The Ugly Sister (19 page)

Some smaller purply-pink clouds high in the paling sky reflected light onto the battlemented tower of St Mawes Castle as I stepped ashore on the quay. Then down through the town to the Polvarth Ferry. The tide was in, but Tregundle saw me and recognized me from the other side, and got into his boat and rowed across.

‘Evenin', miss. ' Tis time 'nough since ye've been 'ere. I ' ope you're well.'

‘Thank you, I am. Yes it is quite a time.' I did not suppose he had ever guessed who borrowed his ferry when she was a naive girl, betrayed, and going to Truro in search of her lost and faithless lover. Although I was only three years older I felt ten. Nothing special had happened to me since, no great formative character shock (except what was happening at that time). Living a solitary life in a rectory on the moors should in no way have helped me to a greater sophistication. But I had grown up.

‘How is Mrs Tregundle?'

‘Nicely, thank 'ee. We got a grandson since you left. To Millie. Jonathan, they d'call him.'

I murmured polite congratulations and resisted a temptation to trail my hand in the water.

‘Goin' up to Place, I s'pose. Like me to carry your bag?'

‘Oh, thank you, no. It has no weight. How is my sister?'

He lifted his oar and pulled on the other. Water scintillated. A moorhen fluttered out of his path.

He said: ‘She's from 'ome, miss.'

‘From – home? D'you mean she's away?'

‘Yes, miss. She and Mr Desmond and the baby, they all left this morning.'

‘Where have they gone? D'you know? Is it just for a day or—'

‘Dunno, miss. They never telled me. They left by coach for St Austell, I b'lave.'

We reached the other side and he helped me step ashore.

‘I wrote a week ago,' I said. ‘Perhaps the letter has gone astray.'

‘Yes, mebbe that's so. Sure you wouldn't like for me to come up to the 'ouse with you? Should be happy to do so. It's quite a climb wi' that bag.'

I hesitated. ‘Thank you, Mr Tregundle. But no. My aunt will be there and maybe she will be well enough to see me.'

‘Mebbe,' he said and pocketed the coin I gave him. ‘Thank 'ee, miss. And good eve to ' ee.'

T
HE LONG
twilight was more than half gone before I came in sight of the house. Nothing, it seemed, had changed. The long facade glimmered white in the encroaching dusk. Then I saw the church spire. It had been rebuilt, the broken stained-glass window had been repaired, though with plain glass. There were two lights in the house, one in the west bedroom, one at the door.

I changed hands with my bag, took a deep breath of the familiar air, looked across the creek to St Mawes, where a sprinkling of lights tinselled the quiet water. A solitary fishing boat with a chocolate-coloured sail was creeping into harbour. In the wider bay which I had just crossed from Falmouth a half-dozen larger vessels were showing lights. I turned and pulled at the bell.

No answer. Night birds swooped in the sky.

I tried the door and it opened. I went in. Slade was standing there.

‘Miss Emma.'

‘Good evening, Slade.'

I walked past him and put down the bag. ‘You were expecting me?'

‘No, miss. I was just coming to see who was a pulling of the bell.'

‘I wrote to my sister saying I was coming.'

‘Yes, miss. She wrote back, she says, telling you not to come.'

‘Why?'

‘She was just going away.'

‘Where to?'

‘Miss Anna Maria's 'usband's place, Tregrehan …'

The house was very quiet. I wondered how many servants were left.

‘Her letter did not reach me. How is my aunt?'

He had been looking me over.

‘Adrift. Needs taking into dry dock and refitting.'

I realized that if everything else had changed in nearly two decades, he had not. A bigger belly, and a heavier jowl. But the hair, aided by its dye, was as unnaturally black as ever. Even across the hall I smelt brandy.

‘Well, I am here,' I said, ‘and do not propose to leave tonight. Perhaps you could arrange for me to have my old bedroom.'

‘That isn't rightly possible, miss.' A malicious glint.

‘Why not?'

‘That wing have been left to go since your mother went. There's slates missin'. Water have got in.'

As I hesitated he rubbed his dark chin. ‘If I might make a suggestion, Miss Emma, you could be found a room with the Pardoes for the night. I could send Ted over to make sure, and then he could carry your bag across to save ye the trouble.'

