The Warrielaw Jewel, page 7
Cora stared at the red mark spreading from the bag.
“Of course it’s wet,” she snapped. “I was out in the gardens in the rain looking for Effie.”
There was nothing in Cora’s dress or stockings, I noticed vaguely, to suggest that she had been walking in the rain. At the time, however, I only noticed these details vaguely as yet another proof of the erratic nature of the Warrielaws. It seemed wholly in keeping with their characters that Cora should be annoyed with me because her bag was damp, and should set off on a twelve-mile drive to get hold of a half-witted housemaid, just because that maid might give her roundabout information of her own relatives. Cora was indeed a Warrielaw!
“Good-bye, Betty!” Cora started the car so suddenly that I nearly fell off backward from the running-board. “And don’t forget! Just you keep quiet about all this!”
CHAPTER V
THE EMPTY JEWEL CASE
I could only hope that Cora would not meet John in the drive as she started off, accelerating wildly. She might in decency have offered me a lift as there were still no signs of life about the house, but I was glad she had not. It was too tiresome to have to deal with people who kept their feelings so perpetually on the surface as the Warrielaws and grew emotional on such absurd provocation. Far the nicest of the clan was old Effie, their maid, I decided, as I saw her now on the front steps, looking out of the door.
Effie was desolated to hear of my adventures. She had only just got in, and came to the front because she thought she heard a car. I did not enlighten her about the visitor she had missed, and when she heard John was coming she insisted on taking me to the library to tea. “I’ll infuse it now, Ma’am,” she said, “for Miss Mary canna be long now. I’ve never seen her miss her tea. She’ll be glad of your company, I’m sure, Ma’am, and Mr. John’s, now she’s left alone.”
If so, Mary Warrielaw disguised her feelings admirably. A minute or two later, alone in the library, I turned from the study of a Sheraton cabinet where vases, labelled as presents from Margate, jostled with exquisite Chelsea figures, to see her approaching with Rhoda out of the shrubbery. They had walked in through the walled gardens and were emerging by the tunnel in the rhododendrons, which opened into the semicircle of flower-beds, in front of the library windows. Rhoda was wheeling a bicycle. She looked, as usual, alert and trim, and I noticed that she cast almost a proprietary glance over the flower-beds as if to assure herself that everything was in order. She would, I felt, be in command of affairs at Warrielaw during Miss Jessica’s absence. That would be no concern of mine, for I was certainly not a welcome guest in her eyes. She frowned as she saw me and murmured something quickly to her aunt. Then, with a curt nod in my direction, she turned and wheeled her bicycle away through the rhododendrons towards the kitchen quarters.
“I’ll just dry it down,” she said to her aunt. “It got dreadfully wet in that last shower.”
Mary walked wearily towards the window, dragging her feet in the last stage of exhaustion. Poor Miss Mary, I thought, poor, tired, defeated Miss Mary!
No one of my acquaintance in Edinburgh had ever seemed definite as to which of the two Warrielaw sisters had the upper hand. Gossip had hovered round the point for years, and there were some who held that Mary, in spite of her financial dependence, could hold her own with her sister in sheer obstinacy and bad temper. But to-day they seemed wholly wrong. In Mary’s manner was all the exhaustion and depression of one who has lost in the last round, who has found out finally that life has broken her. For the purpose of her life had been to keep together the family estate and possessions, and now, presumably, the greatest treasure of all had been snatched away, taken off by the inexorable Jessica to London, or still worse, to American sale rooms. Mary was left to endure the loss of the unique heirloom, and doubtless, on Jessica’s return, to watch yet another and another packed up and sent off into a cruel world where Warrielaws were unknown. So only I could interpret the glance of her glazed, weary eyes as she came into the room, her mouth half-open as if in thirst, her hands hanging limply as if in submission to fate.
“I have taken a long walk,” she said, dropping into a chair. “A long, long walk, and I am very tired. I really hardly feel equal to visitors, Mrs. Morrison.”
And it was at that moment that Effie, with the tea-tray, announced John and Dennis.
