The Summer She Vanished

by Jessica Irena Smith

Genres: Small Town & Rural; Amateur Sleuth; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

A blistering and shocking thriller that takes you on a taut and compelling journey to find the truth behind the story of a missing teen, a murdered nun, and the dark secret that connects them. Perfect for fans of SWEET LITTLE LIES, THE ROANOKE GIRLS and THE GIRLS WHO DISAPPEARED.

That's just it, they're secrets. They're not meant to be found out.

A MURDERED WOMAN.
Summer, 1972. Sister Francesca Pepitone was found strangled in a parking lot on the outskirts of Boweridge.

A MISSING GIRL.
A week later, seventeen-year-old Minna Larson disappeared. No one has seen or heard from her since.

A SMALL TOWN.
The cases were never linked, and neither was solved. For some, it was a scar that never healed. Others simply forgot.

A DARK PAST.
Now, over forty years later, Minna's niece Maggie learns that days before vanishing, Minna was telling people she knew who had murdered Sister Fran, and that she had the evidence to prove it.

Except no one believed her because there was one thing everyone could agree on . . .
Minna Lies

(P) 2023 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Release date: May 25, 2023

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 352

Sample

It was Uncle JJ who picked me up from the airport. Not my mom. Not even Bob. We passed the two-hour drive talking about everything and nothing, stopping once at a roadside service station for petrol – gas, Uncle JJ reminded me. The conversation was stilted, the awkwardness of two people who used to be close.

By the time we reached Boweridge, it was evening, but JJ insisted on detouring through the centre of town, for old times’ sake. The last time I’d been home, just over two years ago, the first since I’d left for good, there’d been no time for sightseeing.

‘You’re kidding!’ I exclaimed as we drove by Wally’s Wafflehouse, thought of after-school visits with Lo – one milkshake, two straws – weekend breakfasts with JJ and Greg. ‘Wally’s is still going?’

‘You betcha,’ JJ replied with a smile.

We passed Neeley’s Picture House, the tiny one-screen cinema – now the Boweridge Community Theatre – where Mr Neeley once patrolled the aisles, shining his flashlight on awkward first-date teens, making sure they weren’t up to no good. We stopped at traffic lights on Main – ‘Used to be just a lowly old stop sign,’ JJ commented. ‘Remember?’ – where the only grocery store in town once stood. Now a Starbucks, one of two Boweridge had to offer these days, the payphone outside, from which Lo and I would prank-call school friends, was also long gone.

As we drove, the knot in my stomach, a clenched fist that had formed before I’d even set foot on the plane, began to ease. Things had changed over the years in Boweridge, that was for sure, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much remained the same, surprised that it felt weirdly comforting. There were good memories, I realised. It wasn’t so much the town itself that plagued me, more the associations I had with it. Maybe I could do this after all.

The sun was low as we drew up outside the house, but the air still quivered with heat. I was about to get out the car when my uncle stopped me, placing a hand on my wrist.

‘You don’t have to do this, you know,’ he said. ‘Stay with her, I mean. Greg and I would be only too glad to have you.’

‘Thanks, Uncle J,’ I told him, ‘really. But Mom would never forgive me. It’s been a while.’

He nodded. ‘Well, if it all gets too much, Mags . . .’ He was the only one who called me Mags, had done for as long as I could remember. ‘I mean it.’

‘I know,’ I said, and I did.

‘We’ll catch up for a coffee after the funeral,’ he called over his shoulder as he jogged back to the car, having lugged my suitcase up to the porch. He waved his keys in the air and was gone, and when I turned, Bob was standing by the open door.

‘You’re early,’ he greeted me. ‘I’m sorry, your mom . . . we weren’t expecting you till later. Here.’ He grasped the handle of my enormous suitcase and hauled it over the stoop. ‘Let me get that for you.’

The house was just as I remembered: cold, pristine, super-sized. Far too big for just two people. The huge front door swung shut behind us with an unnervingly quiet click. I remembered that, too.

‘Is Mom around?’ My voice echoed off the hardwood flooring.

‘Oh yeah, course. But she’s resting.’ Bob had a year-round mahogany tan, but I could still see his cheeks flush. ‘You know how she is,’ he added. He dug his hands into his pockets and looked at the floor, rocking on his heels.

