The Gossamer Cord (32 page)

“I should have had to come to see you,” he said. “You know I would do that, don’t you?”

“Well, no. It hadn’t occurred to me that you would.”

“Well, it does now, I hope.”

“Since you tell me.”

“Listen,” he went on. “I have been thinking a great deal about this. If at any time you need someone to confide in…to help…”

I tapped my handbag and said: “I have your number. I can get in touch with you at any time…and I will.”

I met Seth in the stables. When he saw me his face changed and he looked almost furtive.

“I did tell ’ee, Miss, ’twere so.”

I knew what he meant. He had warned me of the ghost of the sea and I had shown my disbelief. He was now telling me how wrong I was to be skeptical.

“Poor lady, her be gone…her be gone like t’other. Reckon her was beckoned in, this one…not like t’other.”

His words were thick and slurred and it was not easy to understand what he was saying. I often wondered whether he knew himself; but I supposed there was some reasoning in that muddled head of his.

He leaned his big ungainly body against the walls of the stables.

“ ’Ee be wanting Starlight, Miss?” he asked.

I had changed my mind suddenly.

“No, thanks,” I said. “I think I’ll take a walk.”

He nodded and mumbled: “I did tell ’ee, didn’t I, Miss? Didn’t believe me, did ’ee? Poor lady…who’d a thought. She was a laughing lady, she were…just like t’other. They wouldn’t listen. They laughed…but it got ’un in the end.”

“Did you see my sister go down to bathe?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Not that ’un,” he said.

“Then did you see the first Mrs. Tregarland go down to bathe, Seth?”

A cunning look came into his eyes. “No, no. I didn’t see nothing. Ask her…I didn’t see.”

“Ask whom, Seth?”

He turned away, shaking his head, and I saw a certain fear in his eyes.

“I didn’t see nothing,” he went on. “I didn’t. Her just went into the sea like. Nothing to do with I.”

Poor Seth. He really did not know what he was talking about. He was obsessed by the legend. His eyes were worried, his loose mouth slightly, open. He was puzzled, as though trying to understand something, and my question had clearly disturbed him.

He disappeared into one of the stalls and I heard him talking to one of the horses there.

“All right, my beauty. ’Tis old Seth. Don’t ’ee worry…only old Seth.”

I came out of the stables. I had an hour or so before I need go back. Nanny Crabtree was busy in the nursery and liked to be free at this time. If, as she said, she could get the lord and master off to sleep, she would have the time to do what had to be done.

I came out into the fresh air. It was invigorating with a light breeze blowing in from the sea with its salty tang and smell of seaweed.

I took the cliff road to Poldown and no sooner had I reached the little town than I wished I had gone another way.

There were too many people about and, because of my involvement with the Tregarland tragedy, I was an object of interest.

I passed the wool shop. Miss Polgenny was standing at the door.

“Good day to ’ee, Miss Denver. How be you then? ’Tis a nice day.”

Her little eyes were alert with curiosity. I could see the thoughts in her mind. I was the sister of “her that went for a swim and was drowned.” “ ’Twas all part of the curse.”

They believed that—most of them. Their lives were governed by superstition.

“Good to see ’ee, Miss.” That was one of the fishermen mending his nets. I knew that as soon as I passed, he would be talking to the man beside him. “That was her from Tregarland’s. Her sister it were…”

There was no escape.

I crossed the bridge and started up the west cliff.

The sea looked docile. There was only the faintest ruffle and little white patches of froth on the tips of the waves as rhythmically they washed the black rocks. Back and forth they went, murmuring soothingly as they did so.

I came to Cliff Cottage and paused to look at the garden. There was the plant I had brought from Tregarland’s. It was flourishing, I perceived.

I think she must have seen me from behind the neat lace curtains, for the door opened and she came down the path toward me.

“Hello, Miss Denver,” she said.

“Good morning, Mrs. Pardell.”

She came out and stood close to the fence. She said, rather anxiously, I thought: “And how are you?”

“I am well, thanks. Are you?”

“Looking at the flowers then?” she said, nodding. “Eee…like to come in for a bit? Perhaps a little chat…a cup of tea?”

