I took the thin, clammy hand. ” You must tell me, Mrs. Smith,” I said.
” You know you must tell me.”
“Unless I tell you everything you will never believe me. You will never understand.”
“Then tell me everything.”
” It is a long story…. It goes back many years.”
” I am in no hurry.”
” You are wrong. You should be in a great hurry.”
” I shall not leave until you tell me.”
“And if I can convince you that your child is in danger, that you are in danger, will you go to your father’s house today?”
” If I think that necessary, I will.”
“Mother,” said Damaris, “you must not … you dare not.”
” You are afraid still, Damaris?”
” So are you. Mother. We both are … as we always have been.”
” Yes,” said Mrs. Smith, ” I am afraid. But I am thinking of the child . and of her. We cannot stand by and see that happen to her .. can we, Damaris? We must not think of ourselves. We must thing only of her now. “
I was beside myself with impatience. ” You must tell me,” I said. “
Come now.”
Still she hesitated, then bracing herself as for a mighty effort, she began:
” I married against my family’s wishes. You may think my story has nothing to do with this. I am merely trying to tell you how I happen to know …”
” Yes, yes.” I cried.
She plucked at the blanket which was wrapped about her knees.
” I have a small fortune of my own. As you know, when a woman marries, her fortune becomes her husband’s. He needed the fortune … so he married me. I had a great opinion of him. He was the dedicated doctor and I wanted to work with him. I wanted to help him … his patients loved him so. He was so self-sacrificing. But you see there were two doctors. There was the doctor who went among his friends and patients such a charming man, so solicitous of others. And there was the doctor at home. They were two different men. He liked to play his part but we couldn’t expect him to act all the time, could we. Damaris?”
Damaris murmured: “You must not … oh, you must not. When he hears”
“You see,” went on Mrs. Smith, ” he believed himself to be not quite mortal like the rest of us. He had done brilliantly at his work and from such humble beginnings. I admired that at the start. But he soon tired of playing the part for me j That happened before Damaris was born. He was very angry | that she was not a boy. He wanted a son, to be exactly like j himself which in his eyes meant perfect. Damaris quickly ; learned to understand him. Do you remember, Damaris, how I you would be playing, somewhere happily forgetful . | because children do forget and when they are happy for an ; hour they believe they have always been so. Then we heard his step in the hall; and you would come to me and cower : beside me, remembering. “
“He ill-treated you?” I asked.
” Not physically. That is not his way. But he hated me. Why should he do otherwise? He had wanted my money and when that was his. and after many attempts I had failed to give him a son, I was of little use to him. Those dreary years of sadness and terror … I cannot think how I have lived if through them.”
” So it is Dr. Smith who has tried to destroy me. Why … why?”
“I will tell you that too. I met his foster mother. She lives not far from here in a little cottage on the moors. He was brought to her when he was a baby. He was born to a gipsy girl who had forsaken her people for a while to work in the kitchens at the Revels. She was married to a gipsy named Smith; but when her child was born she did not want him and she deserted him. Sir Matthew took an interest in the girl. I do not know whether he was ever her lover, but that was what Deverel always believed. He believed that he was the son of Sir Matthew. Do you begin to understand now?”
” I begin to see some light,” I said.
“And when Sir Matthew had him educated, and trained as a doctor he was certain of this. He married me, and our daughter was called Damaris because the Rockwells had always chosen names from the Bible for their children. But it was a son he wanted. He wanted to see a son of his in the Revels. And so …”
She turned to Damaris, who was crying quietly.
” I must tell her this,” she soothed. ” It is the only way. I should have told her before. But you know how we have always feared his anger.”
” Please go on,” I pleaded.
” After several miscarriages I was warned that I ought to have no more children … but he wanted a son. I tried again. There was no son.
The child was born dead and I … well, I have been an invalid ever since.
Imagine how he hates me! I cannot even give him a son. I think that he would have rid himself of me if it had not been for Damaris. ” She put out a hand and stroked her daughter’s hair. ” You see, he does not know how far she would betray him if he attempted to destroy me. ” She turned to Damaris. ” You see, my darling, in some ways we have him in our power. ” Then to me: ” It was four years ago that I did my best to bear him a son. Before that I was not strong but I was able to take my part in the life of the neighbourhood. I played a part in the pageant. only one of the monks, it was true. I still had my robe though . until a few months ago. “
I caught my breath and said: ” So it is yours, that robe?”
” Yes, it was mine. I had kept it. I am a little sentimental about such things. It was a reminder to me of the days when I was not an invalid.”
” Damaris helped him,” I said accusingly. ” She swore that she had seen nothing.”
“I had to,” whispered Damaris, with a sob in her voice. ” He told me what I had to do. We always obeyed him. We dared do nothing else. I was to take you to the ruins … not too quickly … to give him time to get there before us. And then, when he appeared, I was to pretend I saw nothing. There is a way from the ruins into the house.
He discovered it when he was a boy. So he appeared to you in the house as well. “
Now that I had the vital facts, events began to fall into place. I saw bow he had everything fitted so neatly. I was filled with a wild exultation, and the reason was that the wish I had made at the Knaresborough Well had come true. It was not Simon.
” Why … why … ?” I demanded.
” He was determined to live in the Revels one day. As the poor boy he had watched the guests come and go. He had seen the picnics in summer, the skating parties in the winter; he had looked through the windows at the balls. He was obsessed by the Revels because he believed that he was Sir Matthew’s son and therefore belonged there. He was deter mined to get there one day, and he saw that the way to do so was through Damaris. She was to marry Luke. “
” But how could he be sure of that?”
” My daughter has a rare beauty. I do not think Luke is unaware of it.
They were thrown together always. It may have been that he would have found some way of insisting on that marriage. He discovered the secrets in people’s lives and used them when he found it expedient to do so. He would have discovered some things perhaps which Sir Matthew would not want made known . or perhaps Mrs. Grantley. The marriage would have taken place. He was not unduly concerned about Gabriel.
Gabriel was delicate; he himself diagnosed that weak heart the same complaint of which his mother had died. Perh’aps Gabriel’s heart was sound ; perhaps he was preparing the way to Gabriel’s end . I do not know everything. But when Gabriel married you he became a menace. He feared what actually did happen that you might have a child. He was determined that Gabriel must die, and you at that time were of little interest to him. So Gabriel . died. “
” It is not difficult to imagine how,” I said grimly. And I pictured it. Did he lure Gabriel on to the balcony, or did Gabriel go there as he had made a habit of doing? There was no Friday on that night to warn him of a sinister presence. And then as he stood there, a stealthy movement from behind, a hand over his mouth and his body lifted and sent hurtling over the balcony.