The Benevent Treasure

Chapter Nine

It was when Candida had been at Underhill for a little over a week that she came back from Retley to find Miss Cara Benevent in her room. Something had been said about going to a cinema with Derek, but in the end she lunched with Stephen, and by the time Derek turned up she thought perhaps they had better go home. She didn’t really like the way that things were shaping. She told him so as they drove through the rain.

‘They’ll think I’ve been lunching with you.’

He gave her a charming smile.

‘Darling, can I help what they think?’

‘Of course you can! You don’t say so outright, but you pull things round so that it looks as if we were going to be together – and I tell you straight out, Derek, it’s got to stop.’

‘Darling, you have only to say, “Dear Aunts, I cannot tell a lie. I am not lunching with Derek, and he is not lunching with me.” ’ He made a mock serious recitation of it and ended up with a laugh. ‘At least that’s all you’ve got to say if what you want is a roof-lifting row. Personally I am all for the quiet life.’

‘I won’t go on helping you to tell lies.’

‘And who’s telling lies, darling? Not me – not you. You hadn’t arranged to lunch with Stephen today, had you? Well then, how could you have told them you were going to? Upsetting for the old dears, and rather forward of you, don’t you think? Because I’m sure you were much too nicely brought up to go running after a young man and asking him to take you out.’

Candida looked at him with anger. She liked him – you couldn’t help liking him – but she could have boxed his ears half a dozen times a day. She said,

‘Don’t be silly. I mean what I said.’

His shoulders lifted.

‘Oh, just as you like. We go home, and we say, “Dear Aunts, Candida has been lunching with Stephen, and I – ” Now I wonder where I was lunching? Do you think there would be any chance of my getting across with a lapse of memory, like the people who disappearinto the blue and turn up again smiling after seven years or so to say they can’t remember anything about it?’

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

He laughed.

‘No, nor should I. Besides, better kept for a major emergency, don’t you think? But you know, seriously, darling, what is the sense in having rows? It upsets them, it upsets me. And if you had a nice womanly nature, it would upset you.’

Candida flushed brightly.

‘Peace at any price!’

‘And the quiet life. How right you are!’

She looked ahead of them into the pouring rain. Low grey sky and a flat grey road, bare hedgerows and fields with all the colour drained out of them, a monotony of dullness and damp. What was the use of being angry? It had no more effect upon Derek than the rain-water running in streams over the bonnet of the car. Water off a car’s bonnet, water off a duck’s back. There was something about him which didn’t let anything through – a gay shining surface which protected whatever there was underneath. On the impulse she said,

‘Derek, are you really fond of them – at all?’

He looked round at her for a moment, his dark eyes smiling.

‘Of the old dears? But of course I am! What do you take me for?’

‘I don’t know – that’s the trouble. And I said really.’

He burst out laughing.

‘Darling, aren’t you being a bit intense? Now suppose I was just a scheming villain like the chap they had here before Alan Thompson. He went off with what cash he could lay hands on and some of the family diamonds. Well, suppose I was like that and you asked me if I was fond of the aunts, what do you suppose I would say? Swear to it every time, wouldn’t I? I’d be a fool if I didn’t – and it’s too much to expect of your luck to let you get away with being both a knave and a fool. So when I tell you that I really am fond of them, you naturally won’t believe me any more than I’d believe myself if I were you, and that gets us exactly nowhere.’

She said slowly, ‘I think you are fond of Cara.’

He nodded.

‘Well, I am, whether you think so or not. They’ve both been very good to me.’

She went on as if he had not spoken.

‘You don’t like it when Olivia bullies her.’

He put up a hand between them.

‘Oh, switch off the X-ray! It’s not decent to look right through one.’

‘She does bully her,’ said Candida. ‘I don’t like it either.’

The conversation stopped there, because they had turned in at the gate of Underhill.

Candida passed through the empty hall and ran upstairs. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and there was no one about. The Miss Benevents would be resting, and the staff would be in their own quarters. She passed along the winding passages to her room. As she approached it she heard the sound of weeping. It was a low sound made up of sighing breaths and a faint sobbing. The door of the room stood ajar, and the sound came from there. After a moment of hesitation she widened the gap and looked in.

