The Master of the Priory (8 page)

Frank Carlyn's boyish face was downcast, his eyes sank before those of the woman opposite.

“Of course I have heard it,” he burst out. “It seems to me that I have heard nothing else since I came here, but don't you see that all this makes it impossible for you to stop here?”

“All what?” There was no meekness in the governess's attitude now, her tone was both passionate and imperious.

Young Carlyn groaned aloud.

“You must know—you must understand that I can't keep silence when I know—the Davenants are Barbara's friends—”

“I think I do understand now,” Elizabeth spoke in a dangerously quiet tone; she took off her glasses and threw them on the little rustic table beside her. “I am not good enough to be governess to Miss Burford's friend; but you—you are good enough to marry Miss Burford.”

The scorn in her tone made the man wince as though he had been lashed.

There was a momentary silence, Elizabeth watching his changes of expression contemptuously. At last he spoke, and his tone was curiously changed:

“Heaven knows I don't want to minimize my share in the matter. If the worst had happened I should have spoken out, I should have—”

“You would have been very brave, doubtless,” Elizabeth interrupted him mercilessly. “But, as matters stood, you choose the easier path. I congratulate you on your wisdom, Mr. Carlyn.”

Frank Carlyn passed his hand over his forehead. He thought wearily that never before had man been placed in so horrible a dilemma. He had thought, as they drove to the Priory, that his duty was clear here, there could be no doubt about it. But here, looking at the woman's white face, at her blazing eyes, it seemed quite a different matter.

“I don't know what I ought to do,” he capitulated weakly. “But I am sure, Mrs.—”

“Hush!” Elizabeth interrupted him sharply. “Not that. Never that name again. Remember that even the trees and bushes have ears sometimes. I will tell you what you must do, Mr. Carlyn. You must go your way and leave me to go mine. Believe me, I shall not hurt the Davenants, or Maisie, and you—you can marry Miss Burford and forget all about me.”

“That is so likely, is it not?” young Carlyn questioned moodily. “You don't know how the thought of that past day has haunted me ever since.” He kicked a loose stone about carelessly, apparently watching that and not Elizabeth. “I couldn't imagine how you had got away. I thought—feared that some evil had befallen you.”

“That I was dead, you mean?” Elizabeth said bitterly. “No, I was not so happy. I got out at the next station and by walking across country got on to another line, then I reached a friend and was safe. It isn't so difficult to escape the police as you think, Mr. Carlyn. And I couldn't stay to face things out. There were people”—she put up her hands to her throat as if the simple collar were about to choke her—“living then that it would have killed—”

“You couldn't have been blamed,” Frank Carlyn began hotly.

“No?” Elizabeth laughed bitterly. “Yet I am not good enough to teach little Maisie. You are not very logical, Mr. Carlyn.”

The man's face altered indefinably. “That seems quite different,” he muttered sullenly. “And Davenant is such a good chap.”

Elizabeth drew her shrouding cloak closely round her once more.

“Oh, yes, I quite appreciate your point of view,” she said with a hard laugh. “But I shall not act upon it. I shall stay here until I am driven out. That is all there is to be said between us. For the future we are strangers.”

“Oh, but—” Frank Carlyn protested weakly. “I shall want always to know where you are. And if you are in any difficulty you know I owe you—”

Elizabeth's slight figure stiffened. “Please do not go on. There are some things best left unsaid. Be assured that I, at any rate, am in no danger of forgetting what I owe to you.”

She drew her shawl closely over head and shoulders and made a movement to pass him.

“One moment.” He stepped before her quickly and then for the first time she saw that he held a small packet.

“This is yours. I have kept it ever since—that day, hoping that sometime I might have the opportunity of restoring it to you.”

Elizabeth took it from him rather gingerly. “What is it? I don't know.” Then, as she opened it and saw the three miniatures inside her expression changed. “My father's and mother's portraits. Oh, how did you get them?”

Neither of them heard a faint rustling among the trees behind the summer-house, no instinct warned them that they had an unseen auditor.

“I brought them away that day,” Carlyn answered. “I knew that they might have led to your identification.”

