Bert regarded Martha with a worried expression. “Reckon I’d best have a word with young Nigel,” he said. “Seeing as how I’ve already been to Mr. Jessyp—him being vice captain. Nigel, I mean. But it looks as if they’ll be one man short tomorrow for the Murreystone match . . .”
And he waved his blue-bagged finger glumly in the air.
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MARTHA HAVING USED the last of Lady Colveden’s blue-bags on Bert’s finger, more were needed. Mrs. Bloomer had been busy in the kitchen making up a list of domestic requirements when Bert interrupted her, and blue-bags were duly added to that list, which she handed to her employer when Lady Colveden announced that she was just popping to the shops, if Martha wanted anything.
She arrived at the post office in time to overhear an excited Norah Blaine advising everyone that not only was Admiral Leighton a suspected warlock, and In League With Miss Seeton, but a drug dealer, as well. “Bicarbonate of soda—too ridiculous,” she scoffed, while Miss Nuttel nodded confirmation at her side. “As if anyone would believe such an idiotic story! What other explanation could there possibly be, except drugs?”
This was too much for Lady Colveden, who was moved to interrupt the general murmur of thrilled agreement by speaking in that fashion which Nigel—though her family seldom heard it—called her “ladyship” voice.
Aristocratic hauteur combined in unison with ice-cold anger and disdain. “I for one, Mrs. Blaine, am prepared to believe what you are so careless as to call the admiral’s story. There are laws of slander in this country, remember—and may I suggest you should also remember that bicarbonate of soda is a noted remedy for anyone who has suffered a bee sting? As are blue-bags. Which I—and I trust that no suggestion of idiocy on my part is thereby assumed on yours—have come to buy now because Mrs. Bloomer used the last of mine in trying to help the postman, who was stung by one of Admiral Leighton’s bees while delivering his letters earlier today. And if such information, Mrs. Blaine, does not convince you that you should be very careful about what you say in public, then may I point out that the admiral is crossing The Street at this moment, and heading this way.”
Collapse of stout party. Mrs. Blaine gasped, and uttered a little squeak; Miss Nutter’s nostrils flared, and her face assumed an attitude of disinterest she was in truth far from feeling. Everyone else tried to look as if they’d had nothing to do with any accusations against anyone . . .
And by the time the Buzzard came through the door, the post office was once again a normal village shop—even if a few of the shoppers had a decidedly stupefied appearance.
Lady Colveden thought it no more than her duty to force home the message of the admiral’s innocence by repeating, in his presence, the story of Bert’s little mishap. She was as unprepared as anyone for his dismay.
“The cricket match? Too bad, too bad. Can’t blame the bees, of course—instinct to sting, as I told Bert—self-defence, though just as painful, of course. But far worse for her than for him—they die afterwards, you know. Sting gets left behind as they pull away—unpleasant. And all my fault,” he added, stroking his neat ginger beard and frowning. “What number did he play?”
The suddenness of his question took Lady Colveden by surprise. “Why, I really can’t say—Mr. Jessyp and my son are responsible for the order, you see. With some help from my husband,” honesty made her add, as she thought of Thursday evening. “As far as I recall, somewhere in the middle—but Mr. Stillman would know. He’s one of our star bowlers—the only one, at the moment.” And she introduced the admiral to the postmaster, who had been, from behind his metal grille, a delighted spectator of all that had previously been going on.
The two men at once became involved in a highly technical discussion which left their female audience almost totally baffled. Mr. Stillman, the admiral elicited with a little prompting, prided himself on his googlies; Admiral Leighton, as Mr. Stillman was delighted to discover, had been noted—when not at sea—for his chinamen.
“Best let Mr. Jessyp know, then, or young Nigel,” said Mr. Stillman, with a grin. “Nigel usually carries his bat and makes a good score—hey, your ladyship?—but there’s allus room for another good bowler, especially with Dan Eggleden out of things on account of his arm.” And the admiral, with a modest smile, stroked his beard again and muttered that, as he was partly to blame for the loss of a man—and as redheaded men really should stick together—he might just follow Mr. Stillman’s advice . . .
