Gossamer Cord

by Philippa Carr

  They believed that—most of them. Their lives were governed by superstition.

  “Good to see ’ee, Miss.” That was one of the fishermen mending his nets. I knew that as soon as I passed, he would be talking to the man beside him. “That was her from Tregarland’s. Her sister it were…”

  There was no escape.

  I crossed the bridge and started up the west cliff.

  The sea looked docile. There was only the faintest ruffle and little white patches of froth on the tips of the waves as rhythmically they washed the black rocks. Back and forth they went, murmuring soothingly as they did so.

  I came to Cliff Cottage and paused to look at the garden. There was the plant I had brought from Tregarland’s. It was flourishing, I perceived.

  I think she must have seen me from behind the neat lace curtains, for the door opened and she came down the path toward me.

  “Hello, Miss Denver,” she said.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Pardell.”

  She came out and stood close to the fence. She said, rather anxiously, I thought: “And how are you?”

  “I am well, thanks. Are you?”

  “Looking at the flowers then?” she said, nodding. “Eee…like to come in for a bit? Perhaps a little chat…a cup of tea?”

  I said eagerly: “I’d like that.”

  Then I was in the sitting room looking at the picture of Annette, while Mrs. Pardell went into the kitchen to make the tea.

  She came in with a tray and when she had poured out the tea she said: “It was a terrible thing…”

  I knew what she meant and said: “Yes.”

  “I know how you are feeling. None could know better.”

  “That’s true.”

  “It was the same, wasn’t it? It seemed a bit queer to me.”

  “It was such a coincidence.”

  She looked at me steadily. “I don’t like it,” she said. “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

  “Wonder…?” I repeated.

  She drew her chair closer to mine. “You’re staying there now,” she said.

  “It is because of the child.”

  “Isn’t there a nanny…from London or somewhere?”

  “Yes. She was my nanny…mine and my sister’s. My mother arranged for her to come. She trusts her.”

  “That’s good,” she said. “I’m glad she’s here.”

  I told her: “I promised my sister that if anything happened, I’d look after the baby.”

  She nodded. “So there you are. These people here…they talk about ghosts and things. I’ve never had much patience with that sort of thing. Ghosts…my foot. It wasn’t ghosts who got rid of my Annette.”

  “Got rid of her?”

  “You’re not kidding me she wouldn’t look after herself in the water. And what about your sister?”

  “She wasn’t by any means a champion swimmer. In fact, I was surprised that she went bathing in the early morning.”

  “It’s clear to me.”

  “What is clear?”

  “Well, a man has two wives. They both die in the same way, and not long after he married them. Doesn’t that say something to you?”

  “What does it say to you?”

  “That it’s a funny business, that’s what. He marries, then gets tired of them, and then it’s goodbye, nice knowing you, but I’ve had enough and it’s time for a change.”

  “Oh, no,” I said.

  “What else? They both went the same way. Convenient, wasn’t it? There was the sea ready and waiting.”

  “But how…?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. It worked once. Why not try again?”

  “You don’t know Dermot Tregarland.”

  “Don’t know my daughter’s husband, my own son-in-law, you might say.”

  “He was that, but you didn’t know him.”

  “I was never asked up there, but I knew of him. In any case, they are now gone. My daughter, your sister. Of course he got rid of them.”

  “Mrs. Pardell, this is absurd. If he had wanted to get rid of them, he wouldn’t have killed the second in the same way as the first. It makes people wonder. It calls attention…”

  “Look here, Miss Denver, you’re too innocent. What about those Brides in the Bath? That man went round murdering women for their money, after he’d married them. He got them in the bath and drowned them. He did several of them that way.”

  “This is different.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “I know Dermot Tregarland well. He couldn’t commit one murder…let alone two.”

  “You’re too trusting, Miss Denver. If you read any of those detective stories you’d see. It’s always the one you’d least suspect.”

  “It could have been accidental.”

  She shook her head. “You won’t get me believing that. I know how you feel about your sister. Didn’t I go through it all? You’re living up there, Miss Denver. You’ve got to keep your eyes open…that’s what you’ve got to do. You watch out. I reckon something very funny is going on up at that place. Have another cup of tea.”

  “No, thanks. I am sure you are misjudging Dermot Tregarland.”

  “I wish to God my Annette had never married him. I reckon if she hadn’t she would have been alive today. I’d have got over her having a baby out of wedlock, but I couldn’t get over this. I just want to know…if only I knew…”

  “I understand what you mean,” I said. “If one knows, there is nothing to be done, one accepts it.”

  “That’s right.” She looked at me shrewdly. “You’re a sensible girl, Miss Denver. You keep your eyes open. See if he’s got another in mind for number three.”

  “Oh…I’m sure not. He is absolutely devastated with grief.”

  She looked disbelieving. “Well, he would let you think that, wouldn’t he?”

  “It’s genuine. I know.”

  “Murderers are clever people. They have to be to get away with it.”

  “But not two wives, Mrs. Pardell. Not two in the same way.”

