Stoney Beck

by Jean Houghton-Beatty

  Biddy leaned her back against the counter and glared at Jenny. “First you tell me I’ve got you mixed up with someone else, then here you are, fawning all over Sarah. Now you tell me you’re working in Malone’s, already on a first-name basis with Ada Malone. You’re worming your way in everywhere aren’t you?”

  Jenny slapped her hand on the counter. “What are you talking about, for God’s sake. Why are you so suspicious of me and what’s this great big secret you’re scared to death I’ll find out?”

  Biddy’s already pale face turn paler and there was a wildness about her eyes. But her voice was steady. “Why wouldn’t I be suspicious? Anyone can see you’re not the type to make friends with the likes of her.”

  Jenny pulled out her car keys. Getting mad would get her nowhere, especially since Biddy’s words hit home. If Sarah had not been the best excuse in the world to find out what was nettling this woman, would Jenny honestly have gone to Malone’s this morning. Or would she have offered to take Sarah’s place in the shop, or even brought her home when she was sick? Biddy Biggerstaff was Jenny’s best lead to finding answers to her mother’s note. Why was this woman so hostile? Jenny had no idea. But it made her all the more determined to find out.

  “I have to go,” she said, glancing at her watch. “I told Ada I wouldn’t be long.”

  As she walked out the door, Biddy’s eyes burned into her back.

  An hour later, when Biddy answered the phone, Sarah was fast asleep in her room. Dr. Hall said he wanted to see her in his surgery at ten on Thursday for a physical exam. If, in the meantime, there was any change in her condition, Biddy should ring him immediately. When Biddy asked if he knew what was ailing the girl, he said it was too early to say.

  After she hung up, she reached in the cupboard under the sink for the bottle of gin and poured herself a double. What if Sarah had something life threatening? God knows, things were bad enough with her reasonably healthy. Biddy still couldn’t get over what that old bugger of a doctor had the nerve to say before he had gone to France. “You’re not yourself, Biddy. You need a medical checkup, mental as well as physical.” He had said it casually enough, but it had alarmed Biddy. Had he noticed anything strange about her? Sometimes, lately, even Biddy herself had wondered, like the day she’d seen those worms on the kitchen table. There must have been at least twenty of them, and some as much as ten inches long. They’d crawled all over the cheese and sliced bread. The largest one of all had hung from the side of Sarah’s cup and when she raised it to her mouth, Biddy had screamed. Sarah was so startled, she’d dropped the cup, breaking it and spilling tea all over the table. At that instant the worms disappeared.

  Biddy had glossed over the whole thing, saying she’d seen a mouse peeking out the pantry door. But the awful doubt lingered. If there had been worms, Sarah would have said so. Just thinking about it set Biddy to trembling all over again but she shook herself and gave a little laugh that turned into a croak. Living alone with the likes of Sarah Fitzgerald was enough to drive anyone round the bend.

  And now, on top of everything else, there was this added worry of Jenny Robinson. Biddy gulped half the contents of the glass. She had changed her mind. The American girl was not innocently passing through. It was too much of a coincidence. She had deliberately waited until this late date to make her move. Biddy thanked God that she had seen the girl’s photograph. Otherwise, she would never have recognized her. She didn’t resemble Beverly all that much. It was only when you knew and looked at her up close. Then you could see.

  Biddy poured another strong one, then took her teeth out and put them in a glass on the counter. After she’d downed the gin in two swallows, she headed for the sofa in the study to sleep it off and think of some way she could force that girl to leave Stoney Beck before it was too late. Sarah’s ginger ale could wait. Biddy had to think about herself. If she didn’t do it, who would? Before she settled down, she made sure the curtains were closed so she couldn’t see the tree, or more to the point, so the tree couldn’t see her.