I nodded, unsure what to say. I knew exactly how Mom was. Even so, she could’ve at least made an effort. I mean, she hadn’t seen me in two years.

The house was five beds, six baths, with a self-contained suite in the basement, my home for the next few days. I didn’t think the basement was where Mom put her favourite guests – those she was keen to impress – but for me, it did just fine: a bedroom, en suite and small living area with a TV. Clean and tidy, if more dated than the rest of the house, and separate. It could be worse, I thought, fighting the urge to pick up the phone to Dad, or Em, or Tabby, back home in the UK.

‘Can I fix you something to eat?’ Bob asked, as he bumped my case down the basement stairs, me trailing behind.

His offer seemed genuine, but the thought of making small talk with my mom’s husband, whom I barely knew, was more than I could take after a long day of travelling.

‘Uh, thanks,’ I said, ‘but I’m pretty exhausted. Think I’ll just shower, get an early night.’

We’d reached my room. Bob set my case down and stood awkwardly for a moment. ‘Sure thing,’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll be upstairs if you need anything. Goodnight.’

‘Night. And thanks.’

As the door to my suite closed behind him, I flopped backwards onto the bed. When I’d booked my flight, I’d agonised about the minimum amount of time I could get away with. Two weeks, I’d decided in the end. Fourteen long days. They stretched before me like an eternity. Why on earth did I think I’d last that long? I was beginning to wish I’d taken Uncle JJ up on his offer, but I knew uprooting part way through my stay, abandoning my mother – again – would not go down well. That was Mom’s thing, you see, people abandoning her: first Dad, then Em, then me.

On the bright side, a couple of weeks away could be just what I needed right now.

‘And your supervisor’s fine with it?’ Em had asked when I phoned to tell her I’d booked my flight. ‘Fine with you taking two weeks out?’

‘It’s not ideal,’ I admitted, hoping my voice didn’t betray anything, hoping Em wouldn’t notice I’d swerved the question. Truth was, Simon didn’t know. I hadn’t told him, hadn’t spoken to him at all, not since . . .

I couldn’t think about that right now. I sighed, heaving myself to my feet to go shower, but I’d stood up too quickly, felt suddenly light-headed. I was cold, too, shivery, and had the beginnings of a headache. I decided to forgo the shower and get to bed.

In my limited experience, the one thing I’ve learned about McMansions is that despite outward appearances, their walls are often paper-thin. I wasn’t quite sure what time it was, but I awoke to the sound of muffled voices somewhere upstairs – Mom and Bob – which became raised, punctuated by bursts of footsteps pacing back and forth on hardwood floors. A long silence followed and I must have drifted off, because the sound of a door slamming jolted me awake again. Outside, a car started, drove away.

The house began to settle around me, falling still once more.

A poor sleeper at the best of times, I lay tossing and turning. My phone sat next to the bed. The display read 3.30 a.m. Would it have adjusted automatically when I landed, or was it still on UK time? I wasn’t sure. I felt for my watch, which I knew I’d changed, but despite my eyes having adjusted somewhat to the dark, I had to switch on the light to find it. I squinted in the brightness. Yes, a little after 3.30.

I did a quick scroll of my messages. Nothing interesting, bar one from my best friend, Tabby.

Hope you made it okay. Be thinking of you tomorrow. Call me when you get the chance. Tabs x

I’d reply later.

Next, I logged into my university email. I closed my eyes as the inbox loaded, not realising I was holding my breath until I opened them again and breathed a sigh of relief. Just admin emails and university circulars.

Fully awake now, not quite sure what to do, I got up and opened the bedroom door a crack, listening. From somewhere upstairs came the sound of a TV. I was about to close the door and go back to bed when I paused. In the darkness of the small living area, I could make out the shapes of furniture – sofa, coffee table, TV – but something else too. Boxes I hadn’t noticed earlier. Two or three, at least, their dark shapes calling to me in the gloom. Funny. Mom detested clutter, especially on view, even in a spare room (God forbid a guest should see it).

I flicked on the light and padded over to them. There were actually four boxes, taped shut, but so full to bursting the tops bulged. I crouched down beside them, peeling yellowed, curling packing tape from the nearest, lifting the flap, peeking inside. Albums – photo albums, the dated faux-leather type with gold-tooled edging and dog-eared tracing paper sticking from between the pages. They must be Grandma Ida’s.

