The Thin Woman

by Dorothy Cannell

  The Pulletts were the jewellers in the village. Why had Abigail needed money at the price of disposing of her mother’s ring? Uncle Arthur, from the amounts deposlted in his wife’s keeping, had not been overly generous, but had provided her with sufficient means to support the household. Had I stumbled upon a hidden vice on the lady’s part, a passion for dice or cards, or cream sherry? I could not accept this; Abigail came through as too disciplined in financial matters. Perhaps she had given the money to a needy relative or friend. Was it a coincidence that this transaction was made as the journal ceased, or were the two related? Was Abigail ill and aware she was about to die, and did she feel the need to assist someone close to her while she still could? What bothered me was her handwriting. The last entry was as strong and firm as the first. Her passing must have been sudden. I remembered Rose and the suspicions she had voiced. Married to a man as truculent and obnoxious as Uncle Arthur, no woman could be faulted for sticking her head in the gas oven or taking a flying leap off a handy cliff, but reading the journal made it difficult for me to see Abigail as a suicide. Another darker suspicion came to me. More than ever it seemed vital to talk with someone who might be in touch with records from the past—old letters, journals such as this one. Mr. Pullett was a possibility; so was the vicar. The rectory and this house had stood side by side on this clifftop for generations. The parish register! That would give me the date of Abigail’s death, which I was sure was not marked on her tomb. Excitement surged within me.

  Only half the book was taken up with entries. A long series of blank pages followed the last one dated September 25. Picking it up again, I inadvertently opened the volume at the wrong end. I found four or five sheets pasted with snippets of fabric and clipped corners of wallpaper samples. Underneath each item was written a description of its intended use. One such notation read: Fabric for Queen Anne chair and sofa cushions, look for complementary damask stripe in rose and cream for the curtains and window seat covering. Here were Abigail’s plans for redecorating the drawing room. Had they ever been completed?

  Sometimes new wallpaper was applied over old. If I peeled off a small strip in the corner of the drawing room, would I find the pattern Abigail had chosen underneath? Taking the book with me, I hurried across the room, pausing to open the bedside table where I kept a pair of scissors and a nail file. Not very workmanlike tools but … Something else waited for me inside that drawer—a large flat box of chocolates, done up in shining transparent red paper, which crackled when I touched it, and a silky green ribbon, under which was tucked a small white card. It said simply: Happy Birthday.

  Dorcas, I thought, or Ben. Which one of them had decided I needed a little relaxation from the rigours of constant privation? The reason for secrecy was easy. Neither party would want the other to know I had been seduced from the straight and narrow. The closest I had come to cheating during the past weeks was when I had bought myself a flavoured lip gloss in Daiquiri Lime. The chocolates were a kind gesture, but a person in my situation was so vulnerable. Of late I had begun to fear that my ears might grow and I would start twitching like a rabbit if I chomped down on any more carrots and celery sticks—the fun food Ben kept on ice for me in the refrigerator. I fingered the box again.

  To refuse one small nibble would be puritanical. Perhaps an orange-filled one? Doctors were always harping these days on the benefits of vitamin C. I hesitated. How typical it would be of Ben to present me with a bathroom scale with one hand and this calorie-loaded time bomb with the other! A small test to see how far I had come in terms of willpower and perseverance? Hateful man!

  But what if Dorcas were the gentle giver? Under that hearty exterior she really was a very sensitive soul. To hurt such a friend would be unforgivable. Schoolteachers believed in the reward system, fair play and incentive, and I had been exemplary of late.

  The first chocolate was delicious. The second was even better. But they naturally came from the top layer. What if the bottom row had grown a bit stale? If I wanted to put them out in a dish at teatime, I felt it my duty to check these out, too. Moist, succulent! I slid the wafer of paper between the layers and was just replacing the lid when I remembered that violet creams are not a general favourite. Virtuously I popped the offender into my mouth.

  “Ellie,” called a voice from below stairs. Dorcas! I returned the chocolates to the drawer, grabbed the green book, the nail file and scissors and ran out into the hall as though a legion of sugar-coated demons were after me.

