chapter Two
She heard voices in the hallway, and then footsteps up the stairs. No doubt at luncheon she would meet this miserable woman and have to be civil to her.
And so it turned out. One would have expected in the circumstances that the wretched creature would have remained silent, and spoken only when invited to do so. On the contrary, she engaged in conversation in answer to the merest question, and where a word or two would have been quite sufficient.
"I understand you have just returned from abroad," Caroline said courteously. "I hope it was pleasant?" She left it open for an easy dismissal if it were not a subject Maude wished to discuss.
But apparently it was. A broad smile lit Maude's face, bringing life to her eyes, even passion. "It was marvelous!" she said, her voice vibrant. "The world is more terrible and beautiful than we can possibly imagine, or believe, even after one has seen great stretches of it. There are always new shocks and new miracles around each corner."
"Were you away long?" Caroline asked, apparently forgetting what Joshua had told her. Perhaps she did not wish to appear to Maude as if they had been discussing her.
Maude smiled, showing excellent teeth, even though her mouth was much too big. "Forty years," she replied. "I fell in love."
***
Caroline clearly did not know what to make of that. Maude's hands were innocent of rings and she had introduced herself by her maiden name. The only decent thing to do would have been to avoid the subject, but she had made that impossible. No wonder they had found it intolerable to have her at home. Really, this imposition was too much!
Maude glanced at Grandmama, and cannot have failed to see the disapproval in her face. "In love with the desert," she explained lightly. "And cities like Marrakech. Have you ever been to a Muslim city in Africa, Mrs. Ellison?"
Grandmama was outraged.
"Certainly not!" she snapped. The question was ridiculous. What decent Englishwoman would do such a thing?
Maude was not to be stopped. She leaned forward over the table, soup forgotten. "It is flat, an oasis facing the Atlas Mountains, and stretches out from the great red tower of the Koutoubya to the blue-palmed fringes and the sands beyond. The Almoravid princes who founded it came with their hordes from the black desert of Senegal, and built palaces of beauty to rival anything on earth."
Caroline and Joshua forgot their soup also, though Grandmama did not.
"They imported masters of chiseled plaster, gilded cedar, and ceramic mosaics," Maude continued. "They created garden beyond garden, courts that led to the other courts and apartments, some high in the sunlight, others deep within walls and shadows and running water." She smiled at some inner delight. "One can walk in the green gloom of a cypress garden. Or breathe in the cool sweetness of a tunnel of jasmine where the light is soft and ever whispering with the sound of water and the murmur of pigeons as they preen themselves. There are alabaster urns, light through jeweled glass, and vermilion doors painted with arabesques in gold." She stopped for a moment to draw breath.
Grandmama felt excluded from this magic that Maude had seen, and from the table where Joshua and Caroline hung on every word. She was totally unnecessary here. She wanted to dismiss it all as foreign, and completely vulgar, but deeply against her will she was fascinated. Naturally she would not dream of saying so.
"And you were allowed to see all these things?" Caroline said in amazement.
"I lived there, for a while," Maude answered, her eyes bright with memory. "It was a superb time, something marvelous or terrible every week. I have never been more intensely alive! The world is so beautiful sometimes I felt as if I could hardly bear it. One gazes at things that hurt with the passion of their loveliness." She smiled but her eyes were misted with tears. "Dusk in a Persian garden, the sun's fire dying on the mountains in purple and umber and rose; the call of the little owls in the coolness of the night; dimpled water over old stones; the perfume of jasmine in the moonlight, rich as sweet oil and clear as the stars; firelight reflected on a copper drum."
She pushed her soup away, too filled with emotion to eat. "I could go on forever. I cannot imagine boredom. Surely it is worse than dying, like some terrible, corroding illness that leaves you neither the joy and the hunger of life nor the release of death. Even that exquisite squeezing of the heart because you cannot hold the light forever is better than not to have seen it or loved it at all."
Grandmama had no idea what on earth she was babbling about! Of course she hadn't. At least not more than a needle-sharp suspicion, like a wound too deep to feel at first, narrow as a blade of envy, cutting almost without awareness.
