Chapter 24
CERENSTHORPE ABBEY – PRESENT DAY
Tabitha knocked on the bedroom door. She was in Edith’s elegant suite of rooms, a place of beauty and peace, a remnant of a different era.
A large sitting room faced the gardens, with a vast bedroom and en suite bathroom leading off it.
The rooms had once belonged to Edith’s mother, Muriel, and when Edith had taken them over, she had never felt the need to alter the elegant Art Nouveau furniture and soft furnishings.
She had updated the plumbing in the bathroom and had the free-standing bath refurbished.
The other rooms were decorated regularly and the soft furnishings replaced when necessary, but the atmosphere of pre-World War One glamour remained.
She had entered through the living room, placing her laden tray on a side table before knocking gently on the bedroom door. It was ajar and Tabitha could see Edith tapping on her iPad.
‘Come in, dear,’ Edith called from the bed and Tabitha was relieved to hear Edith’s voice was stronger than it had sounded for days.
‘I’ve brought your lunch,’ said Tabitha, looking around for a place to leave it.
Edith cleared the newspaper, book and notebook from beside her and patted the vast double bed. Tabitha put it beside Edith, removing the Thermos flask, teacup and side plates which held scones, cream, jam and butter, placing them on the bedside table.
‘Thank you. Delivering trays of food definitely isn’t in your contract.’
‘I’ll invoice you for the extra services,’ said Tabitha with a grin and Edith laughed.
‘Quite right too,’ she said. ‘What’s Nicola sent up to tempt me today?’
‘Homemade soup, Molly’s soda bread and scones,’ said Tabitha. ‘There’s tea in the flask because Nicola knows you hate cold tea.’
Edith pulled her bed jacket around her shoulders, an item of clothing Tabitha had not known existed outside the pages of a novel, but Edith assured her they were a necessity.
‘It fits snugly over my nightdress and keeps me warm without making me too hot,’ she had explained. ‘I shall buy you one and you’ll understand.’
To Tabitha’s relief, Edith had not yet acted on this promise.
‘What a silly old woman I am, causing so much fuss,’ Edith said as Tabitha helped her to rearrange her pillows. ‘Would you open the curtains, please, dear? It feels like death’s waiting room in here.’
Wincing at the comment, Tabitha eased back the heavy floor-to-ceiling drapes and the bright autumn sunshine flooded the beautiful room.
‘You can’t help picking up a stomach bug,’ said Tabitha.
‘True,’ she said, ‘but I don’t understand why no one else has been suffering.’
‘Perhaps you caught it while you were out with Letty,’ suggested Tabitha.
‘It’s possible,’ said Edith.
She lifted the silver dome from over the soup and breathed in.
‘Spicy parsnip,’ she said, ‘my favourite.’
‘I’ll leave you in peace,’ said Tabitha.
‘No, please stay,’ said Edith, pointing to the armchair near the bed. ‘I’m so bored. Gulliver keeps whispering to me as though I’m about to die, Molly is terrified of catching the bug, flings the tray at me then runs…’
‘And Lucia?’ asked Tabitha.
Edith rolled her eyes. ‘She speaks to me as though I’m senile.’
Tabitha raised her eyebrows and Edith gave her a knowing nod.
‘Has she popped in a lot?’ asked Tabitha in surprise.
‘Three times and each time, I was sicker than ever after she left. It’s a relief she’s away for a few days, I feel better already.’
‘Perhaps you’re allergic to her perfume,’ suggested Tabitha and grinned.
‘Allergic to her,’ said Edith, her eyes sparkling, then her face took on a thoughtful expression. ‘When Gull first brought her home, I could understand why he was attracted to her. No one – male or female – with eyes in their head could deny her beauty but, underneath, there’s a true coldness.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s lacking in both humour and kindness. I expected Gull to tire of her because he’s such an inclusive, warm-hearted and caring person, but he was smitten. Within weeks he’d announced their engagement.’
‘Gull told me she’d left him for another man,’ said Tabitha. She did not like to gossip about Gulliver, but she was curious as to why Lucia had unexpectedly returned.
