Again that hunching of the shoulders, the grimace, as she laughed.
“I always give people names,” she said.
“You’re Cranny.”
“I’m not sure that I approve of that.”
“You don’t have to approve. People have no choice when it comes to names. They have to have what’s given them. Look at me, Kate. Who wants to be Kate? I should have liked to be Angelica.”
“That would make people think of angels,” I reminded her.
“Hardly apt in your case.”
She was laughing again. There was quite a lot of laughter that morning.
I said to her: “We’ll start lessons tomorrow morning at nine-thirty and we shall finish at twelve noon.”
“Miss Evans started at ten.”
“We shall start at nine-thirty.”
Again that grimace, but it was still good-tempered.
I really thought we were getting on much better than I had thought we should. She seemed interested in me. I wondered whether I should be able to get her to work at her lessons.
I was soon to have a rude awakening.
It was understandable that on my first night at Perrivale Court I should find that sleep evaded me. The events of the day kept crowding into my head. Here I was at last, in Simon’s home, almost at the scene of the crime, one might say; and I was dedicated to the monumental task of proving his innocence. I felt greatly comforted by the thought of Lucas to whom I could turn at any time. I was touched that he had offered to marry me. I had been truly amazed. I had never thought of him in such connection, or only vaguely when Aunt Maud had had that speculative look in her eyes when she knew I had met him at Felicity’s home.
I was turning over in my mind how I should begin my research. This was what would be called a wild goose chase and it was only because of the fantastic adventures through which I had passed that I could
contemplate embarking In the meantime I had to cope with Kate. Quite a task in itself. The beginning had been easier than I had thought it would be, but that was merely because I had managed to make her mildly interested in me. I could visualize her quickly becoming bored and then the campaign against me would begin. I hoped she would not make my life intolerable before I had made some progress in my search.
I must learn something about Cosmo, who had been engaged to marry the fascinating Mirabel who had become a definite personality to me. I was getting my cast together. Simon, I knew well; I had glimpsed Tristan.
How enamoured had Simon been of Mirabel? Having seen her I could imagine how attractive she would be to most men.
I must have dozed, for I was awakened suddenly by a sound outside my door. I opened my eyes and saw the door handle slowly turning. The door was silently pushed open and a figure glided into the room. It was covered with a sheet and I knew at once who was under that sheet.
She stood by the door and said in a sibilant whisper: “Go away. Go away … while there is still time. No good can come to you here.”
I pretended to sleep on. She came closer to the bed. My eyes were half closed and when she came near enough, I caught the sheet and pulled it off.
“Hello, ghost,” I said.
She looked deflated.
“It was a poor impersonation,” I added.
“And a sheet… obviously a sheet. Couldn’t you have done better than that?”
“You were pretending to be asleep. It wasn’t fair.”
“You were pretending to be a ghost and all’s fair in love and war, and war is what this is, isn’t it… since it certainly isn’t love.”
“You were scared.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Just for a minute?” she said almost pleadingly.
“Not for a second. You could have done better than that.
In the first place, if you planned to stage a haunting, it wasn’t very clever to talk so much about ghosts when we first met. You see, you put me on my guard. I said, “This girl fancies herself as a governess-baiter.”
“A what!” she cried.
“You see, you have such a limited vocabulary. I’m not surprised, as you won’t learn. You like taunting governesses because in comparison with them you feel ignorant. You think that for a moment they are in a weak position and you are in a strong one. That’s rather cowardly, of course, but people who are unsure of themselves do things like that.”
“I frightened Miss Evans.”
“I’ve no doubt you did. You don’t care about other people at all, do you?”
She looked surprised.
“Didn’t it occur to you that Miss Evans was trying to earn her living and the only reason she would want to teach an unpleasant child like you was because she had to.”
“Am I unpleasant?”
“Very. But if you gave a little thought to others besides yourself, you might be less so.”
“I don’t like you.”
“I don’t greatly care for you.”
“So you will go away, will you?”
“Probably. You don’t think anyone would want to stay to teach you, do you?”
“Why not?”
“Because you have stated so clearly that you do not want to learn.”
“What of that?”
“It shows you have no respect for learning and only stupid people feel like that.”
“So I am stupid?”
“It would seem so. Of course, you could change. I tell you what. Why don’t we make a truce?”
“What’s a truce?”
“It’s a sort of agreement. You make terms.”
“What terms?”
“We could see if you like the way I teach and if you are prepared to learn. If you don’t, I’ll go and you can have another governess. It will save you racking your brains for methods to make me uncomfortable. Let’s go about it in a civilized way without all these childish tricks to make me go.”
“All right,” she said.
“Let’s have a truce.”
“Then go back to bed now. Good night.”
She paused at the door.
“There are ghosts in the house, though,” she said.
“There was a murder here … not long ago.”
“Not in this house,” I said.
“No, but it was Stepper’s brother. One was killed and the other ran away. They were all in love with my mother before she married Stepper.”
She was very observant. She had noticed the change in me. She came back and sat on the bed.
“What do you know about it?” I asked.
“You weren’t in the house at the time.”
“No, I came here when my mother married Stepper. Before that we were at Gramps’s house.”
“Whose?”
“My grandfather’s. He’s in the Dower House now. He went there when my mother got married. He had to have a better house then because he was the father of the lady of the manor. Gramps didn’t like living in a little cottage anyway. He’s really a very grand gentleman. He’s Major Durrell and majors are very important. They win battles. We used to live in London but that was years and years ago. Then we came here and everything changed.”
“You must have known them all … the one who was killed and the one who went away.”
“I knew them … in a way. They were all in love with my mother. Gramps used to laugh about it. He was ever so pleased, because when she married Stepper we moved out of the cottage. But first there was all that fuss. And then Cosmo was killed and Simon ran away because he didn’t want to be hanged. “
I was silent and she went on: “They do hang them, you know. They put a rope round their necks and they … swing. It hurts a lot … but then they’re dead. That was what he was afraid of. Well, who wouldn’t be?”
I could not speak. I kept seeing Simon stealthily leaving the house . making his way to Tilbury . meeting the sailor, John Player.
She was watching me closely.
“Ghosts come back when people are murdered. They haunt people.