by Pat Herbert
Minty shrugged. “Story of my life. But it’s very lucky I came across you because I don’t know where his room is, and I didn’t want Miss Chapman to catch me.”
“Dear, dear! She is a bit of a tartar, isn’t she? Told me she wanted the patient removed at once but I told her he was too ill to be moved. She wasn’t at all happy.”
Minty laughed. “That doesn’t surprise me in the least. I think I’ll be glad to get out of here, myself. I’m only here because it was Lydia’s dearest wish to come, but even she is regretting it a little, I think. You couldn’t look in on her while you’re here, Doc, could you? She’s very ill. I don’t think she’ll last much longer.”
“Oh dear, of course I will. Point me to her room. Ted’s room is round the corner, first on the right. He’s very groggy, so I’m not sure how much sense you’ll get out of him.”
“Thanks. Lydia’s in the room number 22 down there on the right.”
Robbie continued in that direction, while Minty followed his instructions to Ted’s room. She tapped on the door nervously. What state would he be in? Would he be pleased to know that she was his cousin? Would he even care? Somehow she doubted it.
Ted was, as Robbie had warned her, very groggy and obviously in some pain. She came into his little room quietly and sat down on the only chair. She looked around, taking in the bare walls, small wardrobe and iron bedstead on which Ted lay. It was very Spartan, even more so than she had imagined. Poor bloke, she thought. This was no place for her cousin. Then she remembered. It was probably all he deserved after what he had nearly done to poor Lydia.
“So, Ted, did you hear what I said?”
“What?” he grunted.
She went through her spiel once again. She told him about Lydia’s illness and about what she had told her about his being her cousin.
“You – you my cousin?”
“I am, Ted. Apparently, your father was my father’s brother. Which makes us cousins.”
He seemed to be struggling to breathe.
“Can I get you anything? Are you in pain?”
“No, I – I’ll be all right,” he managed to say. He flopped back, exhausted, on a pillow that seemed to have lost all its feathers.
“Don’t you think it’s nice to know you’ve got a cousin?”
His eyes tried to focus on her. “Well, I suppose …” He trailed off.
“Well, I’m glad, Ted, even if you’re not. I didn’t know any of my relatives until Lydia told me.”
“I saw her. I talked to her.”
“That’s right. We’re great friends, she and I.”
“She – never – liked – me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true. I suppose because she wasn’t your real mother, that made a difference.”
“I hated her. She – she caused my own son to turn against me. He had a child – my grandchild – and I never met him – or her.”
“That’s sad. I’m sorry.”
Minty began to sympathise with Ted’s point of view about Lydia. She had treated him badly, she had to admit. Why had she told her grandson about the adoption and not Ted? Not until it was too late. It seemed an unnecessarily cruel thing to do. She could almost understand why he’d wanted her to die in the fire that night. Almost, but not quite.
She saw that he had drifted off to sleep. Poor bloke. She couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. He wasn’t a pleasant old man, but he’d had some blows to contend with. Like herself. He hadn’t known his real parents any more than she had. She reached for the flannel in the bowl of water by his bed and wiped his burning forehead gently. It seemed to ease him into a more peaceful sleep.
“Goodbye, Ted. Hope you feel better.”
Some hope of that she thought. Seeing no point in staying any longer, she quietly left the room.
Closing the door, she saw another familiar figure approach. It was that nice vicar.
“Hello – Araminta, isn’t it?” he said as he drew nearer.
“Please, call me Minty,” she said, smiling at him. “My friend Lydia called me it first, and I rather like it.”
“Good,” smiled Bernard. “You seem a lot happier since I last saw you.”
“Well, I know who I am now, so that makes me happy. And the man you’re going to see is my cousin, by the way.”
“Yes, so I understand. What a pity he’s so unwell, dear.”
“Yes, it is. And my friend Lydia is dying, too.”
“Oh dear, and yet you seem – well – better in yourself.”
“Having a grounding helps. Finding out my real parentage has made all the difference.”
“I’m very pleased for you.”
Bernard saw in his mind’s eye the two piles of bones. One of those piles was, he now knew, Minty’s mother. He would have to find a way of breaking the news to her that she was probably murdered and by her own father, too. But that would do for another day. Now, he had to see how Ted was doing. According to Robbie, he was unlikely to last more than a few hours.
“Anyway, Reverend,” he heard Minty say. “I must go back to my friend now. I hope you can give Ted some comfort. He didn’t want any from me.”
Bernard scratched his head as he watched her plod off down the corridor. He stood outside Ted’s door, deep in thought. Robbie said he wanted to see him, something on his conscience, probably. It never ceased to surprise him how many people returned to God at the end. No matter how far they had strayed from the true path, when it came to dying, they suddenly remembered where it was.
Bernard seated himself beside Ted’s bed and coughed. The old man stirred and slowly turned his head towards him. “Who’s that?” he croaked.
“Reverend Paltoquet. You wanted to see me.”
“Did you see that old bat just now? Why can’t they leave me alone?” He slumped back on his pillow.
“I understand she’s your cousin,” said Bernard coldly. “I don’t think that it’s very nice of you to call her an ‘old bat’.”
