by Hazel Holt
‘One woe doth tread upon another’s heels,’ I said to Tris, who had followed me back into the house. He looked at me, his head on one side, puzzled by the tone of my voice. I bent down and patted him.
‘No, it’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’m only talking to myself.’ It was getting dark and I went to draw the curtains in the sitting room. In the twilight I could just make out the small figure of Foss, busily digging his own hole in the newly turned earth around my geranium.
Chapter Eleven
There was no word from Roger the next day, or the day after. I rang Rosemary who said that Jilly had told her that Roger was still in Bristol.
‘Apparently, there are several things besides ... besides Robin, that he has to see to there. So we don’t know anything more. Sheila, do you think that Robin might have known something and was frightened that the murderer would find out? And that’s why he ran away like that to hide, somewhere he couldn’t be found.’
‘And the murderer did find him,’ I said slowly, ‘and killed him to stop him telling the police what he knew. Well, it certainly makes more sense than thinking of Robin as the murderer.’
‘That’s what Jack says,’ Rosemary replied. ‘And it does fit in.’
‘But why,’ I asked, ‘didn’t Robin just go to the police and tell them?’
‘Well, you know what Robin was like, such a nervy sort of person. I’m sure he thought the police suspected him and he might have felt they wouldn’t believe him if he told them that someone else killed Adrian and Enid.’
We worried away at the subject for a little while and then I said, ‘I rang Eleanor, but she was ill in bed so Jessie said she’d tell her.’
‘Oh, Eleanor,’ Rosemary exclaimed. ‘How awful of me! I was so taken up with how badly we felt that I totally forgot about her! She’ll miss him dreadfully, they’d become very close. Jack used to tease me, he said that she was his mother-figure now! But honestly, I was so glad for both of them. Poor Eleanor, she doesn’t have much luck with the people she loves. First she lost Phyllis – that was tragic, too – and then Sir Ernest died, and she was so devoted to him, and now, just when she seemed to have taken on a new lease of life, poor Robin goes too.’
‘I know,’ I replied. ‘She seems to have everything anyone could want, that marvellous house and plenty of money to keep it up, but she’s been pretty lonely these last few years, even though she joins in with all sorts of things. She’s got no one special, no family, no particular friend. Anyway,’ I continued, ‘I thought I’d just pop over there today and see how she is.’
‘Oh dear, I’d meant to go a couple of days ago, but somehow I haven’t got round to it. Mother’s just decided that she wants a new television set and we’ve had the man from Taviscombe Electrics back and forth half a dozen times because she isn’t satisfied about the picture. And I’ve got to be there every time so that she can communicate with the poor man through me: “Tell him that it’s too bright now and the sound is all blurred.” Honestly, Sheila, she gets worse by the day! I suppose she’s bored because she doesn’t feel well enough to go out. I do feel guilty about Eleanor, though.’
‘For goodness’ sake! You do quite enough as it is. No, I’ll go along today. I don’t think I’ll phone first, though. I have the feeling that Jessie would try to put me off. She was being very protective the other evening when I rang.’
‘She does like to guard Eleanor,’ Rosemary said. ‘She’s much more like a nanny than a housekeeper, though she’s much younger than Eleanor. How old would you say she is?’
‘Jessie? Oh, I don’t know – in her late thirties, I suppose. It’s difficult to say, she always looks so old-fashioned, if you know what I mean.’
Jessie was looking particularly old-fashioned when she opened the door to me the next day. She was wearing one of those full-length, rather voluminous, floral wraparound overalls that you only see nowadays in television plays about Northern Life in the thirties. I wondered where she had got it from.
‘Oh, Mrs Malory. I thought you were the fish.’
She stood hesitantly in the doorway, obviously wondering whether to let me in. I felt, resentfully, that she was taking rather a lot on herself when I heard a voice behind her calling out, ‘Who is it, Jessie?’ and Eleanor herself appeared.
‘Sheila! What a super surprise! Come in. Jessie, go and get us some coffee.’
She led me into the morning room where there was a fire burning, although it was quite a warm day and the room was flooded with sunlight. As we sat down and the light fell on Eleanor’s face, I was shocked to see how ill she looked.
