“Was she …”
“No, she wasn’t burned to death, but she lost all her beauty. She was very handsome and vain. She never went out of the house from that night to the day of her death and she left directions that her coffin was to be shut so that no one might see her scarred face. Won’t you sit down to remove your rubbers, my dear? This is a very comfortable chair. My sister died in it from a stroke. She was a widow and came back home to live after her husband’s death. Her little girl was scalded in our kitchen with a pot of boiling water. Wasn’t that a tragic way for a child to die?”
“Oh, how …”
“But at least we knew how it died. My half-aunt Eliza … at least, she would have been my half-aunt if she had lived … just disappeared when she was six years old. Nobody ever knew what became of her.”
“But surely …”
“Every search was made but nothing was ever discovered. It was said that her mother … my step-grandmother … had been very cruel to an orphan niece of my grandfather’s who was being brought up here. She locked it up in the closet at the head of the stairs, one hot summer day, for punishment and when she went to let it out she found it … dead. Some people thought it was a judgment on her when her own child vanished. But I think it was just Our Curse.”
“Who put … ?”
“What a high instep you have, my dear! My instep used to be admired too. It was said a stream of water could run under it … the test of an aristocrat.”
Miss Minerva modestly poked a slipper from under her velvet skirt and revealed what was undoubtedly a very handsome foot.
“It certainly …”
“Would you like to see over the house, my dear, before we have supper? It used to be the Pride of Summerside. I suppose everything is very old-fashioned now, but perhaps there are a few things of interest. That sword hanging by the head of the stairs belonged to my great-great-grandfather who was an officer in the British Army and received a grant of land in Prince Edward Island for his services. He never lived in this house, but my great-great-grandmother did for a few weeks. She did not long survive her son’s tragic death.”
Miss Minerva marched Anne ruthlessly over the whole huge house, full of great square rooms … ballroom, conservatory, billiard-room, three drawing-rooms, breakfast-room, no end of bedrooms and an enormous attic. They were all splendid and dismal.
“Those were my Uncle Ronald and my Uncle Reuben,” said Miss Minerva, indicating two worthies who seemed to be scowling at each other from the opposite sides of a fireplace. “They were twins and they hated each other bitterly from birth. The house rang with their quarrels. It darkened their mother’s whole life. And during their final quarrel in this very room, while a thunderstorm was going on, Reuben was killed by a flash of lightning. Ronald never got over it. He was a haunted man from that day. His wife,” Miss Minerva added reminiscently, “swallowed her wedding-ring.”
“What an ex …”
“Ronald thought it was very careless and wouldn’t have anything done. A prompt emetic might have … but it was never heard of again. It spoiled her life. She always felt so unmarried without a wedding-ring.”
“What a beautiful …”
“Oh, yes, that was my Aunt Emilia … not my aunt really, of course. Just the wife of Uncle Alexander. She was noted for her spiritual look, but she poisoned her husband with a stew of mushrooms … toadstools really. We always pretended it was an accident, because a murder is such a messy thing to have in a family, but we all knew the truth. Of course she married him against her will. She was a gay young thing and he was far too old for her. December and May, my dear. Still, that did not really justify toadstools. She went into a decline soon afterwards. They are buried together in Charlottetown … all the Tomgallons bury in Charlottetown. This was my Aunt Louise. She drank laudanum. The doctor pumped it out and saved her, but we all felt we could never trust her again. It was really rather a relief when she died respectably of pneumonia. Of course, some of us didn’t blame her much. You see, my dear, her husband had spanked her.”
“Spanked …”
“Exactly. There are really some things no gentleman should do, my dear, and one of them is spank his wife. Knock her down … possibly … but spank her, never! I would like,” said Miss Minerva, very majestically, “to see the man who would dare to spank me.”
Anne felt she would like to see him also. She realized that there are limits to the imagination after all. By no stretch of hers could she imagine a husband spanking Miss Minerva Tomgallon.
“This is the ballroom. Of course it is never used now. But there have been any number of balls here. The Tomgallon balls were famous. People came from all over the Island to them. That chandelier cost my father five hundred dollars. My Great-aunt Patience dropped dead while dancing here one night … right there in that corner. She had fretted a great deal over a man who had disappointed her. I cannot imagine any girl breaking her heart over a man. Men,” said Miss Minerva, staring at a photograph of her father … a person with bristling sidewhiskers and a hawk-like nose … “have always seemed to me such trivial creatures.”
Chapter XI
The dining-room was in keeping with the rest of the house. There was another ornate chandelier, an equally ornate, gilt-framed mirror over the mantelpiece, and a table beautifully set with silver and crystal and old Crown Derby. The supper, served by a rather grim and ancient maid, was bountiful and exceedingly good, and Anne’s healthy young appetite did full justice to it. Miss Minerva kept silence for a time and Anne dared say nothing for fear of starting another avalanche of tragedies. Once a large, sleek black cat came into the room and sat down by Miss Minerva with a hoarse meow. Miss Minerva poured a saucer of cream and set it down before him. She seemed so much more human after this that Anne lost a good deal of her awe of the last of the Tomgallons.
“Do have some more of the peaches, my dear. You’ve eaten nothing … positively nothing.”
“Oh, Miss Tomgallon, I’ve enjoyed …”
“The Tomgallons always set a good table,” said Miss Minerva complacently. “My Aunt Sophia made the best sponge-cake I ever tasted. I think the only person my father ever really hated to see come to our house was his sister Mary, because she had such a poor appetite. She just minced and tasted. He took it as a personal insult. Father was a very unrelenting man. He never forgave my brother Richard for marrying against his will. He ordered him out of the house and he was never allowed to enter it again. Father always repeated the Lord’s Prayer at family worship every morning, but after Richard flouted him he always left out the sentence, ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ I can see him,” said Miss Minerva dreamily, “kneeling there leaving it out.”
After supper they went to the smallest of the three drawing-rooms … which was still rather big and grim … and spent the evening before the huge fire … a pleasant, friendly enough fire. Anne crocheted at a set of intricate doilies and Miss Minerva knitted away at an afghan and kept up what was practically a monologue composed in great part of colorful and gruesome Tomgallon history.
“This is a house of tragical memories, my dear.”
“Miss Tomgallon, didn’t any pleasant thing ever happen in this house?” asked Anne, achieving a complete sentence by a mere fluke. Miss Minerva had had