“A cup of tea, I think,” said Miss Seeton firmly, leaving her damaged hat on the table without another glance and heading for the kitchen. The kettle, as ever, was full and waiting. Within ten minutes, she was in her sitting room, a laden tray on the table at her side, and a feeling that she still lacked for something . . .
It was instinctive for Miss Seeton to reach for pencil and paper when in pursuit of a certain degree of relaxation. First thing in the morning, and last thing at night, she made a point of following her yoga routine: during the day, however, she rarely chose this way of quietening her restless mind—which, all too often, was accompanied by a restless body. One’s hands, in particular. They might, if one was of a fanciful turn—which, sadly (for the gift of imagination is, to an artist, of the greatest value) one was not—almost be considered as having a will of their own. They would sometimes fidget and dance on one’s lap in a way which was, well, uncomfortable. One felt as one might have done with a class of children who simply could not be persuaded to keep still, when often the only way to cure the problem was to take them out into the playground and persuade them to jump about, or to run races, to work off their excess energy. Miss Seeton had no inclination either to jump, or to run: neither would calm her dancing hands, she knew well. Whereas drawing—especially as one so much enjoyed, even if one did not, alas, excel at it—she found often helped. Besides, one had promised Lady Colveden a painting of the Plummergen cricket match, for the pavilion auction: it would do no harm to make a few preliminary notes before—
“Oh. Oh, dear. I had forgotten . . .”
Miss Seeton stared at the strange sketch of the Chinese cricketers she really did not remember having drawn. Then she turned to another page and was even more startled. Her sketch of Annabelle Leigh—how had the young woman aroused so much envy in her heart? With hindsight, of course, and a sense of distance—the British Museum artefacts had been a humbling experience—one did not feel so disturbed by Miss Leigh’s abilities as one evidently had before—but things, Miss Seeton told herself with a sigh, were very . . . strange, just at present—one was still, no doubt, suffering from a sense of anticlimax after one’s holiday, although one would have supposed that a day out in London—but it was of no use to look back. One must always look forward. To Saturday, and to watching dear Nigel, and Jack Crabbe—and dear Bob, of course, because of poor Dan Eggleden’s broken arm—how fortunate that Dr. Knight had been so quick on the scene, and how one wished broken bones could set as quickly . . .
When Miss Seeton emerged from her idle dreaming, she was not surprised to find that she had doodled a strong likeness of dear Anne’s father, brandishing bandages and splints, and busily wrapping a brawny arm belonging to a large man in a leather apron—the village blacksmith, without a doubt—and with a cricket bat in his other hand. Behind him, a heavy horse with waving feathers about its huge feet, reared up on its hind legs, hooves flashing, nostrils flaring, eyes wild—and a circle of dots whirling above its head. Miss Seeton peered more closely. No, not dots. She could hardly help chuckling. One should not mock the afflicted, but really it did look most comical. Not dots, but tiny creatures—some with tusks, and trunks. Elephants! She had a strong suspicion that, had she used coloured rather than black graphite pencils, the elephants would have been decidedly pink in hue—but perhaps not the other creatures, which weren’t. Neither pink, nor elephants. Miss Seeton peered more closely. Winged, and rounded of body, and striped—yellow and black, she somehow knew the stripes would have been, had she used colour. Bees—bees and elephants. How very . . .
“Strange,” murmured Miss Seeton, rubbing her eyes and looking again at the likeness of Dr. Knight. “Oh, of course—those mischievous persons from Murreystone.” And the dear doctor so careful of her feelings that he’d referred to them as silly bees. The people who’d fed it fermented apples and let it kick poor Mr. Eggleden, that was to say. The horse. How considerate he was, and dear Anne, too—packing her belongings and letting her stay in the Home for as long as was necessary for the roof to be repaired . . .