What would anyone reply to such a thing? There ought to be something, but what was there that met such a...a baring of emotion? It was unseemly, like taking off one's clothes in public. No taste at all. That was what came of traveling to foreign parts, and not only foreign but heathen as well. It would be best to ignore the whole episode.
But of course that was quite impossible. The afternoon was cold but quite clear and sunny, although the wind was sharp. Escape was the only solution.
"I shall go for a walk," she announced after luncheon was over. "Perhaps a breath of sea air would be pleasant."
"What an excellent idea," Maude said with enthusiasm. "It is a perfect day. Do you mind if I come with you?"
What could she say? She could hardly refuse. "I'm afraid there will be no jasmine flowers or owls, or sunset over the desert," she replied coolly. "And I daresay you will find it very chilly...and...ordinary."
A shadow crossed Maude's face, but whether it was the thought of the lonely marsh and sea wind, or the rejection implicit in Grandmama's reply, it was impossible to say.
Grandmama felt a jab of guilt. The woman had been refused the comfort or sanctuary of her own home. She deserved at least civility. "But of course you are welcome to come," she added grudgingly. Blast the woman for putting her in a position where she had to say that.
Maude smiled. "Thank you."
They set out together, well wrapped up with capes and shawls, and of course strong winter boots. Grandmama closed the gate and immediately turned to the lane toward the sea. In the summer it would be overhung with may blossom and the hedgerows deep with flowers. Now it was merely sparse and wet. If the wind were cold enough, after all her living in the desert and such places, the very damp of it alone should be sufficient to make Maude tire of the idea within half an hour at the most.
But Maude was indecently healthy and used to walking. It took Grandmama all her breath and strength to keep up with her. It was roughly a mile to the seashore itself and Maude did not hesitate in her stride even once. She seemed to take it for granted that the old lady would have no difficulty in keeping up, which was extremely irritating and quite thoughtless of her. Grandmama was at least fifteen years older, if not more, and of course she was a lady, not some creature who gallivanted all over the world and went around on her feet as if she had no carriage to her name.
The sky above them was wide and wild, an aching void of blue with just a few clouds like mares' tails shredded across the east on the horizon above the sea. Gulls, dazzling white in the winter sun, wheeled and soared in the air, letting out their shrill cries like noisy children. The wind rippled the grass, flowerless, and everything smelled of salt.
"This is wonderful!" Maude said happily. "I have never smelled anything so clean and so madly alive. It is as if the whole world were full of laughter. It is so good to be back in England. I forgot how the spirit of the land is still so untamed, in spite of all we've done. I was in Snave so short a time I had no chance to get out of the house!"
She is not sane, Grandmama thought to herself grimly. No wonder her family wants to get rid of her!
They breasted the rise and the whole panorama of the English Channel opened up before them, the long stretch of sand, wind, and water bleached till it gleamed bone pale in the light. The surf broke in ranks of white waves, hissing up the shore, foaming like lace, consuming themselves, and rushing back again. Then a moment later they roared in inches higher, never tired of the game. The surface was cold, unshadowed blue, and it stretched out endlessly till it met the sky. They both knew that France was not much more than twenty miles away, but today the horizon was smudged and softened with mist that blurred the line.
Maude stood with her head high, wind unraveling the last of her hair from its pins and all but taking her shawl as well.
"Isn't it glorious?" she asked. "Until this moment I had forgotten just how much I love the sea, its width, its shining, endless possibilities. It's never the same two moments together."
"It always looks the same to me," Grandmama said ungraciously. How could anyone be so pointlessly joyous? It was half-witted! "Cold, wet, and only too happy to drown you if you are foolish enough to give it the chance," she finished.
Maude burst into laughter. She stood on the shore with her eyes closed, her face lifted upward, smiling, and the wind billowing her shawl and her skirts.
Grandmama swiveled around and stamped back onto the tussock grass, or whatever it was that tangled her feet, and started back along the lane. The woman was as mad as a hatter. It was unendurable that anyone should be expected to put up with her.
