02 - Down the Garden Path

by Dorothy Cannell

  A two-minute dash, and I would be across the lawn and narrow lane to the Ruins. A pity the moon chose that moment to sail out from behind the sheepskin clouds, but unless one of the sisters was in the act of drawing her curtains I should be all right. I was at the lane, heart thudding more in pleasurable excitement than fear, the humped stones awash with silver light, when a form separated wraithlike from the shadows. “Harry,” I whispered, flinging myself forward.

  “Heavens above! If it isn’t the second Tessa,” came a voice I knew and loved to hate. Chantal. My feet skidded on the mushy ground and I swerved to a standstill.

  “Minerva got out, and I thought I had better fetch her in before retiring.” As she spoke, a hollow barking came from deep within the Ruins. “Hush, you terrible dog. Come here and I’ll give you a bone.” Moonlight highlighted the curve of her cheek as she turned away from me. “I think the faithful hound may be chasing some tramp away; I was sure I saw someone lurking about.” She shrugged, and as Minnie came spiralling up to her, I tried to get my breathing under control. She couldn’t possibly know that the man was Harry. Could she?

  “You exited by way of the apple tree, miss?” she continued.

  “It seemed quickest, and I didn’t want to wake the Misses Tramwell by going down the stairs.”

  “How thoughtful. And you were also bent on rescuing this ungrateful cur, weren’t you miss?” Minnie’s paws were on her shoulders and she stroked the flattened ears.

  “What else?” My shrug was as good an imitation of hers as I could make it.

  “Listen to that, Minerva, isn’t it fine to be loved by so many so well?” This received a snuffle of approval. Was it true that gypsies could charm animals?

  “Why bother with the apple tree for the return trip?” Chantal said as Minnie and I crossed the lawn with her. “We can all go in by the back door, for I’m sure, miss, you overestimate the noise you would make on the stairs.”

  She was remembering how I had surprised her in Harry’s bedroom! The light of the kitchen almost blinded me as we entered and I was afraid of what she would see in my face. Giving Minnie a dinosaur-sized bone and wiping her hands on a tea towel from the draining board, she said, “Did you pause a minute outside to look up in the sky and see if your fate was written there?” She had dropped the “miss.”

  Was she serious? Was her reason for being in the attic the other afternoon exactly what she had claimed—stargazing?

  “If it’s all up there in the heavens, why do you people tote around your crystal balls?” Picking up an apple from a bowl on the table, I polished it on my sleeve and studied her as she filled the kettle from the gurgling brass tap. Every movement was graceful. How could Harry fail to be bewitched by her, even without her dark powers? Unless caring for—make that loving—me made him immune. And he did love me. I had proof. Why else would he have involved himself in what he insisted was a mad scheme?

  “The crystal is only one of several forms of focus.” Impossible not to notice what beautiful hands she had: long tapering fingers and unbitten nails. “And you people like the drama, the slow removal of the red velvet cloth, our evil black eyes peering into tomorrow.”

  I stared at her. “You despise us, don’t you?”

  “Despise everyone different from myself? Why, that would be dreadfully bigotted—and ungrateful. Reading the crystal paid my way while ...” She set the kettle on the cooker and turned on the flame.

  “While what?” Sitting on the edge of the table I bit into the apple.

  “While I was experiencing some financial difficulties. I sat in tents at church bazaars wearing a red bandanna and gold loop earrings.” She was coming towards me and I felt a pang I couldn’t explain. “Mostly I dredged up the usual old stuff; nothing to send my customers fleeing home to stick their heads in the gas oven about.... But sometimes I do see things. Will you have some tea with me and let me read your cup?”

  “You don’t have to don the red bandanna for me. Besides, tea will keep me awake.”

  “A pity, seeing that I have this feeling you and I are destined to drink out of the same cup—of life. But don’t rush off yet. Remember, ‘tis terrible misfortune to cross in front of a gypsy. Let me take a peek, missie, at what lies down the road.”

  Her head was bent, but I could see the curve of her lips as she picked up my limp hand. “I see soft green fields and movement. Some animals grazing. It is close, very close—and I see a man. A handsome man, as they always are—but this one is not dark. His hair gleams in the sun. I hear laughter, and I see great friendship, but something ... intrudes.”