Another swift likeness appeared on the paper from Miss Seeton’s pencil, this time of Miss Wicks. She was wearing gumboots, which surprised Miss Seeton, who’d never dreamed of her old friend as owning anything other than galoshes—gumboots, and carrying a suitcase in her hand. No doubt on her way to stay with Dr. and Mrs. Knight, and the dear Major, Miss Seeton told herself with a smile; the boots, of course, because of the flood from the fire engine. One could make out the cottage in the background—and those must be the firemen inside, glimpsed through the window in silhouette, though they were not wearing helmets. One must suppose that—like policemen—they doffed their hats, or rather helmets, when entering a private residence. One knew that firemen played their hoses on burned-out buildings for some time after the fire had been extinguished, and therefore—since it had been clear, as dear Bob drove down The Street, that the damage had been minimal and Miss Wicks’s cottage still stood—one assumed they must here be playing, or rather plying, their pumps, to remove the water they had been previously at such pains to introduce to put out the fire on the roof caused by the wayward sparks from Daniel Eggleden’s overturned portable forge. Which made her think of Murreystone once more, and sigh for the weaknesses of human nature . . .
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THE HIGHER THE rank reached in HM Forces, the greater the organisational ability of the officers concerned: a rule to which Sir George was no exception. He it was who had instigated, and supervised, the Village Watch scheme during the most recent flare-up of rivalry between Plummergen and Murreystone; he it was who had —so successful did the scheme prove—filed away the lists of volunteers and patrol timetables in case they should be of future use. Plummergen and Murreystone, he knew, had been in dispute at least since the Civil War, when Plummergen took the Royalist, Murreystone the Puritan side. The feuding had if anything increased rather than decreased in intensity over the past three hundred and thirty years; it would take more than the efforts of Major-General Sir George Colveden, Bart, KCB, DSO, JP to stop the villagers trying to score off each other at every opportunity, though discouraging them as far as possible struck him as a sensible notion. Accordingly, he retrieved his files, brought them up-to-date with a few judicious telephone calls, and issued a number of new orders concerning the cricket ground, in case of a sneak attack.
“Pity the fire brigade had to be called,” he explained to Lady Colveden, as Nigel set about warning Annabelle of the likely dangers of that lengthy half-mile trip down Marsh Road from Rytham Hall to the George and Dragon, insisting she should abandon her bicycle until the morrow and accept his escort in the MG—just in case. “Wouldn’t put it past the blighters to flood the pitch—one or two retained, remember. Know their way around.”
As in many country areas, Plummergen and its neighbours are served by a retained—that is to say volunteer—fire brigade. It is not so many years back that they were summoned to the fire station from work, from home, or wherever they might happen to be by means of the old air-raid siren. The introduction of bleeping personal pagers, however, meant that volunteers could be called from farther away than within immediate earshot of the siren, and one or two of the Murreystoners with fast cars had promptly signed up. Always providing they were never on the same duty roster as the Plummergenites—which the chief officer took great pains to ensure—all tended to go smoothly; but, as Sir George now pointed out, they knew as well as any how to operate the appliances: filling them with water, driving them, and pumping the water out through the hoses . . .
“Flood the pitch? Surely they wouldn’t do that!” Lady Colveden was suitably shocked at the suggestion. Sir George shook his head.
“Can’t be too careful, m’dear. As Nigel”—with a twinkle in the direction of his son—“knows, of course. Better safe than sorry, every time.” And Annabelle Leigh smiled at this gentle hint, promptly agreeing with Sir George’s son and heir that perhaps the distance
between the Hall and the hotel might be a little unsafe for a solitary female; she would feel far happier traversing it in company.
“George,” warned his wife, as the MG roared away, “don’t overdo the hints, will you? Nigel’s old enough to do his own courting.”
“Pretty girl,” said the old warhorse, twirling his moustache. His wife smiled doubtfully.
“Yes, I know, but at Nigel’s age the last thing he wants is his parents’ approval of his choice—at first, anyway. He still wants to be Romeo, or someone like that—carrying off the girl in the teeth of all opposition. If you make it too obvious you like her, you’ll put him off. And you’ll almost certainly frighten her.”