  “How about that Bluebeard?”

  In spite of everything, I could not help smiling.

  “Look here,” she said. “Don’t you be too trusting. You watch out. I’m glad you came by. I’ve been thinking about you. It was good of you to bring that plant. I wouldn’t like anything to happen to you.”

  “To me?”

  “Well, when people start trying to find out what people don’t want brought to light, they’re in danger. It always works that way. You watch out, but don’t let him see you’re watching.”

  The picture of Annette smiled at me. She was dead. Her body had been washed up on the beach a few days after she had been drowned. And Dorabella…perhaps one day…hers would be found.

  I said goodbye to Mrs. Pardell and promised her I would call again.

  I made my way back to Tregarland’s. Poor Mrs. Pardell! I was thinking. We were all the same. Our grief was so intense that we wanted to blame someone, and she had selected Dermot. Poor, brokenhearted, rather ineffectual Dermot. It was difficult to imagine him in the role of Bluebeard. In fact, it was so absurd that I found myself smiling in a way I had not done for some time.

  Mrs. Pardell’s words and I thought how very mistaken she was.

  He was sitting in the garden looking down the slope to where the sea gently lapped the black rocks.

  I went and sat beside him and he smiled at me rather feebly.

  I said: “Dermot, you must not brood.”

  “And you?” he asked. “Are you brooding?”

  “We both have to stop it.”

  “I can’t get it out of my mind. Why did she do it? And why wasn’t I here?”

  I laid my hand on his arm.

  “We have to try to put it behind us.”

  “Can you?” he demanded almost angrily.

  “No. But we have to try.”

  “I keep thinking of her. Do you remember how I first saw you, outside that café place? I looked at he
r and I knew from that moment. I knew she was the one. She was different from anyone I had ever met. She was so full of gaiety and everything seemed a joke. You know what I mean. You laughed at things just because you were happy, I suspect, not because they were particularly funny.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “There was no one like her…and she’s gone. She’s out there somewhere. Do you think we shall ever find her?”

  “I just feel that we shall. Poor Dermot, you have been through this…twice.”

  His manner changed slightly. He seemed to draw himself up and his face stiffened.

  “That,” he said, “was different.”

  “She was drowned, too.”

  “It wasn’t the same. Dorabella…she was everything.”

  “Annette…”

  “I don’t talk about that much. But this…I know you cared about her …as I did. She was very close to you, wasn’t she? I was afraid, always afraid that I was going to lose her. Oh, not like this. I thought I shouldn’t be enough for her. She would find someone else. Sometimes…”

  “She was your wife, Dermot.”

  “I know, but…”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. He frowned and I went on: “Tell me…”

  “Well, she was not the sort to go on with something just because she was expected to. She had no respect for conventional behavior. She always wanted to break free from it.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  He was silent and I could see he wished he had not said what he had.

  He said: “Annette…she was fun. Jolly, good-hearted. But for the child, it would never have been. With Dorabella it was different.”

  “I understand.”

  “I can’t settle to anything. It all seems blank and not worthwhile. I leave everything to Gordon…more than ever.”

  “Well, you always have, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. He’s so capable. He makes me feel…inefficient. I was taking more interest when Tristan came. You see, in time, this will all be his…first mine, of course. But Gordon will always be there. But now this has happened, I just don’t care about anything.”

  “But there is Tristan to think of.”

  He just sat there, staring out to sea.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Violetta. I’m glad you’re with the baby.”

  “It was her wish, you know.”

  “I know. Nanny is good, but she is getting old now. It is better for the baby to have someone young, and you…you’ll be like his own mother. You will stay here, won’t you?”

  I said: “Everything is so uncertain at the moment. I suppose it would be better really if I went to Caddington, taking Tristan and Nanny Crabtree with me.”

  “My father is against that.”

  “I know. He has made it clear. Well, it is all too soon. We’ll see how it works out.”

  I sat with him a little longer and we looked out to sea and thought of Dorabella.

  Nanny Crabtree was faintly perturbed.

  “Tristan’s got a little sniffle. Not much, but I don’t like it and I’m keeping him in today.”

  “I’ll come up and see him,” I said.

  He was lying in his cot, whimpering a little.

  I went over and picked him up. That satisfied him for a few minutes. He had an endearing habit of gripping my finger and holding on to it tightly, as though determined not to let me go.

  “He looks a little flushed,” I said.

  “A bit,” she replied. “He just wants to be kept warm, that’s all.”

  At midday there was a letter from Richard.

  He had written, “Dearest Violetta,”

  I am arriving on Thursday. I have discovered there is a hotel in Poldown…West Poldown. It’s a place called Black Rock Hotel. I have booked a room and shall be staying for a few days. I have Tregarland’s number and I’ll give you a call as soon as I arrive. There is so much to talk about.

  See you soon.

  All my love,

  Richard

  Thursday, and it was Wednesday today!

  My feelings were mixed. I wanted to see him, of course, but he would try to persuade me to leave Cornwall, and that was something I could not consider, at least not yet.

