The Terriford Mystery/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
HARRY GARLETT was lying on the bank of a Norwegian fjord. It was a beautiful warm September day. He felt well in soul and body, and intended to give himself three more months' good holiday.
With just a touch of reluctance he opened a packet of letters which had followed him to this remote, delicious place. Old Dodson's letter, doubtless a brief dictated summary of what had been happening at the factory, was, as usual, addressed in the girlish handwriting of Jean Bower.
The sight of that handwriting made his thoughts stray for a while to the place which he still called “home.” He was indeed a lucky chap to have such a steady old soul as Dodson, and such a thoroughly nice, sensible young woman as was Jean Bower, looking after the business from which he drew part of his large income.
He opened the envelope and then, as he read the typewritten sheet, his face clouded with deep and even deeper dismay.
- Dear Mr. Garlett,
- I hope you will not think I am exceeding my duty in writing to tell you that I am becoming very anxious about the state, not only of Mr. Dodson's health, but also of his brain.
- It seems a shame to interrupt your holiday, but I really don't know what to do. I am supposed to be the only person who has any influence over Mr. Dodson, but I have very little influence indeed, none where the real conduct of the business is concerned. My uncle agrees with me that you ought to know the state of things as soon as possible.
Believe me to remain, yours sincerely,
Jean Bower.
He got up from where he had been lying so luxuriously in the long grass, feeling as if he hadn't a care in the world. There was evidently nothing for it but to go home and face out a difficult and disagreeable situation. And yet he felt sharply annoyed with Jean Bower. No doubt she was exaggerating as to old Dodson's condition. But there it was; he couldn't neglect such a letter as that! He told himself that he had been a fool to leave a girl in so responsible a position.
This was why his friends and neighbours welcomed Harry Garlett back in their midst full three months before he had been expected home.
In such a place as Grendon everybody is interested in every other body's business. As soon as he had come back Harry Garlett had sent off Jean Bower for a short holiday, and soon, to his mingled amusement and annoyance, he found he could hardly take a step down the High Street without some good-natured gossip telling him how splendidly the girl had managed poor crazy old Dodson! Even his head foreman seemed quite lost without her, and, as a matter of fact, things didn't begin going right again till she came back, and in her quiet and diffident, yet competent, way, began to “put him wise” with regard to all those matters which Dodson had always tried to keep jealously in his own hands.
And then, as the days went on, Harry Garlett began to find himself taking a keen, even an excited, interest in his work. The business which had meant little to him in the old days now gripped and absorbed him, or so he honestly thought, to the exclusion of all else.
Times were bad, every one in the country economizing, going in more and more for the cheap, rather than for the good, and the china made in the Etna works had never been cheap, though always good. And soon it became known in the town that Harry Garlett was trying to prove what even now few people believe—that is, that homely, everyday objects can be cheap and beautiful at the same time.
Never had time gone by so quickly as with these two eager workers! In the old days time had hung sometimes very heavily on Harry Garlett's hands during the late autumn and winter months. But now he found there were not hours enough for all he wanted to do.
With the brain side of the business increasing at the rate it was doing, it became necessary to engage a new shorthand writer, and at the suggestion of Jean Bower, the daughter of a local solicitor killed in the war was given the coveted post. This was considered a kindly and generous act on Miss Bower's part. Most young women in the position in which she found herself would not have cared to have an other girl, younger, most people would have said prettier, than herself, sharing her secretarial position.
But, as a matter of fact, Jean no longer took down letters. Almost at once, though neither she nor Harry Garlett realized it, she had slipped into the position of a partner. They were a happy family at the Etna China works. “All jolly and friendly together,” as the head foreman expressed it.
And then, late in November, a word was uttered which changed, for ever, both their lives.
It was Sunday evening, and Harry Garlett was on his way to supper at Bonnie Doon. He went out often to dinner, having a large circle of acquaintances, but he generally had supper with the Macleans on Sunday, and as it was with him a dull, solitary day he used to look forward very eagerly to the evening. Since his return home, on the pretext that he was still in mourning, he no longer accepted invitations for week-end visits.
To-night, as he passed the Thatched Cottage, Miss Prince came running out of her door; it was almost as if she had been waiting for him.
“Harry!” she exclaimed. “May I walk a few yards with you? I want to ask you a favour.” Inconsequently, she added: “Your wife and I were lifelong friends, you know.”
She began walking along the road by his side, anxious to be quite out of earshot of her maid, who, by the way, was Lucy Warren. Lucy had always been a favourite of Miss Prince, and, to Agatha Cheale's indignation, after the girl's dismissal from the Thatched House, she had at once taken her back into her own service.
“Well, Miss Prince, what can I do for you?”
Harry Garlett never felt quite at ease with the gossiping spinster. They had once, years ago, had a real quarrel. He had caught her trying to make mischief between himself and his wife, and though they had formally “made it up” neither really liked the other.