Mary Warrielaw was a lady in society, whatever curious social customs might prevail in private at Warrielaw. She brushed aside my hasty efforts to get my husband and brother away, and insisted on pouring out tea for us with swollen, shaking hands. Her own cup did its beneficent work on her: the dreadful pallor left her face. Dennis has an almost uncanny charm for elderly ladies, and she was actually smiling at his prattle when Rhoda came into the room. But before Rhoda’s curt greetings and cold hostility it was impossible to do anything but rise and go.
“Wasn’t it a funny coincidence,” said. Dennis cheerfully as we said good-bye. “Peter Carruthers and I saw Miss Jessica standing on the platform at Carstairs. My car wasn’t going very well and we hopped out to see what train we could get if the garage couldn’t make it go, and there she was standing by her carriage near the London train. There was an awful crowd about, of course, and all sorts of holiday people and excursions, so she didn’t see us, and she was some way off so we couldn’t wish her a good journey.”
I was moving towards the door as he chattered on, but next moment I had turned back as John gave a sudden exclamation. Mary had swayed by the tea-table and fallen back into her chair in a dead faint.
It was at that moment that Rhoda showed her efficiency. She issued her directions so briskly and clearly that in a moment John and Dennis were carrying the poor old lady upstairs, while I was despatched to the kitchen to summon Effie for a hot-water bottle. By the time I got up the stairs John and Dennis were returning from laying their burden on Mary’s bed, and John was offering to go at once for the doctor.
“No, certainly not,” said Rhoda coolly. “Mrs. Morrison, will you go and give her the bottle and some water and loosen her things? She often has these little turns and she’s only overtired herself. I’ll go and get some brandy from Aunt Jessica’s room.”
Rhoda was less speedy on her own errand than I expected from her presence of mind. Miss Mary had returned gasping to consciousness, and was stammering out an apology for her foolishness before we heard Rhoda’s step in the passage. The aunt’s colour was coming back, but her breath came in hoarse gasps and I thought she looked dreadfully ill, when the niece entered the room with empty hands.
“It’s gone,” she said brusquely to Mary.
“Perhaps there’s some downstairs,” I suggested.
“What do you mean?” Rhoda turned from me coldly. “It’s the jewel I mean, Aunt Mary. The key of the safe is on the table, the case is there, but it’s empty.”
I thought Mary would collapse again, but she struggled to her feet as Rhoda spoke and stood holding one post of the bed. It seemed so cruel to torment her at the moment that I interposed recklessly, in spite of Rhoda’s obvious desire to get rid of me.
“But Miss Mary knew that. Why, surely that was why Miss Jessica went to London—to sell the jewel, I mean.”
Something in my voice seemed to pierce Rhoda’s preoccupation. She turned and looked at me, and made an obvious effort to recover her temper and her manners.
“Yes, of course, that was her original reason. But we hoped last night that we had persuaded her to leave it behind till she had got into touch with an intending purchaser. You see it’s got rather an historic reputation: most dealers in jewellery have heard of it. And it did seem risky for one old lady to travel about with it in a handbag. She seemed to agree with us last night, and we assumed she had gone off without it. But I looked into the case when I was hunting for the brandy—I couldn’t find any—And the case is there, but the jewel has gone.”
“And the case is there,” repeated Mary, dropping back upon the bed. Her breathing sounded laboured now, but her cheek was flushed with the shock.
“Oh dear!” I spoke thoughtlessly in my horror.
“I suppose she did take it. I hope she did! Do you know, when I got here, a little after three this afternoon, every window in front was wide open, and the lodge gates, and, I suppose, the back doors, just like that time you came here in February. Suppose some burglar got in …”
“But Mrs. Lee was to have come in and looked round,” said Rhoda sharply.
“She was in bed with rheumatism when I went to shelter at the lodge. She told me she hadn’t been able to come up as she promised Effie last night.”
“Was there anyone about?” asked Rhoda. “Did you see anyone while you were waiting?” My heart gave such a sudden jump as I thought of Cora, of Cora’s manner, and of Cora’s vanity bag, that I felt I must have betrayed myself. I dared not mention the episode to these two pale, angry women till I had spoken to John or thought the thing out for myself, and an earlier memory came to my rescue.
