The Benevent Treasure (3 page)

Joseph had started life as Giuseppe in a newly arrived Italian family some fifty years before. He had now been Joseph for most of that time, and he spoke with much less accent than Anna. They had married as a matter of convenience. He was dark and of medium height, with the manner of a superior upper servant. When he had set down the tea-tray and gone out of the room, the Miss Benevents told Candida all about him and Anna, speaking in alternate sentences.

‘He served in the first world war and was wounded.’

‘He was lame for quite a long time.’

‘He has been with us ever since he recovered.’

‘He was, fortunately, too old to be called up in the last war.’

‘He is not at all suited to be a soldier.’

‘He and Anna got married instead. It is more convenient that way.’

‘It is much more convenient.’

They did not give Candida time to say anything. She sat on a small gilt chair and balanced a fragile cup upon a slippery saucer. The china was very good and very thin. The saucer was the kind that has no hollow to keep the cup in its place.

Miss Olivia continued the discourse.

‘We are very fortunately situated as regards our staff. Anna’s niece Nella looks after the bedrooms, and a woman comes out from Retley on a bicycle.’

‘Or on the bus if the weather is bad,’ said Miss Cara.

‘It is all very convenient. Let me cut you some of this cake.’

‘Anna makes very good cakes,’ said Miss Cara.

As they sat one on either side of her, Candida was obliged to keep on turning her head. It seemed rude not to look at the aunt who was speaking, but she had no sooner turned towards one than the other took up the tale. They were really very much alike, but she thought that she would know them apart. Miss Olivia had a more decided voice and manner than Miss Cara, and she definitely took the lead where Cara merely echoed and agreed. Olivia had a small brown mole high up on her right cheek like a patch. Candida wondered if they were twins. And she wondered just how long she was going to be able to bear this visit.

Miss Olivia poured a second cup of tea from an ornate and capacious pot.

‘This tea-service came into the family in 1845 when Gerald Benevent married Augusta Cloudsley. Her mother was the Honourable Fanny Lentine, a daughter of Lord Ledborough, but her father was a wealthy City merchant. The tea-service is handsome and valuable, but we have always regarded the marriage as something of a mésalliance.’

‘It is the only time that we have ever been connected with trade,’ said Miss Cara.

The room was very warm and the lights very dazzling. Candida began to have that slightly floating feeling which comes with the onset of sleep. She had had many wakeful nights in the last days of Barbara’s life, and since her death she had been working very hard, cleaning, clearing, sorting, and packing up. Last night she had been too tired to sleep at all. The lights shimmered overhead and the voices of the little black ladies came and went.

She must have slipped from waking into sleeping, because just for a moment the white drawing-room was gone, and the glittering chandeliers. Instead there was a narrow dark hall with a little window through into a room next door. She had been signing her name in a book which lay on a ledge in front of the window. The ink in the pen which she had laid down was still wet. The name was black on the page of the open book — Candida Sayle. She turned away from it, and there were two little black ladies looking over her shoulders, one on either side, in the dark hall. She couldn’t see them well because the hall was so dark. One of them said,

‘Candida Sayle — a very unusual name,’ and the other one nodded.

She woke up with a jerk. Her cup was sliding in the smooth flat saucer. The dream could really only have lasted for a moment, because the cup would have started to slide at once, and it hadn’t had time to fall. How awful if it had fallen on to the carpet! She could almost see the puddle of tea and broken bits. The shock of it woke her right up. She put down the cup and saucer on the tray, and heard Miss Olivia say,

‘The china is French. It belonged to my grandmother. Not one piece has ever been broken.’

A sense of the narrowness of her escape quite swamped the memory of the dream. After a few more particulars about the tea-set and its original owner, who must have been her own great-great-grandmother, the conversation drifted to other objects in the room. The mirror over the mantelpiece had been brought from Holland by Edward Benevent in 1830. The mantelpiece itself had been imported from Italy by his father.

‘He did not, of course, go there himself,’ said Miss Olivia. ‘No Benevent has ever set foot in that country since our ancestor left it in the seventeenth century. While their rights were not admitted and the relationship ignored it would have been beneath their dignity to do so. However strongly the ancestral tie is felt, however strongly the family tradition is observed, we could never consent to visit Italy except on the clear understanding that we are true and legitimate descendants of the ducal house of Benevento.’

Miss Cara shook her head.

‘We could never consent.’

