The Adultress (33 page)

Mr. Rosen raised his eyebrows and they went higher and higher as he listened. “It was self-defense,” he said. “Quite understandable. No charges can be brought.”

“I knew something was wrong from the moment I arrived,” said Dickon. “All that elaborate preparation to see the old man! When I went in they were in a state of wild apprehension. So I started to look about me. I guessed that the housekeeper was on to too good a thing to want it to end and therefore she had pretended Lord Eversleigh was not dead and brought in her own man to play the part.”

“Very devious,” said Mr. Rosen.

“All rather obvious. The housekeeper was no ordinary one. She was a special friend of Lord Eversleigh.”

“I had heard of it.” said Mr. Rosen.

“Then I discovered that valuable pieces were being taken from the house. I think that was the main business. They wanted the housekeeper to stay there until they had successfully disposed of certain objects, which they could only do gradually, and make a fortune for themselves.”

“You say
they
…”

“Jessie, the manager of the estate who was her lover and the two men who took the part of doctor and invalid.”

“Quite a little party of them.”

“All necessary to the plot. I knew that Zipporah was gradually stumbling on the truth—though it took her a long time—and they knew it. She was close. I think Carew was the main mover in the affair. He was the desperate one. I daresay the housekeeper just wanted to go on living in comfort for a while. But she was his mistress and did what he said. Well, they were realizing that Zipporah was hot on their trail, but they didn’t think of me. I had a reputation for being … not very serious and I lived up to it. It helped me. I discovered certain things from the housekeeper’s daughter. She was not as discreet as they would have liked her to be. There’s quite a bit of stuff from Eversleigh in Amos Carew’s house. I discovered it when I called on him. I think they may have had difficulty in disposing of it. I don’t know what their future plans are … but they must have realized they couldn’t go on like that forever. I daresay when they realized the value of some of the stuff they had stolen they wanted to carry on and get more. Zipporah was getting too close so they were taking the play into its final act. They were going to get rid of her. I realized this. My mother and hers had sent me here to look after her. I was determined to do that.”

“It would seem,” said Mr. Rosen, “that she owes her life to you.”

Dickon smiled at me maliciously. “I rather think she does. I saved it twice. Carew was going to kill her when she called at his house. I don’t know where. I suppose he was hoping to make us believe that a highwayman had shot her. He would have staged something, I don’t doubt. They were very good with their plots … as long as people didn’t look too deeply into them. Well, I was there and saved her … just as I did in the wood. I was ready … waiting. I heard them talking this morning. They knew she had been into the room and that there could be no delay. They said something about a button.”

“Yes,” I said. “I went into the sick room last night. There was no one there. The invalid was taking a stroll in the gardens. The button came off my dressing gown.”

Mr. Rosen cleared his throat. “It is an extraordinary story you have told me. What we shall have to do is to find Lord Eversleigh’s body. If it was murder …” He lifted his shoulders.

“I don’t think Jessie would have allowed that,” I said. “No … it was just deceit … not murder, I’m sure.”

“This woman is quite unscrupulous as well as immoral,” said Mr. Rosen. “You did right to come straight here. Now … we must see what can be done.”

They found Uncle Carl’s body buried in the spot where Jessie had placed the cross. It was in the chest which Dickon had noticed was missing from the winter parlor. It was a simple plot they had conceived and they might have carried on with it until they had disposed of most of the valuables at Eversleigh but for the fact that Jethro had sent me that message that all was not well.

The doctors were satisfied that Uncle Carl had died from natural causes and so this was not a case of murder. It was true it might have been if Amos Carew had succeeded with his plan to be rid of me, and it was fortunate for me that Dickon had foiled that. Amos Carew had been avid for wealth and was determined to have some of Uncle Carl’s. That was why he had brought Jessie to Eversleigh to enslave poor Uncle Carl, which she had done expertly. She might be a harpy but she was no murderess and I gathered she had become increasingly frightened when she saw that she was getting drawn into an intrigue such as Amos Carew had built up when she had believed that all she had to do was cajole an old man into pampering her.

