The Dead Woman Who Lived

by Endellion Palmer

  He shrugged. “This jumper is right thick.”

  “Even so…”

  He grinned down at her. “I’m from the North. This is nowt!”

  “Do you miss it?” she asked. It must have been a wrench for him. Newly orphaned and having to move halfway across the country to live with relatives he barely knew.

  “I suppose I do, sometimes. Cornwall’s lovely, but in a different way. Soft and pretty. Up where I lived, it’s not pretty… it’s magnificent.”

  “I haven’t been north,” she replied. “Isn’t it bleak up there?”

  “Bleak, perhaps, but majestic,” he answered, somewhat proudly. “That’s where you would find God, if you believed.”

  “Don’t you believe in God?”

  There was a long pause as they stopped by the rocks so Juliana could retie her shoelace. She sneaked a look, to check that he was still there. He was, but he was looking away from her, a faraway gaze, as if he could see right back to Yorkshire.

  “I did once,” he replied. “But I lost him in France. Stupid, in’t it, to refuse to fight because of God, and then to end up not believing in him anyroad.”

  He sighed, his black eyes saddened.

  “I still go to the Meeting House sometimes, but there’s nowt there for me any more,” he replied, turning to look at her with a shrug of his thin shoulders. “Still, I like the peace. It’s always restful. I go there when my head is too full.”

  “Do you have to go far?” she asked as they started walking again. She pulled him towards her and tucked a hand through his arm. He looked down in surprise but didn’t pull away.

  “No, there’s one right here in the town. It’s tucked right away; street behind the butcher. Little white house with a thatched roof. It’s been there for a long time. Not many of us left, but still enough for it to keep on.”

  Juliana did remember the house, a low cob-and-thatch cottage with a high steep roof and painted shutters. She had thought it a dwelling house when she’d passed it.

  “I am glad that you have somewhere to go, to find peace” was all she could say.

  “And Mrs Morgan always gives me saffron cake after, too,” Simon admitted. “The Morgans are Quaker, all of them. She makes the best saffron buns in Penwith.”

  She smiled at this rather boyish statement. Simon caught the smile and acknowledged that he knew he was being teased with one of his own. He squeezed her hand in response.

  “Don’t you have family in Yorkshire? Go to visit?” she asked.

  Simon shook his head, his hair tangling over his eyes. He pushed it away impatiently.

  “No. They all died. I’ve been lucky, really. Aunt and Uncle are kind. William and Jean are good to me, too. Everyone else thinks I’m mad,” he said matter-of-factly. “If I went back to Yorkshire, I’d have none of the kindness, but everyone would still think I was insane.”

  He changed the subject away from himself. “What about you? Do you think of China now you remember it?” he asked.

  “I do, sometimes. The sound of it, the smell, the noise,” she said slowly. “It is so completely different to here; there’s almost nothing that is the same. I dreamed of Shanghai, the other night. I was on the Bund, walking by the river. It was night, the lights were on, the river was full of boats. Junks and sampans, hung with lanterns, their sides clanking against each other.”

  He looked interested.

  “I always wanted to travel, when I was young,” he said. “One of Aunt Daphne’s uncles was an explorer. She gave me his diaries and books. South America. Africa. The Far East. There was no end to where I wanted to go. Now Jamie, he never liked to be too far from home. France was as far as he got and that will be it. Same for me. I don’t think I’ll ever get very far again.”

  He sounded sad at the thought, but resigned. And at that point they reached the boathouse. Jamie and Margaret had already opened the toolbox and were arguing as to the best way to proceed. Damaris was looking out rags and polish to clean the woodwork, and the rest of the afternoon passed in engine oil and elbow grease and much good-humoured teasing. After tea they packed up and left everything tidy. Margaret turned to Jamie and Juliana.

  “Didi and I are going up to the hut. Simon says the roof is leaking and I’ve an idea for fixing it. What about you two? Coming up with us?”

  Jamie looked at Juliana and shook his head. “I’ll take Julie home. She looks a bit tired still. And Hobbs will be wanting a walk in the garden—we don’t want to leave it too late.”

