Murder Most Welcome

by Slade, Nicola

  ‘Shall you go to church today, Frampton dear?’ fussed Agnes, casting a wary eye at her elder brother.

  ‘Indeed I shall.’ Major Richmond frowned and blotted the sweat from his brow, although the morning was chill and overcast. ‘I have plans for the church, substantial plans. Uncle Henry will have to toe the line. I should have made great changes when I was last home on leave but it was not so long after Mama’s accident so I let it be for her sake.’

  He took a sip of his coffee.

  ‘Faugh! This is disgusting, take it away, Hoxton, and bring me some new. Where was I? Ah, yes. Henry has always had the most regrettable tendency to follow the most Romish of practices, with his incense and saints’ days and so forth – such nonsense. I’ll stand it no longer. He will return to simple forms of worship or he will retire – the choice is his.’

  Unwisely, Agnes protested.

  ‘But, Frampton, everyone in the village loves the service. I know Uncle Henry can be a little difficult, but—’

  ‘What? Still hankering after that puny curate, I suppose? Don’t think I cannot see what is behind your protest, sister. You may as well have it straight. I will not, under any circumstances, allow you to marry that puling commoner. No indeed, I have my own plans for your marriage, which will be infinitely more suitable.’

  With one accord the family’s heads swivelled towards the willowy, saturnine youth at Frampton’s right hand and a collective shudder shook them.

  ‘That’s right.’ Frampton had observed the direction of their stares and nodded, a genial smile failing to mask the determination on his face. ‘My friend, Lancelot Dawkins, will be a fine match for you, Agnes. To be sure you are a year or so his senior but that is no matter. Lance can match you pretty well in breeding – his aunt is Lady Tenterden and his uncle the Earl of Marlbury, so even Mama will be satisfied.’ Frampton smiled fondly at his companion. ‘Setting that aside, I think you will agree that Lance is in every way ten times the man the curate is, Agnes, and I congratulate you heartily.’

  As Agnes paled in horror and the rest of the family looked on aghast, Lancelot Dawkins half rose in his seat and gave a graceful bow in Agnes’s direction.

  ‘Frampton has pre-empted me, Miss Agnes,’ he said with a smile. ‘It was only on Friday evening that we met, after all, though to be sure I told him myself, that very night, how very much taken I found myself by your charms. I hope to make myself acceptable to you in every way, if you will allow me.’

  Charlotte stared at the young man with narrowed eyes. That he wished to please Frampton was evident, and understandable, but to go to the length of marrying the unwilling Agnes? Perhaps, she thought, giving a tiny shrug, perhaps he wishes to hedge his bets – a wealthy paramour and a wife with a comfortable income of her own, which would be hers upon a marriage approved by her mother and brother.

  The rest of the family maintained that stunned silence until it was broken by the arrival of Mrs Richmond, rising early for once in honour of her son. Barnard put a restraining hand on his wife’s arm; Charlotte cast a warning glance at old Lady Frampton and reached under the table to aim a good, hard kick at Agnes who had half risen to reply to her brother’s monstrous proposition.

  ‘Ow! What? Why, Charlotte, what…?’

  Charlotte scowled and shook her head, putting a finger to her lips as she looked at Mrs Richmond and mouthed the word ‘Later’. Agnes subsided into a misery so heartfelt that even Lily became conscious of it.

  ‘Oh, Frampton.’ She hurried into the conversation in, for once, a well-meant effort to distract attention from her spinster sister-in-law. ‘Old Nurse has been telling me about a visitor in the village. Did you hear of the mysterious Indian gentleman who was here recently? He was most anxious to talk about you and Nurse says he has returned and is staying at the Three Pigeons. How delighted he will be to find you alive and well!’

  ‘What?’ The colour darkened in Frampton’s face as he turned angrily towards Lily. ‘What’s that you say?’

  As Lily repeated, with malice, her words, Frampton made a gesture of contempt.

  ‘I’ll have no stranger in my house,’ he declared, looking furiously round the table. ‘Do you hear me? If the fellow dares to accost any one of you, turn on your heel. And you, Hoxton, you will deny the fellow if he tries to get in here. I won’t have it, I say. I will not have it!’