‘Eleanor, my dear,’ I said impulsively, ‘you look dreadful! Have you seen Dr Macdonald?’
She gave a little laugh.
‘Oh, you know me! Tough as old boots! Just a touch of flu. I’ll be right as rain tomorrow.’
‘Still,’ I said doubtfully, ‘I’m sure you ought to be having antibiotics or something.’
Jessie bought in a tray of coffee and biscuits and I thought that she too looked ill; her usual rosy complexion had faded to a sort of putty colour. When she had gone, I said, ‘Jessie looks very poorly, too. How is she? I saw her in Dr Macdonald’s waiting-room the other day.’
‘Poor Jessie, she’s had one of those beastly gastric things and they do pull you down.’
‘That’s one of the reasons I called, really,’ I said. ‘With you both being ill, I wondered if there was anything I could do – shopping or something.’
‘Bless you, that is kind! But no, we’re OK. Mrs Carter from the village comes in every day and we’re managing quite nicely.’
‘The other reason I came,’ I said tentatively, ‘Is to say how very sorry I was to hear about Robin.’
Eleanor’s hand trembled and the cup she was holding rattled in its saucer.
‘I just don’t understand. Why did he go away like that? I thought he knew that we were his friends, that we cared about him. And he just went without a word ... And then, to die like that...’ Her voice broke. ‘Sorry,’ she said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, ‘I’m making an awful fool of myself.’
‘No, no,’ I said soothingly, ‘you’re still in a state of shock, and you must still feel rotten from the flu. Anyway,’ I went on, ‘everything’s been so awful lately. First Adrian, then Enid, and now Robin.’
‘Enid!’ Eleanor’s face crumpled grotesquely. ‘That was dreadful, dreadful! If only she’d never gone home like that, if only she’d stayed with Geraldine, it would never have happened. And now Robin’s gone. I’ve lost him forever...’
She was crying now, tears pouring down her face unchecked, the handkerchief twisting between her fingers.
I got up and knelt down beside her and put my arm round her should. ‘Please don’t distress yourself like this, it’s not good for you.’
Jessie, coming back into the room to collect the tray, looked at me accusingly.
‘She shouldn’t be upset like this, not when’s she’s not herself.’
I stood up guiltily.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said inadequately, ‘I shouldn’t have spoken about Enid and Robin.’
Jessie crossed over and gently helped Eleanor from her chair.
‘Come along, cariad,’ she said gently, ‘what you need is a nice lie-down,’ She led her from the room and I was alone.
I felt dreadful that my tactlessness had distressed Eleanor so much. I also felt embarrassed, as we do when someone we’ve always thought of as jolly and extrovert – almost a comic figure – suddenly reveals deep and real emotions. I’d never known Eleanor cry before, in all the years I’d known her. Not even when Phyllis died so tragically. Of course I’d been away when Sir Ernest died and I remembered now that my mother had been very worried about her then, because she had taken his death so hard. She had, indeed, been ill for several weeks.
I left, closing the heavy door behind me, and drove away without looking back at the house. I was shaken by the intensity of the emotion I’d just witnesse
d. Poor Eleanor – her last chance of happiness gone. When we’re young we feel that nothing will ever hurt as much as the griefs we feel then, but the pain of middle-age is sharper and cuts deeper, accentuated by our knowledge that there is now so little time left.
I drove down the road into the village and pulled into the lay-by beside the church to recover myself a little before driving on.
After a few moments I became aware that there was a certain amount of activity going on in the church, people coming and going. I wondered vaguely if it was a special service – Father Freddy is a great one for Days of Obligation and so forth. Looking up I saw a handwritten poster pinned to the church notice board announcing a Flower Festival in aid of the Organ Refurbishment Fund. Looking at flowers seemed a reasonable way to restore my spirits, so I got out of the car and made my way up the steep path to the church.
