The Last Mrs. Summers

by Rhys Bowen

  “Of course.”

  As we spoke I had been admiring the view. The conservatory faced the back grounds with a view over the cliffs to the ocean beyond. It must have been spectacular on sunny days. Today, however, the rain peppered against the glass and angry waves raced up the river. It could have been a lovely house in many ways but everywhere felt so cold, the corridors so long and dark, and I found I was looking over my shoulder.

  “Is Trewoma supposed to be haunted?” I blurted out the words before I decided they weren’t exactly tactful. After all, Rose had to live there.

  Rose nodded. “There’s a haunted room upstairs. Over the porch. A young woman’s ghost visits anyone who isn’t a family member. Needless to say I haven’t ever slept in there. Tony did once, for a dare, when he was married to Jonquil but he said the ghost didn’t bother him because he was married to a family member, which was just as good.”

  We finished our tour then went up to change for dinner. Mrs. Mannering appeared from nowhere as we were going up the stairs. “Since I can only offer you one maid to help with your attire perhaps I could assist the other young lady,” she said.

  “Oh, Mrs. Mannering, that won’t be necessary,” Belinda said. “Lady Georgiana and I are quite capable of dressing ourselves and as you can see, my haircut just requires a quick brush.”

  “Very well, Miss Warburton-Stoke, but I will send up Elsie anyway. You may need assistance with hooking your evening gown.”

  “I’m afraid we didn’t bring evening gowns,” Belinda said. “We had not planned on staying with anyone, just visiting a piece of property.”

  Mrs. Mannering stared at Belinda for a moment as if not bringing an evening gown was a mortal sin, then said, “Maybe one of Miss Jonquil’s gowns would fit you. You have a wonderfully slim figure, just like she did. And you too, my lady.”

  “Oh, we couldn’t possibly . . .” I said, but she waved the rest of my protest away.

  “Who else would wear them? Such lovely gowns and they lie languishing in her wardrobe. I’ll select a couple and bring them to you.”

  And off she went. I gave Belinda a worried look. “I don’t like doing this at all. How can we get out of it?”

  “I don’t think we can. How awkward.”

  The housekeeper returned carrying two long gowns over her arm. Belinda’s was emerald green in a Grecian style, mine was pale blue. Mrs. Mannering insisted on staying to instruct the maid as we were dressed in them. They were both exquisite but I was holding my breath as we came downstairs. Tony and Rose were waiting for us with drinks in the long gallery. They looked up as we came in.

  “Oh, what lovely dresses,” Rose started to say, but Tony was staring at us as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “Isn’t that one of Jonquil’s gowns?” he demanded.

  “They both are,” Belinda said. “We explained to Mrs. Mannering that we had not brought evening clothes with us as we were not expecting to stay with anyone and she insisted that we wear two of Jonquil’s gowns.”

  “Well, I must say they fit you both very well,” he conceded. “Quite a treat for the eye. You must keep them. They’re of no use here.”

  “Oh, I’m sure Mrs. Mannering wouldn’t want us to walk off with them,” Belinda said.

  “Mrs. Mannering does not have the final word over my departed wife’s gowns,” Tony said. “If you want them, they are yours. Now what will you have? Sherry?”

  We each took a glass of sherry and went over to the fireplace. There was a draft blowing in from the sea, making the tapestries on the wall flap alarmingly, and I definitely felt a little chilly in that evening gown. I began to wish Mrs. Mannering had offered us fur wraps as well. Rose was noticeably silent. Maybe the sight of us in Jonquil’s gowns had made her realize what Tony had lost, and that she could never compete with a beautiful dead woman.

  “So what did you think of my cows?” Tony asked. He had moved over to the fire and was now standing rather close to Belinda.

  “I thought they had lovely eyelashes,” she said.

  He laughed. “Typical woman. Notices the eyelashes, not the prodigious udders.”

  “Which is what a man would have noticed,” Belinda replied.

