“Shouldn’t his lordship insist on knowing exactly what is going on?” Ben swung his legs off the side of the bed and stood looking down at me with that appraising look that he normally reserves for the children when suspecting they aren’t facing up to facts.
“Oh, I know what’s getting to you,” I said crossly. “You’ve got this bee in your bonnet that Lord Belfrey has a thing for me, and like any fool of a woman I’m incapable of not being ridiculously flattered. Well, it is good to know that he likes me-he’s nice and any bright spot is welcome at Mucklesfeld-but what he and I were talking about outside the library was Molly Duggan’s dancing. Ballet. She’d crept in, turned on Tchaikovsky, and morphed into a swan. Oh, I know,” interpreting his blank expression, “that no one would guess from looking at her. That’s swans for you-exquisitely graceful on water, and disappointingly waddly on land. Not that Molly waddles, but she is ordinary, even frumpy, just like the poor little ugly duckling.”
“Are you saying,” Ben sounded both surprised and interested, “that’s she good at all that leaping, twirling on tiptoe stuff?”
“I don’t know enough to tell if she’s an Anna Pavlova or a Margot Fonteyn, but she certainly blew me and Lord Belfrey away. I’d gone into the library to look for the entrance onto the gallery used by Lady Annabel, and he was there…” I got no further because Mrs. Malloy came in and gave Ben a look that suggested he make himself scarce. She plunked herself down on the bed, forcing me to shift to the edge.
“They’re few and far between, but thank God some men can take a hint,” she observed morosely after Ben had shot out the door. “And don’t you go spoiling this little visit, Mrs. H, by harping on about me going off on Judy Nunn.”
“I’ve no intention of doing any such thing,” I said. “The fact that your feet were aching afterwards was a clear sign of remorse, considering you’ve so often told me you’ve been wearing high heels since you were two. Obviously you’ve got it in for her because you’re convinced she’s going to be Lord Belfrey’s choice…”
“That’s not it,” a sigh ruffled the bedclothes, “although I don’t think I’m the only one as thinks she’ll be picked.”
“Then why? She seems such a nice woman.”
“That’s it in a nutshell, I suppose, Mrs. H. She’s one of them sort as never has to bother about what she’s wearing, or if she has her eyebrows on or off, because nobody else cares neither; she’s just Judy as seems to suit everybody down to the ground. Makes me feel kind of inferior, and that don’t happen often on account of me having been three times chairwoman of the Chitterton Fells Charwomen’s Association. ’Course I’m not saying she does it on purpose, but right from the first I got me back up.”
“Get over it,” I retorted the more firmly because, despite my liking for Judy, I empathized. “I’ve been in that boat at one time or another and it goes nowhere. Besides, if his lordship gets wind that you’re picking on her, you’re likely to dish your chances.”
A pause, causing me to wonder if she had nodded off to sleep.
“That’s another thing bothering me, Mrs. H. At first you could say I was in a dream, picturing meself Lady Belfrey, but like I got to thinking in church this morning, call it a sacred revelation if you like, what’s lovely in books don’t have quite the same thrill in the day to day. A husband’s a husband whatever way you slice him-wanting to know where his socks are when they’re right there on his feet, or stuck in bed with lumbago, banging on the table if you don’t fly up the stairs the moment he wants helping to the loo! And then,” a hesitation suggesting we were getting to the crux of the matter, “it’s not like Lord Belfrey will worship the ground I tread on like Carson Grant did with Wisteria Whitworth. To be picked because I’m good at flapping round with a feather duster won’t have me floating on air, however handsome he is. And anyway,” disgruntled stare, “what woman needs a man as would have you wanting to pick up the nearest knife and give yourself a face-lift when he comes sashaying into the bedroom in his silk pajamas?”
“You underrate your mature charms,” I was saying when the door opened and in came Livonia, clearly eager to talk about the afternoon’s events although displaying an awkwardness in Mrs. Malloy’s presence.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to ask you, Ellie, what you thought of this afternoon’s escapade? Wasn’t the skeleton awful? So… so disrespectful to the poor creature. I wonder where Georges got it?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him if it was his own mother.” Mrs. Malloy got off the bed; as she often says-usually when it’s time for the washing up-she knows when she’s not wanted, “Or his father, for that matter. Looked like a man in drag to me; my third husband had that same silly grin when I’d catch him in one of me best frocks. And them teeth! Women always do a better job brushing!”
I was glad of her interruption. Certainly I wasn’t going to tell Livonia who I believed to be the source of poor Nellie or Ned. But something in my look must have given me away, because the moment Mrs. Malloy went out the door, Livonia sank down on the bed to stare up at me in wide blue-eyed distress.
“Oh, not Tommy-Dr. Rowley, I should say-surely he wouldn’t allow Georges to make such a cruel mockery of…”
“Calm down.” I sat beside her. “If it was his skeleton, I’m sure he never dreamed she’d be put in that dress, which is what made it all vicious.”
“But he seems so very sensitive. So noble… in the sweetest way. When I was telling him on the walk back from church this morning about Daddy’s final days at Shady Oaks, he said he had worked there for a couple of weeks one summer filling in for a colleague, giving up his own holiday to do so. Isn’t that an amazing coincidence? He wanted to know what I thought of the care provided and… well, he was just so kind.”
“Which is why you shouldn’t be bothering your head about that skeleton. By the way, did you ever talk to Suzanne about her father’s treatment at Shady Oaks?”
“I expect so. When we met there, our dads were our only connection. But I don’t remember anything specific. That day in London she said she’d taken her dad’s death hard and changed the subject. She was the type uninclined to give much of herself away.”
“That’s what Mrs. Spendlow, the vicar’s wife, said, although if they hadn’t been interrupted she’s sure Suzanne was going to open the floodgates to her.” I explained the relationship. “Did you get the feeling that inside Suzanne might be a very angry person?”
“No, controlled is how I saw her. Judy, who knew her better-although not close friends-described her as intensely private. She knew nothing about Shady Oaks when I brought it up, or of any personal relationships, with men I mean, only that Suzanne had been briefly married. But she did say she believes Suzanne signed on for Here Comes the Bride to try to escape some haunting sorrow.”
I doubted Judy had used that exact phrase, but I got the point. Fond as I had grown of Livonia, I was relieved when she went. Lying back down on the bed, my mind shifted, lighting on scraps of remembered this and that, until it became a whirl of conjecture. I suspected that Suzanne Varney’s arrival at Mucklesfeld had placed someone in a most awful dither. But murder? I still tried to tell myself that that was carrying things into the realm of a Doris McCrackle novel.
That evening Ben brought a meal up on a tray, which we shared companionably without saying very much. He did mention that no one had eaten the gateau at lunch, and hoped that was because the meal had been interrupted. Not wishing to put any blame on Mrs. Foot, I assured him that was the case and told him I’d love him to make another; it had looked so delicious, I would dream of it for days if not given the opportunity to sample three or four slices. Telling me I looked tired, he asked if I would be offended if he slept in the bedroom Wanda Smiley had been set to occupy before her abrupt departure. Knowing how claustrophobic he must find the cubbyhole, I said he should enjoy a good night’s rest, returned his kiss, and after he had left with the tray, thought about reading. Instead, I did more thinking, before turning off the light and going out like one myself.