Miss Seeton Rules
A Miss Seeton Mystery
Hamilton Crane
Series creator Heron Carvic
Contents
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Note from the Publisher
Preview
Also Available
About the Miss Seeton series
About Heron Carvic and Hamilton Crane
Copyright
Epigraph
Remember, remember the fifth of November—
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot.
I see no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
—Traditional children’s verse, based on historical events of November 1605
Treason: 1 the action of betraying; betrayal of the trust undertaken by or reposed in any one; breach of faith, treachery. 2 law a: High treason or treason proper: Violation by a subject of his allegiance to his sovereign or to the state. Defined 1350-51 by Act 25 Edward III, Statute 5 c.2, as compassing or imagining the king’s death, or that of his wife or eldest son, violating the wife of the king or of the heir apparent, or the king’s eldest daughter being unmarried ...
In 1795 the offence was extended to actual or contemplated use of force to make the king change his counsels, or to intimidate either or both of the Houses of Parliament ... c: Constructive treason: Action which though not actually or overtly coming under any of the acts specified in the Statute of Treason, was declared by law to be treason and punishable as such.
—Shorter Oxford English Dictionary
chapter
~ 1 ~
“CALL ME ... Catesby.”
One by one, taking care that nobody should notice their absence and remark on it, they had slipped away from their everyday concerns to the appointed place. The heavy door had creaked open, had whispered shut behind each new arrival; the blinds had been drawn across windows where no light could risk being seen.
The last of the four had taken his seat in safety. The meeting was about to begin.
Catesby, natural leader of the little group, surveyed with a long, careful look the other three around the table. “Catesby—is that clear? Whenever we have ... important matters to discuss, Catesby is my name—and nothing else.”
“Catesby,” came the obedient echo, accompanied by nods.
“Real names,” Catesby went on, “are dangerous—the very least slip could betray us. You will all remember that.”
More obedient nods. Catesby smiled—a lopsided smile which did not soften the desperate purpose gleaming in those haunted, steel-grey eyes.
“You will all,” commanded Catesby, “take new names.” The lopsided smile widened; the grey eyes for a moment held a glint of mischief as thin fingers drummed on the table. “You will remember them—you will write nothing down. What is written on paper can be too easily read by those with no business to read it.”
A thin finger pointed. “Rookwood.”
The newly-christened Rookwood blinked, then nodded, with an air of resignation. “Rookwood,” he repeated.
“Keyes.”
“Keyes,” agreed he who had been given that name.
“Winter.”
“Er—Thomas, or Robert?”
Mischief faded at once from Catesby’s eyes, though its ghost danced still in those of the reluctant Winter.
“This is no time for joking.” Catesby frowned. “There is no need for Christian names. Winter by itself will do.”
“I’d rather be Digby,” suggested Winter. “Or Percy, at a pinch.” Then he sniggered. “Well, perhaps not—but not Winter, either. Winter’s so—so ambiguous. Boring.”
Catesby slapped a sudden, furious hand on the table. It sounded like a gunshot. Everyone jumped.
“Boring? You fool! We aren’t doing this for fun! If you can’t be serious ...”
Rookwood and Keyes stared, too startled to protest. Was Winter to be lost to them before the plan had even begun to mature? They were so few in number—they needed him!
“No,” said Catesby, slowly, as if answering the unspoken thought. “No, you have to be serious—you have no choice. Because”—the eyes were steel darts, the voice an icicle—“you already know too much, Winter.”
There was menace in every syllable, and it held Winter silent. Catesby’s smile was bitter in triumph. “No, we certainly can’t risk letting you ... retire. You are in this with the rest of us, Winter. It’s too late for you—for anyone—to back out now.”
Once more, steel and ice chilled the hearts of the three around the table in the darkened, anonymous room. “Is that clearly understood?” enquired Catesby.
And there came uneasy murmurs of acquiescence from the others: from Rookwood, from Keyes, and—without protest—from Winter: whose eyes had lost their sparkle as he realised that for him—for all of them—there could be no escape until their purpose had been finally accomplished.
The village of Plummergen is in Kent. Rye, at five miles distant the closest town, lies across the county border, in Sussex; and yet, despite its closeness, Rye is not the most convenient centre for Plummergen shoppers needing rather more than the well-stocked local establishments can supply. That honour goes to Brettenden, six miles to the north but, like its smaller neighbour, in Kent—though it is not so much parochialism as convenience which prompts Plummergen to shop from time to time in Brettenden. There is no direct bus service to Rye; the bus to Brettenden, although drastically curtailed from its glorious twice-daily run of older, affluent days, is nevertheless still regular, convenient—and cheap. Indeed, the official county service (once a week on market day) is so shamed by the greater efficiency of the additional twice-a-week bus provided by Plummergen’s Crabbe family, owners of the local garage, that the trip—on whichever day of the week it is taken—is thought to give some of the best value for money for miles.
Plummergen’s shops, it has been said, are well-stocked. There are three main retail outlets in the village: they all carry a remarkably similar range of items, although with sufficient variety to keep everyone happy. Along with the regulation groceries (green and otherwise), sweets, tobacco, wines and spirits, and deep-frozen pre-packaged foods, Mr. Takeley the grocer sells more Reduced goods than his competitors combined, owing to the temperamental nature of his deep freeze.
