Reluctant Widow Page 10

  ‘Ay, no end to the outlandish tricks them Frenchies get up to,’ nodded Barrow. ‘Not but what I don’t believe all I hear, and I always reckoned that was a loud one.’

  ‘An émigré family! I see!’ Elinor said. ‘I should have guessed it, indeed.’

  ‘I don’t know what kind of a family it might be,’ said Barrow cautiously, ‘but what should take him to come visiting Mr Eustace at that hour of night? I never saw him above a couple of times in my life, and for all he’s a Frenchy he came in at the front door like a Christian.’

  ‘I think he said that he was visiting friends in the neighbourhood.’

  Barrow seemed inclined to cavil at this. He scratched his chin. ‘Well, he’s not visiting his lordship, that’s sure. Nor he’s not at the Priory, for old Sir Matthew he’s tedious set against all Frenchies. And he won’t be at Elm House, for a decenter couple of ladies than Miss Lynton and Miss Elizabeth you won’t find, and to be having gentlemen to stay is what they wouldn’t do. And if it’s the Hurst he meant, Mr Frinton and his lady has gone up to London, and won’t be back this se’nnight.’

  ‘Likely he came from the Hill,’ suggested Mrs Barrow comfortably. ‘I’m sure it’s no matter.’

  ‘Ay, likely he did,’ agreed Barrow. ‘There’s no saying what they’ll do, them as live on the Hill.’

  Having expressed himself suitably as a Weald man, he seemed to think the problem settled, and went off to make an inventory of all the silver in the house.

  Elinor let the subject drop, and was soon immersed in household details with Mrs Barrow. But when that lady had sailed off kitchenwards her thoughts reverted to the episode, and while she set about the several tasks that lay nearest to her hand she found herself still puzzling over it.

  At eleven o’clock the sound of hoof-beats on the carriage-drive made her look out of the window. She saw the Hon. Nicholas Carlyon trotting up to the house on a stylish bay, a cross-bred dog, half lurcher, half mastiff, bounding along beside his horse. He caught sight of her, and waved his whip, calling out: ‘How d’ye do? Ned told me I should come over to see if you were tolerably comfortable.’

  ‘I am much obliged to you both!’ she returned. ‘Do but take your horse to the stables, and I will come down and let you in!’

  By the time he had done this she was already standing in the porch. He came striding along, and at once pulled off his hat, and said: ‘Good morning, ma’am! Shall you object to Bouncer? I will leave him outside if you wish, only if I do I dare say he will be off hunting, and the thing is that Sir Matthew Kendal’s preserves abut on to this land, and he don’t above half like to have Bouncer on them.’

  ‘No, indeed, that would never do,’ she said. ‘I have not the least objection to him, for you must know I have been used to dogs all my life. Pray bring him in with you!’

  He looked gratified, and called the dog to heel. Barrow, who happened to be crossing the hall at that moment, looked with a good deal of reproach at his mistress, and gave it as his considered opinion that if Master Nicky was to bring his dogs in, spannelling the floors, there could be no sense in summoning the gardener’s wife up to scrub them. The intelligent hound, however, lifted a lip at him, and he made off, muttering.

  ‘My brother has gone off somewhere in his chaise, Mrs Cheviot,’ announced Nicky, following his hostess into the book-room. ‘Oh! You do not like it when one calls you by that name! Well, you know, I have been thinking, and if you should not dislike it excessively I believe I should call you Cousin Elinor. For you are our cousin, are you not?’

  ‘By marriage, I suppose I must be,’ acknowledged Elinor. ‘I do not dislike you to call me so, at all events – Cousin Nicholas.’

  ‘Oh, no! I wish you will not call me Nicholas!’ he protested. ‘No one ever does, except John sometimes, when he reads me one of his lectures! Ned never does so. Why, how you have changed everything here already! I declare, this is first-rate!’

  She invited him to sit down by the fire; he declined partaking of any refreshment, but was anxious to know if there was any way in which he could be of use to her. ‘For you must know that I am quite at leisure,’ he told her. ‘And Ned said I could make myself useful.’

