The Alington Inheritance (7 page)

It was a very curious experience driving through the night with the sleeping girl. He had a sense of familiarity which there was nothing in the facts to justify. It was one of those experiences which you can’t talk about. If he was to talk of it, it would be gone. A line of poetry came into his mind:

“Thinned into common air like the rainbow breath of a stream.”

He didn’t know where that came from, but it was what would happen to this feeling if he ever spoke of it. He knew that if he kept it secret it would remain inviolate.

He drove steadily on. Mile after mile, mile after mile. An hour—two hours—three. He was going to get there too soon. He couldn’t wake Caroline up before dawn and say baldly, “I’ve brought you a girl.” Not tactful —not even with Caroline. He turned off the road on to Hazeldon Heath. It was getting on toward four o’clock. He thought he would sleep till seven and then be on his way to Caroline’s cottage. He was not conscious of feeling sleepy until he stopped driving, when it came over him in a rush. One moment he was running off the road on to the broad grassy border and switching off the engine, and the next he was asleep. The interval in which he turned and got into a position suitable for sleeping didn’t seem to exist. He slept, and wasn’t conscious of anything at all until suddenly he was awake again and it was hours later. He came to himself, blinked a little, and looked round him. There was something missing. No, not something—someone—Jenny.

It took him a moment to get straight. She had been there when he went to sleep, he was quite sure of that. Well then, where was she now? He opened the door on his side and got out. As he did so he saw her bag, the one she had put down in the road when she talked to him in the night. It was on the back seat where he had put it. His heart gave a jump.

And then he saw her. She was coming across the patch of heath to his left. She had a singularly radiant air, as if there wasn’t such a thing as trouble in the world. Her head was bare. When she saw him she waved and called out,

“There’s a lovely place down there just behind those trees! Did you think I’d run away?”

It was exactly what he had thought, but he wasn’t going to say so. She laughed and said,

“I suppose you did!”

Then she came up to the car and got in.

“I had such a lovely sleep,” she said. “Thank you so much.”

He didn’t know exactly what she was thanking him for. He said so.

“What for?”

“Oh, everything. Are we near your aunt’s now?”

“Yes, quite near. If you don’t mind, I’ll go in first and explain you.”

“Will she mind?”

“Not when I’ve explained. You leave it to me.”

They drove in silence for a time. There was a long hill. Then they turned and ran into a village street which looked as if it were asleep.

“Half past six,” he said. “And very nice, too.”

“Is this it?”

He nodded.

“Third house on the left. She’s got a wonderful garden—wait till I get my key.”

He pulled up at a wicket gate. There was a cottage garden in front with all the late-blooming things in it. There were Michaelmas daisies, and sunflowers, and phloxes, and marigolds—lots and lots of different sorts of them. Jenny gazed entranced at the gaiden.

“She’s got a green thumb—everything grows for her,” said Richard. He came round and opened her door. “Be quick and I’ll get you in before Mrs. Merridew sees you.”

Jenny stopped with her foot on the step.

“Why?”

“Because she makes a mountain out of a molehill,” he said, but he laughed as he said it.

He took Jenny’s hand as he spoke, and they ran, together up to the little porch which was covered with purple clematis. He bent to put the key in the door, and suddenly he had the feeling that he was bringing her home.

Jenny had a feeling too. It wasn’t the same as his. She felt frightened in spite of all those welcoming flowers. Suppose Richard’s aunt didn’t like her. “Oh, she must, she must. Why should she?” She had a sudden dreadful feeling of what it would be like to be rejected by Richard’s aunt. She was young and inexperienced, but she did know that the arrival at half past six in the morning of a nephew whom you loved very much with a girl whom you didn’t love at all because you didn’t know her was not the thing you could expect an aunt to be pleased about.

The door opened, and they came into a passage which seemed dark, Richard leading the way as if it was his house. She supposed in a way it was—it was his home. There was a narrow passage and the stairs going up. He opened a door, and there was a dark room with the curtains drawn against the light that was so bright outside.

“Can you see?” he said, and took her hand.

