The Dead Woman Who Lived

by Endellion Palmer

  “Don’t be idiotic, Adrien,” she said. “If it was you, would you be digging it all back up now? My reaction last night was not based on reason. The triggers for it were circumstantial. Look, I know we were not on the best of terms back then…”

  He looked uneasy still. He gave one of his uneven smiles, his eyes creasing at the corners, as her voice tailed off.

  “That is something of an understatement,” he said.

  She looked at him severely, but her eyes were amused.

  “What did Alistair say?” he asked.

  She gave him a smile.

  “He was very polite, but he didn’t say much. I don’t know what he really thought. But he told me that I should talk to you. Was he always like that, when you were at school?”

  “Yes, he was. He plays his cards very close to his chest.”

  He paused.

  “I want you to trust me, Jules.”

  Her heart gave the quirk it did so often these days.

  “I can’t say why, but my head tells me that you had nothing to do with this,” she said. “I saw your face last night. You looked so confused, and hurt.”

  Adrien opened his mouth to speak, but the sharp ring of the telephone interrupted him.

  “Answer that,” she said, pointing to the apparatus, and got to her feet. “The others should be here soon. Didi called earlier. She managed to swap her week off and was hoping to get the same train as Jamie. Mags was sending Jack Bonney to pick them up at quarter to five.”

  She left the room quickly and ran upstairs, taking the opportunity to rinse her hands and face. She dabbed some scent on her wrists and rearranged her hair, adjusting the ivory pins and loosening the tight coils so her face was framed more attractively. She had scarcely thought about it earlier but, decidedly happier now that the burden was shared, she was adding a touch of powder and lipstick when she heard the crunch of gravel under car tyres, followed shortly by the front door opening with a bang.

  She left her room, keen to talk to the twins again, but Fancy reached them first. Juliana paused just out of sight at the top of the stairs, squatting on her heels and peering out through the barley-sugar twists of the balcony railing. She watched as Fancy allowed Jamie to hug her and kiss her cheek. He smiled at his mother, his eyes warm with affection. His sister rolled her eyes behind his back, hands shoved deep in her coat pockets. Fancy reached up and brushed Jamie’s head, and his face lit up at the touch.

  “You need a hair cut. It’s much too long,” Fancy carped, removing her son’s smile at once. “Damaris, do try and put a smile on your face. That perpetual glare of yours is so ugly.”

  Juliana grimaced, watching Jamie’s face fall and seeing the narrowed eyes of his sister.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been busy, Mother,” Jamie replied, looking at the floor.

  Damaris ignored the barb that had been aimed at her and looked around.

  “House is quiet. Is there any tea left?” she asked casually.

  “No, you’re too late,” replied her mother tartly. “You’ll have to wait for dinner.”

  She paused, and there must have been something in her eyes, because her children, instead of mounting the stairs to their rooms, circled back around her.

  “Juliana has recovered her memory,” stated Fancy blandly. There was the hint of scepticism in her voice. “Very conveniently.”

  There was a strained silence, then the words poured out.

  “She got her memory back? When? What did she say?” asked Jamie.

  “How bizarre!” said Damaris. “What happened?”

  They spoke in unison, both pairs of round brown eyes both aghast and excited. Fancy’s words were smooth, but the way she spoke them was what cut the most.

  “I have no idea, but she made a frightful song and dance over it. It happened last night.”

  There was a slight pause; Juliana could imagine the nasty smile on Fancy’s lips.

  “And apparently she didn’t fall off the cliff, she was pushed. Now, do run along, both of you. I want some peace before dinner.”

  She finished her answer with a casual wave of her hand, then strolled into the library and closed the door. Peering down, Juliana saw the twins gazing at each other in wide-eyed confusion. She felt that she should join the party, and getting back to her feet, she made a point of coughing loudly before appearing at the top of the stairs. The two brown heads swivelled towards her as one, and she could see from their expressions that they did not know what to say.

