Darkwater (32 page)

Fanny kept her voice low so that the children sitting in the window getting the last light of the day wouldn’t hear.

‘Great-aunt Arabella, I couldn’t agree to marry George.’

‘No. You are too selfish for sacrifices. Or charity. Not that marrying George would have constituted either. Humour him and you’d have found a kind considerate husband.’

‘I don’t want a husband who has to be humoured all the time,’ Fanny said, with asperity.

Lady Arabella gave a derisive laugh.

‘H’mm. You’ve a lot to learn, my girl. What do you think every wife has to do?’

‘But not to be humoured like a child,’ Fanny persisted. ‘George is quite childish most of the time. And when he isn’t he—’

‘He what?’ Lady Arabella’s eyes were stony.

‘He’s frightening, Great-aunt Arabella. I think he’s dangerous.’

‘Fiddlesticks! You only have to know how to manage him. I hadn’t noticed you being particularly quailed by anyone before. I had thought you a young woman of remarkable spirit.’ Lady Arabella was stroking Ludwig on her lap. His fur crackled. He stretched sensuously and showed his claws. ‘I am very disappointed,’ said Lady Arabella. ‘But you will see reason eventually. You will marry George and have a child and become a contented woman.’

‘I won’t marry a mur—’ Fanny stopped abruptly, remembering the children.

Lady Arabella’s eyes flickered. She gave no other sign of having understood what Fanny had been about to say.

‘Why do you all want me to marry against my wishes?’ Fanny went on. ‘But you will forgive me, Great-aunt Arabella, just as Uncle Edgar forgave me about Mr Barlow.’

‘I am a great deal stronger than your uncle,’ said the old lady. ‘Also, I am not a forgiver. I love George dearly, more than any other person in the world. I shall see that he gets what he wants. I have ways.’

‘You may have ways of intimidating other people, but not me!’

‘You, a young dependent creature with no future,’ said Lady Arabella cruelly. ‘You must learn to know yourself, Fanny. And life. My daughter had to marry against her wishes. Almost all women do. You will see.’

Fanny was at last goaded into saying, ‘But hasn’t Uncle Edgar told you about Sir Giles Mowatt’s visit? Don’t you know the police may re-open the case about Ching Mei?’ She was whispering now, her eyes warily on the children in the window. ‘And if they do—if they do. Great-aunt Arabella—I shall tell them how I met George in the garden that night, how—’ She pressed her hands to her face, shuddering uncontrollably. ‘Mr Barlow has disappeared, too,’ she said. ‘I don’t need to remind you of George’s—insane jealousy.’

Lady Arabella’s face was old, older than Fanny had ever imagined it could look.

‘There must be an investigation,’ Fanny insisted.

Lady Arabella straightened herself.

‘Nonsense! Nonsense! George is as innocent as the day he was born.’

‘Only because he is mentally irresponsible—’

Marcus suddenly came running across the room.

‘Cousin Fanny! Look what Great-aunt Arabella found for me. You turn it upside down and all the leaves fall.’

It was a glass kaleidoscope filled with a shower of autumn leaves. When they had fallen, in their pretty amber pattern, to the bottom, they lay in a heap round a miniature dead tree. They stirred some obscure memory in Fanny’s mind.

‘It’s pretty,’ she said to Marcus. ‘It’s like the story of the Babes in the Wood. Do you remember how they covered themselves with leaves?’

The smell of wet dead leaves recently stirred …

‘Oh, it’s too dark!’ Nolly cried exasperatedly. ‘Why doesn’t somebody bring the lamps? Cousin Fanny, I’m tired. I want to sit in your lap. What are you and Great-aunt Arabella talking about?’

There was a tap at the door and Amelia came bursting in.

‘Is this where you all are? Fanny, why didn’t you dress up after all? Dora came in looking as if she’d seen a ghost. But I hadn’t time to find out what was wrong. I had to be with Mamma. She’s terribly upset. Do you know that just now Papa has been saying George may have to be put—’

‘Amelia!’ said Lady Arabella in a voice of thunder.

Amelia, for once, was not intimidated by her grandmother’s anger. Her words were tumbling over themselves as usual, but now Fanny noticed there was a look of intolerable excitement in her eyes.

‘Hasn’t Papa told you about Sir Giles’ visit? Don’t you know that poor escaped prisoner was miles from here that night?’

‘Hearsay!’ declared Lady Arabella contemptuously. ‘We won’t discuss this in front of the children, if you please, Amelia. You ought to have more sense. And must we sit in the dark? Fanny, ring for lights. And take the children to the nursery. Wait! Before they go I have a gift for Nolly.’

