"I suppose," said Nellie. "But what's she like now?"
"Not bad looking, pretty you might say, in a pale, sad-eyed sort of way. But nothing like the beauty her mother was said to be."
"That's not what I was asking." Nellie returned to mashing the potatoes. "I meant does she look loony? It would only be expected, wouldn't it? Coming from homicidal stock. And it certainly doesn't sound normal to me her wanting to spend even one night in that room. You know the Rossiters said they had people say they felt a presence up there— a darkness even when the lights were on. And we've had some of the same talk ourselves."
"A lot of nonsense. It's not like the murder took place there," responded Mrs. Gardener practically. "But if you want to know, I have tried to figure out the mother. What was her name? Evangeline? Something fancy and sort of French sounding. No, I've got it," looking at the pots of geraniums on the window sill. "It was Genevieve. Anyway, fancy bringing the child with her when she made her get-away! Holing up here, waiting to be found out. I'd have had to phone the police."
"Throw themselves on their mercy so to speak?" Nellie looked dubious. "I can't say I've ever gone around thinking of coppers as a bunch of bleeding hearts. But then I've not got money and a posh-sounding name."
"I just couldn't have had it hanging over my head. But we all are made different I suppose." Mrs. Gardener got up to pour herself another cup of tea. "I couldn't have pretended to my daughter that we were off on a seaside holiday when I was looking at those cuts on my hands, remembering my husband grabbing the knife away from me before I hit him over the head with a candlestick." She shook her head. "No one's ever called me a nervous Nellie. But I tell you I'm worried about that girl. She looks so lost, even with that husband of hers standing beside her. What if she waits until he's asleep and turns on the gas?"
"So we can all wake up dead." Nellie tossed a couple of sprigs of mint into a saucepan of peas. "You know Ed's opinion." Ed was her husband, who was currently in the dining room serving up a steamed fish meal to two spinsters of undetermined age but definite ideas on eating delicate fare at an early hour. "He said we should have changed those gas fires for electric ones, just for the sort of reason we're talking about."
"I wonder," Mrs. Gardener stirred a second teaspoon of sugar into her tea, "if the murder would have been splashed all over the papers if Genevieve VanCleeve hadn't been debutante of the year, always being photographed in
The Tattler
and those other high-society magazines. And the husband…"
"Gerald, wasn't it?" Nellie took a peek at the Lancashire hotpot in the oven, eyeing with undiminished satisfaction the rich gravy bubbling up through the thinly sliced crust of golden brown potatoes.
"Yes, well, what I was saying," her aunt sat back down at the table, "is that it was bound to make it all the more of a story with him being a highly decorated officer in the war. A real hero from the accounts of it. Badly wounded— losing the sight in one eye and afterwards always being in a lot of pain from other injuries. It's a terrible thing when a man does his duty to his country and ends up the way he did."
"What did the Rossiters think of them?" Nellie closed the oven door and concentrated on the peas. "The mother and daughter, I mean."
"They said they would never have guessed a thing was wrong from how Mrs. VanCleeve behaved the week she was here. The only thing that could have tipped them off something was fishy was that she was a cut above the sort that usually comes. More the type you'd expect to take her holidays on the French Riviera. Nothing flashy about her, just skirts and jumpers, but that look about her that comes from having gone to the very best schools and mixing with the upper crust. They said she was soft-spoken and always very appreciative, told them how much she enjoyed the meals, that sort of thing. The Rossiters weren't much taken with the girl. Said she was a right little madam, but she didn't look like one this evening." Mrs. Gardener closed her eyes and tried to picture what was happening in the bedroom with the red roses on the wallpaper. She hoped that young man with the kind face had his arms around his wife and was telling her that they should take their suitcase and leave. But she had the sinking feeling that the evening was not going to turn out that simply.
Eileen was, in fact, standing in the same spot where Mrs. Gardener had left her. She took off her hat almost in slow motion and let it drop to the floor. She had silky nutmeg brown hair, cut in a bob— not because it was fashionable, but because she never had to do anything to it. Any more than she thought about clothes in general, or in particular the grey wool frock she had put on that morning. She never wore makeup. Not even lipstick. It wasn't indifference. She had made a conscious decision that the world— and that included Andrew— could take her as she was. Someone no one would ever call beautiful, perhaps adding, "Well, you only have to remember her mother and where her looks got her. What girl in her right mind would want to follow in those footsteps?"
Andrew sat on the bed watching her, loving her so dearly, and feeling as he so often did, unable to reach any part of her. It was a mistake, he decided, to have pushed her into coming here. She wasn't going to open up to him. More likely she would shut down even more completely. He was sure that she wasn't even aware that he was in the room. And he was right. Eileen didn't see him. She could hear her own childish voice denouncing the Sea View guesthouse as the horridest place in the world. She saw her mother bending over a suitcase on the bed, lifting out a teddy bear with an arm and a leg missing and propping him against the pillows.
"I don't know why you brought that old thing," she petulantly replied. "I don't sleep with him anymore."
"But I thought you might like to, because of being in a strange place." Her mother's voice came back to her on a breath of salt wind. The window wasn't open now, but it had been on that day long ago. "And I don't want to sleep in the same bed with you, Mummy."
"Eileen, they didn't have a room with two single beds. We'll have to make do. It's something everyone has to do from time to time."
"The wallpaper's horrible. But I don't suppose you mind. You adore red roses."
