Bridesmaids Revisited (9 page)

The woman who opened the black-painted door certainly looked as though she had all her marbles, and in the right jar, too. She was neatly dressed in a plaid skirt, cream blouse, and cardigan, and wore octagonal rimless glasses. Her permed hair was only lightly threaded with gray and framed a face that was remarkably free of lines. If I hadn’t known that she had to be at least in her early seventies, I would have thought her no more than sixty-five.

My smile probably came across as a little uncertain, as if I were trying it on for size. Her welcome was reserved, but not unwelcoming; even so, I found myself remembering that phone call in the middle of the night and wishing I hadn’t come.

“Welcome, Giselle. I’m Rosemary Maywood. It’s been a long time since you were here.” She extended her hand.

“You know it’s me.”

“Of course, we’ve been expecting you.” She didn’t add that I was late.

“I know, but I wondered if you might think I was that other woman—Amelia Chambers.” I was back to babbling. “My car went into the ditch. It wasn’t hurt and neither was I, but some of the neighbors came out and they were telling me ...” My voice trailed off as Rosemary stepped back from the door and I followed her inside.

“No, I didn’t think for a moment you were she.” She closed the door, took my case, and set it in a corner. And I added my handbag. The hall was narrow, darkened along one side by the staircase banisters. But there were two archways to the right and left of us, supplying elbowroom. They gave a view of the Victorian dining room papered with exuberant red and pink roses. And of a comfortable sitting room, where nothing matched but all the pieces, from the big, rather mannish sofa to the dainty crystal lamps, looked as though they had lived together long enough to settle in as a family of the sort where being nice to each other is more important than being singled out for a word of praise.

“We are expecting Miss, or I am sure she would say Ms., Chambers this afternoon.” Rosemary hung my raincoat on the banister knob and guided me a few inches down the hall. “She is a very persistent woman, although I suppose, to be fair, she is only doing her job working for that ruthless man.”

“The one who has systematically bought up all of Knells apart from this house?”

“You  have been  talking to  the  neighbors.”  Rosemary smiled thinly. “We’ll get to all that in due time. Meanwhile let’s hope this trusted assistant doesn’t show up until after lunch, which we have been keeping warm in the oven. Our daily help, Edna Wilks, has made one of her fish pies and there will be plenty of vegetables from Thora’s garden, as well as stewed fruit and custard to follow. Why don’t we go and join them in the conservatory? We can take your case up later. You’re to have the room across from Thora’s on the second landing.” Rosemary attempted to keep me moving but I had stalled in my tracks.

It wasn’t the hall tree, with its arrangement of umbrella, pith helmet, and black witch’s hat, that held my attention. It was the photograph, one making up a gallery of faces lining the staircase wall. A black-and-white photo of me. At about sixteen or seventeen years of age, looking plump and wistful with my hair plaited over my shoulder. My mother had assured me that one day I would look back and realize that I had been a pretty girl in my own special way. I could hear her voice, as if she had spoken to me yesterday—or even today. Then, creeping up on the heels of nostalgia, came a shivery feeling, of the sort that I had expected to feel on coming here, but hadn’t, not on looking at the exterior of the house or upon crossing the threshold.

Now it came to me that all the time I had been living my life elsewhere—learning to be a decorator, moving to Merlin’s Court, falling in love and marrying Ben, giving birth to the twins, and welcoming Rose into our family—part of me had been here all the time. Stolen away without my knowledge, to be put in a frame and placed on a staircase wall with a group of strangers, some of whom were probably long in the grave.

“Jane’s second husband was an archaeologist,” said Rosemary.

“Oh!”

“And Thora dresses up as a witch for Halloween to amuse the village children.” Rosemary was looking at the hall tree, obviously thinking that the pith helmet and pointed black hat were the cause of my distraction. “You can see why there wasn’t room for your raincoat.”

“I was looking at the photo.” My voice sounded as though it were being relayed through a cardboard tube from a finished roll of toilet paper. “The one of me.” I tried to lift my hand to point, but my arm was glued to my side.

