Pagan Spring: A Mystery (A Max Tudor Novel)

by Malliet, G. M.

  “Last year, we had the Royal Wedding Bank Holiday buggering things up,” mused Frank. “So there’s that to be grateful for this year—no wedding. I don’t see Prince Harry getting married anytime soon, do you? Of course, the Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee this summer will pose a challenge.”

  Thus, thought Adam, are major historic events reduced to their elements in Nether Monkslip.

  Suzanna said, “Let’s say next time we’ll meet on the Tuesday prior to the WI meeting unless you hear differently from me. I’ll send out an e-mail.”

  “So we’ve tabled the idea of a guest speaker for now, have we?” asked Elka.

  “Until we can do better than Thaddeus Bottle,” said Frank. “I’m thinking now it’s too bad Lucie’s invited him over to the house for dinner.”

  “I keep hearing he needs no introduction,” said Adam, smiling, still warmed by his friends’ defense against Thaddeus Bottle’s ugly attack.

  “Good,” said Frank. “Because he won’t get one from me.”

  Subject: Nether Monkslip

  From: Gabrielle Crew (gabby@TresRapidePoste.fr)

  To: Claude Chaux (Claude43@TresRapidePoste.fr)

  Date: Friday, March 23, 2012 12:48 P.M.

  Dear Claude—It was so good, as always, to hear from you.

  Nether Monkslip is starting to feel more like home to me than anywhere I’ve ever lived. I hope Bernadina—the estate agent I told you about—I hope she can find something reasonable for me to lease. Prices here are “defeating the current negative trend,” she says. Everyone is hearing the call of the charming old-world village, the slower pace of life, and the return to a simpler time—especially those of retirement age. But, in fact, many of the people who have relocated here have not retired, but simply have moved their businesses online.

  Not all of the newcomers are my age. Popularity is giving the village the life it needs, attracting both young and old. More babies are appearing, and our handsome vicar is kept busy with baptisms. A village needs children, or it will die out.

  Of course, everything is illusion, isn’t it? You might be living peaceably in a village like Nether Monkslip, a place where they plant vegetables according to the lunar calendar. And then one day your world might end.

  I do so miss Harold at times.

  But like you, I love this time of year, with its spring flowers. There is the “gentle rain” of Shakespeare’s day, perhaps a bit less of it now, with global warming. There have been drought conditions in much of England, but Nether Monkslip has been spared. Right now it’s raining, and that’s bad for people like me in the hair business. It’s like working in a car wash in that regard. I thought I’d use the free time wisely and write to you, and maybe work a bit on my poetry.

  For the most part, I am content, anxious only to try out a recipe for carrots with dill—a recipe given me by Awena Owen, the one I told you about. The woman who runs the New Agey shop. It’s funny how everything old is new again, with everyone going back to the basics. Bless her, but my generation, and yours, “invented” organic food.

  Love, your Gabby

  CHAPTER 3

  Captive Audience

  Friday, March 23, 6:00 P.M.

  The man who needed no introduction was at home preparing for what he thought of as the evening’s performance. Every public appearance was to Thaddeus Bottle a presentation—a chance to display his good looks and exercise his actor’s voice; a chance to shine, and to impress his (usually captive) audience. After a lifetime of getting if not the best seat in a restaurant, at least the sort of seat saved for a life peer, Thaddeus knew his worth—even if he usually overestimated it. The fact that his name had not yet appeared on an Honours List was, he felt certain, an oversight that would be remedied in time. His career had been so long and, well, long. And besides, “Lord Thaddeus Bottle” had such a ring to it. Wouldn’t his parents have been proud?

  Proud? They’d have been struck dumb.

  He was a man of short but imposing stature, with a physique that owed much to the men’s slimming corset he wore around his midsection, for Thaddeus was as vain, if not vainer, than any actress when it came to maintaining a youthful appearance. In the same way, his stature was elevated by the shoe lifts he wore any time he was likely to run into his “legions of fans,” as he thought of them. In London, he had clung fondly to the belief that his fans included the butcher, the baker, and the bookie around the corner; around no one except his wife did Thaddeus let down his show-must-go-on facade. In the same way, he allowed no one to use the familiar or shortened form of his name; it was never Thad or Thaddee, but Thaddeus.

