Vanessa clapped her hands and gurgled a laugh. “What a treat for you, Ellie, walking with Mr. Romance himself in the moonlight and sheltered from any threat of rain by the cape of his hair.”
At that, poor George came unexpectedly to life. “Nessie, she’s a married woman.”
“I’ll be fine on my own, thanks, Karisma.” I ducked back into the hall while Tobias tried to claw his way out of my arms. He had never been a cat who enjoyed organized activity, and no sooner were we out of the house than he let me know, with a fierce meow, what he thought of me and my bright ideas. Setting him down in the courtyard, I crossed the moat bridge and made my way down the gravel drive to pause at the cottage by the gates. For the first time since she had vanished through the French windows I remembered Gerta. Should I knock and see if she was all right? No, better not. She was probably getting ready for bed.
What, I wondered as I made my way out onto the road, was wrong with me? Why did I feel as though I would have liked to haul up a boulder and send it rumbling over the cliffs? Why was I not beside myself with joy? I was a woman to be envied by every member of my sex with enough breath in her body to pant Karisma’s name. He was a guest in my house. He had spoken to me, kissed my hand, looked at me with fire enough to singe his eyelashes. The easy answer was that I was furious with Ben for dampening my innocent enthusiasm. But as I drew level with the vicarage, which showed no sign of life, I decided the problem was Vanessa. I resented her making a play for Karisma’s attention, because in doing so she had upset George. And it wasn’t in me to rejoice in the face of another’s suffering.
Then there was Gerta, I thought crossly. How could I let my spirits glow when she was holed up at the cottage? She would be afraid to come up to the house tomorrow for fear of meeting Karisma, who surely no one else but she could possibly think resembled her husband in the least. Marching on down the hill that became darker with every step, I knew I had more than sufficient reason to be upset; but wasn’t there something else, some half-formed realization lurking just below the surface of my mind that was the real root of my distress?
A cat leapt over a hedge, then streaked into the shadows. Had Tobias followed me? Sometimes he showed an uncanny propensity for listening in on my most private thoughts. But not tonight. The animal I now saw crouching under a tree was less portly than my friend and black as a witch’s cape.
“Here, puss puss!” In my jumbled state of mind I thought I was doing the coaxing, until I saw a figure step through a gate in the hedge and wander towards me with a hand outstretched as if proffering a tidbit. It wasn’t until we were almost nose to nose that I was able to determine the person was a woman. She, like the cat, was dressed all in black, was thin as a fence post, and gave off a familiar … slightly mildewed smell. I blinked.
“Miss Tunbridge … Fancy meeting you for the second time in one day.”
“Mrs. Haskell?” She stepped back to get a better squint at me, thus providing me a glimpse of jet-black hair that had to be dyed, done up in a frizz of curls on top of her head. “So you did decide to come and visit me. How nice. If you’ll wait just a moment, my dear, for me to find my naughty pussy, I’ll take you inside for a nice cup of tea. Or should we have elderberry wine, as this is such a special occasion?”
“Oh, but it’s so late … And really, I was just out for a walk …” Belatedly I realized the house peering out at us from between the trees was Tall Chimneys. Once the residence of Hector Rigglesworth and now home to Miss Ione Tunbridge. “I’ll come and have tea with you another time,” I promised as she bent down to pick up the cat, who had been about to leap once again over the hedge.
“But I want you to come in now.” I could hear the pout in her voice and there were no two ways about it—I was dying to see inside the house that figured so prominently in local legend. “Don’t disappoint me, Mrs. Haskell”—she was already heading back to the gate—“I don’t like it when I don’t get my way.” Her chuckle happened to coincide with a shiver of wind that made its way down my back. “We were always fated to meet. I’ve known that ever since I watched you going into the church on your wedding day. You looked so frightened and I wept for you, my dear.”
“That was only because I was late for the ceremony,” I said just as I had that morning when Vanessa and I had met the Lady in Black at St. Anselm’s.
