Inheritance Feud

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

She'd inform Mary Reid of that tomorrow. She got into bed presently and, before extinguishing her candle, poured herself a tot of the contraband brandy in a small glass. As she sipped the burning, satisfactory stuff she smiled, and still smiled afterwards in sleep. For a plan to come to fruition which had seemed, for many a year, as if it might end in dust was pleasant... it hung still, of course, on many factors, but she could vouch for Annabel's obedience, in the event. It depended of course on the young Englishman and whether or not he was susceptible to the girl's undoubted beauty. Yes! She'd been fully justified, to herself and her conscience, in getting rid of Morven Doon and the absurd pretensions nourished in him by her brother Philip, poor Philip who had no idea of money ...

Morven Doon had edged his way into Malvie by a postern door whose boards were shrunk loose, so that his slim fingers could slip the bolt by squeezing between the ill-fitting splats of wood. Once inside, he mounted the back stairs and found himself in the attics which ran the full length of the house. They were filled with débris many generations old, most of it not worth having been brought down to the clearance-sale at Philip's death. Filtered sunlight picked out one object after another as Morven passed by, emphasising in melancholy fashion their age, neglect, and dust. Nobody but himself had troubled about this part of Malvie for years; since he was a boy old enough to climb, he had known every inch of the attics and all they contained. Annabel, he recalled, had been too timid to come up here; deliberately, he'd frightened her with tales of ghosts.

He went now to the place where his father's violoncello lay swathed in a cloth. Richard Doon as a child had been taught well and, with his brother and sister, had entertained the county to performances at Malvie, anticipating the famous Mozart children who would later visit London. They hadn't Morven smiled-reached the heights of the young Mozarts; Uncle Philip had told him the agony it'd been when he stuck, accompanying Richard on the harpsichord, because their elder sister Nancy had muffed the pages and couldn't get back to the place. Aunt Retford then had been a dainty young crea ture in powder and lace, the little boys in powder also and blue satin coats. Uncle Philip had told him of it all.

Nobody had instructed Morven in music; he knew he had a natural ear. He drew away the cloth from his father's great, neglected instrument and found its strings gnawed lately by rats, since last time he'd come; they hung loose. The sight angered Morven and he plucked vainly at the sole remaining string, making a booming, eerie sound in the long garret. He flung the cloth over the 'cello again and turned away, a

sense of failure and of death and dust, the end of all posses sions and all hope, overcoming him. Yet how old was he? Twenty. When his father was his age he'd been full of the joy of living, making ready to toss a coin with his twin for the honour of going out for the Prince. And little more than a year later, it was all over and Richard Doon a fugitive, Mor ven himself about to be born at Malvie of a stranger from the north, and the girl who would have been his own mother, and Richard's wife, left broken-hearted at Maddon. But hearts could mend.

He went to the place where, leaning against a gable-wall, was the unfinished portrait of uncle Philip and his new bride, who had been that same Grace Melrose. Grace by then had mended her heart, at least to outward view; the gentle, high bred face looking out from the canvas roused no emotion in Morven any more than, he could guess, it had ever done in his own father during their betrothal. Uncle Philip no doubt had loved Grace better. He bent over her assiduously on the portrait now, attired in riding-gear which he in fact seldom wore, and a tie-wig; a small lap-dog nestled on Grace's yellow satin lap beneath the oak tree which still grew on the main front before Malvie. Of all of them, the man, the woman and the dog were gone, only the tree remained now, almost un changed above its carpet of grass. Morven turned away from the canvas, unconsoled, and wandered aimlessly about the attics for some time. He was uncertain why he had come.

The rising tide of bitterness in his blood would not be stilled as he went: almost, it clamoured like a voice. Why was there no single portrait of his own father here, either as boy or man? He had no idea what Richard Doon had looked like, except from Philip's descriptions. His father had been tall, his uncle had told him, and had had brown hair. As for his mother, the Highland girl in the green ball-dress, there was nothing of her here, neither portrait nor card-case, fan or embroidery-box. What did he know of his mother except that she had been wild and sad, and had regretted coming to Malvie? But he'd been born of love. He had that to console. him, he, the outcast who lived now from choice with Judd the blacksmith and his son, and kept rough company. No Doon but had once worn silk...

