The Secret of Greylands (7 page)

However, it was impossible to alter matters now; he was striding back at a great rate; and even if Cynthia's dignity had permitted her to try to overtake him it would have been impossible in her present condition.

Her feet were becoming additionally painful; she positively limped as she opened the gate and made her way across the field and through the surrounding trees to Greylands.

As she approached the side-door she heard a quick, light step in the passage, and a girl with a dish in her hand came to meet her. The girl looked surprised.

“Did you want to see Mr Gillman?” she asked.

Cynthia guessed who the stranger must be.

“No; that is—at least I am staying here. I am Cynthia Densham, and you—”

With a little cry of joy the girl set the dish on the ground and sprang towards her.

“I am Sybil Hammond!” holding up one soft downy cheek to be kissed. “How glad Cousin Henry will be! He has been in such trouble about you. We could not imagine what had become of you, and he has just driven back to Glastwick to make further inquiries.”

“Oh, I am sorry!” Cynthia said concernedly. “I thought I took the turning he told me, but it led me quite in the wrong direction, and I have walked all the way back. I am so tired!”

“You poor thing!” Sybil said caressingly as she made Cynthia lean on her. “Never mind, you shall have some tea, and then you will feel better. I am just going to take Spot his dinner, but that can wait. He is chained up to-day, because he will go and worry and scratch at Cousin Hannah's door. He is so devoted to her, poor beast! Now, Cynthia—I may call you Cynthia, may I not, for we are almost cousins?—you are just to sit in that chair and let me wait upon you.”

Cynthia submitted with a good grace. After a long, tiring walk it was very pleasant to sit back and watch this pretty fair-haired creature flitting about, setting the table in order for the meal with deft and fairylike touches. Cynthia's nature was essentially a beauty-loving one. Something in the dainty finish of Sybil's appearance, as well as in the small features, attracted her almost irresistibly, and she found herself looking forward with new zest to her stay at Greylands.

As Sybil brought her tea and persuaded her to eat delicate sandwiches of her own making, Cynthia's eyes were dwelling admiringly on the other girl, upon the wealth of artistically-arranged golden hair, upon the pretty smiling mouth and large hazel eyes—eyes that could melt into anger or glow with a strange reflected light of green and opal and pale transparent blue.

At length Sybil poured out another cup of tea and caught up a tray.

“I am sure Cousin Hannah must be dying for her tea; she is always so thirsty!”

Cynthia raised herself eagerly.

“If you are going to see Cousin Hannah, may I come too?”

Sybil hesitated a moment.

“Not yet, I think. I don't fancy she feels quite equal to an interview this afternoon, poor thing!”

“You are going!”

The girl laughed and, stooping, laid a bird-like kiss on Cynthia's forehead.

“What—not jealous, Cynthia? You see Cousin Hannah is used to me; I stayed with her six months ago, and I am a great favourite of hers.”

“I do not wonder at that!” The words came from Cynthia involuntarily.

There was another silvery ripple of laughter from Sybil as she vanished through the doorway.

“What a duck you are to say so! And Cousin Hannah means to see you some time this evening, Cynthia.”

C
YNTHIA
opened the door of her room.

Her trunk had been carried in and stood at the bottom of the bed; she felt for her keys and crossed over to it. The big wardrobe was empty save for the dress she had worn on her arrival. She took it out and looked at its unbrushed condition with disgust; it was bedraggled and dusty round the hem, and on the sleeve of the coat near the elbow there was a big dark mark. Cynthia looked at the latter with surprise as she got out her clothes-brush and applied it diligently.

“Where did that come from, I wonder?” she soliloquized. “Did I get it in the cart? Oh, no! It must have been when I fell in the passage. I know I came down heavily on my elbow.”

Brushing had no effect on the mark, so Cynthia took her sponge and some soap, and presently had the satisfaction of seeing that it was yielding. Then spreading it out upon the back of a chair to dry, she turned to the washstand to rinse the sponge. As she squeezed out the water she was amazed to see that it was a dull red. For a moment she gazed at it in bewilderment, then she rolled back her sleeve and looked at her elbow in the glass. Its dainty dimpled prettiness was disfigured by a nasty black bruise, but the skin was unbroken. As she stood gazing into the glass, her colour faded, she shivered violently from head to foot; a fainting sensation against which she fought in vain came over her. She caught at the dressing-table with one hand and glanced round the room with eyes dilated by a sudden unreasoning fear.

