The Heath Hover Mystery

Violet stared at the paragraph and read it through again. Now it all came back. She had read about it before, but it had not fixed itself upon her memory. Even the name had failed to effect this then for she had not seen Melian for some time, and in the busy life she led, “out of sight out of mind” could not but hold good to a certain extent. But now the name seized her attention at once. “Seward Mervyn?” And she knew that Melian’s second name was Mervyn, Clearly this must be a relation. And the doctor had asked her about Melian’s relations.

She read no more of the paper. Her shrewd, busy little brain was at work. This must be a relation, probably an uncle or a cousin. Clearly her duty was to communicate with him. Clancehurst was only about an hour and a half from London. The day was young – should she go down herself and interview him personally? But against that she did not care to leave her friend alone at this stage. Should she write? Perhaps that would be the best course. But she had better question Melian first as to her relative, while saying nothing about any intention on her part to communicate with him. Having thus decided, she went up to her friend’s room, taking the paper with her.

Melian was awake, but drowsily so. Her blue eyes were wide open, but had a pathetic and lack-lustre look, and her hair, partly loosened, made a tumbled halo of gold against the pillow. Yes, she had slept well – she said – only rather wished she could go on sleeping for ever.

“By the way,” went on Violet, casually, after having talked a little about things in general. “Have you got a relation named Seward Mervyn?”

“Oh yes! He’s my uncle. He’s out in India.”

“Is he? Well have you any other relation of the name?”

“No. Not that I know of. In fact I can’t have – or I should have known it.”

“Well then, this one isn’t out in India at all. He’s in England, and not very far from London at that. In fact, only about an hour and a half by rail, if as much.”

Melian stared, then raised herself on one elbow.

“What on earth are you talking about, Violet?” she said. “I tell you he’s in India.”

“Well, people come back from India sometimes, don’t they?”

“Yes. But I’ve no interest in this one, nor he in me. He has never shown any at any rate. I don’t want him to either. He wasn’t at all nice to my father. He disapproved of his sister marrying him, and, in fact, he disapproved of him entirely. No. I couldn’t bring myself to be civil even if I were to see him.”

“Have you ever seen him?”

“No.”

The word jerked out fiercely. Violet Clinock could see that her friend was getting excited, and that was bad.

“Then don’t be in too great a hurry to pass judgment. Life is – I’m not going to say, ‘too short,’ as the silly old chestnut runs, when if anything it’s long enough – but too busy, too hard, to keep grinding away at ancient grievances, even if they are not entirely or partly imaginary. It’s just possible that this relation of yours may have been a bit misunderstood. Anyway give him the benefit of the doubt.”

“Where did you say he is?” said Melian listlessly.

“Clancehurst – or near it, rather,” glancing again at the newspaper. “Heath Hover, they call his place.”

“That sounds rather nice,” murmured the invalid.

“It’s a jolly part of the country I can tell you,” went on Violet, emphatically. Her plot seemed somehow to look hopeful. “I’ve been near that part, and I’d give something for a week or two down there now with my bike, even though it is winter. The glow of the heather, and the green and gold of the waving woods is something to see, I tell you.”

“In winter?” smiled Melian artlessly.

“No, you goose. I’m talking about summer and autumn.”

“Oh!”

“Shall I read you the paragraph?”

“Yes, do.”

The other did so, and then went on to tell her all about the original mystery, which now came back to her memory. Melian listened, and grew more and more interested.

“It’s funny how the thing should have escaped my attention,” she said. “But I didn’t see the papers regularly at the Carstairs’. Sometimes a day or two would go by – or even longer.”

Melian grew no better. Violet could not stay in to look after her every day, for she was entirely dependent upon her work, and were she to lose this, why then they would both be in the same boat. So during the day she was dependent on the slatternly landlady – who though well meaning and kind according to her lights, was yet slatternly, and very vulgar in her ideas. So the girl would lie there by the hour, feeling too weak and listless even to read, with no more cheering a prospect to look out upon than a vista of black chimney stacks and chimney cowls, taking weird shapes against the grey murk of the London sky. And what was there to cheer her? Nothing. Even when she did get well her small savings would have vanished, or dwindled to vanishing point, in the incidental expenses of her illness alone, apart from the liquidation of her medical attendant’s claim. The girl felt very wretched, very despairing, as she lay there day after day in her loneliness. And in the evening when her friend returned and tried to cheer her, the process grew more and more difficult.

“This won’t do,” said the doctor, one morning, coming into Violet’s little sitting-room with a very grave face. “Is there nowhere that Miss Seward could go to for a complete change of air and scene?”

Violet shook her head sadly. She thought of the dwindling purse, and of her friend’s sinking despondency. She thought also of her friend’s pride. And then an idea came to her.

“There is only one thing I can think of, doctor,” she said suddenly, “and even that may bring forth nothing. But if I tell you, it is entirely in confidence you understand.”

“Why that of course,” answered the doctor. He was a youngish man, very hardworking, in a hard-worked and poorly paying practice, and like most members of his profession had more than an ordinary share of intelligent human sympathy. He guessed pretty accurately at one of the causes for worry which kept back his patient upstairs – in fact the main cause – and had been puzzling how to hint, delicately, that so far as he was concerned, that cause need not count.

Then Violet told him of the existence of Melian’s unknown relative and how the girl refused to communicate with him, through some notion of – probably mistaken – pride. At the mention of the name and locality Dr Barnes brightened up at once.

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