The Trouble with Harriet (14 page)

“The welcoming committee?” my father intoned as we disembarked under lowering skies. The wind had sharpened to a wintry chill, and dry leaves eddied about our heads like feathers being plucked by a nimble-fingered farm wife. I was almost sure that I felt a spatter of rain on my neck and wished my camel cardigan was thicker. It would be good to get inside and be offered a cup of tea or coffee. But not if the urn came, too. I wasn’t up to its morbid company. Perhaps I was still shaken by the close call out on the cliff road. Perhaps I was just being small-minded. All I can say for sure is that I wasn’t about to sit across from my father and watch him dandle that piece of pottery on his knee.

“Daddy, you’re going to have to leave Harriet in the car.”

“My dear Giselle, I can’t do that.” He looked at me as if I had sprung more snakes than Medusa. “My darling had a horror of enclosed places. She told me so once.”

“Such fears are behind her now.” I refused to wilt under his parental disapproval. “I’m here on a professional visit, and I don’t think it right to distract Lady Grizwolde from the business of discussing fabrics and wallpaper. Yes, I know,” I added, seeing his mouth open in protest. “I did say that you could bring the urn. And perhaps it is unfair of me to change my mind. But won’t you please try and put yourself in my place?”

“Very well.” My father sucked in a breath and billowed to even more mammoth proportions. “Then I shall remain in the car with Harriet.”

“Oh, that’s splendid!” I said, losing what was left of my temper. “That way I’ll have to rush through the consultation, creating the impression that I’m not really interested in the job of a lifetime, and Lady Grizwolde will have second thoughts about hiring me. Some father you’ve turned out to be!”

My nerves were still in shreds from our close call on the road, and Ned’s talk about visions and broken vows had left me feeling spooked. But that was no excuse. I was instantly horribly ashamed of myself and wouldn’t have blamed Daddy if he had climbed back into the car. Instead, he opened the door and deposited the canvas bag gently on the driver’s seat.

“You are entirely right, Giselle.” He forced a smile that only made his face appear more mournful. “You must look to your career as modern women do. Her ladyship should get her money’s worth even if it means our spending all afternoon here. I do see that if I were to present the urn to her notice, she might not encourage us to prolong our visit.”

“Thank you, Daddy.” I turned to head for the stone steps and saw the gray lady coming down them. When I told her who we were, she set her watering can down where we were liable to collide with it and tugged the two fronts of her cardigan around her wispy middle.

“There you are, the decorator people. I’m Timothia Finchpeck, Sir Casper’s cousin. I’ll take you to her ladyship. It’s no bother.” Her voice was as small and pinched as her face and equally without expression. “I was only going out to the rain barrel to fetch water. My mother was always most particular that I never wash my hair from the tap. All those harsh chemicals. But I hadn’t realized how cold it had become and was debating whether to go back inside for my coat.”

Would she have dithered on the steps for an hour if Daddy and I had not shown up? Following her into the house, we passed through a square hall with ancestral portraits on the walls, sumptuous rugs on the parquet floor, and graceful balustrades rising to a semicircular gallery above. We then entered a delightfully comfortable sitting room. It was paneled from floor to ceiling in honey-colored pine. The fireplace, where flames licked cheerfully around a large log, was a simple stone affair with pewter mugs and candlesticks on the polished mantel. Positioned around it was a dusky green sofa and an assortment of chintz-covered chairs interspersed with small tables just waiting to have cups and saucers and perhaps a bundle of knitting placed upon them. The windows were long and narrow and draped in amber velvet. Two corner cabinets displayed Toby jugs and silver riding cups. I stood breathing it all in, wondering what changes I could suggest without bringing the ancestors down from the walls to chase me off the premises.

Switching on a couple of table lamps, Timothia Finchpeck indicated that Daddy and I be seated close to the fire. “This room was always a favorite with Sir Casper’s first wife, and the present Lady Grizwolde uses it as her personal sitting room, although I think she would prefer one to the back of the house, away from people coming and going. But I expect you have been here before, Mrs. Haskell, although I don’t remember the occasion.”

“I was here a couple of weeks ago,” I said, settling into one of the chintz chairs, “but not in this room. Lady Grizwolde and I had our discussion in the library.”