I’d been surprised when Mom told me she’d been helping JJ clear their mom’s house, even more so that she’d bring any of Grandma Ida’s things home. Still, I could see her taking them, if only to deprive her brothers, could picture her breezing home, triumphant, Bob staggering behind under the weight of cardboard boxes. Where’d you want ’em, honey? he would have asked, smiling through gritted teeth. How should I know? Mom would have replied, a dismissive flick of her hand. Just find somewhere – I don’t know, the basement. They’d be out of the way down here.

Perhaps she even wanted me to find the boxes, I thought, settling myself cross-legged in front of them. If she did, I was walking right into her trap. I shook my head. Stop overthinking things.

The next three boxes, it turned out, contained little more than trinkets and knick-knacks: statues of Our Lady, rosaries, prayer cards. Grandma Ida’s, for sure. Disappointed – I’d been hoping for something juicier – I returned to the box with the albums. I’d never really given much thought to Mom’s past, I realised, as I began sifting through them. She never told stories of her childhood, nor did she have many photos round the house; just a handful of her and Bob looking glamorous on some exotic holiday or other, and a couple of Em: one from her university graduation, the other of her wedding, Mom centre-front of shot, obviously. The only picture she kept of me was an old middle-school photo from when I was about twelve or thirteen, just before I started high school, not long before I left. There were no graduation photos of me. Certainly no wedding pictures.

Under the albums lay stacks of loose photos of my mom and uncles at various stages of growing up, and Grandma Ida and Grandpa John too, in their younger days. Looking at them, it struck me how little I’d actually known my grandparents, though we’d lived just a few miles apart for the first fourteen years of my life. Grandma Ida had been as po-faced and pious-looking in her younger days as the old woman I remembered. She was the antithesis of my mother – never wore make-up or nice clothes, never glammed herself up. She’d apparently always looked pretty ancient too: the hairstyle that hadn’t changed in decades (centre-parted, worn in a bun), the frumpy clothing. It astonished me how she’d managed to give birth to four such handsome, healthy-looking offspring.

As for Grandpa John, I was surprised to see photos of him looking relaxed and carefree. Happy, even. The man I remembered was stoic and silent, worn down by years of henpecking at the hands of Grandma Ida. He’d been a man of few words, though I always felt he’d tried with Em and me, giving us sweets and the odd bit of pocket money, but only when Grandma Ida’s back was turned. ‘Don’t tell your grandma,’ he’d say, before sloping off to dig the garden, or read the newspaper, or smoke a cigarette. I also knew he liked a drink. No one told me that as such, but I suppose children just sort of pick these things up – the knowing looks exchanged between grown-ups, the seemingly innocuous comments you don’t quite understand but know have another meaning. I also remembered his smell, which to me seemed almost exotic: alcohol, cigarettes and peppermints.

I put the bundles of photos down and turned back to the albums, flipping open the cover of the topmost one. On the first page was a photo of the Larson siblings, veiled by a layer of tissue. I peeled it back. The photo was a colour shot with the unmistakable tones of the 1970s, that golden aura, a sort of overexposed, sunshiny hue.

There they stood in order of age: teenage Walter, William and John Junior, together with the baby of the family, my mom, Barbara, a beautiful little doll no more than nine or ten years old. They stood posed on a metal swing set, a lanky Walter leaning nonchalantly against the frame, William, JJ and Mom each seated on a swing. The hairstyles and the clothes! I couldn’t help but smile: bell-bottoms (Walt and William) and too-tight shorts (Uncle JJ), pudding-basin haircuts (all the boys) and jam-jar spectacles (poor JJ again). Despite this, they were a good-looking bunch: blonde, blue-eyed, with goofy gap-toothed smiles, my mom sun-kissed and freckled, neat and tidy in her smocked dress and Mary-Janes, her brothers brown as berries.

What struck me most about the picture, though, was how happy they looked. Mom especially. I’d never seen her like this before, I realised – so carefree. It made me ache. She wasn’t someone who was prone to smiling, not naturally. Yes, she’d smile when she met people, just as she would when she was trying to get her own way, batting her eyelashes, tilting her head at just the right angle. That was how she’d attracted Bob. That and her looks, I was certain of it. But spontaneous, genuine smiling? No, not my mom.