  He was dark of eye and hawklike of nose, and made a striking impression he liked to highlight by keeping his head thrown back, chin and nose in the air, so people could enjoy his Roman-coin profile. His crowning glory was his thick mane of brown hair, always described in his performance reviews as “leonine,” as though the hair had taken on a life of its own and would soon deliver its own lines onstage. Thaddeus Never Thad used a special shampoo to bring out the highlights in that mass of hair, which was, in fact, quite beautiful. The shampoo cost fifteen pounds for a small bottle, and he reported it to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs as a business expense, lumped under the “business equipment” category, along with his blow-dryer and curling iron, the corset and the lifts, so as not to invite indelicate probing by Her Majesty’s tax compliance professionals.

  His wife of seven years, Melinda, was primping in the next room. She was not a stage professional, or Thaddeus would have tried to pass his expenses off as hers. Although she was or had been a professional society beauty, this was not an occupation widely recognized among the cube dwellers of HMRC. Melinda would have argued that it should have been, given the amount of work that was involved, particularly lately, as she was far from being in the first flush of youth. Also, playing handmaiden to the great writer/actor should probably have counted as full-time employment in the case of Melinda Bottle.

  Her brunette good looks had brought her to Thaddeus’s attention when she was still married to her former spouse, which union was to prove a minor inconvenience. One glance, as she would later recall, from Thaddeus’s piercing dark eyes beneath thatchy white eyebrows and she had been his. Thaddeus had been a widower, whose wife had been found (alive, of course) in flagrante with her lover, which exposure dovetailed beautifully with Melinda’s own infatuation with Thaddeus Bottle.

  In short, having seen him, Melinda had been determined to conquer him. She had been so besotted, she hadn’t noticed the difference in their ages. She had been captivated, ignoring the years that separated them and seeing only the dashing figure of his early publicity stills. She supposed a shrink would say she was looking for a father figure. Too right, as she now understood. Her own father had been a right bastard, and Thaddeus was living up to his legacy. Funny how you don’t realize the fatal, familiar choices you’re making before it’s too late to go back. Life doesn’t come with a rewind button. Or even, in Melinda’s case, a pause button.

  Thaddeus had all the glamour of the West End stage at his back; her first husband, Jack, wealthy even after the worldwide stock market meltdown, could not compete, for Melinda had secret dreams of one day appearing before the footlights with her new husband, an ambition as yet unrealized. It was dawning on her that it might never be realized, now that they’d come to live miles from the London stage. Too late she would comprehend she should probably have asked Thaddeus for an impartial assessment of her acting abilities before she married him. He was blunt in his judgment now: She had zero talent as an actress. If she’d ever had talent, he’d said, in a contemptuous tone that still stung to recall, the talent would have made an appearance long before.

  Whatever reasons she’d had for marrying him, he’d certainly not married her to advance her nonexistent career. He’d married her for her looks and for her relative youth. For he, at seventy-eight, was a man of consequence, and he needed someone of an appropriate age to play the pa
rt of wife to a man of such masterful consequence as he.

  It was all too late, in any event, thought Melinda now. By the time she began to suspect she should have looked before she leaped, her now-ex, Jack, had already moved on to greener pastures. He’d been having an affair during the last years of his marriage to Melinda, a fact he kept well hidden during the divorce proceedings—and the green pastures were owned by a wealthy and titled widow ten years his senior. That certainly, thought Melinda, explained a lot.

