“It was burned down,” I added.
She came close to me and whispered: “After Napier came home.”
“How was it burned?”
Her eyes blazed suddenly. “Mischief. No…not mischief…wickedness.”
“You mean someone did it purposely? Why should they? For what purpose?”
“Because they hated Beau. Because they couldn’t bear that Beau was beautiful and good. That’s why.”
“Are you suggesting that…” I hesitated and she said slyly: “You should finish, Mrs. Verlaine. Am I suggesting what?”
“That someone did it on purpose. I can’t see that anyone would want to do that.”
“But there’s a great deal you can’t see, Mrs. Verlaine. I’d like to tell you…to warn you.”
“Warn?”
Again that silly wise nod of hers.
“Napier burned this down when he came home because we liked to come here and think of Beaumont and he couldn’t bear it. So he got rid of it…just as he got rid of Beaumont.”
“How can you be sure of that?” I asked almost angrily.
“I remember it well. One evening…it was just dark. I could smell the fire from my room. I was the first to discover it. I came out of the house and I couldn’t tell at first where the smell was coming from. Then I saw…and I ran…I ran to the copse and there was the beautiful chapel…and the sparks flying out…it was terrible. I called everyone, but it was too late to save it. So now it’s just a shell, nothing but a shell.”
“It must have been a very pleasant place,” I said.
“Pleasant! It was beautiful. Such a sense of peace and calm. My beautiful Beau was there. He was. That was why Napier could not endure it. That was why he burned it down.”
“There is no evidence—” I began and stopped myself. I added rather hurriedly: “I have some work to prepare so I suppose I should get on with it.”
She laughed. “You seem as if you’d like to defend him. I told you you were beginning to take his side.”
I said coldly: “It is not for me to take sides, Miss Stacy.”
She laughed again and said: “But we often do things which it is not for us to do, don’t we? You are a widow. In a sense I am too.” Her face looked older suddenly and mournful. “I understand. And he…well, some people are attracted by wickedness.”
I said crisply: “I really don’t understand, Miss Stacy, and I do think I should be working. Thank you for showing me…the ruin.”
I turned and walked briskly away. I found her conversation not only distasteful but distinctly uncomfortable.
Two days later an even more disturbing event occurred.
I went along to the schoolroom in search of Edith and as I was about to open the door I heard her voice raised and distressed. I paused and as I did so she cried out: “And if I don’t, you’ll tell. Oh…how can you.”
It was not only the implication of the words but the agonized tone in which they were spoken that shocked me.
I hesitated, uncertain what to do. I had no wish to play the eavesdropper. I was a newcomer to this house and perhaps I was over-dramatizing a situation. These girls all of them seemed little more than children to me.
That was a more important moment than I realized at the time. How I wished afterwards that I had been bold and walked into that room. Instead of which I went quietly and hastily away.
Edith was quarreling with someone in the schoolroom, someone who was threatening her.
My excuse is that I thought of them as children.
It was half an hour later when I gave Edith her lesson. She played so badly that I thought she was making no progress whatsoever.
But of course she was distraught.
4
I sat in the room next to Sir William’s and played for him. I played first Für Elise and after that some Chopin nocturnes. I believed that in that room I played my best, because I was conscious of a sympathetic atmosphere there, which may have suggested itself to me because I knew the room had belonged to one who had loved music. Pietro would have laughed at my fancies. An artist did not need an atmosphere, he would have told me.
Pietro’s image faded from my mind as I thought of this Isabella who had been Napier’s mother and who had loved music, who might have been a great pianist and had given up her career for the sake of marriage. Oh yes, we were in harmony. But she had had two sons and she had lavished more love on one than the other—and when her beloved son had died she had taken a gun and gone into the woods…
When I had played for an hour I stopped and went to the door. Mrs. Lincroft, who was with Sir William, asked me to come in and nodded for me to be seated. “Sir William would like to talk to you,” she said.
I sat down beside him and he turned slowly to me.
“Your performance is very moving,” he said.
Mrs. Lincroft tiptoed from the room and left us together.
“It reminds me,” he went on, “of my wife’s playing. I am not sure though that she had quite your excellence.”
“Perhaps she had less practice.”
“Yes, no doubt. Her duties here…”
I said hastily: “Yes, of course.”
“How do you find your pupils?”
“Mrs. Stacy has some talent.”
“A flimsy talent, eh?”
“A pleasant talent. I think she will find great joy in the piano.”
“I see. And the others?”
“They could play…adequately.”
“And that is a good thing to do.”
“Very good.”
We were silent and I wondered whether he had fallen asleep and I ought to tiptoe away.
I was about to do so when he said: “I trust you are comfortable here, Mrs. Verlaine.”
I assured him that I was.
“If there is anything you need you must ask Mrs. Lincroft. She manages everything.”
“Thank you.”
“You have made the acquaintance of my sister?”
“Yes.”
“And you have probably found her a little strange.”
I did not quite know what to answer but he went on: “Poor Sybil, when she was young she had an unfortunate love affair. She was going to be married and something went wrong. She has never been the same since. We were relieved when she began to take an interest in family affairs, but Sybil could never do anything very reasonably. She becomes obsessed. She has probably talked to you about our family affairs. She does to everyone. You should not take what she says too seriously.”
“She has talked to me, yes.”
“I thought so. The loss of my son affected her deeply. As it did us all. But in her case…”
His voice trailed off. He was clearly thinking of that terrible day when Beaumont had died…and afterwards when his wife had taken the gun into the woods. A double tragedy. I was so sorry for him. I was even sorry for Napier.
Sir William was speaking of Napier and his voice was quite lacking in any emotion. “Now that my son is married we shall be entertaining a little more than in the past. As you know, Mrs. Verlaine, I should like you to entertain my guests.”
“I should be delighted. What would you suggest I play?”
“That shall be decided later. My wife used to play for our guests…”
“Yes,” I said gently.
“Well, now you will do the same, and it will be like…”
He seemed unaware that he had stopped speaking.
He leaned forward and touched a bell and Mrs. Lincroft appeared so quickly that I felt she must have been outside the door listening.