02 - Down the Garden Path Read online

  Again I had to strike that fine balance between natural distress and creating the kind of alarm that would see me whipped off to hospital. Covering one hand with the other I crossed two fingers.

  “Physically I feel better.” I languished. “So peculiar—this sensation of not being able to remember and yet... I know it is all there, behind a sort of curtain ... if I can only rest for a little while, I am sure I will be fine. My memory has to return soon. Surely this sort of thing doesn’t last long?”

  “When the cause of amnesia is peremptory—sudden shock rather than long-term distress—the recovery tends to be speedy. My guess is that in a few hours or after a night’s sleep you should be yourself again.” Bending over me, Maude lifted up each eyelid and raised my wrist to take my pulse. She nodded encouragingly at the sisters. “I’m pretty sure that when Dr. Mallard sees her he will say much the same thing.”

  Hyacinth compressed her orange lips. “Now, Maude, you know precisely how we feel about doctors—particularly that malingering old bird. Where have doctors ever been when we have needed them?” My ears pricked up at the bitterness of her tone. “Our family has always favoured the home-brewed medical remedy. If the young lady so desires, I suggest she stay here until the fog clears.”

  “Not such a bad idea, perhaps.” Maude’s shrewd eyes were fixed thoughtfully on Hyacinth’s face. “A homey atmosphere may well bring her round faster than hospital wards. But what of her family? They’ll be jumping off the walls when she doesn’t turn up wherever and whenever she was expected.”

  I held my breath on that one.

  “Terrible,” piped up Primrose. “One feels their distress, but if she cannot tell us who she is, she will not be able to tell the doctors.”

  Excellent. Or was it a little too glib? No—these ladies might be a little odd but they were certainly kind and hospitable.

  “Then what about the police?” Maude sat down with a weighty thud on a spindle-legged chair. “What did our friend Constable Watt say on the subject of this madman in the walk?”

  “We haven’t yet spoken to the police,” said Hyacinth as my heart set up a racket I was afraid could be heard across the room.

  “Not ...” The chair spun under Maude as she turned to stare at her. “Miss Tramwell, you can’t mean to keep mum on this. There may be a next time, and some other poor girl may lose more than her memory. Believe me, I am not trying to frighten anyone, but people do get murdered in lonely spots like Abbots Walk.”

  Primrose had fluttered across the room to the bell rope; now she came back to sit beside her sister on the sofa across from me. “Nurse dear, you must have some tea before you leave us. Butler just promised to fetch some when you arrived. So kind of you to come so quickly; but as for murder, oh, I really don’t think so! In Flaxby Meade! We have never, in recent years, been exposed to anything quite that sordid. And as for dragging Constable Watt out here when our friend is quite unable to tell him anything ... dear me, I do rather feel that would be something of an imposition.” She turned to her sister for corroboration.

  “When it comes right down to it,” said Hyacinth, “what crime did the man actually commit? Please”—she turned earnestly to me, the earrings penduluming back and forth—“I am not minimizing the moral aspect of your suffering, but I can’t see the police being more than mildly interested.”

  “Some very degenerate language and ungentlemanly manoeuvring for a kiss and a cuddle,” supplied Primrose. “I was never more shocked, but I think you are right, Hyacinth, the police would want bruises and her clothes torn and in disarray. Hard physical evidence I think is the term.”

  Maude looked thoroughly unconvinced, but Hyacinth nodded briskly, the Egyptian mummies lurching forward. “Good. Because really I do not think Butler would at all appreciate having the house cluttered with bobbies. And I have no idea when or how we could replace him if he decided to give notice. Nurse”—a flash of the black eyes in that lady’s direction—”I know we can rely on your absolute discretion in this matter. So regrettable that our families have not always dealt well together—your father and our father—but we have always had the highest personal regard for you. Your patients so devoted, and your taking in that homeless boy. By the way, how is he doing?”

  The room was beginning to fall into shadow. One slid across Maude Krumpet’s homely face. I saw her hands squeeze the white of her apron into a taut ridge, her eyes fixed almost blankly on my face.

