Death Came Softly

CHAPTER 1-2

“Yes, I see your point about the children,” replied Emmeline, “but I can’t say that this Valehead place sounds my own idea of bliss. It must be utterly isolated. I was looking forward to seeing something of my friends, you know, after all these months of traveling to get home. I’d rather hoped your little Surrey house would take us. I thought you were fond of it.”

“Five Gables? Of course I was fond of it, in a way, but it was always a second-best, Emma. I wanted to have a place in the country and a garden, and Axel had to be near London. I couldn’t condemn him to hours of traveling every day just because I wanted to be in the country. Five Gables was a compromise between what I wanted and what had to be. It was quite nice in its way, but I always feel that Surrey is really a glorified suburb. It’s all tacked onto London, a sort of dormitory and week-end resort for wealthy stockbrokers, rather than real country. In any case, the house is commandeered, you know. It’s not mine while the war lasts.”

“I see. That settles that,” said Emmeline. “Well, you certainly seem to have taken a plunge into what you call ‘real country.’ You must be paying a small fortune for this Valehead place, Eve.”

“But I’m not! It’s ridiculously cheap. It won’t cost any more than our ghastly great flat in Chelsea plus the upkeep of Five Gables,” protested Eve, and Emmeline Stamford shrugged her graceful shoulders.

“In any case, the cost of it isn’t my business, Eve. I know that, but I’ve had to think such a lot about ways and means that I get rather obsessed on the subject of money. Of course, I realize that you look at things on a different scale altogether.”

Eve Merrion flushed rather unhappily. This subject of money had been a difficulty between the two sisters for years. Eve’s husband had been wealthy, Emmeline’s husband was not. With only a small private income in addition to his army pay, Major Stamford had had all he could do to meet the expenses of educating his children in the way he wanted them to be educated. Any schools other than public schools did not exist in Major Stamford’s opinion, and public schools meant expensive prep schools as a preliminary. Eve Merrion, wholeheartedly generous, had once impulsively offered to undertake the cost of educating Emmeline’s older boy. Instead of accepting the generous offer in the spirit in which it was made, the Stamfords had resented it as a reflection upon their own means in contrast with the Merrions’, and had refused it in a manner far from gracious. Eve remembered this uncomfortable episode when Emmeline mentioned the topic of expenses in connection with Valehead House, and she hesitated somewhat before she answered.

“I do feel I’m behaving rather like a pig, Emma,” she said ruefully. “It’s true I gave way to impulse in taking Valehead House. I wanted it so much. It’s not the house, although it’s a lovely house. It’s the garden and the setting. The place once belonged to a childless couple who were passionately fond of gardens. The wife, so I was told, had been brought up in Italy, and she owned a Villa near Stresa. She determined to find an English garden where she could grow the flowers she loved in Italy, and she found the place she wanted in the Vale of Fairwater—Valehead House. It was she who planted the camellias and magnolias and primulas and irises, as well as the cypresses and vines and eucalyptus and tulip trees. She looked after that garden for fifty years, and spent a fortune on it. They say she had fifteen gardeners working on it, and she planted bulbs and flowers of all kinds right up into the woods. She must have worshipped the place. When she died, about five years ago, no one else wanted to look after a garden like that. It’s all overgrown and wild, her lovely flowers and shrubs being choked—dying of neglect. When I saw it, I wanted to make the garden live again.…”

“With the aid of fifteen gardeners?” put in Emmeline, her voice half amused, half irritated. “I doubt if you’ll get them these days.”

“Oh, Emma dear, of course I shan’t. I don’t want to. In any case, the kitchen gardens are being cultivated by a firm of market gardeners, and the woodland rides will just have to go on being wild—they’re lovely anyway. But there’s a certain amount I could do—the rose garden and the rock garden, and the lakeside where the hydrangeas grow. Emma, it’s so lovely. When you see it, you’ll understand why I wanted it so much. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything for my own as I wanted that garden.”