Jessie had been used to getting what she could from her admirers; it was her profession; but she had never before been engaged in criminal intrigue.

She had been frightened by the ghost and I discovered who the ghost had been. Dickon, of course, who had found some of Uncle Carl’s clothes and dressed up in them. He had thought it might be useful, he said modestly; and indeed it had for it had sent Jessie to mark the grave with her crucifix.

Amos was dead. Jessie had decamped with her two actor friends—the bogus Dr. Cabel and Lord Eversleigh. We recovered many of the valuables which were in Carew’s house and some which Evalina gave up, protesting that she had been under the impression that they had been given to her mother.

Rosen, Stead and Rosen took over the management of everything; Uncle Carl was given decent burial in the Eversleigh mausoleum and I became the new owner of Eversleigh.

Dickon and I returned to Clavering. Dickon was very pleased with himself. It was agreed unanimously that he was a hero. True, he had killed a man but the slaying of highwaymen was regarded as a service to humanity. Moreover, he had been very astute—more so than I had been—and his prompt action had foiled the criminals as well as saved my life.

When we arrived home my mother and Sabrina were in a state of great jubilation. They had to hear that story of our adventures over and over and over again.

“It is an extraordinary story,” said my mother.

“What would have happened but for Dickon!” cried Sabrina.

“We are so proud of you, Dickon my dear,” they said in unison.

Dickon basked in their admiration, watching me with that quizzical look in his eye.

“You’ll have to like me now, Zipporah,” he said. “You must never forget I saved your life.”

“I sometimes wonder why you went to such lengths to do so.”

“Shall I tell you,” he said, coming near to me and whispering. “If you had died, heaven knew who would have got Eversleigh. He wouldn’t have left it to Sabrina because then it would come to me … son of a damned Jacobite. Your mother, no … because she might have left it to me, too. Who then? Some remote connection of the family perhaps. You had to have Eversleigh to keep it in this branch of the family … and when you have it I shall have Clavering. You see, that makes it all so neat. There was another reason.”

“What was that?”

“You won’t believe me but I do rather like you, Zipporah. You’re not quite what you seem … are you? I like it … yes, I do.”

I looked at him steadily, his lips turned up at the corners mockingly.

I knew he was telling me that he knew about my love affair with Gerard.

I ought to have been grateful to him—but I couldn’t be. I disliked him as much as ever.

I
T WAS EARLY IN
the New Year when we went to Eversleigh. I knew that Jean-Louis did not really want to go. He had been brought up at Clavering and it was home to him; he loved every acre of the place, but he realized that we must go and that Eversleigh, the home of my ancestors, was a property of far greater value. Moreover, he knew that my mother and Sabrina were delighted because Clavering could now reasonably go to Dickon.

“It’s the sensible thing to do,” said my mother, “and I am sure that Zipporah agrees with us.”

I did. One of the reasons why I was pleased to leave Clavering was because I should not have to see Dickon.

I was a considerable heiress for Eversleigh was a wealthy estate, and although Amos Carew and Jessie had stolen a few valuables there was so much left that their loss was scarcely missed. Then a great many articles were brought back from Amos Carew’s house. They had been stored in his attic as he had had to go very carefully in the task of disposing of them. The prime villain in the scheme was dead; his accomplices had disappeared and eventually efforts to trace them were dropped.

Lottie was excited by the move. She was now eight years old—a lovely creature, impulsive, affectionate, volatile, in the highest spirits one moment and the depth of depression the next. She had violet-colored eyes with thick dark lashes and abundant hair—almost black, a rare combination and invariably beautiful.

My mother said of her: “I think she must be the image of her great-grandmother. She’s not like you or Jean-Louis. You were always such calm, sensible little things even when you were babies. It’s like Carlotta born again. Strange that she should have been called Charlotte. You’ll have to keep a watch on her, Zipporah.”

I said I intended to.

“I often wonder how you feel about going to Eversleigh … after all that happened there,” she said.

“Well,” I replied, “it seems that everyone thinks we should go.”

