Bury Her Deep

by Catriona McPherson

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘All right,’ I assured her. ‘I’ll believe that wasn’t you.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she said.

  ‘Your father has been keeping rather a lot of horrid little secrets from you, Lorna,’ I told her. ‘But I think you should know. Someone in thrall to the old ways of spells and luck dug that poor girl’s bones up out of her grave.’

  ‘My father always said the old ways were harmless.’

  ‘Well, they’re not. This dabbling you’ve been doing, all in the name of love, has its ugly side, and if you dip a toe in it you can easily end up lost to goodness for ever.’ She was nodding faster and faster.

  ‘They dug up a grave?’ she said. ‘My father knows?’

  ‘He has handled it all most sensitively,’ I said. ‘He is a lovely, kind, charming man and you should be glad that you have the chance to spend your years with him. Believe me. Marriage is not . . . the only way to a happy life, you know.’

  ‘They dug her up out of her grave?’ said Lorna, still unbelieving. ‘Why?’

  ‘To put her back where she belonged. In the chamber. To put things back as they should be.’

  ‘But that’s . . .’ She stopped talking and simply shook her head very fast, as though trying to shake off the idea the way a dog shakes off water. I stood up to leave her. If she could be as horrified as all that then she was surely not lost to decent feeling. The kitten was an aberration, the desperate act of a lonely, muddled girl, but she would come right in the end.

  I hesitated at the door.

  ‘Will you be all right?’ I asked her. ‘You’re sure you don’t want your father?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said.

  Her voice had an odd, strained note in it, but I told myself that anyone’s voice would sound peculiar after such upsets and weeping, and so I walked away.

  19

  I gave Mr Tait the briefest of reports the next morning, saying no more than that the trouble was over and no one knew or needed to know a thing about it.

  ‘And you are sure there won’t be a recurrence?’ he said. I thought back to Lorna’s broken bewilderment the evening before and shook my head firmly.

  ‘You’ve done a splendid job, my dear Mrs Gilver,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t have asked for more discretion.’

  ‘I could have asked for quite a bit less discretion from you, Mr Tait,’ I told him. ‘You haven’t been frank with me, exactly.’

  ‘And what if I had been?’ he said, smiling. ‘Would you have come?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ It was out before I could stop it and he chuckled. ‘If I’d heard all the lurid details before . . . well, before I got to know you, I might even have tried to stop the luncheons at Gilverton.’

  ‘Well, well,’ he concluded, nodding benignly with his hands folded across his middle. ‘All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.’

  Than which one cannot really hope for a better epitaph to one’s labours. I rose, picking up my gloves and Bunty’s lead, and took my leave of him.

  Alec had decided to stay on for a bit at Ford Cottage. He said it was because his disguise could not just be folded up and put away if the good he had done Lorna was to last, and I suppose there was something to that, but I suspected too that he felt remorseful for having let her down with such a thump and wanted to see what he could do by way of a belated cushioning. Personally I thought her bruised pride, if not her heart, would heal more quickly if she never saw him again but he was determined and so I left him there when Bunty and I accompanied Hugh back to Gilverton the day after the party.

  ‘Only watch out for Effie Morton,’ I warned him when he telephoned. ‘If Lorna tells her how inflamed you are, she might just throw her watercolours and sketching pad over her shoulder in a knotted hanky and move in.’

  ‘She’s a bishop’s niece, Dandy,’ said Alec. ‘Even if she did get wind of how I feel about her – God, though, you should see the creature – I could put her off me with a few well-judged anecdotes about my Montmartre days.’

  ‘You certainly do have a callous streak,’ I said.

  ‘Not compared with Lorna,’ he said. ‘Or, as you still insist on calling her, “poor” Lorna. How is the kitten?’

  I looked over to the combined slumbering heap of large spotted dog and tiny tabby cat, and smiled.

  ‘She’s fine,’ I said. ‘Her tail has the most darling little kink in it, like a piglet’s. Hugh, of course, hates her with a passion already and has the cheek to suggest that the reaction of his pack of mutts – which was to chase her all over the house, licking their chops and baying – is more properly dog-like than Bunty’s welcome.’

