Withering Heights

by Dorothy Cannell

  Glancing over my shoulder, I saw him walking toward us, dark head bent, seemingly intent on counting every piece of gravel on the path.

  “Here goes, then! Tell me if the words’ gas meter, or whatever they call it, is all right.” Mrs. Malloy cleared her throat before beginning:

  “ ’Tis forty years since last we met,

  And I am filled with deep regret,

  That I didn H see your point of view,

  Like an older sister’s meant to do.

  But now it’s time to start again,

  May lessons learned not be in vain.”

  “Very poignant,” I said, with what I hoped was a noticeable glow of enthusiasm. Ben had looked up and seen us. He had a piece of paper in his hand, which he now waved.

  “I’m not finished.” Mrs. Malloy rebuked me. “I did seven more verses. I got so carried away I forgot to give meself a manicure.”

  “Then you’d better go in and do it before I rope you in to help with lunch.” Ben drew up in front of us and flashed her a smile. “Escape while there’s still time.”

  “I don’t see as it would hurt Betty to get one meal. It’s not like she’s always been a lady of leisure. Too much time on the hands all of a sudden isn’t good for nobody. Probably bored out of her mind and picking holes in Tom and Ariel for something to do. But I’ll leave you two together,” said Mrs. M magnanimously, before teetering down the passageway on her high heels-different shoes from the ones she and Val had in common. I looked at Ben, seeing the flecks of gold in his eyes before he lowered his head, again concentrating on the gravel as he slid an arm around my shoulders and we walked toward the kitchen door.

  “When I was talking to Mrs. Cake, she suggested I go down and ask Miss Pierce for her recipe for currant scones.” He folded the piece of paper and put it in his trouser pocket. “She said it’s a good one and the old lady would be pleased.”

  “Thoughtful of Mrs. Cake to suggest it,” I told his shoes, “and nice of you to take her up on the idea. You’ve nothing to learn when it comes to making scones.”

  “I thought it was my hubble-bubble you were particularly fond of.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

  “Funny you should mention it. I was just pining for some.”

  “Two hearts that beat as one.” His arm drew me closer. I should have brimmed over with happiness. I was happy. There had been a perfectly reasonable explanation for his visit to the Dower House.

  “Will Miss Pierce and Val-Valeria-be at the tea?”

  “Of course.” It was said lightly, but I felt I’d stepped on his toes. Had I sounded like the jealous wife in Master of Darkwood Manor? Would it not be wise to reflect that she had not lived happily ever after?

  9

  A back door to the main house opened and Betty stuck out her head. “Hello there. Tom and I just got back from church.”

  “Good sermon?” Ben asked.

  “I couldn’t concentrate. Tom said he felt wonky in the middle of it and went out to sit on a bench.”

  “Is he feeling better?” I inquired of her back, as we went inside.

  “Who knows? He’s been out of sorts ever since you arrived.” Betty made up for this tactless observation by saying the magic words. “I’ll get coffee and biscuits, if you like. I really was fairly domesticated, before there no longer seemed any point. Or would we do better having an early lunch, as we’ll be having the tea at three? Anyway, come into the kitchen and we’ll sort it out.”

  We found Tom slumped in a chair at the table and Ariel staring moodily into space. The wall clock showed that it was almost noon, so we agreed on lunch, which I offered to get, but Ben said he would handle it and there was no need for the rest of us to clear out because he worked well with an audience.

  “I’ll applaud like mad if you hit Dad over the head with a frying pan,” said Little Miss Sunshine. “Okay”-holding up her hands-“I just meant he needs waking up.”

  “Sorry.” Tom got to his feet and asked Ben, without looking at him, whether he required help finding things.

  “No, thanks, I’ve learned my way around.”

  “Up early this morning, weren’t you? Hope it wasn’t because you didn’t sleep well.”

  “Never better. I wanted to get organized for the tea. All that’s left on that score is to make Miss Pierce’s scones that Mrs. Cake recommends so highly.” Ben was cracking eggs into a bowl. “Mushroom omelets agreeable to everyone?”

