Withering Heights

by Dorothy Cannell

  “Ah, Fiona!” He intoned the name through his nose. “Any further word from Nigel?”

  “None. It was a relief to hear that he rang you that once, Archibald. It set my mind at ease that nothing untoward had happened to him. Preferable perhaps if he had got in touch with me instead, but I understand his reasoning. He would have worried that Miss Pierce would get on the line and keep talking, making it seem it would be forever before he could get back to exploring the Amazon or wherever he is. Devoted as he has always been to Nanny, Nigel has intimated that there have been occasions when he found her constant fussing over him irksome. He didn’t mind so much while he was still in his forties, but… I say no more. It will please him on his return to find her settled in the Dower House. I acted in accordance with what I knew would be his wishes. Somebody was just telling me”-she looked vaguely around the room-“that Nanny has some friend or relation living with her. I hope it works out until the time she finally hangs up her butterfly net, to use Nigel’s phrase.”

  The expression did seem preferable to kick the bucket. But before I could murmur this opinion to Mrs. Malloy, who was setting out more trays of perfectly presented sandwiches, delectable-looking iced fancies, and fruit tartlets and currant scones, our eyes were drawn to the door where Frances Edmonds cowered against her husband’s shoulder.

  “Oh, whatever’s wrong with her now?” Betty brushed past Tom to draw the peeping twosome back into the hall. Remembering that someone, possibly me, needed to start handing round cups and saucers, I moved to the buffet table, where if I strained my ears sufficiently I could hear voices and hiccuping sobs.

  “For goodness’ sake, Frances! Why would I think to mention Mr. Scrimshank would be here? It was Lady Fiona you were so keen to see. How could I know he sacked you for not cleaning behind the radiators and you never want to see him again? Stan, get her to stop crying. Oh, come on, both of you, let’s go into the kitchen so you can both have a cup of tea before slipping out the back door, if that’s what you want to do. I wonder what’s been keeping Ben from joining us in the conservatory?” Betty’s voice faded away, along with the dwindling footsteps.

  “Now you take that look of your face, Mrs. H,” whispered Mrs. Malloy, “like you’re sure he’s in the pantry canoodling with that Val. Miss Pierce felt a bit faint after the walk up here and he had her sit down in the kitchen and found her a glass of brandy. They’ll all be in soon. I wonder what’s keeping them two vicars?”

  Right on cue, in they came. The one who had to be Mr. Hardcastle was handsomely middle-aged, with kind eyes and a pleasant smile. Clutching at his arm, and also wearing a clerical collar, was a frail little man with wispy white hair and a face that had shriveled to the point of being all nose. With luck, his infirmities would prevent him from ever looking at the ceiling.

  “Mr. Hardcastle.” Tom roused himself out of whatever doleful thoughts had been claiming him to hasten across the room.

  “No formality, please; call me Jim.” It was a nice voice, hinting at humor and the ability to pour the right amount of oil on troubled waters.

  “Let me help you get your friend-”

  “Simeon Tribble,” piped up a reedy but cheerful voice.

  “A pleasure to meet you, sir,” responded Tom, moving with more speed than usual to help the ancient gentleman to a chair. While this was being accomplished with a great deal of tottering and some false lowerings, Betty returned without the Edmondses and took over the general introductions. As she was finishing up, it became necessary to start again. Val, Miss Pierce, and Ben had entered the room.

  Mr. Scrimshank left Lady Fiona to direct his attention to a feathery fern in a container the size of a dustbin, so I again sat down beside her.

  “I understand that you are related to a family of the same name in Chichester, Mrs. Honeywood,” she said.

  Taking the easiest course, I invited her to call me by my first name.

  “Ellie? I had thought you were Edith. Then you’re the one with an aunt in Gibraltar, not Jamaica.”

  “That’s right.” I let my mind stray. Val was wearing rose pink and looked even lovelier than yesterday. Blackberry curls, creamy skin, those deep blue eyes, she was a rare flower, worthy of Kew Gardens, let alone this conservatory. What a picture she made, standing with her hand on Ben’s arm, smiling up at him. Would it be described in books, I wondered with a numbed detachment, as a tremulous smile? I could hear what she was saying; she was thanking him for being kind and giving her great-aunt the brandy and waiting to make sure she was feeling better. All very prosaic, but I saw Tom looking at them in stark surprise, before turning to ask Betty if she knew where Ariel was to be found.

