Victoria Holt (29 page)

“I’m not in the least concerned about Miranda’s welfare,” I said. “I agree that she is in good hands and I am sure Sir Jason is right. She is happiest with you and your sister loves her. I can see that.”

“I’m glad you think so, Miss Grant. I was afraid when I saw you that you had come with a message for me to take Miranda back. You’ll tell Sir Jason how happy she is here, won’t you?”

“If I see him, I certainly will. I really came to know if you had any idea why Mrs. Martindale left so suddenly.”

“You could never tell with her…and after Maisie had gone off in a huff with all her fine dresses, I reckon she couldn’t stand the country any more. She was always talking about London.”

I decided to be absolutely frank.

“There are rumors…hints. They aren’t true, of course, but people do wonder why she went so suddenly. Did she say anything about leaving Rooks’ Rest?”

“She was always talking about leaving. There was nothing more than usual.”

“Did she have any visitors?”

“Sir Jason came. Oh, I remember. There was a terrible scene. It was a few days before Maisie went off. Mrs. Martindale was shouting and he was telling her to be quiet. Maisie was listening at the door. I caught her at it. I said, ‘You oughtn’t by rights to be doing that.’ ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘How am I going to know what’s what, if I don’t.’ She was laughing. Then she said, ‘I reckon this cozy little nook won’t be ours much longer.’ I went away. It was soon after that I saw Sir Jason. He was riding by as if by chance and I was taking Miranda for her walk. He called to me and said, ‘Mrs. Gittings, would you be prepared to take Miranda to your sister and stay there indefinitely.’ I was so shook up I couldn’t take it in. And there he was seated on his horse looking down at me and making all those plans. I was to make my arrangements immediately; the money would be sent to me regularly every month and it would be paid in advance. If there was anything Miranda needed, I should tell him direct. Did I think my sister would be agreeable? I told him my sister would be jumping with joy. He looked very pleased and said, ‘I’m grateful to you, Mrs. Gittings. You’ve solved a big problem.’”

“What did Mrs. Martindale say when you told her?”

“She shrugged her shoulders and made no objections. So I set about packing and we went. You should have seen Ada’s face—because I hadn’t had time to tell her. She kept saying, ‘Well, I never’ over and over again. Then she hugged Miranda and said, ‘Wonders will never cease, will they, pet?’ And she was half crying with joy. Ada did feel it, being on her own since our father died.”

“I think Miranda is very fortunate to have you both. I know. I myself have a beloved aunt who gave me the love a child needs when she is growing up. But what I really wanted to know is what happened to Mrs. Martindale.”

“She must have gone away soon after we left.”

“Didn’t she say she was going? Didn’t she make arrangements?”

“She never told me she was going. She didn’t say anything about plans.”

I began to feel sick with fear. My meeting with Mrs. Gittings had only increased my suspicions.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here, Miss Grant,” she went on. “It was no bed of roses with Mrs. Martindale. She was a very wild sort of lady at some times. We were all rather nervous of her, even Maisie who could stand up to her. The times she told Maisie to get out! But Maisie seemed to have some hold over her. I’m surprised she went because however much they quarreled they always made it up. I suppose that last time was just too much. Maisie always used to say they were on to a good thing. Sir Jason and all that…”

“It seems so strange that she should go so suddenly.”

“It is and then it isn’t. You could never be sure with Mrs. Martindale.”

We went on talking but I could discover nothing more. Dick Cramm came to collect me and Ada came in from the greenhouses and said how pleased she was to have met me.

On the way back I thought of all that had been said and I was very uneasy.

***

I knew it would be impossible to go on avoiding Jason. He was determined to catch me and it was inevitable that he should eventually do so.

This happened four days after my visit to Bristonleigh.

I had two hours’ break and I took out one of the horses. He caught up with me near the woods not far from Rooks’ Rest. In fact I think he must have been coming from there.

“You’ve been avoiding me, Cordelia,” he said reproachfully.

His effrontery was amazing and I couldn’t help laughing.

