Kitabı oku: «By the Pricking of My Thumbs», sayfa 2
‘It must be very difficult running a place of this kind,’ said Tuppence.
‘Oh, not really,’ said Miss Packard. ‘I quite enjoy it, you know. And really, I’m quite fond of them all. One gets fond of people one has to look after, you know. I mean, they have their little ways and their fidgets, but they’re quite easy to manage, if you know how.’
Tuppence thought to herself that Miss Packard was one of those people who would know how.
‘They’re like children, really,’ said Miss Packard indulgently. ‘Only children are far more logical which makes it difficult sometimes with them. But these people are illogical, they want to be reassured by your telling them what they want to believe. Then they’re quite happy again for a bit. I’ve got a very nice staff here. People with patience, you know, and good temper, and not too brainy, because if you have people who are brainy they are bound to be very impatient. Yes, Miss Donovan, what is it?’ She turned her head as a young woman with pince-nez came running down the stairs.
‘It’s Mrs Lockett again, Miss Packard. She says she’s dying and she wants the doctor called at once.’
‘Oh,’ said Miss Packard, unimpressed, ‘what’s she dying from this time?’
‘She says there was mushroom in the stew yesterday and that there must have been fungi in it and that she’s poisoned.’
‘That’s a new one,’ said Miss Packard. ‘I’d better come up and talk to her. So sorry to leave you, Mrs Beresford. You’ll find magazines and papers in that room.’
‘Oh, I’ll be quite all right,’ said Tuppence.
She went into the room that had been indicated to her. It was a pleasant room overlooking the garden with french windows that opened on it. There were easy chairs, bowls of flowers on the tables. One wall had a bookshelf containing a mixture of modern novels and travel books, and also what might be described as old favourites, which possibly many of the inmates might be glad to meet again. There were magazines on a table.
At the moment there was only one occupant in the room. An old lady with white hair combed back off her face who was sitting in a chair, holding a glass of milk in her hand, and looking at it. She had a pretty pink and white face, and she smiled at Tuppence in a friendly manner.
‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘Are you coming to live here or are you visiting?’
‘I’m visiting,’ said Tuppence. ‘I have an aunt here. My husband’s with her now. We thought perhaps two people at once was rather too much.’
‘That was very thoughtful of you,’ said the old lady. She took a sip of milk appreciatively. ‘I wonder—no, I think it’s quite all right. Wouldn’t you like something? Some tea or some coffee perhaps? Let me ring the bell. They’re very obliging here.’
‘No thank you,’ said Tuppence, ‘really.’
‘Or a glass of milk perhaps. It’s not poisoned today.’
‘No, no, not even that. We shan’t be stopping very much longer.’
‘Well, if you’re quite sure—but it wouldn’t be any trouble, you know. Nobody ever thinks anything is any trouble here. Unless, I mean, you ask for something quite impossible.’
‘I daresay the aunt we’re visiting sometimes asks for quite impossible things,’ said Tuppence. ‘She’s a Miss Fanshawe,’ she added.
‘Oh, Miss Fanshawe,’ said the old lady. ‘Oh yes.’
Something seemed to be restraining her but Tuppence said cheerfully,
‘She’s rather a tartar, I should imagine. She always has been.’
‘Oh, yes indeed she is. I used to have an aunt myself, you know, who was very like that, especially as she grew older. But we’re all quite fond of Miss Fanshawe. She can be very, very amusing if she likes. About people, you know.’
‘Yes, I daresay she could be,’ said Tuppence. She reflected a moment or two, considering Aunt Ada in this new light.
‘Very acid,’ said the old lady. ‘My name is Lancaster, by the way, Mrs Lancaster.’
‘My name’s Beresford,’ said Tuppence.
‘I’m afraid, you know, one does enjoy a bit of malice now and then. Her descriptions of some of the other guests here, and the things she says about them. Well, you know, one oughtn’t, of course, to find it funny but one does.’
‘Have you been living here long?’
‘A good while now. Yes, let me see, seven years—eight years. Yes, yes it must be more than eight years.’ She sighed. ‘One loses touch with things. And people too. Any relations I have left live abroad.’
