Mistletoe Mystery (7 page)

“I love books too,” said Philly. “There’s something magical
about travelling to other worlds whilst sitting in your own armchair.”

Mrs. Cunningham looked at her with approval. “A person who
doesn’t love books doesn’t love life, that’s what I think.”

“I agree!”

“It wasn’t always easy to impart that to the girls, though I
hope I did my best. I imagine it’s even harder for teachers nowadays, with
television and the Internet to distract them. Not to mention those awful phones
that ring wherever you are in the world. In my day if you missed a telephone
call, people simply phoned you back. But now I sound like an old fogey, out of
tune with society. We do have a computer …” she glanced around the room.
“Somewhere amongst all the clutter. My grandson taught me how to send an email
and how to … what do they call it? Surf? Now that’s magical. Being able to surf
when the nearest beach is miles away.” Mrs. Cunningham winked. Philly strongly
suspected that her hostess was nowhere near to being the vague old lady she
pretended to be. “But,” Mrs Cunningham continued, “You’re not here to talk
about my computing habits. You want to know about Dominique.”

“Yes please. You said you knew her.”

Mrs Cunningham sighed. “Yes, did. Poor girl.”

“You say that as if you think she’s dead.”

“There seems to be no other explanation. I told you, did I
not, that my husband and I were amateur sleuths in our day? She was our only
failure.” Mrs. Cunningham’s eyes became sad. “But when I say poor girl, I don’t
mean it in that sense. I mean she was always a poor girl. She had a weight
problem, and with her glasses, buck teeth and frizzy hair … well, she was not
glamorous. People think that young girls are only obsessed with image nowadays,
but it isn’t true. Anyone who looked different was not treated well. It did not
help that Dominique was not the friendliest of creatures. She certainly did not
have the warmth of her fellow countrymen. Also … well I should not say this as
it speaks ill of the dead. But she was very greedy.”

“Hence the weight problem?”

“Oh I think it was more than just a problem. You see, she
would receive these big trunks of food from her family. Now the other girls
always shared.” Mrs. Cunningham smiled. “Let’s just say we turned a blind eye
to midnight feasts … but Dominique would not share. Once, a couple of the girls
decided to steal her trunk, just for a laugh. They weren’t dishonest and had no
ideas of really stealing the food inside. But Dominique caught them and went
absolutely crazy over it. She wanted them punished. She wanted them whipped.
Well, whatever you might have heard of corporal punishment in schools in the
‘old’ days, we did not whip our girls. They were punished with writing lines,
of course. But it left Dominique more alone than ever. She was not a nice girl,
and did not invite friendships.”

“Yet you felt sorry for her…”

Mrs. Cunningham nodded. “Yes, I did. I know what it is to be
different. My mother was a single parent at a time when such things were
frowned upon. I used to try to talk to Dominique, and sometimes she would open
up to me, mainly about the books she had read.”

“Did she ever talk of her family?”

“Only in very general terms. Her father the count, her
mother the contessa. I rather think that they were virtual strangers to her.
Many upper class parents were like that back then. Palm a child off with a
nanny, then straight off to boarding school. They seldom get to know their children.”

“But they disappeared?”

“Yes, at the same time as she did.”

“Did they even exist?”

“Oh yes. Or at least her father did. I met him when he
brought her to the school the first time. A very handsome man as I remember
rightly. Distinguished looking. Everything you expect a French count to be.”

Chapter Six

“When I say did they exist, I mean did the actual family
exist? As French nobility, I mean.”

“Do eat a scone, dear,” said Mrs. Cunningham. “Ah, yes, I
see where you’re going with it. There are many counts in France, of course, and
many of them very minor nobility. Plus, a lot call themselves ‘Count’ for no
reason, or because, as in England, they’ve bought a title which means
absolutely nothing in terms of nobility. It turned out their name did fit with
one branch of the nobility, but it could not be proved one way or another
whether Dominique’s family existed. If her father was an imposter, it had been
well-planned. But it makes little sense why they would do such a thing.
Bedlington Hall, though a wonderful school in my eyes, was not considered one
of the top girl’s schools. Most of our girls came from the nouveau riche. Not a
princess or a title lady amongst them.”