‘Me, too,’ cried Marcus.

‘No, greedy. You have the kaleidoscope which you may keep. Nolly is to have my pincushion. The one I cherish particularly.’

Nolly’s eyes opened wide.

‘But, Great-aunt Arabella, you don’t let anyone touch it.’

‘I will let you touch it.’

Nolly’s nose wrinkled in distaste.

‘It’s only an old thing. I don’t care for it.’

‘Of course it’s an old thing. It’s an antique. It belonged to my grandmother, and perhaps to her grandmother before her. It has held the pins used to make gowns for the Court of Charles the Second. Now do you call it merely an old thing in that rude voice?’

‘I still don’t care for it,’ Nolly muttered, but she took the fat faded pincushion in her hand and went off with it to the nursery.

When Marcus boasted that he had the best present she hissed, ‘I will stick a hundred pins in you! Needles, too!’

Before Fanny could follow the children Lady Arabella called to her peremptorily, ‘Fanny! Help me downstairs. I must see your uncle.’

Amelia, deprived of her audience, cried with strange desperation, ‘Don’t leave me alone! I’m afraid.’ She gave a ghost of her old happy giggle, ‘Of I don’t know what.’

Her grandmother’s eyes went slowly over her, from head to foot.

‘That’s a pity,’ she said at last. ‘That you should be afraid of your own brother. Fanny!’

The old Lady was heavy on Fanny’s arm. She had an odour of lavender water and wool, a familiar odour that in the past had represented some security. Lady Arabella’s broad lap which welcomed children had been all the mothering Fanny had known. It was impossible to think of her as too implacable an enemy. She was merely indulging in her favourite game of intimidation.

‘He’ll be in the library,’ said Lady Arabella, panting slightly. ‘Don’t come in. Leave us alone.’

Her chair was at the bottom of the stairs in its usual place. Lady Arabella got into it and rapidly wheeled herself across the hall. She disappeared into the library and the door closed, but not completely, behind her.

‘Fanny!’ came Amelia’s voice from the top of the stairs. ‘Why should I be afraid of George? What’s Grandmamma got in her head?’

Fanny ignored her. There were no servants about. The hall was empty. She crossed it softly, and stood with her ear against the chink of light from the library, listening.

But only for a moment. She had to move away quickly into the shadows beneath the stairs for hurried steps were approaching. Uncle Edgar’s voice was raised in agitation.

‘Thank God, Mamma! I was just coming for you. One of the servants has seen George down at the lake. He’s behaving oddly. Walking up and down, in a distraught way.’

‘He’s not going to drown himself!’ Lady Arabella cried.

‘I don’t know. What with the disappointment about Fanny this morning and the state of his damaged mind—if anyone can stop him, you can.’

‘Fanny can. He loves her.’

The door of the library had opened and Lady Arabella, wheeling her chair furiously, had appeared, followed by Uncle Edgar.

He was saying in a low hurried voice, ‘No. The sight of her may send him over the edge. Poor fellow! Let me push you, Mamma. Quietly. We don’t want all the servants rushing down, and a scandal. You and I can handle this. I expect the truth is he’s taken a little too much to drink.’

They had almost reached the big oak door with its heavy fastenings. Fanny never knew what made her run forward.

‘Great-aunt Arabella! Don’t go!’

The two stopped, turning startled heads.

‘Don’t go!’ Fanny cried again. She was, quite irrationally, remembering the kaleidoscope in Marcus’s hands, with its little flurry of leaves settling, settling. And Hamish Barlow saying coldly and finally, ‘Your uncle will never forgive you …’ It was Great-aunt Arabella who was the person who didn’t forgive, not Uncle Edgar …And perhaps poor distraught George really was hesitating on the edge of the lake, trying to make up his mind to plunge into the blackness and the iciness.

Amelia was flying down the stairs.

‘What’s happening? Where is Papa taking Grandmamma at this hour?’

‘Great-aunt Arabella, don’t you remember? The cushion. The fall you had. It’s dark outside. Your chair runs away down the slope …’

Fanny was aghast at what she had said. The words had come compulsively, without coherent thought. But Lady Arabella was turning heir chair round, and slowly getting out of if. When Uncle Edgar put out his hand to assist her she pushed it away.

‘No, Edgar, I can manage alone. Fanny! Come here at once. What is in your head?’

Nolly’s little Chinese doll tossed negligently on her bed, Fanny was thinking, the dead bird in the cage, the cancelled trip to London, Uncle Edgar’s insistence that she signed her will.

