The Alington Inheritance (19 page)

Jenny came down to breakfast to find a very peculiar letter propped up beside her place at table. That is to say, it would have appeared very peculiar to anyone with a different background, but to Jenny it simply said Meg. Meg had a passion for writing letters, and she had no one to send them to. They weren’t popular with her brothers, who were away from home and might at least have pretended to be pleased when they got one, but they didn’t trouble. Jenny would have thought more of them if they had, but they were not to know that. Mac wouldn’t have cared, but Alan might have. So, in default of anyone else to whom she could write what she called a real letter, Jenny was the obvious person to practise on. But she had never had one through the post before. And it was addressed to Miss Jenny Forbes. That was strange. And the address was quite correct in Meg’s big untidy writing. She opened the envelope and read the letter inside. It said:

“Darling darling Jenny, why did you go away? We miss you dreadfully. At least I do, and if Joyce has any sense she does too. You never know with Joyce, and I didn’t want to make her cry which isn’t good for her, so I didn’t ask her. But I miss you quite dreadfully. Why did you go away? Please, please tell me. I don’t want to be a bother, and I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to, but do just write to me. You can’t have forgotten about us all in such a short time. I will never forget you. I promise most faithfully that I won’t, and that I’ll never tell anyone that you wrote. It’s quite horrid without you here, it really is. Mary says you are called Jenny Forbes now. She didn’t want to tell me, but I made her, so you won’t give her away, will you? She said you are really our cousin, which is very exciting and I am so glad. She says the whole village is talking about it, so it isn’t a secret any more. She says it was a secret that your father was married to your mother, and that no one knew about their being married, because he was killed when his aeroplane crashed in the war and she had an accident so that she couldn’t speak. And she died the day you were born, so no one knew. It’s a very sad story, isn’t it? I would have cried if I hadn’t been so interested. When you are very interested you can’t cry somehow, but I feel as if I could cry now. Please, Jenny, write and say that you haven’t forgotten me, and that you’ll come back and let us be all together again. I couldn’t bear it if you didn’t.

Your loving Meg.

P.S. Please send the answer to Mary’s house. I think you had better put two envelopes, the one inside to me and the outside one to Mary. Her name in case you have forgotten is Miss Mary Stebbins, Alingford. Goodbye. I do love you. Please, please do write to me.”

Richard, coming in, found Jenny crying.

“Darling what is it?”

She put Meg’s letter into his hand.

“She’s such a dear, and she really does love me. What can I do?”

He read the letter and whistled.

“Well, it’s out,” he said. “You must write to Mrs. Forbes.”

“I don’t want to,” said Jenny, looking up with drenched brown eyes.

“Darling, you really must. Caroline would say the same.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Now, Jenny—”

She turned to him, clutching at his hand, his arm. “Oh, Richard, no—no! I don’t want to tell them where I am—I don’t want them to know. It—it frightens me.”

“My dear child—” He put his arms round her, and she sobbed and clung to him. When she was a little calmer he said,

“Can I see the child’s letter?”

“Yes, yes. Oh, anything you like.”

He read Meg’s artless letter, and failed to see why Jenny should have been so much upset by it. He said so.

“She’s a nice child and very fond of you. I don’t know why it should upset you.”

“I don’t know why either, but it did—it does.”

“I can’t imagine why it should.”

She took the letter from his hand and read it through. Then she turned a puzzled glance on him.

“Richard—”

“What is it, darling?”

“I don’t know why it upset me so much. I don’t know why.”

“As long as it doesn’t go on upsetting you—”

“No, it doesn’t—not now. It was just one of those things. I opened the letter, and first of all I was pleased because Meg had written to me. And then quite suddenly I was most dreadfully afraid. It was just as if there was something shut up in the letter and I had opened the door for it to get out. I’ve never had a feeling like that before. It was quite dreadfully strong. It—it frightened me.”

He was watching her intently.

“You’re not frightened now, are you?”

“Not like I was. No, I’m not frightened—not any more. But I still don’t want to write to Mrs. Forbes.”

“You must,” he said. And with that Caroline came into the room with the bacon.

They had breakfast without any more discussion, but when they had finished Richard said,

“Jenny has had a letter from one of the little girls. It’s from Meg. She knows that Jenny is here.”

Caroline looked up.

“That’s due to Mrs. Merridew of course,” she said. “You couldn’t hope to keep it a private matter with her writing to her cousin at Alingford— and she’d be bound to do that. You say the letter is from the child?”

“Yes,” said Jenny. “It’s from Meg.”

“Well, I think that you ought to write to Mrs. Forbes, Jenny. It won’t be easy of course, but it hasn’t been really right—” Her voice trailed away.

