him nowhere to hide.
He escaped to his room, but found a noise coming from the connecting passage. There he found a workman making measurements.
‘Central heating,’ the young man explained.
‘Oh, yes.’
‘It’s a bit narrow in here for a radiator,’ Fred observed.
‘You could cut a bit out of this inner wall,’ Jarvis said, trying to make himself interested. ‘It must be feet thick, so there’ll be no problem.’
The next day the workman started drilling, and almost at once he knew that the stone wall wasn’t feet thick. No more than ten inches, he estimated from the sound. He kept going and soon emerged on the other side. Then he drilled again until he was able to move one large stone right out. He held up his flashlight and peered in. What he saw made him freeze for a long, shocked moment before hurrying away to find his foreman.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SO OFTEN in dreams Meryl had opened her door to find Jarvis standing there that when the unfamiliar knock had come she’d gone flying to the door, pulling it open without using the security speaker, ready to say it was all a mistake, that if he was sorry, so was she.
But outside there had been only a stranger, surrounded by boxes and trunks. Jarvis had sent all her possessions from Larne. She never opened her door spontaneously again.
She had slammed the phone down on him in a moment of anger, but, despite her misery, after that one moment of hope she had no regrets. There was no way back. She’d played and lost, and nothing but grief could come of clinging to false dreams.
As day had followed dreary, desperate day, she’d worked at being strong-minded. She was now in the position she’d plotted and schemed for, her money in her own hands, a husband who’d vanished back whence he came, and the world before her. This was what she’d wanted. She told herself that.
Plus she’d made life better for people she cared about. But it seemed she hadn’t made it better for Jarvis. She might have drawn him out to share the sunshine with her, but she hadn’t. He would grow older, and then old, just as he was. He would marry Sarah. At that thought she’d almost jumped on the first plane back to him, but she had forced herself to do nothing. He’d chosen his path. He didn’t want her.
And at that thought she too had managed to harden her heart a little. It seemed he couldn’t learn from her, but she had learned wariness from him.
Benedict’s show had been a riotous success. Soon it would be time to take it to Paris, and Meryl decided to go, too. It was a while since she’d seen Paris. She resisted the thought that she needed something to do.
She was awoken early one morning by the doorbell ringing hard and continuously. Pulling on a wrap, she approached cautiously and switched on the speaker.
‘Who is it?’
‘Jarvis.’
She couldn’t move. Wild thoughts raced through her head, but then he said quietly, ‘Please, Meryl, let me in.’ And she opened it at once.
He looked so ill, she thought. So changed.
His pallor had a grey tinge and he looked drained by weariness and strain, but that wasn’t the change. What really altered him was the hesitancy in his eyes, as though all his confidence had fled.
She stood back for him to pass her, trying not to feel anything. Jarvis was right about that. It was better to stay safe. But she couldn’t stop her heart aching for him.
He seemed to be having trouble speaking. Whatever he wanted to say, it wasn’t easy. But when had he ever found anything easy?
‘You look as if you’ve had a bad journey,’ she said, giving him time. ‘I’ll get you some coffee.’
While the coffee perked she returned to her room and returned in trousers and sweater. She served the coffee on a low table by the couch and glanced around for him. He was looking at a niche where the bags he’d sent after her were standing. She’d dumped them there and never had the heart to touch them.
He turned to her and his look made her heart miss a beat. His eyes were defenceless, as never before.
‘I came to say I’m sorry.’
Throw yourself into his arms, said her heart. But-
No, said hard learned caution. Why this all of a sudden?
‘Why?’ Just the one word was all she could manage.
‘I learned the truth. Steen’s collection was on television, plus something about his wife, and how you brought them together.’
‘I see.’ The faint flickering hope died. Jarvis was a conscientious man where facts were concerned.
‘I should have trusted you. In my heart I always knew I could.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ she said with a sad smile. ‘You say that now when it’s easy-I’m sorry-’ he’d winced ‘-I didn’t mean that unkindly, it’s just that-’
‘I know. It’s easy when you have the facts. It’s when you don’t have them that you need blind faith and trust. And I didn’t come through for you, did I?’
‘Jarvis, please-it doesn’t matter. I’m glad you know the truth. It was nice of you to come all this way to tell me yourself.’
‘I had another reason. There’s something you have to know. It’ll be in the newspapers soon, but I wanted to be the one to tell you. You’re the only person who’ll really understand.’
She returned to the sofa and indicated for him to sit in a facing chair while she poured the coffee. ‘What’s happened?’
‘The workmen came across something in that passage that links your room to mine. You mentioned one day that it seemed oddly narrow, and you were right. There’s a false wall, with a tiny room behind it. You’ll scarcely believe what we found there.’
‘What?’
‘Marguerite.’
Meryl stared. ‘But-she ran away.’
‘That’s what we thought, because she vanished suddenly. So did the steward and her maid. But they were all there. They’ve been there for six hundred years. No-’ he said quickly when Meryl gave a little shudder, ‘oddly enough it wasn’t particularly unpleasant. After all this time they were little more than dust. The clothes lasted better. She was wearing the pearls she has on in her portrait.’
‘But how did it happen?’
‘It seems Giles wasn’t the grieving husband we all thought. He wanted her money all for himself, but he didn’t want to share with her. He murdered her, and the steward, and her maid, to make it look convincing. Then he walled them up, and spread the story of how she’d deserted him.
‘To make it convincing he put the Vendanne pearls in there as well, probably because it was the one place nobody could find them. He must have meant to retrieve them later, when the fuss had died down, but he died too soon and nobody knew they were there.’
‘Poor Marguerite,’ Meryl murmured.
‘Yes. Harry doesn’t think she was ever really in love with the steward at all. That was just a lie to explain her disappearance. She was probably faithful and devoted to her husband, but he just wanted to take, not give.’ There was a pause before Jarvis added, ‘I’m afraid that may be a characteristic of the Larnes.’
Meryl gave a wan smile. ‘That I should ever hear you being sentimental!’
‘It comes too close for comfort. I resented your generosity because I saw you as an interloper. I thought I was guarding my heritage from an invader, but actually I was just selfishly refusing to share. Everything you did, getting to know everyone, finding the outlet for the knitting, was all because you wanted to give and become part of us. And I rejected you because-’ he shuddered ‘-I think I was jealous. You took what I thought of as mine and made it yours, not with money, but by winning their love.’
