The Secret of Greylands (21 page)

“Will you tell me exactly what you mean?” he said gently.

They had turned and were walking along the path that led right through the wood. The blue bells were all over now, their leaves were turning yellow and drooping disconsolately, while everywhere the tall bracken fronds were springing. A fallen tree-trunk lay where it had been blown down. Farquhar paused.

“Will you sit here for a few minutes and let us think things out?”

Cynthia poked her sunshade into the dry moss at the side of the path as she seated herself.

“It is very puzzling,” she said, and sighed. “Why should Cousin Hannah want people to think she is helpless when she is not?”

“I cannot believe for one moment that she would—unless Gillman is compelling her to do so for his own ends,” Farquhar said thoughtfully.

Cynthia shook her head.

“I cannot think that it is that. She talks of her helplessness when I am alone with her; it seems impossible to ascribe it all to Gillman's influence, and it is as difficult to understand as the resentment she expresses towards you after that letter.”

“Ah!” Sir Donald drew his brows together, “that is a constant perplexity to me. How I blame myself now for having taken her at her word, for going away! But for that she never would have married that man and—”

Cynthia's eyes were full of sympathy.

“It is very sad for you,” she said softly. “You were very fond of her?”

He looked away across the wood, through the endless vista of tree-trunks.

“She was the only mother I have ever known,” he responded simply. “Do you wonder that I cannot bear to think of her ill and alone, in that man's power? That it was impossible to yield to her wishes I see now as plainly as I did then, but I might have been gentler—I might have waited until her anger had passed.”

There was a minute's silence; Cynthia was mechanically tracing a pattern with the point of her sunshade among the fallen pine-needles. At last she spoke:

“It is always easy to see afterwards how much better we might have done. I am sure from her letter Cousin Hannah saw that she had been to blame as much as or more than you.”

There was another long silence; then Sir Donald glanced at the girl's averted face.

“I have sometimes wondered whether I might tell you—whether you would care to know how it all came about.”

Cynthia's colour deepened a little, and her eyes, as for one brief moment she raised them to his, looked clear and steadfast.

“I shall be very glad to hear if you care to tell me.”

“I was an idiot!” Sir Donald began, with hearty self-contempt, absently striking out at an unoffending head of bracken with his cane. “In the first place it was the usual story. I was not the first fool to be caught by a pretty face with little else to recommend it, but my aunt could not forgive it.” He waited a moment.

Cynthia felt suddenly chilled; surely it was colder than she had imagined, she said to herself with a slight shiver. Here, under the trees, where the sun could not penetrate, it was gloomy, damp almost.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “So that was it—was why you quarrelled, was it?”

Sir Donald was not looking at her now; she glanced at the firm lines of his mouth, at his lean, dark cheek.

“That was it, partly,” he agreed. “And then she wished to arrange my life for me. I do not know whether you have ever heard of the Denshams—Herbert Densham was Aunt Hannah's cousin on the mother's side.”

Cynthia started.

“Yes, I—I think I have heard of them,” she murmured faintly.

“Then you know that Aunt Hannah was engaged to Herbert Densham at one time?” Farquhar proceeded. “Something came between them, I do not know what, though I fancy Aunt Hannah always blamed herself. It was all broken off, and Densham married some one else. He died years ago, leaving a widow and a daughter. I wonder whether you remember my telling you that I disliked the name of Cynthia?”

“Yes, I remember.” Cynthia's voice was very low.

“Well, this girl's—Herbert Densham's daughter—name was Cynthia. My aunt told me that it had long been a scheme of hers that I should marry her—Cynthia Densham. She told me that she was going to invite the girl to pay her a long visit, and ordered me to prepare myself to enter into an engagement with her.”

Cynthia sprang to her feet, with an inarticulate sound of indignation.

“She could not—she never dared!” she cried, her cheeks flushing.

Sir Donald looked at her in some surprise.

