The Warrielaw Jewel, page 3
“Lord, no, though I sometimes fancy he’s not as hot stuff as he makes out. Still, he’s very bitter about Philistines, like me, and has run through lots of Jessica’s money with little to show for it.”
“He doesn’t sound much like Rhoda!”
“No indeed. Rhoda’s mother married first of the five sisters, an odd literary fellow called Macpherson who died, leaving her with Rhoda and very little else. Years later she married a second cousin of her own and died with him in a boating accident. Rhoda, who was only just grown up, took charge of the little girl they left, and has been a mother to her. She defied all the Edinburgh conventions and got a job as bookkeeper in a smart little dressmaker’s near the West End. The shop’s done well and she’s done well. She’s practically manager now and comes and goes as she likes. She’s a little house in Comely Bank and the stepsister looks after it for her. You must have Alison to meet your brother when he comes to stay in April. She’s rather a dear and extraordinarily pretty.”
“How do you know them all so well?”
“Well of course my people were hand in glove with the old Warrielaws over the estate, and as long as they lived all the sisters used to dump their families on them for months on end. I used to go out there for tea perpetually, and heavens! how they quarrelled! Neil and Cora were friends always, but Miss Jessica hated Cora, and Neil was always rude and unkind to Miss Jessica, who adored him. Everyone but Miss Mary hated Rhoda, and Cora, after she married, had a quarrel with Rhoda over a frock she ordered from her shop, which almost led to another lawsuit. They hated each other and worshipped Warrielaw and always called it home.”
“I see,” I said. “Neil the Rip and Cora the Siren and Rhoda the Business Woman and Alison the little Beauty. Shall I see them all?”
“You’re sure to, pretty soon. Everyone knows everyone in Edinburgh.”
My husband’s prophecy was only too correct. The door opened once more and Christina announced, in a voice which marked her disapproval of so late a visit, yet condoned it in view of the visitor’s social standing:
“Mr. and Mrs. Charles Murray.”
John jumped up and made for the door in the other half of our big drawing-room, but he was too late. Mrs. Murray swerved from her polite advance towards me and ran to John, catching him by both hands.
“John my dear! What fun! We hoped you’d both be in if we came late! Please forgive me for being so long in calling on you, Mrs. Morrison, but I’ve been in town since Christmas. I can’t stand Edinburgh when it’s festive in January! Ever since I got back I’ve been longing to meet John’s English wife. I’m sure my Warrielaw aunts call you that! No Charles! You’re not to try to get John to sneak off to the library with you for a drink. I must see him.”
Charles Murray evidently knew his place and sat down beside me without a murmur. He was a tall, fair, baldish man with a nice twinkle in his eyes and a tolerant smile. Evidently he adored his wife, and at first sight I decided that the Warrielaw type was at its best in its sophisticated members. Cora, tall, slender, restless and exquisitely dressed, her hair beautifully coiffured, her complexion carefully made-up, showed little trace of her race save her eyes. These were frankly in contrast to her manner, her languid airs and graceful movement. Long eyelids emphasised the wide, staring yellow-green irises, and out of them looked a spirit not exactly wild or dangerous, but with a suggestion of an untamed will, of red-hot determination to get exactly what she wanted from life. I had detected something of that sudden, almost animal shyness and fierceness in Miss Mary Warrielaw, but it seemed akin to her eccentricity and lonely life. Cora’s eyes were as out of place in her exquisite modishness as a jungle tiger set down in Piccadilly. Certainly she was an arresting personality, and I watched her with pleasure, while Charles Murray congratulated me intelligently on my nice empty drawing-room and Chippendale bureau. All the time, however, he was watching his wife, and when I mentioned that Miss Mary had called that afternoon, he made some excuse of fetching a cigarette to go and stand by her chair.
“That’s an excellent bit of staff work, Cora,” he said. “How did you know the Warrielaws were here?”
Cora for a moment looked like a wild cat about to spring, and then like a small child detected in a falsehood. In an emergency, I judged, Charles Murray might have the upper hand.
“I saw Mary and Rhoda go past my window,” she said sullenly. “As it was so late I wondered what they were doing and watched them cross the street and come in here. That made me guess they wanted to see John as well as Mrs. Morrison, and I wondered if anything was wrong!”
