‘Caroline must have said something to her,’ she heard her mother say.
‘You think she planned this – she intended not to come home last night?’ Gordon sounded shocked.
‘I don’t know,’ Janet sighed. ‘I don’t understand this at all.’
Before they could start questioning her again, Esther crept out of the kitchen and up the stairs to her own room. Below she could hear Louise and Margaret playing in the den, Louise being bossy. They seemed just as usual, as if they had forgotten for the moment that anything was wrong. She sat on her bed, feeling miserable. After a little while, there floated up from the open kitchen door the sounds of a meal being prepared, the squeaky larder door being opened and shut, running water in the sink, the clash of saucepans and the clatter of cutlery.
Esther found her book again and lay down on her bed with it, pulling the quilt round herself to keep warm.
Just after seven, it all came to an end.
So far, nothing had gone beyond the family except the visit to the theatre manager. When the evening staff came on again, he had said he would question them, in case anyone had seen Caroline leave. Harry and Gordon had agreed between themselves to wait until eight o’clock, then they would telephone the police. Daniel said, ‘You don’t need to, she’ll be all right,’ but they paid no attention. They don’t even listen to Daniel, Esther realised, and he’s nearly grown up.
They had eaten high tea at six and Louise and Margaret were in their bedroom; lying on her own bed reading Alice Through the Looking Glass again, Esther could hear Louise instructing her teddies.
Esther thought about what Daniel had said. If he thought she was all right, she must be. Caroline had left the ring as a message, for whoever found it. Esther was sure she was the one, Caroline had known she would look for it. That was what the dream meant. She wished she could have the ring, but her grandmother had put it in her purse.
She heard the front door open and close.
No one said, ‘It’s me’; there were no footsteps across the hall. Something fizzed suddenly in Esther’s veins, as the champagne had done. She got up and went to the top of the stairs. With a sister’s instinct, with her own instinct for trouble, Louise appeared and stood next to her.
Caroline was in the hall, wearing the same clothes she had worn the night before. She was carrying her sequinned evening bag and her coat was open. She was standing quite still, as if waiting for someone to come and find her. Esther’s hands, gripping the banister, were hot and damp with sweat, sticking to the polished wood. Then someone came out of the kitchen below. She heard a gasp and her mother was there, reaching Caroline before the children looking down at her managed to move.
‘Granny,’ Esther whispered at her grandmother’s elbow. ‘Can I ask you something?’
Celia was pulling on her gloves, smoothing them, tugging the wrists up. Beside her was the suitcase which Grandpa was just about to put in the car. He had gone out to warm it up, but the front door was closed, to keep the heat in.
‘Now then,’ she said. ‘We’ll see you all at Christmas.’
‘Granny, what about the ring?’
Her grandmother looked down at her, puzzled. The she remembered. ‘Oh, michty, wi’ a that commotion, I forgot it a-thegither.’ She clicked open her handbag and rummaged in it for her purse. ‘Here, Esther, hold this bag for me.’
Esther held the leather bag with its gold clip. At the corners, the leather was rubbed and greyish. Her grandmother had always had this bag; it smelled of the 4711 cologne that she put on her handkerchief, a few drops in the morning. Esther had watched her and pleaded for some for herself. On the previous day, she had gone around for hours, sniffing her wrist for that elusive scent. Yesterday. Only yesterday they had gone to the theatre and everything had been exciting but also safe. Now it was not exciting and it was not safe.
Celia held out the ring on her gloved hand. ‘Here you are – be a good girl and give it to Caroline for me. I’ve nae time now, your Grandpa’s in a fair rush to get back to Braeside.’
Made bold by the nearness of Granny and the temporary absence of everyone else, Esther said, ‘Where did she go?’
Her grandmother’s face was briefly bewildered, then she patted Esther’s arm. ‘Nowhere. Dinna you worry about it. She’s home now.’
‘She didn’t drop the ring on her way home, did she?’ Esther sighed.
‘Nae doubt she dropped it some day on her way home,’ her grandmother said. ‘But goodness knows when. I’m surprised she didna miss it.’
