The Miss Fotheringays and the Faun (The Miss Fotheringays Investigate Book 1)

by Florrie Boleyn

  “Grace!” The voice came from behind her, trying to turn quickly she almost overbalanced, but Elwy was there, grasping her hand, holding her arm, pulling her to him and wrapping his arms around her as if he would bind her to his heart and never let her go again.

  Grace felt the roughness of his coarse shirt, inhaled the smell of woodsmoke and wet briars and the animal smell that was Elwy, buried her nose into the curve of his neck and kissed the soft skin there. Elwy shuddered and his arms tightened around her. He rested his cheek against her hair and felt the clinging warmth of her, his Grace, back in his arms where she belonged. There were tears against the skin of Elwy’s neck, and tears falling into Grace’s hair, but neither felt any inclination to do other than let them fall, it was a blessed cleansing, a relief of tension, a filling of the empty spaces with the sweetest water.

  Ten minutes later and both had refused the apology of the other, both claiming that no apology was necessary; their personal worlds - now joined as one world - were confined to the river bank where the waters ran down to the sea, carrying away all sorts of detritus that had been picked up along the way.

  “Did Miss Fotheringay know you were here, Elwy?” asked Grace - probably the first truly rational remark that had been made in the past half hour.

  “Aye,” nodded Elwy, “she and Miss Effie and their Becky came here the day after I came myself. Needed a new bowl. I reckon she probably knew all about me by the time she left, although we tried, Mr. Benjamin and me, not to give anything away. But I reckon there aint much gets past Miss Fotheringay.”

  “Mr. Benjamin!” exclaimed Grace, “Miss Fotheringay told me a message for him. I have to tell him…oh, let’s go quick, and then, oh Elwy, then I have to go back to the Manor or I’ll catch it from Mrs. Hodges!”

  “Let’s go, then,” said Elwy, tucking Grace in under his arm and beginning to stride along the path before he remembered and shortened his steps to fit hers. “Guess we’d better get used to walking together now, Grace love,” he said, and she smiled up at him.

  “All the way to the Forest?”

  “The Forest of Dean?” Grace nodded.

  There - just like that - he’d hardly had to ask. In fact, had he asked, or had she asked him? He’d think about that later.

  They arrived at the pottery arm in arm. Mr. Benjamin looked up as they darkened the open door. The intertwined spirits of the wood, he thought, for he was definitely a romantic, was Mr. Benjamin. The dark young man, one of Pan’s merry horde, with his wide mouth smiling, and the girl, pale and slender, her hair - lit from behind by the sun outside - forming a rufous aureole around her head.

  * * *

  Some time later, Mr. Benjamin strolled townwards along the river bank, heading for his usual one, and one to follow, at The Bull. He had left his cottage still inhabited by the spirits of the forest; Grace had kept saying she must go, and Elwy had kept encouraging her to go, but somehow neither of them had actually got very far. Eventually Mr. Benjamin thought the best thing he could do would be to go himself - at least Grace had remembered to give him the message from Miss Fotheringay about finding out what he could from Peter the footman. They all left the cottage together, Elwy determined to walk through the forest with Grace; said he wanted to show her where an old tree had fallen, and primroses and early violets had sprung up to take advantage of the light.

  It’s like people, thought Benjamin. Once a body realises there’s a space in his, or her, heart, then someone will turn up to take advantage of the emptiness and fill it - could well be somebody who had been around all the time, but had seemed unimportant until the empty space cried out to be filled.

  He wondered about himself. Did he have an empty space waiting to be filled? Or did you, as you got older, tend to fill the spaces with your own little pleasures instead of that one, all-absorbing joy that had Grace and Elwy in its grip? And which was best? Grace and Elwy would say that theirs was, but there was a lot to be said for a lot of little pleasures - for one thing, thought Mr. Benjamin, you didn’t tend to lose them all at once, as would often happen with romantic love when the wood nymph turned into a stinging thistle, or the faun proved to be just another useless lummock of a man.

