The Mystery Of An Old Murder (4 page)

Marjorie had moved from her chair and was kneeling by her aunt's side. She put her arm round her as she heard her voice tremble, and Miss Lane turned and looked down at her with sad, loving eyes.

"Darling, it is a terrible story I have to tell you. I will try to be as short as I can. The first time Robert learnt that his father was in great need of money was the autumn after he left Oxford. Mr. Baroni came to St. Mawan to survey some land which a company he was interested in thought of leasing for mining purposes.

"He stayed at the inn for a fortnight or more, and spent a good deal of time in exploring the coast. He joined us in some of our boating expeditions, and I have never disliked anyone so much. We were all very glad when he went away. Little things he had said to Robert had made him very anxious about his father, and the next market-day after he left, Robert went to Plymouth to see Mr. Carew.

"There was no coach between Bodmin and Plymouth then, but Tregelles's van went from St. Mawan to Bodmin on market-days, as I dare say it does still. And Robert used to go as far as Bodmin in that, and then post on from there. That morning I walked along the cliffs with him for a mile or two, and then across the downs to meet the van at the top of Polruan Hill. It was a lovely, fresh, breezy morning; I can remember every step of that walk. As we passed Blackdown Point we saw a small schooner off the point, and Robert laughingly remarked that if he was a revenue officer he should keep a sharp watch on her. She was a stranger; we knew every vessel belonging to St. Mawan, and we had never seen this particular schooner before. But we forgot all about her as we turned inland. And I did not go back by the cliffs.

"That afternoon, as we were sewing in the parlour, Mr. Bulteel came in to tell us that Robert's father had just arrived in the town, and, leaving his horse at the inn, had gone to the Manor House. It was startling news, almost incredible; but Mr. Bulteel assured us there was no mistake. The landlord had talked with him for ten minutes or so. He had told him that Robert had started for Plymouth that morning, at which Mr. Carew had seemed greatly vexed. He had stayed the night at Padstow, he said, and thus had not met his son. Mother wondered whether she ought to go up to the Manor House; she feared the effect of such a meeting on grandfather, who was very feeble. But Mr. Bulteel persuaded her not to go, and, indeed, that afternoon she was not fit for the exertion, for she had been ill for days with one of her heart attacks.

"So we waited, expecting every moment to hear a knock at the front-door; for we felt sure that Mr. Carew would not go back to Plymouth without calling on us. Only the week before I had had a very kind letter from him. But just as the dusk had fallen Mr. Bulteel came again to startle us. Mr. Carew had gone without a word. He had gone into the courtyard of the inn and ordered his horse and ridden off at a gallop towards Padstow.

"Marjorie, I do not know how to tell you the rest. Grandfather had sent his old servant, and the girl who had come to help him since Robert lived there, into Bodmin that afternoon for some stores. When they got back it was to find the house dark and silent, and their master lying dead in the arched passage leading from the hall to the kitchens. He had been shot through the heart."

Marjorie's hands tightened their clasp on Aunt Nell's arm; she gave a low murmur of pity and horror, but did not speak. And it was a moment or two before Miss Lane could go on.

"Mr. Carew was never found, Marjorie. They traced him to Padstow; his horse was brought to the inn by a boy to whom he had given it just outside the town. But nothing further was ever definitely known. People believe he escaped to France, perhaps in that vessel we saw off Blackdown Point. And there was one fact that seemed to prove that it was to France he went. He had papers of great importance with him, relating to our coast defences, and these were afterwards found in the possession of French officials. They may have been stolen from him, he may have sold them. It was said of him that he had been a spy for years in the pay of the French Government, like his friend Baroni, who had had to flee for his life from Plymouth almost directly after returning from St. Mawan. But I have never believed that of him, Marjorie, never. Robert could not have loved him so if that had been true. He was passionate, and grandfather had a bitter tongue. They quarrelled, and he became mad with rage. It was no premeditated act. I have never believed it."

She gently loosed herself from Marjorie's clasp, and rose from her chair and moved away a few steps towards the window. Quietly as she had spoken, it had been a terrible task she had set herself, and now it was ended she felt faint and trembling.

