Ben, having always been a hands-on father, manfully assured me that he was genuinely excited about the trip. And after thumbing through the brochure provided by Memory Lanes, I began to think it wouldn’t be so bad. It turned out that Sir Clifford Heath’s vision incorporated village settings, complete with thatched cottages and cobbled streets, tearooms and haberdashery shops, duck ponds and bowling greens. The emphasis was on nostalgia, a return to a simpler way of life. Entertainment included poetry readings and musical evenings, nature walks, sketching and crocheting classes, cricket matches, and gatherings in the assembly hall listening to nineteen-forties-style programs on the wireless. To enable parents of very young children to participate fully in activities unsuited to their offspring, fully trained nannies were provided around the clock. Ben might well have the time of his life. It was selfish of me to wish he were here.
The grandfather clock in the alcove under the stairs struck the half hour—10:30. Was it possible he had been gone for two hours? It felt like the tail end of the fortnight, not the beginning. I pictured myself going into the study and perching on the edge of his desk while he sat pegging away at the old manual typewriter that he refused to abandon for an electric one, let alone a word processor. I would sit absorbing those little things about him that I loved. His crisply curling dark hair, the intent line of his jaw, the endearing way his glasses slid further down his nose every time he hit the carriage return. Very likely he wouldn’t notice me at first. He would be in the thrall of his muse; totally absorbed in getting down on paper the ingredients and instructions for preparing Roasted Grouse with Prune and Walnut Dressing. I would wait until the keys slowed from a rapid clackety-clack to a tentative tap or two before interrupting him.
“Darling,” I would say, very softly so as not to bring him back to reality with a jolt that would send his chair into a tail-spin. “I’ve just received rather an odd letter from the bridesmaids.”
“Who?” He would look perplexed; charmingly so—with a lift of an eyebrow and a slight tilt of the head. And instantly life would be sane and serene again. The feeling that a goose had gone waddling over my grave would become something for the two of us to laugh about.
“Rosemary, Thora, and Jane.”
“Who?” Mrs. Malloy’s voice came back at me from across the kitchen table.
“Oh, sorry!” I blinked and reached for my empty teacup. “I didn’t realize I’d spoken out loud.”
“It wasn’t speaking.” She could be a real stickler on some things. “It was more like singing. And not very good singing at that. The kind, like when you’re a kiddie and out skipping rope on the pavement.”
“It’s a rhyme that popped into my head after I met them.” I spoke to her from the attic inside my head, parting the cobwebs and lifting out the memory. “Rosemary, Thora, and Jane, / Lived at the end of the lane, / One was thin, one was fat, / And one was very plain.”
“And you was how old when you wrote it?”
“Seven or eight.”
Mrs. Malloy looked relieved. “Well, you’ve had time to grow out of it. Lots of kiddies go through a nasty stage. And now you’d better get what’s troubling you off your chest. For it’s clear to me, Mrs. H.”—glancing regretfully down at the feather duster lying by her chair leg—“that I won’t be able to get started working meself to death until you do. And to be fair, I do remember how just as I was drawing breath to tell you about Leonard, you started to tell me about some letter you’d got. It was from them, was it? These three women that I’ve never heard you mention in all the years I’ve worked for you?” She made a commendable effort not to sound overly miffed. “Now who exactly would they be, if it’s not too much of an impertinence to ask?”
“Friends or they could be relatives of my grandmother. They live in a village called Knells, not far from Rilling. That’s in Cambridgeshire. They live together, have done for years, in an old house.”
“At the end of the lane?”
“Yes, it’s called the Old Rectory. I hadn’t heard from Rosemary, Thora, and Jane in years. Maybe they got in touch with Daddy when Mother died, but they didn’t come to the funeral. And now they’ve asked me to come and see them right away.”
“Today?”
“As soon as possible.”
“All that distance, at a moment’s notice!” Mrs. Malloy looked thoughtful as she graciously filled my cup, adjusted the spoon, and passed it back to me.
“It’s not all that far. It shouldn’t take me more than a couple of hours in the car if I stick to the motorway.”