  ‘Well, I’d better go,’ said Alec. ‘That Mrs Martineau on the corner is watching me from behind her curtains again.’

  ‘She’ll be after you for Annette if she hears you’re on the market,’ I told him.

  I hung up the receiver, gazed fondly at Bunty and the kitten for another moment, and sat down at my desk to open my morning’s letters and pick up the reins, once again, of my between-thrills, non-detecting life.

  The very next morning I found out how wrong I had been to imagine that it was over.

  I woke early and lay for a moment wondering what had disturbed me, then sighed with irritation as I realised I could hear the first breakfast sitting at the bird table outside. If Hugh could not be persuaded to move the thing away from the house, then I should at least tell the kitchen maids to restrain themselves a little.

  I rose, bathed, dressed and let Bunty out of the side door, then I went to fetch the kitten from her overnight quarters, but kittens are notoriously early risers and, when I saw that she was up and off already, I made my way to my sitting room to wait for breakfast, nudging the french window open just an inch or two in spite of the chill so that Bunty and her little friend could get in when they had finished their morning’s ablutions in the garden.

  The noise from the bird table was really quite extraordinary today; crows and magpies quarrelling over the feast, all the robins and sparrows driven off to chatter their annoyance from the terrace balustrades. What on earth had the silly girl put out there, I wondered, hoping that if it was a knuckle of ham – for that is what it looked like from the window – crows were the worst of it and I was not about to see a rat climb the solitary leg and haul itself onto the platform.

  Even as I watched, I saw the second kitchen maid trooping round the corner of the house with her apron tented up in front of her, scattering crumbs on the grass as she went along. I rapped on the window and pointed fiercely to the bird table but she misunderstood and nodded cheerfully down at her bellied apron skirt as though reassuring me that yes, she was just on her way with some more. I sighed, fastened the window against the racket and was just turning away when a new, shriller cry was added to the birds’ squabble. I turned back. She was standing, apron hem fallen and breadcrumbs tumbled about her feet, her hands over her mouth and her eyes wide with horror.

  I rushed outside and over the frosty grass towards the bird table. Bunty, seeing me from across the lawn, came forward at a gambol and we reached the maid together, as she flapped at the crows, weeping, trying to drive them away.

  I took just one look, just enough to see a scrap of tabby fur and a dull eye, before I reeled away, shrieking.

  Hugh arrived as the kitchen maid and I were comforting one another, Bunty howling with her head back – she cannot bear to see me cry.

  ‘What in the name of the devil—’ said Hugh, unknowingly apt for once.

  I pointed behind me, but could not look at it.

  ‘Good God,’ he said, and I could hear in his voice that his lip had curled with revulsion.

  ‘Please take it away,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll fetch a gardener,’ said Hugh. As he was leaving, he paused, and said: ‘This is what happens, you see. Cats will hunt birds, Dandy, and this one has got its comeuppance.’

  The look I gave h
im felt from my side like a dart of pure cold hatred and, from the way he started, it must have seemed much the same from his end too. He cleared his throat and strode away towards the kitchen gardens. The maid, with wonderful if belated presence of mind, took off her apron and threw it over the little platform, winding the strings around the pole and tying them tightly. At this, the crows lost interest in the scene and flapped off blackly.

  ‘I’m sorry, madam,’ the girl said. ‘But that there wee kitty never climbed that pole, and she never could have got caught by a crow because she would have jumped off again, wouldn’t she not? I don’t think Master is right.’

  I am afraid that, at that moment, I said I thought Hugh was a thing which the kitchen maid clearly never expected she would hear a lady such as myself say of anyone, much less my own husband, much less in front of the very lowliest of my own servants, and she knew that I meant it.

  White with rage, I stalked back in through the french windows, lifted the telephone and asked to be put through to the number for the Luckenlaw manse. The gardener had arrived outside and I put down the receiver to draw the curtains closed, so by the time I picked it up again Mr Tait’s voice was saying:

  ‘Hello? Hello? I’m sorry, my dear, I think the call has gone astray somewhere.’

