She Shoots to Conquer Read online

  “As did Eleanor,” I replied, “only she didn’t come back.”

  “Thank God for that. Don’t let my dislike of Celia put you off stopping at Witch Haven. She certainly isn’t a woman to answer her own door.”

  “Did she marry?” Just being incurably nosy.

  “Not to my knowledge. I think of her as devotedly wedded to herself; but don’t picture her as a recluse. Tommy claims to get on well with her. She has plenty of help in the house, including an elderly handyman named Forester she doesn’t deserve, and, so I’ve been told, a recently acquired paid companion. God help the woman!” He gave Thumper a farewell pat before holding the study door open for us.

  I had to ask, “Are you over your cold feet?”

  “Whoever she is, she won’t be a vulnerable girl living in fear of her life while wishing she were dead. That was the look I saw on Eleanor’s face when she looked down at me from the stairs.”

  The study door closed behind him. Thumper looked up at me expectantly and together we crossed the hall to the passageway that Judy had said led to an outside door. I did think about going to the kitchen and telling Ben that I would be gone for a while. But he was bound to be busy. I knew that I had to try to return Thumper, and also felt compelled to make myself scarce before the house became a hotbed of activity.

  Once outside, I knotted the tie around Thumper’s collar, but let it dangle loose. Time enough to take hold when we got out onto the road. But how to get there? I couldn’t do so by way of the drive. Even to sidle down the wooded side would be an intrusion; I didn’t flatter myself I was sufficiently slim to be easily hidden by the trees. Diminutive Judy with her muted coloring might have managed this feat, although I couldn’t imagine her sidling anywhere. Practical, kindly Judy-or so I saw her on early acquaintance-what would she have thought of his lordship’s recounting of seeing Eleanor Belfrey on the stairs?

  Thumper was trotting a little ahead of me across the weed-ridden lawn as I searched for a path through the woods that might take me out onto the road sufficiently beyond the gates for me to head toward the village without drawing attention. Most particularly, I didn’t want to be seen by Lord Belfrey. How awful if he thought I was checking to make sure he had stuck with his decision and was now greeting the contestants with the requisite amount of pleasure and pageantry.

  I stopped and looked in the direction of the dell, with its broken fountain and misshapen tumbles of mossy stone. A silken breeze brushed my face and rippled questing fingers through my hair-loosening strands that I did not bother to tuck back in place. The sky was a pure, pale blue between the skeined fleece of the clouds. Thumper stopped to look back at me before apparently deciding that the only way to keep his doggie figure was by racing in ever-narrowing circles and cheering himself on by a series of congratulatory barks. I found myself wondering what the garden had looked like when Eleanor Belfrey was here. Had she liked flowers, reveled in birdsong, been happy during any of her time at Mucklesfeld? I pictured her coming up from the dell wearing the dress from the portrait; I saw the soft filmy material as the color of moonlight. I saw the look on her face described by his lordship. Had she hated the idea of returning to the house, hated and feared the husband old enough to be her father? I shivered despite my light jacket. A dreadful thought socked me in the chest.

  What if Eleanor had suspected Giles was planning to murder her? What if she had never left Mucklesfeld on that fateful night… and her body concealed along with the maligned Scottie was somewhere in the house? Or buried in one of the wooded areas… perhaps even the ravine where Suzanne Varney had met her death? The present faded, taking Thumper’s joyful barks with it. The dreadful scenario continued to unfurl from the wrappings of shadow woven into a shroud thirty years before. Whatever Eleanor’s reasons for marrying Giles, her feelings had turned to revulsion and loathing… the eyes that watched her every movement, followed her even when she was briefly alone, the grasping of her shrinking flesh. And he had known with bitterness and despair that she could never be his-except in death. It all fitted. The missing jewels buried with her to give credence to her flight. The dog killed first to prevent his barking. The sightings of her ghost, the house left to rot around him as Giles completed his descent into madness. But, rational thought (something my parents had vaguely despised as too close to reality) crept back. Who knew if the legend was the true story?

