The Embroidered Sunset

by Joan Aiken

  “I think that would be best, dear.”

  “Shall I say good-bye to Mrs. Tilney and the others for you?”

  Occasionally Aunt Fennel showed an unexpected vein of calm unsentimentality.

  “No, dearie. They didn’t mean anything to me and we shan’t miss each other. Just you bring my things out.”

  On the long, dark drive up to Appleby, Lucy, partly to break the silence of undischarged question and emotional fatigue that had fallen between them, risked a topic that had been in her mind for days.

  “Aunt Fennel?”

  The old lady came out of a fit of abstraction.

  “Yes, lovey?”

  “You knew my father quite well when he was young, before he was married?”

  There was another considerable pause. Then Aunt Fennel said,

  “Yes, I did, dear. Quite well. Both those boys. Their father and mother died when they were in their teens, you see, so I was their only relative.”

  There was some qualification in her tone; Lucy could not analyse it. She went on, “I’d like it very much if you’d tell me a bit about my father. Nobody ever has, you see—except Uncle Wilbie, and everything he says sounds like a great big jealous lie.”

  Aunt Fennel was silent for another long time.

  “There’s not really much to tell, dearie.”

  “There must be something,” Lucy persisted.

  “Well, dearie, I’ll think, and tell you some day,” Aunt Fennel said, with that same light, unexpected decisiveness. “But not just now. Not this evening. After all that fright, I’m a little bit tired.”

  Feeling justly rebuked, Lucy drove on over the dark moorland.

  Guessing that the old people retired early, she had expected Wildfell Hall to be cloaked in repose and obscurity. But this was far from the case. Windows on several floors were lit and uncurtained; a considerable bustle prevailed.

  “There you are!” Mrs. Marsham exclaimed, coming into the portico as Lucy helped Aunt Fennel out of the car. “I thought you said you’d be here at tea-time.”

  “We were held up; sorry.” Lucy had no intention of going into explanations; Mrs. Marsham did not wait for them.

  “Well, now you’ve come, you can make yourself useful. I’ve put your aunt in a small bedroom with one other old lady on the first floor; she’d better go straight to bed.”

  “She hasn’t had any supper,” Lucy said coldly.

  “Well, you can take up a tray to her room.”

  Lucy was ready to rebel against this high-handed treatment, but Aunt Fennel interposed mildly, “I’d like that, dearie. I really am rather tired.”

  Swallowing her resentment, Lucy helped Aunt Fennel upstairs to a small, pleasant room, probably once a dressing room, which looked out on to the front sweep. One of the two beds was already occupied. As soon as Mrs. Marsham had left them with their luggage, instructing Lucy to come to the kitchen as soon as she had settled her aunt, the inmate of the second bed shot upright. Lucy recognised one of the two old ladies they had seen quarrelling about the ginger cat. The small, beady-eyed bald one; Chiddock, that was the name.

  “Had measles?” she inquired importantly.

  “Yes, both of us. Why, has anyone come down with it?” Lucy rapidly extracted and disposed Aunt Fennel’s immediate necessaries, pulled her cubicle curtain, and turned back the gay knitted-patchwork bedcover. “Here’s your nightie, Aunt Fennel; I’ll run and get you a hot-water bottle in a moment.”

  “My goodness, yes! Four or five of ‘em have temperatures and two has rashes—matron’s in a rare old taking,” Mrs. Chiddock said with satisfaction at being able to convey such dramatic tidings. “She hardly knows where to put ‘em all for quarantine. And that Mrs. Crabtree’s very bad—got pneumonia with it. She ought to go to hospital really, I heard the doctor say, but she’s too ill to be moved.”

  Lucy felt more sympathy with the hard-pressed Mrs. Marsham and accelerated Aunt Fennel’s slow progress into bed.

  “There you are, Aunt Fen—hot bottle, rosemary, raspberry tablets—you know where the bathroom is, one door along—now I’ll just nip down and get your supper-tray. Have you had yours?” she asked Mrs. Chiddock.

