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By Root 856 0

and Miss Minerva knitted away at an afghan and kept up what was practically a monologue composed in great part of colourful Tomgallon history. This one had told her husband a lie, and he had never believed her again, my dear. That one had all her mourning made in expectation of her husband’s death, and he had disappointed her by getting well. Oscar Tomgallon had died and come back to life. ‘They didn’t want him to, my dear. That was the tragedy.’ Claude Tomgallon had shot his son by accident. Edgar Tomgallon had taken the wrong medicine in the dark, and died in consequence. David Tomgallon had promised his jealous, dying wife that he would never marry again, and then had married again, and was supposed to be haunted by the ghost of the jealous Number One. ‘His eyes, my dear – always staring past you at something behind you. People hated to be in the same room with him. Nobody else ever saw her, so perhaps it was only his conscience. Do you believe in ghosts, my dear?’

‘I –’

‘Of course, we have a real ghost, you know, in the north wing. A very beautiful young girl – my great-aunt Ethel, who died in the bloom of life. She longed terribly to live – she was going to be married. This is a house of tragical memories, my dear.’

‘Miss Tomgallon, didn’t any pleasant things ever happen in this house?’ asked Anne, achieving a complete sentence by a mere fluke – Miss Minerva had had to stop talking long enough to blow her nose.

‘Oh, I suppose so,’ said Miss Minerva, as if she hated to admit it. ‘Yes, of course, we used to have gay times here when I was a girl. They tell me you’re writing a book about everyone in Summerside, my dear.’

‘I’m not. There isn’t a word of truth –’

‘Oh!’ Miss Minerva was plainly a little disappointed. ‘Well, if you ever do you are at liberty to use any of our stories you like, perhaps with the names disguised. And now what do you say to a game of parchesi?’

‘I’m afraid it is time I was going.’

‘Oh, my dear, you can’t go home tonight. It’s pouring cats and dogs. And listen to the wind. I don’t keep a carriage now – I have so little use for one – and you can’t walk half a mile in that deluge. You must be my guest for the night.’

Anne was not sure she wanted to spend a night in Tomgallon House. But neither did she want to walk to Windy Willows in a March tempest. So they had their game of parchesi – in which Miss Minerva was so interested that she forgot to talk about horrors – and then a ‘bed-time snack’. They ate cinnamon toast and drank cocoa out of old Tomgallon cups of marvellous thinness and beauty.

Finally Miss Minerva took her up to a guest-room which Anne at first was glad to see was not the one where Miss Minerva’s sister had died of a stroke.

‘This is Aunt Annabella’s room,’ said Miss Minerva, lighting the candles in the silver candlesticks on a rather pretty green dressing-table and turning out the gas – Matthew Tomgallon had blown out the gas one night, whereupon exit Matthew Tomgallon. ‘She was the handsomest of all the Tomgallons. That’s her picture above the mirror. Do you notice what a proud mouth she had? She made that crazy quilt on the bed. I hope you’ll be comfortable, my dear. Mary has aired the bed and put two hot bricks in it. And she has aired this nightdress for you,’ pointing to an ample flannel garment hanging over a chair and smelling strongly of moth-balls. ‘I hope it will fit you. It hasn’t been worn since poor Mother died in it. Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you’ – Miss Minerva turned back at the door – ‘Aunt Annabella hanged herself in that closet. She had been… melancholy… for quite a time, and finally she was not invited to a wedding she thought she should have been, and it preyed on her mind. Aunt Annabella always liked to be in the limelight. I hope you’ll sleep well, my dear.’

Anne did not know if she could sleep at all. Suddenly there seemed something strange and alien in the room, something a little hostile. But is there not something strange about any room that has been occupied through generations? Death has lurked in it; love has been rosy-red in it; births