I turned away, but he laid his hand on my bridle.
"You must listen to me. You must try to understand. I love you. I want you. I am asking you to marry me."
"The ultimate honour," I said with sarcasm.
"For me, yes," he said earnestly. "I love you, Cordelia. Whatever you had done I would go on loving you. If you murdered Miss Hetherington and threw her to the fishes in the pond, I'd still love you. That's what real love is."
"Very touching," I said, and I felt a ridiculous pity for him. I could not understand why. He looked so strong, ruthless, arrogant, everything that I disliked most, and yet when he talked of his love for me, I could almost believe he was speaking the truth. He was like a boy groping in the darkness for someone to love and understand him as he had never been loved and understood before.
I said on impulse: "Tell me what you know about Marcia Martindale's whereabouts."
"I know nothing. I suspect she is in London with Jack Martindale."
"Jack Martindale! Wasn't he her husband?"
"A sort of husband."
"He died crossing the Atlantic."
He laughed. "Oh, you've heard that version. There is one in which he died in a duel, fighting for the honour of Marcia, of course. And another in a theatrical fire after he had saved the lives of many including Marcia. I believe he went back for her pet dog. That was the affecting one."
"You mean it is all lies. You mean that this husband of hers is still alive?"
"I can't say that. I only said that she may have gone back to him."
"Did she say she was going back? Wasn't it rather sudden?"
"Not by her standards. Listen to me, Cordelia. I was unwise to let her come here. But she was in difficulties ... out of work because she was to have a baby. She had nowhere to go. Rooks' Rest was empty so I brought her here. I was in a low state. Sylvia, my wife, was suffering great pain. I scarcely saw her. I didn't think Fiona would be much use on the estate, and here was I getting older ... and to tell the truth disgruntled with what life had done to me. I lived what you call wildly in London, and I thought it would be amusing ... so on impulse I brought her here. It was folly because she immediately began including me in her fantasies. And then when Sylvia took that overdose, I was pulled up sharp ... and on the very day of her funeral I saw you. I knew at once that here was someone different from all the others ... someone who excited me, not only physically but in every way, and I began to plan. It seemed to me that here was a new start. Everything else was behind me. And then there was that damned woman at Rooks' Rest."
"Yes," I said. "Go on."
"Do you understand? Do you accept my feelings for you?"
"No. Only that there have been many women in your life and that you think it would be rather amusing to add me to their number."
"Are you being truthful with yourself, Cordelia? Your feelings are under control, I know, good schoolmistress that you are."
"I wish you would stop sneering at schoolmistresses."
"Sneer at them? They have my deepest admiration. A most honourable profession. But I have a different destiny marked out for you."
"I am one who will make my own destiny. But I should like to know what happened to Marcia Martindale."
"You can be sure she went to London. She was getting very smug. She told me to go to hell on more than one occasion, so I guessed she had plans. She realized that her little fantasy was at an end."
"Yet you felt responsibility for her child... although you seem sure that it is not yours."
"I suppose there is a possibility that it might be."
"I have been to Bristonleigh and seen Mrs. Gittings."
He stared at me in astonishment.
"I thought I would discover something about the mystery of which they were gossiping in the town."
"The idea of your going to such lengths!" He smiled. "Well, what did you discover?"
"Only that she had gone there on your instructions a few days before Marcia Martindale left Rooks' Rest, and that you sent her there and have promised to look after Miranda."
"And what inference do you draw from that?"
"That you knew Marcia was going ... to disappear, and you decided to get the child safely out of the way."
"Oh, I see. You have it all worked out. My dear, clever, little detective. What do I do now? Confess? I strangled her ... no, I hit her on the head with a blunt instrument. I buried her body in the garden .. . No, I dragged her to the fishponds and threw her in."
I faced him squarely. "Her earring was found by the fishponds."
He stared at me.
"Yes," I went on, "her earring. I knew it was hers. It was the one she dropped in your stables so I had seen it before. You might remember the occasion."
He nodded. "Why ... should her earring have been there?"
"Because she was."
"Where is the earring?"
"In the ponds. The girl who found it was Teresa Hurst. She showed it to me and she threw it into the water."
"Why did she do that?"
"Because she was afraid ... for me. She thought that you and I ... Well, she had not a very good opinion of you, you see, and she warned me about you..."
He laughed. "What a tangled web. I like Teresa. I should not like my enemies, of course, but she is a good girl and a smart one. I like her for her devotion to you."
"Perhaps you understand why I do not want to have anything more to do with you than I have to through school business. When and if we meet, please do not attempt to single me out for attention. You owe me that."
He continued to look aghast. He said: "I must tell you that I sent Miranda away because, after the scene between us, I guessed Marcia was planning something. I thought she would go to London. She couldn't take Mrs. Gittings with her to London. I knew that something had to be dope about the child."
I turned away. He had been shocked by my revelation about the earring, I could see.
When I galloped away he did not follow me.
At school there was talk of nothing but the pageant. Time was getting short, said Daisy. She had definitely decided on Midsummer's Eve. The evenings would be light. By great good fortune the moon would be full and she wanted to see what preparations we had made.
I had decided that we should have a commentary which should be read by three or four of the senior girls and, where it was possible, we should introduce little sketches. I would write these from the records beginning with the arrival of the emissary from Clairvaux with commands from St Bernard to choose a place far removed from towns and habitation and build an abbey.
We should have girls dressed as monks chanting as they walked through the ruins; and the commentary would explain how they worked at various tasks. Then we would come to the Dissolution and disaster.
The second part would be the Elizabethan age when the country was prospering and the Hall was built, using some of the stones from the Abbey ruins, and the Lay Brothers' Dorter restored. There would be girls in Tudor costumes singing madrigals and dancing.
The third act would be the present day with the girls showing what they did at school, singing, dancing, physical exercises, and ending with the singing of the school song.
Daisy thought it was an excellent plan and I must say that I quickly became caught up in it. It was the best possible way of taking my mind from all the doubts and fears which I had tried so hard to dispel and could not.
Daisy came into the calefactory where we were assembled, looking very pleased.
"There is to be a house party at the Hall," she said. "There always used to be at this time of the year-although it hasn't happened for some time. There was little entertaining when Lady Verringer was so Well, a year has passed since that sad event and now that Mrs. Martindale has left, perhaps we can come back to normal. I have decided to invite the guests for the pageant. Parents like to hear of that sort of thing. There is to be a musical evening there. Some famous pianist or violinist will come, just like the old days. Sir Jason has extended invitations to the whole teaching staff, which I have accepted on your behalf. That will be the evening after the pageant. Naturally the whole school could not go, but Fiona and Eugenie will be there and they may take a few guests-their special friends ... two or three each, Sir Jason and I decided. I think it will be a most interesting evening."