Mariana (4 page)

'Oh, Ned's not the kind to tell tales to the boss,' she assured me. 'Even if he were, he wouldn't gain much by it, since I happen to
be
the boss.'

I stammered a quick apology and flushed a brilliant crimson. Vivien graciously ignored my embarrassment.

'Is your telephone connected yet? Good. What's the number?'

I told her, and she copied it down. 'Right,' she said. 'I'll give you a ring if I find out anything of interest. Here.' She passed me a box
of
matches. 'My number's on the back, if you need anything. Or you can just drop by, any time you get bored with unpacking. I always have time for a chat in the afternoon.' She looked me straight in the eye and smiled her quick, frank smile.

'I'm glad you've come to live here,' she said simply.

I smiled back, feeling strangely warm inside.

'So am I,' I told her.

*-*-*-*

I was still smiling as I walked home, enjoying the fresh, vibrant feel of the late-April breezes and the wonderful silence of the untraveled road. My house stood waiting to welcome me home, looking already a little less neglected to my biased eyes.

'Hullo, Greywethers,' I greeted it, as I came up the drive. At least I had learned the proper name for my house. And
that I had a ghost. What had the men at the Red Lion called her? The Green Lady. Somewhere in the garden.

The question was, I asked myself, just where had the garden been? There certainly wasn't any trace of one now, at least not at the front of the house. Curious, I walked round to the backyard and had a look.

Not the dovecote, I decided. That garden was new. By the kitchen, perhaps, alongside the drive? The ground there certainly looked more level, but ...

No. Not there. I turned my attention to the other side of the yard. There, I thought with certainty. One could even see the faint rises in the ground where the flower beds had been built up by loving hands. I crossed the yard and stood on the spot in triumph.

The sun had sunk lower in the sky, and the breeze that skimmed over me was decidedly chill. Hunching farther into my sweater, I hugged myself for warmth, turning to face the distant line of trees.

The man on the gray horse was there, under the sheltering oak, watching me.

I raised my chin defiantly, and could have sworn that he smiled, although he was too far away for me to see his features clearly, let alone judge his expression. After a long moment, he wheeled his horse around and headed back in the direction of Crofton.

The Green Lady forgotten, I went inside the house, taking particular care to bolt the door behind me.Hall, his dark outline swallowed by the shadows of the ancient trees.

And there certainly had been guests. The first arrivals, at nine o'clock, had been Mr. Ridley, the house agent, and his wife, who were evidently early risers as they brought with them a plate of homemade Bath buns, still warm from the oven. Close on their heels had come Jerry Walsh and his amiable wife, Eva, with two jars of Eva's black-currant jelly; then Arthur and Marie Walsh bearing a plate of chocolate biscuits. Several others came and departed in a kind of blur, including a soft-voiced, elderly lady named Mrs. Hutherson, who brought me two dozen buttery fruit scones and her best wishes. Everyone was very nice, very friendly, and very well informed.

'Children's books, isn't it, my dear?’ Mrs. Hutherson had asked in her gentle voice. 'How clever of you.' Her blue eyes
struck a familiar chord in my memory, but she had gone before I could grasp the connection.

The quiet couple who came last with a bottle of raspberry cordial benefited from their position by being offered the best selection of treats. The coffee table in my sitting room was by this time so loaded with edible offerings that anyone would have thought I'd spent hours preparing for a neighborhood tea party.

Any lingering doubts my visitors may have had regarding my respectability were put to rest, emphatically and unexpectedly, by the arrival of my brother, wearing his clerical collar and looking eminently pious. So pious, in fact, that I doubted whether any of his own parishioners would have recognized him.

Shortly after noon, when the crowd had cleared, Tom leaned back in his chair, linking his hands behind his head.

'I congratulate you,' he said. 'My own neighbors didn't lay siege to me until I'd been in the village a week. How long have you been here, now? Two days?'

'I moved in on Tuesday, so this is my third day here. Feet off the coffee table, please.'

'Sorry.' He moved his shoes obediently. 'I hope you don't mind my dropping in on you like this. I suppose I could have called first.'

'You couldn't have picked a better time,' I assured him warmly. 'It'll do wonders for my image. By teatime it'll be all over town that I'm related to a vicar.'

'Mmm. Or that you're having an affair with one.' Tom grinned. 'Village people have terribly suspicious minds, you know.'

I ignored him. 'It's your day off, I take it?'

'Yes. I left the parish in the capable hands of my new curate, young Mr. Ogilvie. You'd like him, Julia. He's much less tedious than his predecessor. Of course, his views may be a little progressive for my flock, but he means well.'

'Anything would be an improvement on your last curate,' I agreed with feeling. 'Michael something, wasn't it? Very
Low Church, never smiled, always bubbling over with hell-fire and damnation?'

'That's the one.'

'Whatever happened to him?'

'I managed to have him transferred to a parish up north. I felt I'd done my penance,' Tom said, smiling. 'Anyway, back to the subject of my day off. I promised the parents I'd stop in this week and see how you were getting on. How
are
you getting on?'

'Quite well, thanks. I've got most of the downstairs rooms sorted out, I think.'

'It looks very nice.' He let his gaze roam the sun-filled, spacious room. 'It really is a lovely house. I am impressed. Are you going to give me the grand tour, or'—his gaze fell on the overloaded coffee table—'do I have to help with the washing up first?'

I assured him that the washing up could wait, and began the tour in the room we were in.

'Well, this, naturally, is the sitting room,' I said. 'I need to buy a bigger carpet to protect this floor, and the curtains of course will have to go....'

