“You’re not a married lady then?”
“Er . . . no. No.” She was going to follow it up with a “not really” but checked herself in time. She’d removed her wedding-ring before the meeting. That way, she’d no need to explain herself. A single woman in her thirties evoked pity rather than interest.
The disclosure pleased Mr Hilditch. “Good . . . very good,” he said, showing a row of perfect teeth. “Ladies of your standing make excellent tenants. Her Grace will be very pleased that you’re a spinster.”
Spinster! She could barely suppress a grin. Spinster. It was such an old-fashioned word. Last time she’d seen it written down was on her wedding day, when she and Harry had been asked to sign the official form.
She’d wondered at the time if the word had not been some kind of omen. A warning of things to come. That she was entering into a contract whose roots lay in medieval times, when the husband was lord and master. With a stroke of the pen the spinster had become a chattel.
For all his bulk, the landlord was surprisingly light on his feet. He bounced about on his balletic toes, alluding to the finer points of his residence with a flourishing hand. “Carpet: Cyril Lord, very hard-wearing. Bed, curtains: brand new. Walls painted in vinyl satin, so won’t stain. And if it does, easily removed with soapy water and cloth.”
There was an odour, however. It was one of the first things she’d noticed about the house. Just a note of something unpleasant filtering through the reek of fresh paint and varnish. He saw her wrinkle her nose.
“Drains I’m afraid. Been on to the authorities to come and clear them, but you know what they’re like. I’ll try again.” He adjusted his frameless spectacles, unblinking blue eyes regarding her. “Do you think that will be a problem for you?”
“Oh, no . . . no, not at all. It’s so lovely. Really lovely!”
“Excellent. You can always open the windows a little. But don’t forget to shut them on leaving the house. That’s assuming you wish to rent the place of course. That’s not to say the neighbourhood isn’t safe . . . but better safe than sorry. You can’t be too careful these days.”
He led her upstairs. She followed in the waft of his pungent cologne.
On the landing she balked. She stood and stared at an unusual object affixed to the wall. It was a flat, box-like structure containing six butterflies pinned on a black satin ground.
“My lovelies. What do you think?”
Suffocated to death, then trapped for ever behind glass. How could he take pleasure in the destruction of such beauty?
“Y-Yes . . . they’re lovely,” she managed to say.
“Cynthia cardui and Argynnis paphia.” He tapped the glass lightly and a sovereign ring glinted on his pinkie. “Painted lady and silver-washed fritillary to you. One of my little hobbies: collecting.”
He opened the door to the box-room and she got a strong whiff of scent. When she stepped inside she detected another odour underneath it – a not very pleasant one – that several air fresheners and a bowl of potpourri were attempting to mask.
“You won’t really be using this one,” he said a little too quickly. “Except for storage, as you can see.” He pointed to a vacuum cleaner and some brushes. “That’s why I didn’t really bother much with it.”
The room was indeed small with a little sink in one corner. Taking up most of the space was an old trunk.
“The trunk belonged to a great-aunt of mine . . . just some of her effects and family albums. My mother hates clutter so I put it there out of harm’s way. You don’t mind, do you?”
“No, not at all.”
She drew back suddenly at the sight of an animal on the window-sill. Long body, glossy coat the colour of cinnamon, snub nose and beady eyes. It looked so startlingly real.
“Are you a taxi . . . er . . . a taxi—?”
“Taxidermist . . . No, but my father was.” He shut the door briskly. “A hobby. Well, it comes with the territory.”
He saw her look of puzzlement.
“He was an undertaker. As was I until he passed over. Hilditch and Son, Funeral Directors . . . been the family business for generations. It’s a delightful place for the weary and disenchanted . . . death I mean, not undertaking.”
Rita-Mae was flummoxed. She’d never met anyone like Bram Hilditch. An eccentric – and an educated one, to judge by the sound of him. That fact unnerved her a little. She was at once conscious of her own rather modest education.
