Anne Perry's Christmas Mysteries: Two Holiday Novels (2 page)

They stopped again to inquire the way as lanes grew narrower and even more rutted and overhung. When at last they arrived at their destination she was in a temper fit to have lit a fire with the sheer heat of her words. She climbed out with the coachman’s assistance, and stood on the gravel drive of what was obviously a fairly large house. All the lights seemed to be blazing and the front door was decorated with a magnificent wreath of holly.

Immediately she was aware of the smells of smoke and salt, and a sharp wind with an edge to it like a slap in the face. It was damp, so no doubt it was straight off the sea. Caroline had obviously lost not only her money but the last vestige of her senses as well.

The door opened and Caroline came down the steps now, smiling. She was still a remarkably handsome woman in her fifties, her dark mahogany hair only lightly sprinkled with the odd silver at the temples, which had a softening effect. She was dressed in deep, warm red and it gave a glow to her skin.

“Welcome to St. Mary, Mama-in-law,” she said a trifle guardedly.

The old lady could think of nothing whatever that met the situation, or her feelings. She was tired, confused, and utterly miserable in a strange place where she knew perfectly well she was unwanted.

It was several months since she had seen her erstwhile daughter-in-law. They had never been genuinely friends, although they had lived in the same house for over twenty years. During her son Edward’s lifetime there had been a truce. Afterward Caroline had behaved disgracefully and would listen to no advice at all. It became necessary for Grandmama to find other accommodations because Caroline and Joshua moved around so much, as his ridiculous profession dictated. There was never a question of Grandmama living with Charlotte, the elder granddaughter. She had scandalized everyone by marrying a policeman, a man of no breeding, no money, and an occupation that defied polite description. Heaven only knew how they survived!

So she had had no choice but to live with Emily, who at least had inherited very considerable means from her first husband.

“Come in and warm yourself.” Caroline offered her arm. Grandmama briskly declined it, leaning heavily on her stick instead. “Would you like a cup of tea, or hot cocoa?” Caroline continued.

Grandmama would, and said so, stepping inside to a spacious and well-lit hall. It was a trifle low-ceilinged perhaps, but floored with excellent parquet. The stairs swept up to a landing above and presumably several bedrooms. If the fires were kept stoked and the cook were any good, it might be endurable after all.

The footman carried her cases in and Tilly followed behind him. Joshua came forward and welcomed her, taking her cape himself. She was escorted into the withdrawing room where there was a blazing fire in a hearth large enough to have accommodated half a tree.

“Perhaps you would enjoy a glass of sherry after such a long journey?” Joshua offered. He was a slender man of little above average height, but possessed of extraordinary grace, and the suppleness and beauty of an actor’s voice. He was not handsome in a traditional sense—his nose was rather too prominent, his features too mobile—but he had a presence one could not ignore. Every prejudice in her dictated that she dislike him, yet he had sensed her feelings far more accurately than Caroline had.

“Thank you,” she accepted. “I would.”

He poured a full glass from the crystal decanter and brought it to her. They sat and made conversation about the area, its features, and a little of its history. After half an hour she retired to bed, surprised to find it was still only quarter past ten, a perfectly reasonable hour. She had imagined it to be the middle of the night. It felt like it, and it was irritating to be wrong.

S
he awoke in the morning after having slept all night almost without moving. From the amount of light coming through the curtains it appeared to be quite late, possibly even after breakfast. She had barely bothered to look at her surroundings when she arrived. Now she saw that it was an agreeable room if a trifle old-fashioned, which normally she approved of. The modern style of having less furniture, making far too much open space—no tassels, frills, carvings, embroidered samplers, and photographs on the walls and on every available surface—she found too sparse. It made a place look as if no one lived there, or if they did, then they had no family or background they dared to display.

But here she was determined not to like anything. She had been put upon, dismissed from such home as she had, and packed off to the seaside like a maid who had got herself with child, and needed to be removed until it all could be dealt with. It was a cruel and irresponsible way to treat one’s grandmother. But then all respect had disappeared in modern times. The young had no manners left at all.

She rose and dressed, with Tilly’s assistance, then went downstairs, more than ready for something to eat.

Then she found to her fury that Caroline and Joshua had risen early and gone for a walk toward the beach. She was obliged to have toast and marmalade and a lightly boiled egg, sitting by herself in the dining room at one end of a finely polished mahogany table surrounded by fourteen chairs. It was agreeably warm in the house, and yet she felt cold, not of the body so much as of the mind. She did not belong here. She was acquainted with no one. Even the servants were strangers about whom she knew nothing at all, nor they of her. There was nothing to do and no one to talk to.

When she had finished she stood up and went to the long windows. It looked bitterly cold outside: a wind-ragged sky, clouds torn apart and streaming across a bleached blue as if the color had died in it. The trees were leafless; black branches wet and shivering, bending at the tops. There was nothing in the garden that looked even remotely like a flower. An old man walked along the lane beyond the gate, his hat jammed on his head, scarf ends whipped around his shoulders and flapping behind him. He did not even glance in her direction.

She went into the withdrawing room where the fire was roaring comfortably, and sat down to wait for Caroline and Joshua to return. She was going to be bored to weeping, and there was no help for it. It was a bitter thing to be so abandoned in her old age.