  “Yes, dear, thank you. The rooms across the landing are the quarantines. Mind you don’t go up to the next floor, that’s matron’s private quarters, she won’t allow anyone up there. Where were you living before you came here, dear?” inquired Mrs. Chiddock of Aunt Fennel, obviously hoping for a good gossip. But Aunt Fennel took off her hearing aid and hung it with ostentatious care over the end of her bed.

  “I’m afraid I’m nearly stone-deaf,” she said loudly and slowly. “I shan’t be able to hear you right across the room.”

  Mrs. Chiddock sank back, disappointed, to her transistor radio, as Lucy left the room.

  In the kitchen Mrs. Marsham was darting efficiently about, boiling, sterilising, preparing hot drinks. “Help yourself to whatever you please out of the larder for your aunt,” she told Lucy. “Do you mind waiting a bit for your own meal? I’m all behind with the bed patients and I’m expecting the doctor back for Mrs. Crabtree.”

  Hah, Lucy thought sourly; I bet he won’t like having to come all the way up here at this time of night. Him and his family planning clinics.

  She prepared a tray and a hot drink for Aunt Fennel and, having seen her supplied, was kept on the run by Mrs. Marsham for a couple of hours, taking aspirin and drinks to feverish patients, remaking beds, escorting tottering old inmates to the bathroom and emptying the slops of others who were too feeble to get up.

  Real F. Nightingale stuff, she said to herself. Well, you asked for it and you got it. Dear Max, maybe you wouldn’t approve of this, but really it’s as well someone should be doing the job, there don’t seem many other candidates. Apart from herself the help seemed to consist of a sulky girl from Kirby who grumbled that it was really her evening off and she didn’t know what mum would say she was sure. Lucy was impressed, nonetheless, at how immaculate Mrs. Marsham succeeded in keeping Wildfell Hall despite the present crisis, despite the evidently impermanent and unreliable nature of her hired help. Every room she entered was spotless and tidy, floors shone with polish, the old people were plainly well fed and well cared for; what a contrast to Mrs. Tilney’s ramshackle establishment. And yet, were the inmates really happy? There seemed an air of tension and anxiety about the place; but that could easily be attributable, Lucy conceded, to the epidemic. Or perhaps it was purely her own subjective reaction; it had been a long hard day. And was not over yet. At half-past ten the front-door bell rang. Lucy and Mrs. Marsham were trying to shepherd back to his own bed a slightly delirious old man who had been found wandering down the hallway under the impression that he must hurry or he would miss the night train to Euston.

  “You answer it,” panted Mrs. Marsham. “I’ve got him now. Come on, Mr. Cordwainer; I’ve booked a sleeper and they’re keeping it for you, but they won’t hold the train forever! I just hope Adnan’s brought plenty of sedation; it’s going to take a king-size dose to keep this one down.”

  Grinning, Lucy ran downstairs and opened the front door to Adnan. At sight of him, standing between the pillars of the portico, her amusement faded; she remembered too vividly the heart-wrenching anxiety of that afternoon.

  “Ah, so you are all safely installed, dear Lucy Snowe!” he greeted her. “How delightful that is; it quite reconciles me to the need for this uncongenial visit. And the aunt—she is snugly bedded down I trust?”

  “No thanks to you,” Lucy said icily.

  His black brows shot up. They were thick, like furry caterpillars. Tonight he wore a sheepskin car coat, with exotic embroidery, over a black whipcord boiler suit and Beau Brummel white stock. Despite her anger with him, Lucy could not resist looking to see if there were spurs on his black boots; there were not, but only just not; she felt he might have left them in
the car.

  “No thanks to me?” he said, but Mrs. Marsham leaned over the banisters and called in a low voice,

  “Come up, Doctor, will you? I’d like you to look at Mrs. Crabtree right away.”

  There was a long conference over Mrs. Crabtree, whose state, apparently, was causing grave anxiety. While this went on, Lucy, who had not been allowed into Mrs. Crabtree’s sickroom, carried drinks to two other feverish patients and hot-water bottles to a whole series of unmeasled inmates who had been roused by all the disturbance and were fretfully complaining of cold, for the moorland night had turned sharp; she found a store of extra blankets and dealt them round. She also settled Aunt Fennel for the night.

  “I am glad you brought me here, dearie,” the old lady said drowsily. “This seems to be a very well-run place. I’m sure I shall be happy here.”

