The Ugly Sister (20 page)

‘Oh, for sure. You know Cook left?'

‘I hadn't seen her. She was discharged?'

‘Well, she never got along with Mr Slade, y'know, all these years.'

‘And he discharged her?'

‘Oh, I don't know. I expect that was left to Mr Spry.'

‘Are the other older servants happy here?'

Lucy glanced over her shoulder. ‘ Not the old ones, no, miss. The new ones, mebbe. Mebbe they're friends of Mr Slade's.'

‘The man I'm referring to,' I said, ‘ is known as Mr Bram Fox. About thirty-five, tall and good-looking. Very jolly …' I stopped, aware that I should never have spoken like this to a servant.

‘Wi' a terrible temper?'

‘What?'

‘Beg pardon. There was a Mr Bram once at a Christmas party, miss. 'Tis no business of mine …'

‘Was that last Christmas?'

‘I don't rightly recall … I – I think I've said enough, miss. ' Tis not for me to tell tales about my betters. Or next thing I know I shall be sent 'ome without a reference.'

My mind groped for ways of inducing her to go on. But I knew I could not.

‘Thank you, Lucy,' I said. ‘I shall be seeing my sister later in the week, so no doubt she will tell me all the news then. But be assured, nothing you have said will be repeated. I understand your position and will respect it.'

‘Thank you, miss.'

After returning to the main house I considered a walk in the dark, using the stray lights of St Mawes as a guidance, but it had been a long day and a tiring one. I was also depressed, and found the silence of the house morbidly heavy and menacing. So I went to bed.

A
LMOST INSTANTLY
to sleep, and then perversely, after about an hour woke and could not settle again. Once or twice I fancied there were little cries from my aunt's room.

There was so much to think of, so much to ponder in what Lucy Ball had told me – much to be inferred, though perhaps wrongly. Perhaps I should see Mary before Tamsin. Mary must know a great deal about what had been going on, though if she had only returned to Place after her mother was brought home her knowledge would be partial.

Tamsin had always had an appetite for parties and entertaining. We had talked about it as girls. Her marriage to Desmond had put her in a position to indulge herself. Here was the house, empty except for them and a small baby, with an adequacy of servants, a notable name, and acquaintanceship – laboriously fostered by my mother – with most of the landed gentry in this part of Cornwall. So it seemed probable that soon after our visit she had persuaded Desmond to give her her head. Extra servants engaged. The house lightly refurbished.

Then, a horrible transformation! Desmond had gone to see his mother and concluded she was not being well looked after and must come home. A transformation of Place from a scene of youthful gaiety to a gloomy nursing home. A shedding of the extra servants who no doubt were young and smart, and the engaging of two grim middle-aged nurses in their place. Had Tamsin acquiesced in this change of lifestyle? That did not match the vivid and intimate memories I had of her. So had there been trouble between husband and wife? Perhaps my mother had hinted at that in her letter, and I had not read between the lines. And did Bram come into this at all?

I turned over and glanced out of the windows, the curtains not being drawn. The sky was not completely black, as it had been when I went to sleep. A vague yellowish flickering; there for an instant or two and then fading. It couldn't surely be a ship on fire: it might be one signalling to another. Yet it seemed too close.

I pulled the curtain of the bed further back, but could see no more. Perversely I was now feeling sleepy. Let it go. Whatever it was was none of my business.

The boards of the bedroom floor were cold to my feet: I groped among the furniture towards the window.

There was a lantern immediately in front of the house. It was shaded, but with eyes accustomed to the dark I could pick out the figures of men, and presently several horses or mules.

Six men and two animals. What time was it? Certainly no time for anyone to be lawfully abroad.

I was wearing only the thin shift I had brought with me but, apart from my own underwear and jacket and skirt of dark broadcloth in which I had come and which lay folded on the chair beside the bed, the wardrobe nearby was full of Mary's clothes, and I had seen a purple cloak which would be easier to slip on. Beside it was one of the newly fashionable long cashmere shawls, which if wrapped round my neck over the top of the cloak would be warm and protective.