“It was nothing,” she said to herself, with white, stiffening lips. “Perhaps the dog hurt its paw scratching at the door—or something. Certainly it was nothing.”

“Cynthia! Cynthia!” It was Sybil's voice; she was knocking.

Cynthia caught up the basin and emptied it into the toilet-pail before she answered.

Sybil glanced quickly round the room before she entered.

“Cousin Henry has come back, Cynthia. He was nearly frantic about you. He was glad to hear you were all right; he says he can't think how you came to mistake his directions. Is this all the luggage you have?” her bright inquisitive eyes turning to the open trunk. “You should see the heaps and heaps I've brought! Cousin Henry was so cross—I made him bring two trunks with us, much against his will, and the rest have to come on by the carrier, or some such antiquated person. Now” —putting her arm through Cynthia's and drawing her towards the door—“Cousin Henry wants to speak to you for a minute or two, just to make sure that you really are quite safe and not too much exhausted, and then I am going to fetch you for a chat with Cousin Hannah.”

“Oh, will she really see me? I am so glad!” Cynthia's tone was one of great relief.

“Yes, she is quite anxious!” Sybil said as with arms entwined they descended the stairs. “But, oh, Cynthia, she is sadly changed since I saw her last. She is so helpless but”—dropping her voice to a whisper as she saw the open door into the dining-room—“I must not speak in this strain before Cousin Henry. He feels it all so terribly, and it is all so important that he should keep up for her sake. Now I shall leave you to your scolding!” And with an elfin laugh she pushed Cynthia forward and rushed back.

Gillman was standing by the fire-place, apparently reading a letter and balancing himself backwards and forwards on his toes.

He looked up as Cynthia entered; she went forward timidly.

“I am sorry to have given you so much trouble, Mr Gillman. I quite thought—”

“Oh, my dear child!” The genuine concern in his tone made Cynthia forgive the familiarity of the words. “I have been so worried about you. I shall never forgive myself; but I did think if you bore to the left when the roads divided you could not make a mistake.”

His evident distress disarmed Cynthia's resentment. She smiled a little as she raised her eyes.

“You told me the right,” she remarked.

Gillman looked thunderstruck.

“Surely I could not have been so stupid? Oh, it is impossible. You must have misunderstood me.”

“I think not,” Cynthia said positively. “I am certain you told me the right.”

“Well, really”—with a gesture of despair Gillman ran his hands through his hair—“I believe the distress and worry I have had lately must be turning my brain. To think that I should have made such a mistake! How can I apologize to you?”

Cynthia nearly laughed at the tragic reproach in his tone.

“Oh, please say no more about it! It must have inconvenienced you far more than it did me. After all, I had a very pleasant walk and the air on the moor was delightful.”

“You are very good to make excuses for me, but how did you find your way? That path is rather complicated.”

“I called in to ask directions at a pretty, ivy-covered cottage, and a man who was working in the garden offered to guide me,” replied Cynthia disingenuously.

“Oh, I know where you mean!” Cynthia fancied for a moment that Gillman did not look pleased. “The people have only just come there to live. Well, I am very glad that matters are no worse, and that you found a guide of a sort. Now, I am just going up to see how my wife is, and then, if she feels equal to it, I am going to let you in for half an hour.”

He smiled down on her as he spoke, and then with a little nod left the room.

Cynthia nestled in her chair with a sigh of content; she slipped her feet out of her shoes and held them out to the warmth of the fire, they felt so sore and swollen. As she contemplated them ruefully she thought that life at Greylands had promised to become distinctly more attractive since Sybil's arrival. She was pleased too that she was going to see her Cousin Hannah; it seemed to her that when she was able to explain matters to her cousin and ask her advice the worst of her difficulties would have disappeared. The parrot's harsh voice broke across her meditations:

“Poor Hannah! Now stop that snivelling! Poor Hannah!”

