Down the Garden Path (11 page)

“Ah, there you are, dear.” Primrose’s pressed-flower face lost its discontented expression, and I realized how pretty she must have been twenty years ago. “I do trust you slept well.”

Her small hands twittered upwards to pat silvery curls, and I breathed again. She couldn’t be my mother. Neither could her sister. The very idea would be like a naughty French farce. And I hadn’t waited all these years to discover I was some sort of joke.

“Clyde, you must meet our guest,” said Hyacinth.

The gentleman had risen on perceiving my entrance. Sunlight winked off his rimless glasses, giving his eyes a decided sparkle. He was corning around the table towards me, very dapper—if a trifle stout—in his navy pin-striped suit. His surprisingly mod Italian shoes also winked at me.

“Good morning,” he beamed. “And if it weren’t, you would certainly make it one!” Turning back to include the Tramwells in the warmth of his approval he continued to pump both my hands in his squashy paws. “Allow me, dear young lady, to introduce myself—Clyde Deasley. And may I say the pleasure of this meeting is all mine!” A nod to the sisters and a quiver of pencil-thin silver moustache. “Lovely, quite lovely.”

Hyacinth sniffed. “Clyde, sprightliness is not becoming in a man a sneeze away from his old-age pension. Let the child sit down. Here comes breakfast now and she certainly needs fattening up. Much too thin, whatever the modern obsession with trying to resemble an ironing board.”

“How delighted I am that I gate-crashed your little breakfast party. Not doing things formally this morning, Butler?” Clyde, chortling up at Butler, spread his serviette over the dome of his waistcoat.

The family retainer was not amused; nose elevated, he proceeded around the room with the tray. My h’egg was passed to me looking rather sweet and inviting in its Bunnykins cup. But the atmosphere was not one of cosy sunshine, and I attributed this to an antipathy between the two men. However, when Butler left the room, Mr. Deasley had only the nicest things to say about him.

“Come along splendidly, hasn’t he? Take back every word I said about your being totally mad in not only failing to turn him over to the police but actually giving him a job when you came home to find him robbing the place.” Beaming at the Tramwells, he knocked the top off his egg.

I stared at them all.

Primrose tapped her shell daintily. “We were raised on the principle of ‘the one sinner who repents.’ Besides, after sitting down with Butler”—she looked at me—”not his real name, of course, but he has had so many aliases I don’t think he remembers what he was christened, we found much that was commendable in him.”

“Certainly,” agreed Hyacinth. “A man who listens to the Albert Hall on the wireless while he works and had displayed the delicacy not to go through our lingerie drawers could not be all bad.”

“Clyde, your cup is empty,” Primrose said. “May I pour you another?”

“Delighted, dear lady.” Mr. Deasley’s hand reached under the table to pick up his dropped serviette. Primrose, seated beside him, exhibited a pastel blush.

Returning his hand to full view he reached over and raised her quivering fingers to his lips. No one had ever kissed my hand, and I wondered if the moustache tickled. The clock on the mantel gave off a silvery chime. Mr. Deasley looked towards it.

“Another Butler blessing. He has got your clocks going. Not in perfect accord”—another ping-ping began behind us—“but it’s good to know that there is life in the old tocks yet.”

Hyacinth looked at me. “Mr. Deasley has more than a passing interest in old things. He owns an antique shop called the Silver Rose in the village, and timepieces are one of his special enthusiasms. Isn’t that right, Clyde? Along with books and coins and ...”

“Anything except brass crinoline-lady bells and World War I medals.” Mr. Deasley beamed at me.

Rising from her chair, Hyacinth said, “Occasionally our friend gives us advice on ... insuring some of our pieces. So if you will excuse us, my dear, we will leave you for a few moments while we go to the library for a little business chat.”

“Of course,” I replied as Primrose scuttled out of her chair, and Clyde raised a hand to smooth out the fuzz on top of his head. Why did I get the feeling that the gesture was a little studied? Almost embarrassed. If it were, he recovered instantly. Bowing over his tummy he did a disappearing act through the open French windows. Back he came holding a full-blown, almost lavender rose in one hand. His elevated nose and the way he held the flower rigidly out in front on him reminded me of Butler with the tray.

