The Landower Legacy (60 page)

This they did and in a short time I was driving along the country lanes, my thoughts still busy as they had been for some time with the future. I could not make up my mind what it held for me. I would wake
in the morning saying I must do one thing and by midday I had decided against it.

I must leave Cornwall, I would say. And then, No, no. I could never leave.

And so it went on.

I chatted awhile in the shops. Everyone knew about the return of Gwennie and the fact that the mine had been explored. They still talked of it.

“A storm in a teacup, that were, Miss Tressidor.”

I agreed it was.

“She’s not like the likes of we,” said the postmistress. “She’m a foreigner, right from up north. They has some funny ways up there.”

I supposed I was also a foreigner; but at least I had the name of Tressidor.

I went back to the stables and as I was about to get out something caught my eye. It glittered and was protruding from under the seat. I stooped and picked it up. It was a comb—a comb I had seen before—a small Spanish type with a row of brilliants decorating the top.

Gwennie’s comb!

In the Tressidor trap! How had it got there?

There was one thought which persisted in my mind. If Gwennie’s comb was in the trap, Gwennie must have been there, too.

I was bewildered. I could not think how it came to be there. I put it in my pocket and went to find the head groom.

I said: “Who used the trap last?”

He scratched his head. “Afore you, Miss Tressidor?” he asked.

“Yes, before me.”

“Well, I don’t know as anyone … unless it was Jamie McGill.”

“Yes, he did. I saw him on the moor.”

“So he would have been the last, I’d reckon.”

“Did Mrs. Landower ever travel in it?”

“Mrs. Landower? Her have been away … and have been this past week or so.”

“Yes, I know. But I wondered if someone gave her a lift.”

“Not as I know of.”

“All right,” I said. I put my hand in my pocket. The prongs of the comb stuck in my fingers. I felt sick.

I went to my bedroom and took out the comb. I could see her taking it from her hair and looking at it.

“I wear it often … but not always,” she had said.

How had it come to be in the trap?

I decided to call on Jamie.

I saw him in the garden as I approached. He was among the hives and the bees were buzzing round him.

I called out to him.

“Good day, Miss Tressidor.”

“Are you busy?”

“No. Go into the house. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

I went in and sat down and within a few minutes he came in.

“Jamie,” I said, “when did you last use the trap?”

He looked puzzled and I went on: “I know you had it the day we met on the moors. But when did you before that, and did you give Mrs. Landower a lift?”

“Mrs. Landower? I heard she’d gone away.”

“I wondered because I found this in the trap.”

“What is it?”

“It’s her comb. It’s strange that it should be there. I wondered if you gave her a lift somewhere … before she went away.”

“A lift?” he repeated.

He looked strange. He was staring straight ahead of him.

I said: “Are you all right, Jamie?”

He just went on staring ahead and repeated: “A lift?”

“Jamie, sit down. What is the matter? Do you know how Mrs. Landower’s comb could come to be in the trap?”

“You know, don’t you, Miss Tressidor?” he said.

“Know what?”

He had a glazed look on his face which gave him an odd expression which I had never seen before. He was like a different person.

“Jamie,” I said, “you look strange … not yourself … what is it?”

He leaned across the table and repeated: “You know.”

“I know what?”

“You know this isn’t Jamie.”

“What do you mean?”

But understanding dawned on me and I felt my heart miss a beat and then begin to hammer in my chest.

I said: “You’re … Donald.”

A sly look came into his face. I had never seen Jamie look like that.

“Yes,” he said, “I’m Donald.”

I stood up in alarm. All my senses were warning me to get away … quickly. I felt: This man is mad. Jamie was right. He is a danger.

“Where is … Jamie?” I stammered.

“Jamie has gone.”

“But where … where? I came to see Jamie.”

I moved backwards. From the corner of my eye I measured the distance to the door.

“I’ll come back … when Jamie’s here. I came to see him. Will you tell him I called?”

He just repeated: “You know, don’t you?”

“I knew that Donald came.”

“You know she’s dead. You know where she is. She’s down the mine shaft. That’s where she is. I killed her. I hit her on the head.” He started to laugh and took a step towards the fireplace. Hanging beside it were a brass poker and bellows. He took the poker and looked at it. “I killed her with this,” he said. “I hit her on the head and then I took the trap and drove with her to the mine. There was no one about so I pushed her down.”

“You can’t mean this. You’ve only just arrived.”

“I’ve been coming here … off and on … for some time now.”

He laid down the poker. “I did it with Effie and I did it with her. Effie drove me mad. She went on and on. She ought not to have married me. She would have been better off if she’d married Jack Sparrow. He got on, he did. It would have been a different life with him. I let her go on and on and then I couldn’t stand any more …

“And Mrs. Landower … She was too nosey … She pried. She went to Edinburgh and found out things … She was going to talk. Soon it would have been all over the place. It wasn’t fair for Jamie. Jamie liked it here … He’d worked hard to get it as he wanted. He wanted it to stay as it was … and she was going to stop it.”

“Did Jamie tell you all this?”

“Jamie tells me everything. I know Jamie … and Jamie knows me. We’re different, but we are one …”

“I know you are twin brothers, but you haven’t seen each other for years. I must go now. I’ll come back later and see Jamie.”

“You know now … don’t you?”

“I know what you have told me.”

“I’ve told you about her … and you’ve come here with that comb. It was found in the trap. I was careless, wasn’t I … not to
have seen it. It gave it away. No one would ever have known. They would have thought she was playing a game. She’d tried it once before.”

