Chapter Eight #3
Arabella regards him impassively. ‘You are aware that one can’t win at Old Maid? The best one can hope for is simply not to lose.’
He isn’t listening. ‘Can’t a man have anything? Fuck! Those damn mice have gobbled it up.’
‘It’s only a game, Mr Reacher.’ As soon as the words leave my mouth, I know I’ve gone too far.
Reacher’s nostrils flare. ‘Is it, Miss Morgan? Thank you, I hadn’t realized.’
‘There’s no need to be like that, Morry,’ says Arabella.
‘No, no: Miss Morgan has imparted her wisdom. Who cares if our home is riddled with vermin? Not Miss Morgan! But that is fine – she will be back in her cottage soon, won’t she? Where she belongs.’
Gritting my teeth against the flurry of retorts that come to mind, I push myself up from the floor. Shake the remaining numbness from my leg. ‘I’ll go and ask Tom about that poison, then.’ I look at Arabella, wondering if she’ll say anything more. She doesn’t.
As I leave the drawing room, I hear Reacher say behind my back, ‘I won’t have you ganging up on me like that.’
Pausing in the corridor, I hold my breath to hear how Arabella will respond. ‘I’m sorry, Maurice.’ She speaks in a wheedling, babyish voice. ‘It was only a bit of fun.’
‘I don’t care for how chummy the pair of you have become.’
Arabella scoffs. ‘Green doesn’t suit you.’
‘I’m not jealous! I am looking out for you. Yes, of course, be friendly, share a laugh, there is no harm in that. But she is just a gardener, for Christ’s sake. Don’t mistake her for more.’
A long pause. ‘I know that.’
It’s not Reacher’s words that sting the most, but Arabella’s casual acceptance, her tone light, almost dismissive.
As if all these signs I’ve noticed have only been in my head.
I take a number of deep breaths. Try to squash down the stab of injustice, the humiliation.
Hands trembling. The stinging reminder that I can join Arabella and Reacher in their games, but I’m not one of them.
Just like with the Reeses. That same anger again, sharpening my breathing, pounding at my temples.
I go out to the shed for the rat poison and set out dishes of it in likely places: the back of the larder, behind the stove, in a corner of the dining room. Little piles of greyish dust. This isn’t even my job. My eyes sting with frustrated tears.
When I finally go to bed, I have fitful dreams of poisonings. Arabella and Reacher in spasms, hacking up red bile. The acid scent of it. And underneath that, the garlic whiff of arsenic. Still clinging in my throat when I wake.
The rose garden is one of my favourite parts of the grounds.
Nestled between red-brick walls, it has a secret quality to it, as though it exists in its own world away from everything else.
The labyrinth of paths have been designed in a geometric spiral, leading through a complicated series of arches to a central stone bench.
Even in the dead of winter, there’s a grace to it all.
The spikes of dormant rose bushes reaching out like fingers.
Since the ground isn’t too hard today, I’m taking the opportunity to dig in a few bare root plants for next year. Bruce clearly had a preference for vibrant reds, but I want to bring in more pale pinks and whites. Madame Hardy, Cécile Brünner, Maiden’s Blush.
Once those are done, I get out a ladder to refill the bird feeders. There’s a rotund robin already watching with interest. I’m hoping these feathery friends will keep the bugs off my plants while they’re at it.
The ladder’s leant up against the back wall of the rose garden – part of the boundary of the grounds.
On the other side, a public footpath, then farmland.
Shortly, I hear voices, and stick my head over the top to see two figures coming into view.
It’s the woman I met on Guy Fawkes Day. Peggy.
And the little girl Ellen. They’re hand in hand, Ellen skipping as she goes.
I do my best wolf-whistle down at them. Peggy halts, looking all round in confusion, but Ellen spots me right away and waves with a big, gap-toothed grin. ‘Look up there, Peg!’
Peg. So they must be sisters after all. I file that one away for later.
‘On a walk, are you?’ I ask.
‘Just getting some air,’ says Peggy. She’s had her hair bobbed since last time I saw her – only an inch or so peeks out from her woolly hat.
‘You’ve been chopped,’ I say.
‘What? Oh, yes.’ She touches her head, self-conscious. ‘I liked yours, but I’m not brave enough to go as short as that.’
‘She said she didn’t want to look like a boy,’ says Ellen.
‘I did not!’ Peggy’s blushing now.
