Darkwater (15 page)

‘What?’ said Marcus.

‘Playing with our marbles, stupid!’

‘We haven’t for a long time,’ said Marcus. ‘Where are our marbles?’

‘Don’t you understand, that’s what I’m asking Cousin Fanny!’ The loss of the marbles, whatever they were, was not serious enough to provoke such anguish in Nolly’s face.

Fanny averted the real tantrum by suggesting a walk.

‘We’ll go to the village, and I’ll show you the church where you’ll be wearing your new clothes on Sunday.’

It was late afternoon and the sun had left the long windows over the altar. The church was dim. Fanny walked slowly up the aisle, the children tiptoeing after her.

‘What’s that?’ whispered Marcus. ‘What’s that, Cousin Fanny.’

Fanny looked round. He was pointing to the tomb of a long-ago Davenport, the one who was reputed to have built the house at Darkwater. Hugo Davenport, born 1521, died 1599. He lay, tall and thin, carved in cream-coloured stone, his shoes narrow and pointed, his beard trim, his long nose rubbed flat with the centuries. His wife, Elizabeth, lay beside him, her Elizabethan ruff holding erect her small firm chin. Their feet rested against a greyhound, which lay humbly loyally curled, not deserting them in death.

It was the dog which fascinated Marcus.

‘I’d like it,’ he said.

‘You can’t have it, it’s stuck there,’ said Nolly.

‘It’s a memorial,’ Fanny explained. ‘It’s so people will always know that once there lived a man called Hugo Davenport and a woman called Elizabeth, and they had a faithful greyhound. What would you like to be at your feet?’

‘When we’re dead!’ said Nolly in astonishment.

It couldn’t happen to a little girl of six years. It could scarcely happen to someone who was almost twenty-one. But it had happened to the homesick, alien Chinese woman, as loyal as the Davenport greyhound. It could happen to anyone.

‘I’d have a dove, I think,’ said Fanny.

‘I’d have a peacock!’ said Marcus.

‘And what about you, Nolly?’

Nolly lifted her small chin. It looked remarkably like that of her ancestor Elizabeth. It didn’t need supporting by a stiff ruff.

‘But I’m not going to die!’

Someone had opened the church door. It creaked, and sunlight fell across the flagstones. Then the door closed softly, and the man stood within.

His face was in shadow. There was something about his bearing that was familiar. Why did he just stand there as if he hoped to remain unseen? Marcus gave a small whimper as Fanny’s fingers tightened on his. Nolly said in her clear low voice, ‘Cousin Fanny, there’s a man watching us.’

Fanny stepped briskly into the aisle, a child at each side. She hoped to reach the door without her palpitating heart rendering her speechless. She was almost sure…She
was
sure…

She held out her hand with easy grace.

‘Why, Mr Marsh! So you have come on your visit to the moors.’

She had thought she had remembered every detail of his face, but she found she had forgotten the squareness and strength of his chin, the faint disturbing grimness of his eyes before they left her face and turned to the children with a look of assumed surprise and delight.

And the unwanted thought flashed through her head—how long had he been in this part of the country without making his presence known?

‘Miss Davenport!’ her hand was all but crushed in his grip. ‘And Miss Olivia and Master Marcus! I had hoped to see you hereabouts. I fancied it was you I saw going into the church.’

‘We were looking at the dead lady,’ Marcus said.

‘Dead lady?’ repeated Mr Marsh, and Fanny tried to signal to him that if he had heard about Ching Mei, not to say her name.

‘The one on the box over there,’ Marcus said. ‘She’s squashing a dog with her feet.’

‘She’s not squashing it, Marcus,’ Nolly said severely. ‘She’s just resting her feet on it. It likes it, anyway. It’s a faithful and true dog. Would you like to see it, Mr Marsh?’

‘Very much.’

So the little procession filed back to the tomb, and while the children, brought to life by his sudden appearance, rushed forward to caress the dog’s cold ears, and trace its stony outline, Fanny said softly, and hurriedly, ‘Ching Mei—the Chinese woman—I don’t know if you remember her, has d-died—’ To her horror she heard her voice trembling. Belatedly, and at this highly inconvenient time, she felt herself about to weep for the patient silent loyal woman who also would have curled up at the feet of her master and mistress in eternal devotion.

‘I know. They told me in the village. I’m staying at the Darkwater Arms.’

