The Dower House Mystery (14 page)

“What was that thing that Amabel was wearing under her coat? A lot of women wear them now, and I suppose I ought to know what they are called.”

“It was a yellow jumper,” said Susan Berkeley. “She knitted it herself.”

“It was a very pleasing colour—rather like the old rose on the north wall, the one my mother was so fond of—I'm afraid I've forgotten the name.”

“It's a Gloire de Dijon.”

“Yes,” said Edward, “that's it. My mother used to call them Glories. It's a very pleasing colour. I remember, Susan, that you had a dress of that shade when we were engaged. When I was looking at Amabel this afternoon I remembered that it suited you very well. It is a colour that I am fond of. You don't ever wear it now.”

“My dear Edward, you forget that I haven't got Amabel's complexion.”

“No, no, of course not,” said Edward innocently, “and you are older, some years older. Amabel is a very charming person—don't you think so, my dear?”

“Oh, yes,” said Susan Berkeley.

“Yes, I thought a good deal about Amabel this afternoon. I felt sorry for her.” He put his hand inside his wife's arm and patted it. “We're so happy. It makes one sorry for all the other people.”

Half-way down the lane that led to the bungalow Mr. Miller said sharply to his sister, “One of those two women pushed you. Which was it?”

“Ferdinand, when?”

“At tea, when you dropped your cup. Mademoiselle was on one side of you, and Mrs. King on the other. One of them pushed you. Which was it?”

Anne Miller's voice sounded distressed,

“Oh, Ferdinand, it sounds so stupid, but I really don't know.”

“You don't know?”

“No, I really don't. I was thinking about the front of the herbaceous border—and then something seemed to push against me, and I dropped my cup. It was dreadfully careless.”

Mr. Miller heaved a sigh of resignation. “You'd be a lot more use to me if you weren't half asleep all the time,” he said.

Chapter XVII

“I didn't know you'd got a haunted house on your hands, my dear.” Agatha was very comfortable in a chair before the fire; her tone was lazy.

“Who told you I had?” said Amabel. “No, I needn't ask—I saw Mrs. King talking to you at the Bronsons'.”

“King—is that her name? I didn't catch it. Everyone seemed to be calling her Nita.”

“What did she say?” Amabel was sitting on the floor, her elbow on the fender-stool, her chin propped in her hand. She looked quite self-possessed and amused.

“Oh, not very much. She thought I knew, and she seemed to think you deserved a V.C. for staying here.” She paused, then asked, “Is there anything wrong with the house?”

“It has stood empty for a good many years.”

“But is there anything really wrong with it? If there is, I must say I think you ought to have told me.”

“You see, I know how strong-minded you are,” said Amabel, laughing.

“Well, I hate weak-kneed people,” said Agatha. “You know—the sort that are afraid of everything. But you haven't told me anything. Is there really a ghost?”

“I haven't seen one,” said Amabel cheerfully.

“My dear Amy, how horribly secretive you are. I shall ask Julian Forsham—I can see that I had better get accustomed to calling him Julian.”

Amabel flushed, and was angry with herself. Mrs. Moreland was still laughing at her, when the door opened and Julian came in. She turned to him at once.

“Mr. Forsham, we've been talking about this delightful old house of yours.”

“It's not mine, it's my brother's.”

“It's the same thing. I mean you'll know all about it. Do tell me, is it very old?”

“The original house was, but there isn't much of it left. There was a fire in my great-grandfather's time.”

“And which are the old bits?”

“This room—and the room I'm in—the two bedrooms opposite—the hall and kitchen—I think those are all part of the old house. I know the dining-room and drawing-room are new.”

“Is that why there are no cellars?” said Amabel. “Mr. Bronson was saying that it was odd that an old house like this shouldn't have proper cellars. They generally do, don't they? And of course the ground floor would be drier if there were cellars under it.”

“Oh, there are cellars all right,” said Julian. “They haven't been used for years—not safe, or something. I remember that George and I got into a fearful row for going into them and playing treasure-hunts. I think they only use the two under the kitchen now.”

“When you came in,” said Agatha, “I was asking Amy if the house was haunted.”

