The Coldstone (24 page)

“What could it be, Gran? It's got to begin with a W.”

“North—south—east
—west
—” said Mrs. Bowyer. “Red sky at night in the west. That's it! Bowyers never forget nothing. John Edwin West was his name, but the young folks called him Jew. And Miss Arabel broke her heart for him.” She looked up straight at Anthony. “You'll not break my maid's heart, Anthony Colstone?”

“She's much more likely to break mine,” said Anthony. And then he laughed, not very steadily, because he was remembering what it had felt like to see Susan leaning across the glass-topped medal case in deep, intimate talk with the man who had broken into his house. And she couldn't explain it; she wasn't ever going to be able to explain it. There was a secret running between them like a dark crack—

Old Susan Bowyer's face crinkled into hundreds of tiny lines, every one of them the shadow of a laugh.

“Colstone's hearts are none so easy broke,” she said. Then her eyes went black and solemn. “Do you love her true?”

“Yes, Gran,” said Anthony.

She nodded.

“Eh—there's queer things in life! I had a Colstone to my son, and now I have another to my great-grandson, and Susie's granddaughter at Stonegate. Who'd ha' thought it?” She lifted her chin at him with a jerk. “You'll bring her to Stonegate?”

“Yes, of course.”

Mrs. Bowyer turned to Susan.

“And you, my maid—”

“What, Gran?”

“Is he your man?”

“He seems to think so,” said Susan.

“Is he your man?” said Mrs. Bowyer. “There's none but you can say for sure.”

Susan flushed scarlet. She wanted to pull away her hand, but Gran had it fast; she felt it drawn nearer to Anthony's. Something in her fluttered. It was like being in church; it was like being married. The kitchen with its one oil lamp, and Gran in her white woolly shawl, had suddenly become part of a mystery. When Anthony took her hand and Mrs. Bowyer laid both of hers over the joined clasp, Susan felt as if something irrevocable had happened.

The old lips moved without any sound of words. Then she released them and leaned back.

“Kiss me first, and Susan after,” she said to Anthony.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“I must see you,” said Anthony. He stood with his back to the geraniums in Mrs. Bowyer's front window. The morning sunshine poured down outside.

“You are seeing me,” said Susan.

Anthony groaned.

“Gran will be back in a minute—you know she will.”

Susan's eyelashes flickered.

“She's very
fond
of you,” she said. “She says you can call every day and see her. She says you're like my grandfather Philip—and she simply loved Philip.” She burst out laughing at his face of dismay. “No—what she really says is that we've got to give it out.”

“I said so too.”

Susan made a face.

“It's so stupid and public. But of course I do see that it's going to be frightfully difficult for us to see each other unless we're engaged. Gran's the most frightful dragon really, but I've got her to promise not to do anything for a day or two and I thought if I went for a walk across the river and you came along in the car and picked me up, we
might
go out for the day.”

They went out for the day. The sun shone—everything shone. Life had become a joyful adventure. They left the car presently and climbed a little hill. The country below them was all gold and green, with here and there a patch of woodland, and here and there the gleam of water. There was a beechwood at their backs, and in front of them the ground fell away sharply. There was no sting in the sun, only a mellow warmth.

“Now we can talk,” said Anthony.

“You've never stopped.”

“Oh, that was about us. This is business.”

“What sort of business?”

“Well, I'd a letter this morning that made me sit up and think.”

“What sort of letter?”

“From old Leveridge, Sir Jervis' solicitor. You remember that letter I found, from his father to Sir Jervis about an offer for the property?”

Susan was leaning on her elbow picking at a little tuft of thyme. She looked up under her hat and saw Anthony's face, puzzled and intent.

“Yes, I know—the one with the note about J.E.W.”

“Yes. Well, my letter—” He broke off. “Susan, it's odd. Leveridge says he's had an offer for Stonegate. He wrote to ask if I would consider it. It's from the same people his father wrote about—Stent Rogerson and Twyford.