“Did you imagine I would do anything else?” I asked.

“No…after my appalling conduct the last time we were alone together. I’ve been trying to catch you to ask your forgiveness.”

“You surprise me.”

“Well then, am I forgiven?”

“I don’t want to see you again. Don’t you realize that you have insulted me?”

“Insulted you? On the contrary I have paid you the highest compliment a man can pay to a woman.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” I said and spurred on my horse.

But of course he was beside me.

“Please let me explain. I have come to ask you to marry me.”

I laughed again.

“Without my credentials,” I said. “You are very rash.”

“By no means. I have given the matter great thought. I want you…and only you will do.”

“That’s rather unfortunate for you. Goodbye.”

“I never take no for an answer.”

“You must remember it takes two to make a marriage. Perhaps your ancestors of whom you seem so proud used to drag their brides to the altar and force them at knife point to utter their vows…but that wouldn’t work today.”

“We never did such things. Where did you get such an idea? We have always been the most eligible
partis
in the neighborhood and females have schemed to inveigle us into matrimony.”

“This is all nonsense. I don’t like you. I don’t trust you. You behaved to me in a barbarous manner and the only way in which you can earn my forgiveness is to get out of my sight and never let me see you again.”

“Alas, it appears I must do without your forgiveness.”

“I want nothing to do with you. I do not care to be thought of as having any connection with you. I shall be grateful if you will leave me alone.”

“That is not easy for two reasons. One the school Pageant and the worthy Miss Hetherington. The other and even more insurmountable is that I am besotted about you.”

“Then find someone else quickly on whom to lavish your devotion. Where is Mrs. Martindale?”

“In London, I think.”

“Are you completely insensitive? Do you know what is being said about her…and you?”

“I’ll guess. I murdered her. Is that it?”

“That is the implication. Did you?”

He laughed at me. “Good God! What a question. So you think I am a murderer, do you?”

“I saw a very ugly side of your nature not very long ago.”

“Dear Cordelia, I love you. I was trying to make you happy.”

“You are amused. I do not see what happened as a joke.”

“You would have been so happy. We would have sent that prim schoolmistress packing. We would have made plans. It would have been wonderful. I should have shown you a new Cordelia.”

“You have a great opinion of yourself. I do not share it. Nor I believe do others.”

“I wish you would give yourself a chance to know me.”

“I don’t think from what I already know that it would be a pleasant experience.”

“Listen to me. I don’t know where she is. She’s gone. That’s all that concerns me. You are too hard on me. You think the worst of me always. You have right from the start when I ordered your carriage to go back.”

“That was a typical gesture. It is how you treat people all the time.”

“Cordelia, let me try to make you understand. I know I give the impression of being arrogant and selfish. I am. But I could be different with you. You could change me. We could be good together…because I’d change you too. I’d open your eyes, Cordelia. I feel alive just talking to you. I love the way you lash me with your tongue. They certainly taught you verbal sparring at Schaffenbrucken. I am what I am because of my environment. It was the way I was brought up. I want children to be heirs to my estate. That’s natural, isn’t it? I don’t want to go on as I have been doing. I want someone to help me become what I want to be. I know that is you. I have told you something of my childhood. It was not a happy one. My brother and I were strictly brought up. You know he continued to live here under this roof when he married—and the girls are now my wards. My wife was a good woman, but I was never interested in her…even before the accident. Then she was immersed in her ailments. But it was not that so much as the fact that we had absolutely nothing in common…nothing to talk about. Can you imagine the dreariness of that. She was stoical and I was sometimes impatient. I had a grudge against fate which had saddled me with her. She could not live with me as a wife. I didn’t care about that. Naturally there were others…many of them. There was no particular one…perhaps that was why there were so many. Have you understood so far?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And you are still sitting in judgment?”

“I am not. I just do not want to be involved with you.”

“She died…of an overdose of laudanum. She often said she would take her life if the pain became unendurable. She was a religious woman and the pain must have been well-nigh unbearable. She wouldn’t have done it otherwise. We were good friends. She knew that I sought consolation elsewhere…and she died.”

