Miss Seeton, watching the gyrations of her faithful and energetic servitor, sighed, and nodded. Artists—musicians—poets . . . did genius—could genius excuse the taking of drugs in the search for ever greater inspiration? Even if one argued that such a step might not be rather, well, cheating, it was certainly against the law. Was genius above the law? “Indeed not,” said Miss Seeton firmly.
Martha quivered. “But she is, Miss Emily, I know for a fact, because she told me so herself. Even when he comes down hopping, away from that lot in Town, he takes off after work on his motorbike and never a word next day about where he’s been or what he’s done—and that’s not right, dear, it really isn’t. There’s some funny people round these parts, Miss Emily, even if you’ve not noticed them . . .”
Martha fell silent. She could be fairly sure Miss Seeton had not noticed them. Why worry her with things that didn’t concern her? “Oh, never mind me, dear, I expect it’s just the weather. And he’ll grow out of his nonsense in time, I dare say—drat!” Waving away the idea of Barry’s nonsense, she had let the duster slip from her fingers. She bent down, fumbled, and rose with a red face. “Well, you’re decent enough now, and I’m sorry not to have done you properly before I went to market this morning, but what with one thing and another I’ve got myself all behind, I don’t mind telling you, dear. Though I won’t make a habit, I promise,” as Miss Seeton assured Mrs. Bloomer that her unexpected trip to Brettenden had not mattered in the least. Indeed, she was glad—having spent the day in school—of some adult company in the evening . . .
“Your supper, dear,” cried Martha, remembering. “What’s in the fridge did ought to have been taken out before now, but if you give it an extra five minutes in the oven, you’ll come to no harm. It’s cottage pie, which in this warm weather’s a bit much, I know, but once the sun’s gone down there is a bit of a chill in the air, and apple pie for afters, which won’t matter whether it’s hot or cold.” She hesitated, looking into the distance. “They’ll be finishing at the hop garden round about now, I dare say, and fixing supper at the hut like we always did—but there you are, dear, those days are long gone for me, and probably just as well. Pop singers!”
And Martha, with a farewell flick of the duster, cleared her cleaning implements away, instructed Miss Seeton again on the intricacies of her supper preparation, ordered her to be sure to have an early night, and left through the back garden, talking happily of lettuces for Stan.
But as she left, Miss Seeton, waving good-bye through the kitchen window, found her fingers beginning their familiar, urgent dance . . .
chapter
~ 9 ~
WHILE MISS SEETON, her drawing finished, was boiling the kettle for a cup of tea, drinks of an altogether more festive nature were on offer about four hundred yards to the north of Sweetbriars, halfway up The Street, in Ararat Cottage, home of Rear Admiral Leighton. The Buzzard (Bernard Leighton had brought his Naval nickname with him to Kent) was given to flying the gin pennant—a long, green-and-white triangular flag—from the flagpole in his front garden whenever he found due and proper cause to celebrate: and, as he had spent most of his working life in the Royal Navy, due and proper cause was seldom hard to find.
Today, the fifteenth of September, was Battle of Britain Day. The Senior Service might have mocked the Brylcreem Boys of the Royal Air Force to their faces, but behind their backs they were among the first to admit they’d been a staunch body of men. Winston Churchill, said the Admiral, had, if anything, underestimated the worth and valour of the Few.
“God bless them!” he cried, downing his third pink gin. His guests echoed the toast: Sir George in whisky-and-water, Colonel Windup in silent whisky-and-whisky, Major Howett in her Horse’s Neck (brandy and ginger ale), and the Reverend Arthur Treeves, daringly, in a half-pint of shandy made from equal parts of mild ale and ginger beer.
The vicar wasn’t entirely sure how he’d ended up drinking in Ararat Cottage when he’d only gone for a short walk to post a letter; but he’d bumped into the Howitzer (as Major Howett was inevitably known) at the post office door, and she had told him how the Admiral had some time earlier explained that a gin pennant invitation was open to all and any officers who spotted it. Hadn’t the Reverend Arthur served in the Home Guard? There he was, then! And Major Howett, who was a great friend of the vicar’s sister and no less bossy, swept the Reverend Arthur across The Street and up the path of Ararat Cottage before he could protest that Molly would be expecting him home, and, in any case, he’d only met the Admiral on one or two previous occasions . . .
