The Embroidered Sunset

by Joan Aiken

  “Why so? One does make haste to forget such episodes.”

  “No, but I’d remembered it once before; at a time when I was living with my uncle and overheard him saying he wished they could find somewhere else for me to live because I didn’t fit in with them. I remembered then, and forgot again afterwards; isn’t it amazing how dishonest one can be with oneself?”

  “On the contrary, dear Lucy Snowe, it strikes me that you are a singularly honest and a particularly nice girl. In fact,” said Adnan, glancing round to make sure he was unobserved and then rapidly kneeling down on the red-and-black quarry tiles, showing, for once, a remarkable lack of care for his mustard cavalry cords, “in fact, Lucy dear, I shall be very pleased if you will do me the honour to make one of the four wives allowed me by the Koran (though, alas, frowned on by the Turkish legal system). More I cannot say!”

  More Lucy could not say either. She stared at him, dumbfounded.

  “You are taken aback,” he said, getting up as briskly as he had knelt, but not letting go of her hand. “Alas, you still hanker after this Benovek—a most romantic, unpractical aspiration I do assure you, dear Lucy! Now, please, I urge you, take time to consider my proposal carefully—take as long as you wish. I should so much enjoy escorting you back to Turkey! I am supposed to return at the end of this year, and to tell you the truth I do not in the least wish to go—but if I could carry you with me, so cool and sensible—like my very own leaf from the pages of nineteenth-century English literature—how lucky, how very lucky I should feel! A—a! Do not speak—I can see that what you said would not be to the purpose. Not to my purpose at any rate! Think it over. And I tell you what,” he added magnanimously, “if you really feel you must go and sit at the feet of this Benovek, very well! Do that first, and then come to Turkey—I shall keep one of the four corners of my house prepared for you with WELCOME LUCY on the mat!”

  He gave her his wide, flashing Mr. Jackson smile, and Lucy felt absurdly moved. She was trying to marshal her voice to thank him when they heard the telephone ring; Fiona came through from the front hall.

  “It’s for you, Dr. Adnan—your housekeeper. In Mrs. Marsham’s office.”

  Presently Adnan reappeared, looking decidedly put out.

  “Really,” he said crossly to Lucy, “it is a good thing I had proposed to you before that telephone call. Apparently two men—one of them, doubtless, was your uncle—took advantage of thick fog in Kirby to break into my house and remove all your aunt’s paintings. Paintings which I was proposing to make over to you as a bride gift. Now what an embarrassing predicament I shall be in—obliged to take legal proceedings against my future uncle-in-law. However, I absolve you of any part in the blame. Good-bye for the present. Think carefully over what I have said.”

  He marched out, leaving Lucy and Fiona regarding one another blankly.

  “Well,” Fiona said at length, “I told you he’d invite you to join his harem, didn’t I? I was right, wasn’t I? What are we giving the old trout for lunch—beef stew? Better get on with it—morning’s half gone already.”

  “Sorry,” said Lucy. “Such a lot’s been happening. Pass that knife, I’ll do the onions.”

  Fiona gave her a penetrating look.

  “Have you got one of your heads coming on? You look like it.”

  “No, no,” lied Lucy. “I’m just a bit worried about those pictures. It seems so odd.”

  There was a tap on the kitchen window. To their surprise they saw Adnan again; he beckoned vigorously to Lucy, who went out by the back door and round.

  “This is a pretty thing to find!” he said.

  He was pointing to something pale ginger in colour that lay at the base of the rhododendron shrubs beyond the gravel sweep. With astonishment and revulsion, Lucy, going nearer, saw that it was Baby Brother, the marmalade cat, lying dead, spitted clean through by a long arrow.

  “A nice thing for one of the old people to discover,” Adnan repeated disgustedly. With his foot he edged the body of Baby Brother out of sight, under the bush.

  “But, good heavens,” said Lucy in horror, “never mind about discovering it, one of them must have done it. How frightful. Everyone here disliked the cat, but I didn’t realise any of the old things was as paranoid as that. Lord knows what Mrs. Marsham will say when she gets back—she absolutely doted on the beast.”

  “Lucy,” said Adnan earnestly, “this Wildfell Hall really is not a good place for you or for your aunt. I do not like this occurrence at all. I do not like it following on the accident to Mrs. Marsham’s son—”

  “For heaven’s sake! What’s it got to do with that?”