“If and when Jean Bower gives up her job at the Etna works, I do beg you, Harry, to offer the position to Agatha Cheale.”
“Agatha Cheale?” Harry Garlett repeated the name mechanically.
His whole mind, aye, and his whole heart, were full of the first words she had spoken—“If and when Jean Bower gives up her job”
“Have you any reason for thinking that Miss Bower is going to give up her position?”
He felt—he could not see, for it was dark—that Miss Prince smiled. It was a smile he knew and had always hated, for it generally presaged on her part the saying of something spiteful and unpleasant. But, whatever it was she was about to say, she now seemed in no hurry to say it.
“Well,” she said at last, “you go to the Macleans so often I should have thought you must have guessed what's in the wind?”
It was not true that he went often to Bonnie Doon. As a matter of fact he had a curious distaste in seeing Jean Bower in the company of her uncle and aunt, for the reason that they two had now many interests in common that they could not share with outsiders—however kind those outsiders might be.
“In the wind, Miss Prince? I don't understand what you mean.”
“If you were living where I live, on the road, you'd notice how often Dr. Tasker goes in and out of Bonnie Doon. Why, it's as good as a play! There was a time when the man would hardly put his foot in Terriford village. We were supposed to belong to Dr. Maclean—and we did, too. There wasn't much love lost between them before Miss Jean came along—but now they're kissing kind! I'm expecting to hear of Jean's engagement to Dr. Tasker any day.”
Harry Garlett fenced with his tormentor. “I now see your point about Miss Cheale,” he said quietly, “but I doubt if she would give up her work in London.”
“She gave it up before to please you.” Her tone was significant, though he could not see her meaning look. She added hastily:
“Agatha is devoted to this place, and so I thought I would take time by the forelock. Once it's known that Jean Bower is leaving the factory, there'll be plenty of people anxious to work their idle, silly daughters into her pleasant job. If you are wise, Harry Garlett, you will bear Agatha Cheale in mind.”
“I will, indeed, Miss Prince. Thank you for mentioning her.”
Miss Prince turned back toward her house, while Harry Garlett walked on, in a turmoil of astonishment and, yes, of bitter, intolerable jealousy.
Jean Bower and that red-haired brute, Tasker? Why, the mere thought of their names being associated in the way he had just heard it done made him feel beside himself with anger.
He quickened his footsteps, even now unaware of what was the matter with him. Indeed, as he went up the drive leading to the Macleans' front door, he seriously told himself that his feeling of utter dismay was owing to the loss Jean would be to him from a business point of view.
A most miserable evening followed. Whenever Harry Garlett had a chance of doing so he would stare furtively, his heart full of jealousy and suspicious misery, at Jean Bower's bright, animated face.
He wondered whether Tasker had been there on Friday afternoon? The day before yesterday Miss Bower had asked for the afternoon off—a most unusual thing for her to do.
Jean? What a lovely unusual name! Till this evening she had been “Miss Bower” even in Harry Garlett's inmost thoughts. Henceforth she would always be Jean....
He was so silent, so constrained in his manner, that the doctor and Mrs. Maclean noticed that something was wrong. But they were, as Jean's aunt expressed it afterwards, a hundred miles from suspecting the truth. By both these good people Harry Garlett was still regarded as the newly made widower of “poor Emily,” and as for their dear little niece, they were secretly happy in the belief that she would soon be Mrs. Tasker, settled within a pleasantly easy distance of themselves, with her future assured, even if the young medical man, whom they had regarded with such very different feelings till a few months ago, were not exactly a hero of romance. Tasker was proceeding in his wooing in a leisurely, cautious manner, but neither of the onlookers suspected the truth—the truth being that he felt as if there were an invisible, but strong, barrier between the girl and himself.
The next morning Jean was ten minutes late in arriving at the factory. As a rule she was five minutes early. But some one had come to Bonnie Doon with a cut hand, and the doctor, who generally motored her into Grendon, had wished to attend to the injury himself.
Those ten minutes had seemed to Harry Garlett an eternity. That she who was always early should be late, seemed to his jealous, excited fancy to confirm Miss Prince's outspoken hint, and when at last she did come in, with a half-smiling apology, he turned on her roughly.
“I hope that you won't be delayed like this again, Miss Bower, however good the reason. It gives a bad example,” and she was frightened, cowed, by his look of mingled anger and contempt.
Each of them got through his and her morning work with difficulty—Jean often on the point of tears.
What had happened to her kind, considerate employer, the man with whom, in her guilelessness, she had thought herself almost on the terms of a younger sister?
At last, at about a quarter to one, he turned on her with: “And what do you see to admire, Miss Bower, in Dr. Tasker?”
It was a monstrous, an outrageous, question, and the colour flew into her face.
She turned away and answered in what she meant should be a cheerful, chaffing voice, though she felt not only astounded, but hot with anger.
“What makes you think I admire Dr. Tasker, Mr. Garlett?”
He said, “I'm told you do,” in a short, cutting voice.
