Bridesmaids Revisited (17 page)
“Have a little read and then get a good night’s sleep.” Thora moved to the door.
“There’s one other thing,” I said, getting up. “Ben said he would phone this evening and he’s probably waited until the children are in bed. If he rings now it could wake the whole household.”
“But you’d like to talk to him, Ellie. Don’t worry, I’m not going to turn in for at least an hour and I don’t suppose Jane will, either. We agreed to an early night because it was plain Rosemary was exhausted and we don’t like her to overdo. She’s such a good soul under that buttoned-up exterior. Letting Jane have her cats and putting up with Dog lumbering around the place.” A couple of woofs were heard from outside the door and Thora laughed. “Sounds like I’m being summoned. Good night, Ellie.”
She went out but a second later popped her head back in. “If you’d prefer a bath to the shower by all means use the bathroom on the first landing, and if you’re like Edna and don’t want the cats sleeping on your face be sure and close this door securely. They have their ways of nudging it open.”
With that she was gone, but I stood without moving for a few moments, prepared for her to make yet another return. She didn’t. And I got down to the business of removing my nightdress and bathroom necessities from my case. The rest of my clothes could wait until morning or perhaps I wouldn’t bother to unpack them at all, I thought, opening both doors of the wardrobe and inhaling the musty smell of old wood, mingled with a faint, but still unpleasant, whiff of mothballs. What it needed were bags of the lavender which Thora undoubtedly grew in her herb garden or among the flowers in the borders.
There was a black hat on the shelf above the clothes rod and I took it down, turning it around in my hands, fingering the spotted veil and the feather tucked in the grosgrain band. It looked like something a vicar’s wife might wear on visits to the parishioners. After a moment’s hesitation, I put it on and crossed to the dressing-table mirror. My face stared back at me, pale and inquiring. The black brim didn’t suit me. It cut off my eyebrows and covered my ears. Had the hat belonged to my great-grandmother Agatha McNair? Could it have been the one she had worn when out and about on her good works? Was it the one she had worn to funerals, including her husband’s?
I took it off and returned it to the wardrobe shelf, realizing as I did so that I didn’t know when she herself had died. Nothing I had heard about her had warmed the cockles of my heart, other than that she had allowed her daughter to have her friends come to stay at the house. And that, from what I remembered Thora’s having said, was mainly so that Sophia wouldn’t get too friendly with any of the village young people.
How, I wondered as I gathered up my nightie and went into the narrow bathroom, had Sophia managed to convince herself that she would ever be allowed to marry Hawthorn Lane, or her Heathcliff, as she had called him? Even had her parents been presented with a magic looking glass and seen that he would one day be called Sir Clifford Heath, I doubted they would have turned beaming one to the other, proclaiming that he was the perfect son-in-law. However rich or successful he might become, his early life could not be banished with a magic wand. I would have liked to think they were more concerned with his bad-boy image—especially with the girls—rather than his lack of the appropriate background. But even that didn’t excuse forcing Sophie into marriage with William Fitzsimons. Why didn’t they send her away to finishing school or on a shorthand-typing course, for that matter?
I sat down on the pink blanket chest and undressed slowly, hoping that the phone would ring. But there was the question of how much I could tell Ben without getting him worked up to the point where he donned his suit of shining armor. I could almost hear him clank-clanking as he paced in circles, at risk of throttling himself with the telephone cord. He wouldn’t take enthusiastically to news of the proposed séance, of the gardener’s coming to grief with the pruning shears, of neighbors who had tried to run me out of town, and of the wedding song. He would insist I had landed in a madhouse. And if I didn’t crawl out the nearest window the moment I was off the phone, he would arrive to find that the bridesmaids had called in the local taxidermist and I had been stuffed and put in the hall for use as a second hat stand.
