The Mystery Of An Old Murder (3 page)

CHAPTER 3

A tragic history

Marjorie had never been away from home before, and this visit to St. Mawan was looked on as an important event, not only by herself, but by all the household. The set of shirts for Ned, the sailor, over which so many winter hours had been spent, was put aside, and much anxious consultation went on in reference to Marjorie's wardrobe. Mrs. Drew and Aunt Nell did not intend their girl to be altogether outshone by London Kitty. And simple as her new dresses were, the materials were of the finest, and the lace on them might have been worn by a princess. Then there was a new brown pelisse trimmed with sable, and a straw bonnet with ostrich feathers that made Marjorie feel like a grown-up young lady. She had an honest delight in her new clothes, and but for the haunting memory of Kitty's words would have looked forward with unmixed pleasure to her visit.

Once or twice she had felt tempted to repeat to her mother and Aunt Nell what Kitty had said, but each time she was held back by the fear lest by doing so she should force them to tell her what they did not wish her to know. And the end of February approached, and the time for her visit drew near without her mentioning the subject. But little as she suspected it, her mother and Miss Lane were already aware of what Kitty had said to her. Kitty had confessed her indiscretion to her aunt, who had told Mrs. Drew. And before the visitors left the Rectory, it was decided that Marjorie should hear the whole sad story before going to St. Mawan. Aunt Nell took upon herself the task of telling her, and had tried more than once to begin. But she found it very difficult to speak of those dark days of her youth, in whose shadow she was living still. Yet she would not let Mrs. Drew tell Marjorie; she had always meant, she said, to tell Marjorie herself. And she was glad the time had come when she might do so.

Two days before the time fixed for Marjorie's leaving home, her father and mother went to dine at Westmead, a pretty house on the other side of the valley, occupied by Mr. Drew's cousin. Aunt Nell had been invited, but had declined to go. By remaining at home she would have a long quiet evening with Marjorie, which was what she wanted.

It was Tuesday afternoon, and Marjorie rode in to Driscombe as usual for the letters. The mail was disappointing, for there were only business letters for her father. But there was a letter with an American post-mark for old Nancy White, which Marjorie felt sure must be from her son. She knew Nancy would not get it till market-day unless she carried it to her, as the old woman never came into the town except to sell her eggs and fowls at the weekly market. It was a long way round to her cottage, which was a solitary dwelling on Driscombe Common, but Marjorie could not leave the letter lying in the post-mistress's box when the sight of it would be so precious to the lonely mother.

She rode fast, but it was almost dark when she got home. Thomas took her pony, and she walked quickly up the path towards the porch, from which the light streamed cheerfully out through the open door of the hall.

She was startled, when quite close to the house, to see a tall man standing outside the parlour window. The candles were not lit, but the firelight shed a soft glow over the room, and he was evidently absorbed in gazing intently in.

Marjorie's first impulse was to step across the grass and find out what brought him there; but before she could do this, he turned and went quickly past her, without seeing her, towards the garden gate. And a moment after she heard the sound of a horse trotting rapidly along the road.

Greatly puzzled, she went into the house. In the hall she met Tamsin, the old servant who had lived with her grandmother before her mother's marriage. The old woman's eyes were red, and Marjorie felt sure she had been crying. But this the old woman stoutly denied, and when Marjorie went on to tell her about the man in the garden, she declared that it must have been one of the men who were painting the stables.

"'Twas Ned Jones, I'll be bound, cheeld. It's just like his imperence, to be starin' in at the parlour winder. I s'pose he wanted to see what gentlefolks' rooms is like. Now, don't 'ee go and worrit Miss Nell by tellin' her. She's got a fancy for having the blinds up at nighttime. I'll talk to Ned."

Marjorie felt perfectly sure that it was not Ned Jones or any of the workmen. She had seen him clearly as he passed her, and the man was a gentleman. His coat and long boots were all splashed with mud, as if he had been riding fast, but he was unmistakably a gentleman. And though she could not understand how he came to be staring in at the window, his face was one to trust and like.

