The man who came back Read online

  Once more he put out his hand and smoothed it, almost automatically; then he stood back and announced, a little curtly, that he must be leaving. "But you'll come back tomorrow?"

  I "Of course." She gave a sigh of relief. Then she remembered her dream, and wished he hadn't to take his departure so soon. She looked into the shadows in the corners of her room, and he be-, gan to realise that she was feeling slightly haunted again. "It's all right," he said. "It was only a dream!"

  He spoke insistently, intent on getting this fact through to her. The sedative tablets were already beginning to work�he could tell that by the faint drowsiness in her eyes�and she was settling down more or less happily on her pillows. But one of her hands was inching its way towards him, and although she probably didn't realise that it was an appealing hand he took it within his own without waiting for her to say anything and gave it a most comforting squeeze before he handed it back to her.

  "It's all right," he repeated again. "You had a crack on the head, and you had some nightmarish dreams. But you won't dream any more tonight. I give you my word about that! Now, close your eyes and don't trouble to think about

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  anything at all... not even me," he breathed very low, as he bent above her. "Go to sleep, Harriet!" he commanded.

  But it was a command that was as soft as silk,

  and as gentle as a breath of warm air. When he

  left the room, however, he was looking grim.

  In the morning she felt so very much better that she immediately began her search for the missing portrait of an unknown gentleman. It was somewhere in the house�she was sure of it �and someone, for some reason, had had it removed from the attic.

  It could be that other things had been removed from the attic, and the picture was simply one of them, and was merely part of a gradual clearance of the attics. But, if that was the case, on whose authority had the clearance been made, and was it in the least likely that Gay, her half-sister, would take the trouble to tidy up the attics when she wasn't madly interested in the rest of the house ?

  She liked it�she appreciated the fact that it was hers, and she knew that it provided her with a very highly suitable background, and therefore it was a great asset But she had none of Har- riet's feeling for old houses, or intense appreciation of their charm. She was not very knowledgeable about antiques, either, and would be unlikely to recognise a Gainsborough if she fell over it, or any other work of art. Therefore, why �if it was on her instructions that the portrait

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  had been removed from the attic�had she selected that particular portrait? Why not the whole batch of pictures that were still leaning against the wall in the attic ?

  Harriet could not have told anyone why she was reasonably certain the disappearance of the portrait had something to do with Gay.

  In the end, after a most exhaustive search, she found the portrait in Gay's own room, at the back of one of her capacious wardrobes. It was almost entirely concealed by the suits and the dresses that were hanging in a serried row inside the wardrobe, and the face of the man with the hard dark eyes and the rather cruel curve of the lips was brushed by falls of silk and brocade every time a selection was made from amongst the dresses.

  Harriet, having made her discovery, went straight down to the housekeeper and asked her if she knew how the portrait had found its way to Mrs. Earnshaw's bedroom. The housekeeper informed her that the gardener had been instructed to bring it down from the attic, and Mrs. Earnshaw had said something about having it valued.

  Whether as a work of art, or for any other reason, Harriet could only conjecture. She even began to wonder whether Gay's unexpected visit to London was in connection with it

  When Gay returned from London two days

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  later she found out that the trip, undertaken at short notice, had had everything to do with the

  portrait.

  Gay, who had stayed at a familiar hotel where she had often stayed with her husband, had enjoyed herself in a quiet way, and done a lot of shopping, in addition to ferreting out information about the portrait, which she admitted she had searched for in the attics after Harriet had made something of an exhibition of herself by fainting dead away following a period of browsing in,the attics.

  Harriet had said nothing to her half-sister about either the portrait or Dr. Drew's likeness to it, but Gay was in possession of information which Harriet knew nothing about, and, her curiosity aroused, had combed the attics very thoroughly until she came upon the only possible explanation for Harriet's extraordinary conduct Intrigued by the likeness to Dr. Drew, although not by any means convinced that it was anything but a strange coincidence and possibly merely an illusion in the poor light of the attics, she nevertheless� having very much in mind her own private piece of knowledge�had the portrait removed from the attic and taken down to her own room, where she studied it in secret. After which she decided to go to London, and having returned from London she was able to report to Harriet�whom she now took completely into

  her confidence�that the likeness between Dr.

  �-^a

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  Drew and the portrait was not by any means accidental, for he was in actual fact an Eamshaw himself; and she couldn't any longer accept the reasons he had given for his taking

  over the job of locum for Dr. Parkes in the vil

  lage of Falaise.

  Gay was quite obviously excited by her discovery, and not in the least inclined to feel any resentment towards Dr. Drew. On the contrary, far from harbouring resentment, and feeling in the slightest degree anxious, she had already drawn up plans to deal with any possible danger to herself ... and those plans were so simple that they took Harriet's breath away. Although they shouldn't have done anything of the kind, when she really knew Gay very well.

  "I told you before that I like Philip Drew,"

  she said, slipping out of her travelling outfit in her own room while Harriet automatically tidied after her and put away the contents of her slim suitcase. "In fact, I think I hinted that I was prepared to like him very much."

