Withering Heights (7 page)

Having enthroned herself in the most comfortable chair in the room, she patted the purple crown of rollers and smiled complacently down at her feet.

“I know someone who wears stupid shoes like those.” The cocoa mustache Ariel now wore did nothing to diminish her hauteur. I pitied Tom and Betty, being stuck with the job of preventing her from alienating entire populations at a time. Would they offer Ben and me a substantial bribe to keep her?

“Ariel,” I said firmly, “I need to phone your parents.”

“Betty’s not—”

“Never mind that.”

“Can’t it wait until I’ve told you everything?” She swallowed a mouthful of chocolate cake.

“Has either of them been mistreating you?”

“They won’t let me have a TV in my room.”

“That doesn’t count. Give me the phone number.”

“There’s no need. I’m not the usual fussed-over child. They
won’t check up on me at my friend’s house. They’re not that sort. Maybe if I had a real mother it would be different.”

Impervious to this tugging at the heartstrings, Mrs. Malloy got to her feet. “I’ll make the call if you like, Mrs. H; that way it can be kept short and simple. The child’s here safe and sound, and you’ll ring them when you’ve got her story. Give me your phone number, young lady.”

I was grateful for this intervention; it seemed to be in the cards that Tom or Betty would blame me for this escapade, either because I had sent those parcels of books or because I happened to be living and breathing somewhere in England. Ariel mumbled her number, and before she had finished glowering at me, Mrs. Malloy returned to report she had met with incoherence from Betty, in the midst of which the phone had been handed to Tom, who’d added a couple of snorts to the dialogue.

“I expect they’ll have a row deciding what to do with me.” Ariel smirked. “Why have you only got one eyebrow?” she demanded of Mrs. Malloy.

“Because I was in the middle of taking off me makeup when your arrival brung me downstairs.”

“I thought it might be the first sign of some horrible pestilence.”

Mrs. Malloy resumed her seat with a thump sufficient to send a purple roller flying off her head. “Enough chitchat, Miss Rude Face. What brings you here?”

“To talk to Ellie.” Ariel tossed back her sandy plaits. “Last night in bed it came to me she’s the ideal person to help me sort out what’s been going on.”

“And what’s that?” Displaying interest, I leaned forward in my chair.

“Finding myself living in a gothic novel. It all started when Dad won the lottery six months ago and Betty insisted on
moving to Yorkshire. Their friends—Mr. and Mrs. Edmonds; I can’t stand them—had gone there to live, and they raved about this grand house not far from them, with parts that date back to Elizabethan times. They thought Dad and Betty should buy it.”

“Where in Yorkshire?” Mrs. Malloy was ready to handle the interrogation with all the aplomb of a chief superintendent from Scotland Yard, while I sat back like the green young sergeant, eager to learn how the great man did things.

“Milton Moor. It’s about twenty miles from Haworth, if you know where that is and why it’s famous.” Ariel licked her cocoa mustache.

“Yes, we do know.” I’d decided against playing the silent sidekick.

“Why, if that isn’t something!” Mrs. Malloy evinced delighted amazement. “Milton Moor’s the little town where me sister lives. I couldn’t remember the name when Mrs. H and me was talking earlier.”

“What’s your sister’s name?” Ariel gave Tobias a nudge when he attempted a nibble at the biscuit she was holding. Disliking selfishness, he got off her lap.

“Melody Tabby. She’s secretary to an accountant.”

“Has to be Mr. Scrimshank. He’s the only one in Milton Moor, it’s that small a place. He handled things when Dad and Betty bought Withering Heights.” Ariel returned my stare. “That’s what I call it, because an icy chill went down my spine the first time I saw it. Not that anyone listened to me. Its real name is Cragstone House. Mr. Scrimshank is a friend of Lady Fiona, as well as being her lawyer.”

“Who’s Lady Fiona?” I asked.

“Cragstone’s previous owner. And according to Betty, now the first thrill of living in a mansion has worn off, a coldblooded killer.”

Mrs. Malloy lost another purple roller as she jerked forward in her chair. “Who’s the victim?”

“Nigel Gallagher. Her ladyship’s husband. He’s just an ordinary mister; she was born to the title. The house and grounds had been in her family for generations. I suppose that could have made him feel a bit inferior. Anyway, Betty thinks he’s buried somewhere on the grounds and one day he’ll get dug up with the new potatoes.”

“What put that jolly thought in her head?” Mrs. Malloy’s ears were practically flapping.

