The Master of the Priory (5 page)

Maisie darted off. Her quickened breathing told Sir Oswald that Miss Martin was near.

“It was strange that Maisie should say your eyes were like her mother's,” he said in a low tone. “For I have thought once or twice this afternoon that your voice reminded me of hers—my wife's— I have wondered whether there might be any relationship?”

“Quite impossible,” Miss Martin said coldly. “I have no relations.” Her hands were clasping one another tightly, the fingers were interlacing themselves.

“Still, perhaps—” Sir Oswald was beginning when there was an interruption.

Down the mossy path by which they had come a dainty figure was tripping lightly.

With a cry Maisie sprang forward. “Cousin Sybil!”

Miss Lorrimer's golden hair shone in the sunlight, her pretty red lips were smiling as her big, blue eyes glanced round the little group.

“Mrs. Barnes at the lodge told me you had come this way,” she said as she kissed Maisie and let her hand rest on Sir Oswald's shoulder. “So I thought I would come after you. I am so glad I did. And now, Maisie,” her eyes resting questioningly on the stranger, a shade of harshness creeping into the honeyed tones, “this lady I suppose is your new governess, Miss Martin.” 

“I
DON'T
trust her,” Sybil Lorrimer said, as she caught up a feather fire-screen and held it between her face and the flames. “Miss Martin looks to me like a woman with a secret, a woman with a past.”

“Oh, my dear!” Lady Davenant spoke reproachfully. Sybil had followed her into the morning-room. “I really think you have taken a causeless prejudice against the poor girl. She seems so nice and unassuming and quiet, and I am sure if there had been anything of that kind Mrs. Sunningdale would not have recommended her to me.”

“Perhaps she didn't know,” Sybil said carelessly. She was thinking that if Mrs. Sunningdale was at all like her friend, Lady Davenant, it would be no difficult matter to deceive her.

Miss Lorrimer's unexpected visit to the Priory had lasted over a week, but her father had had a relapse, and she was urgently wanted at home. She was returning the next day. It was easy to see that the summons was unwelcome. Sybil's face wore an impatient frown, she was tapping her foot restlessly on the floor.

“What do you know of Miss Martin before she went to Mrs. Sunningdale?” she asked after a pause.

“I forget,” Lady Davenant said vaguely. “Oh, I believe she had been with some one in the country—a doctor's family I think it was—but I don't remember the particulars. Perhaps I could find Alice Sunningdale's letter, Sybil. But I know she spoke most highly of Miss Martin.”

“Yes,” Sybil said slowly, her white fingers toying with the screen as she laid it down in her lap and gazed reflectively at the fire. “But, after all, it was only a written reference, wasn't it? I wish Mrs. Sunningdale were in England, it would be much more satisfactory if one could see her.”

“Really Sybil, I think you are talking very absurdly!” Lady Davenant said with sudden fire. “I'm quite satisfied with Miss Martin and I do not know what fault you have to find with her.” She drew her writing-case towards her as she spoke and began to search through the various papers it contained.

“I thought I had put Alice Sunningdale's letter here, but at any rate this is the second one she wrote—just before she sailed,” she announced at last.

“Listen, Sybil:

“There now, could anything be more satisfactory?” Lady Davenant concluded in a tone of triumph as she finished the letter.

“It certainly seems everything you could wish,” Sybil assented thoughtfully.

She stood up and, leaning against the high, carved mantelpiece, drew her foot in its little buckled shoe backwards and forwards over the brass fender-rail.

“Where are the Sunningdale children at school?” she asked at last.

Lady Davenant looked relieved, taking it for granted, good, easy soul, that Sybil's doubts had been set at rest by the perusal of the letter.

“The two eldest are in Switzerland somewhere,” she answered. “Then they lost several, you know, and the two youngest went back with their mother to India.”

Sybil did not answer. Apparently she had had enough of the subject. Her brows were drawn together in a frown as she watched the flickering firelight reflected in her buckles.

She had sense enough to see that it was useless to think of influencing Lady Davenant against Miss Martin, unless she had something definite to bring against the governess, but her determination to get rid of this interloper at the Priory grew and strengthened.

Sybil Lorrimer was the daughter of a half-pay Colonel. From her earliest years she had known the grind of poverty, and as soon as she could think for herself she had made up her mind to take the earliest opportunity of escaping from it. Unfortunately such opportunities did not seem to come her way. She was undeniably pretty, but the hoped-for wealthy suitors did not present themselves, and at four and twenty Sybil Lorrimer was inclined to write herself down among the failures. Then at last fortune had favoured her. She had been included in the house-party at the Priory at the time of young Lady Davenant's death, and the relationship between them, slight as it was, had afforded her a pretext for offering to stay with Sir Oswald's mother during those first days of bereavement.

From that day Sybil had never wavered in the path she had marked out for herself. She meant to marry Sir Oswald Davenant and take her share of the pleasant things of life. Whether he recovered his sight or not mattered little to her. To be called Lady Davenant and to have practically unlimited wealth at her command was all that counted. Up to three months ago she had felt assured of success, she had read to Sir Oswald and talked to him. It had seemed to her that he was growing more and more dependent upon her, then suddenly his manner changed; he set up, as it were, a barrier between them.

Unable to believe that the cause of failure lay in herself, Sybil had at last come to the conclusion that Maisie was the obstacle. Maisie was always in her father's room, always putting her oar in their conversation.

Sybil it was who had impressed upon Lady Davenant the necessity for getting a governess for Maisie, who had declared that left to her nurse's care Maisie was getting spoilt and unmanageable.

She had not dreamed that the governess would see anything of Sir Oswald at all, she had merely looked upon her as a buffer to keep Maisie out of the way.

