The Master of the Priory (12 page)

“I gave it to you a minute ago,” said Elizabeth in surprise.

“Did you?” Sybil questioned. “I don't think you did, or if you did I have lost it. Do you see Miss Martin's paper over there, any of you? No. Oh, just do another, Miss Martin. I must have dropped it somewhere.”

Elizabeth obeyed. The game did not strike her as very interesting, and she was only longing to get away. She gave a sigh of unfeigned relief when, the papers having been collected and admired, Mrs. Turner declared it was time to be going, and swept all the party away. But even then she was not free. Sir Oswald sent to ask her to write some letters for him, and her own had to remain unread.

When the last of the guests had gone, Sybil ran lightly upstairs. In her room Susan, the schoolroom maid, was sewing some lace into a frock.

Sybil waved the piece of paper she drew from her satchel in triumph.

“Well, I have managed it, Susan. But it needed a little diplomacy.”

The maid took it from her and scrutinized it carefully.

“So this is Miss Martin's thumb-mark, is it?” she said slowly, her eyes narrowing. “Well, now I think I can promise you it won't be long before we have some news for you, Miss Lorrimer.” 

A
LONE
at last! Elizabeth closed her door and locked it. It really seemed to her that everyone had been conspiring against her this evening. After Sir Oswald's letters were done, Maisie had been unusually tiresome, and after the child was safely in bed Lady Davenant had paid one of her infrequent visits to the schoolroom, and had stayed chatting pleasantly over many subjects, while Elizabeth had the greatest difficulty in preventing her impatience from becoming visible.

But now it was all over and she was her own mistress until the morning.

She drew the letter from her pocket and scrutinized it carefully. It was undoubtedly Frank Carlyn's writing, she could not fail to recognize it, though the times she had seen it before were very few. The postmark too—she shivered as she looked at it—was Carlyn.

She shivered again as she opened the envelope, the prevision of evil was strong upon her, and she hesitated a moment, glancing round with wide frightened eyes, before she drew out the enclosure. Then, as she looked down, she saw that it was merely the briefest of notes. It began abruptly without any prefix.

“It has come to my knowledge accidentally that Marlowe, the late constable at Carlyn, has been seen in the neighbourhood of the Priory. He is there ostensibly on business, but there may be danger. Be careful.” It was signed simply F. C.

She read it through twice, then she looked up feverishly. She had thrown off her disguising glasses and her big, grey eyes were wide and dilated by fear.

“What does it mean?” she sobbed beneath her breath. “What can it mean? Except that the end is drawing near.” Then as she glanced downwards, she struck at the letter with her open palm. “Oh, the coward!” she breathed. “The wicked coward!”

She had seated herself in a chair near the dressing-table. As she looked up she caught sight of her reflection in the glass. She paused with the letter in her hand, staring before her with a new fear gripping her heart. Surely she could not be mistaken. The mass of dark hair brushed so smoothly back from her brow was distinctly lighter in colour. There could be no mistake about it; the difference that Barbara had noticed was even more marked now.

Elizabeth thrust the letter back into her pocket as she got up, and going nearer to the dressing-table scrutinized herself more closely. Yes, the change was marked; and yet, only yesterday, fancying that there was some alteration, she had been more careful than usual.

She went over to a box she always kept locked, and unfastening it took out a case containing a bottle half-f of some dark liquid, a saucer, and quite an array of small brushes.

“It cannot be that it is failing now,” she murmured. “It has always answered so well hitherto.”

She hurried into her dressing-gown and let down her hair. Then, after regarding it for a minute or two with increasing dissatisfaction, she poured some of the liquid from the bottle into the saucer, and taking up one of the brushes began slowly to damp her hair, holding it out from the roots to the tips and going over every bit carefully.