“Mr. Gallagher disappeared about eighteen months ago. The police didn’t make a thing of it, because it wasn’t the first time he’d taken off without warning for extended periods on expeditions to foreign parts, as Mrs. Cake puts it. She says the man was always an odd duck, but better a man that likes a bit of travel than one that sits on his bum all the time finding fault with what’s on the telly.”

“Who’s Mrs. Cake?” It seemed expedient to get a grip on the mounting cast of characters.

“The cook.”

“Got the name for the job,” quipped Mrs. Malloy.

“Mrs. Cake’s a very nice lady who doesn’t deserve having jokes made about her. She was with the Gallaghers for years. They’re quite old, fifty or sixty at least.” Ariel took no notice of Mrs. M’s wince. “And she—Mrs. Cake—stayed on at Withering . . . Cragstone to work for us. She’s the only really normal person there, which is why I think her falling down the stairs the other night and spraining her ankle is the worst thing that’s happened so far.”

“What else has been going on?” I noticed Tobias looking out of the window and wondered if he heard Ben’s car.

“When we first moved in, it was small things that could be explained away. Pictures that fell off walls. Lights turning on
or off by themselves. Finding the front door wide open in the morning.”

“Like you say”—Mrs. Malloy repositioned a roller—“those sorts of occurrences do happen. And nasty as it must have been for Mrs. Cake, who I’m sure is a lovely person, people do fall downstairs without some evil force being responsible.”

Ariel eyed her mulishly. “It was her behavior afterward that was unnerving. At first she said she woke up in the middle of the night to hear someone moving about and got up to check out who it was. Not finding anyone and thinking they might have left by the back entrance, she was heading down to the kitchen when she tripped over something left on the stairs. But the next morning she acted really nervous and said he’d woken from a bad dream and had been imagining things. I heard her talking to Betty, and it was clear she wasn’t herself.”

“A sprained ankle’s no fun,” I pointed out.

“I know that. And Mrs. Cake hates having to sit in her chair with her foot up, unable to do more than shell peas and watch Betty let the saucepans boil over. But I’m telling you, there was more to it.”

“What do you think happened?” I asked.

“I think someone was moving around that night up in the part of the west wing where the indoor servants slept in the days when there were lots of them. Now there’s just Mrs. Cake, in the room closest to the stairs leading down to the kitchen.” Ariel adjusted her specs. Only the wind and rain attempted to interrupt her. “I think it was a real live person up there, the one who wants us out of Withering . . . Cragstone. Betty thinks it was Mr. Gallagher’s ghost and Mrs. Cake was afraid to say so in case it made her sound loopy, but the next morning decided it might make more of an uproar if it was thought there had been an intruder.”

“If it were a ghost,” said Mrs. Malloy, “I know just the person to—”

Unwilling to let her get started on Madam LaGrange, I cut her off. “Let’s get back to what else has you worried, Ariel, beyond the incidents that you admit can be explained away.”

The expression on the girl’s face was hard to read. “The thing is, most of them have happened to Betty, who’s far from my favorite person and likes to draw attention to herself. But she doesn’t have enough imagination—seeing as she never reads anything beyond fashion magazines that don’t do her any good—to make things up on a grand scale. She’s a really boring person. I don’t think Dad minds a bit that she moved into a bedroom of her own because of his horrible snoring. At least it stopped some of her nagging. I don’t see how he could ever have been in love with her after being married to my mother. Grandma Hopkins said she was an angel that God wanted back in heaven. Honestly, I wish Dad and Betty would be sensible and get a divorce. But of course he’d never consider it because he’s such a strict Catholic. He wouldn’t even go for an annulment. He told me once when he heard of a couple from church getting one that such loopholes should be reserved for marriages that haven’t been consummated. And horrible as it is to think about, he
has
had sex with Betty. He admitted it when he was giving me the Talk.” Her voice capitalized it. “They’ve done it more than once, too, not just to get it over with.” She shuddered. “Sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve all this grief. Perhaps I was a murderer, or something equally wicked, in a past life.”

“Interesting you should bring that up—” began Mrs. Malloy.

Again I hurried to prevent the interjection of Madam La-Grange. “Ariel, what frightening things have happened to Betty?”

“She went into the study one morning—she always goes in
there first thing to have her coffee—and found a funeral wreath, a horrible moldy one that looked as if it were weeks old, hanging on the nail that used to hold Mr. Gallagher’s portrait. And another time she discovered three dead ravens on her bedroom windowsill.” Ariel paused, to good effect. “As I just said, she has her own bedroom, so Dad can’t say whether this next thing is true or not, but last week she was woken in the middle of the night—or so she says—by a mournful disembodied voice calling her name. When she asked what it wanted, it said, “Help me, Betty, get me out of this dark place!” And then the shadow of a man with a lion’s-head walking stick appeared on the wall at the foot of the bed. Mr. Gallagher has . . . had . . . a lion’s-head walking stick.”