Jenny was looking at her.

“No,” she said. “None of it’s right, is it?”

She wrote to Mrs. Forbes after breakfast. She sat for a long time with the pen in her hand before she got going. In the end she dipped the pen again and wrote:

“Dear Mrs. Forbes,

I heard what Mac said to you the night I went away. I couldn’t stay after what I heard. I didn’t mean to listen. I was in the window seat behind the curtain, and I thought that you would just look in and go away. But you didn’t. When I heard what you had to say I couldn’t get up and show myself. I suppose I ought to have done it, but I couldn’t. I heard everything. You can’t be surprised that I went away. I couldn’t stay. I don’t think you will want to see me. I am here with Richard’s aunt, Miss Danesworth. I met Richard when I was running away, and he brought me here. He is Richard Alington Forbes, and he is a cousin. Richard went to Somerset House in London and got a copy of my father and mother’s marriage certificate.

Jenny Forbes.”

When she had finished writing she put her letter in an envelope and addressed and stamped it. Just before she shut it up she went into the kitchen and showed it to Caroline and Richard.

“Is it all right?” she said. “I can’t write it again—I really can’t.”

Caroline read it, kissed her without speaking, and went out of the room. Jenny was left with Richard. He, too, read the letter.

Jenny was watching him.

“There’s nothing else to say, is there? Nothing at all?”

He put the letter back into her hand.

“No, there’s nothing else,” he said.

Miss Silver had come down to Hazeldon. One or two points had arisen at the inquest, and she had a strong feeling that Hazeldon would bear to have a magnifying glass turned on it. For one thing, she believed Jimmy Mottingley’s story. She found it impossible to do otherwise. Now, if Miriam Richardson had got up to go at seven o’clock, she must have been there on the Heath a few minutes later—a very few minutes. And Jimmy Mottingley was still in his mother’s drawing-room listening impatiently to her conversation with old Mrs. Marsden at either six-fifteen or six-thirty. To have accomplished the drive in three-quarters of an hour would have been a clear impossibility. To have covered the same distance in a quarter of an hour’s extra time would have been just barely possible.

According to the evidence of the stranger, Mrs. Marsden, the time at which he left was just short of ten minutes past six, but his mother put it twenty minutes later. In the circumstances her evidence would be gravely suspect, and in view of Jimmy’s statement that the clock was to say the least of it erratic, no reliance could be placed upon it. If he had really left at ten minutes past six and had driven as fast as possible, he might have been at the place where Miriam met her death by, say, ten past seven. That is, ten minutes after she left Miss Danesworth’s house. Miss Silver thought that she might try and find out whether anyone in Hazeldon had noticed the arrival of Jimmy Mottingley’s car. If they had, and if they had any idea at what time they noticed it, it would certainly be a help.

She went into Mrs. Dean’s shop, and was quite pleased to find it full and everyone talking. The first words she caught told her what they were talking about. She stood still in the corner of the shop looking earnestly at some rather damaged liquorice sweets and hoped that her attention would appear to be focussed on them.

A fair-haired young woman was saying, “That Jimmy Mottingley he’ve got a sort of look of my brother Bill, and I’m sure Bill wouldn’t lay a finger on a fly.”

An older woman took her up.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” she said.

“You don’t know about what, Mrs. Wilson?” The young woman had flushed up. She had a pretty skin and a clear colour. “You are not saying that our Bill ’ud do a thing like that, are you? Because if you are—”

“Well, I’m not, me dear, and that’s that, and no need to get red about it either. And I’ll have a quarter of the tea and a pot of that black currant jelly. My black currants were no good at all this year. I’ll have to have the bushes out, that’s what, and whether it’s worth while I don’t know. I don’t ever remember those bushes having anything wrong with them when I was a girl, but nowadays they keep on getting that big bud they talk about.”

A little pale-faced woman next to her broke in.

“I don’t know what things are coming to, I’m sure. They find out new diseases every five minutes, that’s what I say. You dunno where you are for them. There’s that myxy that all those rabbits have gone for—” Her voice died away. She said in a nervous undertone, “I don’t know, I’m sure. There’s some thinks one way, and some thinks another.”

Mrs. Dean leaned across the counter and addressed Miss Silver.

“Good-morning,” she said.

“Oh, good-morning.” Miss Silver looked in her bag and drew out her purse. “I wonder if you have any peppermints.”

By the time that the peppermints were bought she had established the most cordial relations. The shop had cleared a little, and she managed to bring the conversation round to Jimmy Mottingley.

“That was a strange case you had here. The week before last, was it?”

“Dreadful,” said Mrs. Dean. “You read about things like that in the papers, but you don’t expect to see them happening on your own doorstep so to speak.”

