The Thin Woman

by Dorothy Cannell

  “For once,” snorted Ben irritably, “I think you underestimate yourself. You’ve admitted you have designs on the unsuspecting vicar.”

  “True, but I intend to restrain them until I am reduced to a shadow of my former self. By that time you will have written your masterpiece and it will be time to put the house up for sale and divide the profits.”

  “Complaisant, aren’t you? But, Ellie, you are overlooking the one condition of that will which may defeat even your ingenuity—the discovery of the treasure.” Ben was pacing again. His eyes under black knitted brows glowed like blue-green opals. “If old Merlin had played by the rules he would have provided us with clues.”

  “What do you expect?” I jeered. “Rhymed couplets written in invisible ink on ivory-coloured parchment?”

  “They would make a heck of a lot more sense than a random search of this warren of a house. We could spend months, tapping desperately on every piece of paneling and floorboard in frantic hope of an echo, or dismantling old bureaus and sideboards searching for a secret drawer.”

  I could see his point. Perhaps though, we were underestimating Uncle Merlin. Some instinct told me that we had not heard the last of the deceased.

  “Oh, don’t look so crestfallen.” To my surprise Ben reached over and touched my face lightly, only a comradely gesture, unfortunately. “I know I sound like a defeatist,” he continued, “but I must say that if I have to get involved in such a harebrained scheme, I would sooner it was with you than anyone else. Together we will evolve some brilliant strategy.”

  Ben and I parted for the night on amiable terms, having decided we would return to London the following morning to settle our affairs. For me this would entail donating my furniture to the Salvation Army and informing my boss he should hang a Help Wanted sign in his studio window. Having mentally disposed of my former life, I lay in the big double bed which I had inhabited on my former visit and thought about Ben and his lady friend Susan. Was she, I wondered hopefully, a mythical creature invented to act out the role of emotional chaperone? Possibly, but a man as eminently attractive as Bentley Haskell was bound to have some woman in his life. The fiancée might exist, but would he remain loyal, faithful, and true to her memory during an absence of six months? He could hardly entertain the creature here at Merlin’s Court while supposedly engaged to me, and treasure hunting would, I hoped, leave little time for trips up to London.

  I fell asleep to dream of the new me. “Have you seen her?” chanted a chorus of animated dumplings. “My word, that girl is thin—emaciated. Really most unbecoming! Her stockings bag around the knees. You should have seen her when she was well-padded. She had such a pretty face!” This flattery was so enjoyable I hated to wake up. But my window had not latched properly and a strong draught was blowing over me. Struggling out of my happy fantasy, I padded across the room and parted the curtains. Tonight there was no moon. As I reached for the latch, a pinprick of light stabbed the darkness. The gardener must be awake at his cottage, perhaps going downstairs to make himself a cup of Ovaltine. A very sound idea. Reaching for my dressing gown, grateful that I was no longer reduced to a bedspread, I knotted the cord around my middle and went out onto the landing. At least this time I would not collide with Uncle Merlin in the pantry. Getting rid of that antiquated dumbwaiter would be one of my first projects. My hand moved down the smooth curve of the bannister rail; this beautiful staircase should be restored and preserved. Was Uncle Merlin manipulating me from the grave, knowing full well my professional instincts would be aroused? Mr. Bragg had emphasized that substantial funds would be made available to us during our stay. And the house certainly would fetch a better price after even modest renovations. In its present state of dirt and decay, even squatters wouldn’t want it.

  The kitchen was worse than the last time. Unable to face it earlier that evening, I had steered clear by sending Ben to fix sandwiches for supper. Tomorrow, before we left, I would roll up my sleeves and boil water. At the moment I was not ready for an assault on squalour. I found a tin of biscuits and then made myself a cup of strong tea. The milk was sour so I did without. One could only be surprised that Uncle Merlin had not died from dysentery years before pneumonia claimed him. Aunt Sybil was the limit. The effect of my disapproval was uncanny: As if to defend herself against mental attack, she materialized, literally, on the doorstep. I heard a stamping noise and turned in my chair as the garden door opened.

