Northanger Abbey

by Val McDermid

  Henry glanced at his watch. ‘I’m fine for time, thank you. My con isn’t till noon and I’ve gone through all the papers.’

  ‘Are you leaving?’ Cat asked, dismayed.

  ‘Afraid so. I have to go into chambers in Edinburgh for a meeting with a client. Then for the rest of the week I’ve got a case in Glasgow that’s been moved up the docket.’

  ‘Will you be using Woodston when you’re on your feet in Glasgow?’ the General asked.

  ‘I thought so. It makes for a long day if I commute from here or from Edinburgh.’

  The General looked across at Cat. ‘We have a cottage on the banks of Loch Lomond, just outside Glasgow. Just a modest little place with four or five bedrooms, but we like it. And Henry finds it convenient to stay there when he has a case before the courts in Glasgow.’

  ‘It’s more appealing than my flat in Edinburgh.’

  The General shuddered. ‘Indeed. Your arrival at the bar cannot come soon enough so you can find somewhere more appropriate for a Tilney to lodge than that hovel on the Lawnmarket. The last time I visited, you didn’t even have proper china.’

  ‘Father, everybody has mugs these days. It’s not a sign of debauchery and disrepute to drink tea from a mug.’ Henry’s smile had the uncertainty of a man who is not sure whether he’s tweaking the tail of a cat or a tiger.

  The General harrumphed. ‘I’m sure Catherine has higher standards. Observe,’ he said, raising an empty porcelain cup to the light. ‘You see, Catherine, how the light makes this fine china seem to glow? You pour tea into a cup like this and the very liquid itself brightens. I freely admit, I’m something of a perfectionist when it comes to the vessel I choose to drink my tea from. It must be as fine as possible, yet strong and heat-retaining. It’s an endless quest, to find the perfect cup.’ He lowered the cup and gazed reverently at it.

  Deciding this was quite the maddest conversation she’d ever had, Cat thought it wisest to humour him. ‘That must have made life hard for you when you were in the army.’

  He stiffened. ‘I suppose it must seem trivial, when all around me men were sacrificing their lives.’

  ‘No, that’s not what I meant,’ Cat said desperately.

  ‘But you’re right. I suppose that, having endured those hardships, I decided that in future I would have only the best in the areas that matter to me. And so I seek out the finest porcelain money can buy. I imagine you are accustomed to beautiful things when you dine with the Allens?’

  ‘They don’t go in for porcelain; they have hand-painted Italian earthenware. It’s very pretty but it’s quite heavy. Not delicate like your beautiful china.’

  He gave her an indulgent smile. ‘Alas, not everyone is blessed with an aesthetic instinct.’ He turned abruptly to Henry and said, ‘I really think it’s time you were away.’

  Henry dipped his head in resignation and stood up. ‘I’ll be gone three days at the very most. See you soon, Cat.’

  And he was gone, leaving her to the conversational delights of the General. ‘It’s a lovely little cottage, Woodston,’ he said. ‘When I bought it, the grounds were a wilderness, but I found a local chap who’s good with vegetables and now we have a delightful little walled kitchen garden. Whenever we’re going over there, I call him and he stocks the larder with game and fish, so we are virtually self-sufficient. In fact it would be a perfectly charming home for Henry if he chose not to work at the bar, and I can assure you there’s no need for him to have a job in order to live. Now, you might think it odd that in a family with as much profitable land as ours, I should send my sons out to work. But I think it is important for a young man to have some employment. It’s not about the money, it’s about gaining experience of the world. Money only matters insofar as it allows me to promote the happiness of my children. But there is more than one way to do that. And so even Freddie, who will inherit substantial property, is out in the world earning a living among ordinary men.’

  It was an unanswerable argument. But Cat saw in it an opportunity. ‘And Ellie too? Girls need careers as well. I’m thinking of training as a nanny. Not least because it’s the only way to have money of my own that I can be proud of earning. Surely Ellie should go out into the world like her brothers? I know she’d love to go to art college.’

  A flash of annoyance lit the General’s face. ‘I’m not sure I see the point of that. She has some money of her own, I give her an allowance. She will settle down in due course with a suitable young man. You don’t need training for that.’

