Withering Heights (21 page)

“Her great-niece.”

“I seem to remember there was one—and, I think, a brother. Didn’t turn out well. Gambled or drank to excess. Went to live in Ireland—or am I thinking of another family? The Bledstowes, from Cambridge . . . yes, I think now it was they. They had a dog that could play the piano.” She was now looking through the open drawing-room door.

“Will we be having tea in here?”

“In the conservatory. Betty thought you would like that.”

“Who? Oh, yes, that will be the new maid. The people who bought Cragstone came into money from an aunt in New Zealand, I believe it was. They’ll be able to take on plenty of help. I do hope they kept Mavis on. She hasn’t had an easy time. I seem to remember she grew up in an orphanage and had to sort rags in order to buy stockings.”

Before she could say that maybe she was thinking of a book she had read—I was pretty sure I knew the one—she drifted on down the hall and I entered the conservatory behind her. There was no one else there as yet, so we had our choice of sofas and chairs.

“I miss Cragstone,” she said. “Particularly this room.”

It
was
attractive, with its abundance of plants on stands and tables. The glass walls provided a sweeping panorama of the grounds, but I was preoccupied with adjusting my nose to the smell of earth and mold, which is not one of my particular favorites. Then I looked up at the ceiling. It was indeed something to behold. A celestial nudist colony! Patriarchal males, all of whom looked as though they were named Zeus, disported themselves on cloud sofas. Women with crimped gold tresses and rounded bellies cavorted in streams of sunlight. The Sistine Chapel it wasn’t. Religious, no; ribald, yes. What it had been like before Mr. Gallagher’s request for more cloud cover I did not care to imagine. My heart went out to the cherubs, who looked more shocked than soulful. For the first time since meeting her I found myself in complete agreement with Ariel. That ceiling needed a speedy coat of whitewash.

Presumably inured to its impact, Lady Fiona sat down on a sofa and asked how I liked England and if I found it cold after living abroad so long. “How is your aunt in Jamaica doing, Mrs. Honeywood?”

I was about to remind her my name was Haskell, and say I didn’t have any aunts, when Mrs. Malloy came into the conservatory with a plate of dainty sandwiches. I got up to make the introductions. Mrs. M, who has an intense aversion to mold, pressed a handkerchief over her face, which made her look like a bank robber waiting for the bank to open.

“And what of your cousin’s little boy?” Lady Fiona asked me. “The one who accidentally swallowed his goldfish and insisted on having his stomach pumped, so it could be taken out alive. You do believe it to have been an accident?” She took a sandwich from the silver tray Mrs. M proffered. “Such a worry for his parents if he did it on purpose.”

While I was avoiding Mrs. Malloy’s eyes, Betty and Tom came into the room with Mr. Scrimshank, whose looks had not improved since yesterday. If anything, he looked even more like someone who has been brought back to life after being badly embalmed. When I went over to him, he gave no sign of remembering who I was. And even when Mrs. M removed her mask and asked if he’d like cucumber or cheese and tomato, the doggy brown eyes in his white face looked none the wiser.

“We were at your office yesterday, to see me sister, Melody,” she told him, “and you was nice enough to point out we’d come in the wrong door.”

“Ah!” Light had dawned. “Miss Tabby. Yes, yes! She was late getting those letters on my desk. Never happened before in nearly forty years. I do hope she’s not cracking up. I’ve wondered about that possibility recently, ever since I heard she’d taken up knitting. These enthusiasms can take a terrible hold on a woman of her advanced age.”

Mrs. Malloy raised her eyebrows at me in both outrage and inquiry. Luckily for him, Mr. Scrimshank left us without another word to sit beside Lady Fiona.

“Ah, Fiona!” He intoned the name through his nose. “Any further word from Nigel?”

“None. It was a relief to hear that he rang you that once, Archibald. It set my mind at ease that nothing untoward had happened to him. Preferable perhaps if he had got in touch with me instead, but I understand his reasoning. He would have worried that Miss Pierce would get on the line and keep talking, making it seem it would be forever before he could get back to exploring the Amazon or wherever he is. Devoted as he has always been to Nanny, Nigel has intimated that there have been occasions when he found her constant fussing over him irksome. He didn’t mind so much while he was still in his forties, but . . . I say no more. It will please him on his return to find her settled in the Dower House. I acted in accordance with what I knew would be his wishes. Somebody was just telling me”—she looked vaguely around the room—“that Nanny has some friend or relation living with her. I hope it works out until the time she finally hangs up her butterfly net, to use Nigel’s phrase.”

