by Mary Stewart
Next to this, at the front of the house, was a dining-room, apparently little used. It held a longish pedestal table with chairs for eight people, a sideboard, a couple of side tables and a tall plant-stand with a sick-looking fern. In the drawers, a glimpse of silver in need of cleaning, and linen yellowing with time and disuse. A severely functional room which had outlasted its function. I shut the door on it and crossed the hall to the room near the foot of the staircase.
This had been lived in. It showed the comfortable clutter of a den; a big roll-top desk, a couple of deep leather armchairs, shelves with more books, a wireless set. This room had been used recently; the desk was not dusty, and stood open. There were papers in some of the pigeon-holes, and in the drawers. Well, they could wait; they were presumably neither private nor important. What was important was the telephone. I looked for it, but it was not in this room. I went back to the kitchen to look for it there.
There was no telephone in the kitchen. I gave it up, and went upstairs to finish exploring.
I went first to the side of the house opposite my bedroom. Here the lobby, with its end windows and its doors, was the mirror-image of mine. The south-facing bedroom, too, was almost a twin of my own, and was obviously the main spare room. It smelled stuffy, as if long disused, and there was dust on all the polished surfaces. There were twin beds, and the white coverlets laid over them were creased and not quite clean.
Opposite, and set over the den, was another, smaller bedroom, with a single bed, a chest of drawers and a narrow cupboard for clothes. A secondary spare room, or possibly a bedroom for the ‘help’, in the days when one was kept? A simple, pretty room, with white painted furniture, a couple of bent-wood chairs, sprigged curtains and a frilled window-seat. I walked over to look out of the window.
My foot struck a soft object, which lay half hidden under the window-seat. A slipper. I picked it up. Downtrodden heel, dirty orange quilting torn at the toe and sides. As clearly as if it had been labelled in marking ink, I knew whose it was. Agnes Trapp’s.
I drew the coverlet back from the bed. There were no sheets, but the blankets were crumpled, as if the bed had been hastily stripped. I pulled open a couple of drawers in the chest. The linings were crooked, and on the chest surfaces there were a few hairs from brush or comb, and a sprinkling of powder.
It brought things clearer, and with a kind of relief. I knew now why Mrs Trapp had left so promptly, and without protest last night, and what she was carrying in those bulging bags. She had not been making off with any of Cousin Geillis’s – my – property, but hurriedly concealing the evidence that she had been sleeping in the house.
For how long? I knew that the solicitors would have sent people to the house after Cousion Geillis’s death, to make or check the inventory and attend to such things as electric meters, water and so on, before asking anyone to come in and clean up.
If, as she had implied, they had asked Mrs Trapp to come in, they surely would not have asked her to stay? If they had done so, they would have told me. So, indeed, would she, who had seemed so set on ‘living-in’ that, when she reacted so sharply to my rejection of regular service, she would surely have quoted Messers Martin and Martin at me.
And why should she want to stay? If she had been living in the house for more than a day, or two at the most, she had certainly done very little in the way of cleaning. The bedroom and bathroom that Cousin Geillis had vacated, that was all. She must have known, she had admitted knowing, that I was due to come, so she had prepared for me, but even so my coming had taken her by surprise. Her staying in the house accounted for the lived-in look of the kitchen, and the warmth everywhere from the Aga which must have been lighted some days ago.
Well, she had gone. And since I would almost certainly be needing her help and goodwill in the future, I would let well alone. I dropped the slipper back on the floor, kicked it under the window-seat, where I might have missed seeing it, and went on with my tour.
Broom cupboard, another bathroom, linen cupboard. A view from the window over the low roof of the old kitchen, where I could see the side gate and the path into the woods. The sun was high, and a light breeze had set the boughs dancing. I would hurry through the rest of my tour and then go out.
One final thing I had to investigate, and perhaps the most intriguing. The third of the spare rooms, the one opposite my own bedroom, was locked. I had tried the door this morning. Above the old keyhole was a new, brass mortice lock, and there was no sign of a key. My handbag was in my bedroom, with Cousin Geillis’s ring of keys in it. As I picked it up from the window-seat I heard the squeak of the side gate and, a few seconds later, the opening and shutting of the back door.