“Your husband is very handsome.” The quickening breeze may have distorted her voice, because what should have been a compliment sounded more like an accusation. We were by this time halfway down the path to the front door of Tall Chimneys. And the way the trees crowded in upon us from all angles, obscuring all but the faintest patches of sky, made it easy to believe this place, as well as the library, was haunted. I remembered, as Miss Tunbridge stepped up to a porch overgrown with creeper, my picnic with Ben on the open green to the right of the house. What was it I had felt then on looking over here? I couldn’t put one name to it even when the sensation came flooding back. There were too many ingredients all mixed up together: oppression, spite, bitterness, and, perhaps worst of all, boredom.
“Here we are!” Miss Tunbridge opened the door into a narrow hall with very dark paper and a staircase twisting its way up one wall. There was a strong smell of cat; but even so I doubted that Puss Puss, for all his posturing as his mistress put him down, would be able to keep the mice holed up when they decided to cut loose and have a dinner dance. I pictured hundreds of beady eyes peering at us from under the skirting boards.
Dust and decay was the decorating theme of the smallish sitting room into which my hostess led me. Every inch was crammed with enough furniture to fill a junk shop, making it a squeeze to pick my way towards a chair. Sitting down meant taking the risk of breaking one of its legs or my own. The paper was peeling off the walls and the curtains hung in tatters at the windows; but surprisingly I began to feel better about the house.
“This is such a treat.” Miss Tunbridge skimmed between a couple of tables to lift a dusty bottle of wine from the top of a pair of library steps. And immediately I could see one of Hector Rigglesworth’s seven daughters bunching up her long skirts as she trod nimbly up the rungs to search the bookshelves for her favourite Bronte novel. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall—that would be the one, I decided. Page after page of long-suffering womanhood and unimpeded virtue. But, horror of horrors, one of the other sisters would have absconded to the back parlour with the book and Hector Rigglesworth must be turned out into the blustery wind to go down to the library to borrow a copy.
Miss Tunbridge’s voice broke into my reverie. “I don’t know what I did with the wineglasses. Could you make do with this little bud vase?”
“That would be perfect,” I said.
“And I’ll empty out this aspirin bottle and use it.” Sounding pleased as a child, she did the honours, then sat down on a lumpy chair a couple of tables away from me. “Oh, it is such fun to entertain again. When my parents were alive we always did things in such style. I was an only child and indulged in everything, Mrs. Haskell.”
“Please call me Ellie.”
“You are such a poppet.” Miss Tunbridge dropped her vial of wine onto the lap of her rusty black frock without appearing to notice, and clapped her wizened hands. “I didn’t like the woman you were with this morning. She is a great beauty, just as I once was, and even this late in my life, dear Ellie, I don’t invite competition.”
“Vanessa is getting married; that’s why she wanted to take a look inside the church.” I almost added, “Remember?” But that would have been rude and probably futile. Miss Tunbridge did not have a strong grip on reality. Nonetheless, I felt compelled to ask her about the former inhabitants of her home.
“The Rigglesworths?” She screwed up her face pettishly, adding deep wrinkles to the ones already there. “I don’t know why people make such a fuss about them. I’ve seen photographs of the daughters and not one was anything in the looks department. Old Hector gave a ball for them when the youngest turned seventeen, but I’
ve heard it was a very shabby affair.” Miss Tunbridge smiled. “My parents gave me a dance that was the talk of the county.”
“How lovely!”
“I was”—she stood and preened garishly—“very, very lovely! Everyone said so. I had four proposals of marriage that very night. All from extremely eligible men, but”—her voice fell away to a whisper—“I made the fatal mistake of accepting Hugh.”
“You must have felt so betrayed when Hugh didn’t show up on your wedding day.” Sympathy made me forget I had been hoping to steer her into showing me the house. And her reply made me realize it would be insensitive to prolong my visit.
“Ah, but Hugh did come, an hour before the ceremony—to tell me he had fallen in love with one of my bridesmaids. He said he hoped I would take it like a lady, and really I was very well behaved. I didn’t shed a tear when I hit him over the head with the poker and saw that he was dead. My parents were so dear about it. They buried him in the copse and said we would never, ever talk about it again. But of course that was silly of them, wasn’t it?” Miss Tunbridge smiled delightedly at me. “How could I possibly keep something like that to myself without going quite mad?”