The expression did seem preferable to
kick the bucket
. But before I could murmur this opinion to Mrs. Malloy, who was setting out more trays of perfectly presented sandwiches, delectable-looking iced fancies, and fruit tartlets and currant scones, our eyes were drawn to the door where Frances Edmonds cowered against her husband’s shoulder.

“Oh, whatever’s wrong with her now?” Betty brushed past Tom to draw the peeping twosome back into the hall. Remembering that someone, possibly me, needed to start handing round cups and saucers, I moved to the buffet table, where if I strained my ears sufficiently I could hear voices and hiccuping sobs.

“For goodness’ sake, Frances! Why would I think to mention Mr. Scrimshank would be here? It was Lady Fiona you were so
keen to see. How could I know he sacked you for not cleaning behind the radiators and you never want to see him again? Stan, get her to stop crying. Oh, come on, both of you, let’s go into the kitchen so you can both have a cup of tea before slipping out the back door, if that’s what you want to do. I wonder what’s been keeping Ben from joining us in the conservatory?” Betty’s voice faded away, along with the dwindling footsteps.

“Now you take that look of your face, Mrs. H,” whispered Mrs. Malloy, “like you’re sure he’s in the pantry canoodling with that Val. Miss Pierce felt a bit faint after the walk up here and he had her sit down in the kitchen and found her a glass of brandy. They’ll all be in soon. I wonder what’s keeping them two vicars?”

Right on cue, in they came. The one who had to be Mr. Hardcastle was handsomely middle-aged, with kind eyes and a pleasant smile. Clutching at his arm, and also wearing a clerical collar, was a frail little man with wispy white hair and a face that had shriveled to the point of being all nose. With luck, his infirmities would prevent him from ever looking at the ceiling.

“Mr. Hardcastle.” Tom roused himself out of whatever doleful thoughts had been claiming him to hasten across the room.

“No formality, please; call me Jim.” It was a nice voice, hinting at humor and the ability to pour the right amount of oil on troubled waters.

“Let me help you get your friend—”

“Simeon Tribble,” piped up a reedy but cheerful voice.

“A pleasure to meet you, sir,” responded Tom, moving with more speed than usual to help the ancient gentleman to a chair. While this was being accomplished with a great deal of tottering and some false lowerings, Betty returned without the Edmondses and took over the general introductions. As she was finishing up, it became necessary to start again. Val, Miss Pierce, and Ben had entered the room.

Mr. Scrimshank left Lady Fiona to direct his attention to a feathery fern in a container the size of a dustbin, so I again sat down beside her.

“I understand that you are related to a family of the same name in Chichester, Mrs. Honeywood,” she said.

Taking the easiest course, I invited her to call me by my first name.

“Ellie? I had thought you were Edith. Then you’re the one with an aunt in Gibraltar, not Jamaica.”

“That’s right.” I let my mind stray. Val was wearing rose pink and looked even lovelier than yesterday. Blackberry curls, creamy skin, those deep blue eyes, she was a rare flower, worthy of Kew Gardens, let alone this conservatory. What a picture she made, standing with her hand on Ben’s arm, smiling up at him. Would it be described in books, I wondered with a numbed detachment, as a tremulous smile? I could hear what she was saying; she was thanking him for being kind and giving her great-aunt the brandy and waiting to make sure she was feeling better. All very prosaic, but I saw Tom looking at them in stark surprise, before turning to ask Betty if she knew where Ariel was to be found.

“No idea,” Betty said, before asking Mr. Tribble how he was enjoying his stay at the vicarage.

“Very much,” he replied in his trembly voice. He poked inside his clerical collar, perhaps in hope of finding that a fifty-pence piece had dropped in when the collection plate was passed. “Jim’s father and I were great friends. He brought me here once when I was a young man.”

“Nice for you to have the chance to come back.” Mrs. Malloy, standing with a plate of sandwiches, eyed him with concern. “Maybe you should sit back on that chair. Looks to me like you’re about to fall off.”

Mr. Hardcastle prevented this by making the necessary adjustment.
I wished Mr. Tribble had a seat belt. Interestingly, the old man did not appear nervous. Maybe he had jumped out of airplanes as a lad and still enjoyed living dangerously. He certainly displayed a spirit of adventure by holding his own cup and saucer while peering with interest at Lady Fiona, who was now asking if I painted in oils, as my mother had done, or preferred watercolors, as did the aunt in Gibraltar.