***
The following day was no better. Maude usurped every moment by regaling them with tales of boating on the Nile, buffalo standing in the water, unnameable insects, and tombs of kings who worshipped animals! All very fashionable, perhaps, but disgusting. Both Caroline and Joshua took hospitality too far, and pretended to be absorbed in it, even encouraging her by asking questions.
Of course the wretched woman obliged, particularly at the dinner table. And all through the roast beef, the Yorkshire pudding and the vegetables, followed by apple charlotte and cream, her captive audience was made to listen to descriptions of ruined gardens in Persia.
"I stood there in the sand of the stream splashing its way over the blue tiles, most of them broken," Maude said, smiling as her eyes misted with memory. "We were quite high up and I looked through the old trees toward the flat, brown plain, and saw those roads: to the east toward Samarkand, to the west to Baghdad, and to the south to Isfahan, and my imagination soared into flight. The very names are like an incantation. As dusk drew around me and the pale colors deepened to gold and fire and that strange richness of porphyry, in my mind I could hear the camel bells and see that odd, lurching gait of theirs as they moved silently like dreams through the coming night, bound on adventures of the soul."
"Isn't it hard sometimes?" Caroline asked, not in criticism but perhaps even sympathy.
"Oh yes! Often," Maude agreed. "You are thirsty, your body aches, and of course you can become so tired you would sell everything you possess for a good night's sleep. But you know it will be worth it. And it always is. The pain is only for a moment, the joy is forever."
And so it went on. Now and then she picked at the macadamia nuts she had brought to the table to share, saying that her family had given them to her, knowing her weakness for them.
Only Joshua accepted.
"Indigestible," Grandmama said, growing more and more irritated by it all.
"I know," Maude agreed. "I daresay I shall be sorry tonight. But a little peppermint water will help."
"I prefer not to be so foolish in the first place," Grandmama said icily.
"Do you have peppermint water?" Caroline asked. "I can give you some, if you wish?"
"I prefer to exercise a little self-control in the first place," Grandmama answered, as if the offer had been addressed to her.
Maude smiled. "Thank you, but I have one dose, and I'm sure that will be sufficient. There are not so many nuts, and I can't resist them."
She offered the dish to Joshua again and he took two more, and asked her to continue with her tales of Persia.
Grandmama tried to ignore it.
It seemed as if morning, noon, and night they were obliged to talk about or listen to accounts of some alien place, and pretend to be interested. She had been right in the very beginning: This was going to be the worst Christmas of her life. She would never forgive Emily for banishing her here. It was a monstrous thing to have done.
***
She awoke in the morning to hear one of the maids screeching and banging on the door. Was there no end to the lack of consideration in this house? She sat upright in bed just as the stupid girl burst through into the room, face ashen white, mouth wide open, and eyes like holes in her head.
"Pull yourself together, girl!" Grandmama snapped at her. "What on earth is the matter with you? Stand up straight and stop sniveling. Explain yourself!"
The girl made a masterful attempt, took a gulping breath, and spoke in between gasps. "Please ma'am, somethin' terrible 'as 'appened. Miss Barrington's stone cold dead in 'er bed, she is."
"Nonsense!" Grandmama replied. "She was perfectly all right at dinner yesterday evening. She's probably just very deeply asleep."
"No, ma'am, she in't. I knows dead when I sees it, an' when I touches it. Dead as a skinned sheep, she is."
"Don't be impertinent! And disrespectful." Grandmama climbed out of bed and the cold air assailed her flesh through her nightgown. She grasped a robe and glared at the girl. "Don't speak of your betters like farmyard animals," she added for good measure. "I shall go and waken Miss Barrington myself. Where is Tilly?"
"Please, ma'am, she's got a terrible chill."
"Then leave her alone. You may fetch Miss Barrington's tea. And mine also. Fresh, mind. No leftovers."
"Yes, ma'am." The girl was happy to be relieved of responsibility, and of having to tell the master and mistress herself. She did not like the old lady, nor did any of the other servants, miserable old body. Let her do the finding and the telling.
