The House at Bell Orchard (3 page)

“My child,” he said kindly, “there is something which Mr. Prentiss wishes to say to you. Do you feel yourself strong enough to receive him?”

The brown eyes, heavily shadowed in her white face, lifted to meet his; she said in a low voice: “I am strong enough, sir, if you and Lavinia will stay with me.”

“We shall do whatever you wish, my dear,” he assured her. “I think you know by now that our foremost desire is to ease your burden for you as far as we may.”

He took her hand and led her to where the lawyer was engaged in low-voiced conversation with Lavinia, who said kindly:

“Come, my love, sit here beside me. This is a sad ordeal for you, but I am sure that Mr. Prentiss will explain everything as briefly as he can.”

The lawyer hastened to agree, and then, Charmian having seated herself at Lavinia’s side, he took the chair to which the Colonel waved him. Fenshawe himself remained standing beside Charmian, one hand resting upon the back of the couch on which she and his wife were sitting.

“You will no doubt be aware, my dear Miss Tarrant,” Prentiss began, “that the matter upon which I must speak to you concerns your late father’s Will.” He paused to lay his hand on some documents he had placed on the table beside him, and Charmian bit her lip hard to stop its trembling. “Before I read it, however, there is something which I must endeavour to make clear to you. The Will was drawn up some years ago, when Mr. Tarrant’s affairs were in a vastly different state than they stand in today.”

He paused again, and Charmian stared at him with knitted brows. After a moment she said in a low voice:

“I fear I do not properly understand you, Mr. Prentiss. Papa’s circumstances were as they had always been, were they not?”

Mr. Prentiss seemed reluctant to reply. He took off his spectacles and polished them and then replaced them on his nose, looking at her over the top of them.

“Unhappily, my dear young lady, that is not so,” he said at last “It is my painful duty to inform you that your unfortunate parent found himself in grave financial difficulties. So grave, in fact, that there can be no doubt that they furnish the reason for this terrible tragedy.”

Charmian put a hand to her head. “But that is impossible,” she said dazedly. “Papa was a rich man.”

The lawyer shook his head. “He was facing ruin, Miss Tarrant. Over the past two years he disposed of vast sums of money, against my advice and for some purpose which he refused to disclose to me. This house is heavily mortgaged, and even when everything has been sold, I fear that it will prove barely possible to satisfy all his creditors.”

The words seemed to come to Charmian from a great distance, and the lawyer’s kindly, troubled face appeared to be floating before her eyes in a wavering mist. Mrs. Fenshawe uttered an exclamation of concern and produced the smelling-salts which she had apparently kept in readiness, supporting Charmian meanwhile with an arm about her shoulders. After a few moments the deadly faintness passed, and Charmian turned her head to look up at the Colonel, saying piteously:

“I do not understand! How
could
Papa have lost all his money?”

“My dear child, it seems unlikely that that question will ever be answered,” he replied, taking her hand and holding it reassuringly between his own. “We can find nothing among his effects to indicate how he disposed of his fortune. All we can do now is to settle his affairs to the best of our ability, and that sad business you may safely leave to Mr. Prentiss and to me. It is not fitting that you should be troubled by it.”

“This is a grievous blow to you, Miss Tarrant,” the lawyer put in compassionately, “though there is some consolation to be found in the fact that you are still amply provided for under the terms of your late uncle’s Will. When you reach your twenty-first birthday, which event I believe to be imminent, his entire fortune will pass into your hands.” He sighed and shook his head. “That is a grave responsibility for a young woman to bear alone.”

“I am sure, Mr. Prentiss,” Fenshawe said smoothly, “that Miss Tarrant’s affairs will be safe in your hands and in the hands of the present trustees of her uncle’s estate. Meanwhile her friends must exert themselves to look after her, and to give her what comfort they can.” He looked again at Charmian. “My dear, this has been a great shock to you. I think you should let Mrs. Fenshawe take you to your room.”

Charmian nodded wearily. Her head ached, and her tired mind refused to grapple with the mystery which had just been laid before her, for it was a riddle too hard for her to read. She allowed Lavinia to lead her to her bedchamber, and was persuaded to lie down upon the bed. Mrs. Fenshawe, sitting beside her, said quietly:

“Charmian, my love, how would you like to come with me to Bell Orchard for a time? You need a period of quiet and a change of surroundings to help you to recover from this shocking affair.”

