The Thin Woman (26 page)

Rowland coughed and cleared his throat, but whether he would have spoken into the volcanic silence we were not destined to discover. A harsh, gravelly voice, rasping with fury, severed the air like a rusty guillotine. My shock was so profound I had difficulty believing this was Jonas speaking.

“Madam!” He ground out the word, eyebrows meeting like a pair of furious furry caterpillars. “What do you know about a woman who was wife and mother—a dried-up, man-hungry spinster like you?”

Aunt Sybil’s face turned a dangerous shade of purple, seeping as quickly out to deathbed white. “How dare you!” She clutched a hand to her heaving silk chest. “Merlin”—she took a deep breath and stammered, “Merlin would never have permitted you to talk to me so.”

“Wouldn’t he?” The tray rattled in Jonas’s blue-veined hands. “And nor would he have allowed an old frump like you to speak ill of his mother.” With these words he banged the tray down on the coffee table, bowed to the astonished company, and thundered from the room.

“Ee, by gum.” Freddy rubbed his hands together in glee. “Ain’t it fun to be ’ome!”

Aunt Sybil was not at all well. I was quite frightened for her and urged her to let me fetch a doctor. Like a small bewildered child, she asked only to be taken home so she could sleep. Ben went immediately to fetch her coat, saying he would escort her to the cottage, but on his return Rowland insisted he would be happy to perform the office. “Although,” he continued, “I will expect a small reward for my services—perhaps you will offer me a small glass of brandy, Miss Grantham, and take one with me.” Aunt Sybil did not return his smile. “Ellie”—Rowland was patting his jacket pockets and peering about the room as he spoke—“I seem to have mislaid my pipe and tobacco pouch.”

“I expect you left them in the dining room, shall we go and look?”

Sure enough we found these articles beside the place where he had been sitting, but I was glad of this brief opportunity of talking with the vicar alone. After thanking him for his concern for Aunt Sybil, I apologized for Jonas’s incredible rudeness. “He’s a dreadful old man at the best of times,” I sighed. “Whatever his other vices, Merlin wasn’t a snob, and Aunt Sybil should keep her nose out.”

Rowland tapped his pipe on the ashtray and put it back in his pocket.“What I consider interesting is that the confrontation concerned Abigail Grantham. I only hope I excite as much influence when I’ve been dead for half a century. Clergymen are not supposed to be superstitious, but I almost wonder if her personality lingers in this house.”

“I’m glad you understand.” I fiddled with a water glass on the tame. “I don’t believe the house is haunted, exactly, either—but what happened to Abigail somehow changed its character. Uncle Merlin’s years of neglect and Aunt Sybil’s
deplorable housekeeping did their part, but I still feel the corrosion began when Arthur Grantham ripped out or papered over every trace of his wife’s presence.”

Rowland nodded. “So far I am still exhuming the thousand and one sermons written by the late Reverend Geoffrey Hempstead, all extremely lengthy and of the hell-fire and brimstone variety. Much as I dislike decrying a predecessor, Hempstead was a fanatic.”

We crossed the hall to the drawing room and stood briefly outside the closed door. “One wonders,” I said, “how the worthy Mr. Hempstead addressed truly hardened sinners. They got the works, I assume, eternity in a Turkish bath?”

The vicar placed his hand on the doorknob. “Unless they could be brought to their knees in abject repentance. To prevent other family members from being similarly corrupted he strongly recommended the spiritually deceased member be torn off like so much rotten flesh and cast out upon the world. I found several themes of this nature, many deploring drunkenness and one relating to a woman taken in adultery. Apparently, the husband had done the Christian thing and shown her the door.” Rowland smiled. “You will be relieved to know the church has mellowed over the years. I for one don’t expect apprentice angels.”

Minutes later as Rowland left the house with Aunt Sybil, he pressed my hand significantly and reminded me that he would be in touch.

