‘Or perhaps they’re fanciful too,’ Alec said. ‘Perhaps they’ll think – or her daughter at least – that she did see one. We might have done all we need to already.’
‘We?’ I said. ‘What did you do? And why, pray, should the daughter be the one to swallow mumbo-jumbo and not the son?’ Alec tutted and since I had no wish to sound like a suffragette – all very worthy I am sure, but so dull at parties – I changed the subject back again. ‘You might start in by asking them what made her believe in hydropathy? That’s the dominant note of mumbo-jumbo around here. Or here’s a thought: ask their religion-’
‘Church of Scotland,’ Alec said. ‘You only had to look at them.’
‘-under cover of breaking the news that there was no clergyman with her when she died. No time to fetch one and all that. But tell them that another guest, “a very spiritual lady”, sat with her and you only hope that brought her comfort. Use the word “spiritual” and make it a woman and see what they say.’
Alec was staring at me with his mouth hanging open.
‘Where do you get it, Dandy?’ he asked.
‘You wanted me to help you,’ I replied. ‘Don’t complain that I’ve managed it.’ Then I considered his question. ‘I honestly don’t know. I never used to be able to think up lies. When I was a child I couldn’t do it to save my life. Edward and Mavis concocted the most jaw-dropping tarradiddles and pointed at me and it was always me who got sent to my room with no dinner.’
‘Well, I’m glad that your moral standards have deserted you,’ Alec said. ‘That’s exactly the line I shall take. And having them think I went all the way to Edinburgh to broach such a delicate topic face-to-face can’t hurt our reputation.’
‘You can wheel out your head-undertaker routine again,’ I said. ‘They’ll adore you.’
‘What are you going to do in the meantime?’ Alec said, ignoring the jibe.
‘Attack it from this end,’ I said. ‘She saw a ghost? Surely she told someone. I shall try to find that someone.’
‘Sounds sensible enough,’ Alec said. If he meant it as praise he could have done better.
‘Not a guest,’ I said, musing. ‘It’s been too long. But I’m sure Dr Laidlaw knows more than she was happy to tell.’
‘Might only be that it wasn’t her idea to bowdlerise the tale for the Addie relations,’ Alec said. ‘I’d be surprised if it were, actually. She’s a very rational sort. I’d almost say tough-minded, if that didn’t sound nasty.’
I noted that he seemed more concerned with tailoring compliments for the good doctor than for me, and not for the first time I considered the way that intimacy of the sort Alec and I shared, now that we had been flung together in perils too many to name, was all very well, but I still missed the courtesy that there used to be.
‘If not her,’ I said, ‘I think I’ll go and pester Regina again. She definitely knows something too and might break more easily than the doctor when leaned on.’
I looked around the winter gardens, hoping that if I were very lucky I might see her little round personage bustling about, but there were only a couple of maid-cum-waitresses in black frocks and white caps taking orders, I thought, for coffee. Instead I saw, ambling along, feet dragging on the red clay tiles and making a noise which always grated upon me, Donald and Teddy. As I had suspected, Donald was already pulling at the soft collar of his shirt to loosen his tie, clearly feeling the muggy air too much for him. Again I felt one of my infrequent maternal pangs and was glad all over again to think that the secret of Mrs Addie’s death was most likely a white lie of sorts, not a black deed like murder at all. At least, I hoped so. If we uncovered anything much worse, I should really have to winkle my sons out of here and get them home. Perhaps it was even worth concocting a plausible tale I could keep up my sleeve and trot out if need be.
‘Mother, you’re squinting like a charmed snake,’ Donald said. ‘Good morning, Mr Osborne.’ As the three of them exchanged greetings, I retreated yet further into my own concerns.
Donald and Teddy could not be packed off home. How could I have forgotten? I was supposed to have rung up the factor as soon as we arrived to check that the workmen were set fair to begin their campaign on the draughts and drips of Gilverton first thing this morning. Gilchrist was already greatly troubled by his own treachery, colluding with me unbeknownst to his liege lord, but I had dangled a glittering prospect in front of his eyes and – more to the point – in front of the eyes of his wife who had three daughters under the age of ten and twin baby boys and had been brought up with indoor servants of her own, before marrying and having to make do with a daily maid and part shares in the estate gardeners. In short, I had offered the Gilchrists the chance to put their tin bath out in the yard for horses to drink from, and to turn the old privy into a kennel for their aged and unlovely terrier, and bask instead in an enamelled bath with a basin and lavatory, all installed in the old boxroom a step across the landing from where they slept. I had even agreed to the colour Mrs Gilchrist fancied best, although it made me shudder. Primrose it was called in the catalogue, depicted in a fanciful watercolour complete with bathing nymph. Custard, I called it, and powdered custard out of a tin at that.
There was to be a little gas water-heater above the kitchen sink too, and a larger one above the double sinks of the wash house, so Mrs Gilchrist could throw a cotton cloth over the old wash copper and stand a jug of flowers there. And of course there were to be radiators, all fed by a tank of oil in the yard, and the only coal to be carried would be a decorous brass scuttleful to make a cheery note in the sitting room on those few evening when the family had leisure to sit there. It would make a marked change from the twenty-hour day which began with lighting the kitchen range in the morning and ended with carrying covered shovels into the bedrooms at night, the hours between being filled with stoking and banking like a double shift on a steam engine.
Mrs Gilchrist’s eyes had shone as she leafed through the fanciful catalogue and even before she turned them beseechingly upon her husband, I knew she was mine. She was mine, he was hers and therefore he was mine too. He was not happy, but I had promised to draw all of Hugh’s inevitable wrath onto myself and had gone so far as to put it in writing that his job was safe. (If the worst came to the worst, he could hide at Benachally and help Donald for a month or two until matters settled again.)
Still, I really should have made sure to ring him. He was not used to having to forge ahead without Hugh. They sometimes reminded me, poring over their maps and plans, of two old women searching for a dropped stitch in their knitting.
Teddy was speaking. I shook all thoughts of Gilverton out of my head and attended to him.
‘-could have buttered me both sides and called me a bath bun,’ he said. This was a saying he had learned from a sweet nursery maid when he was very small. He took care to reserve it for use out of his father’s hearing, but it made me smile. ‘Donald too. You’ll never guess what the doctor is, Mummy.’
‘I shan’t take the bet, dear,’ I told him. ‘I knew.’
‘Did you tell Father?’ Donald said. He was smirking. ‘Because we didn’t. He’s in there now.’ Then the giggles got the better of both of them. I tried and failed not to join in.
‘And what did Dr Laidlaw say?’ I asked them. ‘What regime has she decreed for the pair of you?’
‘Rest for me,’ said Donald, very gloomy. ‘Rest on the terrace with a hot bottle at my feet. Rest in some vibrating electric contraption with bright lamps shining on me – I’m sure to be seasick – and rest while wrapped up like a mummy in hot towels and camphor.’
‘Camphor?’ I said. ‘Are you sure?’