The Last Mrs. Summers

by Rhys Bowen

  “Like drugs, you mean? Cocaine and things?”

  “Or even weapons.”

  “Weapons?” I had to laugh at that. “What would the weapons be for? We are not exactly a race of anarchists.”

  “There is good money to be had in the sale of weapons,” Belinda said, “and we do have extremists in the country, don’t we? Oswald Mosley and his gang of thugs. And some communists. And IRA activists. I expect he’d find a ready market if he chose. I just hope he hasn’t stashed anything in this house.”

  “How did he get in, that’s what I want to know,” I said. “You locked the door.”

  “That’s right. I did,” Belinda said. “Come on, let’s go and check.”

  The front door was still locked. The windows all intact.

  Belinda gave me a puzzled look. “He can’t have come down the chimney. Let’s take a look in the cellar.”

  We went down those steps again. Now, by daylight, we noticed a small window, high up in the wall, that threw anemic light onto the stone floor.

  “He didn’t climb in through that, anyway,” Belinda commented. “He had broad shoulders, didn’t he?”

  “So you noticed that much, did you?” I teased. “I thought this was the woman who had renounced men forever and was going to remain pure and virginal.”

  “That doesn’t stop me from admiring the human form, purely on an artistic level,” she said, making me laugh.

  Further inspection of the cellar revealed the answer to our visitor’s midnight entrance. What we had taken to be an alcove in the wall partly concealed by an old oilskin coat hanging on a peg was actually a flight of narrow steps going down, with a glimmer of light at the bottom. “A smuggler’s stair. See, I told you,” Belinda said. “That is why this cottage was built. They’d sneak into the little harbor where nobody could see them and bring the goods up through the rock. I wonder if he’s stashed anything away down here.”

  We went down the stairs cautiously as they were uneven, steep and slippery. They ended in a shallow cave among the rocks with sea spray lapping at the bottom of them.

  “I wouldn’t enjoy coming in this way, would you?” I said. “It looks downright dangerous. But I can’t see anywhere he might have hidden smuggled goods.”

  “Probably left the goods in the boat overnight,” Belinda said. “Come on. Let’s have breakfast. I’m starving, aren’t you?”

  We went up again. I got the stove going, made toast and tea over it and sat at the table in the window, looking out over a broad expanse of bay. Belinda had been right. There was no habitation to be seen in that direction, only grass-topped cliffs.

  “So what is the plan for today?” I asked. “You surely don’t want to stay here any longer, do you?”

  “I certainly don’t want to sleep another night in that bed nor have to use that loo in the cellar,” she said. “But I’m not ready to give up on the cottage yet. Besides, we’ve come all this way. You don’t want to rush straight back to Eynsleigh, do you?”

  “No, of course not,” I agreed. “I just don’t fancy the bed or the loo either.”

  “Oh definitely not,” Belinda said. “Especially as we have no way of preventing further night visitors.”

  “You make it sound as if we might have a whole parade of them.”

  “You never know. There is not much work in this part of Cornwall. The whole community might be in on the smuggling. This might be their headquarters.”

  This seemed a little far-fetched to me, but I was glad that Belinda was as keen to change our place of abode as I was.

  “We’re bound to find a place to stay somewhere,” she said. “If there are no hotels, then I’m sure a local person would rent out a spare room. Then I’d like to find a handyman and see what suggestions he might have about putting in a proper bathroom—oh, and a good solid door to that staircase. One we can lock.”

  I nodded. “And maybe an estate agent, in case you want to sell it.”

  Belinda gazed out of the window. “It’s a lovely view, isn’t it?” she said. “Look how blue the ocean is today. And the seagulls flying. It would be the perfect place to get away from the hubbub of London life.”

  “Do you want to get away?” I asked with concern. “Belinda, I don’t want to feel that you are giving up on life. You always were the ultimate social butterfly. You loved parties. You used to have so much fun.”