"Perhaps not this many. But it could be worse. Cousin Aggie has a bedroom with girls on swings on the wallpaper. She said it looked so lively and cheerful in the sample, but after it went up she felt dizzy every time she went into that room. Eileen, dear, I think you would really love cousin Aggie. I spent a lot of time with her on long holidays when I was growing up. And it's a pity I haven't taken you to see her, but Daddy said he would find the journey too much. She lives in Northumbria, which is a trek from London. But she has the most beautiful garden with a wonderful plum tree. And always at least three dogs and a cat. You know how you've always wanted a pet. But Aunt Mary, of course, wouldn't hear of it. And with Hawthorn Lodge being as much her house as Daddy's, her feelings have always had to be considered."
"I don't know why you had to drag me here. You didn't even let me say goodbye to Daddy."
"Dearest, you know it's not a good idea to disturb him early in the morning." Her mother's voice was fainter now; but her own echoed shrilly, accusingly in her ears.
"That's not the reason. Why do you always have to upset Daddy? It was about that Mr. Connors, wasn't it? He's in love with you. Don't deny it, Mummy. And you feel the same way about him. Aunt Mary said you were flirting with him when he came for lunch last Saturday."
"Aunt Mary sometimes gets things wrong. She's not a very happy person. Mr. Connors is Daddy's friend. And he's very sad because his wife was killed in a motor accident only two months ago."
"Leaving the two of you free to run away together."
"Is that what Aunt Mary said?"
"I've got ears, haven't I? I heard you and Daddy arguing. I heard him say that he wouldn't give you a divorce, not ever! And that if you thought that living with Mr. Connors would be all romance and flowers you ought to remember that the rotten cad hasn't a bean to his name."
Suddenly there were no more voices inside Eileen's head. Andrew's concerned face swam into view. Then she saw her mother clearly. It was as if walking out of the past were no more than walking down a hallway between one room and the next. Now she was sitting on the bed peeling off her silk stockings. Now she was picking up the old teddy bear from the floor where he had been tossed and gazing at him for a long moment before putting him in a drawer. Now she was seated on the dressing table stool brushing her waist-length hair. And with every movement there were lightning red flashes of the slash marks on her hands and wrists. Outside the room she kept her sleeves well pulled down and whenever possible wore gloves. But you couldn't wear gloves when eating. And Eileen remembered the elderly man. What was his name? Something Scottish. He had been the only person in the dining room on the first morning that she and her mother went down for breakfast. Eileen remembered the smell of kippers from his table. She could see the crack in the flowered teapot sitting next to the pot of marmalade on their table. And she could see the man's thin face, silver hair, and grey cardigan. He appeared to be reading from a little black book, but Eileen had been sure that he was looking at her mother. But not in the same way that she had seen other men do. And she had been seized by the absolute certainty that he was a policeman pretending to be on holiday.
The clock on the mantelpiece began to strike and Andrew's voice became woven into the silvery chimes, saying that it was seven o'clock and wouldn't it be a good idea if they went down for dinner.
"Darling; you need to eat, you hardly took a bite at lunch."
"You're right." She managed a smile for him, before she went quickly out the door and down the stairs. Away from the blood red roses on the wallpaper and the dressing table mirror in which her mother's face hovered as if trapped in moonlight. Or had it been her own? The same hazel eyes, the same gloss of brown hair, the same fine features and pale clear skin. What made the difference between great beauty and what was merely pretty at best? It wasn't the lack of makeup or the ability to wear the right clothes in the right way. Eileen knew with a tightening of her throat that she couldn't go on telling herself that was all there was to it.
The two spinster ladies came out of the dining room as she and Andrew reached the bottom of the stairs. They were dressed in black and looked like women who existed on a diet of boiled fish and kept a rigid time schedule.
"Good evening," Andrew greeted them with his usual kindly courtesy, to which they responded with the most meager of nods before retreating into the sitting room across the hall. There had been a pair very much like them on that other stay at the Sea View. Eileen remembered saying unimaginatively that they looked like a couple of crows.
"Yes, poor old things," her mother had answered with faint smile, "but perhaps they've never had the chance to do more than peck away at life. That could make anyone look sour."
"I hate it, Mummy, when you do that," the petulant childish voice answered.
"Do what?"
"Sound so horribly smug."
"I don't mean to. Blame it on my childhood, Eileen— growing up in a vicarage with parents who knew how to be happy. And then there was dear cousin Aggie quite content to be a bit odd in her purple trousers and enormous sun hats."
"But you don't have the right."
"What right?"
"To pretend to be such a goody-goody. Not with the way you carry on. Making Daddy so unhappy. Do you want to know what Aunt Mary calls you?"
"No."
"Well, you're going to hear it. She says you're a tart. She says you were never good enough for him to begin with. That your father was just a country vicar and your mother was only good for making jam."
"Aunt Mary is a very disappointed woman, but that's no excuse for you talking about your grandparents that way. I wish they could have lived so they could have known you. They would have loved you so much."
"Yes, like you do, when you're not too busy being nice to Mr. Connors. I wonder if he really was sad that his wife died in that accident? I wonder if it really was an accident…"
"Eileen!"
It was Andrew's voice speaking to her now. And she came back to her surroundings to find herself seated across from him at a round table in a corner of the dining room. It was the same table where she had always sat with her mother. It was all the same. The bottle green wallpaper with the burgundy frieze. The mantelpiece crammed with Victorian vases and jugs, barely giving the heavily ornate bronze clock room to breathe, let alone tick. The same swagged and fringed velveteen curtains framed the lace at the window. The only difference Eileen could see was the small vases on all the tables, each containing sprigs of flowers or a couple of roses. There were red roses at their table. One was still fresh. The other was beginning to droop.
There was no one else in the room but them. "Eileen," Andrew said again. "Look at me! Please, darling, take your hands away from your ears."
"I didn't realize." She blinked and let her arms fall to her sides. "I must have been trying to shut out the voices."