Ann Granger (8 page)

‘Tell me, Miss Martin,’ asked Miss Roche unexpectedly, once we were settled in the drawing room, ‘what were your duties with regard to your previous employer?’

‘I read to her sometimes, I wrote letters for her, I made up a four at whist,’ I told her. ‘I accompanied her sometimes when she went out.’

‘Whist?’ said Miss Roche and her eyebrows twitched. ‘My sister and I do not play cards. It’s an occupation that leads to unfortunate habits.’

I glanced at the chess table still with the abandoned game in place on its squares. ‘I am sorry I don’t know how to play chess,’ I said meekly.

‘No matter,’ said Miss Roche, ‘Lucy doesn’t play. Our doctor, Dr Barton, has advised Lucy to take exercise and fresh air. Perhaps you could walk with her tomorrow morning.’

As this was said in Lucy’s presence without even a glance at her, I almost blushed in embarrassment. Was it normal in this household to talk of Lucy as if she were deaf and dumb or just incapable of expressing any opinion?

‘If that is what Mrs Craven would like,’ I said and turned to Lucy in as deliberate a manner as I could without causing offence to Miss Roche. ‘Would you care to walk tomorrow, Mrs Craven? I long to explore the neighbourhood. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to be my guide?’

‘Of course,’ said Lucy. Her voice held no expression but she threw me a quick little glance and in it I fancied I saw a flicker of gratitude.

Miss Phoebe spoke unexpectedly. ‘It will be so nice for dear Lucy to have younger company.’ She smiled at us.

Miss Roche pursed her lips and fixed me with a very direct gaze. ‘This is a respectable household, Miss Martin. Our family is an old one. Our forebears came from France when the French King Lewis so cruelly persecuted the Protestants there. Before that they had been persons of importance in La Rochelle. Sobriety and diligence have always been our watchwords.’

Miss Roche raised her hand and pointed to a smoke-darkened oil painting hanging above the fireplace. It showed a man in full-bottomed wig and lace collar although, owing to it needing a good clean, nothing could be made out of the background.

‘That gentleman is John Roche, the first of our family to settle in this country, painted by Sir Peter Lely.’ Her voice rang with pride.

‘Indeed, ma’am,’ I said politely.

I have no great knowledge of art but it seemed to me that the picture suggested a less skilled hand than that of a great portraitist. Perhaps the dirt obscured its finer points. It didn’t quite obscure the rakish look in the sitter’s eye, which hardly indicated to me an industrious, God-fearing silk merchant. I managed to conjure up a suitable expression of awe since it was clearly expected.

‘So,’ continued Miss Roche, satisfied that I was impressed, ‘I don’t want you and my niece to waste time in idle chatter. Perhaps you could study some instructive book together.’

I almost shouted out that I’d not come to be a governess. But Lucy was so young. Marriage and motherhood had probably curtailed her education. Perhaps her aunt felt this was part of the problem and if Lucy could find new interests, her spirits might improve. This was putting the best possible interpretation on Miss Roche’s words. I was however beginning to understand why Mr Charles Roche had sent me here. Whatever was wrong with Lucy, the Roche ladies were not the ones to deal with it.

Dr Lefebre rejoined us and I was heartily pleased to see him. He had a knack of talking to the ladies without ever saying much of real interest but keeping them chatting. The portrait by Sir Peter Lely was duly pointed out to him. He passed a hand over his mouth and observed: ‘You’re very fortunate to have it, ma’am.’

We were then subjected to a history of the Roche family, generation by generation. They were all, we were told, of the utmost probity and piety. They valued their Protestant faith, their family honour and good name and the successful running of their business. It didn’t surprise me that such a line of humourless if efficient dullards had produced Miss Christina and Miss Phoebe. I looked again at the gentleman in the lace collar. Perhaps it was because I was so very tired that his rakish gaze appeared to wink at me. Take all that with a good pinch of salt! he seemed to be saying.

At nine thirty sharp Miss Roche rose to her feet, followed almost at once by her sister.

‘We retire early. That does not apply, of course, to you, Dr Lefebre.’

But, by implication, it did apply to Lucy and to me.

‘I’ll take a turn in the garden, I think, before I retire,’ said the doctor. ‘I might even go a little way along the shore, mm?’

‘As you wish,’ said Miss Roche tersely.