She leant against the window and looked out at the quiet garden, pressing her throbbing forehead against the cool glass. Marjorie sat and watched her, her heart too full to let her speak. She felt she would like to throw herself at her aunt's feet and kiss the hem of her garment. How had she been so cheerful, so loving, when all the joy of her own life had been taken away?

Presently Miss Lane came back to her seat by Marjorie. She had something else to tell her, something Marjorie had guessed already. All the while she had been speaking she had been holding Robert Carew's miniature, but now she put it into Marjorie's hand.

"This is my cousin Robert, dear," she said gently. "I want you to see it." And as Marjorie bent down to look at it by the firelight she added, "We were engaged, Marjorie. We were to have been married in the following year. But it was not to be."

Marjorie hardly heard the last sadly-uttered words. She was gazing fixedly down, at the dark, handsome, vivid face of the young man in the miniature. Where had she seen that face before? She had seen it, she felt sure. And then it suddenly flashed upon her. The man who had been standing in the garden, gazing in at the window, was Robert Carew. He was greatly changed, all the youth had gone out of his face, but she was certain that it was he. And as she thought of him and Aunt Nell, the tears began to fall fast, and Miss Lane heard a little choking sob.

She bent quickly over her. "Marjorie, I shall be sorry I told you. Dear child, you must not be unhappy over it."

It was on Marjorie's lips to tell her that she had seen Robert Carew that afternoon, but she kept the words back. She remembered how he had hurried away. He had evidently wished to remain unknown, and she would not betray him. And before she could speak, her aunt went hastily on: "No one blamed him, no one could have blamed him. But he felt it right for us to part. And my mother insisted on it. He went away, and sometime afterwards we heard he had left England. I think he went to try and find his father. He would not believe him guilty, Marjorie."

Marjorie looked quickly up. "Oh, Aunt Nell, do you think—?"

Miss Lane interrupted her. "I fear there can be no doubt, Marjorie. Robert's love for his father blinded him. And perhaps by this time he thinks as we thought. It is sixteen years since we saw him."

The tone in which she said this was quiet, but intensely sad; it pierced Marjorie's loving heart. She caught her aunt's hand, holding it close against her face with an inarticulate murmur of pity and love. Oh, if only she could do something to bring back Aunt Nell's lost happiness! If only the mystery surrounding Mr. Carew's fate could be solved and he could be proved an innocent man!

CHAPTER 4

marjorie leaves home

It was on a bright sunshiny March morning that Marjorie and her father started for St. Mawan. They drove to Driscombe in time for the early coach, which, however, only availed them for the first stage of their journey. At Tresco, a small town on the Plymouth

Road, Mr. Drew hired a post-chaise, and they drove by cross country roads to Bodmin, whence, as it was market-day, Tregelles's van would take them to St. Mawan, if Mr. Bulteel had not been able to meet them with his trap.

Marjorie was delighted with Bodmin, which seemed a sort of metropolis to her. As she walked up the long hilly street, past the town-hall and the numerous shops, she felt the same elation a girl feels now on seeing Regent Street for the first time. And her eyes were busy at work as they passed the windows of the mantua-makers, where the latest fashions from Plymouth were displayed. Marjorie was not over-fond of dress, but it gratified her to see that her pelisse was just the right length, and that her mother had been right in putting three instead of two ostrich plumes on her bonnet.

They were half-way up the street when Marjorie noticed a little crowd gathered round the arched gateway of the principal inn. They were waiting for the mail-coach from Plymouth, her father told her. It came in daily at this hour.

"Do let us stop and see it," Marjorie begged eagerly. "It may bring some news from the war, father."

The rector smiled at her eagerness, but was not at all loth to stop. He did not join the little throng of sightseers about the inn, however, but stood on the opposite side of the street, looking into the bookshop, where a tempting row of tall folios had caught his eye behind the small-paned windows; till presently there came the cheerful sound of a horn, and the mail-coach, the scarlet body and yellow wheels all splashed with mud, rattled gaily over the paved street and drew up at the inn, true to its time to a moment.