Charmian, who had been lying with closed eyes, opened them to look with profound gratitude at the other woman. Her first thought was that Harry was at Bell Orchard—she knew nothing of his visit to London on the night of her father’s death—and he was the one person above all others for whose presence she longed. Colonel Fenshawe and his wife were kind, but their kindness was expressed in practical ways, in ministering to her physical needs or dealing with the grim duties arising from her father’s death. They could not give her the solace she craved, and seemed unaware of her crying need for strength to which to lean, and for the deep, unspoken comfort which could come only with love and understanding. If Harry could give her these things, she would know that all was well between them, and would wait patiently for him to declare himself.

“How good to me you are, Lavinia,” she said unsteadily. “I would like that above all things. Mrs. Brownhill says that I may stay with her for as long as I wish, but I would so much rather go away from Richmond for a time. To remain here can only keep painful memories alive, and if this house is to be sold, I do not think I could bear to be by while it is done.”

“That is settled, then!” Lavinia spoke briskly, hiding her own resentment. She detested the country, but was sufficiently well acquainted with her husband’s plans to know that upon this occasion she would be given no choice in the matter. “We will leave for Sussex as soon as it can be arranged. You know, my child, that we feel ourselves responsible for you, since you have no relatives to take you into their care.”

“There is only my Great-aunt Emmeline in Yorkshire,” Charmian replied dispiritedly. “I
could
go to her, I expect, although I have never met her. She is very old, and has not left her house these ten years.”

“Heavens, child, you do not want to bury yourself in the wilds of Yorkshire!” Lavinia exclaimed. “I know that you will be obliged to live very quietly while you are in mourning, but after that it will be high time to see you established in a home of your own. It is a thousand pities that you are not already married.” She paused, narrowly regarding the girl’s pale face, into which her words had brought a faint tinge of colour. “To be sure, this is not the time to be talking of a bridal, but there is no need, I believe, to make any secret of the fact that the Colonel and I hope one day to welcome you into our family. Remember that, my dear, and do not think of seeking shelter under any roof but ours.”

3

The Sleeping Dog

So to Sussex they went, as soon as arrangements for the journey could be made, Charmian and Lavinia travelling in the Colonel’s luxurious coach, and Fenshawe himself riding beside it Charmian was glad to leave Richmond, the house where her father had died, and the spate of gossip which his suicide had provoked. It would be a profound relief to find herself in new surroundings, where none but the Fenshawes need know more than that she had been recently bereaved.

Being unused to travelling, and still suffering from the effects of shock and grief, she found the journey something of a strain, and was thankful when the first distant glimpse of the sea told her that they were nearing its end. Evening was falling over a fertile countryside of wood and meadow, and as the coach descended a gentle slope, Charmian saw away to their right a lazy river and the clustering roofs of a village, while on the crest of the hill beyond a great mansion loomed impressively against the sunset sky. That, she thought, must be their destination. She was therefore a good deal surprised when, at the next crossroads, the coach turned to the left, away from the village which Lavinia told her was called Wychwood End. Later Charmian was to learn that the house on the hill was Wychwood Chase, but on that first evening she felt no curiosity concerning it, but merely surprise that it was not the home of Colonel Fenshawe. This, it seemed, lay some miles farther on, but at last the coach turned from the road through a stone-pillared gateway, and after traversing a long, winding drive, came to a halt before the house of Bell Orchard.

It stood in a green hollow within sight of the sea, a modest manor house, old and rambling, with timbered walls and gabled roof; a picturesque place, certainly, but totally different from anything that Charmian had expected. The sunset light still lay golden upon the higher ground around it, but the house and its old-fashioned garden were already drowned in a deep lake of shadow. It seemed strange that Colonel Fenshawe, who was obviously so wealthy and whose London house was so large and impressive, should be content with this insignificant country residence.

Entering the house, Lavinia led her guest to a pleasant front-parlour which was apparently the nearest approach to a drawing-room that Bell Orchard could offer. The room was low-ceilinged, panelled from floor to roof, and small by the fashionable standards of that year of 1744, its furnishings in keeping with their setting. Lavinia stood in the middle of the room, untying the strings of her cloak and looking disparagingly about her, and Charmian, watching her, reflected irrelevantly that this room demanded sombre velvets and stiff brocades. Mrs. Fenshawe in her flower-sprigged silk and vast, hooped skirt, her pale hair unpowdered beneath a beribboned hat, looked totally out of place in it.

The door opened, and every other thought was driven out of her head as Harry came into the room. He kissed his stepmother’s hand and inquired civilly after her health, and then turned to pay the same courtesy to Charmian, adding a conventional expression of sympathy for her loss. The formality of his words she could have forgiven, attributing it to Lavinia’s presence, but it was in vain that she searched his face for some evidence of real feeling, some indication that her grief touched him also. He looked merely sullen, and she realized with a painful flash of insight that he had come to greet her merely because good manners demanded it. He resented the necessity, and he resented her presence at Bell Orchard.

