Withering Heights (18 page)

I left my hair in its plait and smoothed the demure collar of my nightgown before leaving the bathroom and making my way to the four-poster bed where Ben awaited me under the covers.

“Sleepy, darling?” I asked, settling back against the comfy down pillows.

“Yes, but not too tired to talk.” His hand reached for mine but instantly let it go, as he lay in a straight line on his back, arms at his side, eyes on the ceiling.

I resisted the urge to rearrange him like a piece of furniture that needed to be set at an angle. Instead, I switched off my bedside lamp and watched him subside into shadow. Nice, I told myself: peaceful contentment at the end of a long day. No need to talk. Everything that had occurred since our arrival at Cragstone House could wait till morning to be discussed. Of course he must be tired, after the early start and the drive to Yorkshire.

“How was Mrs. Malloy’s reunion with her sister?” he asked, across the great divide that can happen in beds designed for families of six.

“Interesting.”

“In what way?” Ben inquired of the ceiling.

“We met Mr. Archibald Scrimshank. He looks like an Archibald. Melody had some pertinent things to say about him and his relationship with the Gallaghers.” I went on to explain,
speaking faster as the feeling increased that he was only half listening. When I petered out, it was several moments before he answered. I wondered if he’d fallen asleep.

“Do the sisters resemble each other?”

So much for depicting Mr. Scrimshank as the pin-striped villain of the piece and exciting Ben’s interest in ways to prove him guilty of embezzlement and murder.

“Looking at Melody was like catching Mrs. Malloy on the hop without any makeup or hair dye. I felt I ought to apologize and back out the door, promising not to breathe a word to anyone that I’d seen her naked.”

Another silence, during which Ben compressed his arms even closer to his sides. I waited for one of us to start humming as the faux Madam LaGrange had done earlier. When that didn’t happen, I brought up the visit to the Dower House. Finally, in a giddy attempt at providing him with a clearer visual image of the scene, I mentioned Val’s arrival.

“She’d brighten the dullest room, wouldn’t she?” I said.

“You think?”

“Oh, yes! I don’t know when I’ve met anyone so lovely.” Now I was the one making a confidant of the ceiling.

“Ellie. . . .”

“You must have been stunned to see her walk into the hall this afternoon.” It was said at last. Now he would explain what she had or had not meant to him once upon a time. I would pose gentle questions and receive all the right answers. I would confess to having felt just the tiniest bit threatened until Mrs. Malloy had talked sense into me on the drive to see Melody. He would take me in his arms and tell me tenderly that I was the only woman he had ever loved, and the bed would shrink to its proper size with only room for the two of us.

That was what should have happened. Instead, his response increased the distance between us.

“She was someone I knew.”

“And?”

“It was a surprise to see her walk in.”

“You didn’t know that she had a great-aunt living in this part of the world?”

“Ellie.” He reached again for my hand and this time held on to it. “There’s a lot I didn’t know about Valeria Pierce. We crossed paths. . . . Can we leave it at that for the time being?”

“Absolutely.”

“No probing questions? No digging up the past?”

“You were ships passing in the night.” I squeezed his hand, to let him know I understood, before turning over and pressing my quivering lips against the pillow. So silly to react in such a way! But why was he reluctant to talk about the woman if meeting her again had not reawakened regrets for what might have been? I was convinced I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep with Ben lying beside me like a block of wood and unanswerable questions hammering away in my head. But misery provides its own stupor, and I found myself dragged down into a bog that suffocated thought.

No unhappy dreams disturbed my slumber. I awoke to sunlight blasting through the windows, bouncing on and off the furniture and spray-painting the walls with gold. Mother Nature is not always the most sensitive of souls, and at first I recoiled. Let the birds chirp their little hearts out, let the sky be the color of bluebells, I would not be coerced into a more cheerful frame of mind. I would burrow deep into my Slough of Despond, put a pillow over my face, and refuse to set foot out of bed. But then pride had to go and rear its ugly head. Ben was already up. Did I really want the entire household, of which Val seemed to be an integral part, to know I was sulking?
My mind said it didn’t matter. The rest of me collaborated in getting out from under the covers. Despicable, how we can turn against ourselves at crucial moments.

