The Benevent Treasure Read online

  It would have been difficult to avoid seeing the hill, since there was no more than twenty feet between it and the two narrow windows. The intervening space was paved in stone. It formed a small square courtyard with figures in each corner and a rather larger one in the middle. The one in the middle represented a naked lady brooding over an urn. All the figures, as well as the paving-stones, had acquired a film of damp green slime.

  ‘This is the oldest part of the house,’ said Miss Olivia, pouring out coffee. ‘Several of the other rooms have been added to, but this is just as it was built. Perhaps you will help yourself to milk and sugar. We have been employing a young architect to advise us about the preservation of all this part of the house. We have been a good deal disturbed by the appearance of one or two cracks.’

  ‘Very alarming,’ said Miss Cara.

  Miss Olivia went on as if she had not spoken.

  ‘We fear that they must be attributed to the bombs which fell in the neighbourhood from time to time during the war.’

  ‘These things do not always show themselves at once.’

  ‘So we thought it wise to have expert advice. Mr. Eversley is very well known in the neighbourhood.’

  ‘Lord Retborough employs him at the Castle.’

  ‘We had hoped for his advice, and he came for a preliminary survey, but the actual work will be supervised by his nephew, who, he assures us, is fully competent.’

  ‘Mr. Stephen Eversley,’ said Miss Cara.

  Candida heard herself saying, ‘I think I met him once when I was at school.’ She had no idea why she should have put it like that. The words said themselves, and it did not occur to her that they might be misleading, until she found Miss Olivia enquiring whether the headmistress had been satisfied with his work. She did her best to clear the matter up.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean that he came down to the school. I just met him once in the holidays.’

  Miss Olivia looked at her rather coldly.

  ‘He probably will not remember you.’

  It was at this point that Candida should have narrated her adventure on the cliff, and she simply couldn’t do it. Last night’s dream got up and wouldn’t let her. The Miss Benevents looked at her, and she said nothing at all. She just couldn’t think of anything to say.

  And then the door opened and Derek came in, wreathed in morning smiles.

  ‘I’m late again! I don’t suppose it’s any good my saying I’m sorry.’ He kissed Miss Olivia. ‘I make good resolutions every night and break them every morning.’ He kissed Miss Cara. ‘You shouldn’t have such comfortable beds – I just can’t wake up.’

  As a topic Stephen Eversley was superseded.

  They got off to Retley by ten o’clock, with Derek at the wheel of a good-looking Humber.

  ‘Pre-war, but she hasn’t done a big mileage and she has always been very carefully looked after. This is her original paint, but she’s just had an overhaul and she goes like a bird. You know, I could have taught you just as well as Fox, but the old dears wouldn’t hear of your practising on her. They let me drive because if they didn’t the car would never go out. And they think you should have lessons from a qualified instructor, so if you don’t mind, I’ll just hand you over to Fox and be off on my own. I should get the jitters if I had to sit behind and watch you doing all the things you’re bound to do to begin with. People who give driving lessons must have nerves of iron. Mine aren’t, and I should only make you nervous. You don’t mind, do you?’

  Candida said, ‘Why should I?’ She thought there was a discrepancy between his professed willingness to teach her himself and this advertisement of a lack of nerve. She thought that he had other fish to fry, and that it was none of her business. It did not surprise her when he suggested that it might not be necessary to obtrude the fact that he had not superintended the lesson.

  ‘You’ll do a lot better if you haven’t got my eyes boring into the back of your neck. But they wouldn’t understand about that, so if you don’t mind – ’

  Candida met a laughing glance and found herself laughing too. There was that sense of escape, of having secrets from the elders, which is not always left behind with childhood. If she couldn’t help wondering what he was going to do with himself, she asked no questions.

  ‘Look here, I’ll meet you at the Primrose Café, just opposite the garage. Half-past eleven, and whoever gets there first can order coffee for two.’

  Mr. Fox was a red-headed young man with a lot of cheerful self-confidence. He informed Derek that he could do very well without a passenger in the back seat – chipping in as likely as not and making the learner nervous.

  ‘And now, Miss Sayle, if you’ll just pay close attention, we’ll start with the dashboard.’

  Candida was interested and quick. She got all the gadgets sorted out in a remarkably short time, after which he made her move over and took the wheel until they were out of Retley on an empty road with wide grass verges.

  She hadn’t known that it would be so thrilling to feel the wheel under her hands. Power and speed – everything running smoothly – control – it was like having a new sense. It was like having wings. She turned with sparkling eyes, her lips parted to say so, and only Mr. Fox’s large freckled hand on the wheel kept the car on the road. He said in a tone of reproof,

  ‘Now don’t you go looking round! You keep your eye on the road!’

  The lesson went very well. They were out for an hour, and she passed six cars, two lorries, and the Ledbury bus. Mr. Fox dismissed her with words of approbation, and she went across to the Primrose Café feeling a good deal pleased with herself.