She had thought it impossible to experience a deeper unhappiness than she already felt, but she realized now how mistaken she had been. In that moment of bitter truth she knew beyond all doubt that Harry cared nothing for her, that if ever he asked her to marry him it would be as a matter of expediency, because she was still a rich woman, and because his father and stepmother were constantly urging him to it. Whether or not she could face marriage on such terms she did not know.

Less than a week later her disillusionment was complete. Coming down from her room on a bright, summer afternoon, and crossing the hall to the parlour door, which stood ajar, she was halted within a yard of it by the sound of low, furious voices—Harry’s and Lavinia’s—within the room.

“... a little courtesy to Miss Tarrant,” Lavinia was saying angrily. “You have spent barely an hour in her company since we arrived. Is it too much to ask that you forgo your vulgar amusements for a little while in the interests of us all?”

“Too damned much by far!” Harry replied bluntly. “How long will it be before you and my father realize that I am in earnest when I say I will not marry her?”

“Oh, I am out of all patience with you!” Mrs. Fenshawe exclaimed. “At present you have only to crook your finger and the silly creature will fall into your arms, but that state of affairs will not last for ever, especially if you treat her in this off-hand way. Let me tell you, Harry, that I have not allowed myself to be burdened with that tiresome girl for the past two years just to stand by and see nothing come of it. In fact, had I not imagined that you would have her safely married to you within six months, I would never have befriended her in the first place. But it is all of a piece! You and Miles are the most selfish creatures alive! You and he together created this appalling muddle, and ’tis I who have to bear the brunt of it.”

“Oh, have done, in the devil’s name!” Harry said exasperatedly. “I know you detest Bell Orchard, but it is not my fault that you have to stay here. I was against bringing the girl here at all, but no heed was paid to me!”

Charmian waited to hear no more, but turned and fled blindly across to the open door and out into the sunshine. Never in her life had she felt so utterly humiliated. It was bad enough to know that Harry had never had any intention of marrying her, that he was weary of being plagued to do so, but Lavinia’s words had shown her how transparently plain her own eagerness for the match had been. And what Mrs. Fenshawe had seen, others must have seen also; half London must have been laughing at her behind her back. Nor was there any escape. She could not leave Bell Orchard without giving her reasons for doing so, and thus bringing even more humiliation upon herself.

For a while indignation sustained her as she walked through the gardens, and out of them into the small park which surrounded the house. Inland, this was bounded by the road leading to Wychwood End, but on the seaward side, the direction which Charmian had taken, there was no such definite boundary, and the parkland gave way almost imperceptibly to rolling dunes, and thence to the pebble ridge and sandy levels of the shore itself. She climbed to the crest of the dunes, over the soft sand and patches of rough grass, and stood looking out to sea, her black gown sombre against the brightness of the deserted, sunlit shore.

This was her first visit to the coast and as such had the attraction of novelty, but the emptiness of the scene before her brought fresh realization of her loneliness. Anger faded, to be replaced by a kind of weary despair, so that the bright prospect before her shimmered in a sudden mist of tears. The weight of misery and bewilderment which had pressed upon her ever since her father’s death seemed all at once too heavy to be borne, and she could endure no longer the endless, profitless circle of her thoughts. She must speak to someone of her doubts and fears, seek an answer to questions which had tormented her ever since the lawyer told her of the disappearance of her father’s fortune.

There was only one person to whom she could turn for advice, and that was Colonel Fenshawe. Though she saw him now, as she saw the rest of his family, for the opportunist he was, and knew that his kindness had been prompted merely by the desire to secure a rich bride for his son, there was no doubt that he had been on terms of intimate friendship with her father, and was familiar enough with the ways of the world to tell her whether or not the suspicion which for days had been growing in her mind had any foundation. Yet if she wished to seek his advice she must do so without delay, for she had heard him say that morning he would be returning to London on the morrow.

That evening she sought him out and requested the favour of a private conversation with him. He agreed at once and, leading her to the library, asked how he could be of service to her.

“Colonel Fenshawe,” she said earnestly, “I have been thinking a great deal about what Mr. Prentiss told us concerning Papa’s affairs, and there is still much that I cannot understand. My father was a man of moderate tastes, and lived quietly, without extravagance of any kind. He did not gamble or speculate. Yet he died at the point of ruin, even though two years ago he was a rich man. How could he have lost so much in so short a time?”