She promised Tamsin to say nothing about the mysterious stranger to Aunt Nell, but she was glad when, after tea, her aunt proposed that they should go up into her own room, instead of staying in the parlour, where it made her nervous to look out of the un-curtained windows at the darkness.

Aunt Nell's room was next to Marjorie's, and was, Marjorie thought, the most charming room in the house. This evening a fire had been lit on the tiled hearth, and sent a pleasant flickering glow over walls and ceiling. Miss Lane seemed in no hurry to light the candles, which stood ready on the bureau. She could knit by the firelight as well as by candlelight, she said.

Marjorie was glad of an idle time; a fireside talk with Aunt Nell was one of her chief delights.

For a time she talked merrily on, without noticing how brief and absent her aunt's answers were. But bending forward to give her back her knitting, which had slipped from her

hip to the ground, she was startled beyond measure to see that tears were dropping silently on her cheeks.

"Aunt Nell, you are crying! What is it? What is the matter?" she asked in keen distress and perplexity.

"My dear, nothing; nothing new. I have been thinking of sad things that happened long ago, that is all," Miss Lane said gently. "I want to tell you about them, Marjorie. Before you go to St Mawan you ought to know. And I want to tell you."

Kitty's words instantly recurred to Marjorie, but she did not speak of them. She sat very still, waiting for her aunt to go on. Miss Lane only paused a moment.

"Has it ever seemed strange to you, dear child, that we have never visited St. Mawan, that you have heard so little about the place in which your father and mother were born?"

Marjorie shook her head. "No, I never thought of it, Aunt Nell, till—till—"

"I know. Kitty spoke to you. But you did not understand her?"

"She only said a word or two, Aunt Nell. I knew then there was some secret, but she did not tell me what it was. And I don't want you to tell me if you think I ought not to know. I will try not to think of it," said Marjorie, flushing up.

"My dear, there is no secret," said her aunt sadly. "We thought it too sad a story for you to hear while you were a child, but now I want you to know it. And first let me show you two portraits, darling."

She went to her bureau and unlocked one of the inner drawers. There were some letters there, and two oval miniatures, framed in gold. She brought the miniatures back to her seat and put one of them in Marjorie's hands.

"It is your great-aunt, Marjorie. I never saw her. She had married and had left St. Mawan before your mother and I were born. She never came back. She had married against her father's wishes, and he never forgave her while she lived."

"She must have been beautiful," said Marjorie, studying the portrait eagerly. It was the portrait of a young woman with flashing black eyes and delicately-cut features. Her powdered hair was brushed back from her forehead over a cushion, and hung in curls on her neck.

"Yes, her father was very proud of her. And when she ran away with Mr. Carew, it almost broke his heart. He was a changed man ever afterwards, I have heard my mother say. He was my mother's stepfather; Aunt Ellen was his only child."

"Was grandmother married when Aunt Ellen ran away?" asked Marjorie. She was still looking at the miniature she held; but she had begun to wonder whose that other miniature was, over which Aunt Nell's fingers were clasped so closely.

"Yes, she had married the year before. Aunt Ellen and grandfather lived at the Manor House alone together. Then she went to Plymouth on a visit, and met Mr. Carew. He held some good post in the dockyards there, and many people thought her father foolish to oppose the marriage. But he had heard things which made him dislike Mr. Carew and mistrust him, and he would not give his consent. And then Mr. Carew persuaded her to run away with him, and they went to Scotland, and were married at Gretna Green. It is quite a romance, isn't it, Marjorie?" and Miss Lane smiled sadly as she met Marjorie's eager glance. "But it ended badly, as such romances so often do in real life. She only lived six years after her marriage. She had several long illnesses and lost her good looks, and her husband neglected her. He was a very handsome, brilliant man, the idol of Plymouth society, and nursing a sick wife was not to his taste. Then he was angry with her because she would not try harder to obtain her father's forgiveness. He seemed to think that if she would go to the Manor House with her boy she would be received. But she knew her father better than he did, and was sure he would refuse to see her. And after six years she died."

