Designs on Life (2 page)

“Yes, of course that’s it.”

“And perhaps you were a bit upset by what Mrs. Lambie said.”

“Mrs. Lambie?”

“Our neighbour. What she said about not ringing the bell. I expect the journey and then climbing those stairs were a bit too much for you. I’ve blundered, haven’t I, taking this flat? Somehow I can never manage to do the right thing. I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

He was beginning to work himself up into one of his states of self-accusation, which were really a way of accusing Helen of failing to understand him. She flinched at the thought of the scene that could develop now if she did not manage to stop it in time.

“You’re quite right,” she said placatingly. “I told you it was silly of me, didn’t I? Of course it was just the awful state of nerves I’ve been in ever since the accident. Perhaps I ought to be on tranquilizers.”

“We’d better get you a doctor as soon as possible, anyway. Mrs. Lambie gave me the name of one who lives quite near, who she says is very competent.”

“You seem to have been seeing a lot of her.”

“I told you, she’s been very helpful. She’s given me dinner a couple of times and told me a great deal about the neighbourhood. She’s got all sorts of stories about it. She seems to have lived here most of her life. In her way, she’s very interesting. By the way, she’s our landlord. I got the flat through a lawyer who’d advertised in the
Scotsman,
but when I got here it was she who showed me round. Now I’ll get those drinks. And don’t worry if the door opens. I’ll get some oil this afternoon and see to it.”

He meant it when he said it, but it was the kind of thing that he forgot to do, and by the afternoon the snow was coming down thickly, covering the pavements and the dark slate roofs of the houses, and Helen did not feel inclined to send him out again into such weather. It turned out that the door would stay shut if it was slammed hard enough. They had an omelet for lunch, and after it Helen went to lie down. The pain in her leg had been dulled by the pills and she soon drifted off to sleep.

Colin did not wake her until six o’clock, when he told her that he had sherry waiting for her and that he had put Mrs. Lambie’s chicken casserole to warm up in the oven. They sat by the electric fire in the living-room, with the faded red velvet curtains drawn over the windows, shutting out darkness and snow, and Helen, to her own surprise, found herself in a mood of quiet contentment that she had not known for a long time. Not for many months before they had decided to return to Europe. Not for at least a year, when that woman Naomi had come into their lives.

But she was thousands of miles away now and Helen had Colin to herself, and at last he seemed satisfied that it should be so. The unfamiliar, gracious room, with the dim light almost concealing the cracks in the plaster and the patches on the wallpaper where someone else’s pictures had hung, began to feel strangely homelike.

Mrs. Lambie appeared in the door next morning, carrying a plate of beautifully cut little three-cornered sandwiches. Colin was not there. He had gone out shopping with a list that Helen had made out for him. He was not working at present. He was a schoolmaster, a teacher of history, and the Christmas holidays had begun. So far he had said very little of how it felt to be facing the teaching of Scottish children in one of Edinburgh’s more distinguished schools after five years of teaching in East Africa, but it was Helen’s impression that he was looking forward to it with some eagerness, though the thought of it intimidated him a little.

The snow had stopped, but there had been a heavy frost in the night and the roofs of the houses opposite were a shining white, in which small rainbows of colour were trapped, under a blue, cloudless sky. Helen had stood at the window to watch Colin set out and had seen him skid and nearly fall on the icy pavement. Apparently it was the morning that the rubbish van came round, for there were two rows of dust-bins along the edges of the pavements, some of them with their contents spilling out into the gutters. They detracted from the dignity of the street and gave it an air of squalor. At one of the bins a lean, black cat was trying to extract what looked like the backbone of a herring, and at last succeeding, sat there, chewing it with great satisfaction. It was as she saw this that Helen heard the front door bell ring.

Using her two sticks, she hobbled along the hall to answer it, and found Mrs. Lambie standing there, holding the plate of sandwiches.

“I do hope I’m not intruding, but I thought these might help you with your lunch,” she said, “though I’m not sure if they’re substantial enough for a gentleman. There’s just pâté inside them, which I made myself, so I can assure you there’s nothing unwholesome in them.”