  Cat flourished what she thought was a convincing argument. ‘But she should gain experience of the world, surely? So that she doesn’t settle for the wrong bloke because she doesn’t know any better?’

  ‘Surely that is the job of a father? To make sure the man his daughter marries is up to the mark?’

  Cat giggled. ‘That’s all very well, General. But you might not have the same taste in men as your daughter.’

  His eyebrows rose alarmingly and for a moment she thought she had gone too far. But he gave a strained laugh and poured himself a fresh cup of tea. ‘I think you said yesterday that you wanted to see over the house and the grounds?’

  ‘Yes, I’d love that. Ellie said we could do that this morning.’

  ‘I shall take charge of the expedition myself,’ he said grandly. Her heart sank but she smiled bravely. He glanced out of the window, where thin streaks of cloud were spreading across the sky, erasing the earlier brightness. ‘The forecast is for it to be hot and sunny this afternoon, so I propose we take advantage of the cooler air and go outside now, this morning, before the sun beats down and makes walking uncomfortable.’

  This seemed to Cat, who loved to be outside in sunny weather, to be the opposite of good sense. Unless of course one was a vampire. But vampire or not, there would be no changing the General’s mind once he was set upon something. ‘Lovely,’ she said.

  ‘Excellent,’ he said, rising from the table and marching to the door. ‘I’ll have Mrs Calman tell Eleanor to present herself at once.’

  Cat sighed and helped herself to more toast. She’d been looking forward to a long, gossipy morning with Ellie, perhaps ending with a trip up the hill to the Calmans’ house, where they could sit on the windowsill and catch up with Facebook and Twitter. Or a walk with Henry where he could instruct her in the finer points of what she was looking at. Instead, there would doubtless be another one of the General’s bizarre lectures.

  Just then, Ellie burst into the room, still tucking her blouse into her jeans. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said. ‘That bloody storm kept me awake half the night, then when I finally got off, I slept like the dead.’ She caught sight of the used cup and dirty crockery in her brother’s place. ‘Have I missed Henry?’

  ‘He’s gone to Edinburgh. Then he’s got a case in Glasgow,’ Cat said. ‘He’s going to stay at Woodston.’

  ‘Drat. Oh well, I’ll just have to phone him and get him to invite us over for dinner. You’ll love it, it has the most fabulous views over Loch Lomond. By yon bonnie banks, and all that.’ She grabbed a banana and gobbled it quickly. ‘Ten minutes, he wants us in the hall in ten minutes. If you need a jacket or anything, best run now and get it.’

  Cat swallowed the final piece of toast and headed upstairs to clean her teeth and put on some more substantial shoes. She had no great expectations of the morning, but it would surely be far less pleasant if it started with a scolding for being late.

  The three of them met in the hall and the General marched them off at a brisk pace from the front door. Cat formed an impression of paths intelligently laid out, weaving between well-tended shrubberies and surprising secret gardens tucked round corners. After about ten minutes of gentle climbing on a path of fine pink gravel, the General stopped and ordered them to turn round.

  Cat gasped. From their vantage point, the abbey was visible in all its grandeur. She didn’t need any guide, not even Henry, to explain its splendour to her. The whole building enclosed a large central courtya
rd she hadn’t realised existed. Two sides of the quadrangle were clearly visible, their flying buttresses, lancet windows and circular towers with pointed roofs plugging directly into her fantasies of the sort of place the Hebridean Harpies would happily haunt. A stand of Scotch pines and rhododendrons obscured the other two sides, though the gentle breeze revealed occasional glimpses of red sandstone that hinted at what lay beyond. A couple of matching turrets could just be discerned. From one, the blue-and-white Scottish Saltire waved limp in the faint air. Nothing she had ever seen spoke to her deepest imaginings like this. The Morlands had visited all the local stately homes their National Trust membership granted them access to, but none had stirred her like Northanger Abbey.

  ‘It’s gorgeous,’ she exclaimed. ‘How lucky you are to live here. Oh, it’s just the most glorious house I’ve ever clapped eyes on.’