“Is something naughty going on between you and the cleric?” Freddy asked, as he poured himself a glass of Benedictine and slouched down before the fire. “Can’t say I blame the chap now you’ve shed the flab. Sporting or Ben not to mind, but living together often does that to a relationship. The ardour cools, and both parties start looking for a change of playpen—someone who doesn’t hog the bathroom in the mornings or polish off the last crumb of cereal in the box.… And why not? If both parties are mature and open-minded …”

Before I could respond to this view of the sexual revolution, Dorcas ruffled up like an angry chicken. “Young man,
I refuse to stand here and listen to you insult my friends. Everything here is on the up and up. If it were not, young man, I can assure you I would not have remained a single night under this roof. Why should you believe me, you ask? Because, my fine friend, I am a gentlewoman, a games mistress, and a Girl Guide! Need I say more?”

“Not a word!” whispered Freddy.

“The trouble with your kind”—Dorcas eyed Freddy’s pony tail and earring with strong disapproval—“is that now hippies are passé. You don’t have a clue what to do with the rest of your life. Do yourself a favour, my boy, take up jogging.”

Dorcas’s pep talk must have done Freddy some good. He behaved like a model guest from that moment. He even made his own bed the next morning, but Ben and I were nonetheless relieved when he informed us at breakfast that he would be scooting off after lunch. If he was mixing business with pleasure, checking up on our activities in order to lay them waste, he had not allowed himself much time. Still, Ben had hidden his manuscript in one of the suits of armour in the hall. During breakfast Freddy did remark reproachfully that I now ate like a sparrow and asked if I had lost all the weight necessary to meet my goal. I answered truthfully—no—and hastily turned the subject before he could enquire how close I was to success. The morning passed quickly and relatively easily. Ben reminded Freddy that Aunt Sybil had asked him to stop at the cottage before he left.

“Maybe she is going to spot you a loan,” suggested Ben as he pointedly began removing eggy plates from the table.

“Really.” Freddy cocked an eyebrow. “Of course she was in such a tizz; what do you think, should I toddle down and see her now instead of waiting until my hour of departure? Yes, I think I owe the old buzzard something for teaching me over the years the meaning of good food.” Not like Freddy to be so gallant, but he was so hard to figure. I told him Aunt Sybil would be in the middle of her swimming practice down in the cove and he nobly said he would go and give her a private lesson in survival fitness if Ben would lend him a pair
of trunks. He hoped she would not insist on paying him but, if she did, he would give her his special discount rate.

As matters turned out, Aunt Sybil did not have to part with her money. She was neither in the water nor at home, Freddy informed us, looking peeved as he trod sand into the hall. I was rather worried. I hoped Aunt Sybil’s absence did not indicate that she had fallen ill and gone to visit Dr. Melrose.

Freddy demanded a house tour and as we stood on the half-landing on the stairs looking up at the huge stained-glass window, he slowly ran a hand down the smooth surface of the bannister. “Know something, Ellie,” he said, “I’m kinda impressed. You’ve brought something here,” he said. “Something honest. One of the reasons I prefer the outdoors is that there most things are alive, the trees, the sheep with the wool still on their backs—but this”—he stroked the bannister again—“isn’t dead. Cripes, I must be going soft.… I wonder, if you have already unburied the treasure, if it isn’t something tangible at all—just good vibes.”

I was touched, but Freddy was clever. Was he hoping I would say, “But it is an actual something—last week we found a postage stamp printed and run through the meter during the reign of Cleopatra.” I continued the grand tour. “Uncle Merlin’s old room.” I flung open the door. “As you see, we have retained the woodwork and hung new paper. The curtains and bedspread should be here any hour. The other bedrooms all require redecorating and the floors sanding and I would like to make the dumb-waiter into a linen cupboard and …” Happily babbling on I did not mind that Freddy was unusually silent. It took a lot to shut him up.

No harm done from this visit, I thought, watching Freddy buzz out of sight on his motorbike early that afternoon. We had given him precious little to report. But as the day lengthened I began to feel curiously uneasy. A storm was brewing. A sullen wind stirred the trees to tapping on the windowpanes, setting my teeth on edge. So much so that
when Jonas stepped out of the kitchen (I could have sworn he was working upstairs in one of the bedrooms) I squealed, lashing out at him in a wrathful tirade.

