The Coldstone (18 page)

Susan began to laugh. She took her hands off the edge of the table and caught him by the arm.

“I've got a most frightful lot to tell you—I really have. That's why I came. Come and sit down.” She settled herself in the sofa corner and gazed at him with dancing eyes. “I hope you're in a proper frame of mind and that you're not a miserable, scoffing, up-to-date sort of person.”

Anthony's eyes laughed back at her. When they laughed they looked blue, and an attractive crinkle showed at the corners.

“How mediæval have I got to be?”

“Oh, frightfully. I don't know when Merlin lived—long before the Middle Ages were ever thought about. That's where it begins, and it's been handed down ever since from an old, old ancient man, or an old, old, ancient woman to a young lad or a young maid. That's what Gran told me. And you oughtn't to be sitting up there at all—you ought to be kneeling, frightfully awestruck and respectful and simply drinking in every word, like I did with Gran, and like she did with her grandfather. He was a hundred and five when he told her, and she was fifteen, and she remembers every word.”

Anthony slipped off the sofa and went down on his knees.

“Will this do? And are you my grandmother? I'd just like to know.”

“I'm your great-great-grandmother, of course. Patience was your great-great-grandmother—at least I think so.” She counted rapidly on her fingers: “Anthony—Ralph—James—Ambrose.… Yes, that's right—Patience Pleydell was Ambrose's mother, and that makes her your great-great.”

“Thank you,” said Anthony meekly. His eyes were not at all meek. Susan found them rather disturbing.

“It's frightfully serious,” she said. “And if I could tell it like Gran did, you'd have creeps all up your spine. You know, she didn't just tell it, she
saw
it. She was looking back hundreds of years and seeing things, and her voice gave me the cold grues—it did really. So you've got to be serious, please.”

“All right.”

“Gran had to swear a solemn oath she'd never tell what she knew, except to one of her own flesh and blood that was to come after her, and to the Colstones and their lawful heirs. She had to swear it with her hand on the bible, but she said she'd take my true promise, so I gave it to her. I don't know if you have to promise too.”

Anthony felt the oddest little thrill of pride. He shook his head.

“No, I wouldn't have to promise. If it's a Colstone secret, you see, it's my secret. I wouldn't have to make any promise about it. Will you tell me the story?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Susan leaned forward with her elbow on her knee and told the story word for word. She told it as a child tells a story that has been told to it, word for word, with the very inflexions and pauses, making them a part of the tale, as if an altered phrase or a lost word might break the glamour. Where Mrs. Bowyer's voice had dropped into a hardly audible whisper, there Susan's breath failed, and her colour with it. Her eyes looked past Anthony, and she did not seem to know that his never left her face.

He listened, and he looked, and he thought that the story came too soon to an end. He watched the colour come and go on Susan's cheek. Sometimes it rose to a bright geranium flush that burned for a while and made her eyes look dark and bright; and then quite suddenly it went, and left her pale. That was when her voice shook and she stopped for a moment and drew another breath. When she came to the end, he was watching her still. She turned her eyes to his, and they seemed to be asking him a question.

He said, “Is that all?” and she nodded.

“Yes. It's—it's queer—isn't it? It gives me a shivery feeling.”

He was near enough to touch her. He put out his hand, and she moved her own to meet it. His felt warm.

“Don't,”
said Anthony.

“I'm not.” She gave a faint little laugh. “I told you it gave me the shivers.” She laughed again and pulled away her hand. “You can get up now, you know.”

Anthony got up. Things that he would have liked to say simply tumbled over one another, but he beat them back. He stood for a moment, and then walked slowly to the end of the room and back again, while Susan sat in her corner watching him.

He hadn't said anything. But he hadn't laughed. If he had laughed, she would simply have hated him. His laughter would have broken a fragile indefinable something of which she was just aware. It hadn't any name, but she was aware of it. If Anthony had laughed, she would never have been aware of it again.

He came back and sat down beside her, looking quite serious.

“Look here, Susan—” he said.

Susan looked, and met a glance of frowning intensity.

“Look here—what does it all mean?”

“I don't know.”

“I'm going to know. But nothing seems to fit in—it's like a jig-saw puzzle, only I feel as if someone had been monkeying with the pieces. It's like having bits of at least three puzzles mixed up.”

“How?”

“I'm not to move the Stones—I'm not to touch the Stones—and there's no end of a mystery. Those are the bits out of Sir Jervis' bag. Then there's your grandmother's very interesting story about the devil being sealed up under the Coldstone—and, by the way, I suppose that's where the name came from—the Cold Stone, because it put the fire out. That's another lot of bits. And then there are the burglars—they're the third lot. And for all I know, there are scattered bits chucked in by Nurse Collins and my Cousin Arabel. It's so jolly easy to put them all together and get a straight picture—isn't it?”

Susan looked a little puzzled.

“Why don't they fit in?” she asked slowly.

Anthony threw out his hands.

“Well, do they? Do you suppose Sir Jervis believed the devil was sitting corked up under the Coldstone, just waiting for someone to come along and move it?”

“I don't know,” said Susan—“I didn't know him. People believe all sorts of things. One of our mistresses at school believed the earth was flat—she really did. She was a very clever woman and an awfully good teacher. So you see he might have believed it, especially if he had been brought up on it, so to speak.”

Anthony waved Sir Jervis away with an impatient gesture.

“All right—he believed the devil was under the Coldstone, and that's why I wasn't to move it. But what did the burglars believe—and what were they looking for? Can you tell me that?”

“Burglars are generally looking for family plate.” Susan wore an air of bright intelligence.

“What? Under the stone that Merlin blessed, and the second shield, and all the rest of it? Do you think they really broke into my house to do a little quiet devil-raising?”

