She cut into the little round and handed him a wedge impaled on the tip of the cheese knife. He broke off a crumb and dropped it in front of Graymalkin, basking on the stone hearth.
Gerry asked, “Shall we have the fizz now?”
“Oh, let’s wait a bit, until we’re closer to midnight,” Mr. Parminter requested. “Now, what have you ladies been up to?”
Prudence and Gerry looked at each other. Prudence opened, then closed her mouth. Gerry took a deep breath and said, “We found something.” When she saw Prudence’s eyes bulge a warning, she hastily added, “In the woodshed.” Prudence relaxed.
“What kind of something?” Mr. Parminter queried.
Gerry decided to start small. “A bone. Bob found a bone. Which he brought inside and which freaked me out when I stepped on it.”
Mr. Parminter interrupted her. “Oh, I know what you mean. Sometimes — well, not now it’s winter — sometimes Graymalkin drags in a dreadful bit of something he’s killed, and with my eyes, I sometimes don’t see it before I tread on it. I always wear slippers now.” He stroked the cat, who had jumped up and was kneading his lap.
“Well, I was in bare feet and it hurt as well as freaking me out. So, I assumed it was a chicken bone until I went for wood. You know how my shed floor got caved in from the storm?” Mr. Parminter nodded. “Well, Bob jumped in there. He’s like a dog, likes to follow me when I’m outside.”
Mr. Parminter interrupted her again. “Where are my manners? Prudence, there’s some port over there, and glasses. I think it would go well with the cheese.”
Prudence brought and poured them all a glass of port. White, it tasted to Gerry like plums. “Perhaps a bit of Brie?” Mr. Parminter requested. Gerry put it on a thin wafer and handed it over. Graymalkin, purring, lapped at his little portion.
“So. Bob tried to drag out another bone from under the shed, but when I looked at it, I realized, or guessed, it belonged to no animal. The skeleton was laid out on its front or back. I don’t know. Animals may have shifted bits of it.”
She shivered and sipped her port. Mr. Parminter leaned over and touched her hand. “You know, Gerry, we are all bones. They are nothing to be frightened of.”
“I know. I wasn’t frightened so much as sad. Here was this poor person, forgotten by those he loved. Or maybe they worried about him, never knew where he wound up?”
“I just meant to say, don’t let it oppress you. After all, we have a lovely brand new year opening up in a few hours. We have our good health, our friends, our families.” At this, Gerry, thinking of the Parsley family and how they must be feeling, felt her chin and mouth wobble and had to rush from the room. She heard Prudence reassure a dismayed Mr. Parminter. “She misses her parents. And the bones upset her. You weren’t to know.”
Gerry, in the bathroom, mopped up her tears. She did miss her parents. And Aunt Maggie. And Uncle Geoff. She blew her nose into a wad of toilet paper, flushed and wandered into the hall.
Graymalkin (She really was getting better at not calling him Stupid!) had followed her, she supposed out of cattish curiosity, and sat on the hall runner. She timidly offered him the back of her hand to sniff and heard Mr. Parminter reading aloud from the volume of Cowper she’d given him. She stepped closer and stood in the living room doorway.
Prudence sipped port and stared at the fire while Mr. Parminter, magnifying glass in hand, read. The poem, entitled ‘A Fable,’ ended with a stanza called ‘Moral.’
’Tis Providence alone secures
In every change, both mine and yours.
Safety consists not in escape
From dangers of a frightful shape,
An earthquake may be bid to spare
The man that’s strangled by a hair.
Fate steals along with silent tread,
Found oft’nest in what least we dread,
Frowns in the storm with angry brow,
But in the sunshine strikes the blow.
He said, “That’s a bit grim, isn’t it? What about this? ‘The Pineapple and the Bee.’” Gerry, still loitering in the doorway, smiled at the image. “I’ll just read the ending. It’s about a bee who wastes her time trying to get into a tightly sealed hothouse. They grew pineapples under glass in England in those days. It’s a poem Maggie marked.”
