Mennyms Alone Page 2

  “That would surely apply at any time,” his grandfather pointed out. “I will die in my bed, but there’s no telling where the rest of you will be when it happens, or what you will each be doing. You all gad about too much for my liking. It could be a repeat performance.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Soobie. “If we are all to die, a premonition could help. We could try to leave no trace of ever having lived. We could sever all contact with the outside world. If what you feel is really true, we might at least have time to prepare for an orderly end to things.”

  “So what do we do now?” asked Magnus as he considered these wider implications.

  “We wait for stronger proof,” said Soobie. “If your intuition is correct, there are bound to be further signs. A vague premonition is no use to us. When we have a better idea of what it all means, then will be time enough to prepare.”

  “For that, we would need to know the day and the hour,” said Magnus, clutching the counterpane with both gloved hands. “That knowledge is given to no man.”

  “But we are different,” Soobie reminded him. “We are the creations of Kate Penshaw. Her day and her hour have been and are gone. It may be that she wants us to prepare. If she does, we shall need to be told at least the day if not the hour. We can’t stop living and sit around idle for days or even months waiting for something that might never happen.”

  “So you do believe me?” said Magnus.

  “I’m not sure,” said Soobie. “It’s not impossible. I can’t say more than that.”

  CHAPTER 2

  They Don’t Add Up

  IT WAS EIGHT o’clock on a cold October evening. Albert Pond was sitting on the sofa in the Gladstones’ front room, Lorna beside him, a mass of papers and old photographs scattered on their knees. It was a jumble of family memorabilia. There was a picture of Comus House, the gaunt place in the country where their great-great grandparents had lived, and which Albert had eventually managed to sell. There was a picture of Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove, Aunt Kate’s old home. There were papers about this, that, and everything.

  Jennifer, Lorna’s mother, smiled as they came across a thirty-year-old shopping list.

  She was seated in the big armchair at the other side of the hearth, her feet tucked under her, enjoying the company of her elder daughter and her new son-in-law. In the background could be heard sounds of music and various other squeaks and creaks, not to mention bumps and bangs. This was the norm for Number 60 Elmtree Road.

  Albert looked at the old black-and-white picture of Aunt Kate standing in front of the house in Brocklehurst Grove, a street a few miles away in neighbouring Castledean. He felt a shiver run down his spine. To the best of his knowledge, he had never been inside this house. He knew Castledean quite well, of course. It was just the other side of the river from the smaller town of Rimstead where the Gladstones lived. He even knew that he must frequently have passed that very street, but that was all.

  Yet it seemed to mean more to him than that. And it did. Two years ago, he had walked nervously up that very path and into the house. He had been accepted almost as a member of the family in the Mennym household, as if he too were a rag doll. But it had to end, and when it did all knowledge of their existence was erased from his memory, otherwise Albert could never have returned unscathed to his own world. It was a tiny miracle sent to put right the harm Kate Penshaw had done in calling on this hapless human being to rescue the Mennyms when their home was threatened with demolition.

  Albert picked up some of the papers dealing with the will left by Chesney Loftus. He read through them.

  “They don’t add up,” he said.

  Jennifer looked puzzled. She saw that Albert was holding the Brocklehurst Grove papers in his hand.

  “What do you mean?” she said. “It seems clear enough to me. According to Uncle Chesney’s will, when the Mennyms die or move away, I become the owner of Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove. And, yes, I do see that that should be some time within the next few years. Even the son, Joshua, must be quite old by now. They were tenants for about forty-two years before Chesney died and, as far as I can make out, they were all living there in old Aunt Kate’s time, before ever Chesney inherited.”

  Albert smiled and pushed his hair back from his brow, a gesture his students were used to. It usually meant that he had something to explain and was diffident about explaining it. His mother-in-law, with her pale blue eyes and untidy fair hair, had the trusting look of a child. Albert himself was not worldly, but a certain scholarly logic made him suspicious of these Mennyms who were keeping Jennifer from what he felt was rightfully hers.

