'Why should I condone Mrs. Henderson calling Joanna a murderess? There's no more evidence against her than there was against me, and if I apologize it's a tacit acceptance.'
'Nonsense,' said Jane stoutly. 'It's courtesy towards an old lady. How you deal with Joanna is a different matter altogether. If you don't approve of the way the village is treating her then you must demonstrate it in a very public way so that no one is in any doubt of where your sympathies lie. But,' her old eyes softened as they rested on the younger woman, 'don'f take your annoyance out on poor Dolly Henderson, my dear. She can't be expected to see things as you and I do. She never enjoyed our liberal education.'
'I will apologize.'
'Thank you.'
Sarah suddenly leaned forward and planted a kiss on the other's cheek.
Jane looked surprised. 'What was that for?'
'Oh, I don't know.' Sarah smiled. 'Standing in for my mother, perhaps. I wonder sometimes if the stand-ins aren't rather better at the job than the real thing. Mathilda did it, too, you know. She wasn't
'Is that why you're looking after Ruth? As a sort of quid pro quo?'
'Don't you approve?'
Jane sighed. 'I don't approve or disapprove. I just feel it's a little provocative in the circumstances. Whatever your reasons for doing it, the village has put the worst interpretation on those reasons. You do know they're saying that Joanna's about to be arrested for the murder of her mother, and that's why Ruth has gone to live with you?'
'I hadn't realized it was quite that bad.' Sarah frowned. 'God, they're absurd. Where do they get this rubbish from?'
'They put two and two together and make twenty.'
'The trouble is'-she paused-'there's nothing much I can do about it.'
'But, my dear, all that's required is an explanation of why Ruth is with you,' Jane suggested, 'and then you can knock these rumours on the head. There must be one, after all.'
Sarah sighed. 'It's up to Ruth to explain, and at the moment she's not in a position to do that.'
'Then invent one,' said Jane bluntly. 'Give it to Mrs. Henderson when you see her this afternoon and it'll be all round the village by tomorrow evening. Fight fire with fire, Sarah. It's the only way.'
Mrs. Henderson was touched by Dr. Blakeney's apology for her bad temper in the surgery, thought it very handsome of her to take the trouble to come out to her cottage, and quite agreed that if you'd been up all night looking after a seventeen-year-old showing all the symptoms of glandular fever, you were bound to be shirty the next day. Mind, she didn't quite understand why Ruth had to stay with Dr. Blakeney and her husband in the circumstances. Wouldn't it be more fitting for her to remain with her mother? Much more fitting, agreed Sarah firmly, and Ruth would prefer it too, of course, but, as Mrs. Henderson knew, glandular fever was an extremely painful and debilitating viral infection, and because of the likelihood of its recurring if the patient wasn't cared for properly and bearing in mind this was Ruth's A level year, Joanna had asked Sarah to take her in and get her back on her feet again as quickly as possible. In the circumstances, what with Mrs. Gillespie's will and all (Sarah looked suitably embarrassed), she could hardly refuse, could she?
'Not when you're the one what's got all the money,' was Mrs. Henderson's considered retort, but her rheumy eyes clouded in puzzlement. 'Ruth going back to Southcliffe then, when she's better, like?'
'Where else would she go?' murmured Sarah un-blushingly. 'As I said, it's her A level year.'
'Well, I never! There's some lies being told and no mistake. Who killed Mrs. Gillespie, then, if it weren't you and it weren't the daughter?'
'God knows, Mrs. Henderson.'
'Happen He does, too, so it's a shame He doesn't pass it on. He's causing a lot of bother by keeping the information to Hisself.'
'Perhaps she killed herself.'
'No,' said the old woman decidedly. 'That I'll never believe. I don't say as I liked her very much but Mrs. Gillespie was no coward.'
Sarah knew Joanna was in Cedar House, despite the stubborn silence that greeted her ringing of the doorbell. She'd seen the set white face in the shadows at the back of the dining-room and the brief flicker of recognition before Joanna slipped into the hall and out of sight. Rather more than her refusal to answer the door, it was her flicker of recognition that fuelled Sarah's anger. Ruth was the issue here, not Mathilda's will or Jack's shenanigans, and while she might have sympathized with Joanna's reluctance to open the door to the police, she could not forgive the barricading of it against the person Joanna knew was sheltering her daughter. Sarah set off grimly down the path that skirted the house. What kind of woman, she wondered, put personal enmity before concern for her daughter's welfare?
In her mind's eye, she pictured the portrait Jack was working on. He had trapped Joanna inside a triangular prism of mirrors, with her personality split like refracted light. It was an extraordinary depiction of confused identity, the more so because for each image there was a single image reflected back from the huge encompassing mirror that bordered the canvas. Sarah had asked him what the single image represented. 'Joanna as she wants to be seen. Admired, adored, beautiful.'
She pointed to the prism images. 'And what are they?'
'That's the Joanna she's suppressing with drugs,' he said. 'The ugly, unloved woman who was rejected by mother, husband and daughter. Everything in her life is illusion, hence the mirror theme.'
'That's sad.'
'Don't go sentimental on me, Sarah, or on her either for that matter. Joanna is the most self-centered woman I have ever met. I guess most addicts are. She says Ruth rejected her. That's baloney. It was Joanna who rejected her because Ruth cried whenever Joanna picked her up. It was a vicious circle. The more her baby cried the less mclined she was to love it. She claimed Steven rejected her because he was revolted by the pregnancy, but in the next sentence she admitted she couldn't stand the way he fussed over Ruth. It was she, I think, who rejected