  I tried to wrench my hand away; the other holding the apple was stickily wet. “Not the other woman!”

  She lifted her face and I was startled to discover that the laughter, the mockery, was gone. “You are the other woman,” she whispered. “You are the silken thread that leads him into the maze. I see deceit, whispers in the night, and ...”

  “What are you saying?” I could tell myself that she was toying with me, testing to see if I would crack—but why had her face whitened? Why was Chantal staring at my hand as though it were lit with flames? My elbow jabbed painfully against the table as I cringed backwards. “What do you see?”

  “Death,” she said in an infinitely sad voice; and it must be true that animals are plugged into the supernatural, for at that moment Minerva let out a howl that jarred through my skin to the bone. “Death. Someone comes in the early morning. The ground is soaked with blood. I see a man lying ...”

  “I don’t believe you.” The apple fell with a lurching thud onto the floor. “I don’t believe you!” And to prove it I covered my ears with my sticky hands. “Why don’t you read Minerva’s paw—she’s practically begging—and let me get to bed.”

  “Go to bed.” She backed away from me, her eyes darkened and made brilliant by tears. “Go to bed and try to sleep, Tessa. You have a letter branded on your palm, and that letter is ‘H.’“

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  She was vengeful and vicious and I refused to believe she really cared about Harry. Besides, she was wrong about those “whispers in the night.” I had been foiled in each attempt to meet Harry. Angus’s untimely reappearance in my life was forgotten. The consequences, while awkward, could not be very dreadful. Not like ... Don’t think about the ground soaked in blood. Oh, Harry. You and your beloved horses—what if one of the beasts kicks you and you are left bleeding, with no one to help you?

  Tossing in my dwarf bed I thumped my pillow. Stop this. The “H” didn’t have to stand for Harry. I knew several people whose name began with “H.” Lots of people. Fergy’s cousin Hubert, for example, and ... Hyacinth! I sat up in bed gripping my knees. The way she drove that hearse! And ... could her sallow skin and razor-thin figure imply something medically wrong? A woman her age should see a doctor regularly.

  But at breakfast, she and Primrose both looked a lot fresher than I felt after my forty-five-minute sleep. After greeting me and passing the toast rack, Primrose asked after the amnesia. Blearily I informed her that large “swatches of memory” kept slipping into place but one or two important facts, such as my name and address were still missing.

  The sisters nodded sympathetically as I slathered marmalade on my toast. Both assured me that they were delighted to have my company, but I knew time was running out. I could not prolong my visit beyond tomorrow. Dad and Fergy were expecting me in Devon, and I wanted time to say goodbye to Harry. Not that we would be parting forever. He would come down to see his Aunt Ruth and me ... He wouldn’t wave me off on a train and out of his life. Chantal’s face drifted before me, but I blinked the apparition savagely away. Nothing would happen to Harry; I wouldn’t let it, even if I had to scour the earth for a white witch to put a safety spell on him.

  “I am afraid our social life is not very exciting,” said Primrose, “but I know the Grundys would be delighted to see you again.”

  Before I could think of an appropriate reply, Butle
r entered carrying a small salver heaped with the morning post. As he passed it to Hyacinth I noticed that the envelope uppermost was stamped airmail.

  “At last, word from Violet.” She set it down in front of her plate and I was able to read with ease the name in the left-hand corner. Mrs. Arthur Wilkinson. A tiny bell rang inside my head; one of Fergy’s cronies was a Mrs. Wilkinson, but that did not explain why I got this slightly morbid feeling. As Butler left the room, Hyacinth handed Primrose two letters. “The gas bill and the estimate for the roof.”

  Primrose took the letters, then turned towards the French windows. “Dear me! I wonder who this can be coming up the verandah steps? Oh yes, I remember—it must be that Mr. Hunt.”

  Angus! I hadn’t even thought of what I would say to him. Now I was afraid. Afraid that I wouldn’t get to speak with him, afraid that I would ...

  “Somewhat informal, his coming around the back.” Primrose smoothed the lace cuffs of her black wool dress. But as Hyacinth whisked toast crumbs from the tablecloth, Clyde Deasley, not Angus, knocked and peered through the window, winking saucily as he caught my eye.

