“There’s no need to starve for thinking of all the starving millions.”
“Mealtimes are the worst.” Tosca made a valiant attempt at a laugh. “No cigarette afterward with my coffee. It is too much sometimes to bear without going crazy.”
“It must be hard,” I sympathized. “I can’t imagine having to give up something I really enjoy, such as crusty bread and butter, but I’m sure you’re right to persevere.”
“I have not the choice,” she replied soberly. “There is, you see, more. I have been a very silly girl. I lose a lot of money at the casino. I borrow to pay back from some men who are easy to make smile when I pinch their cheeks and chuck them under the chins, but who can also look very cross.”
“Oh, my God!” Rosemary gasped. “Are you talking about the mob? Can we expect the doors to be kicked in when they come after you?”
“It is not that bad!” Tosca waved an airy hand. “There’s still time before I have to pay up, and my father he has promised to give me the money if I give up smoking for three months. He says he will give me the blood test himself. So cruel!”
“There’s no point in whining!” Rosemary reached for a second slice of pizza. “Thank goodness I’ve never had time for such vices.”
“What sadness! All the interesting people get into the hot water. I see Aiden Loverly in town and he tells me he borrows from the same people as I when he gambles too high, but somehow he comes straight before they have to break his arms and legs.”
Rosemary closed her eyes. “In addition to all the running around I do for Nichola and Sheridan, there’s Laurence to be taken to his swimming lessons.”
“Who?” Was there a child I had missed?
“Her dog,” said Tosca, wilting on her chair.
“Laurence is a Portuguese Water Dog. We had him imported at great expense.”
Along with a crate of wine and a selection of goat cheeses? I wondered. “And you take him for swimming lessons?”
“Every Sunday morning after church.”
“At the public baths?” Tosca roused herself to inquire.
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
’Course not, intruded Mrs. Malloy. The furry love will do his practice at the country club.
“What does he like more, the Australian crawl or the backstroke?” Tosca’s impish grin reappeared.
“Aren’t you funny?” Rosemary pushed her plate away.
I liked the idea of the backstroke. An image formed of Laurence, inverted, going down the length of the pool, arms—or, strictly speaking, front legs—flailing at top speed as he zipped past the competition to win the heat. For surely he would already be entering local competitions, if not yet national ones. Did the hope of an Olympic medal gleam in his future? A pity cats hate water; it would have been good to have aspirations for Tobias. The thought of him made me long for home. What would Ben and the children be doing at this minute?
“Ellie, do you have a dog?” Tosca waved two fingers as if they held a cigarette, inhaling deeply the imaginary wisps of smoke.
“Our cat won’t allow it. He claims to be allergic.”
“You two!” Rosemary snorted. “I’ve never met people quite so odd!”
“My in-laws have a dog—a little one, mostly poodle.” I pictured Sweetie descending gingerly into the water, testing the temperature with her toes. The public swimming pool for her, and a pink rubber bathing cap with a strap under her furry chin. When she got going it would be the breaststroke, head above water in the accepted British style for elderly ladies, brown eyes popping, back legs forgetting what they were supposed to do. Hoping desperately for the reward of a nice cup of tea and a sitdown after staggering back up the steps.
The look Rosemary gave me suggested she had a good idea of what was going on inside my head. “Well, it’s not surprising,” she said bitingly.
“What isn’t?”
“That you’re the way you are. Your parents were an odd enough pair.” She turned to Tosca. “I remember seeing her with them, sitting outside the pub having drinks. The mother was wearing an outfit that looked as though it had come out of Lady Loverly’s attic. The most enormous hat with a veil and some sort of Edwardian garment! If that weren’t enough to knock one’s eyes out, there was the father’s attire. He was wearing a boater and a claret velvet smoking jacket. Can you picture it?”
“They were larger than life and absolutely wonderful,” I said coldly.
“I adore artsy people.” Tosca stubbed out the imaginary cigarette while I choked on my pizza.
