Crooked Wreath (22 page)

“Which you've frightened away with your own clumping great ones,” said Claire as the squirrel scampered off up his tree again.

“Ellen's putting the baby to bed,” said Philip, sitting down beside her and beginning rather aimlessly to chuck bits of bark at an opposite tree. “Antonia is still saying ‘Blut-blut-blut' and I feel that the day will come when we shall find it in our hearts to wish that she had thought up some different phrase …”

Claire knew that a scene was coming; all that was honest and real in her, rebelled at it; all that was over-romantic, over-dramatic, egotistical and “exhibitionist,” gloried in it. “Why are you playing for time, Philip?”

Philip stopped throwing bark about. “Claire–Ellen has just asked me once and for all, finally and for the rest of our lives, which it was to be–herself or you.”

It seemed as though the lark had stopped singing, as though even the wood and the river hushed for a moment their multitudinous whisperings to listen to the beating of her heart. At last she said: “Well–what did you tell her, Philip? Is it Ellen or me?”

“It's Ellen,” said Philip.

There was silence again. She did not reply directly to him but said, as though to herself, and with an infinite pathos: “So I'm alone again!”

“She–she was bathing the baby,” said Philip, blundering on with it, “and I said that Peta had done it last night, and how fiercely she'd been fighting for her ascendancy in the matter of looking after Antonia, because she'd promised Ellen. I–I was sort of making a joke of it, not thinking about you in relation to it all. But I suppose it made her think of you; and she suddenly stood up straight, right in the middle of a sentence, as if she couldn't bear it all a moment longer and asked me if it was to be her or you. I've been terribly weak and–and wrong, Claire; you and Ellen have meant different things to me, and I wanted them both, and you've both suffered and it's been my fault … I suppose I'm a rotter, I suppose I'm just weak and mean … But anyway, when Ellen said that to me, I knew that she was the one. There's only one thing to do, Claire, and that is to tell you straight out. I know it doesn't do
you
any good if I–I loathe myself for all this; but I feel despicable …”

“What did Ellen say?” said Claire.

“She didn't say anything. She–she just stood there looking at me, pushing a little strand of hair off her forehead with the back of her hand; and then she bent over and went on bathing the baby.”

Out of the aching silence, Claire said: “You don't often see Ellen with her hair untidy.”

“I–her sleeve was rolled up, Claire, and I stooped down beside her and kissed her bare arm–and came away.”

The lark's song screeched through her mind, the green of the woods seemed to close in about her, suffocating her; her very soul shuddered with the shuddering of her physical revulsion at the thought of his kiss on Ellen's round white arm. She said, loudly and crudely, deliberately wounding: “At least you can spare me the recital of your amorous attentions to your wife.”

“That's just the point,” said Philip. “She
is
my wife.”

“Yes,” said Claire. “I'm sorry.” The reality of her pain robbed her for a little while of all emotionalism and affectation. Her beautiful face, staring out over the river, was quiet and still. “I'll tell you something, Philip; it's–it's an extraodinary thing to say, but perhaps it'll make you feel less bad about the whole thing, at least. I think all this time it's been because I needed
somebody;
not necessarily you. I wanted a man to love and to lean on and to be friends with and to–to share my troubles …” She gave a little half-laugh, and a little half-shrug. “I wanted a husband, in fact!” And suddenly, she interrupted herself, putting out a hand to clutch his arm. “Who's that?”

It was Mrs. Brough, coming quietly down the little path towards them. She said, with her ugly smile: “I thought I might find you in the wood. You often come here, don't you?”

“Did you want something, Mrs. Brough?” said Claire.

“Not exactly,” said Mrs. Brough. “I thought that I might just have a word with you.”

“What about?” said Philip curtly.

“Well, it was about the will, Doctor; the will we witnessed, you know; it was the one disinheriting you and Miss Claire here.”

“Well, yes, thank you, I think we know the general trend of it. What about it?”

She stood before them, a tall, gaunt woman in her black dress like a blot against the gay green of the trees; with her big hands folded in front of her in an attitude of nicely blended mockery and respect. “Brough felt for you about that will, Doctor, indeed he did. ‘I don't think it's fair,' he said to me, coming away from the lodge with it in his pocket.”