St Decumen’s is a splendid building, disproportionately large, as many Somerset churches are, for the area it serves. It is set in a well-kept churchyard with many fine tombs and monuments. Just by the church door, next to an old eighteenth-century monument embellished with urns and carved swags, stood a large granite cross to the memory of Sir Ernest, with a mass of fresh flowers at its base. I paused to look at it, thinking that Jessie must have brought the flowers since Eleanor was ill. As I stood there, a door at the side of the church was opened revealing a dank, cavernous space where mowers and watering-cans and such-like things were kept, and the tall figure of Father Freddy emerged. When he saw me he came down the path, talking rapidly in his loud, booming voice.
‘Sheila, dear child, what a pleasure to see you! I have just been inspecting the tap. Apparently it won’t turn off properly, so our worthy Greene has been telling me, and it is dripping all over the floor. Most distressing. He says it needs a new washer or some such device, but I am, alas, ignorant of all things mechanical and was quite unable to be of any assistance.’
‘Oh dear,’ I said, rather put out at this form of greeting. ‘What will you do?’
‘I, dear child? I will do nothing. Greene, however, seems to have the matter well in hand and proposes to replace the washer with a new one. So our problem will be solved. I believe,’ he continued with a smile, ‘he only wished to inform me of the disaster so that I might admire the excellent way he was coping with the situation. Well now, how are you? Have you come to visit our Flower Festival?’
I explained that I’d just come from seeing Eleanor and had come upon the Festival quite by chance.
He looked grave.
‘Ah yes, Eleanor. I fear she is not at all well, very much not her usual ebullient self. I was there yesterday and heard the sad news from her about young Robin, poor boy!’
‘She’s very upset – Robin and Enid – and Adrian, of course. It must have been a dreadful strain on her.’
‘Indeed, Taviscombe and its environs has been a positive charnel-house, quite like the worst excesses of Jacobean tragedy.’
In anyone else this flippancy would have been distasteful, but it was so typical of Father Freddy’s manner of speech that one accepted it.
‘I wish she’d see a doctor,’ I said. ‘She looks awful. And Jessie’s not much better. They are both of them quite ill.’
‘Indeed? I hadn’t realized that Jessie was also unwell. She had created a truly memorable orange cake yesterday – I must say I did make something of a pig of myself, I am ashamed to say. It was imperceptive of me not to have noticed that she, too, was not herself.’
‘Jessie seems to be well enough to look after Eleanor, thank goodness. She really is a treasure.’
‘Indeed. I have often envied Eleanor, sinful though that undoubtedly is. My own Mrs Darby is, as you know, a very worthy soul, but her idea of haute cuisine is shepherd’s pie followed by jam roll and custard!’
‘You would prefer moussaka followed by apricot roulade!’ I laughed.
‘Touché! There is, of course, a great deal to be said for classic English cooking. Not quite as classic as some of those unappetizing Elizabethan recipes that poor Enid was wont to make so much of in her little books, but a jugged hare, for example – properly done in a really good port wine – or a decently hung rib of beef. And,’ – he leaned towards me confidentially as if imparting some very important secret – ‘I really do believe that I actually prefer a properly made English apple pie (with clotted cream, of course) to our French cousins’ tarte aux pommes.’ He stood back and looked at me hard, to see how I had taken this daring statement.
‘I quite agree,’ I said as solemnly as I could.
I began to move towards the main door of the church and he walked beside me, his long cassock flapping slightly in a breeze that had sprung up. ‘A Flower Festival,’ he mused, ‘a festival of flowers. In some ways that sounds almost pagan, does it not? And yet, we are told to consider the lilies of the field.’ He gestured towards a great vase of regale lilies that were sending out waves of rich perfume, even in the cool of the church. ‘Though I believe that those mentioned in the Scriptures were a kind of anemone, is that not so?’
‘How beautiful it all is!’ I exclaimed. And indeed the church was magnificently decorated with a multitude of flowers, from the great formal arrangements of lilies, delphiniums, and paeonies to tiny bunches of wild flowers packed along the ledges of the great windows. We walked slowly down the nave admiring the various decorations.
‘So much work!’ I said, ‘and all so beautifully done. You’re very lucky to have such talent in the parish.’