Unable to look at their beaming faces any longer, about to snap the album cover shut, I stopped, noticing that the thin white border – the type many older photos had – was missing on the right-hand side. I slipped the picture gently from its fixings and found that it had been folded, hiding three or four centimetres. Unfolding it carefully, I smoothed it out, and gasped. On the other side of the swing set from Uncle Walt, the two of them bookending the three youngsters in the middle, was a girl no more than sixteen or seventeen. She stood at a slight distance – not quite part of the gang – but resembled the others so much, Mom especially, that she couldn’t not be related. But where Mom was petite, fragile-looking, this girl was long-limbed and tanned, with a sort of natural, wholesome beauty that not even my mom – with all her salon visits, her primping and her make-up – could compete with. The sort of lazy beauty she resented in others.

What struck me most, though, made the hair on my arms stand on end, was not how much the girl resembled the Larson siblings, but how much she looked like me. Her blonde hair was longer than mine, straighter too, centre-parted as seventies fashion dictated. But apart from that, we were almost identical: same features, same build, same skin tone. And those eyes, those dark brown eyes – my brown eyes – the only feature I didn’t get from Mom.

I studied the image more closely. There was something else too, something not right. It wasn’t just that my mom and her brothers were physically closer, arranged next to one another; it was more like there was an invisible barrier separating them from the girl, accentuated by the photo’s stark white fold-line. It was the girl’s expression that jarred most, though: sullen, unsmiling. Her head was slightly downcast, but her gaze was focused upwards, not at the camera, but straight through its lens. What was it, that look? Resentment? Hostility?

Fear?

I shook my head. I was reading too much into it, like I always did. Chasing shadows. Looking for a story where there wasn’t one. Whoever she was, this girl, she was probably just a typical moody teenager. I was sure there must be a few photos of me from my teens where I looked like I’d rather be anywhere else. I flipped the picture over. Summer 1972 was written on the back in faded blue ink. That would make my mom ten. I put the photo down and began to rake through the loose ones again, the other albums, too, determined to find the mystery girl. I flipped through photo after photo, page after page, but there was no trace of her, but for the occasional blank space in the albums – paler, ghost-like squares, flanked by empty photo corners.

Spaces where photos once lived.

I slept fitfully for the rest of the night and was wide awake again by 6 a.m. After lying for a while thinking about the mystery girl – convincing myself I’d blown the whole thing out of proportion, as happens in the small hours – I decided to get up.

Out in the basement hallway, the door opposite mine – the one to Bob’s study – stood ajar. There was a light on inside, the sound of a TV playing softly.

I knocked gently and the door swung inward. ‘Hello?’

‘Maggie, hey,’ exclaimed Bob from inside. Dressed in sweats and trainers, he was perched on the edge of his desk, hugging a coffee mug in his hands. ‘Hope I didn’t wake you?’

‘Oh,’ I said, unsure if he was referring to just now, or the commotion during the night. ‘No. I couldn’t sleep, that’s all.’

‘Me neither. Thought I’d go for an early-morning run before it gets too hot. Blow the cobwebs away, y’know?’

I looked around as he talked, trying not to be too obvious. The room was a mess. A little bit of rebellion on Bob’s part, I guessed. The thought made me smile. Against one wall was the desk on which he perched; next to that a filing cabinet, a bag of golf clubs propped beside it. Against the other wall was a pull-out couch, bed made up, sheets rumpled.

‘I sleep down here,’ Bob said, following my gaze. ‘Sometimes,’ he added hastily, flushing. ‘When I work late.’

I nodded weakly. ‘Right . . .’

A few years Mom’s senior, Bob had by all accounts had an extremely successful career. Something in finance. He’d been married once before, decades ago, way before Mom, but didn’t have children. I imagined he must have been quite a catch: handsome, financially successful, no real baggage. I also imagined this wasn’t how he’d envisaged his retirement. The sad thing was, just like Dad, I could tell Bob loved my mom. I also knew, just like with Dad, that sometimes love wasn’t enough.

‘It’s been a rough time, these last few weeks,’ he said. ‘Losing your grandma, well, I guess you could say it’s been a real turning point for your mom.’

‘I get it,’ I said, though I didn’t. Not really. Mom and Grandma Ida had never been close. ‘It’s still her mother.’

