XII
“I Love You!”
Derrick got back to Beech Lodge in time for lunch and plunged at once into a vastly different atmosphere. The house was servantless, and this very fact had kept Edith too busy to indulge in any morbid reflections, even had her resilient nature felt so inclined. She was moved by the knowledge that her brother had been under a strain which, however incomprehensible to herself, was nevertheless to him very real. It was reflected in his eyes, his restless manner, and the notes that had lain untouched for weeks. She wanted him to get back to his work, to be normal, and above all things happy. She recognized and admired the creative side of him, made allowances for what she considered the essential vagaries of his temperament, and had long since decided to sacrifice herself if necessary on so unusual an altar. She could feel for him, if not with him.
So, returning from the grim scene of Bamberley jail, he found an energetic, practical young person, obviously full of work, and over whom hung but little of the tragedy of the immediate past. She supplied the touch that the moment demanded. He welcomed this, leaned on it far more than he realized, and sat down at the table with a feeling of prodigious relief. The hand of the domestic artist was visible here, and if at times the diaphanous shape of the stiff figure of Perkins seemed to stand close to his shoulder, the sensation did not oppress him. Edith talked generalities till, nearly at the end of the meal, she sent him a frank questioning look.
“Of course I’m just dying to know if anything new came out this morning. Martin turned up an hour ago. He seemed to me like another man, got out his tools and went to work without a word, and it made me more curious than ever. That queer puzzling expression has gone out of his eyes, and I couldn’t help thinking he was something like a dog that had been stolen and found his way back to his old home.”
Derrick nodded cheerfully. “I rather fancy he feels like that, just for the present, anyway, but we’ll probably have to find another gardener. He won’t want to stay here.”
“No, I suppose he couldn’t.” She hesitated a moment, then gave him the straightforward glance he knew so well. “Do you know, Jack, I think we’ve all been rather stupid about that poor woman; yes, I mean you, too.”
“It’s quite possible,” he admitted, “but why?”
“Well, I suppose it’s easy to put things together, afterward; but, looking back at everything, what happened seems in a way as natural as it was dreadful. The poor soul had her terrible secret and took the only way out of it, but couldn’t we have anticipated that somehow?”
“It was the last thing one could imagine.” He went on, and told her some of what had transpired that morning in Bamberley jail, but not all. She listened silently, with little gestures of wonder, and a softened light in her honest, brown eyes. At the story of Martin’s devotion they filled with tears.
“One has heard of men like that with one great passion in their lives that no one else can understand because there seems nothing to bring it to life. Perhaps women are apt to be hard on women, but it’s hard to see how Perkins could have roused such a thing. After all, it may be the men who are queer, and not us. I suppose this story will be all over England in a few days?”
He made a grimace. “I’m afraid so. The reporters will gather like a flock of crows.”
“But after that’s over will you be able to settle down to work, and—and the other thing?”
“What other thing?”
“When do you go to see the Millicents?” she asked cheerfully. “It’s all a frightful mixture, I know, and it seems rather appalling that you two should have been brought together like this, but perhaps stranger things have happened.”
“Not much stranger,” he said thoughtfully. “I’m going there in an hour or so. They’re expecting me.”
“Well,” she went on with growing earnestness, “I know it’s your affair, but I wouldn’t say a word more than necessary. The thing is done with, Jack, all except this horrid inquest, at which you say Jean and I won’t have to appear, and you don’t know how glad I am of that. I’ve a feeling that you’ll have a good many years in which to tell her the rest of it—I mean anything more you think she should know—but don’t burden her with what is so grim, if you can help it. She’s too young. Girls like her often seem to offer themselves unconsciously to wounds, but they don’t find out till afterward how deep the thing has gone. As for Mrs. Millicent, I wouldn’t attempt to say much to her. Let Jean do that in her own way. Nothing can be as close as mother and daughter in a time like this, and they can’t hurt each other. You’ll probably think me dreadfully cheeky, but I rather feel that you and Jean have been dwelling mentally far too long on things you both think I can’t understand because I’m not occult, but I do understand them just enough to feel that they’re neither cheerful nor in a queer way healthy for people of your age. So please forgive all this, and give me a cigarette, and help clear this table, and for goodness’ sake tell me where I can get a cook and housemaid who won’t imagine Beech Lodge is full of horrors.”