Since Candida had not the slightest idea what they were talking about, she thought she had better not say anything at all. There was, apparently, no need for her to do so. Stiffly upright behind the heavily embossed tray, the teapot, the water jug, the enormous sugar-basin of Augusta Cloudsley’s tea equipage, Miss Olivia continued to talk. She may or may not have noticed a slight vagueness in Candida’s expression, but she stopped suddenly in the midst of some observations on the value of family traditions and the necessity of maintaining them, to say in a sharpened voice,

‘You are, of course, acquainted with our family history.’

Candida’s colour rose.

‘Well — I’m afraid —’

‘Incredible! I could not have believed it! Your grandmother was, after all, our sister. I believe that she did not die until her children were nine and ten years of age — quite old enough to have been grounded in the historical facts. But of course her marriage — my father would neither acknowledge nor condone it — she may have found the subject too painful.’

Miss Cara raised a lace-edged handkerchief to the tip of her nose and sniffed.

‘Oh, yes.’

Miss Olivia threw her a reproving glance.

‘It will be for us to supply the deficiency — ’ she began, when the door opened and a young man came into the room. He was of medium height with brown eyes, very dark hair, and a most charming smile. He was, in fact, an extraordinarily handsome and vital creature. The Miss Benevents’ faces lighted up at the sight of him, their small pinched features relaxed, and the air of solemnity was gone. Speaking both together, they said,

‘Derek!’ Miss Cara adding, ‘My dear boy!’

He came up to the table and bent to kiss them both. Miss Olivia introduced him.

‘This is our secretary and adopted nephew, Derek Burdon. He is compiling a history of the family. He has recently been in Italy and has returned with some very valuable additional material. He has not been able to sort and arrange it yet — these things take time. We thought perhaps it might interest you to help him in his labours.’

Candida thought, ‘Well it will be something to do.’ She met a sparkling glance of the brown eyes, and the prospect brightened a little. He looked as if the family history would not bulk so largely as to preclude the possibility of a few lighter moments. In fact he was young, and he looked as if he might be fun. She was to learn that he was an adept at getting his own way with the old ladies and at putting off until at least the day after tomorrow whatever he did not incline towards doing today. To the suggestion that he and Candida might get to work on some of the Italian material in the morning he came back with,

‘But if you want her to have driving lessons she really ought to start at once. I thought if we went into Retley after breakfast she could begin right away. There’s no time like the present. I spoke to Fox about it this morning.’

Candida had a bewildered feeling. She looked at Miss Olivia, and received a slight wintry smile.

‘I suppose that you do not drive.’

‘No, but—’

She would have liked to say, ‘How on earth do you know?’ but she restrained herself. Only if Candida Benevent and her descendants had been so completely dismissed from the family consciousness, how on earth did her sisters know whether Candida’s grand-daughter could drive or not?

Miss Olivia answered the unspoken question.

‘John Sayle was not a man of any means. His son and daughter were brought up in a very moderate manner. Barbara would certainly not have been in a position to own a car.’

Miss Cara said, ‘Oh, dear no,’ and Miss Olivia resumed,

‘My father would not allow of any communication, but he took steps to inform himself of such events as births and deaths. When he passed away we continued on the same lines. We have thus always been aware of our niece Barbara’s circumstances and whereabouts. Since your parents died young and were in no position to provide for you, your education must have been quite a strain upon her resources. There would have been no money left over for such things as a car.’

‘Oh, none at all,’ said Miss Cara.

Her sister went on as if she had not spoken.

‘But we feel that being able to drive may now be considered a most useful accomplishment. We thought that you would perhaps like to have lessons and qualify for a driving-licence during your visit. We had intended to lead up to the subject, but Derek has forestalled us.’

He laughed ruefully.

‘I’ve put my foot in it again!’

Both ladies beamed at him.

‘You are sometimes too impetuous, dear boy.’

There was a point in Miss Olivia’s speech when there had been a pricking of angry tears behind Candida’s eyes. Never for a single moment had Barbara allowed her to feel herself a burden. They had been happy together — they had been happy. She clenched her hands until the nails ran into the palms.

Miss Olivia went on talking for long enough to let that pricking anger subside. She had always wanted to learn to drive, and the lessons would probably save her life. They would mean going into Retley and getting away from Underhill for at the very least an hour at a time, and with any luck a good bit more than that. If she and Derek were to go off on their own, she thought there might be ways and means of spinning out the time — letters for the post, errands to the shops, morning coffee. She met Derek’s eye and found it sparkling with mischief. Her spirits began to rise. She listened intelligently whilst Miss Olivia told her how Ugo di Benevento fled from Italy in the middle of the seventeenth century, taking with him what had come afterwards to be known as the Benevento Treasure.