Emmeline regarded her sister quizzically. “What a funny woman you are, Eve.… You talk about wanting something. Haven’t you been happy, then, all these years, with your huge flat in Chelsea and your ‘pis aller’ in the suburban county of Surrey? Was life all a ‘pis aller’?”

Again Eve Merrion flushed, and this time there was indignation in her gray eyes. “That’s not fair, Emma. You know it’s not true. I’ve been as happy in my married life as any woman on earth could be. Oh, bother, what a silly argument to have! It’s because I always say things so foolishly. Perhaps it’s because I miss Axel so much that I want something to occupy my mind. Children—well, they get awfully independent, don’t they? They seem to resent mothers once they get into their teens. I suppose I want to be wanted…although that sounds horribly feeble and sentimental—but that garden does want me—and I want to look after it.”

“A passion for gardening is quite beyond my comprehension,” said Mrs. Stamford, “so we’ll leave it at that. Tell me some more about the house, Eve. Are you putting Father into a separate wing—with his papers and his books—and his secretary? By the way, is that owl-faced man Keston still the secretary?”

“Yes, of course. Father would be completely lost without him.”

Mrs. Stamford smiled. “Mr. Keston will like the idea of Valehead, Eve. He was always devoted to you, I seem to remember. Darling, you must powder your nose, this very minute, and do your hair. You look just too frantic. Then we’ll go down to lunch, and you can tell me the really important things about your adored house—omitting all mention of the garden.”

“Well, Father, so Eve has prevailed on you to move at last. You’re really going to live in this fantastic great house she’s taken in the wilds of Devon?”

Professor Crewdon, his glasses resting precariously on the tip of his nose, looked up at his younger daughter from the confusion of papers he was sorting out.

“Yes, my dear. I’m actually moving. The house isn’t fantastic, you know. It’s what I should call a very rational house. It’s interesting, too. Very interesting.”

“Oh—you’ve been to see it, then?”

“Certainly I have been to see it, my dear Emmeline. I shouldn’t decide to go and live in any house which I had not previously examined. Valehead is a very good specimen of its period. It was built in early Georgian times, on the remains of a much older edifice. I am of opinion that the site has had several buildings on it, including, almost certainly, a Roman villa. While I admit that the present house is admirable in many particulars, I greatly regret that its medieval predecessor has been wiped out. The only remains, above ground, are the arch at the entrance gate—an unusual structure—and the so-called Hermit’s Cave nearby.”

“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” broke out Emmeline Stamford, her voice half laughing, half exasperated. “How came a commonplace woman like myself to be a child of yours, Father, and a sister of Eve’s? When I talk to her about houses, she can do nothing but rave about gardens, and when I talk to you about houses, you tell me of Roman remains and hermit’s caves. I loathe gardening, and I’m quite certain that the hermit’s cave will give me the horrors. I detest caves.”

Professor Crewdon went on sorting his papers methodically, his blue eyes smiling, his face placid.

“A very unreasonable attitude, my dear. Prejudice is always to be deprecated. The garden, though sadly neglected, is a very fine garden, and contains many rare and beautiful specimens. I noted Tricuspidaria Lanceolata in flower, and Akebia Quinata also—a very fine specimen. Safora, also, and other rare Leguminosae, and some remarkable Ericas. As for the cave, I can assure you that it is neither noisome nor repellent. A nice, dry, airy cave with some most interesting carvings. I promise myself some happy interludes researching into its history. To return to the house, however, in which you are justifiably interested. It is unusually spacious—”

“So I gather,” put in Emmeline. “About thirty rooms, Eve said.”

“Forty-one in all, if you count the bathrooms,” said the professor equably. “There is a fine portico, having six columns of the Ionic order, faithfully rendered, frieze and cornice in correct proportion—”

The deep voice broke off as the door of the room opened and a bespectacled, scholarly looking man of about forty years of age came into the room.

“Ah, here is Keston. You remember my younger daughter, Keston—Mrs. Stamford.”

