The Castleford Conundrum Page 5

  His pipe had gone out, and he paused to relight it, possibly with the idea of giving Hilary time to consider what he had told her.

  “Well, that’s how it happened,” he said at last. “I’m not trying to justify myself; but it means a good deal to me, how you look at it, Hilary. I’ve always shirked telling you the story, because I’m not proud of it; but there it is, anyhow,” he ended, weakly.

  Hilary reflected for a moment or two, while he waited in anxiety.

  “I don’t see anything to be ashamed of,” she reassured him. “She crippled you, and she owed you a good deal more for that than she could pay any other way. Plenty of people get married without being in love. And you did it for me. I couldn’t throw stones if I wanted to; and there’s nothing to throw stones at, even if I wanted to. I’m glad you told me all about it. If you hadn’t, I’d never have guessed how much you’ve done for me. I’ll try to make up for it, now that I know.”

  Her tone said much more than her words. Castleford knew, with immense relief, that she thought the more of him now that his tale was told. He knew he had played an unheroic part, and it was a comfort to find that she had weighed his difficulties against his conduct.

  “I may as well finish the story,” he recommenced, in a less halting tone. “We were married at a registry office, quite quietly. She insisted on it; and it wasn’t until afterwards that I understood why she wanted it. She had a pretty good idea what the two Glencaples would think of it; and she took the line of facing them with a fait accompli. They had no grounds for objecting, of course; she was her own mistress, even if she was their brother’s widow. But she had more than a suspicion that if the thing came out beforehand, these two would do their best to dissuade her; and she didn’t want to be dissuaded, since she’d set her mind on getting her own way.

  “I met them first after the marriage. We didn’t get on. I don’t blame them, because in the meantime they’d discovered that she’d altered her will in my favour, and that cut them out of it. I expect I’d have felt sore myself, if I’d been in their shoes; it’s only human nature, after all.

  “The Glencaples weren’t the only surprise she sprang on me. Shortly after her husband died, she’d taken on that half-sister of hers as a companion. Just before she met me, the Lindfield woman’s sister had to go to South Africa for her health—lungs gone wrong—and someone had to go with her to look after her. So that Lindfield woman went off there, and was away until after our marriage. Then when the sister died, Winifred brought Constance Lindfield back here again to her old post as companion, without saying a word to me about the matter. And, naturally, that trusted companion wasn’t exactly pleased to find a husband installed here when she arrived at Carron Hill. Besides, I’d objected to her being taken on again, and that was a black mark against me from the start.”

  “I’ve never liked her,” said Hilary, briefly.

  “She’s never liked us,” Castleford returned. “And she’s worse than the Glencaples, you know, for she’s always on the premises. I get a rest from the Glencaples between times; but that Lindfield woman is always at one’s elbow. She’d established a regular ascendancy here, before I appeared on the scene; she’s in too strong a position to shake. And half the trouble about the place could be traced back to her, I’m pretty sure, if one could follow up the trail. She hates me. I suppose she counted on making a good thing out of her position here, one way and another; and no doubt she expected to come in for a good thing under the old will, if anything happened. I believe she was down for a fair sum in it. Now, she wouldn’t get much.”

  Hilary thought for some moments in silence after he ceased speaking.

  “Couldn’t we get away from here?” she demanded at last. “I wouldn’t mind pinching, not really, so long as we could get out of this house.”

  Castleford shook his head mournfully.

  “Do you think we’d be here now, if it could be helped?” he asked. “It can’t be done. I can’t make money now that I’ve lost these fingers. I’m no good even as an untrained clerk. You’ve had no training in anything. I couldn’t afford to give you any. And two of us couldn’t manage to exist on about a hundred a year, which is all we’ve got now. No, it’s out of the question; we’ve just got to face that.”

  He turned his pipe in his fingers, and added darkly:

  “I’d be glad enough if that were the worst of it.”