“Now you know Edinburgh, Mrs. Morrison,” laughed Charles. “Cora, as you’ve betrayed your real reason for calling at this unholy hour, I think you may as well retire gracefully and come home.”
“No, no! I really wanted to see Betty—yes, I’m going to call you Betty!” Cora turned to me gracefully with outstretched hands. “After all it’s quite natural that I should like to know something about Warrielaw, now that I can’t go there and Neil’s away, and I’ve broken entirely with that dismal little Rhoda. Is anything the matter there? Do tell me, John.”
“Oh nothing, nothing out of the usual!” John gave me so portentous a wink that I felt Cora’s suspicions must be aroused at once, but her eyes were fixed on mine imploringly and I managed not to betray myself unduly.
“Is it the jewel, John, do tell me? Is Jessica trying to sell the jewel again? Betty, I’m sure you sympathise with me, don’t you? Obviously you love pretty things and old things. Isn’t it dreadful that Aunt Jessica should sell our family possessions right and left and that the law can’t stop her! She should be locked up, John, and you should see to it, if she really means to sell the fairy jewel!” John politely said nothing. He has a real talent for this.
“My dear, leave it alone,” said Charles impatiently. “If she doesn’t sell it she’ll leave it to Mary, and Mary will leave it to Rhoda.”
“Would she sell it to us?” pleaded Cora.
John exercised his talent again.
“Don’t be silly, Cora,” said Charles. “You know she refused you the Raeburn on any terms.”
“And then it went for a few hundreds,” cried Cora passionately. “And the jewel’s worse, far worse. Oh, I can’t bear it to go out of the family! You must stop her, John!”
I was almost as embarrassed as the two men when Cora began to cry. After all, there are certain things any woman may cry for legitimately, like losing a cook or some teeth or an engagement ring, but not in front of strangers, and not as if her heart was broken.
“My dear,” I said, wishing Cora wasn’t too old to be spanked, “I don’t believe there’s anything in the world I’d feel worth crying for like that!”
“You English have no family feeling,” said Cora, but to my relief she stopped crying and got out her powder-puff. “It’s so different for people like us who’ve inherited nothing but a few traditions and heirlooms! I don’t care about money, but this comes straight from my ancestors and I love it! It’s part of my old Home.”
“God preserve us from our ancestors,” said Charles, rising decidedly. “You must come now, Cora. I’m getting her to the Riviera soon,” he added in a lower voice to John as Cora went to look at herself in a long mirror. “Her nerves are going to pieces. She’s really unhinged by worry over this tiresome family junk.”
“Is there any question of an immediate sale, John?” she persisted.
“Miss Warrielaw has said nothing to me about it,” replied John stiffly. “I shall send Charles a bill every time you ask me that question, Cora!”
CHAPTER II
THE MISSES WARRIELAW AT HOME
The bitter south-east wind was tainted with the sickly odour of oil from the neighbouring shale-pits as we approached the gates of Warrielaw next afternoon. Two heraldic and weather-worn animals on pillars guarded a deserted lodge, open iron gates, and an avenue overgrown with grass and pitted with ruts.
These were the early days of owner-drivers, and my heart bled for our new, immaculate Albion and its tyres. This generation will never understand the mingled emotions of early motorists, the care and affection we transferred from our horses, the pride of pioneers, and the interest in every other car. When John explained briefly that there was a better road by the back entrance, but that he wished to see if the place was in worse repair than usual, I sat in sympathetic silence as we bumped along. Warrielaw was seven miles from Edinburgh, a five-mile walk from the car terminus for the Misses Warrielaw. It lay with its village in an angle of country lanes: the house and gardens and back entrance abutted on a road which led eventually to Ratho. That I made out for myself, while John shook his head at the rank grass and broken railings and the smoke-blackened trees with rotting branches. Across the park we saw the melancholy stone front of the house banked on each side by rhododendrons and laurels; only from an angle did I catch a glimpse of the old house with its thick walls, deep-set windows and crow’s-foot roof, sheltering behind the meretricious classical front like a little old lady with a mountainous toupee. A stone terrace with a cracked balustrade bordered each side of the curving steps and pretentious portico: beneath it the basement windows showed only a faint light from a cavernous kitchen. On either side of the terrace French windows revealed the long drawing-room and dining-room, unlit and swathed in brown paper and dust-sheets. The cold wind blew maliciously round us as we stood under the pillars waiting for the big door to open to us.
