The Thin Woman (22 page)

“I think we did, once,” I responded vaguely, still thinking about his idea, “but it got boxed up with Aunt Sybil’s junk and sent down to the cottage. Anyway, it was years out of date. Besides, I can do better for you than thumbing through the H section. Jill.”

“Jill?” Ben eyed me without enthusiasm. “That funny little runt of a friend of yours? She’s not a hypnotist.”

“True, but she’s bound to know one. She’s into reincarnation and regression and all that stuff. If she can produce someone who is in the business of taking people back to former lives, your case—a matter of months—should be child’s play. I’ll write to Jill tomorrow.”

I did. And I must say Ben was properly appreciative. It wasn’t until later that he grew cool, I think. The change was so gradual it was hard to say when it began.

Fortunately in other respects I had some good moments. While lifting aside a pile of rugs in the attic I found the oak overmantel. Abigail’s overmantel, the one mentioned in her ledger. I had Jonas polish it for me. Scowling, he rolled up his shirt sleeves. “Proper shameful this is, men being put to women’s work.” But I noticed he was humming under his breath, and unlike Aunt Sybil he didn’t favour funeral dirges. Life eased all round the next day when the two rather condescending char-women arrived. On the following Wednesday an army of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, and painters began their work on the ground floor. The bedrooms and
bathrooms would have to wait. In all probability Ben and I would no longer be at Merlin’s Court when the time came to redo them. The greatest, immediate inconvenience was being unable to use the kitchen. The men installing the new cabinets and working surfaces seemed to consider it a great intrusion if one of us came in for a glass of lemonade, and with the dining room also out of commission, meals had to be eaten either in the old wash house or picnic fashion out-of-doors. Ben, whether to take his mind off his book (Jill had still not answered my letter) or because he could not help himself, had turned very temperamental about the kitchen. As soon as any decision was made, he would hear it over the start and stammer noise of his typewriter, and march out to alter it. He argued with the plumber, insulted the electrician who was installing the strip lighting, and hovered underfoot like an overanxious new father while the Aga cooker was being installed.

“Say, lady!” One beleaguered fellow mopped his brow with a damp handkerchief. “Don’t yer ’ubby ’ave no place of work to visit?”

“No,” I said, ignoring the little misunderstanding about our relationship. “He doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up.”

Unless we were prepared for a full-scale strike it seemed expedient that as many inhabitants as possible should clear out of the house each day. Naturally the thorn refused to budge, but Dorcas was always happy to don her felt hat and take her thermos of tea out to the walled herb garden, which she had made her special province. One morning I remembered my idea of checking the parish register for the date of Abigail’s death. Walking through the hushed, silent churchyard bothered me, but I found the current register open on a lectern by the font, at the back of the church. The older volumes were stacked neatly underneath on a shelf. Within minutes I had found the recording of Uncle Arthur’s death. Merlin must have been about twenty when his dead papa passed on to his just reward. I hope he liked warm weather, but I found no reference to his wife.

Musing, I left the church and drove down into the village. The tall, dapper gentleman behind the varnished counter at Pullett’s Jewellers was deference itself; but he regretfully informed me that the firm’s records dating back fifty years and more had been destroyed in a fire sometime back. So much for Abigail’s garnet ring. Perhaps I had overreacted to her entry of its sale, but I still felt convinced that, if not the treasure, it was part of the puzzle. Her every-day life, revealed through the journals, continued to obsess me during the following weeks almost as much as my restoration of the house. Her house.

Shopping for other people’s domiciles had always given me great pleasure, but buying for Merlin’s Court was a joy. Often Dorcas would accompany me, and we would lunch in whatever picturesque inn caught our fancy. Eating sensibly was now becoming almost a habit and I was getting plenty of exercise sauntering through arcades and marketplaces, searching for the right objects to ornament the house in its renewal. The drawing room mantelpiece was causing me some problems. I did not want it to look top-heavy or overly fussy. What I needed were one or two fine pieces to accentuate the mood and colours of the room. One afternoon, ambling along in our usual stop-and-start fashion, we came upon a place called the China Cabinet, sandwiched between a row of mellow brick bow-fronted shops. Dorcas was the one who pointed. “That’s it! The yellow Chinese vase with the peacock-blue leaf design. Put that on your mantelpiece with a pair of brass candlesticks and you’ll be all set.” As soon as I saw it, I knew she was right. Dorcas had shown another of her rare flashes of artistic brilliance.

