The Haunting of Maddy Clare (14 page)

T
he next morning over breakfast, Alistair announced we were going into town. We had to buy new clothes to replace my ruined ones, and since Alistair had agreed to pay, over my objections, he would accompany me. That left Matthew.

“Will you come, then?” Alistair cut the last piece of his sausage and glanced across the table at Matthew. “Or will you stay and try to fix the recording machine?”

Matthew spared not even a single look in my direction. “I can’t fix that thing,” he grumbled. “I’ll come with you and find something to distract myself.”

Alistair looked at him with wry affection. “Not too many pints of distraction, now. It’s not even ten o’clock. We have work to do.”

“Yes, Mother.”

This got a laugh from Alistair. He looked at me, merriment in his eyes. “You see what I have to put up with, Sarah? He’d better watch out—you’re a much more polite assistant, and you’re a hundred times better to look at.”

I smiled back and wondered at these two men, so different and yet so obviously long acquainted. Suddenly, I was curious about how they met. I did not think Matthew would tell me, so I asked Alistair as we walked over the hill toward town, Matthew trailing behind us alone.

“We met in training, if you can believe it,” Alistair replied instantly. “His bunk was next to mine.” He glanced at me. “I don’t suppose, when you look at us, that you think we have much in common. But we did. Matthew likes to get in trouble just as much as I do. And there are lots of ways to get in trouble in the army, especially if you haven’t seen a battle yet.”

I thought this over and decoded it. Alistair was saying they had been different men then. Young men who had never seen war. Men who thought enlisting to fight the Hun would be a lark. I had met other young men in London just like them in those early days, when it seemed as if every girl I knew wanted to set me up with a potential beau. I had been dragged to many parties with strangers, and everywhere one looked at such parties, there were soldiers and more soldiers. At first, the soldiers had shouted patriotic songs and made crude jokes about the Hun. Later, though, there were only men who looked at women with a strange sort of hunger, mixed with a separation of experience that could never be gulfed. Men who had come back shattered shells, if they had come back at all.

I tried to picture Matthew younger, carefree. The picture would not come.

“We even stuck together on the boat to France,” Alistair went on. “But we were in different regiments, so I lost track of him over there. I fought in France and Belgium for three years, until I got shot in my leg. Bullet grazed the vein in my thigh and I almost died—would
have, if I’d been standing half an inch to the left.” His expression darkened, but he shrugged. “Still, it got me invalided out for a while to recover. I was sent to a home hospital in Essex. I slept for three days. When I woke up, guess who was in the bed next to mine.”

“Matthew,” I said.

But the good humor had left Alistair’s face. I began to regret that I had broached this topic. “Yes, well. Matthew was in a bad way, much worse than me—that’s all I’ll say. What happened to him is his story to tell, not mine.” He watched as the trees thinned around us on the road, as the small center of Waringstoke came closer. The sunlight dappled in his hair. He had begun to limp with the length of the walk. “They put me back together again, let me recover all the blood I’d lost, gave me a walking stick. Told me I was good enough to go back and fight some more. I was still waiting for the paperwork to come through when the war ended. I’ve always been a lucky bastard.”

He sounded grim as he said it, and I didn’t know what to say. Was he pleased to be free from the fighting, or had he been disappointed in not getting the chance to go back?

From behind us, Matthew’s steps accelerated, bringing him closer. “Alistair. Remind me why we didn’t bring the motorcar?”

“Because it’s only twenty minutes,” Alistair teased, moving aside and letting Matthew come next to him. The twinkle returned to his eye. “You, my friend, are getting fat and lazy on inn food.”

“It’s bloody hot,” said Matthew.

He was right. The sun had burned through the morning mist, leaving a yellow heat that was wet and heavy. There was hardly a breeze to be had. Still, I was as glad of the walk as Alistair was. It was good to get away from the darkened old inn, from the shadow of Falmouth House.

We came to the heart of what Waringstoke called town—two streets in a simple X, lined with shops, a post office, a pub. Anchoring the end of the east–west lane was a church and churchyard, glinting gray stone set against the wet green of the grass. The churchyard looked overgrown. There was no one about, at least on the quiet streets. I thought of how different it was from shopping in London, at Harrods and the hundreds of large and small shops on every street, the windows filled with elaborate displays. I had so rarely had any money with which to buy anything, I was well acquainted with the window displays.

The night before, Matthew and I had quietly agreed that today would be a fact-finding mission about Maddy Clare. The locals must know something about her—she may have kept to herself, but she had lived at Falmouth House for seven years. Surely there was gossip about the mad girl who worked as the Clares’ maid and never left the house? Surely someone, somewhere, had told stories she shouldn’t have?

We split up, Matthew to his own business, Alistair and I to the few ladies’ shops to replenish my suitcase. Mere days ago, I would have been paralyzed with terror at the thought of shopping with a man. I was still a little shy, but it did not take me long to feel relaxed again. I had been nearly undressed in front of Matthew, after all. And I had faced worse fears than having a man help me pick out underthings.

It still bothered me, however, that Alistair was paying for everything. He seemed to sense this, and in the way of his good-natured soul, he did not push me. He let me pick out only the least expensive items; he let me choose only the clothes that were
practical, sturdy, in the simplest of styles so they would not be out of fashion in a year. He argued with me when I insisted I needed only one pair of stockings. I maintained I had more at home in London and did not need him to buy me a second pair. Eventually, I made him give in.