  Harriet attached a wisp of cloudy black chiffon to a satin-covered hanger. "Yes?" she said, turning and staring at her half-sister with rather widely opened eyes. Gay smiled at her.

  ."Well, you know I don't make idle threats, and I believe I threatened to marry Philip... although at that stage we hardly knew one another. I had a kind of feeling that we would

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  get on famously if only we did know one another better, and since then I've made a discovery which doesn't leave me with any other alternative than marriage with Philip Drew. I mean, I've got to marry him if I want to keep my income; and as I couldn't possibly manage without my income and all the things I've become accustomed to looking upon as mine by right, I think you'll very soon have him for a brother-inlaw. Although, of course, you mustn't let him know that I said this. It all has to be handled very delicately and skilfully because I'm afraid^ he might prove hard to handle if he ever got the least idea that our marriage was a necessity."

  "A necessity?" Harriet folded away the underthings in a drawer, and tried hard to overcome a sensation as if she had been kicked in the face by a mule. "I�I'm afraid I don't understand what you're talking about," she admitted. "Why should you have to marry Dr. Drew? ... Always allowing for the remote possibility that he might not want to marry you!" she couldn't refrain from adding.

  Gay continued to smile.

  "Darling," she said, "you make it sound as if I might find it difficult to trap him under any circumstances. But you should know that that isn't the way with me and men."

  No; Harriet had to agree. That wasn't the way with Gay and susceptible�possibly, even, unsusceptible�members of the opposite sex.

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  Most of them merely looked at her and then she had them at her
feet. Even when spumed they remained at her feet.

  "Well, go on," Harriet said quietly, clutching at the bedpost as if she needed support. "Apart from having had a marked and shattering effect on Philip Drew, how will you bring him to heel if he does prove awkward?"

  "He won't." Gay said it with confidence as she applied eye make-up carefully and regarded it critically in the mirror of her dressing-table. "And the reason why I've got to marry him is simply and solely concerned with expediency. It would be most inexpedient of me to let him get away, and so I'm going to marry him."

  "Like that?" Harriet said drily. "Although he hasn't asked you?"

  "Like that!" Gay agreed, snapping her fingers. "And as yet he hasn't asked me," she admitted.

  "You haven't told me yet why," Harriet reminded her.

  "Well, darling, I'll tell you now... and you really should have been told before .because you were clever enough to decide that there must be some connection between the portrait in the attic and the man who came in through the french window that night and gave you the shock of your life. I'm not surprised you passed out. I

  think I might have done in the circumstances."

  "The connection?" Harriet insisted, with ad

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  mirable patience. "What is the connection?"

  "Haven't you guessed?" Gay looked at her in some surprise. "I passed on to you that story that Cook told me about the ruthless husband who turned against his wife because she had an unfortunate affair. Well, the one thing I knew and Cook didn't know, apparently, was that there was a perfectly legitimate child of that marriage, and it was the rightful heir once the father was dead. However, it would have been too simple after so much violence and bad feel

  ing if the child had simply inherited, and he didn't. In point of fact, he vanished, and no one actually knew what had happened to him. When the death of the man who sat for the portrait took place there were no close relatives on hand to watch him die, and after his death a search actually had to be conducted to find out who, if anyone, was to inherit The legal heir having vanished into thin air�I think there's a pun, or something, there!�a distant cousin was eventually found, and that distant cousin was a forebear of my late lamented Bruce, who enjoyed his inheritance for such a very short while. However, as his wife I have every right to enjoy what he left behind ... or I would have but. for the fact that it isn't really mine. And it was never really Bruce's! Falaise, and the income from the estate, is the property of Dr. Philip Drew, although at the moment I don't think he knows it himself."

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  Harriet stared at her with eyes that had widened in disbelief. She had suspected some connection of the family, but not this.

  "How can you be certain?" she asked. "In fact, how can you really know all this if Dr. Drew doesn't know anything about it?"

  "I went to London for the sole purpose of checking the records. I found out everything I wanted to know... or, perhaps, didn't actually want to know! And there's no disputing it. Philip Drew has the right to Falaise. I have no rights whatsoever!"

  Harriet took time to assimilate this, and then she sat down carefully on the foot of the low French bed. "And what do you propose to do?" she asked at length. Gay looked surprised once more. "I've told you what I propose to do," she answered. "Marry Philip, and tell him the truth afterwards."

  Harriet wasn't merely startled; she was shocked. "But you can't do that!" she gasped. "You'll have to tell him now, at once!"

  Her half-sister regarded her with a faint hint of contempt in her deep violet eyes.