Our dear delights are often such,
Exposed to view but not to touch;
The sight our foolish heart inflames,
We long for pine-apples in frames,
With hopeless wish one looks and lingers,
One breaks the glass and cuts his fingers;
But they whom truth and wisdom lead,
Can gather honey from a weed.
“Let’s see if we can find another one.” He flipped carefully through the old pages. Gerry came into the room, exchanging a weak smile with Prudence.
“What about this? Maggie marked the whole poem. ‘The Jackdaw.’ The jackdaw sits up on the church steeple and watches the world.”
He sees that this great roundabout
The world, with all its motley rout,
Church, army, physic, law,
Its customs and its bus’nesses
Are no concern at all of his,
And says, what says he? — Caw.
They laughed. “Oh, I remember, these are Cowper’s translations of another poet, Bourne, who wrote in Latin. My God, people used to be cultured.”
“Like pineapples,” quipped Prudence.
He looked at her over his reading glasses. “I take your point, but still. Ah. Let’s see what he says of ‘The Winter Evening.’”
Graymalkin returned and, seeing his master occupied, jumped onto the sofa next to Gerry and, after putting out a tentative paw, climbed into her lap. Gerry said, “You’re certainly a civilizing influence, Mr. Parminter.”
“Yes, well, poetry is — ah, you mean on the cat.”
“Him too.” Gerry sweetly smiled.
He peered at the bottom of a page. “Oh, here he’s written in a letter to his friend Hill in 1783. ‘I see the winter approaching without much concern, though a passionate lover of fine weather and the pleasant scenes of summer. But the long evenings have their comforts too; and there is hardly to be found upon earth, I suppose, so snug a creature as an Englishman, by his fireside, in the winter. I mean, however, an Englishman that lives in the country.’” He took off his glasses and added, “In a well-insulated and heated house. I won’t read the poem. It’s quite long.”
“Read us some of your poetry, Mr. Parminter. Would you?”
“It will sound poor stuff after this classical work.”
“It will sound of its time as Cowper’s sounds of his,” Prudence said absently.
Mr. Parminter gave her a look. “A very penetrating thing to say, Prudence. All right, Gerry. You’ll find one of mine over there. Yellow cover. Find it?” She brought it to him. “No, I’m tired. My eyes are tired. You read what you fancy.”
The poem’s title was the same as its first line.
The fields begin to sheathe themselves in some
Soft metal underfoot as they ripen
Into hardness. The air quiets. Except
For Christmas’ three-week hum, traffic thins.
Some life has left the earth, been driven down
And in. The metal spreads its silent hymn
That sings of hardship, night; of frozen beings,
Their signals lost; records the broken keen
Of almost-dogs. They spread out as they run
For meat. Under the trees their lines bisect
The rabbits’ shorter curves. Life joins life:
Gray fur, brown fur, metallic scent of blood.
Prudence murmured, “Beautiful.”
Mr. Parminter commented. “Yes, well, I used to walk in the woods
where I lived and would see the tracks but never the animals.”
Gerry turned a page. The poem was called “This Cold Winter.”
Why do I think such desperate thoughts in winter,
Such separate thoughts. I lie in the coffin
My bed, unattached to any thing, any one.
No one, no thing can undo my dread.
No cup or touch can attenuate this cold whimper,
This cold winter.
“Brrr,” said Gerry.
“Donne. I’d been reading Donne,” he explained.
Gerry read the book’s title. “Elegies in Elysian Fields. Could you explain that to me?”
“Certainly. Elysium was the place the dead passed through before entering the other world, also known as the Islands of the Blessed or the Fortunate Isles.”
Prudence asked, “Where my mother is?”
“‘Where life is easiest for men. No snow is there, nor heavy storm, nor ever rain, but ever does Ocean send up blasts of the shrill-blowing West Wind that they may give cooling to men.’ Homer, from his Odyssey.”