Jenny found herself holding it tight. She was afraid. She was horribly afraid. Richard felt the hand which he held quiver in his. The quivering did something to him. He heard himself say, “You’ll be all right here, darling.” Jenny gripped his hand as if she would never let it go. He said “Jenny—” on a moved note, and Jenny looked up at him. Her eyes were full of tears.

“Will she—will she like me?” she said in a whispering voice.

Richard took a hold on himself. What he wanted to do was to take his hand from hers and put both arms round her and hold her close so that she would never be frightened or tremble again. It was madness, he knew that. He had only known her a few hours. He said,

“Jenny, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Caroline’s a lamb—she really is. I’ll go up and tell her about you. You just sit down here and wait. This is a nice chair.”

It was dreadful to have to wait. Jenny let go of his hand and sat down. She heard him go up the stairs, and then she heard two people talking. It took her all she knew to sit there in the dark room and wait. It was the hardest thing she had ever done.

And then there were steps, and behind them others not so quick and light. With her heart beating to suffocation Jenny stood up. There came in a tall woman with a rush of words.

“My dear child—oh gracious, how dark it is in here! Wait a minute and I’ll let in the light! Richard is a fool! Fancy his leaving you in the dark like this! Now just a minute—” She went to the far end of the room and drew back what the light showed to be brightly patterned chintz curtains with an apple-green lining. The garden side of the house came into view very reassuringly. There were apple trees well set with fruit, and there was a herbaceous border full of flowers. There was a blue sky and sunshine.

The tall figure whisked round and came back. She was half a head taller than Jenny and she had grey hair. Those were the first two things that Jenny saw about her. The grey hair curled vigorously and was tossed into untidy waves. Jenny saw that, and there was something very reassuring about it. Even at half past six in the morning no one had ever seen Mrs. Forbes’ hair untidy. Caroline Danesworth had obviously jumped straight out of bed and only waited to put on a dressing-gown. The dressing-gown was a cheerful shade of blue, and her eyes matched it.

Richard at the open door strayed in and said with an air of pride,

“Jenny, this is Caroline.”

“Who else would it be?” said Caroline. “If you want to be useful, Richard, you go and put on a kettle for tea. And there are biscuits on the shelf in the blue biscuit-tin. Now shoo—get along! We don’t want you here.”

When he was out of the room, she shut the door and turned back to Jenny, who stood waiting. She had a sense of belonging to no one and being most utterly alone. And then in a moment it was all gone. Caroline’s eyes smiled at her and Caroline’s hands took her cold ones. “My dear child, what is it?” she said, and Jenny began to cry. Caroline being what she was, she could have done nothing more endearing. As the tears ran down her face she felt Caroline’s arms round her.

“My dear! Now don’t try and stop it. It’s much better to cry it all away. You’re quite, quite safe here. I’ll look after you, and so will Richard. There’s nothing to cry about—nothing at all. But you just cry all you want to and get rid of it.”

It is really very difficult to go on crying when you are urged to go on. Jenny stopped half way through a sob.

“I’m all right now,” she said in a shaky voice.

“Well, come and sit down. I expect you want something to eat. We’ll all have some tea, and then we shall feel better. Richard is quite good at making tea.”

They sat on a green sofa and Jenny looked out at the garden. It looked happy and peaceful with the early morning sun upon it. She said,

“It is very good of you to be so nice to me. I don’t know what Richard has told you.”

Caroline considered. Her face was soft and kind. Her eyes were very blue and very soft.

“He said he hadn’t been to Alington House. He has always wanted to go there to see it, and the pictures and everything. But of course he wasn’t stupid enough to think he could go there in the middle of the night, though really when you come to think of it men are quite inexplicable. But anyhow he said he meant to get near the place and sleep in his car until the nearest pub would be open and he could get some breakfast. And then, I suppose, he thought he’d be welcome! On a Sunday morning!”

It was Sunday. It seemed such a long, long time since Saturday afternoon.

Caroline went on talking.

“Then, he says, you started up out of nowhere and stood in the middle of the road with your arms out to stop the car.”

Jenny felt that she had to explain.