The door opened with a bang and Grandpa called. ‘Come on then, Celie, we’d better get hame afore the weather changes. I can smell the snow.’
‘Run and tell your mother we’re away,’ Celia said, and Esther, clutching the ring, flew to the kitchen to fetch Janet.
In the goodbyes, she managed to uncurl her hand and show Louise the ring. Louise’s eyes gleamed, but she said nothing until the goodbyes were over and they were on their own in front of the fire in the den.
‘I asked Granny for it.’
‘Are you going to give it back to Caroline?’
‘Yes, of course. It’s hers.’
They went upstairs to find Caroline, who had not come down to say goodbye. On the landing they heard voices from her bedroom. ‘Daniel’s there,’ said Louise.
Esther tapped on the door: ‘It’s me and Lou, can we come in?’
They were sitting on Caroline’s bed, talking. You could see they were talking about something private. Caroline was saying, ‘That was one of the reasons, really,’ but she stopped when Esther and Louise came into the room.
‘What is it?’ She didn’t sound friendly. All idea of asking her where she had been, vanished. Esther held out her hand, and opened it slowly.
‘I found your ring,’ she said.
Caroline stared. Slowly, she took it from Esther’s open palm and peered at it. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is. Where on earth did you find it?’
‘In the lane of course,’ Louise said. ‘Where you left it.’ Esther gave her a nudge, to shut her up. ‘That’s what you said!’
‘I lost it,’ Caroline admitted. ‘I’d no idea where it was.’
Esther had to ask. ‘When did you lose it?’
‘A week ago. A while anyway.’
‘Oh.’
‘Thank you – how on earth did you spot it – you mean the back lane, don’t you? I’ve not come that way for days.’
‘I just had a feeling it would be there, that’s all.’
Caroline slipped the ring over her finger. It was loose, anybody could see that.
‘It must have come off when I took off my glove to open the back gate,’ Caroline said. ‘I bet that was it. You have to put your fingers through the hole to lift the latch on the other side. It’s stiff and I couldn’t get hold of it with gloves on.’
‘Mystery solved,’ Daniel said. He smiled at Esther.
Janet was coming upstairs. ‘Where are you girls? Come and wash your hands for lunch.’
‘Off you go,’ Daniel said. ‘We’ll be down in a minute.’
In the bathroom, washing hands, Esther said, ‘I gave Caroline back her ring. She was really pleased.’
‘I’m sure she was,’ Janet said, unimpressed. ‘It’s gold, that ring.’
Esther, going slowly downstairs while Louise argued with her mother about whether her hands were clean, paused at the bottom. She could hear, if she listened hard, the murmur of voices from Caroline’s room. Was she really pleased to have the ring back? Esther wasn’t sure. The mystery was deeper than ever.
In the afternoon fires were lit in both the den and the front sitting room.
‘Are we going to have visitors?’ Esther asked her mother.
‘No.’ Janet sighed. ‘We want to talk to Daniel and Caroline tonight, so you three can play in the den.’
‘Can we have our tea in it, in front of the fire?’
Louise always pushed a bit too far. Esther held her breath, but Jane
t smiled and said, ‘We’ll see.’
Louise bounced. ‘Hurray!’
‘What do you want to talk to them about?’ Esther asked, but Janet brushed this aside, having conceded enough.
They all ate together in the kitchen, but the girls were allowed to take their bread and butter and a piece of cake into the den. They were glad enough to go; it had been an uncomfortable meal, full of awkward silences that in the end inhibited even Louise.
A little later, when the sounds in the kitchen had ceased, they heard voices in the hall, and the sitting room door closed firmly. Now there was no sound but the ticking in the hall of Granny Duthie’s grandfather clock. A moment later, Janet came in to take their plates away.
‘Now, we want peace and quiet, no interruptions.’
She went out, shutting the door. A moment later, the sitting room door was also closed again.
Margaret had been rearranging the furniture in the dolls’ house. She looked up.
‘What are they talking about?’