‘That must be rather sad.’
‘No, not really. I didn’t care for them very much. Indeed, I didn’t even know them well. I had a bad illness—a very bad illness—and I was alone in the world, so they thought it was better for me to live in a place like this. I think I’m very lucky to have come here. They are so kind and thoughtful. And the gardens are really beautiful. I know myself that I shouldn’t like to be living on my own because I do get very confused sometimes, you know. Very confused.’ She tapped her forehead. ‘I get confused here. I mix things up. I don’t always remember properly the things that have happened.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Tuppence. ‘I suppose one always has to have something, doesn’t one?’
‘Some illnesses are very painful. We have two poor women living here with very bad rheumatoid arthritis. They suffer terribly. So I think perhaps it doesn’t matter so much if one gets, well, just a little confused about what happened and where, and who it was, and all that sort of thing, you know. At any rate it’s not painful physically.’
‘No. I think perhaps you’re quite right,’ said Tuppence.
The door opened and a girl in a white overall came in with a little tray with a coffee pot on it and a plate with two biscuits, which she set down at Tuppence’s side.
‘Miss Packard thought you might care for a cup of coffee,’ she said.
‘Oh. Thank you,’ said Tuppence.
The girl went out again and Mrs Lancaster said,
‘There, you see. Very thoughtful, aren’t they?’
‘Yes indeed.’
Tuppence poured out her coffee and began to drink it. The two women sat in silence for some time. Tuppence offered the plate of biscuits but the old lady shook her head.
‘No thank you, dear. I just like my milk plain.’
She put down the empty glass and leaned back in her chair, her eyes half closed. Tuppence thought that perhaps this was the moment in the morning when she took a little nap, so she remained silent. Suddenly however, Mrs Lancaster seemed to jerk herself awake again. Her eyes opened, she looked at Tuppence and said,
‘I see you’re looking at the fireplace.’
‘Oh. Was I?’ said Tuppence, slightly startled.
‘Yes. I wondered—’ she leant forward and lowered her voice. ‘—Excuse me, was it your poor child?’
Tuppence slightly taken aback, hesitated.
‘I—no, I don’t think so,’ she said.
‘I wondered. I thought perhaps you’d come for that reason. Someone ought to come some time. Perhaps they will. And looking at the fireplace, the way you did. That’s where it is, you know. Behind the fireplace.’
‘Oh,’ said Tuppence. ‘Oh. Is it?’
‘Always the same time,’ said Mrs Lancaster, in a low voice. ‘Always the same time of day.’ She looked up at the clock on the mantelpiece. Tuppence looked up also. ‘Ten past eleven,’ said the old lady. ‘Ten past eleven. Yes, it’s always the same time every morning.’
She sighed. ‘People didn’t understand—I told them what I knew—but they wouldn’t believe me!’
Tuppence was relieved that at that moment the door opened and Tommy came in. Tuppence rose to her feet.
‘Here I am. I’m ready.’ She went towards the door turning her head to say, ‘Goodbye, Mrs Lancaster.’
‘How did you get on?’ she asked Tommy, as they emerged into the hall.
‘After you left,’ said Tommy, ‘like a house on fire.’
‘I seem to have had a bad effect on her, don’t I?’ said Tuppence. ‘Rather cheering, in a way.’
‘Why cheering?’
‘Well, at my age,’ said Tuppence, ‘and what with my neat and respectable and slightly boring appearance, it’s nice to think that you might be taken for a depraved woman of fatal sexual charm.’
‘Idiot,’ said Tommy, pinching her arm affectionately. ‘Who were you hobnobbing with? She looked a very nice fluffy old lady.’
‘She was very nice,’ said Tuppence. ‘A dear old thing, I think. But unfortunately bats.’
‘Bats?’
‘Yes. Seemed to think there was a dead child behind the fireplace or something of the kind. She asked me if it was my poor child.’
‘Rather unnerving,’ said Tommy. ‘I suppose there must be some people who are slightly batty here, as well as normal elderly relatives with nothing but age to trouble them. Still, she looked nice.’