“No, ’spose not. But I can’t stand old women. They give me the creeps.”
So Ted wasn’t quite as contrite as he had expected him to be, considering he was about to answer to God for his sins.
“How can I help you, anyway?” Bernard tried not to wish him ill, but he was already trying his patience.
“I’m dying, I know that. But I want to get something off my chest before I go...”
“I think you’ve already told me.”
“I – I ...” He tried to sit up again.
“Please, don’t exert yourself. Save your energy.”
“What for? I’m not planning on climbing Mount Everest ...”
“Just lie quietly,” Bernard instructed. “Now, what is it you want to say?”
“Do you think God’ll forgive me for setting fire to my house?”
“I gave you my answer last time.”
“I know you did, but I can’t quite remember what you said. Please ... can’t you say a little prayer for me? I know I don’t deserve it...”
Bernard suddenly remembered his calling and fingered his clerical collar gingerly. After a moment or two, he replied softly, “I will, of course.”
He started to recite the Lord’s Prayer, but before he got as far as ‘forgive us our trespasses’, Ted interrupted him.
“You know that day I came to see you?” he said, still trying to sit up.
“Yes?”
“I was very rude, wasn’t I?”
Bernard said nothing.
“Well, yes, I know I was. I wanted to ask for your help in finding my grandchild, but I got side-tracked. You see – I don’t even know what sex it is. They’d be about twenty now. I just thought maybe you could still help – before I go ... I would like to meet him or her – just once.”
Bernard wondered what to do. It wasn’t too much to ask, really. Not now the man was dying.
Nova had been happy to relay the news to Rose that she was to meet the son she had lost,
and her own grandfather. But she had been less than happy when she actually met him for the first, and only, time. Bernard had accompanied her to see Ted on his sick bed, and she had taken a hearty dislike to him straightaway. If she had felt deprived of not knowing her paternal grandfather, on meeting him, she realised she hadn’t missed much. He, in his turn, hadn’t been thrilled to meet her, either, saying he had hoped she’d have been a grandson.
Disheartened, Nova had left the sick room and joined Bernard waiting for her outside.
“The old so-and-so,” she had said.
No doubt she would have used a stronger expletive if it had been anyone other than Bernard. She now only saw him as her vicar, no longer as the man she had briefly hankered after. Theirs was an uneasy alliance, however, mainly because Nova couldn’t help remembering how she had cheapened herself in front of him, and because Bernard couldn’t help remembering it, too.
“Still, we mustn’t be uncharitable,” smiled Bernard as they walked out of the Winter Park Eventide Home into the snow. “The poor man’s dying, and Robbie doesn’t think he’ll last the night.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Robbie hadn’t been infallible in his prognosis, however, as old Ted lingered through December into early January. He had died the week after New Year, and Bernard was due to bury him the next day. Nova wasn’t even sure she would bother to attend the service. However, in the end, she decided to do so.
Ted had more ‘mourners’ at his funeral than he was surely entitled to. They consisted of, besides his reluctant granddaughter, Mike, Minty and Lydia, the former pushing her now very frail friend in a wheelchair, Robbie and Dorothy. There was one other surprise attendee in the formidable shape of Miss Chapman who, she said, made it her policy to see off her inmates personally. No one at the service could say they liked her, but at least she helped to swell the meagre numbers.
It was icy cold in St Stephen’s churchyard, and large flakes of snow began to fall as Bernard intoned, “Man that is born of woman has but a short time to live ...” There were no tears for the unlikeable Ted as he recited the funeral service with more speed than usual.
Nova stood beside the grave, her gloved hand in Mike’s. He had been her rock all through the upheaval of the police demolishing the cellar and taking away the bones of the two women long buried there. In the middle of all of it there had been Christmas to get through, which had brought problems of its own. The season of goodwill had proved anything but for the young couple, who argued bitterly as to whose parents they were going to stay with. Mike had won out as his only lived in Wimbledon, and the foul weather made travelling as far as Blackpool impractical.
She smiled across at Minty, who smiled back at her. She had really taken to the old woman and felt sorry that her dear friend Lydia was so ill. Minty would be devastated, she knew, when she died. What would she do without her? But at least the problem of where she would live after Lydia passed had been easily solved. She could come and live with her and Mike in Common Way now that the others had all moved out. It was the perfect solution.
Minty had laughed at first, saying she had no wish to pay rent for a place she had once owned. However, she had come round in the end. She had grown just as fond of Nova as Nova had of her. It had taken them by surprise when they realised that they were related by blood. They had sat down and worked it out. Minty was Ted’s cousin, so that made Nova something once or twice removed, they decided. It didn’t matter, though, because they loved each other anyway.
Another concern to Nova was her great grandmother, Rose. Her bones had been buried the week before, along with Lily Martin’s, but she knew she still wasn’t at peace. And the reason was Ted. Even though Nova had explained to her just what had happened to him, Rose had said she still wouldn’t be happy until she had seen him with her own eyes. What sort of a man he had grown into, what sort of a life he had led, and so on. Nova hadn’t wanted to tell her the exact truth, for fear of upsetting her and keeping her tied to the Earth forever.
