I was glad when we left. I supposed the reading of the will would take place and that was no concern of ours.
Jean-Louis and I walked back to Eversleigh very slowly. I always slackened my pace when walking with my husband because I knew that he found it painful to walk quickly and that he would not admit this, so I pretended that his pace was mine.
“Poor child,” he said. “She seems so young.”
“Everyone is sorry for Evalina,” I said, a little impatiently. “I am sure as her mother’s daughter she will know how to take care of herself.”
“She did no wrong as far as we know,” said Jean-Louis. “Poor child, it was not her fault she had such a mother.”
“She must have known that her mother was stealing things from Eversleigh. She was hiding them for her at Grasslands.”
“That’s understandable. Her mother told her they were gifts.”
I was silent. The men found excuses for her. First Charles Forster and now Jean-Louis.
“Well,” I said, “I don’t think we need worry too much about her for I am sure she will be able to take care of herself.”
She was perhaps not so self-sufficient as I had thought, for the next day she sent one of her servants to Eversleigh with a message for me. She wanted me to meet her … “You know the old haunted patch,” she wrote, “where they buried Lord Eversleigh. It’s quiet there. No one ever goes there. It’s near Enderby but sheltered from it. Meet me there at two o’clock this afternoon.”
It was a little peremptory, I thought, and for a moment felt inclined to ignore it; but on second thought I changed my mind.
Secretly I had to admit that I was both unsure and afraid of her.
She was waiting for me, looking distraught, walking up and down impatiently.
She said: “It’s quiet here. Nobody comes here. They never did, and since Lordy was buried here it’s even more spooky.”
“You had something to say to me?”
She nodded and I saw the look of fear in her face.
She said: “It’s him. It’s John Mather … the nephew. Andrew would never want it. He’d turn in his grave. Andrew was all for me … he was … and the boy.”
“What about the nephew?”
“Andrew’s left everything … just everything to me … in trust for Richard. Richard’s to have all this and I’m to share it with him … Grasslands … and Andrew’s money … everything. But the nephew is going to contest the will.”
“He can’t do that, can he?”
“He says he can. He says Andrew was duped … by me. He says I forced him to marry me. He says Andrew was incapable of having children … and Richard can’t be his.”
“I think he’s just trying to frighten you.”
“He says it would be better for me to give up Grasslands to him … and take a small income which he would be prepared to give me to save a lot of unpleasantness.”
There was a short silence while she looked at me appealingly.
“What … what do you expect me to do?” I asked.
“I want you to tell me what to do … how I can stop him?”
“How should I know? You are Andrew’s widow. You have his child. It seems to me his nephew is talking nonsense.”
She looked at me steadily. “But if he can prove …”
“What do you mean?”
“Suppose Richard …” She looked at me steadily. “You know how these things can happen … even to people who seem to be so respectable. You’ve got to help me. You’ve got to tell me what to do.”
“Are you telling me that Richard is not Andrew’s son?”
She was silent. I had a sudden inspiration and the words came out before I had time to consider them: “Richard is Dickon’s child.”
She covered her face with her hands.
“They’ll take it all away from me … from him. It was the way Andrew wanted it. He loved Richard … it made a new man of him, he used to say … no matter who Richard’s father was, he did that for Andrew.”
“He was certainly very happy,” I said.
“He was. I made him happy. I liked making him happy. He was good to me, he was. He took me in … he made a pet of me … and when it all happened … when they found out what my mother was … and all that … he never threw it up at me. All he said was ‘My poor little girl.’ He understood I never wanted to be like that. I wanted to be good and respectable like you were”—she paused and looked at me with the old sly look in her eyes—“until you came here.”
I felt my hatred of her welling up in me and at the same time I was sorry for her. I knew she was very frightened. I thought: She is another of Dickon’s victims. He is a devil. He creates mischief wherever he goes. But could I blame him? Evalina was the sort of girl who would frolic in barns with whatever lusty young man beckoned her.
She was looking at me almost defiantly. She had some absurd and childish faith in me; she was begging my help; no, demanding it. I had to make her problem mine or she would make it uncomfortable for me.
Oddly enough I wanted to help her … apart from the fact that I was afraid not to.
I said: “Andrew accepted Richard as his, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did. He thought it was a miracle. He’d been told he could never have children … nor could he. Well, I wanted a little one of my own. You can’t blame me. So it happened and he thought it was his and there was no harm in it. It made a new man of him. He kept saying that. He was almost crazy with joy when Richard was born. ‘A boy,’ he kept saying, ‘my own son.’ I felt pretty good, I did, lying in that bed … giving him a son. He just couldn’t do enough for me. Proved his manhood and all that, he said. What was wrong with it, eh? You tell me that.”
“There was some good in it, obviously,” I said. “But why are you so worried?”
“Because of this nephew. He’s threatening all sorts of things … talking of lawyers. …”
“How can he? The will is there. No one can go against a will.”
“Yes, the will’s there. Andrew was very careful about that. He made it when Richard was born. He said to me: ‘That’s taken care of. Everything is for you and the boy. So if anything should happen to me suddenly I know you’re safe.’”
“I am sure the nephew can do nothing.”
“But you see, if he can prove Andrew couldn’t have children …”
“Surely no one could be absolutely sure of that?”
“Couldn’t he be?”
“No.”
“Then no one must know that Richard’s not …”
“No one must know.”
“You know.”
We looked at each other steadily. It was like that moment in the bedroom when she had bought my silence with the key of my bedroom.
We understood each other. I felt a tremendous relief because I was free of her. She had played into my hands.
But I wanted to help her now. I was beginning to see her as a sad little creature, born into a world where it was necessary to fight for all the comforts her body craved; she had to fight against a sensuous nature which betrayed her at every turn. Who was I to blame her for that?
I said to her: “He cannot do anything. Andrew made the will. He cannot prove that Richard is not Andrew’s. Who should know this? Perhaps it was his.”
She was smiling at me shyly, almost gratefully.
“The nephew is trying to browbeat you. Obviously, he guesses the child is not his uncle’s and by showing your fear of him you are playing into his hands. You must insist that the child is Andrew’s. I don’t see what good can come in denying it. And you should go to a solicitor. Go to Mr. Rosen. I am sure the nephew won’t have a leg to stand on.”
“Would you come with me to Mr. Rosen? You can talk so much better than I can.”
I wanted to laugh out loud. When I thought of how she had disturbed me, the anxious thoughts I had suffered because of her, I felt it had turned out almost comically.