  With a wry grin over this, Lucy wondered where her own sleeping quarters were, and how soon she was likely to get to them.

  About to leave the room, she was startled by a whisper from the other corner.

  “Mrs. Crabtree gone yet?”

  “Gone?”

  “Gone. Died.”

  “What makes you so sure she’s going to die?” Lucy snapped.

  “Matron won’t take any pains to save her,” Mrs. Chiddock whispered with assurance. “Not after Alice kicking her blessed puss-cat like that. ‘Sides, they was having terrible words last night. Heard ‘em myself. Alice was very bad in the night—she slept in here, see—she asked me to go to matron for something to make her better. You go yourself, I said, you were the one said I took cheese off the trolley.”

  Spiteful old hag, Lucy thought.

  “So she went upstairs to matron’s room. That’s not allowed, says I to myself, there’s bound to be trouble. Sure enough, a few minutes after I heard ‘em at it, hammer and tongs. You know you’re not allowed up here, says matron, couldn’t you wait twenty minutes till I come on night rounds? I’d a bin dead by then with this pain, says Alice, your evening rounds wouldn’t a done me much good then, would they? None of your impertinence, my lady, says matron, or you can whistle for your medicine. Oh, I couldn’t help laughing. You mark my words, matron won’t take any pains to keep her alive.”

  Removing herself without regret from these ghoulish opinions, Lucy carried a load of bed linen downstairs and stuffed it into the Bendix. Shortly afterwards Mrs. Marsham appeared looking harassed.

  “Make a pot of tea for me and the doctor, could you, while we finish the inoculations? We’ll be down in five minutes or so. I expect you could do with a cup yourself.”

  “I would prefer eggnog,” Adnan called softly and authoritatively over the banisters, “that is, if Miss Lucy knows how to make it?”

  “Sure I know,” muttered Lucy going to the pantry for eggs. “Certain you wouldn’t like a four-course meal while I’m at it?”

  However, on reflection eggnog seemed a good idea; she was hungry herself but too tired for solid food. She found eggs, milk, and a simple but efficient electric mixer like a power corkscrew; Mrs. Marsham, no doubt because of the unreliable labour force at her disposal, had equipped her establishment with all the most superior mechanical aids; there was a deep-freeze room, a self-cleaning oven, an infra-red grill, an electric scrubber, polisher, potato peeler. Lucy wondered how often they all went wrong.

  “Eggnog, aha, delicious—she really does know how to make it!” said Adnan, materialising in the kitchen doorway. “I suppose you would not have a drop of cognac to put in it, dear Mrs. Marsham?”

  Without replying, Mrs. Marsham unlocked a cupboard and brought out a bottle of Martell.

  “Would you like some?” she said to Lucy. “I must say you’ve been a big help this evening. Don’t know how we’d have managed without you.” The words were civil enough but her tone and her eyes lacked warmth; she’s the sort that hates to be under an obligation or beaten in an argument, Lucy thought; won’t ever admit she could be wrong.

  There was a thump and a groan from upstairs.

  “If that’s old Mr. Cordwainer fallen out of bed again—” Mrs. Marsham exclaimed angrily, “I’ll really give him what-for this time.” She ran up the stairs, the light of battle in her eye, brisk as if she were just beginning the day.

  “Wonderful woman,” remarked Adnan, sipping his eggnog. “How glad I am that I am not married to her. Even as only one of the four wives permitted by the Koran she would be a pain in the neck.”

  He glanced sidelong at Lucy for her reactions to this, but she, having finished her own drink, was silently stacking crockery in the dishwasher.

  “Dear Miss Lucy, I appear to be under a cloud. Why is that, tell me, pray.” Placing his hand on his heart he sang softly,

  “I am under a cloud,

  Bloody but unbowed,

  Yet five times to the girl I cry

  Why, dear Lucy, tell me why?

  “I hope you catch the Wordsworthian reference? When I came to the north of England I was careful to read up on all the appropriate literature! Sweet Lucy, child of nature, tell me how I have displeased you?”

  “When I got back this afternoon I found that my aunt had left the dentist’s hours before. I couldn’t find her for ages and I was terribly worried about her.”

