The Truth-Seeker's Wife Page 3

  ‘They appear to be very careless!’ observed Mrs Parry, as a particularly loud collision, followed by a brief argument in male voices, sounded above our heads. ‘Do you suppose that fellow who drove the dogcart has arrived drunk?’

  This was quite possible, but I spoke up in Davy’s defence, pointing out that the staircase was very narrow, as were the upstairs corridors. ‘And the ceilings low.’ I couldn’t help but add, ‘Poor Nugent will be very unhappy at being without gas lighting.’

  ‘It is a very odd house,’ ruled Aunt Parry. ‘Mr Hammet should have warned us of its peculiarities.’

  By the time we rose from the dinner table, weariness, hastened by such a good meal, was overcoming both of us.

  ‘I shall retire!’ declared Aunt Parry.

  I agreed it was a good idea and I would do the same. Mrs Dennis came in at that point and asked us if the meal had been acceptable. We told her, yes, excellent.

  ‘I hope you sleep well, ladies,’ she said. ‘My husband and I, we don’t stay overnight in the house. We’re just a stone’s throw away in our cottage. But you won’t be without anyone to call on. Jessie will sleep here and be on hand if needed. There is a bell rope by the bed in both your rooms.’

  * * *

  It had been a long and exhausting day. I was glad to climb into my bed. I had intended to write to Ben before I retired but decided to do this in the morning. I would have plenty of time, as Mrs Parry never appeared before noon.

  Yet, despite my weariness, I did not fall asleep at once. In my own home near Waterloo Station in London the night was punctuated by noises from the great railway. The sounds I heard now were altogether different and perhaps it was their strangeness that kept me awake and listening. The tide was in and the waves below murmured their distinctive refrain, a soft growl, punctuated with the occasional slap of water against some obstacle. It had not been possible to tell in the darkness of our arrival, but the house must have been situated to give the Revenue officers a good view out to sea and along the coast in both directions. I had drawn back the curtains before blowing out the candle, and only silvery moonlight bathed the room. A wind had sprung up, blowing unimpeded across the water. It found its way into the roof space and the rafters creaked so much above my head it was as if I were aboard ship, not on land.

  As I listened I began to imagine that the creaks and rattles were not all due to the wind, but to someone moving surreptitiously in the roof space. There must be attic rooms overhead, I thought. Perhaps someone slept there. It could not be either of the Dennises, because I knew they had both returned to their cottage for the night. Imagination! I told myself. But a louder creak than the others, more of a sharp crack, made me sit up in bed in alarm. There was definitely someone up there. Then I remembered.

  ‘Why, Lizzie!’ I muttered to myself. ‘It must be Jessie Dennis who sleeps up there. You are letting your imagination run away with you.’

  Nevertheless I reached out for the shawl I had left draped across the foot of the bed, threw it round my shoulders and swung my legs out of bed. I felt for my slippers with my toes and, when I had located them, crept across the floor to the door of the room. I decided there was no need to light the candle that stood in a pottery holder by my bed, together with a packet of lucifers. The moonlight provided its clear cold light. I opened the door as quietly as I could and stepped out into the passageway. Here I had no benefit of the moonlight, and I was sorry I had not bothered with the candle after all. I felt my way along until I came to a small door at the very end, blocking any further progress. It seemed to be fastened by a primitive latch. I raised it but could not see what lay ahead. I put one foot carefully ahead of me – and promptly stubbed my toe. Stooping, I felt for the obstacle. A narrow wooden step rose directly before me, and above that another – and another. A narrow stairway. This must be the access to the attic room above. Now I had satisfied myself, I was about to close the little door again when the murmur of voices drifted down towards me. There were whispers and a female giggle. Following that, I just made out another voice, definitely not female. Jessie Dennis slept up there, but not alone. No wonder she had been happy to remain ‘should she be needed’.

  Well, I thought, Jessie had been needed, but not by either Mrs Parry or myself.

  I closed the stairway door quietly and made my way back to my room. This time when I climbed back into my bed I fell asleep at once.