Grandmama marched along the corridor and banged with her closed hand on Maude's door. There was no answer, as she had expected. She would rather enjoy waking her up from a sound, warm sleep, for no good reason but a maid's hysterics.
She pushed the door open, went in, and closed it behind her. If there were going to be a bad tempered scene over the disturbance, better to have it privately.
The room was light, the curtains open.
"Miss Barrington!" she said very clearly.
There was no sound and no movement from the figure in the bed.
"Miss Barrington!" she repeated, considerably more loudly, and more peremptorily.
Still nothing. She walked over to the bed.
Maude lay on her back. Her eyes were closed, but her face was extremely pale, even a little blue, and she did not seem to be moving at all.
Grandmama felt a tinge of alarm. Drat the woman! She went a little closer and reached out to touch her, ready to leap back and apologize if her eyes flew open and she demanded to know what on earth Grandmama thought she was doing. It was really inexcusable to place anyone in this embarrassing position. Gadding about in heathen places had addled her wits, and all sense of being an Englishwoman of any breeding at all.
The flesh that met her fingers was cold and quite stiff. There could be no doubt whatsoever that the stupid maid was correct. Maude was quite dead, and had been so probably most of the night.
Grandmama staggered backward and sat down very hard on the bedroom chair, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. This was terrible. Quite unfair. First of all Maude had arrived, uninvited, and disrupted everything. Now she had died and made it even worse. They would have to spend Christmas in mourning! Instead of reds and golds, and carol singing, feasting, making merry, they would all be in black, mirrors covered, whispering in corners and being miserable and afraid. Servants were always afraid when there was a death in the house. Most likely Cook would give notice, and then where would they be? Eating cold meats!
She stood up. She had no reason to feel sad. It would be absurd. She had barely met Maude Barrington, certainly she had not known her. And there was nobody to feel sorry for. Her own family had not wanted her, even at Christmas, for heaven's sake! Perhaps they were tired of the endless stories about the bazaar at Marrakech and the Persian gardens or the boats on the Nile and the tombs of kings who had lived and died a thousand years or more before the first Christmas on earth, and worshipped gods of their own making, who had the heads of beasts.
But then her family could not have been nice people or they would not have turned Maude away at Christmas. They would have listened with affectation of interest, as Caroline and Joshua had done. Indeed, as she had done herself. She could imagine the water running over blue tiles in the sun. She did not know what jasmine smelled like, but no doubt it was beautiful. And to give her credit, Maude had loved the English countryside just as much, even in December. It was wretched that she should have died among people who were veritable strangers, taking her in out of charity because it was Christmas. Her own had not loved or wanted her.
Grandmama stood still in the middle of the bedroom with its flowered chintzes, heavy furniture, and dead ashes in the grate, and a hideous reality took her breath away. She herself was here out of charity as well, unloved and unwanted by anyone else. Caroline and Joshua were good people; that was why they had taken her in, not because they cared for her. They did not love her, they did not even like her. No one did. She knew that as well as she knew the feel of ice on her skin and the cold wind that cut to the bone.
She opened the door, her fingers fumbling on the handle, breath tight in her chest. Outside in the passage, she walked unsteadily to the other wing of the house, and Joshua and Caroline's room. She knocked more loudly than she had intended, and when Caroline opened the door to her she found her voice caught in her throat.
"The maid came and told me Maude died in the night." She gulped. Really this much emotion was ridiculous! She had barely known the woman. "I am afraid it is true. I saw her myself."
Caroline looked stricken, but she could see from the old lady's face that there was no doubt. At her age she had seen enough death not to mistake it.
"You had better come into the dressing room and sit down," Caroline said gently. "I'll have Abby fetch you a cup of tea. I'm so sorry you had to see her." She held out her arm to support Grandmama as she stumbled across the room and into the wide, warm dressing room with its seats and wardrobes and one of Caroline's gowns already laid out for the day. Grandmama was angry with herself for being so close to weeping. It must be the shock. It was most unpleasant to grow old. "Thank you," she said grudgingly.