The Pardoes rented a farm from us just over the hill behind Place. I carefully swallowed my anger.

‘Is Miss Mary here?'

‘She went back to Tregolls yester eve.'

‘Then I will borrow her room for tonight.'

Slade shifted his stance. Overtly he was more polite to me than when we last met but his eyes showed their enmity.

‘We're short-staffed 'ere, miss. Not like it was when you used to live here. Maids was two a penny then. Miss Mary took her own maid back wi 'er. I don't suppose the rooms have been cleaned since.'

‘Then I shall see to the room myself. I know the house. I know where the linen is kept.'

Veins in his neck showed as I walked past him with my bag and made for the stairs.

Whatever authority was exercised over him by Desmond and Tamsin, it no longer ran when they were away. He was ‘in charge' of Place House, with a few perhaps of his toadies as servants, and an old madwoman ranting in her bedroom. My arrival had disturbed the even tenor of his command. Unimportant as I might be, I was still a Spry and could not quite be defied.

Yet it was touch and go. As I went up the stairs my neck prickled as if fearful of being grasped from behind. In the big windowed landing there was just sufficient light to see the way. At least the candles were there as usual, but none lighted. Where were the servants?

Scrape a light and go part way down the passage. Mary's room had always been next but one to her mother's. As I opened the door I heard a low moaning coming from the room at the end.

Except for the cellars, Place had always been light and airy. I had never thought of it as sinister. It had become sinister.

Mary's room smelt of Mary. She never used perfume, except some sort of powdered talc, which lingered. Also at times Mary neglected her hygiene, and this too was noticeable in her room. The bed was made, the curtains hung as they should do, towels on the rail, pitcher and ewer clean and full. Someone had attended to it since she left, and in all likelihood Slade had well known this. He had been trying to put me off. Out of sheer malice one assumed.

I dumped the bag, picked up the candle again and negotiated the rest of the passage with its single step, knocked on my aunt's door and tried to go in. It was locked.

I knocked again. After a while the key grated in the lock and the door opened a couple of inches.

‘Yes?' A thin dark man with a heavy nose. Soiled white overall.

‘I am Miss Emma Spry. I have come to see my aunt.'

The man hesitated, but again the name was too important in his job for him to refuse. Grudgingly he opened the door just wide enough to go in.

My aunt was sitting up in her bed, hands to her ears. The wispy grey hair was white and so thin that the pink scalp showed through. The face was ashen and greatly lined, and her eyes, once so clear blue and benevolent, were bloodshot and full of despair.

She said: ‘Who's that? Who's that coming in? Shut the door, Parker, the wind is terrible. And the noise those sailors are making …'

I went up to the bed and tried to touch her arm. She shrank away as if she had been burned.

‘I'm Emma,' I said. ‘You remember? Claudine's daughter.'

‘Don't touch me!' she whispered. ‘You make all the noises worse. Where is Parish? He'd drive 'em away.' She stared at me. ‘Are you Claudine?'

‘No, Aunt. I'm Claudine's daughter, Emma.'

‘You're not that chit of a girl who pretends to be married to that man who pretends to be my son? You're an impostor, girl. Leave me alone! No one will ever leave me alone!'

‘Ye see, miss, it don't do no good,' said Parker, who had come up behind me. ‘You ask Mrs Tizard. She'll tell ye the same.'

‘Who is Mrs Tizard?'

‘She's in charge. I keep watch along of she. We got to watch the old lady or she'd be up and away. Ye might think she's old and feeble, but give ' er half a chance and she'd be out of this room afore you could blink twice.'

My aunt began to groan again. She would mutter a few indistinct words and follow them with a moan. I stayed for ten minutes more, for twice she went quiet and I had hopes that she was going to become lucid. Once, distinctly, she said ‘Emma', but though I waited nothing more came.

Before supper I met Mrs Tizard, a tall woman with a thin grey moustache and the smell of an apothecary. I did not take to her and wondered where the kind and attentive Elsie Whattle had got to. Presumably after my aunt's years in hospital she had become unavailable. I asked Mrs Tizard about my cousin Mary and she said she had been feeling unwell and had gone back to Truro for a few days. Did she know, I asked, how long my sister intended to be away, and she said she thought a week.

