LXV
When Leslie Gwyn woke, the sunlight was peeping round the edges of the drawn blinds. She sat up suddenly and her head went round and round. And then she remembered and her eyes closed, as if to shut out some horrible sight.
“Oh, you are awake?” said Mary Wenner, bustling in. “Dick sent me up to see how you were. Everybody’s most fearfully anxious about you—even Fabe, though I’m not of a jealous disposition, as everybody knows.”
“What is the time?”
Then, with a shiver, she remembered that somebody else had asked her that. How long ago? An eternity!
“Twelve thirty-five,” said Miss Wenner, consulting her watch. “I’ve been out looking at the workmen. Really, my dear, it’s more like a Desirable Residential Estate than the grounds of Fossaway Manor. Wheelbarrows and navvies and goodness knows what! They say it’s cost his lordship twenty thousand pounds.”
Leslie looked at her in wonder.
“His lordship?” she said in a hushed voice.
“I mean Dick,” said the calm Miss Wenner. “The King is dead, long live the King! That’s my motto every time.” And then, in a more sober tone; and rather ashamed of herself for her heartlessness: “Poor boy! It was a mercy for him. Fabe’s gone back to London.”
“Who is Fabe? Oh, Mr. Gilder!” said the girl, smiling faintly.
Miss Wenner dropped her eyes modestly.
“We are engaged. It was all his idea, because, as you know, Leslie darling, I’m not the sort of girl to throw herself at any man’s head. But he’s persuaded me.” She sighed heavily. “I suppose I’d better. I’m getting on in years, and a girl can’t always be pretty.”
Leslie brought her feet to the floor and stood up. She was still a little unsteady and the pain in her feet was atrocious, in spite of the dressing that the doctor had applied.
“I must say that Arthur took it very well,” said Miss Wenner as she assisted the girl to dress. “It was naturally a great blow to him.”
“What was?” Leslie was a little dazed.
“My engagement,” said Mary. “You didn’t know——” she sighed. “Arthur was very fond of me, I’ll admit it. But in the circumstances I don’t think it would be nice to marry a gentleman who’s bad friends with my fiancé, do you, Leslie?”
“I had no idea that there was anything between Arthur and you,” said Leslie truthfully.
Again Miss Wenner sighed.
“Very few people knew anything about it. Perhaps it is all for the best. Arthur thinks so. It isn’t as though I’d thrown myself at him, so there’s no harm done one way or the other.”
Leslie was wearing a pair of man’s slippers when she came down the broad stairs. Dick’s study door was open and she saw him sitting in a deep cane chair on the lawn outside, a pipe between his teeth, a heap of documents on his knees which he was examining slowly one by one. He looked round, rising from his chair at the sound of her voice. She saw his face and was shocked.
“Dick, you look a hundred years old!”
“I feel a thousand,” he said, and guided her to the chair. “Sit down. Well, that’s the end, Leslie—and the beginning.”
She nodded.
“I think we’ve managed to keep the ugliest part of it out of the newspapers. Poor old Harry!” There were tears in his eyes which he did not attempt to hide. “Poor old victim!”
“Victim of what?”
“Of his mother,” said Dick. “There never was a time when she was sane. My poor father did not discover this until after the child was born, and her death removed one of the greatest sorrows from his life. The other was—Harry! Well, now you know the secrets of us all, what do you think, Leslie?”
“Who was the Black Abbot?” she asked, and then, to her amazement:
“I was,” he replied quietly, and told her all he had told the high official from Scotland Yard.
“The queer thing was that he must have seen the gold before he died. What fools we were! The Diary told us as plainly as anything could that the old Lord Chelford who hid his treasure chose the bed of the river. It was a year of drought, the river was quite dry, and probably he found a deep hole in its bed, hid the gold and covered it with shingle that would not wash away.”
“You are very rich now, Dick?”
He nodded slowly.
“Yes—I suppose I am. There are a few minor trials and troubles for us, Leslie dear,” he said, “but when those are all over and everything is settled we will go abroad for a year and forget all about these ghastly days and nights.”
She took his hand between her two palms.
FINIS