  The café was twentieth-century Olde Englishe with beams that only just cleared your head and bottle-glass in the windows. This made the interior so dark that it was more than easy to fall down the two steps which separated the front of the premises from the back. Candida, having had a narrow escape, stood still and looked about her to see if there were any more traps. There were a lot of little tables with tops made of yellow tiles, thus saving table-cloths. There was pale yellow china, and a waitress in yellow linen with a mob cap. The place was very nearly empty, but sitting alone at a table in the far corner was a tall man. He had on a tweed jacket, and she couldn’t see his face because he was bending forward over the table and writing in a notebook. All she could see was the top of his head, and because she had dreamed about Stephen Eversley last night and had heard him talked about this morning he reminded her of Stephen. Just the thick light hair, and perhaps the tweed coat. Her eyes were getting accustomed to the bottle-glass dusk. The jacket was brown, and the hair was the colour of sun-dried hay, or it would be if you allowed for the greenish tinge in the light.

  She walked slowly towards the table next to the one at which he sat, and just as she came level with him he looked up, and it was Stephen. She thought that it was odd he should be so exactly like the dream. He was, and it puzzled her, because after all they were more than five years older. She stared right into his eyes and said, ‘Stephen!’ in a sort of jerky whisper, and he stared back and said, ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ He was looking up, and she was looking down. Her knees wobbled and she sat down on the nearest chair. She hadn’t thought that he would recognise her – she hadn’t really had time to think at all. Five years was five years, and she was only fifteen when he was Perseus to her Andromeda. She found enough breath to say,

  ‘But you don’t know who I am.’ And he laughed and said in an everyday careless sort of voice, ‘But of course I do! You’re Candida – Candida Sayle.’

  She had a warm, bewildered feeling. It was nice to be recognised, but how did he do it? She was glad of the chair, and she was glad to reach out and hold on to the table. When five years have been suddenly telescoped, it makes you feel giddy.

  Stephen said, ‘You look as if you had seen a ghost.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Oh, no – not me. I knew you were somewhere about. Did you know that I was? Because if you didn’t
– ’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Then I can’t see how you recognised me.’

  He laughed.

  ‘But you haven’t changed a bit. No plait, but otherwise just about the same. What are you doing here?’

  The giddy feeling was passing off. There are people whom you have to get to know again every time you meet them, and there are people with whom time doesn’t make any difference – if you didn’t see them for twenty years you could begin again just where you left off, in the middle of a sentence if necessary.

  Candida began to have this feeling about Stephen. They had only met once, and that was nearly six years ago, but they didn’t feel like strangers. They weren’t doing any of the things that belonged to having met only once before.

  It didn’t occur to them to shake hands or say, ‘How do you do?’ She just sat and looked at him with the blue of her eyes dark and troubled, and he looked back and smiled.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I’m staying here with some great-aunts. They asked me on a visit. Barbara is dead.’

  He said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  The way he said it was nice – as if he really meant it – as if he was really sorry that she had lost Barbara and was all alone. It took away some of the aloneness. She said,

  ‘You did go into your uncle’s office? You told me you were going to.’

  ‘Yes – that’s why I’m here. I’m doing a job on an old house that got shaken up by the bombing in the war. It belongs to two Miss Benevents.’

  Candida said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why – do you know them?’

  ‘I’m staying with them.’

  ‘They’re not your aunts?’

  ‘My great-aunts. My grandmother was their sister. Her name was Candida Benevent, and their father cut her off and cast her out because she married my grandfather who was the son of a yeoman farmer – “although he had taken orders”.’ She spoke in a quoting voice, and he laughed.

  ‘You mean he was a parson?’

  She nodded mournfully.

  ‘But it didn’t make up for his being a farmer’s son.’

  ‘Is that what the old ladies say?’

  He remembered liking the way she smiled. Her lip curled up a little more on one side than on the other, and there was just a glimpse of those very white teeth. She said,

  ‘Oh, yes. So there wasn’t any communication, but he took means to inform himself when anyone was born or died. And the aunts went on doing it, so they knew when my grandmother died, and my father and mother, and Barbara. And when there was only me, they asked me to come and stay, and I did.’

  Stephen was frowning.

  ‘I was at Underhill two days ago. How long have you been there?’

  ‘I came yesterday.’

  ‘And how long are you going to stay?’

  ‘I don’t know – it was a bit vague. They’re giving me driving lessons. It’s very kind of them.’

  He said abruptly, ‘Who is teaching you? Not Derek Burdon?’

  ‘No, it’s Mr. Fox from the garage over the way. He’s very good.’

  ‘Like it?’

  Her smile flashed out.

  ‘Oh, yes!’

  It was at this moment that Derek made his belated appearance. He said he had had a puncture, hoped she had not been waiting long, and, rather as an afterthought, became aware of Stephen Eversley.

  ‘Oh, hullo! Do you know each other?’

  Stephen said, ‘Oh, yes,’ and Candida put in, ‘Of course we do. I said so at breakfast.’

  ‘You said you’d seen him once at school.’

  ‘Not at school. I said I was still at school when I met him. I was fifteen and a half.’

  Derek laughed.

  ‘And now we’ve got that settled, what will you have – tea or coffee? I’ll go and have a wash while they’re bringing it. I got filthy changing a wheel.’

