The Coldstone (15 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A telegraph boy bicycled out from Wrane next day and rapped on Mrs. Bowyer's door. Mrs. Smithers, looking out of her window, began to speculate pleasantly as to whose decease he had come to announce.

“There's Jenny—or it might be 'er mother—or one of the ‘Merican lot, though that's a norful long way to send a telegram. Someone's gone for certain sure. Always puts me 'eart in me mouth, telegrams do.”

Susan took the telegram with calm, but her colour rose as she read it. It was handed in at Vere Street, and it was an answer to the urgent scrawl which she had posted to Garry O'Connell in Wrane the day before. It said: “Should adore to see you not only at once but continuously stop for the moment distance forbids stop business in metropolis stop K stop H stop O stop Garry.”

“And please, miss, there's two shillings to pay,” said the round-faced telegraph boy.

Susan ran upstairs for the money. Two shillings for this characteristic bit of impudence!

“Any answer, miss?”

She would have loved to send an answer, but it would probably annoy Garry more if she didn't. She said “No,” and shut the door. Then she read the telegram again, and boiled with rage. The cryptic letters at the end were particularly infuriating. They stood for “Keep hair on,” and she was not in the least mollified by the fact that Garry had condescended to camouflage this impertinence. She tore the telegram into little bits and put it in the kitchen fire.

As she dropped the last bit in, there were three slow taps on the door. Mrs. Smithers stood there, her sleeves hastily pulled down, and an expression of decent gloom on her large white face. Her hair was still in curling pins, which were only partially hidden by an old tweed cap belonging to Mr. Smithers.

“Ah—” she said. It was a voluminous sigh. “And 'ow's she a-taking it, pore soul?”

Susan looked blank.

“How is who taking what, Mrs. Smithers?”

“I see the telegraft boy,” said Mrs. Smithers reproachfully.” I see 'im out of the window, and I says to myself, ‘Oh, my good gracious me!' I says, ‘That's Jane gone for certain sure.'”

Susan lifted her eyebrows. She wasn't terribly fond of Mrs. Smithers.

“Who's Jane?” she said.

“Ah—” It was a deeper sigh than before. “Seems so strange me 'aving to tell you about your own relations—and not a thing I should like in me own family—not 'ardly right, it don't seem to me, to 'ave to ask a stranger, 'owever near a neighbour—and Smithers and me we've lived next door to your Granny for twenty-five years, and old Mr. and Mrs. Smithers another forty years afore that. But that's neither 'ere nor there, and it don't seem 'ardly right for you to 'ave to ask, ‘Who's Jane?' and for me to ‘ave to tell you that she's your Granny's daughter-in-law, 'er son Thomas's widow—Jane Dickson she was afore 'e married 'er, and 'er girl's the very spit and image of 'er, pore thing. And many's the time old Mrs. Smithers ‘ave told me 'ow your Granny took on when Thomas married 'er—such a 'andsome man as 'e was, same as all the Bowyers, present company always excepted, and no offence meant I'm sure.” Here Mrs. Smithers paused and drew breath.

Susan seized her opportunity.

“It's not Jane,” she said.

“Ah!” said Mrs. Smithers with increased interest. “Now who'd 'a thought that Jenny'd go before 'er pore mother?”

Susan wanted to laugh.

“It's not Jane, and it's not Jenny, and it's not anyone. Can't one get a telegram without someone being dead?”

“Not in Ford St. Mary you don't,” said Mrs. Smithers. She looked disappointed.

“It was a business telegram,” said Susan firmly. Then she went out into the garden and told old Mrs. Bowyer that she would like to go and live on a desert island where people didn't look out of their windows and ask questions every time you breathed.

Mrs. Bowyer was sitting on a wooden bench in the shade of two tall lilacs. The bee-hives stood all along the opposite fence. She sat in the warm shade and watched the bees go busily to and fro.

“Folks is all the same wherever you go,” she said placidly.

Susan sat down on the bench too.

“If they were all the same as Mrs. Smithers, I really would go and live on a desert island!”

Mrs. Bowyer laughed noiselessly.