  ‘It’s me, Mr Tait,’ I said, and I heard the click of the operator leaving us. ‘Might I speak to Lorna, please?’

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t,’ he said. ‘I can’t find her this morning. She appears to have had an early breakfast before anyone else was up and now she’s disappeared off somewhere. My old car has gone from the coach-house.’

  ‘How odd,’ I said, thinking of course that it was anything but. ‘I shall try again later then.’

  Next, I asked to be put through to Miss McCallum at the post office and when she answered, I tried my best to sound light and cheerful, as befitted a harmless errand.

  ‘I know you can’t desert your post, dear,’ I said, ‘but I wonder, if anyone happens in, could you ask for a message to be given to Captain Watson down at the cottage? Could he ring Mrs Gilver, please? I’ve found him a commission, for a painting, you know.’

  ‘Never!’ said Miss McCallum. ‘Well, what a funny world it would be if we were all the same. Aye right, Mrs Gilver, here’s Mrs Kinnaird coming now, I’ll get her to step down the lane and tell him.’

  After that I waited, trying to ignore the sounds from outside as the gardener dealt with the mess and trying to ignore Bunty, who had followed me in and was snuffling round the rugs and cushions and looking enquiringly up at me, unable to understand that her little companion was gone again.

  Less than ten minutes later, Alec rang me.

  ‘But what was the point of it?’ he said when I had told him. ‘All the way up to Gilverton in a bone-shaker to kill a kitten?’

  ‘It might just be spite,’ I replied, ‘to pay me back for being the one who found her out, but I fear it’s a threat . . . of what exactly, I cannot say.’

  ‘She’s a remarkable actress, isn’t she?’ said Alec. ‘All this going on and she swans around looking like an angel.’

  ‘What should we do?’

  ‘I think it’s time to go to the police,’ said Alec. ‘As you say, this still might not be the worst of it. She must be stopped now.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘All right then. But don’t say a word to her father. He’s so well wrapped around her finger that he might try to smooth over even this.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Alec. ‘And Dandy, this is horrid, I know, but you should keep the kitten, darling. They might be able to tell what happened to it.’

  ‘It’s going to be very unpleasant for Mr Tait,’ I said. ‘And for Luckenlaw.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ said Alec. ‘I’ll try to persuade Lorna, when she gets back, to come with me to the police station and hand herself in. It would save blaring sirens and constables rushing in and dragging her off from the manse in handcuffs, and if we could keep it out of the papers somehow . . .’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ I said. ‘I’m not feeling very charitable right now, I have to say, and a bit of dragging in handcuffs seems quite fitting. But I suppose it’s hospital she needs, really. And I daresay that will feel enough like punishment – I know I shouldn’t care to be in one.’

  ‘I’ll ring you when it’s done,’ Alec said.

  After hanging up, I steeled myself to go back outside. The gardener had placed the bundled apron aside and was digging the leg of the bird table out of the lawn, with Hugh looking on.

  ‘I thought you wouldn’t want it there as a reminder,’ Hugh said gruffly. ‘I’ll stick it somewhere more out of the way.’ Then, having been caught out in such sentimental extravagance, he was forced to leave and I had a chance to ask the gardener:

  ‘Please don’t throw the poor thing in the boiler, Timpson. If you could find a stout box and put her in the flower room on the stone floor, I’ll bury her later.’

  ‘Just you give me a shout, madam, and I’ll dig the hole,’ said Timpson, and the kindness in his voice made my eyes fill again. ‘I’m fond o’ a cat myself,’ he went on. ‘Verra clean wee creatures and they keep the finches out o’ the fruit garden like nothin’ else can.’ Timpson and Hugh did not see eye to eye on the question of birds, it seemed.

  For the rest of the day I sat in my own room, moping a little, waiting for Alec to ring back, eventually trying the manse again, in case he had missed her return.

