Once they’d settled back, she asked him how he was liking Seabourne. “Very much. It’s a beautiful place. A wonderful setting, too, up there overlooking the sea.” He added this, hoping it would cue her to speak of the children.
“Cold, though. Costs a fortune to heat those rooms.” Her glance swept over him, no doubt estimating the extent of his.
“I don’t mind a nip in the air.” (Oh, yes, he did.) “I’m used to it.” (Oh, no, he wasn’t.)
Emily Hayter struck Melrose as a pump that would require some priming; she hadn’t risen to the prospect overlooking the sea, so perhaps he should lead with more suggestions. “The estate agent tells me the owner lives in the village. In a kind of nursing home and hospice?” He was sure she would be only too ready to talk about the eccentric Morris Bletchley.
“Oh, yes. Mr. Morris started that. Used to be a stately home, and he took it over and calls it Bletchley Hall. I expect it’s quite nice for these unfortunates so near-” She could not summon a cliché to make death more acceptable. “Mr. Morris, yes, he’s a queer duck, that one.”
Melrose waited patiently to be told about Mr. Bletchley’s queer duck-ness while Mrs. Hayter fed herself a morsel of apricot bread and washed it down with coffee.
“See, he owns the Hall so he can do as he wants. I expect it’s generous of him to provide care like that, but as for me, I think you’d have to be a little batty to go live there, don’t you? I mean, does a person want to be reminded of-you know-all the time? Yes, definitely a queer duck is Mr. Morris.”
She did not go on, leaving Melrose to cast about for an opening to the tragedy of the Bletchley children. His eye fell on the rather bad examples of art hanging on her walls and then fixed on a print of a stormy J.M.W. Turner. He smiled, thinking of Bea. Turner was her favorite.
He said, “That’s a very nice Turner, there behind you.”
She looked around, as if it were someone else’s Turner, and said, “Morbid, I’d say. It was Mr. Hayter liked that one. He died not two years ago.” It was as if death came to Mr. Hayter because of the painting.
But Death and Turner did give Melrose an opening. “Wasn’t there an awful tragedy at Seabourne several years ago? Two children drowned, I believe.”
She was only too pleased to discuss it, which she did at length, as it gave her one more opportunity to exonerate herself. Her own account was exactly the same as Macalvie’s. Winding it up, finally, she said, “You see, sometimes they’d go down there to get on Mr. Daniel’s boat. You know, their father’s. That’s what police thought, that they wanted to get to the boat.”
Not bothering to correct her on that score, Melrose said, “But how could Bletchley get a boat in among those rocks?”
Emily Hayter was not at all interested in boatmanship and waved the question away. “Well, he could, is all I know.” She had been interrupted by nonsensical questions and now would get back to her own report. “Something woke me, something like a yell or a cry. I’m up on the top floor, so it’s a distance. And I thought if some noise would reach up there, it must be pretty loud. So I put on my robe and slippers and went downstairs. It was dark and I couldn’t see down to the first floor; anyway, you can imagine I was alarmed. Then I stiffed myself up”-here she sat straighter, stiffing herself-“got a torch, and-” She paused to select another slice of apricot bread.
“You went-”
“Straightaway to the children’s rooms. When I saw they were out of bed, I got a worse fright than I’d got from the noise. I looked all through the house, calling them. Nothing. No one. Did I tell you the Bletchleys went off? Did I mention that?” She clearly disapproved.
“Then, you-”
“Well, I went outside, of course. There wasn’t no one, nor did I hear anything. Only the sound of the sea. I must’ve been out there for a good twenty minutes, looking through the woods, and there was nothing. I didn’t want to stay out, it being the middle of the night. I’ll tell you something, sir.” Her voice dropped to a sibilant whisper. “There’s legends round these parts about that house-”
A legend. Oh, great. He must rush to inform Brian Macalvie. He pasted a smile on his face and hoped she’d get back to reality if he was patient.
“-that it’s built on the graves of a family that was murdered in their sleep.” She leaned across the table, close enough for him to smell her nutmeggy breath. “The place they say is haunted by the ghost of a governess named Marianna.”
There’s always a governess, often named Marianna or some version of the name. Well, he needn’t feel so superior. Who had been mooning about, hoping the imaginary Stella would turn up? He frowned, thinking again of Karen Bletchley’s story: a woman on the other side of the pond.
“The poor girl fell in love with some pirate. He only wanted to rob the place blind, of course. He did and he left and she never saw him again.”
“Ah.” He was not sure what he was ah-ing about. “And where did whoever saw it see this ghost?”
“On the cliff above those rocks.” Ever closer, she leaned toward Melrose, pulling her skirts more tightly down over her knees. “They say she stands there always looking out to sea.”
Ever stood she, prospect impressed. There it was again, the line from Hardy. He felt the same unutterable loneliness wash over him, despite the warm cottage, the pleasant homely woman, the apricot bread…
He roused himself from the cloud that settled over him to hear her say, “… and one of the Decorators-”
There they were again, those marvelous boys, the Decorators! They’d certainly left their imprint on Bletchley.
“He claimed he saw this ghost in the kitchen. But those two were-well, I can’t imagine they were very dependable.”
It was clear what she thought of “those two.” Melrose turned to another subject. “Bletchley certainly has its share of bizarre and unhappy occurrences. This unfortunate woman who seems to have vanished-her nephew waited on me at the Drowned Man.”
She was nodding her head before he’d half finished. “That’ll be Chris Wells you’re talking about. As you say, a strange thing to happen.”
“She owns the Woodbine Tearoom, doesn’t she?”
“Her and Brenda Friel. Good workers, those two, and make no mistake; operating a business like that, that’s hard work for not much return. I help out sometimes with my berry pies. They’re real popular, my pies. If they go away, I go in and help out young John, Chris’s nephew. I’d say a lot of kids could take a page from his book.”
Work was clearly the yardstick Emily Hayter used to take the measure of man. Melrose would rate perhaps half an inch. “The lad is awfully upset.”
“And why not? Chris Wells is like a mother to him. His da died, and his own mother just went off when he was a little thing. Chris was her sister. I was thinking she might have gone to help that good-for-nothing relation of hers lives in Penzance.” She leaned nearer Melrose. “It’s the drink taken over with him. I’ve no patience with that kind of thing.”
“Good lord, Mrs. Hayter, here I’ve been sitting over an hour and forgot why I came! I was wondering if you could spare me just a few hours every week to do some cooking. You’ve the reputation of being an excellent cook.” A little flattery never hurt.
He was right. If she hadn’t before thought of herself as excellent, she did so now. “Well, I did do a bit of everything. How much time were you thinking of?”
“Oh, just once a week.” He’d decided he really didn’t want anyone at all, for he was enjoying knocking about on his own. But he needed some reason to call on her. “I thought perhaps you could cook up a batch of food and freeze it and I could shove it in the oven or whatever when I needed it. You needn’t bother with this week, as I’ll be dining out a lot.”