I had replaced everything but my favorite shirtdress. Alistair left me to try on dresses, saying he must make a stop at the post office, as he had forwarded his mail to Waringstoke. I shopped alone.

I selected a few—simple and serviceable, of course, and suited to my figure—and proceeded to the back of the shop, as directed by the saleslady, to try them on. I pulled the curtain and stood in the tiny dressing area.

My dress—the one surviving dress from my previous wardrobe—had sleeves to the elbows. I slid the dress off and looked at the bandages Matthew had fastened last night, circling each upper arm. They glowed eerily white in the gloom. My arms still hurt. Did they hurt more or less than yesterday? Did I even know?

Should I remove the bandages to look?

I had promised Matthew I would. I had promised him that if my arms were worse today than they had been yesterday, I would tell Alistair. And yet, I didn’t want to. I simply didn’t want to know.

What if the problem was serious? What if I needed medical attention?

Could any doctor possibly treat what was wrong with me?

As I stood in indecision, I heard the click of heeled footsteps approaching. I assumed it to be the saleswoman until I glimpsed the shoes beneath the bottom of my curtain. They were new, glossy, high-fashion heels, with a sleek buckle at the ankle. No saleswoman in Waringstoke owned shoes like that.

“Miss Piper,” said a woman’s voice.

I closed my eyes. I knew exactly who it was, of course. I had known the second I saw the shoes.

“Mrs. Barry,” I said. The woman walking her dog the other morning. The tall, utterly beautiful woman who had shared a cigarette with Alistair.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” she said in her strong, husky voice.

I stood in the gloom in my yellowed cotton slip, the bandages blazing from my arms, and wished more than anything that she would go away. Next to her glamour, I felt the day’s confidence draining away. “How do you do, Mrs. Barry?” I managed.

“Listen.” The shoes moved closer. I stared at them in envy; they had cost more than a month’s wages at the temporary agency. “I have to confess something—I followed you here,” she said, surprising me.

“What are you talking about?” I did not move closer to the curtain.

“It sounds horrible, I know. Crazy, in fact. But I have my reasons. Just listen a moment.”

I pictured the morning I had found her talking to Alistair, how small I had felt. How she had looked at him when she lit his cigarette. How there had been currents of something I could not see. “Mr. Gellis is at the post office, if you are looking for him,” I said smoothly.

“Please. Just listen.”

I paused, thinking. “All right.”

She sighed, and the shoes paced away. I pictured her in an exquisite dress, a matching hat, those soft suede gloves she had been wearing when I first met her. No. On second thought, she would be wearing a different pair of gloves, a pair for warmer weather.
I had been so very intimidated by her when I had first met her; now I was merely repelled. I shifted my weight to one foot, waiting.

“I want to know something,” said Mrs. Barry. “This ghost. The maid. Is it true she talks to you?”

My jaw dropped. “What?”

“If it’s true, I need to know. I need to know it.” She sounded hurried, impatient, perhaps a little afraid.

“Mrs. Barry, perhaps you should tell me what you’ve been hearing.”

She sighed again. I heard her pace across the floor. “It’s all over town. That Al—that Mr. Gellis brought you here. That you are some sort of clairvoyant, called in particularly for your expertise in speaking to ghosts. That Agnes Clare let you into the barn to see the ghost. That you’ve been communing with that girl from the dead.”

I pressed my hand to my mouth. I did not know whether I wanted more to giggle—me, a ghost specialist brought in by Alistair!—or gasp. I thought quickly and decided not to disillusion her—I would not lie, but it might be to my benefit to maneuver a little. “What do you know about Maddy Clare?” I asked.

“Please.” Her footsteps came closer. “Have you been speaking to her? Truly?”

“She has spoken to me,” I said carefully. This was true; I left out the part about being nearly driven mad by the sound. “Did you know her in life?”

“Oh, God.” Mrs. Barry became still at the other side of the curtain. “What did she say? Was it about…”

“About what?” I prompted when she stopped.

“Miss Piper—did she have a message? Any kind of message? Please tell me.”

I was firm. “Not until you tell me what interest you have in a message from Maddy Clare.”

“I don’t have time,” she said hopelessly. “I have to go. I told Tom I would only be a moment, that I was looking at dresses. He’ll follow me in here. Listen—I’ll be walking my dog in the mornings. Every morning. There’s never any suspicion in that. If you can tell me—please. Please meet me and tell me.”

She sounded so very desperate. I wondered what was wrong, but I also knew I would not get it out of her. She was already turning to leave. “Please,” she said again, and was gone.

I stood in the quiet for a moment, wondering if she would return, but she did not.
The maid,
Mrs. Barry had said.
You have been communing with that girl.
She had been unable to say Maddy’s name.

Ignoring my bandages, I pulled the dresses from their hangers and began to try them on.

W
aringstoke’s pub was small and cozy. Except for the public room at the inn, it was the only place for the town locals to gather, so it wasn’t a surprise to see it relatively crowded at the lunch hour. As we took a table, Alistair, in the midst of grumbling about Matthew’s tardiness, froze midsentence at something over my shoulder.

“What?” I said. “What is it?”

He gained control of his expression and looked away. “Nothing.”

I wasn’t fooled. I angled myself inconspicuously in my chair and caught a glimpse of Mrs. Barry being seated at a nearby table with a man, presumably her husband. He was turned away from me, but I could see he was slender, dark-haired. I turned back to Alistair.