A woman's shoe, the broken heel showing traces of the red paint with which they aped France, at one time, lay about as he passed; Morven kicked it viciously aside, watching the cloud of dust it raised settle. Some woman's long dead, Susan nah Doon's perhaps with whose ghost he'd frightened Anna bel. He himself was no ghost; he was alive, the power of life pulsing in him, stronger now for coming here; given time, he could have saved Malvie. Time! There was not enough of that to do anything but watch, resent, and plan. In a day or two, a week or two, depending on the slowness of the lawyers, or the roads, the English purchaser would be here, and in residence.

The plans raised themselves again in his mind, vague and malevolent. They had already begun to take shape like these seemingly unsubstantial drifts of dust that raised themselves in wreaths as Morven went by, and settled again on cloth and wood and canvas. Dust. The stuff of the dead, but damnably difficult to get rid of..

Dust he'd be if necessary; a ghost, unsubstantial though always present. If a man was invisible he could accomplish a marvellous deal. He'd use the night as day, and by day hide himself. Somehow, in the end, he'd win."

He turned presently and went downstairs by the main stair case. It swept from the third floor to the hall, in a wide curve copied from a French château of the Renaissance; but it had been carved in England, and brought home to Malvie in sec tions by Morven's great-grandfather, who had diced with King Charles. Its balusters were thick with dust at the top but by the lower floor, he noted, someone had lately polished them. He saw the figure of the housemaid presently, dusting with a cloth tied round her head. She'd have been sent over by aunt Retford, he knew, to make all ready for the arrival of the purchaser. The fact of her presence, and that she had been enabled to enter by the main door when he had not, angered Morven further..

"Who sent you here?" As he called down to her, hearing the multiple echoes of his voice through rafters and passages, the instant's thought came: if I were Doon of Malvie, this is the way I would stand here, calling to my servants.

The girl gasped, and looked up. He had already noted, with that part of his mind which was not constantly engaged with himself, that she had a graceful, generous figure; the long limbs moved easily in the process of wielding duster and broom, making it pleasing to watch her. He had seen the deep breasts moving gently under her bodice; now he saw her face. He knew her at once. She was the young girl he had noted in advanced pregnancy last year, walking to church in the correction-house column at Grattan.

Her eyes flashed in instant recognition and panic; no, she hadn't forgotten him either! Morven descended the stairs slowly, looking her over. She would do, he was thinking; she would do very well. The hair, black as a raven, he remembered, was concealed today by the housemaid's cloth. Before he'd done he would make her take it down, let him play with its thick tresses, bury his face in their length. He'd never yet touched a woman's hair.

But not here.

Now, standing as he was still a step or two above her, he watched her regain quick possession of herself; she bobbed a curtsy. Morven recalled that she could not know for certain who he was, though she might have guessed. He heard her answer his question.

"Mrs. Retford sent me-sir." The title came unwillingly; he was, after all, in his oldest clothes, dusty from the attic, but last time they'd met-did she remember?-he'd been riding Peter Melrose's bay horse, and had his hat and cloak on. She must know him, at any rate, for a gentleman. Morven looked at the staircurve at his feet, dismissing the memory of the next time Peter had ridden that horse, and it had thrown him at a fence and killed him instantly. The luck of the Doons... But they couldn't blame him. "What is your name?" he asked he maidservant. It had, he remembered, very well, been Livia.

But she herself recalled nothing but the remembrance of this man's light, shining eyes seated there last year on the bay. He had, she was sure, noticed her state at that time; those eyes would miss nothing. The colour rushed like fire into her face.

"Mary Reid-sir." He must, she was certain now, be young Master Doon. Nobody else could maintain such assurance, standing there as if he owned the house, the great shadowy house. Herself, she didn't like it. She'd been hurrying through the work to get down, as soon as might be, to the sanity, the known warmth and cheerful welcome, of the Mains. This great house was full of ghosts. And he, standing up there like one of them