Bride of Pendorric (27 page)

“Did you ask her?”

” Oh no, madam, it wasn’t the sort of thing we could ask. She would be offended, and unless we’d got proof, she could deny it, couldn’t she?

No, there’s nothing we can put a finger on. And now you’ve come home it doesn’t seem the same. His lordship’s not so likely to get caught—that’s how Mrs. Dawson and I see it, madam. But we’re keeping our eyes open. “

” Oh … it’s Mrs. Pendorrie.”

I turned sharply to see Althea Grey smiling at me, and I flushed rather guiltily, feeling at a disadvantage to have been discovered discussing her with the butler. I wondered if she had overheard anything. Voices carried in the open air.

” You don’t look as if you’ve been up half the night,” she went on. ” And I’m sure you must have been. What an evening! Lord Polhorgan was absolutely delighted with the way everything went off.” Dawson slipped away and I was left alone with her. Her hair, piled high beneath the snowy cap, was beautiful; but I wondered what it was that made her face so distinctive. Was it the thick brows, several shades darker than her hair; the eyes of that lovely deep blue shade that is almost violet and doesn’t need to take its colour from anything because it is always a more vivid blue than anything else could possibly be? The straight nose was almost Egyptian, and seemed odd with such Anglo-Saxon fairness. The wide mouth was slightly mocking now. I felt sure that even if she had not overheard our conversation, she knew that Dawson had been speaking of her derogatively.

It was a face of mystery, I decided, a face that concealed secrets;

the face of a woman of the world, a woman who had lived perhaps recklessly and had no desire for the past to prejudice the present, or future.

I remembered that the young man with whom I had danced had mentioned something from the past too. So Dawson’s suspicions were very likely not without some foundation.

I felt wary of this woman as I walked with her towards the house. ” Lord Polfaorgan was hoping you’d come this morning. I told him you most certainly would.”

” I was wondering how he felt after last night.”

” It did him a world of good. He enjoyed feting his beautiful granddaughter.”

I felt that she was secretly laughing at me, and I was glad when I was with my grandfather and she had left us alone together.

It was a week later mat there was a call in the night. The telephone beside our bed rang and I was answering it before Roe had opened his eyes.

” This is Nurse Grey. Could you come over at once? Lord Polhorgan is very ill, and asking for you.”

I leaped out of bed.

” What on earth’s happened?” asked Roe.

When I told him he made me slip on some clothes, and, doing the same himself, said: ” We’ll drive over right away.”

“What’s the time?” I asked Roe, as we drove the short distance between Pendorric and Polhorgan.

” Just after one.”

” He must be bad for her to ring us,” I said. Roe put his hand over mine, as though to reassure me that whatever was waiting for me, he would be there to share it. As we drove up to the portico the door opened and Dawson let us in. ” He’s very bad, I’m afraid, madam.”

” I’ll go straight up.”

I ran up the stairs. Roe at my heels. Roe waited outside the bedroom while I went in.

Althea Grey came towards me. ” Thank God you’ve come,” she said.

“He’s been asking for you. I phoned as soon as I knew.” I went to the bed where my grandfather lay back on his pillows; he was quite exhausted and I could see that he was finding it difficult to get his bread.

“Grandfather,” I said.

His lips formed the name Favel; but he did not say it. I knelt by the bed and took his hand in mine; I kissed it, feeling desolate. I had found him such a short time ago. Was I to lose him so soon?

” I’m here, Grandfather. I came as soon as I heard you wanted me.” I knew by the slight movement of his head that he undertood. Althea Grey was at my side. She whispered: ” He’s not in pain. I’ve given him morphia. He’ll be feeling the effect of it now. Dr. Clement will be here at any moment.”

I turned to look at her and I saw from her expression that his condition was very grave. Then I saw Roe standing some little way from the bed. Althea Grey moved back to where he was and I turned my attention to my grandfather.

” Favel.” It was a whisper. His fingers moved in mine, and I knew that he was trying to say something to me so I brought my face nearer to his.

” Are you there … Favel?”

“Yes, Grandfather,” I whispered.

