Ten Star Clues (7 page)

They all watched Sophy when this was said. She tried to look as expressionless as possible and pulled at her father to come away, observing tartly and disrespectfully as they went that for the future his umbrella would have to be chained round his waist.

“Extraordinary,” Mr. Longden declared, “what things people will say. No doubt what's happened is rather overwhelming and I expect both the old people are very worried about Ralph. And that's what makes all this gossip.”

“It may be gossip,” Sophy answered, “but it's true. Both of them look as if they had done something they are awfully ashamed of and they know harm will come of it. The countess keeps muttering that to herself—that harm will come of it.”

“All the same,” persisted Mr. Longden, “the young man has his rights, and among them is the right to a welcome home. There's a touch of romance in such a return I should have thought would appeal to every one. I am afraid the butler, Martin, is responsible to some degree. He was at the Wych Arms last night and he seems to have talked in a way that has helped to spread this gossip.”

Sophy was silent, but she remembered how like a waiting vulture the soft-footed butler had seemed, hovering and silent and patient at a little distance. She wondered if he could know something, but that seemed to her unlikely. Her father was saying anxiously:—

“I do hope, once the first shock is over, Ralph will take it in the right spirit, and that he will try to be friendly to the young man.”

“Mr. Ralph says he is an impostor,” Sophy found herself saying, though she had not meant to tell her father that.

Only somehow the words came tumbling out before she was aware.

Mr. Longden stood still and shook his head sadly.

“I am very, very sorry to hear it,” he said. “It had occurred to me, but I couldn't believe it of Ralph. I had a better opinion of him. I shouldn't have said that,” he added remorsefully. “It must have been a terrible shock to any young man. No one has a right to judge him unless they have been in the same position.” This was a favourite remark of Mr. Longden's, and as no one is ever in exactly the same position as any one else, it followed that no one ever had the right to judge another, as is probably true. 

They were passing the Wych Estate office now. This was a comparatively new building, in two stories. On the ground floor were three rooms, an outer office for a Miss Higson, the typist, who liked to call herself secretary; a waiting-room; and an inner office for Ralph. Above were rooms occupied by Mrs. Gregson, who was the widow of an old estate employee, acted as caretaker and office cleaner, and sometimes as office boy as well, provided tea every day and occasionally other meals when Ralph happened to be busier than usual. Mr. Longden was half inclined to call in the hope of finding Ralph in a mood which would permit of the offering of a little friendly counsel, but then decided that it was too near the luncheon hour.

“Perhaps,” he said as they went on, “Miss Anne Hoyle's influence will help him to get over it better. I do hope she isn't being unfriendly to the young man.”

“No, she isn't,” said Sophy briefly; and only just prevented herself from adding that Anne was flirting with him as hard as she knew how.

It was an entirely new phase of Anne's character, and one that greatly bewildered and disturbed Sophy. Hitherto Anne had seemed quite indifferent to young men, whom she was often inclined to snub. Older men seemed to attract her much more, and even to Ralph she showed a degree of coldness that surprised Sophy, though she had admired it greatly as a proof equally of feminine reserve and of aristocratic self-control that would permit no display of that love you must obviously feel for the man you were engaged to, or else why are you engaged to him? If doubts had at times tried to enter her mind, Sophy was far too loyal to admit them, and had indeed closed the door on them with such a bang that no wonder they vanished, in a probable panic. All the same, for their mere appearance Sophy felt she ought to do penance, as was her custom when she knew she hadn't been behaving very nicely. Get up half an hour earlier than usual, perhaps, to learn by heart one of the less comprehensible chapters of Jeremiah, or not drink her early cup of tea she always enjoyed so much. Only to leave it would seem ungrateful; to pour it away would be wasteful, so she supposed it would have to be Jeremiah. Sophy sighed at the prospect; and such are the bewildering difficulties of the conscientious life found herself as a result of this distasteful prospect thinking more and more uncharitably of Anne, more and more inclined to believe she really was flirting with Bertram, and thus becoming more and more guilty for harbouring thoughts so lacking in charity.

