by Heron Carvic
“Odd,” supplied Miss Nuttel.
The postmaster, returning with the apples weighed and bagged, contributed a diversion. “Was there anything else?”
Miss Nuttel frowned. “Don’t think so. Anything more you wanted, Bunny?”
“Well, these—” Mrs. Blaine held out the tin of mock meatballs. “Of course, as you know, we never touch meat—what are these made of?”
As a shopkeeper, Mr. Stillman approved the little that he had seen of Miss Seeton. A very pleasant, ordinary little body, with nice manners, thoughtful, and paid her account on the dot, which was more than you could say of some. He gave the two ladies a bland look.
“Nuts,” said Mr. Stillman.
The collective breath was released in a sigh of enjoyment.
Unaware of their nickname, Mrs. Blaine decided: “We’ll take them then.” She collected their purchases, put them into her shopping bag, and moved from the counter to face Miss Treeves. “But you must admit the whole thing does seem too odd, doesn’t it?” she continued. “We did just happen to see you call at Miss Seeton’s cottage this morning at about half past nine, when I was leaning out of the window, dusting—that was after the police had come for her, of course. . . .”
“So perhaps you don’t know any more than we do,” suggested Miss Nuttel.
“As it happens, I do.” Miss Treeves wished she did. Anyway, lying in a good cause wasn’t lying at all, simply—well, justifiable invention. “The superintendent from Scotland Yard wanted Miss Seeton’s help,” she improvised.
“Exactly what we were saying,” agreed Mrs. Blaine.
“Helping the police with their inquiries,” concluded Miss Nuttel.
By village standards the motion of censure had failed, but a gain had been made by the independent Mr. Stillman. With winning smiles the two ladies bowed and left the shop to continue their mission across the Street.
The simplifications of life in the country are evident and easy to understand. To take an example; it is impossible to get lost in a village with only one street. In compensation, however, the roads leading into Plummergen from the north, through Brettenden or via Ashford, are not easy and the way out of the village is difficult to find. The Street itself, straight, wide, and tree-lined, runs direct from north to south where, at first glance, it would appear to stop. Beyond the gravel sweep outside the George and Dragon a left turn leads into the churchyard. On the opposite side of the Street there is a right-hand turn, Marsh Road, concealed behind the garden next door to the bakery. It is signposted Rye, no distance specified; a fantasy on the part of the local council which is appreciated only by the immediate neighborhood. Although it is possible, with map or compass, to escape its serpentine curves and to reach Rye by a series of intertwined lanes, Marsh Road is, in effect, what it says: a road round the other side of the marsh which leads back to Brettenden. For those wishing to depart from Plummergen southward, the Street does, in fact, continue as a narrow lane sandwiched between the side wall which bounds Miss Seeton’s garden and the house next door. After some twenty yards the lane relents and widens for the bridge over the canal. On the immediate right of this is the only direct route to Rye, a hidden turning, unposted and unmarked on any map, save as the canal beside which it runs. Beyond this turning the road ends in a T junction, both arms of which meander toward the coast road, Folkestone to the left, Hastings to the right. In practice these southern roads are little used by the villagers. Although Rye, over five miles away, is the nearest town, for business or for pleasure Plummergen goes north to Brettenden, six miles, or even more than double that distance into Ashford. There is a daily bus service to both these towns. There is no bus to Rye. There is no local bus service south of Plummergen. This curious fact stems perhaps from distrust: distrust of modern ways and new inventions. Rye, that upstart little island which became a Norman port, ranks as a modern invention and the way to it is new. In the days when Plummergen flourished as a Roman port the land to the south of the present village was still but a deep-sea dream.
Her shopping completed, Miss Treeves headed for the vicarage, which stood back between the George and Dragon and the churchyard, to prepare her brother’s lunch. On the other side of the Street she noticed Mrs. Blaine and Miss Nuttel leave Welsted’s, the draper’s, and turn in at the gate of Lilikot.
