Joan Smith: Delsie

“I didn’t push you. I had to stop you from dashing into the orchard. They were coming then.”

“And you there to meet them! It is no more than I expected. I daresay it is you who has been littering up the Cottage with bags of guineas.”

He dismissed this charge with no more than a baleful stare, deeming it beneath contradicting. “If you hadn’t… And how the deuce did you get out the window?” he demanded.

“I climbed down the vine.”

“You didn’t even wear a wrap. It will be a wonder if you haven’t caught your death of cold.”

“A mere wisp of pneumonia will be nothing after the rest of it.” At last she could contain her curiosity no longer, and gave over being angry with him. “Do tell me where they have been hiding it.”

“I don’t know,” he confessed shamefully.

“ Youdon’t know? You mean we are never to discover how they did it? Oh, if I were a man I’d shoot you.”

“If you were not a foolish, stubborn, headstrong woman, we would know.”

“This beats all the rest! For you to be calling me stubborn after the way you have persisted in having you own way throughout this entire affair. Making me marry Andrew, making me leave the Cottage instead of helping me, and then not to discover the hiding place. Talk about foolish!” She stopped, too overcome to continue.

He looked a little shamefaced at these charges, and urged her once more to lie down and be calm. “We’ll know the secret of the hiding place by morning. I left a footman there to watch and discover how it is done. He hasn’t returned yet, but-”

“And likely never will!”

“There is no danger. Watling can handle himself. They were just beginning whatever it is they do, when you got hurt. Hicks said something-but I must have heard him wrong, in my anxiety. I thought he said they were moving the trees.”

A tinkle of laughter rang out. “He thinks he is playing Macbeth, with Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane. I doubt if even Andrew could contrive that. And the trees were not men in disguise. I hope I know a tree when I see it, and a man.”

“I am happy to see your spirits recovering. When you take to bragging, I know you must feel better.”

She was beginning to feel worse from the exertion of talking, however, and sank back on the pillows.

“It is time you were in bed,” he said. “I’ll call Mrs. Forrester. Is it safe to put you back in the Rose Suite? Now that they are gone, you won’t go clambering down the vine again, I trust. You are not here under compulsion now. If you wish to return to the Cottage, pray tell me, and I shall take you in the carriage. The servants have all left, incidentally,” he added.

“I’ll stay here,” she answered with indifference.

She tried to walk, with the help of Mrs. Forrester and deVigne, but after a few unsteady steps, he lifted her into his arms, saying impatiently that he didn’t have all night to show her to her room. She was asleep before Mrs. Forrester extinguished the lamp and closed the door.

With a heavy gray sky and her curtains drawn, Delsie’s room remained dark till late the next morning. It was ten-thirty before she was up and dressed, and eleven before she had breakfasted. DeVigne was not in evidence, and at such a late hour, Bobbie was in the nursery having her lesson with Miss Milne. Queries of the servant giving her breakfast revealed only that his lordship was not in, which angered the widow unreasonably. Before she walked home in high dudgeon, he came in at the door, obviously excited.

“Good morning, ma’am. I hope you slept well,” he said cheerfully, regarding the plaster Mrs. Forrester had replaced, for she had no opinion of a doctor who covered up half a lady’s forehead for a tiny scratch.

“Why should I not, with half a bottle of laudanum inside me,” was her uncivil reply.

“Good, then it is time to go to the orchard.”

“Have you been there already? Do tell me all about it,” she pleaded.

“I have just returned this minute. The thing almost defies description. It will be easier to show you how it operates.”

She forgot her resentment in the exciting prospect of seeing her trees move about, and dashed to the door before him.

“You will want a coat,” he pointed out.

“I didn’t bring one with me.”

He sent a servant for one of his driving coats, and with a very long, many-caped drab coat thrown over her gown, she was ready to go. “Oh, we must take Bobbie with us,” she remembered, just at the door, causing a further delay. She remarked that there were several footmen accompanying them, standing up behind the carriage, and inquired the reason for this. “I haven’t seen such an entourage since the first day you came to see me at the school,” she roasted.

“I have been wondering when you would find an opportunity to throw that in my face. The trees do not move under their own steam,” he said mysteriously.

Her hardest questioning revealed no more than this meager fact. Before long they were all, including the footmen, gathered around the two runted trees in the orchard, where chains and ropes lay on the ground.

“It was Watling who actually saw the thing being done, and he will direct the men,” deVigne explained.

A lanky, lantern-jawed individual in livery stepped forward with great importance and picked up the end of a chain. “Take an end there, Hicks,” he commanded, as though he had been issuing orders all his life. Two men were ordered into position at either end of the long chain, which was wound around one of the small trees. The men then walked to a position about six feet behind the tree, and Watling gave the order to “heave.” As if by magic, the tree tipped up out of the earth and was soon lying on its side. Its root system was seen to be encased in a large wooden-frame box filled with earth. Under the tree there was a stone-lined cavity large enough to hold several barrels of brandy, with a stone lip at the top to prevent the box holding the root from falling into the cavity.

“Voilà,” deVigne said to Mrs. Grayshott, who stood dumbfounded at this show.

“How? But this is impossible…” she began.

“You underestimate your late husband. The other small tree moves on the same principle. Watling tells me both trees were lifted last night. Their being boxed in wouldn’t allow the roots to spread, which accounts for their being smaller than the others in the orchard. A very neat engineering feat, I must confess.”

“How was it possible for Andrew to have had this done without anyone knowing about it?” she asked.

“It is in a well-concealed spot-the other trees afford a good curtain. He did tell Jane at one time that two of his trees died and he was replacing them. It must have been done then. It wouldn’t take much work, once the holes had been dug. Just to make the excavation a little deeper and line it with stones. That was the biggest part of the job. It is beautifully done too. Very regular. I wonder he took such pains when it was never to be seen in daylight.”

“It looks like the inside of a well, except that they are more usually round.”

“And much deeper. He would not have had two wells so close together either.” The both stood staring at the contraption, trying to figure it out. DeVigne continued thinking aloud, “There was a lot of talk at one time, about ten years ago, of Bonaparte’s invading England, you recall. This district was thought to be the likeliest point for invasion. Many of the families hereabouts had spots arranged to hide their valuables. I wouldn’t be surprised if Andrew intended hiding the jewelry and plate and so on in these holes. That would have been just after his marriage, when there was still plenty to hide.”