‘No, I know. That horrid man drank it. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all,’ Miss Parsons said, justifying the old sailor’s opinion of her as an employer—‘easygoing but very changeable in her mind’.
Richard took out the paper which bore the notice, and said in a more businesslike manner, ‘The second reason for my visit is this. It speaks for itself, I think; but if there is anything you wish to ask about it I will explain to the
best of my ability.’
She took the paper and, holding it at arm’s length because age had made her very long-sighted, studied it for a moment and then laid it down beside the Chinese bowl.
‘Your father,’ she said, with apparent irrelevance, ‘was a very foolish young man and he grew into a very foolish old man. Always talking about what he would do one day, as happily careless as a schoolboy talking about what he will do in his holiday. I knew it would come to this, and I took my precautions. That is why there is no Madeira. It really was comical; he looked so disgusted the day I offered him an inferior wine. And it was all his fault.’ A smile of wry amusement began to reassemble the wrinkles around her mouth and eyes; then it faded, and her whole expression clouded as she realised that she had lost track of what she was saying. And there was no help, no guidance to be had from this stranger who was watching her so closely, yet so coldly. She said, with some defiance, ‘It’s all right, I know, I know. I must just …’ She turned away and plunged both hands into the potpourri, willing herself to remember. She must remember. Here was the potpourri; she had been making it when this stranger arrived—that was obvious; and they must have spoken to one another. But about what, and who he was, she could not recall. The very effort to do so led to greater confusion, and after what seemed to her a long, an impolitely long time she lifted her hands and said piteously:
‘I’m sorry. I have forgotten what we were talking about. I do forget. That is my trouble.’
He said gently, ‘Please don’t worry. We all have these little lapses. Why, once in London I hired a hackney carriage and gave the man the address of a house where I hadn’t lived for four years! Actually we were talking about this’—he reached out and touched the paper—‘and you were just going to sign your name, here.’ He indicated the space where he wished her to place her signature.
Still confused, and wishing to conceal her confusion,
she said in a more animated voice, ‘Was I really? Well, that seems very simple, doesn’t it?’ The quill stand and the inkpot, used for the letters to Mrs Cobbold and Mr Turnbull, stood on the far end of the table. Miss Parsons looked at them, and then at Richard again. Something— not what she was reaching for, but something—fell into place in her mind. Signing things had some connection
with Mr Turnbull–-
‘Why didn’t Mr Turnbull come himself?’ she inquired. ‘It was hardly of sufficient importance,’ Richard said, after only the briefest hesitation. ‘A mere formality.’ She selected and dipped a quill, took up the paper and held it at arm’s length again. The word ‘enclosing’ leapt out at her. Her mind cleared and she knew what it was she had been saying before she digressed to mention the Madeira and lost her way.
‘But that was what I was about to tell you. I knew he would procrastinate too long. So I took action.’ Her expression became cunning. ‘You can’t enclose unless I sign, can you? And I shall never sign. I own more land than you realise. I shall have quite a voice. That is why I have had to live in this meagre fashion, to make my plan and keep my secret. But you can’t enclose unless I consent, can you? So we might as well tear this up.’
Taking the top edge of the paper between her two hands she began to tear it, and had torn three inches before Richard lunged forward and seized her by the wrists. At his touch she reacted exactly as she had done to Mrs Saunders’ attempts at violence, resisting fiercely and screaming like a maniac. As she fought against him the tear in the paper continued to lengthen and Richard realised that he was helping her to destroy it; so he let go her wrists and put his hands on her shoulders and shook her, partly in the hope of making her drop the paper, partly in genuine rage. He thought later, when he had time to think, how easy and how delightful it would have been to shake her to death. The shrill screams were actually giving way to jerky, breathless little cries when the door opened and Damask rushed into the room. Shouting
‘Stop it’, she launched herself at him and would have seized him by the elbows but for the fact that he immediately released his hold and stepped back, feeling immensely foolish. Miss Parsons fell limply back into her chair and the paper fluttered to the ground.
‘He tried to murder me,’ she said shakily.
‘Ma’am, I assure you … I was merely trying to prevent her from tearing an important document,’ Richard said, feeling more foolish. He stooped to retrieve the paper and held it out to show the torn edge. ‘She had taken up the pen in order to sign, then suddenly she began to tear it instead.’
The girl was not looking at him or at the paper; she was stooping over the old woman and had placed her arm about her.
‘There, there,’ she said, as though to a child. ‘It’s all right now. I’m here. It’s all right.’ She tucked back a wisp of the white hair and fastened one or two buttons which had opened in front of the old woman’s bodice, and then she lifted her head and looked into Richard’s face with a stare which was neither accusing nor tinged with complicity, nor amused. It seemed indeed to have no connection with the unusual scene just ended; it was a long, cool, measuring stare under which his lack of ease increased to the fidgeting stage. Touching his hair and then his cravat, he said again, ‘I assure you …’
‘He tried to murder me,’ Miss Parsons repeated.
‘No, no. Nobody would do that. It was just a misunderstanding. Look, you go on with the potpourri and I’ll take him away.’
Her attention thus distracted, Miss Parsons muttered something about not wanting any more interruptions and resumed her mixing in the bowl. Richard, almost reduced to similar childlike obedience—‘I’ll take him away’, indeed!—stepped forward and opened the door and then followed Damask through it.
‘I had no idea,’ he said, as soon as they stood in the hall. ‘She seemed to be so rational, and then suddenly …’
‘You must have done something to upset her,’ Damask
said, stating the fact without blame, but equally without excuse.
Richard felt fury begin to move in him again. That detached cool manner of hers was extremely annoying; the more so because she was young and pretty and should, he felt, have been either apologetic and flustered by the whole incident or inclined to giggle about it. He looked her over before he spoke again. There was nothing prim about the tight-waisted, full-skirted muslin dress, yellow in colour and tied with an amber velvet sash, nor in the clustering bright brown curls among which the amber ear-bobs swayed, nor in the necklet of heavy amber globes tied with a matching velvet on the nape of the smooth white neck. Everything about her looked as though it had been chosen and donned with an intent to charm–and she could have been charming, should have been charming; yet her glance and her manner towards him, acceptable perhaps from some sour elderly female, was, from her, subtly insulting.
Yet, because she had handled the old woman so well that in the circumstances it might be wise to enlist, or attempt to enlist, her aid, he spoke smoothly.
‘Perhaps I did; but if so, unintentionally. The unseemly scuffle which you interrupted—and I am grateful I that you did—was, as I said, merely my attempt to prevent her tearing up a list of signatures which has taken me some time to collect and which I have no time to gather again. You, of course, handle her marvellously, if I may say so. You have had much practice?’
Who was she? He imagined a relative, a great-niece or something to the old lunatic. There was, now he came to think of it, something rustic about her; it showed, not in her looks or deportment but in her voice and … yes, her hands! He had noticed them as she soothed the old woman; her hands and about half her forearms, between wrist and elbow, were not as white and smooth as one would have expected. Some poor young relative perhaps, chosen to act as companion and caretaker; and that queer manner might be the result of shyness.