Mr. Welsted the draper is not given, as is Mr. Takeley, to Liquidation Sales—Mr. Takeley has a sense of humour—but, in addition to the standard stock, provides Plummergen with general haberdashery, knitting wool and patterns, dressmaking fabrics, and—since Plummergen’s second place in the Best Kept Village Competition—a wider range of picture postcards than before.
Postmaster Mr. Stillman has a larger floor area than Mr. Takeley and Mr. Welsted on which to display his wares. His shop, moreover, is on much the best-placed site for gossip-loving Plummergen. It stands, its windows shaded by a striped awning, next door to Crabbe’s Garag
e, and opposite the bus stop. Shoppers in the post office miss no coming nor going of any who travel, in whatever direction. With a little judicious craning of necks they may observe those who post letters in the nearby wall-mounted box, and will freely speculate on the purpose and destination of their friends’ correspondence. By blatant snooping, they may study the drivers and passengers of passing cars, for every vehicle which either leaves or enters the village must pass the post office in so doing: Mr. Stillman’s invaluable premises are situated in Plummergen’s main—its only—street: The Street, as it is known.
And from the windows of Mr. Stillman’s invaluable premises, one crisp autumn afternoon, busy eyes were keeping their habitual watch even as busy tongues wagged over the most interesting of the various items of news which were currently in circulation.
“Pretty little thing, she is,” said Mrs. Spice, in tones of fond approval. “A real picture. Not like some, with great clodhopping feet in them platform shoes, and hair all over her face.” She paused, and pondered briefly. “Dainty, that’s the very word.”
And no voice was raised against her choice.
“Not a bit of side to her, neither, by all accounts,” said Mrs. Henderson. “Her poor mother’d be proud of her if she was still alive, no doubt o’ that.”
A general chorus sighed that it did not doubt it. Even Mrs. Skinner, who had once quarrelled with Mrs. Henderson over the church flower rota and had barely exchanged two civil words with her since, could not bring herself to disagree.
Indeed, she went further. “Her mother and her poor dad, if you ask me. Reckon he’s sorry now things happened like they did, him being thrown out o’ the country that way, and her left to be brung up respectable—and so popular, too.”
“Better for her he was thrown out,” said someone more realist than romantic. “Stands to reason he’d have done her reputation no good at all, carrying on the way he was afore they got rid of him, and her near grownup now, bless her. She’s a sight better off without him ...”
And again no voice was raised against the remark.
“Georgy Girl,” mused Emmy Putts sadly from behind the grocery counter, as someone murmured knowingly of morganatic marriage. “Princess Petite—that’s what they call her. Allus in the papers, she is, as good as a film star.” She sighed. “Some folk have all the luck.”
“Some folk,” said Mrs. Stillman sternly, “are born to it, Emmeline, and some aren’t. You keep your mind on your work, my girl, and let’s have none of your nonsense about being in the papers. Plummergen’s good enough for the likes of you, not being royalty, nor even gentry-born. At least,” she pointed out, “you’ll be free to marry who you want, when the time comes, and no argument. But there’ll be checking, and Acts of Parliament, and—and everything o’ that sort for young Georgina, so it said in the paper the other day. You count your blessings, Emmy Putts, and be thankful your blood isn’t blue like hers—poor lamb,” she added.
The Princess Georgina was one of the youngest, and one of the most popular, members of the current royal scene. No more than five feet tall, and in perfect proportion from her bubbly blonde curls to her tiny feet, she had been dubbed “The Petite Princess” from her first appearance in public. Her immaculate grooming, coupled with her sparkling personality and apparent enthusiasm for whatever task she might be given to perform, made her a role model the battle-weary parents of teenage England would have been only too glad for their offspring to emulate. Never once had Georgina put a finely-shod foot wrong. When, at the launching of a nuclear submarine, the naval brass band had followed the National Anthem with a spirited version of the Seekers’ hit from seven years earlier, Georgy Girl’s place in the hearts of the nation was assured, as front-page photographs next day showed Her Royal Highness clapping her hands and laughing with genuine delight for the unexpected compliment.
Georgina’s name had never been involved with scandal—unlike that of her father, whose lurid behaviour had led, some fifteen years before, to what the racier elements of the media had dubbed Exile—by Royal Decree! It was hinted that she was being groomed as a future Princess of Wales: it was rumoured that half the eligible bachelors in the country would go into terminal decline on the announcement of her betrothal, no matter who the lucky man might be—and, whoever he was, even Prince Charles, he couldn’t possibly be good enough for Her Royal Highness. Georgina’s postbag—so voluminous that Mount Pleasant Sorting Office had allocated an entire room to her incoming mail—was swamped with well-meant advice and delicate embroidery from doting pensioners, with declarations of platonic affection from an age-range of males between fifteen and seventy-five, with cards and presents from schoolchildren, and with heartfelt offers of marriage and lifelong devotion from daydreamers on whom she had once, in passing, allowed her golden glance to fall.