“It’s … good-bye, Favel.”

” No.”

He smiled. ” Such a short time…. But it was a happy time … the happiest time … Favel, you must be …” His face puckered and I bent nearer to him.

” Don’t talk, Grandfather. It’s too much of an effort.” His brows puckered into a frown. ” Favel … must be … careful…. It’ll be yours now. Make sure …”

I guessed what he was trying to tell me. Even when he was fighting for his breath he was preoccupied with his money.

” It’s different …” he went on, ” when you have it…. Can’t be sure can never be sure…. Favel … take care….”

“Grandfather, please don’t worry about me. Don’t think about anything but getting better. You will get better. You must….” He shook his head. ” Couldn’t find …” he began; but his battle for breath was too much for him; his eyes were closing. ” Tired,” he murmured. ” So tired. Favel … stay … be careful…. It’s different with money. Perhaps I was wrong … but I wanted … be careful. I wish I could stay a while to … look after you, Favel.”

His lips were moving now but no sound came. He lay back on his pillows, his face looking shrunken and grey. He was very near the end by the time Dr. Clement arrived.

We sat in the room where I had played so many games of chess with him—Dr. Clement, Roe, Nurse Grey and myself.

Dr. Clement was saying: “It’s not entirely unexpected. It could have happened at any time. Did he ring the bell?”

” No. Or I should have heard him. My room is next to his. The bell is always by his bed for him to ring if he wanted anything in the night.

It was Dawson who went in. He said he was locking up when he saw Lord Polhorgan’s light on. He found him gasping and in great pain. He called me and I saw that it was necessary to give him morphia, which I did. “

Dr. Clement rose and went to the door.

” Dawson,” he called. ” Are you there, Dawson?” Dawson came into the room.

” I’ve heard that you came in and found Lord Polhorgan in distress.”

” Yes, sir. He’d snapped on the light and seeing it I looked in to make sure he was all right. I saw he was trying to ask for something, but I didn’t, know what, for a while. Then I found out it was his pills. I couldn’t find them then so I called Nurse and came back with her. That was when she gave him the morphia.”

” So it seems as though this attack developed into a major one because he had no chance of holding it off.”

” I’d always impressed on him the need to have his pills at hand,” said Althea Grey.

Dawson was looking at her scornfully. ” I found them after, sir. After his lordship had had the morphia, that was. The box was lying on the floor. It had come open and the pills was scattered, sir. The bell was on the floor also.”

” He must have knocked them over when he reached for the pills,” said Althea Grey.

I looked at Roe, who was staring straight ahead of him.

“A sad business,” murmured Dr. Clement.

“I think I ought to give you a sedative, Mrs. Pendorric. You’re looking all in.”

” I’ll take her home,” said Roe. ” There’s no point in waiting here now. We can do nothing till the morning.”

Dr. Clement smiled at me sadly. ” There was nothing we could do to prevent it,” he told me.

” If he had had his pills,” I said, ” that might have prevented it.”

” It might have.”

” What an unfortunate accident …” I began ; and my eyes met Dawson’s and I saw that his were gleaming with speculation.

” It couldn’t be helped,” Roe was saying. ” It’s easy to see how it happened … reaching out … in a hurry … knocking over the box and the bell.”

I shivered, and Roe put his arm through mine.

I wanted to get out of that room; there was something in Dawson’s expression which frightened me; there was something too in the calm, beautiful features of Althea Grey.

I felt as though I were outside looking in on all that had happened since Roe and I came into this house. I saw myself leaning over my dying grandfather; I heard his voice warning me of some danger which he sensed ahead of me. Roe and Althea were standing together in that room of death. What words did they exchange while my grandfather told me to take care? What had been the expressions in their eyes as they looked at each other?

Dawson had done this with his hatred of the nurse, with his groundless suspicions. But did I really know that they were groundless? I felt the cool night air on my face and Roe’s tender voice beside me. ” Come on, darling, you’re quite worn out. Clement’s right. It has been a terrible shock to you.”