  “Aunt Sybil,” I cried, “what are you doing wandering around outside in the middle of the night?”

  She looked momentarily taken aback, patting her badly permed grey hair with a fluttering hand. “Oh, Giselle, it’s you,” she said as though there had been some doubt.

  She allowed me to help her off with her damp black coat and watched as I folded it over a chair. “A girl of your age should sleep the night through. We old people are different. I catnap. When I can’t get back to sleep, I go outside and walk about.”

  “You have to be careful,” I said. “We don’t want you catching pneumonia.”

  “Now, Giselle, don’t fuss. I simply felt the need for a little air. Besides, I wanted to walk down and look at the cottage, but then I realized Jonas was still there.”

  She sat down and I poured her a cup of tea. As she drank I noticed that the skin on her hands was dry and cracked like a crumbling autumn leaf. “Aunt Sybil, you don’t have to go. This is your home. Ben and I are the intruders.”

  “That’s very kind, Giselle.” Absently she hummed a snatch from the Merlin Grantham funeral theme before focussing her vague pale eyes on me. “But dear Merlin’s wishes are mine always. His leaving you the house is no reflection upon his feelings for me. He felt this place would become too much for me. Time for me to take life easy and sit down with my knitting. Whatever he said in the will, Merlin always appreciated my efforts.”

  I tried not to let my eyes wander around the towering disorder. Aunt Sybil leaned back in her chair, her worn hands clasped over her rumpled, spotted dress. She was renouncing her role as lady of the manor and handing over the keys to the new generation.

  “Well,” I said, anxious to conceal my relief, “we will expect to see you here often for lunch or tea and we will come down to visit you.”

  “Merlin would expect that,” she returned, “but let us wait until we are both settled. Speaking of settling down, will you and Mr. Hamlet be married soon?”

  “Not for a while.” I rattled the teacups together and picked them up. “Ben feels we should wait until the end of the six months. We want our lives in order so we can enjoy the wedding.”

  “I see.” Aunt Sybil nodded. What she thought she saw was a fortune hunter about to keep me dangling until he could be sure our marriage would prove a sound financial investment. “You do realize, don’t you,” she warned, “that people will talk with the two of you living here together? Even though Merlin and I are, were cousins I, too, got those winks and nudges from the villagers. Oh dearie, yes, but I never let them bother me. Why? Because I can proudly say that in all our years together your uncle never made an improper suggestion. Behave like a lady, Giselle, and you will always be quite safe with men.”

  Now I knew where I had gone wrong.

  “Remember, dear, if you must lie down—except to sleep, that is—do it with a good book. The one I’m reading now is a sweet story about a girl who is kidnapped from a nunnery by a pirate with a one-legged parrot. Remind me to lend it to you some time. Of course I must say I prefer William Shakespeare for something a a little deeper, but …”

  The next morning I came downstairs to find Ben on the telephone. From his furtive “Goodbye” and speedy replacement of the receiver I sadly concluded he must have been talking to the other fiancée, but somehow I would make him forget her. On the road back to London I talked with him about Aunt Sybil.

  “That woman frightens me; fifty years in that house and I may end up just like her, an elderly wallflower still wondering what the knight in shining armour might do if
he ever got off his horse.” Unwrapping a bar of chocolate, I took a sneaky bite while Ben kept his eyes on the road.

  “Why don’t you worry about something real for a change, like how you are going to fare on your lose-some win-some diet. Tell me, why are your cheeks bulging like a hamster? Do I have to keep after you every minute?”

  “Sorry.” I swallowed. “But I wonder how you would react if you had to lose four and a half stone, translated, that is sixty-three pounds, and six months into sixty-three goes …”

  “About two and a half pounds a week. Here, give me the rest of that chocolate. Ruin my chances of this inheritance and I will personally turn you over to the relations and watch them tear you limb from limb.”

  “You terrify me. But what is adventure without the thrust of danger?” I folded the chocolate paper and placed it in the ashtray.

  “Something I can live without.”

  What disturbed me about returning to Queen Alexandra Place was how little I had to leave behind and how little I had to collect.