It was a long process, and it was past her usual bedtime when she had finished, but she did not hurry with her undressing; even before Carlyn's letter had come she had been oppressed by a feeling of danger, a feeling that was intensified tenfold now. A strong foreboding was upon her that the day of reckoning was close at hand, try to evade it as she might. That it was likely to prove a heavy day for others as well as for herself she knew only too well, and her heart failed her as she thought of it. Even after she was in bed she lay awake, the livelong night, tossing from side to side, the dread that had been upon her in the daytime increased tenfold in the hours of darkness. Where lay the danger? She could not even guess, and her helplessness deepened the mysterious terror that oppressed her.

She remembered Marlowe well, she had little doubt that he would recognize her. She was convinced that his sharp eyes would penetrate her disguise.

Towards morning she fell into an uneasy doze, in which trivial things, like Maisie's lessons, mixed themselves up with the dreadful days that had preceded the governess's coming to the Priory. Then her mind recurred to an earlier time still. She was once more the petted darling of her father's house. Her father seemed to be waiting for her, watching her, and she caught the echo of his kindly tones, “Come home, little girl, come home.” With this last dream, there mingled, oddly enough, memories of Sir Oswald's love-making, of the tenderness that had grown in his voice when he had spoken of his love for her, when he had begged her to come and be eyes for him in his helplessness.

She woke with a sob in her throat as Susan entered with her tea. The maid placed the tray beside the bed, drew up the blinds, then, with an unseen glance at the long tresses lying on the pillow, departed with a gleam of triumph in her eyes.

Elizabeth sat up in bed and drank her tea feverishly. Now in the clear morning light things did not seem quite so bad. She began to think that she had let her fears exaggerate her danger. After all Marlowe's visit to the neighbourhood might have no connexion with her at all. It might simply be that a malign fate had ordained that he, like Carlyn and Barbara Burford, should have friends in the district. If she kept out of his sight all might be well.

Resolving that, for sometime at any rate, she would not venture out of the Park and its immediate precincts, she sprang out of bed. Then as she faced the long pier glass she uttered a cry of horror. The hair which up to a few days ago had been so black was now only a pale brown; there was no possibility of the change passing unnoticed to-day—it was obvious enough to strike the most casual observer.

But what could have brought it about? She could not imagine. As she hurriedly dressed herself she made up her mind that the only thing she could do was to ask for a day's holiday, go up to Town and see if she could get the hair put right, keeping it in the meantime covered as much as possible. To this end, when the dressing bell rang, she put on her hat and coat and twisted a veil round her hair. Maisie's sharp little eyes and tongue were to be dreaded as much as anything she knew.

Then she begged for an interview with Lady Davenant, who usually kept her room until the middle of the day. She found the old lady in bed and distinctly curious as to the meaning of this early visit.

In spite of everything Elizabeth was not a good liar. She hesitated and stammered so much as she told the story she had decided on that a keener person than Lady Davenant would have guessed that something was amiss at once.

As it was, however, her tale did very well. She had had a letter the preceding afternoon, she said, which necessitated her going up to Town at once. If Lady Davenant would allow her she would take the express at 10.30 and be back that same evening.

Lady Davenant looked a little perplexed by the suddenness of the request.

“If you had told me when you had the letter yesterday,” she said plaintively, “then I could have arranged everything. Now what am I to do about Maisie?”

“If she might have a holiday to-day I know that Latimer would look after her, and I could make it up to her later on. I am so sorry, dear Lady Davenant, but yesterday I thought it could be done by letter. Now I see it can't and it is so very important. You see”—her face colouring—“it is so very important that I should take care of my savings, in case my health should fail, or anything.”

“Of course it is, my dear.” Lady Davenant was easily placated. “Well, you must go. As you say, Latimer can take care of Maisie, and Oswald's letters can wait. Or I daresay Sybil—”

“Who is taking Sybil's name in vain?” that young lady's voice interrupted at this juncture, and Sybil's fair head was popped round the door. “What! Miss Martin, you are an early visitor. Going out already to—” with a glance at the other's hat and veil.

“Oh, Sybil, Miss Martin is going up to Town.” Lady Davenant eagerly related Elizabeth's difficulty while the governess sat silent.

Sybil listened, the smile in her eyes deepening as she looked at the governess.

“I do hope you will get your business done successfully,” she said amiably. “But you will not have much time to spare if you want to catch the express.”

