The Chandelier Ballroom (15 page)

She had yielded as she always did to his superior knowledge, but if that blessed catch was still faulty she was going to talk to him about it when he finally got home.

Irritated, she marched across the room to the conservatory door, in her annoyance for once feeling none of the strange sensations that usually bothered her. She hadn’t even stopped to switch on the light, saying to herself that he should have dealt with this ages ago. At least she would be able to give vent to some of that pent up anger and indecision she had been harbouring for so long.

This time the door was firmly shut. So what had caused the draught floating into the hall? For a moment she stood wondering, then becoming suddenly aware of the chill the room seemed to hold for her, she quickly retraced her steps to the door to the hall.

Reaching it, something made her pause, turn and glance back. Dim and indistinct, with no moon on such a wet night, she fancied she saw a figure standing at the far end, hardly discernible, its back to her. Her breath almost stopped in her throat, then exploded from her as she burst out in a trembling voice:

‘What are you? What are you doing here?’

The figure turned slowly to face her, sending a cold shiver coursing through her veins, Jennifer Wainwright’s words coming back to her: ‘You know people do still believe your house has a ghost?’

At the time she had scoffed, but now, rooted to the spot like one totally paralysed, all she could manage in a tiny wavering voice was, ‘Please … go away … leave us alone.’

Gripped by growing terror, she almost wanted it to be Gillian Daniels, someone solid and real on whom to vent her anger. But this wasn’t Gillian Daniels. A figure, still indistinct yet just clear enough to be seen clothed in the same shapeless, short, low-waisted summer dress she now remembered noticing before, the fair hair in the style of a decade ago. Now, as if from a distance, quiet words came from the figure: ‘Your husband is playing you false …’

It was those words that made her come to her senses. The paralysing fear left her in a rush. ‘What do you mean?’ she burst out. ‘What do you think you are playing at? Who are you?’ Words flew from her lips in a rush of sheer anger. ‘You’ve no right to be here.’

This woman was no ghost. She was as real as she herself. ‘Did that Gillian Daniels send you?’ she demanded. ‘If so then you’d best go, as soon as you like, before I call the police!’

‘Look to your man – he plays you false.’ The words were repeated, cutting through her angry torrent. ‘All men are liars.’

The voice trailed away and for a moment Joyce stared on from her end of the room, convinced now. No ghost; this was someone connected with the girl Arnold was messing around with. Why? Was it to rile her so much that she’d row with him, throw him out, leaving the way clear for them with no need to meet in secrecy? She wouldn’t put it past the wicked bitch.

‘Look, I’m going to phone the police!’ All fear dissipated, she made to leave, but for some reason, she didn’t know why, turned back to further her warning, only to find the person no longer there.

Where had she gone? The French windows were still closed yet she was no longer here. Unable to bring herself to go and investigate, instead backing out of the room, the only logical answer was that it had to have been an interloper. The woman had to still be in the room, hiding behind a sofa or an armchair – anything to give her substance. It was the only answer. She needed to phone the police straight away.

But lifting the receiver she stood gazing at it. What if the trespasser had been Gillian? It hadn’t looked like Gillian. It had all happened so fast she wasn’t sure now what she’d seen, though it could only have been her. But why come here in weather like this and Arnold not yet home?

Thinking back on it, it now occurred to her that the person had been bone dry, not a spot of rain in her hair, not a drop of damp on her clothes, as though she’d been in the house for some time, waiting for him to get home.

That had to be it. It all seemed logical – any straw to cling on to rather than those first eerie thoughts that had all but overwhelmed her until she’d felt she couldn’t breathe. Any stranger could have broken in, could have been lurking for God knows how long, hiding. But wasn’t that thought just as bad? Anything could have happened. Mrs Evans, busy in the kitchen with the evening meal, would have been too engrossed to hear anything until too late.

A key turning in the lock of the front door made her almost leap out of her skin. Moments later a half-drenched Arnold stepped into the hall.