  “No idea,” Betty said, before asking Mr. Tribble how he was enjoying his stay at the vicarage.

  “Very much,” he replied in his trembly voice. He poked inside his clerical collar, perhaps in hope of finding that a fifty-pence piece had dropped in when the collection plate was passed. “Jim’s father and I were great friends. He brought me here once when I was a young man.”

  “Nice for you to have the chance to come back.” Mrs. Malloy, standing with a plate of sandwiches, eyed him with concern. “Maybe you should sit back on that chair. Looks to me like you’re about to fall off.”

  Mr. Hardcastle prevented this by making the necessary adjustment. I wished Mr. Tribble had a seat belt. Interestingly, the old man did not appear nervous. Maybe he had jumped out of airplanes as a lad and still enjoyed living dangerously. He certainly displayed a spirit of adventure by holding his own cup and saucer while peering with interest at Lady Fiona, who was now asking if I painted in oils, as my mother had done, or preferred watercolors, as did the aunt in Gibraltar.

  “Mrs. H does lovely with both.” Mrs. Malloy gamely got aboard the ship bound for nowhere, enabling me to bite into a scone.

  “The Chichester Honeywoods collect sculptures.” Lady Fiona accepted a refill of her teacup from Betty, who then went to attend to Mr. Scrimshank, apparently not having seen him empty his cup into a flowerpot. “Are those two young people recently married?” Her ladyship gestured with her teaspoon. The good-looking dark-haired couple. Standing next to Nanny Pierce.”

  “Why do you ask, your ladyship?” That scone might have been made from a marvelous recipe, but it left the taste of ashes in my mouth.

  “They have that look of belonging together. The similar coloring.”

  “I see what you mean.” So much for Mrs. Malloy’s belief that like didn’t respond to like, but having retreated to pour herself a cup of tea she didn’t get to state her case.

  “One remembers what it is like to be desperately, one might say foolishly, in love.” Lady Fiona gazed reflectively at a standing potted plant.

  “Actually,” I heard myself say, as if from a vast distance, “Ben is my husband and the woman standing with him and Miss Pierce is the great-niece. The one staying at the Dower House.”

  “Is she?” Her ladyship drifted a look at Val. “Yes, I seem to place her now. She was an extremely pretty child when she and her brother spent that summer at Cragstone. Never having had children of my own, I had concerns. But they were no trouble. I only remember Nanny Pierce mentioning one upset. She would have thought it unconscionable to withhold such information. A betrayal of her duty to Nigel.”

  “I see.”

  “It involved the boy’s locating the priest hole in the west wing and refusing to tell his sister how to open the panel. Nanny said Nigel would never have behaved in such a way. She assured him neither child would go near that secret room again, which relieved him greatly. He didn’t at all like the idea of them getting shut in and being unable to find the release catch in the dark.”

  “What a horrible thought.” I held on to it, while not looking at Ben and Val. I also focused on the rhythmic spatter of water landing on my head. Betty had talked about a leak from the bathroom above. Lady Fiona showed no sign of noticing that it was beginning to rain indoors. “According to family legend a priest did
get trapped in that priest hole during Tudor times. Or would it have been Jacobean? Sadly, he wasn’t brought out until it was too late; he had suffocated. But perhaps that was a blessing. They did have that nasty tendency to hang, draw, and quarter people in those days.” Lady Fiona sipped her tea. “How long have you and your husband been married, Elsie?”

  “Nearly nine years.” It was now sprinkling quite heavily over our sofa, but the rest of the room remained under clear skies.

  Our conversation caught Mr. Tribble’s attention, sending him off on a tangent. “Did I marry you, Lady Fiona?” He might have leaned too far forward if Ben hadn’t darted forward to reposition him.

  “I do tend to be somewhat absentminded,” responded her ladyship serenely, “but I think I would have remembered had you ever been my husband.”

  “What Mr. Tribble means is did he perform the wedding service,” said Mr. Hardcastle, with his nice smile. “No, Simeon, you didn’t. I was a guest at Lady Fiona’s marriage to Nigel Gallagher. It was Howard Miles, not you, who officiated.”