  I felt the conversation was veering into the realm of flirtation and turned to examine a cluster of silver-framed photographs on a side table. One particularly caught my eye. It was a snapshot of a group of young people, the girls in shorts, their hair tied back. I recognized a young Tony, handsome and self-assured even then. And the striking blond girl must have been Jonquil. She was looking at the camera with arrogant defiance. Rose’s moon face peeked from the back of the group, looking shy and uncertain. And perched on the five bar gate . . . “Is this you, Belinda?” I asked.

  She came over to see the photograph. Tony followed her.

  “Oh my goodness, don’t I look awful,” she replied. “Talk about skinny. And I’m frowning at the camera.” She looked up at Tony. “I’ve never seen this before. It’s a photo of our set. It must have been the last summer before Granny moved. You’re there, standing behind the gate, Rose. Oh, and look at Jago. Wasn’t he tall? But also skinny.”

  “I seem to remember he had a bit of a crush on you, Belinda, didn’t he?” Rose said.

  “I wouldn’t call it a crush.” Belinda had gone red. “I remember he kissed me once, before I left for school. It wasn’t bad either.”

  “That blighter,” Tony said. “Never did like him. He’s come back to the area, you know.”

  “Yes, we ran into him today. He says he’s working at Trengilly.”

  “Yes. He works for the foreign gentleman who bought the place,” Rose said.

  “Foreign gentleman!” Tony gave a disparaging sniff. “Bit of a crook from what I’ve heard. The whole thing’s suspicious if you ask me.”

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “I’ve heard things about where his money comes from. Dubious sources.”

  Belinda was still examining the photograph. “And who is the pale boy standing behind me?” She looked up, her mouth open in realization. “Oh, it’s Colin, isn’t it? I’d forgotten all about him. Poor Colin.”

  “Who was Colin?” I asked. “I haven’t heard him mentioned before.”

  “He was only here that one summer,” Tony said. “A summer visitor staying with someone. We always picked up a couple of extras who were just here for a few weeks. Well, Colin latched on to us. We never encouraged him. Boring sort of chap, wasn’t he? The brainy type who likes to quote statistics. He went to a grammar school.” He grinned as if this was a sin.

  “It’s not funny, Tony,” Rose said suddenly. She had been so quiet I’d almost forgotten she was there. “You and Jonquil loved to tease him.”

  “It didn’t put him off, though, did it? He kept on showing up.”

  “He wanted to be included, like I did,” she said. “How can you talk about him like that, as if nothing had happened?”

  Tony turned back to her. “All right. Don’t upset yourself. We all felt bad but it was an accident, wasn’t it? How were we to know?”

  “To know what?” I asked.

  “That he couldn’t swim,” Tony replied.

  I looked to Belinda for an explanation. “Jonquil dared us to see if we could cross the river on foot. She said she had done it on her horse and if we timed the tide just right she thought we could do it. So we started off. It was hard going over some of the sandbanks. Soft sand, you know. We kept getting stuck and in the end we decided we should turn back.” She took a deep breath. “But the tide was already coming in. We started running. We didn’t notice that Colin was having trouble keeping up. He got cut off. When we heard him calling and looked back, he was already up to his knees in water. And we shouted, ‘You’ll have to swim for it,’ and he shouted back, ‘I can’t swim.’

  “Jago and Tony started back toward
him, but a wave knocked him off his feet and he thrashed for a bit and then . . .” She paused and took another deep breath. “And then we didn’t see him anymore. He was gone. We looked and looked but they didn’t find his body until the next day on the other shore.”

  “When you think about it, it was rather idiotic of him to embark on something like that, knowing he couldn’t swim,” Tony said. “After all, it was crossing a river, for God’s sake.”

  “He so desperately wanted to be included, and he trusted us, Tony,” Rose said. “You and Jonquil always seemed so confident. If you remember I didn’t even come with you, because I thought you were taking too big a risk.”

  “You were always scared to do anything dangerous, Rose,” he said. “But I would have stopped him if I’d known he couldn’t swim. I mean, who comes down to Cornwall for the summer and doesn’t learn to swim? It’s all about beaches, isn’t it?” He paused, gave an uneasy laugh, then added, “Actually Jonquil confessed afterward that she knew he couldn’t swim.”