  “The police do not think that it was an accident. The truck driver has never come forward. The circumstances were odd. Now look, will you oblige me in this? When Mrs. Marsham returns, take your aunt, take that stalwart Fiona Frazer, and migrate to the aunt’s cottage, where you will be peaceful and undisturbed. Will you do that?”

  “And leave Mrs. Marsham without help?”

  “I’ll send up a nurse to look after them.”

  “There’s no furniture in the cottage,” said Lucy tiredly.

  He swore. “Allah give me patience. I’ll send up a van-load first thing tomorrow! Then will you?”

  “I’ll think about it. I really will! Now I must go in—there’s a terrible lot to do.”

  “I must say,” said Adnan gloomily, “Fate has not looked kindly on the moment I chose to offer you my heart.” He kissed Lucy’s hand, climbed into the Alfa, and drove away, going much more slowly than usual.

  A heavy shower of drops fell on Lucy from the trees above. The fog was condensing and turning to rain.

  She went in and helped Fiona with the stew.

  The white Rover edged its way cautiously through drenching invisibility.

  “Watch it,” said Harbin. “This is where you knocked the cyclist into the ditch. We don’t want any more mishaps like that.”

  “All right, all right, I’m watching it. You’re a fine one to talk. It’s just mad for you to come out—that hand would nail you at once.”

  “No one’s going to see us in weather like this.”

  “If you ask me, he’ll never go out in weather like this. Why should he?”

  “Greed. He wants those pictures. He thinks there are some at the cottage. And he wants to have a look at the old aunt.”

  “Well, she’s back at the Hall. We’d have done better to stay and keep an eye out for him there. Spit him with an arrow.” Goetz grinned to himself.

  “Oh, have some sense!” snapped Harbin. “We could hardly do him there, right on our own doorstep. After Crossley’s balls-up in York we don’t want any lines leading to Linda. Besides, I haven’t waited all this time just to shoot an arrow through him. He’s got to know why it’s going to happen. He’s going to realise what it’s like to lose a hand, to lie helpless and know you’re done for and that somebody’s going to be laughing at the fix you’re in for the next twenty years.”

  “Easy now,” said Goetz. He peered through the streaming windscreen. “Here’s the village. Not exactly like Hampstead on bank holiday, is it? And remember, we still don’t know for sure that it is Fred.”

  “No?” said Harbin. “It has all the hallmarks of Fred. Fred in his solid gold waistcoat calmly walking out of the wreckage and going off to catch another plane to the New World; dear lovable Fred always on the look-out to take his chance. He’s champion at taking a chance, Fred, but he’s stupid when it comes to calculation. I’ve a feeling in my bones it’s Fred, and this time he’s going to come to grief.”

  “This must be the stream,” Goetz said presently. “There’s a track up either side, Linda said. One goes to the parsonage and church and stops short; t’other goes on to a footbridge you cross to the cottage. This must be it, but we can’t drive up; something’s parked right in the way. Damn the rain. Can you
make out what it is?”

  Harbin opened the side window and looked out. “It’s a tractor,” he said. “No one on it. Find somewhere to stow the Rover out of sight. We’ll walk up.”

  “In all this bloody rain? Charming!” said Goetz bitterly, but he left Harbin and went on to park on a wide verge beyond the end of Appleby. Harbin waited for him, sheltering under the eaves of the public lavatory.

  “Did you see who just went up the lane?” he said when Goetz joined him.

  “Frankly no,” said Goetz shivering. “It could be Ho Chi Minh for all I care. All right, who?”

  “If I’m right,” said Harbin, “the best bit of bait we could wish for.”

  Fiona rang the bell for lunch, while Lucy served up the beef stew and dumplings.

  “Solid English fare,” she observed, returning to push the trolley laden with plates. “Leave some for us, Luce, I’m starving, and you look as if you could do with a bit of protein. How’s the head?”

  “Okay. Is Aunt Fennel down?”

  “No, she isn’t, as a matter of fact. Want me to go and give her a shout? She’s probably up in her room; she often sits upstairs till lunch-time.”

  “I’ll go,” said Lucy. “I’ve finished serving.”

  She was in Aunt Fennel’s room, looking blankly at the tidy bed, when Fiona called from downstairs, “Lucy! Phone for you!”

