Miss Silver finished her own cup of tea before she said in a thoughtful voice.
‘Just why do you think she should leave Underhill, Mr. Eversley?’
He said, ‘Look here, this is all between ourselves, isn’t it?’
She gave a slight reproving cough.
‘You have asked for my professional assistance. You can naturally rely upon my professional secrecy.’
He found himself making an apology.
‘It was just that – well – my Cousin Louisa – ’
Miss Silver said graciously,
‘You need be in no anxiety. Pray continue.’
‘I am going to tell you about something that happened more than five years ago. I was staying at a place called Eastcliff, and I had been out in a boat bird-watching – it’s a hobby of mine. There’s an island with a lot of gulls. I was coming back, making for the mainland, when I saw a girl halfway up the cliffs. She had been caught by the tide, and I could see that she was stuck. I called out and asked her if she could hold on whilst I got help. She said she would try. She was spread-eagled there, with hardly any hold, and I could see that I couldn’t risk it. What I could do was to run into the cove I was making for and climb along the cliff to a ledge just over her head. I managed it, and I got her up on to the ledge. By that time it was too dark to get her off the cliff by the way I had come, and we had to stay there all night. She was a schoolgirl of about fifteen, and her name was Candida Sayle. She had come to Eastcliff to meet friends who didn’t turn up, because one of them had been taken ill. And she got cut off by the tide because two old ladies staying in the same private hotel had told her that there was a very nice walk along the beach, and that the tide would not be high until eleven.’
‘That was a most unfortunate mistake.’
He said doggedly,
‘I don’t believe it was a mistake.’
‘Mr. Eversley!’
‘I can’t believe it. The first thing you find out about at any seaside place is the tides. And that tide was high at a quarter to nine. Can you believe that anyone could have been two hours out? And you haven’t heard everything. Those two women who told Candida that there was such a nice walk along the beach and that the tide wouldn’t be high till eleven were the Miss Benevents. They knew who Candida was, because they had watched her sign her name in the hotel register. They had even commented on its being an unusual one. But they didn’t tell her that they were her great-aunts. Oh, no, they just told her what a nice walk there was along the beach, and that she would have plenty of time to take it because the tide would not be high until eleven o’clock.’
Miss Silver looked at him gravely.
‘Are you suggesting – ’
‘Yes, I am. I’ve been over it and over it, and I don’t think there is any other explanation. I looked in the register, you know, after Candida had gone home, and I saw the names – Miss Olivia Benevent – Miss Cara Benevent. And they passed through the hall whilst I was there. I didn’t know that there was any family connection with Candida, and from first to last they never said anything about it themselves, but when they wrote to my uncle about Underhill I remembered the name, and as soon as I came down here I remembered them. And then Candida turned up, and I found she was their niece. That gave me a jolt, and the whole thing began to come back. And then I found out that Candida’s grandmother and her descendants came in for most of the property after Miss Cara. Cousin Louisa was talking about it the other night, do you remember?’
‘Yes, I remember.’
He went on as if she had not spoken.
‘When I told Candida, she said she knew about that. It seems Miss Cara told her. Now why should she have told her?’
Miss Silver had set down her cup and taken up a half-finished stocking. The hard grey yarn had a very schoolboy look, and for a fleeting moment Stephen wondered whom she could be knitting it for. He brushed the thought aside as she said,
‘I cannot say, Mr. Eversley.’
‘But you can see why I want to get Candida away from Underhill – ’
She was knitting sedately.
‘I can see that the incident which you have described made a deep impression on your mind.’
‘I suppose it did, but it had practically faded out. Then I met her again, and it all came back, and on the top of it that there was all this business about Alan Thompson.’
After a short thoughtful pause she said,
‘Yes, there was some talk about Alan Thompson the night you were here for supper. Louisa had asked you whether he was spoken of at Underhill, and you replied that you had received the impression he was not to be mentioned there. Have you anything to add to that reply?’
He said,
‘Yes, I have. Do you remember Cousin Louisa said there had been gossip about him and Miss Cara – that it had even been said that she might be going to marry him?’
Miss Silver said in a disapproving voice,
‘There is often a great deal of gossip in a Cathedral town. The society is formal and the interests restricted. Where such is the case, there is apt to be an undue emphasis on personal relationships. As Lord Tennyson so truly says:
‘ “And common is the commonplace,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain.” ’
Unaccustomed to her habit of quotation, Stephen felt slightly stunned. After a respectful moment had passed he went on.
‘Do you know, I don’t think it was just gossip. There is something that came my way last night – I think I had better tell you about it.’
‘Yes, Mr. Eversley.’
Her tone made it a statement of fact.
‘Well, it’s like this. I was dining with a Colonel Gatling. He has an enormous barrack of a house at Hilton St. John about two miles the other side of Underhill. The original building was one of those small manor houses, but the Gatlings, who came into it in the 1840s, overbuilt it with one of those frightful Victorian monstrosities which are now quite impossible to run. He wants to get it down to its original proportions, retain a very nice walled garden, and develop the rest of the property as a building estate. Hilton is an expanding place with an aircraft factory, and I think the necessary permits will be forthcoming. Well, that won’t interest you – it’s only to explain how I came to be dining with Colonel Gatling. He’s been very friendly – he’s a sociable, convivial old boy.’ He gave an odd half laugh. ‘Well, there’s the key to what I’ve got for you. He was very friendly and convivial last night. He talked a lot about his neighbours, and after a bit he got round to the Miss Benevents. He told me all about their father, one of the fine crusted Victorian brand, and how he had cut off his daughter Candida because she had married a parson who was probably the only man she had ever met. And then he chuckled and came out with, “I wonder what he’d have said if he’d known that his daughter Cara had come within an ace of marrying a young waster who might almost have been her grandson!” I said, “Did she do that?” and he poured himself out another glass of port and told me the whole story.’
‘He told you that Miss Cara had actually contemplated marrying Alan Thompson?“
Stephen frowned.
‘He put up an extremely circumstantial story. It seems that his brother Cyril was the Rector of the old parish church of Hilton, and that for some reason Underhill falls within that parish.’
Miss Silver exclaimed.
‘Dear me! They surely did not put up the banns there!’
‘Oh, no. But Alan Thompson came to the Rector about getting a licence – in the strictest confidence.’
Miss Silver looked shocked.
‘Then surely he did not tell his brother! It would be a very serious breach!’
‘Oh, no, he didn’t tell anyone. But he seems to have been a good deal troubled at the idea of such a marriage, and he wrote about it in his diary.’