I went quickly downstairs, to find Mrs Trapp in the kitchen.
‘It’s the milk. Here. He’s stopped coming up here, but I told him you’d be wanting some, and he’ll bring it till you get your milk coupons. And you needn’t bother too much about them, either. Any time you want a bit more you’ve only to ask.’
‘Oh? It sounds too good to be true. Actually, half a pint’s quite enough for me, normally, but—’ I hesitated. ‘Mrs Trapp, are there mice or something in the roof? I heard something in the night. Or bats, perhaps?’
‘That I don’t know. I never—’ She stopped. I thought she had been going to say, ‘I never heard it myself when I slept here,’ and had understandably thought better of it. She added: ‘The food she used to put out – there was always birds and such, and anything could get in. I used to say to her—’
‘Didn’t she keep a cat?’
‘A cat?’ She looked blank.
‘Isn’t Hodge a cat? When I heard the sounds in the night I thought of mice, or even rats, and this morning I remembered Hodge. It’s a cat’s name, and she particularly asked me to look after him. And in the big spare room, it looked as if a cat had been sleeping on the beds. Do you know where he is?’
‘I really couldn’t say. I dare say he’ll be about somewhere. Did you enjoy your supper?’
‘I certainly did. It was delicious. Thank you.’
‘Don’t mention it. Well, I must be off. Shall I tell the milk, then?’
‘Yes, please, and if Hodge does come back I might be glad of a bit extra when he has it to spare. If he doesn’t come back, I think I’ll get a kitten. Do you know anyone who’s got kittens, Mrs Trapp?’
‘No, I can’t say I do. And call me Agnes, do.’
‘All right. Thanks. Look, then, Agnes, I wondered … What with you doing all that work here, cleaning my bedroom, and cooking, and everything, how much do I owe you?’
‘Oh, nothing. Call it neighbourly. I’ll ask for pay next time.’
‘Well, thank you. Thank you very much. But the supplies you’ve left here, and anyway, the milk—’
‘That’ll be on his bill at the end of the week.’ A gesture brushed the rest aside. ‘And I’ll bring the sheets back as soon as they’re washed. I stopped the night in the little bedroom, you see. I meant to stay till I got the house cleaned right through, but then you came back.’ That pretty smile, showing a smear of fresh lipstick on a front tooth, ‘If you want the truth, the casserole was for me. Didn’t you wonder?’
‘Do you know, I never thought about it? I guess I was a bit tired, and just thankful to find the house so warm and welcoming. I can’t say I’m sorry I ate your supper, because it was delicious, but what did you have yourself?’
‘Oh, there’s always plenty, and you were welcome. Did you finish it? I’ll take the dish, then, shall I?’
‘Yes, of course. I hadn’t realised it was yours. I put it away in the cupboard. Here.’
‘Thanks.’ She dropped it into her carrier bag. ‘Well, I’ll really have to be off now, and let you get on looking around the place. I reckon you’ll be dying to. Don’t let the dust get you down. There’s nothing a bit of elbow-grease won’t cure. If you’ll just let me know when you want me to come and help …’
As easy as that. She had succeeded in making me fe
el thoroughly ashamed of my suspicions and distrust. I said, genuinely, warmly: ‘You’re very good. Of course I’ll let you know. Just one thing … The locked door on the landing upstairs. Where does it go?’
‘Oh, that one. What she called her still-room. A kind of pantry, I reckon. She dried her herbs and made wines and medicines and that, and I reckon some of them might be poisons, so she kept the door locked. I’ve never been in, myself. I did look for the key, to give it a clean along with the rest of that landing, but I couldn’t find it. Maybe it’s on that bunch you had in your hand when you got here.’
‘Oh. Yes. Well, I’ll have a look later on. One other thing – I can’t find the telephone. Is it in a cupboard somewhere that I’ve not noticed?’