“I felt desperate. The bag wasn’t heavy to start with, but it seemed to be getting heavier and heavier. I knew that if I didn’t get a lift I shouldn’t be able to get far enough not to be caught. I knew they would try to catch me. Has he told you who I am?”

“He told me your name—that you were Jenny Forbes.”

Jenny repeated the words.

“Yes, I’m Jenny Forbes. But I didn’t know it till yesterday afternoon. I knew that Richard Forbes was my father and Jennifer Hill was my mother, but I didn’t know that they were married. They kept it a secret. It was the war, you know, and my father was killed, and my mother was struck on the head in an air raid—she never spoke again. They sent her to Garsty.”

“Who is Garsty?”

“She had been my mother’s governess. She took her in. Her house was just opposite the gates of Alington House. When the Forbeses came there —Colonel Forbes inherited, you know—Mrs. Forbes came to see Garsty. She wanted her to move right away, and to take me with her, but Garsty wouldn’t.” It all came pouring out—Garsty’s accident, and how she had said that the letter from her father to her mother was in the little chest of drawers, and how she had looked for it after Garsty was gone, and how she couldn’t find it, and how Mac had taken it. “I heard him say so. I wouldn’t have believed it from anyone else. You just can’t believe that sort of thing about the people you know, can you?” The truthful eyes looked into Caroline’s. “You just can’t. But I heard him say it. I was behind the curtain, and they didn’t know I was there, and he said it. He took my father’s letter, the one in which he called her his wife.”

Caroline looked back. Was the child really as unworldly as she seemed? It didn’t seem possible, not at this time of day. She said,

“He called her his wife? But—” she hesitated—“it may only have been that that was how he thought of her. That wouldn’t make a marriage.”

“No—I know it wouldn’t. I’d known about the letter when Garsty died. She told me about it, and I thought, like you said, it was just that he thought of her like that. But Mac said when I was behind the window curtain and he was talking to his mother and they thought they were alone—Mac said he’d been to Somerset House and he had seen the certificate. They had been married five months when my father was killed.”

“Oh, my dear child!”

Jenny went on looking at her.

“It’s a sad story isn’t it? My mother died the night after I was born. I’ve thought about it a lot, and it seems as if it was sad for me and for Garsty, but not really sad for them—for my father and mother. I think they loved one another very much, and they would be together again. So it wasn’t sad for them, was it? Do you think that Mac burned that letter?”

“I don’t know, my dear. I think he would do what was safest for himself.”

“Yes, I thought so too.” She gave a deep sigh and said, “It doesn’t really matter, does it? He wrote to her and she saw it, and that is all that really matters.”

There was a little stir at the door and Richard came in with a tray. There were large cups on it, and a big teapot, and a gold and white milk-jug. On a plate there were slices of plain cake and piled-up biscuits.

“I’m frightfully hungry,” he said.

Jenny suddenly felt hungry too. Her spirits rose. Everything was all right. She was quite, quite safe.

They were just finishing the plate of biscuits and the cake, and Richard was drinking his third cup of tea, when there came a tapping at the door.

“Oh, no!” said Richard. He finished his tea in a hurry and put down his cup. “Not at this hour! It’s not decent! Shall I tell her so?”

Caroline laughed. “It’s no use,” she said. Then she turned to Jenny. “It will be my next-door neighbour, Mrs. Merridew. I wonder what she’ll have thought up this time. I’d better go and see.”

The tapping continued—three taps and a pause—three more taps and another pause. It suggested what Caroline knew only too well was behind it, inquisitiveness and pertinacity. She opened the door, and was aware as she did so that it was being noted that this was not the first time it had been opened that day. Oh dear, no—Mr. Richard had been in and a girl. Now why a girl so early in the morning? The words, unspoken, floated almost visibly on the air.

Mrs. Merridew stood there with a jug in her hand. She was dressed. She had tidied her hair, and she had put on a hat. She was a small woman with little grey eyes which were sharply aware of everything in range and suspicious of everything beyond it. She held out the jug and began at once on what was obviously a prepared speech.