“I see.” Elizabeth's tone was perceptibly altered. “Yes, I have wondered sometimes that they did not,” she added. “Well, Mr. Carlyn, I could forgive you a great deal for bringing me these.”

She slipped them inside her frock and with a slight inclination of her head moved away. Frank Carlyn followed her.

“But when shall I see you again? How shall I know where you are and what you are doing?”

A sarcastic smile played about Elizabeth's mouth.

“Is there any necessity that you should do either?” she questioned. “You seem to forget what lies between us, Mr. Carlyn. Best for you and best for me that we never hear one another's name again.”

She walked quickly away from him, carefully keeping in the shadows that skirted the house.

Carlyn waited for a minute or two. He lighted a cigar and the end made a tiny, tapering light against the darkness of the trees. But presently he, too, went back to the house, walking openly across the lawn. When he had stepped inside the French window of the small drawing-room a third figure crept out from the bushes near the summer-house, a slight figure this and one that kept more carefully out of sight than even the governess had done.

Meanwhile, as Elizabeth was crossing the hall, she heard her name called in Sir Oswald's voice. He was just coming out of the library.

“Could you spare me a few minutes, Miss Martin? Three letters have come for me by the last post. I should be much obliged if you would read them to me.”

“Certainly, Sir Oswald.” The governess was breathing more heavily than usual, otherwise she betrayed no sign of the exciting interview through which she had just passed.

She followed Sir Oswald into the study, and opened the letters. There was nothing in them of importance, but she made brief notes of the answers he wished sent. Then she rose.

“If that is all, Sir Oswald, I will write the replies in the schoolroom.”

“Thank you. And I suppose I must return to my guests, though a blind host is not sufficiently useful to be much missed. Why wouldn't you dine with us to-night, Miss Martin?”

The sudden question took the governess aback.

“I—Lady Davenant was kind enough to ask me,” she stammered. “But I had a headache.”

“Not bad enough to have prevented your dining, if you had wished, I fancy,” Sir Oswald said shrewdly. “Do you know that I have promised to read you a lesson on unsociability, Miss Martin? Lady Treadstone—”

“Ah!” Elizabeth caught her breath sharply.

“Lady Treadstone tells me you have refused every invitation she has sent you,” Sir Oswald pursued. He was looking faintly amused in spite of the apparent sternness of his tone. “What excuse can you make for yourself?”

“None!” Elizabeth, answered him sharply. I do not wish to visit Lady Treadstone, Sir Oswald.”

Sir Oswald raised his brows. “Are you not a little unsociable, Miss Martin? Lady Treadstone has taken a great fancy to you, she told me as much. Even if it should not be reciprocal—”

“It is not!” Elizabeth interrupted him, holding up her head with a little proud gesture that had once been habitual with her. “I do not like Lady Treadstone”—her hand straying to the front of her bodice, clutching at the miniature case—“I—I hate her.”

“You hate her?” Sir Oswald was frankly amazed. Pleasant, kindly Lady Treadstone seemed to him the last person in the world to have inspired the depth of dislike of which the girl's tone spoke. “But you know so little of her. Don't you think you—”

“I know quite enough of her.” Elizabeth's tone was hard and resentful. To herself she was saying that it was cruel that all the mistakes in her past should meet her here, that never should she be able to live it down. “I beg your pardon, Sir Oswald. If you wish me to take Maisie to lunch with her, of course it is a different matter, but for myself I do not wish to visit or even to see Lady Treadstone.”

Sir Oswald bent his head. Blind as he was, he could not help realizing that there was some hint of mystery here, but he was of too loyal a nature to question her.

“As you like,” he said simply. “I certainly should not wish you to do anything you disliked. You believe that, I hope.” He moved forward a step as he spoke and held out his hand. Some forlorn note in Elizabeth's voice had roused the instinct of protection that is dormant in every man.

He did not understand that tone and gesture alike were a revelation to Elizabeth, the betrayal of a feeling whose very existence she had never suspected and from which she shrank as far from some deadly peril. A rush of crimson swept over her face, then receded, leaving it deadly white. She ignored the outstretched hand.