  “Bertie is adjusting splendidly, considering he was a much abused child before finally being abandoned. But I do worry about his being on his own so much. This week school is out, due to some problem with the plumbing.” She shifted in her skimpy chair. “For his sake, his being a witness, I could certainly do without a police hue and cry.”

  Her words came out slowly but her eyes were focussing now. “I won’t talk about any of this, and I don’t think Bertie will gab. I’ll warn him, but it probably won’t be necessary. Tell him a secret and he sees himself as the Count of Monte Cristo.” Maude gave her thick body a shake and stood up. “What still worries me most, dear, is your family.” She came over and felt my forehead. “You weren’t carrying anything that could possibly identify you?”

  “Oh!” I managed a creditable start. “I never looked on the ground to see if I had a handbag with me.”

  Primrose preened herself a little. “Ah, but I did. Not a sign of one.”

  My mouth drooped and I lifted a trembling hand to thread a loose curl behind my right ear. “That’s that, then!”

  “I wouldn’t discount hope.” Hyacinth reached across and patted my knee bracingly. “We will check your clothes for labels. See if we can discover where they were purchased. You know I really do begin to see the fascination of the detection business. Perhaps if you find, upon recovering your memory, that you do not urgently have to be elsewhere, you would remain with us for a little while. We could put our heads together and see if we might not uncover the identity of your attacker.”

  It was working! They were falling prey to the romantic lure of the highwayman. So why this funny feeling of something lodged unpleasantly in my throat? Certainly it wasn’t a fear of wrinkled old labels disclosing who I was. My clothes had all been bought at Selfridge’s. Was it an attack of conscience? Or that the Tramwells’ quirky old-maidishness left me winded? Nurse Krumpet’s solid ordinariness served to emphasize their oddity. She passed another hand over my brow. “No headache, dizziness, or nausea? Splendid! I really do believe you will do just fine.” Her voice was a little absent-minded. Thinking of something else—a case perhaps. A baby she had to deliver?

  At that moment I did experience a decided dizziness. Deliver a baby! I was very likely in the same room as the woman who had delivered me. My lack of birth certificate had always pointed to my being eased into the world by someone who could keep her mouth shut. Someone with personal loyalties. Wasn’t Maude Krumpet proving that, despite old feuds, when the Tramwells called she came? When they asked for discretion she complied? She was buttoning her cape, still looking at me.

  “His being in the walk, I can’t help wondering ...”

  “Roaring around the countryside on his motorbike, nothing odd about that,” said Hyacinth.

  “Nasty, noisy things.” Maude did up the last button. “But as I say, I do wonder if he might be an acquaintance of your Chantal. Lovely girl. Would think she’d bring men buzzing round your back door like flies, but keeps to herself, doesn’t she? Only time I’ve seen her with a man was a week or so back. Yes—it was in the walk. I caught a glimpse of her standing just inside the trees as I pedalled past. Remember, because I thought him an odd sort of man and ...”

  “A tourist, I expect. Even though the season is ending we still get some gawking at the Ruins.” Primrose reached down to pat Minerva, who had ambled to her side. “But, dear me, I suppose it could have been him. Was he tall and handsome in a brutish piratical way?”

  “No, he was short, kind of skimpy, and ...”

&nbs
p; Nurse did not finish because Butler came through the door with a tray. With dust and grime removed he looked more than ever like his fictional namesake. Deferential, unobtrusive, of regal bearing—but other than that I would have been hard put to describe him. His hair was neither dark nor light. He was somewhere between tall and short and his eyes were a blend of green, grey, and brown. The perfect servant merging impeccably into the background of lives eased by servitude. As he left the room Nurse gulped down her tea, glanced at her watch, and said she must be off. If she was needed she would be at the Fletchers’, and then up at the Hall. The Squire’s mother had suffered another of her turns.

  Brushing away my murmured thanks Nurse left the room accompanied by the Tramwells, and I was left watching a sudden rain, slipping tearily down the windowpanes. I moved to the window. Was Harry out there? Hovering to make sure all was well with me? Silly of him if he were. His part was played. I wasn’t worried that the Tramwells would discover his identity and see him thrust into gaol, but I was worried that in the interest of chivalry he would get himself soaked to the skin.