  “Wanted to know whether we should call the chimney sweep out for this week or next?” Dorcas wore a bright yellow duster tied serviceably round her flaming hair and her ruler-thin figure was encased in a grey serge boiler suit. She stood waiting for me in the hall.

  “Next week, I think.” How ridiculous to feel so culpable. As I passed the speckled mirror hanging above the trestle table, I took a furtive peek checking for telltale smears of chocolate.

  All of this cloak-and-dagger stuff was unnecessary if Dorcas had put the box in my drawer. I decided to submit her to a test. “This has been a wonderful birthday.” I looked meaningfully at her and stretched out the next words. “Thanks for being so sweet to me, Dorcas.”

  “Thought you would like the bracelet. Don’t go in for fandangles myself, but had the notion a pretty trinket might be a boost; something towards your new image.”

  So much for that ploy! Dorcas had not looked the least conscious of any double entendre. She wanted me to look at the glass-fronted bookcase in the drawing room, afraid that this piece, like several others, might be afflicted with woodworm. I was easily diverted. We had been talking for several weeks about completely redoing this room. Now Abigail’s journal had sparked added interest in the project. After inspecting the bookcase and agreeing with Dorcas that it was too far gone to be saved, I handed her the journal. She was as interested as I had been in the patterns pasted on the back pages.

  “Shocking crime the way this room has been let go. Handsome woodwork, beautiful moulded ceiling. Don’t find plaster work like that central ceiling rose these days. Frightful shame!” Dorcas gave the words almost Shakespearean anguish.

  I looked around the room. “Aunt Sybil told me that Uncle Merlin never purchased a stick of furniture so one thing for which he cannot be blamed is the decorating scheme of things. After Abigail’s death that asinine Arthur must have ripped out everything of his wife’s choosing. From the samples in this book she would have hated everything about this room and the rest of the house. And it is not as though Uncle Arthur married again and had to defer to a new wife’s judgment.”

  “Wiped out her memory with a pot of paint and yards of wallpaper,” sighed Dorcas. “The question you have to answer, Ellie, is why?”

  I looked around at the walls. “Hold on a minute. I want to try something.” And sure enough, when I pried a strip of wallpaper loose with my nail file there, underneath, was Abigail’s cream-worked silk paper, as shiny new as when first pasted to the wall. Of course, when we removed the porridge overlay en masse we would not reach it intact, but …

  “Dorcas,” I said, “I have made a decision. I am going to restore Abigail’s room, make it hers again. When I was in the attic the other day I saw some beautiful pieces, including a walnut bureau and a Queen Anne chair, which may be the one Abigail mentioned in her journal.” I paced about the room. “The colour of the paper is neutral, and was to be picked up in the damask stripe Abigail wanted for the curtains and window seat. Rose was the predominate shade there and in the brocade which was to be used to cover the Queen Anne chair. I wonder what other colours she used? Jade perhaps.”

  Dorcas’s nose quivered with excitement. “Peacock blue,” she suggested promptly.

  Considering that Dorcas favoured the most unfortunate colour combinations in dress, I was surprised that she might be right. “Hold on!” I backed across the carpet which covered about half the room, until I stood on the dark oak surround. “Being the saving person he was—the attic is chock-full—
what might Great-Uncle Arthur have done with Abigail’s carpet?”

  “Used it as an underlay instead of old newspapers or felt,” replied Dorcas promptly, and again she was right.

  Beverages had leaked through in a few places, but when revealed to the light Abigail’s carpet looked new, the shades of its bird-of-paradise pattern warm and bright against the rich cream background.

  “Dorcas!” I said solemnly. “Were any of your ancestors burnt at the stake? What primary accent colour do you see before you?”

  “Nothing odd in that! Likely combination.” Dorcas blushed dark red from the neck up, and kept looking down. “Peacock blue has always been a favourite with me.”

  The shuddering boom of the gong in the hall aroused us to the fact that every-day life does go on in the midst of great discoveries. Ben was summoning us to lunch.