‘Oh, she was nice,’ said Tuppence. ‘Nice and very sweet, I think. I wonder what exactly her fancies are and why.’
Miss Packard appeared again suddenly.
‘Goodbye, Mrs Beresford. I hope they brought you some coffee?’
‘Oh yes, they did, thank you.’
‘Well, it’s been very kind of you to come, I’m sure,’ said Miss Packard. Turning to Tommy, she said, ‘And I know Miss Fanshawe has enjoyed your visit very much. I’m sorry she was rude to your wife.’
‘I think that gave her a lot of pleasure too,’ said Tuppence.
‘Yes, you’re quite right. She does like being rude to people. She’s unfortunately rather good at it.’
‘And so she practises the art as often as she can,’ said Tommy.
‘You’re very understanding, both of you,’ said Miss Packard.
‘The old lady I was talking to,’ said Tuppence. ‘Mrs Lancaster, I think she said her name was?’
‘Oh yes, Mrs Lancaster. We’re all very fond of her.’
‘She’s—is she a little peculiar?’
‘Well, she has fancies,’ said Miss Packard indulgently. ‘We have several people here who have fancies. Quite harmless ones. But—well, there they are. Things that they believe have happened to them. Or to other people. We try not to take any notice, not to encourage them. Just play it down. I think really it’s just an exercise in imagination, a sort of phantasy they like to live in. Something exciting or something sad and tragic. It doesn’t matter which. But no persecution mania, thank goodness. That would never do.’
‘Well, that’s over,’ said Tommy with a sigh, as he got into the car. ‘We shan’t need to come again for at least six months.’
But they didn’t need to go and see her in six months, for three weeks later Aunt Ada died in her sleep.
CHAPTER 3
A Funeral
‘Funerals are rather sad, aren’t they?’ said Tuppence.
They had just returned from attending Aunt Ada’s funeral, which had entailed a long and troublesome railway journey since the burial had taken place at the country village in Lincolnshire where most of Aunt Ada’s family and forebears had been buried.
‘What do you expect a funeral to be?’ said Tommy reasonably. ‘A scene of mad gaiety?’
‘Well, it could be in some places,’ said Tuppence. ‘I mean the Irish enjoy a wake, don’t they? They have a lot of keening and wailing first and then plenty of drink and a sort of mad whoopee. Drink?’ she added, with a look towards the sideboard.
Tommy went over to it and duly brought back what he considered appropriate. In this case a White Lady.
‘Ah, that’s more like it,’ said Tuppence.
She took off her black hat and threw it across the room and slipped off her long black coat.
‘I hate mourning,’ she said. ‘It always smells of moth balls because it’s been laid up somewhere.’
‘You don’t need to go on wearing mourning. It’s only to go to the funeral in,’ said Tommy.
‘Oh no, I know that. In a minute or two I’m going to go up and put on a scarlet jersey just to cheer things up. You can make me another White Lady.’
‘Really, Tuppence, I had no idea that funerals would bring out this party feeling.’
‘I said funerals were sad,’ said Tuppence when she reappeared a moment or two later, wearing a brilliant cherry-red dress with a ruby and diamond lizard pinned to the shoulder of it, ‘because it’s funerals like Aunt Ada’s that are sad. I mean elderly people and not many flowers. Not a lot of people sobbing and sniffing round. Someone old and lonely who won’t be missed much.’
‘I should have thought it would be much easier for you to stand that than it would if it were my funeral, for instance.’
‘That’s where you’re entirely wrong,’ said Tuppence. ‘I don’t particularly want to think of your funeral because I’d much prefer to die before you do. But I mean, if I were going to your funeral, at any rate it would be an orgy of grief. I should take a lot of handkerchiefs.’
‘With black borders?’
‘Well, I hadn’t thought of black borders but it’s a nice idea. And besides, the Burial service is rather lovely. Makes you feel uplifted. Real grief is real. It makes you feel awful but it does something to you. I mean, it works it out like perspiration.’
‘Really, Tuppence, I find your remarks about my decease and the effect it will have upon you in exceedingly bad taste. I don’t like it. Let’s forget about funerals.’
