“We mustn’t lose our optimism because Carolyn turned into another False Friend at Falcon Abbey,” I told her. “Perhaps if I hadn’t been so worried about Gillian, I might have considered the realities sooner. Ariel talked about the great friendship between the two girls, but I saw no signs of it. In fact, I don’t think I’ve heard Gillian say more than a mumbled word or two to Carolyn. She had to have been heartsick when her one friend turned on her. She must have realized when Aiden Loverly came at her the way he did—accusing her of being a thief—that Carolyn was intent on getting her blamed for stealing the Loverly Cup. Who would have believed she was innocent? Not even her great-aunt. She had been made to look immature when Deirdre unearthed the binky from under the mattress. The more worried Gillian became, the more neurotic she would appear. I was surprised to see her talking quite cheerfully to Phil yesterday in the kitchen.”
Mrs. Malloy nodded sagely. “It did strike me at the time, now I come to think of it, as how Carolyn’s speaking about Gillian’s binky made that piece of old shawl sound particularly babyish. Then again, Matron referred to it the same way.”
“Carolyn may have used the juvenile term in telling her how upset poor dear Gilly had been when Deirdre dragged the thing out from under the mattress—after Carolyn, I’ll bet, had made it easier to find by moving it from the far side of the bed to the front. And there was another thing. Dorcas mentioned to me that Ms. Chips wasn’t particularly gung ho about the friendship between Gillian and Carolyn. There was something about clinging vines, which I took as applying to Gillian because she was the new girl, and a very unsettled homesick one at that. But what if Ms. Chips was referring to Carolyn, having noted a pattern of her latching onto other girls because she saw something special in them and liked to bask in their reflected glory? Especially where, as with Gillian, she came off as the protector?”
“Okay.” Mrs. Malloy settled more comfortably on the bed, which meant taking up most of it. “Gillian’s a musical prodigy, but what’s this Elizabeth’s claim to fame?”
“She got the lead in the school play. Perhaps, like Philippa, she has aspirations to become a professional actress. And we have another case in point.”
“Our Ariel?”
“Exactly. The new best friend, who might be thought to need taking under a kindly wing because she’s a bit of an oddity on account of her peculiarly advanced vocabulary, quaint manner, and the fact that her parents acquired their wealth by winning the lottery. But it’s all right. Ariel knows what’s going on. If Carolyn stays on at St. Roberta’s, Ariel won’t be beastly to her, but she’ll stay clear as much as possible. As for Gillian, I think I’ll go talk to the Middletons tomorrow morning—or as soon as I can haul myself out of bed.” I yawned hugely. Unfortunately Mrs. Malloy didn’t take the hint. She repositioned one of her purple rollers and then got up and poured herself another brandy.
“Whether Gillian said squeak or not, you can bet your bubblegum her manner toward Carolyn changed, causing Carolyn in her turn to have her revenge with the binky. What’s put that look on your, face Mrs. H?”
“Thinking about Ms. Chips and feeling certain she would feel achingly sorry for Gillian and Carolyn. Perhaps particularly the latter.”
Mrs. Malloy was back to being the kindly nanny with a tipple in her hand. “What you need is a good night’s rest.”
“Yes, Nanny.”
“I thought as I was your Aunt Petal.”
I laughed shakily. “You see how confused I am?”
“So will Mr. Mossop be when he wakes up one morning and finds his wife’s walked out on him.”
“My head is spinning, Nanny.”
“Oh, all right! Nighty-night.”
She had been gone no more than a couple of minutes when I heard footsteps crossing the landing from the direction of the stairs. Opening the door, I saw Phil, looking charmingly vibrant in her black dress, coming toward me.
“Am I disturbing you? I haven’t been able to sleep and heard voices in here. Brian came up to the school when I was up there this evening. He’d had dinner, as you know, with Tosca, but they didn’t linger. He wanted to see how Matron was doing after the shock of losing her best friend, but she wasn’t there. She’d gone over to Ms. Chips’s fairly early in the evening and wasn’t back when I left—with Brian.”