First thought was to rouse Slade, for if something wrong was afoot his size and authority would be invaluable; but I did not fancy going upstairs and into his bedroom to wake him. Though he had kept his distance all through, his dislike of me didn't altogether disguise other thoughts he might have.

When I opened the door there was still a light under the door of my aunt's room but the least sensible thing would be to burst in there and raise an alarm.

Go to the head of the main stairs. There was no lamp lit in the hall as there always used to be, but a flicker of light from outside could be seen through one of the windows.

As a child I had hardly ever had to open the front door: it had seemed enormous. I put my hand to the latch and then realized it was bolted and I could not pull back the bolts without making a noise. But I could go through the drawing room into the church and thence to the garden. It was probably not the best of ideas, but somehow I negotiated the furniture and came to the two ancient granite steps which led to the church door. The church struck chill; cold air moved in its high chancel; despite repairs it smelt musty and dank. Just make out the lines of the pews; grope along the slate floor to the door. This was not locked, but as I opened it about three inches the latch clicked.

A man in the dark, silhouetted against the gleam from the lantern. Not more than four yards away. In this silence came the crunch of wheels, the clop of a mule's foot.

‘
Who's there?
'

Slade's voice.

A crisis of nerves. Gently allow the church door to close, the latch to click again, move back on tiptoe among the pews. Some childish wish not to be discovered. Run and hide, you silly fool, you. As I reached the door into the drawing room the church door opened again.

Two doors led out of the big drawing room: one into the smaller drawing room, one into the servants' passage. I chose this one, almost immediately stumbled over a serving trolley which should not have been there. Turn and make for the main hall. I knew the slight collision had given my choice away and that he would be following.

Shoes made a squeak as he moved. Then the breathing. Instead of carrying on down the passage which ran to the servants' quarters I turned into the dining room, stood behind the door perfectly still. The squeak went past, the breathing faded, then silence.

Heart thumped away. What is there to be afraid of? A servant, a butler, an old man, up to some mischief at part of which you could begin to guess. I was Miss Spry, wasn't I? Twenty-one. A member of this landowning, seafaring family. Confronted by a mere servant.

But tell that to a woman who has grown up disliking and always fearing him, tell it to her in pitch blackness in the middle of the night, with other men, strangers, outside, and no one of your own family within distant call. What if I disappeared? Who was to know what had happened?

It had not been too clever a move to dodge him in this way, because by doubling back I had put him between myself and the staircase and thence the safety of my bedroom. Of course he would no doubt suddenly appear in this room and find me; or, time pressing, he might give up the search and go back to the waiting men outside.

Knees weak, and cold in spite of the cloak and shawl. When a child in some sort of discomfort or pain I would count, hoping this would help time to pass. I began to count now. Then I groped for a chair and sat down.

The light had not quite gone, but there were no footsteps to be heard outside. If it was a sort of procession, it had moved on either towards the gate of the property or the quay.

One advantage of counting is that it gives you some sense of the passing of time. When I got to 500 it was reasonable to suppose about five minutes had passed. My teeth were trying to chatter, not with cold but with nerves. Take a chance.

I slid out of the dining room door into the servants' passage and, careful of any more pitfalls, reached the main hall. It was quite dark. The staircase was in the middle of the hall, and I could just see its white painted pediments. As I moved towards it a hand like an animal's bite grasped my upper arm.

‘Got you!' and a fist thumped the side of my head so that the world hummed.

I tried to wrench my arm free. ‘Let me go! How dare you! Let me go, I say!'

The grip eased and slowly the hand fell away.

‘You, girl! I never thought 'twas you! Well, well!'

‘Slade!' I said. ‘What are you doing here? How – how dare you!'

‘Didn't expect you wandering round the house at this time, neither.' Flint scraped, and presently a candle began to burn. He was wearing a grey jersey and breeches and leggings. The hand with the missing fingertips held the candle.