The old maid, whom my husband greeted warmly as Effie, belonged, I felt, by nature to the old, charming little house of the past rather than to the vast, dim entrance hall with its pitch-pine panelling and wide staircase, into which she admitted us. She was small and solid, wrinkled and red-cheeked, cheerful and demure; she might have stood in a turret door of the old courtyard, I felt, as a model for any of those old women whose humour, patience and endurance shine out of the pages of Scottish ballads and stories. Cordially as she greeted John, and pleasantly as she extended her welcome to John’s wife, she was not, however, I realised, free from the shadow of preoccupation to-day. She gave a keen and appraising glance to my dress and appearance, and could, no doubt, have acquitted herself triumphantly in an examination upon them afterwards, but there was a note of anxiety and worry in her voice which I felt alien to her usual manner.
“Come ben to the library,” she said, leading the way through a swing door opposite the entrance into a narrow passage. Here we were evidently in the old part of the house, and the only light came from a window at the end, obscured partly by the shrubs outside, and partly by some panes of stained glass featuring the Warrielaw arms. “Ah, the ladies must be out!” She flung open a door on the left for us, after peeping in cautiously. “They’ll be in the policies, maybe! Sit you down and I’ll find them.”
“Terribly overgrown, Betty, isn’t it?” said John, strolling to the window. Outside was a small semicircular formal garden, bounded by the rhododendrons. Through it a narrow tunnel led into the walled gardens in one direction, and to the massive stable quarters in the other. Beech trees rose high above the heavy tangle of shrubs, so that the only light in this room, with its northern exposure, entered through the cross-bars of branches and the shimmer of evergreens; and it was the light, I reflected, of some dim cavern beneath the sea. Why the sisters chose to make this so-called library their sitting-room instead of one of the many rooms facing south, I never discovered. It was neither bright nor warm nor cosy. It would indeed have been spacious if it had not been so crowded and overwhelmed with furniture. At first sight it seemed a mere conglomeration of ottomans and chairs, as were so many old-fashioned rooms of the day: then, gradually, I saw a scheme in its madness. It was not one sitting-room, but two, divided in the midst by a long narrow table at which the Misses Warrielaw doubtless took their meals. There was a fireplace at either end, where economical fires burnt behind high brass fenders which were sharp with age and shining with polish. Around each fireplace was grouped a bureau, a sofa, an arm-chair and an old-fashioned work-table, replete with drawers containing the little reels and scissors, receptacles and work implements beloved by our grandmothers.
“They always divide the room like this,” said John, noticing my amused surprise, “and each sister keeps religiously to her own half. Heaven knows why they don’t have separate rooms, for I believe when there’s a real thorough-going row on hand they don’t speak to each other for days!” There were steps in the passage and the door opened again. Holding a lighted candle, someone entered the dim room.
“Well, John!” a voice said. “I’m glad to see you. Introduce me to your wife.”
For a moment I was puzzled, and then I realised that it was Miss Jessica Warrielaw who was advancing towards me. Then, as Miss Mary followed her, I felt foolish for my momentary bewilderment. The sisters were not really alike, save in height and build and in the contours of their long, square faces. They had much the same weather-beaten complexions and they shared, of course, the famous Warrielaw eyes. As in the case of so many sisters, it was possible to take one for the other when she was alone, though impossible when they were together. Jessica was taller, stouter, more alert, slightly darker in colouring and, above all, a much clearer and more definite personality. Nothing, I was to hear later, irritated the two Misses Warrielaw more than to have any resemblance between them noticed. Ten years ago, when the likeness was probably more easy to trace, they had left off a lifetime habit of dressing alike. Jessica had definitely taken to black, as befitted the elderly mistress of the house, while Mary varied the hues of her toilets between muddy fawn and chalky grey. But no variety in toilet was needed to mark the difference between Jessica’s brisk, authoritative manner and Mary’s nervousness and impression of incompetence. It was clear at once who was Mistress and who was Martyr, in that joint household.
