Silence in Court (2 page)

“How do you mean, controlled?”

Jeff Stewart considered.

“Kind of starchy,” he said. “Kind of ‘I'm a nurse, and don't you forget it!' Kind of ‘Here's your nice medicine—drink it up!' But Cousin Honoria keeps her end up.”

Carey laughed.

“You seem to have found out quite a lot in one visit, Jeff,” she said.

“Who said it was one visit. I went and called there at tea-time on Sunday. I lunched there on Tuesday, and dined on Thursday to meet Robert and Nora. You didn't believe me, but you just wait and see—they're practically my folks. Here we are.”

The house rose up before them, grey and large. Maitland Square had been lucky. There were gaps amongst the houses in Maitland Street, but the Square had escaped without damage. Number 13 had all its windows. Four shallow steps led up to the front door. A stone canopy overhead was chipped, but only slightly. The door had been painted black. The ornate brass knocker which had once adorned it had passed into salvage. Vaguely its outline could be traced upon the dimmed surface of the paint. The number 13 displayed above in white paint replaced the brass figures, which had also gone.

Jeff Stewart said, “Well, here we are.”

Carey walked up the four steps under the shadow of the porch and rang the bell.

CHAPTER THREE

A plump, fresh-faced girl of seventeen took Carey up to the first floor and along a passage, where she knocked upon an imposing mahogany door. A deep voice said “Come in!” The door was thrown open. The girl said “Miss Silence, if you please, madam.” Carey walked in.

The room was large, and lighted by two long windows opening upon a wrought-iron balcony. It contained a great deal of furniture, as much as any ordinary drawing-room, and Honoria Maquisten in bed. Actually it was only the bed that Carey saw in that first moment—the bed and Cousin Honoria. It stood opposite the door against the black wall between the fireplace and the farther window, and it was immensely large. Four silver columns rose to support a canopy from which depended heavy curtains of emerald and silver brocade. A coverlet of the same material concealed the bed-clothes.

Honoria Maquisten sat up straight against a heaped mass of green, violet, and blue pillows, with a shimmering silver wrap about her shoulders. Sitting there, she looked as if she must be immensely tall; her stiff, narrow shoulders were so high above the level of the bed, whilst the piled-up curls of a flaring copper wig raised this impression of height to the fantastic.

As she advanced Carey had time to be angry with Jeff Stewart. What was the good of saying that Cousin Honoria was like the Queen of Sheba and leaving it at that? The Queen of Sheba didn't wear a vermilion wig dressed about a foot high in several thousand curls. She might, of course, have worn diamond earrings and more rings than you could really believe in, and it was quite likely that she dripped with pearls. Cousin Honoria was wearing five rows, and they were so large that you couldn't believe that they hadn't come from Woolworth's.

She reached the side of the bed and put out a hand to meet the long, thin one which Was extended to her. It felt bony and hard in hers, and the rings ran into her. Some of them had slipped round, and the faceted gems pressed into her flesh with their little sharp points. She had come up on the inner side of the bed because Cousin Honoria was a little nearer to that side. The hand gripped and held her there with the light on her face. A pair of brilliant hazel eyes under plucked and darkened eyebrows looked her through and through. Not a muscle of the face moved. The long, thin features, the rather wide mouth, the chin a little over-weighted by the rest of the face—all were without expression. The carefully tinted skin, the carefully smoothed-out wrinkles, the brilliant scarlet lips, gave a blank effect. Only the eyes were lively, eager, and penetrating.

After a moment Hogoria Maquisten said in her deep voice,

“Take off your hat.”

Carey put up her free hand and pulled it off. Her head with its shining black hair came into view. There were two or three soft curls above the brow, and some more at the side and back, but the whole effect was neat, and trim, and shining, The black hair contrasted pleasantly with a naturally white skin and dark blue eyes well shaded with lashes of the same colour as the hair. With startling suddenness Mrs. Maquisten's face ceased to be a blank. The cheeks puckered, the wide mouth trembled. Tears rushed to the eyes, and the deep voice said,

“Oh, my dear—you are so like Julia!”

You don't really think of your grandmother by her Christian name. Carey said, “Julia?” and thought too late that it would have been better to say nothing at all.

