Frank whistled.
“Poor old Craig-he’s run into something!”
Miss Silver coughed reprovingly,
“I can assure you that he considers himself extremely fortunate to have won the love of so good and charming a girl. As Lord Tennyson so aptly says:
Frank sat up laughing.
“Oh, if it’s that way of it, there’s nothing more to say, is there! What is a mad murderous aunt or two when you and Lord Tennyson approve! She’s raving, so they won’t hang her anyhow. All that remains is to offer one’s felicitations, select a suitable gift, and hope for the best. It’s a mad world anyhow.”
Miss Silver smiled.
CHAPTER 46
Craig, I must go back.”
She sat looking at him, all the bloom and radiance gone. It made him feel like an executioner. Twenty-four hours, and he had had to bring that tragic look to her face! Even the brief respite had been hard to achieve. The evening paper had to be suppressed, a chance taken with the possibility of some ghastly poster headline, some friendly encounter. Well, they had had their twenty-four hours. The arrival at his house, old Nan’s welcome, Jenny’s excitement, Rosamond’s quiet delight, the feeling that they had reached a place where all the things they had dreamed of would come true-And now, in the grey morning with rain beating on the windows and a cold wind blowing, he had had to tell her about Lydia Crewe.
He knew her so well that he had known what she would say. Now he heard her say it.
“Craig, I must go back.”
“My darling child!”
She put out her hands to him, and he took them.
“Oh, you ought to have told me before! You oughtn’t to have let me marry you!”
Her hands were strongly, warmly held.
“Darling, don’t be stupid! Now, will you just listen to me! You are about to produce all the old clichés, and I don’t want to hear them. Instead, you will listen to the voice of common sense. To start with, nowadays people stand or fall by what they do themselves. Nobody cares two hoots about their relations. Most people have one or two whom they don’t exactly brag about, you know. To go on with, no one is going to connect you and Jenny with Miss Crewe unless you make a point of it.”
A sudden colour came into her face.
“Craig, don’t you see I can’t just turn my back and pretend she doesn’t belong. She did take us in when we had nowhere to go, and she is a relation-my mother was a Crewe. I can’t walk out and say it’s got nothing to do with me. Someone must see about the legal part of it. I can’t just run away and let her think I don’t care. I must go back.”
He said,
“She won’t thank you.”
Rosamond pulled her hands away.
“What does that matter?”
He smiled suddenly.
“No it wouldn’t-to you. All right, darling, we’ll go back. Jenny can stay here with Nan. You don’t want to drag her into it, I suppose?”
“Oh, no!”
Jenny had no wish to return to Hazel Green. The things which had happened there were things she never meant to think about again. Neither now nor at any other time would she call back the hour when she had kneeled behind the stile which led into Vicarage Lane and watched the beam of a torch slide over something which lay upon the grass verge beyond-a long, dark something covered with sacking. She would never let herself think about the blue bead which she had found there. The dark hours were gone. The bead was gone. She didn’t care whether Aunt Lydia was mad, or whether she was in prison. The only thing she cared about was that she need never, never, never see her again. She had Craig for a brother, and this darling house to live in, and Nan, all comfortable and rosy and about two yards round the waist, to look after them. Nan was going to let her make an apple turn-over. She was nice.
Rosamond and Craig drove through the rain. He knew now he had always been sure that Rosamond would go back. She was gentle, but she was resolute. He laughed suddenly and said,
“You know, my sweet, what you’ve got is a strong, persevering Scottish conscience.”
“Do you mind very much?”
“I shall get used to it. One of my grandmothers was a Scot, which will help me to keep my end up.”
It was still raining when they drove up to Crewe House, to find the police in charge there.
Later in the day they were admitted to see Lydia Crewe. Rosamond had not Jenny’s gift of being able to shut the door upon what she did not choose to remember. The interview which followed was to haunt her-the bare room with its whitewashed walls and its smell of varnish-the long yellow table with Aunt Lydia at one end of it and herself and Craig at the other-the two policewomen who stood one at the door, and the other behind Aunt Lydia’s chair. Afterwards she was to remember with a shudder that there were two. At the time it gave her a vague sense of security. The mad incessant talking had stopped, but there might still be an outbreak of violence.
Lydia Crewe sat at the far end of the table, her back stiff, her eyes hooded. Rosamond’s hands held one another tightly. She said,
“We have come to see what we can do, Aunt Lydia. You will want to see a solicitor.”
“A solicitor?” Miss Crewe’s tone was haughty in the extreme. “Do you imagine that I am not already provided with a legal adviser? Mr. Hawthorn of Hawthorn and Monkshead has done all my business for years.”
Craig said in a low voice,
“They won’t touch the case-not in their line. They’ll recommend someone, I expect.”
Lydia Crewe said sharply,
“Don’t mumble, Mr. Lester! It’s a deplorable habit! And may I ask just what business this is of yours?”
Rosamond flushed.
“Aunt Lydia -we are married-”
She lifted her lids and fixed them with a long cold stare.
“Indeed? So this is how you repay all that I have done for you and Jenny! You seem to have been in most indecent haste!”
Craig said in his pleasant voice,
“I thought that Rosamond and Jenny needed someone to look after them, Miss Crewe. Now Rosamond and I have come here to see whether there is anything we can do for you. We are not allowed to stay very long, so perhaps you will just let us know.”
She kept that staring look, but it had become unfocussed. She said, “Married-” And then, “I do not know that I should have objected if I had been properly approached. The important thing is that the name should go on. You will, of course, take immediate steps to entitle you to call yourself Crewe. Major Maxwell always refused to do so. A most stubborn person, and quite unappreciative of the honour we did him in admitting him to the family.”
When Craig made no reply, she said with extreme sharpness,
“You will take the name-immediately!”
“I think not, Miss Crewe.”
She stood up then, leaned forward with her hands at the table’s edge, gripping it, and began in a low shaking voice to rehearse the bygone glories of the Crewes-Sir John who died with Philip Sidney at Zutphen-Charles, his brother, who sailed against the Armada-Bevis, the saintly bishop-James, the witty courtier beloved of Charles II-name after name, generation after generation, whilst her voice rose and a fire kindled in her eyes. She looked at Rosamond and said,
“My house-my people. And thanks to me they will not die. The great houses are going down-the life blood has been drained out of them. But not the Crewes-oh, no, not the Crewes! They are going to be greater than ever! The old glories will come back! I have seen to that, you know! There will be money enough!” She repeated the word in a whisper. “Enough-” and stood there empty and shaken.