  There was an awkward silence, then Tony added, “That was Jonquil all over, wasn’t it? It added to the risk. She loved playing with fire.”

  A clatter on the table behind us made us turn around. Mrs. Mannering had knocked over a bronze oriental statue. She righted it hastily. “I came in to see if the fire needs making up, sir,” she said. “Dinner will be served in ten minutes.”

  * * *

  AFTER THAT UNSETTLING episode, dinner passed remarkably smoothly. There was pleasant chatter around the table, mostly dwelling on Belinda’s recent time in Paris and what Madame Chanel was like, also my visit to Kenya and the habits of various wild animals. I had to describe my dangerous encounters, including the lion outside my tent and the elephant that stepped out in front of our car. They were duly impressed. The food that evening was outstanding. I could see why Tony insisted on keeping Mrs. Mannering if she arranged such meals. We started with a clear consommé with croutons followed by lobster salad. Then leg of pork with crackling and sage and onion stuffing, chocolate mousse with clotted cream and finally anchovy toast. It was accompanied by excellent wines and I felt quite relaxed and happy by the time the meal ended.

  Rose suggested we ladies go through for coffee while Tony enjoyed his cigar.

  “I think I’ll forego the cigar this evening and come with you,” he said. “It’s not often I have the privilege of witty company. We’re rather out of the way down here. I keep telling Rose it’s high time we checked out the property in Barbados. If it’s not being run well, I may just sell it and buy a house in London.”

  “Think of the upkeep,” Rose said. “You’d need to have servants there.”

  “Just a pied-à-terre, like Belinda’s mews cottage,” he said.

  Rose looked at him sharply. “How did you know that Belinda has a mews cottage?”

  Tony looked amused. “She mentioned it earlier, or Georgiana mentioned it. Did you say it was in Mayfair, Belinda?”

  “In Knightsbridge.”

  “Ah yes. I understand they are becoming quite popular these days. When you think that they used to stable horses there.” He laughed again and the subject moved on to Barbados and what we knew of the Caribbean.

  We settled into armchairs by the fire and one of the maids handed us coffee. Rose sipped hers, then looked up. “That’s interesting, it doesn’t taste bitter this evening.” She gave a little laugh. “I’ve never really learned to like coffee. Not having grown up with it, I suppose.”

  “Well, at least you’re trying it, which is one step in the right direction,” Tony said.

  I was glad when Belinda announced that she was tired, having not had much sleep the night before, and would everyone excuse her if she went up. I took my cue and followed her. At the top of the stairs she let out a sigh of relief. “I don’t think I could have taken much more, Georgie. What was Tony thinking, hinting that he had been to my mews? And reviving all that awful time with Colin.”

  “How very sad,” I said. “You must have felt terrible.”

  “The strange thing was that one didn’t. We were kids at the time, you know. It was just ‘poor old Colin’ and then we forgot about him.”

  “What about his parents? His family?”

  “I really don’t remember. I know they went home, instead of having a funeral service here, and the police interviewed us and told us we had behaved stupidly trying to outrun the tide. And then I went off to school in Switzerland and never thought about it again.”

  As we reached the balcony at the top of the stairs Mrs. Mannering was waiting, appearing out of nowhere with that uncanny skill of hers. “I’ll send up Elsie right away, Miss Warburton-Stoke,” she said. “And I will personally assist you with your gown, Lady Georgiana.”

  “You shouldn’t have waited up, Mrs. Mannering. I’m sure we could have managed to unhook each other.” I glanced at Belinda.

  “It’s my job, my lady. I have never failed to do what was required of me. Not once in over thirty years.” She followed me into my bedroom. I felt quite strange as she lifted the pale silk over my head and I was standing before her in my underwear. I found myself wishing I had worn the slinky Parisian undies that Zou Zou had brought back for my trousseau, instead of my boring daily cotton. Mrs. Mannering laid the dress on my bed. “It suited you perfectly, my lady. Please do keep it. It was made to be worn by a person of quality.”

