The Secret of Greylands (11 page)

“Yes, yes! Look!” Lady Hannah said feverishly.

Cynthia drew back a corner of the blind and peered out cautiously. By dint of twisting her head to an almost impossible angle she managed to get a view of a tweed cap, of a familiar shooting jacket.

She drew back with an exclamation of relief.

“It is nothing—I mean it is only a man who lives in the neighbourhood. He called here the other day and saw Sybil.”

“Oh, is that it?” Lady Hannah's tone became more composed. “Go and see what he wants, Cynthia.”

The girl hesitated.

“I do not like to leave you, Cousin Hannah; and if no one answers the door surely he will go away.”

“No, no! You must ask what he wants,” the invalid reiterated feverishly. “Go, Cynthia, make haste.”

Thus adjured, the girl had no choice, and she opened the door.

“I will not be long, Cousin Hannah,” she said.

“Lock the door after you!” the invalid called out anxiously. “I—I cannot be left with the door unfastened, Cynthia!”

The girl obeyed her and hurried downstairs, wondering what could possibly be the reason of Heriot's persistency.

The front door was carefully locked and bolted. Cynthia had some difficulty in opening it, so securely was it fastened. At last, however, the bolts yielded and she turned the handle. Heriot was standing immediately before it. His face looked gloomy and set; it softened as he saw Cynthia.

“I beg your pardon!” he began. “I am afraid you will think I have been making an unwarrantable amount of clatter, but I have a message to deliver to Lady Hannah, and I felt sure that in her present state of health she would not be left alone in the house. I have been round to the other door, and as I was unable to make anyone hear there I determined, if possible, to succeed at this one.”

Cynthia laughed in spite of herself.

“Well, you have managed that at any rate; but I do not know that you will find it very satisfactory, for Mr Gillman is not at home, I am sorry to say.”

“I know Mr Gillman is out. I saw him driving towards Glastwick. My errand is not with him: it is with Lady Hannah, and I wish to see her.”

“Lady Hannah!” Cynthia repeated in surprise. “Surely you know she is not able to see anyone. I told you the other day how very ill she was.”

“Yes, I know; I was deeply grieved to hear it.” Heriot hesitated and, looking down in obvious indecision, kicked aside a stone that lay on the path. “The fact is, Miss Hammond, I have brought a message from Donald Farquhar. He is most anxious to be reconciled to his aunt. I have come in some sort as his ambassador, and it struck me that I should be far more likely to achieve my purpose in Mr Gillman's absence.”

“In Mr Gillman's absence?” Cynthia repeated, amazed. “Surely, Mr Heriot, you understand that I cannot take the responsibility of admitting a stranger to Lady Hannah in her weak state?”

He looked at her in evident doubt for a moment. “A stranger? Well, no! At least if you could ask her whether she would see me—whether she would receive a message from Donald Farquhar, he would—I should at least know whether there really is a genuine objection to a reconciliation on her part. He has an idea—he has been told that she was anxious to be reconciled to him some little time ago, but that her attempts to find him were frustrated by Gillman.”

Cynthia was obviously embarrassed.

“I do not know anything about it. I have never heard her mention him. Mr Gillman told me when I first came that her resentment at what he spoke of as his ingratitude was as keen as ever.”

The man shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. “He would say so, no doubt; it is to his interest that the quarrel should be kept up. I have it on good and sufficient authority that three months ago she wished to recall Farquhar, and was only prevented by her husband. Miss Hammond, you will help us, if you can? For years Farquhar was like this poor lady's own son; you can imagine what it is to him to hear of her illness and not even to be allowed to send a message of sympathy.”

Cynthia wavered between her certainty that she ought to avoid any excitement for the invalid and her sympathy with Sir Donald, sympathy which she, as well as the rest of the family, had felt for the young man at the time of Lady Hannah's extraordinary marriage. After a pause, during which Heriot watched the indecision in her face anxiously, she looked up.

“I will do the best I can,” she promised. “I will at least see that your message reaches her safely. Will you come in?” She led the way to the drawing-room.

Heriot glanced round sharply, then he walked up to a large oil-painting hanging over the mantelpiece.

