Dorothy Eden (54 page)

Who had he meant had been naughty last night?

When she went into the hall Iris was standing staring at the birds flitting and chattering in their cage. She seemed lost in thought.

“They’re pretty, aren’t they?” said Antonia.

Iris looked up.

“Yes, their colours are wonderful. That pale blue is a very subtle shade. Simon says he’s always wanted to keep love-birds. Did you know that?” Iris’s face wore an expression of tolerance, but under it Antonia could sense her impatience for Simon’s childish hobby. Then she gave her brilliant smile. “But let’s come and eat. Simon will be here presently and we want to get into town early, don’t we? Isn’t it a lovely morning. I hope it’s like this tomorrow. Not that it matters much, there aren’t going to be many people there.”

“But it’s your wedding day.”

“Yes,” said Iris. Her voice was low. It had a note not so much of unbelief as triumph—as if this represented a great victory for her. Who was she? Antonia wondered. What had she been before she had met Aunt Laura on a ship? More important, what was she going to do to Simon? But Simon had his own private enthusiasms, he was not over-bright and he was infatuated with Iris. Perhaps she would make him very happy.

“I hope,” said Iris as they sat down, “that you finally got to sleep last night. It was a particularly bad night for your first one here, but it’s surprising how one gets used to it.”

She began pouring tea. Antonia, watching her thin nervously quick hands, said, “Who sleeps in the other wing?”

Iris looked up quickly.

“No one. I told you. It’s shut up.”

“Then why was there a light in one of the windows?”

“A light! Surely there wasn’t. When did you see it?”

“About three o’clock this morning. In fact,” Antonia went on deliberately, “I heard someone crying and went along to investigate.”

Iris’s brows were raised in interest and astonishment.

“Darling! How brave of you! But of course there was no one. Was there?”

“No one who would open the door.”

Iris leaned back in her chair.

“I told you it was the gulls. You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Seagulls don’t switch on lights. Or,” Antonia added, “switch them off.”

“What do you mean?”

“I distinctly heard the light switched off as I knocked at the door.”

“Darling, are you sure you weren’t walking in your sleep? This does sound a little odd, you know. No one’s been in that wing since we opened the house. The rooms aren’t even furnished. They’re all dust.”

“Then why did Gussie say someone was naughty last night?” Antonia asked triumphantly.

“Gussie!” said Iris. She began to laugh. “Oh, I’m afraid he meant me. I scolded him. He’d been out on the rocks fishing instead of mowing lawns. He’s the one who was naughty. But it would be just like him to say it was me. He doesn’t like me very much because I expect him to work harder than he’s ever done in all his lazy life. He
is
a scamp, that boy.”

“So you don’t believe there was a light in that room,” Antonia persisted.

“Well, actually, dear, I’m afraid I don’t. Did you take an aspirin like I told you to?”

“Aspirins don’t give me hallucinations.”

“Of course they don’t. But I think that long trip from England has tired you badly. I mean, there was that odd business in Auckland, too, wasn’t there? And you have been ill, haven’t you?”

Antonia felt the angry blood rising in her cheeks. Did Iris genuinely believe she was having these blanks, or was she deliberately refusing to believe anything else? She clenched her hands under the table, with an effort controlling herself. Something told her that she mustn’t lose her temper now. If she got too upset everyone might end by really convincing her that she was having hallucinations, that no one had ever spoken to her on the telephone in Auckland and that last night she had only dreamed she had walked up those cold draughty stairs and tapped at the door under which a chink of light showed.

“I’ll show you over the empty rooms myself if you’re not convinced,” Iris said, with a look of amusement in her eyes. “You really are a suspicious creature. What do you think we’re hiding? A ghost?”

At that moment there was a loud whistling in the hall and Simon came stamping in, his face ruddy from the exertion of his climb up the hill.

“Good morning, girls,” he said. “Whew, it’s hot!” He came over to Iris, and she held up her cool pointed face for his kiss. “How are you, Tonia? Sleep well?” He didn’t wait for her answer. Already his eyes were slipping away evasively. “You carry on with your meal. I’ve got to feed the birds and then Dougal Conroy wants to see me at his office. First thing, he said.”

