"It seems so strange that she should go so suddenly."
"It is and then it isn't. You could never be sure with Mrs. Martindale."
We went on talking but I could discover nothing more. Dick Cramm came to collect me, and Ada came in from the greenhouses and said how pleased she was to have met me.
On the way back I thought of all that had been said and I was very uneasy.
I knew it would be impossible to go on avoiding Jason. He was determined to catch me and it was inevitable that he should eventually do so.
This happened four days after my visit to Bristonleigh.
I had two hours' break and I took out one of the horses. He caught up with me near the woods not far from Rooks' Rest. In fact I think he must have been coming from there.
"You've been avoiding me, Cordelia," he said reproachfully.
His effrontery was amazing and I couldn't help laughing.
"Did you imagine I would do anything else?" I asked.
"No . after my appalling conduct the last time we were alone together. I've been trying to catch you to ask your forgiveness."
"You surprise me."
"Well then, am I forgiven?"
"I don't want to see you again. Don't you realize that you have insulted me?"
"Insulted you? On the contrary I have paid you the highest compliment a man can pay to a woman."
"Don't talk nonsense," I said and spurred on my horse.
But of course he was beside me.
"Please let me explain. I have come to ask you to marry me."
I laughed again.
"Without my credentials," I said. "You are very rash."
"By no means. I have given the matter great thought. I want you ... and only you will do."
"That's rather unfortunate for you. Goodbye." "I never take no for an answer."
"You must remember it takes two to make a marriage. Perhaps your ancestors of whom you seem so proud used to drag their brides to the altar and force them at knife point to utter their vows .. . but that wouldn't work today."
"We never did such things. Where did you get such an idea? We have always been the most eligible partis in the neighbourhood and females have schemed to inveigle us into matrimony."
"This is all nonsense. I don't like you. I don't trust you. You behaved to me in a barbarous manner and the only way in which you can earn my forgiveness is to get out of my sight and never let me see you again."
"Alas, it appears I must do without your forgiveness."
"I want nothing to do with you. I do not care to be thought of as having any connection with you. I shall be grateful if you will leave me alone."
"That is not easy for two reasons. One the school pageant and the worthy Miss Hetherington. The other and even more insurmountable is that I am besotted about you."
"Then fend someone else quickly on whom to lavish your devotion. Where is Mrs. Martindale?" "In London, I think."
"Are you completely insensitive? Do you know what is being said about her ... and you?"
"I'll guess. I murdered her. Is that it?"
"That is the implication. Did you?"
He laughed at me. "Good God! What a question. So you think I am a murderer, do you?"
"I saw a very ugly side of your nature not very long ago."
"Dear Cordelia, I love you. I was trying to make you happy.
"You are amused. I do not see what happened as a joke."
"You would have been so happy. We would have sent that prim schoolmistress packing. We would have made plans. It would have been wonderful. I should have shown you a new Cordelia."
"You have a great opinion of yourself. I do not share it. Nor I believe do others."
"I wish you would give yourself a chance to know me."
"I don't think from what I already know that it would be a pleasant experience."
"Listen to me. I don't know where she is. She's gone. That's all that concerns me. You are too bard on me. You think the worst of me always. You have right from the start when I ordered your carriage to go back."
"That was a typical gesture. It is how you treat people all the time."
"Cordelia, let me try to make you understand. I know I give the impression of being arrogant and selfish. I am. But I could be different with you. You could change me. We could be good together ... because I'd change you too. I'd open your eyes, Cordelia. I feel alive just talking to you. I love the way you lash me with your tongue. They certainly taught you verbal sparring at Schaffenbrucken. I am what I am because of my environment. It was the way I was brought up. I want children to be heirs to my estate. That's natural isn't it? I don't want to go on as I have been doing. I want someone to help me become what I want to be. I know that is you. I have told you something of my childhood. It was not a happy one. My brother and I were strictly brought up. You know he continued to live here under this roof when he married-and the girls are now my wards. My wife was a good woman, but I was never interested in her ... even before the accident. Then she was immersed in her ailments. But it was not that so much as the fact that we had absolutely nothing in common ... nothing to talk about. Can you imagine the dreariness of that. She was stoical and I was sometimes impatient. I had a grudge against fate which had saddled me with her. She could not live with me as a wife. I didn't care about that. Naturally there were others ... many of them. There was no particular one ... perhaps that was why there were so many. Have you understood so far?"
"Yes, of course."
"And are you still sitting in judgement?"
"I am not. I just do not want to be involved with you."
"She died ... of an overdose of laudanum. She often said she would take her life if the pain became unendurable. She was a religious woman and the pain must have been well nigh unbearable. She wouldn't have done it otherwise. We were good friends. She knew that I sought consolation elsewhere ... and she died."
"And you brought Marcia Martindale to Rooks' Rest. Why?"
He was silent for a few seconds. I asked myself why I stayed talking to him. I should have turned my horse and galloped away. Yet the urge to remain was irresistible.
He said: "Marcia amused me. She could be so outrageous. She was always playing a part ... on and off stage. She became pregnant and in an impulsive moment I offered her Rooks' Rest so that she could get right away and have the child in peace. Then, she discovered the real state of affairs down here ... invalid wife, estate with only two girls to inherit ... the end of the name Verringer. It was like a play to her. She therefore decided that the child was mine, that she was showing me she was not infertile and that if I were free I should marry her. It used to amuse me. Perhaps I wasn't serious enough. She made her fantasies, played them out, and if she liked them well enough, believed them."
"And then your wife died."
"Yes. That was when it became difficult." "I can see that."
"She really believed then that I would marry her. I went away hoping that she would grow tired of the country and return to London."
"But she joined you instead."
"She did not join me. She might have, if she had known where I was, but I was determined that she should not know."
"But she did go away, and it was said ..."
"It was said! You have built up something against me on what was said!"
"Do you really think, after what I know of you, that I have to listen to other people's opinions. Haven't I had experience of my own?"
"You must realize that I acted as I did out of my desperate need of you. I know that had I succeeded I should have opened up a new way of life for you ... for us. Oh, Cordelia, stop being the sanctimonious schoolmarm. You're not that. It's a façade you hide behind."