“There she is at twenty, Miss Hammond. Now don't you see the likeness to yourself?”

Cynthia looked at the portrait, which represented three girls in different stages of young womanhood. Glancing at the abundant chestnut hair, at the big brown eyes of the middle one of the three, Cynthia fancied for a moment that she did see a resemblance to herself; then her gaze wandered to the other figures.

“One of those is Lady Farquhar, certainly?” she said questioningly. “But the third—”

“The sister who died of consumption—Cynthia.”

The girl gave a little cry of surprise.

“I must have been called after her, and I never knew.”

Heriot turned.

“What, is your name Cynthia? Well, at any rate that will give me pleasanter associations with the name than I have had hitherto.”

“Pleasanter?” Cynthia repeated.

He did not seem disposed to be communicative.

“Yes, it has never been a favourite of mine—until now!” He added the last two words after a pause in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone, but beneath his cold, direct gaze, to her intense vexation, Cynthia's eyes drooped and her colour rose.

“I will go and see what I can do with Cousin Hannah, if you will sit down, Mr Heriot.”

Her heart was beating rapidly, her cheeks still flushing hotly as she ran up the stairs.

Lady Hannah turned her head as she entered.

“Well,” she said anxiously, in her guttural, whispering tones, “what did he want? Has he gone?” Her breath was coming and going in little fluttering gasps as she spoke.

Cynthia looked at her pityingly.

“Not yet; he asked to see you, Cousin Hannah, but I told him I feared it would be impossible.”

“Quite—quite impossible!” the invalid assented. “What did he want, Cynthia? Speak! I order you to tell me!” as the girl hesitated.

“He brought a message from some one who is very troubled about you”—Cynthia chose her words carefully—“some one of whom you used to be very fond. I—I think you must guess who I mean, Cousin Hannah”—as the head moved round restlessly, the fluttering breath grew deeper—“Sir Donald Farquhar.”

“A—h!” With a harsh, discordant noise Lady Hannah interrupted her. “I will not hear it— I will not have that name mentioned! You—how dare you, Cynthia!”

The girl tried to soothe her, but Lady Hannah drew her head away.

“You have no right to bring him here; my husband will be very angry.”

Cynthia stooped lower until her face was very near her cousin's; she caught the trembling, quivering hands and held them in hers reassuringly.

“Dear Cousin Hannah, indeed I did not bring him; I had no idea why he had come until he told me. I will send him away at once if you don't want to see him; but I thought, as he did, that perhaps you might be glad to send a message of forgiveness to Sir Donald?”

“Hush!” Lady Hannah's face twitched, and she fought for her breath. “Yes, I will send him a message!” she panted. “Tell him that I will never willingly hear that name again, that I will never forgive him as long as there is any breath left in my body, that I hope never to see his face, that—”

She paused, exhausted, great beads of perspiration standing on her brow.

“I will send Mr Heriot away. He will write to Sir Donald that you have no wish to see him,” Cynthia said gravely. There was to her something infinitely sad, infinitely tragic, in this spectacle of unrelenting animosity carried to the verge of the grave; and unconsciously she straightened her tall, slim figure and drew a little away from her cousin.

Lady Hannah's head moved from side to side impatiently.

“Yes, yes, go and tell him! Send him away!” she reiterated feverishly. “Make haste, Cynthia! Go, go!”

The mingled passion and entreaty in her voice were so insistent that Cynthia had no choice but to obey. Promising to be back as soon as possible she ran lightly down the stairs.

Heriot was standing as she had left him, still apparently absorbed in gazing at the portrait over the mantelpiece. He turned as she entered.

“Well?” he said expectantly as she paused.

“I am very sorry I have no good news for your friend,” Cynthia replied simply. “Cousin Hannah bade me say that she would not send any message. She—her feelings towards him do not seem to have altered or softened at all; at least, I should imagine not.”

The eager hopefulness died out of Heriot's eyes.

“You are quite sure she is under no coercion, that she is really expressing her own feelings?”