‘Caroline,’ Esther said. ‘I think. Being away all night.’
‘Is she getting a row?’ Louise asked, surprised.
While the others played, Esther read, but the Five Find-Outers’ adventure seemed less absorbing, silly. She raised her head, listening. There was nothing to hear. Nobody raised their voice. In an old house like this, with panelled wood doors, you could not hear from one room to another unless you opened them.
Louise looked up. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’m going to open the door a bit – we might hear what they’re saying.’
‘Then we’ll be in trouble.’
‘Caroline is getting into trouble then.’
Louise opened the door as quietly as she could. Only last week, Harry had gone round with a can of WD40, spraying the hinges that squeaked, and this, thankfully, was one of them.
‘What are you doing?’ Margaret asked. Esther and Louise, guiltily huddled in the half-open doorway, said ‘ssh!’
There was nothing to hear but voices, soft and indecipherable. Nobody shouted. Only children shouted and screamed, but that was because they hadn’t yet learned that you mustn’t. In their family, only Louise had ever done it. Even she knew you weren’t supposed to.
Suddenly, the sitting room door flew open and Caroline yelled, ‘You can’t say things like that to us. We’re grown up, for God’s sake.’
Shocked, Esther and Louise leapt back and pushed the door to – but not quite shut. Hearts beating fast, they went on listening, unable not to.
Nothing but Harry, sounding reasonable and quiet, nothing and then –
‘I wish we didn’t have to stay here – I wish we could just leave. You’re not my mother, you can’t tell me what to do.’
Then the sitting room door banged and someone came rapidly across the hall and ran upstairs. Caroline, of course.
‘She shouted,’ Margaret whispered. ‘She said God.’
Esther and Louise looked at each other. ‘Better shut the door.’ Louise shut it. ‘We’ll just wait. I don’t think we should go and ask.’
‘No.’ Even Louise didn’t want to do that.
It wasn’t easy to sit and do the ordinary things they were doing before it happened. After a moment, Margaret, who had been fidgeting on the sofa, said, ‘I need a pee, Essie, do you think it would be all right to go up to the bathroom?’
Esther shook herself back to the sensible everyday.
‘Yes, I’ll take you.’
‘I’m coming too,’ Louise said.
While Margaret was in the bathroom, Louise crept along the landing and listened at Caroline’s door. When she came back she said, ‘She’s not crying or anything.’
‘Of course not,’ Esther said. ‘Grown-ups don’t cry.’
Louise looked doubtful, and Esther herself was no longer sure. Caroline hadn’t sounded grown up at all.
Esther went into the bathroom to make sure Margaret had washed her hands. The clock on top of the bookcase on the landing told her it was nearly bedtime. In a moment, surely, their mother would come. But it was Daniel who was coming upstairs now, two at a time.
He ruffled Louise’s hair as he went past and when Margaret appeared, picked her up for a moment, tickling her and making her squeal. ‘What are you all looking so secretive about?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ Esther said.
‘Caroline’s in her bedroom,’ Louise told him.
He set Margaret down, smiling at them. ‘Don’t worry, it will all be ok. Promise.’
Then he went into Caroline’s room, and that door was shut again too.
Louise shrugged. ‘Oh well,’ she said.
‘Can I go and see Auntie Janet now?’ Margaret asked, fretting.
So they went down, but Janet was still in the sitting room with Harry and when she came out, hearing their voices, she looked if not angry, then stiff, annoyed.
‘What’s wrong with Caroline?’ Louise asked.
‘Nothing,’ Janet said. ‘Bedtime. Do you want some milk first?’
In the morning, nobody said anything. Daniel and Caroline went out early, as they had a lecture at nine. After that, it was all the same as it had been before, so perhaps Daniel was right. Everything was fine.
Grandpa
1961
‘Where does this go?’ Esther asked. She was following her mother’s instruction to make herself useful, by tidying the sideboard in the hall. It was her weekend to stay with Granny at Braeside, something they were taking turns to do since their grandfather’s death in March, four weeks ago. She had carefully dusted the Japanese vases that she thought so beautiful. One had a crack but you couldn’t see it if you turned that side to the wall.