Georgina, bewildered but flattered by the attention, had been wisely reared: her curly blonde head remained resolutely unturned. Her secretary issued statements that Her Royal Highness had no mind, as yet, to settle down, deeming her public duties fulfilment enough. Such wisdom in one so young was hailed as a rare and wholly admirable quality; Mount Pleasant had to allocate another room. Georgy Girl was England’s darling. Not a voice could be heard to speak against her; she was mobbed and adored wherever she went ...
And now she was coming to Kent.
“I still don’t know’s they oughter risk it, though.” Mrs. Spice returned to her original argument. “Her being so young, and with nobody knowing what that radiation mightn’t do, if you know what I mean.” She cast a quick, suggestive glance at Emmy Putts, unmarried and wide-eyed behind the bacon slicer. “In the long term,” she enlarged cryptically, nodding in a way which spoke volumes to every mother in the room, but which left Emmy still staring.
“There’s ... shields and things, they say,” said Mrs. Henderson, hopefully. “Lead. They’ll take no chances with her, you can be sure o’ that.”
“There’s tales,” said Mrs. Skinner swiftly, “of some poor soul Murreystone way, her husband used to work there—and out it popped with two heads, poor little thing, and never lived above a day or so, though he’d had all the lead shields and special clothes you like.”
“They’ll say anything,” countered Mrs. Henderson, “over to Murreystone. Two heads, indeed! First I’ve heard of it. Might as well say as it had—had webbed feet, and a tail—if it had anything at all, that is, which with Murreystone you can be sure it never did, on account of never bin born in the first place.”
The post office now perceived a great conversational dilemma. Should Mrs. Skinner’s tempting Radiation Mutant Monster theme be pursued? It could not be doubted that the possibilities were virtually endless—but their development required, inconveniently, a credence in Murreystone news it was not in Plummergen’s nature to give. Would it be better to follow the traditional lead of Mrs. Henderson, in scorning any claim to veracity or reliability on the part of the rival village? After all, no Plummergenite had been known to trust a Murreystoner in thought, word, or deed for several hundred years. A feud believed to have begun during the fifteenth-century Wars of the Roses was in full swing by the Civil War, two centuries later, and had never been allowed to lapse since that time.
Torn between two so violently opposing points of view, the shoppers turned, as they often did, to Mrs. Flax for the final decision. Mrs. Flax, Plummergen’s Wise Woman, was a person of much authority in the village. Were she to cap Mrs. Skinner’s story with one of her own—a new-born baby with a full set of teeth, an infant smothered from head to foot in hair—they would joyfully narrate horrors of their own immediate invention. Should she, however, second Mrs. Henderson in dismissing the two-headed child as a figment of Murreystone’s (or even of Mrs. Skinner’s) imagination, the topic would be abandoned forthwith.
Mrs. Flax, with every eye upon her, drew a deep, portentous breath. She wagged her head in meaningful fashion. “If they’d come to me,” said the Wise Woman, never slow to reinforce her reputation, �
��Murreystone or no, there would’ve bin herbs to spare them their sorrow—ah, and more besides, being the devil’s work ... which is no more than a body can expect from that heathen band across the marsh, o’ course.” She made her decision. “Allus bearing in mind,” she added, “as there’s no cause to believe a word they devils say in the first place. And even if there was”—for, in the manner of oracles, Mrs. Flax was skilled at hedging her bets—“there was babies born hare-shotten and with clubbed feet—ah, and worse—long afore anyone invented atom bombs and nuclear power.”
Any lapse in her logic was overlooked in the relief of having a clear conversational lead at last. The Murreystone Mutant was no more than a myth: they could return to less disquieting topics of conversation—yet, on consideration, not so very much less. There could be no doubt that Murreystone would be as interested in the proposed visit of the Princess Georgina as Plummergen, of whatever age, could be; and Murreystone’s reaction to local events involving Plummergen—no matter how indirectly—was seldom of a tranquil nature.
“Poor little mites,” said Mrs. Skinner, snatching a face-saving cue from the Wise Woman before anyone else—Mrs. Henderson in particular—could speak. “Oh, there was hard times if you was a kiddie, right enough—and not so very long ago, neither.”
Her audience brooded on children pushed up chimneys and sent down mines, or driven, barefoot, out into the fields to pick stones, scare rooks, and herd sheep. Some of the older women muttered grimly of the Union, informing their younger friends that nothing today could match the horrors of the—happily defunct—Workhouse ...
“But things is better nowadays, you can’t deny,” Mrs. Henderson reminded them, in accents which dared Mrs. Skinner to make such a denial. “I mean, how many Plummergen folk’ve had the chance to meet any of the Royal Family the way they’ve got now?”
“Only the kiddies, though,” pointed out Mrs. Scillicough. As the mother of Plummergen’s infamous triplets, Mrs. Scillicough felt herself better qualified than most to pronounce on matters juvenile. “On account of ’em learning all about it at school, the paper says, which is what none of us did, nuclear power not being in the Eleven Plus nor nothing.”
Miss Seeton Rules (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 18) Page 1
