‘But you’ll have heard all about it,’ I said, rightly surmising that none of what had preceded required a response. ‘Does your Sandy have any idea what caused it? He must know the place well.’
She shook her head.
‘He’s near gone daft with thinking about it, madam. Here, just mind out and not put too much down at once! That bucket’s to do the whole row and you’d not want to be scratching it back up again if you’re short at the end. It gets terrible under your nails.’
I was warming to Mrs Marshall as much and as quickly as I had cooled to her daughter-in-law.
‘He cannot think how it happened,’ she went on. ‘Mind you, once it was going he’s not surprised it went like it did. They kept the place that hot! Sandy was fair sweating when he was working there, if you’ll pardon me. And he tellt them and tellt them they could not have it so warm with new paper or it would be hanging off again. But soft-born, soft-bide, eh?’ She gazed innocently at me, crouched in the earth, scrabbling in the bucket of eggshells, and I smiled in spite of myself.
‘Mind you, it’s all just habit, this lighting fires in God’s good spring, for I know they found it close. I walked past this one day and every door and window in the place was wide open. New curtains all blowing out and getting clarty, so I think madam was just digging in her heels and refusing to do what she was told solely because she was told it. A stubborn old woman is a terrible thing, is that not right?’ She chuckled and smoothed her apron.
When I had worked my way up the row to the top of the vegetable patch and almost to the cottage door, Mrs Marshall stumped inside and came back with a glass of water for me and one for herself, and we sat companion-ably on the bench against the house wall looking down the row of cabbages with, I daresay, equal pride. Mrs Marshall sighed heavily.
‘Poor soul,’ she said. ‘Her mother will be lost without her, and maybe that sister of hers will be sorry now she wasn’t more like what a sister should be. I cannot stop thinking about it. Daft like, for I didn’t know the lassie. I’m not even sure now which one of they girls it was that died. The younger one, they said. But there wasn’t a spit between them. So was it the bonny, cheery one or the other one with the – I shouldna say this, but – with the face that would turn the milk?’
‘I’m afraid,’ I said, having no trouble applying these descriptions to Clemence and Cara, ‘that it was the pretty little thing who died, and her elegant sister who is still with us.’
‘Aye well,’ said Mrs Marshall, ‘God gathers his own.’ She seemed to recollect herself and shrug off some unwelcome thought. ‘It’s not like I ever heard any harm of Teenie-bash.’ I took this to be a reference to Clemence. ‘It just beats me how two lassies fae the same mould can be so different in theirselves. Mind you, two girls together can just as easy be at daggers drawn every day of their lives as they can be chums.’ She gave a shout of laughter. ‘I had nine, madam, and there’s ways that’s easier – although the work would kill a mule – for they all jist have to shake down and get on with it.’ I nodded solemnly and I did agree with her, as a matter of fact. I had often thought that had my boys been girls I should have been quite happy to add to their number until they were well diluted by siblings. Of course, had my boys been girls, I should have been obliged to keep on in pursuit of an heir for Hugh, even as far as matching Mrs Marshall’s nine, and I quite saw that if it might kill a mule it should certainly have done for me.
‘I was sure there was three,’ Mrs Marshall was saying when I turned my attention back to her. ‘But Aggie said definitely jist the two lassies. And that’s right enough, is it, madam? So I turned to Aggie and I said, “Well, who was the wee bit thing I saw riding a bicycle up fae the wooden hooses on the Tuesday night?” As if the devil was after her, mind. “I’m sure I don’t know,” says Aggie. “Your eyes are not what they were.” Cheeky besom. “Och well,” says I, “it was probably one of the other maids.” That shut her up. The other maids. She didn’t like that, I can tell you.’ Mrs Marshall wheezed with laughter again, and did not seem to notice me staring, open-mouthed. This must indeed have been ‘one of the other maids’. The poor creature, having begged or borrowed a bicycle from who knows where, racing up to Gatehouse to…? To send a desperate letter to one of her friends? Or to try to procure a way out of her troubles? But in Gatehouse? Was that possible? Or perhaps the furious pedalling itself was the idea.
‘Madam?’ said Mrs Marshall bringing me back from my wool-gathering. I drained my glass of water and stood up, forced to screw my hands into my back just as the old lady herself had done. She beamed at me, hugely entertained by having got a soft-born besom to do an a honest job of work. I held out my hand to her.
‘Thank you for a most pleasant morning, Mrs Marshall.’
‘Well, you know where I am, madam. Don’t go past the door.’
Returning to Gatehouse on the midday bus, I was met at the door of the inn by Mrs McCall, who happened to be passing along the corridor and who clutched my arms in her big hands and asked me in a shocked voice what in the Lord’s name had happened? What has she heard, I thought? And was about to ask her the same thing, when I caught sight of myself in the fish-eye glass above the fireplace. This glass never throws back a flattering rendition of one’s face, tending to give more bulbous prominence to the nose than is usual and making one look, overall, as though one’s features have been painted on to a child’s balloon blown up a bit too far. Now, though, I looked really quite savage. My hat was askew, my hair was sticking straight out to the sides (I assumed from having been squashed into my collar as I crouched) and there was a smear of dirt across one cheek. Looking down I saw that the hem of my coat was earthy and my stockings, frankly, a disgrace. Fearing that if I told her I had been planting cabbages I might lose any little scraps of dignity I had left, however, I made no explanation but ordered a bath and luncheon in my room and swept upstairs.
In the afternoon, refreshed, although still rather in need of a manicure, I sailed forth to deal with the girl in the post office. I had had a tremendous idea in my bath and was eager to set it in motion.
The post office was quiet, as I had expected, the people of Gatehouse being the sort to deal with all High Street business such as letters and parcels nice and early in the morning and not dash in and out in the careless way that city dwellers do. I have never quite been able to understand the exact nature of the moral rectitude that springs from doing things in the morning rather than the afternoon, but since it served my current purpose I had no quarrel with it. The postmistress herself, Miss Millar, was just visible up a ladder in the back-shop with a list in her hand and a pencil behind her ear. I leaned companionably against the counter at the telegraph desk and smiled at the girl.
‘I wonder, my dear, if you will be able to help me with a little matter,’ I began. The young person glanced very briefly to the side as though to check that her boss was well out of the way and then leaned towards me eagerly.
‘I find that I need to send a telegram to a friend of mine. She is also a friend of poor Mr and Mrs Duffy,’ I added hastily, seeing her face fall, disappointed at this prosaic beginning. ‘But the difficulty is this. I know that poor Mr and Mrs Duffy have gone off for a few days before they go home to begin to make the funeral arrangements. So I cannot be sure whether they have told this particular friend yet, about the terrible thing that happened. Do you see my problem?’ The girl shook her head slowly, and I saw that I should have to be rather more frank than felt comfortable. ‘You see, my dear, if I send a telegram to my dear friend and make no mention of it, she will, if she has heard the news, think me terribly callous. If, however, she has not heard and I do mention it, then not only will I give her the most frightful shock, but I might offend the Duffys. After all, it is their decision how and when people are to be told.’