'I see what you mean.' Tom eyed the garish floral chintz speculatively. 'The windows themselves are nice, though. And I genuinely like the fireplace. What's through here?' He indicated a connecting door on the far wall.

'Dining room.' I led him through.

'Julia!' My brother's tone held admiration. 'Where on earth did you get that dresser?'

'It's quite something, isn't it? It came with the house.'

The dresser was late Victorian, solid walnut, and nearly nine feet tall, its top brushing the plastered ceiling of the dining room. I suspected it had come with the house only because it would have needed a crane to budge it. The single piece of furniture so completely dominated the long room that one barely noticed the lack of table or chairs. On either side of the dresser, two tall windows looked out over the back lawn, adding to the impression of stately elegance.
From the dining room we walked through a swinging door into the scrubbed and Spartan kitchen with its old-fashioned pantry, then out through the narrow passageway into the paneled front hall. After a brief detour into the study, where Tom might easily have settled himself for the remainder of the day had I not dragged him out again, we climbed the angled staircase to the upper floor.

'Now, I haven't done anything up here since the day I moved in,' I warned him, 'so some of the rooms may be a little messy. Just so you don't expect much.'

'Blast these ceilings.' Tom ducked too late and stepped onto the landing, rubbing the back of his head. 'Made for midgets. How many bedrooms do you have?'

'Four. But I'm only using two of them. These two'—I indicated the closed doors to our left—'are just for storage, at present.'

'Very sensible.' Ever curious, Tom poked his head inside the first room and peered around. It was a long, narrow room, separated from my own by the attic stairs that ran behind the end wall. The light coming in the twin windows was partially blocked by the branches of a pear tree growing close against the front of the house. The other storage room occupied the front south corner, and the fact that it had only one window was compensated for by the presence of yet another fireplace.

'You'll have to learn to chop wood, love,' my brother commented, and I pulled a face.

'Come off it, Tom. You've seen me light a fire before. The whole house would go up like a Roman candle.'

Tom grinned, and bent to examine the carved wooden mantelpiece. Leaving him there, I moved on ahead to the next door, which belonged to the small back corner room that I'd chosen to use as my studio. I hadn't bothered to check on my supplies or equipment yet, having determined not to think about work for this first week, but it suddenly struck me that, since Tom was here, he might be coerced into helping me assemble my drawing board.
I was not normally inept when it came to routine mechanical tasks, but this particular drawing board—devised by a sadistic Swedish designer—always managed to defeat my best efforts, and left me sitting frustrated and helpless amid a jumble of chrome poles, assorted tools, and one less bolt than the directions called for.

Come to think of it, I thought, brightening, I hadn't actually
seen
the movers carrying the table upstairs. Maybe it had been lost in the move. I pushed open the studio door, took two steps into the room, and stopped dead in confusion.

There was nothing there. Nothing of mine, anyway. Except for a low, narrow bed pushed against the back wall, and an antique clothespress in one corner, the room was completely empty.

'Well, that's odd,' I said out loud.

'What's odd?' my brother called back.

'This furniture isn't mine,' I told him, moving back across the hall to the front bedroom. "They must have put my studio things in one of these rooms instead. There should be an easel and my drawing board and that great ugly chair. I just can't imagine where ...'

My voice trailed off as I rummaged amid the boxes, and my brother's shadow moved past me into the hall.

'Julia,' he said, a moment later. 'Come here.'

I found him standing in the doorway of my studio, hands on hips. 'Now,' he said, as I joined him, 'what do
you
see?'

I looked, blinked hard, and looked again. It was all there—the easel, the studio furniture, the untidy boxes of paints and brushes and paper ... everything, just as it should be. Moreover, there was no sign to be seen of the bed or clothespress.

'You haven't been nipping into the cooking sherry, have you?' Tom joked.

'But, Tom.' I shook my head, bewildered. 'These things weren't here a minute ago, honestly.'
My brother looked down at me, his expression concerned, and when he finally spoke, his voice had lost its mocking edge. 'Listen,' he said, 'why don't we leave the rest of the tour until later? You must be exhausted after this morning.'

'I'm not crazy.'

'Of course you're not. Feel up to a pot of tea?'

I trailed unhappily after him down the stairs.

"That room was empty when I looked.'

'I'm not saying it wasn't. I'm not saying that you didn't see what you said you saw. I just think there's probably a good
reason
why you saw what you said you saw.'

'I see,' I said. 'Such as?'

Tom lifted his shoulders in a shrug. 'I don't know. You're tired, you've been pushing yourself too hard.... When did you get to bed last night?'

'Late,' I admitted. 'But I can't believe that has anything to do with ...'

'And what time were you up this morning?'

'Just after six. But ...'

'There you are,' he said, raising his hands to emphasize his point. 'You're not getting enough sleep.'

I was familiar with my brother's moods, I
waited until the tea was brewed and we were sitting facing each other across the kitchen table, before I dared to contradict him.

'As a matter of fact,' I told him firmly, 'I am getting plenty of sleep. And I'm not tired, honestly. I've not done any real work since I moved in here, I've only unpacked a few boxes.'

'You look tired.'

'Tom'—I smiled at his obstinacy—'listen to me. I am very well rested. I've been sleeping like a log. And dreaming every night, come to that.'

'Really? That's rather unusual for you, isn't it? I thought you hardly ever dreamed.'

'Maybe it's the country air.'

'What sort of dreams?'
'I really can't remember most of them,' I said, frowning slightly as I drank my tea. 'One of them was about a comet, I think. Yes, that was it... there were two comets, one right after the other, and everyone was saying how that meant something terrible was going to happen. What does Freud have to say about
comet
dreams?'