“Unless the weather continues as bad as it’s been these last few days. And I doubt you’re allowing for traffic. They all drive like maniacs down there, bound to with all those university kids out on larks.” She handed me a plate of biscuits and encouraged me to take two. “You’d end up having to stay overnight; there’s no sense in thinking otherwise.”
“That’s the idea,” I said. “They want me to stay for a few days. They suggested a week, but I really couldn’t. I’ve so much to do here; I promised Ben I’d finally finish Rose’s room. I’ve got the walls to paper, her chest of drawers to strip and refinish, her little table and chairs to sponge-paint, and the floor to stencil to match the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party design on her toy chest.”
“We can’t always think of ourselves first, Mrs. H.; from the sound of them, those three women have to be getting up in years. Poor old things! Maybe they want to talk to you about leaving you a little something in their will.”
“That’s not it.”
“Then what’s it all about?” Mrs. Malloy stopped looking soulful to shoot me a piercing glance. It was my moment to produce the letter but I found myself suddenly reluctant to do so. The kitchen was warm and cozy with the firelight gleaming on the copper pans hung around the Aga. It was the sound of the wind howling around the house, in an unlikely manner for June, that chilled me inside and out. For a moment I was a little girl again, feeling my hands grip the sides of my chair when a strange woman bent down to kiss me.
“Spit it out, Mrs. H.; why do these old girls want to see you?”
“Rosemary said my grandmother wants to get in touch with me.”
“Well, I think that’s nice, I do.” Mrs. Malloy could be family-minded when she chose, but she quickly remembered to take umbrage. “Course it cuts me to the quick that I’ve never heard mention of her neither until now. What happened? Had a falling-out with your old gran, did you? Cut you off, did she, when you upped and married Mr. H. against her wishes?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“She’s dead.”
Mrs. Malloy paused to add a drop more gin to her tea. “Now that would tend to put a damper on things. Cuts down on the chances for a nice long chat, doesn’t it? Been gone long, has she?”
“Since my mother was tiny. A baby in arms, I think. She didn’t speak about it much.”
“Funny that, her being so close on the subject. It causes me to wonder if maybe these old girls, Rosemary and the other two, haven’t really come to grips with your gran being gone. Could be they’ve got it into their heads, wishful thinking like, that she’s not really dead. Just popped out for a packet of biscuits and will be back any minute, the way I kept thinking about Leonard.”
“But what if she truly isn’t dead?” I asked. “What if the family made it up? To conceal a truth that they considered worse, such as her abandoning my mother to run off with a married man or pursue a career they considered unfit for a woman?”
“Or it could be”—Mrs. Malloy pursed her magenta lips— “that the old girls that live down the lane aren’t quite with it mentally. Perhaps they haven’t been eating right, not getting their three squares a day and forgetting to take their vitamins and minerals. An old auntie of mine started going around saying she was worried sick that she’d find herself in the family way. Well into her seventies she was at the time. But her doctor got her sorted out and she was back to being right as rain. It was her daughter, Ethel, as wasn’t. She’s the one that found herself in the family way, because Auntie had been sneaking her birth-control pills and replacing them with the iron tablets. Good for the baby, was how Ethel had to look at it. Forced herself to make the best of things, she did. And that’s what you and me have got to do. It’ll do me good to get away for a bit to this Knells place in Cambridgeshire. That way, when Leonard comes knocking on me door, I won’t be there to fall in his arms, and you’ll be glad of the company.”
“You’re a dear,” I said, getting up and giving her a peck on the cheek. “But you’re not coming, because I’m not going. I’ll find out what the scoop is by talking to Rosemary or one of the other bridesmaids over the phone.”
“Okay, Mrs. H., spill the beans. Why don’t you want to go?”
“I’ve told you! I’ve so much to do. Ben hasn’t taken the children to Memory Lanes so I can go off gadding.”
“Don’t give me that.” Mrs. Malloy tapped an impatient foot. “There’s something going on inside your head that you’re not telling me about, otherwise you’d be bursting with curiosity to find out about your gran.”
“I am, but for some silly reason I’m afraid.”
“And that’s just why I’m not letting you go on your own.” Mrs. Malloy spoke as though I were one of the twins, to be gently but firmly dissuaded from climbing into the laundry chute. “It’s clear to me you don’t know these women from the man in the moon. So who’s to say that this business of your grandmother isn’t something they’ve cooked up between the three of them for reasons nice people like you and me couldn’t even begin to guess at?” She gave a nicely executed shudder. “Just standing here I can feel the spooky vibes all the way down to me toes.”