“And why did you ask that?”

She laughed her comfortable laugh.

“Well, I
might
say that it looked as if it were, or felt as if it were; but I'll be honest and admit that Mrs. King put the idea into my head.”

“My dear Mrs. Moreland, if you start believing what Mrs. King says, you'll have a busy time in front of you. She told me that it was so nice of people to issue forged notes, because it made more money for all the poor people who hadn't got enough.”

They all laughed.

“No, but about the house—is it haunted? You see, I am dreadfully pertinacious; but these things do interest me. Is it?”

“I don't know,” said Julian. He had dropped his light tone.

Agatha was sufficiently woman of the world to be aware that she had come up against a blank wall. She turned gracefully aside and changed the subject.

That night Amabel certainly bolted the door that led from her bedroom into the corridor; but she was never afterwards quite sure about the door between her room and Agatha's. She thought that she had bolted it, but the memory was a hazy one, and not to be depended on. She slept well, and when Jenny called her she went into Agatha's room to say good-morning. The door was certainly not bolted then. She looked at it with a little, puzzled frown as she turned the handle.

“I wish you weren't going, Agatha. It's been very nice having you.”

“Get someone else—you'd really better. The occasion demands a chaperone. Oh, Amy, I do love to see you blush! None of the girls can do it nowadays, and there's no doubt it's quite becoming. Anyhow, I'd stay; but I'm dining with the Amberleys to-morrow, and doing a theatre with Hilda Langton to-night. She's only up for a couple of days, or I'd put her off. I don't know when Cyril will be back.” Her brow clouded, and she looked away. “Of course, he's got simply heaps of friends, and there's no earthly reason why he should give them up just because he's married.”

Amabel said nothing. There seemed to be nothing to say. She took Agatha's cup, set it down, and prepared to go. She was half-way to the door, when Agatha said,

“That maid of yours is an odd bird, Amy.”

“Who? Ellen?” Amabel half turned, ready to smile at something quaint that Ellen had said or done.

Mrs. Moreland shook her head, its golden waves as miraculous as ever.

“No, not Ellen. That poor run-in-the-wash sort of creature who belongs to the house—I forget her name.”

“Jenny. What has she been doing?”

“Well, I thought it odd of her to come walking through here in the middle of the night.”

“Jenny! In the middle of the night!”

“I don't know what time it was—I didn't look. I always have a night-light, you know; I can't sleep in the dark. And when I woke up and saw your door open, of course I thought it was you, and that you wanted something.”

If Amabel put her hand on the connecting door, it was partly to steady herself.

“This door, Agatha?”

“Yes, that door. It opened, and, to my surprise, I saw that Jenny creature.”

“Agatha, you dreamt it.”

“Not a bit of it. She came in a little way and drew back again; then she shut the door and I went to sleep. What was she doing in your room? Had you called her?”

Amabel shook her head.

“No,” she said. “No. Perhaps—perhaps she was walking in her sleep. What was she dressed in?”

“I don't know—her black afternoon dress, I think, but no apron.”

Amabel made an effort, and forced a laugh.

“It's very odd of her. I'll ask her about it. Did you bolt your door last night?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And was it bolted this morning?”

“Yes, I had to get out of bed to let Jenny in when she came with the tea.”

“Then she didn't go out that way,” said Amabel.

“Little glimpses of the obvious!” said Mrs. Moreland, laughing.

Amabel went into her own room and shut the door. She found Ellen waiting for her—an Ellen very anxious to be of service, to get out her things, to brush her hair, and above all else to talk.

Amabel said “Yes, Ellen,” and “No, Ellen” at intervals; but all the while, in her own mind, she was wrestling with Agatha's story.

If Agatha had found her door bolted in the morning, Jenny could not have gone out that way. (“Little glimpses of the obvious, my dear Amy!”) But her own door had been bolted too. She, too, had had to get up and let Jenny in. She remembered as a strange thing that Jenny never
had
used the connecting door when she came with the tea, but always went round by the passage. If Jenny had really been in her room last night, how and when had she left it?

