Читать книгу The Black Abbot - Edgar Wallace - Страница 7

Table of Contents

If the Honourable Richard Fallington Alford had been regarded by the compilers of such volumes as being sufficiently important to have his biography enshrined in a popular work of reference, his life’s work, his hobby, and his recreation would be described as “looking after the Chelford estates.” His bailiffs said he knew every blade of grass; the tenant farmers swore he could price a standing crop to the last penny of its worth. He knew Fossaway Manor, its strength and weakness, better than the estate architect—could point out where the foundations were scamped by the Elizabethan builders. He could trace the walls of the old castle which Richard of York had burnt and razed, beheading the fourth earl for his treachery under the great archway, one crumbling pier of which still showed its gray and battered head above the roses that now surrounded it. He gave to the broad lands of Chelford a loyal and passionate devotion which any mistress might envy.

In the chill of an autumnal morning, when mist blanketed the hollows and a pale sun was struggling through thin clouds, he strolled across the park toward the Abbey ruins. There was little of them left. A truncated tower wrecked by lightning; a high, arched space where an oriel window had once flamed; mounds of scattered stones left where Cromwell’s soldiers had overturned them; and, under the carpet of grass, a “feel” of solid pavement.

He drew at his pipe as he stepped out, and the tobacco smelt sweet and wholesome in the cold air.

He was on his way to the home farm, and his errand was a prosaic one. A cow had died in the night, and his cowman had reported symptoms of cattle fever.

The familiar ruins showed up ahead, the half arch, like a huge question mark, arrested his eye and raised again the well-argued problem of restoration. Some day, when the Chelford ship came home, when that coal vein was proved, or when Harry had a rich wife....

This was an unpleasant thought. His lips curled in a grimace of distaste.

He stopped suddenly.

A figure was walking amongst the ruins—a woman. Her back was toward him and she was obviously unaware of his presence. Something about her figure seemed familiar—Dick turned from the path and walked toward her.

Evidently she did not hear him, for when he spoke she started, uttered a little scream, and turned a frightened face to him.

“Good-morning, Miss Wenner,” he said politely. “You are up and about very early.”

There was no need for him to wonder whether this girl had ever forgiven him for the very painful interview that had preceded her retirement. Recognizing him, her eyes blazed with hate.

“Good-morning, Mr. Alford.” She was civil enough. “I’m staying in the village and I thought I would like to come up and see the old place.”

He nodded gravely.

“You had a similar thought yesterday,” he said, “and tried to see my brother.”

“Well?” defiantly.

“I gave you to understand, Miss Wenner, that we should all be much happier if you never again passed the lodge gates,” he said quietly. “I hate saying this to any woman, but you ought to be the first to recognize how very uncomfortable you make me feel. I thought you would apprehend this.”

“Apprehend” was a stilted word, but he could think of no other.

“Is that so?” The colour had deepened in her face. “Is—that—so!”

“That is so,” he nodded.

She looked at him for a while and her lips curved.

“I’m sorry I’ve annoyed the family chaperon,” she sneered.

He could admire, in a detached way, her wholesome good looks; could even admire her courage. Her wrathful eyes were fixed on his, the break in her voice betrayed the fury she strove to conceal. As for Dick Alford, he felt a brute.

“I’m extremely sorry if you don’t like my calling,” she said, her voice razor-sharp and tremulous, “but I think the least Lord Chelford could have done was to see me, considering I’ve worked for him for three years and after all that has passed between us——”

“The only thing that passed between you, Miss Wenner, was your weekly wages,” said Dick, with maddening calmness.

But now he had taxed her to the limit of endurance.

“He asked me to marry him and I would have married him if you hadn’t put your spoke in!” she said shrilly. “I could get thousands and thousands out of him for breach of promise if I wasn’t a lady! You second sons and hangers-on poisoned his mind against me! You ought to be downright ashamed of yourself, you good-for-nothing, penniless pauper!”

Dick was faintly amused at the redundancy.

“You’ve wrecked and ruined my life,” the pretty virago went on, “with your interference, and after all the work I’ve done! After all them—I mean those hours I’ve spent with his lordship workin’ at the treasure an’ he told me I was the most helpful secretary he’d ever had....”

He let her talk herself to a sobbing incoherence.

“All this may be true,” he said soothingly, “and probably is. The point is, your presence here is a little—indelicate.”

Seeing her look round over her shoulder as she was talking, he had taken a quick survey of the ruins, expecting to discover that she had a companion. But there was nobody in sight. The ground sloped steeply from where he stood to the little Ravensrill, the broad brook which had for a thousand years marked the boundary of the manor. Unless somebody was concealed behind the fallen masonry she was alone.

“I suppose you want me to clear out now,” she gulped, and he inclined his head.

“I will walk with you to Fontwell Cutting—that is the nearest way to the village,” he said, and she was too much occupied with her manufactured misery to resent his offer.

What had she been doing in the Abbey ruins so early in the morning? He knew that it was useless to ask her.

As they passed down the steep path to the road she spoke over her shoulder.

“I wouldn’t marry him for a million pounds!” she said viciously. “He is going to marry Leslie Gwyn, isn’t he? I wish him joy!”

“I will convey your kind message,” he said ironically, an indiscreet rejoinder, for it roused the devil in her.

“Mind he doesn’t lose her, that’s all!” she screamed. “I know! Everybody knows! You want her money too—the Second Son’s in love with her—that’s a nice lookout for Harry Chelford!”

He sat swinging his legs over the edge of the bluff, watching her till she was out of sight.

Everybody knew that he loved Leslie Gwyn! And only at that moment he knew it himself!