hands sure and unshaking, Lynley knew for a certainty that Marsha Fitzalan held the answer.
"Can you tell me about Gillian Teys?" he asked.
Her hands stopped. She turned to him with a smile. "Gilly?" she said. "What a pleasure that shall be. Gillian Teys was the loveliest creature I've ever known."
Chapter 11
She returnedto the table and placed the tray between them. It was an unnecessary nicety.
The kitchen was so tiny that only a few steps were needed to move across the room, yet still she preserved the semblance of gentility and countered the claustrophobia of poverty by using the tray. It was covered with a piece of old lace upon which rested fine bone china. Both plates were chipped, but the cups and saucers had somehow managed the years unscathed.
Autumn leaves in a pottery jug served to decorate the plain pine table, and onto its surface Marsha Fitzalan set everything out carefully: plates, cutlery, and linen. She poured the steaming coffee into their cups and added sugar and milk to her own before she began to speak.
"Gilly was exactly like her mother. I taught Tessa as well. Of course, it betrays my age dreadfully to admit to that. But there you have it. Nearly everyone in the village passed through my classroom, Inspector." Her eyes twinkled as she added, "Except Father Hart. He and I are of the same generation."
"I should never have guessed," Lynley said solemnly.
She laughed. "Why is it that truly charming men always know when a woman is fi shing for a compliment?" She dug into her pie enthusiastically, chewed appreciatively for a few moments, and then continued. "Gillian was the mirror image of her mother. She had that same lovely blonde hair, those beautiful eyes, and that same wonderful spirit. But Tessa was a dreamer and Gillian was a bit more of a realist, I should say. Tessa's head was always in the clouds. She was all romance. I think that's why she chose to marry so young. She was determined that life was all about being swept off one's feet by a tall, dark hero, and William Teys certainly fit the image."
"Gillian wasn't worried about being swept off her feet?"
"Oh no. I don't think the thought of men ever entered Gilly's head. She wanted to be a teacher. I can remember her coming by in the afternoons, curling up on the floor with a book.
How she loved the Brontes! That child must have read
Jane Eyre six or seven times by her fourteenth birthday. She, Jane, and Mr. Rochester were all rather intimate acquaintances, as I recall. And she loved to talk about everything she read. But it wasn't just chatter. She talked about characters, motivations, meanings. She would say, "I shall have to know these things when I'm a teacher, Miss Fitzalan.'"
"Why did she run away?"
The old woman studied the bronze leaves in the jug. "I don't know," she replied slowly.
"She was such a good child. There was never a problem that she couldn't seem to solve with that quick mind of hers. I honestly don't know what happened."
"Could she have been involved with a man? Perhaps someone she was running after?"
Miss Fitzalan dismissed the idea with a movement of her hand. "I don't believe Gillian was interested in men yet. She was a bit slower to mature than the other girls were."
"What about Roberta? Was she much like her sister?"
"No, Roberta was like her father." She stopped suddenly and frowned. "
Was. I don't want to talk about her in the past tense like that. But she seems to have died."
"She does, doesn't she?"
The woman looked as if she appreciated his concurring with her. "Roberta was big like her father, very solid and silent. People will tell you she had no personality at all, but that's not true. She was simply excruciatingly shy. She had her mother's romantic disposition, her father's taciturnity. And she lost herself in books."
"Like Gillian?"
"Yes and no. She read like Gillian, but she never spoke about what she read. Gillian read to learn. Roberta, I think, read to escape."
"Escape what?"
Miss Fitzalan fussily straightened the lace that covered the old tray. Her hands, Lynley saw, were spotted with age. "The knowledge of being deserted, I should guess."
"By Gillian or her mother?"
"By Gillian. Roberta worshipped Gillian. She never knew her mother. You can imagine what it must have been like having Gilly for an older sister: so lovely, so lively, so intelligent.
Everything Roberta wasn't and wished she could be."
"Jealousy?"
She shook her head. "She wasn't