In fact I was not sorry to go up to bed. It had been a long and busy day and I was feeling sleepy. Williams came in, as if part of a set routine, with a tray of candlesticks. There was no gas at remote Shore House and downstairs the failing light had been supplemented with oil lamps. But upstairs it seemed candles were the usual thing. We were provided with a candlestick apiece. At the head of the stairs the corridor ran to left and to right. The sisters turned to the left. Lucy and I turned to the right and bid one another goodnight before her door, next to mine. I wished I didn’t have the annoying sensation of having been despatched to the nursery wing. I didn’t know where Dr Lefebre would be lodged but I was sure that it would be in the left-hand wing, where Miss Roche could monitor his coming and going. He appeared to be a single gentleman and in such a respectable household would not be allowed a bedchamber anywhere near an unmarried woman such as I was, or a pretty young matron with a husband in China.

On a table in the corner of my room stood a rosewood writing slope inlaid with ivory. It reminded me of my promise to write to Ben as soon as I arrived. Weary as I was, I opened it up and took out a sheet of the fine quality paper contained inside. Close by I found a supply of pens and ink in a glass inkwell with silver lid. This is indeed a wealthy household! I thought. Even in a spare bedroom there’s an expensive item of furniture like this, in case a guest wishes to write a private letter.

By the light of my candle I settled down to describe my journey, the surprising meeting with Lefebre on the train and the ferry crossing. Then, fearing Ben would count this as description of the scenery and become impatient, I hastened to write that I’d met the Roche ladies and found them rather formal and stiff. I’d also met Mrs Craven, I told him, but had little time to talk to her. I’d been struck by her extreme youth.

I decided not to tell Ben of Lucy’s claim that Lefebre was a ‘mad-doctor’. I would like to hear that confirmed by someone else, preferably the man himself.

Reading it all through, it struck me that Dr Lefebre played rather a large role in my narrative. But that couldn’t be helped. The candle flame guttered and drew my attention to how low it had burned. I couldn’t write on for much longer and in any case my eyes were tired. I saw ruefully that my handwriting was beginning to sprawl all over the page. I promised to write more as soon as I could, signed my letter, found a little bar of sealing wax in the box and, using my candle, sealed it up. As I replaced the bar of wax I saw that it was decorated with a sinuous Chinese dragon. I wondered if the writing slope originated in the Far East, as did so much of the Roche fortune. I propped my letter on my dressing table. I’d take it downstairs in the morning and put it in the box for outgoing post in the hall.

The act of writing had thoroughly tired me out. I struggled out of my clothes and into my nightgown. It was very warm and stuffy in the room. When I’d undressed, I blew out the candle stub and went to the window to draw back the heavy curtains and open the casement. The cool night air would help me sleep more easily, I thought, and the morning sun awaken me.

The same gentle sea breeze brushed my face, much cooler now, and I could hear the distant lapping of the waves on the beach. The garden below was a pattern of dark and silver, shadows thrown by the moonlight and strange shapes formed by the topiary trees, rhododendron bushes and laurel hedges. As I looked out my eye caught a movement and a small red point glowed in the shadows. As I watched the red point moved back and forth and eventually described an arc through the air, fell to earth and was extinguished. Dr Lefebre had concluded his evening stroll with a cigarette. He’d been out there some time. I wondered how far he’d gone on his moonlit walk and if it had taken in the shingle beach.

I left the window and placed my stout balmoral boots on the carpet by the head of my bed in case the rat should dare to show his whiskers and I needed something to throw at him. Then I fairly fell into bed and went straight to sleep.

*   *   *

It is an odd thing but when one falls asleep like that, dead to the world, one can awaken just as suddenly and for no obvious cause. I awoke in such a way and sat bolt upright in bed. I was filled with an unreasoning alarm, my heart throbbing in my breast and my skin fairly prickling with awareness of something being wrong. I told myself at once this was only because I was in a strange place.
Come, come, Lizzie, pull yourself together, you are not a child to be afraid of the dark!
I admonished myself. Yet the feeling of unease did not leave me, even though my eyes adjusted slowly to the gloom. The shapes of the furniture identified them as harmless constructions of wood. My petticoat thrown over a chair back glowed palely in a sinister fashion, but showed no inclination to rise and flap towards me.

I threw back the covers and slipped out of bed. I hadn’t the means to relight the candle stub, so I padded barefoot to the window and leaned out to take advantage of the moonlight.