Miss Cara stood by the cold hearth, her fingers wrung together and the tears trickling down her chin. She said, ‘Alan – ’ under her breath. And then she must have heard Candida cross the threshold, for she started, turned, and put out her hands. The next moment they were covering her face.

‘Aunt Cara – what is it?’

The hands dropped. She peered at Candida.

‘I thought – I thought – I was thinking about him – and when you came in – just for a moment I thought – ’

It was like seeing a child who has been hurt. Candida put her arms round the little trembling creature.

‘Dear Aunt Cara!’

The young warm voice, the words, quite broke Miss Cara down. She began to weep with all a child’s lack of restraint. Candida detached herself for long enough to shut and lock the door, and then returned to put Miss Cara into a chair and kneel beside her. There was nothing she could do except to find the handkerchief which was being groped for and to murmur the only half-articulate words and phrases with which she would indeed have tried to comfort a child.

As the weeping stilled, Miss Cara herself began to produce words – snatches of sentences – and the name which had so long been forbidden. She said it over and over again, always on the same note of desolation,

‘Alan – Alan – Alan – ’ And then, ‘If I only knew – where he was – ’

Candida said gently, ‘You have never heard?’

The word came back to her like a sighing echo,

‘Never – ’

‘You were very fond of him?’

One of the small stiff hands took hold of hers and held it tight.

‘So very – fond of him. But he went away… This was his room – when you came in I thought – ’

‘Why did he go?’

Miss Cara shook her head.

‘Oh, my dear, I don’t know. There was no need – indeed there wasn’t. Olivia said he took money and my diamond spray, but I would have given him anything he wanted. He knew that. You see, Olivia doesn’t know everything. I have never told her – I’ve never told anyone. If I tell you, you won’t tell her, or – or laugh at me?’ The clasp on Candida’s wrist became desperate.

‘Oh, no, of course I won’t.’

‘I’ve never had a secret from her all my life, but she wouldn’t understand. She is so much cleverer than I am, and she has always told me what I ought to do. But clever people don’t always understand everything, do they? Olivia doesn’t understand about being fond of anyone. When Alan went she just said he was ungrateful and she didn’t want to hear any more about him. But you don’t stop being fond of anyone because they do something that is wrong. She didn’t understand that at all.’

‘I’m so sorry, Aunt Cara.’

Miss Cara said,

‘You are kind. Candida was kind – my sister Candida. She loved your grandfather and she went away with him, and Papa would never allow us to mention her name. I didn’t understand then, but I do now. I would have gone anywhere with Alan if he had wanted me to – anywhere.’ She dropped her voice to a shaking whisper. ‘Do you know, we were going to be married. I’ve never told anyone, but you are kind. Of course it wouldn’t have been a real marriage – there was too much difference in our ages – more than thirty years. It wouldn’t have been right. But if he was my husband, I had what they call a power of appointment and I could leave him quite a lot of the money for his life. I remember the lawyer telling me so when Papa died. He said, “If you marry, Miss Cara, under your grandfather’s will you can use this power of appointment and leave your husband a life interest whether there are any children or not.” And Olivia said, “Then she could use it to leave the life interest to me.” And he said, “I’m afraid not, Miss Olivia. The power of appointment could only be used in favour of a husband. If Miss Cara were to die unmarried, the will provides for the major part of the estate to pass to your next sister, Mrs. Sayle, or her heirs, your own portion remaining just as it is at present.” I have a very good memory, and I have always remembered just what he said. But Olivia was very angry indeed. She waited until he had gone, and then she said our grandfather hadn’t any right to make a will like that, and what was the good of my having the money when I didn’t know how to manage it, and she ought to come in before Candida’s children. Oh, my dear, she said dreadful things! You see, our sister Candida died before Papa did, and Olivia said she hoped Candida’s children would die too, and then she would come into her own. Of course she didn’t mean it, but it was a dreadful thing to say.’

Candida felt as if something cold had touched her. It didn’t come from Miss Cara – her hand was burning hot. It let go of her wrist now and went up to touch the carefully ordered hair, incongruously black above the ravaged face. She had stopped crying, and though her eyelids were reddened and the smooth powdered surface of her skin had been impaired, she had a relaxed look.

‘It’s nice to have someone to talk to,’ she said in quite a pleased voice. ‘But you won’t tell Olivia, will you?’