Fellowes laughed. “You’re one of the few people in that house who does. And you appear quite an authority, to boot.”
Just a fast reader, thought Melrose. “You don’t honestly think all of that codswallop in Lyrical Ballads is true?”
Fellowes frowned. “What’s true?”
“The similarity of purpose. That ‘seeing the mystical in the ordinary’ stuff? Wordsworth simply couldn’t deal with snakes and albatrosses, that’s all. Poor Coleridge. Y’know he suffered excruciating pain for a large part of his life. Neuralgia.” Why was he tenderly feeling his own face? Melrose wondered. Quickly, he lowered his hand and continued his lecture. “Don’t you know the name ‘Lake School’ was a sarcastic assessment by the Edinburgh Review?” Melrose polished off his bitter and thumped the glass down. Instead of thinking about some obscure nineteenth-century essay, he should be working on a way of getting information to William, ah, Richard Jury, shouldn’t he? He couldn’t ring Jury from Tarn House. Fellowes was often out. . . . “Are you on the phone?” he asked, rather overcasually, considering the recent hectic of his stinging appraisal of Wordsworth.
“The phone?” Fellowes frowned. “I’ve an extension, yes.”
“You mean of the Tarn House main?”
Fellowes nodded. “Why?”
“Oh, no reason. Just wondered how the service was here.” Could he make up some reason for visiting Adam Holdsworth? Use the line at Castle Howe? He could hardly stand about in a call box with a bucketful of change. He looked at their glasses. “Care for another?”
“Good idea. I’ll buy.” Fellowes started up, but Melrose waved him down.
“My turn.”
As he walked up to the bar and plunked the glasses down he thought of his problem. Actually, with his thorough notetaking—well, he imagined himself to be thorough—there would be too much material for a call, anyway.
Rheumy nodded to him in the mirror, his large Adam’s apple shifting up and down as he drained his pint. Sadly, he regarded the cavernous emptiness of his glass.
Melrose signed to O. Bottemly to take care of the empty pint, saw dawn break in Rheumy’s smile, and asked, “You on the phone?”
Rheumy stared at him and shook his head as if British Telecom were something he’d had a brief flirtation with ages ago, but had long since left in the lurch.
Absently, Melrose gathered in the two full glasses for his table, as he said, “How the devil’s anyone get information out of this village?”
“Over t’post office.” Rheumy lifted his glass.
“Letters take too long.”
“Fax it, Squire.”
4
The cat had appeared in the kitchen suddenly, out of that nowhere that only cats had discovered. The kitchen door was latched; the windows were shut.
Sorcerer kept getting in her way. He was standing between Millie and the cooker, staring at her, moving as she moved, forward, left, right, blocking her way to the pan on the stove. Millie could never sleep well; she always came down at night to make herself cocoa and usually Sorcerer slept right on top of the pillow above her head. But he hadn’t been there tonight.
He was here now, though. What’s wrong with you? she asked wordlessly, irritably, as she reached again for the pan. Of course, she could have shoved Sorcerer, but she never did that. Not after that horrible time five years ago when the cat had appeared magically and watched her and stayed with her.
“What’s wrong?”
Sorcerer raced to the kitchen door and sat, tail twitching.
When she continued to dip the spoon in the cocoa, he came back, sat down between her and the cooker again.
She frowned. Back to the door. Back to Millie.
Millie walked over to the inside door that opened onto the mud-room. She switched on an electric torch that Hawkes kept on a shelf. Nothing. Before she could turn and close the door, the cat was through it and sitting at the outside door. When she didn’t move, it ran between the two doors, going cat-crazy. Millie opened the door and Sorcerer made a dash for the field.
She took an old jacket from a hook and shoved her feet into the Wellingtons she always kept there. Through the darkness, she could see Sorcerer’s eyes staring at her over the broom and tall weeds, eyes that seemed disconnected, floating above the grass. Millie aimed the torch downward to keep the lane of light as short as possible. You could never tell who might be watching from that house. Mr. Hawkes’s light was on; as long as there was light inside, he couldn’t see outside.