“You are very good to bestow your sympathy upon me, Cynthia,” he said softly. “It seemed to me too an outrageous thing that she should try to settle my life for me after this fashion. I was younger and hot-headed, and I told her so. She could never stand contradiction, and she threatened me with disinheritance unless I obeyed her. I retorted, telling her to do exactly as she pleased with her money, but that I intended to choose my wife for myself, and that nothing should induce me to contemplate marrying Cynthia Densham.”

“I should think not!” gasped Cynthia, stammering in her indignation. “She—I am sure she—”

“Oh, she was furious!” Sir Donald went on, supposing the pronoun to refer to his aunt. “She said many very bitter things to me, and I resented them; matters went from bad to worse until she ordered me out of the house, and the situation seemed irremediable. The rest you have heard. I have wondered sometimes of late whether now that she knows how her
protégée
has turned out she is glad that I thwarted her scheme?”

Cynthia's wrath threatened to suffocate her during this speech, but her unqualified amazement at the last speech gave her breath.

“Turned out!” her eyes flashing. “Turned out! I do not understand you!”

“Oh, I see you have not heard all the story!” Sir Donald went on, with a smile: “well, directly after her mother's death, this girl, who was quite young, remember, became engaged to Lord Letchingham, a man old enough to be her grandfather, of whose reputation the less said the better. Only a short time ago they were married, but already, my Lady Letchingham, having got all she wanted in the shape of the title and the assured position, is declining to live with her husband or take up her responsibilities as his wife. I am sorry for poor old Letchingham. I am told that the whole thing has aged him terribly.”

Some of Cynthia's colour ebbed as he finished.

“Lady Letchingham—you do not know—you do not think of her!” she said.

Farquhar laughed and said: “I must confess that I do not regard her as worth talking about, but do not let us talk of her again. I hate to hear her name on your lips. I hate to hear you defending her when I know that you cannot—that it is not possible that you should understand what she has done. Now you know why I told you I disliked the name of Cynthia, and why I was sorry you bore it. It was hitherto associated with Lady Letchingham, the woman whom I most utterly despise; but now and for the future pleasanter memories are linked with it. For your sake, little cousin”—his voice sinking to a caressing whisper—“I shall learn to love the name.”

Cynthia put her hand to her throat; every pulse was thrilling with indignation, but underlying her anger she was conscious of a strange new gladness, a feeling that she could not analyse, of which she in no sense realized the meaning. She turned away and Sir Donald hurried after her. As he glanced at her drooping face, flushing and paling by turns, at her trembling lips, he told himself that he had been too precipitate, that he must wait, he must not frighten her, the shy, sweet girl whom he had learnt to love so dearly during these few short weeks of their acquaintanceship.

“Well,” he said quietly, “after all it is I who have been bothering you with my affairs all this time. I have never given you an opportunity of telling me why you have reason to think that my aunt is not so helpless as she appears.”

With an effort Cynthia collected her scattered thoughts.

“I was trying to catch the parrot,” she began incoherently, “it had got on the coach-house roof, and when I went there after it I had a view of Cousin Hannah's room. I could see her bed plainly—and it was empty—she was not in the room at all.”

“The bed was empty!” Farquhar repeated amazedly. “Where was she? I do not understand!”

“I do not know where she was—I could not see her at all,” Cynthia replied, a little catch in her voice, notwithstanding her efforts to control it. “As far as I could ascertain she was not in the room; I could see all over it except a sort of alcove near the window. If—if she was in the room she must have been there. The—the door was locked, Sybil said; she tried to get in.”

Farquhar looked entirely bewildered.

“If she can walk in and out of her room, lock and unlock her door, her illness must be the veriest sham,” he remarked.

Cynthia sighed. With all her resolution she fought against the shock of Farquhar's extraordinary story and his opinion of her conduct, and strove instead to turn her thoughts to the enigma that had baffled them so long.

“Yes, I know that,” she assented. “We got up there afterwards, Sybil and I, in a few minutes, and the bed was not empty then.”

Sir Donald looked a little puzzled.

“What, she had returned?”

Cynthia hesitated; a contraction in her throat threatened to strangle her words. Again that terrible feeling of something evil came over her; she shrank, half frightened at the sound of her own voice.

