The Spinster Wife

by Christina McKenna

  Prince Andrew chose an outstanding Garrard engagement ring for his future bride. The centrepiece is an exquisite example of the Burmese ruby, whose fluorescence is legendary. It’s surrounded by ten drop diamonds, the whole seated on 18-carat white and yellow gold. The effect is stunning and echoes Sarah’s lush hair colouring to perfection.

  The old lady stirred, dipped into her shopper and produced a bag of sweets. Rita-Mae eyed her covertly from behind the pages of the magazine.

  “Would you like a barley sugar?” the woman asked, rustling the bag at her.

  “No, thanks.”

  The offer was simply a ruse to engage in small-talk. These local folk love to sound out a stranger. And she was in no mood to be interrogated. The doctor would no doubt be doing a good deal of that pretty soon.

  The phone rang. The pensioner shut the bag and pricked up her ears.

  “Hello, Killoran surgery. Miss Devlin speaking . . .

  “Well, I’m sorry but Dr Sweeney won’t be able to see you today, Barney. He’s full up I’m afraid . . . I said, Dr Sweeney won’t be able to see you today, Barney. He’s full up I’m afraid . . . Hmm . . . and where did you say you had the pain . . . ? Oh, yer knees again . . . Hmm . . . well maybe you shouldn’t kneel down to say the rosary then . . . Aye, I know . . . Hmm . . . Hmm . . . In that case the best I can do, Barney, is send a nurse . . . No, not a hearse, Barney, a nurse . . . Okay, I’ll get on to it right away. Bye now.”

  She put the phone down and let out a sigh.

  “Suppose that was Barney Todd complainin’ about his knees again?” the old lady piped up.

  Rita-Mae waited to hear a curt “Mind your own business” from the redoubtable Miss Devlin, but was surprised by: “Aye, Aggie, that was him. Deaf as a post . . . never stops tormentin’ me. He’s got the arthritis and insists on prayin’ on the sore knees.”

  “I know. Sure my Albert does the same for tae get the plenary indulgence.”

  Miss Devlin picked up the phone again and began dialling with her pen.

  Aggie retrieved her bag of barley sugars once more and directed her attention back to the stranger sitting opposite.

  Rita-Mae dived further into the royal engagement story to discourage another sweet offer.

  Sarah Ferguson, known to her friends as Fergie, has a vibrant personality and is clearly to the manor born. In short, she’s a made-to-measure sister-in-law for Diana, being horsey, bouncy, with an unchallenging IQ.

  All at once the outside door burst open.

  “Thank heavens to be out of that wretched wind!” a female voice was heard to declaim brusquely before the door was banged shut again.

  Rita-Mae dared not look round. She thought she recognized that voice and hoped against hope that it was not who she thought it was.

  Then: “Oh, good morning, Mrs Hilditch. Didn’t expect to see you today.”

  Her fears were confirmed. She raised the magazine a little higher to try and shield herself.

  “Well, I dare say you didn’t expect to see me, Miss Devlin. More’s the pity that I have to see you because it can only mean that I’m poorly. I hope you can fit me in.”

  “Och, I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs Hilditch. But your leg must be a bit better now that you can get about on it. Of course I can fit you in. As you can see, we’re not so busy.”

  “Thank you, Miss Devlin. My leg is slowly improving I’m glad to say. I expect it’s that novice Dr Sweeney, as opposed to the excellent Dr Doyle?”

  “Afraid so, Mrs Hilditch.”

  “I thought as much. Hence the reason you’re not so busy. Oh well, he’ll have to do I suppose. I don’t trust youth, as you well know. It’s wasted on the young, as Oscar Wilde so sagely put it.”

  She let out a sigh and moved with a show of exaggerated slowness, aided by a walking-stick, to the bench seat opposite. From behind the screen of the magazine, Rita-Mae observed her: green suit, expensive-looking tan brogues, a capacious handbag that matched the shoes exactly. The room seemed to shrink a little with her daunting presence. She understood now why Bram used the term “Her Grace”.

  Aggie quickly put away her bag of sweets and hastened to make more room for her.