He laughed outright, the first real laugh for weeks. “You’ve got my future pretty well mapped out, but I think you’re right about the Millicents. Been in the study this morning?”
“Yes, and the room is just as it was when we came here. But that desk was a fearful weight.”
“You moved it yourself?”
“Of course, seeing there was no one else, and all the time I had an odd feeling that the things were glad to be moved back. Is that sort of feeling accounted for in your philosophy?”
“It is now, thanks to you.”
“I’ve been wondering what you’re going to do with that jade image. I couldn’t find the panel this morning.”
Derrick told her.
“But have you the right? It isn’t yours.”
“I’ll chance that.”
“But, Jack, if it was included in the inventory you can’t destroy it without all kinds of dilapidations to the Thursbys. Isn’t it supposed to be valuable?”
“It may be, but most decidedly it was not in the inventory, therefore it was not sold to the Thursbys, and consequently I needn’t answer to them, but only to the Millicents. And I fancy I know what they’ll say.”
“Well, you ought to by this time, and, speaking of the Thursbys, I’ve an idea that if everything that has taken place since we came had happened eighteen months ago they wouldn’t have let this house when you came along and fell in love with it.”
“But they weren’t in it then.”
“No, but they would have been; at least, something suggests they would.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked curiously.
“Because she’s not the kind of woman to be afraid of anything obvious, anything she can see and even partly understand. If poor Perkins had done away with herself then, I rather think Mrs. Thursby would have been as much fascinated as horrified. Don’t you know that sort? It would have given her something to talk about for the rest of her life with no one to interrupt; something infinitely more intriguing than her husband’s grenades, or whatever they are. How do you feel yourself about that?”
“I’m not quite sure,” he said candidly. “What I did feel about the house until yesterday seems to have gone this morning, as though a wind had blown through it with all the windows open. But I wouldn’t mind subletting now, if there were any chance of it, which there isn’t at this time of year. So we have it for another nine months anyway.”
“You couldn’t very well bring Jean back here,” she murmured thoughtfully.
He shook his head. “No, I couldn’t.”
Edith got up with the sudden remembrance that her hands were very full.
“Well, I suppose there’s time enough for that, and anyway you have to marry her first. Wouldn’t it be queer if—” She broke off with a little laugh.
“If what?”
“Nothing, I’m only wandering, and of course just when there’s no time for it. Please put these things on that tray and open the pantry door. I won’t expect you for tea.”
He went off a little later, passing Martin, who only touched his cap. He did look like another man, but neither of them spoke. The shadow of despair seemed to have left his face and to be replaced by a gravity that was new and dignified. Derrick strode on with the consciousness that the wind had blown through himself as well as Beech Lodge. He admitted his debt to Edith and now saw her cheerful sanity in a fresh light. It was strange to have leaned on a person, however dear, because they were incapable of being torn by one’s own reactions. How bright she was! How helpful and practical! What a standby!
But he never knew what the past hour or two had cost her—she was too good an actor for that; nor did he guess that she had watched him to the gate, her eyes dim, feeling more lonely than ever before in her life. She admitted there was much she did not understand, or even want to understand, but he did not perceive how often she had come nearly to the breaking-point. With Edith it was as with many another woman, the cost of whose sacrifice is hidden too deep for discovery, and only the beauty of it revealed.
Jean and her mother were together, and Mrs. Millicent greeted him with a quiet affection that touched him deeply. It meant that not only had Jean told her of the tragedy of the night before but also that she saw in him more than the man who had solved the mystery of her husband’s death. Jean’s eyes met his own as she gave him her hand, and they carried a message that needed no speech. Mrs. Millicent regarded them both with a gentle pleasure in which there was no surprise, then waited a little nervously. The picture of the study of Beech Lodge and what had happened there still haunted her brain.
“Jean told me you were to have a talk with Martin and the peddler this morning,” she said. “Did you see them?”
“Yes,” he said quietly.
“Did they tell you anything new about my—my husband?” She had summoned all her courage for this question and wanted it over.
Derrick shook his head. “There was very little about that and nothing of real importance. It was mostly about the image he found in Burma which Blunt says has a good deal of past history that makes it of special interest to certain people there. Both men agreed that it carried bad luck, and sometimes danger, wherever it went. It’s quite obvious that in some way it fascinated Mr. Millicent; and”—here he hesitated an instant—“it seems to have exercised later on the same influence over Perkins; and,” he concluded slowly, “the thing worked in her brain till finally she did what she did.”