‘Yes, he said the same to me, but it appears she’s unsure whether it was the correct decision and she wants to discuss it with Gull, perhaps try again before she makes her final decision,’ said Edith darkly.
‘What? How awful for Gull,’ exclaimed Tabitha, then bit her lip. ‘Sorry, it’s not my place to comment.’
‘Of course it’s your place,’ said Edith. ‘You live here, too, and Gull turned to you for help when he returned. You’ve as much right as Molly and me to know the facts.’
‘How is he?’ asked Tabitha.
‘Angry and, I’m delighted to say, he hasn’t agreed to an immediate reunion,’ said Edith.
‘Usually, when Lucia is involved, Gull’s heart rules his head, but this time, he’s insisted she stay in the Widow’s suite in the west wing, while he returns from Molly’s cottage to his suite in the main house. Apparently, she was furious.’
‘Which is the Widow’s suite?’ asked Tabitha. The family often used alternate names for the rooms.
‘The Blue rooms near the old nursery and classrooms with the sparrowhawk finial,’ said Edith.
‘It’s called the Widow’s suite because of an old family scandal.
In 1856, Charles Swanne’s cousin, Edmund Harrowby, was found dead in the ruins in the grounds, a silver goblet clutched in his hand.
The inquest gave no cause, but local gossip suggested poison.
Not long afterwards, the governess, Beatrice Green, fled in disgrace but she left behind a note for Charles, who was my four-times great-grandfather, hinting at a secret marriage between her and Edmund and a demand for money.
The family erased Edmund’s emblem from the headstone and refused to pay Beatrice.
Ever since, the family has called them the Widow’s suite – an ironic reminder of scandal best left buried.
Interestingly, they’re the furthest from Gull’s rooms.’
Tabitha felt a small spurt of relief that Gulliver was not allowing Lucia an easy way back.
She knew from her own marriage to Blake, there were often tough times to be negotiated.
If Gulliver and Lucia were able to navigate this storm, then their marriage would be worth saving.
As it always did when her husband’s name slipped into her mind unexpectedly, Tabitha’s heart felt an ice-cold squeeze of loss, but this time, she noticed there was anger too.
After Blake’s death, her grief counsellor had assured Tabitha that anger was a natural reaction to her circumstances, loss of trust, of faith in the natural order of things, but this was the first time she had felt it and she wondered what it meant.
Was she reaching a new stage in her recovery?
A place where she might at last be able to accept the events surrounding her husband’s death?
‘Would you pour me a cup of tea please, dear,’ said Edith, interrupting Tabitha’s thoughts. ‘There are more cups in the sitting room, you should have one too.’
‘Of course,’ she said and as she hurried away to fetch a cup and saucer, she remembered the strange feeling that there had been a presence, out of sight, when they had been searching for the third clue near the Widow’s suite.
‘Are you quite well?’ asked Edith as Tabitha placed the cup beside her, clearing away the empty soup bowl and placing the scone in front of her.
‘Yes, sorry, I drifted for a moment, thinking about Blake,’ she admitted.
‘To be widowed at any age is tragic, but for one as young as you, it’s heartbreaking.’
Tears rose in Tabitha’s eyes and she blinked them away.
‘Have you been able to read any of the transcripts I printed out of Wilbur’s diary?’ she said, squeezing Edith’s hand as an apology for her abrupt change of subject.
‘Yes, my dear,’ said Edith, acknowledging the touch with a grip of her own. ‘It’s not what I expected.’
‘From the first entry, I thought the diary was going to be about the house, the farms, the collection, but it’s a confession,’ said Tabitha. ‘He had an affair with a younger woman and they had a child.’
‘It’s shocking,’ said Edith, although Tabitha thought she looked delighted rather than upset. ‘Until now, all my relatives have proved terribly dull, it’s wonderful that Grandpapa was something of a rogue. Have you discovered yet whether Helena had the child?’
‘Not yet,’ admitted Tabitha. ‘Since Lucia’s arrival, she’s spent most of her time badgering me to allow her to go through the catalogue I’ve been creating. I asked if she was searching for anything specific and she told me to mind my own business.’
