Bridesmaids Revisited by Dorothy Cannell Page A

interested in talking about his financial investments, until he lost most of his money. After that he went even more into his shell. He died a few years ago. I don’t remember his ever saying more than a few words to me. And they were probably to point out that I needed to lose weight. His wife, Astrid, lived and breathed, she still does, for their daughter, Vanessa. She has no other topic of conversation.”
    “What about Louisa?” Thora asked.
    “I call her Aunt Lulu. She’s rather dear, in a naughty sort of way. Almost as though she never grew up. She’s married to a man named Maurice who’s the last word in pomposity. They have a son—my favorite cousin, Freddy. He lives in the cottage at the gates of our house. Aunt Lulu is a chatterer, but not about the past.
    “Maybe,” I added soberly, “she and my mother had more in common than they both realized.”
    “Same father, for starters.”
    “What was my grandfather like?”
    Thora shifted Dog’s head off her lap. She got up and checked a couple of saucepans on the gas cooker, adjusted the burners as low as they could go without sputtering out, and came back to the table. “William Fitzsimons wouldn’t have been my choice of a husband. Wasn’t Sophia’s, either. Her father pushed the match. I never could make out why. He and William had rubbed each other the wrong way from day one. I heard them having a heated argument one afternoon, when Jane and I had come down for the weekend to see Rosemary, who was staying here while taking a dispensing course. The two men must have thought the house was empty. Mrs. McNair was out on parish work and we girls had gone to a tennis party, but I had to come back to get another racquet. We’d barely started the first set when I broke a string on mine.”
    “What was the row about?” I leaned my elbows on the table.
    “Couldn’t make out more than the odd disjointed sentence or two.” Thora squeezed her eyes shut as if trying to bring the memory into focus. “The study door was shut and I didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping. Although”—dimples appeared in her cheeks—“if I’d been caught standing on the staircase it would have looked as though I were either going up or coming down. The door was where the coat tree now is. Rosemary had it blocked up and the study taken out to enlarge the kitchen when we first moved in. But she decided on keeping the fireplace. Cheers the place up in winter.”
    “It does add charm.” My eyes followed hers to the far wall. I was lying. In my opinion, the fireplace didn’t do a thing for the room. It was too small, with a tile surround that looked as though it had come out of a public lavatory, and a mean, cramped grate that wouldn’t have held more than two lumps of coal. I had a hazy memory of it from my childhood visit. Perhaps even then I hadn’t liked it. Could it be that the parrot had been brought in to amuse me and had made some terrifying remark or that there had been a scary ornament on the mantelpiece? Would that explain why I had experienced a chilly sensation on entering the kitchen a few moments ago?
    In every other way it was a cheerfully functional room with its apple-green paint, pine cupboards, and neatly fitted appliances. On the windowsill was a jug of the same Devonshire pottery displayed on the dresser. And several hooked rugs warmed up the slate floor. Everything was spotlessly clean. Edna must work like a dog, perhaps goaded on by Ted’s taunts. I wondered how he was doing, before bringing my thoughts back to Thora.
    “What did you overhear of the argument between Reverend McNair and William Fitzsimons when you came back for the tennis racquet?”
    “Something about the abomination of drink. Edna’s mother was mentioned. Her name was Gladys. Used to be the daily help in those days. Everyone knew she tippled.” Thora shrugged. “And it’s true that it had begun to affect her work. Mrs. McNair caught her passed out on the sofa a few times.