Читать книгу The Coldstone - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 9

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Anthony dined in a dark, low room that would have accommodated forty people with ease. Lane’s hushed voice, proffering sherry or murmuring “Certainly, sir,” hardly seemed to break the silence. The old-fashioned oil lamp hanging down over the table hardly seemed to break the darkness. Anthony thought he would have electric light put in if there was any money at all. Oil lamps were bad enough in an Indian bungalow where the whitewashed walls gave the light a chance, but one old lamp hanging low in a dark panelled room was a bit too much of a bad thing.

He ate his dinner sitting just on the edge of the circle of yellow light cast by the lamp. Lane went to and fro in the outer darkness. Over by the door behind him an even older and less efficient lamp smelled to heaven. It was most frightfully depressing.

“Will you take coffee here, sir?” said Lane. He had the tray in his hand, an old heavy silver tray.

Anthony swung his chair sideways and put an elbow on the table.

“Yes, please—just put it down. And look here, sit down yourself—I want to talk to you.”

“I can stand, sir.”

“No, sit down. I want to talk, and I can’t talk unless you sit.”

Lane took a chair under protest. As he sat down on the edge of it, the circle of light just touched his cheek. He drew back from it, but Anthony received a momentary impression of a worried elderly face.

“Now!” he said, but for a moment no more came. Then he asked quickly, “Who is Mrs. Bowyer?”

He had an idea that Lane relaxed, and he wondered whether he had been afraid that he was going to be asked about the Stones.

“Mrs. Bowyer, sir?”

“Yes.”

“She’s Sir Jervis’ foster sister, sir. That is to say she’s older than Sir Jervis was, but her mother nursed him. She’s close on a hundred, and very much respected, sir, by the gentry and all.”

Anthony thought about that for a moment.

“I say, people seem to live to a good old age at Ford St. Mary!”

“Yes, sir. Mrs. Bowyer’s grandfather, old Tom Bowyer, he lived to be getting on for a hundred too, and so did his father before him, sir. Mrs. Bowyer she was a Bowyer born, and married her cousin. And she’ll tell you how he died young through an accident at no more than seventy-five. She felt it a bit of a disgrace, sir, because Bowyers always reckon to pass ninety. I beg your pardon, sir.”

Anthony laughed.

“I’d like to meet Mrs. Bowyer.”

“She’d take it kindly if you stepped across, sir. She’s only just over the way.”

“Does she live alone?”

“She does, and she doesn’t. There’s a girl goes in and does for her—Smithers’ daughter—he’s gardener, sir—Mary Ann Smithers. She looks after her, and when there isn’t anyone there she sleeps in.”

“When there isn’t anyone there?”

“She has her granddaughter—that is, I should say, her great-granddaughter—that’s come on a visit a couple of times since Sir Jervis died. She’s there now, I believe.”

There was a silence. If he were to ask questions about Mrs. Bowyer’s granddaughter, Lane would think it odd. Or would he? There were a whole lot of questions he would like to ask—where she lived, and what she did; and why she had two voices, a slow drawling country voice, and that quick breathless whisper. She puzzled him very much, but he couldn’t ask Lane about her.

He threw back his head with a jerk and said abruptly,

“Why won’t anyone talk about the Coldstone Ring, Lane?”

Lane was caught off his guard. His chair went back with a grate. He got up and stood there, well back in the shadow.

“Sir Jervis——” he began, and then stopped.

Anthony prompted him.

“Sir Jervis didn’t like people to talk about it. Was that what you were going to say?”

“Yes, sir.” Lane was relieved and eager.

“Yes. But why? It’s no use, Lane—you might as well tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell—not that I know about, sir.” He sounded very unhappy.

“Well, let’s take it that you don’t know anything, but you’ve heard something. I’m asking you what you’ve heard about the Stones.”

“I can’t say, sir.”

“Hang it all, what’s the good of saying you can’t say? It’s senseless, man! I don’t ask you to vouch for anything—I only want to know what’s said. There are the Stones, and a field you can’t get into. The hay isn’t cut there. Nobody’ll talk about them. People who’ve lived here all their lives have never walked a quarter of a mile to see them. The Miss Colstones say there are superstitions about them. Well now, Lane, I’m asking you straight out, as an old family servant, to tell me what those superstitions are. You’ve been here forty years, and you can’t pretend you don’t know.”

Lane made a curious unintelligible sound of protest. Then, as Anthony moved, he said in a low, hesitating voice,

“Sir—sir—I’d rather not. I—I don’t know anything.”

“I’m asking you what is said.”

Lane looked over his shoulder. The room was not so dark but that it held darker shadows. He took a step towards the lighted circle.

“Ask Mrs. Bowyer, sir—don’t ask me. She knows a deal more about the Stones than anyone else do. Her great-grandfather he saw things with his very own eyes——” He broke off in some agitation.

“What did he see?” said Anthony, laughing.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“But Mrs. Bowyer knows?”

“That’s what folks say. And if she don’t know, there’s nobody that does. I can’t say more than that.”

He came forward as he said the last words, took up the coffee tray, and went out, moving a little more quickly than usual.