Angel with Two Faces

connected with a sense of loss for her to find any joy or purpose in it.

‘My heart’s just not in it right now,’ she admitted, more seriously this time, ‘and there’s no point in doing anything if you’re going to be lacklustre about it. The publishers have been baying for another shocker ever since The Man in the Queue, and with Queen of Scots not being quite the success that everyone hoped for, it seemed a good time to give in to them.’

‘Well, you know Lettice and I are helping out with the local drama group this week and amateur theatricals always bring out a murderous streak in us, so just ask if you’re stuck for a plot line.’ They were on the open road by now, although Ronnie was still driving so slowly that Josephine half-wondered if there was something wrong with the car; caution behind the wheel was something she would have expected more from Lettice than her sister. ‘I do hope you’re going to come out and support the Winwaloe Players on Tuesday night.’ She laughed as she saw the expression on Josephine’s face. ‘They’re giving their Jackdaw of Rheims.’

‘Isn’t that a poem?’

‘Not by the time they’ve finished with it. Actually, they’re really rather good, and the theatre alone is worth the trip.’

‘So I hear. Archie said it was right on the edge of a cliff and absolutely breathtaking. Whose idea was that?’

‘A woman called Rowena Cade. She’s barking mad, of course – well, you have to be to carve a theatre out of a rock, don’t you – but in the best possible way. She started it about three years ago, and we got roped into helping with the costumes for the show that our lot put on there. We’ve done it ever since – it’s really rather magical as long as the weather holds.’ Ronnie reached behind her and took a flask and a bag of shortbread from the back seat.

‘Do I detect the Snipe at work?’ Josephine asked. Having often stayed with the Motleys in St Martin’s Lane, she was familiar with their formidable cook, who had travelled with the sisters when they made the permanent move from Cornwall to London just after the war, and who also kept house for Archie. Much to everyone’s surprise, the change had suited Dora Snipe and she took instantly to city life, returning only for the occasional holiday and to ensure that standards had not dropped in her absence.

‘You certainly do. She’s taken control of her old kitchen with a vengeance, and she found time in between the wake bakes to make you these.’

‘Good God, does she do funerals as well?’

‘Oh yes. In fact, it’s a bit of a family business. The undertaker – Jago – is her brother-in-law.’

Josephine took out a biscuit and ate it thoughtfully. ‘What did happen to her husband, by the way? I don’t think I ever knew.’

‘No one does. She came to us thirty-odd years ago, and she was on her own by then. She never talks about her marriage, and the only thing anyone seems to know is that it ended when it was still very new.’

‘But she was widowed?’

Ronnie shrugged. ‘Would you be brave enough to pry? The one thing I can say with any certainty is that she’ll have got a good deal on the burial if he did die.’

Intrigued, Josephine poured some tea from the flask, grateful now for Ronnie’s sedate pace. ‘How’s Archie?’ she asked. ‘I can think of better starts to a holiday than carrying a coffin.’

‘Bearing up, if you’ll excuse the pun. Lettice and I always dread any big occasion taking place while we’re at home – weddings, funerals, christenings, they’re all the same. Everyone’s got such a history, you see – they’ve lived and worked together on that estate for generations, and that makes for very strong alliances, and even stronger grudges. It’s like being part of some sort of brotherhood, I suppose – if you imagined something midway between Camelot and Dennis Wheatley, you’d have it about right.’ They both laughed. ‘Most of the time, it’s all perfectly normal. The estate’s big enough for everyone to have his role, and there’s something rather fine about the way they all work together to keep it going. But when we’re gathered together under one roof, it all gets a bit tense and incestuous.’

‘Not unlike the theatre, then,’ Josephine said wryly. ‘It must be home from home for you.’