‘My God, it’s teeming out there!’ he burst out, seeing her. He was already struggling out of his wet greatcoat, vigorously shaking his hat ready to hang it up on the hallstand. ‘I got soaked just getting here from the car. I’ve just left it in the drive. I’m not messing about out there in this weather putting it in the garage. It can stay where it is till the morning.’ His voice trailed off as he noticed the look on her face. ‘What’s wrong? Is something the matter?’

‘No, nothing,’ she said sharply, recovering enough to turn away from him to go and tell Mrs Evans he was home and she could serve dinner now. But her mind was racing. Who and what had she seen in that room? And why warn her about Arnold? Gillian Daniels wouldn’t have done that. Even so, she was sure it had something to do with her.

Arnold was in the sitting room standing by the window staring out at the rain when she returned. He turned and looked at her as she came in and, seeing the strained expression on her face, asked again, ‘Is there something the matter, darling?’

Unable to contain her feelings any longer, she burst out, ‘Liar!’ her voice shrill. ‘You know very well what the matter is. That … that woman!’

He had stepped back from her onslaught. ‘What woman?’

‘That secretary of yours!’

‘You mean Helen Ainsworth?’

‘I mean that Gillian Daniels.’

His voice remained calm. ‘She left. I told you. She left the firm to go somewhere else.’

‘And you’re still seeing her!’

He was frowning, but his voice had adopted a cautious tone, or so it sounded. ‘Why should I still be seeing her? She no longer works for me.’

‘You’re seeing each other, I know. I’ve seen her here – twice. That day in the summer, you said you were taking a walk but I know it was to meet her. She was waiting in the conservatory. She saw me and rushed out. You came back and said you’d been for a long walk, alone, even said I should have gone with you, but that was all lies. You were with her.’

He made to interrupt, but she waved away his effort, words tumbling out of her mouth. ‘She was here again this evening, just a few minutes ago. She spoke to me. I turned away but when I turned back she’d disappeared. It’s raining but her clothes were dry as a bone. And you came in moments later so she had to have come here with you in your car.’

Her wild words fell away as she caught her breath in an anguished sob. ‘I know what you two are up to, Arnold. Don’t try pulling the wool over my eyes. You and her are having an affair, aren’t you?’

‘How can you ever think such a thing?’ he burst out, but he was looking decidedly uneasy. He moved forward to take hold of her but she sprang away, screaming at him not to touch her, so much so that he stepped away again, stood looking at her as if at a loss as to what to do.

A light tap on the door seemed to break his confusion, Mrs Evans coming into the room to tell them dinner was ready to be put on the dining room table. Now she asked cautiously if everything was all right.

‘Everything’s fine, Mrs Evans,’ he said a little too abruptly. ‘My wife is just a wee bit upset, that’s all. Everything’s all right.’

‘If you say so,’ came the reply. ‘I’ll take the dinner into the dining room then, shall I?’

Not waiting for an answer she closed the door very gently, her heavy footsteps retreating while Arnold turned his attention back to his weeping wife, his tone sounding as if it was fighting to be firm. ‘I suggest we go and have dinner and you can tell me what all this is about.’

As if he didn’t know. She looked at him narrowly through a mist of tears. ‘Do I really need to?’ she said with a wavering sarcasm. ‘I’ll not eat with you until you tell me the truth.’

‘Darling, you’re letting your imagination run away with you.’

How dare he call her darling! The very set of his face betrayed his every word. Whoever that woman was whom she’d seen was making him squirm, pointing to a guilty conscience. How dare he treat her as though she were a child needing to be soothed!

‘You’ve got yourself all upset about nothing, my love. Maybe what you thought you saw was just a trick of the light. Now come and have something to eat.’

She watched him walk past her. Her tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth in disbelief that he was treating her as if she was an idiot. He was in the rear passage making for the dining room before she galvanised into life, bounding after him to catch him up as he got to the dining room.

‘You grubby pig!’ she raged as she followed him into the room. ‘That’s why you were so happy for me to go on holiday, so you two could have a free hand. You said she enjoyed her job so why did she leave? So no one would discover what you were both up to. She said you were a liar!’

‘Who said I was a liar? What’re you talking about?’ he demanded, turning on her fiercely.