  "Really," she exclaimed, "you are simple, aren't you? Do you honestly think I'd risk losing Falaise by telling him the p-uth before he'd even put an engagement, ring on my finger? I've no doubts at all that I can handle Philip with the

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  maximum amount of ease," her soft pink mouth

  curving upwards at the corners with the utmost

  complacency, "but an insurance policy is a use

  ful policy so long as the whole thing has been

  drawn up legally, and signed and witnessed, and

  so on. Philip isn't exactly an insurance policy,

  but he does represent a sort of menace to my

  whole future happiness if he's allowed to remain

  a bachelor for very much longer... although

  naturally I'd prefer him to remain a bachelor

  rather than see him married to some other -woman! So I've laid my plans, and from this

  moment onwards the siege will continue... until

  you have the pleasure of holding my bouquet

  and my gloves for me when the local parson

  makes us man and wife!"

  Harriet was appalled by her coolness and her logic, and by the Strangely emotionless attitude of mind that lay behind even the final culmination of her plans. She was also�for a reason which she did not disguise from herself now� filled with such a profound feeling of dismay that she was unable even to make any further protests. Gay regarded her with a hint of commiseration in her eyes.

  "Poor darling!" she said. "You must have had . a shock that night when you fainted�" Harriet said feebly: "It wasn't just a shock. I couldn't believe my eyes!" "And yet it's all perfectly natural, isn't it? A direct descendant! The main line, too. In a way,

  -"s

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  I think it's rather exciting... Philip looks so startlingly like that Regency Eamshaw that he could be the same man, come back into this world after a lapse of over a hundred years! Uncanny, isn't it?" Her violet eyes glowed with a touch of excitement "Do you think he's likely to turn out to be as ruthless and cruel as that other Eamshaw? Because if he is I'll have to discover the way to handle him, won't I?"

  Almost without the volition of her will Harriet protested:

  "No, no, of course he isn't! And for all we know, that other Earnshaw wasn't really ruthless, either."

  "You mean he had a lot to put up with?" Once again the 'soft lips quirked upwards at the comers, almost wholly with amusement. "Well, wives can be difficult sometimes. But so can husbands. A little latitude on both sides should occasionally be allowed."

  Harriet looked horrified.

  "I think that sounds horrible."

  Gay shrugged.

  "Ah, but you haven't been married, darling,

  have you? You don't yet know how exhausting

  and disillusioning it can be trying to pretend that

  all is well with a marriage, when exactly the

  opposite is the case." Unwittingly, perhaps, she

  was revealing quite a lot all at once to her sister.

  "Men don't even try to pretend, but women

  do. They hate other women to suspect them of

  "v'!.r^

  '��;-.^Sft

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  being unhappy.And when they start having

  affairs that means they're" actively unhappy.I

  feel terribly sorry for that poor dead Eamshaw

  wife."

  "And yet you' re ready to marry another Eamshaw, who you can't be absolutely certain�since he doesn't apparently,know it himself!�is an Earnshaw."

  "I'm willing to take the risk,shall we say? And I'm always attracted by risks."She finished combing her hair in front of her mirror,and then turned smillingly to Harriet"And you can take it from me the reisn't any doubt that Philip Drew is an Eamshaw.I've proved that to my entire satisfaction during my visit to London. He's entitled to call himself Philip Drew Eamshaw... but apparently he contents himself with Philip Drew.It's quite possible,of course,that he knows he's anE amshaw."

  "It's al so possible that he accepted the job as locum to Dr.Parkes because he wanted to be near Falaise,"Harriet pointed out."I fhe didn't do that the strange coincidence that he is an Eamshaw is almost too much toa ccept."

  Gay,she could tell,was inclined to agree with her.

  "Well,
I'll have tofind all that out,won't I?" she said."But not until I've worked on him abit more than I have already done and established a few more important certainties."

  "Such as?"Harriet enquired,although she

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  knew perfectly well what the answer would be. Her half-sister touched her cheek gently, and then stroked it caressingly, if a little absentmindedly, for a few seconds.

  "Just how much he means it when his eyes say he finds me ^hatteringly attractive, for one thing," she replied at last a little dreamily. "Men's eyes have said things like that to me before... but it doesn't always mean marriage. And Philip is such a case-hardened bachelor that

  he's probably half convinced himself he prefers

  being a bachelor. However, I have several valid reasons for wishing to marry again very soon... and if necessary I'll have to really deal with Philip! I'll bring my battery of charms to bear

  on him!" And she turned to her own image m the mirror and smiled at it�as if she knew perfectly well that few men�even the hardened bachelor types�could resist her when, as she phrased it herself, she really got to work on them. Harriet, disturbed by the violent and conflicting emotions that were carrying on a kind of aU_ out offensive deep at the very heart and core of her being, was glad of the opportunity to escape from her room, and she went along to her own and locked herself into it while she sat down on the foot of her own bed this time and wrestled with the alarming sensation of dismay that was gradually taking possession of her. It wasn't that, as a result of one particular

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  memory which was etched upon her mind,

  her attitude to Philip Drew had changed com

  pletely. ,.. And she certainly hadn't allowed

  herself to be carried away by an incident that he

  himself had probably forgotten after forty-eight

  hours. But since the blow on her head there had

  been a certain amount of confusion in her mind

  about Philip, and she now saw him as a very

  different man from the one who had first aroused

  her indignation. She saw him as a strange mix