‘I’d never thought of it like that, but now you mention it, there are some similarities. I have to say, though, it was a very strange do today, even by our standards. The young lad, Christopher – the Snipe’s nephew, in fact – he nearly dropped the coffin; the curate bungled the eulogy; and, to cap it all, when we came out of the church desperate to get the man safely in the ground, his little sister had tarted the grave up to look like a florist’s showpiece. We rounded the corner and there she was – grinning over six feet of bluebells. All very Lady of Shalott. I could have died, but I’m eternally grateful to you for saving me from the wake. It can only have got worse.’

Josephine pictured the scene with a shudder. She had a hatred of funerals, and in particular of flowers on graves. ‘If anything happens to me, I don’t want a petal in sight,’ she said. ‘But are you seriously telling me that someone let a child decorate the inside of a grave?’

‘Loveday’s not exactly a child. I suppose she’s about fourteen, but she’s always been precocious and her outlook on the world can be a little – well, fanciful. To be honest with you,’ Ronnie added confidingly, ‘I don’t think she’s quite right in the head, but nobody would ever say that. They just accept her for what she is. The parents are both dead, but there’s another sister – Harry’s twin – and the three of them were devoted to each other. I dread to think how this has affected them.’

‘What happened to Harry, anyway? Archie said there was an accident, but he didn’t have time to tell me much.’

‘Well, Harry’s always been one of those daredevil types, but this time his luck ran out. The stupid boy rode his horse into the lake and drowned.’

‘What happened to the horse?’ ‘He swam safely to the other bank. Trust you to think of that first.’

‘Well, I’ve always thought the phrase “daredevil type” was another way of saying “irresponsible bastard”,’ Josephine said tartly, ‘so my sympathies are firmly with the horse. Don’t you think it’s a little selfish to get yourself killed like that?’

‘I know what you mean, but don’t say it out loud when we get there – you’ll be lynched. Everyone loved Harry, and they certainly won’t have a word spoken against him now he’s dead.’

‘Let’s ask the older sister in three months’ time shall we?’ retorted Josephine scornfully. ‘I don’t think I could ever forgive someone who left me so unnecessarily, no matter how much I loved them – and I’m financially independent. From what you say, she’s got a tough time ahead.’

‘Pa will look after her – he always has. And Jago – he and his wife were good friends with the parents, and he’ll do what he can for Morwenna.’ They turned off the main road and followed a narrow lane which ran closer to the sea. Ferns of every description lined the roadside, and the hedgerows were filled with campion and bluebells – as beautiful in their natural setting as they had been sinister a few moments before. ‘Pa won’t tell you this himself, but he saved Loveday’s life when she was a little girl,’ Ronnie explained. ‘There was a fire at their cottage one night a few years back – a spark must have caught in the thatch and it went up like a beacon. Pa saw it across the park and got there as soon as he could with a couple of men from the stables. He found Loveday crouching by the stairs while another man dragged Harry unconscious from his room, but it was too late for the parents – they both died in their beds.’

‘Good God – that’s awful.’

‘I know. It makes you wonder what the family did in a former life, doesn’t it?’

‘Where was the other sister?’

‘Morwenna? She was away from home, thank God. She’d started to work at the Union over in Helston by then. It’s a sort of poorhouse-cum-refuge, and she was on a night shift. As you can imagine, she’s had her share of shocks in life, and she’s still a way off thirty. So you’re right, I suppose – Harry’s recklessness was selfish.’

‘Things could have been so much worse if it hadn’t been for your father, though.’

‘Yes, although he always shakes it off. He didn’t even tell Lettice and me that he was the one who’d saved them – we found out from the Snipe, who found out from her brother-in-law. He’s always taken his responsibilities to that estate and everyone on it very personally – although I think diving into burning buildings is carrying things too far. He won’t be told, though. He’s paid for Harry’s funeral, of course, and he’ll find a way to ensure that Loveday and Morwenna are all right without making them feel like charity cases.’

‘It must be a nightmare overseeing something that size,’ said Josephine, thinking of all the once grand estates that she read about which had fallen on hard times in recent years, ‘especially since the war. And I can’t