The Embroidered Sunset

by Joan Aiken

  Lucy started for York in a drenching and purposeful rain; summer had turned to autumn. Leaves hurried from the wind-battered trees in great flocks; the whole upland countryside looked abused and bedraggled.

  On her way she had the luck to catch a five-minute fill-in before the afternoon concert: Max Benovek playing Scarlatti sonatas.

  Darling Max, if it weren’t for the thought of you in between times, I swear I’d go frantic. Wilbie’s being just as cussed as ever, and Aunt Fennel’s decidedly queer today; I’m worried about her. Can it be that she really isn’t Aunt Fennel, and Wilbie’s arrival has put her in dread of discovery?

  It was quite agreeable to go in out of the wet into the opulent Turkey-carpet and potted-palm atmosphere of the Royal Turpin Hotel—until she saw her uncle, just the same as ever.

  “Hello, Uncle Wilbie, hi, Russ.”

  “So now, Princess dear, just tell us the whole story, will you?”

  “Not much to tell, really,” said Lucy.

  She looked across the tea-table at smiling, pink-faced little Wilbie, hating him just as much as always. Seeing him again made her realise how life had changed for her since leaving his home. Her love for funny old Aunt Fennel, her love (yes, all right, wise guy Adnan!) for Max Benovek had introduced her to a new region of experience, and she was most profoundly reluctant to make a present of any part of this to Uncle Wilbie, grinning at her with plump malice, munching on buttery crumpets, reducing everything to plot and counter-plot, cheat, scheme, or be cheated.

  “So where are all the old girl’s pictures?”

  “Scattered all over the village. Nobody will part; they are thought to be lucky. Adnan, the doctor who looks after the old people at the home, he’s got nine or a dozen. But he won’t part either. Well, he did offer me one.”

  “Big of him. Where’s he live?”

  “In Kirby.”

  “I’ll get after him,” said Russ.

  Lucy started to speak, and checked herself. Adnan was a tough proposition; she was not concerned about him, he could take care of himself. But she decided not to mention Colonel Linton. He was a nice old boy; besides, he was Lucy’s preserve.

  “And what about the old girl’s identity? You’re still honestly not sure? How d’you know she’s not Miss Howe?”

  “I think she’s just as likely to be Aunt Fennel pretending to be Miss Howe pretending to be Aunt Fennel.”

  “Why’d she do that, for pete’s sake?”

  “I don’t know,” said Lucy. “Sometimes I get the idea she’s not sure now herself which of them she is. She thinks somebody killed her friend and now wants to kill her.”

  “Sounds crazy to me,” said Wilbie. “Any chance of getting her into a mental home?”

  “Good heavens, no; she’s not in the least crazy,” said Lucy, keeping calm with an effort.

  “Well, Princess, you’ve made a pretty fair balls-up of everything, haven’t you,” Wilbie said genially.

  Lucy exploded with temper. “I like that! I found her, didn’t I? I got her out of that ghastly old drunk’s house and fixed her up in a decent place where she’s happy—”

  “And what about the pictures? And what about the cash? I suppose you spent that on this amazing jalopy I see parked outside?”

  “The cash is here,” said Lucy angrily. She slapped down a pile of American Express cheques. “All except ten dollars which I’ll pay you when I get my wages from Mrs. Marsham.”

  Wilbie whistled. “So! Where did the car come from then?”

  “She found it in a wood,” suggested Russ, who had kept silent during this exchange. Lucy, studying him from time to time—yes, he really was amazingly like Harold Marsham except for the difference in colouring—found his ironic eye always on her, which annoyed her still further.

  “Max Benovek gave it to me, if you want to know!”

  “Really? That’s the guy who’s going to teach you piano? The character who’s dying? That was mighty decent of him—wasn’t it, Russ?”

  “He doesn’t sound all that dying to me,” said Russ. “He must have liked your playing an awful lot.”

  “Wonder what he expects in return for the car?” said Wilbie. “I mean—we all know our little Princess is quite a genius on the keyboard, but this seems quite unusual—or does he deal out sweet-pea-coloured automobiles to all his lady fr—pardon me, his lady pupils?”

  My goodness, he does loathe me, thought Lucy, meeting Wilbie’s twinkling little eyes over the greasy crumpet-plate.