I must have sounded as unconvinced as I felt, because Bob said, ‘You know she’s getting help? Actually seeing someone?’

‘A psychologist?’ I asked, surprised.

‘Psychiatrist.’

‘They put her on meds?’

Bob nodded.

‘She actually taking them?’

He didn’t respond, not right away, which was all the answer I needed. ‘I count them sometimes, when she’s not around,’ he said. ‘The tablets. Make sure there’s the right number left.’

Do you also watch her twenty-four-seven, make sure she’s not dumping them down the drain? I wanted to ask. Do you drive her to her therapy sessions, accompany her inside? Sit in the waiting room till she’s called? If the answer to any of these questions was no, then I doubted Mom was taking her meds or attending therapy. I mean, why would she, when she was convinced it was everyone else who had the problem? Plus Mom lied. Lied for no reason. Lied about big stuff, little stuff. Lied in a way that normal people couldn’t even begin to understand.

But Bob, I was quite sure, was already painfully aware of this.

He fidgeted, looked at the floor, and I felt so bad for him, wanted to tell him: I feel your pain. But I didn’t think we had that kind of relationship, not yet, so instead, to change the subject, I said, ‘Speaking of Grandma Ida, I found a photo.’

His expression brightened, more relief than anything. ‘Oh yeah?’

‘It was of the Larsons,’ I told him. ‘When they were kids. Walt, Bill, JJ, Mom. But there was this other girl, too. Long blonde hair. Bit older. Looked just like them. Like me. Do they have a cousin?’

‘A cousin,’ Bob repeated under his breath. He placed his mug on the desk, brushed at something invisible on the leg of his sweatpants. ‘No, no cousin.’

‘Well, do you know who she could be?’

His eyes snapped back to mine. ‘You’d really have to ask your mom, Maggie.’

‘Huh,’ I laughed. ‘Okay. ’Cos we both know how that’d go. Couldn’t you just tell me what you know?’

‘Look, sweetie, it’s really not my place to say.’ Bob had never called me sweetie before. He pushed off from his perch, leaving his coffee, and flicked off the TV. I thought he was going to walk out, but instead he turned to the filing cabinet. ‘Your mom asked me to keep a bunch of stuff aside,’ he said, his back to me. ‘Separate from the rest.’

I was expecting another box, but instead he slid a large brown envelope from on top of the cabinet. He held it out, hesitated, then placed it on the desk.

‘What is it?’

‘Like I say, you’d really have to ask your mom.’ He patted the envelope. ‘Coffee’s ready upstairs when you are. Switch the light off when you’re done.’ And he left the room.

The envelope was so tattered and full to bursting it looked ready to fall apart. It wasn’t sealed, so I upended it, spilling the contents onto the desk. It was legal stuff mostly – property titles, insurance paperwork. Grandpa John’s death certificate. Nothing unusual until I reached the birth certificates. There were four in total, one for each of the Larson children: Barbara, born 1962; John Junior, 1960; William, 1958; and finally eldest son Walter, 1956. No, wait. There was one more. Five birth certificates. I scanned the fifth, and there it was, filled out in neat cursive script: Margaret Mary Larson, Feb 16 1955.

I did a quick calculation. Seventeen. She’d have been seventeen in the photo. The eldest Larson sibling.

But why had I never heard of Margaret Mary Larson, and where was she now?

The funeral of Ida Joan Larson took place at St Augustine’s church on 16 July 2019, the day after my return to the States. Mom emerged from her room that morning as if it hadn’t been two years since we’d seen each other. She greeted me, cupping my face in her hands, ‘Maggie, darling’, stretched on tiptoe to kiss me on each cheek and I breathed her in, that ever-familiar smell: Chanel No. 5; a whiff of hairspray.

She was still beautiful, but she was thinner than ever, and I was secretly gratified to see up close the network of little lines framing her eyes, the sides of her mouth too.

She held my face a moment too long and smiled wanly. ‘You look tired.’

I pulled away. ‘Thanks, Mom.’

My eyes followed her as she fussed around the kitchen, and as I drank my coffee, tried to eat a piece of toast, I couldn’t get the photograph out of my head. I considered asking her about it then and there. What happened to her, Mom? To Margaret, your sister? But something stopped the words from forming. Right now, before the funeral, was not the time.

