Page 104 of One More Christmas at the Castle
‘Which one was Faye? I’ve never seen even a photograph of her before!’
No one replied, but Xan said, ‘I’m so sorry, Sabine. I’d no idea that was on the end of the film. I should have let it run on when I checked it.’
‘You weren’t to know,’ Sabine said, sounding more like herself again. ‘It was just … a shock to suddenly see her like that.’
Henry and I exchanged glances and slipped quietly out of the room.
As we made our way back to the staff wing, I said, ‘Xan told me the other day that Mrs Powys had a half-sister, but she’d died young, so it was better never to mention her. It sounds as if there was no love lost between them, doesn’t it?’
‘It does, and it seems to be connected with something that happened on Corfu, years ago,’ Henry agreed. ‘Perhaps I could pump Xan about it after—’
‘Henry, don’t you dare! Whatever it is, knowing about it isn’t going to help us do our job better, is it?’
‘It might, if it’s something we need to avoid bringing up,’ he suggested.
‘Yeah, and my pineapple upside-down cake is the universal panacea that cures all ills, past and present,’ I said sarcastically.
‘What’s a universal panacea?’ asked Nancy, coming into the kitchen, followed by Xan and Plum.
‘Pineapple upside-down cake,’ Henry explained. ‘But it’s just a theory.’
‘I think hot chocolate works as well as anything,’ Nancy said. ‘Sabine has gone to lie down and I’m going to take her some. There’s nothing quite as comforting when you’ve had a shock – and suddenly seeing Faye in that film, when she wasn’t expecting it,wasa shock.’
‘I’d never have brought it if I’d known that party was at the end of it,’ Xan said remorsefully. ‘Tommy told me all about the accident, of course, which must have happened only a few days after the party.’
‘I think I’d better explain a little to Dido and Henry, so they don’t inadvertently say the wrong thing to Sabine,’ Nancy suggested.
‘Just what I was saying to Dido! And I, at least, am entirely consumed by curiosity, too,’ confessed Henry.
‘I still don’t think it’s any of our business,’ I told him.
‘Ignore her, Nancy,’ Henry said. ‘Tell all!’
‘It’s not a very edifying story, dear, and poor Faye is long dead now,’ Nancy said. ‘She was Sabine’s half-sister by the stepmother she loathed and resented, and eight years Sabine’s junior, which is quite an age difference. Sabine had little to do with her and after her parents were killed in a car crash, Faye was left to theguardianship of her mother’s cousin and the family solicitor, the uncle of Sabine’s present one, Mr Makepeace.’
While she was talking, Nancy began to get out mugs and milk for the hot chocolate.
‘Anyone else for cocoa? No? Right,’ she said, then carried on with her story. ‘I’m afraid Faye was rather a wild child and had been expelled from one boarding school, even before her parents’ death – sneaking out to meet boys in the village. Then, when she was just seventeen, she was expelled from another. A visiting music teacher this time, quite a scandal.’
‘She sounds … an enterprising kind of girl,’ I said.
‘Her guardians didn’t know quite what to do with her. Finding another school at that stage seemed pointless. Then some of the solicitor’s friends, who were going out to Greece, offered to escort Faye to her half-sister’s house and bring her back some weeks later, on their return. Her guardians leaped on the idea with loud cries of joy and relief, from what I gathered from Sabine at the time.’
‘I’m surprised Mrs Powys agreed to have her to stay,’ Henry said, interested.
‘Oh, they didn’t wait for a reply from Sabine; the girl was on her way there before she knew of it.’
‘Difficult,’ Henry said. ‘I suppose she could hardly turn away her own half-sister!’
‘No, and Asa, who was a kind and generous man, persuaded Sabine to make the best of it. So they taught the girl to dive and took her about with them. But it didn’t take long before she showed her true colours, after falling in with a group of young people from a yacht that was moored in the harbour – the spoilt children of wealthy parents – and began sneaking out at night to go to parties on board. I think we called the idlerich “Beautiful People” at the time,’ she added vaguely. ‘Or maybe that was later?’
‘We get the picture, anyway, and she sounds like a nightmare,’ I said. ‘Still, at least it was only for a few weeks.’
‘Oh, she vanished before she was due to go home,’ Nancy said. ‘Xan, you tell them the rest, about the diving accident. It’s all hearsay anyway, but at least you heard about it from your grandparents, who were there.’
‘OK,’ said Xan, who was sitting on the end of the table. ‘Here goes. They were diving just off the coast, in fairly shallow water, but it was an overcast and choppy day, so you couldn’t really see much below the surface from the boat. You pair up for safety when diving, so there was Asa and Tommy, and Sabine and Faye. When it was time to come back up, Asa saw that Faye had moved down a gully to look at a wartime wreck, instead of sticking near Sabine, as she was supposed to do. But Asa signalled to Sabine to go up with Tommy, while he fetched her.’
He paused and Henry said, ‘Do go on, I’m all ears!’