Might there be any sort of social life at all in this godforsaken spot? She rang the bell and in a few moments the maid appeared, a country girl by the look of her.

“Yes, Mrs. Ellison?” she said expectantly.

“What is your name?” Grandmama demanded.

“Abigail, ma’am.”

“Perhaps you can tell me, Abigail, what people do here, other than attend church? I presume there is a church?”

“Yes, ma’am. St. Mary the Virgin.”

“What else? Are there societies, parties? Do people hold musical evenings, or lectures? Or anything at all?”

The girl looked dumbfounded. “I don’t know, ma’am. I’ll ask Cook.” And before Grandmama could excuse her, she turned and fled.

“Fool!” Grandmama said under her breath. Where on earth was Caroline? How long would she walk in a howling gale? She was besotted with Joshua and behaving like a girl. It was ridiculous.

It turned out to be another hour and a half before they came in cheerful, windblown, and full of news about all kinds of local events that sounded provincial and desperately boring. Some old gentleman was going to speak about butterflies at the local church hall. A maiden lady intended to discuss her travels in an unknown area of Scotland, or worse than that, one that had been known and forgotten—doubtless for very good reasons.

“Does anyone play cards?” Grandmama inquired. “Other than Snap, or Old Maid?”

“I have no idea,” Caroline replied, moving closer to the fire. “I don’t play, so I have never asked.”

“It requires intelligence and concentration,” Grandmama told her waspishly.

“And a great deal of time on your hands,” Caroline added. “And nothing better to fill it with.”

“It is better than gossiping about your neighbors,” Grandmama rejoined. “Or licking your lips over other people’s misfortunes!”

Caroline gave her a chilly look, and controlled her temper with an effort the old lady could easily read in her face. “We shall be having luncheon at one,” she observed. “If you care to take a walk, it’s wintry, but quite pleasant. And it might rain tomorrow.”

“Of course it might rain tomorrow,” Grandmama said tartly. “In a climate like ours that is hardly a perspicacious remark. It might rain tomorrow, any day of the year!”

Caroline did not try to mask the irritation she felt, or the effort it cost her not to retaliate. The fact that she had to try so hard gave the old lady a small, perverse satisfaction. Good! At least she still had some semblance of moral duty left! After all, she had been Edward Ellison’s wife most of her adult life! She owed Mariah Ellison something!

“Maybe I shall go for a walk this afternoon,” she said. “That maid mentioned something about a church, I believe.”

“St. Mary the Virgin,” Caroline told her. “Yes, it’s attractive. Norman to begin with. The soil is very soft here so the tower has huge buttresses supporting it.”

“We are on a marsh,” Grandmama sniffed. “Probably everything is sinking. It is a miracle we are not up to our knees in mud, or worse!”

A
nd so it passed for most of the next two long-drawn-out days. Walking in the garden was miserable; almost everything had died back into the earth, the trees were leafless and black and seemed to drip incessantly. It was too late even for the last roses, and too early for the first snowdrops.

There was nothing worth doing, no one to speak to or visit. Those who did call were excruciatingly boring. They had nothing to talk about except people Grandmama did not know, or wish to. They had never been to London and knew nothing of fashion, society, or even current events of any importance in the world.

Then in the middle of the second afternoon a letter arrived for Joshua. He tore it open as they were having tea in the withdrawing room, the fire roaring halfway up the chimney, rain beating on the window in the dark as heavy clouds obscured even the shreds of winter light. There was hot tea on a silver tray and toasted crumpets with butter melted into them and golden syrup on top. Cook had made a particularly good Madeira cake and drop scones accompanied by butter, raspberry jam, and cream so thick one could have eaten it with a fork.

“It’s a letter from Aunt Bedelia,” Joshua said, looking at Caroline, a frown on his face. “She says Aunt Maude has returned without any warning, from the Middle East, and expects them to put her up for Christmas. But it’s quite impossible. They have another guest of great importance whom they cannot turn out to make room for her.”

“But it’s Christmas!” Caroline said with dismay. “Surely they can make room somehow? They can’t turn her away. She’s family. Have they a very small house? Perhaps a neighbor would accommodate her, at least overnight?”

Joshua’s face tightened. He looked troubled and a little embarrassed. “No, their house is large, at least five or six bedrooms.”

“If they have plenty of room, then what is this about?” Caroline asked, an edge to her voice, as if she feared the answer.

Joshua lowered his eyes. “I don’t know. I called her Aunt Bedelia, but actually she is my mother’s cousin and I never knew her very well, or her sister Agnes. And Maude left England about the time I was born.”

“Left England?” Caroline was astounded. “You mean permanently?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“Why?”

Joshua colored unhappily. “I don’t know. No one will say.”

“It sounds as if they simply don’t want her there,” Grandmama said candidly. “As an excuse it is tissue-thin. What on earth do they expect you to do?”

Joshua looked straight at her and his eyes made her feel uncomfortable, although she had no idea why. He had fine eyes, a dark hazel-brown and very direct.

“Mama-in-law,” he replied, using a title for her to which he had no right at all. “They are sending her here.”

“That’s preposterous!” Grandmama said more loudly than she had intended. “What can you do about it?”

“Make her welcome,” he replied. “It will not be difficult. We have two other bedrooms.”