  “Mrs Hilditch. Keepin’ all right, are yeh?” she asked sheepishly.

  “Thank you for your concern, Mrs McCusker, but I’d hardly be all right if I’m here, now would I? I had a fall – if you must know – and want the doctor to check on things.”

  “Och, that’s too bad. The damp weather won’t be helpin’ yeh neither.”

  “I daresay it isn’t helping matters, no.”

  At that moment the intercom at reception sounded. Miss Devlin listened then spoke quietly. She raised her head. “Aggie, the doctor wants to see you now too.”

  Aggie gathered herself and departed.

  Rita-Mae kept her eyes firmly focused on the royal engagement piece, acutely aware that she was now the sole object of interest for Octavia Hilditch.

  It might be said that Diana picked her sister-in-law well. Sarah is pretty but not in quite the same league as Lady Diana Spencer. In fairness though, five years ago the former nursery-school teacher was worlds away from the idolized royal personage gracing our TV screens and magazine covers—

  “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

  She glanced up to see a pair of brown, toad-like eyes regarding her from a plump, round face. There was nothing of Bram that she could discern, apart from the snub nose and healthy complexion. The mouth was generous but downturned, giving the impression that its owner was permanently displeased with the world around her and life in general.

  “Er, yes, that’s right,” Rita-Mae said, dropping her gaze back to the magazine.

  She heard Mrs Hilditch open her handbag, draw out a hanky and blow lightly into it. Snap the bag shut again. Please, she thought, let Aggie and her husband finish soon so I can escape this. But the mumbling on the other side of the door signalled that the doctor was taking his time. No, she’d just have to brazen it out.

  Then: “I expect you’re Miss Ruttle, the new tenant. Would I be correct?”

  “Erm, yes . . . as a matter of fact I am. And y-you must be Bram’s – sorry I mean Abraham’s – mother.”

  “Indeed. Octavia Hilditch. I thought it was you. Not many strangers happen along the way of Killoran, and you tally with all my son has told me about you so far.”

  All my son has told me about you so far. What on earth had he told her? For Rita-Mae had made doubly certain to impart as little as possible about herself to anyone – and most especially to Bram Hilditch.

  “Nice to meet you, Mrs Hilditch,” she said, attempting a conciliatory tone. “We spoke on the phone.”

  “We did indeed.” The matriarch cast a glance at the receptionist and immediately Miss Devlin took her cue, busying herself at a filing cabinet.

  “Yes . . . now that I’ve got you here, Miss Ruttle, there are a couple of things I need to say to you.”

  The large accusatory eyes were fixed upon her once more. Rita-Mae wanted to bolt out the door. But she could hardly do that; she needed her medication.

  “Oh . . . ?”

  “Yes, I believe in being direct. It saves a lot of time and misunderstanding further down the line, so I’ll come straight to the point.”

  Mercifully, the phone rang, halting her momentarily. Miss Devlin answered straightaway, turning her back on them and speaking in a low tone.

  The door to the surgery remained tightly shut, alas.

  There’d be no escape for the present.

  “Now, the first thing you need to know, Miss Ruttle, is that my son Abraham is not available. He may be well-off and eligible – an attractive prospect for many a woman down on her luck – but is most certainly not the marrying kind. So if you have designs in that area you’d do well to put them from your head completely.”

  Rita-Mae felt her face redden at the audacity and bluntness of the dreadful Octavia. Her polite reserve was failing.

  She put aside
the magazine, mentally loading another kind of magazine – a more combative one.

  “I can assure you, Mrs Hilditch, that I have absolutely no interest in your son,” she fired back. “I wonder where you got such a notion. I am a tenant of his and that’s the extent of it.”

  She saw Octavia flinch slightly, wobble momentarily on her pedestal. The toad eyes blinked rapidly. Her right hand sought the reassurance of her gold necklace.

  There was a tense little pause. But Rita-Mae stood her ground. She had nothing to apologize for. She was not the one who’d started this little clash.