“That’s not you.” Her octagonal glasses caught a flash of light from the wall sconce at the top of the stairs. “It’s your grandmother Sophia. It was taken the summer she was seventeen, when Thora and Jane came for a month’s visit. I was already at the house, had been for a year, while I worked at a chemist’s shop in Rilling, training in the dispensary. Reverend McNair, your great-grandfather, was my uncle—my mother’s brother.”

“So you and Sophia were cousins?” I hadn’t been sure of the connection. “What about Thora and Jane?”

“Friends from boarding school. Your parents didn’t tell you much, did they?”

“Only that they themselves were distantly related. Mother was from the Fitzsimons branch. Daddy was from the side that had shortened the name to Simons. I sensed from when I was little that Mother hadn’t had a happy childhood.”

“Yes, Mina always hated this house.” Rosemary fingered the collar of her ladylike cream blouse. “Couldn’t wait to make her escape. She told us so when she brought you here that day. Her father, William Fitzsimons, had recently died and left the place to me. It was an awkward situation, at least I thought so, and I invited her down to ask if there was anything, among the furniture or china and glass, that she might like to take. She said there was nothing she ever wanted to see again. I think she only came because she thought it was the right thing to do.”

An image came sharply to mind of my mother looking out the window as we sat on the train going home and then turning to me and saying: “Have you ever wondered why I’ve never wanted you to call me Mum or Mummy? It’s because I never got to say the word Mother—that most beautiful name in the world.” How could I have forgotten until this moment?

“The furnishings weren’t to my taste either,” Rosemary was saying. “So I got rid of the lot and moved in what I had accumulated over the years. Thora and Jane brought their own bits and pieces with them. The plan, right from when I got the news of the house being mine, was for the three of us to live together. Jane had recently been widowed for the second time. Her first marriage ended in divorce. And Thora was also on her own and had always loved the garden here.”

“Nice for all three of you.” I was back to looking at the photo on the staircase wall and Rosemary followed my gaze.

“It was taken in September of the year that Sophia became engaged to William Fitzsimons.”

“Now I understand how you knew.” The creepy feeling was ebbing away, leaving ... I wasn’t sure what ... in its place. “That I wasn’t Amelia Chambers, I mean.”

“As you can see, Giselle, you’re the very image of your grandmother.”

“It’s almost uncanny.”

“I have to assume that is why ... but we’ll get to that later, if you don’t mind. After we’ve had lunch and are all sitting having a nice cup of coffee, or tea, if you prefer.” Rosemary was walking me briskly down the hall. “I have, by the way, met Mrs. Chambers. Thora, Jane, and I met her in London about a month ago.”

“I remember one of the neighbors saying you had described her as having brown hair and being very good-looking.”

“Stylish in a restrained sort of way. Classic features, that’d be my definition. Thora put it a different way. Just the sort to be a young man’s fancy or an old man’s darling is what she said. Her employer, who for the present will be nameless, is in his seventies: but still devilishly handsome, to quote Jane.”

I had been doing a quick step to every word of this disclosure, with the result that I suddenly found myself in the conservatory. Here the pine planks of the hall gave onto a slate floor covered at random with hooked rugs that appeared no bigger than place mats because of the size of the room. It was glassed in on two sides, with an opening in the stone wall of what was once the exterior of the house. This gave entry to a kitchen of the good old-fashioned sort. Cheerfully painted an apple green and displaying some rather nice Devonshire pottery on the shelves of a large pine dresser.

“Do sit down and make yourself comfortable, Giselle.” Rosemary indicated the faded chintz sofa overhung with foliage from just a few of the potted plants that crowded the conservatory at every turn. They came up from the floor and down from the ceiling. They sat in slightly smaller versions on the grand piano, they festooned tabletops and the wall-hung sink by the side door. I was tempted to say “Excuse me” several times while brushing up against the ones most determined to block my path. But I finally managed to seat myself on the sofa, only to leap up again when the cushion behind me moved. It turned out to be a cat. A big fluffy apricot one, with eyes almost as green as those of the woman with the black and orange hair.

“So sorry. I’ll take her.” Rosemary held out her hands, but I assured her that I had a cat of my own, named Tobias, at home.

“This one’s named Joan, after one of Jane’s friends.”

“That’s sweet.” I resettled myself and didn’t jump this time when another cushion, a tortoiseshell one this time, sprang to life and took a leap onto the coffee table, scattering magazines, mostly gardening ones, right and left.