“Somebody was there,” she said, in a low, hoarse whisper, “but—it was this that I wanted to tell you this morning, this was why I sent to ask you to meet me—and now I am almost afraid to say it—afraid that you will only laugh at me—that you will—”

Farquhar watched her agitation in manifest bewilderment.

“I do not think that you need fear I shall do anything but listen with the utmost attention to anything you may have to say to me,” he said gravely. “Will you not trust me, Cynthia?”

“Yes, yes! I will—I do!” the girl said confusedly, twisting her fingers together nervously. “Only this seems so improbable that you might well ridicule the idea. I”—drawing nearer to him and lowering her voice—“do not believe that the figure in the bed was Cousin Hannah at all.”

“What!” Farquhar's accent was expressive of the utmost amazement.

“Yes, yes!” Cynthia went on, with feverish haste. “I—I am sure I am right, Sir Donald. It was not Cousin Hannah; it was some one masquerading in her place; I am quite certain because—do you remember asking me—”

“Cynthia! Cynthia!”

It was Sybil's voice; and with a guilty start Cynthia sprang away from her companion. Absorbed in their conversation neither of them had heard the other girl's approach. Sir Donald raised his hat gravely.

“Oh, Cynthia,” she began breathlessly, “we have been looking for you everywhere. Cousin Hannah wants to see you, and she was so cross when you could not be found. Cousin Henry sent me all over the place, but I could not discover a trace of you until at last Mrs Knowles said a man who was getting up some peat on the moor told her that he had seen a young lady in the pine-wood. Then I came after you as quick as I could and here I am!”

“I see you are!” Cynthia's tone was distinctly annoyed, and her face did not relax as she met the other's smile. “I will follow you very shortly, Sybil.”

“Oh, I am dreadfully sorry to seem so importunate, but really that will not do at all!” Sybil declared, linking her arm through Cynthia's. “I dare not go back without you. Cousin Hannah was making such a fuss, and you know they said she was not to be excited.”

Cynthia saw that all opportunity of asking her cousin's advice privately was gone, so she resigned herself to the inevitable with as good a grace as possible, and held out her hand to Sir Donald.

“Good morning, Mr Heriot!”

He had turned to accompany them, but her glance forbade it and he bowed gravely and stood back reluctantly. As soon as he was out of earshot Sybil gave a gleeful little skip.

“So I have caught you, Miss Sobersides? Now I know what all these country walks mean! Well, he is not bad looking!”

Cynthia disengaged herself coldly.

“You are talking nonsense, Sybil. Mr Heriot did me a great service once, and naturally I speak to him when we meet.”

Sybil laughed mischievously.

“So you go out to meet him sometimes, do you? It is all right, Cynthia; you need not blush and I will not tell Cousin Hannah. If there were any question of a
mésalliance
she might be angry; but in your case—”

Cynthia stopped short; several times it had struck her that Sybil had guessed her identity, yet Gillman was apparently unaware of it. She could not imagine how the girl had discovered her secret unless Lady Hannah—

“What do you mean, Sybil?” she asked sharply, “it seems to me it—you are fond of hinting.”

“Hinting—I?” Sybil shook her mop of fair hair back from her eyes. She looked up innocently at Cynthia from beneath the shade of her sun-bonnet, which she affected sometimes as the proper thing for the country. “What do you mean?” she asked demurely. “I can't understand.”

Cynthia kept her eyes fixed on the dainty, piquant face, on the blue eyes that met hers without the suspicion of
arrière-pensée
.

“You said that Cousin Hannah would object if there were any question of
mésalliance
, but in my case—”

“You would have more sense, certainly!” Sybil finished gaily. “You might have known that. Do make haste, Cynthia! Cousin Hannah was fidgeting so when I came away, fearing that some harm had happened to you.”

Cynthia quickened her steps, but she drew distinctly away from the other girl, and Sybil, hunching up her shoulders in displeasure, kept to her own side of the path.

They hurried to the house. Cynthia would have gone straight to the stairs, but as she opened the door into the hall Gillman appeared, looking worried and anxious.