Breathless of voice, he stuttered, “Ro-oses a-re r-red, vi-violets bl-blue, su-sugrhh ...” A sneeze, a veritable earthquake of a sneeze, enveloped him and Primrose stepped forward to pry the rose from his clenched fist.

“Such foolishness, Clyde—with your severe hay fever! And after my removing the flowers from the table when you came in! You could give yourself a heart attack. We knew a man who sneezed himself to death at a funeral, didn’t we, Hy?”

Mopping at the tears rolling off the crests of his full cheeks, Mr. Deasley gasped apologies. “Should have ex-press-sses-ed admiration more simply.” With his glasses resting on top of his head his eyes appeared over the handkerchief rim. “Ah! But come to think of it, I have not as yet been presented with the pleasure of your name.”

The earrings for once immobile, Hyacinth regarded him acidly. “Why should I enlighten the wicked purloiner of one of my roses on any subject?”

A wave of emotion, stronger than any I had felt since coming to Cloisters, flooded through me. Gratitude. The Tramwells had not regaled their gentleman caller with the truth about my presence in this house. And then she spoke words which, if I had been a sprig-muslin heroine, would have caused me to faint dead away. “Severe memory loss, Clyde. I am beginning to think you suffer from that effect of encroaching old age.” Her back was as straight as the wall behind her. “Surely, Prim or I told you that our charming house guest’s name is Tessa.”

Horror settled like a custom-made shroud about my shoulders. I was discovered. Gratitude indeed! But how did the Tramwell pussy cats know?

“Tessa!” Clyde Deasley rolled the word around on his tongue. “A flower indeed among names and, need I say, it suits you to perfection!” Lifting my nerveless fingers he brushed a kiss across the tips. The moustache did tickle. My mind focussed glassily on that small revelation. He was moving to the door alongside Primrose when Butler glided in and started clearing the table. Hyacinth delayed following the others. She instructed Butler to leave the dishes for ten minutes as Miss Tessa would like to have another cup of coffee.

When we were alone, she said, “I saw no reason to supply Mr. Deasley with the details of your sorry plight. He is an old and dear friend, but even the best men do tend to gossip.”

Behind my back my hands squeezed each other for courage. “Why then, why did you tell him my name was Tessa? Is it?” No need to fake the tremor in my voice this time.

“Dear, dear!” Hyacinth’s unevenly painted ebony brows moved into squiggly but fairly level lines. “I never thought about raising false hopes. Tessa was simply the first name that came to me. It’s a family name although traditionally used as the second Christian name. My sister Violet is Violet Tessa. Years ago—hundreds—a baby named Tessa was abandoned on the doorstep of a former ancestral home of the Tramwells. Her father was a young monk and her mother a village girl. Primrose and I are descended from her because she married into the family and indeed lived in this house after it was built. We were talking about her last night after you went to bed.”

I had lowered my face to hide my immense giddy relief; now I raised it. “What was she like? If I am to be named after her temporarily, and I do take that as a great compliment, I think I would enjoy learning something of her history. Was she a colourful character?”

Hyacinth’s dark eyes looked more hooded than ever. “If by that you mean did she run off with a duke or smoke cigars—no. From all the family stories she was the ordinary motherly sort. But what’s ordinary? Despite the intolerance of the times she persuaded her husband, so the family story goes, to let the gypsies camp in the woods behind Abbots Walk. Remarkable, since it was said a gypsy had cursed her father—the monk—and the spell took. He died by hanging, I am sorry to say.”

“How awful.” I glanced out the window to where the Ruins shone soft and grey in the sunlight. “In his cell?” The Reverend Snapper had not said where the deed was done.

“No. In the grounds,” said Hyacinth, and I tried not to refrain too obviously from looking towards the window. “Chantal can probably tell you as much as I about the family curse. Her people have been in these parts as long as ours.”

“The family curse? Was the hex upon the monk’s descendants also?”

“All nonsense, of course, but Tessa died from a fall down the stairs ... and through the years other”—she paused—”happenings have caused it to be said that the curse is still in force.”

I drew my hands up to warm my arms. “Does Tessa have any other descendants in the village outside your family?”