  I turned to follow Thumper, who had now reached the woods and was looking back at me. The cornerstone of my wild flight of fancy was what Lord Belfrey had told me. And how much were his impressions to be relied upon? He was a young man at the time, not overly fond of his much older cousin, perhaps determinedly eager to condemn the marriage. To base so much on one glimpse of Eleanor, halfway up a staircase at that, had to be implausible. Wasn’t it clear that his lordship was obsessed with her memory, and that he-rather than Giles-had been driven mad by desire, in his case for an illusion that had transferred itself to a portrait and possibly to me? I wished I could talk my thoughts over with Mrs. Malloy, but that was out of the question at this time.

  I caught up with Thumper as he was nosing around some nettles on the edge of the ravine. “Be careful,” I warned, “you’ll come out in blisters.” He gave me a tender look, took a couple of steps toward me, then turned tail to plunge into the brush. A succession of barks indicated his wish that I follow him, but I had no desire to descend a treacherous slope, especially when the opening he had used was too narrow for me to get through without gashing myself or twisting an ankle.

  Some barking, then silence. I stood waiting, rubbing my arms-the breeze had picked up and the clouds had thickened, making for fewer, smaller patches of blue. But was that what had made me shiver? I felt the prickling of the skin, the cold stealth of fingers down my spine that accompanies that sense of being watched from a hidden vantage point by someone… or something… exuding menace. Eleanor’s ghost? But even if that were credible, why would she have it in for me? An answer formed. A ridiculous one. Lord Belfrey might have fallen in love at first sight, but to believe that Eleanor had been struck by the same bolt of lightning, dazzled by the same stardust, swept up in the same whirlwind of wonderment, was a stretch even for me. Then, if not Eleanor, who? Something shifted, a soft settling sound… a foot replacing itself after slipping? Why didn’t I call out, requesting the watcher identify himself? Because common sense (not all that common in my case) said there was no one at Mucklesfeld who would wish me harm. It could be a trespassing fauna hunter or, even more likely, a rabbit or squirrel.

  I heard Thumper coming back, and following the sound of his greeting I came to the wide gap in the wall, responsible presumably for last evening’s tragedy. I had a brief, sharp glimpse of a broad track of flattened branches and brambles before he came lolloping along with a bunch of multicolored flowers in his mouth. Oh, my goodness! I thought, as he sat down in front of me with the look of proffering his heart along with the bouquet. They’d be the ones Tommy placed in remembrance! An irreverent part of me wanted to laugh. Nerves, of course. It suddenly occurred to me that I could be seen by those gathered on the drive, but when I looked around what I saw was a swarm of backs, the movement, including equipment, being toward the house. Evidently the arrival scene had been completed without a hitch.

  “Naughty boy!” I scolded with less heat than required, because I hated to see the sorrow fill his eyes. “Take them back this minute.” I didn’t expect him to do as told. The thought of descending to the place where Suzanne had met her death, seeing the tree the car had hit, was not pleasant, but it would be unkind not to return the flowers, leaving them in a mangled heap for Tommy to come across. He had been nice to me, cured my headache; and with chubby schoolboy gallantry he had saved Livonia from the clutches of the Metal Knight. I hesitated. Again that intense feeling of being covertly watched. Thumper also hesitated, before turning and to my amazement wending his way back down into the ravine, to return brief moments later absent the flowers.

  “Won
derful boy,” I praised while bending to knot Lord Belfrey’s tie, which I had forgotten I was holding around his collar, before setting off down the drive, there being no reason now not to use it to reach the road. We had just passed through the gates when I realized he still had something in his mouth. Inserting fingers and gently prying his teeth apart, I pulled out something flat, irregularly shaped, and about two inches in size. On closer inspection this proved to be a piece of broken-off plastic. “Very nice,” I told a pleased Thumper. “I’ll keep it as a souvenir of you.” I’d do nothing of the sort, of course, but to have tossed it aside would have been hurtful to his feelings, even if my parents hadn’t brought me up to believe that littering was a deadly sin, worse than any of the others, although they could never recall what they were.