  Hating him so much herself, she should not have been surprised at the power of the hate he felt in return, but it still came as quite a shock. The fact that she had won Benovek’s approval seemed to have intensified Wilbie’s feelings against her to the point where they were almost beyond his control.

  “I’m not staying here to be sneered at,” she said furiously, pushing back her chair. “I’ve told you all I know, and you know where to find Aunt Fennel if you want her. I’m off.” She slung her duffel coat over her shoulders and marched out into the downpour.

  “Hey, Lucy, come on back!” called Wilbie in annoyance, grabbing up his watch from beside his plate and starting after her.

  “Oh, what’s the good?” said Russ calmly. “She won’t come back. You shouldn’t have needled her about the Benovek guy. It certainly does bug you that she’s the only member of the family with the creative streak, doesn’t it? Too bad Corale’s such a dead loss.”

  “You keep your opinions to yourself,” said Wilbie angrily. “If you want to be useful, look up this doctor’s address, what’s his name, Adnan. And hire us a car—something with a four-wheel drive and good tyres and plenty of room in back.—What’s all that commotion outside?”

  “Car crash,” Russ presently returned to report.

  “It would be too much to hope that our little Lucy was involved?”

  “Afraid so. Truck overturned on some guy just as he was getting out of his car; it was loaded up with newsprint and he’s still buried underneath.”

  “Oh,” said Wilbie, losing interest. “That an evening paper? What’s on at the movies?”

  Lucy drove back to Appleby in a black rage, going much faster, overtaking more recklessly than was her normal habit. Just outside Appleby, however, she was obliged to slow to a crawl, for the travelling hedger was negotiating a particularly narrow stretch of lane at its maximum fifteen miles per hour and the driver could not or did not choose to let her by; very likely he could not hear her, for the tractor and the electric shears together made a formidable stuttering roar. At last he pulled in and halted at the foot of the track leading up to High Beck; Lucy angrily shot past and did not remember until she was halfway to Wildfell Hall that she had promised to go and look for a black A-mark on the stray tabby that roamed the glen.

  “Oh hell,” she thought, “I’ll do it tomorrow. Aunt Fennel will just have to wait another day. After all the cat seems perfectly fit and well; probably has a high old diet of rabbit. Or maybe Colonel Linton feeds it.”

  The rage against Uncle Wilbie had exhausted her; she felt heavy and aching with it, hardly able to face the prospect of giving the old people their supper and shepherding them to bed.

  Mrs. Marsham met her in the hall.

  “Oh—Miss Culpepper. Thank goodness you’re back.”

  Lucy’s heart sank. “Is anything wrong?” she asked, observing Mrs. Marsham’s pallor and distraught appearance. “Not Aunt Fennel?”

  “No—no, it’s Harold, my son. He’s been in an accident in York, he’s in the infirmary there, they just phoned me. I’d like to go at once. Can you see to things here? Adnan’s coming either tonight or tomorrow—old Miss Copell’s got a bit of a temperature.”

  “I’m so sorry—that’s awful for you. Yes, I’ll keep an eye on things—hope you have better news by the time you get there. Nothing special that needs doing?”


  “No—just the usual routine. Oh, I seem to have lost one of my contact lenses—they’re insured, as they’re so tiny that once you drop them they’re almost impossible to find—but if you should come across it, could you put it in the box on my desk?”

  “Sure.”

  Mrs. Marsham hurried out through the kitchen. Lucy followed, and found Fiona stirring a massive cauldron of baked beans.

  “Meals—meals—I must say, looking after just one great-aunt would be a nice change. Did you hear about Mrs. Marsham’s son? Poor wretch—sixteen tons of newsprint fell on him—it took them an hour to fish him out. He isn’t expected to live.”

  “Poor woman—how terrible for her.”

  During the evening Uncle Wilbie telephoned Lucy.

  “Hi, Princess!” He sounded perfectly cordial; they might have parted that afternoon on the most dulcet terms. “Just ringing to tell you that Russ and I are shifting camp; going on to Kirby. To the Promenade Hotel there, if you should want to get hold of me.”

  “Oh really?” said Lucy coldly. “Tomorrow?”

