‘And you told her so, I suppose? I can’t imagine why you think the way to make friends is to – Oh, there is hot water in this kettle – hooray! I’ll just use this lot and then put the kettle on again. I wonder why Mrs Delamere didn’t get her woman to come in for a few hours and clean through, though? Tess told me a Mrs Thrower comes in each day.’ Freddy chuckled. ‘Tess’s mama is no keener on housework than ours, it seems.’
‘Probably never thought. If you’d had a motor accident, Sprat, I can’t say I’d worry much about a few dishes.’
Freddy turned from the sink, eyes very wide, and patted her brother’s arm with a soapy hand. ‘Wonders will never cease – that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Ashley Knox! You know I’m ever so fond of you, but you’re so touchy and sarky, I never really know where I am.’
‘That, my dear Sprat, is the effect I strive to acquire. Mystery is what brings women flocking to me, hadn’t you realised? I’ve decided to have a gay old time with lots and lots of beautiful women whilst I’m young and gorgeous, then marry and settle down when I’m old and played out, say when I’m thirty.’ He looped his tea-towel round his sister’s neck and tugged her gently away from the sink, causing her to giggle and flick at him with the washing-up cloth. ‘And I’m going to start with your little friend Tess,’ he added.
‘But Ash, women don’t flock to you,’ Freddy said, returning to the sink. ‘As for Tess, she’s not a woman. She’s still at school, like me. Oh don’t,
don’t
do anything to spoil our friendship, there’s a dear.’
‘It will be all the stronger . . . say, Sprat, you’ve got a bit of a crush on Keith Arden, haven’t you? You know – old ‘Keefie keefie, got no teefie’.’
‘It is
not
a crush. I admire Keith very much, he’s – he’s clever, a tremendous tennis player, he’s generous, he’s a first-class yachtsman . . .’
‘And he’s very pretty-pretty, or he would be if he had teeth,’ her unfeeling brother said smartly. ‘So why don’t –’
‘There you go again! Always sarky, never finding out the good in people, only being cruel . . . and anyway, he’s got lovely, even white teeth . . . and they
don’t
stick out, which is more than you can say for some people’s teeth!’
‘All right, all right, his teeth are perfect, like the rest of him. And I wasn’t going to say they stuck out because they don’t, of course. They go in a bit like teeny little weasel teeth . . . hitting me never solves anything. Sprat, because I’m bigger than you and can, if I choose, hit a lot harder.’
‘You’re a nasty swine, Ashley Knox!’ Freddy shrieked, windmilling her fists like a whirling dervish whilst Ashley held her easily at arm’s length. ‘Just shut your evil gob and let me get on with this damned washing up!’
‘Look, I was only going to suggest . . .’
‘I don’t want to hear. I
won’t
hear!’ Freddy dived into the sink and began to clatter plates and sing a hymn very loudly and rather tunelessly. Ashley raised his voice.
‘I was going to suggest
a foursome,
brainless one! Keith and I are good friends, if you’d like to go out with him and bring Tess . . .’
‘I’m not listening,’ Freddy said loudly. ‘Onward Christian so-o-o-oldiers . . .’
‘You are. You heard every word. Do you want to get your hands on Keith’s beautiful body or don’t you? He likes you, he told me so.’
Freddy stopped singing. ‘Likes me? How do you know?’ she said suspiciously. ‘I didn’t think he knew I existed!’
‘Well, he does. Now come on; do you want to make up a foursome with Tess, me and Keith or don’t you?’
‘We-ell, but suppose Keith fell for Tess? She’s most awfully pretty, all that beautiful, shining black hair and those big blue eyes. Her skin’s lovely, too. She doesn’t go dirty brown like I do, she goes a lovely golden colour.’
‘She won’t fall for Keith. Not with me around,’ Ashley said complacently. ‘Hush, I hear her fairy footsteps on the stairs. Are you on?’
‘We-ell . . .’
‘Yes or no, Sprat? We’ve got to move fast, whilst her people are away and she’s under our roof.’
‘Yes, all right then! Definitely yes,’ Freddy gabbled just as the door opened and Tess came into the kitchen, lugging a large black bag.
‘Yes what?’ she said. ‘I’m packed, so we can leave as soon as I’ve tidied the stuff away in here. Oh, I say, you have been busy – it’s beginning to look quite respectable!’
