Flowers Stained With Moonlight (25 page)

Oh, Dora – you will never guess what has happened!

I have news, Dora, marvellous, astonishing, long-awaited and yet utterly unexpected news!

It came, yesterday afternoon, just upon the heels of something very serious; a telegram from Pat, which I was holding in my hand.

Blank with dismay, I had barely time to digest this information and congratulate myself that my rushed visit to Maidstone Hall was already planned for that very evening,
when I heard a vigorous knock at my door. Upon opening it, I was utterly taken aback to see Arthur of all people – flushed with excitement and shining with delight!

‘Arthur, what is happening?’ I asked in some alarm. For all response, he took me suddenly and tightly in his arms, and kissed me resoundingly. Mrs Fitzwilliam’s door across the hall opened slightly and she peered out.

‘Mrs Fitzwilliam, I have some wonderful, wonderful news,’ said Arthur, turning towards her with a totally irrepressible grin painted upon his features, and brandishing a letter which I had not yet had time even to glimpse. ‘We are going to be married! As soon as possible, I mean. Look, Vanessa! They’ve made me a lecturer! I can marry now, and what’s more, we’ll have enough to live on!’

‘Now, that’s very nice for you,’ said Mrs Fitzwilliam, looking slightly mollified. ‘I’ve no married couples in my rooms, of course.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry about your rooms,’ he rejoined hastily. ‘We shall be giving you notice, of course. Vanessa and I are going to have a house of our own, aren’t we? Only something modest to start with; outside of Cambridge. In Newnham, perhaps. The right house for you,’ he added, considering me tenderly. ‘With jasmine and honeysuckle and things all over the front door.’

I remained stunned for a moment, unable to respond – it was all so unexpected and so sudden! And yet, I have been so impatient, and waited so long for this.

‘Oh, Arthur, when?’ I finally managed to say.

‘It depends on what kind of a marriage you want, and if
you want to find a house beforehand,’ he answered, looking at me hungrily, as though he would be more than willing to marry me tomorrow and hang the rest.

‘Oh, I do want it to be soon, and yet – I need time to get used to it!’ I exclaimed. ‘Let us begin to search for a house, and choose a date and make a little plan, nothing grandiose! But Dora and my family must come, and all our friends from here.’ I glanced at Mrs Fitzwilliam, who nodded sagely. Arthur unwound his arms from around my waist reluctantly.

‘Come outside,’ he said, ‘come for a walk with me. Let us go and enquire about how two independent and consenting adults go about getting married. There must be some formalities, and we shall stop at the church also. And then this evening, I shall write a letter to your father. Shall I do that, Vanessa?’

I smiled up at him.

‘You shall. But don’t forget that I am returning to Maidstone Hall this evening. Charles is coming to drive me down at five.’

His face changed.

‘Blast the place,’ he said. ‘I’d forgotten all about it. Oh, Vanessa, I do wish you weren’t mixed up in this whole awful story. I wish it were over. I feel like a fresh start.’

‘I shan’t stay there long, I promise. Arthur, I have no reason to remain there. I am at my wits’ end about this mystery, and my only hope is to speak to Sylvia so severely that she grasps that she must tell me the truth. If she chooses to say nothing, then there is nothing more that I can do to prevent her being
arrested. Look at this telegram from Pat! Even if, as I suppose, she has managed not to realise that her friend from Paris appears to be the murderer of her husband, she must be made to realise it now. And if she will not, then my work is over.’

Arthur was not really listening.

‘How long will you go for?’ he asked anxiously.

‘I don’t know exactly,’ I said. ‘I just wired Mrs Bryce-Fortescue this morning, and she has not answered yet. I thought she would have by now. Still, I don’t think it would be of any use to me to stay longer than one or two days. If I don’t find out what I need to know by then, I am afraid that more time will not help.’

Arthur looked glum. He cheered up a little during our walk, but his long face returned as we reached home and I looked at my watch.

‘You have no idea how much I wish you were well out of this,’ he said. ‘Or at the very least, that I could go down with you. But I cannot simply arrive without warning.’

‘I only hope that Mrs Bryce-Fortescue has received my wire, and is expecting me!’ I said. ‘Well, at worst, if I find the house all boarded up and everybody gone, Charles shall drive me straight back here and you will be happy.’