The moustache was still, as bristling eyebrows twitched. “Jealous. m’dear? Notice you said if I liked her, not you.”
“I never said any such—well, I suppose I did, but I certainly didn’t mean it like that. I think. I mean, all I meant was . . . Oh dear, I’m not one of those terrible, possessive mothers, am I, George? When Julia married Toby, you can’t say I made a fuss, now can you?”
“Cried half the time,” her husband reminded her, adding, as he caught her eye: “Not the same at all, anyway, mothers and sons—different from daughters. Very.” A mischievous glint appeared in his own eye. “Never been absolutely sure . . . Daphne Carstairs, y’know. M’mother liked her. Often wondered—if she hadn’t, maybe . . .”
Whereupon Lady Colveden, though tempted to throw something at him—not once in twenty-four years had she ever needed to ask herself where Nigel’s dreadful sense of humour came from—contrived that her eyes should widen and fill with wounded tears; and the conversation which then ensued was of an entirely private nature.
Lady Colveden having duly forgiven her husband his teasing, she prepared sandwiches and flasks of coffee, despite the protests of her menfolk—Nigel had returned in a blissful state from driving Annabelle to the George—that they were supposed to be on patrol, not having a picnic; and sent them out on that patrol with stem warnings that nobody was to act the hero, because there was still the rest of the harvest to get in, and they’d be no good to anyone if they were laid up with bruises or broken arms, like poor Dan Eggleden, would they?
Her husband and son poured a chorus of scorn on this argument. “Visible deterrent,” explained Sir George, as Nigel cried that really, Mother, surely it was obvious that was the whole point of patrolling. His mother widened her eyes once more and contrived to look bewildered.
“If they know we’re on the lookout, they won’t try anything,” her son kindly enlarged, while his father unscrewed the top of his flask to sniff at its contents. A sign of Lady Colveden’s true forgiveness would be a ration of rum against the chilly autumn night . . .
“Oh, George, really! It isn’t even September yet.” His wife watched him in some amusement. “I’ll leave the bottle out for when you get back, if you like, but I’d have thought you’d had enough rum the other night, at the admiral’s.”
Sir George fingered a thoughtful moustache. “Talked about the Village Watch then, as I recall. Wouldn’t like to think he was, well, pumping me.”
“I’m sure he wasn’t. I’m sure he’s much more interested in those bees of his than in feeding horses with fermenting apples . . .”
And Lady Colveden hurried her menfolk out of the door, so that they might set a good example by arriving early on parade.
A few yawns next morning were the only signs to distinguish the assorted groups of Night Watch Men, who had been on duty from the fall of Thursday’s darkness to the rise of Friday’s sun, from their fellow Plummergenites. The night had been, they congratulated themselves, uneventful; Murreystone had put in no appearance; those vital twenty-two yards of greensward making up the cricket pitch were as level, firm, and dry as they had ever been. Flushed with virtue and success, the Village Watch went about its normal business of the day.
Others, who had not been patrolling Plummergen at two-hourly intervals, also began to go about their business. Red-haired Cockney Bert came bowling down The Street in his scarlet GPO van, whistling between his teeth as he parked neatly outside Mr. Stillman’s post office and prepared to deliver the mail. Nothing much of interest, today. Mostly letters, and none of them airmail, or looking like unpaid bills or final demands; a few postcards from people holidaying later than their friends, trying to make them jealous; various magazines of assorted interest; and two or three parcels, one of which had to be signed for.
Bert crossed the road to Lilikot, and pushed Psychic News through the letterbox with as much commotion as he could legitimately manage, holding the parcel clearly in sight of those net-curtained windows. With a nicety of timing developed over the two or three years he had been on the Plummergen run, he delayed his walk away from the house until the Nuts, now certain the parcel must be for them, were opening the front door to collect it.