‘Indeed, the village is immensely fortunate to have such a high proportion of excellent women, all of whom, I am glad to say, are most enthusiastic about such things. My own Mrs Darby is particularly assiduous. Although her cooking may leave much to be desired, I am most fortunate in that particular respect, her appetite for parish work appears to be unlimited. A celibate priest, my dear Sheila, as you may imagine, can sometimes be at a disadvantage, lacking as he does a wife, or helpmeet to share some of the more mundane duties of his office.’
‘Good gracious!’ I interrupted him. ‘Can that possibly be bougainvillaea and plumbago round the pulpit!’
‘Ah yes.’ Father Freddy smiled with simple pleasure. ‘To be sure. Our exotica, delightful, are they not? Kind Eleanor had them sent over. They are in their pots, of course, and we have tried to put them as near as possible to some source of heat since they are very delicate.’
He bent down and moved the large pot a little nearer to one of the radiators.
‘Can you manage?’ I asked anxiously, ‘That pot looks very heavy.’
‘Not at all, dear child.’ He brushed the dirt off his hands and stood up.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen them at Kinsford,’ I said.
‘They remain in the largest of the greenhouses,’ Father Freddy said, ‘and I believe that they have done very well and multiplied. Sir Ernest, of course, planted the originals, I imagine as a reminder of his early years in the consular service in the South of France. Cannes, was it, or Nice? Somewhere agreeable, I know.’
‘How gorgeous. They are the most immensely evocative plants, aren’t they?’ I touched a purple bract with the tip of my finger. ‘It does make one nostalgic for the sun and the sea and masses of these marvellous things tumbling down from balconies.’
‘And the smell of the lavender fields at Grasse!’ Father Freddy agreed. ‘And,’ he continued with even more enthusiasm, ‘the smell of newly baked brioches and that wonderful soupe aux poissons with ai’oli! Ah, the days of our youth!’
We both stood for a moment in a pleasant glow of nostalgia, which was broken by the approach of a small, grey-haired woman in a tweed suit and squashed felt hat, whom I recognised as his house-keeper Mrs Darby.
‘Sorry to disturb you, Father,’ she said, and then broke off to greet me. ‘Why, if it isn’t Mrs Malory? How nice to see you here. Are you enjoying the flowers?’ She recollected herself and turned back. ‘There’s a message for you, Father, from the Bishop. So I thought
I’d better come down to the church and find you in case it’s important. Well, anything from the Bishop’s important really, if you see what I mean. He wants you to ring him as soon as possible. I thought it might be some sort of emergency, “as soon as possible”. So I thought you ought to know right away.’
Father Freddy smiled vaguely at her and said, ‘Yes, indeed, you did quite right, Mrs Darby, I will attend to it immediately. The Bishop! It could be anything, anything at all; you might let your imagination roam, Sheila.’ He turned to me. ‘The field is wide indeed.’ He gave a little laugh, inviting me to share some esoteric clerical joke. ‘I must away! Enjoy the bougainvillaea!’
He raised his arm in a gesture that combined a farewell wave and a sort of ecclesiastical blessing and moved swiftly away.
I turned to Mrs Darby. ‘It’s nice to see him in such good form!’ I said, smiling affectionately at the tall figure making its way up the side aisle.
‘He’s a lovely man,’ Mrs Darby said. ‘I couldn’t imagine St Decumen’s without him!’
‘No indeed, though of course he’s getting on. He must be nearly eighty.’
‘But very fit, Mrs Malory. Up every morning at seven, regular as clockwork, and often he doesn’t go to bed till well after midnight. Writing that book of his.’
Father Freddy was engaged on a study of the life and times of Bishop Odon, a work of great scholarship. that he had been tinkering with for the last twenty years.
‘How beautiful the church looks,’ I said. ‘Not just the flowers, but everything is so splendidly kept. The brass! You have so much of it still.’
Indeed Father Freddy had refused to put away any of the magnificent brasses that decorated the church – the finely wrought candlesticks on the altar, the heavy, intricately engraved cross, the great eagle surmounting the lectern – saying grandly that God had His own ways of protecting His property against thieves and vandals. So far, certainly, his faith had been justified.