‘There isn’t one. Never would have it put in. Very old-fashioned in some ways, was Miss Saxon. Never had a car, neither. Used a bike, same as me. Well, I’ll be off. Let me know if there’s anything more you want.’
‘Do you have to go? Won’t you have some coffee?’
But she declined, and took herself off. I made coffee for myself, then, looking round at the clutter in the kitchen, decided that first things came first. I would go on finding exactly what had come my way before I began to do anything about it. The garden was calling, and it was a lovely day. I had noticed, in the back porch, a pair of Wellingtons that looked my size. I tried them, and they were. And above them hung a padded waistcoat of forest green, the sort worn by every countrywoman from Cape Wrath southward. It fitted, too. I zipped it up and went out to see what there was to see.
9
I have said that the house lay at the end of a branch of the driveway. Around it the woodland had been cut back many years ago, to make a clearing where the sun could get in, and grass grow. This sunny enclave was shaped like a blunt wedge, or better, a half-opened fan, with the house at its narrow point, and the garden stretching down to the bank of a river which here wound its way through the forest to form Thornyhold’s southern boundary. The property, open to the river, was otherwise completely enclosed by its high hedges of thorn, backed by the crowding woods. At the widest part of the garden could be seen the curve of a wall that protected the vegetable plot, and opposite this, planted as if to preserve the symmetry of the place, stood a grove of fruit trees, in effect a miniature orchard. No fruit was visible, but the leaves of cherry and apple trees were already showing the reds and golds of autumn.
The garden must once have been carefully cultivated, but it was apparent that Cousin Geillis, through time, had adapted it to the kind of care she could give it. Now it consisted mainly of grass – not shaven lawn, but mossy turf kept short and pleasant to walk on – with a few trees and bushes islanded here and there, and to either side a wide flower border, backed with roses that climbed and fountained up the hedges. All that remained of the original plan was the broad flagged walk that ran straight from the house, bisecting the lawn, to a belvedere at the river’s edge. This was a paved half-moon, edged with a low balustrade, holding a pair of curved stone benches. Between these a shallow flight of steps led down to the water where just below the surface could be seen a row of stepping-stones that would, in summer or at low water, be uncovered. On the opposite bank willows trailed their hair in the shallows, and golden flakes of fallen leaves turned idly on the current before floating downstream. Coppices of hazel framed the entrance to an overgrown forest ride stretching up through the trees.
There was a wrought-iron gate set in the wall of the vegetable garden. I pushed it open and went through to find a smallish enclosure surrounded by a high old wall thickly covered with ivy and bristling with self-sown saplings of ash and rowan. The vegetable beds ran right round the perimeter under the wall, and were already beginning to succumb to the autumn squalor of weeds and rotting haulms of cabbage and potato, but the centre of the garden was still neat, and was, indeed, something beyond my expectation.
It had a mediæval look, like the jewelled, out-of-perspective illuminations in a tale like The Romance of the Rose. Within the irregular circle of walls and vegetable plot someone, a long time ago, had made a garden within a garden. At its centre stood a well, ancient and canopied, and knee deep in bushes of lavender and sage and lad’s-love. The broken paving that made a ten-foot ring round it was almost hidden by creeping plants, some of them, in that sheltered spot, still flowering, campanula and wild thyme and the rose-purple of sedum, with saxifrage and wild strawberry and late gentians; the plants of garden and woodland at home together. Raying out from this carpeted pavement, in regular sectors edged with clipped box some nine inches high, were the flower beds. Few flowers there, but the autumn sun falling warmly after yesterday’s rain on leaves of green, of grey, of silver and rusty gold, sent up a cloud of scent which told me at once what sort of place this was. A herb garden, planned and planted as some Elizabethan gardener might have made it, in the days when herbs and spices were as essential in the kitchen as flour and salt.