Clearly thrilled to the core, Mrs. Malloy was rendered speechless, leaving me to ask Ariel if she had believed her stepmother.

“Like I said, I’m not her biggest fan, but I can’t see her making it up, even to get attention. If that had been the idea, wouldn’t she have screamed the house down and brought Dad running, and maybe even me? But she didn’t say anything until the next day. And she was quite calm about it. She said it confirmed her suspicions that Lady Fiona had murdered her husband, and she was going to draw up a plan of the grounds and start digging in likely spots.”

“Was that before or after Mrs. Cake fell, or was maybe even pushed, down the stairs?” Mrs. Malloy was on the rim of her chair.

“Before. And I know what you’re getting at.” Ariel shrugged. “It explains why Betty was sure Mrs. Cake had seen Mr. Gallagher’s ghost.”

“Okay,” I said. “We have two choices here. Either Betty is producing these stage effects for her own reasons, or someone is attempting to frighten the life out of her.”

“I’ve been telling you, Betty’s not scared. She’s not that sort. A bomb could go off under her and she wouldn’t blink. She sees herself as a cute Miss Marple about to show the police they’ve had the wool pulled over their eyes. This is giving her something to do, now that she doesn’t go out to work and hasn’t any ideas on how to turn Cragstone into a showplace. Val’s taken over that job.”

“Who?” Mrs. Malloy and I inquired in unison.

“Val. She’s the one who wears silly high heels like yours.” Ariel eyed Mrs. M’s feet disparagingly. “The weird thing is that Betty, who’s not keen on getting in thick with people these days because she thinks they’ll try to squeeze money out of her and Dad, seems quite okay with Val. Mrs. Cake says it’s hard not to take to someone who’s not only helpful but also lovely to look at. And I suppose Val doesn’t look bad for someone over thirty.”

“Is she a new acquaintance?” I repositioned myself as Tobias climbed onto my lap.

“She moved into the Dower House a couple of months ago to take care of her great-aunt, who was Mr. Gallagher’s nanny when he was a little boy. The nanny’s really doddery now and very upset that he’s gone, besides being angry that Lady Fiona, whom she never liked, sold Cragstone when Mr. G wasn’t around to have any say about it.”

“That seems one point against her ladyship having murdered him and buried the body somewhere on the grounds. Even without Betty conducting a search, there’s the risk of the grave being discovered. Far better, I’d think, for her ladyship to stay put in the ancestral home.”

“She had to sell. Her finances were in a terrible mess.”

“How about your dad’s response to what’s been going on?” Mrs. Malloy, who had patently resented the insult to her footwear, managed a smile.

“He’s afraid people will get wind of Betty’s suspicions about Lady Fiona and insist she’s trying to destroy the woman’s character. He says there’ll be a lawsuit for defamation—Lady Fiona could use the money—and it will be in all the papers:
COUPLE WHO WON LOTTERY ACCUSES FORMER HOUSE OWNER OF MURDER
. Dad’s got a horror of the press because of the articles written about the accident that killed my mother. That’s one reason I want to find out what’s really going on—such as Nanny Pierce trying to drive us out of the house so that Mr. Gallagher can move back in when he returns from his travels.”

“A doddery old lady indulging in scare tactics?”

Ariel shifted restlessly in her chair. “Val could be helping her. Maybe that’s the real reason she moved into the Dower House and has been so helpful to Betty with the decorating. It gives her the perfect excuse to be in and out of Withering . . . Cragstone all the time. Maybe Nanny has promised to leave her a nice inheritance in return for her cooperation.”

I smiled. “You’ve read those gothic novels I sent you.”

“But you’re the expert on them, Ellie. You know how the plots are woven to lead readers astray . . . making us think we’ve figured out what’s going on and then springing a throat-gripping surprise at the end. What if both Betty and I have got it wrong? What if it isn’t Nanny Pierce who wants us out of Cragstone, but someone else who resents our moving in? Like Mr. Scrimshank, who’s a walking creep show. Just wait till you meet him!” She gave Mrs. Malloy a pitying look. “Perhaps he’s madly, obsessively in love with Lady Fiona and thinks that if we are forced out no one else will dare buy the place and she’ll get it back for next to nothing.”