Mr. Jessyp, timetabling frantically, had taken his telephone off the hook, and Admiral Leighton hardly liked to arrive unheralded upon the doorstep of a man he’d never met. Nigel Colveden’s parents, however, he already knew: and thus it was the Rytham Hall telephone which rang while Nigel was at lunch, Martha having earlier taken a message and told the Buzzard to ring back when Mr. Colveden was sure to be in.
Nigel bounced back to the table in high spirits. “Gosh, if he’s even half as good as he says, we ought to wipe the floor with Murreystone tomorrow. What with Mr. Stillman’s googlies, and the admiral’s chinamen, it should more than make up for losing Dan, because he may be fast, but he’s never been what you’d call cunning, has he? Fast bowling just wears the opposition down, but a good googly . . .”
“I think,” said Lady Colveden, as her son pushed aside his plate and prepared to hunt out pencil and paper, “you’d better give me a translation. It all sounds faintly . . .” She groped for the mot juste, then remembered Mrs. Blaine. “Faintly ridiculous,” she concluded. “Googlies, indeed!”
Nigel shook his head at her. “Just goes to show how wrong you can be. A googly is a special sort of leg-break—a slow-paced ball with a spin on it—that fools the batsman by looking like an ordinary leg-break till he’s on the point of hitting it, when he realises it isn’t, it’s an off-break. So then he plays it wrong, and misses it, and the wicket-keeper stumps him.”
“And he’s out,” supplied Lady Colveden, feeling pleased she’d understood something, at least.
Nigel grinned. “That’s the intention, yes, but you have to be able to bowl genuine leg-breaks as well, otherwise the surprise element is lost. Mr. Stillman’s jolly good at both sorts, luckily. Pretty good, when you consider—er, that is . . .” He caught his father’s eloquent eye. “Well, it’s pretty good, anyway.”
His father, whose moustache had bristled as alarmingly as his eye had gleamed, subsided. Sir George was five years younger than the postmaster, but had less hair; not that he was sensitive about his age—of course not—but there was no need for the boy to carry on as if everyone over thirty had one foot in the grave. The Buzzard, now—bowled chinamen, did he? Should be a useful addition to the team. Best put Mr. Stillman on first, though. Just in case.
Nigel grinned at this display of military caution, but acknowledged there could be some sense to it.
Lady Colveden gave up trying to look as if she knew what they were talking about, and asked a direct question, which Nigel took it upon himself to answer. “A chinaman? Same sort of thing as a googly, but left-handed instead of right. Either of them works equally well, because the spin makes them more awkward to hit, with most people batting right-handed. So they can be jolly useful ways of getting them out.” He scribbled a few arrows on his list of names and frowned. “We’ll have to change the batting order again, Dad—the Buzzard says he’s a hitter rather than a batsman. I’m bowling a few overs at him after supper to see how he shapes—but it’s as well to have a contingency plan . . .”
And, despite all Lady Colveden’s efforts to enjoy a civilised meal, her menfolk were too busy emulating the England Test selectors for these efforts to be worthwhile.
Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny, encouraging everyone to look forward to the afternoon’s match whether or not they were playing, and whether or not they had reason to be busy. The Bloomers, among others, had. Martha, who’d spent the whole of the previous afternoon baking cakes, chivvied Stan up The Street with his whitewash almo
st before he’d finished breakfast. It was his job to mark out the cricket field’s boundary line and creases, those distinguishing marks on the grass near which the stumps would stand, and from between which the bowler would deliver his ball. Stan, who took his job very seriously, marked everything with two coats; but some whitewash still remained at the end of his marking, so with his creasing brush he used the leftovers to refurbish the sight-screens, those large white boards at either end of the pitch, against which the red ball shows up in clear contrast as it hurtles towards the batsman. Satisfied with a job well done, he put the lid back on the empty whitewash bucket and headed for home.
Here he found Miss Treeves, the vicar’s sister, discussing with Martha the best way to transport the tea urn to the pavilion, and where it should be plugged in to avoid water dripping—given the poor state of the roof—on the electric flex, if by some misfortune it should rain.