There were at least two of the old servants left, and I asked them if they had heard of Sally Fetch. They said not for sure but they thought she was married and living in Penryn. I also spoke to Slade once, to ask him what had happened to Parish.

He replied with satisfaction: ‘He got a furuncle deep in his ear, so he had to be put down.'

I ate alone in the big dining room, waited on by a man called Williams whom I had not seen before. I wondered if he had been engaged by Tamsin or if he was a Slade recruit.

It was a sparse meal, but I did not mind. I had never allowed myself to be a big eater since the loss of weight in my teens. I felt very much alone in the house and unwelcome. Perhaps it was just Slade's influence and the rest of the staff took their attitude from him. And I was a little afraid.

How could one fail to feel unwelcome with one's sister and cousin gone, and almost everyone new, except for a mad old woman and the ominous Slade?

Although I had permission to be away a week I had no real reason or excuse to stay here beyond tomorrow. To return at once to Blisland would be self-defeating. I could follow Desmond and Tamsin to Tregrehan, if that was where they had gone. I had never been to Tregrehan but I knew it was somewhere near St Austell, so it could hardly be more than twenty-five miles. Or I could call and see Mary at Tregolls which was half the distance.

But had I taken the week off to see Mary, nice though she was? As a human being probably much to be preferred to Tamsin. But it was my
sister
I wanted to see, and if any sympathy could be established between us, there were questions I wanted to ask her. Perhaps some of the questions would themselves create more ill-feeling. If so, so be it.

After the solitary meal I took up the little lantern in the hall and went to explore the wing of the house that had once been our home.

It
was
dilapidated; on that Slade had been speaking only the truth. The rest of the house seemed well cared for; the back wing smelt only of damp and decay. I was rooting among some old familiar bits and pieces of furniture and opening a drawer or two when I heard a movement in the dark of the door. The lantern shook in my hand as I turned towards a shadow in a white apron.

‘Oh, beg pardon, miss, you reely give me a fright! I was comin' up the stairs and I 'eard movements. I thought 'twas rats, and then I knew 'twas more'n that!'

A girl of eighteen or nineteen, eyes narrowed staring into the wavering yellow light, and then at my face.

‘I am Miss Emma Spry,' I said. ‘ What is your name?'

‘Lucy, miss. Lucy Ball. Beg pardon. I was just goin' to bed when I heard this noise. I don't belong to come in here, but the footsteps … I'm a kitchen maid, miss. I was just going to mount the stairs when—'

‘This was my old room when I lived here,' I said.

‘I sleep upstairs, miss. The upper floor, over the kitchen. I share with Annie Arthur, who's the other kitchen maid.'

The sudden encounter, in the hollow silence of the house …

‘How long have you been here, Lucy?'

‘Oh, nigh on two years. I mind when you come before with your mother, miss. But you won't remember me.'

‘Was Miss Celestine born when you came?'

‘No, miss. I come just before that.'

‘Where d'you come from? I mean, where is your home?'

‘Falmouth, miss.'

‘Do you happen to know a girl called Sally Fetch?'

‘No, miss.'

I put the lantern down on the table where I had done most of my childish sums. Could I ask her if she had heard of Mr Abraham Fox? Of course I could not.

‘Does a Mr Fox ever call here? A Mr Abraham Fox?'

The lantern showed her eyebrows come together. ‘I'm not sure, miss. I think mebbe he did. But there was lots of folk here for a – well for two winters and one summer, like; it was all entertaining, entertaining. Dances and tennis parties and the like.'

‘This was after Miss Celestine was born?'

‘Oh, yes, right up till, well, till about last Easter. This last Easter. It all stopped when Mr Spry brought his mother home. Then they sacked four servants – I feared for my place – and they brought in that Mr Parker and Mrs Tizard to look after the old lady. It's been a big change.'

‘D'you mean much quieter?'

‘Oh … oh yes, miss. All sorts of things.'

‘What sort of things?'

She looked sidelong again at my face. ‘Tedn my place to say, miss.'

‘It – affected the servants. The sudden change must have affected the servants.'