by Anne Morice
I do not seriously think so ill of myself as to believe that I would have connived in such a disgraceful, undignified trick. I certainly hope not, but I wasn’t put to the test because Elsa came in at this point and started to give us the latest news about Geoffrey, which was not particularly encouraging. He was holding his own, according to the hospital report, but still on the danger list and not allowed visitors.
‘Did you manage to dig up any relatives?’ I asked her.
‘Yes, we had a bit of luck there. The poor old boy’s methodical ways have finally paid off because there was a stack of letters and packages, all neatly sealed and addressed, but not stamped. Presumably, he collects them up during the week and then takes them in bulk to the post office, as part of the Tuesday morning routine. One of them was addressed to Miss G. Dearing in Somerset who we take to be the sister he visits every spring and autumn.’
‘You’re right,’ Millie said. ‘She does live in Somerset. Her name’s Gertrude. Don’t you remember how Geoffrey took Marc and me to spend a weekend with her when we were quite small? We went by train, so that Geoffrey could point out the special bits of landscape we passed through on the way. It was rather fun and Gertrude was lovely too. She let us pick all the strawberries we could eat and she had a stream running through her garden. But it was only a tiny house, so I stayed with her and Geoffrey and Marc were in a place called the George and Dragon about three miles away. Marc thought that was terrifically grand and grown-up and he boasted about it for ages.’
Elsa looked both saddened and touched by this rare outburst of happy reminiscence and waited a moment or two before saying, ‘But I’m sure you don’t remember her telephone number, do you? Whereas Geoffrey was obviously far too familiar with it to have bothered to write it in his address book, so now I must try and get hold of her through Directory Enquiries. Failing that, I’ll have to send a telegram. We thought of numerous other people who ought to be informed as well, and Louise and I have each made a list of those we’ll take on. The Hearnes were on mine, but at least they can be crossed off now.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I had the luck to meet Diane in the lane just a moment ago. She’d already heard some rumours about Geoffrey and she wanted to know if they were true. She was really worried about him, which rather pleased me. As you know, I have occasionally suspected her of being a tiny bit affected and insincere, but this time there was no mistaking that her concern was genuine.’
Millie was coming on apace. She did not burst a blood vessel or fly into an argument, as I had anticipated. Instead, she merely fanned herself with Diane’s letter, giving me an enormous wink over the top of it.
TUESDAY P.M.
The Editor of The Dedley Mercury was cautiously co-operative. He was too busy to interview us personally, but offered to send his Features Editor, whose name was Wendy Bright, on Wednesday morning, to gather some information which he might or might not decide to print.
So immediately after lunch, which consisted of embarrassing cutlets for Elsa and me and about four pounds of brown rice for Millie, we set forth to Oak Tree View, which was the rather whimsical and, in the circumstances, sadly ironic name of Geoffrey’s cottage.
‘I’m afraid he’ll have to change that,’ I said, as we stood by the sitting room window, looking down at the poor maimed old tree, whose beautiful wide umbrella shape had now been butchered into something more closely resembling a nibbled stick of candy floss. ‘No one could possibly take much pleasure from viewing it now, or even recognise it as an oak, come to that.’
Millie had had the brilliant idea of raiding Geoffrey’s files for photographs and sketches of the tree in its former glory, of which she knew him to possess dozens, taken from all angles and at all seasons. In this way, she had suggested, we should be able to present a convincing and dramatic set of ‘Before’ and ‘After’ pictures, with which to impress Miss Wendy Bright.
The scheme had needed the co-operation of Elsa, whose initial reaction had also been on the cautious side, but, urged on by Millie with exhortations to Think Positive for once, she had eventually given it her blessing and allowed us to borrow the keys.
I could see that in asserting that the tree would grow again I had been foolishly complacent. It might do so one day, but it now seemed inconceivable that this could happen during Millie’s lifetime and, faced with this inescapable truth, the full impact of the wanton destruction hit me with some of the same force which had brought Elsa and the rest of them close to tears. It seemed obvious too that the motive behind it could only have been malice. The hollow was even smaller than I had remembered it and the surrounding land not only was too stony and scrubby to be worth cultivating, but descended so steeply on all sides that its shape was roughly that of a giant teacup, with Oak Tree View making the handle, and surely beyond the power of any tractor or plough to negotiate.
