Death on the Lizard (4 page)

Kate had abandoned her earlier sensational novels for historical fiction, for there were a great many fascinating characters whose real lives offered more twists and turns than any sensational plot a fiction writer might conjure up. The current project on which she and Beryl were working—Kate thought of the writer-part of herself as a kind of alter ego, an intimate and trusted friend—was a novel about Fair Rosamund, the mistress of Henry II. Kate pulled out the chair and sat down at her typewriter. She had hoped to have the book finished by now, but the going had been slow. Beryl was enthusiastic about the project, but Kate's other projects had got in the way. The manuscript was due shortly, though. It was time to settle down.

Kate had barely put her fingers on the keys when she heard a light tap at the library door and glanced up as Hodge, her butler, came into the room. “Miss Marsden to see you, m'lady,” he muttered, his dry tone revealing his ambivalence. Hodge himself was rigorously correct in all ways, and while he approved of Patsy Marsden's family connections, Patsy herself was quite clearly a New Woman. Her modernity was evident in her dress, if nothing else, and as Hodge admitted her, he kept his eyes carefully averted.

Patsy was wearing a neat white blouse, a short woven vest striped in a rainbow of colors, and a dark skirt radically shortened to reveal trim, dark-stockinged ankles. A narrow-brimmed red felt hat decorated with a pair of yellow feathers perched jauntily on one side of her sleek blond hair, and her pretty face was much more deeply tanned— sunburnt, some might have called it—than current fashion permitted.

“Patsy!” Kate exclaimed happily, rising from her desk and embracing her friend. “It seems an age since I last saw you! How well you look.” She fingered the fabric of Patsy's striped vest. “And how stunning this is. It suits you beautifully.”

“I think so, too,” Patsy replied. “The wool is hand-spun and woven by the Bedouin women of the Negev desert from the fleece of the local Awassi sheep. I've brought back several bolts of it to show to an importer in London. The women need a wider market for their work.” She took off her hat and kid gloves and tossed them on a chair. “Perhaps you'd like a vest for yourself.”

“I'd love one,” Kate said promptly. “When did you get back?”

In her mid-twenties, Patsy Marsden was already a world traveler who spent as much time as she could abroad, touring with her camera and portable typewriter. She loved going to exotic places where women did not usually venture, seeing (and photographing) strange sights which women did not ordinarily see. Kate had last been with her the year before, when she and her friend Gertrude Bell had left on a daunting and dangerous trek through the Middle East. Gertrude had gone on to India and America, but Patsy had fallen in love with the desert. She wrote to Kate that she was staying in Haifa, taking photographs, meeting the local Bedouin, and studying both Persian and Arabic.

“I returned two days ago,” Patsy said. “I would have come here straightaway, but you know Mama. She insisted that I stay and pay court to her.” She tilted her head. “How wonderful you look, Kate. Life must be agreeing with you.”

“It is, I think,” Kate said. “I'm quite content, although there has been rather too much traveling lately. Not your kind of travel, of course,” she added with a little laugh. “Charles and I spent part of April at Blenheim, and May in London. It's very good to be at home again.” She looked over her shoulder. “Tea, please, Hodge. And ask Mrs. Pratt to send up some of her marmalade cake. Miss Marsden and I will be in the solarium.”

Kate took Patsy's hand and led her through the French doors into the glass-roofed conservatory, which she and Charles had just built, adjacent to the library. “I hope you can stay for the rest of the day, Patsy. Charles has gone off to Chelmsford to visit Signor Marconi's wireless works. He would be very sorry to miss you.”

“I know where he's gone,” Patsy said. “Bradford went over to Chelmsford to meet him. My brother is one of the Marconi Company directors, you know,” she added in a wry voice. Patsy and her brother had not been on the best of terms since Bradford had married Edith, who had taken exception to Patsy's unconventional occupations. “You've just built this, haven't you?” She turned around, taking in the expanse of glass and green plants. “I do love the desert, but tropical plants are such a nice relief. They give one the feeling of being in a luxuriant jungle.” She laughed, glancing toward a large bamboo cage. “And there's your aunt's parrot, of course, to add to the tropical ambiance.”