  “No, tonight. We finished our meetings in York and I got a sudden yen to sniff the ocean, found the Promenade had a couple of rooms, so we’re just about to flit. Might look in on you tomorrow now we’re so much nearer.”

  “Tomorrow’s not very convenient for a visit,” Lucy said drily. “The woman who runs the home has had to rush off as her son’s been involved in an accident, and we’re very short-staffed.”

  “I heard about the accident, it was on the local radio news; happened just outside this hotel. Poor thing,” Uncle Wilbie said cheerfully. “Oh well, if you don’t want us tomorrow we might go up and take a look at High Beck cottage, for old times’ sake.”

  “I thought you couldn’t remember if you had even been there. Now you must excuse me; I’ve a lot to do.”

  Lucy locked the front and back doors, checked that the convalescents were sleeping peacefully and that Miss Copell was no worse, and then dozed on a camp bed she had made up for herself on the landing, since Mrs. Marsham, distracted by worry, no doubt, had locked the door leading up to her own quarters on the third floor. The night passed without event. Fiona had been obliged to return home to see to her baby, but promised to be back by ten in the morning, and Mrs. Thwaite’s Ann had been persuaded to arrive at seven, with the milk. Eunice, the sulky girl from Kirby, also turned up, so routine went on more or less as usual.

  “Did you go and have a look at the tabby puss?” Aunt Fennel asked hopefully when Lucy took up her porridge.

  “Aunt Fen, I’m terribly sorry, I was late getting back and I didn’t.”

  “Could you today, dearie, do you think? It is so much on my mind.”

  “Aunt Fen, love, I don’t know if I shall be able today—we are pretty hard-pressed, you know, with poor Mrs. Marsham away. She rang half an hour ago to say her son is still in a critical state and she can’t leave him.”

  Aunt Fennel treated this news with the inattention frequently accorded by elderly persons to details about individuals with whom they are not personally acquainted; she said pertinaciously, “I worry so when I think of that poor puss with no one to feed it. Try and go, dearie.”

  “I can’t till the doctor’s been, anyway.”

  The old lady was sitting in a bedside chair eating breakfast while Lucy straightened her covers; after a pause she said plaintively,

  “My right knee’s rather stiff today, dearie. Do you suppose you’d have time to put on a hot compress?”

  Really, they are like children, Lucy thought, sighing; if they can’t get attention one way, they try something else. But this seemed a request that could not reasonably be ignored, so she said, “I’ll do it at once, before Adnan comes,” and hurried off to get hot water, lint, and Radiant Salts.

  “Uncle Wilbie wanted to come here today, but I told him it wouldn’t be convenient,” she said, rubbing the knee vigorously.

  “Oh well, that’s a good thing then,” Aunt Fennel said in something more nearly approaching her normal manner. She added thoughtfully, “I never did like either of those boys, but Wilbie was by far the worse.”

  Lucy’s hands checked a moment in their rubbing; she was on the point of speaking, but did not.

  “Both bone selfish, both dishonest, both lazy,” Aunt Fennel went on. “How James could have had such a pair of sons! Nothing would stop them when it was a case of getting something they wanted. Wilbie was stronger than Paul, of course—”

  “My father wasn’t dishonest!” burst out Lucy.

  “Oh, but he was, dearie.” Aunt Fennel gave her a brief, vague glance, as if she had almost forgotten Lucy’s presence. “Yes, just as bad as Wilbie, only not so clever with it. Well, I remember when he stole Wilbie’s new camera and Wilbie found out—my goodness, then there was trouble. It always upset Wilbie terribly when someone else tried to cheat him, because he was such a sly one himself!”

  “I don’t believe you.” Lucy’s hands were trembling; she poured more hot water into the basin and picked up another piece of lint. “Anyway they were probably only children then—how old were they?”

  “Then later on it was money, and to make matters worse they were both after the same girl, only Paul got her,” Aunt Fennel went on dreamily. “Paul had the charm—girls never liked Wilbie-”

  Lucy heard an echo of Wilbie’s voice: “With all his faults, Paul was a dear lovable fellow—at least the girls loved him—”

  It’s not true, she thought. Aunt Fennel’s just teasing me, because I wouldn’t go and look for her cat. It’s probably the thought of Wilbie in the neighbourhood that’s put her in this funny mood.