However, I said nothing of this to Millie, who had stood up to her second ordeal with great fortitude and, after staring in silence for something like a minute, had walked over to Geoffrey’s filing cabinet, with the set expression of the bereaved leaving the graveside, whose overriding emotion was the dread of having her self-control undermined by expressions of sympathy.
As was to be expected, in view of his neat and methodical habits, all the files were clearly labelled and the contents cross-indexed under subject matter, dates and locations, and it took us less than half an hour to find everything we needed. The next job was to take our own photographs and for this we stationed ourselves at various points in the garden, before moving in towards the fence for some midshots.
From there we also had a panoramic view of the surrounding landscape and away over to our right we could make out a solitary female figure slowly picking her way down towards the hollow. We lost sight of her again for a moment or two, as she became obscured from view by the remains of the oak tree, but when she reappeared, on our side of it, we could see that she had blonde hair, was carrying a large carrier bag and wore a brown cardigan over her flowered cotton skirt.
‘So she’s finished her packing, presumably,’ I remarked, ‘and now she’s turned into Cinderella, trudging off to gather up the kindling.’
‘Well, she’s not likely to find a fairy godmother in the person of Mrs Trelawney.’
‘Or her Prince Charming either, I gather. What’s he like, by the way?’
‘The grandson? Oh, not bad looking and awfully, awfully polite, but I bet he’s just as mean and vicious as his rotten old gran underneath all the soapy smarm.’
‘And of course he’s the one for whose benefit the Hearnes are being turfed out of their house, isn’t he? Whereabouts is it?’
‘Up there, straight ahead at the top. A little way along from all those ghastly new concrete barns.’
‘The white one?’
‘No, that’s the Macadams’. They’ve got a freehold, lucky for them. Orchard House is a bit further to the right.’
‘Oh yes, I see. It looks quite spacious.’
‘Yes, it is; seven or eight bedrooms. I expect they need them with all that brood. Don’t you think it’s disgusting to clutter up the earth with five children in this day and age?’
‘Oh yes, perfectly revolting, but then I suppose you can hardly blame Diane for that. Still, no wonder poor Mrs Hearne gets a bit run down from time to time. What’s her husband like?’
‘Just as peculiar as she is, in his own way. He’s a bit fey, actually. I know that isn’t a word you’re probably supposed to use about men, but it’s the only one I know to describe him. He’s always having presentiments and he spends a lot of time communing with the spirits.’
‘Doesn’t sound as though he’d be much help around the house, though, so perhaps in the end it’ll work out for the best. She might be able to cope more efficiently in a smaller place. All the same, it must feel pretty rotten to be kicked out of a house that has been your home for twenty years. And for what? Why should a young man, all on his own, need a house with se
ven or eight bedrooms?’
‘Except that apparently he’s planning to get married as soon as he’s moved in. To someone terribly posh too, by all accounts, so I suppose he means to turn some of the bedrooms into saunas and stuff like that.’
‘Very likely! Who’s the intended?’
‘No idea. All we know is that he’s been boasting about what a terrifically grand family she comes from. So that’ll be another feather in the Trelawney cap and she’ll probably turn out to be frightfully stuck up and just as horrible as her in-laws.’
‘Now, Millie, Think Positive!’ I reminded her. ‘She may equally well turn out to be perfectly gorgeous and a very mellowing influence.’
‘No chance! She’d have to be either horrible or mad to marry into that family.’
There seemed to be no answer to this, so I attempted none and, turning my attention back to the immediate surroundings, saw that Diane had now advanced to the point where she was almost on a level with us and apparently making for the gate in Geoffrey’s fence, about a dozen yards from where we were standing. Quiet as we had become by this time, she may have caught the sensation of being observed, for all at once she stopped dead in her tracks, looking down at the ground as intently as though it were transmitting some private message to her, before lifting her head again and meeting our glance. I could not see her face very clearly from that distance, but it struck me that there was something both flustered and annoyed, as well as surprised, in her expression. II so, it was very fleeting and she recovered herself almost immediately, giving a friendly wave of recognition, before clambering on again, up towards the gate.