‘I agree. Let’s forget.’
‘The poor old bean’s gone,’ said Tommy, ‘and she went peacefully and without suffering. So, let’s leave it at that. I’d better clear up all these, I suppose.’
He went over to the writing table and ruffled through some papers.
‘Now where did I put Mr Rockbury’s letter?’
‘Who’s Mr Rockbury? Oh, you mean the lawyer who wrote to you.’
‘Yes. About winding up her affairs. I seem to be the only one of the family left by now.’
‘Pity she hadn’t got a fortune to leave you,’ said Tuppence.
‘If she had had a fortune she’d have left it to that Cats’ Home,’ said Tommy. ‘The legacy that she’s left to them in her will will pretty well eat up all the spare cash. There won’t be much left to come to me. Not that I need it or want it anyway.’
‘Was she so fond of cats?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose so. I never heard her mention them. I believe,’ said Tommy thoughtfully, ‘she used to get rather a lot of fun out of saying to old friends of hers when they came to see her “I’ve left you a little something in my will, dear” or “This brooch that you’re so fond of I’ve left you in my will.” She didn’t actually leave anything to anyone except the Cats’ Home.’
‘I bet she got rather a kick out of that,’ said Tuppence. ‘I can just see her saying all the things you told me to a lot of her old friends—or so-called old friends because I don’t suppose they were people she really liked at all. She just enjoyed leading them up the garden path. I must say she was an old devil, wasn’t she, Tommy? Only, in a funny sort of way one likes her for being an old devil. It’s something to be able to get some fun out of life when you’re old and stuck away in a Home. Shall we have to go to Sunny Ridge?’
‘Where’s the other letter, the one from Miss Packard? Oh yes, here it is. I put it with Rockbury’s. Yes, she says there are certain things there, I gather, which apparently are now my property. She took some furniture with her, you know, when she went to live there. And of course there are her personal effects. Clothes and things like that. I suppose somebody will have to go through them. And letters and things. I’m her executor, so I suppose it’s up to me. I don’t suppose there’s anything we want really, is there? Except there’s a small desk there that I always liked. Belonged to old Uncle William, I believe.’
‘Well, you might take that as a memento,’ said Tuppence. ‘Otherwise, I suppose, we just send the things to be auctioned.’
‘So you don’t really need to go there at all,’ said Tommy.
‘Oh, I think I’d like to go there,’ said Tuppence.
‘You’d like to? Why? Won’t it be rather a bore to you?’
‘What, looking through her things? No, I don’t think so. I think I’ve got a certain amount of curiosity. Old letters and antique jewellery are always interesting and I think one ought to look at them oneself, not just send them to auction or let strangers go through them. No, we’ll go and look through the things and see if there’s anything we would like to keep and otherwise settle up.’
‘Why do you really want to go? You’ve got some other reason, haven’t you?’
‘Oh dear,’ said Tuppence, ‘it is awful being married to someone who knows too much about one.’
‘So you have got another reason?’
‘Not a real one.’
‘Come on, Tuppence. You’re not really so fond of turning over people’s belongings.’
‘That, I think, is my duty,’ said Tuppence firmly. ‘No, the only other reason is—’
‘Come on. Cough it up.’
‘I’d rather like to see that—that other old pussy again.’
‘What, the one who thought there was a dead child behind the fireplace?’
‘Yes,’ said Tuppence. ‘I’d like to talk to her again. I’d like to know what was in her mind when she said all those things. Was it something she remembered or was it something that she’d just imagined? The more I think about it the more extraordinary it seems. Is it a sort of story that she wrote to herself in her mind or is there—was there once something real that happened about a fireplace or about a dead child. What made her think that the dead child might have been my dead child? Do I look as though I had a dead child?’
‘I don’t know how you expect anyone to look who has a dead child,’ said Tommy. ‘I shouldn’t have thought so. Anyway, Tuppence, it is our duty to go and you can enjoy yourself in your macabre way on the side. So that’s settled. We’ll write to Miss Packard and fix a day.’
CHAPTER 4
Picture of a House
Tuppence drew a deep breath.
‘It’s just the same,’ she said.