  Having eaten enough chocolates to fill my calorie quota for the coming month, I decided to cut back by skipping lunch and dinner. But when Ben slipped a puffy yellow omelette on my plate oozing gently at the edges with mushrooms, tomatoes, and small golden onions, and garnished with spears of broccoli, I hated to disappoint him—or me. After sacrificing my finer feelings to preserve Ben’s culinary pride, I was disappointed that he did not share my excitement about Abigail and the drawing room. When he saw I was provoked he made matters infinitely worse by saying that if the purchase of new curtains and papering a few walls made me happy, then he was pleased.

  “Ben, this is not trivial. I am not playing with doll’s houses.” His response was an irritating lift of his black eyebrows.

  Pouring his coffee into his saucer, Jonas entered the arena with “Dunno how many years it’s been since that room was done up proper.” I waited until the old man had finished his last slurp, wiped his mouth with his serviette, and tucked it back into the neck of his knit jersey. “Well, Jonas.” I looked into his face. “Are you also of the opinion that I should leave the dust in that room undisturbed? Perhaps I should. I suppose it does, by rights, belong in a museum. It certainly is old enough.”

  Jonas stared fiercely back at me, the hairs of his moustache damp with coffee. “Don’t always be talking yourself down, girl And don’t let him do it neither. This house was a mouldering hovel till you arrived with your new broom.”

  Eyebrows bristling and his lower jaw jutting aggressively forward, Jonas tossed his serviette down on the table and stumped out the garden door, leaving three very surprised pairs of eyes fixed upon the place where he had sat.

  “That fatal charm of yours again, Ellie.” Ben’s lips quirked. “Another admirer falls at your feet.”

  “Sneer all you want.” I glowered at him. “You may think that if a girl doesn’t look like Venus rising from the deep, she isn’t worm a twist of salt in a bag of crisps, but not every male has your impossibly high standards.”

  “Now, now, Ellie,” Dorcas intervened, “harmless jest. Take it in a sporting …”

  “Please.” I took a deep breath. “Do not talk to me about being a good sport and all that tommy-rot. Ben does this to me all the time, belittling me, making out that no rational person could possibly like me because I’m fat and ugly.” Something soft and furry-warm wound itself around my leg. Tobias. I reached down for him and thankfully hid my flushed face against the fluff of his neck.

  “Ellie.” Ben’s voice vibrated with kindly compassion. “You haven’t done something you regret, have you? Don’t be afraid, you can tell us. Dorcas and I are your friends.”

  Who did the idiot think he was? The concerned papa in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta? Or did he know something about the chocolates?

  I lifted my face from Tobias’s fur. “Well, I haven’t had an affair with old Jonas if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “No, you idiot!” Ben’s eyes laughed at me. “I meant had you eaten something you shouldn’t have? Whenever you flare up at me in the old belligerent way, I wonder if you have just consumed a tin of condensed milk. People who fall off the wagon turn nasty because, dear Watson, they feel guilty.”

  What a disgustingly perceptive man he was, but unless he was inhumanly devious he had not sent those chocolates. I began to suspect Jonas, but I was saved from speaking in my own defence by Dorcas, who vouched that I had not been near the kitchen all morning. Having tried to stare each other down for a few protracted minutes, Ben and I reluctantly broke into grins and called a truce.

  “I’m glad you decided to be civil because I have a treat planned for dinner.”

  “What?” I asked. Tobias was not as polite; he yawned mightily, showing glossy pink gums.

  “Dessert actually—a café-au-lait mousse with Chantilly cream and shavings of bitter chocolate!” Ben leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

  “Sublime!” I applauded, feeling totally unworthy after my chocolate binge.

  Dorcas, who rarely ate desserts, said “Jolly good,” but without much conviction.

  “I found the recipe in Abigail Grantham’s collection.” Ben reached behind him for the little brown book which was lying on the Welsh dresser. “Some of the entries are quite fascinating. Of course there is also the usual stuff.” He turned through the pages. “Seed cake, simnel cake, smoked haddock in egg custard, delicately seasoned with nutmeg. That’s a nuisance.” He stopped and ran a finger down the inside of the book. “A couple of pages are missing, we jump forward to soups and stews, nothing tremendously exciting there. My favourite is the brew guaranteed to sober up an unsteady bridegroom so he can walk a straight line down the aisle. Here’s another gem, an after-shave lotion made from mashed dock leaves and dandelion juice! And which one of us has not craved a sure-fire method of taking scorch marks out of pillowcases, when some thoughtless guest snuffed out his candle between the sheets?”