‘This is our very own private short cut,’ she explained, rather breathlessly, when she joined us a few seconds later on our side of the fence. ‘I’ve got to pick up some things from the village and Mr Dearing has always been so kind about allowing us to walk through his garden. Goodness, I do hope you won’t think it’s awful of me to do it when he’s not here to give his permission?’
‘No, indeed not,’ I assured her, packing the camera away in its case, ‘I’m perfectly certain he’d want everything to go on exactly the same. And we can give you a lift, if you like? It’s practically on our way.’
‘Oh, how terribly sweet of you, Tessa! I would be so very grateful,’ she exclaimed, sounding quite overwhelmed by this generous offer. ‘I suggested to Mummy that it would be such a nice idea to take my aunt some new laid eggs and honey from Mrs Parkinson’s shop,’ she then explained, having made a great fuss about insisting on taking the back seat, as though this entailed some great sacrifice on her part. ‘It will be a little treat for her.’
Ignoring this, Millie said, ‘Weren’t you afraid of being prosecuted for trespassing, or getting your arms cut off at the elbows?’
‘Oh, come on, Millie, it’s not as bad as all that, is it?’ Diane asked with one of her tinkling laughs.
‘Not far off it.’
‘Well, you’ll say I’m silly, I suppose, but sometimes I wonder if we aren’t being a little too hard on them. I mean, I know the old lady can be very difficult and cross, but Daddy told me he’d met Mr Trelawney in the lane this morning and he was really quite upset about the tree; quite shocked, in fact. He assured Daddy that it was done entirely without his knowledge and he’s going to try his hardest to make sure nothing worse happens to it.’
‘Oh yes? And is turning you out of your house being done entirely without his knowledge, by any chance?’
Diane did not reply to this, but after a moment blew her nose in such a marked manner that even Millie was reduced to silence.
‘Do you need a lift home when you’ve finished your shopping?’ I asked.
‘Oh, no thank you, Tessa, it’s so awfully kind of you, but I couldn’t possibly put you to any more trouble,’ she replied in a choked voice.
‘No trouble at all and if you’ve got eggs and things to carry . . .’
‘No, no, I’ll be quite all right, really I will. The Dedley bus comes through just after four o’clock, so I’ll only have a few minutes to wait and it stops at the corner of our lane. It was so good of you to bring me this far and I can’t tell you what a help it’s been.’
‘Deceitful little prig!’ Millie muttered, when we had deposited our passenger outside Mrs Parkinson’s shop and were turning for home. ‘What’s she up to now, I wonder?’
‘Honestly, Millie, can it be that you’re getting an obsession about the wretched girl? Why wouldn’t she be taking a present for her aunt? It sounded a perfectly normal thing to me.’
‘Well, not to me, it didn’t. First of all, she can’t afford to make a telephone call to Marcus, who she’s supposed to be engaged to, and yet she thinks nothing of loading herself up with Mrs Parkinson’s eggs and honey, which is going to set her back quite a packet, I might tell you.’
‘Ah, but the difference is, you see, that she’s not spending it on herself.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re beginning to be fooled, just like everyone else? I couldn’t stand it.’
‘No, I agree she’s affected and a bit sly as well. I just think you’re weakening your case by not allowing her a single redeeming feature.’
‘Okay, so what do you say to this? If you hadn’t given her a lift, which she certainly can’t have been expecting, she couldn’t possibly have got to the village a minute before twenty past four, so if she was really intending to go home by bus, how come she didn’t leave in time to catch it?’
‘You’ve stumped me there,’ I admitted. ‘Perhaps I’ll come up with the charitable answer when I’ve given it some thought, but I confess that for the moment it eludes me.’