Still holding her hand and pressing a diamond ring into it, Mrs. Maquisten said,

“My dear, dear Julia—your grandmother.” She brought her other hand into action and patted Carey. “My first cousin, you know, but we were just like sisters. She died too young. It must be fifty years ago, but I haven't forgotten her, and I never shall. But your mother married Arbuthnot Silence, and we didn't get on at all. A most opinionated man, though of course he was your father, so we won't say any more about him, and it's a long time ago. How old are you?”

“I am twenty-two, Cousin Honoria.”

The hazel eyes took on a tragic look.

“Julia died when she was twenty. And nobody told me that you were like her. It's like seeing her again after all these years. Why didn't they call you Julia?”

Carey felt very glad that they had not. Cousin Honoria was trying to make her feel like a ghost. She resisted with all her might. Julia was dead. She wasn't Julia's ghost, she was Carey Silence with her own life to live. She held tight oil to that and said,

“I don't know.”

Honoria Maquisten let go of her hand and pulled herself up a little higher against her pillows. The wide mouth broke into a smile.

“It doesn't mean anything to you, does it? But it's a great pleasure to me, so you mustn't mind. I won't bother you about it. And you mustn't mind being like Julia, because she was very pretty and everyone loved her. And that's all we'll say about her now, because I want to talk about you. Are you quite strong again?”

“Oh, yes.”

“But they won't pass you for any of the services?”

“No. They said to come back in three months.”

“Yes, I remember you said so in one of your letters. You certainly ought not to rough it until you are quite strong. You won't want to talk about the experience.”

“I don't really know much about it. Mr. Andrews was going down to his constituency, and I was with him—I was his secretary, you know. And then the sirens sounded and the train stopped, and there was some firing. Mr. Andrews called out, and I think he pulled me down off the seat, so I suppose he saved my life. And the next thing I knew I was in a hospital all bandaged up, and they told me he was dead. He Was such a dear old thing. I loved working for him.”

“But you don't want to go on being a secretary?”

Carey flushed.

“I thought I might try for a temporary post—”

Mrs. Maquisten said, “Stuff and rubbish!” Then she burst out laughing. “Come—I'm not in the least what you expected, am I?”

Carey laughed too.

“I don't know what I expected.”

The hazel eyes danced, lighting up the long, thin face.

“Not me anyhow! A nice old lady, sitting by the fire In a shawl, with silver hair—portrait of a grandmother. No, a great-aunt—I never had any brats. Lord—how I hate white hair! Mine's been red all my life, and red it's going to stay. No, it isn't a wig, though I expect you think it is. I've always had a good head of hair, and it's nobody's business where the colour comes from.”

There was something infectious about the rollicking vigour with which she spoke. Carey let herself go and said in a laughing voice,

“I don't suppose it is. But you wouldn't mind anyhow, would you?”

Mrs. Maquisten was delighted.

“No, I shouldn't—I never have and I never shall. You know, you said that just the way Julia used to say things. I'm glad you've got her spirit. I don't like meek little mice. Wait till you meet my niece Honor—the spi't and image of a white mouse with pink eyes! Honor King—James's niece, not mine, I'm thankful to say, but they named her for me, which annoyed me very much when I saw how she was going to turn out. My half-sister called a girl after me too—Nora Hull. She lives here—you'll meet her presently. She's a pretty little piece, so my side of the family comes the best out of it.” She quirked up the thin plucked eyebrows. “Honor—Nora—bit of a joke, isn't it?”

Carey thought the less she said the better. She let herself laugh.

Quite abruptly Mrs. Maquisten was as grave as a judge. She folded her right hand over her left and looked down at the glittering rings—diamond half-hoop, diamond solitaire, emerald and diamond cluster, emerald half-hoop with winking diamond points, emerald and diamond marquise covering the forefinger from the second joint to the knuckle. She frowned at the brightness and the colour and said deep and low,

“Not so much of a joke if you let yourself think about it. How many babies do you suppose would have been named after me if I'd had a few of my own?”

“I don't know, Cousin Honoria.”

The wide mouth twitched into a sudden smile.

