Murder on the Cliffs (10 page)

When I didn’t immediately answer, she quickly chirped, “I shall leave it to your discretion, for you may wish to spend some time with my daughter first. It’s been a year or so since she’s invited a friend to visit. The poor girl doesn’t like too many people, you know. You, Daphne, are
special
.”

“Thank you, your ladyship,” I replied. “I enjoy Miss Lianne’s company very much and am pleased to visit.”

Lady Hartley nodded, suddenly serious. “Oh, visit all you like. You will find Lianne very odd. You mustn’t think we are all like that. I fear Lianne has inherited some of her father’s quirks.”

“How so, my lady?”

“Oh, he forgot things. His mind wandered . . . and he was fanciful. Lianne, I fear, is the same. You mustn’t take any notice of what she says.”

“No?”

“No.” Lady Hartley looked at me directly. “For I must warn you, Lianne is exactly like her father. A consummate liar.”

Leaving Lady Hartley’s room, I paused by the huge doors.

An unusual serenity from a bygone era occupied the area— the sound of the ocean flickering down the cloister- style corridor; the aged, musty smell of the paneling; the silent portraits and statues peering at those trespassing below . . .

History enchanted the house. Closing my eyes, I imagined previous generations, each adorned in the costumes of their period— their lives, their loves, their secrets, their tragedies. A house, I strongly believe, is never complete without a past.

Indulging in the wondrous surroundings, I returned to the parts David warned me of. He had said I was free to venture out on my own, and I figured I had a little time before Lianne or Mrs. Trehearn noticed my absence.

Soft- footed, with only the faint creak of the floors underneath, I wandered by a tiny alcove of rooms, some furnished, some empty, some locked. Noting dusty white sheets, closed boxes and planks, I entered the closed-off section, which awaited renovation and was filled with forbidden temptation.

I stood at the base of the tower. The
cursed
tower. The circular stone structure mounted high, its levels sprouting half- rotting floors while an upper wind whipped an eerie cry. I thought it a splendid place for inspiration, if somewhat dangerous, but the danger only enhanced the appeal.

Seeing a way up through an adjacent stairwell, I crossed a leg over the forbidden cord.

“What are you doing? Don’t you know it’s dangerous here?”

Bewildered, I stopped.

Seeing Lianne’s frown, I understood the reason for her peevish mood. She’d wanted to show me the house herself.

“Come, Daphne. Let us go to my room.”

As the door slammed upon said room, I collapsed upon her bed and uttered a long sigh of relief. Lianne was a lovable girl, but so exhausting. Was she mad? Who could say?

Inspired, I lay there looking blankly at the ceiling. She followed suit, and together we lay united, staring and imagining, free to think of what ever infiltrated into our brains, free to daydream, free to do what ever our mood dictated.

As Lianne suddenly left the room, my daydream began with the body on the beach . . . Victoria.

The dead girl, the beauty destined to be mistress of the house. What secrets had she carried to her death? Circling her name in my memory, I mentally scribbled a large question mark beside it. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, a new thought flashed for a future novel: a timid heroine, a dead mistress of a grand house, a mystery . . .

A noise outside the door ended my indulgent fantasies and, annoyed by the unexpected interruption, I crept toward the raised voices.

Mrs. Trehearn stood outside the door, arms akimbo, arguing with a red- faced Lianne.

“Trehearn!
Do as I say.
It’s all arranged. She’ll stay the night at Padthaway.”

Stay the night at Padthaway!

“Now, we mustn’t have tantrums in front of our guests, Miss Lianne,” Mrs. Trehearn soothed. “You might frighten Miss Daphne away.”

Lianne paused to reflect and I saw a hardiness in Mrs. Trehearn I hadn’t noticed before. Her experience in handling Lianne showed, even though she eventually lost the battle.

“Old dragon.” Lianne rolled her eyes, closing her bedroom door on Trehearn, and dismissing all of my protests as to why I couldn’t stay the night. “She always does this when guests come to stay— putting them downstairs or in a room to ‘watch’ them. She doesn’t trust anyone.”

I learned Mrs. Trehearn had come to the house years ago as governess for both children. From governess to house keeper . . . it was no minor elevation, and I wondered what Mrs. Trehearn truly thought of Victoria.

Two men arrived at the door, carting in a makeshift bed to Miss Lianne’s room. My refusal again went unheard and as I thought of the myriad of splendid rooms downstairs, I wished Mrs. Trehearn
had
won, even if she intended to spy on me.

The difference between the two men was startling. I hadn’t meant to stare, but I couldn’t seem to help it. One dressed in overalls, the gardener obviously, had wild graying hair and wild eyes, and the other, a sleekly dressed dark- haired man, sported the confidence that came with flashy good looks and an arrogant nature.