  “Now, how could I have known how long Fawcett would take?” Adnan asked reasonably.

  “Also you said it would be quite okay to leave my car in Market Street, whereas in fact the police towed it away, and I had a lot of trouble and was lucky not to be fined.”

  He burst out laughing.

  “Alas! Humble apologies! Now I see why I am in the rogues’ gallery along with the rapacious uncle who wishes to grab all the paintings and stop paying the pension—what is his name, by the way?”

  “The same as mine—not that it seems any concern of yours. Why do you ask?”

  “My father—a man of great financial acumen—in the old days he would have been a Pasha—bought me some shares in an American firm called Culpepper’s Pharmaceuticals; they continue to rise and I am very happy about them. Would that be your uncle’s concern?”

  “Yes, that’s Uncle Wilbie.” Lucy grinned a private grin into the bowels of the Splashmaster.

  “Please turn this way when you smile; I do so admire the diagonal incisors! And also tell me what you are smiling about? I suppose the uncle’s firm is so prosperous because it peddles heroin grown by poor exploited Turks?”

  “I don’t know about the heroin—though, as I do know my uncle, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

  “Then why the smile? Share this piece of irresistible humour with me—think how hard I have been working, how much I need cheering!”

  Untrustworthy Adnan might be, a self-seeker, a dark horse, but there was no doubt that he would also be the person to appreciate an item of information that had caused Lucy exquisite amusement when she learned it by chance a year ago; her only frustration since then had been that there was not a single soul in whom she could confide it.

  “Oh well, it’s just—my uncle, you see, is so very respectable, he lives a lovely executive and golf-playing life and my aunt is wellborn and knows the right people and my cousin knows even righter people and is scheduled to marry some Rockefeller—”

  “So? All this is admirable—I see nothing to laugh at.”

  “All this admirable propriety is based on the immense sales of a little article called the Hymen Holsterette.”

  Adnan exploded with laughter.

  “H.H.! I see! No wonder this worthy man now wishes to launch out as a collector of the arts. And do the aunt and cousin know on what their prosperity rests?”

  “Goodness, no!”

  “So how did you discover?”

  “Oh, some business acquaintance of my uncle’s that he hadn’t seen in a long time happened to meet him once when he’d had to take me in to B
oston to get my eyes tested, and addressed him as H.H., and my uncle shut him up pretty smartly. Those aren’t my uncle’s initials, so they kind of stuck in my mind. And when I picked up the information from a boy at summer camp that this particular article was called a double-H, it all clicked into place.”

  “You have no real proof, however?”

  “Oh yes I have, because then I pretended I knew all about it to Russ—to my uncle’s personal assistant, and he was annoyed—and kind of scared too—said I’d better not let Wilbie find out I knew or there’d be real trouble.”

  “So you did not?”

  “No. Not that he could do anything.”

  Adnan shook his head at her.

  “They followed from the snowy bank

  Those footmarks one by one

  Into the middle of the plank

  And further there were none!

  “Lucy, Lucy, your talent for finding out about things is liable to get you pushed under a train one of these days unless you keep it in check. You are too shrewd a girl for your own good, I sadly fear! While you are resident in this establishment I should particularly warn you—”

  Mrs. Marsham came back into the kitchen, rolling down her immaculate sleeves.

  “Still here?” she said, not very hospitably, to the doctor. “I thought you’d have gone already. They’re all settled now. But you’ll be up in the morning early, to see Mrs. Crabtree?”

  “Yes,” he said sighing. “She might make it. She has a tough constitution, that one. Have you given me back the box of B-serum?”

  “It’s by your bag there.”

  “Ah; thank you. I will say good night then. Good night,” he said formally to Lucy, and walked out through the hall with his rapid, assured step. The front door slammed and they heard the Alfa roar off down the drive.

  “Do you want me to spell you on night-nursing?” asked Lucy stifling a yawn.

  “No thanks. I have my son staying upstairs, he’ll give me a hand if necessary. Come along and I’ll show you your room. It’s in one of the cottages, I’m afraid; with all the quarantines I haven’t a single room free in this house. We might as well go round in your car; bring your bag.”