‘I thought 'twas that Lucy, the little bitch. Can't stand young girls interfering and poking their noses into what don't concern 'em.'

I was certain he knew who had been in the church and hidden from him. The Lucy I had met would have been too scared to come down two flights of stairs in the dark.

‘I saw lights and heard voices, I thought something was amiss. Do you allow men to tramp across our land in the middle of the night?'

He rasped his chin and looked me up and down as the candle flame burned brighter.

‘No, maid. 'Twas just a chance I met some of my old shipmates. They've all gone now. Don't ye think it's time you was off to bed?'

‘I'll go when I wish to.'

‘Well, there's naught more to see tonight. I reckon I'm for bed soon too – I reckon if you was minded to see me afore you go in the morning, I'll answer what you have to ask.'

I
N THE
bedroom again. For a while I kept a candle burning. Heart refused to settle to a beat that allowed me to forget it. My upper left arm showed a darkening bruise.

Presently I snuffed the candle, dug into the bed and composed myself for sleep. Difficult to say how long that took, but at last I was gone – and strangely nothing was dreamt, or at least nothing remembered.

Wake as dawn is just breaking. I could see the squares of the windows, the slight sheen on a wardrobe door, the glint of the water jug, a man standing by the bed.

I sat up.

‘Good day to you, Miss Emma,' said Slade. ‘ I did not know what time you was leaving today, but I thought 'twas only right and proper that we should have a little talk.'

‘Get out of my room!'

He sat carefully on the foot of the bed.

‘'Twould be best all round, Miss Emma; best for all concerned if you was to listen to what I have to say – even though you may dislike the sound of it. And here in this room there's no prying ears nor eyes as there might be later in the morning.'

It was as if normality had existed only while I was asleep, and this was a return of the nightmare.

He said: ‘I been here with the Admiral and now Mr Desmond for nigh on five and twenty years. I served the Admiral because we was old shipmates. But I had other shipmates in and around these parts which as I have kept up with and try to help from time to time. That's what I was doing last night, and but for you arriving when you wasn't invited and wandering down in the middle of the night nobody would've been the wiser. But now you know, don't you?'

Slowly take deep breaths to calm myself.

‘Were you running contraband?'

‘Well, now, that's a long word, maid. Not one as I'd use meself. See, as I see it, there's God's laws and there's men's laws. Thou shalt not kill, that's what God says. But it is men as builds artificial barriers 'twixt one country and the next. Every pint of rum ye drink, so much has to be paid to the Excise, who then spend most of it paying men to guard the coasts. Don't make sense, do it.'

After a minute, when he didn't go on, I said: ‘ Do they bring it in at Molunnan Cove?'

‘Ah, now, miss, the less you're told the less you know, eh? ' Tis not a regular trade, like. Nothing like that! Just now and then a barrel or a keg or a roll of something comes to hand, then sometimes 'tis kept here for a little while before it moves on.'

‘In the cellar, I suppose.'

‘Mebbe yes, mebbe no. It is not for me to go into the detail, like.'

‘Then when you have a sufficiency of contraband goods, you arrange a night when all the Sprys are away and half a dozen men and a couple of carts come along and move it off at your leisure.'

The light was growing. I could see the expression on his plump mealy face was not pleasant.

‘Did my uncle know about this?'

He laughed. ‘ The Admiral? Lord bless ye, yes. Of course he did! Wasn't above helping himself to a bit of picking here and there, neither.'

‘And Mr Desmond?'

‘Ah, well that's best left unsaid, isn't it? Now look, Miss Emma. I've told you all I'm going to tell you. And that's too much. You already know more than it is good for you. It isn't healthy, y'know. We got to think of your safety.'

‘My safety?'

‘Yes, miss. Folk who know too much are at risk they may run their heads into a bowline.'

‘Are you threatening me with breaking God's laws now?'

The first shafts of sun were lighting up a few errant clouds.

‘Yes, maid,' he said. ‘ That's the drift of it.'