Death on the Lizard

by Robin Paige

  “Wonderful!” Patsy exclaimed, and pushed back her chair. “What an agreeable husband you are, Charles. Kate, you are a fortunate wife. Now, if you two will excuse me, I’ll just pop on back to Marsden Manor and tell Mama that she will have to do without me for the next week or two. If it’s convenient for you, Kate, I really think the four of us should go down on the train tomorrow so Charles and Bradford can drive us to Penhallow. That will be ever so much better than asking Jenna to send a coach.” She stood and smiled at them both. “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye,” remarked the parrot briskly. “Off you go.”

  “Really, Charles,” Kate said, when Patsy had gone. “You’ve put me in a very difficult position. I had already told Patsy I didn’t want to go to Cornwall. With Meghan and Patrick coming, I have a great deal of work to do here. I was looking forward to—”

  “I’m sorry, Kate,” Charles said. He put his hand over hers. “To tell the truth, Patsy’s offer was much too opportune to decline. The Prince and Princess of Wales will be visiting the Poldhu Station, you see, and it would be very good if you were there to—”

  Kate snatched her hand away. “Really, Charles!” she exclaimed again, dismayed. “You can’t have volunteered me to entertain Princess May. You know how I—”

  “I know she’s not one of your favorite people, Kate. The Royal visit is an important event for Marconi and his company, but there are difficulties. In fact, if the business isn’t sorted out, and quickly, the company may not survive.” He leaned forward, his voice low, his expression grave. “This is Marconi’s problem, and I didn’t want to go into the details in front of Patsy. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to tell you about it. When you’ve heard, I think you’ll understand.”

  Kate listened quietly. When Charles had finished his tale, she sighed. “Yes, I see. Of course, if you want me to be there, and think I’ll be useful, I’ll be glad to come. I can manage the Princess for a few hours, I suppose. It’s just that . . . well, I was trying to avoid going to Penhallow.” She told Charles what had happened to Jenna Loveday’s daughter, why Patsy wanted to go to Cornwall, and why she felt so reluctant.

  Charles got up, went behind her chair, and bent over her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. “I understand,” he said, his lips against her hair. “But it’s only for a fortnight. And it should be quiet, too—nothing like the chaos of our visit to Blenheim. If you want to write while you’re at Penhallow, I’m sure there won’t be any interruptions. Cornwall is a very lovely place.”

  The parrot flapped his wings. “Cornwall,” he muttered. “Hell and damnation!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Wednesday, 1 July, 1903 Penhallow, near Helston, Cornwall

  All the ends of the earth will be wooed into the electric telegraph circuit.

  Scientific American, 1852

  “ A telegram, m’lady.”

  Jenna Loveday turned from her task of transplanting a clump of rare tropical ferns in the flower border—a self-appointed task, and entirely unnecessary, since it was Snood’s job to maintain the gardens and grounds. But she couldn’t stay indoors all day, with nothing to do except manage the household and consult with Harry, Penhallow’s estate agent, about farm business, or read, or sit beside the window with her lap full of needlework. It was better to keep busy out of doors, walking or bicycling or gardening. Better to be physically active, to tire herself out so she would fall quickly asleep, wouldn’t lie awake all night, remembering, imagining—

  She dropped her spade and took the envelope from the silver platter. “Thank you, Melrose,” she said, and waved the butler away. The telegram might be from Sir Oliver Lodge, whom she was expecting to arrive on Friday, for the weekend. Or from her mother-in-law, the dowager Lady Loveday, who constantly beleaguered her with invitations to go here and there, stay at one country house or another, take a holiday in the Swiss Alps, or visit one of the German spas which seemed to attract so many of the best people. Jenna had turned them all down. She wasn’t terribly fond of George’s mother, who always seemed to know what was best and was determined to make her do it, and she wasn’t especially fond of travel, especially when it took her into the company of the “best people.” Jenna loved Cornwall, and the Lizard, and Penhallow. This was her home.

  And now she had another reason for staying. Two reasons, actually, and both equally compelling, both equally critical to her survival. Before she could finally accept Harriet’s death, she had to learn how it had happened. Why had Harriet gone to the creek? What was she looking for? What had she known? Jenna wasn’t sure that she could live with the answers to those questions, but she had to know them. She had to!