Mrs. Millicent shivered. “I know it impressed him tremendously. That was clear from the day he got back from Burma. He once told me he thought it was valuable, but it always frightened me because of its effect on him. It seemed to carry some dreadful secret with it. I asked him to destroy it several times, but that rather shocked him. He never let it out of his own hands and always hid it where you found it.”
“Do you feel that way about it now?”
“Yes, more than ever.”
“Then may I destroy it?” he asked quickly.
“I should be very glad and feel happier than in a long time if you did.”
“I will, and I think others may be happier, too, in the long run.”
She nodded. “Isn’t it strange?”
“What?” he asked curiously.
Her eyes rested a moment on Jean’s lovely face, then turned back to him.
“My dear boy,” she said with a sort of soft impulsiveness, “do you think I can’t see how it is between you two? The strange part is that the last three months should have resulted in this, that out of shadows and uncertainty should come something so different. I’m afraid I have not understood much of all you’ve done at Beech Lodge, but I remember so distinctly the day when Jean said she must go in and tell you what had happened there. I can’t say anything more about it now, for I’m too conscious of the effect of it all on this child of mine, but soon you and I must have a long talk. How is your sister?” she added unsteadily.
“All right, I think. Her hands are rather full now till she gets some help.” He knew that Jean’s eyes were fixed on him and found it hard to speak.
“I’m sure of that. She’s splendid, and something tells me we’re going to be great friends. You’ll stay for tea, won’t you?”
After that she got up, put her hand on his shoulder for an understanding instant, and went out. She felt as though a new grasp, young and strong, had laid hold of the wheel of life, and was comforted. They heard her step on the stair. Derrick, his breath coming faster, crossed the room, stood for a moment beside Jean’s chair, and put out his arms.
“I love you,” he whispered; “I love you!”
She gazed at him, her cheeks pale, then flooding with an exquisite color, and came to him with a quick little sigh of happiness. It was not thus they had clung together the evening before. Now there was joy in the clinging, and the sweet promise of more joy that awaited them.
“Do you remember that first morning we met?” he whispered again.
“I don’t know why I went to Beech Lodge. I think I had to.”
“Yes, that was it. I thought you were so wonderful and brave. The house was never quite the same after that.”
“Do you think I was wise to come?” she smiled.
He answered with a kiss, and she stirred in his arms, only to be drawn closer.
“I was tremendously interested in you, even then,” she confided, “and rather frightened. I hope I didn’t show it. Did Edith think I was very bold?”
“Edith thinks no end of you. She’s a trump.”
Jean nodded happily. “You and I need someone like that near us, Jack.”
“I don’t want anyone near us for a while,” he protested. “How did your mother know?”
“I’m afraid she must have gathered something from me. Does Edith know?”
“I began to think she knew as soon as I did, if not before. She’s awfully pleased about it.”
The girl was silent for a moment. “Jack, dearest.”
“Yes?”
“Is there much you didn’t tell mother; I mean about this morning?”
“I tried just to say what would help her. The rest can keep.”
“And there was nothing that could make any difference to—to us?”
“I don’t quite understand.”
“There was something I always felt, but I couldn’t make myself tell you. It was the sensation that whatever had descended on father would also involve me in the same way. I can’t really explain beyond that, but it meant that I couldn’t surrender and let myself love you till all this had been lifted away. Last night, when I saw what happened, and in spite of the dreadfulness of it, the strangest feeling came that it had been lifted in that moment. When you were trying to help Perkins, I couldn’t avoid staring at the jade god, because I knew he had something to do with it. He stared back, and for the very first time I was not afraid of him. It was just as though Perkins had paid for everything and set me free. Tell me that nothing was said this morning by either of those men to upset that; but you must tell me on your honor.” She shivered involuntarily, but gradually her tremor ceased under his nearness and strength.
“All that was said, and I’ll tell you all of it some day, points to the same thing. There is absolutely nothing to fear. We’ll prove that very soon, you and I, and there will be no longer a jade god to work mischief. Don’t you realize, darling, those days are all past?”
Her arms tightened round his neck. “Why do you love me, Jack?”
“I’ve been waiting for you all my life.”
Then, slowly, she raised her lips to his.