“Time to get better acquainted, then.” Matilda Howett stood no nonsense from the patients in Dr. Knight’s nursing home, and she certainly wasn’t going to let Arthur Treeves hide away, as Molly had told her he too frequently did, behind the vicarage garden wall. “It’s good for you to get out and about, Padre. New horizons—new friends.” She did not notice his sudden squirm of embarrassment. “Comrades in arms, the whole crowd—and you’ll know everybody else, I’m sure. No need to worry!”
The vicar had been only in part relieved to discover that, apart from the Admiral, those forgathered in Ararat Cottage were already known to him. Sir George Colveden, of course, it was ever a pleasure to meet; but it was rather alarming to encounter Colonel Windup in the flesh. Colonel Windup lived next door to the George and Dragon and spent most of his time there, speaking to nobody except (or so the rumour, which the Reverend Arthur tried to ignore, insisted) to ask for the same again, please. This remark had at least the twin virtues of brevity and clarity: the colonel’s other communications tended to be less comprehensible. He spent such times as the pub wasn’t open in the writing of cryptic letters which he would unleash upon an unsuspecting public, particularly if it wore (as did the Parochial Church Council, of which the vicar was ex officio a member) an aspect of authority. Colonel Windup was always demanding that Something Should Be Done—but it was never entirely clear about what. Plummergen wits claimed that were it not for the colonel’s copious one-way correspondence (for nobody who had once received a letter from him ever troubled to answer a second), Mr. Stillman’s takings at the post office would be reduced by half.
“Same again, everyone?” The Admiral was hospitably on his feet, heading for the sideboard. “Come along, Padre, no heeltaps! Major Howett, I’m sure you’ll join me. Colveden, Windup—a refill?”
Sir George felt himself weakened by the whirlwind force of the personality behind that ginger beard, and accepted, silently resolving to add more water when the Buzzard was looking the other way. Colonel Windup, never one to refuse a good offer, nodded with pleasure and held out his glass. Muttering about stomach linings, Major Howett began to hand round the platter of sliced pork pie, the only food Admiral Leighton was prepared to tolerate at a party.
“None of your Naafi rubbish, this,” remarked the Admiral, as the Howitzer fixed the colonel with a gimlet eye and he meekly took a slice from the plate in front of him. “Remember what we used to say about the blighters?”
Sir George remembered just before the others, and burst out laughing. “My word, yes! No Aim, Ambition, or Flaming Interest—absolutely true, what’s more! Early days, anyway. Improved no end once that chap Beale sorted ’em out.” His reference to the sterling transformation wrought by Sir William Beale, as its new director and chairman, upon the Navy, Army, and Air Force Institutes organisation in 1940 was greeted with amused approbation by the major and the colonel, though the vicar’s Home Guard experience left him blinking at a joke he didn’t quite understand. To see his companions in such good spirits, however, more than compensated for this bemusement. He beamed impartially upon the room at large, and failed to notice that the Admiral had mixed him another shandy.
As tongues were loosened, wartime reminiscences came thick and fast. The Buzzard told of a corvette captain so small he’d only been able to see over his bridge rail if he stood on a biscuit tin. “Never bothered him, mind you—nor his crew.” Admiral Leighton chuc
kled. “They’d have sailed with him if he’d been half the size—believed he brought ’em luck, and there’s no doubt he was a damned fine officer. Popular. Had to paint scrambled egg on the peak of his cap when he was promoted, because the men weren’t happy with his new brass hat—said it was nowhere near as lucky as the old ’un. Never wore another, right through the war—superstitious lot, sailors.” He chuckled again, stroked his beard, then turned politely to the Reverend Arthur.
“You think it’s all a load of tommyrot, I suppose, Padre? Good luck, bad luck—hardly your style. The church, I mean,” as the vicar blinked again on hearing his opinion sought for the first time in years.