  The General’s expression was smug. ‘We think so. Like all the Borders abbeys, it was built to the glory of God, but I do believe we’ve managed to improve on that.’

  ‘The monks didn’t have plumbing,’ Ellie said. ‘Come on, I want to show you the kitchen garden. I love it because every time you walk in, something has changed. Something has budded or ripened or been picked.’ She led the way over the lip of the rise to reveal a vast walled garden.

  ‘There’s enough stone in that wall to build half a dozen houses,’ the General said, opening a door and ushering them inside.

  The area under cultivation stretched so far Cat could barely discern the far wall. It was bigger than the vicarage garden, the churchyard and the Silver Jubilee field all rolled into one. There were vegetable beds, soft fruit canes, and fruit trees espaliered to the walls. A long line of glass houses stretched down the middle of the garden, triffid-like leaves visible wherever she looked. There must be enough produce here to feed an entire village, Cat thought.

  ‘I love a garden,’ the General said.

  ‘This is a plantation, not a garden,’ Cat said. ‘Wow.’

  ‘It’s not been the best of summers,’ the General said. ‘We’ve scarcely had fifty pineapples. You don’t have gardens like this down in Dorset? You surprise me. I’d have thought the Allens would have led the way in this sort of thing.’

  ‘They’ve only got one greenhouse, and Susie mostly uses that to overwinter her plants. I don’t think they’re very interested in gardening. My dad’s got an allotment, though. He keeps us going in potatoes and onions all through the winter.’

  ‘How lovely,’ he said with a look of happy contempt.

  The first blush of amazement soon wore off, as the General conducted them through every nook and cranny of the garden. When he paused for breath, Ellie added her occasional comments, which had the benefit of brevity. At length, another door in the wall came into sight. The General was droning on about wanting to check the gazebo but Cat edged towards the door. Ellie caught her eye and said, ‘Let’s go back down the lime-tree walk.’

  The General flinched as if she’d flicked grit in his eye. ‘Why do you want to go that way? The ground’s sticky with the gum that drips from the leaves, and it’ll be damp after the storm.’

  ‘It’s fine, Father. You go and check on the gazebo and I’ll take Cat back to the house.’

  He glowered. ‘I don’t know why anyone would want to go down that miserable avenue. I should have the lot of them chopped down and replaced with something more suitable. Cypress or plane trees.’

  Ellie looked suddenly furious. ‘Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.’

  It was the first time Cat had ever heard her friend stand up to the General and for a moment she was rooted to the spot as Ellie flung the door open and practically ran out of the garden. Then she gave him an uncertain smile and chased after her friend.

  She caught up with her a few yards ahead. Ellie had stopped and was breathing in deep gulps out of all proportion to the distance she’d run. Cat put her arm round her friend’s heaving shoulders, looking back in time to catch the General watching them before he closed the door. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s so harsh sometimes,’ Ellie managed to get out. She took one final gulp and somehow recovered herself. ‘This was my mother’s favourite walk.’ She waved an arm that encompassed the avenue of limes, so mature they almost met in the middle. ‘I used to wonder why she chose so gloomy a part of the garden, but she said it always made her feel like a character in a Jane Austen novel. There’s a bench down there where we’d sit and she’d recite that Coleridge poem. Do you know it? “Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, this lime-tree bower my prison!” It was our little private joke when my father went off to do something adventurous with the boys.’

  It struck Cat as peculiar that the General was so hostile towards a place his late wife had loved so much. So hostile that he wanted to destroy it. ‘Anywhere that was so dear to her must bring you closer to her,’ she said.

  Ellie sighed as they set off down the avenue. ‘It does. I sometimes think I miss her more now than I did when she died. It’s like I don’t have anybody to show me how to be a woman, if that makes sense? I’ve got friends my own age—’ She gave Cat’s arm a squeeze. ‘But it’s not the same as having a mother to turn to. She was always here for me. We never ran out of things to talk about. We would have been proper companions as I grew older. Instead, I’m stuck here on my own a lot these days.’

  ‘What was she like? I mean, to look at? I haven’t seen any family photos around the place.’