‘Tell you what,’ I say, overcome with sudden charity, ‘why don’t you two come in for a bit? I can show you round the garden. Cup of tea. See the chickens.’
‘We’ve got chickens at home,’ says Ellen.
Peggy shushes her. ‘That’d be nice,’ she says. ‘If you’re sure her Ladyship won’t mind?’
‘What? Her? No, she won’t give a fig.’
Arabella possibly will give a fig, and the rest of the fruit bowl besides. But I’m in a rebellious mood since the card game a few days ago. If Arabella doesn’t see me as her chum, I think, then I can bloody well make some of my own.
I let them in through the back gate into the kitchen plot, and we take a loop round. Through the roses, where I explain my vision for the new plants, then the water garden, then up to the games lawn and the lake.
‘I still remember when that Lord Lascy drowned in there,’ says Peggy.
‘Me too,’ says Ellen.
‘You weren’t alive yet.’
Ellen pouts. ‘But I remember!’
‘You must be thinking of one of the boys. Anyway, we all had to go up the church for his funeral. Most of the village couldn’t stand him after what he did with selling off the land, but then we all had to pretend like we were sad about him dying – so there you are.’
Ellen’s afraid of the dark, open mouth of the ice house, so we hurry past that into the orchard, where I lift her up so she can clamber on to a low apple branch.
She’s far heavier than she looks. After monkeying around in the trees, I take them down to the greenhouse to look at the overwintering plants, the tiny pots of new-sown beans and lettuce, the cyclamen seeds left to soak in water.
I explain how to check for rot and fungus, and Ellen dutifully inspects each container for me.
Then we talk a bit about the differences between Wiltshire and Cardiff.
Peggy’s never met anyone from Wales before, and is it true that there’s a place there with eighteen syllables in its name?
In the statue garden, we all pick out our favourite.
Mine is a gargoyle with a lion-like face and a remarkably plump arse – he’s called Albert, or so Tom told me before.
Ellen picks a little boy playing the fiddle.
After a moment of deliberation, Peggy’s choice is a nude woman with a pensive, far-off expression.
‘She’s lifelike, isn’t she?’ says Peggy. ‘Like you could touch her and she’d be warm.’
‘Now, that’d be something,’ I say.
Peggy grins, showing her dimples again.
I’m enjoying myself – it’s a welcome change to speak to people from beyond the manor’s walls.
Reminds me of the uncomplicated sort of friendship I shared with Lou and Gladys: cheap tickets at the cinema, gin cocktails, tennis, laughing ourselves silly over Lou’s terrible new haircut.
Back before everything in Cardiff went to hell.
We head into the trees to find the woodland pond. Unlike the lake, this is in permanent shade, so a thin layer of ice on the surface hasn’t managed to thaw yet. I find a selection of stones for Ellen to throw in. The satisfying crackle as it breaks into shards.
Next, I take them up the drive, pointing out my cottage as we pass. I recount the night of the flood, spurred on by Ellen’s wide-eyed concern to inflate my own heroics. I may imply that I saved Tom from falling in.
‘You mean to say you’re living up at the main house now?’ asks Peggy.
I shrug, as if it’s nothing for a gardener to share close quarters with the lady of the manor.
‘Isn’t that a bit …? I don’t know. I wouldn’t like it, I don’t think.’
‘I know what you said before, but she really is all right, Lady Lascy,’ I say, then remember I’m cross with her at the moment. ‘Most of the time.’
Peggy shakes her head. ‘You’ll never convince me to trust any of that rich lot. They always show their colours in the end.’
I think, again, of Penarth. Dad thrown out for nothing more than a squint. Completing the loop, Peggy and Ellen admire my topiaries, then follow me back to the rear of the house. We bypass the hens, since Ellen has made her feelings on those clear.
‘Sit out here, and I’ll bring you a cup of tea now in a minute,’ I say, depositing them in the kitchen garden.
I nip inside and put the kettle on. Fuss over Mutton while I wait for it to boil – he’s been taking a nap by the looks of things – then make up three cups of tea.
Lots of milk and sugar for Ellen, as a guess.
Then I put an extra sugar in for Peggy, too. She seems the sort.
Mutton joins me as I head back out, much to Ellen’s delight, and we take it in turns to throw a stick for him as we sip our drinks.
It’s a bit of a squeeze to fit all three of us on the single bench by the back door.
Ellen’s in the middle, and she keeps accidentally kicking me as she swings her stubby legs.