“That must have been when I was in bed with a cold,” Miss Finchpeck informed us in a nasal whisper. “I am prone to being chesty. My mother said it was because I was born during a terrible fog and the damp got into my lungs before I took my first breath.”

“It is a great burden to have a frail constitution,” my father opined while sucking in his stomach in a futile attempt not to look quite so shamelessly robust. “Alas, one must play the card life deals us. And you should take heart in the knowledge that it is sometimes the wilting rose that outlasts us all.”

“One has the hope.” Miss Finchpeck couldn’t have looked less cheerful. “I certainly do my best with gentle exercise and daily tonics to improve upon what nature has bestowed. What did you think of the library, Mrs. Haskell?” The pale eyes wavered in my direction.

“Wonderful,” I replied. “Such a beautiful room, and all those leather-bound volumes!”

“Some of them came from the old house.”

“The one built when Henry VIII made a grant of the land to the family? What did they do to win royal favor?” I was eager for a history lesson, even though I doubted I would get the scurrilous version, but Miss Finchpeck flinched like a Victorian governess being cornered in a dark corridor by the master of the house.

“It is not a matter that has ever concerned me, Mrs. Haskell. My father strongly disapproved of women talking politics. Even though he has been dead many years, I abide by his convictions. Please don’t ask me about St. Ethelwort, as so many visitors do, because I also adhere to the rule of never discussing religion. And now, if you will excuse me, I will go and fetch her ladyship.” She vanished like a wisp of dust being swept out of sight by an efficient housemaid, and my father and I were left looking at each other from our chintz chairs.

“Thank goodness you and Mummy allowed me to think and speak for myself,” I said.

Waving a magnanimous hand, Daddy heaved his legs onto an ottoman that had previously been sitting around looking ornamental. “My dearest girl, I understand that your nerves must be frayed to shreds at witnessing my suffering, and perhaps I have languished more than is becoming in a parent. But I trust that I have not been a bore. That poor Miss Finchpenny—”

“Finchpeck.”

“A sad little name for a sad little woman.” Daddy rolled the words around on his tongue. “Imagine having her about all day and every day like a fog that never lifts.”

“Yes, she did seem a little depressing,” I said quickly before he could add that Harriet had been a perpetual ray of sunshine. But he surprised me.

“Your mother washed her hair in rainwater.” Daddy smiled directly at me, and I felt as though a door were about to open up between us. At the same moment, the sitting-room door was pushed open, and Lady Grizwolde came into the room. It was an entrance worthy of both an actress and a stunningly beautiful woman. The thought crossed my mind that it would be understandable if Timothia Finchpeck resented her with all the silent malice of the poor relation destined to wait out her life in the shadows with the other ghosts of the Old Abbey.

Even Daddy, wedded as he was to the memory of  Harriet, could not hide a glimmer of admiration as he rose to his feet and watched Lady Grizwolde shake my hand before turning to take his. Her movements were elegant, her smile gracious, and I sat back down again feeling that her satin-smooth black hair and dark eyes were all wrong. She should have been a cool blonde wearing blue or sea-green silk rather than the deep-rust skirt and high-necked black sweater belted at the waist with a narrow gold chain that, other than her wedding and engagement rings, was her only ornament.

“How very nice that your daughter could bring you with her today,” she was telling Daddy. Her voice was melodious but expressionless.

“Morley Simons. It is most good of you to allow my intrusion, your ladyship.” He bowed as far as his stomach permitted, over her hand.

“Please call me Phyllis. As your daughter may have gleaned from the local gossips, I wasn’t born to the aristocracy.” She settled down on the sofa, legs neatly crossed at the ankles, and watched Daddy and me return to our chairs. “My father was a postman, and my mother worked in a launderette. And though I have always aspired to a life of ease, I haven’t forgotten my roots, as might be expected.” She didn’t add, You may take that back to tattle mongers if you choose, but I sensed that was her message.

“We’re very lucky to have you living here.” I sat smoothing out the wrinkles in my skirt, wishing that I hadn’t worn my hair in a style similar to hers and wondering if she had any idea that she inevitably made the people around her feel hopelessly rumpled. “Kathleen Ambleforth told me when I stopped in at rehearsal yesterday that she is thrilled to have you in her play.”