  “I could have sworn-” A few drops of water landed on Mr. Tribble’s head.

  “No, you wouldn’t.” His friend laughed heartily. “Swearwords are not in your vocabulary. Or mine, although I sometimes come close when I drop a stitch in my knitting-I trust I may count on your discretion not to spread word of my new hobby around in clerical circles. I happen to find it relaxing when I’m thinking through an upcoming sermon. And I’m not the only man in these parts to have taken it up. There’s the Barclay’s Bank manager, the village school headmaster, Police Sergeant Walters, and-”

  “I still feel sure”-Mr. Tribble continued to peer at Lady Fiona-“it would have been, now let me think… what year was it? Never mind! It will come back to me. These things always do.”

  Other conversations flowed around me. Tom talked to Mr. Scrimshank, Betty said something to Nanny Pierce, and Val joined in, while her eyes followed Ben’s every movement. Mrs. Malloy continued handing out replenishments of sandwiches, cakes, and scones. Still no Ariel!

  Lady Fiona left the sofa, saying she must talk to Nanny Pierce about taking her to lunch on Wednesday. Feeling abandoned, I stared into my teacup. There was something floating in it. Something shaped like a leaf. But not a tea leaf; it was too big and too white! It could only be… I looked up at the ceiling, to behold an extremely well-endowed Zeus now absent a very necessary part of his cloud cover.

  Finally, others noticed it was raining.

  Betty yanked at Tom’s arm. “Ariel must have left the water running after washing her hair. Run and turn it off! Ben, will you go with him and help mop up?”

  “Of course.”

  “And I’ll go and look for Ariel, if you like,” said Mrs. Malloy.

  Out the three of them went, and Val, whose hair of course was curling even more beautifully in the damp, adjusted her great-aunt’s cardigan and put an arm around her shoulders.

  “Dear me,” said Mr. Tribble, as more drops landed on his head, “I’m afraid we came without our umbrellas, Jim.”

  “Oh, I expect it’s only a summer shower,” Mr. Hardcastle reassured him gamely. “No need for us to race for cover, Mrs. Hopkins. I’m sure it will pass over very quickly.”

  “We could go into the drawing room.” Betty stood, twisting her hands.

  “Not on my account, dear lady.” Mr. Tribble made the understandable mistake of looking up at the ceiling. Instantly, it became apparent that whatever else might be failing, his eyesight was not. If ever a man goggled, he did. “Oh, my!” His voice creaked. “Whatever next!”

  The answer was a significant piece of cloud landing in his teacup. Betty hurriedly produced a new one for him and then looked distractedly around for the milk jug and teapot.

  “I wonder if he might prefer a glass of brandy.” Lady Fiona lifted a decanter from a table.

  “Indeed, that would be welcome!” Mr. Tribble held out his cup. “Just pour it in here, no need to trouble yourself fetching a glass. Yes, right to the middle.” Her ladyship had wafted to his side. “That will do very nicely. Thank you.”

  “My dear Simeon,” Mr. Hardcastle protested. “I think that may be too much.”

  “No, no. I would say the amount is exactly right. Or maybe”-peeking up at Lady Fiona-“you would kindly pour in just an inch or two more… Perfect, thank you.” He smiled up at her. “May I say you have changed remarkably little over the years. It is now coming back to me. It wasn’t a big wedding, just the two of you… and both so young. Ah, well! Time marches on! Is anyone else going to indulge?”

  “Perhaps a very small cup,” said Mrs. Malloy, who had returned to the room with Ariel. Whatever the resulting problems, the girl had finally washed her hair.

  “I didn’t even go into that bathroom,” she muttered to Betty. “I used the kitchen sink. Whoever left the water running, it wasn’t me. Maybe it was the spirit who visited last night.”

  “Yes!” Betty’s face glowed. “The poor dar-man has such limited means of letting me know he’s counting on me to act when the moment is right.”

  Ariel sat down beside me. “Maybe,” she whispered, “Nanny Pierce went upstairs to fill the bath for her precious Nigel and then forgot about it. Or acted out of clear-headed malice.”

  Had the old lady left the conservatory? I didn’t remember. I’d been preoccupied. Could Ariel be lying through her teeth about not having caused the deluge?