  The night of the big storm would stay with Biddy forever. She had been staring out her bedroom window when a bolt of lightning hit the tree with a window-rattling crack, lighting her room as if a thousand roman candles had gone off at once. It had knocked out the electricity in the house and Biddy had cowered on the floor at the foot of the bed, too petrified to move until daylight. The three electric clocks in the house had stopped at eleven o’clock. Later in the day, when the report came from France about the accident, she learned that Edna and Fred Fitzgerald had been killed at midnight the night before. If you allowed for the one-hour time difference, this was the selfsame time that lightning had struck the tree. Most people would probably say all this was nothing more than a coincidence. But Biddy knew better. The spirits of Edna and Fred had somehow jumped from the wreck site in the Pyrenees into the tree right here on the front lawn. Biddy would have had the tree chopped down ages ago, but Sarah wouldn’t hear of it. Over almost anything else, Biddy had her way but she was too afraid of the tree to go against Sarah this time.

  Chapter Eight

  Jenny looked upon her job at Malone’s as a godsend, a good vantage point to continue her search for clues, while at the same time earn some extra money. Ada told her Sarah had been diagnosed with a kidney infection, was on medication and under Dr. Hall’s care. She wouldn’t be back in the shop for at least three or four weeks. On top of that, the girl who’d stayed out a couple of days with cramps had gone to work in a hotel in Windermere. When Jenny offered to stay on at the shop, Ada was only too willing. Not only did this give Jenny an excuse to hang around the village, without people asking questions, but also she liked the job. Rather than bulk buy like Americans, most people in the village came into the shop every day and before the first two weeks were gone, Jenny was on a first name basis with most of them. She and Ada had made a deal that Jenny would receive no pay until her last day in the shop which surely couldn’t be far off because hadn’t they put that sign in the window.

  Wearing the apron with the big pockets Ada had given her, Jenny walked up and down the rows, scribbling notes as she went, until she was as familiar with the shop’s layout as Ada herself. Jenny wondered how many of the customers, especially those over forty, who had lived in Stoney Beck all their lives, remembered her mother. Surely there were some, probably Ada herself. She was born here and was about her mother’s age. Every day Jenny planned to ask Ada if she had ever known a Beverly Pender, and, by the way, what was the name of the village doctor about twenty-three years ago. But somehow the words wouldn’t come. Jenny couldn’t shake the feeling there was something dark about her mother’s secret, something even worse than having a priest for a father, a priest who didn’t even know he had a daughter.

  Most days, Andy exercised his dog on the common and two or three times, when business was slow, Jenny joined them. He shopped in Malone’s and sometimes, when there was time, Ada made a pot of tea and the three of them sat swapping stories. One day, after Andy had gone back to the garage, Ada told Jenny that he had been jilted by some star struck girl who didn’t know her arse from her elbow. It had been just weeks before their wedding with the invitations already sent out, and even the wedding cake ordered. As far as Ada knew, Andy had formed no serious relationship since. Jenny knew then the reason he hadn’t asked her for a date, even though it was obvious he liked her. He was afraid of being burned again.

  At the end of her second week, Jenny said goodnight to Ada and headed back to the cottage. She washed and dried her hair, then picked up the phone and dialed Uncle Tim’s number. As much as she loved him, she’d kept him in the dark about most of what had happened since her arrival in Stoney Beck. Was there any way to break it to him gently that her father was a Roman Catholic priest? She hadn’t mentioned either that she was working in Malone’s while she tried to find out what the weird Biddy Biggerstaff knew about her yet wouldn’t tell. After the sixth ring, the recorder came on. “Hi, Uncle Tim,” Jenny said.
“Wish you could have been here this morning. The lake was covered with a white mist and the tiny island in the center looked as if it was floating in the clouds. Weather warm. Talk to you soon. Love you.”

  After she hung up, she strolled down to the lake. There was a fog at the far end, slinking nearer, veiling the hills and meadows in an almost purple mist. Restless, she walked to the front of the inn and sat on a bench outside. She looked down at the slats and ran her fingers through the gaps. Was this where her mother had sat when she met Charles Woodleigh? Could it be the very bench? The hikers or mountain climbers, or whatever they were, sat at a nearby table, laughing and talking among themselves. Jenny watched and smiled if one of them looked her way, almost wishing she were sitting among them. Suddenly, the pretty blonde girl on the end flashed her a smile and beckoned her over. Jenny gave an answering wave, and was half out of her seat when a young couple rushed past her and laughingly joined the others at the table. The blonde girl moved her chair to make room for the couple and looked straight through Jenny as though she wasn’t there.