  Well, I should hear what he had to say and I would make him understand that I had promised Dorabella to take her place with her son and that it had been a sacred promise which I must keep at all costs.

  He was reasonable. He would see that.

  I thought about him all the afternoon, recalling what a pleasant time we had had in London, and I was definitely looking forward to seeing him again.

  The first thing I did next morning was to go to the nursery to see Tristan.

  “Still sniffling,” said Nanny Crabtree. “So it is another day indoors for you, my lord.”

  In the late afternoon there was a call from Richard. He had just arrived at Black Rock Hotel. He wanted me to have dinner with him that night. Could I come to the hotel or should he come to me? If I came to the hotel we could be alone together. He had ascertained that he could get a car at the hotel and come and pick me up.

  We arranged that he should do this.

  I told Matilda that he was coming. She seemed rather pleased. She said it would do me good to see him.

  She was very friendly when he arrived. Gordon happened to be there and they were introduced; and after a short time I went back with him to Black Rock Hotel.

  It was a pleasant place with a lounge overlooking the sea. The black rock, from which the hotel took its name, was very much in evidence and Richard and I sat in the lounge looking out on it.

  “You will be coming home soon,” Richard was saying.

  “I don’t know what is going to happen. We’re just drifting along at the moment.”

  “I know. It was such a terrible shock.”

  “Then there is the baby.”

  “I understand that he has an excellent nanny.”

  “Yes, but it is not the same, is it?”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Oh, no. He has lost his mother…and he looks to me, I know.”

  “Oh, I am sure he is too young to miss her.”

  “In a way. But somehow…I think he needs me.”

  Richard looked faintly disbelieving.

  “Perhaps it is difficult for you to understand,” I began.

  “Oh, no…no,” he said. “I understand perfectly how you feel. All this was so sudden, so absolutely shattering. You can’t really sort things out at first. I have been talking to your mother.”

  “What did you say to her?”

  “It was she who thought you should leave Cornwall and come home. She thought they might see reason down here and let the baby come with you. She said that would be by far the best for everybody, and she reckons that is what it will come to eventually.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It would be the best surely. If you made up your mind…about us…well, it would only be natural that your mother should take the child.”

  “He belongs down here, you see. One day he will inherit everything. His grandfather wants him to be brought up here.”

  “Your mother tells me that the grandfather is rather an odd character, and she wonders if he is resisting in order to be perverse. She says she is sure that at heart he is quite indifferent about the whole matter.”

  “There is, of course, Tristan’s father to be considered.”

  “He’s rather a weak person, according to your mother. He goes where he’s put.”

  “That’s not entirely true. But at the moment he is suffering deeply from a terrible shock.”

  “Of course. But that’s enough of these people. What about you? Tell me…have you thought any more…about us?”

  “I haven’t been able to think about anything but all this.”

  “You’ll get over it…and then…”

  “Dorabella had been with me all my life until she married. And now she’s gone, I can’t belie
ve it. I can’t think about anything else.”

  He looked crestfallen, and I fancied just a little impatient.

  “I’m sorry, Richard,” I said. “It’s just impossible for me to see very far ahead.”

  “I understand,” he said soothingly. “Let me tell you what is happening in London. My mother was hoping you’d come up and stay for a while. There are a lot of things she wants to show you about the house.”

  “Oh,” I said faintly.

  “As for Mary Grace, she is already very fond of you.”

  “Did she do that portrait?”

  “Yes, and it was much admired. There are two more people clamoring for her work. You see what you have already done for the family. Oh, Violetta, it can be so good, I know it can. Please, please, do think about it. I am so sure it is the right thing.”

  But I was not. It was reasonable, of course, for him to think that my mother should care for the baby, but he simply did not understand. I was glad to see him, of course. But somehow it was not quite as it had seemed in London.

  He told me he could stay for only two more days. He just had to be back in London by Monday and would have to leave on Sunday. It was a pity it was such a long journey.

  “I’ll come down again soon,” he said. “Give me a ring when you have made up your mind. I shall be waiting for it.”

  I felt that he was taking too much for granted. He could not understand my uncertainty. He seemed so sure that I was going to marry him.

  I wished that I could want to. He did not seem to realize that what had happened had made me unable to make any plans. My mind was still with Dorabella. If she had died naturally, would it have been different? But I could not rid myself of the strange feeling that she was not dead, because I had not seen that she was.

  It was an unsatisfactory evening and I was not sorry when the time came to drive back to Tregarland’s.

  The next morning early, Nanny Crabtree came to me in some anxiety.

  “I want the doctor to come and look at Tristan,” she said. “I don’t like that cold of his.”

  “Why, Nanny, is he worse?”

  “He’s wheezing. He’s past the sniffle stage. And now it seems to be getting onto his chest. I’d just like the doctor to see him.”

  “We’ll send for him right away. I’ll give him a ring.”

  She nodded. “Well, it will set our minds at rest.”