  “Are you taking the monster with you?” asked Jill. Tobias had just taken a yank out of her stockinged leg, so she was not feeling kindly towards him. “If so, I may decide not to visit you after all, Ellie darling.”

  “Oh, Jill, you must come.” I blinked back a tear but she would not have seen it anyway, because her own eyes had misted over. “But leave my furry baby behind,” I continued bracingly, “you must be joking. He is off to mouse heaven. Rodents multiply in every closet. We are both going to work our tails off.”

  And the prophecy was fulfilled. On arriving back at Merlin’s Court we found Aunt Sybil had departed for Cliffside, leaving a record number of dirty dishes in the sink and her bedroom stacked with torn boxes, broken hangers, and newspapers dating back to the beginning of the century. What we needed was a giant bonfire set sufficiently back from the house so we did not all go up in smoke.

  Manlike, Ben had already deposited his typewriter on the dining room table, and sat reaming paper between the rollers, surrounded by items he had casually moved to the floor, a chipped willow pattern soup tureen, a bobbled red velour cloth, several dusty egg cartons, magazines, candlesticks, and a bust of Churchill with half his cigar knocked off.

  I leaned up against the door-frame and chirrupped sweetly, “Putting together a few items for the church bazaar?”

  “What?” Ben rubbed a finger across his brow.

  “Trying to place me? I am the other half of the ‘Double Your Money’ team—not the whole operation. Will you stop feeding that machine its breakfast, or do I have to knock your chair over?”

  “What do you want from me!” Ben squinted, closed one eye, and carefully adjusted his margins. “I thought you’d be impressed by my self-discipline. Not half an hour in the house and here I am flexing my fingers ready to start on my puritan tale. You will be pleased to know I took your advice. My hero is a woman—a nun, at that—Sister Marie Grace, an American who infiltrates the C.I.A., cleverly disguised as a disco dancer. What do you think?”

  “I think Sister What’s-her-face can go to hell and you can hand over your car keys so I can go into the village and get in provisions for the siege. Meanwhile you can put on a pinny and start shovelling dirt. If I don’t look out you will be placing your boots outside your bedroom door for cleaning.”

  “You didn’t tell me you drove,” said Ben, pleasantly interested.

  “I also feed myself, take baths alone …”

  “Message received and understood. The keys are hanging on a nail just inside the stable door; bring me back a loaf of malt bread, will you?”

  I made the notation on my list.

  “You’d better get away from that typewriter,” I said, heading out the door. “It is programmed to explode in thirty seconds.”

  The stables were at the side of the house, separated from it by a courtyard overlooking the moat and a pseudo-Norman arch. Shrugging on a short woollen jacket, I picked up my bag, slung the strap over my shoulder and, wrapping my arms around myself for warmth, made the short dash across the slick, moss-covered flagstones. Pushing open the iron-studded door, my eyes took a moment to grow accustomed to the gloom. After only once cracking my head on a slanted beam and putting my hand through something soft and spongy (which proved to be a gigantic cobweb), I located the car keys and was leaving when something moved in one of the far corners.

  A bat? But bats don’t speak, unless you count the kind who transpose themselves into vampires for the express purpose of sucking the life blood out of defenceless maidens. This one was addressing me. I backed towards the door. The voice definitely had a sepulchral ring.

  “Who be there?”

  “And who be ye?” Swinging the door open behind me, I let in a shaft of watery sunlight. I could see his face, the grizzled hair, the bristly scrubbing-brush moustache. Not an unusual face. Hundreds of tramps hiding in barns all over the country probably looked very much like him—anonymous. “Jonas Phipps! Does everyone in this dreadful house walk on air? I never know who will pop up and terrify me next.”

  “Nay, don’t say I scared ye, mistress. Were t’other way round. I were just coming down for airing when I heard this fair awful squeal, like pig having its innards carved open.”

  “That t’were, were—was me. I cracked my head on a beam.” Reaching out I touched the book he had half hidden under his arm.

  “I see you’ve been busy, Mr. Phipps. May I see?”