She and Tommy were standing on the front doorstep of Sunny Ridge.
‘Why shouldn’t it be?’ asked Tommy.
‘I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have—something to do with time. Time goes at a different pace in different places. Some places you come back to, and you feel that time has been bustling along at a terrific rate and that all sorts of things will have happened—and changed. But here—Tommy—do you remember Ostend?’
‘Ostend? We went there on our honeymoon. Of course I remember.’
‘And do you remember the sign written up? TRAM-STILLSTAND—It made us laugh. It seemed so ridiculous.’
‘I think it was Knock—not Ostend.’
‘Never mind—you remember it. Well, this is like that word—Tramstillstand—a portmanteau word. Timestillstand—nothing’s happened here. Time has just stood still. Everything’s going on here just the same. It’s like ghosts, only the other way round.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about. Are you going to stand here all day talking about time and not even ring the bell?—Aunt Ada isn’t here, for one thing. That’s different.’ He pressed the bell.
‘That’s the only thing that will be different. My old lady will be drinking milk and talking about fireplaces, and Mrs Somebody-or-other will have swallowed a thimble or a teaspoon and a funny little woman will come squeaking out of a room demanding her cocoa, and Miss Packard will come down the stairs, and—’
The door opened. A young woman in a nylon overall said: ‘Mr and Mrs Beresford? Miss Packard’s expecting you.’
The young woman was just about to show them into the same sitting-room as before when Miss Packard came down the stairs and greeted them. Her manner was suitably not quite as brisk as usual. It was grave, and had a kind of semi-mourning about it—not too much—that might have been embarrassing. She was an expert in the exact amount of condolence which would be acceptable.
Three score years and ten was the Biblical accepted span of life, and the deaths in her establishment seldom occurred below that figure. They were to be expected and they happened.
‘So good of you to come. I’ve got everything laid out tidily for you to look through. I’m glad you could come so soon because as a matter of fact I have already three or four people waiting for a vacancy to come here. You will understand, I’m sure, and not think that I was trying to hurry you in any way.’
‘Oh no, of course, we quite understand,’ said Tommy.
‘It’s all still in the room Miss Fanshawe occupied,’ Miss Packard explained.
Miss Packard opened the door of the room in which they had last seen Aunt Ada. It had that deserted look a room has when the bed is covered with a dust sheet, with the shapes showing beneath it of folded-up blankets and neatly arranged pillows.
The wardrobe doors stood open and the clothes it had held had been laid on the top of the bed neatly folded.
‘What do you usually do—I mean, what do people do mostly with clothes and things like that?’ said Tuppence.
Miss Packard, as invariably, was competent and helpful.
‘I can give you the name of two or three societies who are only too pleased to have things of that kind. She had quite a good fur stole and a good quality coat but I don’t suppose you would have any personal use for them? But perhaps you have charities of your own where you would like to dispose of things.’
Tuppence shook her head.
‘She had some jewellery,’ said Miss Packard. ‘I removed that for safe keeping. You will find it in the right-hand drawer of the dressing-table. I put it there just before you were due to arrive.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said Tommy, ‘for the trouble you have taken.’
Tuppence was staring at a picture over the mantelpiece. It was a small oil painting representing a pale pink house standing adjacent to a canal spanned by a small hump-backed bridge. There was an empty boat drawn up under the bridge against the bank of the canal. In the distance were two poplar trees. It was a very pleasant little scene but nevertheless Tommy wondered why Tuppence was staring at it with such earnestness.
‘How funny,’ murmured Tuppence.
Tommy looked at her inquiringly. The things that Tuppence thought funny were, he knew by long experience, not really to be described by such an adjective at all.
‘What do you mean, Tuppence?’
‘It is funny. I never noticed that picture when I was here before. But the odd thing is that I have seen that house somewhere. Or perhaps it’s a house just like that that I have seen. I remember it quite well… Funny that I can’t remember when and where.’
‘I expect you noticed it without really noticing you were noticing,’ said Tommy, feeling his choice of words was rather clumsy and nearly as painfully repetitive as Tuppence’s reiteration of the word ‘funny’.