“There was a car driving away from the back door just as I went round the house,” I said. “But I hardly saw it. It wasn’t a tradesman’s van though. It must have been a caller, I think, for it was a landaulette. Shouldn’t we let the police know at once?”
“Certainly not,” said Rhoda sharply. “I see it all now, Aunt Mary. We were foolish even to think we could persuade Jessica. She must have taken the jewel out of the case at the last moment —it was a very big clumsy case—and put it in her suit-case. Yes, it was in the suit-case, Aunt Mary!”
Her voice was so vehement and threatening as she spoke that I moved uncertainly to Miss Mary’s side. Rhoda was a panther-like Warrielaw, certainly, though her frock had never seen Paris.
“Let’s consult John,” I put in hastily. “I’m sure we ought to get the police on to it at once, in case a tramp—”
“Nonsense. Aunt Jessica always refuses to have the police mixed up in our family affairs,” said Rhoda angrily. “We can write to Elves and those other people we dealt with before, Aunt Mary, and ask them to let us know if they hear anything about it.”
“And of course you’ll find out when Miss Warrielaw writes,” I said, anxious to close the subject and let Miss Mary get to bed.
“Yes, of course, when she writes to us,” said Rhoda, turning suddenly to the window. “Though as a matter of fact she’s a very bad correspondent. We might not hear from her for weeks, or even months.”
And at that Mary gave a groan and fell back again unconscious on to the bed.
“Betty!” called John’s voice from below. “Are you coming? I think you ought to be going.”
Rhoda was bending over Mary now and I ran to the staircase.
“John,” I said urgently, “you must go and fetch a doctor at once, the nearest doctor. Didn’t you say that the doctor they always had from Edinburgh has retired and lives in the old Manse in the village? Miss Mary has fainted again—at least I suppose it’s a faint—but she’s breathing so queerly and her colour is so odd that I’m sure she should have advice. Do go at once!”
Few Scotsmen like to do anything without due meditation, but John was newly married and obedient. Urging Dennis to look everywhere for brandy, I ran back to the bedroom.
“John’s fetching a doctor,” I said defiantly. “This isn’t like an ordinary fainting-fit, I feel sure.” Rhoda shrugged her shoulders.
“Very well, you look after her. I’ll go and have another hunt.”
“Miss Macpherson!” I said, outraged to the point of rudeness. “I do think Miss Mary’s health is more important than any jewel.”
“The only thing which would do her any good would be to say I’d found it,” replied Rhoda with surprising meekness. “Will you bathe her head and see what you can do till the doctor comes?” There was really nothing to do, and I looked round me miserably. The room was so appropriate and pathetic a setting for the still figure on the bed. It had been furnished last, like Jessica’s, when the front portion of the house was built, in the style we know so well from Leech’s pictures in Punch. But the monumental suite of mahogany and the canopied bed were, like Jessica’s, dull and tarnished with years and neglect, and the Axminster carpet almost threadbare. In such rooms as those of the two sisters, all over Scotland in the last half-century, families of daughters grew up to lonely and unhonoured spinsterhood, victims to the traditions and extravagance of the past. Outside, the sun was shining again on the budding trees, and the rooks were calling, but within, youth and spring had passed away irretrievably, leaving the poor wreckage of the past in Miss Mary’s figure, on the bed. All I could do was to arrange her pillows and sponge her face, and try to bring her back to a world which held little happiness for her.
The doctor arrived unexpectedly soon, and, alarmed by John’s report, had brought with him the district nurse, a pleasant, homely woman.
“I’ve been worried over her health for some time,” he said. “I’ve been afraid of a stroke or a threat of one for a long time, and she took no precautions. She wouldn’t diet, and she took an absurd amount of exercise. Now she must pay for it. She’s lucky enough to have escaped a stroke I fancy, but she must lie up altogether for some weeks. I’ll send a nurse down to-morrow, and you can stay with her till then, can’t you, Nurse Howe. Ah, she’s coming round now!”
It was with the utmost relief that I saw Miss Mary’s eyes open and her breath become normal again. She frowned a little at the sight of the doctor and nurse, but grew tranquil as I whispered that Nurse had come to sleep with her and look after her.
