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A
In the bottom right, just above the artist’s signature, stood the outbuilding where the skeleton had been found, next to a small, semi-detached cottage. Beside the door, a wooden sign a
“What do you think?” Mrs. Kettering asked.
“Have you noticed the way everyone looks? As if-”
“As if they were all either hypocrites or sadists? Yes, I have. That’s Stanhope’s vision. I must say I didn’t see Hobb’s End like that at all. We had our share of unpleasant characters, of course, but I’d hardly say they dominated the place. Michael Stanhope was, in some ways, a very disturbed individual. Would you like to go back out to the garden?”
A
The sunlight came as a shock. A
“How old was Stanhope at that time?”
“He’d be in his late forties when I knew him.”
“What became of him?”
“I think he stayed in the village until the bitter end, and then I heard he moved to a small studio in London. But he didn’t do much after that. Didn’t achieve much, I should say. I saw his name in the papers once or twice, but I think he was like a fish out of water when he left Hobb’s End. I don’t think he managed to find a foothold in the big city art world. I heard he was in and out of mental institutions during the fifties, and the last I saw was his obituary in 1968. He died of lung cancer. The poor man always seemed to have a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth. It made him squeeze his eyes almost shut against the drifting smoke when he painted. I was convinced that must have affected his perspective.”
“Probably,” said A
“I wouldn’t know, dear. All over the place, I suppose. Private collectors. Small galleries.”
A
“I noticed that, too,” said Mrs. Kettering, “and it made me remember something. Now, I can’t be certain of this, not after so much time, but I think an old lady lived there. Bit of a recluse.”
“An old lady, you said?”
“Yes, I think so. Though I can’t tell you anything about her. I just remembered, looking at the painting, that some of the children thought she was a witch. She had a long, hooked nose. She used to scare them away. I think it was her, anyway. I’m sorry I can’t be of much help.”
A
“Is there anything else you want to know?”
A
“Please call again if you do think of anything. It’s so nice to have a visitor.”
A
Back in her car, A
Perhaps more important, though, she had got her first real feel for Hobb’s End from the Stanhope painting, and that might come in useful farther down the road. A
She turned around and headed back down toward the station, a long day on the telephone looming ahead of her.
When Matthew met Gloria that first time, I could feel their immediate attraction like that eerie electric sensation you get before a storm, when you feel jumpy and ill at ease for no apparent reason. It scared me; I don’t know why.
Something about Gloria changed when a man entered the room. It was as if she were suddenly on, the way I feel when the curtain goes up on one of our amateur dramatic productions and the real audience is there to watch us at last. I don’t mean to indicate that there was anything deliberate about this, just that a change came over her and she moved and spoke in a subtly different way when there was a man around. I even noticed it with Michael Stanhope. He must have sensed something, too, or he wouldn’t have given her those cigarettes.
But with Matthew it was the real thing. From that first April meeting, events progressed quickly between them. That very afternoon, Matthew showed her around the village, what little there was to see. A few days later they went to the pictures in Harkside and then to the Mayday dance at the Mechanics Institute there. I was helping out behind the refreshments counter, and I could see the way they danced so close together, the way they looked at one another.
I wasn’t at all surprised when Matthew a
All day we had been hearing disturbing rumors of a terrible air raid on London. Some people claimed that the House of Commons and Westminster Abbey had been completely destroyed and that thousands had been killed. I had already learned to take these things with a pinch of salt. After all, one of the first casualties of war is truth, to paraphrase Hiram Johnson.
I was listening to “The Brains Trust” after putting the rabbit stew on to simmer. Joad and Huxley were arguing about why you can tickle other people but not yourself, when Gloria popped her head around the door, Matthew right behind her. They were a bit early and Mother was still titivating herself in her bedroom.
Gloria’s golden hair, parted on the left, tumbled in long wreaths of sausage curls over her shoulders. She wore very little makeup, just a dab of face powder and a trace of lipstick. She was wearing a blue blouse with padded shoulders and puffed sleeves tucked into a simple black skirt with silver buttons down the side. I must admit that I was surprised at her restraint; I would have expected something far more garish from her. Even so, I felt dowdy in my plain old pinafore dress.
“Look what Gloria’s brought for us,” Matthew said, holding out a pint of milk and half a dozen eggs. I took them and thanked her. As soon as Mother saw the eggs, I knew, her eyes would light up. She would put them in water glass, the way she always did. Suspended in the clear jelly, they would last for months. Seeing them like that always made me uneasy; they looked sinister floating there in the transparent space, like wombs forever on the verge of giving birth, but never quite managing it, trapped there instead, frozen forever in stillborn becoming.
Sinister or not, though, the water glass meant we always had fresh eggs as well as the powdered stuff, which was only good for scrambling.