  “Oh, not Uncle Wilbie again? I suppose he’s ringing to say he can’t come out in this weather and insists on my bringing Aunt Fennel to Kirby—just let him wait till he hears what I’ve got to say to him.”

  She ran downstairs in a dangerous frame of mind and picked up the receiver.

  “Yes?”

  “Lucy? Lucy Culpepper?”

  “Speaking!”

  “Max Benovek here.”

  “M-Max?” she stammered. “You? I m-mean, hullo!”

  “How are you?”

  “I am okay. How—how are you?”

  “I am okay too. When are you coming to play my piano? How is your aunt?”

  “I’m not sure,” she began.

  “Well, listen, I have a piece of news. You know the green Eden picture you sent me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I told you Writtstein saw it. He photographed it too. Now he has found someone who wants to buy it and has offered a thousand pounds after viewing this photograph. What do you think of that?”

  Lucy gulped. “You’re not going to sell it?”

  “What do you take me for? I said it was not for sale of course—unless you would like me to do so?”

  “No-no, of course not. It was a present.—A thousand pounds?”

  “Pounds. This madman says he will pay as much for others, if they are as beautiful. Perhaps he is not so mad? You and I agree that he is not? So will you be able to send some other pictures quite soon? And then the great-aunt will be nicely fixed up and you need worry about her no longer, but can come and get down to Beethoven, which is what you should be doing at this moment, instead of ploughing about Yorkshire, disarranging other people’s lives.”

  “Oh, Max, I’ve made a horrible mess of it all. I begin to think I should have left Aunt Fennel at Mrs. Tilney’s in peace, instead of dragging her to this Wildfell Hall place.”

  “I begin to think so too, from what you write in your letters. Well, listen, how about planting her back in her own cottage with this Fiona person, who sounds a sensible girl, to look after her? Would that work?”

  “Yes—yes, that’s just what I’m hoping to do!”

  “We think alike in numerous ways. That is fine, then. And Writtstein will send a representative to do some collecting—you will be surprised how he will persuade people to part with pictures when they hear what he will pay—so don’t worry about that aspect any more.”

  “There’s a Colonel Linton who has a lot. But listen—Dr. Adnan’s have all been stolen, I have a horrible feeling my uncle’s taken them.”

  “Your uncle? He is in England?”

  “And how! He’s staying in Kirby, threatening to come here.”

  “Upsetting for your aunt. And for you.”

  “Oh, Max! She’s gone!”

  “Gone? How do you mean?”

  “She’s been acting rather oddly—rather childishly—for the last couple of days. This morning I—I got impatient and behaved badly to her and that scared her, I think—and now she’s vanished. Her outdoor things—her coat and hat are gone, and she’s nowhere about the house—I’d just discovered this when you rang.”

  “Have you any notion where she could be?”

  “Yes; yes I have. She had kept asking me to go to her cottage and look for a stray cat I’d seen there.”

  “So you think she might have gone there herself?”

  “I’m afraid she might. But Max, it’s pouring with rain—I ought to go after her at once. Goodness knows how long she’s been gone—it could be two or three hours.”

  “Should you ring the police?”

  “They’d be pretty sceptical, after last time. No, I’d better just start at once. Oh Lord, though, I’ve just thought: Uncle Wilbie might be there, he said he might go to the cottage today. The last person she’d want to meet.”

  “Yes, start at once, Lucy. I do not much like the sound of your Uncle Wilbie myself. Can you take somebody with you—Fiona?”

  “No, she’ll have to stay and keep an eye on everyone here.”

  “The doctor?”

  “He’s probably in Kirby now, telling the police about the theft of his pictures.”

  “Well, listen, Lucy. If I do not hear from you within an hour and a half that you have found your aunt and all is well, I shall ring the police myself—what is their number in Kirby?”

  She told him.

  “Right, then, off you go. Take the little car, wear your duffel coat—”

  “Yes, yes!”

  “And ring me directly you find her, understand?”

  “Yes I will, Max.”

  “In any case,” he said, “you must find her before seven, for there is a recorded recital of me then playing the Goldberg Variations which I should wish you to hear. Okay?”

  “I know; I’d marked it already.”

  “And, Lucy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Take care,” he said. “I can’t do without you very well.”

  “All right, I’ll take care. Good-bye for now.”

  “Good-bye.”