‘Did you notice it, Tommy, when we were here last time?’
‘No, but then I didn’t look particularly.’
‘Oh, that picture,’ said Miss Packard. ‘No, I don’t think you would have seen it when you were here the last time because I’m almost sure it wasn’t hanging over the mantelpiece then. Actually it was a picture belonging to one of our other guests, and she gave it to your aunt. Miss Fanshawe expressed admiration of it once or twice and this other old lady made her a present of it and insisted she should have it.’
‘Oh I see,’ said Tuppence, ‘so of course I couldn’t have seen it here before. But I still feel I know the house quite well. Don’t you, Tommy?’
‘No,’ said Tommy.
‘Well, I’ll leave you now,’ said Miss Packard briskly. ‘I shall be available at any time that you want me.’
She nodded with a smile, and left the room, closing the door behind her.
‘I don’t think I really like that woman’s teeth,’ said Tuppence.
‘What’s wrong with them?’
‘Too many of them. Or too big—“The better to eat you with, my child”—Like Red Riding Hood’s grandmother.’
‘You seem in a very odd sort of mood today, Tuppence.’
‘I am rather. I’ve always thought of Miss Packard as very nice—but today, somehow, she seems to me rather sinister. Have you ever felt that?’
‘No, I haven’t. Come on, let’s get on with what we came here to do—look over poor old Aunt Ada’s “effects”, as the lawyers call them. That’s the desk I told you about—Uncle William’s desk. Do you like it?’
‘It’s lovely. Regency, I should think. It’s nice for the old people who come here to be able to bring some of their own things with them. I don’t care for the horsehair chairs, but I’d like that little work-table. It’s just what we need for that corner by the window where we’ve got that perfectly hideous whatnot.’
‘All right,’ said Tommy. ‘I’ll make a note of those two.’
‘And we’ll have the picture over the mantelpiece. It’s an awfully attractive picture and I’m quite sure that I’ve seen that house somewhere. Now, let’s look at the jewellery.’
They opened the dressing-table drawer. There was a set of cameos and a Florentine bracelet and ear-rings and a ring with different-coloured stones in it.
‘I’ve seen one of these before,’ said Tuppence. ‘They spell a name usually. Dearest sometimes. Diamond, emerald, amethyst, no, it’s not dearest. I don’t think it would be really. I can’t imagine anyone giving your Aunt Ada a ring that spelt dearest. Ruby, emerald—the difficulty is one never knows where to begin. I’ll try again. Ruby, emerald, another ruby, no, I think it’s a garnet and an amethyst and another pinky stone, it must be a ruby this time and a small diamond in the middle. Oh, of course, it’s regard. Rather nice really. So old-fashioned and sentimental.’
She slipped it on to her finger.
‘I think Deborah might like to have this,’ she said, ‘and the Florentine set. She’s frightfully keen on Victorian things. A lot of people are nowadays. Now, I suppose we’d better do the clothes. That’s always rather macabre, I think. Oh, this is the fur stole. Quite valuable, I should think. I wouldn’t want it myself. I wonder if there’s anyone here—anyone who was especially nice to Aunt Ada—or perhaps some special friend among the other inmates—visitors, I mean. They call them visitors or guests, I notice. It would be nice to offer her the stole if so. It’s real sable. We’ll ask Miss Packard. The rest of the things can go to the charities. So that’s all settled, isn’t it? We’ll go and find Miss Packard now. Goodbye, Aunt Ada,’ she remarked aloud, her eyes turning to the bed. ‘I’m glad we came to see you that last time. I’m sorry you didn’t like me, but if it was fun to you not to like me and say those rude things, I don’t begrudge it to you. You had to have some fun. And we won’t forget you. We’ll think of you when we look at Uncle William’s desk.’
They went in search of Miss Packard. Tommy explained that they would arrange for the desk and the small work-table to be called for and despatched to their own address and that he would arrange with the local auctioneers to dispose of the rest of the furniture. He would leave the choice of any societies willing to receive clothing to Miss Packard if she wouldn’t mind the trouble.
