Lydia Trent (8 page)

“
You
have overlooked something,” pointed out Alfred. “The letter
speaks of two girls. Who is Catherine?”

“
Why,
she must be Adeline's sister” gasped Lydia, “and an elder one, if
she was old enough to be married ten years ago.”

“
A
sister!” cried Adeline, “I have another sister? Oh Alfred, we
must solve this mystery. I have been so fortunate in my one sister,
is it possible I could have another? O, where is she, where is she?”

Lydia
and Alfred both attempted to soothe Adeline's agitation.

“
You
had better ask 'Who is she?' - After all, we cannot be sure it is not
just a coincidence. This latter may refer to a completely different
Adeline. We must try and ascertain to whom the letter was addressed
before we jump to conclusions.”

“
Yes,
yes, but how?”

The
little group was silent for few moments, deep in thought, until
suddenly Lydia spoke.

“
If
this letter was delivered through the post in the usual way, then it
will have been removed from the postbag and sorted by the butler. Let
us put a few discreet questions to Mr Scott, and ascertain whether he
remembers any unusual letter around that time.”

“
A
capital idea.” put in Alfred. “Ring the bell and lets have him in
directly.”

Silence
once again reigned in the parlour, each mind racing with his or her
own thoughts, until Mr Scott entered.

“
Yes,
Miss Lydia?” he enquired, “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“
Oh,
Mr Scott,” began Lydia, not altogether sure how to begin the topic,
but then deciding to jump in feet first. “Mr Scott, we have found a
letter, which due to it's sensitive nature really ought to be
returned to the person to whom it is addressed. The trouble is, there
is no envelope, and it is directed simply to 'E', and the contents
leave us no wiser as to whom it was intended for. We were wondering
if you recalled any unusual letter to Estelle, or Bessie, or Mrs
Trent, about the end of May last.”

“
Hmm,
I couldn't rightly say, so many letters pass through my hands in this
house, and that was a good ten months ago. If I could get a look at
the hand, perhaps, for that seems to stick more in my mind, as they
say, more than the directions themselves.”

After
a moment's hesitation, Lydia showed him the top of the sheet, with
the date and the great sprawling 'E'.

“
Stop
a moment, I do recall to have seen that style of an 'E' before. I
recollect now, it did seem a little odd at the time, but I assumed it
might be from some old schoolfriend or such-like, that might not know
the lady's married name, like, though they put Mrs so they must have
known she had married, at any rate. There was a letter come in this
handwriting, addressed to 'Mrs Evelyn Wade'.”

“
It
is true!” gasped Adeline, falling back in her chair. “Oh, poor
Mamma!”

“
Hush
dear,” said Lydia. “Thank-you Mr Scott, you have been most
helpful. We need not trespass on your time any longer.”

“
Thank-you
Miss, glad to be of service” said that worthy functionary,
withdrawing, much mystified by the excitement this revelation seemed
to have caused.

“
Oh,
Alfred, Lydia, we must find my father, we must find my sister!”
cried Adeline.

Alfred,
who had been silent for some time, now spoke.

“
I
think I may know the very person who can help you, my dear, and I
will bring him to you as soon as possible.”

This
person, arriving a week or two later, turned out to be a disreputable
looking gentleman in late middle age, in a greasy waistcoat and
dilapidated boots, which respectable personage Alfred introduced to
the ladies as one Mr Richard Dodd.

“
Detective
Dick to you, my dears, and I hope you good ladies will pardon my
appearance, being obliged to pass as a cockney type just now. At your
service, ladies, at your service. Now, tell me all about it.”

“
Mr
Dodd is a private detective,” explained Alfred, “and a good one
at that. He has very kindly agreed to help us get to the bottom of
this matter. Let us answer any question he cares to put to us, I can
vouch for his confidence.”

“
Silent
as the grave, my dears, where need be.” asserted Mr Dodd. “Now
then, just start at the beginning in your own words.”

“
I
think this letter can tell you better than we can.” said Lydia,
proferring the singed and crumpled paper.

Having
mastered the contents of the letter, and made a copy of it in a
greasy memorandum-book, he at once began to put questions to the
young ladies.

“
Adeline
I assume is one of you young ladies – oh, you, is it miss – but
who is 'E', I mean what is her proper name, and how was the letter
addressed, if you know. I don't suppose you have the envelope, that
would be very helpful, very helpful indeed.”

“
The
lady addressed as 'E' is, we believe, Adeline's mother and my
stepmother, known now as Mrs Evelyn Trent. We do not have the
envelope, but are informed the letter was addressed to Mrs Evelyn
Wade.”

“
Your
informant didn't happen to have a good look at the postmark, did he?
No, shame, shame, it may have been useful to find out what part of
London it was posted in. Still, it seems to me that if the unknown
gentleman is addressing her as 'Mrs Wade, then that is like to be her
proper name – and his too. So, the letter brings us one step
closer, we now know we are looking for a Mr M Wade.

“
Stay,
he writes of coming down to see her – does anyone know if he ever
did? It might be worth me asking round to see what strangers were
about the village last June or July.”

At
this, Adeline turned white.

“
Lyddy,
the stranger at the gate! The man who alarmed me so! Could it be...”

“
What's
this?” said Mr Dodd, “This sounds promising indeed! Tell me all
about him.”

And
so Adeline and Lydia, between them, recounted all they could
recollect of that alarming encounter.

“
Hmm,
you got a pretty good description of him, Miss, very useful. And you
say he called you 'my Adeline', and said he was sorry – that seems
a strong hint he's the man we want. And an Australian accent, you
say. Hmm, clearer and clearer. How did you know it was an Australian
accent?”