  “Welcome home, my pets,” she said as cheerfully as she could as she ran down the stairs to them.

  At the warmth in her voice, they both relaxed and bounded over to kiss her.

  “Is it true? What Mother said?” asked Damaris.

  “Which bit?” asked Juliana.

  “Any of it,” replied Jamie. “And when did this all happen?”

  “Last night, after dinner with Bob and Daphne.”

  Jamie gave a nervous laugh.

  “Well, Visick House can be a little alarming at first,” he said. He patted her arm rather lamely, holding her elbow as if she might collapse on them.

  “I don’t know what happened,” she lied. She was sure they would hear about it, but for now she wanted not to think about it. “It just came back. It upset me rather, and I managed to frighten everyone else into fits at the same time.”

  “You poor thing,” said Damaris with concern, and Jamie nodded his agreement.

  Juliana smiled at them. No matter how she was feeling, the two of them cheered her up. Looking at them now, eyes sparkling with curiosity, frozen in the middle of what they were doing, which was taking off their outdoor raiment, she gave a smile.

  “Do hang your coats up,” she said. “You look most uncomfortable.”

  They finished their tasks quickly, Damaris taking both coats to the cloakroom and Jamie putting their cases neatly by the staircase, then they returned to Juliana’s side.

  “Do tell,” Damaris said. “Come on, you can’t let it go at that. What do you remember?”

  Jamie grabbed her hand and held it in both of his, his cold fingers rubbing against her palm.

  “Did it all come back in one go? That must have been strange?” he said, looking worried.

  “No, just bits,” she replied. “It was extremely… bizarre.”

  Damaris bit her lip.

  “Mother was joking about you being pushed, though?” she asked, then saw Juliana’s expression and her face froze. “Wasn’t she?”

  Juliana didn’t want to confirm it, but she had no choice.

  “No, she wasn’t joking,” she said. “I remember someone being there. They pushed me.”

  They both looked at her, aghast, all laughter gone.

  “Who was it?” Damaris finally asked.

  Jamie looked from her to Juliana, like he had wanted to ask, but hadn’t dared.

  “I have no idea,” she replied. “I never saw a face. Just a figure, in shadow.”

  “How horrible,” said Damaris, with a shudder.

  Jamie looked worried.

  “Poor Julie,” he said, squeezing her hand. “What a ghastly thing to happen.”

  Juliana managed to force a shrug that looked more carefree than she felt. She wasn’t entirely sure that the two believed her. She knew that Adrien did. Something in her reaction to him that evening had convinced him that her fears were real. But she was not sure about everyone else. She was not entirely certain that she would have believed it herself, if the story had come from someone else.

  She gave them both another hug each, the embraces being returned with vigour.

  “At least you two are here now, and I get to spend more time with you. It’ll be fun. I like it here very much, but it does get lonely sometimes. Adrien has such a lot of work. And I’m not used to having nothing to do.”

  Damaris looked up, sensing what was not being said.

  “I take it Mother has been as welcoming as we thought,” she remarked with a sigh.

&
nbsp; Jamie looked uncomfortable and shot a glance at the library door, but his sister was not letting go.

  “She’s probably been a complete beast,” continued Damaris. “Don’t make that face—you know how she is, Jamie! You must admit that she can be a horror.”

  There was silence for a moment as she stared brazenly at her brother, then they both turned to look at their hostess. Juliana found that after Fancy’s behaviour last week, she really could not bring herself to lie. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, lost for words. Jamie just looked at the floor.

  “That bad, was it?” asked Damaris.

  She tried to sound light-hearted, but a quick look at her face told a different story. She was angry, and embarrassed too.

  “Never mind,” said Juliana, grabbing her hand and giving it a squeeze. “It’s finished with now. Look, it’s ages until dinner, and you’ve missed tea. We had it a bit early today, because Mr Carr arrived after driving from London. Come into the kitchen and we’ll get a cup of tea and find you something nice to eat. There’s a walnut cake that will rejoice your hearts. Mrs Fennell won’t mind feeding you if we don’t make too much mess. I’ll let you in on a secret: I have my tea in there in the morning with her most days, instead of in bed.”