  “Aren’t we all having the loveliest time?” said Ariel, getting in his way. “Smile, Betty! You look almost as sour as Dad. Didn’t church agree with you either?”

  “Will you ever learn to zip your mouth? It wasn’t church, it was bumping into Frances Edmonds afterward and being forced to invite her to tea this afternoon. I thought I had put her off yesterday, by saying we’d have her and Stan on their own next Sunday. But this morning she kept pressing, saying she was dying to meet Lady Fiona, and finally she came out with it.”

  “Out with what?” I asked, because nobody else did.

  “That I didn’t want my old friends around my posh new ones. That I’ve turned into a raging snob and forgotten that until a few months ago, I lived in a small semi-detached and stood on my feet all day long hairdressing and went home at night to bang plates of baked beans on toast on the table and call it dinner.”

  I hadn’t known she was a hairdresser. It explained why Tom thought she could have done something about Ariel’s greasy locks and why the little minx was so intent on not letting her. One more small rebellion for mankind.

  “All that pent-up jealousy! It came pouring out of Frances’s mouth. How she and Stan have played the lottery faithfully ever since it started, and we’d bought one bloody ticket and won the jackpot. And how if we’d been any kind of friends, we’d at the very least have paid off their mortgage and bought them a new car, and if we’d been really decent we would have insisted on giving them half of what we won.”

  “Oh, God!” Tom paced around the table. “I did say to you, Betty, that that’s what we should do. They’d have split with us. We’ve known them for years. They’ve been like family: Christmas and birthdays celebrated together. And with my mother gone, neither you nor I have any relations we’re close to.”

  That put Ben and me in our place. Fortunately, it didn’t have any impact on his ability to slice mushrooms at lightning speed. I managed my discomfort by getting down plates and setting out cutlery.

  “And I told you, Tom,” snapped Betty, “that we need to take our time deciding what we should do for other people. We’ve both heard the horror stories of what can happen when even the postman thinks he’s entitled to his cut.”

  “I understand exercising caution, but not when it comes to the Edmondses. They’re the salt of the earth.”

  “So Frances steals things!” Ariel gave one of her irritating giggles.

  “Not from us.” Betty, looking suddenly deflated, sank down on the chair Tom had previously occupied. “Not once. Never! At other times, with other people, she can’t seem to help herself. It’s Frances’s particular quirk. We all have them.” She seemed pathetically small in the oversized green suit. Even her red hair looked too big. “Stop panicking, Tom. I got Frances calmed down by saying that of course she was welcome at the tea. I’d been concerned she’d find the rest of the company boring.”

  “Does that include Ellie and Ben?” asked Ariel, through another giggle.

  “Don’t be silly! Why have you still not washed your hair? The real reason I didn’t want them today is I’m afraid they’ll start telling their dirty jokes, and I can’t see that being our two vicars’ cups of tea.”

  “Why does that matter if we’re in that disgusting room, with all those naked people on the ceiling?” All merriment had left Ariel’s face. She was back to her most disgruntled self.

  “She’s speaking of the conservatory,” Tom said, catching my eye. “I don’t understand either. It’s like being in the Sistine Chapel.”

  “Mrs
. Cake says it was Lady Fiona’s favorite place to sit,” Betty responded.

  “Then she’s disgusting,” blared Ariel.

  “Her grandfather had that ceiling painted by a famous artist.” Betty pressed a hand to her brow. “When she married Mr. Gallagher, he thought it needed a little cloud cover, so she had that done. It’s a terrible shame there’ve been leaks from the bathroom above; we’ll need to get a plumber in to take a look, although Mrs. Cake thinks the damage may have been caused by one or the other of the Gallaghers allowing the bath to overflow.”

  Betty stood up at the moment Mrs. Malloy came though the door to announce that her poem had ended up being twelve verses long. Did we all want to hear it from start to finish? Fortunately we were spared the solemn responsibility required of critics. Ben said that if there could be an exodus to the dining room he would bring in the food.