  Jenny felt the heat rush to her face as she quickly looked away and plopped back on the bench. Even Mr. Pudsley, who’d obviously seen it all from the doorway, and who now came over to chat, couldn’t budge the awful lonely feeling that suddenly cloaked her. The group weren’t hikers or mountain climbers at all, he said, but archeologists who stayed at the inn for months at a time while they dug for Viking remains. They were working on a dig up in the fells and were nice once you got to know them.

  After Mr. Pudsley had gone back inside, Jenny stayed, lost in her memories. It was as if her mother were nearby, watching. And why shouldn’t she be here? This was the very place it had all began. Didn’t some people believe the soul hung around the earth for a while before going on to heaven? Jenny tried to imagine the young Charles Woodleigh walking shyly up to the lonely American student.

  “Is this seat taken?” he could very well have said.

  “No,” her mother had probably answered, or perhaps just shook her head. She’d have given a bashful smile, and moved over a little to make room for him.

  Market Street sailed away and Jenny was home now, in Charlotte, in the kitchen sitting across the table from her mother, a stack of sympathy cards between them. She listened again while her mother told her she didn’t have to worry any more about getting Huntington’s disease because Michael Robinson wasn’t her father after all. Her real father was some Englishman who had disappeared off the face of the earth. Jenny had flung the cards across the table, and lashed out with those vicious words. Now, all too late, she could see. She went over it all again for the hundredth time. Her mother’s stricken face, the desperation in her eyes, and surely her hands had been shaking if Jenny had only taken the trouble to look. Why hadn’t she at least uttered words of encouragement, placed a hand on the drooping shoulders? If she had, would it have made a difference? Would her mother be alive today?

  “Jenny?” Andy Ferguson said. “You OK?”

  She looked up, startled, hardly seeing him through eyes blurred with tears. She blinked and the tears rolled down her cheeks. He reached for her hand and she let him pull her to her feet, let him put his arm around her waist and lead her to his car. He drove without saying a word. Minutes later, he parked outside the Prince of Wales, a restaurant on the lake’s opposite shore.

  He came round to her side to help her out, as if she were incapable of doing it herself.

  She sniveled. “Oh man, I’ll bet you think I’m some kind of clown.”

  “No, I don’t.” He took her hand and led her away from the parking lot, to a secluded grove of trees. “Do you feel like talking about it?”

  “I don’t know. I hardly ever let my guard down like that. Even when my Dad was real sick, I held up until the very end.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. How long has it been?”

  “Just three months. He’d been sick a long time. I couldn’t help but be glad for him when he went. It was real hard to watch him suffer. I did the best I could to help my Mom. She—“

  “You should have brought her with you,” Andy interrupted. “Maybe a change of scene would have been good for her.”

  “No, no, you don’t understand—”

  “It’s all right, it’s all right,” he said, alarm stealing into his voice. “You don’t have to tell me. Just cry if you want to. You’re still grieving for your father. You need time to heal.”

  “It isn’t just him. A couple of weeks later, my mother, she didn’t mean to, but the pills and wine, the combination, she—”

  Jenny let Andy push the hair away from her face and take her in his arms, let him rub his hands up and down her back. He leaned his back against a tree and held her while she sobbed on his shoulder until only the odd shudder was left. She could feel the wetness of his shirt where all her tears had fallen and even though the crying had stopped, she didn’t want to move. The agony of it all had turned into a quiet peace. There was some of the smell of his garage left on him. Leather, oil, the scent of a man.

  He took the wad of tissues out of her hand and wiped away the rest of her tears. “You’ll feel better now.” He put his hands on her shoulders while he studied her face, then pulled her to him again and stroked her hair, patted her as if she were a child.