  Rubbing a small clear space in the clouded pane I peered out into the gathering darkness. Like all unknown gardens, this one looked extremely oppressive at night. Nothing much moved. A sway of tree branch and a flap of deck chair canvas on the verandah immediately outside the window. Nothing else that I could see. But I believed that someone was out there watching. And that the someone wasn’t Harry. I felt the way I had in Abbots Walk that afternoon; hemmed in by something furtive, threatening, and inexplicable. What utter idiocy! The curtain dropped from my hand.

  The Tramwells were either saying a lengthy goodbye to Nurse Krumpet or consulting together. Somehow, I was going to have to arrange a consultation of my own with Maude. Settling back against the sofa cushions, I wished there had been a fire in the grate. It would have been cosy to have curled up and dozed a little in the warmth ... yawn ... this had been a long and stressful day. Perhaps forty tiddly-winks ... I was dreaming of a low, husky voice singing a plaintive ballad of love and betrayal.... The room flooded with light so strong it pierced the back of my eyelids and I sat up with a jolt. Hyacinth and Primrose were back in the room, indisputably real but another voice was somewhere close by. The gypsy maid Chantal?

  I wondered if she would be the one to serve dinner, but an hour later when we sat at the round oak table in a parlour across the hall it was Butler who did the honours. Austerely, he explained that Chantal had unexpectedly returned for an hour, prepared the meal, and left again. I was disappointed, but I would see her tomorrow. Excitement was still playing cat’s cradle with my insides, but I thoroughly enjoyed her sausage and chips and the apple tart with the flaky golden crust. Very soon after dinner, the sisters suggested that I get an early night and escorted me up the satin-smooth steps of the great staircase.

  “Hold on to the rail when coming down tomorrow,” warned Hyacinth. “You don’t need a wrenched ankle or worse on top of all your troubles.”

  At the turns the steps did narrow to wedges the size of the slice of apple tart I had just eaten. I would remember to be careful. We reached the second hallway, an enormous gallery lined with doors. About a foot above these ran a thick time-blackened ledge crammed with a miscellany of objects. A baby alligator, stuffed but once alive, caught my eye.

  “I trust you won’t mind sleeping in the old nursery.” Turning into a small arched alcove, Hyacinth pushed open a door. “We always keep sheets on all four beds in here. Foolish, but Primrose and I tend to be sentimental. The memories that old swing brings back! Violet liked to scare us by flying out so far we were afraid she would take off the door. Now, are you quite sure you will be comfortable here? W.C. next door; bath down the hall. We could prepare one of the other rooms, but that would mean getting a fire lit and opening up the windows at the same time. Butler and Chantal each do a splendid job but they have as much as they can manage with the rooms we use.”

  Before I could reply, Primrose broke in. “You know, my dears, I have been thinking about Chantal and wondering if—should the amnesia not abate—she would agree to look into her crystal ball and see if she can arouse any images that might prove helpful.”

  I felt as if a trapdoor had sprung out from under me. Fergy had a fearful reverence for gypsies and their dark powers. The wash house at the vicarage had held enough pegs to keep a fire going all winter, purchased in desperate hope of keeping the evil eye away.

  After the sisters left I undressed and washed in the blue-and-white china basin on the rosewood stand. Then, shivering, I struggled into the great floating folds of white lawn nightdress which the Tramwells had left for me at the foot of the small bed nearest the door. The material was exquisite. Reams of drawn threadwork and minute tucks, but the smell of mothballs would cling to me for a year. Moodily I stared at the swing hanging from the ceiling. Better to sit than lie down. I wasn’t Baby Bear. That sister who had died—Lily—perhaps she had been a tall child and died from cramp. In the dim and distant days of the Tramwells’ youth people died of everything. Indigestion. Acne. Childbirth.

  Childbirth! I told myself to take deep slow breaths, but ignored the advice. I had never ever considered the possibility that my mother might have been dead; that someone other than she had left me on the vicarage doorstep. And I didn’t want to consider it now. But ... if I had killed her in being born, wasn’t it possible that those who had loved her had wanted me gone—removed immediately without any of the lengthy fuss of conventional adoption procedures?