“Good luck?” The Reverend Arthur’s wayward memory had been jogged by the Buzzard’s words. “Dear me, yes, there were some remarkable examples, remarkable. A fighter pilot, you know, shot down not far from here—who landed, as I recall, precisely in the centre of a minefield. Dear me, they were dark days indeed, with the fear of invasion ever present—dark days.” Sighing, he shook a sorrowful head, and drank deeply of his shandy to cheer himself. “Yes, a most fortunate young man—most. And who can for certain say through what agency or chance he came to be saved?” He sighed again, looking back on happier days when he would have had no doubt that it was by the power of prayer the miracle had been achieved. “Not one of the mines exploded, and the Home Guard extricated him with no loss of life . . .”
“Talking of mines,” volunteered Sir George, after a few moments’ respectful silence, “something about aerial mines, I remember. Piano wire, parachutes . . . and sheep,” he added with a puzzled frown, his voice dropping on the final words as he hastily set down his whisky glass and resolved to ask for plain water next time round.
“Operation Mutton!” cried Major Howett at once, though the Admiral and the Colonel looked as puzzled as the vicar. “Cousin who was an Air Force boffin,” she added in explanation, as questioning faces were turned towards her. “Churchill approved—two thousand feet of piano wire, parachute at the top, little bomb at the bottom, drop ’em in front of enemy bombers underneath—but dangerous sport, no matter how careful you tried to be. One poor devil was hit three times by his own mines—”
The Admiral emitted a sudden guffaw, then promptly apologised for interrupting Major Howett’s narrative. The Howitzer, grimly gracious, intimated that she had nothing more to say on the subject, and the floor was now his. Admiral Leighton stroked his beard and coughed.
“Er, yes—nothing remarkable, really—just, when you said about the chap being hit three times, I couldn’t help remembering a couple of signals. Two of our destroyers, out in the Med—heading that way, rather. Leaving port. Which reminds me—port, anyone? Another whisky?” He rose to his feet and headed again for the drinks table, glass in hand, collecting from his guests as he passed. “First chap signalled me something along the lines of Returning to harbour, have been hit in the stern, probably mine. Second chap signalled Referring so-and-so’s signal, for mine read me. Er, yes,” he said again, as only a courteous chortle from Sir George and a thin smile from the Major greeted his punchline. Colonel Windup was too busy concentrating on what was being poured into his glass to be polite; the vicar was trying to work out what the point of the story had been.
“Talk about returnin’—” Major Howett took over—“there was a chap in another cousin’s squadron just comin’ back from leave when the scramble bell rang. Didn’t have time to reach the airfield gate—climbed the fence, hared like a lunatic for the nearest Spitfire, took off, bagged a Dornier bomber, then landed calm as you like and went to report back—no more than twenty minutes before his pass ran out.”
This was received with suitable expressions of amusement and amazement from all present: even Colonel Windup could be heard chortling quietly into his whisky. Sir George, without noticing, drained his own scotch and reached for the new and tempting tumbler the Admiral had placed beside him. He sipped, choked, sipped again. “Talking of lunatics,” he began, then sipped once more. Everyone waited politely for him to continue.
“Talking of lunatics—that pair next door.” Mellowed by whisky, he considered this an entirely reasonable turn of phrase for public consumption—he’d used far stronger epithets in the privacy of his own home. Anyway, dammit, all friends together . . . “Meg tells me no end of rumours flying round about them abducting a girl, and being arrested by the police, or some such bal—derdash,” he amended, in deference to the presence of Major Matilda Howett and the Reverend Arthur Treeves. The Reverend Arthur, looking suddenly disturbed, blinked again. Sir George harrumphed, and fingered an uneasy moustache. “Yes, well—hardly the sort of talk we want around the village. Makes people nervous, whether it’s true or not. Take it you’ve noticed nothing . . . out of the ordinary going on, Leighton?”