“Tell me about the time Dominique disappeared,” said Philly,
biting into a buttered scone. “This is delicious,” she said. “You must give my
friend, Puck, the recipe.”

Mrs. Cunningham laughed. “Puck? Is he has mischievous as the
Shakespeare character?”

“Oh yes. But he’s very nice too. So is my friend, Meg.
They’re going to get married.”

“Ah, so he’s not the young man in your life then?”

“No, I don’t have a young man in my life,” said Philly,
almost choking on the scone.

“Really? I could have sworn… Never mind. There isn’t much to
tell about the time Dominique disappeared. One day she was there. The next day
she had gone. Literally vanished. No one saw her leave, though some of the
girls insisted they saw her in Midchester once. They built up some story of how
she had fallen in love with a local boy and …”

“That’s what I thought!” Philly put her plate down. “Do you
remember the small tower next to the lake? With the seat facing the house?”

“Yes, of course.”

“There were hearts in there, with dates and times. I
wondered if Dominique had met someone there.”

“I hardly think so, dear. As you pointed out, the tower
faces the house, and it can be seen from the house. Surely it would have been
better to meet in one of the other follies, which faced the lake?”

“Yes, I suppose so.” Philly felt deflated as if an avenue
had closed to her. “I wondered if she’d been meeting a young man and either ran
away with him or …” She left the rest unsaid.

Mrs. Cunningham nodded. “Of course that thought crossed all
our minds, but I can’t see it. As I’ve said, Dominique was rather plain, and,
I’m sorry to be cruel, without graces.”

“But that wouldn’t matter if he thought there might be money
at the end of it.”

“I suppose so, but there were girls with much richer
fathers. I had the impression from Dominique that her family lived in genteel
poverty. Even paying for her to attend Bedlington Hall was a stretch for their
finances. I’m sure any young man taking an interest would have soon found that
out. No, Dominique’s story has some other truth behind it that we haven’t
found. People don’t just disappear, taking all their luggage and belongings…”

“But she didn’t take her luggage. She left one trunk. I
found it in the attic. It had her name on it.”

“The attic?” Mrs. Cunningham frowned. “That’s very strange.”

“Why?”

“You know, of course, that we rented Bedlington Hall from
the owners, your relatives the Sandersons. They lived abroad and had done so
since before the Second World War. I gather they weren’t very well off and it
was cheaper to rent to us and live overseas. But we only had access to the
lower rooms and the first two floors. The Sandersons had put all their
belongings in the attic and it was kept locked. We didn’t even have the key and
the girls were forbidden to go up to that floor. In fact, I don’t know if it’s
still there, but there was once a locked door at the bottom of the staircase,
to ensure they didn’t. Some of the girls used to try to go up to that landing
to smoke, you see.”

“That is strange. Unless one of the Sandersons found the
trunk afterwards and put it in the attic.”

“We all combed those grounds thoroughly,” said Mrs.
Cunningham. “The staff, the police, even the girls. If that trunk were anywhere
to be found, we would have found it. To all intents and purposes, Dominique
left with everything she owned, which is what made her disappearing act so
amazing. So how the trunk got into the attic, I don’t know.”

“Was there anyone who had a key to the attic? A janitor or
caretaker?”

“I don’t think so, dear.” Mrs. Cunningham shook her head.
“It’s possible someone did, in case of fire. Though with it being the top
floor, that wouldn’t have been an issue. No one went up there. Of course, my
memory may not be what it was.”

Philly had the feeling that Mrs. Cunningham’s memory was as
perfect sitting in the tiny bungalow as it had been nearly fifty years before
when she was a teacher at Bedlington Hall.

The front door slammed shut, making Philly jump.

“Don’t worry, dear, that will be my husband. Is that you,
Drew?”

“It certainly is. Do I smell scones?”

An elderly man with a ramrod straight back entered the room.
Like his wife, he had a twinkle in his eyes. Philly suspected that fifty years
ago he had made female parishioners hearts flutter. It was clear from the way
they looked at each other that he still made his wife’s heart flutter and vice
versa.

“Drew, this is Philly Sanderson, from up at Bedlington
Hall.”