“Morning!” Bert turned round with obvious surprise to wave at Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine, privately christened by himself the Long and the Short of It. “Nice day, innit?”
And he trod on purposefully down the path without another backward look, whistling a tuneless air.
“Well!” Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine scowled after Bert as they ignored Psychic News on the mat, watching where he might go and wondering who was to receive that parcel . . .
With another wave, and a wink, Bert opened the gate of Ararat Cottage, and marched, still whistling, towards the admiral’s door. Craning their necks, the Nuts strove for a view of the little porch’s interior, so that—
“Bugger!”
Two pairs of eyes looked at each other in shock. “Well, really!” said Mrs. Blaine. “Typical,” snorted Miss Nuttel, as a further selection of picturesque language floated over the fence. Bert, it seemed, was unhappy about something: before he had started to curse, he had stopped whistling, though there was no hint now as to what had caused his altered mood, or how long it was likely to last. Miss Nuttel began to wonder whether a little judicious gardening in the front might be a good idea, when:
“Spot of bother, old man?” The voice of the admiral could be heard over the fence, every bit as clear as that of Bert had been before falling silent as the door was opened. There came a Cockney murmuring of which Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine were quite unable to distinguish the words, though they could hear well enough Admiral Leighton’s brisk reply: “Bicarbonate of soda—come on in!” And every sign of life vanished from the front porch of Ararat Cottage.
Miss Nuttel looked at Mrs. Blaine. Mrs. Blaine looked at Miss Nuttel, her eyes wide. “Bicarbonate of soda? Oh, Eric—too dreadful, at this hour of the morning, for the man to be suffering from a hangover. Driving that van all over the place under the influence it’s disgraceful! And dangerous—we should report him to someone at once.”
But Eric shook her head for the utter innocence of her friend. “No, Bunny, no. Code, of course. Bicarbonate of soda—white powder—think about it . . .”
Mrs. Blaine, with a horrified squeak, thought about it. Her eyes lit up. “Oh, Eric, you’re so right—cocaine, of course. Too, too dreadful!”
And when Bert emerged from the cottage ten minutes later minus the parcel, but with a bandage round his finger, the Nuts knew what he had been doing. Miss Nuttel preferred the term drop—Mrs. Blaine thought handover more apposite—but both Nuts knew, beyond all doubt, that Bert had just delivered the latest consignment of drugs to the self-styled Rear Admiral Bernard Leighton, RN (retired).
They knew yet more. Bert drove off down The Street in a series of grinding gear changes and bunny-hop starts which not only convinced them their drugs theory was correct, but proved to their satisfaction that Bert was no simple pusher, he was an addict, too—an addict who had just received, as his reward for delivering the dope, another fix. Hadn’t he driven off decidedly under the influence? Alcohol, cocaine—they were both drugs, weren’t they?
It was not until he reached Rytham Hall that Bert, after his irregular progress down The Str
eet, gave up the unequal struggle and rattled the front doorknocker to ask for further aid. When Martha Bloomer—it was one of her days—opened the door, he waved one hand glumly under her startled nose, even as he produced the Colvedens’ letters with the other.
“Stung by a bloody bee,” he said, moaning now that sympathy was in sight. “Just my luck an’ all—be like a balloon before the day’s out.”
Martha clicked her tongue, studying the bandage. “Well, I allow it looks neat enough—but you’re right, swollen’s not the word for it. You really did ought to get that seen to properly, Bert.”
“The admiral give me some bicarbonate—”
“Bicarbonate? Trust a man! Bicarb’s no good for when it’s as bad as this. A blue-bag’s what you need, and if her ladyship’s not got one in the kitchen I’ll be surprised, so you come on in this minute while I look.”
Bert went on in; and Martha looked; and a blue bag was found, and duly applied. But the bee poison was already circulating merrily round his bloodstream, and, though the swelling was arrested, it did not diminish.
Miss Seeton Goes to Bat (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 14) Page 16