“It won’t,” said Stan, countryman born, farm worker and Plummergen sage. “Tomorrow night at the earliest . . .”
Which reassured both ladies: who nevertheless continued making plans at such a rate that Stan was glad of the chance to escape across the road to see to Miss Seeton’s chickens.
Miss Seeton, who had to be in the right mood to read the newspapers because she found so much of what was printed rather dispiriting, was busy poring over the sports pages of the Daily Negative, which she had deliberately ordered that morning after Nigel told her it was sure to carry a report of the current England-Pakistan Test Match at the Oval. She wanted, she told Stan with a puzzled smile, to be in the right frame of mind.
“But I fear,” she said, and sighed, “that it is somewhat beyond me—so many technical terms. And such strange names—the fielders, I mean. At least, I think I do, from what I understand, even though in another sense I know most of the words already.” She shook her head as she peered at the newspaper. “Slip, and gulley, and backward short-leg, and silly mid-on, and deep mid-off—really, quite remarkable. And short third-man. which makes me think of the film . . .”
Stan, whose contribution to Plummergen cricket had never involved playing, nodded in sympathy for her confusion, and spoke of chickens, and the garden: whither he now went.
Miss Seeton was left to her study of cricketing terms, but soon realised she was achieving very little for all her hard work in trying to memorise them. She would—she decided—do just as she always did—sit happily watching from a deck chair near the boundary, enjoying the sunshine and the good company and the sheer comfort of belonging. She would take a sketchbook and pencils with her, and make notes of what she saw; and she was sure—at least, she hoped she was sure—that in due course she would be able to produce the required painting, which she would of course ask dear Nigel, and Sir George, to inspect before she finished it, so that they could tell her if there were too many errors of procedure in it—if that, brooded Miss Seeton, were the correct term. But it was too pleasant a day to brood for long . . .
Lunchtime came; and went. Those who planned to play ate less than the rest of their families; those who had jobs to do worried more. Would there be enough cakes, enough sandwiches? Would the sandwiches curl at the edges before anyone had time to eat them? Had extra milk been ordered—plenty of clean tea towels commandeered—the immersion heater for the washing up turned on?
By half past one, everybody with any business to be up at that end of the village was in the vicinity of Plummergen’s playing field, at this season the cricket ground, in winter the football pitch. Deck chairs were set up by keen observers about the white-lined perimeter; people sat with wide-brimmed hats shielding their faces, and their rugs, which had been in other years all too often wrapped about their legs, underfoot, or forgotten in their cars. Miss Seeton, staking her claim to a convenient mid-field view, laid out a new sketchpad and her pencils on the grass, and prepared to relax in the sun, even if a deck chair—so kindly lent by Lady Colveden—was less comfortable, perhaps, than an ordinary folding chair might have been. One’s spine—so little support—but the yoga, of course, had helped so much . . .
Because his son was otherwise engaged in the pavilion, it was Jack Crabbe’s father, Very Young Crabbe—whose father, killed in the war, had been known as Young Crabbe; and whose grandfather, now in his nineties, was Old Crabbe—who drove the family coach in its familiar red-and-green livery into the parking space at the edge of the playing field and tootled the horn. Out poured the Murreystone team, their umpire, their scorer, their supporters. Plummergen eyed the invasion warily. Murreystone eyed them back.
Sir George produced the gold half-sovereign with which the home team always tossed; Mr. Jessyp bowed to his opposite number; the Murreystone captain voiced the ritual grumble that it might be double-headed, he’d just check, if it was all the same to them . . . tossed—and lost. And muttered.
Plummergen elected to field first.
“Play!” from the Murreystone umpire before Sir George could draw breath; and the match was on.
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“THIS IS GOING to be exciting, isn’t it, Aunt Em?” Anne had left her parents—the nursing home, in their absence, being under Major Howett’s command—at the pavilion—Dr. Knight was one of the scorers, his wife helped with the teas—and come across to join Miss Seeton. The fact that Bob, fielding at deep mid-wicket, was easily visible from where his wife now elected to sit had nothing to do with this election: the adopted niece had promised yesterday afternoon, when taking tea with Bob at Sweetbriars, that she would be happy to lend moral support during the game, though if Aunt Em expected any detailed explanation of what was going on, she would be disappointed. Bob, after all, was a footballer and not a cricketer, though just as used to running around. She must watch his calorific intake at lunch very carefully.