  She did not feel that his assistance in sorting linen would be of much practical help, but it occurred to her that he might be able to throw light on the identity at least of her midnight visitor. She described the encounter to him, therefore. He listened with much interest, and at the end said that his cousin Eustace had been a very loose screw, and that any friends of his were likely to prove ugly customers. But he was less concerned with the Frenchman’s name than with the manner of his entry.

  ‘Too smoky by half, cousin!’ he said. ‘A fellow don’t go creeping into a man’s house at midnight if he’s up to any good. Depend upon it, Eustace was concerned in some devilry or other!’

  ‘I hope you may be wrong!’ she said. ‘For if you are not I dare not think of the odd persons who may seek to gain admittance here in the expectation of finding him!’

  ‘Very true. Are you quite sure there was no door left open?’

  ‘I could not find one. It is the strangest thing! I own I cannot be at my ease over it.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what it is, Cousin Elinor!’ said Nicky, his eyes sparkling. ‘I should not be at all surprised if there were a secret way into the house we do not know of!’

  She regarded him in considerable dismay. ‘No, pray do not put such uncomfortable notions into my head!’ she begged.

  ‘Yes, but I dare say there is,’ he insisted. ‘You know, it was used to be said that Charles II hid in this house after Worcester. Ned says that’s all fudge, and he was never within ten miles of Highnoons, but only fancy if it were so!’

  ‘Only fancy!’ echoed Elinor in a hollow tone.

  Nicky jumped to his feet, and began to walk round the room, inspecting the walls. ‘I dare say there may be a sliding panel somewhere, just as I saw in some old house or another, with a passage into the garden.’

  ‘It is not in this room,’ said Elinor firmly. ‘He did not enter here – and I wish you will not talk in such a way! I shall not sleep a wink all night!’

  ‘No, indeed! I should think you would not!’ Nicky agreed. ‘We must find it, of course! By Jove, this is capital sport!’

  Nothing would do for him but to be allowed to search the house. Elinor went with him, torn between amusement at his enthusiasm, and a horrid fear that he might indeed discover a hidden door. The dog Bouncer accompanied them, hopeful of rats, but presently grew disgusted with the lack of sport, and lay down, yawning cavernously. Nicky tapped all the panelling in the ground-floor rooms without producing the hollow note he so ardently desired to hear, and Elinor was just beginning to breathe again, when he insisted on going upstairs. She felt that it was unlikely that a secret way into the house should be found in any of the bedrooms, but Nicky said he had seen one that started from a cheese-room at the very top of a house.

  ‘Good God, there is a large loft here which was very likely used as a cheese-room in former times!’ Elinor cried, quite aghast.

  ‘Is there, by Jupiter?’ Nicky exclaimed. ‘I’ll go up there this instant!’

  She did not accompany him, and he presently reappeared, slightly cast down at having been unable to discover even as much as a priest’s hole in the cheese-room. He put Elinor so forcibly in mind of the schoolboy brothers of several of her late pupils that she very soon abandoned all formality with him, an arrangement which seemed to suit him very well. His conviction that the large cupboard built into the wall of her bedchamber was just the place where one might reasonably expect to find a hidden trap-door provoked her into apostrophizing him as an odious boy, a form of address to which he seemed to be accustomed, for he grinned, and said: ‘I know, but what sport if it were so, Cousin Elinor! Only consider!’

  ‘I am considering it,’ she said, ‘and l
et me tell you, Nicky, that if you are trying to make my flesh creep you are wasting your time. Recollect that I have been a governess, and governesses, you know, have no romantic notions, and seldom indulge themselves with swooning, or the vapours!’

  ‘Oh, don’t they just!’ he retorted. ‘My sisters once had one who was for ever swooning! We told her the Hall was haunted, and Gussie – my sister, Augusta, you know – dressed up in a sheet, and Harry and I clanked chains, and made the most famous groaning noises! She did not stay with us above a month.’

  ‘I am astonished she stayed with you as long,’ said Elinor. ‘I had thought my lot a hard one, but I perceive I have considerable cause to be thankful that at least I was never hired to instruct your sisters.’

  He laughed. ‘Oh, we should not have served you so, for you are not at all like a governess. May I go in this room?’

  ‘Do, by all means!’ she said cordially. ‘If you should find any skeletons behind the wainscoting, do not hesitate to call me! I shall be in the still-room, at the end of the corridor.’

