‘Of course, I do beg your pardon. Of course, it was a horrid shock. It must always be so. But surely, I mean to say, I imagine there are people one could always see taking that way out of life’s difficulties and then there are people one couldn’t believe would ever do it, no matter what the provocations.’
Mrs Lumsden was frowning at me.
‘Take my two-’ I was going to say sons, but a flash of white panic at the thought stopped me from going further. ‘Take my brother and sister,’ I said instead. ‘Mavis is a gloomy sort of girl, always was so. She used to have funerals for her dolls and she has a dreadful habit of adopting three-legged horses and one-eared mongrels and then weeping over them. I’ve told her time and again to get a healthy puppy from good stock and a clean home and she won’t spend such hours nursing and mourning. But she’s half in love with easeful death, Mrs Lumsden. I wouldn’t drop from shock to hear that Mavis had killed herself, so long as it were beautiful enough. Floating off like Ophelia, you know, or something.’
Mrs Lumsden was staring aghast at me and just too late I remembered that Mirren’s death had been anything but beautiful, slumped against brown distemper with blood matting her hair. I pressed on.
‘Whereas my brother, Edward, is quite the opposite. He left his right hand and his right eye at the Somme and all he ever said about it was that it got him a prettier wife than he deserved because she felt the patriotic echo of Lord Nelson.’
Mrs Lumsden was blinking rather, but she did answer.
‘Hard to say, Mrs Gilver, about our Mirren. Very hard to say. She was a cheery, sunny wee thing, right enough. More like Mr Jack than Miss Abigail in that respect although she doesn’t favour either of them in looks. Didn’t, I mean. Didn’t favour. Oh my!’ I patted her hand. ‘And she wasn’t a girl ever to make a fuss or throw a tantrum. She had wanted to go to school, you know, and then to college – she was as sharp as a tack, for all her sweet ways – but she didn’t sulk and huff when her grandmother said no. Now you’re asking about it, in fact, Mrs Gilver, it is out of character. Not that she didn’t love the boy.’
‘Her grandmother,’ I said.
Mrs Lumsden started and put one of her plump little hands over her mouth. ‘Her family, I should have said. I spoke quite out of turn. Mrs Ninian has been a good friend to me.’
The females left behind by the procession were beginning to disperse now and despite the many gates in and out of the Abbey grounds it seemed to me that it was the narrow way by the old Abbot House, past the library and on towards the Emporium, where Mrs Lumsden kept glancing.
‘Does the reception begin soon?’ I asked.
She nodded, shifting from foot to foot.
‘Right away,’ she said. ‘Best way to keep the lads out of the public houses. Mrs Ninian isn’t coming along until later, when she’s got Miss Abigail home and settled, and I promised I’d keep an eye on everything.’
‘Don’t let me keep you,’ I said and it was as though I had cut the string of a balloon. She sped off, throwing apologies and explanations over her shoulder. I heard ‘temperamental tea urn’ and ‘far too much lipstick if I’m not there to stop them’ and she was gone.
I stared after her and then at the note again, and began to wonder. If I put on my most innocent face and roundest eyes, could I claim to think I had been invited? If, I debated to myself, I went straight to the police now as I had promised Alec I would, it would be cap in hand, knees knocking, to deliver a theory that would sound like criticism to the nasty inspector who already disliked me. If, on the other hand, I went to Aitkens’, found the girl from Household who had seen Mr Hepburn in the store, slipped away to the attic rooms and found a pair of ladies’ gloves hidden there, still bearing traces of cordite, I should be able to waft along to the police station trailing clouds of glory and a witness behind me. Besides, standing in the churchyard was getting too miserable to be borne.
So I hurried after Mrs Lumsden, with the note in my hand, threading my way through the narrow streets, watching the town come back to life again. The shops, which had closed while the funeral was going on, were beginning to raise their shutters and turn their signs back to Open ready to furnish all comers with luggage and rugs once more.
Aitkens’, of course, was closed for the day, a discreet card in the lower left corner of every window announcing that business would resume on the following Friday morning, and Ferguson the doorman in deepest black was letting in staff members while deftly turning customers away with ambassadorial ease. He hesitated when he saw me but I waved the note and so he opened the door and held it for me; the revolving door with its whirling gaiety was, I gathered, unsuitable for such a sombre day.
‘Welcome, Mrs Gilver,’ he said, bowing. ‘I hear the funeral passed off as well as could be expected.’
‘Weren’t you there?’ I said. A spasm crossed the man’s face.
‘Someone had to mind the shop,’ he answered. ‘And they tell me Mr Muir carried out his task most competently.’ His look discouraged further comment and so I contented myself with a sympathetic smile and made to move away.
‘It’s the second floor, madam,’ he said, ‘but the lift boy isnae on duty today. Do you think you could manage it?’
‘No, no,’ I said, remembering the slow creaking. ‘I’ll take the stairs, Ferguson, gladly.’
‘Aye but the staff’s all using the big stairs, today,’ he said, ‘since the store’s closed anyway.’ He frowned at me, calculating how the necessary distinctions might be maintained, how the prospect of a shopgirl sharing stair treads with me might best be avoided, until his attention was summoned by a banging on the door. He turned and his brow cleared at the sight of a young girl in a suit of rather flashy grey hound’s-tooth check and, as Mrs Lumsden had feared, a great deal of red lipstick.
‘Oh, here’s Miss McWilliam,’ he said, opening up again. ‘She’s a dab hand with that shipper rope, are you no’, hen? Goan take Mrs Gilver up, will you?’
‘Fine by me,’ said the girl. ‘Save my legs in these shoes.’ And with that she swished off on her high heels, leaving me to follow her.
The lift seemed wheezier and more arthritic than ever when we entered and the girl pulled the rope which was supposed to set it rising. It gave some very alarming clanks, moved a foot or so and stopped.
‘I don’t mind the stairs, actually,’ I said and the girl, heels or no heels, nodded in fervent agreement, but then before we could get out again the carriage started moving and we had missed our chance. I held my breath as it hauled us up two storeys and only let it go once we had arrived and the girl had jerked the rope to stop us and opened both doors. Even then, as though by way of farewell, it dropped an inch or so as I stepped forward and we both got out very hurriedly.
‘I’ll send it back for the missuses,’ said the girl, leaning in and tugging the rope again while beginning to close the carriage door with her other hand. ‘It’s a knack,’ she said, hauling shut the shaft doors too. ‘Takes years, but it’s Mrs Ninian’s rules. If staff must use the lift when the boy’s not on it – and only on urgent business for customers, mind – they send it back to wherever it was when they got on, so it’s like we never used it at all.’ She laughed and shook her head.
‘This is not the day to be speaking lightly of any of the family, Lynne,’ said a voice. The thin manageress of ‘the ladies’ side’, whose name I had forgotten, had emerged from behind a display of curtain fabrics with a deep frown upon her face.
‘I’m not, Miss Hutton,’ Lynne said. ‘I’m devoted to them all.’ She turned and gave me a wink which showed that her fabulous black lashes had been applied at the same time as her red lips.