He chuckled to himself. “Just my little joke, Miss Ruttle. Lovely to help people through those pearly gates into the glories of the afterlife. Now I help people through the doors to their new homes, which in some ways is much more satisfying.”
He led her through to the main bedroom. Rose-strewn wallpaper, deep-blue carpet, pinewood furniture that didn’t overwhelm. A fluffy cream rug by the double bed. It was the kind of room she’d seen in women’s magazines. She couldn’t have asked for more.
“Oh! This is so lovely, Mr Hil—”
“Bram. Call me Bram . . . Very kind of you to say so, Miss Ruttle.” He gave her a beatific smile, rocked on his heels and steepled his fingers, flushing slightly. “Her Grace chooses the colour schemes. She has a very good eye. It’s my job to find the right properties . . . So much more rewarding than dealing with . . . Oh, I’ve told you that already.”
The kettle whistled, tugging her back to the present. He hadn’t even asked for references. It seemed he was only too pleased to rent her the house. Had trusted her completely after such a short meeting. She smiled at her good fortune and wondered about him now: Mr Hilditch, Bram. No, she would not be calling him Bram for a while yet, preferring the formality of Mister. She considered what he might be doing at this present moment on a Sunday morning. Would he be escorting Her Grace to church? The thought reminded her that she might just visit a church herself for appearance’s sake. Tomorrow he’d be coming to check out a dripping tap in the bathroom. Perhaps she’d offer him tea. But as she filled the teapot, something worrying caught her eye.
The catch on the window was undone.
She froze.
She secured every window before leaving the house, as Bram Hilditch had instructed.
Always.
The kitchen window especially, because it looked out on a secluded patch of grass, providing the perfect cover for intruders.
Harry’s face reared up at her like a ghoul’s on a ghost train.
Oh dear God, has he found me?
What if he’s lying in wait upstairs?
What if he never went to England? Just fooled me into thinking he had gone, to see what I would do.
Panicked, she found the flick-knife in her handbag. The flick-knife with its pearlized handle, which, out of necessity, had become her protector, bodyguard and friend.
Taking care to make no sound, she stole up the stairs.
The door to the box-room stood open. Tentatively she put her head in. Nothing unusual except for the beady eyes of the ferret regarding her.
Outside her bedroom she readied herself, placed her palm flat against the door and pushed it wide open.
There was no one in the room.
But the bed . . . there was something different about the bed.
A slight creasing of the covers. As though . . . as though . . .
Had she sat down before leaving, without being conscious of doing so? She tried to think back. She was in the habit of smoothing the cover as soon as she made the bed. It was one of her many fussy little quirks, like arranging her clothes in the closet: blouses, sweaters, skirts, dresses and coats from left to right, always in that order, always blouses first. And her shoes lined up below: casual and low-heeled on the left, formal high heels on the right. Always in that order. Always!
So how come she’d forgotten to smooth the bed-cover?
How come she’d been so careless?
Terror pulsed through her.
She got down on her knees and checked under the bed.
She crossed to t
he wardrobe, gripping the knife more tightly.
But everything was as she’d left it, clothes and shoes perfectly ranked. Mocking her.
She slumped down on the bed, relieved.
It wasn’t Harry.
Who then? Bram Hilditch? He had a key, but the contract clearly stated he could not enter the property without giving her prior notice.
Mrs Gilhooley, the next-door neighbour? Hardly. She was an elderly lady whom she’d barely spoken to since moving in. Seemed the private sort who kept to herself, which suited Rita-Mae just fine.
Back on the landing she felt more reassured. But, as she turned to go downstairs, she knocked against the landlord’s display case of butterflies.
It crashed to the floor.
In a panic she bent down to retrieve it.
Panic turned to relief. The glass was still intact.
However, the impact had dislodged one of the specimens.
Oh dear. He was coming tomorrow to fix the tap.
There was nothing else to do but prise open the back and reaffix the poor dead creature. Distasteful as that operation might be, she could not afford to have Bram Hilditch see that she’d been careless.