  “This is what I mean,” he said. “If you consider that Joshua was married with a fair-sized family forty-six years ago, he must be round about eighty now, if not older. That would make his father over a hundred, unless they all married at an absurdly young age.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” said Jennifer. “I haven’t really thought about it. I only knew about the will four years ago. All I remember of Uncle Chesney is Christmas cards from Australia when I was a child.”

  “Let’s think about the Mennyms,” said Albert. “Are you satisfied that they are still alive?”

  “Either Sir Magnus or his son Joshua is supposed to sign a declaration of residence each year on the first of October. A copy is always sent to me, as an interested party. Sir Magnus has not signed for the past two years,” said Jennifer. “So I suppose he might have died. Or it could just be that the son was at home at the time and the father wasn’t.”

  “Sir Magnus might have died years ago,” said Albert. “Joshua might be dead too.”

  “He couldn’t be,” said Jennifer, still not grasping what Albert meant. “His signature is on the declaration. It is the same signature as every year.”

  Lorna looked sharply from one to the other. She was more astute than either her mother or her husband, but Brocklehurst Grove was something she had never shown any curiosity about hitherto. It was just another family story, the sort her mother relished. At first it had given all the family a flutter of interest, but when it became apparent that nothing was going to happen there and then, they had dismissed it from their minds. The dictum, ‘I’ll believe it when it happens’ was a popular saying in the Gladstone household. They applied it liberally to all promises that might or might not be fulfilled someday. Now, however, Lorna saw clearly what Albert was driving at.

  Lorna and Albert had been married for just over two months. Besides being distant cousins, Lorna had been one of Albert’s students in her undergraduate days. After graduation she had taken a junior post in the university library. Her friendship with Albert had begun when she discovered that they were related. It had continued because they enjoyed one another’s company.

  One evening last winter, Lorna and Albert had been to a concert in Durham. Albert walked with her to the bus station.

  “We’re well matched, you know,” said Lorna, her arm linked in Albert’s.

  “Yes,” said Albert without really taking in what she meant.

  “Why don’t we get married?”

  Albert was startled.

  “What do you mean?” he said, though what she meant was perfectly clear.

  She swung round and stood still in front of him. The street-lamps gave a fairy quality to her black hair and pale oval face. She looked up at him. The usual stray lock of soft brown hair flopped on Albert’s broad brow. His thin face, high cheek-boned, was also pale in the yellow lamplight.

  “Will you marry me, Albert Pond?” said Lorna, her dark eyes twinkling. “It’s not an idea I’ve just come up with. I’ve given it considerable thought.”

  “I’m too old for you,” said Albert. “I’m ten years older than you are.”

  Lorna shook her head. There was a lot of bravado in her manner. Beneath it, she was nervous but determined not to show it.

  “You couldn’t be too old for anybody, Albert. You might be too young for me, but I think I can learn to put up with that. G
ive me a straight answer. Will you marry me?”

  “Yes,” said Albert, slightly dazed. “Yes. I will.”

  Lorna reminded him of another girl in another life. That the girl was Pilbeam, a beautiful rag doll, was something beyond recall. Only the feeling remained, the faint, forgotten memory of a true and pure love. But he knew that he loved Lorna, and he realised that she loved him. They were married the following year at the end of July, and set up home together in Albert’s little house in Calder Park.

  Lorna took the papers from Albert’s hand and scrutinised them.

  “I know what you mean,” she said. “If any younger member of the family wants to go on living in Brocklehurst Grove they will not be able to do so once Sir Magnus and Joshua have died. That is very clear from the terms of the will. Chesney may not have intended to deprive you of your inheritance for very long. He would think that the family would have married and left home. The older generation might well have passed away or moved on by now.”

  Jennifer was mystified. She was far from stupid, but she was very innocent.

  “Do you mean,” she said, trying the idea for size, “that there is some sort of trick being played on us?”