  Jamie raised his eyebrows, pleased for a change in the subject. His eyes gleamed.

  “How very egalitarian of you, Julie,” he said as they wandered down the corridor and through the scullery.

  She punched him on the arm and Damaris laughed.

  “It just feels wrong to sit in bed when I’m not ill. So I go down and have a cup of tea and we discuss menus and things while she cooks breakfast! Oh, and I have to tell you about Mr Carr, who is an old friend of Adrien’s and is down here too.”

  ***

  With Jamie and Damaris back, and lots of conversation and noise, the evening went much more smoothly than anyone could have hoped. For whatever reason, perhaps because they had been joined by an outsider, Fancy reined in her tongue, and without her barbed comments and her habit of pouring cold water on any subject of which she didn’t approve, dinner was convivial.

  Alistair found himself interested in the family group that surrounded him. By unspoken consent, last night’s events were not discussed, nor the thorny subject of Juliana’s fall. Fancy excused herself early. Between Alistair and Adrien’s tales of their school days, and with Jamie and Damaris back to their normal ebullient selves, the conversation did not flag, and they were all in stitches by the end of the evening.

  The next morning, Alistair was leaving the dining room as Juliana stepped off the last stair onto the polished floor. He smiled at her.

  “You look like you slept well,” he said, and was rewarded with a smile that lit up her face.

  “I did, I slept like a baby,” she said in some surprise. “Bob had left me a powder to help me, but I didn’t need it. I slept soundly, absolutely nothing but peace. I heard the sea crashing against the cliffs when I woke and it sounded like home. Have you breakfasted?”

  “Yes, I have already eaten. Your cousins are still feeding in there, but I’d like a word with your husband. He said he’d be in his study.”

  She indicated the door across the hallway.

  “In there,” she said. “Give it a good push, it sticks a bit.”

  He watched her enter the dining room and heard Damaris greet her cheerily, before pausing for a moment by the study door. He knocked sharply, then pushed the door open. They sat by the window. Adrien gave him the only armchair and sat on the window seat. He looked gravely down at his guest.

  “Do you have time to talk?” Alistair asked.

  “Of course. What do you need to know?” Adrien replied.

  Alistair appreciated his directness. If no one was talking openly about what had happened, they, and especially this man, were thinking about it.

  “Having had a day to reflect, do you still feel that your wife’s story is true?” he asked.

  He held his hands up at the indignation on Adrien’s face. “Before you start expostulating on her behalf, I don’t mean to say that I think that she is necessarily lying. Just that a severe blow to the head like that might well bring on hallucination, especially in an overimaginative subject. It has to be considered.”

  Adrien had been about to answer harshly, but recognised the truth behind Alistair’s words.

  “I suppose so. She always had a lively imagination, but she wasn’t the sort to be anxious or overexcited about it.”

  Alistair took a deep breath. He had made a call the previous afternoon, after hearing Juliana’s story, and had received a reply from London before breakfast.

  “Is there any chance she just ran off?” he asked gently. “I don’t doubt that she ended up halfway down the cliff. I spoke to someone about her, and the injuries she received fit that scenario. Frankly, she was lucky that head injury wasn’t the end of her.”

  Adrien shivered.

  “I wouldn’t have blamed her,” he said. “Things were dreadful between us. To be honest, if we hadn’t found her coat and things at the bottom of the cliff, I might have believed it.”

  He paused here, and Alistair caught the look on his face.

  “But?” he probed.

  “Even after sleeping on it, I still think that her reaction the other night, that terror she experienced, was real. Whether or not she fell or was pushed, she genuinely believes that someone was there. And I still think that I was correct about the slip.”

