Carola Dunn (24 page)

“And Osa ate today for the first time since Tuesday,” he told her. “I believe Miss Brand was almost as relieved at the one as at the other.”

“I suppose I understand why it is,” said Beth, sighing, “but it is very hard that Lyn can be with him and I cannot.”

“You shall visit next week without fail,” he promised.

“How long will he be confined to his bed?”

“Several weeks at least, before he can expect to be up and about. And he needs constant attention for a few more days, lest he should start coughing again. I expect Mrs Sutton and Miss Brand will return home at the beginning of next week.”

“At least I shall have Lyn then. With Cousin Gregory gone too, it is very lonely, even though Papa is so much pleasanter now. Francis has been visiting a great deal. I have never known him to be so obliging and sympathetic. Indeed I told him that if he always behaved so and if I were not in love with you, I might consider accepting his offer!”

“How very glad I am that you are in love with me, my darling!” responded Mr Leigh, and the rest of their conversation was of interest to no one but themselves.

“Dom is really getting better?” Beth asked as they parted.

“Yes, beloved, he is.”

It was apparent even to Angel’s anxious eye that Lord Dominic was considerably improved. His breathing had eased and he ate docilely what was put before him. He had a couple of alarming coughing spells, but the second produced scarcely any blood. However, his leg ached fiercely, keeping him awake at night, and any slight exertion that made him breathe deeply brought stabbing pains in his chest. He was docile because he was listless and uninterested.

His face always brightened when Angel entered his room, but be never again took her hand, seeming rather to avoid touching her. As she sat by his window with her hateful mending in her lap, she would feel his eyes upon her, but always when she looked up his gaze had withdrawn. Talking was both too much effort and one of the things which made his breathing painful, so they were usually silent. She longed to make him laugh, but that was of all things absolutely forbidden, as certain to bring on a fit of coughing. When they spoke it was of the weather, of the next meal, of Osa; never of her rapidly approaching departure.

“You are growing thin, Angel,” said Aunt Maria severely on Saturday. “I believe you have lost ten pounds in half as many days. You must eat properly, child. You are not worrying about Lord Dominic still, are you?”

“I know he is not at death’s door. Only he was used to be so alive, more alive than anyone I’ve ever met. Now he is so weak and languid, and it hurts me here.” She placed her hand between her breasts. “And then I cannot eat.”

“Perhaps I ought to send you home.”

“Oh, no, Aunt!”

“Catherine is coming on Monday. If you are not eating better by then, I shall send you back with her. We will be leaving Tuesday or Wednesday in any case, I believe. There will be nothing by then that Mr Leigh and the servants cannot manage.”

For the sake of a few extra hours, Angel forced herself to eat.

Chapter 19

Sir Gregory returned to Grisedale Hall late on Sunday evening. Beth had no chance to speak to him privately that night, but the next morning they went riding in the park and she told him how ill Dom had been.

“I’d not have left had I realised how serious it was,” he said. “I thought he merely received a ducking. He is out of danger now?”

“Gerald said so on Friday. Mrs Sutton and Lyn have been nursing him, but Catherine thought I ought not even to visit. She is going over to Upthwaite today. Do you not think I might go too?”

“I cannot think it wise, my dear, especially since your father is no longer confined to his room. And did you not promise him a game of chess this afternoon?”

“Yes. I suppose you are right. If only I could at least see Gerald!”

“This situation will not last much longer, Beth. Oh, here comes Welch, devil take the man!”

“He has been very comforting this past week. I have come almost to like him. Good morning, Francis.”

“Morning, Beth. You back, are you, Markham?”

“As you see.”

Sir Gregory’s air of cynical boredom had an edge of contempt, and it was plain that Lord Welch was none too pleased at his return. As they rode back towards the house Beth struggled to carry the conversation, with indifferent success.

They had nearly reached the stables when Abel came riding towards them with a note for Beth. She read it quickly.

“I cannot go!” she cried. “Gerald wants to see me just at the time I am to play chess with Papa. Abel, you will have to take a message to Upthwaite vicarage.”

“I have to be getting back now,” interrupted Lord Welch. “I’ll take a message, Beth. You are supposed to be meeting Leigh?”