“Ben the gardener and of course you’d remember Soames the cook from dinner?” Lianne said archly, amused by my stares.

“Soames,” Lianne said, and grimaced, standing to her feet and pulling me along with her, “we’d like a fresh pot of tea and some jam scones brought up.”

Soames dipped his head. “Yes, Miss Lianne.”

“Oh, and some cream, too.”

“Of course” came the jaunty response, and he nodded to me. “Welcome, Miss du Maurier. Do you take milk in your tea?”

“Er, no,” I smiled.

After they left, I said I’d never seen such a debonair- looking cook.

“Mummy found him . . . he thinks a lot of himself.”

Why? Did he aspire to become lord of the castle by marrying the lady everyone in the village despised?

It was a vastly curious mix, this house hold. A gloomy, mistrustful atmosphere prevailed and nothing echoed right. Where else did servants rise to marry lords, and governesses to house keepers? Why did the family keep themselves so isolated?

The word
guilt
blazoned alongside the arriving scones and fresh strawberry jam.

I shall never forget that night at Padthaway, I, a stranger, dining with a family in grief and perhaps full of guilt.

The strangeness of the circumstances, the haunting beauty of the house and the silent, dimly lit lights led me further into its labyrinth of mystique.

Upon seeing a maid dusting a vase, I had asked the way to the dining room.

“I’ll show ye the way, miss.”

Grateful, I followed her along the newly carpeted maze, admiring the paintings and idiosyncrasies of old decor.

The magnificence only increased as we reached a set of half- ajar doors.

Lord David opened the door.

Shown into the opulent room bustling with an overindulgence of French gilded furniture, sweeping burgundy velvet drapes, and a silver table centerpiece of ambitious height and proportion, I made my apologies.

Lady Hartley waved it aside. “Do sit down, Daphne. Here, beside me.”

Submitting to her directive, I concealed a faint smile for the aristocracy’s adherence to protocol. Lady Hartley and I occupied one end of the table while Lord David and Lianne sat at the far opposite. We could scarcely see each other through the sprawling floral display.

I should not have concerned myself with my appearance and selecting the appropriate outfit for a time of mourning, for Lady Hartley shimmered in purple satin and a string of pearls, an odd choice, thought I, for a solemn occasion.

We started with soup and I longed to hear music, or anything other than the ticking clock above the marble fireplace. Having already endured countless hours of drilling from Lady Hartley over “my connections,” I experienced acute relief when Lord David intervened by giving a brief account of the house’s history.

Listening to his voice lulled me into a dreamy fantasy. If ever a voice seduced, David Hartley’s did so without preamble, intention, or device. All I could think was how he truly bore the death of his bride and child with such control. Did he mourn her? Did he love her? Did he . . . kill her?

“The funeral,” Lady Hartley began after the servants cleared away the dishes, the unexpected phrase sending my fork scuttling across the table, “is arranged for Sunday. Vicar Nortby has dug a plot for Victoria in the local—”

“No.” David slammed his fist on the table. “She will go in the crypt.”

Lady Hartley calmly rested her hand on the table. “The family crypt, darling? What a gloomy place. I think she’d rather be next to her folk—”

A caustic laugh escaped David’s lips. “
You’d
prefer her with her folk. It’s what you wanted from the beginning, isn’t it, Mother? Each person put in their station . . . even if that person would now have been my wife.”

Throwing his napkin on the table, he abruptly left.

The clock ticked away.

I reached for another sip of wine. I hadn’t truly considered the ramifications of being a guest at Padthaway during such a catastrophic time. Instead of humoring Lianne, I should have gone back to the cottage. I could only imagine what awaited me, with Ewe wanting to know how I fared with a nest of suspected murderers.

The room suddenly grew chilly. I reached for my wrap, but I had brought none, and failed to stop the shiver creeping up my spine.

“Please excuse my son’s outburst, Daphne,” Lady Hartley murmured. “He’ll be over it in a month, mark my words. I know my own son, and he never
really
loved her. Oh, she had her charms about her. Even beauty. But brains or breeding? No, no, no.”

Breeding, brains, and beauty. I carried her words away with me that night, my first night at the mansion on the cliffs. I felt the stirrings of a new idea, a story involving a woman of breeding, brains, and beauty.

I woke early the next day.

I couldn’t wait to continue my explorations of the house.

Lianne watched me as I sat at her dresser. Flicking through my toilette case that Ewe had sent for my stay, she behaved like a young, curious, and impertinent sister. Picking up powder puffs, examining jewelry, perfume, and hair accessories . . . poor girl. She ached for a friend.

It seemed she made no friend in Victoria.

The complexity of the victim intrigued me. How had a local-girl- cum- kitchen- maid trapped the lord of the house? Where had she and Lord David conducted their romance? How had it started and developed into a serious engagement?