  As soon as breakfast was finished, Charlotte took Agnes by the arm and dragged her, unresisting, upstairs.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said firmly. ‘Never mind your mama, or Frampton, or anyone. As far as they are concerned we are getting ready for church.

  ‘Now.’ She closed her bedroom door behind her and thrust Agnes into a comfortable upholstered chair. ‘First things first. Why is Frampton so out of tune with the rest of you about church? Mrs Richmond likes the High Church service, she has told me so, several times. What makes Frampton different?’

  Agnes looked pained at what she clearly considered an irrelevance but the protest died on her lips and she sighed. ‘Frampton used to enjoy the service as much as the rest of us. Then near the end of the leave before his last he became very friendly with a curate at a parish in Southampton. This young man held decidedly Low Church views and Frampton came under his spell, almost lived in his pocket. It was all most unpleasant. Frampton was very vehement in his condemnation of Uncle Henry and what he called his popish ways, but luckily his leave was up then and everything settled down. And as he said just now, his last leave was not so very long after dear Mama’s accident and he could not bring himself to distress her so.’

  ‘But he feels able to distress her now?’ Charlotte felt a pang of reluctant sympathy for Frampton’s mother, rejoicing at her great good fortune, only to face an uproar that must shake the eminent foundations of the sacred Richmond family.

  ‘What am I to do, Charlotte?’ Agnes was too wrapped up in her own drama to care about Uncle Henry and the rites of the Anglican church. ‘He can’t make me marry that young man, can he? He can’t be twenty yet and such a creature, I’d rather die!’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so melodramatic,’ Charlotte snapped. ‘Of course he can’t. Pull yourself together, Agnes, and let us think.’

  She paced round the room considering and rejecting plan after plan.

  ‘I know,’ she proclaimed suddenly. ‘Percy must go to the bishop and ask for a living somewhere else. The bishop is of the same High Church persuasion, he will sympathize with Percy and will make no difficulty. Then all you have to do is be strong and wait until Percy is settled, then you can marry him and everything will be all right. You’re quite correct – Frampton cannot force you to marry Dawkins.’

  The plan seemed to her to have as many holes in it as a colander but Agnes was comforted so Charlotte continued. ‘You must seize your chance and tell Percy today and he must go into Winchester tomorrow, first thing in the morning, and see the bishop, even if he has to sit outside the door all day.’ She cast a look at the damply distressed creature huddled in her armchair and sighed. ‘For pity’s sake, Agnes, have some backbone. There must be plenty of parishes crying out for a hard-working man like Percy, not to mention an even harder-working curate’s wife, as you will prove.’

  There was no time for further discussion. The church clock could be heard striking the hour and the two girls hastened to join the family party.

  At the church door Charlotte contrived to push Agnes towards her hovering swain, shielding them from Frampton’s gaze by drawing his attention to the display of pink and yellow tulips which adorned the nearest grave.

  ‘Do you not admire it, Frampton?’ she enquired in a bright, artificial voice. ‘It must strike so fresh upon you after so long in India. I find the colours of England so delightful and so must you.’

  ‘Hmm? What? Oh yes, very fine.’ He stared at her in surprise but made no attempt to resist as she urged him onwards into the cool darkness of the porch. To her relief she spotted Agnes hurrying after them with the curate following at a discr
eet distance. If Percy Benson had been amazed at Agnes’s proposition he betrayed no sign of it, rather displaying a thoughtful face while Agnes seemed much calmer.

  Charlotte, meanwhile, was conscious of a moment of sudden joy, hastily suppressed, when she caught sight of Kit Knightley making his way towards their party.

  ‘Richmond!’ He nodded to Frampton and shook his hand. ‘I heard you were restored to life. Your mother must be delighted.’

  They exchanged a few commonplaces, Frampton appearing surprised but pleased at this attention, then after a cool nod in acknowledgement of Lancelot Dawkins and a friendly handclasp to Barnard, Kit was bowing slightly over Charlotte’s own hand.

  ‘Mrs Richmond.’ His greeting was polite, her curtsey demure. ‘Still managing to see the funny side, Char, in spite of all?’ This last was in a lowered tone as Frampton stopped to speak to an acquaintance.

  ‘Sometimes.’ There was the ghost of her merry twinkle in the hazel eyes and he pressed her hand again.

