Seven for a Secret (11 page)

And I did wake in the night, sweating from a nightmare. 1 was lying in Barrow Wood and he was coming towards me. He was there on the ground beside me. I was calling for Crispin. I felt arms about me . and they were Aunt Sophie’s.

“It’s all right. You’re here in your bed. Old Aunt Sophie is here.”

Then I found myself crying weakly. I could not think why. I was happy because I was safe and my dearest Aunt Sophie was here to look after me.

Silence born of shock lay over Harper’s Green. Then everyone was talking about the horrific events at the Bell House. We were a close community and that such a thing could have happened to one of its members sent a thrill of horror through the place. It was the sort of thing that happened to other people; one read about it in the newspaper, but to take place here in Harper’s Green was difficult to believe.

The news first came to The Rowans through Tom Wilson, the postman, when he delivered the midday mail. I was in bed, for I was to be confined there for the next few days, but Aunt Sophie happened to be in the garden when Tom came.

When she came up to me her face was very solemn and she stood for a few moments regarding me.

Then she said: “A terrible thing has happened.” My thoughts were still in the wood, reliving my nightmare.

“Is it Mr. Dorian?” I asked.

“Is he … dead?” She nodded slowly and I immediately thought: Crispin has killed him. It is murder. Murderers are hanged. He did that . for me.

I believe Aunt Sophie guessed what was in my mind. She said quickly:

“Poor Mrs. Dorian found him in the stables early this morning. He had killed himself.”

“In the stables …?” I stammered.

“He was hanging from one of the rafters that is, according to Tom Wilson. He said Mr. Dorian came back to the Bell House yesterday and his face was bleeding. He had had a fall in the wood, he said. He was very upset.

He went to his room and stayed there. She went up to him but he was at prayer and didn’t want to be disturbed. She said he went on praying for hours in his room. She didn’t see him that night and in the morning she realized he was not in the house. She happened to see that the stable door was unlocked. She went in . and found him. ” She came to the bed and put her arms round me. She said: ” I didn’t know whether to tell you . or what to do for the best. But you’d soon be hearing it in any case. You are so young, my darling, and you were concerned in this unpleasantness. It is all that I wanted to protect you from, but it is best that you should know because of your involvement. You see . this man . he wanted to be good. He wanted to be a saint, but he had certain instincts. He tried to suppress them and they came out in this way. Oh, I am making a mess of explaining.

”

1 said: “It’s all right. Aunt Sophie. I think I understand.”

“Well, he failed and he was caught, he was exposed. Thank God Crispin St. Aubyn came along at the right moment. But this sad man could not face the fact that he had been discovered … so he killed himself.”

She was silent for a moment. I was reliving it all. I believed it would always be there in my mind. I should never forget those moments of fear and horror.

“There is that poor woman, Mrs. Dorian … and Rachel. It will be terrible for them. And you were there … oh, it doesn’t bear thinking of! So young …”

“I don’t feel young any more. Aunt Sophie.”

“No. It is the sort of thing that makes you grow up. I don’t know what will come out of this, but I don’t want you to be involved in it. I am going to talk to Crispin St. Aubyn. I think I shall go along and see him.”

She did not have to do that because he came to The Rowans. Aunt Sophie was with me when Lily came up to tell her that he was downstairs.

She hastily went to him. She had left the door open and I distinctly heard his voice, which was clear and resonant.

He said: “I’ve come to ask about the child. How is she? No worse, I hope?”

The child! I thought indignantly. I was not a child . especially now.

He had a long talk with Aunt Sophie and finally she brought him up to see me.

He looked at me and said: “Feel better now?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Sprain, was it? You’ll be up and about in no time.”

Aunt Sophie said: “Mr. St. Aubyn and I have been talking about what happened, and we have come to the conclusion that it would be better for everyone if nothing was said about what that man tried to do to you. The theory is that he had a bad fall and he came home in a distressed state. He shut himself in his room. Mrs. Dorian was upset because he would not see her all the rest of that day. In the morning’ she must have realized that he had gone out. She noticed the stable door was unlocked and went in. She found him’ there. It’s clear ..”