Carefully she turned the case over, but to her dismay saw that one side of the rear panel had also come loose. Something was protruding. Part of the mounting card?
She carried the case through to the bedroom and laid it on the bed to take a better look.
No, it didn’t look like mounting card. She tugged at it – and drew out an old brown envelope. Had the landlord used it to reinforce the case backing? But it felt as though there was something inside the envelope, and it was sealed. A colourful illustration of a Celtic cross was taking up most of the back.
She turned it over and to her astonishment saw the following words written in a neat hand.
The Truth I Could Not Tell.
Vivian-Bernadette O’meara
CHAPTER FOUR
“‘Lord Frederick Evesham entered the parlour in his breeches and morning coat, a glittering sabre at his side.’” Bram Hilditch, erstwhile undertaker and newly installed landlord, was seated in an armchair by his mother’s bed, feet resting on a velvet footstool. He was reading from In the Arms of the Viscount by Bathsheba Love St John, one of many historical romances favoured by his mother. “‘The Countess Fantasia almost swooned at the very sight of him, so dashing did he appear. He—’”
“But what’s his nose like?” Bram’s mother demanded. Octavia Hilditch, pushing the creaking door of 79, was sitting up in bed nursing a sprained wrist, the tail end of influenza and a pair of restless legs. Plumply pink with burgundy hair and a glowing complexion – sun avoidance, rigorous cleansing and expensive lotions from age twenty – she was fighting off old age with the energy and rigour of an Olympic athlete. A gin and Dubonnet – one part gin, two parts Dubonnet – every evening between 9 and 10, during what she termed “my magic hour”, was a curative for all ills in Octavia’s book, and her son’s reading to her served as a prelude to this “medicinal restorative” that rounded off the day.
“What’s his nose got to do with anything?” countered Bram, annoyed that she’d interrupted his flow.
“One can tell character from a nose. Its shape can make a prince or a devil of any man. This Evesham person didn’t have a nice one, if memory serves, which means he isn’t handsome.”
“The word ‘dashing’ implies that he is handsome, thus obviating the author’s need to belabour the point.”
“Don’t you lecture me on the intricacies of the literary narrative! The author described Lord Evesham’s nose two pages back. I’m not senile. I’ve the memory of a nutcracker bird, as you well know.” Mrs Hilditch, a retired archivist, was still as sharp as a trephine. Crosswords, bridge and Scrabble kept the old neurons firing at full throttle in spite of the passing years.
“Well, if your memory’s that good, how come you don’t remember what it said exactly?”
Octavia grimaced, her mouth a croquet hoop of pique. She resented it when her son challenged her. And he was doing it more and more these days. “It’s not that I don’t remember,” she shot back imperiously. “I simply need reminding, that’s all.”
With a sigh, Bram flipped back a couple of pages.
“Yes, here we are. ‘Lord Evesham had a face of noble bearing: long and thin with a high-born forehead, deep-set eyes and the aquiline nose of the maternal Dewsbury line.’”
“That’s it! I knew it! Aquiline, indeed! Beaky is the word. And he’s a baldy with sunken eyes to boot. I’d never trust a baldy man with sunken eyes and a beaky nose, and neither should Countess Fanny.”
“People can’t help their faces, Mother. And anyway, the countess is far more interested in his wherewithal than his nose.”
“Where with who? What are you saying?”
“Where-with-al, Mother. I said wherewithal. His money.”
“Well, there’s no need to be caustic with me. I know what it means. I can’t help it if your diction is as fickle as a foreigner’s.”
“My diction is perfectly clear.”
Increasingly, Bram was finding himself caught up in these games of verbal tennis with his mother. He put it down to his having sold off the undertaking business on his father’s demise barely a year before. A momentous decision that the matriarch had bitterly opposed, but finally assented to when Bram threatened to leave her altogether and relocate to north Cornwall, where Gregory, his favourite uncle and a keen lepidopterist, lived in a ramshackle manor near a wood of dwarf oaks. As a boy, Bram had spent many delightful summers with his eccentric uncle, who’d introduced him to the wonders of wildlife and given him a lifelong love of winged creatures and the great outdoors.