  ‘Good girl,’ was all he said, then, as he turned away, he added, ‘Come and see Elaine – she says that even if she is in bed, she will have them admit you.’

  Charlotte was a little comforted. The service took its normal course, if possible, even greater wafts of incense so that Charlotte’s head began to swim while Henry Heavitree bellowed from the pulpit above her, making great mention of miserable sinners who would despoil his church – and this, as Charlotte well knew, without yet having confronted Frampton. He then launched into a condemnation of the parable of the prodigal son.

  ‘And what, in God’s name, was Jesus thinking of?’ he thundered, causing several of his hardened parishioners to start awake. ‘Why the devil should the poor bastard of a father celebrate the arrival of a bloody wastrel? Eh, can you tell me that? Fatted calf, God’s nightgown, I’d give him fatted calf! I’d shove it down his throat, the bastard, till he choked on it. Send him back with a flea in his ear, that’s what they should have done, and by God, I can tell you, that if I had been the good son, the one who stayed at home and did all the damned work, I’d have peppered his breeches with more than shot, the bloody Bulgarian, that I would!’

  Charlotte’s downcast lashes flew up at this diatribe and instinctively she shot a glance across the aisle to where Kit Knightley was struggling to retain his composure. As she watched him bite his lips he caught her eye and was lost, and, as at their first meeting, he sought to disguise his laughter as a coughing fit. I do have friends, Charlotte consoled herself, whatever else befalls me. She firmly set aside that sudden leap of delight at the sight of Kit and thought instead of her friend, Kit’s wife.

  The vicar’s confrontation with Frampton could no longer be put off. At the church door Henry loomed above his nephew, baring yellow fangs in a snarl of rancour.

  ‘Well, nephew Frampton? Back from the dead, I see. There is no understanding of the ways of Providence. Why should you be saved, by God, and many a good man lost?’

  ‘Why, Uncle …’

  As Frampton began to expostulate, Lancelot Dawkins stepped swiftly into the fray, drawling: ‘Major Richmond is indebted to you, sir, for your good wishes upon his miraculous restoration.’

  This interruption, while it gained Dawkins a look of gratitude from a suddenly weary Frampton, inspired the vicar to greater heights of affront.

  ‘What’s that? Hey? You young puppy, do you address me? What are you if not Frampton’s catamite? Do you dare soil the air around us with your viper’s tongue?’

  ‘Really, sir?’ The viper’s tongue was suddenly in evidence as Lancelot Dawkins smiled at Henry Heavitree. ‘I advise you to keep a civil tongue of your own in your head, sir, as I speak for Major Richmond on all subjects. I assure you, sir, that you may believe me, for I quote my friend’s words exactly on this – you will cease to contaminate the air of this holy edifice with your smells and your saints and your statues, and you will dress in a decent black suit of clothes as befits a man of your calling. Major Richmond is determined that you will desist from making a mockery of God’s word by dressing in a popish gown.’

  He let this intelligence sink in and cut in smoothly as Henry opened his mouth to protest.

  ‘Pray, sir, do not dispute this command.’

  Taking advantage of the sudden silence that fell upon the group at the church door, Lancelot Dawkins looked about him, cast a glance at Frampton, who nodded with that same weary look on his face, and raised a hand.

  ‘While I have your attention,’ Dawkins continued, ‘I should warn Major Richmond’s tenants to expect drastic changes in the near future. The major is appalled to discover how lax management of the estate has become of late, with tenants pampered and promised improvements to their cottages that are quite beyond their station. Major Richmond wishes me to inform you all that what was good enough for his father and grandfather is good enough for him and that all pretensions will be discouraged – forcibly.’

  As a sullen murmur began, Lancelot Dawkins raised his hand again.

  ‘Rents, will, of course, be reviewed in the near future. The estate has been run most uneconomically and this will be rectified.’

  This time it was Lily’s turn to restrain Barnard as he caught the tail of this pronouncement and rounded angrily on his brother.

  ‘Frampton! You cannot—’

  ‘Barnard, take me home at once! I feel faint.’ Lily would not be gain-said and Barnard reluctantly took her arm and led her home, the dark colour in his face reflecting his anger.

  Charlotte and Agnes followed suit in silence. There was too much to say and no answer as yet apparent. They dawdled round the village in order to let Frampton reach the house ahead of them, no sense in provoking a confrontation.