“
With the will in his pocket?
”

“Sir Richard signed it while we stood there, Doctor, and he folded it up and put it in an envelope and he said to Brough, ‘Take this round to Mr. Garde's office in the morning,' he said. ‘Take it yourself, Brough,' he said. ‘By hand. You can do it on your way home from your fire watching, at nine o'clock.'”

“Good God!” said Philip.

“So Brough took it along, Doctor, and I daresay thought no more about it; but before he left the village after his fire watch, he got the news that Sir Richard had been found dead. Mrs. Hoggins on the exchange, and that daughter of hers, they spread everything,” said Mrs. Brough, sniffing virtuously.

“Yes, yes, we know, they always have.”

“So then Brough thinks, ‘How can I do the doctor a good turn?' he thinks to himself. ‘Why, now, who knows about this here will the old man signed last night? Nobody but him and the missis and me; and his mouth's shut and the old woman's isn't one to open about what doesn't concern her,' thought Brough, meaning me, Miss Claire and Doctor, you understand? So he kept the will in his pocket and came home and said nothing about it, meaning to wait for events.”

“Good Lord!” said Philip again.

“But it was absolutely illegal, Mrs. Brough,” protested Claire. “He could have got into terrible trouble for doing such a thing.”

“I don't see why, Miss, really,” said Mrs. Brough comfortably. “If things got awkward he had only to hide it somewhere in the grounds, and pretend to dig it up–him being the gardener–all innocent like. He wasn't one to take risks for nothing, wasn't Brough.”

“Well, it was very–it was very kind of him to take all this trouble for me,” said Philip uneasily. “Especially as I don't see how he could expect to gain anything by it.”

There was a short silence. “Well, as to that,” said Mrs. Brough, sweetly, after a moment, “as I've just said, Brough wasn't one to take risks for nothing.”

Philip gave a long, low whistle. “Oh, I
see.
That was it, was it? As a matter of interest, Mrs. Brough–how much was it going to be?”

“I think Brough reckoned, sir, that twenty per cent wasn't a great deal to a man who wanted a few thousand pounds as badly as you wanted them. You and Miss Claire.”

“I don't know what you mean by that,” said Claire. “Why include
me?
”

Mrs. Brough just lifted an eyebrow. “Why, I told you, Miss, that I knew you'd been here before.”

Philip got to his feet with an angry jerk. “This is just a try-on, Mrs. Brough. Miss Claire and I have often walked here and often sat here and talked; we happen to be cousins. There's nothing in the least wrong or odd about it.”

“Well, that's not what Brough thought, Doctor,” said Mrs. Brough, calmly. “And it was he that used to see you here–him being head gardener and in charge of all the grounds. As far back as last autumn, he's seen you here when you've all been down for week-ends. ‘Mrs. Philip wouldn't like it,' he said to me, referring to your wife, Doctor, of course. ‘But I shan't say a word,' he said. ‘On the other hand, they need some money very badly, these two young people and I'm the man that can see that the Doctor isn't done out of his lawful rights. I shall bide my time,' said Brough to me, ‘and then put a little proposition to the Doctor. “Two thousand five hundred to me,” I shall say, “and you and Miss Claire gets twelve thousand between you.” Then I'll produce the will and hand it over to him and he can tear it up or do what he likes with it. I won't hold it over him,' Brough said. ‘I'll give it to him outright and he can destroy it and after a while the old one will be taken to stand; you and me, old woman,' Brough said to me, ‘being the only ones as knows t'other was signed.' Blackmail, sir, all the same,
wasn't
it?” finished Mrs. Brough piously, looking down her nose.

“Yes, it was,” said Philip furiously. “And Brough would jolly soon have known it, because I'd have taken him and his will and the whole boiling and handed them over to the police.”

“Ah, but then the trouble would have been that it would all have come out about you and Miss Claire,” said Mrs. Brough, shaking her head as though that were something that did not quite bear thinking about.

It brought Philip up short. “The devil!” said Claire, standing beside him, trembling. “He was going to blackmail you into buying the new will from him, for this outrageous sum of two thousand five hundred pounds!”

