The Stowmarket Mystery, Louis Tracy [best romance novels of all time .txt] 📗

His chief purpose in revisiting Stowmarket was to seek further confidences from Mrs. Capella. He argued that the sudden journey of her husband to Naples would cause her much uneasiness, and she might now be inclined to reveal circumstances yet hidden.

He refused to take her at a disadvantage. From the hotel he sent a cyclist messenger with a note asking for an interview, and within an hour he received a cordial request to come at once.

Nevertheless, he was not a little astonished to find Helen Layton awaiting him in Margaret’s boudoir.

The girl showed signs of recent agitation, but she explained her presence quietly enough.

“Mrs. Capella sent for me when your note reached her, Mr. Brett. She is greatly upset by recent events, and was actually on the point of telegraphing to Davie to ask him to bring you here at once when your message was handed to her. She will be here presently. Please do not press her too closely to reveal anything she wishes to withhold. She is so emotional and excited, poor thing, that I fear her health may be endangered.”

Miss Layton’s words were not well chosen. She was conscious of the fact, and blushed furiously when Brett received her request with a friendly nod of comprehension.

“I do not know what to say for the best,” she went on desperately. “I am so sorry for Margaret, and it seems to me to be a terrible thing that my proposed marriage with her cousin should be the innocent cause of all this trouble.”

“Is it the cause?” he asked.

“What else can it be? Certainly not Mr. Capella’s foolish actions. If Davie and I were married, and far away from this neighbourhood, we would probably never see him again. I assure you I attach no serious significance to his mad fancy for me. The real reason for the present bother is Davie’s desire to reopen the story of the murder. Of that I am convinced.”

“Then what do you wish me to do?”

Helen’s eyes became suspiciously moist.

“How am I to decide?” she said tremulously. “Naturally, I want the name of my future husband to be cleared of the odium attached to it, but it is hard that this cannot be done without driving a dear woman like Margaret to despair, perhaps to the grave.”

“I do not see why the one course should involve the other.”

“Nor do I; but the fact remains. Mr. Capella’s decision to go to Naples is somehow bound up with it. Oh, dear! During the last two years a dozen or more girls have been happily married in this village without any one being killed, or running away, or dying of grief. Why should those things descend upon my poor little head?”

“Perhaps you are mistaken. Events have conspired to point to you as the unconscious source of a good deal that has happened. Personally, Miss Layton, I incline to the belief that you are no more responsible than David Hume-Frazer. If the mystery of Sir Alan’s death is ever solved, I feel assured that its genesis will be found in circumstances not only beyond your control, but wholly independent, and likely to operate in the same way if both you and your fiancé had never either seen or heard of Beechcroft Hall.”

“Oh, Mr. Brett,” she cried impulsively, “I wish I could be certain of that!”

“Try and adopt my opinion,” he answered, with a smile, for the girl’s dubiety was not very flattering.

“I know I am saying the wrong thing. I cannot help it. Margaret’s distress tried me sorely. Be gentle with her—that is all I ask.”

The door opened, and Mrs. Capella entered. Helen’s observations had prepared Brett to some extent, yet he was shocked to see the havoc wrought in Margaret’s appearance by days of suffering and nights of sleepless agony.

Her face was drawn and ivory-white, her eyes unnaturally brilliant, her lips bloodless and pinched. She was again garbed in black, and the sombre effect of her dress supplied a startling contrast to the deathly pallor of her features.

She recognised Brett’s presence by a silent bow, and sank on to a couch. She was not acting, but really ill, overwrought, inert, physically weak from want of food and sleep.

Helen ran to her side, and took her in a loving clasp.

“You poor darling!” she cried. “Why are you suffering so?”

Now there was nothing on earth Brett detested so thoroughly as a display of feminine sentiment, no matter how spontaneous or well-timed. At heart he was conscious of kindred emotions. A child’s cry, a woman’s sob, the groan of a despairing man, had power to move him so strangely that he had more than once allowed a long-sought opportunity to slip from his grasp rather than sear his own soul by displaying callous indifference to the sufferings of others.

The tears of these two, however, set his teeth on edge. What were they whining about—the affections of a doll of a man whose antics had been rightly treated by David when he proved to Capella that there is nothing like leather.

For the barrister laboured under no delusions respecting either woman. Margaret, who secretly feared her husband, was only pining for his rekindled admiration, whilst Helen, though true as steel to David Hume, could not be expected to regard the Italian’s misplaced passion as utterly outrageous. No woman can absolutely hate and despise a man for loving her, no matter how absurd or impossible his passion may be. She may proclaim, even feel, a vast amount of indignation, but in the secret recesses of her soul, hidden perhaps from her own scrutiny, she can find excuses for him.

Brett regarded Capella as an impressionable scamp, endowed with a too vivid imagination, and he determined forthwith to stir his hearers into revolt, defiance—anything but languishing regret and condolence.

Margaret soon gave him an opportunity. Recovering her self-possession with an effort, she said:

“I am glad you are here, Mr. Brett. Helen has probably told you that we need your presence—not that I have much to say to you, but I must have the advice of a wiser and clearer head than my own in the present position of affairs.”