  ‘I’m beginning to feel quite worried, Mrs Gilver,’ Mr Tait told me. ‘I haven’t seen her all day, and even if she had happened upon some poor soul in need of succour and she was busy making broth in a cottage somewhere she would have got word to me, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Have you tried her friends?’ I said.

  ‘I can’t seem to find anyone,’ he answered. ‘Miss Lindsay’s house is in darkness and Miss McCallum isn’t in the post house – they must have gone off somewhere together, I suppose. No answer from the Howies all day, either. And Captain Watson hasn’t seen her, for I went down and asked him.’

  ‘I shouldn’t worry,’ I told him. ‘She’s a big girl and she can look after herself. Only, you will tell her I rang, won’t you?’

  He had surprised me when he said that Miss Lindsay’s house was in darkness – I had not realised how the day was passing – but looking out of my window now I saw that night had indeed fallen and I went over to close the shutters. I sighed heavily, looking out, but I could not even see the little break in the turf of the lawn which showed where the scene of the morning’s horrors had been. It was a perfectly black, moonless night. That was right, I realised, calculating it, exactly a month since that other perfectly black moonless night when I looked out and saw the grave robbers at Luckenlaw. Well, at least I knew that was nothing to do with Lorna. Her surprise, the night of her party when she heard of it, was quite genuine. ‘They robbed a grave?’ she had said. ‘But that’s . . .’ what had she called it? No, I remembered, she had been incapable of words at the thought.

  And yet, how could it be so? How could someone be responsible for what happened at the full moon and for what had happened to my poor kitten at the dark moon last night, and yet be so shocked by the dark deeds of the moon before? It was just as the little girls sang: dark night, moonlight . . . and then how did it go? Haunt me something, something white. Moonlight, dark night, shut the coffin lid tight, like any other little rhyme carving up the days and weeks into tidy parcels. Sneeze on a Monday, kiss a stranger, sneeze on a Tuesday, sneeze for danger. The days of the week with their meanings and the phases of the moon, each with their allotted tasks. Surely, it would make more sense to think that the same person was responsible for it all.

  But she could not have been; she was speechless with horror at the very idea of it. ‘They dug up a grave?’ she had said, again and again. ‘But that’s . . .’ All of a sudden, my memory seemed to sharpen and an idea took hold of me. ‘But that’s . . .’ she had said, and I had imagined she was going
to go on and call it evil or insane. But what if she had been going to say something quite different? What if she had been going to say it was no good, that it would never work, that it was not old dug-up bones that needed to be put there. And was it not true that when we visited the chamber that awful, hilarious day Lorna had been perfectly unperturbed even when she had reached into the little hollow and pulled out the dust sheet? She only screamed when she saw that it was empty.

  Was I making something out of nothing? Rattled by the horridness of the kitten that morning, was I sitting here telling myself ghost stories like any ghoul?

  It was the dark of the moon again. Miss Lindsay was missing, Miss McCallum was missing, and Lorna had not gone home after her trip to my garden last night. She believed in charms and spells and yet her love charm had been powerless. Would she blame that on the grave robbers – whoever they were – putting tired old bones into the law? Was it possible that this time she would replace them with something fresher? Miss Lindsay, Miss McCallum and the Howies were all missing from home.

  I started to pace up and down my sitting room. The Howies were safe, I was sure. They were married women and was it not most likely that the sacrifice of a young girl was less to do with her youth than with her virginity? So Miss McCallum and Miss Lindsay could be in danger. Who could I turn to? Who could I tell?

  I imagined ringing the manse again and saying this to Mr Tait, imagined myself being wrong and him telling Hugh and Hugh making me go and speak to the kind of doctor I thought Lorna needed. Alec could not be reached except by telegram. I could ask to be put through to the kiosk on the green and let it ring and ring, hoping for someone to answer, but time was wasting.

  I looked at the clock above the fire. It was half-past seven now. I had wasted hours here.

  ‘Stay, stay,’ I said to Bunty as I rushed to the door. I could say I was upset about the kitten and that I had driven away to have a good cry where no one could hear me. I could say the motor car broke down and I had to walk miles to find help. I would worry about all of that later. Right now, I simply had to go.