  “Nuisance,” hissed Hyacinth. “Any other time I would be delighted to see the man but, Tessa dear, when our tartan friend does arrive, would you kindly take Mr. Deasley into the kitchen and have Butler show him the Georgian silver tea service? Not the one we use every day, but the best one. Mr. Deasley did say he might know of someone who could”—she dabbed at a stray crumb—”straighten the spout.”

  Outside the window Clyde Deasley’s face contorted into a ruddy balloon and he entered on a gigantic sneeze. “Hay fever gedding wor-worse.” His mouth extended into a huge oval and his nostrils dilated. Pulling out an enormous navy blue handkerchief, his face disappeared until he finally recovered from the paroxysms that claimed his whole body.

  “It would seem, Clyde my dear,” declared Primrose, displaying her pretty dimples, “that Hyacinth and I are the only flowers that do not disturb you.”

  “Ah, but there you are wrong, my lady!” Mr. Deasley replaced the handkerchief in his breast pocket and fussed the tip back to its former jaunty appearance. “Your presence also reduces me to a state of quiver.”

  I stood shaking out my serviette, grateful to Mr. Deasley for providing me with some amusement. Hyacinth hurumphed, “You should have shaken the dust out of that dress, Prim. If getting too close to you starts Clyde sneezing again, we will have all the ornaments flying off the mantel. Ah, the doorbell! Who can that be?”

  She knew only too well. How would the sisters introduce their card playing cohort to Mr. Deasley? Puzzling about that kept other thoughts at bay, and it was Angus who handled the minor social dilemma. Shaking hands all round (his smile for me was no more than casual), he spoke of his two aunts in Dundee. Without actually saying so he conveyed the impression that they were old acquaintances of the Tramwells.

  “So considerate of you to take the time to visit two doddering old women,” gushed Primrose. “Such a treat! You positively must have coffee, and bring us up to date on Gertrude’s lumbago. My dear Tessa, I do hope that you and Clyde won’t be thoroughly bored, but ...”

  This was my cue. With my eyes on Angus’s watch chain, straddling the hummock of his yellow-and-black-plaid waistcoat, I mentioned the wonky teapot spout. While the sisters took my former employer away from the breakfast dishes into the sitting room, I ushered Mr. Deasley to the kitchen, where we found Butler at the sink, up to his elbows in suds.

  “Ah, Butler, hard at it, I see.” Mr. Deasley seemed to me to be making light conversation (due to embarrassment at my having pushed his hand away when it accidentally brushed my thigh), but Butler calcified.

  “I begrudge my ladies no effort, Mr. Knees—Deasley.”

  “Good to hear.” The gentleman named stuck his thumbs under his lapels and oozed unction. “Value a full-time job, I suppose; your former occupation was seasonal, I gather?”

  I had better things to do with my time than listen to these two gibe at each other. Certainly it did not require three people to remove one teapot from a dresser so, excusing myself, I went into the hall. As I passed Tessa’s portrait, she smiled down encouragingly and I whispered up at her, “Any ideas how I can collar Angus and tell him the whole story without the sisters’ knowledge?”

  As I drew near the sitting room door voices rose from within.

  Glancing quickly around to make sure that Chantal was nowhere around, I bent low. A row of sorts was in progress. Hadn’t I always thought from those Regencies that debts of honour were settled in a gentlemanly fashion? Alas, Hyacinth and Primrose were not gentlemen. One was snorting outrage and the other twittering outrage. Only Angus spoke in calm level tones.

  “Be still, ladies. I didna mention the Aunties just to pass the time o’ day. Sisters under the skin they are to the pair o’ ye. A more cheaty set of bessoms than Jessie and Ida could no’ be found between here and Aberdeen, or so I thought until I came up against the Misses Tramwell. Ye make the Aunties appear the rankest amateurs. The wee scamps, they only use the distraction approach—pretending no’ to hear, fretting back and forth, dropping things. Aye, they should see you at work! The knitting is downright canny. An extra loop for an ace, a dropped stitch for a king!”

  “What arrant nonsense!” flared Hyacinth as I sagged against the door. They were card sharps! Hardened gamblers and, what was worse, they had raked me into their seedy business. How could I have been so blind?

  “If dear Papa could hear us being humiliated in this fashion,” whimpered Primrose. I could picture her sobbing into her embroidered handkerchief.