‘So how did you two get on?’ Elsa asked, filling the kettle from the kitchen tap, and I was reminded both by this and by the reappearance on the table of the banana cake that exactly twenty-four hours had elapsed since my arrival at Pettits Grange. During that short time I had become so embroiled in all the local dramas and personalities that I felt as though I had been there for at least a week.
We gave her a résumé of our afternoon’s work, touching on our encounter with Diane and her report of David Trelawney’s promise to try and ward off further attacks on the tree, and concluding with the news that some of the photographs had come out rather well.
‘Good! Am I not to see them?’
‘Oh, blast!’ I said. ‘I’ve gone and left them in the car. They’re with Geoffrey’s, in the pocket of my camera case. I’ll fetch it in a minute, but give me a cup of tea first, will you, Elsa, before I collapse?’
‘I’ll get it,’ Millie said, jumping up and running out of the room.
‘Honestly, Tessa, I wish you could stay for a month,’ Elsa said, looking on in some amazement. ‘You seem to have done wonders for Millie already. Imagine dashing off like that, without any nagging at all! And with food on the table, what’s more! Considering all this business with Geoffrey and the tree, it’s the last sort of mood I’d have expected.’
‘What news of Geoffrey, by the way?’
‘No news. Condition still unchanged, which is not a good sign, I believe. You notice that Millie didn’t even ask? I wish I knew your secret.’
‘Nothing very special about it. I find that one infallible way to raise her spirits is to keep remembering to say nasty things about Diane.’
Elsa sighed. ‘Yes, I know, and unfortunately that’s the one bribe I can’t use. The trouble is that I do sympathise, up to a point. She really can be a most irritating girl, but nothing on earth would induce me to admit it to anyone but you. Sooner or later it would get back to her and then it would be all up between Marcus and me. He’d take her side, naturally; one couldn’t expect anything else. It makes everything very awkward and I don’t know why he had to fall for the one girl his sister can’t stand the sight of, but he started looking at Diane when he was about sixteen and he’s never really looked away again. As far as I can see, it will be worse than ever when they’re married.’
‘You think they will be? Mi
llie’s hoping he’ll come to his senses and tear the wool from his eyes before he becomes irrevocably tangled up in it.’
‘That wouldn’t solve anything. In fact, I rather pray, for his sake, that it doesn’t happen.’
‘A bit paradoxical, if I may say so?’
‘It’s rather hard to explain what I mean, without sounding unbearably snobbish and conceited.’
‘That’ll be the day!’
‘I know our family is no great shakes, but the truth is, Tessa, that Marc would be quite a catch for someone like Diane. He won’t be at all badly off, and he’s probably clever and presentable enough to do fairly well in his profession. Not bad looking, either, though I do say it! Altogether, it would be quite a step up for little Miss Hearne and, if she’s the girl I regret to say I take her to be, she’ll cling on, whether he wants her to or not. That being so, I’d like him to have a run for his money, even if only a short one. I’d hate him to become disillusioned even before the wedding and still to be stuck with her for life.’
‘Yes, I see what you mean and it’s tricky, isn’t it? I must ask Toby how he might resolve it in a play. Otherwise, there seems nothing for it but to keep on praying for a miracle.’
Elsa held up her right hand, with two fingers crossed, as Millie re-entered the room, after a somewhat protracted absence. She was empty-handed, but looked strangely triumphant.
‘Well?’
‘Not there!’
‘What do you mean not there? I left it on the back seat.’
‘And now it’s gone. See for yourself, if you don’t believe me.’
‘I do believe you, but how can it have gone?’
‘Two guesses.’
‘You mean . . . ? Oh no, but that’s too much! She wouldn’t do such a thing, would she?’
‘Want to bet?’
‘But why, Millie? She’s not a kleptomaniac, by any chance?’
‘No, not exactly, but she has occasionally been known to borrow things and forget to return them. I expect she wanted to take some pictures of Auntie eating her eggs and honey on the beach at Bexhill. And of course poor, pathetic little Diane couldn’t possibly afford to buy a camera of her own, could she now?’