‘He had got into some trouble of a political nature — it was so very easy in those days — and the family cast him off in what we have always considered to be an extremely cowardly manner. It may perhaps account for the misfortunes which fell upon them afterwards. As you will no doubt remember, Napoleon in 1806 bestowed what had been the ancient Duchy upon the upstart Talleyrand, with the title of Prince of Benevento. At the fall of Napoleon the province became once more a part of the Papal territories until 1860, when it was united to the kingdom of Italy. Our ancestor was well received over here. He married an heiress of the name of Anne Coghill and built this house. There have been alterations and additions of course. This room was, for instance, extended and greatly improved during the eighteenth century. In the generations since Ugo there have been many advantageous marriages. The Italian ending to the name was dropped, and Benevents have married into some of the noblest families in England. My father’s indignation at Candida’s mésalliance arose from this fact. John Sayle’s father was, I believe, a mere yeoman farmer. That his son took orders can hardly be said to excuse her.’

Candida resigned herself. The great-aunts existed in the past — useless to try and disinter them. She really felt a good deal prouder of the yeoman farmer than of Ugo who had run away with the family jewels and married an heiress, but it was no use saying so.

Miss Olivia continued to rehearse the births, marriages, and deaths of the Benevents, with Miss Cara nodding assent and occasionally putting in a word or two. It all felt very stiff and unreal, but in a sort of way it was interesting, like those stiff medieval pictures which it was so hard to relate to the living, breathing human beings who had sat for them. They had had real joys and sorrows, and hopes and fears. They had lost people whom they loved. They had lost their hearts, their heads, their lives. They had fought and conquered, or fought and been defeated. There was a kind of fascination about making them come alive and be real again. Her mood changed insensibly. After all, these were her people too — she ought to know something about them. Her eyes brightened and her colour rose.

Derek Burdon watched her with genuine admiration. She might have been a pale, flabby girl with dead-fish eyes, or one of those skinny little things with bones instead of curves. Whatever she had been, he would have had to follow her round and amuse her. As it was, his luck was in.

The discourse on the Benevent family went on and on.

Candida went up to bed that night with the feeling that it wasn’t going to be so bad. The evening meal had been formally served by Joseph in a cavernous dining-room from whose gloomy walls dark family portraits frowned upon the scene. But the meal itself was beautifully cooked — a soup, a fish soufflé, a sweet. And then the white drawing-room again.

It appeared that Derek had a pleasant voice and a light touch upon the piano, a lordly grand in a cream enamelled case. Candida found herself diverted to that end of the room, asked if she knew this or that, persuaded to join her own voice in a light duet. The Miss Benevents beamed approval and the evening passed very pleasantly.

When she got up to her room there was a girl there putting a hot water-bottle in the bed, rather pretty with a dark lively look. Candida had a friendly smile.

‘Oh, thank you. Are you Nella?’

There was a slight toss of the head.

‘Well, that’s just Auntie — her fancy Italian way of saying Nellie.’ The accent and the laugh were authentic cockney. ‘It riles me a bit, but what’s the use?’

‘Your name is really Nellie?’

‘That’s right. My old Gran that I don’t remember, she came over with Auntie about the year one, and she married an Irishman, and my Mum who was their daughter, she married a Scotchman called Brown, and they lived in Bermondsey, so how much of the Italiano have I got? Proper Londoner, that’s what I am — born there and brought up there and don’t want to be anything different! It’s no good saying that sort of thing to Auntie — she don’t understand. Only how she can go on year in, year out in a nasty dark country hole like this’ — she gave an expressive shrug — ‘well, it passes me!’

Candida laughed.

‘You don’t like the country?’

‘Like it!’ The London voice was shrill. ‘It gives me the pip! And I wouldn’t be here, only Auntie made such a point of it, and the doctor at the eye hospital he said if I didn’t knock off a bit and rest my eyes I’d be sorry I hadn’t done what he said. I’m an embroideress — but the work’s too fine, I’ll have to find something else. As a matter of fact I’m getting married, so when Auntie made a point of it and the money was good, I thought, oh, well, I can stick it out if I’ve got to — for a bit anyway. Is there anything else I can do, Miss Sayle?’

‘Oh, no. I’m going to love the hot water-bottle.’