“Mary,” said Miss Jessica, “I’m sure you’d like to show John’s wife your embroidery while I talk to John till tea comes.”
Miss Mary cast one sidelong look of rebellion at her sister and then, seating herself on the sofa nearest the boundary-line table, handed me a vast album containing photographs of the west, east, north and south fronts of the Cathedrals of Northern France. Neither of us made much attempt at conversation. Mary was intent upon Jessica’s confidences to my husband, and I was absorbed in noting the decorations of the room: the description would embellish so joyfully my next letter to my father. Never had I seen so much furniture crowded into any apartment, and never surely was such a mixture of rubbish and of treasures. On each mantelpiece was a hideous carved overmantel; into Miss Jessica’s was set a gracious, smiling Raeburn, and into Mary’s a faded, lovely Romney. Round the Raeburn was a crowded collection of mementoes in pottery and china of various watering-places: Mary’s shelves were covered with revolting china animals. On a priceless old cabinet stood a sewing-machine with endless dusty volumes and pieces of knitting. There was a grand piano smothered with photographs. There were marqueterie chairs with horsehair seats, and a rocking-chair with a plush cushion. A Ming bowl stood on a case of stuffed trout: a Sheraton bookcase bulged with parish magazines and charity needlework. The walls were hung with invaluable proofs before engravings, framed texts, Cosway miniatures and Mary’s water-colour sketches. You could spend hours disentangling gems and rubbish, I meditated, when Miss Mary suddenly turned upon me.
“Here is my embroidery,” she said. “Jessica and I are very fond of broderie anglaise. Are you fond of any sort of needlework?”
Incredible as it must seem to this generation, not only the Misses Warrielaw, but many of my own contemporaries spent hours over this peculiarly fatuous form of fancy work. With meticulous care we would pierce holes in white muslin and carefully embroider their edges with white thread till the hole was barely visible. My efforts in that direction had been confined to the corner of one handkerchief, still unfinished, but Miss Mary had been working for years, I imagined, at the large, grimy bedspread laid out before me, punctured inch by inch with embroidered holes.
“It’s lovely,” I said sycophantically, bending to make out the pattern, “and what a beautifully fitted work-table this is.”
“I’m getting on with it very well. I hope to finish it by the spring. Jessica was ahead of me, but she’s some other work on hand just now. We are both of us great workers. My mother, you see, was devoted to her needle. She had two worktables like this. Jessica of course took the one with mother-of-pearl fittings and gave me this one: they are only ivory.”
With that bitter memory evidently encouraging her to rebellion, Mary turned her attention again to Jessica and my husband, and I listened too, for John was speaking.
“I’m glad you take the whole affair so lightly, Miss Warrielaw, but honestly I think you should speak to the police. These tinkers are a rough lot and they’re too near an unguarded place like this for safety.”
“The tinkers! There! That’s Rhoda again I’m sure!” said Miss Warrielaw triumphantly. “She’s been making the most of this affair to get back into the house, mark my words. As a matter of fact the tinkers broke up their camp last night and have gone off without leaving a trace.”
“Taking nothing, I hope?” asked John.
“We haven’t found anything missing, and I went through the silver this morning. But I’m quite aware that she means to haunt the place by making a fuss about nothing! She didn’t let Mary come home alone last night—lest she should feel nervous in the rhododendrons, of course! I soon sent her about her business.”
“Come, come, Miss Jessica!” John had told me that he always adopted this expression of his father’s when he dealt with intractable clients. “I’m glad you’re not alarmed, but there do seem to have been some rather queer happenings here the day before yesterday.”
“Nothing to make all this fuss about,” protested Jessica stoutly. “As a matter of fact, Effie came to me this morning, and said that Annie had played this same trick on her once before, and had done it in the old days, too, when she was a little girl at home. It’s quite a common form of vengeance for the slightly wanting, I believe, to fling things about on the floor. As for the scratches on the safe, I think we were all a little hysterical the night before last and that made us imaginative. Rhoda made the most of it, you may be sure!”