Before the Admiral could reply, Major Howett nodded a sage head. “Wondered whether you knew about that—didn’t care to spoil the party by mentionin’ it before. There was talk, you know, while I was in the post office—but then,” with a sharp, barking laugh, “there always is. Never known such a crowd for tittle-tattle.” As the other men muttered, the Reverend Arthur sighed deeply. Friendly exchanges were one thing—those pleasantries of social intercourse which gave village life such value—but sometimes—true, only sometimes—though regrettably such times, he had to admit, there were—it did seem that, well, perhaps people were rather too hasty to place a less charitable interpretation on events than he would like . . .
“Emmy Putts and her mother,” Major Howett was saying, “right in the thick of it this time, eggin’ the others on—still, Mrs. Putts works on the same industrial estate as the missin’ gel, if she is missing, so it might just be true, I suppose. But this nonsense of draggin’ poor Miss Seeton into the business the way they did—”
“Pah!” exclaimed Sir George, forgetting himself. “Slanderous blasted females—sorry, Major. Why they’ve all got their knives stuck into Miss Seeton . . .”
“Couldn’t agree with you more, Sir George, and that’s what I told the whole silly crowd. May well have been Mrs. Putts who started ’em off, but they’re all tarred with the same brush.” Major Howett frowned in much the same way as she might be supposed to have chastised the post office gossips. “Even if that precious pair have got themselves in a spot of bother—not as if the poor little woman’s any particular friend to the ladies in question, is it?”
“Ladies be damned!” exploded Sir George, then recollected himself, and harrumphed with great vigour. “Sorry, Major—Padre—but, I assure you, more than flesh and blood can be expected to stand, hearing them harp on and on about one of the best little souls . . .”
It might have been Sir George’s mention of the spiritual which now agitated the Reverend Arthur Treeves. It might have been the general ripening of the language to which he was forced to listen, or the distressing revelations about the character of some of his parishioners; it might even have been that, under the influence of several glasses—how many? Molly would be furious—of shandy, he felt the need for fresh air, or for solitude. Whatever the cause, he suddenly set down his empty glass, and jumped to his feet.
He sat down again, the apologies he’d been on the point of uttering lost in a swirl of echoing voices and a curious hum deep inside the top of his head. His legs felt a little unsteady—hadn’t Molly warned him about his blood pressure? He must rise more slowly next time . . .
“I say, Padre, are you all right? You’re looking rather green about the gills.” Thus spoke the Admiral, concerned for his guest. The Reverend Arthur blinked at him, swallowed, shook his head, and smiled weakly.
Major Howett, regarding the vicar with the eyes of experience, said briskly that a glass of water and a breath of fresh air would soon put him to rights. If Admiral Leighton would allow her to pop along to the kitchen—galley, she begged his pardon . . .
“No, no. It is I,” broke in the Reverend Arthur, struggling for a second, more successful, time to his feet, “who should
beg pardon. A touch of . . . of the heat, no doubt—and fr-fresh air is a capital sh-suggeshtion.” He stood swaying for a few moments, then took a deep breath, and focussed his eyes with some difficulty on the sitting-room door. “Fresh air—and exershize, I think. I think—I think shome time in the garden would not come amish . . .”
And, despite every effort of his friends to dissuade him, the Reverend Arthur Treeves said his farewells and made his way, walking with great deliberation, out of the sitting room of Ararat Cottage and along the front path to the garden gate. He clutched briefly at the gatepost, and took several deep breaths—took several more—and almost at once felt a great deal better. He risked letting go his hold on the post to turn and wave good-bye to the revellers who had remained to enjoy the admiral’s hospitality; he noticed the curtains of neighbouring Lilikot twitch, and ventured a little wave in the direction of the watching Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine. Was he not their parish priest, after all? How very distressing for them to have witnessed the abduction of a young woman. One would wish to show them every possible support in coming to terms with their ordeal—although they would, perhaps, not care to be reminded of it directly. The Reverend Arthur brooded on his gender. The presence of a woman like themselves, rather than a man (for it must, he felt, have been a man who had carried out so very shocking a crime), would doubtless be a comfort. He would mention it to Molly as soon as he reached home . . .
Miss Seeton Plants Suspicion (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 15) Page 8