  The others waved and started off up the hill. Jamie bent and picked up the basket, then checked his wristwatch.

  “Want to go straight home? It’s not actually as late as I thought.”

  “Let’s go to the quarry. I had such a bad time there yesterday—I’d like to see it again and get the bogeymen out of the way.”

  They walked up, enjoying the burgeoning heather that foamed under their feet. The air smelled clean and sweet, and when they reached the quarry, they sat down on the mackintosh rug and Jamie opened the last bottles of ginger beer. He checked in the depths of the pack to see if there were any cakes left, retrieved a piece of flapjack and broke it in two.

  “Look, here’s the last of the cake.” He handed it over, but Juliana waved it away, peering over the edge from a safe distance.

  “How can you eat so much and be so scrawny, Jamie? It shouldn’t be medically possible. Look, there’s where Simon rescued me. I recognise the remains of that tree.”

  Jamie’s mouth was full, and he chewed it carefully before swallowing and joining her at the edge. He looked over and shuddered.

  “No more adventures, please! Next time your guardian angel may not be around.”

  “I have never been so glad to see someone as I was Simon,” she admitted.

  Jamie lay down and turned onto his back.

  “The sun is lovely when you are out of the wind,” he said. “That’s your ginger beer over there, mind out.”

  Juliana joined him a moment later, and they lay for a while in the warmth. She listened to the sound of his breathing; regular and slowing. For a moment she thought he might fall asleep until he jerked awake with a muffled cry.

  “Are you all right, Jamie?” she asked.

  He was about to answer her, but his words were interrupted by an eruption of small brown dogs who seemed to pour uphill and surround them before they could so much as sit up.

  “Get off,” Jamie laughed as he tried to get to his feet.

  The words were echoed by Daphne. “Get off, you little brutes! Sorry about that, you two,” she puffed. “Didn’t think there was anyone up here. Why were you lying down? Damned uncomfortable, I should have said.”

  “We were having a sunbath,” said Juliana, who had been taken over by Herodotus and was engaged in scratching behind his silky ears, much to the canine’s delight. “And the heather is really quite comfy. Watch out, Jamie! There goes my ginger beer!”

  Jamie had kicked the bottle over as he got up and had to chase it downhill, returning with it empty, crestfallen.

  “What a waste!” he said. “Actually, it’s all pooled into a rock cup down there if you still want it.”

  He laughed at her outraged face.

  “Never mind, you can finish mine if you are thirsty. What have you been up to, Aunt Daphne?”

  “Too busy for sunbaths, anyway,” she retorted. “I’ve been sorting out a new first aid course for the Scouts, bringing the accounts for the practice up to date, and trying to teach the rudiments of English spelling to my youngest.”

  “We were at the boathouse, mending the Lotus,” said Juliana as she pushed the dog off her lap, and got to her feet.

  “The rest of them have gone up to the hut. Mags is keen to make some improvements,” she finished.

  “What did my nephew have to say about that?” enquired Daphne, producing a paper sack of hard biscuits and handing one each to her pets.

  “Not sure he’s going to have much of a choice,” said Jamie over th
e sound of happy crunching.

  “Well, I can’t stand around chattering,” Daphne said as the dogs finished their biscuits. “I need to get back and supervise the boys’ arithmetic. See you later, you two.”

  With a piercing whistle, she moved off across the heather, with only one of the dogs following her. The rest spread out, scenting rabbits in the heather and preparing for a grand hunt.

  Their relaxation thoroughly interrupted, Jamie and Juliana repacked the basket and headed back down the hill, past the remnants of the ginger beer. Herodotus accompanied them a short way, wagging his tail and barking lustily.

  ***

  Alistair was back when they reached the house, [4]checking under the bonnet of the car. As they approached, he replaced the dipstick and wiped his hands on a rag.

  “How did it go with Mrs Black?” asked Juliana.

  “She wasn’t there. No one was,” replied Alistair. “I waited around for a while but no one appeared.”

  Jamie was thoughtful. “She has a sister in St Ives who broke a leg recently. She may have gone to see her. Jago will have been out in the fields. He wouldn’t have thanked you for interrupting him. You can try again tomorrow—if she was out today, she’ll be in tomorrow. Not much time for gallivanting if you live on a farm.”