“Quite!” Cynthia replied with decision. “I did my best to make her listen, but to no purpose. She became terribly agitated at the very mention of Sir Donald Farquhar's name, and told me she would not hear it, and that she would never forgive him. It was very terrible!” shuddering. “What could he have done to give rise to such animosity?”

Heriot's face looked grave and perplexed.

“I cannot understand it at all! I know that a comparatively short time ago she was anxious to send for Farquhar.”

“Well, I can do no more at present,” Cynthia said positively. “I dare not! She threw herself into a state of agitation at the notion which must, I am sure, be very harmful.”

“Then there is nothing more to be said. She does not strike you as being under any kind of influence, hypnotic or otherwise?”

Cynthia shook her head.

“I am sure she is not. I am afraid her anger with Sir Donald is genuine enough; but her agitation rather frightened me. I think I must go back to her.”

“Yes, I must not keep you.” Heriot held out his hand. “Thank you very much for your kind help! We must hope that time will alter Lady Hannah's feelings. I shall not fail to let Sir Donald know of your kindness to his aunt, and I am sure he will be very grateful to you.” They crossed the hall; and at the open door Heriot paused. “If you should be walking across the moor my old landlady would be delighted if you would step in and have a chat with her,” he said diffidently. “She has often spoken of you since that day you were lost—when you first came.”

“I shall be delighted to come some day. I thought she had such a nice face. So she is your landlady? I wondered—” colouring ingenuously.

“Yes, I am staying with her for a few weeks,” Heriot responded, with a certain awkwardness. “I knew her years ago, and she makes me very comfortable. I shall tell her that she may hope to see you, then?” His clasp of Cynthia's hand was somewhat unnecessarily lingering. “Thank you very much!” He paused as if about to say something else, changed his mind, and said “Goodbye!” abruptly.

Cynthia gazed after him for a moment in some surprise; there was an unexpectedness about him which she found singularly disconcerting, but the sight of his tall frame striding away in the distance was not illuminating. She closed the door, turned the key, and did her best to fasten the heavy bolts.

As she went towards the stairs she missed the little satchel that usually hung at her side, and remembered that she had laid it down in the dining-room. She turned back to fetch it; it lay on one of the little tables that stood near the fire-place. As she picked it up she was amazed to hear a sound upstairs—a sound which drove the blood from her cheeks—as of stealthy footsteps crossing the floor above. She listened a second—yes, unmistakably there was the creaking of a board. An instant's reflection convinced her that her cousin's room must be immediately above, and she remembered that she had left the door unbolted.

With a quick fear that some one—she did not stop to analyse—might have got into Lady Hannah's room and be terrifying the invalid she rushed across the hall and upstairs. As she hurried down the passage she distinctly heard a slight noise as of some article of furniture being moved; but when she ran into her cousin's room and looked round there was no one to be seen.

Lady Hannah glanced up in surprise.

“What is it, Cynthia? Wouldn't he go?”

“Yes, he has gone,” Cynthia answered, gazing round her in a puzzled fashion. “But I thought— I fancied—”

“What?” the invalid's tone sounded suddenly sharp in the midst of its weakness.

“I thought I heard some one walking about overhead in this room while I was in the dining-room,” Cynthia stammered, too thoroughly bewildered to realize the danger of alarming the invalid at the moment.

“What—in this room?” Lady Hannah's tone was full of terror and she twisted her head about from side to side. “Search! Look!” she gasped. “In the wardrobe; under the bed! Oh, Cynthia, I am frightened! It—you know I told you always to lock the door, and you did not; you left it open, and who knows who may have got in? Quick, quick, look! Open the wardrobe door! Oh, if I could only get to it myself!”

As Cynthia obeyed her common sense came to her aid.

“No one could have got into the room without your seeing them, Cousin Hannah,” she said. “I suppose,” doubtfully, “I must have made a mistake.”

“Look! Look!” the invalid commanded excitedly.

Cynthia threw the heavy wardrobe doors open and moved the dresses aside; they smelt musty, as disused clothing often does, but no living intruder was to be seen. Lady Hannah was evidently the possessor of an extensive wardrobe; there were gleaming, lustrous silks that might almost have stood alone, soft, rich velvets.