Chapter
14
“Where is he?” Mrs. Malloy came clattering into the kitchen the next morning just as I was finishing giving Abbey and Tam their breakfast.
“Who?” I asked, dropping a spoon when she slammed the door behind her.
“Karisma, who else!”
“He went down to the station with Ben to meet Mrs. Swabucher, who’s coming in by train.” I washed off the spoon in the sink and returned it to Abbey, who was ready to start bawling from frustration at seeing her brother about to win the egg-and-spoon race. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Malloy, but you’ll have to wait awhile for the privilege of throwing yourself in Karisma’s arms.”
“I’ll throw meself at him all right, I’m going to kill him, that’s what I’m going to do.”
What was wrong with the woman? Had she been sniffing glue or, perish the thought, inhaled too much face powder? She certainly would appear to have flung her makeup on in a hurry. Her rouge was all over the place, and her eyebrows had been crayoned in with ultraviolet lipstick.
“Here”—I pulled out a chair—“you look as though you need to sit down.” The twins stopped eating to listen with open, eggy mouths to the conversation.
“I’m better on me feet.” Mrs. Malloy looked down at her high-heeled shoes, one of which was brown and the other blue. “If I sit down, I’ll never get up.” Her expression became even more grim. “When a woman of my age has been up all night, Mrs. H., something has to give—and it’s not me corsets. I was in that much of a state, let me tell you, that I put on the pair that belonged to me third husband, and there wasn’t much of him”—derisive snort—“in any department.”
“Why were you up all night?” I rescued Tam’s bowl before he could upend it on his head like a combat helmet.
“I wonder you can ask me that, Mrs. H., seeing as you had to know what went on in this very house last night. My sonny boy came home and talked me head off till the sun came up.”
“Oh,” I said, light finally dawning in the kitchen, “George was upset because Vanessa did rather ignore him once she got chatting with Karisma.”
“Upset?” Mrs. Malloy’s bosom threatened to explode through her purple blouse. “The poor lamb sobbed in me arms for hours!” She caught my eye and switched her gaze to the ceiling. “All right, so he got a bit misty-eyed, but a mother knows when her baby’s heart is breaking. And it may come as a surprise to you, Mrs. H.”—she pressed a hand to her forehead, taking off an eyebrow—“I’m not blaming your cousin.”
“You’re not?” I tried not to sound disappointed.
“I think I’ve misjudged her.” Mrs. Malloy’s tone of voice made clear who was to blame for that state of affairs. “She was as nice as ninepence when we was out for dinner last night and said if ever she’d been a bit cool, she was no end sorry. From the sound of it, someone had given her the idea I’m a bit uppity and inclined to look down me nose at people who don’t measure up to my intellectual level.”
“Did Vanessa sob in your arms too?”
“No need to be sarcastic, Mrs. H. The long and the short of it is she promised to toe the line as a daughter-in-law and I could see she was very fond of my George. It shouldn’t need me to tell you he’s over the moon over her, which is why I could slice that Karisma up one side and down the other for causing trouble between them.”
“Well, this is a change. I thought you were crazy about the man. You almost climbed inside the TV when he came on the other day.”
“We all have our moments of acting silly.” Mrs. Malloy watched me wipe off the twins’ faces and get them out of their chairs. “And I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at you going on about your business as if it’s all right for Karisma to break my lad’s heart. If you’d cared two hoots, you would have sent the bugger packing last night.”
“He didn’t do anything the least offensive.” I gathered up the breakfast things, stepped around Abbey and Tam, who were engaged in a tug-of-war, and went over to the sink. “He can’t help being gorgeous beyond belief. Even Ben got his nose out of joint and I certainly wasn’t fawning all over the man. In my opinion”—I squeezed Fairy Liquid into the washing-up bowl—“Karisma wasn’t particularly taken with Vanessa. She made a joke about his hair that was in extremely bad taste. But your future daughter-in-law is still in the Land of Nod, and I can’t speak for what went on while I was gone from the house last night. When I got back, George had left and, apart from the hall, the house was in darkness.”
