A Good Heart is Hard to Find

by Trisha Ashley

Rosetta came back out looking worried. ‘She’s gone upstairs with Eddie – she said he had a lovely aura.’

  ‘They all say that,’ I commented.

  ‘Dante, she’ll have to stay now: I can’t put her out. Perhaps she’ll be too unwell to do or say anything particularly awful?’

  ‘I doubt it, these attacks have never stopped her before. Rosetta, this is her new husband.’

  ‘Reg Bangs.’

  ‘Does he?’ I said without thinking.

  Dante gave me an evil look. ‘You’ll have to excuse the hired help.’

  ‘Ha! ha!’ laughed Reg. ‘I get that one all the time! But my Louie, she likes to be called Madame Duval for professional reasons. I was Rupert Swayle myself when I was on the stage, but you can call me Reg. Now don’t you worry,’ he said to Dante and Rosetta, ‘I’ll keep Louie in line.’

  ‘I don’t see what she hopes to gain by coming here and hounding me like this,’ Dante said. ‘I let her hold her damn seances after Emma died because I’d promised to do it and I wasn’t going back on my word, but I’m certainly not having any of that here.’

  ‘I’ll tell her.’

  ‘Tell her I’ll put her out, heart attack or no heart attack, if she tries!’ he said harshly.

  Eddie appeared, looking slightly puzzled. ‘Louie wants her stuff,’ he said. ‘This it?’ He effortlessly hoisted up two large suitcases and went back in, followed by Reg carrying an assortment of smaller bags.

  ‘Don’t look now, but here comes what looks like the Ghost Grabbers,’ I said as another taxi drove up and disgorged two men of that incalculable age between greying and dust, and a slender white-haired woman wearing a gold-encrusted wedding sari in a shrieking shade of pink.

  ‘Spectrology Group, and I’m beginning to seriously doubt that this B&B thing was a good idea,’ Dante said. ‘Rosetta, if you need me for anything – desperately – I’ll be in the west wing! I’ll see you later,’ he added to me, before retreating.

  ‘Yes, headmaster!’ I called after him, though I wasn’t sure he heard. Demon headmaster would have been more appropriate.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Rosetta sighed, looking after his retreating back.

  So did I, but not in a sisterly manner: it was well worth looking at in those trousers.

  ‘I hope … well, maybe this ghost-hunting theme wasn’t such a good idea after all? Why do all our guests look such total cranks? And I wouldn’t have had Mrs – Madame – Duval here if I’d known, because she’s been haunting poor Dante and it really wasn’t his fault at all,’ she said earnestly. ‘I mean, Emma had an affair with another man when he was away on an assignment, and she only went back when he dumped her! The reconciliation and the baby were entirely her idea.’

  ‘Oh? Her mother doesn’t seem to see it quite like that, does she? Though I suppose it’s understandable,’ I added thinking about it. ‘Poor woman!’

  ‘Poor Emma, too,’ Rosetta said, ‘because she was brought up on planchettes and the supernatural and then she went and fell in love with Dante, who doesn’t believe at all. There was this huge power struggle between Dante and her mother when they got married, which he won, but then Emma fell under the sway of this man her mother introduced her to, another medium, and—’

  Dante stuck his head out of the front door again and bellowed: ‘Cass!’

  ‘Coming, master!’ I called sarcastically. ‘Can you manage all right, Rosetta? Eddie will have to carry their luggage up in relays, I’ve never seen so much for one weekend!’

  ‘Yes, you go if Dante needs you. Eddie will be down in a minute: he’s so strong and calm and wonderful, isn’t he?’ she said dreamily

  ‘Is he?’ I said doubtfully, wondering if she was on the pot, as it were, too. ‘I mean, yes he is, isn’t he? Brace yourself, here come the Spectral Spectators!’ and hurried off after Dante towards the lonely west wing carrying my own unimpressive luggage.

  He showed me to a monastic little newly whitewashed room, muttered something about work and made to leave. When I imperatively called him back he turned reluctantly.

  ‘A table.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I need a table to work on. In the night. I’ve started a new book.’ I said in short, easy to understand sentences.

  He gave me an evil look, but did come back hefting a small papier mâché desk a few minutes later, which although a trifle ornate seemed sturdy enough.

