soared—and Bel watched it. When she looked again the man was nearer, near enough for her to see that he was wearing grey slacks and a grey pullover. He was hatless and his thick brown hair was ruffled by the breeze. Bel watched him idly. It was unusual to see anybody on the hill, except the shepherd, and this certainly was not Sutherland.

  Bel expected the man to turn and walk along the old cart-track which led to the quarry but he crossed it and came on to where she was sitting.

  It was not until he was quite near that she recognised him and even then she could scarcely believe her eyes.

  It was Ellis Brownlee.

  Bel was so amazed, so absolutely flabbergasted to see him that she could neither move nor speak. She had thought of him as being in America attending the conference in New York . . . and here he was at Tassieknowe! She could give him no greeting; she could only gaze at him.

  He came and stood and looked down at her. “It’s taken me weeks to find you,” he said.

  “Weeks—to find me!”

  “You vanished.” He sat down as he spoke. He was smiling at her. His skin was tanned and he was thinner, but he had the same smile; his eyes crinkled at the corners in exactly the same way.

  By this time Bel had recovered a little from her astonishment. “Did you say you had been looking for me?” she asked incredulously.

  “Searching high and low. Surely you knew I would look for you?”

  “Look for me?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I thought you were still in New York.”

  “It’s wonderful how quickly you can get about the world if you put your mind to it.”

  “I don’t understand,” she declared.

  “You will—in time. There’s no hurry now that I’ve found you. We can leave all the explanations until later. This is a lovely place, isn’t it?” he added.

  He took out his pipe and filled it and lighted it, sheltering the match with his cupped hands; he began to smoke peacefully, looking about him with pleasure.

  “I’ve seen lots of beautiful places during my travels,” he continued, “but nothing to beat this. You’ve chosen a wonderful place to hide in.”

  The strange thing was that he looked in his element. Bel had seen him in London, dressed in formal clothes, and he had looked in his element there. Here, on this bare hillside, he was still himself but he did not seem out of place. Bel thought he looked exactly like the little boy in the photograph which Mrs. Brownlee had shown her; the photograph of Ellis digging on the sands.

  “I’m always finding you in strange places,” continued Ellis after a short silence. “Do you remember that day in London when I discovered you in your queer little backwater having your lunch? We talked about people being different sorts of people when they were in different places.”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “Well, here we are! We’re several hundred miles away from that little back-water. We’re in a very different sort of place. Are we the same people or not?”

  Bel was not sure. She said, “But Mr. Brownlee, don’t let’s bother about that. I want to know what has happened.”

  “There’s an awful lot to explain,” he said with a sigh.

  “Please tell me first of all why you were looking for me.”

  “No, Bel, that comes at the end. I think I had better begin by telling you what brought me home in such a tearing hurry. It was a cable and it just said, ‘We think you had better come back immediately’ and it was signed ‘Frances Brownlee, James Copping’.”

  “Those two!” exclaimed Bel in astonishment.

  “Those two,” he agreed. “Mother and Jim in cahoots! I can’t think of anything that would have brought me home quicker. I chucked the conference; I chucked everything and caught the first plane I could get. I had never flown across the Atlantic before and the weather was perfect but I didn’t enjoy the trip. I was worrying far too much—wondering what the dickens had happened. I couldn’t think of anything to fit.”

  “How do you mean—‘anything to fit’?”

  “Don’t you see? Mother and Jim on the warpath together! That’s what puzzled me. It seemed inexplicable. This is what I thought: supposing Mr. Copping had taken a turn for the worse the cable would have been despatched by Mrs. Copping—and possibly Jim. If Rose Hill had been burnt to the ground Mother would have got in a panic and sent for me. If something ghastly had happened at the wharf Wills would have cabled. If Wills had pegged out suddenly the cable would have come from the office. See what I mean?”

  “Yes,” said Bel. She began to laugh.

  Ellis Brownlee laughed too but not very heartily. “Oh yes, it seems rather funny now, but believe me it wasn’t a bit funny at the time.”

  “What had happened?”

  “Oh, it’s quite simple when you know. Jim blew in as usual to translate the letters and of course you weren’t there, so he asked Miss Goudge and she told him you had been dismissed at a moment’s notice. Jim could scarcely believe his ears! When he did believe them he marched straight into Wills’s room to demand the reason. You’ve got a doughty champion in James Copping, Bel.”

  “Oh, what did he say!” exclaimed Bel in horrified tones.

  “Apparently he said quite a lot. He began by telling Wills that he had no right whatever to dismiss my secretary. Wills replied that he was in full charge of the affairs of the firm and therefore had the right to dismiss anyone who was incompetent; Jim replied that you were extremely capable—he had worked with you so he knew.