  And she had to have a clearer understanding of what was happening. Sensory hallucinations, Dr. Michaels had called them, born of grief and despair. The doctor’s scientific explanation had helped a little, and she had begun to hope that perhaps she wasn’t going mad, after all. No, of course she wasn’t mad, Dr. Michaels had said in his most soothing voice, patting her hand and carefully avoiding the word “hysteria.” He was confident that the images, disturbing as they certainly were, would fade as time went on. Such phenomena were brought on by the shock of loss and rarely lasted for very long.

  But there were other views on the matter. An old friend of the Tyrrill family, Sir Oliver Lodge, was a well-known scientist who also had a very deep interest in psychic phenomena. Jenna happened to see him when she went up to the City to consult Dr. Michaels, and he had suggested that there might be something else at work here, something far more intriguing than mere hallucinations. The two of them had talked, and Jenna had told him all that had happened to her after Harriet’s death. At the end of their conversation, she had invited him to come to Penhallow. He could not promise that he would be able to help her, but he was willing to try. She was more frightened than comforted by the idea of the supernatural, but he was persuasive, and she agreed.

  She opened the telegram, which was not from Sir Oliver, after all, nor from her insistent, itinerant mother-in-law. It was from her friend Patsy Marsden, who was staying with her mother near Colchester, and it announced (in Patsy’s cheerfully definitive way) that she and Lady Sheridan would be arriving that very afternoon. They planned to stay for a week, or longer. No need to send a driver to Helston to fetch them. Lady Sheridan’s husband had an errand nearby; he was shipping his motorcar and would drive them to Penhallow, although he would not be staying.

  Jenna frowned with irritation and thrust the telegram into the pocket of her jumper. It was exactly like Patsy Marsden to make plans without consulting her hostess, to set a date for arrival without asking whether she was still welcome.

  But then, with a sigh, Jenna realized that this was hardly fair. She turned and walked toward the oak woodland bordering the garden. She had invited Patsy to come, although it had been an off-hand invitation, a post-script tacked to the end of a rather sad, self-pitying letter, and not extended with any great enthusiasm. And since she had written the letter, the situation had changed. She had something important to do, and another pair of guests was not entirely welcome.

  But just now, she thought she would go down to French-man’s Creek, which drew her to its bank nearly every day. Still thinking about Patsy—she could scarcely blame her friend for accepting her invitation, or choosing her own time to arrive—she stepped into the shadow of the woods. Holding her skirt in her hand, she picked her way carefully down a narrow, mossy path which twisted and turned, dropping steeply downward toward the water shimmering like silver through the trees. She liked her friend a great deal, for Patsy’s travels gave her a wider range of experience, and certainly a greater independence, than most other women. And she remembered Kate Sheridan, whom she had met at one of Patsy’s lectures, with pleasure. An American, Lady Sheridan had inherited a small estate in Essex and married a title—the man with the motorcar, no doubt—and wrote novels of some merit. Jenna had read and enjoyed several, and felt that they were worth the critical praise they had received.
Well, the two women were on their way, like it or not, and she would have to make the best of it.

  She smiled crookedly. But so would they. And if they disapproved of Sir Oliver and his attempts to contact the spirit world—well, they didn’t have to participate, did they?

  The path leveled, the trees thinned, and Jenna stood on the bank of Frenchman’s Creek, named for the French ships which sought safe harbor there in the old days of smuggling and piracy. A half-mile or more away, the pretty stream emptied into the Helford River—a wide, five-mile-long estuary which served as a refuge for small boats, a haven for fishermen and oystermen, and a paradise for birds and shore-life. Jenna loved Frenchman’s Creek for what it was, an enchanted, unspoilt wilderness which called to the wildness in herself—a wildness which had often got her into difficulties—and made her love it more passionately with every passing season.