  I thanked him.

  ‘The only thanks I want is for you to leave my property and putative ancestors out of any of your future mental dribblings,’ he said offensively, and went off, slamming the door to his study behind him.

  I went straight after him and flung it open again so that it crashed satisfyingly against the panelling: ‘I strongly object to the use of the word “dribblings”. My thought processes are definitely more in the nature of a free-flowing river carrying all before it,’ I told him with emphasis before turning on my heel and marching back to my cell.

  Behind me Dante muttered something which was fortunately inaudible, but it was a full five minutes before he closed his study door again: quietly. I was listening.

  Charles would probably say that this weekend was in the nature of a penance for past misdeeds, and I should suffer in silence. But there might be some benefits, too, for at least over this weekend I would have lots of time to think about A Good Heart while I was haunting and soaking up the ambience. Who knew, maybe I would actually see Betsy, or some of the other colourful characters reputed to infest the place?

  After all the excitement I could have killed a pizza, but did not think I was about to get one if it was left to Dante, who seemed to have forgotten the joy of food. But shortly I would sneak down to the King’s Arms to meet Francis and could eat something there.

  I hung a couple of things up, set out my pallid palette of stage make-up for later, put my notes and things on the desk, then went to offer my services to Rosetta for a while.

  She was in the kitchen, distractedly rattling pots and pans.

  ‘This is all a big mistake,’ she moaned, wild-eyed. ‘It’s all very well managing a small hotel, but then I didn’t have to do everything myself, including unexpectedly cooking dinner for five guests!’

  ‘But I thought you weren’t providing meals? Send them down to the pub like Orla does with hers.’

  She ran a nervous hand through her curly brown locks. ‘I thought that’s what they’d do, but Reg – Mr Bangs – says his wife is too prostrate to leave her room tonight.’

  ‘Well, that’s a blessing anyway!’

  ‘Yes, but he asked if it was possible for them to have a light meal served in their room! Soup or something. I couldn’t very well refuse, could I?’

  ‘I suppose not: but you don’t have to cook for the other three as well!’

  ‘I wouldn’t, only that weird woman in the sari – she’s the sister of the small fat man and married to the tall, thin one – overheard and said she felt quite faint from the long journey and she’d like to do the same. Then the other two said in that case they only needed a snack too, because they wanted to walk down and visit the graveyard and the Haunted Well later in the evening when the atmosphere would be right. Right for what?’

  ‘Goodness knows. Where’s Eddie?’

  ‘He’s gone down to Emlyn’s in his van for cans of soup and garlic bread, and more fruit to make a big fresh fruit salad.’

  ‘If I’d known he was going I’d have asked him to get me a pizza – I’m starving! Anyway, tell me what I can do.’

  ‘Could you lay the table for the two men in the breakfast room? They’re quite nice actually – Mr Bream and Mr Shakespeare.’

  ‘Shakespeare?’

  ‘Yes, but Frank, not William. Then I need to lay those two big trays ready for taking upstairs.’

  ‘I can do that, too. I only hope you’re going to charge them through the nose for this kind of service.’

  ‘I certainly am!’ she said, a martial light appearing in her eyes. Then we heard Ed
die’s footsteps outside and she leaped to open the kitchen door. He staggered in laden with cardboard boxes of supplies.

  There was a banana in the top pocket of his bib and brace overalls which became somewhat bruised if not flambéed by the enthusiasm of their reunion.

  I removed the cartons and began to set about heating bread and soup.

  ‘What would I do without you, Eddie?’ Rosetta said. ‘Let me just get through this weekend and never again! But Dante’s going to be so disappointed with me when we leave next week!’

  I stopped slicing bread and stared at her, baffled: ‘What do you mean, leave?’

  ‘I’m going off with Eddie.’

  ‘How can you go off when you’ve got a B&B to run? And do you mean in his van?’

  ‘Of course! Though actually I wondered if Dante would let us use the lodge as our base, especially in winter, so we could come back from time to time? He’ll be angry at first, but I know he just wants me to be happy. And I will be, with Eddie.’

  I thought she might be being a bit sanguine about that. Another thing came to me, too: ‘Eddie, Ma and Pa are staying in the village at Orla’s. Francis brought them because they want to see Jane. That’s why I’m here already, I’m hiding.’