  Hilary looked up sharply at his tone.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You may as well know the whole business, now I’ve gone so far,” her father went on. “You know what I married her for—security, and security for you, mainly. I had all sorts of hopes about what she’d do for you, you see? She’s got any amount of money, and I’d thought she’d send you to a good boarding-school, first of all, and then other things later on—a dress allowance, give you a good time, let you have your chance, and that sort of thing. She didn’t. She’ll spend money on herself freely; that Lindfield woman seems able to get a decent salary from her; but you . . .? She’s never spent a penny on you from first to last, except for the food you eat. She was jealous of you from the start, once we were married. I suppose she didn’t like the idea of my having been married before, as soon as she had got her own way and grew tired of her new toy; and you were a constant reminder of that. Something of the sort, at any rate.”

  “Well, what does that matter?” Hilary pointed out. “She can’t do less than she’s doing, can she?”

  “No,” said Castleford, gloomily, “but she can do one thing that would knock the bottom out of our security: she can alter her will. Then, if she died—and she’s got this diabetes, remember, even if Glencaple’s treatment seems to be keeping her afloat—we’d be left stranded. And I’m not such a fool that I can’t see the pressure that’s being brought to bear on her to make a new will. The Glencaples are at her on the one side; they’ve never forgiven me for stepping into their brother’s shoes and putting out my hand towards his money. They feel they ought to have it if anything happens—and I don’t blame them much for that. And on the other side, that Lindfield woman is playing the same game, always trying to stir up petty trouble so as to drive a wedge in a little deeper. Between them, I think they’ve come pretty near success now; and I shouldn’t wonder if she alters her will. She’ll cut you out of it, for certain; and likely enough I’ll be scored out also. She wouldn’t think twice about it, in spite of all her original promises; I know her well enough for that. And then, if she happened to die—where would our ‘security’ be? I’ve paid dearly enough for it all these years; and when I see it slipping away . . .”

  He broke off, as though he had blurted out more than he had intended. After a moment, he resumed in a quieter tone.

  “That’s how things stand. She’s written to her lawyers and got her will back this morning. I saw the letter on the breakfast-table. The Glencaples came over to dinner tonight. It’s easy to put two and two together; they’re talking the business over now, I expect, in the drawing-room. And what can I do? Nothing! She has no use for me; I’ve no hold over her now, not the slightest. If she alters that will and dies next week, the Glencaples will turn the two of us out onto the street without the slightest compunction.”

  Hilary’s strong young face turned to confront him with an expression he had never seen before. He could not interpret it, but he knew he had drawn her closer to him by his revelations; and he was glad he had forced himself to speak so frankly.

  “It’s a damnable thing, to lose one’s independence,” he said with a bitterness that made his daughter’s nerves twitch responsively.

  “Don’t worry too much,” she answered, with a catch in her voice. “I know just how you feel; but perhaps there’s a way out.”

  Castleford seemed to be reminded of something he had overlooked.

  “I think I’d better get these bearer bonds into my own hands,” he said, suddenly. “They’re in the safe, here, along with her jewels and some other stuff of hers. They’d be s
afer in a bank, now I come to think of it. There would be less risk of them being mistaken for her property, then. They’re all we have.”

  His pipe had gone out and he rose to knock it out on the ashtray. Hilary took up her work again as he resettled himself in his chair. For a time he stared in front of him, occupied with his own thoughts. With all his frankness, he had kept one thing back from

  Hilary, a thing he could hardly tell to his daughter: that damnable anonymous letter about his wife and Dick Stevenage. His teeth clenched on his pipestem as he thought of it. It had come by the post that afternoon; and the brutal terms of it were burned into his memory. It might be true; and under his quiet exterior he was blazing with anger at the mere possibility. That would be the last straw. And yet, what steps could he take? In that precarious position of his, one false move might precipitate a catastrophe in which Hilary would be involved as well as himself.

  Chapter Three

  The Second Camp

  “I could shoot you, Auntie Winnie. Look!”

  Frankie brought his new toy to his shoulder and took deliberate aim at his aunt across the drawing-room.