“You wouldn't think to look at her now as she was that thin that her mother went a-whimpering around saying as her Minnie didn't eat enough to keep a sparrow and she was afeared she would lose her in a decline. A poor silly creature she was—one of those as is always telling you something they're afeard of, so as you can contradict 'em.”

A peaceful silence settled down upon Susan. It seemed to fall softly from the green of the lilacs. It was very pleasant. She began to wonder why Garry had gone to London—and
when
—and what was keeping him there. And she wondered what she was going to do next. She felt an inward certainty that it mattered very much what she did, and she could not for the life of her make up her mind what to do. She thought about Garry, and she thought about Anthony, and she thought about the handkerchief which lay neatly folded in her drawer upstairs, and she thought about the queer words she had listened to when she crouched at the door of the housekeeper's room in the dark. They said themselves over in her mind, the faint murmur of the bees coming and going amongst them:

“The second shield,

The stone that Merlin blessed,

To keep in safety

The source of evil.”

She turned impulsively to Mrs. Bowyer.

“Gran—are there any shields at Stonegate?”

“Shields, my dear?”

Mrs. Bowyer had, perhaps, been just a little drowsy. The air was warm and soft, the bees came and went, the shade was green.

“Yes. I heard someone say a sort of rhyme-no, it wasn't a rhyme—anyhow it said, ‘The second shield.'”

Mrs. Bowyer watched the bees, pale honey-coloured bees with the sun on them.

“And why did you think that had to do with Stonegate?”

“I just thought it had. There's more of it—‘The stone that Merlin blessed—

Mrs. Bowyer woke up.

“And where did you get that?” she said in a sharp, startled voice.

“What does it mean, Gran?”

“Where did you hear tell of it?”

“I can't tell you. I want to know what it means. What is the stone that Merlin blessed? Gran, tell me!”

“What should I tell you for?”

Susan chose her words carefully.

“I think I ought to know, Gran.”

“You've a reason for that?”

“Yes.”

“And you can't tell me?”

“No, Gran.”

“And you want me to tell you? You've a proper bold face on you, Susan, I'll say that.”

Susan laughed and blew her a kiss.

“I expect I got it from you!”

“You're a wicked maid, Susan. Tell me true—that piece you said—was it from your father you got it?”

“No, Gran, it wasn't.”

There was a pause. The black eyes looked searchingly into the blue ones. Then old Susan Bowyer spoke:

“You're my own flesh and blood—but I've a duty to the Colstones—and I promised Jervis—” Her voice died away.

Susan leaned forward and touched her on the knee.

“Gran, I shouldn't ever do anything—to hurt the Colstones.”

“You might, and you mightn't,” said Mrs. Bowyer. “'Tisn't always what we want to do, and 'tisn't always what we think we're doing—it just comes; but when you've spoke a word, there isn't nothing and there isn't nobody can take it back again.”

Susan stayed still for a moment, so still that one of the honey-coloured bees dropped down on Mrs. Bowyer's knee and clambered on to the forefinger of Susan's hand. It crawled with sprawling eagerness, helping itself with a fanning of transparent wings. She took her hand back slowly, watching the bee, whilst Mrs. Bowyer watched her. She saw Susan touch the bee very gently with a soft finger-tip, stroking the pale fur on its back. It stayed quite still, the wings just quivering. When she lifted her finger it flew away.

“You've a way with them,” said Mrs. Bowyer. Then she laughed. “I'd a deal sooner take a person's character from the bees than from a parson. Whether it's man or maid, bees know what's in 'em, and if 'tisn't sound and sweet, they can't abide 'em, nor mischief-makers, nor quarrel-pickers, nor scolds, nor termerjans—they can't abide none of 'em. Bees won't thrive, 'cept where folks is peaceable. If there isn't love and goodwill, they won't thrive—not for anything you can do—'tis honey to 'em, and marrow to their bones, same as 'tis to childern.”

Susan put her elbow on her knee, propped her chin in her hand, and looked down into the grass.

“Gran, if I tell you something, will you let me just tell it, and not ask any questions at all—because I can't tell you more than a bit of it.”

She did not see the sharp flash of intelligence in Mrs. Bowyer's eyes or the little nod which said, “I thought as much.” She was even too much taken up with her own thoughts to observe the dryness of Mrs. Bowyer's voice as she said,

“Say what you like, my dear.”

