But she was mistaken. Thirstily, the vicar finished his tea, spilling hardly any drops from the bottom of the cup on his clerical grey trousers. He dusted himself down with an air of satisfaction and reached for a digestive biscuit.
“Such good news,” he said with a smile. “Mister, that is to say, Dennis, has had a very clever idea for the church roof. He tells me, and I believe him, that he is rather a handyman about the place.”
“Good gracious, he can’t be volunteering to repair that roof singlehanded—it’s far too dangerous, apart from any other considerations. Any roof needs a professional builder—working so high up—and a church is even higher.”
“High church?” Arthur looked shocked. Was Molly, after all these years, about to profess leanings towards incense, candles, and elaborate vestments? Was she—he blanched—expecting him to conduct services in Latin?
“Oh, Arthur,” sighed his sister. “Tell me about Dennis Manuden instead. What is his clever idea?”
Celibacy, reflected the vicar, as he crunched a thoughtful biscuit, would of course to him be no particular hardship, but even so—
“Arthur! What—did—Dennis—Manuden—say?”
He was so startled by the sternness of her tone that he answered at once. “A way to raise some of the money,” he said, choking slightly on a crumb. “He thought it a great pity that the lead had all been stolen, otherwise we could have sold it for the silver content and the cost of re-roofing would have been negligible, he said.” He blinked. “It makes sound sense, does it not?”
“Not particularly. If that lead hadn’t been stolen in the first place, then the roof wouldn’t need repairing. If all he had to say was as helpful as that, you needn’t bother to tell me the rest.”
“Oh, dear, not at all. He says we have somehow to raise the money, and asked whether the summer fete was likely to be a source of income.”
“Income, yes. Enough income, no.” Molly Treeves smiled grimly. “It would take a century of fetes to earn enough to pay for the roof, judging by previous efforts. Which means that we do need clever ideas, I agree, so for goodness’ sake tell me what he said, Arthur.” And Molly hoped that it would be worth hearing, after the trouble she’d had urging him to explain.
“I told you, didn’t I, that he’s by way of being a handy sort of person about the house—and garden?” Molly nodded, but said nothing. The Reverend Arthur was getting into his stride now; and with relaxation usually came some idea of what he was really trying to communicate. “And, while his wife, a dear little woman, is attending to the house—” the vicar beamed at this vision of domesticity—“her husband plans to tidy the garden.”
“If he’s offering to work as a jobbing gardener, around here he isn’t likely to earn enough to keep him in leather gloves and whetstones, let alone to help pay for the roof. No doubt it’s a kind thought,” said Molly, “but certainly not as practical as I’d hoped.”
She prepared to collect the tea things together. It was a shame to dampen her brother’s enthusiasm, but if she left him to bubble for too long unchecked, he was all the more disappointed when realisation finally came. “Perhaps,” she began, “the insurance, after all—”
“Oh dear, no.” It was so unusual for him to interrupt her that Molly stared. This idea, whatever it was, really had caught his imagination. She’d better be ready with her full powers of dissuasion . . .
“No,” repeated the Reverend Arthur, for once on certain ground. “Not gardening—that is, not outside what we might call his own garden, at least for these few months of summer—he will be gardening there, he assures me. Indeed, he has already begun, this very morning—by clearing away the mass of brambles which poor Mrs. Dawkin had allowed to grow at the far end . . .” At her little cry of exasperation, he stared.
“What is the matter, Molly? Why should he not tidy the garden? It seems an admirable scheme to me.”
Anyone but Arthur would have realised at once. “Because if he tidies the brambles away,” Molly Treeves said, slowly, as if to an irritating child, “he will uncover that bunker. And you know what everyone will say once they remember.” Or maybe he didn’t, being Arthur—being the vicar.
The vicar of Plummergen.