  “Paul was musical, too, and Wilbie was jealous of that, because he hadn’t got a scrap of the artist in him. But Wilbie was the stronger, oh yes; Paul couldn’t bear responsibility; he abandoned his wife and child, went to Canada and died. Whereas Wilbie’s done well, I believe—”

  Angrily, heedlessly, Lucy dipped the lint in the bowl, gave it a swift squeeze and dropped it on Aunt Fennel’s knee. The old lady flinched.

  “Oh, dearie, that’s hot! It’s far too hot. Take it off, quick!”

  With a pang of remorse Lucy snatched it off and saw the red square that had begun to rise at once on the thin old leg.

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Fennel, I’m terribly sorry! I wasn’t thinking. I don’t believe it’s going to be too bad, though. Here, quick, I’ll put a bit of salve on it,” she added contritely. But Aunt Fennel shrank away from her hand.

  “Never-never mind,” she quavered. “I’ll see to it myself! I’d sooner, thank you. You take away the basin.”

  She ignored Lucy’s outstretched hand with the salve, and tottered with shaky dignity back to her bed.

  “I’ll have a little rest; that was rather a shock.” And when Lucy followed to turn back the covers, Aunt Fennel, as if expecting another act of violence, retreated to her dressing-table, where she started rummaging in a drawer full of tubes and little bottles, casting one of her old distrustful glances at Lucy.

  Oh, my goodness, does she think that Wilbie put me up to this?

  “Please let me make it better, Aunt Fennel!”

  “Don’t bother, thank you,” the old lady said. A bell rang. “Won’t that be the doctor? Hadn’t you better go, if Mrs. Marsham’s away?”

  Angry and unhappy, Lucy went towards the bedroom door. “I’ll come back soon and see how you are,” she said.

  “Don’t bother, thank you,” Aunt Fennel repeated. She added, “If it should be Wilbie, say that I don’t want to see him,” and shut the door gently but firmly behind Lucy’s back.

  XI

  “Brr!” exclaimed Adnan. “These Yorkshire fogs! A hot tot of eggnog, dearest Miss Lucy, prepared by your skilful hand, would be most acceptable.”

  Lucy had been too busy all morning to take account of the weather. No
w, glancing past him through the glass-paned front door she saw that thick, slow-moving coils of fog completely shrouded the park from view.

  “But what is the matter, dear girl? You seem upset—agitated. The pulse and breathing are accelerated, cheeks flushed, the expression is discomposed—pray tell me what is troubling you? Are you having difficulties in Mrs. Marsham’s absence?”

  “No, no—I mean, it’s not the patients. Old Miss Copell isn’t any worse.” She led him upstairs.

  “No,” he agreed, when he had inspected Miss Copell. “She is on the mend. It is not another case of measles—merely a feverish cold. We need not apprehend another Crabtree episode—though I must reiterate, dear Lucy, that your notions about misuse of measles serum are utterly unfounded. Try not to catch this cold though—you are not as strong as you like to pretend. Now tell me what has disturbed you?”

  “Oh—” said Lucy reluctantly leading the way to the kitchen, as he seemed bent on eggnog, “it’s too trivial. I had slight words with my aunt, that’s all. It was entirely my fault, too.”

  “Tell Papa Mustapha all about it.”

  Quite without intending to, she found, as she beat up the eggnog, that she was doing just that.

  “Ah yes,” he sympathised. “Very undermining, I quite agree. Very demoralising, to find that the father whose image you have set up on high all this time is in fact no better than the detested uncle. A most disagreeable shock.”

  “And the worst of it is,” said Lucy, sipping her own eggnog and not looking at Adnan, “that I remembered something else. It’s queer, I remembered it a couple of days ago, but I wouldn’t let myself remember it completely. It was a memory of a picnic with my father, and it was a goodbye picnic, because he was going right away afterwards, catching a train that would take him to a boat. After we’d said goodbye to him, my mother picked me up and held me desperately tight; I can remember her saying, I don’t know if it was to me or to somebody else, ‘The truth is, Paul doesn’t want us; he’s only too glad to get away.’ It’s queer. I’d forgotten that.”