“I’m glad,” she said. “And, listen, my dear, don’t let Rhoda come to see me again. I don’t feel equal to it. Make it quite clear to Nurse and Doctor that I don’t want to see her again. Perhaps you could give her a lift to Edinburgh. She means most kindly but—but I can’t see her.”
I whispered to the nurse as I bade Mary goodbye, and then followed the doctor out of the room, with Mary’s message. Rhoda was standing at the top of the stairs, waiting evidently for our departure, and John and Dennis stood a few steps below, as puzzled and crestfallen as men always are in the case of illness.
“Now we must all be getting along,” said the doctor cheerfully. “Miss Rhoda, you must come too. You’re not to go near Miss Warrielaw tonight. She’s to have absolute quiet: those are my orders.”
“But I must stay to look after things here,” said Rhoda impatiently. “Of course I won’t disturb her till she’s better, but there must be someone to arrange for the nurse.”
“Now, now, we’re none of us indispensable,” smiled the doctor. “Effie will know what to do, and Miss Mary has sent marching orders to us all.”
“And we’ll drive you home, Miss Macpherson,” I put in.
But it was John who won the day.
“What are you making such a fuss over, Rhoda?” he said with annoyance. “Why on earth are you so keen on staying down here when you’re not wanted? Get your bag and gloves and come along.”
“But I don’t want a lift,” said Rhoda sullenly. “I’ll get my bicycle and ride home.”
“Nonsense,” said the doctor determinedly. “You’ve had a nasty shock and you’re not fit for it, and I won’t have you on my hands as well. Now, Miss Rhoda, you’ve done what I’ve told you ever since you had measles when you were a child of six. Get you into that car when you’ve fetched your things.”
Effie was standing about in the hall, and gave a sigh of relief as Rhoda came downstairs with a parcel and got into John’s motor.
“And see your windows are all shut, and the house safe,” John called back.
“And the lodge gates kept locked,” added the doctor. “You can’t have the place too quiet for Miss Mary, and Mrs. Lee will have her niece to help her and take in orders by hand.”
Effie nodded her assent, and as we started the noise of the shutting and bolting of windows and doors reached us. It was impossible not to feel that it was Rhoda first and foremost whom Effie was shutting out with such assiduity. Certainly I could have dispensed with her in our car, for there was so much I wanted to think over before I was alone with John. Mary’s physical needs had kept my thoughts at bay for the time, but what was I to do, what was I to think, about Cora’s behaviour that afternoon?
“I say,” said Dennis, who finds silence for more than two minutes impossible. “I say, won’t it be bad luck on Miss Jessica if she has to come tearing back from London as soon as she gets there because Mary’s ill?”
“We can’t let her know. We haven’t Aunt Jessica’s address,” said Rhoda curtly.
“Oh well, she’ll write, I suppose,” said John easily.
“Warrielaws never write letters,” said Rhoda in a voice so like her aunt’s that Dennis choked.
“How queer that you saw her to-day,” I reflected.
“Yes, wasn’t it? Do you know, I wasn’t sure that she wasn’t going to get out of the train and double-cross everyone. She was strolling down the platform in the most dégagé way—that ass Peter said she was looking out for her young man, but of course he’s an awfully low type of mind.”
“You didn’t see her left behind, then?”
“Lord, no. We were too busy looking after our own middle-aged party. Betty, I’m terribly afraid I’ll have to have that radiator looked at after all, and I expect it’ll cost a bit more than I like.” Rhoda sat silent, nor did she pay any attention to Dennis’s suggestion that he should blow in and see how Alison was getting on, what? She only thawed a little to John when he told her kindly that she and Mary must let him know if there was any business he could do for them. We all breathed a sigh of relief when we drove away from her grey demure little house in Inverleith. For although, as John said, no Warrielaws have hearts and no Warrielaws have manners—“except Alison,” amended Dennis—“of all the heartless and mannerless young business women he’d ever seen Rhoda took the cake.” I was glad to think that her presence, at least, was not darkening the vast, sad, threadbare bedroom where Mary Warrielaw lay alone.