But Molly Treeves, the vicar’s sister, knew very well what Plummergen would say if the air-raid bunker reappeared from its long hibernation beneath the brambles. The war may have ended a quarter of a century ago and more, but gossip in Plummergen never really forgets . . .
chapter
~11~
AND PLUMMERGEN HAD indeed not forgotten. It had always, deep down, harboured suspicions, but during the lifetime of Old Mother Dawkin it had not seemed politic to mention them, she having rather too uncomfortable a knowledge of certain more serious scandals than that which concerned her family. What she could have told about, well, about things better left unsaid, was too worrisome to risk the telling. She could have spilled the beans, right enough—and those beans would have jumped sky high.
But when it was safe at last, the whispers had begun. Even those who generally ignored Plummergen gossip could not help but hear them: the whispers were more like the blasts of tremendous brazen trumpets.
“I was in the post office this morning,” remarked Lady Colveden, spooning vegetables from a dish with casual grace. She looked vaguely round to see what response her remark had elicited. “I said,” she repeated, when no response appeared forthcoming, “that I was in the post office this morning.”
“We heard you, Mother darling.” Nigel grinned at her as she passed him the loaded plate. He looked at the newspaper opposite, behind which sat, he supposed, his father, though all that was visible of Major-General Sir George Colveden, Bart, KCB, DSO, JP, was a pair of hands, one on either side of the broadsheet. “At least,” amended Nigel, “I did,” and he lifted the bottom of the newspaper to slide his father’s plate underneath. The newspaper rustled its thanks.
Nigel accepted his own plate with more audible thanks, and energetically began to attack his meal. Nigel was too hungry, the force of his attack made plain, to press Lady Colveden with questions: if she felt there was anything the male side of the family needed to know, she would have to come right out with it.
“You are a very provoking pair,” said Lady Colveden, and over-peppered her vegetables in irritation. “Aren’t you the least bit interested in what they’re saying in the village? And now look what you’ve made me do!”
Through a mouthful of spluttering peas, her only son made his amusement plain. The newspaper wavered, and as the wife of its reader sneezed for the second time was lowered.
“Bless you, m’dear.” Sir George caught his son’s eye, and winked, then coughed, and directed his attention to his plate. “Tasty piece of lamb, this,” he said. “Stillman’s, I suppose? Well stocked, for a post office.”
Meg Colveden completed the discreet blowing of her nose, and picked up her knife and fork, waving the knife in her husband’s direction. “George, if I stabbed you, nobody would blame me. My defence would be utter provocation, and they’d let me off without a murmur. You know perfectly well I wouldn’t have told you I went to the post office simply to buy the meat.”
Nigel’s first hunger pangs having abated, he was able to turn part of his attention to his exasperated parent. “You are clearly bursting with news, Mother, so why not just tell us without waiting to be asked? We busy farmers rely on the gossip to come to us, not us having to go after the gossip.”
“Nigel’s right,” put in her husband, spearing a potato with his fork. “Haven’t the time to hang around shops—you do it instead. And no need to stab me, either. Not worth a prison sentence for the sake of a few wild rumours.”
“There are certainly rumours,” agreed Lady Colveden, and looked fondly from husband to son. How alike they were! If they seriously thought she was hiding anything from them, it would upset them dreadfully: but, manlike, they had to make a pretence of not caring one way or the other. “Going back before we came to l
ive in Plummergen, too,” she went on.
“And you’ve only just heard them? Honestly, Mother, you should listen harder.” Nigel shook his head. “I suppose it might have been really important once, before Julia or I were born—but twenty-five years is a long time. It can’t matter very much now.”
“That’s where you’re mistaken,” said his mother. “Even after all these years—thirty, not twenty-five, it happened during the war—the whole village is buzzing with it.”
“Plummergen’s buzzing,” grinned Nigel, “and you, Mother dear, are bursting, as I said before. So, come on—better late than never. What are they saying, and about what?”
“Old Mrs. Dawkin,” she began. Sir George snorted.
“Woman’s dead and buried, thank goodness. Don’t care to speak ill of the dead, especially a woman, but evil-minded—sharper tongue than the rest of ’em put together.”