  “Well . . . just so you know, Miss Ruttle,” Mrs Hilditch sniffed. “It’s just that . . . well, it’s just that I can’t afford to have further trouble during your tenancy of number eight. The last spinster who lived there caused Abraham quite a bit of upset you see. Discomfited not only him, but me—”

  Fortunately, at that point the door to the surgery had opened, cutting Octavia short. Aggie and her husband tottered forth.

  Rita-Mae rose gratefully, and Dr Sweeney beckoned her in.

  It didn’t take the electrician long to record the meter reading. He was in and out in less than a minute and offered a grudging thanks to the landlord.

  Bram scribbled a note of explanation for Miss Ruttle and apologized for the fact that he couldn’t reach her.

  He placed it on the mat and was about to take his leave when a thought struck him.

  There was something he needed: an album of nature photographs belonging to his Uncle Gregory, which he couldn’t locate in Lucerne House. He considered now that it was most likely in the trunk in the box-room of number 8. Octavia had dumped quite a lot of stuff in there during her last “decluttering” spree.

  Should he nip up now and do a quick check?

  He dithered on the doorstep. What if Miss Ruttle were to appear suddenly? That would be a disaster.

  He nipped down the path to make sure the coast was clear.

  All was quiet. Not a sinner in sight.

  Yes, he’d take the chance.

  Dr Sweeney was not what Rita-Mae was expecting. She recalled Mrs Hilditch’s dismissal of him as a young “novice”. For that reason she’d certainly not envisaged a dusty old codger the like of Dr Wilson, her GP in Larne – a man who simply went through the motions of writing prescriptions and didn’t ask too many questions. This one, with his neat hair and handsome features, nattily dressed in a linen suit and white shirt, was a world away from Wilson. He gave off an air of competent professionalism.

  The type who’d most likely be all too thorough and ask far too many questions.

  “Take a seat,” he said, shutting the door and going behind his desk. “I’m Dr Sweeney.”

  He sat down and glanced at a register. “And you must be . . . ”

  “Ruttle, Doctor . . . Rita Ruttle.”

  She hoped he’d concentrate on taking notes, relieve her of the burden of being inspected. The run-in with Octavia Hilditch had unsettled her and she needed time to recover. But to her dismay he leaned back in the chair. It was going to be an interview.

  “And you’re from Larne?”

  “L-Larne . . . yes.”

  A beam of sunlight stole through the window and settled across the desk. She wished she could be outside, away from the stuffy room. Not sitting here in front of this stranger and requesting the false friends, the pills that she’d come to depend on so much, for sleeping, for anxiety, for migraines. Because without them life would be intolerable.

  “Hmm . . . rare name, Ruttle. Haven’t come across it before,” Sweeney was saying. “So, what brings you all the way from lovely Larne?”

  “Just . . . just felt like a change of scene, Doctor.”

  “And your former GP was Dr Wilson I see.”

  How did he know that? Then she remembered Miss Devlin had requested the information earlier when she’d rung to book the appointment.

  “I spoke with him earlier, naturally, to acquaint myself with your medical history.”

  She could feel her face redden.

  “Oh, it’s just routine, Miss Ruttle . . . nothing to worry about.”

  There was no way she could make a fiction out of this. How much had Wilson disclosed? Had he told him about the beatings, the hospitalizations, the multiple breakdowns, the suicide attempts? Had he filled Sweeney in on every detail of her life with Harry? The life she was so ashamed of; that she dragged around like a dead beast, leaving a murky trail of clues.

  “Miss Ruttle . . . ?”

  She was forced to look up. “Yes . . . sorry, I . . . ”

  He rested a hand on the desk, pushed himself forward in the chair. She avoided his eye. Caught the glint of a wedding band. Wanted to bolt from the room.

  First the police, now the doctor. They were ganging up on her.

  But she needed the medication. The pills that would keep her from falling into despair. The pills that would never cure, only numb her to the reality of the long nights and days.

  “And what seems to be the problem on this occasion, Miss Ruttle?”

  “Migraines, Doctor. I . . . I take pills for them and I’m having trouble sleeping, so I need something for insomnia as well, and . . . ”

  “How long have you suffered with the migraines?”