  “Tell me,” said Angus musingly, “why? Jessie and Ida do it for the kicks and only in a wee way. They don’t have a Godfrey Panty-Legs setting up weekly games, or have a fair young lassie to catch the lecherous eye of bristle-headed nasties.”

  My hand gripped the doorknob. It gave a quarter-turn, and if the door had opened I would have pitched into the room. What must Angus think of me? A lure. Could he be wrong about that part? No. The Tramwells had been so anxious for me to look pretty for Cheynwind and ... that conversation I had overheard the first night when I came downstairs; they had spoken about my being useful. It was all falling into place. And to think, in my charming naiveté, I had believed them to be speaking of a pair of non-arthritic hands for winding wool or washing Minerva! Such deceit. My own sin paled in comparison. Was none of their pleasure in having me stay based on altruistic motives? I shivered. Their reluctance to fetch in the police or a doctor, so glibly attributed by simple-minded me to old-maidish eccentricity and sensitive scruples on Butler’s behalf, now revealed itself as decidedly sinister. I was biting my nails again. How dare they use me?

  “Tell me,” Angus repeated, “why? You have a fine home—this room itself is a rare gem. So many bonny pieces! If ye were straggling along on your old-age pensions, going without light or heat, I would ken fair enough, but ...”

  Angus dear, I thought, why ponder further? Like Jessie and Ida, they are in it for the kicks. A pleasant change of pace from potting petunias and dwelling in the past.

  “I have already advised you, Mr. Hunt,” came Hyacinth’s frigid voice, “that you are talking absolute piffle. Now, if my sister may have the money you owe, we will be pleased to offer you that cup of coffee before you catch the London train.”

  “I could stop ye both, be well aware o’ that. A word in the right places that the play at Cheynwind Hall is rigged, and Godfrey Grundy would be blackballed from his club. That’s where I met him, and I imagine he does a fair bit o’ his business there. ‘Want to play a real feisty game o’ poker? I know these two wee old maids who claim they can beat the trews off any man alive.’ Aye! What red-blooded, cigar-smoking, card-shuffling male could resist that challenge?”

  “Such a shockingly poor loser you are, Mr. Hunt.” Primrose tweeted like a ruffled sparrow. “I cannot conceive that dear Godfrey may not invite what friends and acquaintances he wishes to his home for a quiet eve
ning of...”

  Quiet. Last evening she had come close to being deflowered.

  “Tush.” Angus’s voice rose. “Either you gels cease of your own accord, or I’ll see ye stopped. It’s no’ just the principle. Aye, and I do believe in playing by the rules, but what I fear is that one o’ these fine days ye will land yourselves—and the pretty lassie—in very hoot water. All it will take is tangling with the right tough customer.”

  Herr Wortter. An exceedingly unpleasant vision came of his stalking the sisters on their way to church....

  “Enough said. I’ll take that wee cup of coffee.” Someone crossed the room and as I backed away from the door I heard the jangle of the bell rope. Butler or Chantal would be coming, but I couldn’t get myself moving. Angus’s voice now sounded mumbled. He may have been bending down to pat Minerva, because I caught, “How long have ye had the dog?” before propelling myself towards the front door end of the hall.

  Godfrey Grundy! The taste of the name was enough to make me want to rinse out my mouth with salt water. I should have been tipped off—when the sisters referred to him as the present Squire—that he didn’t do a lick of honest work. Being as rich as Midas, he might not have the incentive; but to feast off two elderly women and their ill-gotten wins was wicked. Yes, what they were doing was reprehensible. I wished Dad had been there to give them a good talking to. But Godfrey was the real maggot in the apple.

  What now? I didn’t want to go upstairs because doing so would make it difficult to waylay Angus, yet neither did I want to be found loitering. Best to slip into one of the rooms and remain with my eye at the ready. Turning the nearest knob, I entered, to find myself in the library—and not alone. Chantal was at one of the shelves, a duster in one hand, but not in action. She was bent over an open book. I was about to turn around and find a more auspicious place to hide, when all those leather-bound volumes reminded me that I must not let what I had overheard entirely deflect me from my purpose for being at Cloisters. Chantal did not turn as I came up to her, and over her shoulder I read the words Monasticism in the Middle Ages along the top of the right-hand page.