Isolation must have helped cause this grand eventuality. I knew little of Lord David’s movements, but he didn’t seem to be the kind of man to be driving up to London every weekend or inviting large parties of friends down to his house.

Who
were
his friends? Did the family pursue
any
social acquaintances? If they were tight for money, how much did a small dinner cost? Or a lunch on the terrace?

I drew to the window to have a better look at the gardens leading down to the sea. The gardens were a narrow strip of sublime arrangement and radiant color intermingled with a series of stone statues of fish, quaint and charming, like the Romans used in the gladiator ring to count the laps. A grouping of weathered French country chairs and tables looked on, sadly neglected. I mentioned the shame of it to Lianne.

She did not join me at the window. “They used to have the grand parties out there— in the old days. Summer, especially. Flocks of them would come down from London and there’d be music, dancing, and champagne all night. The servants would sneak down to the gardener’s shed and watch them.”

“Why is it not used now?”

“Simple, really. My father shot himself there.”

Old Lord Hartley, the consummate liar. I recalled what Lady Hartley had said of him and his daughter.

Why did he shoot himself? I longed to ask but prudence dictated I not continue a subject presumably distasteful to Lianne. She’d lost her father; I wouldn’t know what to do if I lost mine.

I had the impression the death of Lord Hartley had occurred a long time ago, so perhaps Lianne never knew her father. From Lady Hartley’s cool reference to her dead husband, it was clear the marriage had its troubles. But what marriage didn’t?

Had his death propelled the family fortune downhill? I tried to think of the ramifications of a scandalous suicide on a private country estate. Lord Terrence Hartley hadn’t been a nobody even if he had purchased his title, and there had to be a newspaper article about his passing somewhere.

The house felt different in the morning. Light guided our feet down the carpeted stairs devoid of night’s shadowy distrust. I loved the breakfast parlor, a closed- in conservatory, one side of windows facing the front drive while the opposing French doors looked over the inner courtyard. Bathed in light, surrounded by nature’s soothing greens, reds, yellows, and pinks, I drank in the sweetness, unwilling to ever leave.

Lianne and I breakfasted alone— Lord David having arisen at six for his daily ride, then breakfasting alone in his study or library afterward. Lady Hartley rarely ventured out of her rooms before ten.

“And Victoria?” I asked of her morning ritual.

Lianne looked at me slyly. “She liked to have her tea and toast in the courtyard, served by Soames.”

The way she said “served by Soames” caused me to raise a brow. Victoria would have worked under Soames until she became the fiancée to the lord of the house. It was an interesting plethora of events. “Where did your mother find this Soames?”

“On one of her cruises. She bribed him to come here.”

“Bribed?”

“Soames likes the glamour life. Before the cruise ship, he worked for a duchess in London, and before that at a famous paint er’s house in Paris.”

I asked which painter, thinking I might know him considering I’d spent a substantial part of my schooling in Paris.

Lianne dropped her spoon. “
You
went to school in Paris? What was it like?”

“Diffi cult and pleasant. The French are very strict but I soon learned their ways and became a bit Parisian.” A grin lurked at the corners of my mouth. “And the French men are charming experts. I suppose this is where your Mr. Soames learned his trade?”

“Soames,” Lianne sniffed. “I don’t find him that handsome
or
charming. Don’t know what they see in him. He’s just a cook.”

An
exalted
cook. I took the “they” to be Victoria, Lady Hartley, and other women of the neighborhood. “I find it odd such a man works here when it’s so . . .”

“Isolated?” Lianne taunted. “Oh don’t worry about him. He finds
ample
amusement for himself.” A mocking undercurrent lurked in her voice.

“I’ll show you the whole house today,” Lianne promised, “even the
forbidden
quarters, but we’ll have to time it right. There are eyes everywhere here.”

“Mrs. Trehearn?”

“Among others .”

Yes, I’d sensed that, too. One had a premonition of being watched every second, each movement calculated, weighed, and judged.

Mrs. Trehearn’s frequent patrols of the house betrayed her obsession with it. Even when Lianne and I left the room, I half expected to see her skirts flouncing around a corner or to meet that steely gaze at a turn. “Mrs. Trehearn mentioned something about the tower being cursed?”

“Yes.” Lianne skipped on ahead. “It’s the best part of the house.” She stopped to smile. “You think we’re odd, don’t you? Morbid? Unlike your fancy city friends?”

“I am prone to morbidness,” I shot back. “In varying degrees, we all are fascinated by legend, superstition, and—”

“Death?” She grimaced, legging over a restrictive rope farther down the corridor. “It’ll be great when this is fixed up, but somehow I prefer it how it is.”

So did I. Entranced, I moved toward the base of the spiraled stairs, ready to climb this splendid ruin. I imagined I were Princess Elizabeth, a captive of the tower. . . .

“Not that way, silly.”