She said aloud, “Yes, my old, grey tweed skirt, please,” and heard Ellen conclude something that she had been saying with a fluttered. “And I knew as 'ow you would be pleased.”

“I'm so sorry. I was thinking about something else. What am I to be pleased about?”

“There's no
call
to be pleased.” There was subtle offence in Ellen's tone.

“Oh, Ellen, don't be silly. I'll be pleased as soon as I know what to be pleased about; but you'll have to tell me what it is.”

“It takes the 'eart out of anything,” said Ellen gloomily. “But, since you wish for to know, I'm not one to keep things back, nor yet to crawl and spy like some that I could name—and not a 'undred miles from 'ere neither—, which is a thing I can't abide and don't 'old with. Red 'air and crawlingness I 'ates with all 'atred.”

“Ellen, really!” said Amabel. “I don't seem to know what you're talking about. Do you mind explaining?”

“That there Jenny,” said Ellen. She stripped the bed with a vicious jerk and nearly upset a chair. “As Mrs. Moorshed says to me: ‘Mark my words,' she says, ‘that there Jenny is one of the crawlingest'—and, being my own cousin, I should '
ope
that she wouldn't deceive me.”

“Ellen
dear
! You know you're not explaining—not really. Is Mrs. Moorshed Jenny's cousin?”

Ellen tossed her head and sniffed.

“She wouldn't demean 'erself,” she said. “Come of real good people, she does, same as I do myself—and a cousin of my own as it turns out, which is what I was telling you, and what I thought as you'd be pleased to 'ear.”

“Oh, but I am. I'm very pleased. Did you know she was a cousin?”

“I know'd that a cousin of my father's was married to a Moorshed, and I won't deny as the name struck me when I went in about the lodging. So after supper last night I says to 'er, ‘What might your grandmother's Christian name 'ave been?' and when she looks funny, then I know'd where I were. ‘Was it Pistles?' I arst—and sure enough Pistles it were.”

“Pistles?” said Amabel faintly. “Ellen, what
do
you mean?”

“Matthew Mark Luke John Acts and Pistles,” said Ellen very rapidly. “Acts and Pistles was a twin of girls—the others was boys,” she added.

“Ellen
dear
!”

“Pistles was 'er grandmother right enough, and own niece to my great-grandfather, which I thought as 'ow you'd be pleased.”

“I think it's very nice for you,” said Amabel.

“That's as may be,” said Ellen with dignity. She folded Amabel's nightdress, and said,

“What's wrong with this 'ouse is just plain Browns, neither more nor less. And if Mrs. Moorshed
is
my cousin, she's got as much sense as others, I should 'ope.”

Amabel felt a certain sense of fatigue.

“Look here, Ellen, don't quarrel with Jenny, there's an angel. She's rather a poor thing, but there's no harm in her, I'm sure.”

“Least sure of, soonest mended,” said Ellen.

Chapter XVIII

Mrs. Moreland departed by an afternoon train. After seeing her off Amabel walked home through the damp lanes. The ruin of the hedgerows was now almost complete. Brambles still flaunted a tattered rag or two of finery, striking a note of gold or scarlet, and there were berries of all sorts and hues from green to crimson. Everything was sodden with wet, and the smell of rotting leaves hung in the air.

As she crossed the bridge she met Mr. Miller. Rather to her surprise, he stopped and entered into a desultory conversation. When it was evident that she did not wish to be kept, he turned and began to walk beside her in the direction of the Dower House.

“It is fortunate that I met you, because I really had a message to give to Lady Susan from my sister, and I had quite forgotten it,” he explained; and then, “Is your sister making a long stay?”

“I've just been seeing her off.”

Mr. Miller turned pale, vague eyes upon her. “Dear me, I'm sorry for that. It must be rather lonely for you at the Dower House.”

“I'm used to being alone,” said Amabel.

“Yes? But all the same, it is not very good for one to be alone. In the day-time it is all very well—one has one's occupations, one goes out, one sees one's friends—but in the long, dark evenings, when one is quite alone and the house is still, one is apt, I think, to fancy things; one sits by the fire and hears footsteps that are not there—especially in an old house like the Dower House.”