  “I’ll look into it,” Alistair replied. “I’ll go and see if I can get any help from the police. It’s definitely very odd.”

  “The local man, Vercoe, is a decent chap. And he was right here when it all happened. Ask him about it. I haven’t talked to him yet, but it might be better coming first from you.”

  Alistair nodded, his eyes sombre. “There are a number of other things I want to do,” he said. “I need to talk to everyone who was here that day.”

  “How do you want to do that?” asked Adrien. “Do you want them to think you a guest?”

  Alistair had already decided on this.

  “I’m inclined to tell everyone the truth,” he answered. “This all happened three years ago. Memories are fragile beasts. Difficult to make conversation about it in passing. There’s another aspect too. You can make sure they know that you take it seriously. That you believe Juliana.”

  Adrien looked worried. “You don’t think that someone might try again?”

  “I sincerely hope not,” said Alistair seriously. “But there is always that possibility. If someone did push Juliana, they will know now that she saw them. Granted she did not see a face, but whoever it is must be wondering whether or not she is going to remember that one detail.”

  “So, you will need to talk to everyone. Together or alone?”

  Alistair was ready for that.

  “Alone at first. And we’ll try to keep it informal. I want to talk, not interrogate.”

  “Honey not vinegar, that always was your way,” Adrien said. “Right, I’ll make sure that everyone understands that none of it is official, but that you need to hear what people remember.”

  “That would be most useful. Oh, and to start with, who exactly was here?”

  “First, the path that runs past the estate on the cliffside is accessible at any number of points from the town along its length. Just so you understand. It’s not private, and anyone who likes can go along it on the other side of the wall. And none of the gates are locked. As for household, there was myself, Fancy, Jamie, and Damaris, here at Trevennen. Damaris had a week’s holiday from the hospital, and Jamie was here for the weekend, as he is now.”

  “How about the staff?”

  “Well, they are not the same now, but we had a cook and the two maids, who lived in. There are other maids who came up daily and a char who comes up two or three times a week from town. However, there was a wedding to which they were all invited; they all had a half-day’s holiday, so strictly speaking
they weren’t here. I don’t think they got home until after ten o’clock that night.”

  “You spoke before of your cousin.”

  “All the Clevedons were here, on the Island. Geoffrey and Sylvia, and their two daughters. It was Easter vac for Margaret, and Helena was living at home, looking after her father. Geoffrey was very sick at that point; I think Bob Cundy thought we might lose him.”

  Alistair finished his list, then looked up.

  “Mrs Evans was here? I understood she has a property a short distance away. She mentioned it last night at dinner.”

  “There was work going on at Hendra at that time. The house is on the other side of the town. You are right, normally they would have been over there.”

  Alistair was curious.

  “Why did they come over here? I mean, who set that up?”

  “It was Juliana. She insisted that Fancy move over here to get out of the way of the workmen. It was really just chance that they were all here.”

  Alistair made some notes, then tapped his pen on the paper.

  “Anyone new in town since then? I take it most of the inhabitants are the same.”

  Adrien shrugged. “The only incomers since then are Mr Berkley and his sisters. They rent Hendra from Fancy; they’ve been there for a couple of years. The vicar is the same, William Saxby his name is. He and his wife moved here just after the War. They are friends of ours. Bob Cundy, our doctor, has been here since he went into practice; he and his wife are also good friends. And their nephew, Simon, was here on and off at that point.”

  “On and off?”

  “He suffered badly from shell shock. Bob and Daphne were dreadfully worried about him at first. He and Jamie were together for a while at the front. You’ll hear about it from everyone. How they ran off together to join up, then ended up at the same camp together near Arras. Simon saved Jamie’s life after a battle, a really close call. And if he’s in the mood for talking, Simon will tell you that Jamie did the same for him. We all have our stories, don’t we? But those two really went all out!”

  He stopped and gave a thin smile. “You can talk to all of them. They were all very good to me at that time—you may learn something from them. Can’t think of anyone else.”