  “Then Wills said that Jim had no right whatever to question his decisions and Jim said he was representing the head of the firm and went on to remind Wills that his great grandfather had founded the firm and therefore he had a moral status if not a legal one. Wills didn’t
like that much. I’ve sometimes thought that Wills is a bit jealous of the Coppings. Anyhow, according to Jim, he began to get ‘a bit ratty’.”

  Bel could imagine it!

  “That didn’t worry Jim,” continued Ellis. “As a matter of fact ‘our Mr. James’ is a courageous person with no fear of man nor beast. I believe his great grandfather had the same characteristic. So the interview continued; it was a pretty stormy interview, I gather. Wills lost his temper completely. Jim says he went round the bend, gibbered like a maniac and nearly had a fit.”

  “Oh, goodness!” cried Bel, looking at Ellis with eyes as round as saucers.

  “Eventually,” said Ellis, continuing the tale. “Eventually Wills told Jim to go to hell, but instead of obeying orders he took the first bus to Beckenham.”

  “Beckenham?”

  “Yes. Apparently you had told Jim that Mother was ‘very much all there’, or words to that effect, and as he had just had an interview with a maniac he decided she was the right person to see. Jim explained the whole thing to Mother and Mother caught on at once. She may not be a good business woman but she’s extremely intelligent—and of course you had told her a good deal about the state of affairs at the office so she wasn’t really surprised.

  “Mother suggested that Mr. Copping should be consulted, but Jim said no. He explained that he didn’t want to bother ‘the Guv’nor’ but in his opinion a maniac was not a suitable person to be in full control of the firm. Mother agreed. So then they rang up Copping Wharf and got hold of Nelson and discovered that Nelson was intensely worried about the muddle at the office—no sense to be got out of them, important letters unanswered for days, and urgent messages ignored! Mother and Jim wasted no time after that. They put their heads together and concocted the cablegram which brought me tearing home.”

  Bel was silent. There was so much to be thought about that she could find no words.

  Ellis knocked out his pipe and put it away in his pocket. He said, “The first thing I did, when I had heard their story, was to go straight to the office. They didn’t know I was back so it gave them a bit of a shock when I walked in. Wills wasn’t there—he was playing golf or something—and the new man was struggling along on his own. He’s not a bad chap, really, and I think he’ll be quite useful when he finds his feet—but that’s by the way. I was talking to the fellow and trying to get things sorted out when Miss Snow appeared and asked to speak to me in private.”

  “Miss Snow!”

  “Yes, our friend the ice-berg, but she wasn’t quite so ‘icily regular’ as usual. In fact, if you could possibly imagine Miss Snow being a trifle excited and ‘put about’ you can imagine what she looked like.”

  Bel could not imagine it.

  “We had our private chat,” Ellis continued. “At first she was somewhat incoherent but after a little encouragement she got down to brass tacks. She explained that when Miss Goudge was off with ’flu, Mr. Wills had sent her to look for the address book which was kept in Miss Goudge’s desk. Behind the address book there was a little packet of letters.”

  Ellis took the little packet out of his pocket and dropped it into Bel’s lap. “There it is,” he said. “Miss Snow was a bit worried as to what was the correct thing to do. If she had known your address she would have forwarded the letters to you, but you hadn’t left your address so she decided to keep them and hand them to me. I assured her that she had done the right thing which comforted her considerably. Look at the letters, Bel.”

  Bel looked at the little packet, it was secured with an elastic band. There were five letters, written upon flimsy paper; they were unopened. They had come by air-mail from America and were addressed in Ellis Brownlee’s writing to Miss B. Lamington, c/o Copping, Wills and Brownlee.

  “In Miss Goudge’s desk!” exclaimed Bel in horror. “Does that mean——”

  “It means she intercepted them,” said Ellis grimly.

  “Oh no! Oh, surely not! Oh, how dreadful!”

  “Yes, it’s almost incredible, isn’t it.”

  “Incredible!” cried Bel. “Of course I knew she hated me, but how could she have done such a horrible thing! How could she have been so mean!”

  “Despicable,” agreed Ellis. “I felt like sacking the woman then and there—and then I realised it would make a frightful stink.”

  “So you didn’t?”

  “No, I didn’t. I just called her into my room and suggested quite kindly that she might like to resign her post. At first she seemed very much annoyed and then she caught sight of the little packet of letters which happened—just happened—to be lying on my table and she resigned quite gracefully.”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Bel. She added, “You are clever, aren’t you?”