“Mrs. H does lovely with both.” Mrs. Malloy gamely got aboard the ship bound for nowhere, enabling me to bite into a scone.

“The Chichester Honeywoods collect sculptures.” Lady Fiona accepted a refill of her teacup from Betty, who then went to attend to Mr. Scrimshank, apparently not having seen him empty his cup into a flowerpot. “Are those two young people recently married?” Her ladyship gestured with her teaspoon. The good-looking dark-haired couple. Standing next to Nanny Pierce.”

“Why do you ask, your ladyship?” That scone might have been made from a marvelous recipe, but it left the taste of ashes in my mouth.

“They have that look of belonging together. The similar coloring.”

“I see what you mean.” So much for Mrs. Malloy’s belief that like didn’t respond to like, but having retreated to pour herself a cup of tea she didn’t get to state her case.

“One remembers what it is like to be desperately, one might say foolishly, in love.” Lady Fiona gazed reflectively at a standing potted plant.

“Actually,” I heard myself say, as if from a vast distance, “Ben is my husband and the woman standing with him and Miss Pierce is the great-niece. The one staying at the Dower House.”

“Is she?” Her ladyship drifted a look at Val. “Yes, I seem to
place her now. She was an extremely pretty child when she and her brother spent that summer at Cragstone. Never having had children of my own, I had concerns. But they were no trouble. I only remember Nanny Pierce mentioning one upset. She would have thought it unconscionable to withhold such information. A betrayal of her duty to Nigel.”

“I see.”

“It involved the boy’s locating the priest hole in the west wing and refusing to tell his sister how to open the panel. Nanny said Nigel would never have behaved in such a way. She assured him neither child would go near that secret room again, which relieved him greatly. He didn’t at all like the idea of them getting shut in and being unable to find the release catch in the dark.”

“What a horrible thought.” I held on to it, while not looking at Ben and Val. I also focused on the rhythmic spatter of water landing on my head. Betty had talked about a leak from the bathroom above. Lady Fiona showed no sign of noticing that it was beginning to rain indoors. “According to family legend a priest did get trapped in that priest hole during Tudor times. Or would it have been Jacobean? Sadly, he wasn’t brought out until it was too late; he had suffocated. But perhaps that was a blessing. They did have that nasty tendency to hang, draw, and quarter people in those days.” Lady Fiona sipped her tea. “How long have you and your husband been married, Elsie?”

“Nearly nine years.” It was now sprinkling quite heavily over our sofa, but the rest of the room remained under clear skies.

Our conversation caught Mr. Tribble’s attention, sending him off on a tangent. “Did I marry you, Lady Fiona?” He might have leaned too far forward if Ben hadn’t darted forward to reposition him.

“I do tend to be somewhat absentminded,” responded her
ladyship serenely, “but I think I would have remembered had you ever been my husband.”

“What Mr. Tribble means is did he perform the wedding service,” said Mr. Hardcastle, with his nice smile. “No, Simeon, you didn’t. I was a guest at Lady Fiona’s marriage to Nigel Gallagher. It was Howard Miles, not you, who officiated.”

“I could have sworn—” A few drops of water landed on Mr. Tribble’s head.

“No, you wouldn’t.” His friend laughed heartily. “Swearwords are not in your vocabulary. Or mine, although I sometimes come close when I drop a stitch in my knitting—I trust I may count on your discretion not to spread word of my new hobby around in clerical circles. I happen to find it relaxing when I’m thinking through an upcoming sermon. And I’m not the only man in these parts to have taken it up. There’s the Barclay’s Bank manager, the village school headmaster, Police Sergeant Walters, and—”

“I still feel sure”—Mr. Tribble continued to peer at Lady Fiona—“it would have been, now let me think . . . what year was it? Never mind! It will come back to me. These things always do.”

Other conversations flowed around me. Tom talked to Mr. Scrimshank, Betty said something to Nanny Pierce, and Val joined in, while her eyes followed Ben’s every movement. Mrs. Malloy continued handing out replenishments of sandwiches, cakes, and scones. Still no Ariel!

Lady Fiona left the sofa, saying she must talk to Nanny Pierce about taking her to lunch on Wednesday. Feeling abandoned, I stared into my teacup. There was something floating in it. Something shaped like a leaf. But not a tea leaf; it was too big and too white! It could only be. . . . I looked up at the ceiling, to behold an extremely well-endowed Zeus now absent a very necessary part of his cloud cover.