She must find out, Miss Treeves decided, exactly what this business with the police was all about and see to it that it was spread round the village so that it was clearly understood. It would be such a shame if this holiday was spoiled for Miss Seeton. How tiresome people were, inventing stupid stories and then believing them, never thinking of the trouble and unpleasantness they caused, instead of waiting to find out the truth, which was usually dull. Of course it might be to do with old Mrs. Bannet’s solicitor, wretched man, who’d gone to prison for embezzlement and, she believed, something to do with drugs. Making them or selling them—or something. In fact, if she remembered rightly, the police had arrested him before Miss Seeton’s probate had finally been granted. But naturally—how simple—that would be it. Some extra information that the police needed in clearing up the mess that that horrible man had left behind. What a pity that she hadn’t realized it while she was in the post office.
By the time Miss Treeves reached the vicarage gate this simple, natural explanation had become fact in her mind. She gave Miss Seeton’s cottage a glance of satisfaction. Before the owner returned, she would see to it that everything was made quite clear and the truth known. The front door of Sweetbriars, one of the short row of houses that faced down the Street, opened and Martha Bloomer appeared.
Miss Seeton’s legacy from her godmother had included the latter’s arrangement with a local farmhand and his wife. Miss Seeton providing the requirements, Stan Bloomer looked after the garden and the hen houses, supplying Miss Seeton and his own family with eggs, chickens and vegetables, and selling the surplus for his personal profit instead of wages, while his wife Martha came to help in the house two mornings a week for three and sixpence an hour.
Mrs. Bloomer closed the door of the cottage and started down the path to the gate. Suddenly she pounced sideways at the hedge inside the wooden paling, to reappear dragging a protesting and disheveled little girl. Martha Bloomer—the very person. Miss Treeves dropped the latch of the vicarage gate and crossed the Street.
“You let me catch you snooping round here again, you nasty little sneak, and I’ll give you a thundering good walloping and what’s more I’m going to speak to your mum,” warned Mrs. Bloomer.
Effie Goffer sniffed.
“Effie,” admonished Miss Treeves as she joined them, “how dare you pry about in other people’s gardens like that? You’ve been spoken to about it before. What were you doing?”
“Watchin’.”
“Well, don’t let me catch you at it again or I’ll see you’re given a good spanking. Miss Wicks was complaining about you only the other day.”
Effie’s eyes gleamed. “She tikes ter bits.”
“Rubbish.”
“Does an’ all. Watched ’er through ’er bathroom windy an’ she tikes ter bits. Took ’er teeth out an’ put ’em in the glass. Took ’er ’air too an’ stuck it on the shelf. Saw ’er.”
Miss Treeves was outraged. “Effie, how can you speak like that? How dare you repeat such dreadful things?” The more dreadful in that they were true. Miss Wicks’s squirrel teeth which made her hiss so when she spoke—surely her dentist could have . . . And of course the false piece she wore was obvious because the color was wrong. But it didn’t do to say so. It was possible to ignore such things provided they weren’t spoken of. But, once discussed, they assumed a hypnotic quality which kept you mesmerized, with the danger, when you were talking to Miss Wicks, of patting your own hair or, worse, hissing back.
“The lidy’s doin’ me picture. Modeled for ’er I did so I’s watchin’!” whined Effie.
“Nonsense,” replied Miss Treeves. “In any case, Miss Seeton isn’t here at
the moment.”
“No,” agreed Effie, “cos the police took ’er. Saw ’em.”
“You saw them?”
“Iss. Same ones as was down ’ere before. The tecs from Lunnon.” Hurt her bum the old cow had, knocking her down like that with her brolly. She’d teach her to hurt her bum. “ ’Andcuffed she was just like on teevee an’ she were kickin’ an’ screamin’ . . .”
Martha Bloomer shook her. “Why, you little liar—”
“Effie,” cut in Miss Treeves, “go home at once. And tell your mother,” she added ominously, “that I shall be in to see her after lunch.”
Miss Treeves watched the toadlike figure stump its way the length of the Street toward the council houses at the far end. She shook her head. “That child’ll come to a bad end.”
“If you ask me,” snapped Mrs. Bloomer, “she’s bad already and the end can’t come too soon. Handcuffs indeed, how dare she? And screaming. I’d give her screaming if I’d anything to do with her.”