Susan frowned at the grass.

“It's rather difficult to begin. I think I'd better tell you where I heard that bit about the stone that Merlin blessed—but I'm afraid you'll be rather shocked.”

“I'm not very easy shocked.”

“Well, I went through the passage into Stonegate the night before last and—” She looked sideways, and then quickly down again. She wasn't sure, but she thought Gran was laughing to herself. She felt a little ruffled. Gran ought to have been shocked; she had no business to be amused.

And then all of a sudden she thought how funny it was, and a little bubble of laughter caught in her throat. She went on quickly:

“It was the middle of the night, and there were burglars there.”

Mrs. Bowyer's hand fell on her shoulder.

“Sakes alive! What are you talking about?”

This was easier to cope with. Susan felt better.

“Burglars, Gran. That's to say, I suppose people are burglars when they break into a house in the middle of the night and throw chairs at the person it belongs to.”

“Chairs?”
said Mrs. Bowyer in a loud, vigorous voice.

“Well, it was only one really, but it knocked him flat—‘and the subsequent proceedings inter
est
ed him no more.'”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

Susan swung round and took Mrs. Bowyer's hand in both of hers.

“
Midnight Meanderings,
or
The Indiscretions of Susan
—a thriller of the first water.”

“Burglars?” said Mrs. Bowyer.

“Listen, Gran. It was awfully exciting, and I can't tell you the whole of it, but I'll tell you the bits that I can tell you. I went through the passage, and I was just coming out of the library, when two men with a dark lantern came oozing through the drawing-room door. I was petrified, but I crawled out of sight, and when they went down the passage to the baize door, I went after them.”

“Eh?” said Mrs. Bowyer.

“As silently as a
worm,
” said Susan. “They were in the housekeeper's room—at least that's what I suppose it was—first on the right through the door. And one of them was reading out that piece I said to you. And Anthony Colstone came along, and they threw a chair at him and knocked him out.”

“Lord preserve us!” said Mrs. Bowyer “What next?”

“They ran away.”

“And well they might!”

Susan dimpled.

“It wasn't because well they might—it was because of me appearing suddenly like a ghost in Patience Pleydell's clothes and saying ‘No' in a sort of hollow groan when they were going to bash Anthony with the poker.”

Mrs. Bowyer pulled her hand away sharply.

“Is this a true tale?”

Susan nodded.

“It's not the whole truth, but it's nothing but the truth.”

“The impudent murdering villains! Was the lad hurt?”

“All Colstones' heads are as hard as the Coldstone—you've often told me that yourself.”

“No thanks to them,” said Mrs. Bowyer. “You're a hard-hearted maid, Susan—but if 'twas day before yesterday, I've seen him since, and he wasn't none the worse.” She paused, frowning. “Say that piece to me again.”

Susan said it over:

“‘The second shield,

The stone that Merlin blessed—'”

She hesitated for a moment, and then went on:

“‘To keep in safety

The source of evil.'”

“That's all—and I want to know what it means.”

“Ssh!” said Mrs. Bowyer quickly. “'Tisn't a thing to name in an open place where the Lord knows who may be listening. I had ought to have stopped you before. Look over the fence, my dear, both sides, and see that there's no one a-listening.”

When Susan came back, Mrs. Bowyer had risen.

“We'd best go where there are doors to shut.”

“There's no one, in either of the gardens, Gran.”

“I'd sooner be in my own kitchen,” said Mrs. Bowyer firmly.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The kitchen Seemed dark and cool. On the tall dresser Mrs. Bowyer's old copper pans gleamed like the sun in a fog; the shadow was dark there, but the copper shone through it. Mrs. Bowyer sat herself down in a heavy oak chair by the hearth.

“Shut the door, and shut the window,” she said—“and come you here to me.”

Susan latched the window and came. The room seemed cold after that glowing sunshine outside. She knelt on the stone floor, and was aware that Mrs. Bowyer was trembling a little.

“What does it mean, Gran?”

“'Tis an old, old, ancient tale,” said Mrs. Bowyer rather breathlessly.