  “Naw, t’is just a trifling yarn, ’bout giddy young thing what gets put in’t family way by some ne’er-do-well feller an’ from then on t’is all downhill for poor lass.”

  “Tess of the D’Urbervilles.” I tilted my head and spelt out the title. “Cheerful little tale. If all the laughs are keeping you away from your polishing cloth I can tell you the ending is wonderful. She gets hanged.”

  Jonas grunted. “Might have known t’would have happy ending. Was hoping she’d get married instead. Come to speak of wedding bells on’t peal, don’t doubt you and master’ll be taking a walk down churchyard soon?”

  Here we went again. I explained patiently to Jonas that while the family was in mourning a wedding would be unseemly. He shook his head. “No call for fuss an’ show. Me ma and da went out in their workaday clothes day they was churched, but t’were legal, in them days. Decent living counted for summat then. Mr. Merlin would want ye wed, I’ll tell ye that straight.”

  So he would have—the sadistic old devil.

  Ben’s car went like a leopard that suddenly finds its cage door open. I pressed my foot on the accelerator, honked twice on the horn to speed up Jonas’s dawdling approach to the house, and zoomed down the driveway past Aunt Sybil’s cottage, through the drooping iron gates and onto the cliff road. The looping turns took some negotiating but I was exhilarated, like a schoolgirl experiencing the first day of holiday freedom. Luckily I met no other cars, and although I passed a bus stop, no lumbering vehicle approached me with a load of holiday-makers. Moving over, whilst polite, might have meant parachuting over the cliff edge. When spring finally graced us with its presence, this view would be magnificent, but now the sea was sluggish and swollen, slapping out at the jutting rocks like a petulant grey-faced crone.

  Contemplating nature, I took a turn a little sharply, swerved to avoid a telephone kiosk, put my foot down to steady the car with the brake, felt it start and buckle like an angry carthorse, and was thrown forward with a painful jolt against the steering column. The road lunged forward ready to hurl me into the sea. Grinding the wheel between my fingers, I held on for dear life and closed my eyes. I cannot say that the sum total of my past experience flashed before me, but I heard Vanessa’s voice: The words were the ones she had spoken after Uncle Merlin’s will was read, “By fair means or foul.”

  My eyes flew open. Let Vanessa have the house, the money, I’d even throw in Ben as a special bonus offer, if the car would stop shuddering towards the cliff edge. Taking my foot off the brake, I let the car slide at roller-co
aster speed until I met a relatively flat strip of road, yanked on the emergency brake, and slammed the car in a wild flourish into the right-hand bank.

  What I needed was a comforting slice of chocolate cake.

  For ten minutes I sat taking deep breaths, explaining carefully to my jumping limbs that we were safe and still hanging together, everything properly attached and nothing badly bruised or broken. After this pep talk I felt strong enough to climb out and inspect the damage to Ben’s pride and joy. Not that it mattered. Even if the car had survived without a scratch nothing would induce me to return to the driver’s wheel, and let the leopard loose again.

  Down on all fours, inspecting the paintwork, I heard plodding footsteps and realized I was not alone.

  “I say, having a spot of bother?”

  Of course not, I thought, I just chose this isolated place to do my morning exercises.

  Around a curve in the road came a sporting-type woman about forty, wearing a bright yellow cardigan, wheeling a bicycle.

  “Sorry, did I startle you?” she boomed. “This certainly is not the place for surprises, one nervous shudder and over the side one would go, ha-ha!”

  The people a girl meets on a quiet drive in the country.

  CHAPTER

  Eight

  “Not to worry!” rasped my new acquaintance. “I’ll have this blighter off before you can sing the first verse of ‘God Save the Queen.’ How’s the spare?”

  So much for murder plots. True to form I was the victim of something much more mundane, a blown tyre. Miss Jolly Hockey Sticks hummed blithely as she worked, ginger hair tucked uncompromisingly behind her ears and trouser legs riding up to snow an expanse of purple and yellow argyle socks. With fingers deft and quick, she had the defective wheel on the ground within minutes and was moving the spare into place.

  “This is most kind.” I felt like a pigtailed new girl at school being taken under the kindly wing of a sixth-form prefect.