‘Oh Lord.’ Marnie swallowed.
‘I wouldn’t worry,’ said Emelie, halting to take a breath. ‘At least not about that. Una managed to insult Kay by asking her if Ruby would be willing to clean for her.’
‘Did she really?’
‘Una hasn’t lifted a finger for years; now that Derek won’t be doing the cooking and cleaning for her she is terrified she might have to learn how to dust.’
‘Is there anything wrong with her?’ asked Marnie.
‘Yes, she has terminal idle-itis,’ chuckled Emelie. ‘I warn you to watch out for her playing a sick card if you are thinking of increasing her rent. Her nerves, her migraines, her bad feet, her bad back. It’s not healthy for a woman only in her late forties to be so lazy. Kay was most affronted that her precious schoolteacher daughter should be asked to clean for her.’
‘I wish I’d been a fly on the wall,’ laughed Marnie, as they started walking again.
‘There was also a lot of interest in the vans that come to your house in the mornings,’ Emelie added. ‘I thought I should warn you.’
Which prompted Marnie to ask, ‘Emelie, how did you know I made cheesecakes?’
Emelie’s hand shot to her mouth. ‘Marnie, I could have cut out my tongue, when I asked you if you wanted the strawberries for your baking in front of Herv. Lilian told me one day about the Tea Lady, but she swore me to secrecy. I can only apologise, it won’t happen again. I certainly acted very dumb yesterday in the Wych Arms and didn’t say a word. I hope that I haven’t spoiled anything for you.’
‘No, not at all. It went completely over Herv’s head,’ Marnie replied, hoping Lilian hadn’t gossiped to anyone else. She was surprised. She didn’t think Lilian would have sold on her secret.
There was a motherlode of wild strawberries in the wood, especially by the side of the beck that ran into the larger Blackett Stream.
‘Some people say that the Blackett stream is named after Margaret Kytson’s black cat, did you know?’ Emelie informed Marnie as she picked her way across to a long-fallen tree and sat down on it to rest.
‘I read about it in Lionel and Lilian’s book,’ she replied.
‘Ah yes, the book.’ Emelie smiled mysteriously. ‘But it is sadly unfinished because there are so many secrets which have not yet come to the surface. And of course, the chapter we are all waiting for can only be written when poor Margaret is found.’ They both took a moment to contemplate the vastness of the wood. ‘Until she is laid to rest, Wychwell cannot move forward. That is what Lilian always believed: that it is anchored to the past with chains of poor Margaret’s blood and Wychwell’s guilt.’
‘Has no one got any idea where the well is?’ asked Marnie.
‘Sadly not. And the wood is, as you can see, enormous. Lilian so wanted to give Margaret and her child a proper burial before she d—’ She cut off her words then, and fell pensive, as if she were chasing something around in her head that refused to be caught. ‘Now wait, Lilian did once say that she had an idea about where the well might be. She saw something when she was doing some research into the book and was looking at the accounts ledgers over at Titus’s house. She said he wasn’t very keen on letting her but he could hardly refuse. But she didn’t write it down and then it was lost. She could never remember what it was.’
‘I’m surprised she could read those ledgers. His handwriting is deliberately obscure.’
‘Well, she must have been able to read some of it because I recall her saying that it was so obvious, she couldn’t think how she’d missed it. She went through the ledgers again but couldn’t find it the second time.’ She lifted her shoulders and dropped them. ‘I suppose if it were as obvious as she said, someone else would have noticed it too.’ She smiled at that. ‘And this was dear Lilian after all.’
As they talked and picked more strawberries, Marnie discovered that the lilt in Emelie’s speech and the strange pronunciation of some of her words were down to the fact that she had been born in Austria and had never quite lost the accent.
‘We had a large house in Salzburg,’ Emelie told her. ‘My father wouldn’t bow down to the Nazis and he was arrested and . . . “pressured”. He was returned to us, fully complicit – or so they thought. We escaped, like the von Trapp family but without the music. My father was a scientist with code-breaking skills which were useful to the British so we were brought to England and changed our name from Taubert to make us fit in better. The government hid us in this village; obviously they must have paid Jago – Lilian’s father – well for the inconvenience because it was clear that he hated us. It was very hard for people to differentiate between Austrians and Germans then. If you spoke German, you were automatically a Nazi to some people, who were hostile to us as a result. The Suttons in particular. Titus’s father was a monster. No wonder his son grew up to be such a liar and a cheat.’ Marnie noticed Emelie’s expression of deep disgust. She thought she knew what that meant.
‘Did you invest money with him too?’
Emelie gave a little trill of laughter. ‘Not I,’ and she shook her head slowly from side to side. My father always taught me that if something looks as though it is too good to be true, then it most likely is. Titus tried to take my money of course. It is foolproof, he said. Only high-risk investments would have paid off what he was promising, I told him and I was right. I know how to play the stock markets, my father was a very rich man in Austria but of course we lost everything when we came over here.’ And she sighed heavily. ‘I have never been back to Austria. I was too afraid of what I would find. Our house was taken from us, everything we owned. I never saw my dogs again.’
Emelie wiped her eye with a tissue that she pulled from her cuff and Marnie thought she must have worried about them so much. That’s why Marnie chose not to have pets. Any attachments she made didn’t tend to last very long.
‘I have always seen through Titus,’ Emelie went on, pushing her tissue back up her sleeve, ‘but he has charm and finesse, or at least he had when he was younger. Now he is growing into the body he deserves, a swollen gout-ridden slug. I want to climb one of the apple trees in my garden and sprinkle salt on him when he passes. Ugh.’
Marnie started giggling at the mental image of Titus shrivelling under a salt-shower, which set Emelie off too and they laughed until their stomachs hurt. They ventured further into the woods to pick more strawberries but the mud defeated them. It was okay though, Marnie had enough by then. She didn’t want to steal too many from the forest and waste them.
‘What are you doing for the rest of the day?’ asked Emelie as they left the shade of the woods for the sunshine.
‘I shall take my book and sit in the garden,’ said Marnie. ‘I’m at a really good bit.’
‘What are you reading?’ Emelie studied her. ‘Let me think. I can see you as a Daphne du Maurier girl. My Cousin Rachel, maybe? Lilian always liked that one. She will have told you all about her sister Rachel of course.’
‘Oh boy, did she,’ nodded Marnie, ‘but I’m going to have to disappoint you. I’m reading Country Manors, the second one. I know it’s trash, I know it’s slightly porny, but I’m absolutely loving it.’