“Oh!” I sat up straighter.
“We went for a drive in his car. Nothing like going for a spin in the driving rain!” Smiling, she came into my bedroom. “He made no attempt to talk about the old days, but—selfishly or not—I had to explain and apologize. Discovering that he was living in the area was the reason I came back. I’ve always felt guilty, knowing he’d deserved better.”
I sat back down on the bed and looked up at her inquiringly.
“That day there was such a rumpus about my leaving the San to meet him in Lilypad Lane? I didn’t—”
“I know.” I was knotting my fingers together. “But I didn’t speak up on your behalf because I was too much of a coward.”
It was her turn to stare at me, so I explained.
“My word,” she said. “It’s hard for me to understand anyone hating lacrosse so much that they’d hide out week after week. I loved it!”
“I know! And when I think of how you lost out not only on becoming head girl but being captain of the team, I’m consumed with remorse.”
“Well, don’t be.” She sat down on the bed beside me and placed an arm around my shoulders. “It would have made everything so much worse if you’d spoken up, because that would have put my friend Sally Brodstock in hot water. If we’re talking about cowardice, I would have won the prize. I didn’t have the courage to tell Brian out loud that I wanted to break up with him because I didn’t want any distractions from my goal of becoming an actress. Things were hard enough, I felt, with my parents being so against the idea. So I wrote a letter and then phoned and asked him to meet me before he caught the train back to London on that Friday afternoon. He couldn’t take a later one because there was a lecture he couldn’t miss, but I didn’t see that as a problem because I had a free period I would normally have spent in the library. But the stress got to me. I hated hurting him, and I came down with a blinding headache, and when I realized I’d have to go to the San and lie down, Sally said she would take the letter for me. It was she that Mr. Bumbleton saw, and Sally was quite prepared to go to Mrs. Battle and tell her so, but I finally got her to see that wouldn’t have spared me. We would both have been punished and I would have felt far worse. I admit I was sorry not to become lacrosse captain; it was a blow. But on the positive side, I got to embark on my stage career earlier than I had planned.”
“None of that alters the fact that I was a wretched weakling.”
“Shall we form a club?”
I had to laugh. “Did it go well—your talk with Dr. Roberts?”
“Oh, yes.” There was a dreamy note to her voice. “I had no thoughts of romance blooming anew; that sort of thing doesn’t happen. We were both young and unformed then. But the moment we started talking this evening, it was as though the part of me that had been missing was back in place. And he told me when we were driving that it had taken him that way too.”
“I wondered if you were upset when Tosca said she was going out for dinner with him.”
“No. If I acted bothered it was because hearing him mentioned brought my feelings of guilt to the fore.”
“Before the close of confession,” I said, “there’s something else I should tell you. I don’t have an Aunt Petal. Mrs. Battle learned from my friend Dorcas Critchley that Mrs. Malloy and I have had some experience as private detectives, and she requested our help in discovering who took the Loverly Cup.”
“I guessed something of the sort. Are you afraid Gillian took it? Because, if so, I think you’re wrong. That girl is so transparent one aches for her.”
“I’m absolutely sure she didn’t.” I did not add to this. It wouldn’t have been right, after leaving the matter to Lady Lo
verly and Aiden.
Phil said good night and went along to her own room, leaving me to mull over our conversation until I fell back on the bed, too exhausted to crawl under the covers. Sleep grabbed me by the throat, and I might not have woken till morning had I been warm enough. As it was, I surfaced to the realization that, even though I was still wearing my wrap, I was chilled to the bone and that something … or someone … was tapping at the window. Another wee-hours visit from Ariel or Dorcas? Or a ghost, not of the Gray Nun but of Ms. Chips, with a message from beyond the grave?
16
It was only a tree branch. Morning and I, never the best of chums, got off to an unfriendly start the next day. Straggling downstairs around nine-thirty, I found the place empty except for Mrs. Malloy, looking resplendent as always despite the one purple roller still in her hair. I decided against pointing this out and gratefully accepted the cup of tea she handed me.