  “Quite a while . . . a few years now.”

  “How often do they occur?”

  “Not often . . . I can go for months. Then . . . ”

  “Do you remember what caused the first episode?”

  Why was he grilling her so much?

  Harry smashing her head against the floor had caused the first episode, but she could hardly tell him that.

  “No . . . just stress I suppose.”

  “And the most recent attack, when was that?”

  “Yesterday . . . and I . . . I took the last one . . . I meant to get more from Dr Wilson, but I . . . I forgot.”

  “So, the change of scene isn’t working.”

  “Sorry?”

  “The move to Killoran. I’m just wondering what event triggered the attack here.”

  “Don’t know . . . it just came on, Doctor.”

  “What about blackouts?”

  “No.”

  “You look very thin. Are you eating?”

  “I . . . I’m a very small eater and . . . well, when I’m under stress I don’t feel like eating . . . very much, Doctor.”

  He made up his mind about something. Leaned forward and flicked through a notebook. She saw him frown and look at her quizzically. But he recovered almost at once, smiled, and reached for his prescription pad.

  Bram, with a pained reluctance, placed a hand on the handle of the box-room door. He had very good reasons for not wanting to venture in there alone. The memories made him nauseous.

  He eased open the door – and was at once stunned.

  “What on earth!”

  His eyes took in the scene with disbelief. The place was a mess: his father’s precious ferret knocked on its side, a chair upturned, vase broken, the rug kicked over, air fresheners and potpourri strewn across the floor.

  His immediate instinct was to right everything, but he reminded himself that he was the trespasser.

  The album of photographs. That’s what he’d come for. He needed to get them, and fast.

  He opened the trunk.

  Dug down through a history of papers and ancient bric-a-brac. Found the album. Was about to shut the lid when something caught his eye, jutting out from beneath a folder.

  An object he’d seen before but definitely not in this setting.

  He drew it out.

  The jewellery box of black lacquer with gold engravings was distinctive. Maud Gilhooley had one just like it in her china cabinet.

  Could Miss Ruttle have one exactly the same?

  Was it possible?

  Or . . .

  With trembling hands he opened the lid.

  Stared in dismay.

  There in the box, nestling in all their glinting glory, wer
e Maud Gilhooley’s precious little pieces of jewellery: her cameo brooch, her Claddagh ring with the emerald stone, a bracelet of gold-and-silver charms. She’d described the items to him through tears at the hospital.

  What on earth was going on?

  What kind of woman was Rita Ruttle that she’d rob a poor old lady of her jewellery and kill her beloved little pet?

  But there was no time to ponder such a conundrum.

  It was imperative that he leave. And fast.

  He shut the box. Stuffed it into his coat pocket.

  Would the dark history of 8 Willow Close never let him be?

  He grabbed the photo album and swiftly left the house.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Portaluce, Antrim Coast

  In Edith LeVeck’s curious parlour Dorrie sat stunned at what she’d just heard.

  “Y-You can really see my mama, Edith? I . . . I mean really see her?”

  “Yes . . . she’s here in the room.”

  “But where?” Dorrie clasped her hands together. She was overjoyed. “Can I see her too?”

  “She’s standing near Catrina,” Edith said, holding Dorrie’s gaze. “I’m sorry, dear, but only those with the gift of discernment can see the dead. So it’s best you don’t look.”

  Dorrie didn’t really want to look back in the direction of the awful skeleton woman again anyway. If she did, she’d only see Catrina, not her lovely mama, and that would be far too scary and far too sad.

  “Oh, I’m so glad I met you, Edith. It was meant to be, so you could bring me so close to Mama.”

  “All meetings are meant to be, Dorrie. No one is where they are by accident. Would you like to ask your mama something?”

  All at once Dorrie’s face clouded over. She was remembering Edith LeVeck’s words of only moments before.

  “But you said . . . you said you only see those spirits that are troubled. That can only mean . . . ” She felt tears welling. “Th-That can only mean that Mama is troubled . . . that she’s in a bad place on the Other Side.”