C. N. Williamson & A. N. Williamson: 30+ Murder Mysteries & Adventure Novels (Illustrated). Charles Norris Williamson
while Joan, as Mercy Milton, would scarcely have been recognised by those who knew her best. Marian's maiden name had really been Milton, and "Mercy" had been selected to fit the picture for which Joan had chosen to sit. Her beautiful, gold-brown hair was parted meekly in the middle and brought down over the ears, finishing with a simple coil in the nape of her white neck. She was dressed as plainly as a young nun, and had the air of qualifying for a saint.
"Well, dear, what did you think of him?" she inquired of Marian.
"Of whom?" asked Mrs. Fitzpatrick, blushing.
"Oh, if you are going to be innocent! Well, then, of the distinguished being whose name and qualifications I showed you in the Mayfair Budget a few days after I got back to England and you. The eligible parti, in fact, whose residence near Toragel is responsible for our choice of abode."
"Joan! Don't put it like that!"
"'Mercy,' if you please, not Joan. And I've found out exactly what I wanted to know. Your reception of my brutal frankness has shown me that you like him. So far, so good."
"I may like him, but that won't help your plan. Oh, Jo--Mercy, I mean, I do feel such a wretch! That man looks so honest and frank and nice, and he could hardly take his eyes off you in church. If he knew what frauds we are!"
"You are not a fraud, and it is you with whom he is concerned, or it will be, as I'll soon show him, if necessary. Your name is Fitzpatrick; you are a widow; we are sisters--in affection. You haven't a fib to tell; you've only got to be charming."
"But it's you he admires. I told you it would be so. If one of us is to be Lady----"
"'Sh!" said Joan; and the gong boomed musically for lunch.
Had it not been for the existence of innocent little Minnie, the county might not have accepted the lovely sisters as readily as it did. Joan had thought of that, as she thought of most things; and Minnie, the protégée of charity, was distinctly an asset. "A very good prop," as Joan mentally called her, in theatrical slang which she had learned, perhaps, from her long-vanished mother.
The presence of Minnie in the feminine household gave a kind of pathetic, domestic grace, which appealed even to tradespeople; and tradespeople were extremely important in Joan's calculations.
She had obtained credentials, upon starting on her new career, in a characteristic way. Miss Jenny Mordaunt wrote to Lady John Bevan, asking for a letter of introduction for a great friend of hers, the Honourable Mrs. Fitzpatrick, to the solicitors who had charge of Lord Trelinnen's affairs, as Mrs. Fitzpatrick wanted to take Roseneath Park. Jenny Mordaunt's late chaperon gladly managed this. Mrs. Fitzpatrick called upon her, and Lady John was charmed. She had known the "Dishonourable Dick" slightly, years ago, had heard that he had married an heiress, and marvelled now that he had been tolerated by so sweet a creature as this. Lady John offered one or two letters of introduction to old friends in Cornwall, and they were gratefully accepted. As the friends were not intimate, and as Lady John detested the country, except when hunting or shooting was in question, there was little danger that she would inopportunely appear on the scene and recognise the saintly Mercy Milton as the late Miss Mordaunt.
Everybody called on the fair, lilylike young widow and her very modest, retiring, unmarried sister--everybody, that is, with the exception of Miss Pendered, who pleaded, when her brother urged, that she was too much of an invalid to call on new people. Soon, however, he boldly went by himself, excusing his sister with some tale of rheumatism which she would have indignantly resented. Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Mercy Milton were surrounded with other visitors when Sir Anthony Pendered was announced, and he was just in time to hear a glowing account of the orphaned sisters' "dear old California home," which Joan had learned by heart, partly from Marian's reminiscences, partly from a book.
"When father and mother died, little Minnie and I were the loneliest creatures you can imagine," the gentle Mercy was saying. "Dear Marian had just lost her husband, and so she wrote for us to join her. It is so nice having a home in the country again. We both felt we couldn't be happy without one, and we chose Cornwall because we thought it the loveliest county in England. We are very glad we did, now, for everybody has been so kind."
She might have added "and the trades-people so trusting"; but on that subject she was silent, though she intended that they should go on trusting indefinitely. Indeed, thus far the scheme worked almost too easily to be interesting.
Sir Anthony Pendered outstayed the other visitors, and he stopped unconscionably long for a first call; but that was the fault of his hostesses, who made themselves so charming that the man lost count of time--and perhaps lost his head a little, also. At first it seemed that Marian's impression was right, and that, despite Mercy's retiring ways, it was the young girl who attracted him. This made Marian secretly sad; for when she had seen Sir Anthony looking up from his prayer-book in the adjoining pew, she had said in her heart, with a sigh: "How good he would be to a woman! How he would pet her and take care of her! To be his wife would be very different from----" but she had guiltily broken short that sentence in the midst.
Persuaded and fired by Joan, she had entered into this adventure. She had even laughed when Joan selected the neighbourhood of Toragel because a Society paper announced the advent of a particularly desirable bachelor. "You will be the prettiest and nicest woman in the county, of course; therefore, he will fall in love with you and propose. He will marry you; you will live happy ever after; and you will be able to pay all the debts that we shall have run up in the process of securing him," the girl had remarked. But now, when the "desirable bachelor" had become a living entity, and she felt her heart yearning towards him, Marian's conscience grew sore. Still, though she told herself that she could not carry out the plan and try to win Sir Anthony Pendered, it was a blow to see him prefer Joan.
The symptoms of his admiration were equally displeasing to the girl. She was deliberately effacing herself for this episode; while it lasted, she was to be merely the "power behind the throne." Knowing that she was more strikingly beautiful and brilliant than Marian Fitzpatrick, she had studied how to reduce her fascinations, that Marian might outshine her. Evidently she had not entirely succeeded; but during that first call of Sir Anthony's, she quickly, surreptitiously changed a diamond-ring from her right hand to the "engaged" finger of her left, flourished the newly adorned member under his eyes, and spoke, with a conscious simper, of "going back some day to California to live." Sir Anthony did not misunderstand, and as he had not yet tumbled over the brink of that precipice whence a man falls into love, he readjusted his inclinations. After all, Mrs. Fitzpatrick was as pretty, he thought, and certainly more sympathetic. He was glad that Minnie was her sister, and not her child. Though he had always said he would not care to marry a widow, this case was different from any that he had imagined, for Mrs. Fitzpatrick had only been married a year or two when her husband died, and she had soon awakened from her girlish fancy for the man--so Miss Milton had guilelessly confided to him.
Thanks to this, and much further "guilelessness" of the same kind on the part of the meek maiden, Sir Anthony Pendered discovered, before the sisters had been for many weeks tenants of Roseneath Park, that he was deeply in love with Marian Fitzpatrick. Accordingly, he proposed one June afternoon, amid the ruins of a storied castle overhanging the sea. Joan had got up a picnic to this place expressly to give him the opportunity which she felt triumphantly sure he was seeking, and she was naturally annoyed with Marian when she discovered that the young widow had asked for "time to think it over."
"You little idiot! Why didn't you fall into his arms and say 'Yes--yes--yes'?" the girl demanded, in Marian's bedroom, when they had come home towards evening.
"Because I love him, and because I'm a fraud!" exclaimed Marian. "Oh! I know what you must think of me. I haven't played straight with you, either. You've done everything for me. I was to make this match; and the rent of this place, and our horses and carriages, the payment of all the tradespeople on whom we've been practically living, depend on my catching the splendid 'fish' you've landed for me. You've lent me a lot of money;