Because Mr. Stillman of googly fame was bowling first, Mr. Jessyp had arranged a split field. “Just think of all the exercise they’ll get,” Anne said, with a chuckle. “Chasing after balls to the boundary—dashing from one side to the other at the end of each over when it’s PC Potter’s turn to bowl—they’ll need their tea when the time comes!”
“Did somebody mention tea?” enquired a pleasant baritone voice from over her shoulder: and Chief Superintendent Delphick stood smiling down at Miss Seeton in her deck chair, at Anne curled up on her travelling rug. “Are we too late to watch Bob distinguish himself at the wicket?”
Anne and Miss Seeton looked beyond the Oracle to where Superintendent Brinton, smiling grimly and bearing a flask, and Foxon, struggling with three folding chairs, made their way towards the little group. “Mind if we join you?” Delphick enquired; and the ladies, naturally, said they did not.
Bob observed his colleagues’ arrival from the corner of his eye and risked a quick wave before returning his attention to the play. Mr. Stillman, bowling from the pavilion end, was expected to have a few of the usual tricks up his sleeve once he’d got into his stride, and conscripted Bob didn’t want to let the side down.
Foxon, who was starting to wish he’d come to Plummergen under his own steam instead of scrounging a lift, dropped his burden with a clatter, sighed, and observed Brinton’s gleeful smirk. Trust Old Brimstone not to let him get too uppity, pub lunch with his superiors or no pub lunch. But they were all, he reminded himself as he unfolded the first chair, off-duty this afternoon . . . He hoped.
The game progressed as games of village cricket always do: a slow start, runs mounting one by one in PC Potter’s overs, the occasional four when Mr. Stillman lost control of his off-break, a man out to a splendid catch by Nigel, at cover. Miss Seeton’s pencil dashed across the paper so fast she had no time to join everyone else in the applause which rippled round the boundary as the Murreystone player tried hard not to show his disappointment, marching back to the pavilion with his head held high.
Number Three fell four overs later to a mistimed swing at the ball, when he was smartly stumped by Jack Crabbe. Seventeen runs for two wickets. Plummergen be
gan to look hopeful.
Mr. Stillman, however, began to look tired. He was conscious that his responsibilities to the team were far greater than usual. PC Potter, when he bowled, was uninspired but steady, invariably producing medium-paced balls which were generally blocked, though sometimes yielded singles: Nigel, on a good day, might take the occasional wicket with a lucky leg-break. But Daniel Eggleden had always been Plummergen’s other bowling mainstay, his blacksmith’s arm complementing admirably the cunning tricks of a skilled off-break bowler, such as those perfected by the postmaster long before he perfected his even trickier googly. And Dan was out of this game . . . And being tricky all the time—knowing you had to be, that everyone relied on you to do so—was a serious matter for a man in his early sixties. Mr. Stillman had watched the admiral bowling to Nigel at practice, and been impressed; but how he would fare in real life remained to be seen. Mr. Stillman felt he must last as long as possible before asking Mr. Jessyp to put the Buzzard on, just in case; and Mr. Jessyp, who had only Nigel’s word for it that the newest member of the team was no passenger, intended to err on the side of caution. When Mr. Stillman started to turn pink in the face, the captain called for Nigel to bowl in his place, and to alternate with PC Potter, happy to plod on from over to over, for the next half dozen.
A six! The Murreystone batsman struck a mighty boundary off Nigel’s second ball. Young Mr. Colveden pulled an apologetic face: he had never been more than a competent bowler, even at school. Dan Eggleden glared at his plaster-casted arm and brooded on past glories when the speed and power of his delivery had terrified the opposition. Twenty-eight for two: and Murreystone cheered.
“It sounds to me,” Delphick said, as Nigel’s third ball was snicked between short and square legs for two, “as if we weren’t the only ones to stop off in a pub on the way here.”
Miss Seeton Goes to Bat (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 14) Page 17