He eyed her now over his reading glasses. Saw her fumble at the bow of her bed jacket. Untie and redo it. A ploy she used when cornered. But Bram had been bullied enough by his father and was determined that his mother would not be picking up where the old man left off.
“Do you wish me to continue?”
“No.” She shook her head vehemently, setting her soufflé of burgundy hair aquiver. “That’s enough of Freddie and Fanny for now. We’re well into my magic hour, so plump up my pillows and fetch me my cocktail, please. Then you can tell me all about your day.”
Bram replaced the satin bookmark and removed his spectacles. He rose from the chair and Octavia leaned forward for the pillow-plumping protocol. He did not like being cast in the role of lackey, and believed his mother pulled rank just to show who was boss. On his father’s death, the total assets of the company had passed to her.
He’d managed to persuade her to invest in property. The career of funeral director had never been his choice. He being the elder of two sons, the job had been foisted upon him. No matter that the business had been in the Hilditch family “since time began”. Now, having recently turned 40, and feeling all the regret and ruefulness such a milestone age can bring, Bram could finally make a run for the door marked MY LIFE, with emphasis on the “My”. He had a keen interest in photography and the natural world, and was finally exploiting those interests to the fullest degree.
He’d spent enough time around dead bodies and wished to join the world of the living. Buying and letting properties was a fine arrangement, for it afforded him the time to indulge his lifelong passion at the same time as meeting new people.
He busied himself with gin and Dubonnet bottles, a permanent feature on the sideboard. Today he noted that the gin, which he’d purchased only three days before, was all but depleted. But best to keep quiet for now.
Yes, having chalked up the sale of three properties and with a couple more in the pipeline, things were going very well for Bram Hilditch. There was always the obstacle that was his younger brother Zac, of course: a “resting poet” who lived in Toronto and did something vague in the import-export trade. Usually he kept himself scarce, which was just as well. Hopefully things would remain that way.
Bram handed over the cocktail.<
br />
“Thank you, son. Now, you must tell me all about that new tenant. The spinster. What did you say her name was?”
He returned to his reading chair, and was shocked to see Her Grace throw back her head and down in one the rather healthy measure of gin and Dubonnet he’d poured.
“You’re drinking that far too quickly. It will give you heartburn.”
“Poppycock!” She held out the glass for a refill, jiggling it with impatience. “Everyone needs their little peccadilloes – most especially a woman at my time of life. If the Queen Mother can have her gin and Dubonnet whenever the mood takes her, I can jolly well have mine too. She goes nowhere without it, you know, ‘in case it is needed’. Those are her very words, not mine.”
“Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers, Mother,” he said, reluctantly refilling her glass. “And stop trying to change the subject. I bought those bottles only three days ago and they’re almost finished. Charlie Magee will think I’m the one with the drink problem.”
“Such a fine lady: Elizabeth, the Queen Mother!” Octavia rhapsodized, ignoring the rebuke. “People say I resemble her, you know, but I should think I’m much slimmer. I’m sure she disapproves of that Sarah Ferguson person . . . far too uncouth for darling Prince Andrew. You’d think he could have done better than a mouthy redhead with freckles and the hips of a Clydesdale horse. A princess should never have freckles or hips. No good will come of it you know.”
Octavia, a staunch royalist, had the Hilditch residence bedizened with royal family kitsch. The Windsor clan grinned out of plaques and plates all over the place, even in the bathrooms.
“I said, Charlie Magee will think I have the drink problem.”
“I don’t have a drink problem. You have an overactive imagination. Charlie Magee knows very well I’m still mourning the loss of dear Nathaniel.”
“Yes, but filling oneself with alcohol isn’t going to bring him back, now is it?”
For his part, Bram was not missing his father one bit. He’d been bullied relentlessly from childhood, and given nightmares as a boy by being locked in the funeral parlour with corpses if he misbehaved.
The Spinster Wife Page 3