“Oh,” said Iris in sudden interest. Then she said, “Oh, but Simon, you can’t this morning. Antonia’s coming into town with me to buy a hat and I want you to be here to see those workmen. You know the ones who were supposed to come yesterday. I telephoned and they’re coming for sure this morning. Mr. Conroy’s business will have to wait until this afternoon.”

“He said it was urgent,” Simon pointed out.

“I’m sorry about that, but this is a little more urgent. Isn’t it, Antonia? After all, it is my wedding hat.”

“I thought you’d bought that,” said Simon. “That one with the feather.”

“Oh,
no,
darling. That’s for travelling. I specially wanted Antonia to be with me before I bought the hat I’m being married in.”

Simon looked perplexed, his lower lip drooping.

“All right, love, but I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Only half a dozen people to see you.”

Iris lifted up her arms. Her face was beguiling.

“But you, my sweet. Isn’t a bridegroom always expected to remember how his bride looked?”

Simon grinned happily.

“I’d do that anyway, silly. Well, I’d better ring Conroy. I say, a chap down at the hotel knows where I can get some pure white lovebirds. They’re quite rare. I’m seeing about them next week. How are you girls getting to town?”

“Oh, order a taxi for us, will you, darling? In an hour’s time. And we won’t be back until after lunch, so get Bella to give you something. By the way, Simon, Antonia thinks we have a ghost.”

Simon couldn’t conceal his start of surprise—or was it dismay?

“In the empty wing,” Iris went on amusedly. “I don’t blame her for thinking it. There are enough odd noises here at night. But they’re all perfectly explainable.” She turned to Antonia. “I didn’t mean you to see the rest of the place until after the alterations had started, but if you won’t be convinced it’s empty, come and we’ll see it now.”

In a state of complete bewilderment Antonia rose to follow Iris. She only half registered the fact that Simon was sucking in his full lips in an expression of unbelief, either at her believing in ghosts, or at Iris blithely intending to throw open all the doors in the house and display their secrets.

Iris was going to find one door locked. Perhaps she truly knew nothing about this and would be taken by surprise.

Antonia followed her across the hall and through the door that led up the dusty uncovered stairway to the closed rooms above. Simon was coming behind, breathing heavily as he climbed the stairs. Iris went lightly ahead, chatting animatedly.

“These stairs are going to take acres of carpet. We want all the passages carpeted, too. The place won’t echo so much then. It’s these high ceilings that throw back the sound. We’ll open these doors, Simon, because I want you to show the builders all the rooms when they come.” She reached the passage at the head of the stairs and went quickly from door to door, turning the knobs and throwing the doors open. The knob of the third door turned as easily as the rest. The room revealed was exactly the same as the others, empty, dusty, echoing.

“Which was the room you thought you heard sounds in, Antonia?” Iris called.

Antonia looked uncertainly one way and the other. Had she made a mistake? Was it the door on the other side of the passage? But that was open, too, revealing another empty room.

“It was this one,” she said, stepping over the threshold.

There was dust on the mantelpiece, the window ledges and the floor. Straws and feathers of old birds’ nests littered the fireplace. The high windows were fast shut. The room had a completely desolate, unlived-in look.

Antonia looked bewilderedly from Iris to Simon. Simon’s mouth hung open as if he were bewildered, too. But then his mouth always drooped a little. That didn’t mean a thing. Neither did the faint shine of perspiration on his forehead which lingered from his climb up the hill.

Iris’s brows were raised gently.

“Well, Antonia? Are you satisfied now? Do we have a haunted room?”

“You must,” Antonia burst out. “I’ll swear there was a light in here last night.” She looked at Simon appealingly. “When I tapped on the door it went out.”

Simon looked startled. Then his eyes slid away.

“Were you sleep-walking?” he asked.

Iris slipped her arm around Antonia.

“I think she must have been. She was very tired. And as I said this house has a sound system all of its own. Antonia, I think while Simon and I are away on our honeymoon you’d better stay at an hotel. I meant to suggest that, anyway. We’re only going for a long week-end, because truly I can’t bear to leave here. There’s so much to do. But I think you’ll be too lonely by yourself.”

“Do you think I’m scared or not to be trusted?” Antonia asked.