The grass was long, the ground peaty. Near the wood she ran the torch along the edge and saw Sorcerer clambering up the rotting ladder that led to the tree house.
• • •
Alex heard her climbing and saw her eyes come up over the edge of the floorboards. “It’s me, Millie,” he said.
She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Millie was not given to physical demonstrations, but now she was speechlessly hopping from one foot to another as if she had to pee, her small hands fisted against her temples. Finally, she sat down, still without saying a word. She sat in the other corner, opposite him, her arms twined round her updrawn knees.
At last, she said, “Police are looking for you. They were here, asking questions. They even asked me questions. I told them you had amnesia. That you were wandering in London and didn’t know who you were. I told them you did it before. Had amnesia.”
Alex laughed. She liked the sound of the word on her tongue. Millie had heard someone use it, perhaps even in relation to his disappearance, and had taken it up. Millie loved words, certain words. When she heard one she liked she would use it in every possible circumstance, whether it fit quite perfectly or not. Debauchery was a favorite. When she was able to talk about her disappearance after her mother’s death, she said she had pulled up the daffodils in a fit of debauchery.
Alex wanted to say to her now, about his mother, She didn’t do it, but that would have been terrible, because Annie Thale really had. She must have thrown herself off that grassy promontory to lie, with her broken body, in the lake below. Wast Water was the deepest lake in all of England. “Fickle blue,” Millie called the lakes.
It was Millie who said it: “I don’t believe it.” No need to define “it.” “You can cry if you want,” she added, in that businesslike manner of hers that put people off the scent, that made them think the little girl was uncommonly cool and adult.
“I already did. You know, I must’ve been here over a whole day, asleep. What’s been going on? What did the others tell the police about—Mum?”
“That they couldn’t believe it and they didn’t understand it and she was . . . ‘neurotic’ ” Millie was fooling with the rucksack.
“Worse than that, I’ll bet. The usual stuff about her not being a good mother and not being able to hold a job and so forth and so forth.” He hadn’t had to ask, really. “What police were here?”
“Oh, that constable from the village. But he just came along with the one from London. Cramer, or something. He looked foreign.”
“Kamir?”
“That’s right, with his sergeant. And your granddad was here”—meaning his great-grandfather, Adam—“telling police that all the rest of them were crazy, that there was nothing wrong with your mum, and anyway why were they asking questions as if it was—” She stopped.
“It’s okay. As if it was suicide, you mean. What’d they say?”
“Nothing. They didn’t say nothing, except that it might be a ‘suspicious death.’ I expect it’s different from a sudden one. Then everyone had to tell them where they were on Monday night. Did you know your aunt Madeline and Her” (meaning Genevieve, whom Millie loathed) “were in London, and had to admit it? They went up on Sunday.” Millie’s smile was more than a little mean.
“For what?” Alex sat up; the steel band had loosened its grip on his chest. “Why?”
“Your auntie had to see people about getting a person who does books to help Mr. Holdsworth. She went like She always does, t
o buy clothes. I’m surprised there’s anything left in the shops.”
“Were all the others here? Was Francis?”
Millie shrugged. “He always leaves after dinner, when he has it. I didn’t see him. Only your uncle George and Mr. Holdsworth had dinner. I had to cook rabbits. Yuck.” She screwed up her face. “If he kills them, he ought to have to cook them.”
Alex sighed. “I expect I’ll have to show my face. I can’t learn anything sitting in this tree.”
Millie gave him a look of disgust. “You can think, can’t you?”
He lowered his head. “I had a terrible dream.” Millie was very good with dreams, figuring them out. Sometimes he was amazed at her sensitivity, the way she could feel things that normally passed other people by, the way she could work her way into other people’s feelings. It was almost as if she became the object. Too close to the ground, Millie is, his great-grandfather had said once.
“The pack of cards,” he said. “It kept sticking. I didn’t believe before she’d really—” He stopped. “I wonder now if I had something to do with it; I was always betting. Just before it happened I was playing poker and got sent down.”