  “If younger members of the Mennym family are signing Joshua’s name and he is no longer living there, that is not a trick, Mother,” said Lorna. “It is a crime.”

  “That’s putting it too strongly,” Jennifer protested. “You can’t go round calling people criminals even if you do have some sort of claim on their home.”

  “I can,” said Lorna. “If those signatures are forgeries, then whoever signed has broken the law. Couldn’t be plainer.”

  Jennifer looked worried.

  “I am not going to accuse innocent people of doing something for which I haven’t a shred of proof. It’s not even as if I were Chesney’s next-of-kin. It’s pure luck that he decided to leave the house to me. Other members of the family have as much right to it as I have, maybe more. They are not complaining.”

  A door upstairs opened on squeaky hinges. The music became louder. In the hall someone dropped something and then cried “Ouch!” The noise was increasing.

  Tom, Jennifer’s husband and father of the whole noisy family, came in from the dining-room.

  “Has anybody seen my ruler?” he said.

  “Never mind that,” said his wife. “Come and hear what these two are saying.”

  Tom Gladstone was a primary school teacher. He had been in the dining-room, preparing a chart for one of next day’s lessons. He stood and listened to what they had to say, talking one over the other.

  “I don’t see what you can do about it,” he said. “It could be another ten years before your suspicions would be really strong. People are living longer and longer these days.”

  Albert said, “Well, Jennifer could always go round and ring their doorbell and introduce herself.”

  Jennifer looked aghast.

  “I could not,” she said. “I most certainly could not. What would they think of me? It would be downright rude.”

  “All right, Mum, all right,” said Lorna. “Don’t get your feathers ruffled. Nobody is going to make you do anything. Albert’s just joking. But you have to admit it’s intriguing. The possibility of fraud does exist – and if there is fraud, you are the loser by it.”

  “There is one other thing you could do,” mused Albert. “You could write to these solicitors . . .” (he looked down at one of the papers) “. . . Cromarty, Varley and Thynne, and ask them to require Sir Magnus Mennym and his son Joshua to produce copies of their birth certificates.”

  “That’s enough,” said Jennifer shuffling the papers into their folders. “I thought Albert might be interested in our family history. I didn’t expect it to turn into a full-scale investigation into people who are not part of the family at all.”

  “I don’t see what harm there would be in asking for the birth certificates to be produced,” said Tom, sympathising with Albert.

  “Well, I’m not going to write to the solicitors,” said Jennifer. “You can if you like.”

  “I will,” said Lorna, taking her mother’s suggestion much more literally than she had intended. “I’ll write a letter as soon as we get home tonight. I’ll pop in with it tomorrow and you can sign it.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Appleby’s Visitors

  THE FAMILY AT Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove had no idea that they were under suspicion. The declaration had been signed punctually on the first day of October. Sir Magnus Mennym’s strange forebodings did not seem to be linked to anything outside their home. They were all aware of the shadow of Kate Penshaw somewhere in the background of their lives. They all knew about the door in the attic that must never be opened. If the end were really coming, it would surely come by way of that door. And it seemed to them that only the spirit who had given them life could ever take it away. Magnus’s premonition was spoken of quietly by all the women of the house. Encouraged by Tulip, they saw it as a reason to pity an old man’s folly. That was the easiest way of dealing with it. To understand or come to terms with the reality of death was much harder. So much they had learnt already.

  Appleby was dead.

  She was lying as if asleep on her bed in the back bedroom. Her brushes were still on the dressing-table, her clothes still hung in the wardrobe. On the table beside her bed a year-old magazine lay open at the fashion page. The room was tidier than it would have been had its occupant been living. Tulip kept it spotless.

  The doll in the bed had red hair and green button eyes. It lay on its back with its arms out over the top cover. The hands were almost human with nails painted vivid red. But it was a doll. It was not the Appleby the family had known, the lively teenager who had driven them all to distraction with her maddening ways but had never once lost their love. And they still loved her. They loved the doll that had once been home to her spirit.