“You didn’t happen to see Miss Seeton yourself before she left?”
“Well, no, you see I wouldn’t today being one of my mornings at the Hall. But I looked in, case she’d left a message which she didn’t not expecting, and I found some overs in the fridge so I made her a hotchpotch pie because I doubt she’ll be tired when she gets back and it’ll do for her supper tonight or her lunch tomorrow according.”
“She’ll stay the night at her flat,” decided Miss Treeves. “Less wearing. She’s not giving it up till the end of next term when she retires and settles down here permanently.”
This arbitrary posting was less certain than Miss Treeves supposed. Miss Seeton’s pleasure in her inheritance and her growing love for the cottage were tempered by a financial problem; if she did indeed retire at the end of the next school term, would the tiny income, added to her small savings and her old-age pension, prove sufficient? To live in the country would entail giving up her classes at the Polytechnic, though these, of course, were now becoming Evening Institutes, and her few private pupils, the pay from whom had helped to eke out her salary for her twice weekly attendance at the school. Against that there would be no rent and her expenses on food would be less; but there would be such items as maintenance and repairs to consider. Then, too, there would be rates which, in Miss Seeton’s experience, had a strange way of going up, whereas the value of money had an equally curious disposition to go down.
“It would be nice for you, too, Martha,” continued Miss Treeves, “having looked after old Mrs. Bannet for years, to feel that the cottage is staying in the family.”
“I should hope so,” agreed Martha. “And you say she won’t be back till tomorrow?”
Miss Treeves glanced over at the vicarage. She’d be late with Arthur’s lunch. Not that he’d ever notice, but still. “I’m not certain,” she said quickly, “it all depends how long this business about her solicitor takes.”
“Her solicitor?” Martha was surprised. “But I thought that was all over and done with. He’s over and done with, too. He’s in quod.”
Miss Treeves became impatient. “Yes, yes, of course he is. But it’s something to do with those people he defrauded—I don’t know the ins and outs of it—but the police are hoping Miss Seeton can give them some information.”
“Well, you do surprise me. She hardly knew him and didn’t like him neither. Those detectives were always interested in her pictures and I’d made sure they’d come down to ask her to do some Identikit drawings for them.”
Miss Treeves dismissed the idea. “No, no, nothing like that. It’s to do with the embezzlement case. And now I really must fly or lunch’ll never be ready.” She turned to go, looked back. “Oh, and, Martha, Miss Nuttel and Mrs. Blaine were talking earlier—and rather stupidly—so if anyone asks, I think it would be as well if you mentioned the embezzlement business so that it’s quite clear. It’s important to get the truth established as soon as possible because if that dreadful Effie Goffer starts spreading stories around, heaven knows what everybody will be saying.”
“They’ll say anything.” Lady Colveden poured herself another cup of tea. “Anything at all.”
Life in a small community has a mystique to bewilder the metropolitan. In a city, failing some act which leads to notoriety, the individual will be ignored. In a village everyone’s actions, notorious or not, are of interest to the commonalty and are subject to the same scrutiny and detailed analysis.
At the beginning of Marsh Road the houses are all set well back, all have drives, all are tree-screened. To the urbanite they would appear to be, in the literal sense, private houses. Privacy, however, which is taken for granted in the metropolis, does not exist in the small community.
Recently Major General Sir George Colveden, Bart., K.C.B., D.S.O., J.P., owner of the last estate in Marsh Road, had found his nearest neighbor, a widow in her sixties, swinging an amateur ax at a cypress in his grounds. Balked, the lady complained to the Brettenden Rural District Council. By lending her late husband’s binoculars to the district surveyor she proved to her satisfaction, if not to his, that her complaint was justified. Owing to the tree’s growth, her view had been ruined: she could no long see the bedroom windows at Rytham Hall; in consequence she had now no idea at what time Lady Colveden turned out her light nor when she drew her curtains in the morning. For some days Lady Colveden had found herself glancing nervously skyward, lest the lady should have taken to a tethered balloon or a helicopter in an attempt to satisfy her very natural curiosity about her neighbors’ private affairs.