"Was her father sorry then?" asked Marjorie eagerly. "Did he make friends with Mr. Carew?"

"No, his grief made him still more bitter. For years he lived on at the Manor House alone, with only an old manservant to keep him company. We children used to be taken to see him now and then, and I remember how frightened I used to be at the big gloomy rooms and the silence of the place. It is a beautiful old house, Marjorie. You will see it next week as you drive from Bodmin."

"It is shut up now, is it not?" asked Marjorie timidly.

"Yes, I will tell you why presently. It has been shut up for years, my dear."

There was a change in Aunt Nell's voice, and her lips were trembling, but she went hastily on: "Grandfather was a rich man, though he lived like a very poor one. The estate is not a large one, though once the Vyvyans owned all the land about St. Mawan. But there was a tin-mine on the downs—it is deserted now. You will see the shaft of it surrounded by heaps of rubbish, overgrown with grass and heather. But in grandfather's time it was very productive, and he made a great deal of money by it. Then he made still more by his ships; he had a number, some of them used for smuggling, I fear. Everybody smuggled in those days in St. Mawan. His great-uncle was called Miser Vyvyan, and after his death large sums of money were found hidden behind wainscotings and under the hearthstones, and in all sorts of queer places. And as grandfather became older the same love of hoarding grew upon him. My mother always believed he had a large amount of money hidden somewhere in the old house. I have heard her talking to my father about it, and saying it was not safe for him to live alone. That was before Robert came to live at the Manor House."

Marjorie looked up quickly. Even to her youthful ears the way in which her aunt uttered her cousin's name said a great deal. Miss Lane hurried on:

"You know who he was, Marjorie; Aunt Ellen's son. The land was entailed, and grandfather could not have willed it away from him. And when, after some years, Mr. Carew wrote, begging that his son might see the old house in which his mother had been born, and which was one day to be his own, grandfather consented to receive him, but on the condition that his father did not accompany him. He did not answer Mr. Carew's letter himself; his lawyer wrote. He was as determined as ever to hold no communication with him. Robert spent a month at St. Mawan that summer. He was just fifteen, and your mother and I were twelve. After that he came every year, and stayed longer and longer each time, till at last he really lived at the Manor House and only visited his father. I think Mr. Carew was glad to have him away from home. As was found out afterwards, he was deeply in debt, and had all kinds of difficulties about money-matters, which Robert knew nothing of. He was passionately attached to his father, and though his grandfather would not allow his name to be mentioned in his presence, he constantly talked to us about him. We were together a great deal. A day rarely passed without our seeing each other. Your mother and I loved being on the water, and Robert often took us out in his boat. Your grandmother never troubled about us if Robert was with us. She knew how careful he was."

Miss Lane stopped, looking dreamily into the fire, a faint, sad smile on her lips. Marjorie knew she was thinking of those happy days so long ago. She kept breathlessly still; not by a word or a look would she have disturbed her aunt's thoughts. But it was only for a moment Miss Lane paused. She went on in a steady voice:

"When Robert was eighteen he went to Oxford, and was there three years. He spent nearly all his vacations with us; grandfather was failing in health, and always grew restless and ill if he stayed more than a day or two, in Plymouth. And his father was more anxious than ever to keep Robert away from him. His affairs were in a desperate state; he had begun to be shunned by men of good position, and his most intimate friend was now a man named Baroni, who had lately come to Plymouth, and of whom very little was known. Robert disliked this man intensely, and it troubled him that he should be on terms of intimacy with his father. But he was as yet wholly ignorant of his father's bankrupt condition. Mr. Carew always spoke cheerfully to him. I think he really loved his son, and wanted to keep his good opinion. If he had only confided in him!"