“Nor do I, but I can guess. Sprats to catch a whale, my dear—that's what those Honorias are. And Dennis Harland is Dennis Honorius!” She gave an abrupt laugh. “I'll do him the justice to say he's horribly ashamed of it. Sprats, my dear—sprats. But the whale isn't caught yet. Oh, lord!” The laughter shook her. “I'm thin to be a whale, aren't I? That's where metaphors trip you up. A thin old jewelled whale bedizened with silver, and everyone hopefully throwing sprats!” She stopped suddenly, stared, and said, “Why don't you laugh?”

“I didn't like it.”

“No sprats of your own?”

The colour flew scarlet to the roots of Carey's hair. Her eyes blazed. She stamped her foot and said, “No!”

Mrs. Maquisten said “Temper,” in an indulgent voice. She put out a glittering hand. “Sorry, my dear—I just wanted to see how you'd react. I'm a horrid old woman—don't take any notice of me. I expect you'd like to see your room. It's another floor up.”

She picked up a little ivory bell-push on a long green flex and pressed it. A bell rang sharply quite near by, and before it had stopped ringing a door which Carey had not noticed opened quite close to the head of the bed and a nurse came in. She was very stiffly starched just as Jeff had said, but she moved without any sound at all. “Nurse Brayle,” said Honoria Maquisten carelessly. “My cousin, Carey Silence.”

Carey found herself wondering what Nurse Brayle would look like without all the whiteness and the starch. She had never seen anyone whose clothes were so much a part of her. She could not picture the head without its cap, or the neck without its collar, the trim severe figure in anything except uniform. Regular features, grey eyes, a glimpse of dark brown hair. First, foremost, and all the time you would think of Magda Brayle as a nurse. She didn't seem even to have any age. Twenty-five—thirty—thirty-five—uniform has no age. Magda—curious name—

Mrs. Maquisten used it now.

“Magda, just take Carey up to her room, and then come back and get me ready for tea.” She turned to Carey. “Come down when you hear the bell. Tea will be in here.” Her eyes sparkled maliciously. “You must, I am sure, be looking forward to meeting your cousins.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Magda Brayle took Carey up to a pleasant small room on the next floor. The windows looked out to the back and showed lines of brick wall running down from all the other houses to what looked like an old-fashioned mews. The plot belonging to No. 13 was larger than any of the others, being a wide rectangle, with paved work, ornamental conifers, stone seats of a classic pattern, and a fountain where a marble boy struggled with three athletic dolphins. Inside, the room had a comfortable absence of grandeur. Carey didn't feel as if she could have borne any more brocade and silver. The walls were painted cream, curtains and chair-covers of shiny chintz patterned with oyster shells and blue ribbons, the carpet of natural wool. There were blue cushions and a blue eiderdown.

She said, “How pretty! But one ought to be about sixteen.”

If she expected any human response, she didn't get it, either to the words or to the tentative smile which had gone with them. Nurse Brayle informed her that there was a bathroom next door, and that tea would be ready in about a quarter of an hour. As she turned to go Carey tried again. There must be something under all that starch.

“I didn't know that Cousin Honoria was ill. She didn't say anything about it in her letters. Is she in bed all the time?”

“Oh, no.”

Nurse Brayle did not interrupt her progress towards the door. As soon as she had spoken she went out and down the stair without making the very slightest sound. Carey relieved her feelings by shutting the door rather briskly.

When she came downstairs again the door of Mrs. Maquisten's room stood open. A young man with a crutch under his arm was just going in, whilst from behind, with flying steps, came a little creature in a green and plum-coloured uniform. Carey got the impression of something as rounded and graceful as a kitten—fluffy short hair in negligent bright curls, wide brown eyes, and carnation colour. She came up with a rush, slipped a hand inside Carey's arm, and said, “I'm Nora Hull. We'll both get black marks if we're late for tea. She hates it.” And with that they were over the threshold together.

At first glance the room seemed to be full of people. Mrs. Maquisten had left her bed, and sat in state beside the fire in a large brocaded chair. The silver wrap had been discarded for a long robe of emerald velvet trimmed with fur. The rings, the pearls, the earrings caught the light from a great crystal chandelier. The green and silver curtains had been drawn and the room closed in.