‘Thanks for inviting us,’ says Peggy, twisting round to look at me over the top of her sister’s head. ‘I hope we haven’t kept you from your work too long. Though I’m sure Lady Lascy’s such a saint she wouldn’t care.’ She gives a cheeky wink.
‘Not at all: you were dead helpful. Ellen, I’ve never seen a more thorough greenhouse inspection. Maybe you’ll be a gardener when you grow up.’
Ellen shakes her head. ‘I’m going to be a telegraphist.’
‘Are you, now?’ I say, trying not to sound too disbelieving.
‘I’ve been learning Morse code.’ She starts tapping her mug with a fingernail, lips pursed in concentration. ‘There, that one was my name.’
‘That’s incredible,’ I tell her.
Peggy sticks her tongue out at me behind Ellen’s back. ‘You should come down to the village more often,’ she says. ‘Pop by for a cuppa any time. We owe you one, now. It’s two doors down from the pub, with the green windows – you can’t miss it.’
‘All right then, I will.’ After they’ve said their goodbyes to Mutton, I let Peggy and Ellen back out on to the footpath to finish up their walk.
I’m just returning from waving them off when I hear a rattle-rattle from above.
A window on the upper storey is opening.
Arabella sticks her head out. ‘Vee. Get up here. Now.’ It’s one of the rooms on the closed wing.
I can only assume she’s been following my progress round the house, as there’s no other reason for her to be in there, and with the shutters open.
Sighing, I scrape off my boots and slink inside, through the Allens’ kitchen and into the main hall. Arabella is waiting for me at the top of the staircase. She does not look best pleased. Her lips have gone all pale and she’s frowning up a thunderstorm.
‘How can I help you, your Ladyship?’ I ask, bobbing a curtsey from the bottom step.
Her frown deepens. ‘Come up here. Why are you speaking like that?’
‘I’m your employee, aren’t I?’ I ask as I climb. ‘Vee for valet.’ Peggy’s talk has only brought back memories and fanned my anger.
‘You’re not upset about the other night.’
Coming face to face with her on the landing, I cross my arms. ‘As a matter of fact, I am.’
‘Fine.’ She squares up to me, standing to her full height. I’m still the taller one, though. ‘Speaking as your employer, then, I don’t pay you to spend your afternoon flirting with girls from the village.’
‘I don’t know anything about that. I was just being friendly.’
‘And I was born yesterday.’ But it’s clear that I’ve wormed under her skin with this: her breaths come quickly, a vein twitching at her temple. ‘I really can’t imagine what you see in that Peggy Wight. I always found her exceptionally rude.’
She’s jealous, I think with a thrill. I knew I hadn’t imagined it all. ‘Look here,’ I tell her, ‘everything that needed doing has been done. I have a right to entertain guests from time to time.’
‘Not on my property, you haven’t.’
‘Well, I don’t have my own property, do I? Or even my own living quarters. Because you haven’t lifted a finger so far to fix up that cottage.’ Almost a month, and there hasn’t been a whisper of moving me out of Charlie’s room.
Arabella looks away first. ‘We don’t have the finances at present.’
I hadn’t been attracted to Arabella, not at first – she was too odd, too distant, too eccentric.
Yet, ill-advised as it was to let my guard down, I allowed her strange courtship to win me over.
The awkward flattery I found charming. The intimacies we’ve shared.
But I’m tired of this ambiguity, I realize now.
I won’t be thrown scraps. Either she can admit what I am to her, or we can draw a line under it all here and now.
I lift my chin in a challenge. ‘That’s the reason, is it? ’
Her shoulders twitch. ‘I don’t know what you are suggesting.’
So she wants to pretend she was never chasing me to begin with – a cat toying with its prey. Still, I’m certain now that I haven’t been misinterpreting her.
‘Listen, Arabella,’ I sigh, taking a step back, ‘you say whatever you like. All I ask is that you make your choice, and stick to it. I’ve had enough of the game.’
She continues to feign that she doesn’t understand my meaning, but I can see from the way she’s fidgeting about that she does. ‘You have to understand,’ she says at last, ‘it is not so simple for me. I cannot live as other people do. This curse …’
I have to shake my head at that. ‘Haven’t you had enough of that excuse?’
Don’t wait for her answer, just head down the stairs and back out of the door. It’s up to her whether she’ll go away and reflect further. Either way, I’ve said my piece, and though Arabella may not be happy to hear it, I certainly feel much better to have it off my chest.