The Master of the Priory (10 page)

Sir Oswald still held her hand, but some of the passion died out of his face.

“I know you, Elizabeth—that is enough for me. I think I fell in love with you the first time you came into the room with your sweet voice, your gentle, tender ways. And if I haven't seen you—well, I made Perkins read aloud Mrs. Sunningdale's description of you one day. I think I have got it by heart. But I should have known what you looked like without that, my dear; I couldn't help it, I think.”

Elizabeth stood still, her fingers lying inert in his clasp.

“What do you mean by Mrs. Sunningdale's description of me? I don't understand,” she questioned hoarsely.

A faint smile crept under Sir Oswald's brown moustache. “I heard my mother telling Sybil the other day she had lost the first letter Mrs. Sunningdale wrote about you, and I laughed to myself. That letter is calmly reposing in one of the drawers of my writing-table. It was brought to me to hear what Mrs. Sunningdale said about Maisie's new governess, and I shall not part with it until I see the original Elizabeth.”

“What did she say?” Elizabeth asked abruptly. There was still that curious immobility in her attitude.

Sir Oswald's smile deepened.

“I wonder if you will tell me again that I am mad, Elizabeth, when you know that I can repeat her description word for word? Listen! ‘Miss Martin is above middle height, slight and dark, with one of the most lovable faces I have ever seen; she has masses of dark brown hair and pretty, kind brown eyes.' So you see, Miss Martin, I have some idea what you are like. I have pictured you very often in my thoughts, the clouds of hair shadowing the most lovable little face in the world, the pretty, kind, brown eyes.”

The woman with the grey eyes and black hair, listening, tore her hands from his with a moan. So near—so near she had been, nay, she was—to detection. And she had thought herself so safe from all the world but Frank Carlyn.

“And now I want those same kind brown eyes to come and be eyes for me,” Sir Oswald went on. “Elizabeth, you will take pity on me?”

“No, no!” The grey eyes were full of wild terror now. “I can't! Indeed I can't!”

It was impossible for Sir Oswald to mistake either the finality or the pain in her tone, his face grew suddenly graver, sterner.

“Do you mean that there is some real obstacle?” he asked slowly.

“Yes—a barrier that can never be passed. I can never marry. I shall never think of marrying.” Elizabeth's sobs were rising now in her throat, threatening to choke her.

Sir Oswald, in his blindness, felt very far away.

“I can't understand,” he said helplessly. “Does this mean that you care for someone else—that you are engaged—married even?”

“No” Elizabeth said faintly. She was telling him the bare truth, and yet when she heard his sigh she felt that it was worse than the cruellest of lies.

“But you have cared for someone else?” Sir Oswald hazarded.

“Ah, no, no!” Elizabeth cried, putting up her hands to her throat.

“Then,” said Sir Oswald slowly, “if you are not bound to anyone, if you don't care, if you never have cared for anyone, I shall not give up hope.”

“Oh, you will! You must!” Elizabeth's breath came quick and fast, she fought despairingly to regain her self-control, not to yield to the impulse that bade her thrust herself and her story on Sir Oswald Davenant's mercy. “Don't you see that unless you promise to forget—to give up—I can't stay here—at the Priory?” she said, with a hoarse catch in her throat. “And I have nowhere else to go. I am so lonely.”

As he heard the last words Sir Oswald's face softened and grew very pitiful. He moved a little nearer with his uncertain, stumbling steps, but Elizabeth would not trust herself within touch of those strong, kind hands again.

“I am at your mercy, Elizabeth,” he said gravely. “You may rely at least upon it that I will not speak of it again while you are in my house unless you yourself give me permission. On your part—”

He paused and Elizabeth watched his face anxiously. He went on in a minute. “You must promise to stay here and be good to Maisie and me as you have been hitherto. We can't do without you, either of us, Elizabeth.”

The hint of weakness in the strong man's voice touched the governess as no pleading could have done. For one instant she stood beside him, warm, palpitating, hesitating, the next she had caught sight of herself in a small Venetian mirror inlet into the wall opposite her, and hurried breathlessly from the room.