  Thumper took amicably to the tie as we proceeded down the road bounded on our near side by Mucklesfeld’s wall and by more woods on the other. It was a good-sized road with a crossing a short way down, but very little traffic. We came to a Norman church surrounded by an iron-fenced cemetery. It reminded me of St. Anselm’s, which Ben and I attend fairly frequently (meaning if we don’t oversleep or decide that a leisurely breakfast in bed would be nice). We passed nobody during the five or so minutes it took us to reach the village. Grimkirk looked to be more pleasant than its name. There was the familiar juxtaposing of half-timbered Tudor buildings, with sharply peaked roofs and narrow latticed windows, converted into boutiques and bakeries, and the modern wide-glass-fronted shops, banks, and electrical appliance showrooms. All of which make up the usual English high street. After crossing at the only traffic light in sight, I stopped a middle-aged woman in a head scarf and winter coat. A mistake. She had that blind, bustling stare of the morning shopper who is adding sausages and that nice sharp Cheddar-and mustn’t forget the vinegar-to her shopping list. Understandably startled, she asked me to repeat my question.

  “You don’t happen to recognize this dog?”

  “What dog?”

  “This one,” pointing down.

  “No.” Remembering the pork pie to have on hand in the fridge, in case the son and his wife showed up unannounced like they often did at teatime. “Why?”

  “He’s a stray and I’m trying to return him.”

  A smile appeared. “Well, isn’t that kind of you! Wish I could help you, dearie. Always been fond of animals, I have, but can’t have a dog or a cat because our Ted’s allergic. Why don’t you ask at the sweetshop, two doors along? One of the girls that work there might know something to help you.”

  I took her advice, and feeling I couldn’t leave Thumper outside, took him in with me. The woman behind the counter, with the rows of large, enticingly filled glass jars on the shelves behind her, hadn’t been a girl in a very long time. But her ornately piled and puffed white hair, stuck through here and there with sparkly topped pins, the heavy makeup, and the exceedingly tight black top made clear that she was still vigorously fighting the battle against Time.

  Had there been other customers, she might not have immediately noticed Thumper, sitting like an obedience champion.

  “No dogs in here.” She had a rasping voice that suggested she stirred gravel into her morning black coffee for the benefits.

  Again I explained the situation without success. She didn’t remember seeing the dog before. Nor had she been asked to post a Missing notice by the owners of a black Lab. She suggested I inquire at the estate agents on the opposite corner, who never seemed all that busy these days. I thanked her but decided against trooping from shop to shop and bothering passersby. I would take Lord Belfrey’s advice and call at Witch Haven. Hadn’t I been hoping it would come to that… the chance to meet Giles Belfrey’s daughter, Celia? And if that didn’t work out successfully, I might reap results when delivering Mrs. Malloy’s note to Mrs. Spuds. Working for Tommy must have given her some insights into the lives of those who had inhabited Mucklesfeld.

  When I asked directions to Witch Haven, the pained expression altered, but not more pleasantly so. Interest both sly and avid flickered in the narrow strips of eyes between the gummy black mascara.

  “Miss Belfrey likes her privacy, so if it’s just about the dog, you’d better be ready to have the door shut in your face. If it’s something more personal…” She let the words drift.

  “Lord Belfrey suggested I go there.”

  “Did he then? And how do you come to know his lordship?” Usually I don’t mind curiosity, especially when it’s my own, but hers was accompanied by a barely suppressed sneer tinged with glee, as if she were hoarding some delicious secret.

  “I’m staying at Mucklesfeld.”

  “One of the contestants?” She pulled a tissue out of its box and wiped it across the top of the cash register, while the real activity remained in those eyes.

  “My husband and I got stranded in the fog. If you could kindly tell me how to get to Witch Haven?”

  Scrunching the tissue, she tossed it into a plastic bin behind the counter. “Arrive before or after the accident?”

  “After.”

  “How’s his lordship taking it, then?”

  “My husband and I just met him.”

  “What sort of lot are they-the contestants, the ones that made it into Mucklesfeld alive?” She shrugged. “Can’t blame us locals for being interested, especially me, seeing as… but that’s for me to know and others to find out.” There it flashed again-the look of being the holder of a gleeful secret. The door jangled, and a woman came in with a couple of small children who instantly dropped down to fuss over Thumper. The mother said: “Mustn’t touch strange doggies.” I assured her that this one was friendly, made the necessary inquiry, got the negative result; then asked her, turning my back on the woman behind the counter and all those wonderfully filled jars of old-fashioned sweets-humbugs, gob-stoppers, aniseed balls-if she could direct me to Witch Haven.