Between the sections ran narrow pathways. I walked up one of these to the well-head. The coping, in spite of its arras of greenery, looked as if it had been pointed fairly recently, and was safe. I approached cautiously, and peered over the edge. Not very deep; I saw the flat gleam of water at about six feet. And certainly safe; a grille covered the shaft, a foot or so below the coping. And over the grille was stretched some small-mesh wire netting. It had been put there the day after a foolish blackbird, deceived by the gleam of water, had perched on the grille to reach for a drink and had fallen through and drowned.
It was like a flash photograph taken on a grey day. For a split moment everything was outlined with light, then, the lightning gone, the trees, sky, bushes and shrubs were normal once more. Like a dream that is recalled, still vivid and moving in one’s waking moments, but as one tries to remember further, it is gone, and further gone with every effort made.
It was not even a dream, certainly not a memory. Trivial, in any case, not worth remembering.
But I knew it was the truth. Even stranger than the flash of knowledge sent to me out of nowhere, was my calm acceptance of it. Because, with it, came a memory that was completely my own; the moment beside the pond in the vicarage meadow, when my Cousin Geillis first came to me. And with that, another moment beside the River Eden, and my cousin making me a promise, which, at the time, I had misunderstood.’ You and I will live there together … for as long as you need me, which won’t be for ever …’ I looked up across the ivied wall at the chimneys of her house, my house, and I thought I understood it now.
I let myself out of the herb garden, and, moving in a kind of dreamy contentment, started back up the flagged walk. Half way along it, I paused to look at the house again.
It was beautiful. Even the prisoning hedges were beautiful, protective with their rusty thorns, their bastions of holly and juniper, and at the corners, like towers, their thick columns of yew.
Yes, it was beautiful. Still floating, euphoric, I walked on. Nearer, I could see how the sun showed up the shabbiness of the paint and the stains where water had spilled from blocked gutters, but nothing could detract from the elegance of the long windows and the roof with its tufts of rosy houseleek and the spreading gilt of the lichens, and the charm of the three gabled windows peered out below the tall chimneys.
I stopped short. Gabled windows? There had been none on the north side of the house, so I had not known, till now, that there must be a third floor. Attics? So those night-time sounds had come, not from the roof spaces, but from an attic which, I could see now, lay directly above my bedroom.
Back now, myself, on ground level, I thought rapidly. My first thought was Hodge. Could he have been locked up there? With relief, I dismissed the idea. The window above my room was open. If a cat had been shut and starving there since Cousin Geillis had left the house, he would have scrambled out somehow, down the roses and clematis that reached almost to the roof. Or he would be sitting outside on the attic sill, making his troubles known.
Not urgent, then.
But I would certainly like to find the way up there as soon as possible. Since I had seen no sign of an attic stair, it was to be assumed that the way up lay through the locked still-room. If I could not find the key to that room today, then when I went into town to register for supplies and to do my shopping, I must call on Martin and Martin’s agent there, and ask about it. About Mrs Trapp’s pay, too. And about getting the telephone put in … And the priority for all these plans was to find Cousin Geillis’s bicycle and see if it was roadworthy.
There was a toolshed near the side gate, and the bicycle was there. I wheeled it out into the daylight and examined it. It looked sound enough, but the tyres were soft. It was years since I had been on a bicycle; was it true, I wondered, that one never really forgot how to ride? At least I could practise on the driveway before I reached the main road. Any humiliating moments would, with luck, be private ones.
There was no pump on the bicycle. I went back into the shed to look for it. There were the garden tools, spades, forks, rake, hoe, a scythe and sickle and (I was thankful to see) a motor mower. Plant-pots on the shelves, along with a stock of empty jam-jars, an oilcan, some tattered packs of bone meal and potash and other garden preparations. Sacks of peat and sand and charcoal. But no bicycle pump.
It had to be somewhere. The porch? The old kitchen? It might take days to find it, and meanwhile I was marooned. Now, I thought, was a convenient moment for that flash to light my mind again. If I could remember a bird that had drowned itself under Cousin Geillis’s eyes, surely I could remember where she had last put her bicycle pump?
Where the hell would she put the bicycle pump?
‘Miss Geillis?’ said a voice just behind me, in a kind of startled squeak.