Charles appeared at that very moment, looking very smart in newly tailored clothing. I smiled up at him, looking him over with surprised appreciation.

‘Ah, it’s nice to get back to one’s clothes after spending two weeks living out of a suitcase, however well garnished,’ he said, responding to my glance. A little colour rose in his cheeks and he added,

‘Hum, ha. Ahem.’

He was about to speak but in my impatience I could not resist bursting out with our own news first.

‘Charles, Charles, just think! Arthur has been made a lecturer, and we will finally be able to be married,’ I told him, jumping onto the carriage step. ‘Oh, it’s been so long – it will be so wonderful! I can hardly believe it yet.’

‘Re-e-e-ally,’ he said, his eyes widening with surprise. ‘So they gave you a real job,’ he added, turning to Arthur with merriment. ‘It was that last paper of yours that did the trick, no doubt – the normal forms one. Well, what we just did in Paris will make that one look like child’s play, old fellow, won’t it? Perhaps even I won’t go on being a Research Fellow forever.’ He stepped onto the pavement and clumped Arthur unceremoniously on the shoulder.

‘So you’ll be able to get married now, congratulations, congratulations to the happy couple! We’ll have to organise a grand fiesta for you, shan’t we? And when is the happy event to take place?’

‘We don’t know yet – but soon,’ I said, kissing Arthur and quickly climbing up onto the box to sit next to Charles. We drove along the streets of Cambridge – I felt a little pang at leaving my lovely town already, when I have just barely come back to it, but I know that is very silly – and took the country road at a smart trot. Charles appeared to have something on his mind; once I was able to detach my mind from selfish contemplation of my own fascinating affairs, this was slowly borne in upon me.

‘Ahem,’ he said after quite a long silence, during which I
absorbed the rays of the slowly sinking sun with the intense concentration of a cat.

‘Yes? Do tell me,’ I said encouragingly.

‘You know … what you told me and all?’ he said, blushing.

‘Of course! Well? What about it?’ I said, a bit sharply now, for I was pricked by a little needle of worry.

‘Well, it’s done,’ he said in a rush.

‘Done, what is done, what do you mean done? What
are
you trying to tell me, Charles? Express yourself, do!’

‘All right. I’ve asked Annabel to marry me. After I talked with you – after you talked with me, I should say – I saw things differently. How stupid it all is, isn’t it? The way life runs, with all these considerations about whether or no and worry about the future and what other people think. When happiness is right there and you just have to stretch out your hand and grasp it. It’s interesting,’ he added after a slight pause. ‘You’re a useful friend to have; I’ve learnt a few things from you. It’s a funny thing how I’ve a tendency to avoid thinking by myself sometimes. It’s so remarkably easy to let people think for you, and they’re so awfully eager to do it most of the time!’

‘They are!’ I concurred, feeling myself turn slightly pink, partly as a reaction to his compliment, partly out of an embarrassing suspicion that the last words might also be directed at me. ‘But it usually just annoys me and makes me feel stubborn,’ I added, deciding to pretend that we were in agreement about referring to third parties.

‘It must be tiring, sometimes, to be you,’ he answered, laughing. ‘Yet it warms the heart to watch you, the way
you move through life, just doing what you want when you want it, turning the world on its head in a small way. You’ve got to know what you want, in order to be that way. But I don’t always really know just what it is I want.’

‘Don’t you? Aren’t you just avoiding it, often, so as not to make a stir?’ I said accusingly.

‘Perhaps; but then, you could say that not wanting to make a stir is an honest form of wanting, too. Yet everything does seem much clearer to me now. It seems positively amazing to me, that I could spend all those evenings strolling all over Paris in the twilight with Annabel in perfect happiness, and not have it cross my mind one single time that what I really wanted was to go on doing the same thing forever. I think the idea of how my sister would react simply drowned out the rest.’

‘Well, that was one of your fears, certainly,’ I smiled, ‘although the fear of engaging oneself to settle down may well have been even stronger. But if that second problem has now solved itself for you, the first still remains, I take it. Have you decided what to do?’