Caroline helped her into one of the chairs and looked at her for a moment as if to make sure she were not going to faint. Then, as Grandmama glared back at her, she turned and went out to set in motion all the endless arrangements that would have to be made.
The old lady sat still. The maid brought her tea and poured it for her, encouraging her to drink it. It was refreshing, spreading warmth from the inside. But it changed nothing. Why was Maude dead? She had been in almost offensively good health the short time she had been here. What had she died of? Certainly not old age. Not any kind of wasting away or weakening. She could march like a soldier, and eat like one, too.
She closed her eyes and in her mind she saw Maude again, lying motionless in the bed. She did not look terrified or disturbed, or even in any pain. But there had been an empty bottle on the table beside her. Probably the peppermint water. The stupid woman had given herself indigestion guzzling all the nuts, just as Grandmama had told her she would. Why were some people so stupid? No self-control.
She drank the last of her tea and stood up. The room swayed around her for a moment. She took several deep breaths, then went out of the dressing room and back along the corridor to Maude's bedroom. There was no one else in sight. They must all be busy, and Caroline would be doing what she could to settle the staff. Staff always behaved erratically when someone died. At least one maid would have fainted, and someone would be having hysterics. As if there were not enough to do!
She opened the door and slipped inside quickly, closing it after her, then turned to look. Yes, she had been quite right, there was an empty bottle on the bedside table. She walked over and picked it up. It said "peppermint water" on the label, but just to be certain she took out the cork and sniffed it experimentally. It was quite definitely peppermint, clean and sharp, filling her nose.
Maude had brought it with her, with only one dose left. She must use it regularly. Stupid woman! If she ate with any sense it would not be necessary. Curious that they should have it even in Arabia, or Persia, or wherever it was she had come from most recently. And the label was in English, too.
She looked at it again. It was printed with the name and address of a local apothecary in Rye, just a few miles away around the Dungeness headland.
But Maude had said she had not left Snave, in fact not had the chance to go out at all. So someone had given it to her, with one dose in it. Presumably that was to treat the result of eating the macadamia nuts! But one dose? How very odd. Especially when they could have been all but certain that she would require it. Surely no household would be short of so ordinary a commodity, especially over Christmas, when it could be guaranteed that people would overindulge? There was something about it that was peculiar.
She picked up the bottle again and, keeping it concealed in the folds of her skirt, returned to her room, where she hid it in the drawer with her underclothes.
Then, with Tilly's assistance, she dressed in the darkest clothes she had with her-not quite black, but a gray that in the winter light would pass for it. She went downstairs to face the day.
Caroline was in the withdrawing room before the fire. Joshua had gone to fetch the local doctor so that the necessary authorities could be satisfied.
"Are you all right, Mama-in-law?" she asked anxiously. "It is a terrible experience for you."
"It was a much worse experience for Maude!" Grandmama replied with tart candor. There were troubling thoughts in her mind, but she was not quite certain exactly what they were. She could not share them, especially with Caroline, who had never detected anything, as far as she knew. She might even wish to avoid scandal, and refuse even to consider it, and Maude deserved better than that! Perhaps it rested with Mariah Ellison, and no one else, to face the truth.
A few minutes later the doctor arrived and was taken upstairs.
"Heart failure," he informed them when he came down again. "Very sad. She seemed in excellent health otherwise."
"She was!" Grandmama said quickly, before anyone else could reply. "She was a world traveler, walked miles, rode horses, and even camels. She never spoke of any ailment at all."
"It can come without warning," the doctor said gently.
"An attack that kills?" Grandmama demanded. "She did not look as if she were in that kind of agony!"
"No," he agreed with a slight frown. "I think it more likely that her heart simply slowed and then stopped."
"Slowed and then stopped?" Grandmama said incredulously.
"Mama-in-law!" Caroline remonstrated.
"I think it may well have been peaceful," the doctor said to Grandmama. "If that is of comfort to you? Were you very fond of her?"
"She barely knew her!" Caroline said tartly.
"Yes, I was fond of her." Grandmama contradicted her, equally tartly.