She ran upstairs. On the lawn beneath she could hear Maisie chattering to Barbara Burford. She would go down in a minute or two, but she must have breathing space to think matters over first. That Sir. Oswald should propose to her, want to marry her, had never entered her calculations, changed though his manner had been of late. She had always heard that some men looked upon a flirtation with a governess as a recognized form of amusement, and she supposed that her lot was to be the same as others. But now everything was altered; apart from the fact that she stood on the verge of detection she knew that what had passed would render it impossible for her to remain at the Priory long; and, as she had told Sir Oswald, she had nowhere else to go. Tears welled up in her eyes as she glanced round the pretty bedroom she had learned to look upon as her own.

There was a knock at her door. Eliza, the schoolroom maid, stood in the doorway, her pretty childish face showing unmistakable signs of tears.

“What is it, Eliza?” asked Elizabeth kindly. She liked the girl, who had waited on her since her coming to the Priory, but just at present she found her own worries all-absorbing.

“My mother is ill,” the girl said tearfully. “Her ladyship says I can go home at once, and Ellen can wait on you, but I thought that I should like to tell you myself—” She paused expectantly.

For once Elizabeth's ready sympathy failed her.

“Your mother is ill, Eliza?” she repeated dully. “I—I am very sorry.” 

“W
HERE ARE
you going?” Maisie popped her head through the banisters just as Barbara, ready equipped for walking, came into the hall.

The girl looked up and smiled. “Oh, just for a walk,” she said vaguely.

“Miss Martin and I are going to take some soup to Mrs. Archer at the south lodge. You wouldn't like to come with us?” Maisie said persuasively.

“Not to-day, I think—” Barbara said slowly.

Maisie stamped her foot.

“It never is to-day,” she said with childish vehemence. “And I thought you would come and have tea with us in the schoolroom and be ever so nice, not stuck up like Sybil. And now I really believe you are worse. I am disappointed in you, Barbara.”

“Are you really?” Barbara laughed in spite of herself. “I am sorry it is as bad as that, Maisie. But of course I will have tea with you this afternoon if Miss Martin will ask me when I come back. But I can't walk down to the lodge. I have a big thing that I must do by myself.”

“Like daddy does?” Maisie said wisely. “Oh, well, if you will come to tea, Barbara, I will forgive you. You really are a dear.” She sprang down the stairs two steps at a time, and bestowed an enthusiastic kiss on the girl.

Barbara laughed again as she returned it, but her face wore a very worried expression as she closed the front door behind her and set off across the park. Life was becoming a very complex thing now to Barbara Burford. Everything had seemed to lie so straight before her until she came to the Priory, and then a few minutes had sufficed to change everything. She was staying much longer than she intended at the Davenants'. She had caught eagerly at Lady Davenant's invitation to extend her visit, thinking to give herself breathing space and perhaps to find out that she was troubling herself needlessly. But now her father had written to recall her, she was wanted at home and in the parish, one week longer was all that he was willing to allow her. And Barbara was faced by the fact that she must make up her mind on a very important matter before her return.

All her life, as it seemed to her, she had loved Frank Carlyn. For years their friendship had been an established thing, no one had doubted that it would ultimately end as it had. There had been a few months last year when a sort of estrangement had grown up between them, but it had been ended by Frank's proposal and since then Barbara had been happier than she had ever been in all her life. Happier—and more miserable. For now Barbara was deliberating with herself whether it was not her duty to put an end to the engagement. Did Frank Carlyn care for her, as he could care for someone else—nay, as he had cared and perhaps did care for someone else? Barbara could not answer this question to her satisfaction. All this time of her engagement she had been haunted by the feeling that, old friends as they were, something stood always between her and Frank, some figure or shadow of the past. Now it was assuming a more tangible shape, and Barbara was faced by a problem more difficult than anything her young, unguarded life had hitherto encountered.

No solution had occurred to her as she entered the mossy wood, and turned slowly down the path.

She knit her brows as she walked on deep in thought. So absorbed was she that but for a chance movement on the part of a man lounging against a tree trunk at the side of the road she would have passed him unobserved.