“I must go …”

He was before me and he had his back to the door.

“But you know,” he said. “She had to go because she knew … and now you know.”

“I don’t believe a word of this. I don’t see how you can be aware of all this. You don’t live here.”

He took a step towards me and I noticed afresh the strange glitter in his eyes.

“I’ve got to save all this … for Jamie,” he said. “Jamie is happy here. You’re going to make trouble for Jamie.”

“I would never make trouble for Jamie.”

“You came here with that comb. You came to accuse Jamie of killing her. Jamie wouldn’t hurt a moth. Jamie loves all living creatures. Jamie wouldn’t have touched her, no matter what she’d done. It had to be Donald. And now … there’s you.”

He was quite close to me. I was in the presence of a madman. I could already feel his hands about my throat.

I tried to speak firmly: “I’m going now.”

“You’ll have to go down the shaft with her … with that nosey woman who spoiled everything with her prying ways. You shouldn’t have come here accusing Jamie …”

I could see his hands. They looked thick and strong. I tried to cry out but my voice was hardly above a whisper and it would be little short of a miracle if anyone was near enough to hear me.

I felt his hands on my throat.

I thought: This can’t be happening. Why … ? What does it all mean?

His face puckered suddenly. “Miss Tressidor was good to Jamie,” he said. “Miss Mary and Miss Caroline … Nobody was as good to Jamie as Miss Caroline and Miss Mary.”

And then in a blinding flash of clarity, I knew. I saw him clearly as he had been in the gardens with the bees buzzing round him and I cried: “Jamie. You’re Jamie.”

He dropped his hands and stared at me.

“I know you’re Jamie,” I said.

“No … no. I’m Donald.”

“No, Jamie, the bees have told me.”

He looked startled.

“They’ve told you.”

“Yes, Jamie, the bees have told me. You’re Jamie, aren’t you? There is no Donald. There never was a Donald. There is only one of you.”

His face crumpled suddenly. He looked gentle and helpless.

“Jamie, Jamie,” I cried. “I want to help you. I know I can.”

He looked at me in a dazed fashion. “So it was the bees … they told you.”

He sat down at the table and put his hands over his face. He spoke quietly. “It’s all clear now. There is only one of us. Donald James McGill. But sometimes it seems to me that there are two of us. Jamie that was the real self … and Donald … he was the other. He did wicked things … and Jamie hated it. There were two of us in a way … but in the same body.”

“I think I understand. One part of you killed those little animals whom the other part loved. The impulse came over you suddenly to kill … and you felt that was not really you, for you were Jamie, quiet, gentle Jamie, wanting to live in peace with the world.”

“I loved Effie,” he said slowly, “but she went on and on making me feel that I ought never to have married her, reminding me that I couldn’t give her the things that she wanted. And then … one night when she was going on and on … it was too much. I picked up the poker and hit her. We were standing at the top of the stairs and she fell. I told myself she tripped … but I knew I’d done it. Then it seemed it was Donald and they brought in Not Proven … and there was a chance to get away.”

“I understand, Jamie. I understand now.”

“And Mrs. Landower … I always hated her. She wanted to spoil everything … not only for me but for everyone else. She was always asking questions and going on and on. She’s a natural spoiler. And then she went to Edinburgh and she’d gone on asking questions there and she’d seen it in the papers. Then she came to see me and she said she thought I ought to tell the whole story. She said it wasn’t right to have secrets … So … I took the poker and I hit her … just like I’d hit Effie. And then I took her out in the trap and put her down the mine shaft.”

“Oh, Jamie,” I said. I was shivering.

“It’s the end, I know,” he said. “And you know now … so the only thing I can do if I want to live in peace is to send you with her.”

“But you couldn’t do that, Jamie,” I said. “Jamie is back now.

Jamie would never do it. Donald has gone … and now that you’ve told me, Donald will go forever.”

He covered his face with his hands. “What will become of me?” he asked.

“I think you’ll go away from here. You’re sick, I think. It isn’t the same … if you’re sick you’re not to blame.”

“And Lion and Tiger and the bees … what would become of them?”

“There’d be someone to take care of them.”

“I couldn’t hurt you, Miss Tressidor. No matter what …”

“I know. As soon as I knew that, I knew who you really were. And you were out there with the bees when I came. Only Jamie could have stood among them. They wouldn’t have allowed anyone else to go unprotected into their midst.”

“What can I do, Miss Tressidor?”

Again he covered his face with his hands. Lionheart came up to him and leaped onto the table. He began to lick his face, and Tiger came and rubbed himself against his legs.

“Oh, Jamie,” I said. “My poor, poor Jamie.”

I went to the door. There was no one there. I stood there for ten minutes before I heard someone in the road.

It was one of the grooms from Landower.

I called: “Will you ask Mr. Landower to come to the lodge immediately. Tell him he is wanted … desperately.”

When Paul came I clung to him. I was a little incoherent as I tried to tell him what had happened.

He put his arms round me and said: “Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid any more.”

Then we went into the lodge together.

DIAMOND

JUBILEE

I sat in the big bow window of one of the most successful fashion houses in London to watch the procession pass
by, and my thoughts must inevitably go back to that other occasion, ten years before, when I had sat at a window near Waterloo Place and watched another Jubilee.

It was so similar, but it was a woman who had taken the place of the innocent girl. It seemed incredible that so much could have happened in ten years.