Her accent took Helen back to her childhood in Edinburgh. Fully dressed, Mrs. Lambie seemed a different person from the grotesque figure who had peered out from her doorway the morning before and had spoken so mysteriously. She looked about eighty, with a small, pointed, deeply wrinkled face, but a straight back and slim, straight legs with excellent ankles. She was a small woman and very trim, and was dressed in a neat gray tweed suit with a cameo brooch on her lapel and a string of small pearls round her throat. The red hair, which yesterday had fallen in a tangle over her forehead, was brushed smoothly back from it into a small bun. To Helen’s surprise, she realised that its colour was its own. The day before she had assumed that it was dyed, but now she could see that there was enough white mixed into it for that not to be possible.

“You’re very kind,” she said. “Won’t you come in? My husband’s out at the moment, but he’ll soon be back.”

The old woman accepted the invitation with an air of eagerness, walking ahead of Helen into the sitting-room.

“He’s so charming,” she said. “I took a fancy to him at once. And you’re both young. I like that. I like having young people living next to me. But of course you won’t stay. Nobody stays long in this flat, isn’t it strange? I’ve made it as nice as I can and the rent isn’t high, but still they don’t stay. Sometimes I wonder if it’s something to do with that old murder, that there’s still a feeling of evil in the place. Do you think that could be possible? Do you believe in that sort of thing?”

She spoke in as matter-of-fact a tone as if she had just mentioned some minor fault in the plumbing, but her blue eyes, on Helen’s face, were watchful. They were very fine eyes. Helen thought that when Mrs. Lambie had been young, she had probably been very striking to look at.

Hoping that she too sounded calm about it, Helen said, “Murder? In this flat?”

“Yes, indeed. Of course it happened long, long ago. These houses are very old, you know. All kinds of things must have happened in them.”

Helen had taken the plate of sandwiches and put it down and they sat down on either side of the fire.

“About two hundred years old, aren’t they?” she said.

Mrs. Lambie nodded. “And in those days these two flats were all one. I had it divided myself when I bought it after my dear husband died, because of course it was far too big for just me, but it was cheap and really so handsome, I couldn’t resist it. And I’ve always liked this part of Edinburgh. It’s got a special sort of character of its own. And I thought I could make a little extra income by letting this half, but people don’t stay. Yet I’ve never felt anything wrong in my own flat. I’m very fond of it.”

“What happened?” Helen asked. “Who was murdered?”

“A young woman, the wife of a young advocate. He was very handsome and she was very jealous, because she was older than he was and rather plain, and consumptive too, as so many people were in those days, and they had a maid who was very beautiful, with whom he soon fell in love. And the lady of the house did everything she could to get rid of the maid, but her husband wouldn’t have it, so the lady did her best to make the maid leave of her own accord, ringing that bell for her over and over again, and abusing her, and at last the girl told her master that she couldn’t stand it any more and was leaving, and he fell into a great rage and threw his wife down the stairs, and she broke her neck and died.”

“And what happened to him and the girl?” Helen asked.

“Well, he was executed, naturally. They hanged people in those days. And the girl went nearly mad with grief, and the story is, as it was once told to me long ago by an old neighbour, that if you ring the bell there, she answers it, because she wants revenge on her mistress.”

“But it was her mistress who was killed,” Helen said. “Wasn’t that revenge enough?”

“But it was all her fault, don’t you see, because she was so jealous? Jealousy’s a terrible thing.”

“So that’s why you told us not to ring the bell.” Helen was rather wishing that she had not heard the story.

The old woman gave a cheerful little laugh. “But of course it wasn’t necessary. I can see you aren’t at all superstitious. I’ve never felt at all worried here myself. But then I’m not in the least bit psychic, and I don’t know what to think about the people who say they are. Is there any truth in it? I honestly don’t know and I should never go so far as to deny it’s possible that some people experience things that the rest of us don’t. But I thought the story would interest you anyway. Tell me about your accident now. Your husband mentioned it, of course, and told me how helpless you’d be for a time, so that’s why I’ve been trying to help. I believe in helping other people whenever I can. I’ll always do anything for anyone.”