Those were sad weeks which followed, for only when I had lost him did I realise how fond I had become of my grandfather. I missed him deeply; not only his company, I began to understand; not only the complacent joy I had felt because I had brought so much pleasure into his lonely life; but he had given me a sense of security, and that I had lost. I had subconsciously felt that he was there—a powerful man of the world to whom I could go if I were in trouble. My own flesh and blood. I could have trusted him to do anything in his power to help me . should I have needed his help.

It seemed strange that I should have felt this need. I had a husband who could surely give me any protection I wanted; but it was the loss of my grandfather which brought home to me the true relationship between myself and my husband. To have lost him would have been complete desolation; he could amuse and delight me too, but the truth remained that I was not sure of him; I did not know him. Yet, in spite of this uncertainty I loved him infinitely, and my entire happiness depended on him. I was wretched because I must be suspicious of his relationship with Althea Grey, Rachel Bective and even Dinah Bond. And I had begun to feel-since I had discovered that I had a grandfather—that he was someone who had for me a deep and uncomplicated affection. Now I had lost him.

I was his heir and there were many visits from his solicitors. When I heard the extent of the fortune he had left I felt dizzy at the prospect of my riches. There were several be quests. The Dawsons had been left a comfortable pension; there was a thousand pounds for the nurse who was employed by him at the time of his death; all the servants had been remembered and rewarded according to their length of service ; he had left a sizeable sum to be used for the benefit of orphans—he himself had been an orphan—and I was very touched that he had remembered this charity. Death duties, I was informed, would swallow up a large proportion, but I should still have a considerable fortune.

Polhorgan itself was mine with all its contents; and this in itself was worth a great deal.

My grandfather’s death seemed to have changed my whole life. I was so much poorer in affection, so much richer in worldly goods; and I was beginning to be afraid that this last fact coloured people’s attitude towards me.

I fancied people like the Darks and Dr. Clement were not quite so friendly; that the people in the village whispered about me when I had passed. I had become not merely Mrs. Pendorric, but the rich Mrs.

Pendorric. But it was in Pen dorric itself that I felt the change most, and this was indeed disturbing. I felt that Morwenna and Charles were secretly delighted, and that the twins watched me a little furtively as though they had overheard gossip which had made them see me in a different light.

Deborah was more outspoken man the others. She said:

” Barbarina was an heiress, but nothing of course to be compared with yourself.”

I hated this kind of talk. I wished that my grandfather had not been such a rich man. I wished th ait he had left his money elsewhere, for I was realising now that one of the facts which had made me so happy at Pendorric was that, although the old house and estate needed money.

Roe had married me, a girl without a penny. I could no longer say to myself: ” He could only have married me for love.”

It was with my grandfather’s money that the canker had touched our relationship.

“It was some weeks after my grandfather’s death that I had an interview with his solicitor and he brought home to me the advisability Of making a will.

So I did so, and, with the exception of one or two legacies, I left me residue of my fortune to Roe.

September had come. The evenings were short and the mornings misty;

but the afternoons were as warm as they had been in July. It was two months since my grandfather’s death and I was still mourning him. I had done nothing about Polhorgan, and the Dawsons and all the servants remained mere; Al’thea Grey had decided to have a long holiday before looking for a new post and had taken a little cottage about a mile from Pendorric, which during the months of June, July and August wtas let to holiday makers.

I knew I should have to do something about Polhorgan, and an idea had come to me. It was to turn the house into a home for orphans—such as my grandfather must have been-the deprived and unwanted ones. When I mentioned this to Roe, he was startled.

” What an undertaking!” he said.

“Somehow I think it would have appealed to my grandfather because he was an orphan himself.”

Roe walked away from me—we were in our bedroom—and going to the window stared out at the sea, ” Well, Roe, you don’t like the idea? ” * Darling, it’s not the sort of project you can rush into. “

” No, of course not. I’m just thinking about it.”

“Things aren’t what they used to be, remember. There’d be all sorts of bureaucratic regulations to be got over … and have you thought of the cost of running a place like that?”

” I haven’t thought about anything very much. It was just a faint idea. I’m brooding on it, though.”

” We’ll have to do a lot of brooding,” he said.