“That’s why nobody’s said anything until now, George, when they think it’s safe. They were always afraid that if they talked about the Dawkin scandal, Mrs. Dawkin would start talking about them. And by all accounts she knew an awful lot that people wouldn’t care to have known.”
Nigel frowned as he helped himself to further vegetables and passed the dish to his father. “And now you’ve found out what it was she knew? Well, it can’t have been anything about me, because I wasn’t born until years after the war, and it can’t have been about Miss Seeton, which will certainly make a change. Sometimes I wonder what the tabbies used to talk about before she came to live here and things started happening.”
“Of course it isn’t about either of you, though I think it’s ridiculous for them to keep on about poor Miss Seeton the way they do, and perhaps this will take their minds off her for a while. She’d be so upset if she heard some of the things they’ve dreamed up about her.”
“You don’t,” remarked Nigel, “seem to be worried that I might be upset by whatever they dream up about me.”
“You’re young enough to look after yourself. Poor Miss Seeton retired several years ago, remember, even if she did take early retirement.” Lady Colveden began collecting the empty plates. “Mind you, she’s remarkably fit for her age, and since she took up bicycling she’s even more—”
“Mother, please!” Nigel clattered the lid of the vegetable dish in frantic tattoo. “Don’t drift away like that—and don’t try to tell us the village is up in arms about Miss Seeton’s bike, and that La Dawkin predicted the whole business over thirty years earlier. I won’t believe it.”
Lady Colveden tried to sound cross. “You’d be extremely silly to believe anything of the sort. How could Mrs. Dawkin predict anyone like Miss Seeton? She’s, well, unique.” She paused for a moment to reflect on this word’s inadequacy. “No, what seems to have set them all by the ears is this business about the body in the bunker.”
Sir George, who had picked up his newspaper some moments earlier, lowered it to enquire: “Somebody dead on the golf course? Anyone we know?”
“Really, George! Do listen. I’m trying to tell you the whole thing, and all you and Nigel do is egg each other on to confuse me. Don’t you want to hear?” She began to carry the pile of plates through to the kitchen; Nigel followed, with the dishes on a tray. His father smoothed the sheets of newsprint into a tidy shape and deposited it to one side of the table, then hurried after his wife and son to assist in the transport of coffeepot and cups.
“So, no body in the bunker, then. Misunderstood,” said Sir George, fiddling with the spoons. “But you did mention someone dead, didn’t you? And nothing to do with Miss Seeton? Makes a change, of course.”
“Just for that, George, you can carry the tray for me, and Nigel can unload it. Then I shall hit one or other of you with it for being so annoying.” Lady Colveden preceded her family back into the dining room, then whisked round to catch father and son grinning at each other. With muted smiles, they took their places at the table, Sir George casting longing eyes at the newspaper, which his wife had calmly moved out of reach before pouring the coffee.
“Now, this body, Mother,” prompted Nigel. “You know you can hardly wait to tell us all about it. It sounds wrong, somehow—a bit callous . . . a male body, or a female?”
“Susannah Dawkin,” said Lady Colveden in triumph, and stirred half a spoonful of sugar into her cup.
“I’ve never heard of her,” said Nigel, after a pause.
“Thought her name was something far more outlandish,” volunteered his father. “Hepsibah, Theodosia—Susannah’s a pretty normal handle for a woman like that.”
“Her name was Delilah. Delilah Dawkin—I’m surprised anyone, even you, George, could have forgotten. Susannah was her son’s wife’s name, and when she died they called the baby after her. And she’s the Susannah who is supposed to be buried in the air-raid bunker in the Dawkin garden—the bunker those new people, the Manudens, are going to raffle tickets for the winner to open. And of course everyone’s remembered the scandal there was at the time.”
Nigel grinned. “Raffle tickets? They’d be better off having a treasure hunt, with the body as the trophy. Much more interesting than a policeman’s helmet—sorry, Mother,” as Lady Colveden reached for the coffee tray. “Do continue, or shall I guess? The Manudens in La Dawkin’s old cottage are hoping to curry favour in the village by raffling the chance to unlock the air-raid bunker—goodness knows why it should be worth raffling, because unless there really is a body there it won’t be very interesting, I’d have thought. And if they know that she is buried there, I can’t think why they haven’t done something about it before.”