But once up I felt marginally better. It was a relief that Ben had stolen a march on me and did not have to be faced immediately. A steaming hot shower further improved matters. Indeed, I found myself wondering if I hadn’t blown our bedtime chat out of all proportion. So he hadn’t wanted to talk about Val. What man would want to rehash a past relationship with his wife? Maybe she had dumped him in a way he found embarrassing to remember, or he was the one who had broken things off and he still felt somewhat guilty. By the time I had finished coiling my hair into its chignon, I was convinced I had upset myself over nothing. It also came to me that Val reminded me of Bridie O’Donnell, the girl in my class at school whose dark curls and blue eyes had made me feel so hopelessly inferior.

I drifted downstairs renewed in spirit. On hearing voices emanating from the far end of the hall, I went through the open kitchen door to find a beehive of activity. Ben was making toast and Mrs. Malloy was handing around cups of coffee. Ariel was jabbering about not wanting to go to church. Betty, wearing a green polished cotton suit two sizes too big for her, was insisting that Ariel was going, like it or lump it. Tom, in yesterday’s country squire’s outfit, seemed to be working on being invisible. Nobody mentioned the séance.

Smiles here and there wafted my way as I sat down at the large table in the center of the room. A coffee cup and plate of toast magically appeared in front of me, followed by a butter dish and marmalade pot.

“How are you this morning?” Ben asked, his face a breath away from mine. The world righted itself completely.

“Awake, which you know is amazing, since I’m not a morning
person.” I hoped he’d read between the lines and realize I was telling him I now saw things more clearly. His hand touched my hair and Val’s specter drifted away to the funeral heap of what might have been but wasn’t.

The kitchen, despite its being in need of refurbishing, was meant for cheerful occupancy. In time, I thought without a pang, the present-day Val would bring new life to its old-world charm with new cabinets, countertops, and appliances. The floor perhaps she would leave; I liked the honey-colored stone. It would be good to find a modern replica of the large country sink and 1920s cooker, but my opinion was not what counted. Chance had given the Hopkinses their decorator, a friend who only a few short months before had been a stranger to them both. A happy outcome among neighbors.

Regrettably, Ariel was not happy. Her face was marred by the fiercest of scowls as she stood with her hands on her hips, squaring off at her stepmother. “If I have to go to church, why can’t it be to St. Cuthbert’s? Their service is shorter.”

“Because it’s Church of England and we’re Catholic?” Betty looked ready to sling a slice of toast at anyone who moved.

“Then why have their vicar for tea?”

“You know the reason. Mr. Hardcastle has an old clergyman friend staying with him who remembers Cragstone House fondly and wants to see it one more time before he kicks the bucket. Tom”—rounding on him—“say something to your daughter or I’ll run screaming from this house.”

“Ariel—”

“Oh, please!” Betty screeched. “Not in that wimpy voice!”

“Aren’t we a lovely family?” The wretched child flung her arms wide and beamed a smile around the room. While I looked at Ben, hoping for inspiration as to what to say, Mrs. Malloy, disporting herself in emerald taffeta this morning and
wearing more than her usual amount of rouge and incandescent eye shadow, announced that she had sometimes rather fancied becoming a Roman Catholic.

“Trouble is, me doctor advised against it. Bad for the knees, he said, all that bobbing up and down in the pews. A shame, really, because I’ve always liked their views on Bingo. Protestants have never taken to it the same way. To be fair, there’s nothing in the Bible that says anything about it one way or another.” She returned to pouring coffee.

“Ariel.” Tom made another attempt at being the heavy-handed father. “Go upstairs this minute and wash your hair. You can’t go to church looking like that.”

“Why?”

“It’s”—he struggled to come up with a word—“greasy. I don’t know why nothing is ever done about it.”

“Meaning I’m supposed to introduce her to a bottle of shampoo, tell her what it does, and point the way to the nearest tap?” Betty grew a full inch with rage.

“No.” Tom hastily retrieved the look he had darted at her. “But other girls her age don’t go around looking like she does.”

“If I do wash my hair,” said Ariel smugly, “I’ll be too late for church.”

“Suit yourself.” Betty marched toward the hall door with Tom following at a snail’s pace behind. “Anyone else want to come?” she asked belatedly and, receiving responses in the negative, she and Tom departed.

“I think having afternoon tea with two vicars is enough spirituality for me on any given Sunday,” Ben confided, into the hush that followed.