The Colonel shook his head. “My child, that is a question which neither I nor any man can answer. Your concern is natural, but there is nothing to be gained by brooding over the mystery.”

“You agree, however, that there
is
a mystery?”

“Only in so far as your father chose to keep his own counsel. I have no doubt that there is a simple explanation, did we but know it.”

“I must know it, sir!” she said desperately. “I shall never be able to rest until I do. I have come to ask you to help me.”

There was a pause. The Colonel took out his snuff-box, helped himself to a pinch, and then closed the box again and sat looking down at the design on its enamelled surface. At last he said quietly:

“My dear Miss Tarrant, I realize that at present the recent terrible events occupy your mind to the exclusion of all else, but it will not always be so. You are young, and must endeavour to put this tragedy behind you. Whatever reason your father had for disposing of his fortune, it is plain that he did not wish you to know of it, or he would have left some written explanation before he took his life. There was no such document. I was with Mr. Prentiss when he went through your father’s papers, and there was not a single word among them to throw any light upon the mystery. I counsel you to leave it so.”

Charmian shook her head. “Colonel Fenshawe, I cannot! Do you think I can go through life with that question unanswered? I have thought and thought, and only one explanation occurs to me. I believe that someone cheated Papa out of his fortune.”

Again there was a pause. Fenshawe regarded her with an expression she could not read, for the frown in his eyes might have indicated perplexity, disbelief or even disapproval. Certainly he offered her no encouragement to continue, but she forced herself to do so even in the face of this apparent indifference.

“If that is so,” she resumed at length, “it must surely be possible to discover who did so, and how it was done. I understand that you will shortly be returning to London. When you do so, I beg that you will inform Mr. Prentiss of my suspicions, and ask him to do whatever he thinks necessary to discover the. truth.”

“To what end?” Fenshawe asked in a cold voice. “Even if what you suspect is true, I can see no way of discovering it.”

“But Papa must have disposed of many thousands of pounds in the past two years. Such sums as that cannot disappear without trace.”

“Perhaps not, but even if the money could be traced, and the identity of the supposed criminal established, what would you gain? It is out of the question that the money could be recovered.”

“I never imagined, sir, that it could be, nor must you think that I am prompted by the desire for vengeance. But if such a criminal does exist, then surely it is our duty to try to expose him, and so save others from similar suffering?” She paused, studying his face with some perplexity, for he was still looking decidedly forbidding. She moved her hands in a helpless gesture. “It may be that nothing can be done, but I feel that I owe it to my father’s memory to see that the attempt is made. If I write a letter to Mr. Prentiss, will you see that it reaches him?”

Fenshawe did not reply at once. He got up and walked to the window, which offered, beyond park and garden, a distant glimpse of the sea, and stood there with his back to her for perhaps two minutes. It seemed that he was deliberating, and Charmian waited in silence and some trepidation for him to speak. It was not easy for her to persist in the face of his obvious disapproval, but she was stubbornly determined not to be turned from her purpose. Now that every other hope and dream was shattered, the solving of the mystery had somehow become the most important matter in her life.

The Colonel turned at last to face her, but he did not move away from the window, and the golden evening light behind him dazzled her so that she could not clearly see his face. In that low-pitched, shadowy room, against that bright background, his tall figure seemed for a moment to be charged with indefinable menace, and a little tremor of fear passed through her. Impatiently she shook it off, telling herself that she was being intolerably foolish.

“Have you never heard, Miss Tarrant,” he said slowly, “that it is sometimes prudent to let a sleeping dog lie?”

Was it a warning, or a threat? The cold, quiet voice seemed to be the voice of a stranger, and not of the kindly man who had shouldered for her the burdens of the recent terrible days. Charmian pressed her hands tightly together, feeling the palms cold and clammy with an unnamed fear, but still some inner obstinacy drove her on.

“I want to know the truth,” she replied flatly. “Perhaps I am wrong to disregard your advice, perhaps I appear ungrateful in not being guided by it, but I cannot rest until this mystery is solved.”

“Then the truth you shall have,” Fenshawe replied coldly. “For your own sake I have sought to keep it from you, but I cannot permit you to start an investigation which must inevitably have consequences more far-reaching than you can even imagine. Remember that, when you begin to regret your curiosity.”

“You know the truth?” Charmian spoke in a tone of incredulous inquiry, and then added with growing conviction: “You have always known it!”

“Yes, I know it,” he repeated dispassionately, and moved away from the window at last, and came to stand before her. “Are you aware, Miss Tarrant, where your father’s political loyalties lay?”

She shook her head, staring at him in growing bewilderment. “He had no interest in politics.”