So to avoid a vicious circle of more penance, causing more and more uncharitable thoughts, rendering more penance necessary, Sophy said:—

“Well, why is Mr. Clinton Wells going to help Mr. Ralph if he doesn't think it's all a horrid fraud?”

Mr. Longden had no answer to this problem. But he remembered that Mr. Wells was a partner in the firm acting for Earl Wych who accepted Bertram as his grandson. It seemed a little difficult to believe Mr. Wells would act against the earl. Like being on both sides at once. So Sophy explained that Clinton Wells intended to resign his partnership, and would he do that, she asked triumphantly, unless he was quite, quite sure?

“It might be,” Mr. Longden said thoughtfully, “that he feels he must stand by his friend. If it is that, it's rather fine. The act of a very honest man and a very true friend.”

“Yes, isn't it?” agreed Sophy enthusiastically. “I think it's awfully wonderful,” and she added obstinately:— “I do hope they prove he is a fraud and I expect they will, too.”

“My dear child, you must be reasonable,” protested Mr. Longden, “when his grandparents—”

“They haven't seen him for years and years,” interrupted Sophy, “and what's more he isn't a bit happy or comfortable, and he's as nervous and jumpy as he can be, and he's always drinking, and he keeps looking over his shoulder as if he thought there was a policeman there, and what's more, he's most awfully scared of Anne.” Sophy grew reckless. She threw all thoughts of penance to the winds. She said:—“He thinks she means to marry him and he's frightened to death.”

“Sophy,” said Mr. Longden in what for him was a terrible voice, “you must not say such things. Have you forgotten Miss Anne is engaged to Ralph?”

“No,” retorted Sophy, quite bewildered to find herself sticking up for her own opinion in a way that until now she simply wouldn't have believed possible, “I haven't, but I think she has. I don't understand her a bit. I admired her so awfully, and now it's all a muddle. She may be only trying to find out things. Mr. Bertram and she were talking ever so long together last night.”

“Very wise of her,” declared Mr. Longden. “Very wise indeed. I trust she may be able to bring Ralph to a more reasonable state of mind, and I do hope and trust he won't do anything rash or foolish, anything really to offend his uncle. You can understand how terribly upset he is. You can understand what a terrible shock and surprise it has been. But he must face the facts like the true, honest fellow he is.”

Sophy did not answer, but she felt an instant conviction that Ralph did indeed intend to face the facts; though whether in a way her father would approve, seemed to her less certain.

“Has Mr. Arthur Hoyle said anything?” he asked presently.

“No,” Sophy answered. “But he is always there now. He comes in every day. He keeps trying to ask me questions. No one else, only me. I just say I don't know, and I don't.” She paused and looked uncomfortable, for something else was in her mind, something uncharitable, ‘catty', something that ought never to have occurred to her. She didn't know what had come over her since Bertram's arrival. She seemed only to be able to see the worst side of everything. All the same it came out: “He makes you think he's planning something secret. He said such a strange thing yesterday. He said no one knew now where they were, or whether they were standing on their head or their heels, and most likely it would turn out presently he was the heir himself, and then he would propose to me and we should be Earl and Countess Wych. I was so angry. I thought it was such a vulgar joke, and I told him so, and not a bit funny, either.”

“It was a display of very bad manners,” pronounced Mr. Longden, looking this time really annoyed. “Most regrettable.”

“I believe he thinks it's all some sort of fraud,” Sophy continued. “I'm sure he doesn't think Mr. Bertram is the real Mr. Bertram. Only why should that make Mr. Arthur the heir?”

“I don't know,” Mr. Longden answered, and suddenly he was afraid, and when he looked at Sophy again he saw that she also was afraid.

During this time, while there were gathering in the east the war clouds of the coming storm, there was going on a languid, half amused, half bored preparation, often looked upon as a kind of play acting or pageantry, serving as an agreeable break in the routine of everyday life.

On a day subsequent to that on which Mr. Longden had held with his daughter a conversation he still remembered as disturbing to a degree, there was to be held in the village parish hall a meeting concerning possible evacuation plans.