Susan sat up. Her fingers crushed the thyme, and the sweet herby scent filled the sunny air between them.

“How extraordinary!”

“Too extraordinary,” said Anthony. “One odd thing's nothing, but a whole lot of odd things must mean something. There's something—
something
behind all these odd things, and we've got to find out what it is.”

Susan dropped the little crushed pieces of thyme. She put her hands in her lap and looked at a yellow cornfield that was shining like gold in the sun.

“What do you think it is?”

“I don't know. But there's something. Look here—you heard what Mrs. Bowyer said last night about my cousin Arabel and the man they called Jew?”

Susan nodded.

“Well, of course I thought at once about that letter and Sir Jervis' note—you remember: ‘J.E.W.? Can't believe it. No—' And after I got Leveridge's letter this morning I thought a lot more. J. E. W. was a friend of Sir Jervis. He was an engineer—a mining engineer. He came down to stay, and he made love to my Cousin Arabel and got sent about his business. And afterwards Sir Jervis was repeatedly offered a price for Stonegate which old Leveridge described as so much in excess of the estimated market value that he didn't feel justified in accepting previous refusals as final. And at the bottom of the letter Sir Jervis himself connects the offer with J. E. W. Do you see what it looks like?”

Susan nodded again.

“Gran doesn't know any more. I asked her. She said Sir Jervis was mad with rage about Arabel. Fathers had awfully unrestrained tempers in those days—hadn't they? I gather he simply foamed, and Arabel wilted and didn't dare say ‘Bo' to him. And she was ill for a long time, and then she just settled down into being an old maid. At nineteen, Anthony! Doesn't it make you boil?” She paused, frowning. “Talking about odd things—Sir Jervis said one frightfully odd thing to Gran.”

“What was it?” said Anthony.

“Well, I thought it was odd when Gran told me; but you know how it is when you say a thing again—the oddness seems to evaporate.”

“What is it?”

“Gran was standing up to him about Arabel, and he was in a fearful temper, and all of a sudden he banged with his fist on the table. It was in her front room. And he said, ‘I'd sooner he ruined my daughter than my land, but as long as I live he won't lay a finger on either.' And Gran said he wasn't a swearing man, but he swore so fearfully that she was afraid. And she said it was the only time in their lives that she'd ever been afraid of him. What do you suppose he meant?”

Anthony was whistling some shred of an air between his teeth. He pursued it for a bar or two. Then he turned over on the short grass, leaning on his elbows with his chin in his cupped hands.

“J. E. W. was John Edwin West, and he was a mining engineer. And Sir Jervis raises Cain about his spoiling his land, and feels suspicious when he gets an offer for it. Does that suggest anything to you?”

Susan laughed.

“Yes, of course it does. It suggests that John Edwin—Golly! What a name! I say, Anthony, it has just struck me all of a heap. If he'd
married
Miss Arabel, he'd have been our cousin John Edwin, and there might have been little Edwins and Edwinas.”

Anthony grinned and frowned.

“They'd have been middle-aged. Anyhow you're not sticking to the point.

“It was such a frightful thought,” said Susan. “All right, I'm coming to the point. John Edwin found out something that Sir Jervis didn't like. I don't know what he found; but he was a mining engineer, and Sir Jervis said he wouldn't have his land ruined, and the price of Stonegate went right up. I wonder what he did find. But of course any sort of mine makes a nasty mess of things. I wonder if it was coal.”

Anthony shook his head.

“Coal's a bit of a wash-out now. Whatever he found, it's something with a present-day value.” He paused, biting his lip. “And anyhow, what were those two after in the cellars, and where does Philip Colstone's piece about Merlin's stone come in? I can't make it all fit in.”

Susan looked away across the open country. The distant fields were like squares on a chessboard—gold, and brown, and green, and dun. She stared at the fields, but she was seeing a yellow, blotted page in an old book—seeing it as if it were being held up before her eyes. All of a sudden she pressed her fingers against her eyelids.