  When he had gone, Stephen said,

  ‘Did he drive you in?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But he didn’t go out with you and Fox?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  She laughed.

  ‘He said it would make me nervous. But I think – ’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll say it.’

  ‘You mean you don’t get on?’

  ‘Oh, no, we get on very well.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Oh, just that I think he likes to get off on his own, and he’s quite good at doing it.’

  Stephen said, ‘Oh, well – ’ And then, ‘What does he actually do?’

  ‘Family history, I think. We are supposed to be going to work on it together.’

  The quick frown came again.

  ‘How long did you say you were going to stay?’

  ‘I didn’t say. I don’t know.’

  ‘How do you mean you don’t know?’

  ‘Well, I shall have to get a job. The bother is I’m not trained for anything.’

  He said abruptly, ‘No money?’

  ‘Not very much.’

  He looked as if he was going to speak, but checked himself.

  Derek appeared in the offing.

  Stephen said quickly, ‘Lunch with me tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t know – ’

  He said with energy, ‘You mean you’ve got to ask leave?’

  ‘Well, yes – in a way.’

  ‘Then begin the way you’re going to go on. If you start by knuckling down you won’t be able to call your soul your own – nobody who works for them can. Lunch tomorrow – twelve-thirty here. The food isn’t at all bad. Make your driving lesson a bit later, so that it fits in.’

  The last words were spoken as Derek came up. He caught them, because when Candida hesitated he laughed and said,

  ‘Why not if you want to? We can fix it up with Fox all right. Join us and have some coffee, won’t you, Eversley?’

  But Stephen got up.

  ‘No thanks – I- was just putting in time – I’ve got an appointment. Twelve-thirty tomorrow, Candida.’

  She watched him go. His head just cleared the central beam. Derek had stooped though he had a few inches to spare. Stephen’s careless stride took him under it without any regard. Derek said, ‘That’s a near shave,’ and dropped into a chair as the waitress came in with the coffee.

  It was when they were driving home that he asked,

  ‘He wants you to lunch with him tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know that I’d mention it at Underhill.’

  She turned in surprise.

  ‘But I must.’

  She got a charming smile and a shake of the head.

  ‘Much better not. They don’t like it. Architects don’t cut any ice socially.’

  ‘What nonsense!’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Victorian outlook – influence of poor Papa – it’s never worn off. And what’s the use of upsetting them? I told Fox you’d be out for your lesson at a quarter past eleven, and all we need say is that we’re lunching in town. They’ll be quite pleased about that.’

  Candida had a feeling of distaste.

  ‘No, I couldn’t do that.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Just as you like! But you know one can’t really carry on according to Papa, and what the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve over.’

  Her colour rose. She shook her head vehemently.

  ‘I’m not going to tell lies about anything at all! Why shouldn’t I have lunch with Stephen?’

  He shrugged again.

  ‘Oh, have it your own way. But don’t blame me if there’s a blight.’

  She wondered what his own plans would be, and she thought he was running a risk. If the Miss Benevents were to find out. The thought broke off. They wouldn’t like to feel that he had kept them in the dark. It looked as if there might be a girl whom they wouldn’t approve of. His affair, but he needn’t feel that he was going to drag her into
it.

  She went into the house as he was putting the car away, and found Miss Olivia at her writing-table in a dark little den lined with bookshelves. As she opened the door she heard Miss Cara say in a plaintive voice, ‘She is really quite pretty, and there is no reason why he shouldn’t take to her. It would be much better that way.’

  Whatever Miss Olivia’s reply would have been, it was arrested by Candida’s entrance. Instead, she enquired about the driving lesson, and was pleased to hear that it had gone well.

  It was Miss Cara, in a chair by the window with a newspaper in her lap, who appeared to be embarrassed. She produced an embroidered handkerchief, rubbed her nose with it, and sniffed. Candida had not allowed herself time to wonder about what she had overheard. She went directly from the driving lesson to the programme for next day.

  ‘It was lovely. I enjoyed every minute of it. It is so kind of you. And bye the bye, I ran into Stephen Eversley. He asked me to lunch with him tomorrow. I hope you won’t mind.’

  There was the sort of silence which means that you have put your foot in it. Miss Cara sniffed and chafed her nose. Miss Olivia laid down her pen. When the pause had had time to sink in she said in a restrained manner,

  ‘It is not exactly a question of minding.’

  ‘Oh -’

  ‘You are naturally inexperienced. It is, of course, hardly to be expected that you should be otherwise, but Mr Eversley should have known better than to presume on his professional position.’

  Candida’s colour rose brightly.

  ‘Aunt Olivia – ’

  Miss Olivia’s manner became very grand indeed.

  ‘We will say no more about it. The mistake was an excusable one on your part. We have his telephone number. You can ring him up and say that we have made other arrangements for you.’

  Candida had the feeling that life at Underhill would be impossible if she did not stand up to Miss Olivia. She said,

  ‘No – I don’t think I could do that.’

  There was another pause. The handkerchief was crushed in Miss Cara’s hand. But after a moment Miss Olivia gave a small wintry smile and said,

  ‘Well, since the engagement was made, you must please yourself.’

  Chapter Six