“I’ve only been down a short while meself.” She sat back on the kitchen stool that she had vacated with the reluctance of a queen abdicating her throne. “Talk about feeling washed out, Mrs. H, I can’t do the late nights like I used to. When a woman hits fifty, it’s harder to leap out of bed the morning after with a song in the heart.” We both knew she had encountered this speed bump in the road of life a good decade before, but I didn’t bring it up.
“Where are the others?” It had become my first question of the day, a routine part of living at the Chaplain’s House.
“Haven’t seen any of them. A good thing too, when it comes to that Rosemary. That voice of hers would knock the head off a bull, and even Tosca’s a bit too bright and breezy before I’ve had me Weetabix. Phil’s a different matter, of course, but my guess is she’s off having another word with that doctor of hers.”
“I hope he is hers, and they end up getting married and having lots of children,” I said. “Did you get any sleep? Have you managed a bite of breakfast?” It was written all over Mrs. Malloy’s face that she was exhausted.
“Who can remember anything at this indecent hour of the morning? I’ll take a slice of toast if you’re offering, but don’t bother with marmalade. It don’t seem right to be enjoying ourselves after all that’s been happening at St. Roberta’s”
“I’m surprised Rosemary didn’t come in to tell us to be quiet last night.”
“Oh, I don’t know! She said in her snotty way when she was going up to bed last night as how she’d got herself some industrial earplugs and was going to shove them well in. As for Tosca”—Mrs. Malloy took the plate of toast I handed her—“she said she’d bought a sedative when she was at the chemist’s and planned on taking a dose and dreaming all night that she was smoking her head off. Ms. Critchley rang just as I came downstairs, and when I said as how you was still sleeping, she said not to wake you.”
“I never heard the phone.”
“It rang again, right after I’d hung up the receiver. That time it was Ruth Middleton, hoping to have a word with you. She said, if it wasn’t asking too much, would you come by her house when you could manage it. Her brother was up at the school teaching this morning—classes are going on much as usual—and he phoned to ask after Gillian. After they talked, he went home. It was clear from her voice something has happened.”
“I’ll go now,” I said, getting off my stool. “Do you want to come with me?”
“Thanks, but I don’t think I will. I’m not looking me best. And like I always tell me sister Melody, meeting a single man for the first time deserves two hours before the mirror. Not that I suppose he’d take that good a look, with his heart still set on his deceased wife. But I have me standards and won’t budge from them.” Hand pressed to her majestic bosom, she went on. “When a woman starts letting herself go there’s no end to it. The next will be going out with rollers in me hair.”
“If you’re not coming I think you should go back to bed with a book. I brought one with me that I haven’t so much as opened yet; help yourself if you like. It’s sitting on the top of my suitcase.”
Some twenty minutes later I left the Chaplain’s House with Dorcas’s car keys in my handbag—I’d forgotten to return them to her last night—and the umbrella lent to me by Mrs. Battle’s secretary held aloft. It was not raining hard, but there was a brisk wind and the ground had a lot of suction. Halfway across the lawn, I encountered the wiry Mr. Mossop trudging toward the school.
“Hello,” I said. “Nasty day, isn’t it?”
He glowered at me from under the limp brim of his dirt-colored cap. “It is that! My wife’s up and left me! Found a note on the mantelpiece and no breakfast in the oven. It’s a crying shame what a man has to put up with these days.”
“Oh, dear!”
“Like as not, with her gone I’ll be given the shove.”
“Oh, surely not!”
His currant eyes raked me over, daring me to present a bright side. “What is the world coming to? is what I ask. First that silver cup stolen, then Ms. Chips killed, and now this! Could get a man down if he let it.”
“Mustn’t give way.” I was desperate to press on before one of us drowned.
Away he trounced and I made haste to reach the car before the umbrella took sail for the Americas. With the wipers going full speed as I drove through the now-sheeting rain, I should have had one thought, to get to the Middletons’ house, but my mind kept darting around the question of whether St. Roberta’s would be forced to close down as a result of unsavory publicity. Much to my surprise, I hoped such would not be the case, not only because Dorcas was already devoted to the school’s interests but because it was a really good school, with a sound academic and—give credit where due—sports tradition. Besides which, it was … my school.