;

Crispin broke in: “He couldn’t face up to people’s knowing what he was really like. It shattered his pose as the holy man. He just could not face that, so he took his life.”

“Yes,” said Aunt Sophie.

“There will have to be an inquest, and the verdict will be one of suicide which it was. But Mr. St. Aubyn and I have decided that the wisest thing, for the sake of everyone concerned, is to say nothing of what happened in the wood. You fell over a stone and hurt your ankle. Mr. Dorian had a fall too. Say nothing of meeting him. I hate subterfuge, but there are times when it is necessary.”

“Then,” said Crispin, with an air of finality, ‘that is settled. “

He seemed eager to be gone.

He turned to me.

“You’ll be all right now. No need to fear. He can’t cause any more trouble.”

He nodded to me in farewell and then Aunt Sophie took him down. I lay listening to the clip-clop of his horse’s hoofs as he rode away.

The inquest was brief; the verdict ‘suicide while the balance of his mind was disturbed’. I could see that what Aunt Sophie and Crispin St. Aubyn had decided on was the best way. It would have been unbearably distressing for Mrs. Dorian and Rachel to know the truth and, as Aunt Sophie had said, it was better for me. So it was over quickly.

I wondered what it was like in the Bell House now. I could not imagine it without the overpowering presence of Mr. Dorian. It would be a different place altogether.

Mrs. Dorian’s cousin came to help her and Aunt Sophie suggested that Rachel came to stay with us until, as she said, ‘things settled down’.

Aunt Sophie said: “We shall have to put a bed in your room, and you will have to share. That will get you ready for school when you will be in a dormitory with others.”

Rachel was delighted to come. She had changed. She was

9i

no longer afraid. We often talked far into the night until we fell asleep. We had both had frightening experiences with her uncle and we could not at first bear to talk of it. I remembered the warning I had had not to mention what had happened; but I could not get it out of my mind.

One night Rachel said to me: “Freddie … I think 1 must be very wicked.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I’m glad he’s dead.”

“Well, he did it himself.”

“I thought he was so sure about everything.”

“I suppose he wasn’t after all. He must have realized he wasn’t as good as he thought he was.”

“Do you think that was it?”

“Yes, I do. But it is not wicked to be glad. I am, too.”

There was a shared awareness that we had escaped a danger which had threatened us both.

In September Rachel, Tamarisk and I went off to school just as had been planned.

It was the best thing that could have happened to us. It was a bridge for Rachel and me between an entirely new way of life and a past of haunted fears and shadows.

We gave each other courage in our new surroundings. Tamarisk was always cool and arrogant: she resembled her brother, I told myself.

Rachel was like a different girl:

she had lost that haunted look. I understood her feelings absolutely.

We were the three friends; we shared a dormitory and we were in the same classes; and I, as well as Rachel, I was sure, began to grow away from that nightmare which could so easily have become a reality for us both. , During my first year at school my mother died. I went home

for a short while in the middle of term to attend thfl funeral’s Aunt Sophie said: “It was for the best. She could never have recovered and it was no life for her.”

I asked her if my father would come to the funeral. She shook her head.

“Oh no. He’s far away and the divorce was the end. When people like that part, they part for ever.”

“Have you told him?”

“Yes,” she said, and I saw that look of wistfulness come into her face which I had seen when I had come upon her writing to him.

1 shed some tears as the clods fell on the coffin. I thought how sad it was that she had been so unhappy, wasting her life in craving for what she could not have.

A few people came back to the house and we gave them wine and sandwiches. I was glad when we were alone.

“Well,” said Aunt Sophie, ‘now you are all mine. ” And I felt contented about that.

Then I went back to school and life continued as before.

When we came home for the holidays, I went to see the Lanes and sat in the garden with Flora while the doll in the pram was beside her. She was just the same as ever;

the cottage with its mulberry bush and the picture of the seven magpies had not altered one bit. I wondered if it ever occurred to Flora that the baby might grow up. But I supposed she had had that same doll for years and it would always be the baby Crispin to her.