Celia, coming in from the fish van with a parcel of haddock fillets, looked at the envelope Esther was holding.
‘Put it in the top drawer of the bureau in the sitting room. It’s the papers your mother needed to get your Granda’s death certificate.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘Na, na, dinna bother – I just didn’t get round to putting it away.’
Esther took the envelope into the sitting room, rarely used and always a little cold, the fire lit only for Christmas and visitors. The last time had been the day of the funeral. The bureau drawer was stiff so she put the envelope down to make it easier to tug open with both brass handles. When she picked the envelope up she took hold of the wrong end and half a dozen documents slid out. Alarmed, she tried to stuff them back as her grandmother came in to the room.
‘I’m sorry, Granny, I didn’t mean to look – they all fell out.’
‘You can fairly hae a look at them.’ Her grandmother took the envelope from her and they both sat down on the slippery coldness of the hide sofa.
‘Now, this is his birth certificate. He was born in 1893, and here’s his father and mother’s names. Andrew Livingstone, the same as your Grandpa, and Ellen Donald. And they had to put in his father’s occupation.’ She pointed.
‘He was an innkeeper,’ Esther read.
‘He had the Dunecht Hotel,’ her grandmother told her. ‘He was forty by the time Grandpa was born, so he’d built up a good business. He had a coach and horses too, and ran a coach service to Aboyne and Banchory.’ She turned to another paper. ‘This is our marriage certificate.’
‘It’s a long time ago,’ Esther said, reading it.
‘Aye, that it is.’
‘It says here Grandpa’s occupation was ‘grieve’ – what’s that?’
‘He looked after the Pittcaithley Estate, that belonged to Sir Matthew Cummings.’
‘But – ’ Esther hesitated. ‘He was a farmer.’
‘In time, he was. My folks died when we were not long married, and there was a bit of money came to us, so we bought our first place then.’
Esther thought Braeside had always belonged to her grandfather’s family. She was silent, adjusting to this different story.
‘It’s a h
ard life, whiles,’ her grandmother said. ‘But we never thought of anything else.’
Esther had heard her parents discussing the farm in the weeks since her grandfather’s death. ‘You won’t leave here, though, will you? We’ll still come and see you at Braeside?’
Her grandmother’s hands, roughened by work, the veins standing out blue in thinning skin, smoothed the papers flat on her lap. Her ring was loose, worn to a thread of gold.
‘We’ll see,’ she said. ‘I canna farm it myself, I’m getting too old for that, and Eddie and Dod are getting on as well, they’ll be looking to retire soon. If I have a few hens and my garden, that’ll do me.’
‘I could help you, I’m quite strong. I could come for the Easter holidays, that’s soon, and then all the summer holidays. But I don’t know if I could be a farmer. I’m going to the High School when I’m twelve. Mummy says I’ll be a teacher, but actually, I’d rather be a farmer and live in the country like you.’
Granny said only, ‘That’s right, you stick in at the school.’ She replaced the papers in their envelope. ‘Now, put this away for me in the drawer, and we’ll hae a fly cup. I’ve a bittie gingerbread left – or what about making a dropped scone?’
These early weeks of widowhood were bewildering. Gordon and Harry were taking charge of business correspondence, for she had never dealt with such matters in her life. She should have paid more attention when Andrew was alive. Still, these things were the least of it. It was the lack of him in the house and out of doors Celia felt most painfully. Though the men went on working as they had before, used to the routine of the farm, Celia still looked for her husband’s tall stooped figure among them. The farm should have been given up a year ago, as Andrew had wanted to do. She had not gone against his view, but she had done nothing to hurry the business, so time had drifted on, with no change. Now these hard decisions had to be made alone for the first time in forty-five years – just as the Spring was coming in and there was so much to do. Yet when her son and son-in-law suggested changes she could not answer them. She had to ponder what Andrew would have said, and make the decision he would have made.
The Treacle Well Page 7