“Sanderson? Now there’s a name to be reckoned with. I’m very
pleased to meet you, Miss Sanderson. Or should I call you Ms nowadays?” said
Reverend Cunningham, holding out his hand. “We never got to meet your
godmother, and were afraid you would be another one not to show your face in
Midchester. She kept herself to herself rather.”

“I’m very glad I have,” said Philly, shaking the reverend’s
hand and smiling. “I hope I shall see you both more often.” As she said it, she
knew it was true. She liked the elderly couple who had fancied themselves as
sleuths once upon a time.  “Perhaps you can tell me more about
Midchester’s history. I’m afraid my own knowledge is very scant.”

Philly stayed a while longer talking to them. As well as
filling her in on the history of the area, most of it of the criminal variety,
they discussed Dominique DuPont for quite a while. The story always came back
to the same point. The girl had just disappeared, leaving no trace that she
ever existed.

“I meant to ask,” said Philly as she was leaving, “whether
you’d heard of a painter called Robespierre.”

“Oh yes. A bit of a naughty boy, by all accounts,” Reverend
Cunningham had replied. “He was from this area, you know. Not that we knew him.
He says he was born in poverty, then he became a bit of a champagne socialist,
always railing against the system that kept him and others in chains, whilst
living it up in the South of France, or knocking around New York with Warhol
and his cronies. I don’t think Robespierre let those chains hold him down that
much. He got into trouble a while ago for art forgery but managed to take off
to a country without an extradition treaty.”

It was pretty much what Philly and Meg found out on the
Internet. “Robespierre seems to have disappeared,” she told the Cunninghams.
“I’ve been trying to track him down. I found one of his paintings in
Dominique’s trunk. But I’m pretty sure it was from a later time.”

“I was just about to say that it couldn’t have been whilst
Dominique was at the school,” said Mrs. Cunningham. “He wouldn’t have been that
old. Of course, he may have started young.”

“Do you recall ever seeing any young men around the school?”
asked Philly.

“Dozens of them, dear,” said Mrs. Cunningham with a smile.
“Our girls weren’t in a convent, you know, and whilst we tried to stop them
forming … shall we say unpalatable relationships … we couldn’t stop them being
interested in boys. Some young men used to come up from the village and escort
the girls to local dances. There was always a teacher to supervise, but I won’t
pretend that the older girls didn’t find inventive ways to lose that teacher
sometimes.”

“But you don’t think Dominique was attached to anyone in
particular?”

“No. I’d say she wasn’t interested in boys at all. I think
she realised she wasn’t much of a catch, so didn’t give out what the youth of
today call vibes. Do you see how good I am with modern language?” Mrs.
Cunningham added, her eyes twinkling in her husband’s direction.

There had to be a rational explanation as to why the trunk
and picture were in the attic, Philly thought as she walked back to Bedlington
Hall. Mrs. Cunningham had promised she would try to remember the name of the
caretaker who used to work at the school. Chances are, if there had been one,
he or she might be dead by now as the role tended to go to an older person. It
occurred to Philly that there might be some students who knew Dominique. If
they were aged eleven to eighteen in the sixties, they would only be in their
early to mid sixties now. Yet Mrs. Cunningham had made it clear that Dominique
was not attached to any of the girls at the school. In fact, there seems to
have been quite a lot of animosity between her and the other students.

Philly had known girls just like Dominique at her own
school. Unattractive and without social graces, they alienated everyone by
being snappy and unpleasant. It was not always clear whose fault it was; the
girl for not trying hard enough to fit in, or the other children for not
accepting that people were different. Not everyone could be a great beauty or
charm the birds out of the trees. On the other hand, friendship was a two-way
street, and one only got out of it what one put into it.

She had once tried making friends with one of the plain,
graceless girls, more out of pity than anything, but had found it draining to
deal with her new friend’s moods, which blew hot and cold depending on the day
of the week. In the end, Philly had stopped hanging around with the girl, for
which she was blamed in a horrid and humiliating row in the school playground
soon afterwards. She had not been articulate enough at the time to explain that
it was her friend’s sullen behaviour that had pushed her away, and to this day
she felt guilty that she did not try harder to cement the friendship. It was a
relief when the girl was taken out of that school and sent to a different one.
Only then did Philly and her other friends learn that it was the latest in a long
line of schools where the sullen girl had failed to fit in.