  ‘She was beautiful. I don’t take after her. Father put all the family photos away after she died. He couldn’t bear to be reminded of her.’

  Cat couldn’t understand that. Surely if you loved someone, you’d want to remember what they looked like? You’d want to go to the places they loved to remind yourself of them, wouldn’t you? If he didn’t love her garden refuge, how could he have loved her? The look on his face just then had been so grim – not the pained face of a lover deprived of the object of his affections. ‘I suppose he has pictures of her in his room?’

  Ellie shook her head. ‘She sat for her portrait the year before she died. It was supposed to be hung in the drawing room but Father said it wasn’t good enough. After she died, I found it wrapped up in sacking in the junk attic and I hung it in my bedroom. I love it and so does Henry. I’ll show you, if you like.’

  The rejected portrait was, in Cat’s eyes, another proof of the General’s disdain for his wife. And what would a vampire do to a wife he no longer loved? Would a disease of the blood be the perfect cover? Was she a vampire too? And could one vampire kill another from their family group? Was that allowed? And if not, where was Mrs Tilney now?

  Cat had shifted from being uncomfortable and uneasy with the General to positively disliking him. How could he have taken against the woman that Ellie found so completely lovable? She’d read about people like that, people with hearts of stone and no compassion for others. Mr Allen used to tease her when she spoke of such things, saying they were exaggerated. But now she knew better than he.

  Cat had just settled this point in her mind when the end of the lime-tree walk brought them face-to-face with the General. She wanted to show her dislike, but her mother’s voice lectured her on the obligations of a guest. So she swallowed her disdain and responded in monosyllables. His response was unexpected. ‘I think we’ve given poor Catherine too much to take in at once,’ he said, apparently solicitous. ‘You girls should have a rest before lunch. And afterwards I’ll show you round the abbey, Catherine.’

  ‘There’s no need for you to give up your time,’ she said. ‘I know you’ve got more important things to do than give me a guided tour. Ellie can show me around, and if there’s anything she can’t tell me about, I can always ask you later.’

  But he was insistent. After a light lunch, he would gladly give up his time to share his home with her. It was almost as if he was afraid to let anyone else show her round the abbey. She couldn’t help wondering whether he had something he
desperately wanted to hide.

  24

  Back at the abbey, Cat went upstairs to change her shoes, followed by Ellie, who seemed to have overcome her reluctance to enter the guest room. The pair were deep in conversation but Ellie stopped in mid-sentence, staring at the bed. ‘Where did you get that?’ she demanded, pointing at the quilt.

  Cat felt a blush rise up her throat. ‘I was cold during the storm. I thought there might be blankets in that.’ She pointed at the black japanned chest. ‘I opened it and I found the quilt. Did I do something wrong?’

  Ellie twisted her hand in her hair. ‘That was the last quilt my mother made. I haven’t seen it for years. I didn’t know it was in here. Mrs Calman must have put it in the chest.’ She drew in a ragged breath.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, you didn’t do anything wrong.’ Ellie managed a wan smile. ‘I’m happy to see it being used. So many things of my mother’s were put away after she died. It’s good to see that again. I can remember her working on it.’

  Again, Cat felt anger rising against the man who had apparently turned so far against his wife that he didn’t want her children to have any talismans to keep her memory fresh. If he could be so cruel to his children, how cruel had he been to his wife? ‘Why don’t you take it back to your room?’ she said. ‘Then it would be a constant reminder.’

  Ellie’s face lit up, then doubt chased the delight away. ‘But what if you’re cold in the night again?’

  ‘I’ll ask Mrs Calman for an extra blanket. I’m sure she’s got whole bales of them tucked away somewhere.’

  Ellie threw her arms round Cat and kissed her cheek. ‘You’re the best, Cat. I can’t believe this has been right under my nose all the time.’

  It would have been the perfect opportunity for Cat to ask about the other item that had been right under her nose, but something made her hold back. It was the only piece of evidence she had that all was not as it seemed with the Tilneys, and she’d read enough books and seen enough films to know she shouldn’t relinquish it without good reason.