I looked at her a little wistfully. She was ashamed that her love for Dickon was greater than that which she bore me. She had been obsessed by that adventure of her youth when she had loved Dickon’s father and the fact that his child was Sabrina’s made no difference to her love for the boy.

Sometimes I wondered whether people who were predictable like myself—apart from that one lapse—did not inspire the same affection as the wayward ones. Carlotta had evidently made a great impression on everyone and yet her life had been far from orthodox. Dickon inspired love such as I never could, although he acted in a manner which even those who loved him must admit was by no means admirable.

“What Lottie wants is a brother or sister,” said my mother. “It’s a pity …”

“At least,” I said, “we have a child.”

That was a phrase I often used to myself. Whatever wrong I had done, it had given us Lottie.

So we prepared to leave. Dickon was to live in the house which we had occupied. There had been protests about that from my mother and Sabrina. Why did he want his own house? Why couldn’t he go on living at the hall?

“It’s the manager’s house,” said Dickon. “I am the manager now.”

“My dear boy,” said Sabrina, “how can we be sure that you will be properly looked after?”

I remember the way Dickon grinned at me. “I think I’ve proved that I can look after myself,” he said.

Of course they couldn’t go against him. He wanted to live in the house so he did.

I tried not to mind that he would be in that house where I had been happy with Jean-Louis. Jean-Louis understood. He said: “It will no longer be ours. We’ll forget it.”

As we journeyed to Eversleigh—Lottie seated between us in the carriage—I thought how tired Jean-Louis looked, and a little sad; and I was filled with tenderness toward him. I had wronged him in the most cruel way a woman could deceive a man in making him believe he was the father of a child who was not his. I must make up for what I had done. I think I had in a way. Looking back, my affection had been at least more demonstrative since Lottie had been born.

She was calling out excitedly and jumping up and down to call our attention to landmarks. Jean-Louis smiled at her. Poor Jean-Louis, he looked rather exhausted. It was a good thing that we had made the journey by carriage. He would never have been able to do it on horseback.

The house looked different. I suppose that was because it was mine and I couldn’t help feeling a glow of pride to think of all my ancestors who had lived here before me, and now here I was taking possession.

We alighted from the carriage and I stood for a moment looking up. It was some two hundred years old, having been built in the days of Elizabeth, so it was in the familiar E style with the main hall and the wings on either side.

It was comforting to see old Jethro come hurrying out from the stables.

“I heard the wheels of the carriage,” he said. “So I knew you was here.”

“This is Jethro.” I said to Jean-Louis. “The old faithful retainer.”

Jethro touched his forelock to Jean-Louis and Lottie regarded him curiously.

“You’ll find everything in order inside, Mistress Zipporah,” said Jethro. “The servants has done well.”

“The same ones?” I asked.

“Most on ’em scuttled off. That must have been friends of Jessie Stirling. I took the liberty of sending Mrs. Jethro over to take a hand and she got some girls from the village to come until you see what you want.”

“Thank you. Jethro.”

We went into the house. I stood in the hall with its rough stone walls on which hung the armory of past Eversleighs. Most of it would have seen action, for we had been a military family in the past.

“What’s that?” cried Lottie and she ran to the fireplace.

I joined her. “It’s the family tree. It was painted over the fireplace more than a hundred years ago … and it is constantly added to.”

“I shall be on it,” cried Lottie ecstatically. “Shan’t I?” she added anxiously.

“Of course.”

“And,” said Lottie, “my husband. I wonder who he’ll be? There’s something you put on your pillow, or under it … on Christmas Eve … or is it Hallowe’en? And when you wake up the first thing you see is your future husband’s face. Oh, dear mama, dear papa, we must find out what it is and when. I can’t wait to see my husband.”

“Why, Lottie,” I said reproachfully, “here you are in your new home and all you can think of is husbands.”

“It was the family tree that put me in mind of it,” said Lottie. “What’s down those steps?”

“I tell you what,” I said. “We’ll let Mrs. Jethro take us to our rooms … and then later on you can explore the house.”

“I want to explore
now
!”

“We’ll explore together,” I said, “and your father is a little tired.”