“Mrs. Dawkin’s son Albert was rather queer in the head—he suffered from religious mania, and belonged to those odd Holdfast Brethren in Brettenden, from what I gather. He dug himself an enormous air-raid shelter at the bottom of his garden to guard against hellfire, or something, though he never actually used it—and don’t snigger like that, Nigel, you know perfectly well what I mean. I mean not even use it as a shed, or for the children to play in on wet afternoons, or anything of the sort.”
“But the Dawkin children, or child,” suggested Nigel, “didn’t live long enough to play in it, anyway? Is that what they’re all saying?”
“Typical,” snorted his father, clattering his coffee cup in its saucer. Silently, Meg Colveden handed the pot to her son, who gave Sir George a refill and took one himself.
“More or less,” she agreed. “Of course, they couldn’t ever be absolutely sure Susannah was dead in the first place. There was a tremendous row one night, the whole village heard Queer Albie, that’s what they called him, thrashing his daughter when she came home wearing lipstick and nylons and earrings instead of the ghastly costume the Holdfasts still make the poor girls wear. You must have seen them—so ugly and impractical, I’m not surprised Susannah rebelled in the end. She wanted to join the Forces, but he wouldn’t let her, not even to save his country.” Sir George, the former major-general, snorted once more. “And he used to read the Bible at her for hours, and pray at the top of his voice, in a generally fanatical sort of way, and nobody was a bit surprised when she disappeared, really—they said she’d always talked about going to London, and after the thrashing she’d finally done it. Only nobody ever heard anything from her again. There were rumours she’d died in an air raid, but it seems Queer Albie wouldn’t even talk about her to his mother, so nobody really knew. And then, of course, they started wondering whether it hadn’t been a bit too much for her—the beating, I mean—and saying that Queer Albie had killed her by mistake, and buried her in the air-raid bunker.”
“And they’ve been saying it ever since, I suppose,” said Nigel. “Funny you haven’t heard about it before.”
“They did start muttering,” replied his mother, as Nigel and his father began to look at their watches, “as soon as Delilah Dawkin died, but I could never quite make it out. I expect they didn’t feel it was safe to say anything definite until she was well and truly buried. You know
how superstitious they are. Look at the way half of them are convinced Miss Seeton’s a witch. . .”
“But this time it’s the latest newcomers who’ve stirred things up—the Manudens. Dennis Manuden has taken it on himself to uncover Albert Dawkin’s air-raid shelter, and it’s locked and bolted, and he’s letting the vicar raffle tickets to see who’ll win the chance to open the door—for the church roof—and of course they’re taking bets on whether there will be a body lying on the floor, or just lots of bits and pieces left over from the war, souvenirs or whatever you care to call them.”
“No use trying to live in the past,” said her husband, the major-general, DSO. “England’s finest hour and all that—history to be proud of, but have to look to the future.”
“It will be interestingly historical,” pointed out his wife, “helmets and gas masks and ration books. Mr. Jessyp is apparently all set to stake the claims of the school museum, if there does turn out to be anything there.”
“Apart from a body,” Nigel said. “No doubt there might be a ration book—Susannah’s, because she wouldn’t exactly need it anymore, would she? But I don’t see the trustees of the school letting Mr. Jessyp, even if he is the headmaster, keep a body in the museum. The police will be keen to stake their claim to the body, if you ask me. Perhaps we should buy a ticket and send it to Superintendent Brinton at Ashford,” he suggested, while his father, the Justice of the Peace, tried to recall what he could of coroners’ inquests and delayed notification of a death. He frowned.
“All very unfortunate,” he said, as his wife was about to warn Nigel to do nothing of the sort. “Rumours enough in this place at the best of times, but bodies in bunkers—bad show. Unhygienic, for one thing. Manuden may come to regret the whole idea very soon, in my opinion.”
Miss Seeton Cracks the Case (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 9) Page 9