Then she looked up, and after a moment's bewilderment stopped short in surprise at sight of a familiar face.

“Why, Marlowe, is it you? What brings you to this part of the world?”

The ex-policeman touched his cap.

“My missus comes from these parts, miss. Her people have a bit of a farm over Cowley way, and she hasn't been just the thing lately, so I brought her over for a change. I'm only here for the week-end. I couldn't leave the business any longer. And how's all the people down at Carlyn, miss, if you will pardon me for asking, the rector and the young Squire—Mr. Carlyn?”

“They are quite well, thank you,” Barbara answered mechanically.

She was recalling what she had heard when Constable Marlowe left Carlyn. He and his wife had come into money. It was said that he was giving up the police force on the strength of it and taking a small business somewhere in the Black Country. It seemed plausible, and yet Barbara could not help feeling that something lay behind the story. The man was glib enough with his tale, but she fancied she had detected a shade of discomfiture in his face when she recognized him.

“I am sorry to hear Mrs. Marlowe has not been well,” she went on after a pause. “Where are you living now—I forget?”

“Over in Burchell, a village on the other side of Stoke,” Marlowe lied glibly. “My uncle left me a bit of a shop there, china and so forth, and we are making a decent living at it, and it doesn't take it out of a man like the police force.”

“No, I daresay not,” Barbara assented absently.

The man was obviously anxious to move on, and she had no excuse to detain him. He touched his hat and she nodded her good-bye. Yet as she pursued her walk she felt vaguely uneasy. Marlowe's presence in Castor might mean so much or so little.

Meanwhile Mr. Marlowe was cursing himself for a stupid fool. He had heard there was a young lady stopping at the Priory, but in his preoccupation with other matters he had failed to ask her name. This neglect had brought this recognition on himself, with the possible ruin of all plans. He had nearly reached the edge of the wood when he caught sight of the figure for which he had been waiting. It was a pleasant, rosy-faced young woman in black who approached him.

“Well, what luck?” he demanded impatiently.

“Give me a minute,” she responded, pressing her hand to her side. “I am out of breath with climbing that hill. I have got the place.”

“That is right,” he said heartily, his face clearing. “When do you go in?”

The girl laughed. “To-night. I haven't let the grass grow under my feet, have I?”

Marlowe looked at her admiringly. “You are a good girl. I always did say you were smart, Susy.”

Few people would have taken the two for brother and sister. Susan was as slim and alert as Marlowe was portly and phlegmatic looking. The girl, however, was devoted to her brother. She had as great a belief in his powers as he had himself, and it was mainly on her advice that he had thrown up his position in the police to work for Mr. Gregg. That gentleman had been one of the detectives sent down to Carlyn to investigate the death of John Winter. He had started a detective agency on his own account soon afterwards, and the opinion he had formed of Mr. Marlowe's abilities had led him to offer him a liberal salary to join him. This was not the first time that Susy had been called upon to help in their plans, and more than once she had been found invaluable.

Marlowe had soon discovered that his inquiry into the past of the governess at the Priory was hopeless from the outside. Nothing was known of her in the village, and unless on an errand for Lady Davenant she seldom went beyond the Park, and the woods close to the house, with her little charge.

The fact that the situation of schoolroom maid was vacant at the Priory gave him his opportunity. Susan was the very person to wait on Miss Martin and incidentally to find out all that that unfortunate young woman wished to remain hidden.

Sybil Lorrimer had professed a previous acquaintance with the girl, and acted as her reference, and Susan's obtaining the situation was a foregone conclusion. Nevertheless Marlowe had been afraid of some hitch and his relief was unmistakable.

“You saw Miss Lorrimer?” he questioned.

Susan nodded. “That is why I am a bit late. She took me up to her bedroom saying I was an old friend, and she did talk. How she hates Miss Martin!”

Marlowe looked thoughtful. “I know. But look here, Susan, my girl. I don't suppose my letter made it clear to you that Miss Lorrimer's interests and ours—Mr. Gregg's and mine—may not run just on the same lines. All that Miss Lorrimer wants is to get rid of the governess from the Priory.”