  Eddie smiled cheerfully: but then, like all the boys, he has grown out of being afraid of Pa. And Jane, of course, never had cause to be.

  ‘You won’t tell them I’m here if you see them, will you, Eddie? They’re looking for Jane – they think I’ve concealed her somewhere. I’m going down to the King’s Arms shortly to see Francis and find out what’s happening.’

  ‘I’d come too, Cass, but I can’t leave Rosetta. She needs me … bad vibes.’ He shook his dreadlocks sadly so all the little beads clicked. ‘I’ll be glad to get her out of here after this weekend. But it’s good news about you and Dante, because Rosie won’t be so worried about him if you’re here.’

  ‘What about me and Dante?’ I demanded. ‘There is no me and Dante! What do you mean?’

  Eddie gazed placidly at me. ‘Isn’t that what the auction was about? The best man won?’

  ‘No, you pot-smoking addle-brained hippie, the richest, most pig-headed man won! And whatever he thought he was winning, he wasted his money.’

  Eddie just grinned, impervious to my insults, which anyway he has heard before.

  ‘I think he just wanted to buy time with you so he could get to know you,’ Rosetta suggested timidly. ‘I knew he was interested in you, only he’s been through hell, what with being a hostage and seeing his friend killed, and then finding he’d lost Emma and the baby too. It’s made him—’

  ‘Bitter, twisted and suspicious?’ I finished for her. ‘And I think you’re wrong – he now knows me as well as he’ll ever want to.’

  ‘He was a bit narked that you gave him a vampire ancestor in the book,’ Eddie said.

  I stared at him. ‘What? Did he tell you that?’

  ‘Yes, he said: “She’s put my ancestor in her sodding book as a corrupt, bloodsucking monster!”’

  ‘A very attractive monster,’ I said without thinking, and Eddie grinned.

  I resisted the urge to throw something at him, since I’d have hit Rosetta too. They were still partially entwined to the point where it was hard to see where one stopped and the other began.

  ‘If Pa sets eyes on you and Rosetta like that, you’ll be married before you can say Eternal Damnation!’ I snapped.

  Eddie shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter, does it, Rosie?’

  ‘Not to me, but it might be easier for the baby.’

  ‘Which baby?’ I said, losing the thread of the plot.

  ‘Eddie’s baby,’ Rosetta said proudly.

  ‘What? Already? Does Dante know?’

  ‘No – I’ve only just started it. I’ll tell him later, before we leave.’

  ‘But you can’t have a baby in a van!’ I protested weakly.

  ‘I could, but maybe Dante will let us have the lodge when we need it. And by then, maybe you two will—’

  ‘No we won’t. Forget it,’ I interrupted hastily. Then I had a sudden warming thought: ‘I’ll be an auntie!’

  My eye fell on the kitchen clock: ‘Look at the time!’ Quickly I swirled cream on to two bowls of soup, took the bread out of the oven and arranged the trays.

  ‘Put Eddie down, Rosetta, and take one of these. I have to go out and meet Francis.’

  21

  The Ghost of Her Former Self

  Publication date of Cass Leigh’s next novel, Shock to the Spirits, has been brought forward to 20 April. If it’s anything like her previous works, it will certainly live up to its title …

  Book News

  I walked down to the pub, but it was still early and there was no sign of Francis, just Jason eating steak and onions.

  By then, having missed lunch, I was sort of past being hungry so just ordered a sandwich and picked at Jason’s chips until it arrived.

  ‘Where have you been? I tried to phone you earlier,’ he said, curving his arm protectively around his plate and moving it out of my reach. ‘I can only stay at the Hall tomorrow, but I thought I could drive you up there tonight anyway, and just make it clear to Dante that you’re not doing anything that isn’t on your list!’

  ‘No need, thanks, Jason – I’m already up. I mean, I took my things there earlier, because of Ma and Pa arriving. Didn’t Orla tell you? They don’t believe that I’m not concealing Jane in my cottage, so I thought I’d go and hide at the Hall until they give up and go. I’m expecting my brother Francis here around seven to discuss strategy.’