“Yes, on the Crag at two. If only he had made it later, but I daresay he is busy as usual. Will you tell him I cannot come, Francis?’’

“Willingly.” His lordship had a glitter in his eye. It was not to be supposed that the relaying of such a message to his rival could give him anything but pleasure. He took his leave in a hurry and rode off at a canter.

Sir Gregory looked after him thoughtfully.

“An excessively short visit,” he commented.

“I was going to ask him to tell Gerald I must see him tomorrow,” said Beth with a sigh. “Then I decided it was hardly fair. I will write later.”

“Two o’clock on the Crag?” asked her cousin. “I believe I shall ride that way.”

“Do you think he might not deliver the message? He might hope that Gerald would be angry when I did not come.

“He might indeed.”

“Well, I shall be prodigious annoyed with Francis if he does not warn him.”

“The more I consider the matter, my dear, the more I’d be prepared to wager that warning your sweetheart is the last thing his lordship has in mind.”

“Then he is odious after all. I shall give you a letter for Gerald. Or come to think of it, I could send Abel over, then you need not go.”

“No, no, do not do that! Suppose we have misjudged Welch and he should see Abel on the same errand? No, Beth, leave things as they are. I do believe that this may turn out to be precisely the occasion I have been hoping for.”

Beth would have liked to ask for an explanation of that cryptic utterance, but they had entered the house by now and Mrs Daventry was at hand.

“I quite thought I saw Lord Welch riding with you,” she said, “and so I told your papa, Lady Elizabeth, and he remarked that you have an excessively persistent suitor though he did not say ‘excessively’ only I cannot repeat that word, and I had thought he favoured Lord Welch but he sounded quite vexed so I am sure I cannot—”

“Perhaps, having seen so much of Welch this week,” interrupted Sir Gregory, “he has discovered that he is not after all the ideal husband for Beth.”

Mrs Daventry expressed her disagreement at length, until luncheon and Lord Grisedale’s presence silenced her.

Meanwhile, Catherine was lunching at Upthwaite vicarage. She was shocked to see how thin Angel had grown, in spite of her noble efforts to dispose of a substantial plateful of her favorite foods. They seemed no longer to hold any attraction.

Mrs Sutton had consulted Catherine on the wisdom of sending Angel home a day early.

“Let her stay, Mother,” was the response. “One day can have no lasting effect on her health. We must hope that the knowledge that she is to leave will nudge Dom into speaking.”

“He is still very unwell, dearest. I think it excessively unlikely that he will have anything to say to Angel at present, even if he should wish to. And I have seen no sign that her affection is reciprocated, I am afraid.”

“Poor Angel!”

Gerald Leigh was soon another object of sympathy. Half an hour before he had intended to leave for Dowen Crag and his meeting with Beth, he received an urgent call from an outlying farm.

“Forrester and young Billy have gone down to Patterdale,” he despaired. “There is no one I can send to explain why I cannot be there. She will think I have abandoned her.”

“I will go and meet her,” proposed Catherine. “I have had scarcely any exercise this past week, it is a beautiful day, and it is not so far from here as from Grisedale.”

“Will you really go? I fear I cannot even offer you a horse as we have no sidesaddle.”

“No matter. I feel guilty that I have not seen more of Beth while everyone else has been otherwise occupied, and this will appease my conscience. I had better leave at once, I expect. I was going to leave soon anyway, Mother, so I will walk home with Beth. Good-bye, Lyn dear. I shall see you both when you come home tomorrow.”

It was pleasant in the green shade of the woods, but the last part of the climb was exhausting. Catherine was not wearing her stout walking shoes and the stony track bruised her feet. Reaching the top hot and tired, she found she had arrived first and went out on the overhang to look down towards Grisedale.

As she stepped onto the huge rock, she thought she felt it quiver. Nonsense, she told herself, don’t be a goosecap! It had always made her slightly nervous, and this was the first time she had been here alone. Pure imagination! She moved forward to obtain a better view of the path.

“Miss Sutton, come back!” called Lord Welch’s voice urgently.