Two black limos drove us to St Augustine’s. Mom, Walt, Bill and JJ, with their respective partners, all but Greg, travelled in one; my cousins – Walt and Bill’s children – and I in the other. The ride was sombre, owing more to the fact that I barely knew my uncles’ offspring than to the occasion. Though not dissimilar in age, my sister and I had seen very little of them growing up because they lived out of state. After the move to the UK, first Em’s, then mine, we lost contact altogether.

To my dismay, as we climbed from the car I could see there was already a little gathering of mourners. Supported on either side by Bob and me, Mom was in her element, her knees buckling with each grief-stricken step, making the short walk from car to church feel like an eternity. Her head was bowed as we all but pulled her up the church steps, but I knew that from behind the dark lenses of her enormous Jackie O glasses, which dwarfed her gaunt face, she’d be stealing sideways glances at the crowd. I wished I’d had the foresight to wear sunglasses, not because I planned on crying, but because it would have helped hide the embarrassment that must have been plain to see from my beet-red face. I’d never wanted more for the ground to open up and swallow me. I wondered if Bob felt the same.

My mom had a talent for stealing the spotlight. Years ago, when Em got engaged, she’d wanted a low-key wedding, maybe even to elope. But when Mom got wind of it, she kicked up such an almighty fuss that even from the other side of the Atlantic she made Em’s life almost unbearable.

‘Darling,’ Mom said to me earnestly, during one of our rare phone conversations, ‘this might be the only chance Mommy has to be mother of the bride.’

She had a point, so she got her way and somehow, from a distance, all but planned the wedding herself, everything from the venue to the band, table settings, my outfit – even Em’s dress. When the big day arrived, it was as horrendous as we all expected. Her first trip to England, Mom arrived at the church in an outfit so ostentatious it was mortifying, and I spent much of the day trying to keep her and her then boyfriend (not Bob) separate from Dad and his new, much younger wife.

Before the ceremony, despite Mom not having seen Em in years, and though my sister had never looked more beautiful, the first thing Mom said was, ‘Darling, what happened?’

Em, freshly laced into her wedding dress, looked blank. I shuffled uncomfortably. Here it comes, I thought, flinching.

‘You gained weight,’ Mom said, as though out of genuine concern.

Em’s best friend, putting the finishing touches to my sister’s make-up, stopped with her blusher brush mid-air, mouth half open. There was a moment’s excruciating silence before my sister laughed, a small, tight sound.

‘You’re right, Mom,’ she said. ‘I did. It’s been a few years.’

Not content with this, once proceedings were under way at the church, Mom became so overwhelmed that she had one of her fainting spells and had to be assisted out, guests and in-laws dancing attendance, finding her a chair, a glass of water, a cool place to recover.

Em, as only she could, shrugged the whole thing off.

‘But she practically ruined your day,’ I wailed afterwards, frustrated at her seeming indifference to the whole thing.

Em rolled her eyes. ‘You know what she’s like,’ she said, which was what everyone said. ‘It could’ve been much worse.’

I was surprised at the turnout for Grandma Ida’s funeral. Most people who live to their late eighties find their friend numbers dwindling. Grandma Ida, I was sure, was not someone who’d had many friends to begin with; but as the priest reminded us, with the exception of the last two years, St Augustine’s had been her church for decades, and many of the mourners in attendance were parishioners. He eulogised about Grandma Ida’s life – ‘devoted to God and her family’; her values (Catholic), her husband, ‘whom she loved dearly’ (I wasn’t so sure), and the children she’d raised, who were ‘all in attendance today’.

Not all, I thought. Margaret’s not here.

I’d brought the photo with me, slipped it into my pocket before we left, as if I might need reminding what Margaret looked like. Before the service began, I’d scanned the congregation, hoping to see someone who looked like an older version of me, but from my seat in the first row of pews, sandwiched between Mom and JJ, it was hard to see without twisting round and drawing too much attention. It wasn’t until we were filing out of church, making our way to the graveyard, that I got a better look.

At the back of the church, sitting in an otherwise empty pew, a man caught my eye. He stood out not just because he appeared to be alone, but because whilst everyone else was sidestepping from the rows of creaking pews, he remained seated, the order of service clasped in his hands. He was at least mid sixties I reckoned, with a sallow complexion, a . . .