All this was great fun, and the house, having been stripped bare, was coming to life again like a tree after a lone hard winter. The two worthy ladies from the Labour Exchange finished up their days with us by scrubbing every window with vinegar and newspaper until they winked like a hundred sparkling eyes. On the day they picked up their last payment and left, there was so little for me to do that I remembered my intention of talking with the vicar. I should
have visited Mr. Foxworth sooner to request his help, but I had begun to feel that a continued search for clues was a waste. Time was a runaway horse. Despite his daily stints at the typewriter, I knew Ben seriously doubted his ability to finish the book. Still no word from Jill, but he had gone off the idea of hypnosis anyway. He didn’t have what it took to be a writer, Ben told me morosely. The spirit was willing but the prose was weak, as Jonas had kindly pointed out to him, adding that Thomas Hardy, Dickens, or any of the other greats could have polished off a rewrite of that blasted book during one of their tea breaks. Let’s keep the enemy happy, said Ben. Forget about the inheritance, buried treasure, fifth-rate novels, and even diets.

But I did not want to forget about my diet. I had become quite fond of the tyrant; it was being nice to me. And I did not want to forget about Abigail, if for no other reason than I felt she would have been, was, my friend. Whatever else was or was not accomplished, I had to discover why and how she had died.

To ensure that the vicar did not write me off as just another crackpot who wanted to trace her family tree back to William the Conqueror, I took time over my toilette. Looking cool wasn’t easy; we were in the midst of the summer’s first heat wave. My hair was already clinging damply to my neck, so I lifted it into a thick twist which I pinned on top of my head before slipping into something from last summer’s collection—a coffee-coloured smock. Something was very wrong. Instead of billowing out in a happy, frolicsome mushroom, the folds of the dress hung limp. The shoulders sagged and the neckline gaped. Nervously I placed a hand where my stomach usually was and inched towards the mirror. I was peering into it, my neck twisted, when Dorcas knocked and came in asking if I wanted thyme or parsley in the outer border.

“Both,” I replied vaguely, lifting my eyebrows and sucking in my cheeks.

“Impossible. Foul up the whole system. Anything amiss? You seem distracted.” Dorcas jolted down on the bed. “Ellie, are you looking for something?”

“Yes. I’ve just this minute noticed I’m missing one and a half chins and my cheeks aren’t right either. They no longer have their friendly hamster bulge.”

Dorcas nodded. “Realized for some time, but thought it best to say nothing. Afraid comment on the subject might throw you off your stroke. What do the scales say, or haven’t you asked them? Aha!” She correctly read my reflection in the mirror. “Afraid of disappointment. Always better to know the truth, however unpalatable and, when the news is good, marvellous boost to the morale, keeps up the momentum.”

Taking me by the elbow, Dorcas marched me forthwith into the bathroom and ordered me to climb on the scale. “No time for false modesty,” she assured me, “all girls together.” The needle swung into a curve, flickered, and stabilized. Awed, I looked down at the dial: over two stone. When did it all go?

“Congratulations!” Dorcas vigourously pumped my hand. “Now if only Ben can find inspiration and we can turn up another of Uncle Merlin’s clues we will be all set.”

Walking out into the courtyard, we discussed the ones already in our possession and I mentioned the thought that had been nudging at the back of my brain for a while. Uncle Merlin’s instructions had been that we find the treasure connected with the house. He had not said
in
the house. This implied that the treasure might not be hidden within the structure itself but in the grounds or even farther afield.

We were now standing in the little walled herb garden. The sun beat down on our bare arms and the air was rich with the smell of newly turned earth and the fragrance of mint, hardy enough to have survived years of neglect. Dorcas loved this place; so must have Abigail. Many of her recipes depended on the sweet sun-savoured herbs she had nurtured here. Had this garden also been an island of escape from the tedious company of a critical husband, a place that was peculiarly her own? Bending, I picked up a handful of soil and rubbed it through my fingers. If Abigail had wanted to hide anything this would have been an ideal place. But again I might be assuming too much. In Abigail’s day an herb garden usually
fell to the sole province of the lady of the house and since then it had lain in total neglect. No one had plucked a sprig of mint here for years, until Dorcas came along wielding her gardening fork. As so often happened, she understood what I was thinking.