“Why, what would
you
think a proper sum, Miss?” asked Mrs. Brough, smoothly. “
I
was thinking of asking two thousand. Would that be more reasonable?”

The lark sang, the leaves rustled in the gentle evening breeze, and the river drifted, whispering its secrets to its flowery banks; but in the woods the three faced each other and spoke not a word–a girl in a gay frock, a man in white flannels and a big, ugly woman in an ugly, rough black dress. Philip said at last: “Have you got the will here?”

“No,” said Mrs. Brough. “I'm not a fool. But I know where it is.”

“Well, that's good enough,” said Philip. “All right, Mrs. Brough; I've decided. I haven't got any choice, anyway. You'd better go ahead now–it wouldn't do for all of us to be seen coming out of the wood together; besides I want to talk to Miss Claire. I'll see you again after dinner tonight.”

“Two thousand pounds,” said Mrs. Brough, warily.

“Very well, two thousand pounds.”

She turned to go. “And don't play any tricks, now, for I have a vivid imagination and Brough used to say that I had an ugly mind–and if you start any trouble now, why the things I shall tell them I saw going on in this wood between you two–you'll hardly believe your ears! But other people will believe theirs all right. Poor old Brough–scum that he was, I wish he'd been alive to see this day.” She turned and walked away down the path and out of the wood.

Down by the river the old landing stage and boathouse had been reconstructed by Serafita's orders, with much marble terracing and yet another of her innumerable little summerhouses. Inspector Cockrill was sitting there with Stephen, and the rest of the family, when Claire and Philip emerged from the wood. It was intensely hot and Bella had brought down a tray of glasses and an enormous jug of ersatz lemonade. Philip poured some out for himself and Claire. He appeared to have forgotten all about his recent accusation of Peta, and said to her, perching himself on the balustrade and swinging his white-flannelled legs: “Peta–how much do you want Swanswater and a hundred thousand pounds?”

That afternoon Stephen had kissed her hand … He had done it lightly, half teasing her, and yet … If she were not an heiress, would Stephen be in love with her? She said, avoiding his eyes: “Not very much.”

“Well, that's a good thing,” said Philip. “Because you're not going to get it, my love.”

“What do you mean, Philip?”

“I mean that you're a pauper, my pretty one; and so is Claire and so am I. And, Bella–like it or not, you are mistress of Swanswater!”

Cockrill jumped out of his cane chair, putting down his glass hastily on the little table. “Do you mean that the will's been found? Do you know where it is?”

“No, but Mrs. Brough does,” said Philip, calmly. “She's just been talking to us down in the wood. She says that Claire and I have been carrying on something dreadful in the undergrowth and threatens that if I don't buy the will off her and destroy it, she'll tell Ellen of my goings on and wreck my married happiness forever. Fortunately Ellen knows that, despite rumours to the contrary, she has my entire fidelity.” He looked across the terrace at her and said deliberately, and perhaps a little pleadingly: “Don't you, Ellen?”

Ellen never would play up to that sort of thing. She said: “Yes,
now
I do,” and appeared to think it necessary to explain to the assembled multitude: “Claire and Philip seem to have decided that they have been suffering from a slight midsummer madness, and Philip and I have had a dramatic reconciliation over the baby's bath.” She was deeply happy, nevertheless.

Bella was staring open-mouthed at Philip. “Do you mean to say that, after all, this place, this–this memorial museum, will belong to me?”

“Well, it looks that way, Bella, old girl; and surely the extra hundred thousand quid will go some way to consoling you for your gain? You needn't live here, after all; with all that money you can splash around like anything, and as Peta and Claire and I will be homeless and penniless, we'll keep the place aired for you and the relics dusted, during your dashing absences in the south of France and Miami and places like that.”

“That isn't what Richard would have wanted,” said Bella, sadly but doggedly, and she glanced over her shoulder and up at the house and said: “I'm a prisoner here forever now,” and fell silent.

Peta lay back in her deck chair, just a tiny bit white under her always lavish make-up. It is not every day that a young lady loses a fortune and likes it; and supposing that Stephen hated her, after all. “Cockie, pet, aren't you going to rush down to the lodge and brow-beat Mrs. Brough into telling you where the will's hidden?”