‘You’re not signing your death sentence,’ he had said to the two maids …

‘Nothing that makes sense,’ she said. ‘But let us all go down to the lake and find George.
All
of us. Amelia! Barker, Hannah, and Lizzie and Cook! Barker will push your chair, Great-aunt Arabella.’

Her hand was on the bell rope.

‘Fanny! Leave that alone!’ Uncle Edgar ordered. His voice went soft. ‘You interfering creature! You have defied me long enough. There’s a limit—’ But before he could finish what he was saying, and before Fanny could realise the fury in his face someone rapped on the door, lifting the heavy knocker and letting the sound thud through the house.

‘George!’ Lady Arabella gasped thankfully.

Barker appeared, looked surprised at the gathering in the hall, and retired discreetly, as Uncle Edgar himself opened the heavy door and saw the light shine on the tall figure without.

‘Marsh!’ he exclaimed. He recovered himself quickly, stepping back for Adam Marsh to come in. ‘I wasn’t aware you were expected. Did my wife—Amelia, perhaps—’

Amelia had made a sound of pleasure, but it was Fanny who ran forward, whose feet, acting as compulsively as previously her tongue had, carried her straight to Adam Marsh’s arms.

‘Fanny!’ ejaculated Lady Arabella.

‘Fanny!’ shrieked Amelia. ‘How could you?’

Fanny’s face was pressed hard into Adam’s bosom, her waist was likely to be crushed by the strength of his grip. The pain was ecstasy, she wanted to suffer it forever.

‘You went away without telling me!’ she said furiously. ‘I rode over. There was no one there.’

‘It was urgent,’ said Adam. ‘I couldn’t help it. But I got back in time for your birthday.’

‘Back from where ?’

He pushed her away.

‘From London, of course. And I brought you a present.’

‘Ah!’ said Lady Arabella icily. ‘So now Fanny, your behaviour becomes clear. How long has this intrigue been going on? And don’t stand there, the two of you, as if you were on the moon. Mr Marsh, we are suffering the most intense anxiety as to the whereabouts of George, and you burst in, uninvited, full of your private affairs!’

Adam bowed with the greatest courtesy.

‘Lady Arabella, forgive me! I was carried away. And if you’re worrying about George, he is at present drinking in the village inn. Or was, not half an hour since. I imagine he’ll be there for some time yet.’

‘So!’ The old lady had collapsed back into her chair. Her chin was on her breast. Fanny knelt quickly beside her, but in a moment she was waved vigorously away. Lady Arabella’s chin was up, her eyes as cold as the lake water on a grey day.

Nevertheless, her voice was almost grotesquely gay.

‘Edgar, we will have things to talk of later. But not in front of these young people. I suggest you sit down, Amelia, and try not to indulge in anything as futile as an attack of the vapours. Mr Marsh, it seems, simply has a birthday gift for Fanny. A charming sentiment. Perhaps we may be permitted to look at it.’

‘Certainly,’ said Adam. He handed Fanny a small jeweller’s box of red morocco. ‘You might be interested to hear, Mr Davenport, that I patronised your friend, Mr Solomon. He has an interesting collection in that extraordinarily dark shop of his, hasn’t he?’

Before Uncle Edgar could reply Aunt Louisa came hurrying downstairs, exclaiming in her petulant voice, ‘Is this where everyone is? Fanny, Dora finds it impossible to control those children. You’d better go up—oh, Mr Marsh, we weren’t expecting you. Did I hear the name Solomon? Surely you haven’t been buying diamonds from him!’

‘Louisa, be quiet!’ Hastily Uncle Edgar tried to smooth over his anger. ‘We are all bursting with curiosity to see Mr Marsh’s gift. Open it, Fanny.’

Fanny knew it wasn’t a real gift. She knew it was being made like this, publicly, for a purpose. As Adam’s eyes reassured her, she pressed, the catch and the little box sprang open.

She almost dropped it.

‘But no! They’re Nolly’s. The green earrings!’

‘Emeralds,’ said Adam casually, as if he might have been mentioning green bottle glass. ‘And they’re yours now, Fanny. I bought them. You may, of course, like to give them to Nolly at some future date.’

‘What right have you, Mr Marsh, to stick your nose into my affairs like this?’ Uncle Edgar demanded stiffly. ‘It seems to me like damned inquisitive impertinence. And I don’t apologise for my language. I am within my rights, as my brother’s trustee, in disposing of his property as I think fit.’

‘And I within mine for buying property legally for sale,’ Adam replied. ‘Your brother must have done better than you expected him to do in China, Mr Davenport. Weren’t you a little hasty in labelling him a failure? Could it be that you had always disliked him? Perhaps envied his popularity? I know how a prejudice will arise. But you shouldn’t have assumed he died penniless.’