Elizabeth found this was true enough. She had to hurry over her breakfast and her farewells to Maisie, who by no means approved of being left, but she managed to be in time for the train.

The carriage was crowded, but it was a two hours' journey to town; she had plenty of time for reflection in the train; but she little guessed that the shabby-looking man who was apparently asleep at the other end of the carriage was in reality watching her from beneath his lowered eyes, that not a change of expression on her part escaped him.

Still less did she imagine when the train had steamed into the great terminus, and she had engaged a taxi to convey her to her destination, that the same shabby-looking man was in another taxi behind, that his driver had orders not to let her out of sight.

She had given the name and address of an expensive hairdresser's in a quiet little street off Piccadilly. An attendant came forward as she entered the shop.

“I had a preparation from here for tinting the hair a darker shade,” Elizabeth began.

The man bowed. “Yes, madam.”

“Well, for a time it answered perfectly,” Elizabeth told him. “But lately, this last week or so, it has failed. Not only that, but it seems to have an absolutely contrary effect, and the hair seems lighter after each application.”

The man looked surprised. “I don't understand that, madam. You are sure you have applied it according to the directions?”

“Quite sure, absolutely,” Elizabeth said with conviction. “As I have more than half a bottle of the liquid left, I brought it with me that you might see whether there is anything wrong with it. I have had no reason to complain until the last bottle. Is it a usual thing for the preparation to fail after a certain time?”

The man looked puzzled. “We have never had such a case, madam. If you will allow me to see it perhaps I can find some explanation.”

Elizabeth opened her bag and took out the bottle.

“Here it is!” Then she threw back her veil.

“You see it was to make my hair dark, and look at it now.”

The man raised his eyebrows as he glanced across. Had Elizabeth but known, it was even lighter than in the morning. He took out the cork and smelt the contents of the bottle, his expression of perplexity deepening, then he poured a little in a saucer and looked at it. Finally he glanced up at Elizabeth.

“If you would not mind waiting a few minutes, madam, I think I can soon tell you what is wrong.”

Elizabeth sat down in one of the softly cushioned window seats. She was glad of the rest, for she was becoming aware that her sleepless nights had tired her, while the incessant worry of the past few months had told enormously on her once splendid physique.

The man came back in a shorter time than she had expected.

“It was as I thought, madam. The preparation in your bottle is not that supplied by us.”

Elizabeth stared at him. “But it is! Do you not see your name on the bottle? The case is precisely as it came from you.”

The man shook his head. “The name, the bottle and the case are all ours, madam, but the preparation has been substituted for ours. It is one of the most powerful bleaching mixtures I know, and so powerful that we should hesitate to employ it ourselves.”

A sick feeling of fear was creeping over Elizabeth.

“It can't be, it can't be,” she reiterated. “It has been kept locked up always. How could it have been changed?”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “I can't tell, madam. Only assuredly it was not done without hands.”

No, Elizabeth saw that. The sickness that was creeping over her seemed to increase, her legs tottered under her. She sat down again suddenly.

“Who could it have been?” she breathed half aloud. “Does somebody suspect? Does somebody know?”

B
ARBARA
B
URFORD
was very unhappy, there was no doubt of that. The end of her love dream had been a terrible blow to her, and now to add to it Frank Carlyn was not inclined to take his dismissal quietly. Every post since he had received it had brought her letters from him. He seemed utterly unable to account for or understand the change in her attitude towards him, and his pleading for another trial, or at least for a hearing before his sentence was pronounced, formed only too ready a seconder in Barbara's own treacherous heart. Yet her common sense told her that, knowing what she knew, she would be foolish in the extreme to consent to the renewal of an engagement which it seemed to her could only end in catastrophe. Explanations, too, were difficult, under the circumstances; so far Barbara had only taken refuge in silence. In spite of her father's desire to have her at home she had asked Lady Davenant to keep her a few days longer at the Priory, to enable her to realize things a little and to prepare herself for the battle with her father which she knew would ensue on her return to Carlyn.