  I awoke again at first light. I rolled over towards the window and was startled to see a gull perched on the ledge outside, peering in at me with a hostile yellow eye. The little travelling clock on the table told me it was still too early to rise, but I slipped out of bed anyway and went to the window. The gull flapped away at my approach. Outside, a cold early light bathed the approach to the house and gave me my first sight of what lay on the other side of the garden wall. A stony path ran by, and beyond that a stretch of rough grass and low bushes. Then the land fell away with alarming suddenness down to the beach perhaps twelve to fifteen feet below.

  I was about to turn back to bed when unexpectedly a man appeared. He walked round the side of the house, which he must have left through the kitchen door. He did not turn the corner to walk up the track to the main road along which we’d travelled the previous evening, but crossed the scrap of garden and left through a wooden gate on to a narrow path above the beach. He turned left and set off downhill. I had recognised him instantly. There was no mistaking Davy Evans.

  Chapter Three

  Well, it is all settled now, details worked out, no room for error. I should not have left matters so late. But perhaps Fate intended this moment. At any rate, I shall not miss it.

  Elizabeth Martin Ross

  It had never been Mrs Parry’s habit to appear before midday. In London she always breakfasted in her room and read any letters that had arrived that morning. Assisted by Nugent, she would then make an elaborate toilette and appeared in full splendour at twelve, ready for a ‘light luncheon’, as she cared to call the meal. Having moved temporarily to the coast did not mean she had changed her ways. So it was that I breakfasted alone that morning. I didn’t know whether Mrs Dennis had expected Mrs Parry to be at the breakfast table with me, or whether she thought I had a very good appetite. There was certainly enough food for two, at least. I did my best, in order not to distress the housekeeper, but I could make no more than a dent in the amount.

  ‘Not hungry, then, ma’am?’ inquired the Mrs Dennis with a worried frown. ‘Did you not sleep very well?’

  ‘I am quite well,’ I assured her. ‘And I’ve made a very good breakfast, thank you. I don’t eat much so early in the day.’

  ‘Oh, well, you’ll be ready for your luncheon,’ was the reply.

  If I was to be ready for any kind of meal at midday I needed to take some exercise before that. Accordingly I postponed my letter-writing until the afternoon, and dressed for an expedition to explore the coastal footpath. I chose my sturdy balmorals as footwear, and tied on my hat with a scarf lest it blow away out to sea. Jessie appeared just as I was about to leave.

  ‘Mam says to be sure you take a walking stick. Otherwise, you’ll most likely turn an ankle.’

  She looked bright and cheerful, with her abundant red hair tied back as before at the nape of her neck and wearing a blue cotton gown and white apron. She held out a stout stick of the sort old gentlemen usually carried.

  ‘Thank you, Jessie,’ I said, taking it.

  She bobbed a curtsey and walked briskly back towards the kitchen. If she had had limited sleep the night before, it didn’t show. I felt myself to be in a difficult situation. I had no idea whether her mother had any suspicion about Jessie’s behaviour when the girl wasn’t sleeping under the family roof, though I supposed she didn’t. Should I mention to Mrs Dennis that I had seen Davy Evans leaving the house at first light? But, if I did, Davy and Jessie would probably both deny the incident and Davy would be ready with some glib reason for his presence on the shore path. Besides, I was newly arri
ved, and I didn’t know these people. There was something else too. My instinct was not to make an enemy of Davy Evans. To do so might upset others besides the Dennis family. I remembered Tizard’s description of Davy as a ‘useful chap’ and ‘available as needed’. I would only be in the area for three weeks. Any attempts on my part to ‘upset the applecart’ would not be welcome.