“Don’t be an idiot, darling. I’m only thinking of how lonely you could be. And if you
should
sleep-walk—”

Antonia turned on her fiercely.

“I wasn’t sleep-walking as you know very well. You’re playing a trick on me.”

Iris’s face was full of astonishment.

“A trick? But, darling, what on earth
for?”

M
ISS FOX, AS USUAL
, intercepted Dougal when he tried to slide unobtrusively into his office in the morning. Nine o’clock was not the time to be brisk and intelligent, and Miss Fox, with her starched snowy collars, her bright eyes snapping behind their black-rimmed glasses, her quick nervous capable hands, always gave the impression of expecting intelligence of an impossibly high order.

“Ah, good morning, Miss Fox,” he said resignedly. “Is there anything important?”

“Mr. Mildmay can’t get in until the afternoon. He has builders or someone coming this morning. I told him it was important, but he said this was, too.”

“That’s all right, Miss Fox.” Dougal had slept on the amazing information in yesterday’s mail, and he was growing more phlegmatic about it. The news would keep until this afternoon.

“But there was this,” said Miss Fox, handing him a letter. It was written on plain notepaper in a difficult angular hand. It read simply:

“Has anyone thought it worth while

finding out a little of the past life of the woman Iris Matthews who is about to be married to a client of yours, Mr. Simon Mildmay?”

There was no signature. That was all there was to the extraordinary communication.

“What the hell is this?” Dougal exploded. “Who does he—or she—think we are? A detective agency?”

“I would rather think, from the handwriting,” Miss Fox suggested primly, “that a doctor may have written that. It’s exactly like the writing in all prescriptions I’ve ever seen.”

“Now, Miss Fox, what self-respecting doctor would stoop to anonymous letters?”

“But this is hardly an anonymous letter in the ordinary sense. It sounds as if it’s written by someone who suspects something, but wants some verification, so to speak, before he makes himself known. In other words, he feels his suspicions are preposterous but that they shouldn’t be dismissed entirely.”

Dougal listened to the involved interpretation Miss Fox produced. He tapped his desk irritably with a letter opener.

“For heaven’s sake, what is there to suspect? If Simon Mildmay wants to marry a woman with a past that’s his pigeon. He might enjoy it—more interesting—Sorry, Miss Fox, that’s only a conjecture. But I don’t see why we should worry unduly about Simon Mildmay. He’s doing all right for himself.”

“I wasn’t thinking of him so much as the residuary legatee.”

Sometimes Miss Fox’s meticulous legal language was intensely irritating. Then one caught a gleam in those sharp eyes of hers and suspected she was using it for some deliberate purpose of her own. Dougal had an uncomfortable feeling that she was running his life.

“What has Antonia Webb got to do with it?” he snapped.

“I truly don’t know. But I must admit that that letter has made me feel uneasy. After all, who are these people?”

“They’re merely clients. We wind up this estate for them and then wave them goodbye.”

“You’ll never wave them goodbye. You’ll have this estate on your hands all your life.” Then Miss Fox said outrageously, “Is Miss Webb attractive?”

What was the woman up to? Was she marrying him off, too? This was absurd, these women living his life for him.

“Very,” he said shortly. “But that’s entirely beside the point. Bring in your book and we’ll do some work.”

“I was thinking,” said Miss Fox, “that the best way to begin with would be to contact someone who travelled to New Zealand on the same ship as Miss Mildmay and Miss Matthews. I understand they met on shipboard. Since it’s only six months ago we ought to be able to do that. I’d suggest writing to the shipping company for a copy of the passenger list.” She caught Dougal’s eye. “I would say that that is entirely within the province of a solicitor who acts in the real interests of his clients.”

“Perhaps while you’re about it,” Dougal said scathingly, “you’ll help my mother to solve why there’s a light at nights in the unused wing of the Hilltop.”

Miss Fox’s eyes sparkled.

“Is there? I say, I wonder—” She stopped firmly. “I’m not just inquisitive, Mr. Conroy, as you seem to think. I think this is a most unusual case and we should be prepared for any sort of development.” She paused, then added hurriedly, “I’ll get my shorthand book.”

The development that they were all looking for, of course, being his falling in love with Antonia Webb, Dougal thought tiredly.