“Wasn’t there an equally eccentric aunt?” Rosemary continued blithely. “Mutton dressed up as lamb, decked out to the nines, with far too much makeup and frightfully common to boot?”
“I don’t have any aunts, common or otherwise.” I would have thrown my pizza at her if I hadn’t already eaten it.
“Look, don’t get huffy, I was only twanging your strings.” Rosemary went on the defensive. “Not all my relatives are wonderful, or the sort to reach out if I were in difficulties.” She drew a breath. “Are we going to let this salad go to waste?”
Not if I stuffed it down her throat, I was thinking, when an inspiration occurred to me. I had determined that I couldn’t bring myself to pretend I had come to the Chaplain’s House in search of a rest after nursing an ailing family member. It would seem like tempting fate. But an imaginary aunt? That was not at all the same thing as the children, Ben, or his parents.
“Oh!” I beamed a smile at Rosemary. “You must have been thinking of”—I sought inspiration and found it in the vase of flowers on the table—“Petal. Dear … dearest Petal! She’s not a real aunt. A friend of my mother’s, and indeed quite eccentric. How interesting that you should remember her! Last year when her lumbago worsened and her eyesight started to fail … coupled with her inviting the milkman in for a chat and not letting him leave until she had sold him raffle tickets … the long and the short of it is, Ben and I decided she should move in with us and the children.”
“Does she smoke?” asked Tosca hopefully.
“No, but she does like her nip of gin—needs it, I should say, for medicinal reasons—but when she falls down I have trouble getting her up without help. And of course Ben can’t always be there. Last week my doctor talked to me, just as yours did with you, Rosemary, and said I had to get away for a break.”
“Who’s taking care of the old girl while you’re gone?”
“The vicar’s wife has agreed to keep an eye on her,” I improvised rapidly. “Petal wouldn’t stand for a nurse; she’s got this idea that they all want to put old people away in their sleep. Not that she’s really old.” It was surprising how fond I’d grown of Petal in the last couple of minutes, causing me to feel sad about limiting her remaining number of years. “She’s only in her sixties and still quite spry … sometimes for minutes on end,” I hastened to add, “especially when a man visits. We end up hiding them in the hall wardrobe.”
“You must live in a madhouse!” Rosemary expostulated as Tosca got up from her chair, staring rather wildly at us.
‘Did you hear that?”
“What?” I asked, scrambling up in my turn.
“Someone is moving about upstairs.”
“You’re imagining things,” scoffed Rosemary. “This is an old house; it creaks.”
“I tell you—” Tosca headed across the room and into the hall.
“There’s no talking to some people! This giving up smoking has driven her round the bend!” Grumbling, Rosemary joined me in pursuit, providing a bulwark when I backed up in amazement.
“It is as I said!” Tosca pointed a finger at the staircase, where a woman of similar age to our own stood halfway down. She was pretty, with honey-brown hair a shade lighter than her eyes. Maybe five-foot-four, with a figure that showed to advantage even in a shapeless navy blue sweater and blue jeans.
“Hello!” she said. “Sorry if I startled you. I arrived at one-thirty this afternoon after a long journey and on finding
a bedroom that didn’t appear to be occupied lay down and slept until a couple of minutes ago. I’m Phil Boswell, by the way.”
“Philippa?” I took a couple of unsteady steps forward, and from the surprised look in her eyes I knew my voice must have sounded odd.
“Yes, but everyone calls me Phil these days.”
“I said I heard someone come in at that time!” Tosca glowed in triumph. “You don’t smoke, by any chance?”
9
I sat on the bed, staring around the room where Dorcas had deposited my luggage. It would have taken a picky guest to find fault with my surroundings. Snowy white bedcovers contrasted crisply with teal painted walls, which color was repeated in the stripes of the slipcovered easy chair and the curtains at the two windows. A sleek ebony-stained wardrobe invited the emptying of suitcases, and a sea-green glass jug on the dressing table contained an artful arrangement of leafy twigs. If there was a chamber pot under the bed, it would remain there gathering dust. The Chaplain’s House possessed two bathrooms complete with all mod cons, one of them directly across from my door. Another amenity was the telephone, in an alcove on the landing.