  Belinda stared past me, out to the scene beyond our window. “Maybe it’s a case of once bitten, twice shy,” she said. “I took so many risks in those days. I’m lucky I came out relatively unscathed.”

  “But you want to get married one day, don’t you?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Who would have me? I’m damaged goods, Georgie.”

  “Surely not. Nobody knew about the baby.”

  “Even if they didn’t, I was Belinda, the party girl. The one you had fun with but not the one you introduced to your parents.”

  “You’ll find the right man, I promise you.” I reached across and squeezed her hand.

  “I hope so. Things may be different when word gets out about my inheritance. There are still owners of stately homes who would love an infusion of cash.” Before I could say anything she went on, “But I’m in no hurry, Georgie. I want to make a name for myself in the fashion world to rival Chanel.”

  “A modest goal,” I replied, making her laugh.

  Belinda carried her plate and cup over to the sink. “I tell you one thing,” she said, “I’m not about to take a cold bath down in that cellar. Let’s go and find a comfortable bed and a good bathroom. Then we can think about spiffing this place up. It will be a fun challenge, won’t it?”

  “Oh definitely,” I agreed, although secretly I thought that we were looking at an enormous project. We warmed water over the fire for a quick wash and then we set off. Now I was able to see the surroundings in the daylight and to appreciate fully where we had come. The scenery was indeed spectacular. To our right was nothing but granite cliffs above a wide bay. There were no beaches and waves rolled in from the Atlantic to break on the rocks below. Out at sea was a small rocky island over which the spray was breaking while seagulls whirled. Not a friendly sort of coastline, I thought. I could understand how wreckers did good business here.

  Now that the weather was sparkling clear Belinda insisted on putting Brutus’s top down. “It’s why I bought a sports car, darling,” she said. “The wind in our hair.”

  “May I remind you that it’s October and it’s rather a cold wind,” I pointed out.

  “Oh, Georgie, don’t be such a wet blanket. You were raised at Castle Rannoch. You’re used to Highland gales, surely.”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t mean that I enjoyed them,” I said.

  “You’ll thank me for this,” she said as the top folded flat and was latched down. She started the engine, had a couple of attempts at getting the motor into gear and then we shot forward. “You see,” she shouted. “Invigorating.”

  I noticed she wasn’t wearing her stylish driving cap, but the sort of scarf one wears for horse trials. I had been foolish enough to put on my felt beret and had to hold on to it for dear life. We rounded the headland with the standing stone looking down on us. In the light of day it looked like a large lump of upright granite, nothing more sinister. Ahead of us was the Camel Estuary gleaming in the sun. The tide was now partially out and the water flowed between sandbars. On our right a high brick wall ran along the road. Behind it was a stand of Scots pines and in the middle an impressive wrought iron gateway with a gravel drive leading away down the hill. I hadn’t noticed this the night before, but then I had been too intent in making sure Belinda didn’t drive us over a cliff.

  “Is that your grandmother’s former house?” I asked.

  “No, hers will be coming up in a little while,” Belinda answered. “Nothing as impressive as this. That’s a plac
e called Trewoma Hall. The local stately home. I was taken there once for a garden party but I don’t think I ever went inside much. The situation is quite lovely—on the cliffs with a view over the estuary and the ocean.”

  “Who lives there?”

  “One of the important Cornish families own it. Trefusis is their name. They own a lot of land in this part of the world, and fishing rights and goodness knows what else. Very wealthy. Their daughter, Jonquil, was one of my playmates when we were small.” She paused and made a face. “I was about to say one of my friends, but that wouldn’t have exactly been correct. She was superior to me in every way.”

  “Superior to you? Your own grandmother was a lady, wasn’t she? Your father is not exactly a peasant.”

  “Well, let’s just say that she thought herself superior to me. She was two or three years older, for one thing. Very sophisticated. Frankly I was in awe of her. A little scared of her. She went to Roedean that, as you know, likes to think of itself as the premier girl’s school in England. And she’d traveled all over the world with her father who owned land in Barbados and Argentina and God knows where else. What’s more, she was gorgeous. She had the most striking blond hair that she wore in this sleek chignon that I could never have managed. Never a hair out of place, Georgie, even when we went on one of our mad escapades.”