  “Why do you want to see her?” asked Juliana, curious.

  “This and that” was all Alistair said, with a grin.

  He knew that the police had not confirmed definitively that the body was that of Gwenna, but Joe had said he would tell his aunt and uncle what was believed to have happened. The news was bound to get out sooner or later. Neither of them wanted the Blacks to find out through gossip.

  ***

  Simon made a surprise reappearance just before dinner.

  “Margaret staved her ankle up at the hut,” he said to Juliana as she brought the dog to see him. Hobbs licked his hands and face eagerly, and Simon laughed at his eagerness. “She needed a bit of a hand getting down and it was too much for Damaris. She’s fair heavy, Margaret, though you wouldn’t believe it to look at her.”

  “Where is she?”

  “At home,” said Damaris, joining them. “We took her straight there. Helena’s volunteered to nurse her. Rather her than me. Mags is an awful patient.”

  “Will you stay for dinner, Simon?” Juliana asked.

  “I’ll go back home, if you don’t mind, Juliana. I only came down to make sure Margaret was all right.”

  He gave a nervous glance upstairs, and she understood that he knew Fancy would be there, and thus his attendance at the table would be a contentious one.

  “I’ll get you something from the kitchen to take up with you,” she replied. “Mrs Fennell made a pie earlier.”

  He was about to refuse when he saw the look in her eye, and instead he gave a sheepish grin.

  “Thanks, Juliana,” he said.

  She went immediately to the kitchen. As the door into the scullery swung shut, the telephone rang, and after no Adrien appeared, Damaris slipped into the study to answer it. By the time she had finished taking the call, Juliana was back with a newspaper-wrapped parcel, and Sylvia had come into the house to borrow a length of bandage to strap her daughter’s ankle.

  “We are all out of bandages,” she said. “I used the last one on the dogs last week.”

  This statement caused a general grin to spread, even Simon finding it amusing, but Sylvia didn’t bat an eyelid. Damaris reappeared, looking worried.

  “That was Daphne,” she said. “Herodotus is missing. She wondered if he’d come here.”

  “I haven’t seen him,” said Sylvia, “and I’ve been in the kitchen garden all day. He knows his way in; he knows there are biscuits in the shed. He does love a ginger nut, that dog.”

  “Ginger everything,” said Damaris. “He stole my ginger cake the last time I saw him.”

  Jamie came downstairs, dressed for dinner. “Was that the phone?”

  “Herodotus is missing,” said Simon, frowning. “Aunt Daphne just called.”

  Jamie’s face fell. Like everyone else, he was very fond of the old dog.

  “She says that he fell behind when they were out walking this afternoon,” continued his sister. “You know what he’s like. Sees a rabbit and he’s off. But he hasn’t come home for dinner, and that’s unusual.”

  “They were all over the place when we met them,” said Juliana. “Herodotus followed us down the hill, remember, Jamie? That was the last I remember of him. I thought he would run back up to the others after we walked on.”

  Jamie nodded.

  “I’ll keep an eye out on my way home,” said Simon, looking worried. “I’ll start out now. I hope he hasn’t hurt himself.”

  “I’ll lend you my torch. I just put a new battery in. More likely he’s got stuck in a rabbit hole,” replied Jamie gloomily. “You know how bad he is about digging down after them. If he’s not back by morning, I’ll head up too.”

  ***

  Juliana was reminded of the old dog the next morning as she and Adrien walked Hobbs through the garden before breakfast. The dog sniffed along the bottoms of the hedges, round trees and through the shrubbery. His joy when he disturbed a squirrel knew no bounds.

  “I hope Daphne’s dog is back safely,” she said.

  Adrien took her arm and slipped his hand into hers.

  “Daphne’s dogs all have nine lives,” he murmured before pulling her into his arms. “Like you, apparently. I’m sure he will be fine.”

  They met Jamie and his sister on the way back in, converging on the dining room.