Startled, Cynthia turned. With its head cocked rakishly on one side, the bird was surveying her with one beady, unwinking, black eye.

“Poor Hannah!” it repeated raucously. “Stop snivelling, will you?”

As the last word died away Gillman opened the door.

“Your cousin would like to see you, Cynthia,” he said.

With a heightened colour the girl shuffled into her shoes. “Poor Hannah!” the parrot interjected, almost, as it seemed to Cynthia, with sarcastic emphasis. She laughed as she stood up, in spite of her obvious embarrassment.

“Polly seems to think that Cousin Hannah is to be pitied for having this interview forced upon her,” she said lightly.

Gillman frowned.

“I shall kill that wretched bird before I have done with it, I know!” he said. “I hate parrots and this is a particularly disagreeable one.”

He held the door open and Cynthia limped through.

“What is the matter?” he asked, looking at her. “Have you hurt yourself?”

“Only in going out in shoes not fitted for walking across the moor.”

“My fault again!” Gillman said penitently. “I do not know what you can think of me.”

He certainly was distinctly good-looking, the girl thought as he led the way to the door which, from Spot's scratching, Cynthia had previously concluded to be her cousin's. He paused before he opened the door and bent his head nearer hers.

“I shall not leave you more than half an hour to-night, and you must try to avoid exciting her as she is very weak.”

“Certainly, I will be very careful,” Cynthia promised.

He turned the handle.

“Well, Hannah,” he said in a loud, resolutely cheerful voice, “here is Cynthia, very anxious to see you!”

The room was a large one, handsomely furnished; a large alcove at the farther end formed a sort of dressing-room, pretty shaded lamps stood on the mantelpiece, a bright fire burned in the fire-place; but Cynthia only had eyes for the quiet figure that lay propped up by pillows in the great, hearse-like looking bed that stood in the middle of the room. She went forward quickly.

“Dear Cousin Hannah, how glad I am to see you!” taking one of the stiffened, unresponsive hands in hers and chafing it as she bent over and pressed a warm kiss upon the woman's cheek. 

“Cynthia!” Lady Hannah said faintly, in a low, thick voice. “You should have written—you should not have come like this. Sit down, child, and tell me what brings you here?”

Feeling chilled and thrown back upon herself, Cynthia took the chair that stood by the bed.

Gillman leaned against the heavy carved oaken posts at the bottom.

“I think I shall leave you two to have your talk out now,” he said. “You must give Cynthia a better welcome than that, Hannah.”

“Don't be away long!” the invalid implored, the whispering, husky tones suddenly becoming agitated. “I don't like to be left with a stranger without you, Henry.”

“Cynthia is not a stranger, and I shall not be away long,” Gillman answered soothingly as he moved to the door.

His wife twisted her head round.

“Lock the door, Henry, and take the key away. Yes! Yes! You must!” her manner threatening to become hysterical as Gillman hesitated. “I have told you that I will not be left with the door unlocked!”

Gillman shrugged his shoulders and glanced deprecatingly at Cynthia.

“She always will have it so, and it is not for long,” he answered as he passed.

As she heard the key turned in the lock Lady Hannah gave a sigh of relief.

“That is better. I hate to think that the door is not fastened, that anybody—anything could get to me, and I could not do anything—could not move—that I should lie like a log ” her voice dying away in a sob of terror.

Cynthia glanced compassionately at the limbs lying so straight and motionless beneath the bed-clothes.

“No one will come to you. Mr Gillman—we all—would take care of that.”

“Um! I do not know about that.” The invalid moved her head restlessly. “Should you have known me, Cynthia? Am I like what you expected?”

Cynthia hesitated. This quiet figure, in which the head seemed to be the only thing alive, was so sadly unlike the Cousin Hannah whom she could dimly remember as a brisk, active woman who carried her about and nursed her as a child. She glanced at the small aquiline features a little drawn on one side, at the grey hair that was brushed back in bands beneath a quaintly-fashioned black lace headdress, at the large tinted spectacles that shaded the eyes, and paused.