  “What sort of mad escapades?”

  She grinned. “Oh, you know the sort of thing that adolescents get up to. Bonfires on the beach, exploring old smuggler’s caves, making rafts that sank in the current. In spite of Jonquil we actually had a lot of fun.”

  “Does the family still live there?”

  “I’d imagine so.” Belinda peered through the gates. “They have done since the fourteen hundreds.”

  “And what about your chum Jonquil?”

  “I’ve no idea. I didn’t keep in touch with any of those people. I expect she married somebody equally rich and wonderful. Probably has two perfect children by now.”

  “Did she have any brothers?”

  “No, an only child.”

  “So who will inherit?”

  Belinda gave an exasperated laugh. “Georgie, how would I know? Certainly not me. Why this interest?”

  “I’m always interested in inheritance, I suppose, since it’s so important to my own family.”

  “Well, yes, it would be,” she agreed. “Your dear cousin David, the Prince of Wales, who will probably ruin the monarchy in a couple of years.”

  “Don’t say that.” I gave an involuntary shiver. “I do hope he’ll do the right thing when his father dies. And I hope his father will live until he’s ninety-nine.”

  “Not much hope of that, is there? He’s been quite ill.”

  “Yes, he has. He didn’t look at all well when I last saw him.”

  “When was that?”

  “Before I went on my honeymoon to Kenya. I haven’t seen them since. I don’t suppose I shall any longer, since I had to renounce my place in the line of succession when I married Darcy.”

  “That’s probably a relief, isn’t it? No more dos at Buck House?”

  “In a way it is. I didn’t think I’d miss it, but I’ve grown quite fond of Queen Mary and I shall miss my chats with her, even if I was always terrified of knocking over a priceless vase or spilling my tea on the Persian carpet.”

  Belinda laughed. “But she always made you do awkward and embarrassing things for her, like spying on your cousin.”

  “She did, that’s true. Oh well. Perhaps I’m well away from the whole royal scene. Dealing with smugglers in the middle of the night is much more fun.”

  We had left the impressive gates and continued to follow the estuary. We passed a cluster of cottages and the Smuggler’s Inn pub of the night before. Belinda identified this as the village of Polzeath. It boasted one small shop and two women stood outside it, baskets over their arms. They looked up as we passed, as if seeing a stranger was a novelty. After we had left the houses we moved into a gentler scene where the landscape was sheltered from the Atlantic gales. There were more trees here—I remembered this part of the road where the trees had dripped on us and provided a dark tunnel the night before.

  “Oh look. Here we are,” Belinda said with excitement in her voice. “Trengilly. This was Granny’s house.”

  She pulled up at a gateway made of two granite posts, each carved with a Celtic cross. The wrought iron gates were closed, held secure by a big padlock. The driveway was lined with yew trees, bent by a constant west wind, and beyond it I could see only part of a gray stone manor house.

  “So who lives there now?” I asked.

  “I don’t really know. I understood that it was someone from the City, a financier of some sort, who bought it but wasn’t going to be there most of the time. Granny thought it was an awful waste but of course she had to sell to the highest bidder. We can find out if anyone is in residence. Perhaps there is a caretaker who can show us around. I’d like you to see it. It was such a great house with grounds going down to the river and a little dock. That was where we used to launch our ill-fated rafts.” She laughed at the memory.

  “So why is everything beginning with ‘Tre’ around here?” I asked. “Trewoma, Trengilly?”

  “‘By Tre, Pol and Pen, ye shall know the Cornishmen,’” Belinda quoted. “The Cornish language. I think ‘Pen’ means ‘head’ but I’m not sure what ‘Pol’ and ‘Tre’ mean. There are certainly a lot of them.”