  Lunch was, as expected, delicious. In addition to the omelets and my desired hubble-bubble, we had tomato basil soup and a spinach salad, followed by a luscious lemon souffle. Would tea that afternoon be an anticlimax? I offered to help with the washing up, but Betty insisted on taking that job. Ariel was given final marching orders to go and wash her hair. Mrs. Malloy, having put on her nylon and lace pinny, asked where she would find the paper doilies. Ben handed them to her. Tom wandered away like Mr. Gallagher’s ghost returning to the place where his body had been buried. I found myself remembering my unease in the west wing, as I crossed the hall to go upstairs and encountered Mavis coming down them with the bucket and mop.

  “Hello,” I said, feeling a complete sloth. “Do you get to go home now and enjoy what’s left of Sunday with your family?”

  She didn’t return my smile. “My husband’s a locksmith; he gets called out a lot on weekends. It’s always the time when people get stuck out of their houses and cars.” She didn’t add silly fools, but her expression made it clear.

  “They must be relieved when he gets there. Are there any doors he can’t open?”

  “Not Ed.” She thawed minimally. “I tell him he must have been a safecracker in a former life, or else it was in this one and he didn’t tell me. But no need to bother about any of that around here. You can walk in for the looking. I hope Ed”-her face closed down as she shifted the bucket from one hand to the other-“I hope my husband isn’t home wanting his dinner. Anyway, I’m ready to leave.” She came down the last of the stairs and brushed past me without answering my good-bye, and I went up to my room.

  It was my intention to lie down on the bed for five minutes and think over the morning. But I fell almost instantly asleep and woke to find Ben bending over me, rubbing my shoulder and telling me it was gone two o’clock. Whereupon I staggered up, felt my way into the bathroom with my eyes half closed, and proceeded to splash my face with cold water. By the time I had pulled on a more afternoon sort of dress and redone my makeup and hair, he was gone. Would it be like this all week, I asked my face in the mirror, each of us playing musical rooms so we were rarely alone for any space of time? Was that how we both wanted it for the time being, while we each had other claims on our attention?

  In the gallery I met up with Mrs. Malloy, looking resplendent as always, but I focused on the white lace-trimmed pinny.

  “You don’t plan on wearing that at tea, I hope?” I said.

  “ ’Course I do.”

  “You don’t work for Tom and Betty. Admittedly, you’ve agreed to help out, as Ben has done, but to all intents and purposes he’s a guest and so are you.”

  “No need to get on your high horse for me, Mrs. H! I know where you and me stand, but it strikes me I’ll get to do a lot more eavesdropping going around the room with a tray than sitting down next to one person.”

  “You could be right, although I doubt you’ll get to hear Mr. Scrimshank confide to Lady Fiona that he’s embezzled her money and capped it off by murdering her husband when he became suspicious. That’s not exactly cucumber-sandwich conversation.”

  “Well, there’s no telling what little nuggets I’ll pick up. By the way, have you been helping yourself to my toffees?”

  “I haven’t been inside your bedroom.”

  “Somebody has. The bed looked as though it had been bounced on, and that bag of toffees is half gone. Ariel, I suppose. And her talking about Frances Edmonds being a kleptomaniac. The child needs a good old-fashioned spanking. Still,” she mused soulfully, “like the poet says, a sweet’s a sweet for all that!” Concerned that this was a precursor to her asking if I’d like to hear her “Ode to Melody” in its entirety, I said we should get downstairs. To which she replied she’d take another scoot back to her room to make sure her eyebrows were on straight.

  The long case clock was striking three as I reached the hall and came face-to-face with Lady Fiona. Having seen her portrait, there was no mistaking her. She had aged, as is said, gracefully. I explained who I was, and she said I could call her Fiona if I wished. She was very much the way I had imagined she would be at her present stage of life: tall and thin, with good bones, fine eyes, and a vague, drifting way of moving. I sensed that even when talking or listening, she would always be somewhat removed from the scene.

  “The little girl opened the door for me and then vanished, saying she had to wash her hair before Mrs. Hopkins chopped off her head and it didn’t matter anymore. Family life is different today, isn’t it? In Nanny Pierce’s opinion, our parents had the sense to keep out of the way until they could make some useful contribution.”