“It was my own fault really,” Helen said. “When we got to London we bought a secondhand car and drove up to stay with some friends of ours who live in a village near Birmingham. I was doing the driving, and I had a feeling there was something wrong with the brakes, not seriously wrong, but I thought we ought to have them seen to. And my husband said he’d attend to that, and I thought he had, and I took the car out one day and its brakes went and I went slap into a lorry that was coming outof a turning when I had the right of way, and I couldn’t stop myself. The car was a write-off, of course, and I was lucky to get off with only a broken leg and shock. I was taken to hospital, then I stayed on for a time with our friends, but I didn’t feel it was fair to stay with them for ever, so I came after Colin, who’d come on ahead of me to find somewhere for us to live.”

Mrs. Lambie looked at her thoughtfully. “And he found something for you at the top of three flights of stairs, and he hadn’t had those brakes seen to when he said he was going to. I’m afraid he isn’t the most practical of people, is he? But so charming. I understand how easily you can forgive him when that accident certainly wasn’t your fault, but his.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Helen said. “He’d never told me he’d had the brakes put right, I just took it for granted he had.”

“But didn’t he know you were going to take the car out? Shouldn’t he have warned you?”

Helen gave a worried shake of her head. “I can’t really remember. Perhaps he did and I forgot about it. Everything about that time’s a bit hazy.”

“Yes, of course. Most natural. But such a misfortune, when you were coming to start your new life here. Well, let me know if there’s ever anything I can do to help. I can easily go shopping for you. It isn’t the sort of thing that gentlemen like to do, though of course they do it much more willingly now than they did when I was young. And I know your husband would do anything for you, even if he’s a little thoughtless sometimes. Such very attractive young men sometimes get just a wee bit spoilt and grow up a little irresponsible. But you mustn’t hold it against him. I’m sure he can’t help it. I hope you enjoy your sandwiches.”

With further offers of help, she left.

Soon afterwards Colin returned, having omitted to buy the oil for the latch of the sitting-room door, although Helen had put it on her list, but with everything else that she had written down. When he realised that he had forgotten the oil, he offered to go straight out again to buy it, but he had snow on his shoes and looked so cold that Helen assured him that it was unimportant, and urged him to come to the fire.

“I’ve had a visit from your friend Mrs. Lambie,” she said. “She’s overcome by your charm.”

“Splendid,” he said, sitting down and holding out his hands towards the glowing bars of the fire. “I’m glad I’ve not lost my touch with aged ladies. I thought it would be a good idea to get on the right side of her, since you’d be stuck up here alone so much and she might easily be useful.”

“She told me we’ve got a resident ghost—did she tell you that?” Helen asked.

“No,” he said. “What kind of ghost?”

“Believe it or not, a live-in maid, who comes when you pull that bell.” She nodded towards the pretty little bell-pull with its wreath of rosebuds. “Which reminds me, what are we going to do about cleaning this place? I don’t know how soon I’ll be able to cope with it.”

He did not answer at once, but after a moment, looking at her with a troubled frown, he said, “You’re worried, aren’t you? You’re pretending to laugh at it, but yesterday you pulled that bell and the door opened and you were quite frightened, and you’re remembering that now.”

“No, that was nothing,” she said. “I was just startled.”

“Why is this woman supposed to haunt the place?” he asked.

Helen told him the story of the old murder, as Mrs. Lambie had told it to her.

The frown deepened on Colin’s face. “I wonder why she told you that story, not me,” he said. “The other night, when I had dinner with her, she told me a number of fairly gruesome stories about Edinburgh. She seems to like them. She told me the old Burke and Hare yarn, of course, and how the senate room of the University is built over the site where they murdered Darnley, and a particularly nasty story of how some idiot son of a local nobleman roasted a scullion on a spit. And sometimes I got the feeling that her sense of time was all mixed up and that she wasn’t sure these things hadn’t happened yesterday. But she never told me anything about our domestic ghost.”

“She may have been afraid she’d frighten you off the place. As I said, she’s really taken to you.”

“But she doesn’t mind frightening you.”

“Or even enjoyed it. Actually I’m more afraid of being haunted by Mrs. Lambie herself than by her ghost. She says people never stay in this flat. It could be, couldn’t it, that they have to put up with just a bit too much of Mrs. Lambie?”