“And you brought Marcia Martindale to Rooks’ Rest. Why?”

He was silent for a few seconds. I asked myself why I stayed talking to him. I should have turned my horse and galloped away. Yet the urge to remain was irresistible.

He said: “Marcia amused me. She could be so outrageous. She was always playing a part…on and off stage. She became pregnant and in an impulsive moment I offered her Rooks’ Rest so that she could get right away and have the child in peace. Then, she discovered the real state of affairs down here…invalid wife, estate with only two girls to inherit…the end of the name of Verringer. It was like a play to her. She therefore decided that the child was mine, that she was showing me she was not infertile, and that if I were free I should marry her. It used to amuse me. Perhaps I wasn’t serious enough. She made her fantasies, played them out, and if she liked them well enough, believed them.”

“And then your wife died.”

“Yes. That was when it became difficult.”

“I can see that.”

“She really believed then that I would marry her. I went away hoping that she would grow tired of the country and return to London.”

“But she joined you instead.”

“She did not join me. She might have, if she had known where I was, but I was determined that she should not know.”

“But she did go away, and it was said…”

“It was said! You have built up something against me on what was said!”

“Do you really think, after what I know of you, that I have to listen to other people’s opinions? Haven’t I had experience of my own?”

“You must realize that I acted as I did out of my desperate need of you. I know that had I succeeded I should have opened up a new way of life for you…for us. Oh, Cordelia, stop being the sanctimonious schoolmarm. You’re not that. It’s a facade you hide behind.”

I turned away, but he laid his hand on my bridle.

“You must listen to me. You must try to understand. I love you. I want you. I am asking you to marry me.”

“The ultimate honor,” I said with sarcasm.

“For me, yes,” he said earnestly. “I love you, Cordelia. Whatever you had done I would go on loving you. If you murdered Miss Hetherington and threw her to the fishes in the pond, I’d still love you. That’s what real love is.”

“Very touching,” I said, and I felt a ridiculous pity for him. I could not understand why. He looked so strong, ruthless, arrogant, everything that I disliked most, and yet when he talked of his love for me, I could almost believe he was speaking the truth. He was like a boy groping in the darkness for someone to love and understand him as he had never been loved and understood before.

I said on impulse: “Tell me what you know about Marcia Martindale’s whereabouts.”

“I know nothing. I suspect she is in London with Jack Martindale.”

“Jack Martindale! Wasn’t he her husband?”

“A sort of husband.”

“He died crossing the Atlantic.”

He laughed. “Oh, you’ve heard that version. There is one in which he died in a duel, fighting for the honor of Marcia, of course. And another in a theatrical fire after he had saved the lives of many including Marcia. I believe he went back for her pet dog. That was the affecting one.”

“You mean it is all lies? You mean that this husband of hers is still alive?”

“I can’t say that. I only said that she may have gone back to him.”

“Did she
say
she was going back? Wasn’t it rather sudden?”

“Not by her standards. Listen to me, Cordelia. I was unwise to let her come here. But she was in difficulties…out of work because she was to have a baby. She had nowhere to go. Rooks’ Rest was empty so I brought her here. I was in a low state. Sylvia, my wife, was suffering great pain. I scarcely saw her. I didn’t think Fiona would be much use on the estate, and here was I getting older…and to tell the truth disgruntled with what life had done to me. I lived what you call wildly in London, and I thought it would be amusing…so on impulse I brought her here. It was folly because she immediately began including me in her fantasies. And then when Sylvia took that overdose, I was pulled up sharp…and on the very day of her funeral I saw you. I knew at once that here was someone different from all the others…someone who excited me, not only physically but in every way, and I began to plan. It seemed to me that here was a new start. Everything else was behind me. And then there was that damned woman at Rooks’ Rest.”

“Yes,” I said. “Go on.”

“Do you understand? Do you accept my feelings for you?”

“No. Only that there have been many women in your life and that you think it would be rather amusing to add me to their number.”