“No!” She raised her head and thrust her legs out violently. “Your mum would never have killed herself and anyway it wasn’t a pack of cards.” Again, she drew up her legs, rested her chin on her hands. “Things never are what they look like in dreams.”
“But she turned into the Queen of Hearts. It’s as if she was stuck, stuck with me in that pack of cards—”
“Alice-in-Wonderland.” Millie shut her eyes and rocked back. “There’s a Red Queen. The Red Queen is riding a horse but she never really gets anyplace. Where’d you get this?” Millie held up the automatic she’d rooted from the sack.
“Put that down, for God’s sake! You could get hurt!” Even Sorcerer jumped.
“If it’s loaded I nearly sat on it.”
“Of course it isn’t. You think I’m crazy? It needs the clip.”
“How do you do it?”
Alex took out the ammunition clip and smacked it into the handle with the palm of his hand, making sure the safety was on. The gun gave off a slightly oily smell.
Millie studied the gun in his hand. Thoughtfully, she said, “Maybe that’s the pack of cards in your dream.”
Alex blinked at it, laid it on the boards. Then he remembered: “Something was missing from my mother’s room. But I can’t remember what.” Like Millie, he grew thoughtful. “Do you think it’s safe to talk to Dr. Viner?”
“I don’t think it’s safe to talk to anybody. I’ll fix you some sandwiches and Sorcerer can bring them back.”
“How can Sorcerer carry them?—Put that down, Millie!” Before he could stop her, she’d picked up the gun and pulled out the ammunition clip. “It’s not to play with.”
“I wasn’t thinking of playing.” She put the gun and the clip in the rucksack. “There’s somebody new here.”
“Who?”
“His name’s Mr. Plant. He’s the one that your aunt hired to do something with the books.” She studied the hole in the roof of the tree house. “At least that’s what he says he’s doing here. I don’t believe him.”
21
The Dunsters were feuding again.
Their feuds did not take the form of baleful glances, spiteful silences or vitriolic remarks about appearances. Had the fights been mere vituperative name-calling, Mrs. Colin-Jackson could easily have stepped in with her smarmy manner and wheedling voice, promising extra sweets.
Sweets were the reason for the fight, as a matter of fact, a whole two pounds of them, which each claimed their niece had given to her.
Unfortunately (for Mrs. Colin-Jackson, if not for their fans) the Dunsters had turned to other outlets for their mutual dislike and were going at each other with cane and rolled umbrella in the solarium, moving about with sure-footed agility amongst the silk trees and spider plants.
One hand on her waist, the other holding her umbrella, elbow crooked, Juliette suddenly shot it out and flicked off Elizabeth’s velour hat. A ripple of applause. Elizabeth, equally well-trained, swished the cane about, but could not dislodge Juliette’s own hat.
The Dunster girls had been fencers in their youth, practicing their thrusts and parries when their friends were slumped before their pianos, making sounds as discordant as Mrs. Colin-Jackson’s present demands that they stop it this instant! That brought only more noise from the gallery, so to speak, boos and hisses and honks from Mr. Bannister (a sound he made with his hands tented over his mouth and that was, he claimed, the mating call of the mallard).
The girls were not about to be intimidated by threats of no crème caramel for dinner (probably because each expected to get the box of sweets), and were also highly excited that they were attracting more fans than the film being shown in the screening room: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Adam and Lady Cray had themselves watched half of it, Lady Cray remarking that it was not the most appropriate film to be showing in Castle Howl (as she called it after only twenty-four hours there). Adam saw Mrs. Colin-Jackson march out. “Kojak’s gone to fetch Kingsley, probably. Spoils all the fun.”
“Who’s he?” Lady Cray lit a cigarette as Elizabeth made a dandy thrust and nearly raked the umbrella from Juliette’s hand.
“Psychiatrist. They’re two of them: Viner and Kingsley, though Kingsley doesn’t do as much work as she does. A soft berth for him. Then there’re two general practitioners, but they don’t live on the grounds; only come round if somebody falls on his face.”