There was only one inside passenger, a man of middle height, with thin sloping shoulders. He got slowly out and went up the steps of the inn, leaning on his stick. He wore a pair of large blue spectacles, and was apparently in feeble health. One of the outside passengers was known to the rector, a prosperous individual with farmer written all over him, from the top of his low-crowned beaver hat to the thick soles of his high boots. He wore a blue cloth coat buttoned tightly across his broad chest, with a large white neck cloth above it, and a bunch of heavy seals dangled at his fob. He hailed the rector in a loud, cheerful voice, and while Mr. Drew stepped across to speak to him, to exchange snuff-boxes and discuss the last news from the Peninsula, Marjorie had time to watch the cheerful scene. The coach went no farther than Bodmin at that time, and presently disappeared under the archway, into the courtyard, to remain there till the time came for its return journey to Plymouth. The coachman and guard were both Bodmin men, and a great deal of friendly raillery went on in broad Cornish between them and their neighbours. The landlord in shirt-sleeves, and his wife with a spotless lawn handkerchief folded over her ample bosom, were at the inn door enjoying the fun, and occasionally taking part in it. Good-humour was in the air, and in those days people had leisure to be mirthful.

But there was a cloud on the rector's brow when he rejoined Marjorie. He had just heard from his friend that Robert Carew was in England. He had been met in Plymouth the week before by a cousin of Mr. Willyams, and though he had said nothing about going to St. Mawan, the rector felt it most probable that he meant to return there. Mr. Drew was not by any means an unsympathetic person, and he pitied his wife's cousin from the bottom of his heart. But he wished he would stay out of Cornwall. Now Nell had forgotten the past and learnt to be happy again, he did not want her mind disturbed. But he said nothing of Robert Carew to Marjorie. He began to talk to her of the old friends to whose house he was taking her.

"I hope you will see Mr. Paul's grandmother, child. She is an old, old woman, and remembers the death of Queen Anne. Just think of that!"

Marjorie opened her blue eyes wide at this. Queen Anne's reign seemed to her to lie far back in the dim, mysterious past. It was with a shock of wonder she heard that there was anyone alive who could remember even the end of it.

The Pauls lived in a delightful old house just outside the town. Captain Paul had made the voyage to India many times, and the parlour was full of all sorts of curiosities he had brought home with him.

Marjorie spent a most interesting hour in examining them, and in talking to Mrs. Paul. But she was hoping all the time that she would be able to see the wonderful old lady her father had spoken of, and she eagerly looked her gratitude when Mrs. Paul suggested that they should go upstairs to her grandmother's room for a few moments.

It was a tiny, shrivelled old woman in a high mob-cap and snowy frills who sat in the cushioned chair by the fire in the big cheery upper room. With her ebony stick and her gold-rimmed spectacles, and small sharp features, she looked, Marjorie thought, exactly like Cinderella's fairy godmother.

She seemed extremely pleased to see Marjorie, and it was only after they had talked for a little while that Marjorie found out she was mistaking her for her Aunt Nell. Her first impulse was to try to undeceive her, but she found that the old lady would not understand, and Mrs. Paul, in a low tone, begged her not to say any more.

"Let her think you are Nell, my dear," she said; "she was always very fond of her." And then raising her voice, she added : "Tell us about your visit to London, grannie, when you were five years old."

That visit had been a great event in the old lady's life, and though it had taken place nearly a hundred years before, every incident of it seemed as fresh in her memory as though it had happened yesterday. She described to Marjorie how she had ridden part of the way strapped to a pillion behind her father, but that after reaching Exeter she and her mother travelled by the flying coach that ran between London and Exeter, taking four days to perform the journey, instead of eight or ten like the old stage waggons, while her father and some friends rode on horseback, well-armed because of the footpads.

And then came the part of the story that was so wonderful to Marjorie. How when they reached the village of Kensington, where they were to stay, they heard the Queen was lying dangerously ill in her palace, hard by their lodgings. And that a day or two after their arrival, her father came quite early in the morning and caught her up out of bed, and carried her wrapped round in his cloak into the street, where there was a great crowd, and men with trumpets and banners, before the palace gate. And they blew on their trumpets, and all the people shouted "God Save the King!" And her father told her that Queen Anne was dead, and that now there was a king in England.