  Back out on the pavement, I told Thumper that there was always a bright side. “Had the guillotine not intervened, Marie Antoinette could have ended up looking like that Terror in there. And then who’d give a hoot whether or not she had said, Let them eat cake.” This naturally reminded me that I hadn’t eaten breakfast, leading me into the bakery, where I purchased a Chelsea bun and a Bakewell tart with no objection to Thumper from the assistant.

  Paper bag in hand, I continued down the high street, munching as I went. As instructed by the mum in the sweetshop, I turned at the jewelers, proceeded down a narrow road lined with narrow gray brick houses opening directly onto the pavement, their elderly appearance cheered in some cases by glowing white steps, geranium pots in the windows, and wicker trellises around the doors. Few people were about, and none showed any undue interest in Thumper. Halfway down, I crossed over to turn left at the next corner into a tree-shaded lane that looked as though it had never seen a car, let alone a bus.

  Set back in a charming garden with a weeping willow leaning toward a brook was a whitewashed, green-roofed, comfortably sized cottage-style house. It had a welcoming look that made me wish it was Witch Haven, but the instructions had been to continue on until the lane broadened into an avenue. There were only two other houses in the lane, both thatched cottages and picture-postcard charming, but I did not linger to admire. The green shade provided by the canopied branches of two rows of trees drew me in and dappled Thumper’s black fur with shadow as he trotted contentedly along beside me, the tie hanging loose in my hand. What a pleasant way to spend a morning. A woman and her dog taking a walk, neither thinking particularly deep thoughts, just enjoying the moment-peaceful in silent companionship. Far too abruptly, we came to the narrow, meandering drive leading up to the faded redbrick house with its ivy and latticed windows.

  Here was Witch Haven. I expected to find it dark and drear, and so it might prove on the inside, but I was enchanted by the exterior. I could sense the history in which it was steeped… Cromwell’s Roundheads pounding on the door on a rainy winter’s night, the brave resistance from the Royalist house
hold within. Then later, a Jacobite supporter, with a clear crush on Bonnie Prince Charming, hiding out in the priest hole. And on down time to Queen Anne telling the mistress of the house while paying an informal visit that she was pleased with the new style of furniture but feared it wouldn’t last.

  My mind thus occupied, I reached the end of the drive, from which flowed a velvet lawn made for idyllic afternoons of croquet and tea under what looked like Longfellow’s “spreading chestnut tree.” Up the short wide brick steps Thumper and I went to the dark oak, iron-studded front door. It did present a daunting appearance. But if it had opened to Cromwell’s men (conveniently forgetting I had created that scene), why shouldn’t it do so for us? Unable to find a bell, I lifted the saucer-sized iron knocker. It fell with a thud that sent half a dozen crows flapping madly from some lofty perch, darkening the air around them.

  “Perhaps she isn’t home,” I said, and then the door opened to reveal a tallish woman of uncertain age wearing horn-rimmed glasses and bundled into a thick cardigan above a shapeless tweed skirt. A painfully pale face, faded hair twisted into a high bun, and clumpy lace-up shoes completed the image of a woman who spent her days hurrying back and forth performing a hundred and one uninteresting tasks at the behest of the lady of the house.

  In little doubt I was looking at the recently hired secretary-companion Lord Belfrey had mentioned, I gave my name and explained my errand, including the fact that his lordship had suggested I try his cousin for information.

  “I’m new to the area and don’t go out much.” Her voice was devoid of regional accent or personality. “My employer has the groceries delivered, does her banking herself, and therefore rarely sends me into the village. I don’t think I’ve seen him before and I think I would remember. To some people all black Labs would look alike, but I’m a dog lover-being allowed to bring my Sealyham with me was one of the reasons I decided to come to Witch Haven, and that boy there does have a particularly lovable face.” Even this was said without inflection.