  Mr. Tribble raised his cup. “To everyone’s good health, mine included.”

  Lady Fiona came up to me after returning the decanter to the table. “I do hope he’s not the sort to drink and drive.”

  “I’m sure it will be Mr. Hardcastle behind the wheel,” I said.

  “That does relieve my mind, Mrs. Honeywood… Elsie. Neither Nigel nor I ever learned to drive. Nanny would have worried too much in his case. She was ill for a week when he got his first tricycle.”

  And how old would he have been at that time, fifty? I was looking at Betty, thinking how pretty she was with that dreamy smile on her face. What would she think of the living Nigel Gallagher, were he to show up? I retained some hope that he would do so.

  “In the end his tricycle had to be given away to a needy child. But he did enjoy operating the vacuum cleaner; he loved the sound of the motor and pressing the pedal to make it stop. I imagine it was one of those man things.” Her ladyship paused to stare across the room. “Oh, dear, Mr. Tribble has dropped his teacup and is falling off his chair.”

  Mr. Hardcastle bent over the crumpled figure. The rest of us, apart from Mr. Scrimshank, who remained rooted near his fern, went over to help. It was Mrs. Malloy who got there first. “He hasn’t just fallen off his chair!” Her eyes met mine. “He’s dropped off the twig!”

  10

  Dreadful as it sounds, Mr. Tribble’s shocking demise had the advantage of taking my mind off Val’s blatant attempts at resurrecting a relationship with Ben and his failure to give her the cold shoulder. I’d like to say it was the reminder that there are real sorrows in this world on a daily basis that brought me up short. Mr. Hardcastle had seemed very fond of the old gentleman and there would doubtless be others to miss him, but I didn’t think about that at the time. It was more a matter of the practicalities taking over.

  Betty made the necessary phone calls. Mr. Scrimshank offered to drive Lady Fiona back to her hotel, a good move on his part or the undertaker might have mistaken him for the corpse. Miss Pierce, after tut-tutting about the evils of brandy served in a teacup, something Mr. Nigel’s parents would never have countenanced, appeared energized by the excitement. It took some persuasion on Val’s part to get her to return to the Dower House. She was talking volubly as they left and I would have liked to hear what she was saying, but while Tom and Ben sat with Mr. Hardcastle, I helped Mrs. Malloy to clear away the tea things. Ariel trailed after us into the kitchen, and a moment later Betty hurried in, all agog.

  “Didn’t I tell you that woman’s a killer?”


  “What woman?” Ariel peeked up from the chair where she now sat hunched. If ever a child looked as though she needed a cat on her lap, she was it. And no wonder! She might talk glibly about death, but having been in the room with it was something else. I placed a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off.

  “Oh, don’t be dense!” Betty did not bother to look at her. “Lady Fiona! Who else would I mean? She’s struck again!”

  Mrs. Malloy handed Ariel a cucumber sandwich. “Get that down you. Having something inside will help settle your nerves. Works wonders every time.”

  “Surely, Betty,” I said, “you don’t think her ladyship killed Mr. Tribble?”

  “Certainly I do. She must have slipped something, a tablet or a little packet of powder, into his teacup when she poured him the brandy.”

  “How did she do it without anyone’s noticing?” Ariel bit into the sandwich as if it also might be poisoned.

  “Sleight of hand. Those fluttering gauzy sleeves of hers. She could have had whatever it was in her skirt pocket.”

  “She just happened to have the stuff on her, like it was a lipstick?” Mrs. Malloy elbowed me aside to get to the sink and deposit more plates.

  “It could have been some medication she keeps with her at all times.” Betty poked at her red hair as she scanned the room in search of believers. “Or something she brought along for the specific purpose of killing him.”

  “Why?” Ariel demanded.

  “She must have recognized his name when I mentioned he would be one of the guests. Her need to shut him up has to connect in some way to her motive for murdering dear… her husband. Remember how Mr. Tribble kept going on about being sure he’d performed her wedding ceremony?”

  “Do we look gormless?” Mrs. M might have her hands in the sink, but she remained quite clear about her true position in this household. “Of course we remember, and I’m sure the same thought occurred to Mrs. H as did to me: that her ladyship was married to someone else before she tied the knot with Mr. Gallagher, and he found out about it, right before he disappeared.”