  Pilbeam came in and talked to her.

  “I miss you,” she said, holding the lifeless hand. “Nothing is the same. I go to the shops and I imagine you there at my side, swinging along as if the street were your private property. I point to things in shop windows and say, ‘Look, Applebly . . .’ then I realise that you are not there. I miss everything about you, even your lies and your mischief. Will it ever be easier? Will it?”

  Vinetta too would come to Appleby’s room, late in the evening, bringing with her some sewing. She would sit quietly beside her daughter and remember. This did not happen every evening. It was no empty ritual, just a sober, quiet way of saying, I love you.

  Wimpey, Vinetta’s ten-year-old daughter, was the one whose visits were ritual. She had refused to believe that Appleby would never live again. Her mother had not had the heart to destroy this faith, but she channelled it into something gentle and harmless.

  “You may look in on Appleby each morning,” she said, after she herself had recovered from the shock of her daughter’s death. “Don’t go right into the room. Just open the door and say, ‘Good morning, Appleby,’ and if she replies you will know that she has woken up.”

  It could, after all, come true. It could be seen as a prayer that might some day receive a favourable answer.

  So every morning, without fail, Wimpey peeped into Appleby’s room. At first she longed to hear her sister’s voice, but as time went on she grew half-fearful that the doll in the bed would suddenly sit up and speak. She began to open the door the merest chink, to say ‘Good morning’ very quickly, and to hurry away.

  Tulip not only swept and dusted the room, she also brought in fresh vases of flowers. She brushed the red hair and stroked the doll’s brow. Here for Tulip was a sort of peace. The others might fuss and quarrel. Appleby’s quarrels were all ended. Granny Tulip was sixty-five years old, old enough to love the silence and the stillness of this one room in a busy, noisy house.

  No other member of the household ever paid Appleby a visit. Wimpey’s twin, Poopie, had his own way of not facing up to his sister’s death. He never men
tioned Appleby at all. He was not unique in this reaction. Joshua, Appleby’s father, acted in the same way. When his daughter died he had been a tower of strength in Vinetta’s time of weakness. As soon as a new normality was established he retreated into himself again. Months ago, Soobie had been taken by his grandmother to see Appleby ‘lying in state’. Once was sufficient. He had stood at the foot of her bed and clenched his blue fists till the palms crumpled.

  Oddest of all was Miss Quigley, the baby’s nanny. Vinetta said to her one day, “Would you make me a portrait of my daughter?”

  “Googles? Wimpey?” said Miss Quigley cautiously.

  “Appleby,” said Vinetta. Hortensia Quigley was a wonderful artist. It was in the January after Appleby’s death. Vinetta feared, oh one cannot put into words what she feared, but because of her fears she wanted a permanent memory of Appleby lying serene and unblemished.

  Hortensia said quickly, words almost run together, “No, Vinetta, I can’t. Don’t ask me why. I just can’t. Her face is not clear in my mind, and I will never see her again.”

  “But . . .” began Vinetta.

  “No,” said Hortensia. “Don’t ask. It’s impossible. I prefer to remember her as she was.”

  No one in the household ever forgot how Appleby had died. Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove was not much different from every other house in the street, but inside the attic there was a door, a mysterious door that seemed to lead to another world. Wilfully disobeying Aunt Kate’s command, Appleby had begun to open it. Then, realising the danger just in time, she had put up a mighty struggle to close it again. Vinetta had rushed to her daughter’s aid. Between them they had managed to shut the door, but at an enormous cost . . .

  Incredibly, heartbreakingly, Appleby was dead.

  CHAPTER 4

  An Impertinent Request

  THE LETTER FROM Cromarty, Varley and Thynne was addressed to Joshua. It had not been an easy letter for the clerk to write because there had to be a vague way of asking for Sir Magnus Mennym’s birth certificate whilst feeling uncertain whether the older gentleman was still alive. It would be much too bald and hurtful to say ‘if he is still living’!