“She’s very enthusiastic about the entire production.” Lady Grizwolde readjusted a sofa cushion.
“Murder Most Fowl
is really not a bad little farce—as these amateur things go. Of course, it wasn’t intended to be funny; they never are. But your cousin Freddy has a real talent for campiness. The perfect choice for the hero who can’t see the bodies for the trees. Luckily, Mrs. Ambleforth took the discovery that she wouldn’t have the audience sobbing in their seats very much in stride. I imagine she’s an adaptable woman in all areas of her life. How else could she survive being married to that extraordinarily odd man with his obsession for St. Ethelwort? I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he’s out there now, sitting like a man turned to stone among the ruins.”

“My dear lady, you do not deceive yourself.” My father’s voice erupted from the depths of his armchair with all the delight of a man delivering bad news that in no way related to him. “Giselle and I encountered the vicar as we were about to enter your gates. He was on a most disreputable bicycle and almost ran our car off the road.”

“That’s a bad curve. I’m surprised there aren’t more accidents there.” Lady Grizwolde’s face remained smooth, unmarred by any expression other than sociability. “But I don’t suppose,” she continued, “that Mr. Ambleforth was unnerved enough to take himself off home. He’s usually here for hours. Before too long he’ll come knocking on the door asking for the hundredth time to view the chapel. Casper has been avoiding him like the plague.”

“The reverend chap makes a habit of mooning about the grounds, does he?” Daddy shook his head and flexed his lips as if excess of any sort were foreign to his nature.

“I’ve seen him from my window in the middle of the night. And poor Timmy once phoned the police thinking he was a burglar. You’ve met my husband’s cousin?”

“She let us in,” I said.

“So she did. I thought you might have mistaken her for the housekeeper; people often do. Her mother was Casper’s aunt. And Timmy’s lived here most of her adult life. Where else was she to go? And as Casper’s first wife didn’t object to her wafting about the place, I’ve tried to be as accommodating.” This was said without any discernible trace of malice. “I sent her to fetch those magazines with the decorating concepts I’ve been wanting you to look at, Ellie. You don’t mind my calling you that, do you?”

“Of course not. I’m eager to see what you have in mind.”

“To have such a daughter with such a career! One bubbles with pride as a parent!” Daddy might only have been prattling on to spin out the visit, but my heart was touched, and Lady Grizwolde turned to him with a trace of animation in her dark eyes.

“How charming, and what a pleasure it must be for the entire family to have you come and visit. Did you have to travel far to get here?”

“From southern Germany, the village of Schonbrunn.” My father sank low in his chair and managed to look as if he had aged ten years in as many seconds. But he didn’t produce a hanky and mop his eyes.

“I don’t think I’ve heard of it.” Lady Grizwolde actually leaned forward a little in her seat and cupped her chin in a slim, long-fingered hand. “What is it near?”

“The closest town is Loetzinn.”

“And is this Schonbrunn a picturesque place?”

“The most beautiful place in the world!” Daddy now produced the handkerchief with a snowy flourish, and I found myself wondering if Frau Grundman had done his laundry for him while he stayed in her guest house.

“Loetzinn, you said.” Her ladyship now appeared reflective. “Maybe I have heard or read about it. Doesn’t it have a rather beautiful church? A Roman Catholic one, that was built after the Second World War and is celebrated for its nave or stained-glass windows or some such thing?”

“Alas, I have heretofore not been much of a churchgoer.” Daddy was now wielding the hanky with such vigor that the curtains stirred all the way across the room. “But now that my eyes are turned heavenward, I shall be more devout in my observances.” I held my breath waiting for him to sound off about his recent bereavement, but her ladyship spoke before he could say Harriet.

“Was there some scandal—a fairly recent one—that made the newspapers? The priest absconding with the missionary money and running off to Monte Carlo to play the casinos? Or am I getting it mixed up with somewhere else?”

“Does any of this ring a bell, Daddy?” I asked.

“A what?” He might have been floating on the ceiling from the faraway sound of his voice, but he drifted back down to us after a couple of seconds and drew his pale eyes together over his Roman nose. “Some reprehensible happening occurring at a church in Loetzinn, is that what we are discussing? Nothing to do with choirboys, I hope. Or rude scribbles on the frescoes. My beloved Harriet would have been deeply distressed. She revered antiquities.”