  Shortly after leaving Trengilly Manor we came into the village of Rock. This looked more like a proper village with a church, a row of shops and a pub called the Trefusis Arms.

  “See, what did I tell you?” Belinda said. “They own this part of Cornwall.”

  We left the car outside the churchyard and went into the newsagent’s, which was also the post office and also sold everything from fishing tackle to sweets. When asked about a possible place to stay the pleasant-faced woman behind the counter frowned. “I can’t think of anywhere right around here, my lovies. Old Bob at the pub stopped letting out rooms when his wife died. I reckon the only place with fancy hotels would be Newquay and most of them close for the winter, don’t they?”

  “It doesn’t have to be fancy,” Belinda said. “I’d like to be close enough to the property I’ve just inherited so that I can supervise any renovations.”

  “And what property would that be?” The woman looked really interested now. A good topic for local gossip, obviously.

  “It’s called White Sails. The cottage on the rocks, the other side of Little Rumps.”

  “That used to belong to Trengilly, didn’t it? Old Lady Knott’s place?”

  “That’s right. She was my grandmother. I’ve inherited her estate.”

  The woman’s face broke into a broad smile. “I knew there was something familiar about you. What was your name again?”

  “Belinda. Belinda Warburton-Stoke.”

  “That’s right. Miss Belinda. You used to come in here when you were a little nipper and you stayed with your granny. I remember your mum too. You have her look, you know.”

  “Do I?” Belinda looked pleased. “Yes, now I remember coming in here with my pocket money to buy sweets.”

  “That was a good while ago now, wasn’t it, my lovey?” the woman said. “I certainly miss those days. Your granny was a lovely lady. So refined and polite. A bit of a stickler for doing the right thing and for knowing your place, but a decent sort. Those days are gone now. And the new lot—well, it’s different, isn’t it? I mean—” She broke off suddenly, looking up. A wary look had come over her face.

  I turned to see that a woman had entered the shop.

  “Did a package arrive for me, Mrs. Briggs?” the woman asked. She was about our age, solidly built with a round flat face, an upturned button of a nose and upwardly slanted eyes. I took in immediately that she was expensively dress
ed, wearing a mink stole, and her haircut was stylish, although her accent was decidedly from the West Country.

  “I’m afraid it didn’t, Mrs. Summers,” the shopkeeper replied stiffly.

  “So annoying,” the woman snapped. “They promised me it would be here by today.”

  “If it comes by a later delivery I’ll have the boy bring it up to the house, shall I?” Mrs. Briggs asked.

  “Thank you. I’d appreciate it. Oh, and while I’m here, a packet of Players please.”

  Belinda glanced at me and we decided there was no point in lingering. “Come on, Georgie. We might as well drive into Wadebridge and see if there is anything there. And failing that, Padstow,” Belinda said.

  We had reached the door when a voice behind us said, “Wait a minute. I know you. Aren’t you Belinda?”

  Belinda turned to look at the woman as she came toward us. “Rosie?” she asked in surprise.

  Chapter 7

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16

  ROUND AND ABOUT IN THE WILDS OF CORNWALL.

  Great excitement last night! Strange man in our bed. Now we desperately need a more comfortable place to stay. I imagine that will be our quest for the day!

  “Rosie?” Belinda repeated. “Mrs. Barnes’s daughter?”

  “The very same,” the young woman replied. “I haven’t seen you since your grandma sold the place. That must have been what—twelve years ago now?”

  “At least,” Belinda said. “So you are still living in the area? I heard your mother moved away. Didn’t she open up a café in Bath?”

  “She did. Your grandma gave her a nice parting gift that set her up. She’s doing quite comfortably, thank you.”

  “But you stayed on here?”

  “As a matter of fact I went up to London and worked there for a while. But now I’m back, I’m pleased to say. I live at Trewoma Hall.”

  “As what?” Belinda asked. I don’t think it was meant to be rude but it did sound that way. Rose’s white moon face flushed red. “As mistress of the house. I’m married to Tony Summers.”