  “Fairly crafty,” he agreed complacently.

  “And you did write to me,” added Bel. Somehow the knowledge that he had written to her as he had promised seemed vastly more important than the despicable behaviour of Miss Goudge.

  “Of course I wrote! I’m not in the habit of breaking my promises. You know that, Bel.”

  “That’s—what I thought,” said Bel with a little catch in her breath. “That’s why I couldn’t—understand.”

  Ellis stretched out his hand and laid it on her knee with a firm pressure. “You understand now, don’t you?” he said. “And perhaps you’re just beginning to understand why I had to find you.”

  There was something in his voice that scared Bel. She gave the subject a slight twist and said quickly, “How did you know I was here?”

  “I didn’t know where you were. You had disappeared and covered your tracks. No murderer could have covered his tracks more completely. Why did you do it, Bel? Why didn’t you write to my mother and tell her what had happened? You have a warm friend there.”

  “I don’t know,” said Bel miserably. “It was all so horrid. I just wanted to get away and forget about it.”

  “Did you succeed in forgetting about it?”

  “Not really,” said Bel.

  *

  2

  Once more they were approaching dangerous ground. Bel pulled herself together. “You haven’t told me how you found me,” she pointed out.

  “Oh, that’s a long story,” declared Ellis Brownlee. “I went to your flat of course and found it all shut up. None of your neighbours knew anything about you except an old chap who lived in the attic. He was frightfully lame, poor old boy. He said he had seen you occasionally on the stairs—but not lately. He said you were friendly with a young man who painted pictures.”

  “Mark Desborough,” said Bel. “Yes, I was friendly with him at one time.”

  Ellis Brownlee looked at her. She had spoken casually and in the past tense which seemed to please him.

  “Oh, I see,” he said cheerfully. “Well, anyhow, that was all the information I could get—so that was a dead end. I had to start again from scratch. Mother and Jim were anxious to find you too, so we went into a huddle and discussed ways and means. It seemed pretty hopeless until Mother suddenly remembered that you had mentioned an Inn—a very interesting old place called The Owl at Shepherdsford. She rather thought you had stayed there for a week-end, but she wasn’t sure. It was all a bit vague but I decided to go and have a look at it. I went down there on Sunday—it was the only day I could go. The place was full, but I managed to get hold of the proprietor and I asked him about you. Your name wasn’t in the visitors’ book, so obviously you hadn’t stayed there, but when I described you he remembered that you had been there to lunch one day with Miss Armstrong. Mrs. Palmer remembered you too, she suggested I should ask Miss Armstrong about you and she gave me the Armstrongs’ address. So then I went over to Ernleigh and found the doctor sitting in the garden and explained the whole thing.

  “The doctor told me you were at Tassieknowe—so I came to Tassieknowe—and Mrs. Dering Johnstone said you were out on the hill—so I climbed the hill. That was how I found you,” added Ellis with a triumphant air.

  Bel was silent.
It seemed most extraordinary that he had taken all that trouble to discover her whereabouts. He had come all the way to Drumburly! All the way to Tassieknowe! Hundreds of miles!

  At last after quite a long silence she said, “But why did you bother. I mean I can’t possibly go back to the office. You wouldn’t want me, would you? Honestly, I simply couldn’t bear it. There would be such a lot of talk—and anyhow I’m not an office sort of person. Really and truly I’m not. And I simply hated all the noise and bustle of London. I was a square peg in a round hole.”

  “You’re happier here?”

  “Much happier. Of course I can’t stay here indefinitely—just until Miss Flockhart is better—and I don’t know what I’m going to do after that, but—but——”

  “We’ll find a square hole for you,” said Ellis Brownlee.

  Bel glanced at him quickly. He looked peaceful and contented. He looked confident and calm. He was absolutely trustworthy; she trusted him completely. He had said he would find a square hole to fit her so there was no need for her to worry any more about the future—no need to worry.

  Bel heaved a sigh of relief and leant back comfortably against the rock.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The explanations were now over and, as it was getting late, Bel and Ellis Brownlee walked back together to Tassieknowe. The family was just sitting down to tea so Rhoda at once asked Ellis to stay and have it with them; he accepted the invitation with alacrity.

  Bel was interested to see how well he fitted in with the Dering Johnstones. In a few minutes they were all chatting together as if they had known each other for years. It was obvious that Rhoda and James liked their guest immensely. He made friends with the boys by the simple means of giving them some Brazilian coins which he happened to have in his pocket. They wanted to know where the coins had come from so Ellis was beguiled into retailing some of his adventures in South America and about his flight home across the Atlantic.