  ‘Go and do some sewing, Agnes,’ Charlotte suggested as they entered the house at last. ‘As for me, I think I’ll take Prince Albert for a long tramp.’

  A rapid tap at the door and Charlotte let herself into old Lady Frampton’s room.

  ‘Gran! What is it?’

  Lady Frampton was half lying in her chair, her handkerchief to her face.

  ‘He’s done it, me dear. What I feared all along.’

  ‘What? Not Prince Albert? He hasn’t … He can’t …’

  ‘Oh yes ’e can.’ The old lady roused herself and blew her nose resoundingly. ‘I’m to ’and the dog over to that Dawkins tomorrow, ’e says, and then I’m to get meself packed as ’e intends to put me out to grass in some ’ouse in London that’s owned by that Dawkins’s h’aunt.’

  ‘He can’t do that!’ Charlotte was incensed. ‘I’ll go to Mrs Richmond – she won’t let him.’

  ‘Ah, but she will, me dear.’ The old lady was sorrowful but definite. ‘I spoke to ’er meself, straightaway, but she’s all fired up to please ’er boy, as she calls ’im, so she won’t h’interfere.’

  Charlotte sat down on a stool at Lady Frampton’s feet, idly fondling the silky spaniel ears as Prince Albert nuzzled her hopefully.

  ‘First thing tomorrow morning,’ she announced with resolution. ‘I’ll take Prince Albert over to Knightley Hall – Kit and Elaine will look after him for us until we can think of something. Please, Gran, don’t cry anymore, everything will turn out for the best, see if it doesn’t.’

  Having fired warning shots across the entire village, the estate workers, the vicar, his brother, his sister and his grandmother, Frampton reserved his most terrifying bolt for his wife, delivered as she encountered him at the open glass doors of the drawing-room.

  ‘Ah, Charlotte.’ He addressed her amiably. ‘Admiring the garden? It is very pleasant, is it not? Something new in your experience, I have no doubt?’

  ‘As you say.’ She eyed him warily and was not reassured by his smile.

  ‘Come, let us sit in the arbour. I want to talk to you and I do not want to be overheard. I had forgotten that the world and his wife eavesdrop on everything in this house.’

  Silently she let him precede her to the charming arbour on the boundary of
the rose garden. Equally silently she accepted his offer of a seat, where she tried to concentrate on the tendrils of the honeysuckle winding its way up the trellised arbour, the scent from the lilacs to the side, shading from purest white to deepest royal purple, and the sounds of the garden, bees, birds and the distant sound of sawing from the stable yard.

  ‘We have had very little opportunity of conversation since my return, have we, Mrs Richmond?’

  ‘You have had much to do,’ she returned quietly and was aware of the sour twist of his smile.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he answered. ‘You must be wondering what your portion of my reforms will be.’

  ‘I don’t deny it.’ She strove to remain calm, holding her hands lightly in her lap, hiding the nails that dug into her flesh.

  ‘You are a cool customer,’ he acknowledged. ‘I admire that. I chose well when I took you for my bride.’

  ‘I was not aware that you – or I – had a choice,’ she was goaded into saying.

  ‘Perhaps not, but a sensible woman is far easier to deal with than some of the hysterical females I have encountered on my travels. For instance …’ He smiled again and she felt a trickle of fear run down her spine. ‘There was a lady on board the ship who dwelt glowingly upon your charms and your skill in nursing; she had come across you in your flight overland from those mutinous dogs. Most impressed she was, apparently, by your helpfulness to so many other women in difficulties. I tell you, I was quite basking in your reflected glory.’

  ‘Is there a point to this narrative, Frampton?’ Charlotte was angry with herself for rising to his bait but the tension was becoming unbearable.

  ‘Oh yes, my dear, indeed there is. Later in the conversation, this dear lady, after she had indulged herself in one of her all too many bouts of reminiscent weeping and wailing, told how many of the poor ladies had found that they had been taken advantage of and had lost little trinkets and garments and so forth – only one or two objects from each lady, nothing greedy, nothing to inspire an immediate hue and cry. We agreed that the natives were shocking and I joined her in hoping that my dear, noble young wife had not suffered a similar misfortune.’