  CHAPTER 11

  What the footman heard

  “Effie my dear, you are creating quite a gale with that curtain, the poor geranium will surely take cold and die,” said Harriet, as her sister went once more to give the net curtain a twitch to see if she could make out anything that might be happening in the street down below.

  “I don’t know how you can stay so calm, Harry! When - at this very moment - Peter the footman might be telling Mr. Benjamin something momentous that will prove to be the clue to the mystery of the murder - and oh, Harry, wouldn’t it be quite splendid if we could discover who had killed poor Millie before those policemen found out?”

  “If they find out,” sniffed Harriet.

  “If, indeed!” said Effie, “for to be sure, they are only men and therefore sadly hampered by a want of imagination...would you not agree, Harry, that men are deficient in that respect? For all they decry imagination in a woman - although why they should do so I have no idea, for the world would be a much poorer place without imagination...and not only in the way of...of developments, of inventions...although, to be sure we have to admit that it is mostly men who are responsible...or at least it is men who are recognised as being responsible, although of course it could well be a wife or a sister...well, just look at Caroline Hershel, finding all those comets!”

  “Although I believe it was her brother William who actually built the telescopes.”

  “I expect she helped,” countered Effie. “And then I understand that it was actually Fanny Mendelssohn who wrote many of the pieces that her brother is famous for, and then there is...” Effie’s voice dropped. “Lord Byron’s daughter.”

  “Some say she was mad,” sighed Harriet.

  “Typical!” snorted Effie. “Only let a woman have a good brain and the world - the male half, at any rate - will say she is either deluded or demented. But I understand that Mr. Babbage himself admitted that the Countess of Lovelace was of great help with the analytical engine.”

  There was a brief pause and then Effie continued, pensively, “not that one would be surprised, exactly, should any child of Lord Byron’s prove to be somewhat...just a little removed from the normal, poor girl - for his lordship was, as we all know, sadly irregular in his habits, and his poor wife, too - a strange soul by all accounts, but who should be surprised with that mother of hers!” Effie threw up her hands and went back to the window, attempting not to breathe as she peered out, so that her breath would not mist up the pane. Eventually she gave up again, and went disconsolately back to her chair. “I’m sure I shall not sleep a wink tonight, with wondering,” she said. “Harriet, do you think you will be able to sleep?” But the words died on her lips as she saw her sister’s closed eyes and her eyeglasses slipped down her nose.

  * * *

  Whether or not Miss Euphemia Fotheringay had been able to sleep, she was first down in the morning, and dipping a finger of toast in her cup of tea when her sister joined her. “Shall we go to the pottery this morning, Harry?” were her first words on seeing her sister. “For I am sure Mr. Benjamin cannot leave his premises during the daytime - it would be a sad loss to him if a customer should arrive and he be here, gossiping - not, not gossiping, for to be sure we are working really quite hard to solve...not that it is really any of our business...but there! Dear Papa always used to say that the business of man was Mankind. Not that we are men, of course...and I must say, Harry, that I do think it quite unjust that the world speaks of Mankind and not...not...since it really seems as if the female half of creation is quite left out...more than half, I believe since all those poor young men are always being sent out to get themselves killed in highly insalubrious places. Well, only think of India! Heat, and diseases, and...I remember how shocked we were when Mrs. Bessington tol
d us that young Dora had to have all her corsets new made with silver stays instead of whalebone, because the whalebone would have rotted in the heat! Imagine! Silver! Although Indian silver is, I understand, much cheaper than...but presumably not of the same quality - but still, to think of walking around encased in silver, and - oh Harry!” her hands flew to her cheeks, “suppose one of those poor natives could not resist the temptation of so much silver, and one were to be...to be...and all on account of the silver stays!”