The girl flashed her a smile as she went out. Candida had a feeling that it wouldn’t be very long before she heard all about the boy friend and the lovely suite. The bed was comfortable and the hot water-bottle was really hot. But before she had time to luxuriate in these thoughts they were blotted out by the rising tides of sleep. She went down under dreamless waters and lost herself.

A long time afterwards, when the turn of the night was past and a thin white mist lay ankle-deep on the low-lying fields beyond the garden, the tides began to go down again. They thinned away and left her in the place where dreams can come and go. She was asleep, but she was not unconscious any more. The dreams came and went. In the first one she had gone back nearly six years. A knob of rock cut into the palm of her left hand. With the nails of her right hand she dug into a shallow crack and clung there. Her feet tiptoed on a narrow ledge. At any moment she was going to fall to the bare black rocks below. The dream was not a new one. During the years it had come and gone again — when she was tired — when she was troubled — when something reminded her. But it had come less and less. In her last year at school it had not come at all. Then, with Barbara’s illness, it had started again. Some-times it ended with the fall, sometimes it changed in a flash and she would be up on the ledge above, with Stephen saying, ‘You’re all right now.’ When she fell, she always woke before she got as far as the rocks. Tonight she did not fall, nor did she reach the ledge. She heard Stephen calling from the sea, and she turned her head. She couldn’t have done it really — not without losing her hold, but in the dream it was all quite easy. She looked round and saw him coming to her across black water with wings on his feet, like Perseus in the story of Andromeda. She saw the wings quite plainly — they were bright and fluttering. He had light wind-swept hair, and he had on old grey flannel slacks and an open-necked shirt and a tweed jacket. And then all of a sudden he was gone, and so was the sea and the cliff. There was a wall with a window in it, and an open book on the windowsill. She had just written her name in the book, Candida Sayle, and someone said, ‘That is a very unusual name.’ There were two old ladies standing one on either side of her and looking at the book. One of them said, ‘It’s a very nice walk along the beach,’ and the other one nodded. One of them said, ‘It is not high tide until eleven.’ And she woke up.

The room was dark. She had pulled back the curtains, and she could just see the shape of the window. She sat up straight in bed with her heart beating fast. Her hands pressed down on the mattress on either side of her. There was a trickle of sweat in the hollow of her back, a cold running drop. Her heart beat because she was afraid, and she was afraid because in the moment of waking she remembered three things and they all rushed together. There was the dream from which she had just waked up. There was the dream which had come and gone in the moment when sleep had reached out and touched her under the lights in the white and gold drawing-room. And there was the thing that wasn’t a dream — the thing that had happened more than five years ago, when two old ladies had stood in the hall at Sea View and told her what a nice walk there was along the beach, and one of them had said, ‘It won’t be high tide until eleven.’

These three things rushed together in her mind and became one thing. It wasn’t a dream any longer, it was a fact. It was the Miss Benevents who had looked over her shoulder and read her name in the hotel register. It was her great-aunt Olivia who had told her about the beach and the tide, and it was her great-aunt Cara who had nodded assent.

Sitting up in bed in the dark room, she said, ‘Nonsense!’ There was a shaded light beside the bed. She switched it on. She had her mother’s watch, and it lay on the table under the lamp. The time was half-past five, the sort of time you did have thoughts like that. She left the light on and lay down shivering, with the clothes snuggled up about her neck. She began to get warmer at once. The bed was soft and the light friendly. The dreams receded. The two old ladies at Sea View were just any old ladies who had muddled up the times of the tides. The hall had been dark — she hadn’t really seen them at all clearly. And she hadn’t ever seen them again, because when she and Stephen had got off the cliff and back to Sea View there was no more than time for her to snatch some breakfast and catch a train home. Monica had telephoned to say her mother was really ill and would have to go into a nursing home. She herself would stay with an aunt in London. She was dreadfully sorry. Mummy would send a cheque for the bill, and there was nothing for it but for Candida to go home. So Candida went. And she didn’t see the old ladies again. And she didn’t see Stephen Eversley.

She lay in the shaded light of the lamp and thought about all these things. It was quite easy to see how she had got the old ladies mixed up with the great-aunts. Two old ladies in black in the hall at Sea View — two old ladies in black in the white drawing-room at Underhill. One taking the lead and the other following. Wasn’t that the sort of thing that would be bound to happen when sisters lived together all their lives? The idea that the old ladies at Sea View had been her Benevent great-aunts was just one of the fantastic things that happen in a dream, like Stephen in grey flannel slacks with wings on his feet. She slid into sleep again, and only woke when Nellie came in with the early morning tea.