"She remembers it all quite well, father," Marjorie said to Mr. Drew as they walked down the street together. "But she believed all the time that I was Aunt Nell, and that I had come in to market from St. Mawan."

"It is often so as people grow older, my dear," her father said. "They remember what happened when they were children, while they forget the events of yesterday. And your Aunt Nell always went to see her when she came to Bodmin."

Marjorie did not say anything more for a moment. She had a book under her arm, bound in brown leather; Mrs. Trelawny had given it to her, just as she was going downstairs with Mrs. Paul. The old lady had tottered across the room, leaning on her stick, and taken it out of the glass bookcase for her.

"I always meant you to have it, Nell, my dear," she said. " It belonged to the Vyvyans once, and you have the best right to it."

Marjorie had hesitated for a moment about taking it, but Mrs. Paul had whispered to her to do so.

"Give it to your aunt, my dear," she said, when they came downstairs. "I know granny always meant her to have it."

It was a copy of Paradise Lost; on the title-page was written "Jasper Vyvyan, hys boke", and underneath the date 1675, and what looked like a rude attempt at drawing some animal, followed by a row of figures. Marjorie had shown this to her father, but he did not appear to be interested. He was, in truth, a little vexed with Mrs. Paul for sending Nell the book. And he told Marjorie she had better keep it till her visit was over; it would do her good to read and study Milton's great poem. She should set herself a task, and read so many lines a day. And this Marjorie had promised to do. But she was really much more interested in the words scrawled on the title-page than in the book itself, and after walking in silence along the street for a little while, she timidly asked her father if Jasper Vyvyan had lived at the Manor House.

"It belonged to him, child," her father said, rousing himself from a deep reverie. "His portrait hangs over the chimney-piece in the hall. That was the Jasper who was squire in 1675. But there are plenty of Jasper Vyvyans in the family history; it was a favourite name. They will tell you about Black Jasper at St. Mawan. He lived in Elizabeth's time, and is still said to haunt Blackdown Point."

Marjorie would have been glad to hear more about this interesting personage, but Mr. Drew quickened his steps, saying they had no time to lose.

"Though old Tregelles is more often than not half an hour late in starting, he sometimes starts to the minute, so we must be in time," he added with a laugh. "He is a character, Marjorie, and so was his father, who drove the van before him. It was Tregelles's van in my grandfather's time, and I dare say long before. There have been Tregelleses in St. Mawan as long as Vyvyans and Bulteels."

They had by this time reached the inn, and as they passed it, the passenger who had arrived inside the coach came down the steps, accompanied by a boy carrying his bag. He had just reached the bottom of the steps when he gave a start on seeing Marjorie, and his blue spectacles slipped off, and would have fallen to the ground if he had not caught them. He hastily replaced them, but not before Marjorie had seen his eyes. Black, piercing eyes they were, curiously brilliant for an elderly man. She wondered why he found it necessary to wear those hideous spectacles.

"What a strange-looking old man, father!" she whispered when they had passed him. "He must be old, he stoops so; but his eyes were not old."

"I did not observe him, my dear," her father answered, in a tone that checked any further comment on the stranger Marjorie might have felt inclined to make.

The rector was a student of books and a deeply-learned man, but he lacked his daughter's swift powers of observation, and took very little interest in people he met unless they were brought into personal relations with him.

They reached the market-place as the church clock was striking four. Tregelles, a stout, gray-haired man, with a mouth that shut like a trap, and a long, obstinate chin, was already seated in his place, whip in hand. As the last stroke of the clock died away, he shouted out to the market-women standing about the van that "time was up, an' he didn't mane to stop no longer for nobody".

There was a rush for places, but before all the passengers were seated the stranger from the inn appeared, the boy rushing on before him to keep the van from starting.

For three strangers to be going to St. Mawan the same day was an event indeed, and at another time Tregelles would have been as much interested as anybody. But this afternoon one of his moods of sulky dignity was on him, and if he felt any curiosity about his unknown passengers he was careful not to show it. And almost before they had taken their seats the van began to lumber over the cobblestones of the market-place.