“We’ll go twice next week.” I buttered another slice of toast.

“I tried making that phone call just now—you know the one I mean, Mrs. H—and again got no reply.” Mrs. Malloy
winked at me before skewering Ariel with a neon-lidded look. “You, missy, has to be one of the rudest children I’ve ever laid
eyes
on. Was it me in charge, you’d spend the rest of the day in your room, tied to the frigging bedpost.”

Before Ariel could respond, a door to the left of the pantry opened and a woman emerged, carrying a bucket and mop. She looked to be in her late twenties: slim, with chin-length mousy hair and a tight-lipped nondescript face. Her floral apron was faded, her shoes serviceable lace-ups, her gaze indifferent.

“I thought the kitchen would be clear by now,” she said, to no one in particular. “But then I’m not used to coming on Sundays. I guess I can get started somewhere else. Makes me no mind.”

“Please don’t let us upset your routine,” I said quickly, and Ben agreed that we would instantly get out from underfoot.

“I’m guessing you’re Mavis.” Mrs. M eyed her in a comradely sort of way. “I’m Roxie Malloy from the Chitterton Fells Charwomen’s Association. I’m staying here with Mr. and Mrs. H, who are cousins of the Hopkinses.”

“Is that right?”

Ben and I smiled and said yes.

“The way things has worked out,” Mrs. M continued, “you and me’ll be working together for the best part of this week. You won’t find me interfering.”

Did she have her fingers crossed behind her back? Mavis, still holding the bucket and mop, was not moved to reply, let alone register any noticeable interest.

“Mrs. Cake seems to think we’ll get on like a house afire.”

“Is that so?”

“Mr. H, who’s a proper chef, will be doing the cooking for her while she’s laid up. A real shame, her taking that fall downstairs.”

“Wasn’t it?” Mavis walked over to the sink, to stand with
her back to us while turning on the tap and sticking the bucket under it. A gurgle, a sputter, and then a full rush of water put up a barrier of sound that Ariel ignored.

“How’s your little boy?” she swallowed a mouthful of toast to ask.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Just wondering. I think it’s sad you can’t bring him to work with you.”

“Yes, well, that’s not on, is it?”

“What’s his name?”

“Eddie.” Mavis turned off the tap. The bucket was full. “So do I start in here or don’t I?”

The rest of us cleared out of the kitchen in a swoop, to stand in the hall and ponder our immediate future. Ben said he would go and have a word with Mrs. Cake, whom he had seen earlier hobbling into the sitting room next to the conservatory. I would have to delay talking to her in an attempt to discover what she could tell us about the Gallaghers. Ariel wandered away, hopefully to go upstairs and wash her hair. Mrs. M, after remarking that Mavis was a rare ray of sunshine who had cheered her up no end, headed upstairs to give herself a manicure.

I found the phone and rang Ben’s parents to see how the children were doing and spoke to all three in turn. It was lovely hearing their little voices, and great to know they were having such a wonderful time with Grandma and Grandpa. Feeling dial-happy, I tried my own number in hope of getting Freddy and asking if all was well with him and Tobias, but the voice mail came on instead. Either he was at Abigail’s or still in bed. I was thinking of following Mrs. Malloy’s example and doing my nails on the off chance that one of the vicars would be of the courtly hand-kissing sort when Ariel materialized beside me, still with hair needing shampoo, to ask if I would like to go exploring.

“Where?” It was another lovely day and I enjoyed a walk.

“Here in the house. Would you like to see the west wing?”

“Very much.” Indeed, I thrilled to the prospect of taking on the role of intrepid governess venturing into murky chambers haunted by history.

“It’s the part of the house that dates back to Elizabethan times.”

“So Madam LaGrange, as Nigel, made mention.”

“You can get to it only from inside on the upper floors. It’s separated on ground level by the exterior arched passageway constructed at the time of the Georgian addition.” Ariel was in her best tour-guide mode. “There’s an outside door, but nobody ever uses it,” she explained, while leading me along the gallery past the portraits on the wall, including the one of Lady Fiona as a young woman. “Mrs. Cake says that door has never been locked for as long as she can remember. If there’s a key, no one knows where it is. Isn’t it fun to realize that anyone could break in at any time?”