  Harriet took the opportunity of her sister’s shock to insert a word. “I think you are quite right, dear, we should go to the pottery ourselves, once we have finished breakfast and tidied ourselves a little.” She glanced at her sister’s bosom, encased in black silk and decorated with toast crumbs. If only there should not be any spots of butter; grease was almost impossible to remove from silk, and for all that people frequently said that black 'hid the dirt' it certainly did not hide spots of grease.

  Even after the requisite tidyings it was still quite early when the sisters stepped down from the bridge onto the footpath beside the river. They had left a disgruntled Becky behind to take care of the shopping and the house, although Effie had promised to tell her all when they returned.

  “For reelly, M’m, I don’t think as I could settle to things while I’m all about in my mind, a-wondering what Mr. Benjamin is tellin’ you.”

  “Sweep the stairs, Becky,” said Harriet, “clean the windows; there is nothing like hard work to clear the mind,” and she swept out of the front door.

  “Hard work, is it?” sniffed Becky. “And how would you be a-knowing about hard work, Missis? Never done a hand’s turn in your life!” But she spoke to the closed door and in an undertone, for she was most sincerely attached to both the Miss Fotheringays - and besides, if she didn’t stay on good terms with her ladies, they might not tell her what was going on.

  The sun was still quite low in the sky and the big cedar at St. Luke’s was casting a long, cool shadow over the lawns as the sisters passed. A sharp little breeze ruffled the whippy leaves of flag irises and water reeds, and the light caught the spray as a pair of mallards landed, turning the drops into diamonds. Effie found herself humming 'We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land'. It was an excellent walking song and she sang it in season and out. There was no need for pattens today and the sisters could walk along at a brisk, unencumbered rate, their skirts tucked up a little to keep them clean. Indeed, by the time they arrived at the pottery Effie felt quite moist about the forehead. Harriet, of course, never perspired.

  As they darkened the door of the pottery, both the men inside looked up - Mr. Benjamin from his wheel and Elwy from his seat at the far bench where he was sitting idling, the great branch of stag’s antlers again cradled in his arms.

  Harriet nodded to Elwy but spoke to Mr. Benjamin. “Can you not find any work for your young friend to do? I am sure it is not good for him to sit brooding.”

  Both men laughed, and Elwy said, with a twisted smile, “Mr. Benjamin won’t let me do other than sweep, and that not once he’s workin’ 'cos it raises the dust.”

  Mr. Benjamin nodded. “A powerful lot of dust you gets in a pottery, Ma’am, and as for other work, well...”

  “Mr. Benjamin says as I mar more’n I make...”

  “Taint so easy, getting the hang of a potter’s craft, and although the boy’s willing enough... T’would be different if he was plannin’ on stayin’ here, o’course.”

  “Well if it won’t raise too much dust, perhaps you could set a chair for my sister and myself, Elwin,” said Harriet. She looked at Mr. Benjamin, “or am I being unduly optimistic in thinking you have something to tell us?”

  Mr. Benjamin looked into Harriet’s eyes and his smile responded to the knowing gleam in their depths. “Fetch the chairs from the cottage, Elwy lad,” he said. “I think what I have to report, Ma’am, is worth the effort.”

  Elwy put down the antlers and loped away into the sunlight; a long, lean silhouette against the morning brightness. “That young man could do with a haircut,” remarked Harriet.

  “I think he has lovely hair,” said Effie, smiling wistfully after him. “It reminds me of...oh! But that was so long ago.” She turned away. “So long ago.”

  Mr. Benjamin gave the heavy flywheel a strong push with his right foot and brought his attention back to the half-formed shape on the platter. He dipped his hands in the bowl of water in front of him and splashed a little over the clay, kicked the wheel up to speed and then set his shoulders so that his whole upper body seemed fixed, only the clay moving where the steady hands obliged it to go. Harriet watched, fascinated, as the clay spread, thinned, opened like a flower to the sun and then curved in again to form a bowl, all in a matter of a few moments of intense concentration. The wheel was allowed to slow and Mr. Benjamin leaned back in his seat. Elwy returned with two chairs, one a plain, upright, no-nonsense chair, but the other a rather beautifully shaped Windsor chair, polished to a dull shine by constant use. He set them in the patch of sunlight just inside the big, double doors of the pottery, held their backs as the two sisters seated themselves, then sauntered over to the workbench and his beloved antlers.