“No indeed,” said Miss Silver warmly.

“Though I don’t say it was a right down surprise to me her being murdered. I suppose I oughtn’t to say so now that she’s dead, but if she wasn’t the very type and moral of what gets into the papers one way or another, well, I don’t know what I’m talking about.” She tossed her head as much as to say she knew very well, and so did Miss Silver.

Miss Silver looked suitably shocked.

“This girl—you knew her?”

“I’ve seen her,” said Mrs. Dean darkly. “You’re not supposed to say things about people who are dead, but I can’t see it that way myself. If you’re flighty and domineering, then you are and there’s no getting from it, and dead or alive it’s all one. But that’s my way of thinking and no call to press it on you.”

Miss Silver had a good deal to think about when she finally came out of the shop. Miriam had not impressed the village favourably. Jenny had. Mrs. Dean was loud in her praise.

“As nice a young lady as ever stepped. And they say that she’s got a fortune, too. But there, perhaps I shouldn’t have said that. The fact is, Mr. Richard’s a favourite here, and everyone ’ud be glad to see him fixed up with a nice young wife. That girl that was murdered, she was after him, you know. But there, least said soonest mended, and I shouldn’t get talking.”

Miss Silver smiled. She had a gift for drawing people out, and, as Frank Abbott had often said, it was not done of design. When she showed interest it was because she was genuinely interested. As she stepped into the street she became aware of Jenny Forbes. She was just coming out of the other shop, and at the sight of Miss Silver she stopped and said, “How do you do?” Miss Silver found the meeting a pleasant and, she hoped, a propitious one.

“I was on my way to see Miss Danesworth. Perhaps I might walk with you.”

“Yes, do.”

Jenny’s quick smile flashed out and her colour rose. She was nervous. Now why? It was the same thing which Miss Silver had noticed at their first meeting. And yet Jenny was not a nervous type. She should have a confidence which was quite plainly lacking.

“You must be wondering why I have come here again,” she said, turning to Jenny.

Jenny changed colour. One moment she was pale, the next all a bright blush.

“Oh, no—no,” she said in confusion.

Miss Silver smiled.

“My dear, why are you embarrassed?”

“Oh, I’m not,” said Jenny quickly.

“I think that you are. And I think that I should like to know why. It is possible that you know something that you have not told. If that is the case, I would beg you to think very carefully of what you may be doing.”

“Of what I may be doing?” Jenny’s voice was a startled one.

“Yes, my dear. That boy in prison at Colborough—if you know anything at all you owe it to him to be perfectly frank.”

Jenny’s heart was beating so fast that she stood still. She did not seem to have enough breath to carry her feet forward—not with her heart thumping like this. She said unevenly,

“To be perfectly frank? But I don’t know anything—I don’t indeed. It’s only—only—”

“Yes, my dear?”

Jenny had turned round and was looking at her. They had both stopped. Before them lay the dip in the road. Then it rose again, and just beyond the dip were Miss Danesworth’s cottage and Mrs. Merridew’s small house.

Jenny raised her eyes to Miss Silver’s face. What she saw there apparently reassured her. She felt steadier. Her mind cleared. All at once the only thing that mattered was that she should tell the exact truth. She said,

“I’ve been troubled.”

“I can see that, my dear.”

“If I tell you—you see, I don’t know if it will hurt anyone—” She stood there with her lips parted looking at Miss Silver, who was very grave.

“I cannot tell you that. I can only say that if wrong has been done, the consequences should fall upon the wrongdoer, and not upon an innocent stranger.”

Jenny said, “Yes—that’s what I keep on saying to myself. If he hasn’t got anything to do with it—and he can’t, he can’t— Oh!” She put up her hands to her face for a moment and covered her eyes as if to shut something out.

Miss Silver’s gaze was full of compassion. She spoke very gently.

“I think that you must tell me what you are afraid of.”

Jenny dropped her hands. The tears were running down. She said,

“I don’t know—I don’t know what I ought to do—I don’t indeed—”

And then all at once she did know. She held her hands together tight, tight, and she said,

“That boy—he said there was a note. For me. He took it back afterwards and pretended that he hadn’t said it. It was a note addressed to Miss Jenny Hill. That’s what I was called before I came here. It was my mother’s name, and they thought—everyone thought that my father hadn’t married her, so I was called Jenny Hill, which was her name. And then I heard Mrs. Forbes and her son talking. I didn’t mean to listen, but I’d been crying, and I was sitting behind the curtain in the schoolroom. There’s a window seat with a curtain in front of it. I was there, and they came in, and Mac told his mother he had been to Somerset House and he had got a copy of the certificate—my father and mother’s marriage certificate. And he said the place belonged to me, but there was no need to tell me anything. He would marry me, and if I ever found out, it wouldn’t matter then. So I ran away in the night, and I met Richard who is a distant cousin, and he brought me here.” Jenny’s tears had dried. She felt drained and empty, but quite calm.