  My first action on leaving the house was to step back and take a good look at the building in daylight. That it had not originally been designed as a dwelling was already clear from the interior. Now I could find my own bedroom window from outside and, at the other end of the house, what must be Mrs Parry’s room. My real interest was to see what kind of an attic floor there was and sure enough, above the first-floor bedroom another row of very small windows confirmed the presence of rooms up there, including the one in which Jessie and her visitor had slept the previous night. Perhaps, once upon a time, confiscated smuggled goods had been stored in the attics. I walked to the corner of the building where I’d seen Davy earlier. From here I could see up the slope rising to the road. A little way off, perched like a gull’s nest, was a small cottage. A pathway ran from it down to The Excise House. This, I decided, was where the caretaker’s family lived.

  After only a few steps I reached another wooden gate, on the seaward side of the coastal path. This gave access to a narrow and steep footpath that turned at an angle to lead down on to the beach below. The tide was ebbing fast, already well below the high tidemark of seaweed and debris. The smell of ammonia and rotting fish rose from the mix, and gulls patrolled up and down, scavenging. They were not the only seekers after bounty. Jacob Dennis was down there, digging energetically in the patches of soft mud between the pebbles. He had a bucket beside him, but I couldn’t see what it contained.

  The path along which I now walked was narrow and bordered with heather and bracken, divided by clumps of brambles that must be chopped down and beaten back soon or they would encroach on the path itself. Behind these edgings grew a wall of trees and bushes, the taller branches stretching out over my head so that I walked through a tunnel of entangled vegetation. Only regular use could keep the path open. If it fell out of use, the wild growth would soon reclaim it and make it impassable. Even now, I was forced to use the stout walking stick to knock back intrusive growth that snatched at my skirts.

  Suddenly the direction turned inland. I emerged from the tunnel into sunlight, and here the secluded path joined a wider, more permanent road. There were buildings here, cottages, and in the distance the square tower of a Norman church. It seemed familiar and I realised I had reached the village near which I’d stayed on my previous visit. But this time I was approaching it from the opposite direction. Suddenly I came upon a dilapidated dwelling, set back from the road by a long and untidy vegetable garden. Before it, on the roadside, was a wooden bench and, seated on this, two women.

  I was so startled at the sight of them that I stopped. It was not that it was so strange to see someone enjoying the sunshine. It was the aspect of the two watchers, for that is what they clearly were. They were elderly, so alike in their stumpy build and facial features that they had to be sisters, and dressed head to toe in black. I did not know if this betokened mourning, or whether it was just their choice. I suspected the latter, because they were festooned (it was the only word for it) with an astonishing variety of jewellery. They wore jet necklaces and silver chains; brooches and pins. From their ears dangled silver earrings and the fingers of their hands, resting clasped in their laps, were be-ringed with heavy gold and silver bands. Whether it was by design that they wore all their valuables, and so kept them on their persons, or whether there was some other significance in the profusion of decoration, I had no way of knowing. But there was deliberateness about the fashion that was unsettling. The skin of their faces was pale and almost silken in texture. These were not women who had spent their lives as labourers in the fields. Beneath hooded eyelids, their dark eyes shone as brightly as a hawk’s and were as predatory. They sat perfectly still and silent, watching my progress towards them.

  They are guarding the approach to the village, I thought wryly, like the sentry at the gates of Pompeii who perished at his post.

  I felt an atavistic need for some token of protection and without realising it raised my hand to touch the gold cross and chain I wore round my neck. They saw what I did; and one of them smiled slightly. Then she spoke.

  ‘Well, truth-seeker’s wife, you have come back to us.’

  ‘You know me?’ I asked, shocked.

  ‘You were here before, were you not?’ she returned calmly.

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted, ‘five years ago. But I was not married then.’

  She nodded acknowledgment of the fact, but returned: ‘You came first, but the truth-seeker followed after.’

  I wasn’t nervous now and I was becoming a little angry. She was playing me like an angler plays a hooked fish. ‘When I was here on my previous visit,’ I said loudly and firmly, ‘I came to be a companion to a young married lady. Unfortunately a crime was committed during that time and, as a result, a police detective was sent down here from Scotland Yard. That, I assume, is the gentleman you describe as the “truth-seeker”.’

  Neither replied, only sat there like a pair of black-clad sphinxes. It was time to seize the initiative.