  But now, this was the place of her life’s greatest sadness, and she came here because she could not help herself. Over her head a pair of curlews circled, calling sharply. Upstream, where the falling tide exposed the flats, an oyster-catcher zigzagged across the glistening mud; downstream, where the water deepened and widened, a gray heron, hooded and wary, stood statue-like in the cordgrass, anticipating an incautious frog. And just this side of the bend, a sleek white sailing yacht was moored a yard off-shore, its mast tall and straight against the dark trees. Painted on the bow was its name: Mistral II.

  Jenna’s vision blurred and there was a brief, unsettling moment of disorientation—the symptoms which usually preceded her hallucinations. Was she imagining this, too? Conjuring up this image because she had hoped so long and so desperately for it? Had hoped, and yet feared, to see—

  A man dressed in sailing whites emerged up the galley way and turned in her direction. Seeing her, he froze for an instant. And then he simply stood there, his yachting cap pushed back on his blond hair, his hands on his hips, smiling faintly, waiting.

  Jenna hesitated, still only half-believing that he was real. They had said goodbye months before. She should not go to him, she knew. It was dangerous. He was dangerous. But she had no choice.

  She took one hesitant step toward the boat, and then another. And then she flung caution to the winds, picked up her skirts, and began to run.

  She did not see the small, silent figure slipping quickly through the trees, watching her as she went.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Here on the Lizard, amongst the fishermen and sailors, there is a belief that the dead in the rivers and the sea will be heard crying out if a drowning is about to occur. I know of a woman who went to a clergyman to have him exorcise her of the spirit of her dead child, which she said appeared in the form of a white pigeon. And I have heard of farmers believing that white moths are spirits.

  Miss M. A. Courtney,

  Cornish folklorist 1893

  Kate and Charles met Patsy and Bradford at the Colchester train station early on Wednesday morning. The railway journey to Cornwall was uneventful, the sometimes-temperamental Panhard started promptly when it was off-loaded from the baggage car, and the drive from Helston Station to Mawgan Cross to St. Martin, where Charles turned off toward the Helford River, was far more beautiful than Kate had expected. She had never been on the Lizard Peninsula, and in spite of the fact that she was a reluctant visitor, she immediately liked what she saw. The farther they drove into the moors, the more enchanted she became.

  The narrow road, bordered on both sides by stone walls, wound its serpentine way across the rough, wide landscape. With its granite tors and broken trees and seeping bogs, the moor seemed to Kate to be a wild, fantastic sweep of unique and timeless beauty. It was a dreamer’s landscape, an enchanted landscape which delighted Beryl Bardwell’s imagination. The inventive, fanciful Beryl found it very easy to picture King Arthur and his knights riding full tilt across Goonhilly Down toward the sea, and Tristram and Isolde seeking a shelter from the wild winds and driving rain.

  And don’t forget the pixies and little people, Beryl whispered in Kate’s ear, the gnomes and trolls and fairies who live in the trees and rocks and rivers and dance all night along the seacliffs. Oh, Kate, she sighed ecstatically, I’m so glad we’ve come!

  As they reached the eastern edge of the moor, along the Helford River, the fields became greener and there were more woodlands. And then, following Patsy’s directions, they drove up the long lane through the thousand-acre estate which had belonged to the Tyrrills, Jenna’s father’s family, since the time of King Henry VIII. The manor house stood at the end of the lane. It was built of the local gray granite and roofed with gray slate. It had a rectangular Georgian facade, regularly interrupted by tall leaded-glass windows which gave it a cloisterlike look.

  Kate was somewhat surprised, for both she and Beryl had imagined Penhallow as a grand and imposing manor house, in the tradition of large British estates. Instead, this Cornwall farmhouse put Kate in mind of a comfortably dowdy lady, a bit down-at-the-heel but not in the least concerned about it, as though she had seen better days and didn’t mind that her time was past. Or—since the house was clearly designed as the hub of a large working farm—perhaps its owners and occupants had always been too busy tending the land, or too heedless of the neighbors’ opinions, to bother with grandness.