His fingers had barely touched hers before the children were looking round, demanding attention. But the gesture had warmed her to her heart, and more than ever her tears were difficult to control.

‘Mr Marsh, will you be coming to call on us?’ That was Nolly, remembering her manners and her dignity. ‘Ching Mei, we’re sorry to say, has left us, but we have new clothes, and a great many toys to play with.’

Mr Marsh bowed.

‘I hope to, Miss Olivia. I have been meaning to renew my acquaintance with you ever since the day I said good-bye to you in London. Wasn’t it good fortune, Miss Davenport, that I was able to give assistance to these small travellers when they arrived in a strange country in such bewilderment.’

He realised that she must know by this time that he had not been the shipping company official, and that an explanation was due. But it was a little belated. Why couldn’t he have told her at the time and saved her the embarrassment of the guinea tip? At the thought of that, Fanny’s colour rose angrily.

‘It was very kind of you, Mr Marsh,’ she said in a clipped voice. ‘But it has since caused my uncle, and myself, also, some mystification. Perhaps you might have explained your identity a little earlier.’

‘My identity?’ He was smiling. Had she imagined that earlier grimness in his eyes? Now they seemed to hold nothing but gentle amusement. ‘What am I? Let us say, a traveller in search of a home. The same as Olivia and Marcus. Perhaps that’s why I had sympathy for their plight. I apologise deeply for any misapprehension I caused. Later I will apologise to Mr Davenport personally.’

‘Later?’ She was furious for letting the anticipation be heard in her voice.

‘I told you I love the moors. I intend to spend some few weeks here. Perhaps longer if I find a suitable house.’

‘You would—live here?’

‘I explained, Miss Fanny, that I am a traveller in search of a home. I have moved about too much in my youth, but now I intend to settle down. Indeed, your uncle may be able to give me advice. Do you think it would be convenient if I present myself tomorrow afternoon?’

‘I think—yes, I am sure it would be.’ Fanny felt herself behaving more like a schoolgirl than Amelia did. ‘He’ll look forward to having the mystery of the traveller on the train cleared up. It has puzzled us all.’

(And you particularly? his intent gaze was asking.)

‘And now, perhaps I may see you part of your way home?’

‘Oh, no. Please don’t. I think it would be better—I mean, if you were to call formally—’

‘As you wish, Miss Fanny. We shall meet, of course. And talk of what has happened.’

He was referring then to Ching Mei’s death. Naturally he would want to talk of it, since he had been interested in her welfare, and spoken to her in her own language.

But was it coincidence that his arrival had taken place so soon after her death?

‘I wonder what brought him just now.’

She realised she had spoken aloud, as she and the children made their way down the narrow lane, deep-set between hawthorn hedges.

‘I wrote him a letter,’ said Nolly, tossing her curls.

Fanny stopped short. ‘Nolly, what are you saying?’

Nolly’s bright black gaze faltered.

‘I know how to spell and write.’

‘But you didn’t write and post a letter. Where would you have sent it? You’re not telling the truth, Nolly.’

‘Marcus posted it. He pushed it into the box.’

‘Marcus, did you?’

Marcus’s wide innocent eyes were full of indignation.

‘That was Ching Mei’s letter to China. Nolly, you’re not telling the truth.’

Nolly burst into loud sobs.

‘I hate you! I hate you both! You say I tell lies.’

‘Nolly, darling!’ It was the first time the child had cried like this. Fanny recognised it as a release of her pent-up grief for Ching Mei’s disappearance. She welcomed the tears, noisy and untidy as they were. ‘Nolly, my pet, come here. Let me dry your eyes. No one’s cross with you. We love you. Don’t we, Marcus? And you see, even without a letter, Mr Marsh has come. So all is well, isn’t it?’

It was only when they got home, and Fanny had left the children with Dora, and was in her room thinking she had only ten minutes to dress for dinner, that she realised her appearance. Her poplin gown was darned in two places, the cloak she had thrown over her shoulders, was threadbare, and quite the oldest one she possessed. She had had a scarf tied over her head. There was certainly no grand lady about her this time. She must have looked like a servant.

Looking into the mirror at her flushed cheeks, Fanny began to dimple with mirth. She had been saved the trouble of an explanation to Mr Marsh of her own position. He must by now be as puzzled about her as she had been about him!

B
UT THIS SITUATION DIDN’T
seem so amusing the next day.