I said eagerly: “I’d like that.”

Then I was in the sitting room looking at the picture of Annette, while Mrs. Pardell went into the kitchen to make the tea.

She came in with a tray and when she had poured out the tea she said: “It was a terrible thing…”

I knew what she meant and said: “Yes.”

“I know how you are feeling. None could know better.”

“That’s true.”

“It was the same, wasn’t it? It seemed a bit queer to me.”

“It was such a coincidence.”

She looked at me steadily. “I don’t like it,” she said. “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

“Wonder…?” I repeated.

She drew her chair closer to mine. “You’re staying there now,” she said.

“It is because of the child.”

“Isn’t there a nanny…from London or somewhere?”

“Yes. She was my nanny…mine and my sister’s. My mother arranged for her to come. She trusts her.”

“That’s good,” she said. “I’m glad
she’s
here.”

I told her: “I promised my sister that if anything happened, I’d look after the baby.”

She nodded. “So there you are. These people here…they talk about ghosts and things. I’ve never had much patience with that sort of thing. Ghosts…my foot. It wasn’t ghosts who got rid of my Annette.”

“Got rid of her?”

“You’re not kidding me she wouldn’t look after herself in the water. And what about your sister?”

“She wasn’t by any means a champion swimmer. In fact, I was surprised that she went bathing in the early morning.”

“It’s clear to me.”

“What is clear?”

“Well, a man has two wives. They both die in the same way, and not long after he married them. Doesn’t that say something to you?”

“What does it say to you?”

“That it’s a funny business, that’s what. He marries, then gets tired of them, and then it’s goodbye, nice knowing you, but I’ve had enough and it’s time for a change.”

“Oh, no,” I said.

“What else? They both went the same way. Convenient, wasn’t it? There was the sea ready and waiting.”

“But how…?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. It worked once. Why not try again?”

“You don’t know Dermot Tregarland.”

“Don’t know my daughter’s husband, my own son-in-law, you might say.”

“He was that, but you didn’t know him.”

“I was never asked up there, but I knew of him. In any case, they are now gone. My daughter, your sister. Of course he got rid of them.”

“Mrs. Pardell, this is absurd. If he had wanted to get rid of them, he wouldn’t have killed the second in the same way as the first. It makes people wonder. It calls attention…”

“Look here, Miss Denver, you’re too innocent. What about those Brides in the Bath? That man went round murdering women for their money, after he’d married them. He got them in the bath and drowned them. He did several of them that way.”

“This is different.”

“I don’t see how.”

“I know Dermot Tregarland well. He couldn’t commit one murder…let alone two.”

“You’re too trusting, Miss Denver. If you read any of those detective stories you’d see. It’s always the one you’d least suspect.”

“It could have been accidental.”

She shook her head. “You won’t get me believing that. I know how you feel about your sister. Didn’t I go through it all? You’re living up there, Miss Denver. You’ve got to keep your eyes open…that’s what you’ve got to do. You watch out. I reckon something very funny is going on up at that place. Have another cup of tea.”

“No, thanks. I am sure you are misjudging Dermot Tregarland.”

“I wish to God my Annette had never married him. I reckon if she hadn’t she would have been alive today. I’d have got over her having a baby out of wedlock, but I couldn’t get over this. I just want to know…if only I knew…”

“I understand what you mean,” I said. “If one knows, there is nothing to be done, one accepts it.”

“That’s right.” She looked at me shrewdly. “You’re a sensible girl, Miss Denver. You keep your eyes open. See if he’s got another in mind for number three.”

“Oh…I’m sure not. He is absolutely devastated with grief.”

She looked disbelieving. “Well, he would let you think that, wouldn’t he?”

“It’s genuine. I know.”

“Murderers are clever people. They have to be to get away with it.”

“But not two wives, Mrs. Pardell. Not two in the same way.”

“How about that Bluebeard?”

In spite of everything, I could not help smiling.

“Look here,” she said. “Don’t you be too trusting. You watch out. I’m glad you came by. I’ve been thinking about you. It was good of you to bring that plant. I wouldn’t like anything to happen to you.”

“To me?”