“Death and damnation,” the parrot remarked conversationally. “God save the Queen.” Kate had inherited the bird, named “Rule Britannia,” from her Aunt Jaggers, who had got it from her husband. He had served in the army in Egypt and amused himself by teaching the bird to talk— and to swear.

“Britannia doesn't understand that the queen is dead,” Kate explained. “And the conservatory will be nicer when the plants, especially the vines, have grown up.” She pulled up two chairs beside a fountain which sent a sparkling cascade into a small goldfish pool. “And how is your mother?” Lady Marsden, who still ruled the family roost, lived at Marsden Manor, only a few miles from Bishop's Keep.

“Well, and fully occupied.” Patsy made a face. “Meddling in my affairs, directing poor Eleanor's life, and managing Bradford and Edith—as much as anyone can manage Bradford, of course.” She chuckled dryly. “My sister is still doing exactly as Mama says, and has the misery to prove it. Mama approves of neither Bradford nor me. I'm not home enough to suit her, and Bradford has more of a nose for profit than she thinks someone of our station ought. Unseemly, you know, in spite of the fact that she's living on Bradford's earnings. Or more properly put, on Edith's inheritance. I'm not sure that my brother is as clever as he thinks when it comes to business.”

By “our station,” Patsy was referring to the fact that the Marsdens were County, although there was precious little left of the original family fortune, the late Lord Marsden having squandered it all on fine horses and an extravagant lifestyle before he could pass it on to his only son, Bradford. But while Lady Marsden might be a penniless dependent, she put on a good front, and took it as an insult that her son actually seemed to enjoy working in the City.

Privately, Kate thought that it might not be hard to dislike the way Bradford Marsden did business. From all she had heard, he had become quite obsessed with making money, without demonstrating a very high regard as to means and methods. But while Patsy and Bradford did not get along, he was still Patsy's brother, so she kept her criticism to herself.

“I imagine your mother finds it rather a challenge to meddle in your affairs,” she said. “The deserts of Arabia are a world away from Marsden Manor. Will you be staying with your mother for a while?”

“That's what I intended. I've brought back a great lot of photographic work to be developed and sorted. Gertrude is just home from America, and she and I are planning to sit down together and see if we might have enough for a book of some sort. Whatever we do needs to be done before she's off to Arabia again. However . . .” She paused. “In the stack of mail waiting for me was a long letter from Jenna Loveday, at Penhallow, in Cornwall. Do you remember her?”

“Cornwall,” muttered the parrot. “Death and damnation.”

“Jenna? Why, of course,” Kate said warmly. She had met Lady Loveday several years before, at a lecture that Patsy had given at the University Club, in London. “What's she doing these days? Is she well?”

“Unfortunately, she's not well at all.” Patsy's face darkened. “She's lost her daughter, Kate. In a drowning accident, some three months ago. I don't know the details—Jenna didn't tell me anything, except that the little girl is dead.”

Kate felt herself go cold. “Dear God,” she whispered. Jenna Loveday had had only one child, Harriet, a girl of about ten. Her daughter had been the center of her life—an isolated life, for Jenna, who had lost her husband some three years before, lived in Cornwall, on an estate which had been in her family for centuries. Kate understood the significance of Jenna Loveday's loss, for it was her own, a mother's loss. “How tragic, Patsy. I am so sorry.”

“Yes, it is tragic,” Patsy said flatly. “It's horrid. It's appalling. And Jenna is devastated, of course. She has always struck me as—well, a little fragile and other-worldly, you know. She seems to be having a great deal of difficulty accepting what's happened.” She leaned forward. “Kate, I feel I must go to Cornwall. Jenna has asked me to come for a visit. I want you to go with me.” She took Kate's hand between her own, her voice urgent. “You and Jenna seemed to like each other very much, and I know you'd be a great comfort to her. After all, you know how she feels. And with both of us there, perhaps we can distract her from her grief.”