But Sybil had not reckoned upon being absent when the governess came, least of all had she expected to find Miss Martin installed as Sir Oswald's amanuensis. Now she had to confess that the governess was a much greater hindrance to her plans than Maisie had ever been. She had tried to take her old place, to manage her cousin's correspondence for him, only to find herself politely but quietly repulsed.

She had no idea how her tinkling jewellery, and her rather shrill voice and affected manner had got on Sir Oswald's nerves, how restful he found the sweet voice and low tones of the woman who had taken her place.

But Sybil saw plainly that her scheme was within an ace of failure, that unless something should drive Elizabeth Martin from the Priory she must certainly look for defeat. That it was inevitable in any case, that Sir Oswald himself had seen through her plans and quietly frustrated them, she did not guess. All her thoughts were concentrated on getting rid of the governess, but the effort did not promise to be as easy of fulfilment as she had anticipated.

Lady Davenant had proved difficult to manage. It looked pretty hopeless from Sybil's point of view, and her heart sank as she thought of the possible downfall of the brilliant future she had built in the air, of her return to poverty and disappointment.

She left Lady Davenant and went back to her own room.

The governess, for her part, could not help being conscious of the scarcely veiled hostility of Miss Lorrimer's attitude towards her. In vain she tried to placate her. She saw that her efforts were in vain, and, though for the most part she told herself that she was too insignificant to be taken seriously by Lady Davenant's cousin, there were times when she feared that Sybil's dislike might prove a very real source of danger.

That night she went up early to her room, and, when she had slipped into her dressing-gown and let down her hair, she unlocked her box and took out an inlaid casket of Eastern design, with queer old dragons with gilded bodies and wicked jewelled eyes sprawling all over it, and a lock of intricate and delicate make. Opening it, she drew out a packet of old papers and letters, then seating herself in the easy chair by the fireplace she began to read, burning each sheet as she finished it. She was nearing the end of the bundle when there was a sharp, hurried knock at the door.

She did not answer, but her hands dropped on her lap as if paralysed, she sat and stared at the door. For once the disfiguring glasses had been thrown aside and a pair of big, grey eyes, fringed by dark, upcurled lashes, looked out from the heavy mass of dark hair which clung round her forehead. The knocking came again, louder and more insistent.

With a gesture of despair she half rose to her feet, then clasping her hands round her slender throat she fell back in her chair.

The knocking went on, the door handle was turned noisily, through the thick old oak she caught the sound of a voice.

“Miss Martin!”

Some of the fear died out of the grey eyes now, she looked at the letters she still held, then she threw them quickly into the fire and sprang up.

“What is it? Who is there?” she called, and her clear tones were as steady as usual.

“It is I—Sybil Lorrimer!” The answer came as the handle was again turned ineffectually. “Let me in. I am frightened.”

Miss Martin unlocked the door. “What is the matter?”

Sybil threw the door open and hurried in.

“Oh, I have been terrified,” she shivered. “Somebody is trying to break into the house by the windows beneath mine. I heard some sounds and looked out and saw a dark figure. Ugh! I was frightened. I tore out of the room. I don't think I stopped running until I got here.”

Sybil's breath came quick and fast, she held her hand pressed to her side, but her keen eyes were taking in every detail of the room. They wandered from the startled eyes of the woman before her to the charred ashes on the hearth, to the half burned paper in the fire.

Their gaze reminded Elizabeth that she was comparatively defenceless without her glasses. She turned aside quickly and caught them up. As she adjusted them she turned her back to Sybil, and that young lady, coming nearer, noted with malicious satisfaction that the thick, dark hair curling over the governess's shoulders was of a distinctly different hue near the roots.

But the idea of a man trying to get into the house was alarming. Elizabeth, too, was pale as she hastily twisted up her hair.

“Ought we not to give the alarm, rouse the servants—Sir Oswald?” she questioned.

“Yes! Yes!” Sybil gripped her arm. “Still, of course poor Oswald is no use and we ought not to alarm Lady Davenant. But we must be very quiet or they will get away. You come to my room with me and see if we can make out exactly what they are doing, and then we will call the men.”

Elizabeth crossed the room and poked the remains of the paper well into the fire, then she said slowly:

“Yes, I will come with you. But I should have thought an alarm bell—”

“Don't I tell you it would alarm the burglars, as well as frighten Lady Davenant out of her wits?” Sybil said impatiently. Glancing round she had seen a tiny object on the floor that made her doubly anxious to get the other girl out of the room. She almost dragged the governess with her. “Quick! Quick!” she panted. “They may be inside now.”

Elizabeth had no idea where Miss Lorrimer's room was, and Sybil gave her little time to notice the geography of the house. She literally pushed her up and down stairs and along passages, and at last threw open a door. She drew Elizabeth across to the window.

“Listen!” she whispered.

Elizabeth listened intently, but not a sound did she hear.

“They must be inside,” Sybil said in a low voice. “Wait, you stay here and watch. I will rouse Walters and the footmen.”

She darted away, and before Elizabeth had quite realized her intention had hurried out of the room.

Left alone, the governess devoted her attention to the window. She could not hear the slightest sound of any description, the window apparently overlooked the terrace, but as she peered out the thought crossed her mind to wonder how in the darkness Sybil had contrived to see the form she had described.

Meanwhile Miss Lorrimer had not gone straight to the servant's quarters, she had made a little detour which took her round by Miss Martin's room. Her sharp eyes had noticed a tiny packet that had slipped unseen beside Elizabeth's chair. She ran across the room and picked it up, assuring herself by a glance that Elizabeth had taken care that no scrap of paper was left large enough to be intelligible.

To undo the packet was the work of a second. A tiny curl of red-gold hair clung round her finger, labelled “Baby Rosamond.” Beside it there was a photograph of a dark, rather coarse-looking man. It was on this that Sybil's gaze was riveted.