‘I don’t know if there’s anyone here who would like her sable stole,’ said Tuppence. ‘It’s a very nice one. One of her special friends, perhaps? Or perhaps one of the nurses who had done some special waiting on Aunt Ada?’
‘That is a very kind thought of yours, Mrs Beresford. I’m afraid Miss Fanshawe hadn’t any special friends among our visitors, but Miss O’Keefe, one of the nurses, did do a lot for her and was especially good and tactful, and I think she’d be pleased and honoured to have it.’
‘And there’s the picture over the mantelpiece,’ said Tuppence. ‘I’d like to have that—but perhaps the person whom it belonged to, and who gave it to her, would want to have it back. I think we ought to ask her—?’
Miss Packard interrupted. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs Beresford, I’m afraid we can’t do that. It was a Mrs Lancaster who gave it to Miss Fanshawe and she isn’t with us any longer.’
‘Isn’t with you?’ said Tuppence, surprised. ‘A Mrs Lancaster? The one I saw last time I was here—with white hair brushed back from her face. She was drinking milk in the sitting-room downstairs. She’s gone away, you say?’
‘Yes. It was all rather sudden. One of her relations, a Mrs Johnson, took her away about a week ago. Mrs Johnson had returned from Africa where she’s been living for the last four or five years—quite unexpectedly. She is now able to take care of Mrs Lancaster in her own home, since she and her husband are taking a house in England. I don’t think,’ said Miss Packard, ‘that Mrs Lancaster really wanted to leave us. She had become so—set in her ways here, and she got on very well with everyone and was happy. She was very disturbed, quite tearful about it—but what can one do? She hadn’t really very much say in the matter, because of course the Johnsons were paying for her stay here. I did suggest that as she had been here so long and settled down so well, it might be advisable to let her remain—’
‘How long had Mrs Lancaster been with you? asked Tuppence.
‘Oh, nearly six years, I think. Yes, that’s about it. That’s why, of course, she’d really come to feel that this was her home.’
‘Yes,’ said Tuppence. ‘Yes, I can understand that.’ She frowned and gave a nervous glance at Tommy and then stuck a resolute chin into the air.
‘I’m sorry she’s left. I had a feeling when I was talking to her that I’d met her before—her face seemed familiar to me. And then afterwards it came back to me that I’d met her with an old friend of mine, a Mrs Blenkinsop. I thought when I came back here again to visit Aunt Ada, that I’d find out from her if that was so. But of course if she’s gone back to her own people, that’s different.’
‘I quite understand, Mrs Beresford. If any of our visitors can get in touch with some of their old friends or someone who knew their relations at one time, it makes a great difference to them. I can’t remember a Mrs Blenkinsop ever having been mentioned by her, but then I don’t suppose that would be likely to happen in any case.’
‘Can you tell me a little more about her, who her relations were, and how she came to come here?’
‘There’s really very little to tell. As I said, it was about six years ago that we had letters from Mrs Johnson inquiring about the Home, and then Mrs Johnson herself came here and inspected it. She said she’d had mentions of Sunny Ridge from a friend and she inquired the terms and all that and—then she went away. And about a week or a fortnight later we had a letter from a firm of solicitors in London making further inquiries, and finally they wrote saying that they would like us to accept Mrs Lancaster and that Mrs Johnson would bring her here in about a week’s time if we had a vacancy. As it happened, we had, and Mrs Johnson brought Mrs Lancaster here and Mrs Lancaster seemed to like the place and liked the room that we proposed to allot her. Mrs Johnson said that Mrs Lancaster would like to bring some of her own things. I quite agreed, because people usually do that and find they’re much happier. So it was all arranged very satisfactorily. Mrs Johnson explained that Mrs Lancaster was a relation of her husband’s, not a very near one, but that they felt worried about her because they themselves were going out to Africa—to Nigeria I think it was, her husband was taking up an appointment there and it was likely they’d be there for some years before they returned to England, so as they had no home to offer Mrs Lancaster, they wanted to make sure that she was accepted in a place where she would be really happy. They were quite sure from what they’d heard about this place that that was so. So it was all arranged very happily indeed and Mrs Lancaster settled down here very well.’