“Been wondering if this is the place, have you? Logical! Should have thought of it sooner. You go ahead and pay your call on the vicar. See what you can discover about Abigail, and I will proceed here; unless you feel it inappropriate for me to conduct the dig unattended—your treasure and all that. Appreciate your allowing me to participate, but you should be less trusting, Ellie—can’t always judge a book by its cover—worked for a woman once, taught English Lit. Nicest person one could wish to meet, but feather-fingered—embezzled the Sports Day prize money.”

Assuring her that I had no doubts of her integrity, I left Dorcas plunging her fork into the earth with workmanlike precision, and went off to visit the vicar. I found Rowland Foxworth in his study working on his Sunday sermon. I was ushered into this sanctum by Mrs. Wood, his housekeeper—a sparrow of a woman who muttered, pushing open the study door, “If folks was meant to arrive unannounced the good Lord wouldn’t have bothered inventing the telephone.”

Thoroughly snubbed, I was apologizing to the vicar before he was halfway out of his chair. “I should have rung before coming over, but I didn’t know the number off-hand and …”

“Please.” He clasped both my hands warmly in his and beamed approval. “I am delighted to see you.” The room gave evidence of the glum Mrs. Wood’s belief in the power of elbow grease, but the signs of Mr. Foxworth’s relaxed, tweedy personality were evident in the open book on the coffee table and the worn pipe spilling ash on the desk. Brushing his silvering hair back from his brow with a rather endearing, abstracted gesture, Mr. Foxworth drew forward a leather chair for me and sat down opposite. “Ellie, what can I do for you? I have called several times and found you out, but even so you must think me very remiss in not seeing more of a new parishioner.”

“And you must think me very remiss in not attending services.” I looked into his kind grey eyes. “I am ashamed to admit it, but I have an uneasy feeling, not about the church itself really … but the graveyard. I didn’t relish coming through it today, especially when I had to pass the family vault. Give me time and I will overcome the feeling.”

“I appreciate the effort you made in coming to see me.” He smiled, reaching for his pipe. “It would be good to see the old Grantham pew occupied. Miss Sybil Grantham does occasionally attend evensong, but as you know, your uncle viewed every clergyman as a bombastic hypocrite and refused to darken the doors of St. Anselm’s.”

“At least he agreed to a Christian burial, but I think that may have been to ensure he was not hustled out of this world without due pomp and pageantry.” This topic was right where I wanted it.

The vicar smiled. “He certainly went out in style; I gather the horse and carriage was a sentimental gesture in remembrance of his mother. An unusual man, a pity he was such a confirmed hermit. When I was assigned this living three years ago I did call, but Miss Grantham was ordered not to let me over the threshold. Now tell me, can I help you in any way? Or may I hope this is a social visit?”

Nice man! I wasn’t sure, being such a novice, but I thought I detected a decidedly unclerical gleam in his eyes. Ben might not want me, but he was not the only twig on the tree. Wickedly, I was tempted to test the strength of Mr. Foxworth’s virtue by doing an impromptu impersonation of Vanessa at her sexy, alluring best. But my diet had taught me restraint and I still possessed the naïve notion that nice things happen only to girls who wait.

At that moment Mrs. Wood entered the study, and grimly deposited a tray of tea things on the table between me and the vicar and left us with an affirmative slam of the door. While I poured, I told Rowland, as he insisted on being called, about Uncle Merlin’s will and the treasure. He looked immensely interested.

“You may possibly have already considered the idea, but
I would think that carriage might provide an excellent hiding place for something of value, under the seat or floor.”

I told him that I had searched the Victorian conveyance to no avail before lending it, with Mr. Bragg’s approval, to the local historical society. It had been taking up rather a lot of space in the stable. “We have no horses. The ones used for the funeral were borrowed. But I do agree that Uncle Merlin’s funeral arrangements are important because they were our first indication that the treasure was connected with Abigail Grantham, and in particular her death. Which is where I hope you may be able to help. I know I am delving back a very long way, but did the previous vicar say anything about her? Anything vaguely hush-hush or mysterious? Anything to suggest suicide?”