This time she remained silent, and after pretending for a moment or two to be busily engaged in correcting the proofs of a new trade catalogue she put her pen down and turned to walk toward the door—no longer mistress of herself.
Harry Garlett leaped to his feet, and before she could reach the door he caught her up and masterfully—yet, oh how gently—took her in his arms.
“Jean! Don't be cruel,” he whispered. “Surely—surely you know I love you—adore you—worship you?”
For a long moment they gazed into each other's eyes, and then his lips sought and found her soft, quivering mouth....
Early that afternoon—it was the first of December—Jean went home and quietly told her dismayed aunt that she and Harry Garlett loved one another. She admitted that it was very strange that neither of them had known it before to-day, but she went on to say that now they did know it, they were very, very happy.
Poor Mrs. Maclean! For the first time in her life she felt as if she could not cope with a situation—and she prayed for the doctor's return home.
But when he did come in, tired out, from a difficult case, he only said grumpily: “So that was what was the matter with him yesterday? We were fools not to have foreseen it,” and telephoned to ask Harry Garlett to supper.
How different was this evening from that spent by them all the night before! Even Mrs. Maclean, staid Scots body that she was, caught fire at the great shaft of pure white flame which seemed to envelop those two who had now become lovers.
To her husband she might mutter that it was only just over six months since “poor Emily” died, but to herself she kept saying how wonderful, how uplifting, even only to watch, was this ecstatic passion between a man she had secretly imagined incapable of love, and her matter-of-fact, capable, merry little Jean.
Dr. Maclean was far from pleased. He kept wondering, ruefully, what he should say to Tasker. The man would undoubtedly be bitterly disappointed. Nay, more, he might feel that he hadn't been treated quite fairly.
The doctor was also uncomfortably aware that there would be “talk,” and almost as if his wife were able to see into his mind, just before Harry Garlett at last got up, Mrs. Maclean suddenly exclaimed:
“There's one thing I'm minded to say, Harry. I'm afraid Jean mustn't go to the factory any more—not till you're married, that is.”
As both the girl and her lover exclaimed against the cruel decision, Dr. Maclean clinched the matter.
“Your aunt's quite right,” he said firmly. “Grendon's the greatest place for gossip in England.”
“We don't mind gossip.”
Dr. Maclean looked gravely at the two fine-looking young people standing before him in the lamplight.
Harry Garlett had never looked his age, and now, to-night, he looked years younger than yesterday. As for Jean, not only her radiant face, but her supple, graceful figure seemed transfigured—she looked a lovely ageless nymph no sorrow or decay could touch.
“I fancy that even you would mind being spied on and sniggered at,” said the doctor dryly.
And so there began for those two who loved one another so dearly a strange period of mingled pain and bliss. They hated to be apart, and yet they were not allowed to be together in what seemed to them both the only seemly, natural way—that in their joint everyday work.
Mrs. Maclean showed what even Jean considered an almost absurd fear of what even the people of Terriford might say. She did not like the lovers to stray outside the large garden and paddock of Bonnie Doon, and she ordained that “for the present” the engagement should remain private.
Small wonder that at the end of about ten days Miss Prince asked inquisitively: “Why has Jean left off going to the factory?”
“Jean has only had a few days' holiday since she first went there,” answered Jean's aunt evasively.
But Miss Prince shook her head. “I don't know why you should hide the truth from me, Mrs. Maclean? It's been plain for a good while what was the matter with Harry Garlett. I knew it before he knew it himself! But I didn't believe that the girl liked him. I thought she preferred Dr. Tasker. Well, well! Poor Emily has soon been forgotten”
After some three weeks of this state of things had gone on, Dr. Maclean suddenly said to his wife: “There's nothing for it but to get them married! There'll only be more talk if they don't.”
And Mrs. Maclean answered with something like a groan: “There'll be a lot of talk if they do.”
“Yes, but what's to be done, my dear? The poor fellow has never been in love till now, so he doesn't know how to behave”
And so it was that at last it was decided that the two should be married on the nineteenth of December, by special license, very quietly, not to say secretly, in Terriford village church. They would then go to London for a week's honeymoon, and, during that week, Dr. and Mrs. Maclean would tell all their neighbours and friends what had happened.
The doctor and his wife reminded each other that there was something about Jean which attracted even cold people. She had such a bright, happy, eager nature. As for Harry Garlett, he was always ready to do anybody a good turn, and also, as a great cricketer, was very popular. Though some old-fashioned people might be shocked by so early a second marriage, every one knew that his late wife had been an invalid for years.
There was only one person to whom, for a reason he would have found it difficult to define even to himself, Harry Garlett felt bound to announce his forthcoming marriage. This was Agatha Cheale.
In answer to his brief letter, there came one even briefer:
- Dear Mr. Garlett,
- I am interested in your news, and I trust you will be as happy as you deserve to be.
Yours sincerely,
Agatha Cheale.