‘How dare she?’ spluttered Edith. ‘She has no right to speak to you in such a manner. Before she went off on her mysterious trip a few days ago, she stomped in here and demanded I tell you to send her all the details of the collection. She said you’d refused.’
‘I did,’ said Tabitha. ‘The terms of the house insurance are very clear. Only named people are allowed access to the collection. Lucia isn’t named on the document. When she became terse, I suggested she speak to you.’
Tabitha bit her lip, resisting the desire to spill the truth to Edith about the angry confrontation between herself and Lucia.
When Lucia had demanded access to Tabitha’s files, she had explained it would be impossible, but Lucia had accused her of being deliberately obstructive.
It was Gulliver’s intervention that had brought Lucia’s histrionics to an end.
He had also explained that Tabitha was correct and Lucia had screamed at him, accusing them of having an affair before running from the room in tears.
After a hasty apology to Tabitha, Gulliver had followed his wife.
‘You shouldn’t have to deal with her,’ said Edith.
She spread butter, jam and cream onto a scone and handed it to Tabitha with a linen napkin before repeating the process for herself.
‘No wonder you haven’t had a chance to transcribe any more of the diary.
What about the clue you found in the Yarrell book? Could you read it to me, please?’
‘Gulliver said he was going to discuss it with you,’ said Tabitha.
‘He did, but it was the night this bug took hold, so I don’t remember much.’
Tabitha pulled her phone from her pocket and scrolled through to the picture she had taken of the next clue.
‘This is clue four,’ she said and read aloud:
‘“The seven birds cry for your soul,
Their painted skin a call of death.
Framed in gold, a hollow crown,
Leaves time to hide inside.”’
Edith finished her scone, wiping her mouth on the linen napkin.
‘It must refer to the curlew painting in the chapel corridor,’ said Edith. ‘There are seven birds wading across an eerie, foggy landscape. It’s a huge piece. It was placed there because it’s supposed to be valuable and there’s no direct sunlight to cause it to fade.’
‘Gulliver suggested the same, but he was unsure what the line about the “hollow crown” meant,’ she said.
‘There is a folk tale about curlews,’ said Edith. ‘It was one Father told me and Phyllis when we were young. He said it had been passed down the generations. Mother was furious because the story gave Phyllis nightmares.’
‘Why?’ said Tabitha in surprise.
‘It was about a blood curse coming down through the centuries from our link to the Boleyns,’ said Edith.
‘Where do the curlews come in?’ asked Tabitha.
‘There was a poem written in the one of the account books we have from the period when Maud was in residence, about the Boleyn curse.’
A shiver ran down Tabitha’s spine.
‘I’ve never heard of the Boleyn curse,’ she said.
‘Few people have,’ said Edith. ‘I have the poem here.’
To Tabitha’s astonishment, Edith leaned over and took a battered leather journal from the bottom drawer of her bedside cabinet. She flipped through a few pages, then pushed it towards her.
‘This is from the account book. I copied it out when I was a young woman and we were advised to place the more valuable records in a proper storage facility. You read it,’ she said.
‘There are similarities to the clue you read to me earlier and I suspect this is why Grandpapa used certain words. The final clue must either be in the painting or attached to the frame.’
Tabitha stared down at the page of neat handwriting and clearing her throat, she did as Edith requested, reading the poem entitled The Boleyn Curse aloud.
‘“Whoso beareth the blood, beware…
When seven wailers cross the sky,
And curlew’s scream dost bid thee cry,
Then know, thy fate is seal’d by breath –
For blood calls blood, and death calls death.
In fen and fog the drowned do tread,
The weepers of the witless dead.
Their eyes are black, their song is flame,
They whisper low the traitor’s name.
And should the pee-wit call at eve,
When light and shadow interweave,
The gallows rise, the blade is bared –
Thy neck shall feel what once was spared.
For none outrun what lies within,
The mark of guilt, the serpent’s kin.
Though time may pass and masks be worn,
The devil knows where fate is sworn.
So let the raven flap its wing,
And let the tolling church bells ring.
Thy secrets writ in bone and lie
Shall burn beneath the watching sky”.’
As Tabitha finished reading, a shadow fell across the page and she screamed in terror.