Marcus had developed a slight fever during the night, and had to be kept in bed. He was fretful and restless, and wept every time Fanny left his bedside.

‘Cousin Fanny, are you going on a journey, too?’

Ching Mei’s disappearance had shaken him as much as it had Nolly. He remembered his mother and his father disappearing. He distrusted everybody.

Fanny scarcely had the opportunity to dress, or tidy her hair. When, half way through the morning, Lizzie came up with a message that the master wanted her in the library, she had an impulse to send back a message that she was unable to come. Then the thought sprang into her mind that Uncle Edgar might have come to hear of Adam Marsh’s presence in the village, and wanted to speak of it.

She hurried downstairs straight from Marcus’s bedside. Her long black hair was escaping from its hasty pinning up, and, because of her nursing chores, she had put on her oldest gown.

Voices in the library should have warned her. She was so intent on getting the interview over, and hurrying back to Marcus that she failed to realise that the voices were not only Uncle Edgar’s and Amelia’s.

She saw him standing near the window immediately she entered the room. He had been talking to Amelia, bending a little towards her attentively. Amelia, her fair hair brushed and shining, and tied with black velvet bows, and a spotless muslin fichu draped over the shoulders of her pretty blue morning gown, looked charming and animated and deliciously young. The contrast between her and Fanny, at that moment, could not have been more marked.

It showed on Adam Marsh’s face as he turned and saw her. She was aware of his moment of keen assessing regard before he bowed and smiled.

‘Miss Fanny! We meet again.’

Uncle Edgar, wearing his most benevolent expression, came forward.

‘Fanny, my dear, why didn’t you tell us you spoke to Mr Marsh yesterday, and that we could expect a visit from him?’

‘Why, I—’ Why had she wanted to keep their meeting secret? Because she had anticipated that scene of him bending so attentively over Amelia?

No, no, Amelia was only a gauche schoolgirl. Or had been until very recently. One couldn’t quite decide when, in the last week or two, she had suddenly acquired moments of dignity and a certain mystery. Had it been since the tea party in the pagoda, when she had conversed so animatedly with Robert Hadlow? She didn’t giggle so much, and she dreamed, and now, with the stimulation of a personable man’s attention, she was really pretty.

They were all waiting for Fanny to finish what she had begun to say. Aunt Louisa was there, too, and George. They had been having glasses of Madeira and biscuits, showing hospitality towards the stranger even though they must want to know a great deal about him.

‘Marcus has developed a fever,’ she said. ‘I’ve thought of nothing but him. Anyway, I was under the impression that Mr Marsh said he would probably call in the afternoon.’

‘Marcus ill!’ Mr Marsh exclaimed. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘It’s only a little fever—’

‘We must call Doctor Bates,’ Uncle Edgar interrupted. ‘Why hasn’t it been done already?’

Aunt Louisa’s nose, whether from the Madeira, or the pleasure of entertaining a good-looking and presumably unattached young man, or her husband’s implied rebuke, had taken on its familiar grape colour.

‘Fanny said the fever was slight. As you can see, Mr Marsh, Fanny is a practical young woman, and already so devoted to the children. My own daughter, I am afraid, has still to learn the practical things of life.’

At her mother’s indulgent tone, Amelia’s lashes drooped on her pink cheeks. She looked unbearably smug. And suddenly Fanny hated them all for what they had just done to her, letting her come unaware into the room looking as she did so that the comparison between her and Amelia was inevitable.

They had meant to do it. She wished passionately that she had run away that day in London. Then she remembered the children upstairs, utterly dependent on her, and was ashamed of her selfishness. But the anger stayed in her eyes, and in her jutting lip. Let Amelia smile coquettishly. She would be herself, refusing to be meek and humiliated.

‘Fanny, Mr Marsh has been telling us how he came to be of such inestimable help to the children on the train that day. The shipping clerk was dilatory. Mr Marsh found Ching Mei in a state of distress. Being able to speak Chinese, he soon ascertained the facts. Isn’t that so, Mr Marsh?’

‘Miss Fanny expressed surprise that I spoke Ching Mei’s language.’ Mr Marsh’s eyes as they rested again on Fanny were ironic. ‘I didn’t explain to her, as I have to you, that my father was a well-known collector of Chinese porcelain and jade. He made several trips to the East, and on two occasions I accompanied him. I should add that I was at Tilbury that day because the
China Star
was bringing some new pieces for the collection which I now own.’