Gerry had a quizzical look on her face. “But it doesn’t sound like, I mean, in the poems, that you were in Elysian Fields, Mr. Parminter.”
“Elegies, Gerry,” Prudence answered.
“Oh. Right. Here’s one. It’s called ‘#6 Mermaid Road.’”
When every taboo great or small is broke,
And, landed on the sun, we sweat to plant
Our last gardens; when moon-pull that pressed sweet
Flesh to flesh, passed over each fretted face,
Aroused, soothed, each one of owned, kept demons,
Has lost its home — blasted, mined, and smelted
Free of any precious ore — and we count
The change left after our dubious purchase;
We will fill with feather, red bark, shell, bone,
The one handmade bowl, lip across from lip,
And perch it in some temporary space,
Construct imaginary rafts of light
To bring us to an archipelago
Of the heart — of still water over stone.
“Huh.” Mr. Parminter reflected when she’d finished. “That one, believe it or not, was a love poem.”
“I can see that,” commented Prudence, “especially at the end. It’s intimate after all that planetary stuff.”
“I’m going to get the Prosecco,” said Gerry. “Us visual types don’t really get poetry, eh, Graymalkin?” She went into the kitchen and returned with the chilled bottle and three fresh glasses. After the cork had popped, and they were ready to toast, Mr. Parminter made a speech.
“I would like to say that this year was a very mixed year. We lost Maggie — and Geoff — but we gained Gerry, and I gained Graymalkin here.” The cat lazily blinked, sitting erect in front of the flickering gas flames. “Something else,” the old man added. “I would officially request that both of you address me as Blaise.” His voice trembled. “There’s no one else left so to do.”
Gerry said, “To Maggie,” and they sipped.
“To Geoff Petherbridge,” Prudence said. They sipped again.
“To Gerry’s arrival.” Mr. Parminter raised his glass at her.
“To Graymalkin. To the love of a cat,” Gerry suggested, thinking of Marigold.
“And to Blaise,” both women chimed.
Prudence twinkled as she added, “Easily the most handsome man in the room.”
Blaise laughed. “And I used to be, you know. I used to be.”
“Blaise.” Gerry had remembered something. “What did you mean when you called New Year’s Eve Silvester? Isn’t Silvester a name?”
“Yes. It’s most interesting. Pope St. Sylvester lived in the fourth century. He slew a dragon with a prayer and what is described as a thread on its mouth. December thirty-first is his burial day and his feast day. In some parts of Europe this day is known as Silvester.” He leaned forward anxiously. “I hope I haven’t upset you talking about burial.” When Gerry looked blank, he continued. “You know: those bones you were telling me you found in your shed.”
And the other, more ghastly find of the recent hours rose up before Gerry and Prudence. “You know, Blaise,” Gerry said, rising to her feet, “it has been a terrifically long day. I’m awfully tired. But I’m going to phone you tomorrow and fill you in with more details of the bones. We’ll talk about it then.” And with sincere wishes for a happy New Year, they took their leave.
They walked arm in arm. “I just couldn’t tell him tonight.”
“I should hope not. It might shock him.”
“He may have known her. He may have taught her.”
“No. Remember I told you she didn’t grow up here?”
“So you did. Poor woman. Poor woman.”
Silently, they let themselves in to the house and wearily went to their beds.
12
Next morning Gerry drove Prudence to collect some of her clothes from her neighbours’ house. It just seemed easier if Gerry drove. Both women were exhausted. “The worst part,” Prudence said, glumly looking at her house, swathed in tarps, “is that everyone is on holiday until at least this Monday, and even then, some workmen are away on vacation. God knows when I’ll be able to get back in.”
“You’re welcome at The Maples for as long as you need. Maybe you should take that trip to St. Lucia while your house is being repaired.”
Prudence nodded. “That’s an idea. Though I wonder if the police will let me leave the country now we’ve found this new body.”