Kate understood what Patsy had not quite said: that she and Jenna Loveday shared a bond of loss, and there would be some solace in that. But she quailed at the thought of trying to comfort a woman who had lost her only child. She knew the bitter truth from her own experience, which had occurred exactly six years ago this week. This was not a loss which could be eased by the distraction of visitors, or soothed by a few quiet words. It was a raging loss, an over-mastering grief as fierce as a lion, an agony as wide as a world of wilderness, so savage that it could never be tamed. And to have lost both daughter and husband in the space of three years was unthinkable. Wordlessly, she shook her head.

“You're not saying no, I hope,” Patsy said with a frown. “Please, Kate,
please
. It's a mission of mercy.”

Kate looked down at her hands. “I can't.”

“But why?” Patsy persisted. “Are you too busy? Are you writing?”

“That's certainly part of it,” Kate replied. “Charles and I were both away in April and May. I'm working another novel—a historical novel requiring a great deal of research— and I'm terribly far behind. Not to mention that I'm expecting a visit from one of my American cousins. She'll be arriving in a few weeks, and Patrick is coming home for a visit. He—”

“In a few weeks, we'll be
back,
” Patsy interrupted, in a firm, brook-no-objections tone. “I'm not suggesting that we stay all summer, you know, only a week or two. You can surely manage that much time, can't you?” Without pausing for an answer, she added, “I've already had a look at the railway schedules. We can take the train to Helston, and Jenna can send a carriage to meet us. I won't wire her until the day we leave, so she can't tell us not to—”

“Wait, Patsy, please.” Kate put her hand on her friend's arm. “I really feel I must finish this book before Meghan and Patrick descend on us. And Charles and I have promised one another not to do any more traveling for a while. I'm terribly sorry, but you'll have to go down to Cornwall alone, or find someone else to go with you.”

“Cornwall,” said the parrot, adding cheerfully, “Tea time! Tea time!”

Kate glanced up as the butler pushed a cart through the open French doors. “Oh, thank you, Hodge,” she said, grateful for the interruption. Now they could drop the dangerous subject and get on to something else.

But the minute they were alone with cups of tea and plates of marmalade cake, Patsy began again.

“I'm not going to leave it there, Kate,” she said flatly. “Of course, I respect your need to work. Heaven knows, I feel it myself. But reading between the lines of Jenna's letter, I couldn't help thinking that she's in serious trouble. She didn't go into the details, but it sounds as if she's having hallucinations of some sort. Seeing things, hearing things. She blames herself for her daughter's death, of course, which is . . . well, self-indulgent.”

“Now, Patsy,” Kate began cautiously.

Patsy raised her hand. “I know, I know. You're going to tell me I'm not entitled to make that sort of judgment, and I suppose you're right. But Jenna has to stop drowning herself in her grief and look to the future. She needs to know that others have met their losses and their lives have gone on. You and I can help her pull herself together, I'm sure of it.”

Kate was about to answer when the doors opened again. The parrot gave a squawk, flapped its wings, and announced imperiously, “Fourteen men on a dead man's chest!”

It was Charles, back from his trip to Chelmsford, his brown beard streaked with road dust. He bent over to kiss Kate, then greeted Patsy. A few moments elapsed before the flurry of greetings was over and Charles had been furnished with a chair, a cup of tea, and a slice of Mrs. Pratt's cake. The three of them chatted for a while about Patsy's travels and her photography—Charles had introduced her to the art a few years before—and then Patsy returned to her earlier subject.

“I've just been telling your wife,” Patsy said, “that she is required in Cornwall. I'm going to visit a friend in difficulty—Jenna Loveday—and I desperately need to take Kate along. Don't you think she should go, Charles? You can spare her for a week or two, can't you?”

Kate was about to remind Charles that they had agreed not to travel for the next few months, but Charles spoke first.

“Where in Cornwall, Patsy?”

“Cornwall,” chuckled the parrot. “Cornwall, Cornwall.”

“The eastern side of the Lizard Peninsula. Penhallow, her family estate, is very near the Helford River. I've told Kate that we could take the train to Helston and hire someone to drive us to—”

“I could drive you,” Charles said. He put down his empty plate, and with an apologetic glance at Kate, added, “It seems that Bradford and I are also going to Cornwall. We're shipping the Panhard by rail, so we'll have it there. The roads aren't good, of course, but Bradford thinks we'll need the motorcar to get around.”