The Benevent Treasure

Chapter Twenty-three

The last thing Candida heard before she slept was the rain dashing against the windows. It went through her mind that it must be driving in, and then she slid away into a dream in which the sound was changed to the voice of someone weeping bitterly and comfortless. She didn’t know who it was, and she didn’t know how long it went on, but she waked suddenly with the wind swirling into the room and the curtains wet and flapping. It was quite difficult to get the windows shut. There was a gale blowing, and the casements strained against it. After she had got them fastened there was quite a lot of water on the floor. There were cloths on a pail in the housemaid’s cupboard just across the passage. She fetched them, got the water mopped up, and then found she had to change her nightgown.

When she and the floor were both dry she stood a minute and listened to the wind. It came against the house in great roaring waves and went howling through the gap between the old back wall and the hill. It came to her that Miss Cara might be frightened. She remembered hearing her say that the wind at night was a sound that frightened her, and Miss Olivia had said ‘Nonsense!’ very sharply. She wondered whether Aunt Cara was awake in the dark and afraid. There was only a bathroom between the sisters’ rooms, but she didn’t think Cara would call for help, or that Olivia would come to her if she did. She wondered if the door would still be locked.

And then, without any conscious decision on her part, she had her own door open and was feeling her way to the end of the passage. When she turned the corner she had the light behind her, and so came to the head of the stairs. The hall below was a black pit. She skirted it and went softly down the corridor to Miss Cara’s room. When she came to the door she stood there listening. Here in the middle of the house the sound of the wind was heavy and dull. No other sound came through it. If she had called aloud, no one would have heard her. She could try the handle and have no fear that anyone would wake. She turned it, and felt the door give under her hand. The room was perfectly dark – no shape of the windows, no faintest glimmer of light, the wind shut out, the curtains closely drawn. She could hear no sound of breathing. She could not even distinguish the position of the bed. There was only darkness and the heavy droning of the wind.

She stood like that and let the minutes go by. If Miss Cara was awake and afraid, surely she would have put on the light. She wouldn’t just lie in the dark and do nothing about it. After what seemed quite a long time Candida drew back and closed the door. She did not know, she could not have known, how bitterly she was going to regret this most reasonable action. Go over it as she would, she did not see how she could have done anything but what she did. And yet it hurt her at her heart, and always would.

It may have been the faint jar of the closing door that touched Miss Cara’s sleeping thought. It may have been the next wild gust that shook the house, or it may have been an earlier one. It may have been the sense of Candida’s presence. No one was ever to know. Sometimes a very small thing slips into a dream and troubles it, or the utmost raging of a storm may leave it untroubled and apart. At some time during that night of wind and rain Cara Benevent rose up out of her bed, put slippers on her feet, and wrapped a dressing-gown about her. There was no means of telling whether she had a light to see by. It was certain that she left her room, but whether she went walking or sleeping no one could know. She went, and she did not return.

Candida went back to her room and slept until the cold grey dawn came up. She was awake when Anna burst into the room. She was dressed, but she carried no tray. The tears ran down her cheeks and her eyes were wild. She fell down on her knees by the bed, her arms flung out and the breath catching in her throat.

‘My Miss Cara – oh, my Miss Cara! Why did I leave her – why did I not stay with her!’

Candida pulled herself up in the bed.

‘Anna, what is it? Is Aunt Cara ill?’

Anna gave a long wailing cry.

‘If she were ill, I would nurse her, I would stay with her – I would not come running to anyone else! She is dead! My Miss Cara is dead!’

Candida felt a coldness creep over her. It slowed her movements, her words. Her tongue stumbled as she said,

‘Are – you – sure?’

‘Would I say it if I were not sure? Would I not be with her? I leave her because there is nothing we can do any more! She lies there at the foot of the stairs and she is dead! The storm frightens her – she walks in her sleep – she falls and strikes her head! The old houses – the stairs are not safe – they are so narrow and so steep! She falls, my poor Miss Cara, and she is dead! And will you tell me how I am to tell Miss Olivia?“

‘She doesn’t know?’

‘How should she know? She is expecting me to bring the tea! How can I go to her and tell her, “Your tea is here, and Miss Cara is dead”? The hardest heart in the world could not do it – I cannot do it!’

Candida was out of her bed, slipping into her clothes, running a comb through her hair, putting on a grey and white pullover and a grey tweed skirt because they were warm and everything in her seemed to have turned to ice. They went down the stairs to the hall. Miss Cara lay in a twisted heap where the left-hand newel met the floor. One arm was doubled up under her and she was cold and stiff. There could not be any doubt at all that she was dead.

Candida, on her knees by the body, found herself whispering, ‘Did you move her?’

Anna had sunk down upon the bottom step. She sat bowed forward, her head in her hands. She said on a low sobbing breath,

‘No – no – I only touch her cheek, her hand. I know that she is dead – ’

‘Yes, she is dead. We mustn’t move her.’

‘I know – it is the law.’

‘We must send for the doctor.’

Anna caught her breath.

‘He is away – only yesterday Miss Cara said so. It is his partner who will come, Dr. Gardiner – but what can anyone do now?’

Candida said, ‘Fetch Mr. Derek!’

He came, as shocked as she was herself. They knelt on either side of Miss Cara and spoke low, as if she were asleep and must not be disturbed.

‘You must ring up the doctor. You had better go and do it now.’

‘Has anyone told – her?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘Someone must.’

‘And who is to do it?’ said Anna on a sobbing breath. ‘It should be you who are of the family, Miss Candida.’

Candida steadied herself. If she must she must, but it would come better from Anna – perhaps even from this weeping, shaken Anna who had gone back to her crouched position on the bottom step – not from the girl who came between Olivia Benevent and all that she was accustomed to look upon as her own. She said, ‘Anna, you have been with her forty years,’ and Anna wailed, ‘Do not ask me – I cannot!’

There was a silence, and then a sound. It came from the stair above them, and it was made by the heavy tassel of Miss Olivia’s dressing-gown dropping from step to step as she came slowly down. It was a purple tassel on a cord of purple and black, and the gown was purple too.

Olivia Benevent came down at a measured pace, her hand on the balustrade. Not a hair of her smooth waves was out of place. There was no expression in her face or in her eyes, but Candida, looking up, could see where a muscle jerked in the side of the throat. She came right down to the floor of the hall and stood there staring at her sister’s body. Then she said,

‘Which of you killed her?’