‘Yes, we’ve done pretty well,’ Ashley said, looking round the tidy kitchen. ‘Can we walk down to the Broad before we go home, though? We’ve missed dinner, so there’s no point in hurrying.’
‘Sure,’ Tess said. ‘Follow me!’
Eight
TESS STOOD UNDER
the lychgate outside Blofield parish church, listening to the steady tap of the rain on the leaves of the great lime trees which lined the road and looking into the churchyard. It was much bigger than she had anticipated, and for a moment her heart failed her. What was she doing here, gazing out over that great expanse of gravestones, grass and trees, preparing to search the whole area for one grave . . . and she didn’t even know what sort of stone was above it, how it would be marked!
But she was beginning to believe that of all the places he might have chosen, her father would have wanted her mother to be buried here. After all, Leonora had spent most of her short life here in Blofield; it had been the place where she and Peter had met and fallen in love. They had married here, despite the fact that Leonora’s parents had not liked the match. Tess and Andy had concentrated on Walcott when they visited the Record Office, they had not even thought of Blofield, but now circumstances had made Tess consider it, and she was quietly confident that she would find Leonara’s grave here, if she looked.
So she had told Freddy that she was going to search for her mother’s grave, and her friend had offered to accompany her, but the Knoxes were so busy! Mrs Knox had gone off to keep an eye on her wicked nephews, Ashley had disappeared as soon as breakfast was over, and when it began to rain, Freddy had looked almost pleased.
‘I know it’s awful for you, but it’s a real blessing for me,’ she declared. ‘I’m in the middle of making myself a new dress, so rain will give me the chance to finish it. We’ll do something later, Tess,’ she added, ‘but rain like that is a bit off-putting, wouldn’t you say? And you could do some sewing as well if you like, or potter round the house, or read my books. You could listen to the wireless . . . whatever you like.’
Normally, Tess would have jumped at the chance to spend a rainy morning reading her friend’s books, but right now she was in an agony of impatience to get to the graveyard before something happened to prevent her search. If her father knew what she was doing he would be upset, but he didn’t know . . . and I
must
find the grave, Tess told herself. It’s important to me – she was my mother, after all.
So she saw Freddy settled over her dressmaking, donned her oilskins, pushed her hair under the hood, and set off.
And here she stood now, under the slight shelter of the lychgate, staring out across the churchyard. There was a long gravel path bisecting it, with the church itself on the left surrounded by what looked like very old gravestones, and the newer graves to the right. Tess imagined her mother would have been buried on the right-hand side of the graveyard, but she would have to examine both . . . and the rain was coming down like stair-rods, flattening the long grass round the edges, bouncing off the headstones, gurgling down the sides of the gravel path.
Still. No one said detection was easy, she reminded herself. So get going, Tess Delamere!
Accordingly, she retreated into the hood of her oilskin as a tortoise retreats into its shell, deserted the lychgate, and began to walk down the gravel path, examining the gravestones on either side of her as she went. She found a good few local names, including a Francis Delamere who had died at the age of eighty-eight in 1904. A grandparent? Possibly. She trudged further. More gravestones. Opposite the church she looked across and realised the enormity of her task. It’s the rain, she thought despairingly. You can’t look at a stone from a few yards away and read what’s engraved on it, you have to be really close, nose to nose almost, before you can make out a word. It will take me weeks at this rate!
It was tempting to give up, to go back to the Knox house and curl up in a chair with a good book. But that meant the very first obstacle had beaten her – she didn’t fancy writing to Andy and telling him that!
So she heaved a sigh, reached the end of the gravel path, and turned back, climbing the steep grassy bank on to the church side. She would do all the really old graves as quickly as she could, and hope that the rain would stop before she started on the newer side. Meanwhile, it was interesting, and gave her a good deal of satisfaction, to see the name Delamere on another tombstone. It helped to dispel the horrid feeling she sometimes had that she had been born at the age of three, when her father took her to the Old House and Deeping Lane.
It wasn’t all that bad either, once she got going. Of course she got steadily colder as the rain seeped past her oilskins and penetrated her grey cardigan, her cotton dress, her vest, but she kept moving, which helped to warm her up a bit, and though her hands speedily went blue with cold, her feet were snug in thick socks and her sturdy wellington boots.