“Oh, my dear Miss Danesworth, do forgive me, but I am short of milk for my early morning tea, and you’ve always been so kind about obliging me. The fact is that Timmy has been a very naughty cat. You know, I told you how clever he was at knocking off the top of the milk-bottle when he wanted a drink—”

“Yes, you did.”

“He’s too clever about it—he really is. But this morning he knocked a little too hard, and the bottle fell down and all the milk was spilt. So if you could just let me have enough for his breakfast—and perhaps for my early tea—”

Caroline had not a suspicious nature, but the excuse had served before and she had her doubts—she had her very grave doubts about it.

Mrs. Merridew stepped over the threshold, jug in hand.

“Your nephew came back this morning? Very early, very early indeed?”

“Yes, he did. Come this way, Mrs. Merridew, if you will. I’ve got plenty of milk.”

“Was he alone?” said Mrs. Merridew, cocking her head on one side.

“Oh, no. He brought Jenny Forbes to stay with me.”

“Jenny Forbes? And who is she? It’s not a very usual name in these parts—Scotch, I believe. But of course it’s his name, too. How stupid of me! Really so very stupid! Is she a relation?”

Caroline said with a calm born of long practice, “I suppose you may call her that. She’s a connection at any rate.”

“Oh, that sounds quite exciting!”

They had reached the kitchen at the back of the house. Caroline said,

“I haven’t been able to get excited about it, but then I haven’t your imagination.”

Mrs. Merridew took this remark as a compliment, a little to Caroline’s relief. She didn’t want to give offence. She wanted peace. She remembered with a slightly guilty feeling that Richard was wont to accuse her of preferring peace at any price. She went rather quickly into the larder and fetched out a big jug of milk.

“How much do you want? I’ve got heaps.”

“Oh, you have! Did you know this girl was coming?”

“Jenny? Well, it was always possible.”

This was as far as Caroline could go in the direction of concealment. She argued against her own sense of guilt. Well, it wasn’t quite true, but it was very nearly true, Richard being what he was. Anything was possible.

And then Mrs. Merridew was saying, “They must have made a very early start—very early indeed. Why, you’re not dressed!”

She had been aware of that from the first moment when Caroline had opened the door. She herself was dressed. She had flung on her clothes in record time, and she had combed through her neat grey curls, so different from Caroline’s large untidy ones, and she had put on her shoes and stockings, and thought of the story about Timmy, and taken the milk-jug, all in less than a quarter of an hour. She had been very clever, she had been very clever indeed.

“No,” said Caroline. “I must have overslept. I’m not dressed, and I must get dressed.”

“Oh, yes, of course you must. I’m just going.”

But Mrs. Merridew didn’t go. She didn’t even pick up the jug of milk which she had borrowed. She came a step nearer, and she said in a confidential undertone,

“It’s a very early hour. They’re not—not engaged—”

There were two courses open to Caroline, she could laugh, or she could lose her temper. She chose to laugh.

“I haven’t the least idea,” she said, “and I shouldn’t dream of asking.”

Mrs. Merridew picked up the milk-jug, and then set it down again.

“Oh, no—no. Of course not. I didn’t mean—it’s just—so very early in the morning—I couldn’t help wondering—”

“I don’t think there is anything to wonder about. We can go in and ask them why they started so early if you’d really like to know.”

Mrs. Merridew picked up the jug again in a hurry.

“Oh, no—no, of course not. It’s so very good of you to oblige me with the milk. Timmy will be most grateful. I won’t keep you. So thoughtless of me—and you must be wanting to dress.”

Caroline saw her to the door and shut it after her. Then she came back to the sitting-room.

The two young people were standing at the window which looked out on the apple trees and the flowery border. They turned as she came in.

“That was Mrs. Merridew.”

“It would be!” Richard’s tone was exasperated.

“Yes, I know. She is very inquisitive, and I’d love to snub her, but it’s no use. If you live next door to someone you’ve just got to get on with them, and I don’t think she knows how inquisitive she is. Now I’ve got to go up and dress. I shan’t be long. Would Jenny like to come up with me? And you can put the car away, Richard.”