She stared up at the falling snow and sighed. As she did so, she caught sight of a figure out of the corner of her eye. As she continued to stare, the ghostly form of her great grandmother began to materialise, leaning against a tree a short distance away from where she was standing.
Rose winked at her, and Nova winked back. She needn’t have worried, of course. Rose had been a woman of the world, to put it kindly, and she probably wasn’t under any illusions about life and how life dealt the cards so haphazardly and unfairly. If Ted had turned out the way he had, she would have to accept it. There was nothing else she could do. But the fact that she had turned up today at his funeral, showed that she was at least prepared to be reunited with him in death, as she never had been with him in life.
As Bernard closed the service, the small group began to retreat. The snow was heavier now and there was to be no lingering or tears of regret over that grave. Nova stayed behind, however, much to Mike’s annoyance.
“Come on,” he said crossly. “It’s too cold to hang about. What are you staring at?”
“You go on, Mike,” she said. “I’ll just be a moment.”
“Do you really want time alone with that arsehole?”
She laughed. “Something like that,” she said.
Her boyfriend shrugged. “Okay, whatever,” he said. “See you back at the car.”
When Mike had left the churchyard, Nova continued to watch the ghost of her great grandmother to see what she would do. Would she kneel at her son’s grave and pray? Or would she jump in with him?
But, what Nova witnessed now, she would remember to her dying day. As she turned back to the freshly dug grave, she saw a kind of mist rise up out of it. Then, by gradual degrees, Ted’s ghostly figure began to appear, starting from the feet up. She didn’t know how she managed to keep her cool as the old man she had only seen lying down, stood erect before her. He ignored her, however, and she quickly stepped to one side as she could see he was about to walk straight through her. She turned and watched as he slowly walked over to his mother.
When he reached her, Nova could have sworn they were having some kind of argument. Then, suddenly, Rose clipped him round the ear, for all the world as if she was chastising a naughty child. Having been deprived of being a mother for so many years, it looked like Rose was making up for lost time.
The pair then turned and walked away together through the churchyard. Nova started to follow them but, as she did so, their ghostly forms began to fade and finally disappear just as they reached the church gates.
She smiled. Now, at last, Rose Jones had been reunited with her worthless son. She had been trapped on Earth because she hadn’t known what had happened to him, but she was even more trapped now, thought Nova, with him in eternity.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Bernard and Robbie were sitting in the vicarage study one evening in early March, listening to the wind whistle round the eaves and feeling very cosy beside the roaring fire. The chess set was laid out on the small table between them, but Bernard wasn’t in the mood for concentrating. He lit his pipe and lounged comfortably in his easy chair, sucking it into life.
Robbie, too, seemed distracted as he took a long swig of whisky. Mrs Harper would have had a fit if she knew her vicar kept a secret supply of Glenfiddich in his study drawer for Robbie on nights like these. Or on any other night, come to think of it. He smiled with pleasure, leaning back in the comfortable armchair opposite Bernard.
“Penny for your thoughts, old boy,” said Robbie.
“Oh, just realising that we’re at the end of another mystery.”
Bernard sipped his modest sweet sherry, which Mrs Harper allowed, but only just. When it came to strong liquor, she didn’t hold with it, but a sweet sherry was allowable as she liked a drop, herself. At Christmas.
“We cleared it all up at the beginning of the year, didn’t we?”
“Yes, I suppose we did, but burying Lydia today has brought it all back. Seeing her coffin lowered int
o the ground and Minty sobbing her poor old heart out seemed to me the finish of the whole thing. Nova, the possession, Rose Jones, Lily Martin, the horrible Moreland men, et cetera.”
“Doesn’t do to brood,” observed Robbie. “The poor old soul was very ill and very old, too. It’s a shame she didn’t live longer, of course, for Minty’s sake. But at least she’s got Nova and Mike, and I think she’s very happy back in her old house.”
“Yes, I’m sure she is.”
“Then, what is it? What’s really on your mind?”
Bernard sighed. “I was thinking about Nova …”
Robbie eyed his friend cautiously. “Do you still have yearnings in that direction, old boy?”
Bernard scowled at him. “Of course not. I told you. I lost my head for a while, that’s all.”
“You could have split that young couple up, you know. Mike’s the salt of the earth. I hope they make a go of it.”
Bernard looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’m sure they will. They were made for each other.”
“Yes, well, no thanks to you.”
Robbie was gruff. Bernard felt suitably chastened and wriggled in his chair.
“And what about what you did to poor Dorothy? She still holds a candle for you, you know.”
“Don’t you mean torch?”
“Never mind, you know what I mean. I think you treated her very shabbily.”
“Yes, I know. But I think you’ll be pleased to hear that I intend to propose to her.”
Robbie put his empty glass down with a jolt, nearly cracking it. “What?” he gasped.
“You heard me. I intend to make her my wife.” Bernard smiled at him smugly.
“About bloody time!”
“Yes, well, I’m sorry. But I’ve seen the light, at last. I know Mrs Aitch will be pleased. She keeps on telling me I should marry Dorothy.”