‘Better; I’ve done it already,’ he said proudly. ‘I shouldn’t have told you about it if I hadn’t. I told Constance fair and square, and soon realised that in worrying about her reaction, I hadn’t given sufficient credit to the stiffness of her upper lip. I won’t pretend she rejoiced; it obviously came as a shock to her. But if she resented the fact that her governesses appear to make a rule of pairing off with the men of the house (little Edmund will be next to go, at this rate), she didn’t show it. Nor did I hear even a single
word about the advantageous marriage she had often expressed the hope that I would make to restore the family fortunes, which, if not disastrous, are a little depressed at the moment. Poor Constance. She’s had to put up with a lot of things she didn’t like over the last several years. This is just another of the series, I guess.’

‘I don’t think it’s as bad or as sad as you make it out to be,’ I said. ‘There were difficult moments; I remember how reluctant she was at first to adopt the little boy her husband left behind when he died, and she was reluctant to let Edmund leave boarding school – and for that matter also to allow Emily to attend Girton. But I think that in the end she has drawn pride and joy from each of these events. And the same will probably be true, eventually, of your marriage to Annabel. I hope so! But do tell me what Annabel said when you spoke to her.’

‘Oh, bother Annabel,’ he said, laughing heartily. ‘She said all kinds of nonsense. First, that she couldn’t possibly dream of marrying me, ruining my chances in society and all sorts of rubbish, true rubbish perhaps, but rubbish nevertheless. Then she said that she had loved me for years and if she hadn’t married me, she would never have married anyone else. But then she said that I was a happy creature and she was a weeping willow, and started all over again on how bad it would be for me to marry her, and that she couldn’t possibly. I had to threaten to storm out and get a marriage licence then and there to make her stop. She did insist on a longish engagement, though. I’m in a tearing hurry to marry, now that I’ve decided on it, but she says we have
to see how the knowledge of it will work on our feelings. On mine, that is. Hers are unchanging forever, she swore, and gave me a little ring which I keep on my bedside table, as it’s much too small for any of my fingers.’ He laughed again with a sound of bells, and I settled comfortably into my seat, in beatific contentment. We spent the next hour discoursing upon churches and gowns and services, guests and bridesmaids.

We had reached the point of discussing the names of the babies we were soon to have, when the shadows began to lengthen, and the distance to Maidstone Hall to shorten considerably.

‘We’re arriving,’ said Charles, as we approached the house. ‘I do hope she got your wire and is expecting you.’

‘Someone is home, at any rate,’ I said, seeing that the candles were lit in the front room, even though it was not yet dark out. Our carriage drew up smartly in front of the door, and the horses champed and shifted their hooves on the wide path, as Charles descended and came around to help me alight.

Before we had time to reach the front door, it flew open of itself, and Mrs Bryce-Fortescue stood framed within it, lit from behind. She looked extremely young and flushed, and raising her two hands to her cheeks, she cried out,

‘Oh my goodness, my goodness, how stupid I have been! My dear Miss Duncan, I am so very sorry – I received your wire and meant to wire you back this afternoon, but I absolutely and completely forgot! Oh, I am so stupid!’ She added in some confusion, ‘As a matter of fact, I – I meant
to tell you that you should put off your visit. The girls are not here at the moment; they have gone off to Severingham, Camilla’s place, you know. Of course, now that you are here, you must certainly spend the night.’

She was fluttering and incoherent, which quite surprised me.

‘Do come in, do come in,’ she continued, taking me by the hand. ‘Tell Peter to put away the horses, Mr Morrison. You’ll find him over by the stables. I – I have a surprise for you – you will be most surprised, both of you. A friend of yours is here!’

Charles and I glanced at each other. Who
could
she mean? He darted quickly over towards the stables, obviously eager to come into the cosy house and discover the secret which was revealed to me one instant later, as I entered the parlour.

There, holding a glass of tawny port and deeply and contentedly embedded in a large and becushioned armchair, sat Mr Korneck.

He stood up as I came in, and came towards me with his warm, friendly smile, stretching out his hand. We spoke simultaneously.

‘So you are here, and Charles too!’ he exclaimed. ‘This is a great surprise – I had not thought to meet any acquaintance here, indeed.’