On coming upstairs shortly before ten, I’d phoned home and found refuge in Ben’s voice. I apologized for not getting in touch sooner, explaining that it had been a long day and giving him the nuts and bolts of it, not focusing on any one aspect other than to stress that it had been wonderful to see Ariel.
“How’s she settling down?” he’d asked.
“She’s making friends,” I reassured him.
“Not being treated as a curiosity on account of her family winning the lottery?”
“If so, she didn’t mention it. But I doubt that’s a problem.” I stared up at the large round plastic clock on the wall above the telephone table; it didn’t go with the rest of the house. “Most of the girls at St. Roberta’s come from money. One of the women staying at the Chaplain’s House—she was a couple of years behind me—is connected to foreign royalty, and another lives in considerable style, from the sound of it.” Before I could bring up the addition of Philippa Boswell, I heard the children clamoring to speak to me. Ben allotted them each two minutes before telling them it was time to scarper upstairs. Knowing he would want to see this accomplished without too much bouncing on the beds, I said a quick good night.
Now, as I hung a few items of clothing in the hospitable-looking wardrobe and put others away in the chest of drawers, I decided there wouldn’t have been much to say about Philippa, other than my surprise—too limp a word, make that shock—at seeing her standing on the stairs. She had made a pleasant addition to our group, cheerfully eating cold pizza and a good deal of the salad, but she provided very little information about her life other than to say when pressed hard by Rosemary that she was unmarried and had never stuck with any job very long. Something new always seemed to beckon. Most recently she’d been a veterinary assistant. She was fond of animals, particularly cats. Being presently at loose ends, she’d decided the Chaplain’s House would be an ideal place for a period of contemplation.
“How did you hear about it?” Rosemary had demanded, with all the rudeness at her command.
“From Ms. Chips. We’ve corresponded off and on over the years, and she is so happy about fixing up this place and offering it as a temporary refuge.” Philippa was even more attractive than in her schooldays and seemed equally nice.
When Rosemary said it was a shame she wasn’t more settled, Tosca entered the fray.
“I do not see what is wrong in not wanting to be chained to an office chair or the kitchen sink.”
To stave off an ensuing squabble, I brought up the missing Loverly Cup and how Mrs. Battle must be champing at the bit to see it returned.
Now, having finished my unpacking, I stowed my suitcase and overnight bag on the wardrobe floor, drew the curtains, got undressed, and stepped into my thin cotton wrap. Its pink print did no justice to the tasteful ambience of the room. Telling myself I looked like someone’s invalid aunt, I gathered up what was needed by way of soap and lotion and headed across the hall.
While soaking in the claw-foot bath I thought about Petal, whom I had invented so convincingly she was beginning to seem real. More real, in a way, than Philippa, whom I had trouble accepting as being truly here, rather than an image conjured up by my overwrought conscience. A question loomed as I toweled myself. Should I tell her that I knew she had not left the San to meet Brian Roberts on that fateful Friday? Or would I be easing my guilt at the expense of her current peace of mind? It was one thing to tell myself that fate had brought her here for a purpose, but wasn’t it arrogant to assume that I was the cosmic force?
My musings were interrupted by the telephone ringing in its alcove. Probably Gerald phoning up Rosemary or one of Tosca’s friends out partying and indifferent to the concept that less sophisticated people turn in earlier. I took my time wiping down the bath and leaving everything neat before returning to my room. Plenty of time for whoever had received the call to conclude a conversation and hang up. Equally likely was the possibility of a phone downstairs, although Rosemary had only mentioned the one up here.