  She parted from him, and went off to check the stores. She was engaged in arranging a row of preserve-jars on a shelf when she heard Nicky shout to her in a voice of great excitement. She stepped out on to the corridor, saying calmly: ‘You have discovered a skull. How delightful it is, to be sure!’

  ‘No, no, I have not, but only come and see, Cousin Elinor! I’m not gammoning you! Only come!’

  ‘Very well, but I do not scruple to tell you that my expectations are high, and nothing less than a skull will do for me.’

  He led her into a small, square apartment, wainscoted to the ceiling, and containing little besides a bed, a carved chest, and two chairs. ‘You’re quizzing me, but you will not do so when you have seen what I have discovered! Now, look about you, cousin! You would not suppose that there was anything out of the ordinary here, would you?’

  ‘I should not,’ she agreed. ‘But having closely inspected this house I am aware that there is a concealed cupboard on the right of the fireplace. In fact, it is by no means perfectly concealed, and has been used, I fancy, as a wardrobe.’

  ‘Yes,’ he interrupted, in no way damped. ‘But do you know what is in that cupboard?’

  She looked at him suspiciously. ‘Nicky, if you have placed something horrid there, just to see me go into strong convulsions –’

  ‘I tell you I’m not bamming, ma’am! Why, is it likely I would do such an unhandsome thing?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Elinor frankly. ‘Extremely likely!’

  ‘Well, I would not. Watch!’

  He stepped up to the panel which formed the door of the cupboard, and slid it back. Elinor looked warily inside, but the cupboard was empty. She glanced enquiringly at Nicky, and found that his innocent blue eyes were fairly blazing with excitement.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, tell me instantly what it is!’ she begged.

  ‘Watch!’ he said again, and stepped into the shallow cupboard, and dropped on to his knees, and with some difficulty prised up a triangular section of the oaken boards that formed the floor. These were so cunningly joined together that when the trap-door they formed was in place only a close inspection revealed the fact that the floor was not solid. With starting eyes Elinor watched the section come up, and a dark, narrow cavity appear at her feet.

  ‘It is easier lifted from below,’ Nicky explained, propping the triangular section up against the wall.

  ‘Easier lifted from below!’ echoed Elinor, in a failing voice.

  ‘Yes, for I have tested it. I dare say, in the old days, they may have had some contrivance for opening it on this side, for you can see how the boards have shrunk, so that I can get my nails under them, and that cannot have been so when the place was used in earnest. Look, Cousin Elinor, do you see? It is a secret stair, going down the big chimney-stack!’

  ‘Good God!’ she said faintly.

  ‘I knew you would be surprised!’ he nodded. ‘I wonder if Ned knows of this?’

  She regarded him with a fulminating eye. ‘If I find that your – your odious brother knew of such a thing, and left me here at the mercy of any marauder who has a fancy to steal into the house at dead of night – oh, it is too abominable of him! Where does that horrid little stair lead?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I would not explore it until you had seen it, for it is your house, after all, and it would be rather too bad if I were to keep all the fun to myself.’

  ‘That was thoughtful of you. I am so much obliged to you!’ Elinor said feelingly. ‘I wonder if there is any hartshorn in the house?’

  ‘Oh, now you are quizzing me again! But do not let us be wasting time! Shall I go first?’

  ‘Down that dreadful stair?’ gasped Elinor. ‘Do you imagine, you horrid creature, that I am going to set foot on it?’

  He looked at her in a little surprise. ‘Will you not indeed? Oh, you are thinking that it is bound to be dusty! Well, I dare say it may be, but I shan’t regard that. Do you stay here, and I will soon find where it leads!’

  She started forward, and clutched his sleeve. ‘Nicky, for heaven’s sake do not venture down there without even a candle! You do not know what you may discover!’

  ‘Fudge! I am sure there is enough light for me! It must lead into the garden, of course, but how is it we have not seen the door? There is nothing to be afraid of, Cousin Elinor!’

  ‘You cannot know that! You may fall, and break your leg, or find something there – oh, I wish you will not go!’

  He grinned at her. ‘Don’t I hope I may find something, that’s all! If there is a skull, I will fetch it up to you!’