“That one’s named Charlotte.”

“How many more are there?”

“Just Penny. A Siamese.”

“Any dogs?”

“A lumbering old Labrador. He belongs to Thora. The only male in the group, but Thora named him Dog anyway to cut down on the confusion.”

I leaned back against a cushion that was the real thing this time and felt something touch my hair. It was a long ferny-fingered hand. Not being inclined to get on stroking terms with any plant to which I hadn’t been properly introduced, besides being afraid of knocking it over, I leaned forward, perhaps causing Rosemary to mistake my demeanor for impatience.

“I was sure Thora and Jane would be in here.” She peered around as if expecting one or the other to pry their way through the jungle. “Perhaps they are out in the garden. Or they could have gone out through the back gate into the lane. But they knew you were due any minute.” She sounded thoroughly exasperated and I had no doubt at that moment that she not only owned the house but also made it clear from the start who was boss.

“Here’s our guest at long last!” A stocky woman of medium height with a shock of white hair trimmed short except where it fell over her forehead, dark brown eyes, and a ruddy complexion had entered from the hall. Two steps behind her came another woman. This one was thin and pale. Her hair was also white, but with a yellowish tinge and worn tied back from her face. Like Rosemary she wore glasses, but hers had black frames. The winged sort, that were in style once upon a time.

“She’s not all that late,” the thin one said.

“I meant, Jane,” responded the stocky one, “we’ve been wanting to meet Giselle for a long time.”

“Please call me Ellie.” I got up from the sofa.

“Does suit you better.” The brown eyes probed my face. “More friendly. I’m Thora Dobson.” She had a gruff voice. “My shadow here is Jane Pettinger.”

“Such a pleasure to meet you at last,” joined in Jane. “So very like your grandmother Sophia, but of course we knew that already from the photo.”

“The one on the stairs?”

“No, the one in the newspaper. From when you won that big art contest, shortly before your mother died. We just happened to see it and cut it out. Such a thrill! It’s in one of our photograph albums in the sitting room. You must look through them while you are here. Do you still draw and paint, my dear?”

“I lost interest after Mother died.” I wondered why Rosemary, in talking about the other photograph, hadn’t mentioned that she had one—or at least a newspaper clipping of me at much the same age, and if this were the one she had shown to the woman with black and orange hair this very afternoon. Thora and Jane had come over to hug and kiss me, and when they moved back, Rosemary merely said that we should all sit down to lunch before it was completely ruined. At which point I apologized for being late, explaining again about the ditch.

“And then the neighbors got you talking! We quite understand. The important thing is that you weren’t hurt. Such a relief.” Jane drew a deep breath. “I had the most frightful dream last night that someone, I couldn’t see who, met with a nasty end. Only they weren’t dead, as it turned out. You know how those dreams go. But it’s not just dreams with me these days. I’ve been the recipient of certain emanations. On several occasions I have seen a ghostly form stepping across the upper landing, and there have been other signs that Sophia may be trying to reach out to me from the other side.” She picked up one of the smaller potted ferns and fanned herself with it.

“You and your emanations!” Thora turned to me. “Your husband phoned about half an hour ago to see if you had arrived. Had trouble hearing him because there was a lot of noise that sounded like opera going on in the background. Rather bad opera. Not that I am much of a judge.”

“He’s on holiday with our children.”

“So Rosemary said.”

“At a holiday camp called Memory Lanes.”

“Oh, merciful heavens,” exclaimed Jane. And I saw Rosemary cut her off with a nod.

“It was our vicar’s idea. But it’s probably not everyone’s kind of place.” I refrained from adding that being invited here, to commune with a long-dead grandmother, probably wasn’t everyone’s ideal invitation either. Presumably, we would get onto that topic after lunch, while sipping our coffee, or tea, in the sitting room. Such matters, I could imagine the bridesmaids thinking, were not to be charged at like a bull getting started in a china shop. Perhaps they would even produce a bottle of sherry, to add a touch of genteel elegance to the occasion of requesting my grandmother Sophia to waft forth. I was now pretty much sure of what lay in store for me. A séance, what else? The medium to be none other than the woman with black and orange hair.