  “Put that thing down!” she exclaimed nervously, as she caught sight of the muzzle turned towards her. “Put it down, at once, there’s a good boy. It might be loaded and go off. Accidents are always happening, just like that. I saw a case the other week in the Daily Sketch.”

  Frankie, with a sullen face, lowered his rook-rifle.

  “It really isn’t loaded,” Connie Lindfield’s cool voice reassured her. “I looked through the barrel before I let him bring it into the room.”

  “So there!” added the amiable child.

  He took good care, however, to speak below his breath so that his aunt failed to catch the words. It had been impressed upon him by his father, in unmistakable terms, that he must never offend his aunt. Miss Lindfield may have overheard his remark, but if she did so, she made no sign. In Frankie’s eyes, Miss Lindfield was “a good sport.” She never gave him away; she listened to his frequent lies with a smile which he thought encouraging and credulous; she could be counted upon, at times, to give him the very present he coveted; and if she checked him—on rare occasions—she did so in the guise of a fellow-conspirator warning him against trouble from the adult world. A very different kind of person from Hillie, with her indignant eyes and stinging words. That incident of the kitten was still rankling in his mind as well as in Hilary’s.

  Winifred Castleford had already forgotten the rook-rifle. She returned to her fashion-paper through which she was skimming idly, for any prolonged study of print was too great a tax upon her faculty of attention.

  “Skirts are to be longer, Connie,” she reported, without raising her eyes from the page. “Do you think that’s a good thing?”

  “Perhaps.”

  In point of fact, Miss Lindfield did not think it would be a good thing. She had neat legs and ankles which could stand the test of golfing-shoes. Short skirts set them off to advantage. If skirts were lengthened by fashion, one of her undeniable assets would be concealed from appraising male eyes; and she was not anxious for the change. She was too tactful, however, to voice her views on the point. Winifred’s ankles were slim enough, but above them she had calves like a sturdy dairy-maid’s. A slightly longer skirt would make a considerable difference to her.

  “I think it’ll be a good idea. I do indeed, Connie,” Mrs. Castleford went on. “If we take to longer skirts, these working girls won’t be able to copy us. It’ll make a difference. They’ve got to hop on to motor-busses and squeeze into Tubes. They need to have short skirts. Longer skirts would put us in a different class from them. Just now we’re all alike. I think it’s a really good idea, don’t you?”

  Miss Lindfield neither endorsed nor dissented from these assertions.

  “It’ll make a difference,” she admitted, in a tone which allowed Winifred to assume that she agreed.

  “These men are a long time over their coffee,” Mrs. Castleford complained, throwing her fashion-paper aside. “I hope Phil isn’t boring them. I hope he isn’t.”

  Then, with a sudden burst of peevishness:

  “I wish you wouldn’t snap that gun like that, Frankie. It annoys me. It does, really.”

  Frankie, who had been taking imaginary pot-shots at various ornaments, put his gun down wearily. Could he never do anything without some grown-up making objections? Evidently not, he reflected crossly, and relapsed into a sort of fidgety quiet. Miss Lindfield, apparently having nothing to occupy her, picked up the rook-rifle and examined it incuriously.

  The door opened and the two Glencaples entered in turn. Confronted by them, a stranger would have inferred that each took after a different parent, for there was little family resemblance between them. Kenneth came in first, round-headed, round-faced, round-eyed, waddling slightly as he advanced into the room on his short legs. His red face and the suspicion of a crumple in his shirt-front gave him the air of having done himself well at the dinner-table. There was a touch of commonness about him from which his brother was free. Laurence was taller, with a long thin face which looked hard in repose but could assume an expression of grave solicitude when a patient’s case demanded that. A sound doctor, people declared: quiet, confident, and resourceful. He had the neatness of a surgeon, though he did no surgical practice.

  Kenneth waddled across to the hearth-rug and took up his position with his back to the empty fire-place, his legs well apart. Laurence closed the door behind him, glanced speculatively at the various chairs before seating himself in the one which took his fancy, and then inquired lazily:

  “Where’s Hillie?”