“Well, when people start trying to find out what people don’t want brought to light, they’re in danger. It always works that way. You watch out, but don’t let him see you’re watching.”

The picture of Annette smiled at me. She was dead. Her body had been washed up on the beach a few days after she had been drowned. And Dorabella…perhaps one day…hers would be found.

I said goodbye to Mrs. Pardell and promised her I would call again.

I made my way back to Tregarland’s. Poor Mrs. Pardell! I was thinking. We were all the same. Our grief was so intense that we wanted to blame someone, and she had selected Dermot. Poor, brokenhearted, rather ineffectual Dermot. It was difficult to imagine him in the role of Bluebeard. In fact, it was so absurd that I found myself smiling in a way I had not done for some time.

Mrs. Pardell’s words and I thought how very mistaken she was.

He was sitting in the garden looking down the slope to where the sea gently lapped the black rocks.

I went and sat beside him and he smiled at me rather feebly.

I said: “Dermot, you must not brood.”

“And you?” he asked. “Are you brooding?”

“We both have to stop it.”

“I can’t get it out of my mind. Why did she do it? And why wasn’t I here?”

I laid my hand on his arm.

“We have to try to put it behind us.”

“Can you?” he demanded almost angrily.

“No. But we have to try.”

“I keep thinking of her. Do you remember how I first saw you, outside that café place? I looked at her and I knew from that moment. I knew she was the one. She was different from anyone I had ever met. She was so full of gaiety and everything seemed a joke. You know what I mean. You laughed at things just because you were happy, I suspect, not because they were particularly funny.”

“I know what you mean.”

“There was no one like her…and she’s gone. She’s out there somewhere. Do you think we shall ever find her?”

“I just feel that we shall. Poor Dermot, you have been through this…twice.”

His manner changed slightly. He seemed to draw himself up and his face stiffened.

“That,” he said, “was different.”

“She was drowned, too.”

“It wasn’t the same. Dorabella…she was everything.”

“Annette…”

“I don’t talk about that much. But this…I know you cared about her …as I did. She was very close to you, wasn’t she? I was afraid, always afraid that I was going to lose her. Oh, not like this. I thought I shouldn’t be enough for her. She would find someone else. Sometimes…”

“She was your wife, Dermot.”

“I know, but…”

“I don’t understand,” I said. He frowned and I went on: “Tell me…”

“Well, she was not the sort to go on with something just because she was expected to. She had no respect for conventional behavior. She always wanted to break free from it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He was silent and I could see he wished he had not said what he had.

He said: “Annette…she was fun. Jolly, good-hearted. But for the child, it would never have been. With Dorabella it was different.”

“I understand.”

“I can’t settle to anything. It all seems blank and not worthwhile. I leave everything to Gordon…more than ever.”

“Well, you always have, haven’t you?”

“Yes. He’s so capable. He makes me feel…inefficient. I was taking more interest when Tristan came. You see, in time, this will all be his…first mine, of course. But Gordon will always be there. But now this has happened, I just don’t care about anything.”

“But there is Tristan to think of.”

He just sat there, staring out to sea.

“I’m glad you’re here, Violetta. I’m glad you’re with the baby.”

“It was her wish, you know.”

“I know. Nanny is good, but she is getting old now. It is better for the baby to have someone young, and you…you’ll be like his own mother. You will stay here, won’t you?”

I said: “Everything is so uncertain at the moment. I suppose it would be better really if I went to Caddington, taking Tristan and Nanny Crabtree with me.”

“My father is against that.”

“I know. He has made it clear. Well, it is all too soon. We’ll see how it works out.”

I sat with him a little longer and we looked out to sea and thought of Dorabella.

Nanny Crabtree was faintly perturbed.

“Tristan’s got a little sniffle. Not much, but I don’t like it and I’m keeping him in today.”

“I’ll come up and see him,” I said.

He was lying in his cot, whimpering a little.

I went over and picked him up. That satisfied him for a few minutes. He had an endearing habit of gripping my finger and holding on to it tightly, as though determined not to let me go.

“He looks a little flushed,” I said.

“A bit,” she replied. “He just wants to be kept warm, that’s all.”

At midday there was a letter from Richard.