My nightdress was no more glamorous than the pink wrap, there having seemed no point in bringing anything frilly, but I was glad to pull it over my head and get into bed, leaving the table-side lamp on for the moment. I thought about reading the book I had brought with me but wasn’t all that eager to read someone else’s adventures when there was so much to sort out in my own life. For the moment, I stared at the teal and ruby feathers of the painted birds on the breakfast set on the bedside table. Did they ever yearn to fly away and get lost in some remote jungle?
This brought me back to what Rosemary had said about my parents. She was a difficult woman but somehow pathetic, with her boasting about Gerald and the children and, let him not be forgotten, Laurence the aquatic dog. I could see him in a pair of swimming trunks—red ones with little brown bones on the fabric—poised on the diving board, paws above his head, before executing a triple back somersault to the admiration of all who witnessed it. Was I already dreaming? Probably still awake since I was aware that the mattress was comfy and the pillow plump; but I could feel a yawn stretching my face and decided it might be well to turn off the lamp. I was wondering fuzzily if that clock above the telephone table had been hung there to cover an unsightly crack in the wall when I heard a tapping at one of the windows.
Sitting up with a back-snapping thrust, I stared at the window to my left. There it came again, timid still but more imperative. A loose drainpipe, I told myself sensibly. The Gray Nun wouldn’t have tapped; she would have materialized, unless—I got reluctantly to my feet—she was feeling tired or poorly and therefore not up to passing through walls or windows. Who was I to assume that ghosts didn’t have their off days? Telling myself I would make more sense if I were fully asleep, I drew back the curtains, not seriously expecting to see anything. Silly optimistic me! I beheld a face looking back at me.
“Hold on!” I stifled my alarm in order to wrestle with the latch and shove up the sash. It was impossible to move in anything other than slow motion. My hands shook and I was in terror of my bedroom door being flung open. But finally my visitor climbed over the sill, to survey me with a diabolical smile.
“Hello, Ellie!” said Ariel, as if we were meeting at the breakfast table and she would next ask me to pass the cornflakes.
“Whatever are you doing here?” I dragged the curtains shut without bothering to close the window. She wouldn’t be staying long if I had anything to say about it!
“I couldn’t sleep; I was dying to talk to you.” She sat down on the bed and patted it invitingly for me to join her, a gesture I ignored.
“You look like a cat burglar in those dark jeans and sweater.”
“I don’t have a balaclava or I’d have put that on too,” she replied.
“Did you arrive by ladder?” I demanded, forgetting to keep my voice low. Hopefully the rest of the house wa
s asleep, but it would be foolish to count on it.
Ariel giggled happily. “Oh, I suppose there’s one in Mr. Mossop’s shed, but I didn’t bother to look. I came up the drainpipe. Don’t look so panicked! I was in no danger of falling. The Virginia creeper is really tough; it gave me a great handhold.”
“I don’t believe this! And do lower your voice!”
“What I find hard to believe”—she rested her coronet of braids on the pillow—“is that before I came to St. Roberta’s I couldn’t even climb a rope all the way up. Miss Critchley was so sweet and encouraging, saying it was just one tiny pull at a time. I’ll never be able to thank her enough for teaching me.”
“I’ll have a few words of my own for her!”
“Please, Ellie, don’t be cross. I had the most frightful scare on the way here.” Ariel pressed a hand to her forehead in appropriate damsel-in-distress fashion. “I suppose it could have been my imagination, but I’m sure I saw the Gray Nun gliding into the bushes by Mr. Mossop’s garden shed.”
“How extremely distressing,” I said unsympathetically. “What if one of the girls in your dorm wakes up to find you missing and raises the alarm?”
“They won’t; they all sleep like logs. But just in case, I paved the way by mentioning casually that when I was at home I had a problem with sleepwalking and was surprised that it hadn’t happened once since I came to St. Roberta’s.”
“And they should do nothing if they woke up to find you gone?”
“Well, I explained that I could die of shock if pounced upon and dragged back, so it was enormously safer for me to return under my own steam.”
“What if a member of the staff should see you out and about?”
Goodbye, Ms. Chips Page 13