“You are exceedingly kind, Sir Oswald,” she managed to say as she opened the door. “I hope I shall never forget the gratitude I owe both to you and Lady Davenant.”

“Y
OU ARE
quite sure you don't mind my having the car, Oswald?” Sybil Lorrimer looked in at the library door.

Sir Oswald was sitting near the window. He raised his head.

“Why, of course I don't. I shall be only too delighted,” he said, speaking with more truth than Sybil guessed. That she had asked to have the car for a long day's shopping in Birmingham meant that they would have a day without her at the Priory. And a day without Sybil was beginning to be a day of peace for Sir Oswald. The gratitude and mild liking he had formerly entertained for her was rapidly turning into something very like absolute dislike. It seemed to him that she was becoming ubiquitous, he found it impossible to stir out of doors without meeting her, and in the house she was always at his elbow with offers of service.

More than once Sir Oswald had tried to hint to his mother that Sybil's stay had lasted long enough, but Lady Davenant liked the girl. In some way she had made herself necessary to her, and, noting her unwillingness, Sir Oswald had ceased to press the matter.

To-day he had been sitting quietly in his chair, thinking of Elizabeth: of her sweet, low tones, of the faint, elusive fragrance that clung about her. He was asking himself what could be the cause of the coldness with which she was undoubtedly treating him; it was impossible that he could have offended her, and yet the difference was unmistakable.

With a sigh of annoyance he heard Sybil come farther into the room. He wished he had gone into his study where he was less likely to be invaded.

But Sybil was apparently not in one of her talkative moods. He heard her cross the room, then there followed a rustling of paper. He bore it in silence for a minute of two, then he said in a tone of mild exasperation:

“What are you doing, Sybil? Surely you have the papers in the morning-room?”

“Not the paper I want,” Sybil answered. “You only have one copy and it is brought here. I have found what I wanted now. It was only an advertisement I saw the other day.”

“Of a new hat shop?” Sir Oswald questioned jestingly.

“No, not that,” Sybil answered absently. She was copying an address into her notebook. It stood at the bottom of a paragraph which at first sight it seemed impossible to connect with pretty, dainty Sybil Lorrimer.

“Private Detective Agency,” it was headed. “Messrs. Gregg and Stubbs are prepared to conduct inquiries on the newest lines. Delicate investigations arranged with the utmost secrecy. Highest testimonials can be given. Address: Messrs. Gregg and Stubbs, 2
A
, Palmer Buildings, New Fish Street, Birmingham.”

Sybil closed her notebook and put it in her satchel. Then she hesitated a moment.

“Oswald, I—”

There were voices outside. Maisie and her governess were coming downstairs. Sir Oswald rose as quickly as he could.

“I must speak to Miss Martin. Excuse me, Sybil.”

Sybil's fair face hardened, her momentary irresolution vanished.

“Well, good-bye then,” she called out with assumed gaiety as she ran down the steps and got into the waiting car.

The great Metropolis of the Midlands was about an hour's drive from the Priory. The road for the most part lay through pleasant, wooded country, sparsely populated until they reached the suburbs of the town.

Sybil did not tell the chauffeur to drive to New Fish Street. Instead she got out in New Street and directed the man to drive to and wait for her at the nearest garage. She had her own reasons for wishing her visit to Messrs. Gregg and Stubbs to remain unknown.

Even when she had got rid of the car she did not hurry herself; she strolled in and out of two or three shops, making trifling purchases, though it was easy to see that her thoughts were elsewhere.

But at last she made up her mind to face the real business of the day. New Fish Street was some little distance away, in the new part of the town, but Sybil found her way there with but little difficulty. Palmer Buildings was a conspicuous block near the end of the street; it was apparently let out as offices, and Messrs. Gregg and Stubbs occupied the second floor.

Sybil stopped a moment and glanced round nervously before entering the centre passage—but, no—there was certainly no one who would know her among the busy throng in the street. It seemed to her that even the lift-boy looked at her curiously as she gave the address of Messrs. Gregg and Stubbs. More than once she felt inclined to give up her expedition and turn back, but she was a little reassured by the businesslike aspect of the offices that confronted her.