“
Oh,
I didn't. It was...” and Lydia hesitated as the realisation of what
she was saying dawned on her, “It was my stepmother that suggested
it might be Australian, when I told her of the incident, and that he
spoke in an accent not quite English.”

“
Well
now, well now, you just leave it with me a short while, and we'll see
what we can't find out.”

And
thus saying, the queer gentleman took his leave.

“
Oh
Lyddy, to think, I have seen my father, that I thought died when I
was a baby, and I didn't know him.” and she lapsed into quiet
tears.

Lydia
sat quietly thinking of the father she
had
known, and had
loved her for most of her short life. She felt a bitter pang that
this business was perhaps turning Adeline a traitor to his memory,
and taking her dear sister further and further away from her. And
yet, and yet... Something about the affair excited her. She had
always longed for some work in which to test and challenge her mental
powers. Even if it should cost her her dearest love, she felt she
could not rest until she had got to the bottom of this mystery.

It
was fortunate, perhaps, that Evelyn now seemed to want as little to
do with the rest of the household as possible, for Adeline knew not
how she could meet her mother with equanimity, let alone sit opposite
her for a long hour at breakfast or dinner. However, this necessity
did not arise, as Evelyn, when not out visiting, now kept almost
entirely to her own rooms, occupied with her own concerns, whatever
those might be, and so Adeline was spared the sad task of keeping her
countenance before a mother who she now knew to be a sinner – if
not for 17 years, at least for the last ten months. How could she
consent to live in a man's house, eat his bread, accept his legacy as
her right, knowing herself to have no legal or moral right to these
benefits, that her union was unrecognised by God or the Law?

In
such a case, Adeline determined, with all the idealism of nineteen,
that she would run away and beg her bread in the street before she
would be guilty of such an enormity.

Adeline
was troubled enough, even believing her mother had committed her sin
in ignorance, in the mistaken belief that she had been free to marry
seventeen years ago, only to be disabused of her error by the arrival
of that fatal letter. Lydia had harder doubts, for the treacherous
thought had crept into her mind that perhaps her father had known,
had been complicit in this greivous error. Of Evelyn's guilt she had
no doubt, for even if a mistaken report, through malice or accident,
of her husband's death had reached her before her marriage to Mr
Trent, how that gentleman could have lived in the same country for a
further seven or eight years, and she have heard no further tidings
of him to correct the error, passed her understanding. And, knowing,
to keep such a secret for seventeen years, to constantly keep a watch
on one's tongue and one's actions, to live in daily fear of the
discovery – impossible! Perhaps this was the source and secret of
the coldness that had long since arisen between her father and her
stepmother. It was like him, his kindness and consideration, to
forbear from exposing the woman he had chosen as his wife, to spare
her the pain of public shame – but still, to compound the sin by
continuing to live with her as her husband! The idea that her father,
the man, of all others, whom she idolised, could have been guilty of
sinfulness and deception pierced her heart. The thought crept like a
dark, chill shadow between her and the sacred memory of him she loved
so well, and seemed to poison all her recollections.

Happily,
perhaps, the hours in which Lydia was free to dwell on these direful
thoughts were limited. Having asserted her claim to the house and
household, Evelyn seemed content to leave the daily fatigues of
management to Lydia. It was the younger lady to whom the servants
brought their troubles and questions, to her they came for orders.
Evelyn troubled herself very little about the house, exerting herself
only so far as to order her own meals, to look over the household
accounts in a desultory manner once in a while, and to assert her
power by countermanding the occasional order – usually at such a
time and in such a manner as to cause Lydia the most vexation and
inconvenience.

This
round of household cares, with leisure hours darkened by grim
imaginings, would soon have destroyed both health and character, were
it not for the society of Adeline and Alfred, and a new interest,
which raised itself in the person of one Captain James Woods.

This
gentleman was a half-pay naval officer who, having been woefully
injured in action on the Indian Ocean, and then spent much of the
passage home in a raging fever, had been invalided out of the
service, and was now trying the restorative effects of English
country air and rustic retirement.

Alfred,
happening to fall in with the gentleman on one of the long lonely
rambles which constituted his daily dose of physic, soon made his
acquaintance, being a friendly and gregarious young man. He had a
stern battle of it at first, having much to conquer in the
convalescent captain's goodly fund of natural reserve, but he
persevered, and few could stand out long against Alfred's genuine and
frank good-nature.

The
friendship, having once been established, flourished, and it seemed
but natural that Alfred introduce the Captain to his other friends,
having a strong suspicion that the kind attentions of two gentle
young ladies could do more to restore Captain Woods to health and
spirits than could be achieved by his own unaided exertions.
Accordingly, then, Captain Woods was invited to accompany Alfred on
one of his visits to the young ladies at the first opportunity.

The
young ladies were surprised and a little perturbed at first to see
Alfred bringing a stranger to the house, but when Alfred had
introduced him and told part of his story in a few simple words, and
after they had looked on the still-young face so clearly marked by
long suffering, they opened their hearts to him.

The
Captain was a slim, pale young man of around five-and-twenty, quite
small in stature – indeed, he stood only an inch or two higher than
Lydia, who was not markedly tall. His cheeks were clean-shaven, and
somewhat hollow, attesting to his long illness. His voice was soft
and pleasant. His hair was brown, touched with gold, and curling
slightly from a low forehead – he affected neither beard nor
moustache. His hazel eyes, though shaded with great dark circles,
were mild and intelligent. He had something of the look of a sick
child, seeming very little more than a boy, for all that he was older
than the two girls, and had seen action and hardship, and those two
gentle hearts compassionated him at once, and were highly likely to
make a pet of him.