  ‘You’re already there? Then I hope you’ve made it plain to—’ Jason had begun, single-mindedly, when suddenly his brown eyes went wide and his jaw dropped open – very Neanderthal.

  When I turned round all was made clear. In fact, most of Orla was made clear even to the most casual glance, because her slinky Barbarella costume was as moulded to her curvy figure as if it had been painted on. (Which I wouldn’t put past her if the fancy took her.)

  The whole room went quiet, and even Charles, on looking absently up from his papers, seemed a trifle startled. Then one or two regulars leaned over the bar wolfwhistling, which seemed to break the spell.

  Orla, beaming, came and sat down with us. ‘I can see this is going to be a popular outfit,’ she said happily. ‘Who said the age of curves was dead?’

  ‘Not me!’ Jason said, seemingly unable to take his eyes from the grand canyon of her cleavage, temptingly revealed by the partly open zipper down the front of what could only be described as a clingy, leather-look, gold catsuit. I don’t remember Barbarella in one of those: but hell, a woman’s entitled to a little artistic licence.

  ‘Do you like it?’ Orla asked softly, leaning towards Jason. With the zipper that far down I couldn’t see how she’d worked the gravity-defying trick. I’d have to ask her later.

  ‘Like it …?’ he murmured absently, then pulled himself together and said severely: ‘I don’t think you ought to wear that get-up in public – it’s way too revealing!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked with hurt innocence. ‘I’m Barbarella – it’s my new singing telegram persona.’

  ‘Are you booked to do one tonight?’ I asked. ‘Or just trying it out?’

  ‘Just a trial run. What do you think?’

  ‘Truly amazing. If you do any stag nights, though, I’d take Jason with you for protection.’

  ‘She’s not doing stag nights, or any other nights, dressed like that!’ he said firmly, like a Victorian papa.

  ‘Sez who?’ Orla demanded.

  ‘How about a short gold cape?’ I suggested. ‘For between the car and the venue and back again, at least?’

  ‘Why? Does my bum look big in this?’ she demanded suspiciously.

  ‘Big and curvy, like Jennifer Lopez, and it doesn’t seem to have done her any harm.’

  ‘Even with a cape …’ began Jason stubbornly.

  ‘You’re so dog in the man
ger!’ Orla exclaimed provocatively. ‘You’re not interested in me yourself, but you don’t want other men looking at me!’

  ‘Who said I’m not interested in you?’ Jason said, staring at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. I don’t think he’d so much as glanced my way since she’d arrived.

  It was all looking very promising: they were starting to bicker already.

  My brother Francis walked in, glanced around, caught sight of Orla, and stood looking poleaxed, so I seized my chance to leave them to it.

  ‘Would you both excuse me? There’s Francis now, so I’ll just get him in a quiet corner for a little talk. Jason, shall I tell Rosetta you won’t be coming tomorrow after all?’

  ‘What?’ he looked up, brow furrowed.

  ‘I said, shall I cancel your booking for tomorrow at the Hall?’

  ‘Funnily enough, I’m making my first Barbarella appearance there tomorrow,’ Orla said brightly. ‘One of the guest’s birthdays. A Mr Bream.’

  ‘Definitely not Marilyn Monroe then?’ I said.

  She shrugged. ‘My dress is at the cleaner’s – but I don’t suppose he’ll complain.’

  ‘I don’t expect he will but his wife might,’ I objected.

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ Jason said. ‘If you show up tomorrow night dressed like that I’ll—’

  At that interesting point I had to leap in Francis’s path and head him off before he honed in on Orla and spoiled everything. He was single-mindedly transfixed: her bosom clearly held the same lure for him as mountain peaks.

  Taking him firmly by the arm, I steered him to a seat some way away with his back towards her, then asked him the state of play.

  ‘State of play?’ he said vaguely, then gave himself a sort of mental shake. ‘Oh yes, the parents. Pa’s been round to the cottage and seen Jane’s car there, so he’s even more convinced that you’re hiding her. But I’d told him you were away, and he could see for himself that there were no lights on, and the telephone was ringing and ringing with no one answering it.’

  ‘Max,’ I said resignedly. ‘I might have known he wouldn’t take no for an answer.’

  ‘Oh? Have you broken up with him? Trust you to do it just when you could finally get married and placate the parents!’