Unless—I elbowed my way into the shower to a rumbling in the pipes before I’d hardly begun turning the knob—I could get him all fired up to do his part in foiling Sir Clifford’s vengeful scheme. That way I could assure the bridesmaids that life in Knells would return to normal. If there were such a thing. After all, I thought, as a miserly stream of lukewarm water sprinkled my chest, how hard could it be for a man of Ben’s ingenuity to upset the apple cart at Memory Lanes? Get the nannies to riot, the musical ensembles to play heavy-metal rock music, the poetry readers to forsake Robert Louis Stevenson for the work of someone who didn’t know the word “rhyme” and went on for pages about the meaning to be found in a head of cabbage. Families would flee back to their own homes. Word would spread to the other holiday camps scattered throughout England. People would demand the return of their deposits. The brochures would be used to line the bottom of canary cages and—hey, presto!—Sir Clifford would be out of business and Amelia Chambers out looking for a job.
With this pleasing picture in mind I got out of the shower and reached for the towel. It was extremely skimpy, but that was probably because it had thoughtfully shrunk itself in the wash, so as to take up less room on the peg, thus allowing room for the addition of a facecloth. My sponge bag filled up the diminutive basin like a life buoy. After putting on my nightie, I placed it on the blanket chest and while brushing my teeth I toyed with the notion that with the culinary skills he had at his disposal Ben should perhaps strike at the heart of what was often most important to people on holidays. The food! All he’d have to do was impress the chef with his credentials, offer to help out in the kitchen, and make sure every meal turned out inedible. A burner turned up full blast here. Another turned down to a flicker. Too much salt. Not enough—while he waxed forth about the new concepts in cooking coming down the pike. To the sort of chef hired for three meals a day of hearty family fare he could talk gibberish and it would come out sounding like genius, and the poor soul on the receiving end would imagine himself about to take the Parisian world of haute cuisine by storm. The idea reeked of possibilities. But as I slipped on my dressing gown I doubted that Ben would go for it. So what was I to say when he phoned?
Picking up my clothes from where I had dropped them on the floor, I returned to the bedroom and puttered around for several minutes. Sorting out what could be worn again, laying these over the back of a chair and stowing my shoes in front of the wardrobe, before crossing to the window to draw the curtains. It was still light enough to have a fairly good view of the garden and I was sure I saw something, or rather someone, hovering beside the garden shed at the back. Could it be Leonard Skinner? I wondered. But the next moment there was nothing. Except a low-hung branch swaying in the breeze.
Assuring myself that I was as easily spooked as when I was a child, I sat down at the dressing table, unpinned my hair, and combed it through my fingers, not feeling sufficiently bothered to go back to the bathroom and collect my brush. I looked better without the hat, but that wasn’t saying much. It had been, I reminded myself, a long day. And my sleep had been broken the previous night by that phone call from the person warning me not to accept the bridemaids’ invitation. I had forgotten to add that gem to the list of reasons Ben might have for not wanting me to be here. Proving just how tired I must be underneath my nervous energy, I told myself, and resolutely climbed into bed. The mattress was comfortable, the sheets smelled as if they had just come in off the line, and there were two comfy pillows in beautifully embroidered cases. Still, I doubted I would have an easy time falling asleep and reached out a hand for Thora’s
Secrets of the Crypt.
By the middle of the first chapter I’d decided she had definitely paid for the leather binding. Every other line contained a cliché dear to the gothic-lover’s heart. I had already encountered the stony-faced, bombazine-clad housekeeper on a dark bend of the staircase. Awakened in my turret room to glimpse a cloaked figure disappearing behind the false bookcase. Met an unpleasant child wearing the clothes of a century or so past who threatened to ram my candle up my nose. Taken a walk out on the moors in thick fog. Spent the night trapped in an abandoned quarry. And, most terrifying of all, I had been summoned to an interview by the master of Cragstone Castle.
Or, I should say, I had accompanied the drab but spirited governess, Phoebe Phillpot, in all these activities. I sat with her, wide-eyed and palpitating of heart, in the shrouded drawing room as she listened to Lord Rothbourne inform her that he was no callow youth, but a hardened man well past his prime, being all of thirty-five. I listened with a reluctant welling of pity as he recounted the details of the hunting accident—which involved a riding crop and a golden-haired debutante riding pillion—that had resulted in his being reduced to living his life in a bath chair. Or shuffling around with a stick. I experienced a flicker of hope when he mentioned the German doctor who had suggested the possibility of an operation. And felt my heart plummet when Lord Rothbourne listed the risks involved, which included the possibility of total paralysis, loss of eyesight because of some conductor-nerve involvement, and a worsening of his irascible temper.