‘Your bloody ex-secretary.’ She seldom swore. Her voice coarsening, she hardly recognised herself.

Arnold continued to hold himself in check. By the table, he gazed calmly at her. ‘Get a grip on yourself, Joyce, you’re overwrought thinking you saw someone who wasn’t there at all.’

‘I know who I saw!’ She railed at him. ‘You brought her here in your car, made her wait in the big room. You know I hate going in there and so you’d both be safe there, wait for me to go to bed, then you could enjoy each other. How many times – in my house – how many times?’

Her voice had risen to a screech yet his had hardly altered from its smooth attempt to assuage. ‘Stop this nonsense, darling. Sit down and let’s enjoy our dinner.’

‘I’m not your darling!’

‘You are. Now come and sit down.’

So bloody calm. She could see guilt in his eyes even as he demanded she sit down and enjoy her dinner. Enjoy dinner, when he was aware of what she knew, that him and that bitch had been sleeping together all the time she’d been away, were still thinking they could deceive her.

Something seemed to snap, loathing enveloping her whole body, blood pulsing through her temples like searing flames. She began to scream. It was as if someone else was screaming, hysterically, on and on, powerless to stop.

She felt him take her by the shoulders, tried to free herself, but his grip was relentless. He was shaking her. She didn’t want him to shake her. On the table beside the joint of lamb waiting to be carved and served up lay the carving knife.

Someone was still screaming as she reached out in a need to be free of that grip, in panic raised her arm, thrust downward, found herself instantly released, almost falling backwards.

The screaming had ceased. Now she lay on the floor sobbing. Beside her lay the knife, he kneeling beside it. He was looking at her in an odd sort of way, staring at her, eyes wide with disbelief, one hand clutching his neck. From it blood was flowing slowly, over his hand, his shirt, his tie, running down his arm. Then slowly he toppled sideways. Someone was in the room, was crying out in alarm, but she had no idea who it was.

Mrs Evans had heard the commotion but at first thought it best not to interfere. She had done that a little while ago, going into the sitting room to enquire if everything was all right and almost told to mind her own business. She hadn’t wanted to interfere again, but to her ears that screaming hadn’t been right. It had become hysterical, like someone having a brainstorm. That second time she had just known that she had to interrupt.

The funeral of Mr Arnold Johns-Pitman was carried out after the inquest, but it seemed to those attending that his widow wasn’t quite right, standing dry-eyed at the graveside between her parents, her face blank, her lips slack.

On the other side of the grave, as if to be as far from the widow as possible, the deceased’s parents, his brothers and their wives stood stiff with grief, but also hostility. A little way off a police van stood ready to take the widow back to await her trial.

Some weeks later, on the reluctant evidence of her cook, found guilty of homicide while mentally disturbed, she was committed to a mental institution for treatment. Those watching the wreck of a woman being led gently away agreed that the findings had been just, that she had completely lost her wits and was still out of her mind by the way she’d been unable to follow what was being said; unable even to remember how it had all happened. Constantly becoming hysterical, she had rambled on about a woman whom she had said had been her husband’s lover Gillian Daniels, or someone like her, who had come to haunt her and warn her not to trust him, then disappearing in front of her.

Gillian Daniels was proved to have been somewhere else entirely at those times, and locals who’d come to listen to the trial were convinced that Joyce Johns-Pitman had indeed seen
the
ghost. They remembered again the previous owner of Crossways Lodge drowning himself in his own pond, even though this ghost had been female according to the accused.

Some weeks after Joyce Johns-Pitman had been committed, Florrie Evans, now without a job, went into the post office to post a few letters and naturally brought up the subject of her own ordeal at the trial, how she’d hated having to stand witness against her employer.

‘She was usually such a quiet soul,’ she said to the post mistress. ‘I felt so guilty having to talk against her on that witness stand, her someone I worked for ever since she came to live there. I don’t think she was ever happy living there, and I felt so sorry for her despite what she did.’

Passing her money over to Jennifer Wainwright, she went on, ‘But I was the chief witness apparently, me coming into the room just as she … well, you know. You were at the trial too. You were friends with her.’