  ‘Do not dare do anything of the sort!’ she said, shuddering. ‘If you are set on going down, only let me call Barrow to go with you!’

  ‘Barrow! No, I thank you! I don’t mean to tell him of this!’ said Nicky, disappearing through the gap.

  Elinor waited at the top, quite sick with apprehension, and calling from time to time to know if he were still safe. He assured her that he was, and that there was light enough penetrating through the opening for him to see his way. She retired to a chair, and sank into it to await events. It seemed an age before he reappeared, but he did so at last, and stepped into the room, brushing the dust from his clothes. ‘It is the most famous thing!’ he informed her. ‘It is just as I supposed! The stair goes down the chimney-stack – it is the bakehouse chimney, you know! And there is a door at the bottom, only it is so covered over with creepers you would never see it unless you searched particularly for it! I wonder how they hid it in the old days?’

  ‘I wonder?’ said Elinor, gazing at him in a fascinated way. ‘I suppose there is no difficulty in opening the door from outside?’

  ‘Oh, not the least in the world! There is a latch: you have only to part the creepers, and you may see it as plain as anything! Cousin Elinor, I was never more pleased with anything in my life! It is first-rate! Why, we have nothing like this up at the Hall!’

  ‘How wretched for you!’ said Elinor.

  ‘Well, I do think it is unfair that a paltry fellow like Eustace should have such a bang-up thing, when I dare say he never made the least use of it! Only think what Harry and I could have done if we had had such a passage up at the Hall!’

  ‘I prefer not to think of it,’ said Elinor. ‘But I wish with all my heart you had got it up at the Hall!’

  ‘Yes,’ he said wistfully. ‘But it is of no use to be thinking of that. Only it does seem rather too bad that I never knew of it till now. By Jupiter, I wish Harry were here! If he had but seen this when we were boys he would have thought of something famous to do with it, for he was always the most complete hand, you know! Why, we might have given Eustace the fright of his life! Harry is one of my brothers, you understand. He is in the Peninsula, and I do wish he were not! You would like him excessively!’

  ‘I am sure I shoul
d,’ said Elinor sympathetically. ‘He sounds to be a delightful creature! But meanwhile I shall be obliged to you if you will instantly find a hammer and some strong nails, and secure the hidden door!’

  ‘Nail it up! But, Cousin Elinor, do you not realise that the man you found in the house last night must have entered by this way?’ he exclaimed.

  Elinor closed her eyes for a pregnant moment. ‘Yes, Nicky, I do realise that,’ she said. ‘And since I have not the least desire that he should repeat his visit I wish you will secure that door!’

  ‘Well, I am by no means certain that that is what we should do,’ he said, frowning. ‘The more I think of it the more I’m persuaded there is something dashed smoky about the business. Only consider, cousin! A man who must needs come creeping into a house by a secret stair can be up to no good!’

  ‘Very true. There is a want of openness about such behaviour that strikes one forcibly, and makes me at least disinclined to pursue the acquaintance.’

  His brows were still knit. ‘Why should he have done so, if he did not know that Eustace was dead, and you here in his place? Or do you suppose that he was not a friend of Eustace’s at all, and wished to get into the house without his knowing of it?’

  She thought it over. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘He must have perceived the light shining under the door into the book-room, and thought that your cousin was there. I have no doubt that he was coming towards that room when I stepped out of it. Indeed, he must have heard me walking about in the room! Had he not wished to be seen he must have hidden himself, for he certainly had time enough to have done so. I am persuaded he expected to see your cousin.’

  Nicky’s eyes had begun to spark again. ‘Jupiter, only fancy if we should have stumbled on some plot he and Eustace were hatching between them! I wonder what it can have been? Depend upon it, he came by the secret way so that the servants should not know of his visit! Tell me again just what he said to you!’

  She complied with this request to the best of her ability. He listened attentively, questioning her closely upon the various threads of her narrative. He shook his head over it. ‘It’s deuced odd!’ he said. ‘Mind you, though I own I don’t see what he would be at, I don’t believe he was so innocent as you think! Well, if he were he would not have been on such terms with my cousin as he described! Said he had been intimate with him, did he not?’