“I told Martha this morning,” Lady Colveden eyed the empty cake plate, “that if she took time off from cleaning to make doughnuts you’d overeat, Nigel. Where do you put it all? If I eat one I bulge. But you wolf down three and nothing shows. It’s not fair. Absolutely anything,” she reverted.
“A hard-working thyroid and hard work,” her son informed her. “We sowed the Fouracre this afternoon, including half an hour wasted on taking the tractor to bits when the engine played up. Anything,” he queried. “Ah, for instance?”
“About poor Miss Seeton, of course. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? And, anyway, I don’t consider that hard work—riding around in a tractor. I can remember when a man walked round with a horse.”
“You can’t, you know.”
“Well, I’ve read about it which comes to exactly the same thing and they tasted much better.”
“The man or the horse?”
“Don’t be vulgar. But it seems so unfair. The poor little thing’s only been down here a couple of days. And now this. It was bad enough last year. But if this sort of thing’s going to happen every time she comes here . . .”
“Not every time, mother. After all, she was down here at Christmas and nothing happened to her then.”
Wide, innocent eyes gazed at him in surprise. “At Christmas? How do you know? We shouldn’t’ve noticed anyway, that was during the war.”
War had been declared on Christmas Eve.
Miss Nuttel, Mrs. Blaine, and three of their cronies had spent the summer drying flowers, foliage, and grasses. Bunches of wilt and wither had festooned their kitchens, striking their guardians in the face at every turn and flavoring the cooking. In the morning on Christmas Eve they had carried this decayed vegetation in triumph to the church, where they had spent a satisfying hour arranging it in the vases and, after a proud look around, had left in the knowledge of a deed well done.
During the afternoon Lady Colveden, as one of the committee, arrived to decorate the Christmas tree. Shocked to find the church filled with the remains of dead flowers, she had emptied the vases, thrown the lot out, and burned them. She had driven home to Rytham Hall and cut some Lenten roses, which flower in December as opposed to Christmas roses which rarely bloom before Lent, and after two hours of hard work, the tree and the floral decorations completed, she had given a quick look round and left in the knowledge of a good deed done.
In the resulting brouhaha the
village had divided into two camps. Words had been exchanged, smiles had been hurled, and parting shots had been fired at the end of meetings. The uncivil strife had raged unabated until February, when an uneasy armistice had been imposed by a very sharp letter in the parish magazine signed by the Reverend Arthur, but rightly attributed to that more forceful character, his sister, Miss Treeves. The affair had duly been noted in parish history as the War of the Roses.
Nigel began to tabulate on his fingers. “Let’s see. The first time Miss Seeton stayed at the cottage we were involved in murder, suicide, drowning, gas, shooting, car crashes, abduction, and embezzlement.” He eyed his mother quizzically. “You think bickering about throwing away some dead flowers more important than that little lot.”
“Naturally,” replied Lady Colveden. “So would you if you’d done the throwing.” There was a slight rustle of paper on the opposite side of the tea table as a tremor shook the hands that held the Farmer’s Breeding Weekly. She addressed the newspaper. “George.”
“Yes, m’dear.”
“You’re not paying attention.”
“No, m’dear.”
“Well, there you are,” said Lady Colveden. “Of course it’s Molly Treeves that shocks me. I’d believe anything of the rest of them, but I really should’ve thought Molly’d’ve had more sense.”
Nigel finished his last doughnut, put down his plate, and wiped his fingers. “More sense than what?”
His mother stared at him in astonishment. “To repeat such an idiotic story, of course.”
Her son restrained himself. “What story, mother? You forget that we farming types, lazing about the fields all day in our tractors, are apt to get out of touch.”
“That Miss Seeton’s been arrested for embezzlement.”
“She’s what?” cried Nigel. Sir George lowered his newspaper.
“There. You see,” exclaimed Lady Colveden with satisfaction. “That’s even got your father out of the pigsty. I was in Welsted’s this afternoon and Mrs. Welsted told me that the Nuts had told her that that horrible little Effie Goffer had actually seen them take her away—that nice detective from Scotland Yard and that huge young man with the notebook who’s fallen for Anne Knight, I can’t remember his name, the older one I mean, foreign or something.”