“Of course, of course. How do you do?”

Roland Keston, his arms full of papers, looked at Mrs. Stamford with an embarrassed air as he endeavored to shift his load of papers to his left arm and extend his right hand to her. He promptly dropped about half his burden on the floor, and Mrs. Stamford, after a formal bow, said hastily:

“I’m so sorry. I’m afraid that I’m only interrupting you when you are both busy trying to pack. I’ll go now, and leave you in peace—only do tell me, Mr. Keston, have you seen Valehead House?”

“Yes, Mrs. Stamford, indeed I have. It is an amazingly beautiful place, and the valley is a paradise for anyone interested in bird life.”

Mrs. Stamford laughed aloud. “I think I must keep a diary, and write down what everyone tells me about this marvelous place,” she said. “My sister tells me that the garden can only be likened to the Garden of Eden—before the fall of man, of course. My father mentions an airy, commodious and generally desirable hermit’s cave. You say that Valehead is a haunt of wild birds. What can an average, domestically minded Philistine like myself find in such a catalogue of marvels?”

Keston had picked up his papers and turned to Mrs. Stamford, his usually pale face flushed. He was a very sensitive man, and quick to resent mockery.

“I think you will find a certain amount to please you, Mrs. Stamford. The house is an impressive property, what the agents would describe as ‘socially desirable.’ The bathroom accommodation is unusually luxurious, the central heating and hot water supply more than adequate. The drainage system, I am told, is beyond cavil. Perhaps these points will outweigh the beauty, historic interest and natural glory of the remote valley in which the house stands.”

The acid voice and scholarly diction caused Mrs. Stamford to frown slightly, but she replied with cheerful flippancy:

“Thank you for your consoling catalogue, Mr. Keston. I shall hope to experience all the civilized amenities you mention in due course. I am sure you will be very happy at Valehead.”

After Mrs. Stamford had taken her leave, Keston still looked irritable and put out. He had been devoted to Eve Merrion for many years, but his devotion did not extend to her sister. He thought, as he had thought for years, that Emmeline Stamford was an odious woman.

* * * *

Emmeline Stamford, on her return journey to South Kensington, was also in an irritable frame of mind. For some reason or other her nerves were frayed, and she brooded over the acid exchange of words with Roland Keston, and over what she called her father’s intolerable complacency—but it was Keston’s remarks which had got under her skin. Sitting in a hot and stuffy bus—and Emmeline loathed and despised buses—she recalled Keston’s pedantic voice: “. . . the house is what the agents call socially desirable…perhaps this will outweigh its beauty and historic interest.” Her skin prickled with a sense of burning resentment as she brooded over this aspersion, and remembered that her father’s eyes had twinkled a little in mild amusement. “The least he could have done was to have spoken to Keston sharply and told him to remember who I am,” she said to herself. “In any case, the inference was quite unjust. I’m not a snob.”

As though to give point to this reflection a large and stout member of the proletariat squeezed her ample bulk into the inadequate seating space which remained on Emmeline’s right. The newcomer—probably a hard-working and honest charwoman—had been shopping, and her purchase spoke for itself in no uncertain voice. From the all too frail wrappings the scent of fish added to the already mixed aromas of the bus. Emmeline’s nose twitched as she tried to withdraw herself from contact with the stout lady’s heated person. The latter, cheerful and contented, grinned happily.

“A bit on the ’igh side maybe, but I always says you can’t beat a bloater for tea.”

Emmeline felt sick. She got up, pressed the bell and alighted from the bus. A crawling taxi answered her summons and she drove home in solitary dignity. “I know I can’t afford taxis,” she said to herself. “We’re broke…and Eve’s simply rolling in money. It’s not fair, but whatever happens I’m not going to ask her to pay Roderic’s debts, and as for asking Father, I’d rather kill myself. He’d be sure to tell that insufferable little cad.… Forty-one rooms.… It’s crazy…and here am I counting up threepences on a taxi. It’s simply not fair.”