And as she was fond of saying, those toes of hers didn’t lie.
I thought I would have trouble falling asleep that night. I had been puzzling about the bridesmaids’ reason for their invitation on and off throughout the day, although I can’t say that I had allowed Mrs. Malloy and her toes to scare me. She was as partial to gothic romances as I was myself. The kind where any locked door concealed a diabolical secret. And every cup of tea was suspect.
But when I got into bed it was to think how vast and empty it felt without Ben. Was he missing me, too? Were the twins and Rose? I tried to picture them at Memory Lanes, but even when images came they slid one into another and became fuzzier until I felt myself getting muffled up in sleep. Then I heard a bell ring, and keep ringing, and struggled up thinking that it must be Ben at the door with the children. They must have realized they could not stay away from me for more than a day and were at the door. By the time it took me to get my feet on the floor I was wondering why Ben hadn’t used his key. And then I realized it wasn’t the doorbell ringing, but the telephone. Heart hammering, I fumbled across the bedside table and picked up the receiver.
“Hello?” I stammered.
There was a pause, which seemed to go on forever before a voice spoke in my ear. “Don’t come to the Old Rectory.”
I was struggling to ask “Who is this?” when I dropped the phone and upon picking it up heard a buzzing in my ear. We had been disconnected.
It was several minutes before I was able to lie back down. I was so shaken I wasn’t even sure whether the speaker had been a man or a woman. And now I doubted I would be able to close my eyes for the rest of the night. But after I stared at the ceiling for a while the phone call began to take on a dreamlike quality and the feeling of menace receded. Perhaps it was one of the bridesmaids calling. Probably if I hadn’t dropped the phone she would have added the word “tomorrow” to her admonition. That it would better for me to delay my visit for a couple of days until the hole in the roof could be repaired. So that I wouldn’t be tripping over buckets set out to collect the rain the weather forecaster had predicted. Or so that the silver could be polished, or the ironing finished. I would call them in the morning ... I fell back asleep.
And the following morning I did call, to be assured that, no, neither Thora, nor Jane, nor Rosemary had phoned and that of course I was to come as planned. Perhaps I had dreamed the mysterious phone call? Putting my suspicions aside, I crept out of the house at the cockcrow, secure in the belief that Mrs. Malloy would still be safely tucked up in bed. But when I opened the doors to the stables, which now did duty as the garage, I was greeted by the self-appointed grand dame of Chitterton Fells hefting an enormous suitcase into the boot of the bottle-green Rover that Ben had given me for Christmas. Before I could finish converting a yawn (I am not by nature an early riser) into a gape, she had squeezed my modest-sized travel bag into the limited space remaining and climbed into the front passenger seat. Resisting the urge to slam down the boot lid with sufficient force to send the car into orbit, I got in beside her and gripped the steering wheel in what I hoped was a menacing manner.
“Nice of you to show up.” Mrs. Malloy opened her fake alligator handbag and pulled out a map. She was wearing a raincoat, as was I, but unlike my sensible beige affair hers was a wild-cherry red. “I was afraid”—she contorted her purple lips into a grimace—“as I’d be forced to take the bus.”
“Don’t even think of it,” I said, backing the car onto the drive in a series of hopefully sickening lurches. “I’m more than happy to take you straight back home. As I thought I made plain yesterday, you are not coming with me to Knells to visit the bridesmaids. This is a family matter which I intend to handle, or mishandle if you’d rather, all by myself.”
“That’s you all over.” Mrs. Malloy was spreading the map across her cherry-red knees as I spun the car around in a shower of gravel and shot down the drive. “Selfish to the core you are some of the time. You’re afraid one of those batty old women will bop me over the head in the dead of night just for the fun of it, and you’ll be left to do your own housework for the rest of your days. All alike, you upper-class types are, just like my Leonard used to say.”
“Me! Upper class!” I narrowly missed colliding with the copper beech to my left. “You’re the one who’s always harping on about how your ancestors came over with the Normans.”