Gerry was aghast. “I never thought of that. Can we really be suspects?”
“I touched her.”
“Well, I cleaned up the broken wine bottles and washed the floor. They might — no, Doug cleaned up the glass. Oh, now he’s involved, too! What a terrible start to the year!”
“When we get back, call Mr. — call Blaise and break it to him gently. Word can’t have gotten out yet. Everyone is sleeping in this morning.”
Gerry smiled for the first time that morning. “Charlie and Rita weren’t asleep. I could hear them from outside.”
Prudence sighed and said nothing.
They planned to spend a quiet day.
The police phoned and asked some more questions: the same ones they’d asked the day before but in different words. Prudence explained that The Maples was only her temporary residence and why. Gerry explained again how she and Doug Shapland had checked the house late at night after the Parsleys’ party, but hadn’t looked at the part of the basement where the sump pit was located.
Prudence got back on the phone to ask if she could go on vacation and was told, no, they’d rather she didn’t.
Then Doug called, expressing his surprise at receiving a phone call from the police that morning and being told to come to the station for a talk that afternoon. Then Gerry phoned Blaise and told him why she’d been so upset the previous evening.
Then they had lunch.
Gerry bit into her tuna sandwich. “Blaise says today is the Feast of Fools and that Christmas gets crazy from now on. People used to switch their roles. If you want to be the boss, I’ll be the sassy housekeeper for a while.”
“No, that’s okay. I have some Christmas sass saved up that I need to get out.”
“Prudence, I don’t really know what to do. None of this makes any sense. Why was Betty Parsley in Cathy’s basement? How did she get in? Who was with her? And who —” here Gerry’s voice grew hushed — “who killed her?”
“I don’t feel so sassy anymore,” Prudence said soberly.
“Me neither. ‘Eight somethings something’ suddenly seems way too frivolous.” She finished her sandwich and pushed the plate away. “I know. Let’s just think about our bones in the shed — who that was. Want to read some letters?”
Prudence shrugged. “Might as well.” She followed Gerry upstairs to her little office and watched as she shifted some boxes about.
“These I’ve been through. So cute. Gramma and Grampa Coneybear’s love letters from before they were married. They had nicknames for each other. These are bills. Okay, this box contains deeds. I’ve been through it but don’t know where the properties are, exactly.” She handed the box to Prudence. “One for you and one for me. Let’s go back down by the fire.”
Prudence sat at the table and unpacked her box. Gerry moved the banana box and sat on the rug with hers. They worked in silence for a moment, sorting.
“Whatcha got, Prudence?” Gerry asked absently.
“Deeds, like you said. Bills of sale for land. Someone was busy buying property in the mid-nineteenth century.”
Gerry got up and extracted the family tree from the papers on the table. “So that would have been —” She scanned the generations. “These Catfords don’t go back far enough. Here are some Parsleys at the right time. A Muxworthy — Charles — no, he was born in 1840. He’d be a bit young to be wheeling and dealing. So, who? Ah.” Her finger came to rest on one name that stood alone. No parents, no siblings. “Him again. John Coneybear,” she murmured.
“One of the founders of Lovering,” Prudence informed her.
Gerry’s finger slid across the page. “Married to Sybil Muxworthy, Prudence. Remember the reaction from Mrs. Smith to those two names?”
“Through Mrs. Smith,” Prudence patiently reiterated. “It’s not her reaction. It’s the spirit’s.”
“Yes, yes.” Gerry was scanning documents. “So you sort these according to time frame and especially pay attention to the ones with Coneybear or Muxworthy on them.” She returned to the rug. “I’ve got letters to read.”
For a while there were just the sounds of the crackling fire, purring cats and paper being unfolded. Gerry, being the hostess, plugged in the kettle and made them each a coffee. She noticed Prudence was making notes on a separate piece of paper. She finished her letters and moodily stared into the fire, stroking the kittens as she sipped her drink.
The Cat Vanishes Page 11