The noise of the waves seemed louder and nearer to hand; the tide had come in. Perhaps it was only that, then, which had disturbed my slumber? Then, as I leaned on the sill, I heard a different noise: a whispering followed by a low bass murmur. I frowned and leaned further out, the air currents catching at my unpinned hair and blowing it across my face.

The garden still showed the pattern of silver and black. Nothing moved except the tips of the trees in the light wind. Perhaps I had only imagined the strange noise; it must be the waves. I was unaccustomed to the variety of sounds they could produce.

But there it was again: a whispering followed by something louder, definitely a human voice, quite high in pitch but too muted to assign to a sex. It was echoed by the bass murmur, more expressive and forceful. There were at least two people in conversation in the garden.

Was Dr Lefebre still there? I held my unruly locks away from my eyes and peered more intently. I wished I knew what time it was. As if in answer to my wish, the long-case clock downstairs in the hall struck two. No, Dr Lefebre would not still be there in the early hours, unless he suffered from insomnia. Were that so, as a doctor he should surely be able to prescribe himself some opiate? Should I rouse the household? Were thieves plotting together to force an entry?

But even as I wondered, the conversation below came to an end. A figure slipped out of the shadows and came towards the house, disappearing again before I could see whether it came indoors or made its way round the outer walls. It was impossible to say of which sex it had been, so well enveloped in draperies was it.

The second speaker was still down there; I caught just the barest movement and instinctively drew back so that if he or she should look up I would not be seen. Whoever it was kept in the shadows and did not come towards the house. I sensed, rather than saw, the presence pass by my room and quit the scene.

Then, just as I was about to leave my station at the window, yet another movement below caught my eye and a small white shape, almost luminous in the moonlight, pattered by in the wake of the visitor right beneath my window.

I was almost sure it was one of the rat-catcher’s little terrier dogs.

Chapter Six

Elizabeth Martin

I CAME down the following morning and dropped my letter to Ben in the postbox on the hall table before making my way to the dining room. I found Dr Lefebre alone and just finishing his breakfast.

‘Good morning, Miss Martin, did you sleep well?’

‘Thank you, very well,’ I replied.

‘You weren’t worried about a visit from our fur-coated intruder?’

‘You mean the rat,’ I said. ‘Not a sign of it.’

‘So, no disturbances, then?’

I was surprised at his persistence and wondered if I ought to mention the scene I’d witnessed in the early hours of the morning. But, truth to tell, I’d seen hardly anything, only heard voices and fancied I recognised the dog. It would be more prudent to keep it to myself.

‘No, none at all,’ I repeated firmly.

‘Good!’ He seemed unduly pleased that I had not had any kind of a restless night.

‘And you?’ I asked politely. ‘Did you enjoy your walk yesterday evening?’

‘Thank you, it was very pleasant. I strolled through the garden and down to the sea. I recommend it to you. I couldn’t see much, of course, by moonlight, though it created quite a romantic scene shining on the water. Sadly I’m neither a painter nor a poet! But if you walk that way today you should get a good view across the Solent to the Isle of Wight. I believe it’s possible to make out individual buildings over there.’

I told him I would certainly explore later and asked if he had seen any of the ladies of the house that morning.

‘Miss Roche has breakfasted and gone to confer with Mrs Williams. I understand the fellow Brennan has arrived and awaits his instructions.’ The doctor mopped his mouth and tossed his crumpled napkin on to the table.

‘And Miss Phoebe?’ I asked.

‘Miss Phoebe, it seems, takes only coffee and a slice of toast in the morning in her room. I’ve not seen Mrs Craven.’

‘Perhaps she’s keeping away from you,’ I said calmly, seating myself and reaching for the coffee pot.

Lefebre leaned back in his chair and observed me. ‘Why should she do that?’

‘You were not entirely frank with me yesterday,’ I charged him. ‘Mrs Craven tells me you’re a doctor who treats the mad.’

‘And what is madness, Miss Martin, eh?’ He stared at me benevolently and, when I hesitated, smiled. ‘Let me tell you that the illnesses of the mind take many forms. Say the word “mad” and to most people it still means a gibbering idiot, poor Tom o’Bedlam.’ He shook his head. ‘But I’ve treated patients quite severely mentally ill who’ve appeared as sane as you or I, Miss Martin, always supposing that you and I
are
sane. That raises not so much the question: what is madness? But rather, what is sanity?’