“Exactly so,” replied the barrister cheerily. “As a preliminary to a pleasant chat, may I suggest a cup of tea for each of us?”

The ladies were manifestly astonished. Tea! When broken hearts were scattered around! The suggestion was pure bathos.

Margaret, with a touch of severity, permitted Brett to ring, and coldly agreed with Helen’s declaration that she could not think of touching any species of refreshment at such a moment.

“Then,” said Brett, advancing and holding out his hand, “I will save your servants from needless trouble, Mrs. Capella. I am equally emphatic in my insistence on food and drink as primary necessities. For instance, a cup of good tea just now is much more important in my eyes than your husband’s vagaries.”

“Surely you will not desert me?” appealed Margaret.

“Mr. Brett, how can you be so heartless?” cried Helen.

“Your words cut me to the bone,” he answered, with an easy smile, “but in this matter I must be adamant. My dear ladies, pray consider. What a world we should live in if people went without their meals because they were worried. Three days of such treatment would end the South African War, give Ireland Home Rule, bring even the American Senate to reason. A week of it would extinguish the human race. If the system has such potentialities, is it unreasonable to ask whether or not any single individual—even Mr. Capella—is worth the loss of a cup of tea because he chooses to go to Naples?”

A servant entered.

“Is it to be for three, or none?” inquired Brett, compelling Margaret to meet his gaze.

“James, bring tea at once,” said Mrs. Capella.

The barrister accepted this partial surrender. He looked out over the park.

“What lovely weather!” Brett exclaimed. “How delightful it must be at the sea-side just now! Really, I am greatly tempted to run up to Whitby for a few days. Have you ever been there, Mrs. Capella? Or you, Miss Layton? No! Well, let me recommend the north-east coast of Yorkshire as a cure for all ills. Do you know that, within the next fortnight, you can, if energetic enough, see from the cliffs at Whitby the sun rise and set in the sea? It is the one place in England where such a sight is possible. And the breeze there! When it blows from the north, it comes straight from the Polar Sea. There is no land intervening. Naples—evil-smelling, dirty Naples! Pah! Who but a lunatic would prefer Naples to Whitby in July!”

Margaret was now incensed, Helen surprised, and even slightly amused.

Brett rattled on, demanding and receiving occasional curt replies. The tea came.

Whatever the failings of Beechcroft might be, they had not reached the kitchen. Delightful little rolls of thin bread and butter, sandwiches of cucumber and paté de foie gras, tempting morsels of pastry, home-made jam, and crisp biscuits showed that the housekeeper had unconsciously adopted Brett’s view of her mistress’s needs.

Margaret, hardly knowing what she did, toyed at first with these delicacies, until she yielded to the demands of her stimulated appetite. Helen and Brett were unfeignedly hungry, and when Brett rose to ring for more cucumber sandwiches, they all laughed.

“The first time I met you,” said Margaret, whose cheeks began to exhibit a faint trace of colour, “I told you that you could read a woman’s heart. I did not know you were also qualified to act as her physician.”

“If the first part of my treatment is deemed successful, then I hope you will adopt the second. I am quite in earnest concerning Whitby, or Cromer, if you do not care to go far north.”

“But, Mr. Brett, how can I possibly leave Beechcroft now?”

“Did Mr. Capella consult you when he went to Naples? Are you not mistress here? Take my advice. Give the majority of your servants a holiday. Close your house, or, better still, have every room dismantled on the pretence of a thorough renovation. Leave it to paperhangers, plasterers, and caretakers. The rector may be persuaded to allow Miss Layton to come with you to London, where you should visit your dressmaker, for you can now dispense with mourning. When your husband returns from Naples, let him rage to the top of his bent. By that time I may be able to spare Mr. Hume to look after both of you for a week or so. Permit your husband to join you when he humbly seeks permission—not before. Believe me, Mrs. Capella, if you have strength of will to adopt my programme in its entirety, the trip to Naples may have results wholly unexpected by the runaway.”

“Really, Margaret, Mr. Brett’s advice seems to me to be very sensible. It happens, too, that my father needs a change of air, and I think we could both persuade him to come with us to the coast.”

Helen, like all well regulated young Englishwomen, quickly took a reasonable view of the problem. Already Capella’s heroics and his wife’s lamentations began to appear ridiculous.

Margaret looked wistfully at both of them.

“You do not understand why my husband has gone to Naples,” she said slowly, seemingly revolving something in her mind.

“I think I can guess his motive,” said the barrister.

“Tell me your explanation of the riddle,” she answered lightly, though a shadow of fear crossed her eyes.

“Soon after your marriage he imagined that he discovered certain facts connected with your family—possibly relative to your brother’s death—which served to estrange him from you. Whatever they may be, whether existent or fanciful, you are in no way responsible. He has gone to Naples to obtain proofs of his suspicions, or knowledge. He will come back to terrorise you, perhaps to seek revenge for imaginary wrongs. Therefore, I say, do not meet him half-way by sitting here, blanched and fearful, until it pleases him to return. Compel him to seek you. Let him find you at least outwardly happy and contented, careless of his neglect,