  “She said something like that to me yesterday.”

  “I really must do something for her, take her out to luncheon this Wednesday; yes, I will mention it to her. I suppose she’ll be here?” Before I could answer she glided down the hall. “Really, I have neglected her sadly in recent months, but I hear she has some young woman living with her now at the Dower House.”

  “Her great-niece.”

  “I seem to remember there was one-and, I think, a brother. Didn’t turn out well. Gambled or drank to excess. Went to live in Ireland-or am I thinking of another family? The Bledstowes, from Cambridge… yes, I think now it was they. They had a dog that could play the piano.” She was now looking through the open drawing-room door.

  “Will we be having tea in here?”

  “In the conservatory. Betty thought you would like that.”

  “Who? Oh, yes, that will be the new maid. The people who bought Cragstone came into money from an aunt in New Zealand, I believe it was. They’ll be able to take on plenty of help. I do hope they kept Mavis on. She hasn’t had an easy time. I seem to remember she grew up in an orphanage and had to sort rags in order to buy stockings.”

  Before she could say that maybe she was thinking of a book she had read-I was pretty sure I knew the one-she drifted on down the hall and I entered the conservatory behind her. There was no one else there as yet, so we had our choice of sofas and chairs.

  “I miss Cragstone,” she said. “Particularly this room.”

  It was attractive, with its abundance of plants on stands and tables. The glass walls provided a sweeping panorama of the grounds, but I was preoccupied with adjusting my nose to the smell of earth and mold, which is not one of my particular favorites. Then I looked up at the ceiling. It was indeed something to behold. A celestial nudist colony! Patriarchal males, all of whom looked as though they were named Zeus, disported themselves on cloud sofas. Women with crimped gold tresses and rounded bellies cavorted in streams of sunlight. The Sistine Chapel it wasn’t. Religious, no; ribald, yes. What it had been like before Mr. Gallagher’s request for more cloud cover I did not care to imagine. My heart went out to the cherubs, who looked more shocked than soulful. For the first time since meeting her I found myself in complete agreement with Ariel. That ceiling needed a speedy coat of whitewash.

  Presumably inured to its impact, Lady Fiona sat down on a sofa and asked how I liked England and if I found it cold after living abroad so long. “How is your aunt in Jamaica doing, Mrs. Honeywood?”

/>   I was about to remind her my name was Haskell, and say I didn’t have any aunts, when Mrs. Malloy came into the conservatory with a plate of dainty sandwiches. I got up to make the introductions. Mrs. M, who has an intense aversion to mold, pressed a handkerchief over her face, which made her look like a bank robber waiting for the bank to open.

  “And what of your cousin’s little boy?” Lady Fiona asked me. “The one who accidentally swallowed his goldfish and insisted on having his stomach pumped, so it could be taken out alive. You do believe it to have been an accident?” She took a sandwich from the silver tray Mrs. M proffered. “Such a worry for his parents if he did it on purpose.”

  While I was avoiding Mrs. Malloy’s eyes, Betty and Tom came into the room with Mr. Scrimshank, whose looks had not improved since yesterday. If anything, he looked even more like someone who has been brought back to life after being badly embalmed. When I went over to him, he gave no sign of remembering who I was. And even when Mrs. M removed her mask and asked if he’d like cucumber or cheese and tomato, the doggy brown eyes in his white face looked none the wiser.

  “We were at your office yesterday, to see me sister, Melody,” she told him, “and you was nice enough to point out we’d come in the wrong door.”

  “Ah!” Light had dawned. “Miss Tabby. Yes, yes! She was late getting those letters on my desk. Never happened before in nearly forty years. I do hope she’s not cracking up. I’ve wondered about that possibility recently, ever since I heard she’d taken up knitting. These enthusiasms can take a terrible hold on a woman of her advanced age.”

  Mrs. Malloy raised her eyebrows at me in both outrage and inquiry. Luckily for him, Mr. Scrimshank left us without another word to sit beside Lady Fiona.