  “I’ll call Daphne after breakfast,” Jamie said. “If the dog’s still missing, I’ll head up and help Simon look. Is it raining yet? Looks miserable out there.”

  “Not yet, but it’s going to pour later,” said Adrien as he sneaked a piece of kidney to Hobbs, who was waiting expectantly by the sideboard. He looked guiltily round to find his wife standing behind him, arms folded.

  “Don’t spoil him!” scolded Juliana. “His own breakfast is waiting in the scullery. Come on, Hobbs, come and have breakfast.”

  She left the dog happily disposing of the bowl that Ada had put down for him. The kitchen staff had all fallen in love with him, and he had a second bed right next to the range, where he took regular naps during the day and kept an eye on what was being cooked for dinner.

  As she left the scullery, the outside door pushed open. She pulled it further to find Simon standing there. He was carrying a small brown body, cradling it carefully in his arms, although from the twist of his mouth Juliana knew Herodotus was dead.

  “I found him up near the quarry,” he said. “He looked like he’d gone to sleep, real peaceful he seemed. Curled up under a bush.”

  “He was old, I suppose,” said Juliana, stroking the white hairs on the dog’s head, rubbing some sticky fur clean around his mouth. “His heart, probably. Poor old boy. Gosh, Daphne’s going to be upset.”

  Simon nodded; there were tears in his eyes. Not just because of the dog’s death, Juliana realised. He knew how much his aunt felt about her dogs, and he was worried about her reaction. He sniffed and rubbed his eyes.

  “It was odd. He weren’t far from where you and Jamie said you saw him last. I’m going to take him over to Aunt Daphne now,” he said, then disappeared in the direction of the town before Juliana could say anything else.

  She watched him go with a sense of unease that she could not explain.

  Chapter 22

  Hearing the news about Herodotus cast a shadow on what was to be Damaris’ last day of holiday. Her case was already on her bed, packed and ready to go; she planned to leave after tea that afternoon and was due back on the ward first thing the next morning. Over breakfast they talked about what might have happened to Herodotus until Juliana put her foot down.

  “No more,” she said. “This is Didi’s last day. I’m dreadfully sorry for Daphne, but there is nothing we can do for her today. You know how she is. She won’t welcome v
isitors.”

  The mood was lifted as Damaris and Adrien had a fight over the final piece of toast. After Juliana had snatched it from them and cut it in two herself, passing each a piece with raised eyebrows, they settled back down and there was a loud discussion over how to spend their day. They ended simply by taking the dog for a walk up to the motor garage, where Margaret was directing operations from a stool, her ankle still bandaged. On the way home they bought chocolate at the post office, finishing it off as they walked back into the house, all cheerful after their morning outside. Fancy was in the hall, in a bad mood, and her mouth thinned as she saw them arrive back.

  She instantly started carping at her children, and Jamie lost his air of happiness, lapsing into his usual state of apology and attempted deflection of her anger. Juliana saw the look of dislike shoot from daughter to mother as Damaris watched Jamie’s collapse, and was not surprised when neither of the twins turned up for luncheon. Their places were not laid, and she concluded that they had asked the kitchen for sandwiches and escaped again from the house. Fancy did not comment on their absence; in fact, she spent the meal in a frigid silence that took some work by the other three to overcome.

  Alistair disappeared again after lunch, on foot, and Juliana watched him go, wondering what he was up to. He had been in and out a great deal lately. She suspected he had been sleuthing, but he did not talk about where he had been, or to whom he had spoken, and she did not want to have to ask him.

  As he disappeared along the terrace and through the elms, Juliana lay down and took a nap on her bed, worn out with the fresh air and exercise. It was past four o’clock when she went back downstairs, hungry for hot scones and tea. Ada was in the hallway, replacing the vase of flowering quince with a smaller pitcher of daffodils. The flowers were an ash white, with a dark pheasant eye corona, small-petalled and delicate.

  “Those look lovely, Ada,” she said, bending over to breathe in their fresh scent.

  “Mrs Clevedon brought them in. She said she thought you might like them. Right sweet they are.”

  Juliana stood up again and looked at the maid, who was humming under her breath. “How was the movie yesterday?”