She turned to see where he was. He came running down the steep grass slope beyond the track, with such a strange, wild look on his face that she stepped back in alarm.

With a terrifying rumble, the boulder beneath her tilted. She fell to her knees, scrabbled for a fingerhold, as an avalanche of earth, pebbles, and uprooted bushes slid towards her, engulfed her, swept her over the edge.

“Catherine!” came a despairing cry, the last thing she was aware of before blackness closed in.

How long she was unconscious she could not tell. Awareness came back gradually. The first thing she knew was that she ached all over, then that someone was bathing her face with cool water. Sound resolved itself into birdsong, the sough of wind in leafy branches, and a gentle but insistent voice.

“Kate, Kate, my little love, you’re safe now. Catherine, dear heart, speak to me.”

She would have liked to lie there forever, listening, but behind the gentleness was a note of anguish. She opened her eyes.

“Gregory,” she murmured.

A huge relief lit his face and he bent and kissed her lips. Softly, tenderly as before, but not briefly this time, until she raised one scratched, bruised arm to his shoulder and pulled away.

“I feel a little dizzy.”

“From your injuries, my own, or from . . .”

“Must it be one or the other?”

“Oh, Kate, Kate!” he groaned, burying his face in her hair, which had come loose from its pinnings and spread in tangled disarray, spilling off the folded coat that pillowed her head and coiling across the grass. “Kate, I thought you were dead. I nearly killed him on the spot but I could not believe it, could not abandon hope!”

“Lord Welch?” She frowned painfully. “What happened? I remember seeing him just before . . .”

“He has been trying to kill Leigh. Dominic was riding his sorrel, remember? And everyone knows that he rows across the lake every Thursday. Had the boat collapsed halfway across Ullswater instead of in the shallows, the result might have been very different. He forced poor Herbert into helping by threatening to leave him homeless for the winter. Though it is doubtful whether the half-wit realised what he was doing. In any case, I removed him from the scene, so the viscount had to do his own dirty work this time.’’

“I don’t understand.”

“Having, he thought, made certain that Leigh would be here and Beth would not, he took a pickaxe and shovel to the underpinnings of the great rock. And dirty work it was! It is possible he might have explained away his presence in hiding behind a bush, and even his shouted warning to you. But he will find it difficult to persuade me that there is an innocent reason for the filthy state of his clothing, and I’ll wager there are blisters on his hands.”

“Gregory, what are you going to do?” Catherine asked in alarm.

“Merely confront him with the fact that I have Herbert’s ‘signed’ and witnessed confession, plus a great deal of circumstantial evidence. I shall suggest that he might find it healthy to remove to another part of the country.”

“No! He will try to kill you, too!”

“I don’t think so, my love. He has always been rather afraid of me, whereas he despises Leigh. I shall take precautions, however, if you care what becomes of me?”

“I do, you know I do. Gregory, be careful! I am black and blue all over!

“And for that,” he said savagely, “I shall ignore the fact that he is not up to my weight and knock him down as many times as he will get up!”

“I had not thought myself bloodthirsty, but I find I should almost wish to watch you do it. It was quite the horridest experience I have ever been through. And I cannot imagine how you succeeded in rescuing me from the bottom of that cliff.”

“It is not the least use asking me, for I have no idea. If I had stopped to consider I should have been certain it was impossible. And if the rock had fallen rather than tilted, there’d not have been anything to rescue. I shall knock Welch down at least three times, even if I have to pick him up in between.”

“It is hard to believe that he is a murderer. He very nearly managed to kill Lord Dominic by mistake. It was touch and go for a day or two, according to Mother, and he is still very ill.”

“He is? Beth gave me the impression that he was well on the way to recovery. This charade has gone on long enough! My uncle must at least he given the opportunity of taking the lost sheep back into the fold.”

“Do you think he will?”

“Two weeks ago I’d not have laid my money on it at any odds. Now, I believe there is hope. Your little cousin is something of a miracle-worker, you know. But if he does not come around, he will have to run his own estate henceforth. A married man cannot be forever abandoning home and family to see after his uncle’s bailiff.”

Catherine absorbed this in silence for a moment. Then she raised eyes at once amused and shy to his face.