  “Now, Mr. Benjamin,” said Harriet. Effie leaned forward eagerly.

  Mr. Benjamin dried his hands on a piece of rag and then crossed his arms over his chest, tucking his damp hands into his armpits to keep them warm. “Well, ladies,” he said, “I stepped down to The Bull last evening...”

  “For your usual one, and one to follow,” interrupted Effie.

  “You have the right of it, Ma’am,” smiled Mr. Benjamin, “and not too long after, I saw Peter the footman come in and walk up to the bar, so I called out to old George to put Peter’s drink down on my slate. That made young Peter turn round, o’course, so I nodded to him to come and join me. I’d got myself set in a quiet corner, back to the wall, so’s I knew there’d be no-one to overlisten if I was lucky enough to catch my prey, you might say.” The sisters nodded eagerly.

  Peter had not been at all unwilling to share a pint with the potter. He knew him by sight, of course. Everyone in Rotherford knew the potter - well, everyone in Rotherford knew everyone else, if only to say 'good day' to.

  “Evenin', Mr. Benjamin,” he said, as he sat down. He lifted his mug, “Cheers!”

  “Cheers,” responded Benjamin.

  “Ah!” said Peter, “nothin’ like the first one of the day!”

  “You tellin’ me that you don’t get a drop of beer with your meals up at the Manor?” asked Benjamin curiously.

  “Not like this,” Peter grimaced. “No disrespect to Mrs. Hodges, mind, but her ladyship insists on us having beer so weak a man can’t hardly do his work on it.” Obviously there was something in Benjamin’s answering smile that made him add, “and that’s what the outdoor men say, too, who really have to put their backs into it, more than us indoor servants.”

  There was something in the way the young man said “us indoor servants” that gave Benjamin the impression that it would take a team of wild horses to get Peter to do outdoor work.

  “Nice job, is it?” asked Mr. Benjamin.

  “I should say so,” said Peter, “it suits me, anyway. Of course, it can be a bit quiet in the country, their lordships don’t entertain a lot, but now that Mr. Gervais is getting older things will probably brighten up a bit.”

  “You like to see a bit of life, then?”

  “Oh, you know, a bit of action, a bit of interest. I never understand these people who don’t take an interest in life.”

  “Or in other people’s lives?”

  “No man is an island, Mr. Benjamin - I heard Dr. Ravilious say that once. No man is an island - stuck in my mind it did.”

  “I didn’t think you was a church-goer, Peter?”

  “It wasn’t in church I heard it, it was him standing on the drawing room carpet, lecturing his lordship!”

  “Lecturing his
lordship?”

  “I know, bit of a turn up for the books, eh? But I heard it clear as clear. 'No man is an island'.”

  “And how did his lordship look?”

  “Oh, I’ve got no idea how he looked. I can’t see anything, standing outside the door, but I can hear plain enough.”

  “Standing outside the door?”

  “Yes, of course, standing outside the door. That’s what I do, ain’t it? I’m a footman. I stand outside the door ready if anyone inside wants anything.”

  “That must get a bit...” Benjamin wanted to say 'boring', but he thought the younger man might take offence.

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” said Peter, “you hear all sorts of things standing outside doors.”

  “I bet you do,” said Benjamin, reflectively, “I bet you do.”

  There was a short pause, but Benjamin hardly had to do anything to draw this young man out, it was more as if Peter was delighted to have an audience. “F’rinstance,” he said, “that very time that the Doctor said about not being an island?” He looked at the potter as if to gauge his interest; Benjamin nodded. “It was on account of his Lordship saying that he didn’t see as what he chose to do was any business of anyone else’s!”