I drew a little away from her. “If you know something you should tell the police or Sir William or—”
She shook her head. “They wouldn’t believe me.”
“Do you mean you really know where Edith is?”
She nodded smiling.
“Where? Please tell me…Where?”
“She’s not here. She’ll never be here. She’s gone—forever.”
“You do know something!”
Again that wise nod, that sly smile. “I know she’s not here. I know she never will be. I know this because…I know such things. I feel it. Edith has gone. We shall never see her again.”
I felt impatient because I had temporarily believed she had some tangible information.
I murmured some excuse and went into the house.
Later that day there was a startling development. Mrs. Rendall arrived at Lovat Stacy dragging Sylvia with her. The girl was tearful and obviously reluctant and alarmed; Mrs. Rendall was her usual militant self.
I was with Mrs. Lincroft in the hall and we were talking of Edith as everyone was at that time, and wondering what else could be done to solve the mystery. It was two days since her disappearance. Jack Withers had asked a great many questions of the household and was of the opinion that since he could discover nothing he should pass on the case to a higher authority, but Sir William was against it.
Mrs. Lincroft was explaining this to me: “He cannot bear the resultant publicity. The old case of Beau will be remembered and the story that there is a curse on the house will be revived. He believes Edith will come home sooner or later and he wants to give her the opportunity to do so quietly. The less fuss the sooner the whole affair will be forgotten…once she is back.”
It was then that Mrs. Rendall burst in upon us, pushing Sylvia before her.
“A most distressing and alarming thing. I came over at once. I thought you should know without delay. Take me to Sir William immediately.”
“Sir William has been so upset by this affair, Mrs. Rendall, that I have had to send for Dr. Smithers,” Mrs. Lincroft reminded her. “Sir William is now sleeping under sedative, and Dr. Smithers’s orders are that his rest should not be disturbed at such times.”
Mrs. Rendall pursed her lips and looked haughtily at Mrs. Lincroft, who received this attitude with fortitude. I guessed she was used to it.
“Then I will wait,” said the vicar’s wife. “For this is of the utmost importance. It’s about Mrs. Edith Stacy.”
“Perhaps you should tell me in that case…or Jack Withers.”
“I wish to tell Sir William.”
Mrs. Lincroft said: “He is a sick man, Mrs. Rendall, and if you will please tell me…”
“If it is of vital importance—” I began, but Mrs. Rendall cut me short; she was not going to be dictated to by a housekeeper and a music teacher, her manner implied; yet at the same time she was longing to tell what she had discovered.
“Very well,” she said at length. “Sylvia has come to me with a most shocking story. I must say I would never have believed it, not of her. But him…Of course he did leave the vicar in the lurch, and anyone who could do that—after all we’ve done for him—so I’m not surprised. But who would have thought we could have had such wickedness…such vice…in our midst.”
Mrs. Lincroft said: “You mean the curate, Mr. Brown? What has he done?”
Mrs. Rendall turned to her daughter and taking the girl by the arm shook her. “You tell—you tell them what you told me.”
Sylvia swallowed and said: “They used to meet, and she wished she was married to him.”
She paused and looked appealingly at her mother.
“Go on, go on, child.”
“They used to go and meet at night…and she was frightened when—”
Sylvia looked appealingly at her mother, who said: “In all my years as wife to the vicar, in all the parishes in which I have served, I never heard of such wanton wickedness. And that it should have been a curate of ours! Mind you, I never liked him. I said to the vicar—and the vicar will tell you this is true—I said: ‘I don’t trust him.’ And when he went off as he said…to teach the heathens he said…and all the time it was to go off with another man’s wife! I wonder the heavens don’t open. I wonder he’s not struck dead.”
Mrs. Lincroft had grown pale. She stammered: “Do you mean that Edith and Mr. Brown had run away together…eloped?”
“That’s exactly what I do mean. And Sylvia knew…” Her eyes narrowed; she surveyed her daughter menacingly and I have never seen a girl so frightened as Sylvia. What did this woman do, I wondered fleetingly, to inspire such terror? “Sylvia knew and she said nothing…nothing…”
“I didn’t think I should,” cried Sylvia, clenching and unclenching her hands. She put her fingers to her lips and bit her nails.
“Stop that,” said Mrs. Rendall firmly. “You should have come to me at once.”
“I—I thought it was telling tales.” Sylvia was looking appealingly at me, and I said quickly: “I think you did what you thought was right, Sylvia. You didn’t want to tell tales and now you have come and told what you knew. That was right.”
Mrs. Rendall was regarding me with some astonishment: the music teacher taking the authority she had over her daughter out of her hands? But I was conscious of Sylvia’s gratitude and I made up my mind that if I had an opportunity to help the girl, I would do so. Such a mother could warp a young person’s character, I felt sure. Poor Sylvia! Her problem was no less acute than Allegra’s.
Mrs. Rendall cast her basilisk glare in my direction. “You have not heard everything. Go on, Sylvia!”
“She was going to have a baby…and…she was frightened because…”
“Come along Sylvia, because what?”
“Because,” said Sylvia looking at me and then suddenly lowering her eyes. “Because…it was Mr. Brown’s baby and everyone thought…it wasn’t.”
“She told you this?” said Mrs. Lincroft incredulously. Sylvia nodded. “You? And not the other girls?”
Sylvia shook her head. “It was the day before she ran away. Alice was writing an essay and Allegra was having her piano lesson, and we were alone, and suddenly she started crying and told me. She said she wasn’t going to stay here. She was going to run away with…”
“With that scoundrel!” cried Mrs. Rendall.
“So,” went on Mrs. Lincroft, “she just walked out of the house taking nothing with her. Where did she go? How did she get to the station?”
Sylvia swallowed hard and stared beyond us to the window. “She said he was waiting for her. They were going right away and she didn’t want them to look for her because she wasn’t ever coming back. She said not to tell them. She made me swear not to tell anyone until two days and I swore on the Bible not to and I didn’t because the time is up and I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer.”
She gabbled the last part of her speech expressionlessly almost as though she had learned it off by heart—which she probably had, for if this was true it must have been a strain for the poor girl to harbor such a secret in the face of all the questioning which had been going on.
I who had heard the lovers in the ruined temple, who had noticed their attitude together readily accepted Sylvia’s story. It was credible.
Mrs. Lincroft seemed to think so too. Looking very worried she said: “I will go to Sir William at once and see if he is awake. If so I do think he should see you and Sylvia immediately, Mrs. Rendall.”
It was shocking; it was scandalous; but scandalous things had happened in the neighborhood before.
Yet it was the most plausible explanation. Young married women did not walk out of their homes and simply disappear without leaving any trace. They had to be somewhere. And Edith had actually confessed to the vicar’s daughter that she was planning to elope with her lover.