  My eyes filled with tears and I bit hard on a nail. A murderess. That’s how they would view me. No! Harry was right. No jumping to wild conclusions. Remember the Devon violet paper. Violet, the sister who had gone to America, was a much better prospect! And I could not discount other possibilities. Had the four girls had a governess—an impoverished gentlewoman, perhaps a distant family connection? A friend or cousin who had come for visits?

  Harry, of course, had kept insisting that there was every chance that even if my mother had lived in Flaxby Meade she might not have been a member of the Cloisters household. But I felt in the very marrow of my bones that he was wrong. If only there were some physical resemblance between the two of us. The way Maude had looked at me ... Was it possible she had recognized some resemblance to someone? Was that why she had not pushed harder to present my case to the authorities?

  The portraits in the hall! Why had I not thought of them before? Reaching for Mr. Hunt’s watch I clutched it against me, its ticking a small friendly heartbeat. After midnight! Creeping stealthily out of bed I crossed to the door, halting at every groan of floorboard. How close were the sisters’ rooms? A blessing at least that old people favoured early nights. But I could not risk turning on the hall lights. I had noticed a candle with a box of matches lying beside it on the mantel. It would light my way down those dangerous stairs and illuminate the portraits.

  All set! With small flickering flame held aloft, the hem of the nightgown held cautiously off the ground, I set off. I was halfway down the stairs when I heard a muffled noise and the hideous prospect of Minerva leaping over the bannisters at my jugular made me pause, heart moving chokingly up into my throat. Silence. But I didn’t feel much better. Why hadn’t I thought that Butler or Chantal might still be up and about?

  The candle flame quivered and I cupped it with the hand that had been holding my nightgown. Keeping the hem tucked under my elbow would take some doing but I started moving again. If I did meet either of the servants I would explain loftily that I was going down in search of a glass of warm milk.

  The first portraits were a disappointment. Bewigged and, in many cases, clearly befuddled, none of them looked like me. One coy, ringletted lass, flesh mounding like enormous meringues over the top of her low-cut emerald satin gown, did resemble someone I knew—the barmaid at the Royal Thistle and ... just a hint of someone else in the expression of the roguish blue eyes. Or was I imagining it? Must be ... unless Primrose ... when she had tal
ked about Minerva’s coronation cup? The eyes were a similar blue, but ... no. I moved on. The gentleman in the next frame was soberly dressed and portly. His wig was a modest little number and his mouth primly pursed, but, whether by trick of the candlelight, his protuberant eyes were decidedly and gloatingly fixed on the cleavage next door. His mistress? Couldn’t be, or her portrait would have hung in the cellar.

  Nothing of interest for a few yards except that ... surely I had seen the young gentleman with the tricorne hat, hand resting on the silver-topped cane, before ... or had I seen a portrait very like it, perhaps by the same artist, at The Heritage Gallery? Lifting the candle flame closer I searched for the signature and then realized this wasn’t an original. It wasn’t even a particularly good copy.

  A faint shushing sound which might have been the wind or a door opening somewhere far off in the house prodded me and my candle onward. At some time the Tramwells must have lost ownership of the original and ... wouldn’t it be marvellous if as a reward for all their hospitality I could arrange for Angus ...? I forgot Angus. I had found Violet. Her name was in the left-hand corner of a muddy green background. A heavy, ponderous work, but then it could be that Violet had been a heavy, ponderous child. Hyacinth’s description of her rocketing back and forth on the nursery swing had not made her sound that way, but ... I peered as closely as I could without setting the portrait alight but I couldn’t detect any likeness to myself.

  Inching forward, I reached Lily. A better painting and a totally different subject. Here was a laughing, elfin-faced little girl of about seven, her short hair a mass of silvery bubbles. Not pretty exactly. What was so special was that although she was standing, black-booted feet together, she seemed to be moving. Lily would always be moving—whirling, running, laughing. Again, I had one of those strange feelings that had beset me since coming to this house. I knew that whatever had happened to Lily had been terrible. She hadn’t died peacefully in her bed a few years ago, after a happy and fulfilled life. I was afraid. I didn’t want her to look like me, and she didn’t. (Another weird flash. I knew—absolutely knew—that this was the best-loved child. How had Hyacinth and Primrose and Violet felt about that?)