“What's the matter?” said Anthony.

“I don't know—I had an idea. I don't want to tell you about it, because it's just a—a sort of impression.” She opened her eyes again. “Don't talk about it now, there's an angel. It's so vague that if I try and put it into words, I shall just lose it.”

“What shall we talk about? I'm most awfully intrigued about those cellars—I've an idea that we shall find something when we get the door open. I'm having a key made, you know.”

“Anthony, you won't open the door without me! I simply
couldn't
bear it. I don't care what Gran says, and I don't care how shocked anyone might be if they knew, but I've simply got to be there when you open that door.”

Anthony said “All right.” Then he laughed. “Perhaps other people will want to be there too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hasn't it struck you,” he said, “that I may be having another midnight visit?”

“From me?” She looked at him between her lashes.

“No”—rather drily—“not from you.”

“You mean you think
they'll
come back?”

“Why did they take an impression of the lock if they didn't mean to come back?”

“Oh!” said Susan. She was leaning a little over on one hand. Anthony saw the knuckles turn white. He said nothing. “But you can stop them,” she said.

“We bolt the doors now, so their keys won't be much good to them. Still, I've got a sort of feeling that they'll have a shot at it.”

Susan turned quickly.

“Anthony—you'll be careful—”

“What have I got to be careful of?”

She did not say anything. She looked down and saw a spider with thin legs and a round white body run under and over the scattered heads of thyme she had thrown away. It ran aimlessly, moving quickly and getting nowhere. As she watched it, there came up in her inner mind the clear picture of Garry's face, pale and smiling, as she had seen it for an instant by lantern light in the dark housekeeper's room. She was afraid of Garry when he smiled. He had the poker in his hand, and he smiled. But the room was dark; the light from the lantern missed his face. She hadn't really seen him smile, but somehow she knew just how he had looked as he straightened himself with the poker in his hand. She heard again her own horrified cry. She said, in a very low voice,

“They might be—dangerous.”

One of Anthony's hands came out and caught her wrist. The warm, strong clasp frightened her. It was so difficult not to tell him things—and she mustn't.

“What—the poker?” he said. “Were they going to hit me over the head with it? You might as well tell me.”

Susan made up her mind. She tried to free herself, but she couldn't.

“They were going to break your leg.”

“Good Lord! Why?”

“To keep you quiet for a bit.”

She did not look at him, but she felt his clasp tighten.

“What? In cold blood?”

She nodded. Her eyes stung. She felt suddenly, dreadfully, afraid. With a wrench she freed her hand and dashed away two scalding tears.

CHAPTER THIRTY

When she looked round again, Anthony was sitting up with his hands clasped about his knees. He was looking at her with a serious expression; but when he spoke he said the last thing on earth that she had expected him to say; his direct look and his quiet voice gave her no warning.

“When are we going to get married?”

Susan said, “Married?” She looked a little bewildered. Her eyes were still wet.

“Yes—married. It's what happens after you get engaged, you know. I think being engaged is a wash-out as far as we are concerned because of the relations, and the village, and things like that. And I was thinking that we'd better get married at once, because then we could really get down to exploring without bothering about whether our characters were being taken away.”

“What do you mean by ‘at once'?”

“Well, I think a licence takes about three days—but that's only if you bustle them most frightfully, and we're miles from our native parson, so I'm afraid it's too late to do anything to-day, but to-day week would give everybody plenty of time.”

Susan laughed, partly because she was nervous, and partly because Anthony looked so determined. She liked him when he looked like that. She wondered if he were really like her grandfather Philip. Gran said he was. He had the Colstone height and breadth, the bright brown hair and the ruddy brown skin. His chin was rather square, mouth large and well cut under a small moustache, nose rather blunted from the family type. She remembered how Gran had asked her what colour his eyes were. They were blue as he looked at her now, with just a hint of a teasing sparkle breaking through.

“It's a Thursday,” said Anthony. “I should think it would be an awfully good day to get married.”