There was change, though, at the Bell House. I visited Rachel there and at first I thought the difference was due to the fact that one did not have to watch for Mr. Dorian to come creeping up on one at any moment. But it was more than that. There were new curtains of a light and flowery pattern. There were flowers in the hall.

Mrs. Dorian had changed more than anything else.

She wore her hair piled high on her head with a Spanish comb in it, a brightly coloured dress, cut rather low, and a necklace of pearls about her neck. She was another who

was not grieving for the death of Mr. Dorian. For such a good man, he had made a lot of people unhappy.

1 was no longer afraid of the house, but I did avoid looking at the stables when I went in and out.

So Harper’s Green was back to normal. I was an orphan now or rather, half an orphan. My mother was dead but in the last years she had become a hazy figure and in losing her I had gained Aunt Sophie.

I went back to the school life, where what mattered was who was in the hockey team and what there was for dinner, and who was friendly with whom schoolgirl triumphs and disasters.

The St. Aubyn’s Ball

So we were growing up. Two years had passed. I should be sixteen in May of the coming year.

Aunt Sophie said: “I reckon in a year or so you’ll have grown out of school. I’m wondering what we’ll do with you then. You’ll have to get out and about a bit. When I was that age, there was a lot of talk about ” coming out”. There’ll be parties and that sort of thing for Tamarisk, I expect. As for Rachel, I don’t know. Perhaps her aunt has ideas for her. I’ll have a talk with her some time.”

I loved coming home for the holidays. Aunt Sophie was always at the station to meet me. There was no one to meet Tamarisk or Rachel, and Aunt Sophie had to be the universal guardian, as she had been since we started school. This was cheerfully accepted by Tamarisk and Rachel;

and I felt very proud and gratified because she was my aunt.

When Tamarisk and Rachel had been delivered to their respective homes, I would go to The Rowans and there would be tea or lunch whatever the time and I would talk about school life, to which Aunt Sophie listened avidly;

and Lily used to come in to hear it. It amazed me how funny events seemed to become when told in this way far more than they had been at the time.

Lily said: “I reckon you have a rare old time at that school.”

One day there was a fresh piece of news.

Aunt Sophie said: “By the way, there’s a rumour only a rumour, mind that there might be wedding bells up at St. Aubyn’s.”

“Oh? Tamarisk didn’t say anything about it.”

“Well, you’ve just come home, haven’t you? It’s onh blown up in the last month or so. It’s a Lady Fiona Char ring ton an earl’s daughter, no less. So very right to St. Aubyn’s. Even Mrs. St. Aubyn is bestirring herself. Well it’s about time Crispin was settled after that first disaster.

“Do you mean he is going to marry this Lady Fion;

Charrington? “

“Nothing official. She came down to stay at St. Aubyn’;

with her mama, and I believe he has visited the ancestra home. So it looks hopeful. Nothing definite, so far as know, though. Perhaps he’s a little wary after the first. “Because he was married before, you mean?”

That was supposed to be a disaster. Makes a man cautious, I expect. I shouldn’t think he was the easiest per sol in the world to live with either. She left him and befon she could enjoy the life she had chosen she was killed ii that railway accident. “

“Have you seen this Lady Fiona?”

“Oh yes, once. She was out riding with him. I wasn’ exactly introduced. Just ” Nice morning” and ” Good day’ en passant. She sits her horse well. She’s not a beauty, bu ancient lineage would make up for that. “

“Tamarisk will know all about it,” I said.

“The whole neighbourhood’s agog.”

“How interested they are in other people’s affairs.”

“Bless them. So little happens to them. They have to ge a bit of excitement through others.”

After that I kept thinking about Crispin and the way ii which he had carried me away from that horrific scene. had taken a special interest in him after that . welt before that, when he had made the unfortunate remarf which had wounded my childish ego so bitterly.

I shoulc have liked to ask Tamarisk about him, but I never did One had to be so careful with Tamarisk.

One of my first visits when I arrived home was to go t( see Flora Lane in the House of the Seven Magpies, as I romantically called the cottage to myself.