Withering Heights

hadn’t known Ben wanted to talk to me, I would have needed to get away to clear my head.”

Val looked at her watch.

“I’ve been gone long enough, I have to get back before she comes out looking for me, the way she did Saturday night.”

I said I remembered, and we parted a little awkwardly. We were two strangers who had shared an unusual conversation. Under the circumstances, I couldn’t resent her telling me that she was in love with my husband. She had been right to do so. Perhaps she realized that I had made unfounded assumptions about Ben’s feelings for her. I found myself somewhat embarrassed at the thought of facing him but was delayed in going back into the house when Mrs. Malloy popped around the shrubbery.

“Well, that was interesting.” She enthroned herself in the chair Val had vacated. And to think I hadn’t even requested an audience. “Of course I’d not the least intention of listening, Mrs. H. I came looking for you to see how your talk with Mrs. Cake went.”

“How much did you hear without your ear trumpet?”

“No need to be snippy; I didn’t want to move in case she heard me and got extra embarrassed. Too sensitive to other people’s feelings, I am, but isn’t it a relief all’s cleared up for you and Mr. H? I can tell you now I was worried meself, for all I made light of things to you. It kept coming back to me what the real Madam LaGrange said about an old girlfriend showing up and causing problems for a woman with the name beginning with E.”

I sat back down. “When you saw my reaction, you said it might have been a B. Did Madam LaGrange add that, or did you throw it in to make me feel better?”

“If I told you she said it, then she did,” Mrs. Malloy replied huffily; then her painted eyebrows shot up. “I see what you’re getting at! It was Betty that Madam was talking about. She has the gift for sure! Now I’m back to being worried about what else she said.”

“That’s understandable.” My mind had drifted to Ben and what I would say to him. Wives are such fools might be a good beginning. When I said this to Mrs. Malloy, she poked me with her finger.

“You’ll continue being one if you believe everything you hear. I’ll tell you, now you’re so keen on Val, that there’s something about her gets right up my snout.”

I changed the subject. “Any more tries to get hold of Madam LaGrange?”

“Still getting her voice mail. Mrs. Cake say anything interesting?”

“I expect it was much the same as what she told you. Did she mention that your sister, Melody, does have a gentleman friend?”

“She did, but I couldn’t get a name out of her. Said it wasn’t for her to say. My guess is he’s the friend Mel was seeing Saturday night but canceled to spend time with me. She made it sound like it was a woman.”

“That’s probably because she talked about a shared love of knitting.”

“I suppose.” Mrs. Malloy pursed her lips. “If she wants to keep him interested, she needs to do something about her appearance. Wear bright colors and stay away from black.”

“No, I don’t suppose it suits her as well as it does you.”

“Never did. Even when Mel was a baby she didn’t look good in black.”

“And maybe if she were to do something about that bad perm.” It was something to say, rather than a desire to be catty. I was wondering if I had been too eager to believe Val when she’d assured me Ben had no feelings for her.

“Melody doesn’t need a perm. That’s her natural curl.”

“Conditioner,” I murmured.

While my mind continued to float, Mrs. Malloy recounted her conversation with Mrs. Cake. When she finished, I said that when it came to the main points the story was the same. Forcing myself to concentrate, I asked if she had managed to connect with Milk Jugg on the phone.

“He wasn’t what you’d call thrilled to hear from me, but I soon put him in his place, Mrs. H, the upshot being that he’s going to check into whether Lady Fiona was married to this other man, who from what Mrs. Cake said would be Mr. Gallagher’s cousin. I told Milk as how you and me needed all the particulars he could come up with, and we didn’t want to be left tapping our feet too long. ‘Course, he went on about how strapped he is for time right now.”

“That may well be true.” I was once more convinced Val had told me the unabridged truth.

“Whatever, Mrs. H! The best I could get out of him was that he’d get back to me in a few days.”

“There’s an idea that came to me while I was talking with Mrs. Cake. It has to do with Melody and her desire to get into Mr. Scrimshank’s safe and have a look at his records of the Gallaghers’ finances. Mavis told me yesterday when I stopped to chat with her in the hall that her husband is a locksmith. According to her, he’s so good he can break into anything. I’ve also learned, via Mrs. Cake, that Mavis is extremely fond of her ladyship. Perhaps if Mavis were to speak to her husband and got his okay, Melody could phone and ask the husband to come to the office and try and open the safe at a time when Mr. Scrimshank won’t be around. What do you think?”

“Maybe it’d be best to say as little as possible to the man, in case he refuses for fear of getting into trouble with the law. I’m going to see Melody later; she told me this evening would suit her. I’ll tell her what we’ve been thinking, and if she’s for it you and me can have a word on the subject with Mrs. Cake tomorrow.”

We agreed it was a plan, and I went into the house to face my husband. He was in the kitchen and fortunately alone. Not for the first time, I wondered how many men looked as wonderful as he did in a pair of faded jeans and an equally old sweatshirt, especially when holding a saucepan in one hand and a couple of tomatoes with the other. On seeing me, he laid these items down and came toward me.

“You and Valeria talked?” He placed his hands on my shoulders.

“She said you insisted she do so.”

“I should never have made that promise not to tell you about her and Tom. I have this thing about keeping my word, even if it’s nonsense.”

“I know.”

“At first it seemed to make sense. I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable every time you looked at Tom and Betty when Valeria was there or her name was mentioned. What I overlooked was the fact that you were bound to figure out the state of affairs for yourself and wonder why I was in collusion with a woman I barely knew.”

“I thought you did know her… very well. I convinced myself that you were in love with each other.”

“What?”

I pressed my fingers to his lips. “That’s the way it looked to me, the way you froze before walking blindly toward her. How your face shut down when your eyes met mine.”

He gently removed my hand. “Ellie, I was trying to contain my shock. Here was the girl-the woman Tom had been madly in love with. She was right there in his house, and Betty obviously didn’t have a clue. I felt as though I were in the middle of a minefield. If I were to so much as change expression, there’d be an explosion.”

“It’s all clear as glass now, but… I was a fool.”

“Don’t say that.” He spun a chair away from the table and sat down, drawing me onto his lap. “I can see now how it may have looked.”

“You called her Valeria when no one else did.”

“It has to be one of the worst names ever. Rhymes with malaria.”

“That’s what Ariel said.” I laid my cheek against his and stroked his dark hair.

“And why it stuck in my mind.” He kissed me slowly, and I melted into his warmth, loving his tenderness, his strength, our knowledge of each other that was the reward of having been together for so long, coupled with the feeling of beginning all over again.

I continued to nestle in his arms when speaking about Tom and Betty. “Do you think he had forgotten that you’d met her and was appalled when he saw you recognize each other?”

“Tom has always had the ability to block out what he didn’t want to remember, but in this case it isn’t that surprising that he’d forget. I only saw him with Val, as she’s now called, on a few brief occasions. But I happen to be good with faces.”

“Hers is particularly beautiful.” I was able to say this without rancor.

“Yes, she’s lovely.”

“She’s also a great decorator.”

“There’s no better judge of that than you.” He kissed me again.