Lianne pulled me back with such force I stumbled.

“It’s dangerous.”

Danger bred through this house hold like a disease. How exciting, for this house provided more than a lush canvas for my book. I had a real mystery to solve, a place to explore, characters to unravel, and somewhere during my sojourn here, I hoped to write something worthy of publication, something Aunt Billy, my sternest critic, would approve of.

Around the corner, Lianne searched the paneling with her fingers. Glancing about for intruders or a patrolling Mrs. Trehearn, she pressed a slight knob imbedded in the wood and the panel creaked open.

A secret door. “I love this place!”

“Shhh!” She drew me inside. “We mustn’t let anyone see us. Last time a maid stumbled up here, she fell.”

Squinting, I peered up at the faint light ahead. “To her death?”

“Not her, but others have.”

“Others? How many others?” I must have voiced.

Lianne answered, her tone curiously ambivalent. “Oh, one or two. They’re not supposed to know about it. Only the family. That’s what they get for snooping about. They think my brother’s not serious about the danger of the old parts. Nor do they heed the warning.”

“The curse?”

“The first lord imprisoned a monk in the tower. Shut him up and left him to rot— his bones lie around here somewhere. But before he died, he damned the place and scratched into the wall:
Cavete intus serpentem est.
It’s Latin and it means ‘Beware within a serpent there is.’ Apparently, ’twas his own cousin who threw him in here, so I guess the warning is clear.”

Cavete intus serpentem est.

How profound. The serpent lurking beneath the surface, the unknown Judas, was often of one’s own family or intimate connections. The Judas perhaps murdered his scholarly cousin for this house.

Yes, people murdered for money and houses. In fact, wills and inheritances always complicated matters, tearing apart families and inciting desperation and violence. Reflecting upon it, I wondered what I’d do given the temptation.

The subject intrigued me. What induced one to kill? It depended on character, emotion, a deep motivation lurking under the surface, an emotion that, if kindled, proved fatal. Had such elements driven Victoria to her death? “Did Victoria ever come here?”

“Yes.” Lianne rolled her eyes. “David showed her. I followed them once, heard her giggling up the stairs.”

I smiled. What a glorious idea for a romantic date, exploring an old house with its darkened corridors, endless rooms, and enchanting gardens.

Conquering the winding upward stairs, we reached the turret landing. Having seen the tower from Lianne’s room, the gothic slatted windows and the open parapet, the inside did not disappoint. Now standing ready for my own exploration, I drew closer to the bright scarlet rope.

“It’s all that remains of the old castle,” Lianne whispered, caressing the stone with her fingers. “This is next to be demolished.” Lianne peered over the edge. “It’s dangerous to rebuild, but Davie is determined. He wants it as it was: a lord’s solar.”

A bedroom in the medieval style. I suppressed a sigh. How this man resonated with my soul!

“Come see the top level.” Lianne darted ahead. “It’s finished.”

The top level proved another circular room, transformed into a modern- day retreat. Light from the dome- shaped slatted windows illuminated restful day lounges hugging the walls, but it was the room’s centerpiece that attracted me: an exotic garden bearing herbs and rare flowers. I paused to inhale an unusually shaped pink and white orchid.

“Careful!” Lianne wrenched me back. “Some are poisonous. You might get a reaction.”

Here lurked an abundance of poison. Withdrawing to a safe distance, I casually mentioned the poison they’d found in Victoria.

“Oh, the police have been here to check,” she shrugged. “They didn’t find anything, not even in Mrs. T’s, and she has
everything
. ”

“Oh? Where?”

“In the green house. Trehearn uses her plants for her medicines and sells them to the locals. They come to her for all kinds of complaints.”

It appeared I had misjudged the wintry Mrs. Trehearn. A multifarious personality of hidden depth, a woman who prized her job above all else. “Your mother permits this, without a price?”

“Oh, they share the money,” Lianne didn’t seem to mind my rude question.

So I continued. “And are your mother and Mrs. Trehearn special friends?”

Inspecting a tiny green plant from a cautious distance, Lianne snorted. “Friends! Sometimes I think they hate each other, but they’ve got an odd relationship. Mother relies upon her. Says she can’t do without her ‘talents.’ ”

“Talents? Do such talents include murder?” I said it, half jokingly, half in deadly earnest.

“No, silly, it’s Trehearn’s sleeping tonic she makes up for Mummy.”

Sleeping tonics. Hmm, so I had my answer and yet I wasn’t satisfied. Something in the way Lianne mouthed “talents” led me to believe more lurked beneath Mrs. Trehearn’s talent for plants, poisons, and the like. If she knew the police were coming, any trace of the poison would have disappeared.

And did Trehearn, like I, suspect a member of the family? Having unknowingly supplied the poison and then finding it missing, did she hide any evidence to protect her and her employers?