“Just what time did you come rolling home?” Mrs. Malloy spoke from the depths of her newly-fired maternal instinct.
“Late.” I left a bowl bobbing on the soapy water, dried off my hands, and sat down in the nearest chair. The memory of my scurry home from Tall Chimneys brought back all the creepy feelings that had accompanied me around every tortuous twist and turn of Cliff Road.
“Well, there’s no need to snap me head off.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t get much sleep either.”
“Oh, like that, was it?” Mrs. Malloy overcame her reluctance to take a load off her feet and availed herself of a pew. “Mr. H. was showing you all the tricks up his pajama sleeve so you’d know he’s twice the man Karisma could ever be when it comes time for some how’s-your-father.”
“It wasn’t anything like that,” I said hastily, hoping Abbey and Tam were too preoccupied with setting up camp inside the pantry to pay attention to Mrs. Malloy’s risqué talk. “Ben was dead to the world when I got into bed. And talking about D-E-A-D people—the reason I hardly slept …” My voice trailed off as I wondered if I should be bringing up the subject.
“I think I know what you’re about to say, and we’ll be here till next week if you’re going to spell out every other word.” Mrs. Malloy had brightened visibly. “It’s all over the village about Mr. Babcock, and if you ask me, it’s more than a bit fishy him getting called up to the pearly gates when he hasn’t been married a month. Think about it, Mrs. H.: That middle-aged bride of his turned up here out of nowhere a year or so back, and for all we know, she could be a regular Bluebeard.”
“Rubbish,” I said, putting no stock in Vanessa’s having said something along the same lines. “Mr. Babcock had a bad heart.”
But Mrs. Malloy shook her head at my naïveté. “Use your noggin. Talk about eligible bachelors: The poor sod already had one foot in the grave, so no one bats an eye when she gives him a shove from the rear. Mark my words, she’ll deck herself out in black from head to toe, with a veil, no less. A sure sign of guilt if ever there was one … now, why are you looking at me like that, Mrs. H.?”
“Because,” I said, “the reason I hardly slept is that when I went for a walk last night I met Ione Tunbridge, the Virgin Bride, otherwise identifiable as the Lady in Black, and when she took me into her house for a glass of eld
erberry wine—”
“She told you she’d bumped off her feller on what was supposed to be their wedding day because he’d been up to high jinks with one of the bridesmaids, and the good-for-nothing lies a-mouldering under one of the fir trees in the garden?” Mrs. Malloy raised her remaining purple eyebrow and added a knowing smirk for good measure.
“You mean it’s no secret?”
“And there was you, Mrs. H., thinking you’d been singled out to hear the woman’s true confessions because you’ve got such a nice kind face or whatever. Well, sorry to burst your bubble, my duck! Ione Tunbridge has been telling that story for years and she’s still walking around free as a dicky bird. So what does that tell you?”
“The police are too busy with traffic duty to have her in for questioning?”
“No need to get all defensive.” Mrs. Malloy assumed her most condescending expression. “Word is they did have a poke around her place with their little buckets and spades. But I don’t reckon they had high hopes of hitting the jackpot, seeing as the old crone has to my knowledge told at least three versions of what happened to the missing bridegroom.”
“That doesn’t mean she didn’t kill him.”
“If my opinion counts for peanuts”—Mrs. M. could have been St. Paul addressing the Corinthians—“I say the young man did a bunk with the bridesmaid, they changed their names and went into hiding because in them days jilting a woman, on her wedding day no less, meant you didn’t get invited to tea at the vicarage never again. And Ione Tunbridge has spent all these years wishing she could have got her hands round his throat.”
“She told me she hit him with the poker.”
“That’s my point, Mrs. H.” Her smile was complacent. “It’s never the same story twice. So if the police aren’t lying awake nights wondering if they should dig up every tree within a mile of Tall Chimneys, I don’t for the life of me know why you’re all worked up over the ramblings of a batty old woman.”
How to Murder the Man of Your Dreams Page 22