  “Sounds marvellous! May I see?” Dorcas took up the book and scoured the pages. “Listen to this—a cough remedy calling for two very ripe cucumbers, licorice root, and a sampling of herbs commonly found in an English country garden—sage, mint, and …”

  I left the two of them poring over instructions for preparing a rose-water and glycerine hand lotion. Not that I was uninterested in this other glimpse into the life of Abigail Grantham, but I wanted to go up into the attic and see what pieces of abandoned furniture I could discover that might have been evicted from the drawing room. It wasn’t until sometime later that I remembered that I had not told Ben about the sale of Abigail’s garnet ring, but it was probably not important. From the price paid for it, the jewel was of no great value. Unless it was a ruby masquerading as a lesser stone, this was not our treasure. And if it was, why had we been sent the two books, since the housekeeping journal alone would have been enough to point us in the right direction? I would have to take the recipes away from Ben and read them myself, looking for the missing link. Speculation may be good for the soul, but it was beginning to make my head spin. Time for a stretch of manual labour.

  My afternoon among the cobwebs and open rafters passed happily. I was in my element browsing through trunks filled with discarded clothing and linens. In one I found a magnificent crocheted bedspread which I set aside with several embroidered cushions to take downstairs with me. Antiques are not my forte, but I know the basics. By the time mauve shadows began combing the windows, I had amassed a sizeable grouping, set out in the middle of a cleared area. It included two fireside wingback chairs, the Queen Anne chair (I was sure it was Abigail’s), a lady’s bureau of the same period, a carved gate-legged card table, a sewing cabinet with cabriole legs, a walnut tea trolley, and my most prized find—a sofa covered in a cream silk brocade that exactly matched the wallpaper we had uncovered in the drawing room. The fabric had rotted and it tore at the touch, but reupholstering in a similar pattern would present no problems. Nothing I had found constituted a real treasure, but I was pleased.

  A tinny clashing of cymbals sauntered up through the floorboards. The dinner gong. Wiping my dusty hands on the back of my khaki slacks, I made my way to the lower
regions. Stopping off at my bedroom to change my shirt, I decided to destroy the evidence that had been plaguing me. Those chocolates had to go. Where could I ditch them without being caught in the act? Pondering the problem I absently ate three more, and found myself looking at the solution. The box was now empty. I could scrunch it up and leave it in my wastepaper basket under a few old magazines until I had the opportunity of disposing of it permanently. Burial in the garden under cover of midnight was out because I might bump into Aunt Sybil on one of her nightly jaunts, but I would think of something stealthy. I was putting the wastepaper basket back down when I noticed a flat gift-wrapped package lying on top of my dressing table. Surely it hadn’t been there when I was last in this room! What a day this was for surprises. This must be from Aunt Sybil. In her way she was a very conscientious old dear. Not another address book or dictionary, I hoped, as I tore off the paper.

  This was neither. When I folded back the thin layer of tissue paper, I found an exquisite silver photograph frame. It was old—a very early one of its kind, and unlike the chocolates the sender had not chosen to remain anonymous. The plain white card said simply: Ben. Nothing else. No chirpy birthday greeting, no flowery sonnet composed by a rhyming computer. The gift spoke its own language. I knew what the frame was for. Ben remembered how I felt about that photograph of Abigail and had provided me with the perfect setting for it—a sentimental gesture from the man who claimed to be a cynic. With the tip of one finger I stroked the frame as tenderly as though it were a face. (Perhaps Ben had sent the chocolates, and the talk about eating on the sly was all a tease.) Tonight I must get him on his own and thank him properly in private. Even the bathroom scale was revealed in a more attractive light—he believed I was going to lose those 63 pounds even with a day off. I felt like a queen celebrating two birthdays: one official and one private.