When they had said good-bye and were going slowly down the long drive Jeremy said,

“Mouldy old place, isn’t it?”

“Frightful! I’m sorry for Jack.”

Jeremy laughed.

“You needn’t be. He’s a cheerful soul, and he’s only there once in a blue moon.”

Jane laughed too.

“Will he marry an heiress? He doesn’t look the sort.”

“He will not. He’s in love with a girl called Molly Pemberton, a tremendously good sort. She hasn’t got a penny, and neither of them will give a damn. He’s down here now because someone wants the place for a sanatorium, or an orphanage, or something. Sea air-ozone-dollops of it. He’s seeing lawyers and trying to make up his mind to the wrench.”

He stopped the car just inside the two tall pillars.

“Jane, I want to talk. The Catherine-Wheel is crawling with constabulary and cousins, so I think we’ll have it out here. When are you going to marry me?”

He had let go of the wheel and taken her hands. She didn’t pull them away, but they were rigid and stubborn in his.

“I haven’t ever said I’d marry you at all.”

“Does it want saying?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Then say it!”

“Jeremy, let go!”

“Say it! Jane-darling-say it!”

She had meant to let him hold her hands for as long as he liked in a perfectly calm and friendly manner, but she couldn’t do it. His voice did things to her when it changed like that. Suddenly friendship was all gone. A horrid undermining flood of emotion had swept it away. In a split second it would sweep her into Jeremy’s arms, and if he kissed her she would say anything he wanted her to say. She snatched her hands away and strained back into the corner.

“No-no!”

“Jane!”

She pushed him away.

“No-no-I won’t!”

“Why?”

“Cousins oughtn’t to marry.”

“I’m not your cousin.”

He spoke quite quietly, but it was like a thunder-clap. It stopped the giddy feeling. She blinked and said,

“What?”

Jeremy said it again.

“I’m not your cousin.”

Jane produced another monosyllable. She didn’t seem to have enough breath for anything else. Said,

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you. I’ve been going to. There hasn’t been much chance up to now. But we might as well be comfortable. Stop doing the ‘Unhand me!’ act and relax.”

Jane relaxed. The flood of emotion had subsided. It seemed, as Jeremy had just said, comfortable to have his arm round her. This place behind the pillars was dark. The Cliff road was dark and empty. She said,

“Why aren’t you my cousin?”

“Because I’m not a Taverner at all. My grandfather was Geoffrey Challoner’s son. That’s why I wanted to see the picture. Even I can see that I’m like him.”

“You’re frightfully like him.”

He laughed.

“I ought to be Sir Jeremy Challoner, with that old ruin tied round my neck, you know. Geoffrey was the elder son.”

“Jeremy-how exciting!”

“It is rather. My grandfather told me. You remember he was one of the twins, John and Joanna. Well, old Jeremiah Taverner died in eighteen-eighty-eight. His wife, Ann, lived another three years. She never said a word while her husband was alive, but this is what she told my grandfather John before she died. Geoffrey Challoner used to come to the Catherine-Wheel a lot. He was wild and he was in debt, and he got mixed up in the smuggling trade, partly for the fun of the thing, and partly because he wanted to make enough money to run off with Mary Layburn. She was Sir John Layburn’s daughter-same family John Higgins works for-and they had been engaged, but old Challoner and Sir John fell out over politics and the engagement was broken off. That’s what started Geoffrey running wild. The Layburns sent Mary away to a strict aunt in London, but Geoffrey followed her and they were secretly married. Ann Taverner was positive to my grandfather about the marriage. She said she had seen the certificate, but she couldn’t remember the name of the church. ‘One of those grand London churches,’ she told him. Well, about six months after that Geoffrey had to skip over to France. A coastguard had been hurt, and he had been recognized. They planned to let the thing blow over, and then for him to come back and get Mary. Unfortunately the man died-not at once, and not with any certainty from his injuries. But the Layburns pressed the matter. They wanted to keep Geoffrey out of the country, and a warrant was issued. That meant Geoffrey couldn’t come back. And Mary Layburn was going to have a child. She came to Ann Taverner and told her she couldn’t hide it any longer. She didn’t dare tell her people she was married. Fathers were fierce in the ’forties. She was a gentle, timid girl, and she said he’d kill her.”

“What happened? Go on-quickly!”

“Ann Taverner told Jeremiah, and he sent word over to Geoffrey in France. They used to run the cargoes pretty regularly when the moon was dark. Geoffrey sent word back that he’d come on the next run-that would be three weeks away-and he said Mary must manage till then. When the time came Ann was to let Mary know, and she was to slip out of her room when everyone was in bed and come out to the Catherine-Wheel. None of them seem to have thought it was anything to make a song and dance about, but I don’t suppose the poor girl had ever been out by herself at night before. She arrived terrified and upset, and Ann was afraid of what might happen. It was awkward enough without that, she said, because she herself was expecting her sixth child at any moment. As it turned out, that child was born about midnight. The midwife was in the house-Ann Taverner’s cousin and a very discreet woman. At one o’clock there was a noise of fire-arms under the cliff. The run had been spotted or given away, and the coastguards were there. Geoffrey Challoner was fatally wounded. Jeremiah and one of his men got him away into the Catherine-Wheel by the secret passage, and he died in Mary’s arms. It finished her, poor girl. She had her baby before its time, and was dead by morning. With the midwife’s help Ann Taverner passed the child off for a twin of her own child. Hers was a girl, Joanna. She was John Higgins’ grandmother, and the Challoner baby was a boy-my grandfather John.”

Jane drew a quick excited breath.

“Did old Jeremiah know?”

Jeremy stared.

“Must have done.”

She shook her head.

“Oh, no-not if the women didn’t want him to. Ann and the midwife, they could have managed if they’d wanted to. I wonder if they did.”

“I don’t know. My grandfather didn’t say. You’ve got to remember that Ann was very old when she told him-it was in her last illness. What she was out to impress on him was that Geoffrey Challoner and Mary Layburn were legally married, and that he was their legitimate son.”

“Why didn’t they say so at the time? I mean, the baby was Sir Humphrey Challoner’s heir-why didn’t they hand it over to him?”

“Because it would have got them into a peck of trouble. Geoffrey was wanted for the coastguard’s death. Though everybody in the neighbourhood must have known that Jeremiah Taverner was up to the neck in the smuggling trade, having it all come out at a coroner’s court would have been quite another pair of shoes. Anyhow, whatever Jeremiah knew or didn’t know about the baby, he wasn’t for having an inquest on two sudden deaths on his licensed premises.”

“What did he do?”

“Well, I gather he was all for throwing the bodies into the sea, but Ann wouldn’t have it. I don’t know that she’d have got her way if it hadn’t been for her final argument. ‘Two people dead like that and done out of her rights-the sea wouldn’t keep them,’ she said. That’s what she told my grandfather, and it brought Jeremiah up with a round turn. It wouldn’t have suited him at all to have those bodies come ashore.”

“What did they do with them?”

“Bricked them up in the secret passage together with the marriage certificate which Mary had brought along and a statement signed by Ann and the midwife. Ann put all the papers together and sealed them with Geoffrey’s signet-ring. She kept that, and she gave it to my grandfather. I’ve got it now.”