“Not direct ones. The younger sons and daughters tended to move away, but her mother’s family were village people. I suspect one-quarter of the present population is distantly connected with Tessa, if they would acknowledge it.” Instructing me not to worry at showing no sign of returning memory, Hyacinth left to follow the others, with me staring after her.

What had she meant by that last remark? Restless, I went out the French windows into the garden. Was Tessa also considered a bad seed? The morning was fairly warm but the sky was combed with clouds in shades of pearl and charcoal. No need for some choleric old gardener to tell me it was going to rain soon. Did the Tramwells have a gardener? Yes, I was sure that was a man’s jacketed sleeve protruding around the forsythia. I was about to walk over and speak to the old codger when I realized that would mean more questions; awkward for me and unfair to the Tramwells.

Turning back to the house, I suddenly felt immensely happy. By lending me Tessa’s name the Tramwells had provided me with a marvellous excuse for asking questions about the family. I was at the windows when my mood changed again just as swiftly. The gardener wasn’t clipping away at that bush. He was watching me. And it wasn’t a nice kind
of
watching.

Back in the parlour I conjured up Fergy’s scolding voice telling me the only one watching me was the Man upstairs and felt better. I was being wicked and deceitful but I was sure God would see it was all in a good cause. No one was likely to get hurt by my masquerade and when I came to myself I would tell the Tramwells that I believed Angus Hunt had the original of the copy in the portrait gallery.

An urge to look at the gallery again in daylight took hold of me. I might meet Chantal in the hall. But no—Butler was in the hall, and he informed me that Chantal had taken the family car down to the village on errands for the ladies. I was seriously beginning to wonder if the girl existed in solid human form.

I was about to turn with a mental flounce in the direction of the portrait gallery when Butler emitted a confidential cough. “Pardon me, miss, if I am talking out of turn, but if I was you, I’d be on the watch when it comes to a certain gentleman presently on the premises.”

“That nice Mr. Deasley!” said I, sounding suitably shocked.

“Kneesley Deasley, as he’s known in these ‘ere—here—parts. On account of his having a keenness for touching ladies’ knees in church.”

“No!” I gasped.

“A harmless divershong some might say, but I have my two ladies to consider. I would wager my grandmother’s pension he’s not here to do them any good.”

“But he might genuinely want to—court one of them,” I suggested.

“Precisely, miss.” Butler elevated the tray on his fingertips and went into the parlour.

I stood for a minute or two after the door closed and went along to the gallery. This part of the hall was rather dark, so I switched on a light. In its whitish glare I searched again among the long-dead faces for some hint of resemblance to myself. Finding none, I fleetingly pondered which, if any, had suffered violent death. Cloisters must have had its share of religious heretics, beheaded Royalists, and oppressors of the poor.

This man, Sinclair Tramwell, in a heavily embroidered waistcoat and wearing his own hair, in 1756, looked a wily old reprobate. The kind to drop dead at his daughter’s coming-out ball—from a knife wound in the back. Smiling, I moved on but when I reached the copy my amusement ebbed, like blood seeping from a death thrust. Last night I had not noticed the name of the subject. I saw now that he was the Marquis De Salutare. A sliver of memory slid into place—Angus telling me that the reason the original was extremely valuable was that it was painted by a brilliant artist of the French court who had been guillotined during the Revolution. The majority of his work had been destroyed and the marquis himself had been killed after ferrying many of his fellow aristocrats across the channel to freedom.

Why was he here among the Tramwells? If he had been a family connection, it would have been friendly to put him over some fireplace, but ...

Butler came out of the parlour with a loaded tray and I moved away from the wall. The sight of him in the mundane occupation of carrying crockery to the kitchen forced me back to reality. This picture might mean nothing more interesting than a need to cover a damp spot on the wall. The Tramwells wouldn’t want one of their own growing musty, would they? I meant to look again at the Tramwell sisters, but Butler was walking extremely slowly and I did not want him to think me well enough for prolonged art gazing. I would have to return to the parlour, or the sitting room, and stifle. I glared at the grandfather clock in its alcove to my right, its wheezy tock-tock bursting into splintered booms as I passed. Time was wasting. No Chantal. No Maude Krumpet—unless I sprained an ankle to fetch her here. I might have to resort to that ploy yet, or I would soon begin to think of myself as a prisoner, completely cut off from the outside world.