  “She’s gone off somewhere, I suppose. I expect she’s got something or other to do. She may have letters to write. I don’t know. You don’t want her, do you, Laurie?” Winifred ended with a faint note of discontent in her voice.

  “Not I. Mere curiosity.”

  “Where’s Phil?” Mrs. Castleford demanded.

  “Gone off somewhere, I expect,” Laurence answered with a vague parody of her own explanation, though his tone varied from hers enough to prevent her noticing that.

  Kenneth, from the hearth-rug, contributed a grunt which suggested that he was not ill-pleased at his host’s absence. Then, as an after-thought, he became articulate:

  “We can spare him, hey? Never has anything to say for himself that anyone would want to listen to. Better without him, eh?”

  His round eyes glanced from face to face, seeking endorsement of his views.

  “Tried to draw him out tonight,” he grumbled. “No good. Cliquey lot, these artists. Jealous. I asked him what he thought of that fellow Kirchner’s drawings. You remember them, Laurie? Pretty girls. Came out in La Vie Parisienne during the War, didn’t they? He didn’t think much of them, I could see. Sort of shut up like a spider when you poke it.”

  Winifred broke into a shrill titter at his description. Miss Lindfield showed her admirable teeth in an encouraging smile. Laurence laughed, but with an air of being amused by something other than his brother’s remark. Frankie laughed loudly. He knew exactly how spiders behaved when you tormented them, and he supposed that this was the point of his father’s joke.

  Kenneth made an automatic movement to straighten his tie, which had slipped to one side a little. His eye fell upon his brother.

  “Nearly late for dinner tonight, Laurie. How’s that? Not like you.”

  Laurence pulled out his cigar-case and picked out a cigar after a glance which asked permission from the two women.

  “I had to pay a visit on the way over—Heckford. He detained me a minute or two longer than I expected.”

  Heckford’s case was public property. He was a morpho-maniac. The police had been called in when he took to shamming fits on doctors’ doorsteps in the hope of getting a hypodermic injection. He had been released under promise to put himself into Laurence’s hands for treatment.

  “Heckford? H’m!” Kenneth’s tone expressed the c
ontempt of a full-blooded man for a weaker type. “Rotter, that fellow. No good. You’ll never make anything of him, Laurie. Giving him diminishing doses, hey? Cut him off entirely—snick!—that’s what I say.”

  Laurence lighted his cigar carefully before answering. “That only works if you have ’em under restraint, and I’m not sure about it even then.”

  He pitched his extinguished match inside the fender adroitly.

  “Curious creatures, these drug-fiends,” he went on, as though discussing generalities. “One symptom turns up quite often. They try to spread the drug-habit among their friends. They seem to want to get other people into the same boat. ‘Just try it!’ You can’t trust ’em with the stuff, of course. If you handed ’em over three days’ supply on their word of honour to take it in proper doses, they’d burst the lot in one orgy as soon as your back was turned. You have to keep a sharp eye on ’em when you visit ’em to give ’em their daily jag. They’d pick your pocket for the drug if they could. Why, tonight, as I packed the stuff back into my bag . . .”

  He suddenly realised that he was mentioning a concrete case and broke off.

  Miss Lindfield had been giving him polite attention, but Winifred obviously had not been listening to a word. She waited impatiently until he had finished speaking and then immediately rushed in.

  “Connie!”

  Miss Lindfield turned her head.

  “Oh, Connie! I’ve forgotten something. Such a nuisance! Isn’t it today I take flowers to that Hospital? I knew there was something I ought to do, and I couldn’t think what it was. It’s most provoking, that, isn’t it, Connie?”

  Winifred had the greatest difficulty in recalling her appointments. True enough, she had an engagement-book. But the chances were that she forgot to keep the book posted up and still relied on it, which did not help matters much. Constance Lindfield knew quite well that now she was being blamed, tacitly, for not reminding Winifred about the visit to the Hospital at Sunnyside. Winifred cared nothing for the patients; but she liked to pose as Lady Bountiful and drive over once a week in a car laden with flowers from the Carron Hill gardens.