  Nice to be out walking in rain once more. Rain rather heavy, but road so familiar; must have been this way hundreds of times, thousands of times, coming home from High Tops, from picking bayberries or juniper or bogbean, fern or ragwort or broom tops. Dill would be walking along too, taking turns with heavy basket, or at home with fire and tea ready; oh Dill. Never mind, that place really not bad, may get accustomed to it in time, good air, grass outside windows, own familiar country. Own cottage would be better still, if only could eliminate worry about That Other One. But how? And now worry about Taffypuss. Can’t really be Taffypuss, can it? Almost sure, almost, that Taffypuss died, but never having seen him dead, can’t be utterly certain. Keep thinking about him, dreaming about him. Suppose That Other One came to High Beck and hurt him? Can’t bear the idea. Different with Dill: her poor stiff hands reaching out of stream; dreadful, but at least a certainty. Whatever she went through, now she’s safe; happy; can’t be harmed any more. Suppose that would be true of me, if That Other One did get me? Safe at last. Queer, never looked at it that way before. Will have another think about it in a minute when over the top of this little rise; need breath for breathing, not thinking. Rain coming down very heavy, now; one thing, have good thick outdoor shoes on Lucy child made me buy in Kirby. Worried, very worried about Lucy child. At first didn’t know whether to trust, such a queer light and jangling sound coming from her like some
thing out of tune. Then tuned, came clear, trusted her; happy, very happy, like own child, like with Dill. Paul’s child, queer when you think of Paul. But he had that music in him, must have had something good about him. Then with Lucy child suddenly trouble, light went murky, out of tune, as if infection caught from That Other One. She’ll get over it again, won’t she?

  Village now. No one about, rain pouring down, beck will rise fast if this goes on. Specially as weather coming down from moor, probably been raining there all night. Have to hurry, get to cottage in case beck rises over bridge. Lucky no one in village, weather too bad, neighbours might fuss, worry, try to keep me from going up. Suppose Lucy child will worry when finds I’m gone? Wrong to tell her about her father, upset her. Good little thing really, not like him, more like her mother, more like me. Will tell her so when see her next. Only a little thoughtless sometimes. Should have gone to see about Taffypuss for me, must have known how worried I was.

  Track off to High Beck. Two men pass me, going quick. Strangers? Don’t say anything. Know every bend, tuft, rock in this path. Taffypuss would always come down to meet us hereabouts. Hazel bushes, mountain ash, holly.

  Lucy child fretful because of that piano man, perhaps? Would have to meet him before deciding whether trustworthy. Foreigner. Better if she stayed with me and Taffypuss, all three happy together.—Now, where were we, thinking about death, that’s right. Not much of a problem really; really, maybe, no problem at all.

  Here’s ash stump; not covered yet, so bridge will still be clear. Beck very high, foamy, beautiful dark brown peat-coloured water, dark red-brown like garnet stone. Rushing along, rocks in middle all covered, only showing at sides. Track steeper than I remember—was it always so steep? Have to stop and take breath. Hedge-cutting tractor parked up there, foolish place to leave it, Lenny Thorpe always lazy about taking back to barn. Inconsiderate if we wanted anything delivered to High Beck, van couldn’t get up track, but suppose everyone knows cottage empty now. Past old parsonage on opposite bank, kind Edward Linton, pity he took to drink, wonder why? Past church, opposite bank turns to cliff, then round bend in dene. Past tractor, two men sitting in cab, queer, suppose waiting for rain to stop, having lunch maybe. No one I know. Nod to them. Same two men who passed? Strangers, they don’t nod back. Now, climb up on to wooden bridge. Slippery slats. Hold tight to wet wires either side. Water rushing along underneath like dark red ink. Across bridge, very slow, very careful. Down stone steps. Now climb up to cottage. Call. Puss? Puss? Taffypuss? He doesn’t come. But then, wouldn’t expect cat to be out in all this rain. Probably sheltering somewhere, in shed, under bush. Better go into cottage? Wait for rain to stop? But what about That Other One? Suppose he came? Not likely he’d come out in such weather? Anyway, hadn’t we just decided not afraid of death? Not afraid of death, no, but awful sudden fright of being grabbed, pushed, throttled—yes, can’t help it, still very much afraid of that. Now look—Dill would say—one thing at a time? Mightn’t be so bad? Anyway, while we’re thinking, getting very wet. Let’s get under porch roof.