Lady Cray smiled at this, blowing perfect little smoke rings in this room where smoking was not permitted. A woman who strode with some authority made her way through the assembly. “And who’s this? Nurse Ratchett?”
Adam Holdsworth wheezed with laughter. “Dr. Viner.”
Helen Viner was as far a cry from the custodial type as one could get. For one thing, she was a dauntingly lovely woman with a warm (Ingratiating, Adam, ingratiating, Lady Cray had later said) smile; for another, she was on the side of the “guest”-patients, often taking up their causes and bringing their needs to the attention of Mrs. Colin-Jackson; for another thing, she didn’t believe in the use of force, not where negotiation was possible. And Helen Viner was a well-trained, clever negotiator. She could thrust and parry as well as the Dunster Duelists.
“Elizabeth,” she called out, “flèche.”
Elizabeth broke all out in smiles and took some running steps.
Juliette glared at Helen Viner. “Taking sides?”
“No, Juliette. You haven’t been keeping your guard up.”
Both of them went at it again, this time with a clearly different attitude. It had now become a true fencing match.
“Ah,” said Lady Cray, “Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.” She was within easy earshot of Dr. Viner and she allowed her clear, bell-like voice to carry.
Helen Viner turned, slightly surprised, and when she saw the new “guest,” smiled. “Thank you.”
With an advance-lunge, the tip of Juliette’s umbrella was straight into Elizabeth’s frontage. “Touché!” cried Juliette.
There was applause all round, and both sisters took bows. When Alice Dimpleton started to hand over the prize to Juliette, Elizabeth’s face clouded over again and Helen Viner took the candy.
Adam couldn’t hear the exchange, but apparently Dr. Viner had mollified the two of them by holding the box herself.
As the Dunster sisters and Dr. Viner walked past Lady Cray and Adam, Dr. Viner said hello to him and held out her free hand to Lady Cray. “I’m Dr. Viner. We haven’t met yet, I’m sorry.”
All Lady Cray said, looking at the box in the doctor’s other hand, was, “Cadbury’s Opera Assortment. How very nice.”
22
Considering the Constable on the wall behind them, Melrose was hard put to listen to Crabbe Holdsworth holding forth on the painting on the wall before them by Ibbetson.
“Quite beautif
ul, isn’t it?” said Crabbe of the Ibbetson, a painter that Melrose had never heard of and hoped never to again after his indentured servitude at Tarn House.
No, thought Melrose, as he hemmed his response, trying to look appreciative.
“Probably the most painted view of the Lakes. Only a copy, of course. But it’s a fine example of that particular school.”
Melrose sighed. He had always been suspicious of “schools” and “genres.”
The painting showed fells that looked as warm and brown as huge loaves from an oven; they were reflected in a glassy lake that looked no more real than the rounded peaks themselves. In the foreground were two young ladies, a man, a child, and a dog, very close to a group of cows who had decided, apparently, to sit down and join them. This happy scene was framed by willowy trees and, on the opposite side, a boat with furled sails. The sky was a shading of pastels.
That Crabbe Holdsworth could enjoy this sampling of the so-called picturesque school was a total mystery to Melrose. One had only to look at the Constable to see how ludicrous the Ibbetson was—how unreal, how lacking in perspective. Constable’s peaks looked like peaks—difficult, remote, unreachable beneath a smoky sky.
In this grouping there was a watercolor that Melrose thought fairly decent—honest, at least, as the Ibbetson certainly wasn’t—but found that his opinion was disputed by the received wisdom of Crabbe Holdsworth, who made a gesture that as good as waved it off the wall. “My cousin Francis considers himself a painter.”
So did Ibbetson, so that made no impression. Crabbe continued. “My son, Graham, was a far better painter than Francis. There’s a small scene Graham did of Rydal Mount out there in the gatehouse.” Crabbe Holdsworth gestured down the drive. “Perhaps you’d collect it for me sometime. I keep meaning to ask Francis to bring it up to the house. But he’s always out and about with his easels and brushes.”
Melrose smiled. “That’s the way with painters, isn’t it?”
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