“What are you up to, snooping and prowling up behind people like a burglar practising for his stealth test? Aren’t you satisfied with insulting harmless old women? If my aunt has a heart attack and dies, I will hold you responsible, Mr. Phipps.”

“If she does, won’t be from a lifetime of hard work keeping her tongue in her mouth. She’s not like you. I’m not one to throw posies but ye be a rare lass. I know what’s got your craw—that lad coming down to spy out the lie of the land, but ye’ve nowt to fear with me about. The buzzards may be out there, hovering, but I’ll swat ’em down like flies before they touch a hair of your head.”

Was Jonas trying to cheer me or scare me to death? I’d scare him if Aunt Sybil hadn’t fully recovered her health and spirits. But Dorcas and I found that Aunt Sybil was still not home. After our repeated knocks had met with profound silence, we took the key down from the side window ledge and let ourselves in through the front door. Six papier-mâché heads of Uncle Merlin grinned lopsidedly at us from the mantelpiece, but such was our only greeting, until we found the note on the pillow of Aunt Sybil’s unmade bed. Very Victorian. But she had not eloped with Rowland Foxworth or run off to a nunnery. She had, so her distinctive spidery handwriting informed us, gone to visit an old friend for a while. After last night she had felt the need to get away.

“Makes sense,” said Ben when I told him. “Would have made more sense if she had notified us in person, but she wants us to worry about her. Sad. She’s old, and as Jonas implied, probably never had a man take her to the pictures, let alone try something sinful when the lights went out.”

“Some of us learn to live with that handicap,” I said. But I was sorry for poor Aunt Sybil and a little troubled.

“She’ll be fine,” said Dorcas bracingly. “Glad to know she’s got a friend she can visit, somehow didn’t think she had any.”

One afternoon, about a week later, I had been shopping in the village and returned to some good news.

“Aunt Sybil just rang,” Ben said. “You’ve been worrying about nothing. She couldn’t say much because the line was bad, but she wants us to meet her and her friend for lunch at the Windhaven Hotel, in Shipley, this Saturday. We are even, get this, to bring Dorcas. Sounds like she feels a little guilty about her remarks concerning servants in front of Dorcas.”

“Either that, or she wants us to bring her as a chaperone, in case you lose control and try and get me in the back seat of the car now we both would fit.”

“You’re incorrigible,” said Ben, “but I am relieved about dear Aunt Sybil, she sounded chipper, too, so I guess we can count her back in the world of the living.”

CHAPTER
Fourteen

The Windhaven Hotel was situated above the promenade of the small seaside resort of Shipley. It had an air of faded grandeur, like an elderly aristocrat who slips a fine lace shawl across her shoulders to hide the darns in her outmoded gown. Dorcas, preferring to work in the herb garden, had declined to join us, but Ben and I were greeted like gentry by a hunched minion sporting old world livery and an obsequious smile, and ushered across the worn red carpeting of the reception hall.

Ben and I were served a superb lunch in the high-ceilinged Regency Room. Nothing was lacking on the heavy parchment menu. Nothing was lacking whatever, except Aunt Sybil. She had agreed to meet us at 12:30. When she had not arrived by one o’clock, I was not unduly concerned. The delay meant Ben and I could indulge in our second glass of Dubonnet. By the time I had reached my fourth, the reason for our being there seemed immaterial. Time to order solid sustenance. Not being a regular drinker, I had not learnt the basic rules—like when to stop. By the time we had finished our five-course lunch, one of which was a bottle of wine, I was feeling lovely and floaty and only vaguely melancholy
about Aunt Sybil’s absence. She would have been rather in the way in this cosy little rawing boat for two which swished ever so slowly up and down on the red sea—oops—carpet. The boat took a lunge and I had to take hold of Ben’s hand to stop myself falling overboard.

“You don’t think something could have happened to her?” I slurred.

“Such as?” Seen through a golden haze Ben looked as mouthwateringly delicious as every bite of that delicious repast.