  “I really couldn’t, Mrs. Mannering,” I said. “Besides, it’s not yours to give, is it? It belongs to the lady of the household now.”

  “As if she could ever fit into it,” she said with a snort of derision. “Or play the part, even if it could be altered for her. And the master. He might have come from money, but in my mind money does not equal breeding. I have had to educate both of them about the right way to do things. He seems to have learned well, but I’m afraid she never will.” She scooped up the dress. “I will wrap this in tissue paper for you. And maybe you might want to look and see if there are any more of Miss Jonquil’s things that might suit. I fear they will all be donated to a charity one day. So far I have kept everything as it was, keeping her memory alive. But there will come a time when that woman learns to assert herself and . . .”

  She broke off as the floorboards creaked and someone was walking down the hallway.

  “Is everything all right?” Rose’s voice came through my door. “Anything that you need?”

  “I am taking care of the young lady, Mrs. Summers,” the housekeeper said in a calm voice. “You can go to bed. I’ll lock up and make sure everything is in order.”

  She gave me a look almost of triumph as she swept out of the room with my dress in her arms.

  Chapter 12

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17

  TREWOMA, CORNWALL

  I knew I felt uneasy here. Oh dear. I wish we had never come.

  That night I had a nightmare. It might have only been the combination of the lobster, pork and rich dessert, but it seemed very real. In my dream I was in another strange house with long dark corridors. I couldn’t see properly where I was going or what lay ahead. I was running, searching for Darcy. I called his name and someone stepped out behind me and put a hand on my shoulder, making me jump out of my skin. I turned to see who it was and a voice said, “You won’t find him here. He has gone. This path only leads to destruction.” And the person laughed. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.

  I awoke to a world of whiteness. The sea fog had come in overnight and hung over us so thickly that I could see only a few yards outside the window. The first trees were already faint gray shapes. I was very relieved when Mrs. Mannering did not appear to help me with my morning toilette. I managed to wash and dress without interference, then came down to find that only Tony was up, sitting at the breakfast table tucking into kidneys and bacon.

  “Jolly good spread here for breakfast always,” he said. “Help yourself. I have
to get going. I’ve a man coming about our calves today.”

  I poured myself some coffee and came to sit at the table. “Do you enjoy being a farmer?” I asked. “It must be a big change from what you were used to.”

  “I do quite like it,” he said. “My father had always expected that I’d go into finance like him, but I never had his knack with figures. But he articled me to an accountant anyway. Boring as hell. This is much more my style. Free to come and go as I please and some nice properties in suitably warm places in the winter. I’ve been toying with ideas for this house. It’s far too big for just the two of us. Maybe a luxury hotel and put in a golf course?” He gave me a grin that suddenly made him look young and unsophisticated. Then he added, “Belinda not up yet? I’ve been thinking about that cottage of hers—White Sails. I can put her in touch with local builders to see if it can be made habitable. It would be jolly nice if she’d come back to our part of the world occasionally. Liven things up a little around here.” He paused, looked around, then added, “One of the disadvantages of being a farmer. The social life is terribly dull.”

  I wasn’t quite sure what I should say to this—warn him that it wasn’t a good idea to show interest in Belinda? Instead I went over to the sideboard and helped myself to a plate of smoked haddock and scrambled egg. Tony pushed away his plate and got up.

  “Enjoy your day,” he said. “I have a date with my cow man.”

  By the time I had finished Belinda and Rose had arrived and we lingered, talking over cups of tea.

  “I thought we’d go for a walk after breakfast,” Rose said. “You haven’t yet seen the best part of the grounds.”

  “Not exactly walking weather, is it?” Belinda peered out into the fog. “Besides, I have to do something about finding a builder for the cottage.”

  “Leave that to Tony,” Rose said. “He mentioned last night that he’ll set you up with a local builder. Besides, you can’t go driving in this weather. You might run into a farm vehicle or even miss the road and drive off a cliff.”