Some of the graves were really old, too. Tess thought them fascinating and found herself lingering over the more ancient ones, imagining what their lives must have been like in an era before motor cars, trains, telephones, wishing she might have known something about Eleanor Meadowes, who had grown up during the Regency, or little Laetitia Suffling, who had died, much mourned, at the age of six, in the mid-nineteenth century. She finished the left-hand side of the churchyard, then went down to the end, where the woods began without so much as a hedge or a fence to show where the churchyard ended, and started on the right-hand side.
This was harder work, because some of the deaths were recent enough to make her feel uncomfortably like a voyeur, if that was the word. One who snooped, who stared through the lighted windows of quiet country homes and observed the unselfconscious actions of the people within. These dead could not, she felt confusedly, have got far on their path through purgatory towards the heavenly gates. They must be seeing her, watching her as she read epitaphs, pulled aside long grass, spied on their last resting places.
What was more, instead of clearing, the rain was growing heavier and a dullness was creeping over the scene as the clouds overhead grew blacker and blacker. It looks as though a storm’s brewing, Tess thought, and was tempted all over again to give up. But she’d covered a good deal of ground already, she might as well continue. I can’t get much wetter, she reminded herself as the rain continued to patter on her oilskins.
Doggedly, as the sky darkened, she continued to search.
‘Where’s your pal, Sprat? It’s such a bloody miserable day that I thought the flicks this afternoon might cheer us all up. What d’you say? I asked Keith, he’s going to ring me if he can get away.’
Freddy looked up. She was sitting in her mother’s small drawing-room, with the sewing machine before her, carefully clicking her way along a seam, and she was getting extremely tired of it. It was all very well to want a new dress, to say she would make herself one, but the sheer hard work of it was almost more than she could stand. And even when she finished machining, she would have to hand-stitch all the hems – the sleeves, the neck, the skirt. But although she was glad to see Ashley’s face poking round the door, she didn’t intend to say so. He was conceited enough as it was!
‘She’s sightseeing,’ she snapped. ‘Go away, Ash. I must finish this seam before luncheon.’
Ashley promptly came right into the room and shut the door behind him. ‘It’s only half past eleven,’ he pointed out. ‘You’ve at least an hour before lunch. And why can’t you ever simply answer a straight question? I asked if you’d like to come to the flicks with Keith and me after lunch – that means at about two o’clock. Surely you’ll have done in here by then?’
‘Not if you don’t leave me alone I shan’t,’ Freddy growled. Why could Ashley never see that his cool assumption that he knew what was best for everyone simply made people want to contradict him?
‘But do you want to go?’ Ashley persisted. ‘I’ll tell Keith yes, shall I? After all, I’ll be paying – you can’t afford to see Charlie Chaplin in
Modern Times
on your pocket-money I don’t suppose.’
‘Oh! I’d love to see that,’ Freddy said, but she didn’t take her eyes off her seam. Slowly, slowly, carefully, carefully . . .
‘Right, that’s it, then. Plans for this afternoon finally approved. Where did you say Tess was?’
‘Sightseeing,’ Freddy said briefly. ‘She’ll be back for luncheon.’
‘Sightseeing? In
Blofield
? Dammit, Sprat, there’s nothing worth seeing in the village. Come on, where is she?’
You never learn, brother, Freddy said inside her own head. You’ve never really understood that the best way to put people’s backs up and make them annoyed with you is to talk in that impatient, suffer-fools-gladly tone. Out loud she said, ‘Oh, then I must be mistaken. She must be sitting on that chair over there, reading a book.’
‘She’s not there, I looked the moment . . . oh!’ Ashley stared at her, then gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘Sarcasm does not become you, Sprat. If you don’t tell me where she is this moment I’ll ring Keith and cancel this afternoon. How about that, eh?’
‘When will it occur to you, Ash, that I simply don’t know where she is?’ Freddy said patiently. ‘Not everyone’s as devious as you, you know. She went out to have a look around the village, that’s all I know. She’ll be back quite soon I expect, we’ll have plenty of time to talk about the cinema.’
It wasn’t all she knew of course, but she had no intention of telling Ashley that he might find Tess snooping round the churchyard. She was pretty sure Tess wouldn’t want anyone else to know what she was doing. It’s a private sort of thing, meeting one’s mother for the first time, Freddy thought. Perhaps it’s even more private when one of you is dead. So she smiled sweetly up at Ashley and suggested that he might like to make them both a nice hot cup of coffee, since Mrs Brett didn’t take kindly to extra tasks during her working hours.