Miss Silver was looking at her very kindly. Her mind was turning over the things that might have happened, and she came very near to the truth. That Jenny was speaking honestly and sincerely she had no doubt at all. She said,

“Do you mean, my dear, that you actually heard Mrs. Forbes and her son discussing this matter?”

“Yes.”

“And that they decided to keep you in the dark, persuade you to marry your cousin, and trust to your not finding out?”

“Mrs. Forbes didn’t want him to marry me. She said so.”

“And he? I don’t want to ask what you would rather not answer, but I think you must see that it affects the question of whether he is to be trusted or not.”

Jenny shook her head.

“No,” she said, “he is not to be trusted. That was why I came away. I didn’t feel I could stay after I had heard them talk. They didn’t pretend to each other, you know. And they didn’t think of me at all—that was quite plain. They only thought about keeping the property. Mac said that it wouldn’t matter so much if I found out after he had married me, but that it wouldn’t be safe unless he did, because I might find out.”

Miss Silver found herself shocked.

“You are quite sure about this?”

Jenny said simply, “I heard him say it. I wouldn’t have ever thought of such a thing unless I had to.”

All this time they had been standing in the road which led up to the two houses, Miss Danesworth’s and Mrs. Merridew’s. As if she had finished all that she had to say Jenny turned and began to walk towards the houses. Miss Silver followed her.

“And you met your cousin?” she said.

“Yes, I met Richard. Wasn’t it a good thing?” The animation had returned to Jenny’s voice. It was as if she had put away her old life with its pain and its disappointment and had turned back again into the new life with Richard.

“Had you known him before?”

“Oh, no. I didn’t know that he existed. It was the middle of the night, you know, and I saw a car coming, so I stepped out into the road to stop it. And it was Richard. I made him get out, because I couldn’t drive away with just anyone, and I wanted to see if I could trust him. And when I saw him—oh, it was wonderful, because he was the exact image of the Richard Forbes whom he is called after! I could see him quite plainly because there was a very bright moon, and when I saw him I did think that I was dreaming—just for a minute, you know. I asked him who he was, and he said, ‘My name is Richard Forbes.’ And I said, ‘I’ve seen you before.’ And when he said, ‘Where?’ I told him, ‘All my life.’ I said, ‘You’re the portrait in the hall—the picture of Richard Alington Forbes.’ And he said, ‘That’s my name.’ ” She stopped speaking. All her colour had come back and her eyes shone. “It was a wonderful thing to have happened,” she said.

“Yes, it was. How did he come to be there?”

“He was going to see them at Alington House, but he’d been delayed on the way, and he thought that he would drive a little nearer and then sleep in the car until the inn was open, and have breakfast, and then go round.”

“Did they know he was coming?”

Jenny opened her eyes wide.

“Oh, I don’t think so. No, I’m sure they didn’t know. And he’d forgotten about it being Sunday, and of course they’d be going to church. It wasn’t very clever of him—I told him so.”

“And what did he say to that?”

“He just laughed,” said Jenny. “And of course it didn’t really matter, because he didn’t go there after all. He took me to Miss Danesworth’s instead.”

They had arrived at the gate of the cottage. Miss Silver stood between Jenny and the gate.

“And what did Miss Danesworth say?”

“I don’t know what she said to Richard. She was sweet to me.”

“My dear, I must ask you one thing.”

“Yes, Miss Silver?”

“It is this. Have you never heard from these Forbeses? Did they never try to trace you?”

“No, they didn’t.”

Miss Silver looked graver than ever.

“I find that a very singular thing. You did not leave a note, or tell them where you had gone?”

Jenny said, “No, I didn’t. I didn’t know where I was going.” She wondered why Miss Silver was asking these things. A feeling of distress rose in her. “Why—why do you ask?”

“I am going to ask something else. I am going to ask you how old you are.”

Jenny answered her quite simply.

“I was seventeen in August.”

“Then, my dear, do you not think that Mrs. Forbes should have taken some steps to find you?”

“I didn’t want her to find me,” said Jenny.

Miss Silver was very much shocked. She was accustomed to judging character, and she thought that Jenny was both truthful and innocent.

And then Jenny said, “I expect they knew where I was. Mrs. Merridew writes to her cousin who lives at Alingford. She must have told her, because Meg knew. She is one of the little girls. She wrote to me.”

“When did you get the letter?” said Miss Silver quickly.