The windows had started to fog, something that always makes me nervous, as I pulled up outside the Middleton house. I had barely pressed the bell when Ruth opened the door. She ushered me eagerly into the hall, where she took my soggy raincoat and umbrella, stowed them away, and led me into the comfortable sitting room.
“How about a cup of tea?” She looked pale and shaken.
“Thank you, but I’m fine … although that doesn’t sound quite right after what happened to Ms. Chips.”
“Remember how we saw her and Mrs. Brown Monday in the restaurant where we were having lunch?” Ruth watched me take a seat before positioning herself in a chair across from me. “Clive’s back from St. Roberta’s but he’s gone for a walk … to the place just a few streets away where Anya was run down. And I’ve been sitting staring into space for a good fifteen minutes; I’d just got up to pace when I saw you from the window coming down the path.”
“What’s wrong, Ruth?”
“A letter came this morning, and I just had to confide in someone. I don’t understand why, seeing that we don’t know each other well, but you were the person who came to mind. Clive won’t object … .” She pressed a hand to her forehead, and again I took in her drained face.
“Letter?”
“Addressed to Clive, from Mrs. Brown. My telling him about it over the phone brought him home. He read the contents through to himself first and then out loud to me. It was a confession and a plea for forgiveness. Ellie, Mrs. Brown was the driver who knocked Anya down and drove off without summoning help.”
“Oh, my goodness!” I crossed over to Ruth’s chair and knelt down beside her.
“She said she’d had one of her dreadful migraines that night and was lying down when the phone rang. It was someone from the pub saying that Sir Henry needed to be picked up because he wasn’t sufficiently sober to make his own way home. Lady Loverly had taken Aiden to the opera in London that evening, and they would not be returning until the next day. Mrs. Brown was alone in the house. She wrote that she should have asked for Sir Henry to be sent home in a taxi, but she was afraid that if she failed to do her duty she would be let go—foolish, but she’s always been a compulsive worrier.” Ruth reached down for my hand. “Lady Loverly would never have sent her packing,
though there’d never be any convincing Mrs. Brown of that. She got into the car provided for her use—completely groggy, from what she writes—and admits to careening up onto the pavement and feeling a mind-numbing thud when she hit Anya. Unable to think, let alone reason, she backed up and continued to the pub, where she collected Sir Henry. The next morning, she checked the car for signs of damage but could see none. When she learned shortly afterward that Anya was dead, she knew she should go to the police but was petrified that she would be sent to prison.”
“Oh, Ruth!”
“She wrote she had never told anyone until the other day, when Marilyn invited her out for lunch and asked if some worry might be causing her dreadful headaches.”
“What will your brother do?”
“Nothing. By that I mean he won’t go to the police. But he said straightaway that he will go and see Mrs. Brown, to tell her she has suffered long enough. It was an accident, and there’s no point in anguishing about should-haves-but-didn’t. Thank God for Marilyn. Finally, after all these years, I think Clive can come to terms with Anya’s death. At the moment he’s in shock. That would have been the case at any time, but this comes right on top of Marilyn’s death and our very deep concern about Gillian. I have to say I feel sorry for Mrs. Brown. Living with guilt of that magnitude must have been intolerable.” She patted my hand. “Thank you for coming. I really would like us to be friends. Any word on the Loverly Cup?”
“Yes, and it affects Gillian.” I told her, adding that I had left it to Lady Loverly as donor of the cup and Carolyn Fisher-Jones’s godmother, with the support of her grandson, to decide how best to proceed. She sat in silence for several moments. I offered to make her a cup of tea, but she refused. Thinking her brother was unlikely to want company when he returned from his walk, I said that I probably should get back to the Chaplain’s House. We were in the hall and I was putting my raincoat back on when she said there was something else she wanted to tell me.
Goodbye, Ms. Chips Page 26