According to the usual habits of officialdom all the world over, entirely contradictory instructions had been received from headquarters. One set of officials evidently regarded Brimpton Wych as an evacuation area, since it was so near the great industrial centre of Midwych, and the department would therefore be glad to know what arrangements were being made for the dispatch of the children to a safe district, preferably on the south-east coast, where the children would have the benefit of the sea air. Clacton was suggested as highly suitable. Other equally highly placed officials, however, had as evidently got down Brimpton Wych as a reception area, since it was so far from London, and wished to know at once what steps were being taken to billet the children sent there in the event of an ‘emergency'—at this time it was still considered that to use the word ‘war' was shockingly bad taste.

Mr. Longden was to preside at this meeting, whereat also Midwych representatives would be present. In connection with one or two preliminary details he called at the Wych Estate office to see Ralph, who for his part was working continuously on the various schemes for increased food production the Ministry of Agriculture was showering upon him by almost every post—not to mention those that arrived by 'phone and by telegraph, many of them of course entirely incompatible with all the others. And any one who has ever had to try to persuade a farmer to cultivate his land other than in his own way and time, can guess what kind of a life Ralph was now leading. Especially as not one single farmer believed for a moment that war was coming, or that, even if it did, there would be any necessity to do much more than sit tight behind the Maginot Line and the British Navy until Germany had got tired of allowing that mountebank, Hitler, to prance about in his big boots.

Ralph was as busy as usual when Mr. Longden appeared, but a trifle relieved that at any rate this interview was not going to be an effort to induce some slow thinking farmer to follow the advice of a London official, entirely and ridiculously ignorant of the difference between the lower field and the ten acre patch, not even knowing that such and such pasture would have to be drained before it could possibly be used for wheat. “They don't even know, them up there, in London,” one man had protested amazedly, “that there's springs just under the surface,” and as Ralph himself, well as he knew the countryside, had not been aware of that fact, he agreed that very likely up in London they had not known it either.

The business the vicar had called upon in connection with the evening's meeting was soon settled, and then Mr. Longden went on to mention another matter. The church plate was of some intrinsic and of high antiquarian value, and he was beginning to be worried about its safety.

If there were air raids—and Brimpton Wych, like every other village in England, was convinced it would be the special target of every German airman—-would that church plate be secure in the somewhat antiquated safe in the vestry? In case of fire caused by an incendiary bomb, Mr. Longden doubted if that safe would give full protection. Ralph was quite sure it would give very little protection. He suggested the bank; but the difficulty was that the plate was often required for early service, and would indeed be as frequently out of the bank's strong room as in it. As for buying an alternative set, well, Ralph knew the difficulty there was going to be in meeting the next instalment due on the new heating system. But, Mr. Longden pointed out hesitatingly, the Wych Estate office had a fairly new, very large, reputedly fire-proof safe, bought by the old land agent before his death and before Ralph took over the work, and occasionally now referred to by Ralph as a ‘white elephant'. There had of course been more need for it in former days, but at present when nearly all rents and payments were settled by cheque, there was seldom any large sum of cash in the office over night. Consequently the safe was often half empty, and was chiefly used for keeping books and papers. In office hours, it generally stood open, as in fact it did now. His attention drawn to it, Ralph agreed that the church plate could quite well be stored there, if and when that doubtful ‘emergency' did arrive.

Naturally it would be necessary for Mr. Longden to have keys both for the outer door of the office and for the safe itself. For the safe there were only three keys in existence, one on Ralph's bunch and two in the bank. One of these Ralph promised Mr. Longden should have if the need arose, and he got up to show how the lock worked. It was a somewhat early form of the combination lock, and required to be set in one special way before the key would turn. Mr. Longden, guiltily conscious of how often he managed to mislay his own keys, wondered timidly if the verger could have a third key to the safe, as he had a duplicate key to the vestry safe. But that idea did not much appeal to Ralph, who thought it was one thing to trust the vicar and quite another to let the verger have office and safe keys. Mr. Longden took out his own keys and looked at them sorrowfully, and Ralph suggested that instead, when the time came, of putting the office and safe keys with these others so frequently lost, he should wear them on a string round his neck.