  As the Panhard pulled up in front and Kate and the others got out, an elderly manservant came down the broad stone steps. He introduced himself as Wilson and explained, apologetically, that Lady Loveday had gone for a walk. She was expected momentarily, however. He would be glad to show them to the drawing room, where tea would be served and—

  But at that moment, Jenna Loveday appeared around the corner of the house, flushed and breathless, her hair loose around her shoulders. “Oh, dear,” she said distractedly, tidying the collar of her blouse, “you’ve arrived already and I wasn’t here to greet you! I’m so sorry, Patsy. Lady Sheridan, do forgive me.” She spoke in a light, lilting Cornish accent.

  “Kate, please,” Kate said with a smile, extending her hand. “And we’d only just got here, really.”

  There were some who claimed that the people of Cornwall had inherited a special kind of magic from their Celtic ancestors, an ability to see further and deeper and feel more keenly than other people, a reputation no doubt connected with the old Cornish tales of pixies and fairy-folk. Seeing Jenna Loveday, Kate thought of this, and found the idea utterly convincing, for there was something in Jenna’s delicate features and wide-spaced gray-blue eyes—quite remarkable eyes, large and luminous and almost silvery—which made Kate think of charms and enchantments.

  Patsy stepped forward and kissed Jenna on both cheeks, then turned, with a gesture, to introduce the men. “This is Charles, Lord Sheridan, and Bradford Marsden, my brother.”

  “Gentlemen,” Jenna Loveday said. “So very glad you’re here.” Then she put up a hand, realizing that her long, fair mane of hair was rippling down her back. She pulled out a pin, twisted it quickly, and repinned it into a knot at the back of her neck. “I was walking in the woods and I completely lost track of the time. Wilson, please see to the ladies’ luggage.” To Patsy and Kate, she added, “We’ll all go in and have some tea.”

  Charles and Bradford opened the Panhard’s boot and the luggage was taken out. As Wilson went inside with the bags, Charles announced that he and Bradford had to be on their way to the Poldhu Hotel, and wouldn’t be able to stay to tea.

  “Just a cup?” Jenna Loveday asked, looking from Charles to Bradford. “It may be only a few miles to the coast, but at this time of year, they’re dusty miles.”

  “No, thank you,” Bradford said, with an air of regret. “We have business in the Mullion area, and we must be on our way.”

  “Mullion?” Jenna asked. “You’re going to the wireless station, then?”

  Charles closed the boot. “That’s right,” he replied. “I’m to help with a telegraphy experiment, and Bradford—”

  “I’m to play golf,” Bradford said with a grin, sl
ouching against the car. “It’s something I do very well.” He glanced at Jenna. “Are you acquainted with the station?”

  She lifted her chin, her eyes flashing. “Everyone on the Lizard is acquainted with the station in one way or another. It has brought quite a lot of attention to the Lizard—most of it unwelcome, I’m afraid.”

  Kate could hear the barely suppressed interest in Charles’s “Oh?”

  “The inn-keepers and publicans in Mullion and Lizard Village may be pleased,” Jenna replied. “The station at Poldhu attracts quite a few curiosity-seekers, and they have to find somewhere to eat and sleep. But the local people would be very glad to be rid of it—the poor farmers, especially, for the noise frightens their cows and keeps them from giving milk, and one of the laborers was injured recently when a horse bolted. The villagers dislike it, too. They complain that it’s shattered the peace of the moor. We rather value that, you know,” she added with a wry firmness. “We don’t think kindly of those who destroy it.”

  Kate was struck by Jenna’s tone. It implied an inner stamina which seemed rather out of character with her delicate features, with the large, luminous eyes which made her seem more than a little fey.

  “Noise?” Patsy asked curiously. “I shouldn’t think a telegraph station would make a great deal of noise.”

  “Oh, but it does,” Jenna replied. “It’s the transmitting equipment, you see. The signals are quite loud. It’s said that they can be heard as far away as Lizard Village.”

  “As far away as America,” Bradford remarked with a patronizing smile. “That’s the point, of course, Lady Loveday. Getting the signal across the Atlantic requires quite a lot of electricity. The noise you hear is the sound of progress.”

  Patsy spoke with some asperity. “You may not be surprised to learn, Jenna, that my brother occupies a seat on Marconi Wireless’s board of directors. He is responsible for promoting the company, a task he takes to heart.”