Along with Phoebe, I jumped when, to emphasize how undesirable this would be, he pounded on the piano keys, breaking his cane into flying pieces. And again my heart knew compassion when he explained that he had once been a world-renowned concert pianist. But had been unable to play a note since the discovery that his wife came from a family riddled with insanity and he had been forced to place her in the care of his devoted old nanny.
Devoted old nanny my foot, I thought, turning a page. She’d probably poisoned poor Lady Rothbourn with a nice bowl of strengthening gruel and buried her under the begonias. “Mustn’t have the master upset, now, must we?” It was all completely ridiculous. But I couldn’t wait to find out if Phoebe would save Lord Rothbourne from being set alight in his bed by a disgruntled housemaid. Or reveal to him that she was herself a gifted pianist who would make it her life’s work to get him to play again. I wondered how long it would take for him to realize that if she were to unloose her hair and put on the family jewels she would be breathtakingly beautiful and a more than fitting wife if he could just figure out what to do with the first one. Gentlemen of the old school are notoriously incapable of thinking nasty thoughts about dear old nannies. Or could it be that it was the greatcoated, dour-looking visitor from Australia with a twitching eye—always a bad sign—newly arrived on page twenty-seven, who would prove the villain of the piece?
I yawned, but I wasn’t sufficiently sleepy to put the silly book down even though the clock on the bedside table showed it was twenty past ten. Just one more chapter, I was thinking when the door opened and Jane came in with a cup and saucer and a plate with two Rich Tea biscuits on it.
“Oh, good, you’re awake! I saw the light under your door, otherwise I would have gone away again. I would have brought you this cocoa earlier, but I had to give Charlotte her injection. She has them twice a day for diabetes and the naughty puss didn’t want to be found tonight.” She handed me the cup and saucer and set the plate down on the bedside chest.
“This is kind of you.” I sat forward and smiled at her.
“My pleasure, dear Ellie, I always bring the drinks up at night. It’s one of the small things I try to do routinely as part of my share. I’m not good in the garden, like Thora, or much use at housework. I always seem to dust what’s already been dusted and put things back in all the wrong places. That’s probably why when I opened the cupboard door to get out the tin of cocoa, some things—a bottle of garlic powder, a box of rice, and one of those little packets with the tubes of food coloring fell out. The lid came off the garlic and it went all over the floor. That put me behind, too, sweeping it up.”
“I’m always dropping things,” I said.
“That’s sweet of you to say.” Jane sat down on the edge of the bed. “But I’m glad Rosemary wasn’t there. It’s the little things that are inclined to upset her. As a rule, she’s always so good-natured. It’s because she is caring that she considers it so important to put things properly back where they belong. She says that if the foodstuff is left all higgledy-piggledy on the shelves it makes extra work for Edna when she’s doing the cooking. Rosemary is very fond of Edna. They always got on from the days when Edna used to come in to help out her mother with the cleaning. Rosemary may appear stiff at times but she was never a snob. And she thought Ted was wrong for Edna from the start. She tried to talk her out of marrying him.” Jane looked down at the book that I had half-tucked under the pillow. “Is that the one Thora lent you, Ellie?”
I nodded because my mouth was full of biscuit.
“She mentioned that she’d had trouble finding it when I took in her cocoa—not that she was blaming me.” Jane took off her glasses to polish them on her sleeve and her eyes looked paler than ever without them. “We were just chitchatting about this and that. Thora and I often talk over the day at night and this one has certainly been eventful, sadly so for Edna.”
“I hope her cousin Gwen is being supportive,” I said, picking up my cup of cocoa. It was delicious, hot and chocolaty, possibly the best I’d ever had.
“I’ve never met the woman, but I’ve built up a dislike of her. Edna often comes back upset after seeing her. I can tell from the way she goes all quiet the next day. It’s wrong, isn’t it? How very sad, Ellie dear, that some people seem to live to make other people unhappy. And that, from the sound of him, could certainly be said of William Fitzsimons. Oh, I am sorry”—Jane got off the bed—“I keep forgetting he was your grandfather.”