  She pulled more tissues out of her purse and blew her nose. “I’ve been fine until tonight. Don’t know what came over me. I’m real sorry to dump on you like this.”

  “Have you had dinner?” he asked, tracing his finger gently along her jaw line.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Well I am,” he said with a little laugh. “Let’s go on in. We can get a glass of wine and if you change your mind, this place has the best salmon and trout in the Lake District. Why don’t you go to the ladies room and freshen up a bit while I try to get us a table at the window.”

  Ten minutes later, after she’d wiped the running mascara from her puffy eyes and applied new lipstick, she and Andy stared out the huge plate-glass window and watched a wide ribbon of gold stretch across the water toward them. Then the huge orange ball of the sun slipped between the fells. Lights blinked on in Stoney Beck across the lake. She reached across the table and took hold of Andy’s hand. It was rough, calloused. He turned toward her, eyebrows raised a notch or two, but he only smiled and held on tight. While they drank the wine, he talked her into eating something and ordered for them both. The poached salmon was served with tiny new potatoes and spinach soufflé. There was a thick white sauce with bits of egg and parsley to go over the potatoes.

  “Why did you travel so far from home by yourself?” he asked after the waiter had gone. “And why here? You didn’t know a soul when you got off that train. People come here from all over, but not when they’re alone and grieving over their parents.”

  She almost smiled. “You sound like my Uncle Tim. You should have heard him when I said I wanted to come to England. But I’m OK, honest I am.”

  She spread her napkin on her lap. “Can’t we change the subject. How about telling me something about yourself.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, how come you’re such good friends with Sarah? You got her the job at Malone’s, pick her up and take her to work, bring her golden oldie tapes.”

  He passed Jenny the salt and pepper. “Sarah’s parents and mine were friends. When Ada needed more help in the shop, I talked her into giving Sarah a try. Now Ada thinks the world of her. Sarah may be slow but there’s something so special about her. You must have seen it. She knows she’s limited and yet tries so damn hard.”

  He twirled the stem of his wine glass. “When her parents were killed in that wreck, we all thought she’d go to pieces. But she didn’t. Soon as the funeral was over, she went right back to work.”

  Jenny sipped her wine. “I guess anything was better than staying at home with Biddy. She’s weird as hell, Andy, and the whole setup seems strange to me. It’s Sarah
’s house, but Biddy calls the shots. What gives?”

  Andy told her that in the beginning Biddy was hired as a nanny for Sarah; later she became the Fitzgeralds’ housekeeper. It was village gossip that the Fitzgeralds had included Biddy in their will as long as she stayed with Sarah who was considered mentally handicapped. If there’d been no responsible person living with her, her fate would have been in the hands of the Social Services. Oh, they would probably try to find somebody to live with her, perhaps a couple, but if nobody was available, Sarah was in danger of being whisked to some home miles away. Once in one of those places, she may never get out.

  “Biddy’s always been strange,” Andy said. “It didn’t matter so much when Sarah’s parents were alive. Fred Fitzgerald was an artist, a painter, did some pretty good work too. They traveled a lot and Sarah always went with them. Still, they had this blind spot where Biddy was concerned which is probably why the will was written up the way it was.”

  He looked up from spreading butter on his roll and gave Jenny a guarded look. “I’m not implying Sarah isn’t safe with Biddy, you understand, but things are a lot dicier than they used to be.”

  “Where did the Fitzgeralds get her from?”

  “She used to be the town’s midwife.”

  Midwife.

  The word echoed in Jenny’s ears as though she were in a cave. Biddy had been the village midwife and Jenny would bet every penny she had that this woman had been the midwife who had delivered her. Why hadn’t the woman said something? That day in the tearoom, when she told Jenny she’d seen her photograph, wouldn’t it have been the most natural thing in the world just to say so?

  Andy reached across the table and took the wineglass out of her trembling hand. “Jenny, for God’s sake, what is it? You’ve turned grey. You’re not going to break down again are you?”

  She shook her head. The air in the restaurant had become stifling and she wiped the perspiration from her hands with her napkin. “Can we walk by the lake? There’s a full moon tonight.”