Susan looked at him, and looked away.

“The Coldstone isn't in the house,” she said.

“No,” said Anthony. He was looking at her, though she wasn't looking at him. He waited a moment, and then he said, “The second shield—” and at once her eyes, dark and startled, were turned to his.

“Why did you say that?”

Anthony did not answer.

“What did you mean?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“You did!”

He sat down beside her.

“You've told me your story. Now I want to tell you mine.”

“Have you got one?” She relaxed a little, but she was wondering what he had meant.

Anthony nodded.

“It's not such an exciting one as yours, but it's a bit more up to date.”

“Oh,” said Susan. Then her lashes flickered, and she added, “I hope you'll tell it better than last time.”

“I was going to begin where we left off.”

She heaved a resigned sigh.

“Very well.”

“I'd got to where the ghost vanished.”

“Had you?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do next? Go to bed?”

“No—I got Lane and Smithers, and we searched the house.”

“Smithers would be a
great
help,” said Susan. “Smithers the Sleuth!” she added. “Did you—did he—find anything?”

“We found a poker in the middle of the floor in the housekeeper's room. Why?”

“Couldn't Smithers explain it?”

“I thought perhaps you could.”

Susan shook her head. Her eyes were round and innocent, but she was a little pale. (“I'm going to break his leg. It'll keep him quiet for a bit. No!” Why did it come back like that? She didn't want to remember it. She didn't want to think about it.) She grew paler still.

Anthony said, “Susan—” but as he leaned forward, she leaned back.

“Why don't you go on?” she said.

“I thought perhaps you could tell me that part of the story.”

“I'm not a sleuth,” said Susan firmly.

“Well,” said Anthony, “we didn't find the burglars—they had departed by way of the scullery window. But we searched the cellars.”

“Did you find anything?”

“Yes, we found a locked door.”

“Did you unlock it?”

“No—there didn't seem to be any key.”

“What door was it?”

Anthony hesitated.

“Lane and Smithers both seemed to think it led into some very old cellars that were not safe. Lane's been here forty years. He's never seen the door opened. Smithers was full of bright thoughts about the roof falling in. Lane supposed the key would be with all the other cellar keys, but it isn't—I've been through them all, and there isn't anything that goes near fitting. It's an awfully old lock, and the key must be immense. I could very nearly put two fingers into the keyhole.” He stopped, leaned right forward, and said, “I did put my finger in, and it came out covered with lamp-black.”

“Lamp-black?”

“I won't swear to the composition. It was something soft and black.” He broke off again. “That doesn't convey anything to you?”

“No, it doesn't.”

“You haven't moved in burgling circles. It's one way of taking an impression when you want to forge a key, so I don't think we've seen the last of those burglars yet.”

“You think they'd been down there?”

“The stuff was quite fresh,” said Anthony.

There was a silence. A room that is full of books can be still with a peculiar stillness of its own; it can be still with a deep, remembering stillness. Susan felt this silence rise around her like the waters of a deep, invisible sea. Under its tide there were secrets. Each generation had added to them. The deep waters of silence kept all these secrets hidden.

Anthony broke the silence. He said abruptly.

“Oh yes, they'll come back—I'm prepared to swear they'll come back. What I want to know is—Why? What's their game? What are they looking for? What do they want?”

“I don't know,” said Susan.

“Really?”

“Really, Anthony.”

He looked at her for a moment more, and then got up.

“Quite definitely, the burglars and whatever they're looking for won't, don't, and can't fit into the same picture as Philip Colstone and raising the devil or Merlin laying him. And the burglars—the burglars, Susan
—were
they looking for the stone that Merlin blessed?”

Susan sat forward.

“That was the Coldstone,” she said quickly.

“Then why weren't they up the hill instead of in my cellars? If they were looking for the Coldstone, they were going a queer way about it. It's not as if it was a thing they could possibly miss.”

“No—” Susan's tone was thoughtful.

Anthony walked over to the writing-table.

“I've been looking for anything that might throw a light on it all.”

Susan got up.

“Did you find anything?”

“I don't know. I was really looking for a plan of the house.” He hesitated for a moment. “I asked Lane about one when I first came down. He seemed—bothered. Then I asked my cousins! They didn't like my asking. I want to know why—and I want to open that door in the cellar. I'm getting a key made.”

“Did you find anything?” said Susan. She came a little nearer.

“Not what I was looking for.”

“Did you find
anything?
”

He hesitated again.

“I found—I don't know if it fits in or not—I don't suppose it does—I don't suppose it's got anything to do with it, but—well, I found that Sir Jervis refused what was evidently a very good offer for the place—” He broke off.

Warmth leaped into Susan's voice.

“Of course he did.”

He frowned.

“I don't mean that. It was the way it was put. What I found was a letter from Leveridge's father—I suppose it
was
his father. It's dated March, 1879, and he says—” He picked up a thick, crackling sheet, turned it over, and read from it:

“We must apologise for again bringing the matter under your notice, but the sum offered is so much in excess of the estimated market value of the property that we feel that we cannot refuse to place the offer before you. We have, however, informed Messrs. Stent Rogerson and Twyford, the firm who have approached us, that we have no reason to believe that this offer will be any more acceptable than previous offers from the same source—”

He stopped and turned to Susan with the letter in his hand.

“Well?” he said.

“I suppose he refused.

“Damned them into heaps, I should say. He has scribbled all over the letter—had to get it off his chest—just snappy bits of abuse. But at the end, where there's a blank space there's a queer thing—at least I wondered whether it wasn't a queer thing.”

“What was it?”

“It's one of the things that doesn't fit in. Perhaps it doesn't mean anything, but he had scribbled across the bottom of the letter: ‘J.E.W.? Can't believe it. No.'”