  ‘May I presume to ask your names?’ I asked a little sharply.

  The one who seemed to be spokeswoman for the pair of them nodded. ‘Our name is Dawlish. I am Aunt Tibby and she—’ She pointed at her companion. ‘Is Aunt Cora Dawlish.’

  Aunts to whom? To the whole village? Even given that families in small communities were often linked by an intricate web of connections, it seemed unlikely. But the title of ‘aunt’ can be bestowed on almost any older lady. After all, I called Mrs Parry ‘aunt’, at her request, and we were not in any way related by blood or marriage. I would find out more in good time.

  Now I asked, ‘How do you know I am married now, and to that detective?’

  ‘We know many things,’ she replied. Indicating her silent sister with a jerk of her head, she added calmly, ‘My sister is a witch. She sees things.’

  I managed not to snap out in reply, In the tea leaves, I suppose? Instead, I said as calmly as I could, ‘Does she, indeed? Well, I am not a village woman and where I was born, in the north of England, we are a practical people. If you have learned somehow that I married Inspector Ross, it was not from— from anything Miss Cora knew through any occult practices.’

  Cora Dawlish spoke for the first time to say sharply, ‘I help people!’ She accompanied the words with a glare.

  Aunt Tibby looked sullen and said, ‘Jessie Dennis told us. She had it from her mother.’

  ‘And Mrs Dennis had it from where?’

  Tibby rallied and retorted, ‘Why, Mrs Ross, from the gentleman who owns The Old Excise House, Mr Hammet, of course! He told Jacob Dennis and his wife that the house was let out for a month to a pair of ladies, and one of them was married to a police inspector.’

  There was a touch of triumph in her gaze when she told me this. I was discomfited, because I should have been able to work it out for myself. But it did not completely answer my question. How did the sisters know it was Ben Ross I had married, and not another police inspector? They were right, but it was probably no more than an inspired guess on their part.

  This is how it works, I thought to myself. If you are told someone has supernatural powers, you begin to believe that what they, or anyone connected with them, says, originates in those powers. But usually it is no more than simple observation and deduction; or some scrap of privately acquired information. They had a good memory for faces, and Aunt Tibby had recognised me, though it was five years since I’d shown my face hereabouts. That is how Aunt Cora and others, who make claims of being witches, work their ‘magic’. They are like conjurors. You see something you know is impossible; but cannot help, for a moment, believing it.

  But did it a
lso explain their being known to all as ‘aunt’? I realised it was a term of respect and authority. These were what would once have been known as ‘wise women’. When the villagers, particularly the women, were in need of help or advice, they still came, not to their parish priest, but to one of the sisters.

  If I had seen either of them on my previous visit, I should certainly have remembered them. But I had been fully occupied with other matters at the time and had no memory of them. The inattention of others also plays into their trickery. Well, I had no more time to waste being made a fool of by them.

  ‘Good day, ladies!’ I said firmly, with a nod of my head.

  I was about to walk on when I looked past the two women, down the length of the overgrown garden behind them to the cottage. The front door had opened at some point, I was not sure when, and a man now stood in the doorway, watching the exchange by the gate. He was grinning broadly. It was Davy Evans.

  Now I was seriously angry, because I realised all the information the sisters possessed had come via him, and he had it from his lady love, Jessie Dennis. I ignored him and stepped out briskly on my way. But even then, Aunt Cora had the last word.

  As I walked away I heard her call after me. ‘When you came before, you brought death with you. And on this visit, truth-seeker’s wife, you will bring death again.’

  As a last word it was an unanswerable one, so I made as if I hadn’t heard her gloomy prophecy. But she knew I had and, if I were to look back, both sisters would be smiling. Davy would be laughing openly.

  Then I realised the sisters had inadvertently let slip a detail of real information. Mr Hammet, the house owner, had told Mrs Dennis that the house was let for a month. So much for my believing I had negotiated my stay down to three weeks. Something else to tell Ben when I wrote! Mrs Parry had wanted to stay a month, and stay a month she would; and I, perforce, with her.