The Benevent Treasure

‘Oh, no. I’m going to love the hot water-bottle.’

The girl flashed her a smile as she went out. Candida had a feeling that it wouldn’t be very long before she heard all about the boy friend and the lovely suite. The bed was comfortable and the hot water-bottle was really hot. But before she had time to luxuriate in these thoughts they were blotted out by the rising tides of sleep. She went down under dreamless waters and lost herself.

A long time afterwards, when the turn of the night was past and a thin white mist lay ankle-deep on the low-lying fields beyond the garden, the tides began to go down again. They thi

The room was dark. She had pulled back the curtains, and she could just see the shape of the window. She sat up straight in bed with her heart beating fast. Her hands pressed down on the mattress on either side of her. There was a trickle of sweat in the hollow of her back, a cold ru

These three things rushed together in her mind and became one thing. It wasn’t a dream any longer, it was a fact. It was the Miss Benevents who had looked over her shoulder and read her name in the hotel register. It was her great-aunt Olivia who had told her about the beach and the tide, and it was her great-aunt Cara who had nodded assent.

Sitting up in bed in the dark room, she said, ‘Nonsense!’ There was a shaded light beside the bed. She switched it on. She had her mother’s watch, and it lay on the table under the lamp. The time was half-past five, the sort of time you did have thoughts like that. She left the light on and lay down shivering, with the clothes snuggled up about her neck. She began to get warmer at once. The bed was soft and the light friendly. The dreams receded. The two old ladies at Sea View were just any old ladies who had muddled up the times of the tides. The hall had been dark – she hadn’t really seen them at all clearly. And she hadn’t ever seen them again, because when she and Stephen had got off the cliff and back to Sea View there was no more than time for her to snatch some breakfast and catch a train home. Monica had telephoned to say her mother was really ill and would have to go into a nursing home. She herself would stay with an aunt in London. She was dreadfully sorry. Mummy would send a cheque for the bill, and there was nothing for it but for Candida to go home. So Candida went. And she didn’t see the old ladies again. And she didn’t see Stephen Eversley.

She lay in the shaded light of the lamp and thought about all these things. It was quite easy to see how she had got the old ladies mixed up with the great-aunts. Two old ladies in black in the hall at Sea View – two old ladies in black in the white drawing-room at Underhill. One taking the lead and the other following. Wasn’t that the sort of thing that would be bound to happen when sisters lived together all their lives? The idea that the old ladies at Sea View had been her Benevent great-aunts was just one of the fantastic things that happen in a dream, like Stephen in grey fla

Chapter Five

They breakfasted in the dining-room. Candida wouldn’t have believed it possible, but it was even gloomier by daylight. The Miss Benevents appeared to take a certain pride in the fact.

‘It is one of the original rooms, and as you see, it looks out towards the hill.’ Miss Olivia might have been introducing a View.

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.