  Current spouse Thaddeus having taken over the large mirror in the master bathroom, Melinda was making do with the vanity table by the bedroom window. They had purchased the house a year ago. The previous owner had added a bulbous modern appendage at the back, and Melinda, trying to make the old blend with the new, had had to call on every small talent in her interior decoration arsenal since they had moved in. Not to mention home repair: Like many such modern constructions, the house was all style and little substance, “restored” by what turned out to be a fly-by-night contractor. Out of place in the village proper, the house, mercifully, was situated some distance past the train station and at the end of a country lane hidden by trees. Although it was the second-largest house in or near the village of Nether Monkslip, they had bought it for a song. The reasons why were not apparent until they’d moved in. Thaddeus had insisted the house needed no inspection—an interesting choice, since Thaddeus’s own skills in home repair were nonexistent. The estate agent, Bernadina Steed, had warned them that she saw potential problems, which was why Bernadina had become a rather trusted friend since the move into the house. Melinda had come to rely on her, first of all, for recommendations as to trustworthy local repairmen and other experts, and, second, for her no-nonsense and forthright approach to life. Despite outward differences, the two women had found they had much in common—things that others might have seen as a hindrance to friendship.

  Melinda, if anything, was looking for a way out, a release valve. Common cause against Thaddeus was one such release.

  The enemy of my enemy is my friend, thought Melinda.

  She now critically surveyed her appearance as she twirled a lock of coffee-colored hair around her curling iron, a match for her husband’s. She’d been styled and highlighted just that morning at the Cut and Dried. But the nearness of the village to the English Channel and the time of year meant humidity, and that meant constant vigilance on Melinda’s part to ensure the curl did not expand, spongelike, by the end of the day.

  As she preened and primped, adding a little wing of black eyeliner to the corner of each eye, she thought about the choice she’d made. Choices, rather. The glamorous life she’d pictured when she’d married Thaddeus had lasted exactly five years, which time Melinda had largely spent, like Lucy Ricardo, trying to talk her husband into putting her into a show or even writing a play just for her. In the sixth year, Thaddeus had started talking about retirement. In the seventh, it had become clear that he pictured retirement as meaning a return to the village of his youth. It seemed he had fond memories of his time here, the son of the local saddler.

  “Big fish in a small pond” was the phrase that kept going through Melinda’s mind.

  A nearly empty martini glass rested on the dressing table, at her left hand. Thaddeus never seriously objected to her copious drinking, since alcohol helped keep her thin. So did smoking, but he’d made her give that up, due to the secondhand dangers.

  Now she took a final sip as she opened her jewelry box and pulled out the antique earrings Thaddeus had given her as a wedding present. They were still her favorites, second only to the antique pair she’d lost a few weeks before, which had been an engagement present.

  She’d be willing to bet these earrings and everything else in the jewelry box that what Thaddeus really liked about this place, Nether Monkslip, was the chance it gave him to lord it over the peasants. But he’d been shocked to realize the peasants had mostly moved on, and more sophisticated urban escapees had taken their place. Thaddeus was a celebrity, to be sure, but—much to his disappointment—he was not being hailed as a god.

  She held the earrings up to catch the last of the light. They were a Victorian design of gold and enamel in the shape of two butterflies. They dangled fetchingly from her earlobes, catching the light as it bounced off the tiny embedded diamonds.

  She switched off the curling iron. She didn’t see how, at the age of forty-five, she was expected to survive if she left him. Her foreshortened view of her future clouded every judgment, every decision. It was like reading a map using a magnifying glass—she could not see anything to the north or south, anything beyond the area of focus. She knew that if she pulled back, if she lifted her gaze, she might be able to see the whole path ahead, but somehow the will to do that had deserted her. Thaddeus controlled everything—her, her looks, her friends (he did not approve of Bernadina, of course), her makeup, the very food she ate.

  And the purse strings. Always, and at the bottom of her indecision, lay that simple fact.

  Thaddeus held the purse strings very tightly indeed.

  Subject: The Villagers

  From: Gabrielle Crew (gabby@TresRapidePoste.fr)

  To: Claude Chaux (Claude43@TresRapidePoste.fr)

  Date: Friday, March 23, 2012 6:30 P.M.

  Claude—You asked about the people in my new village. I suppose I’ll start with the Reverend Max Tudor, one of the most appealing men I’ve ever come across. He’s an Anglican vicar, but he’s not one of the preachy sorts of vicars, if you follow. He is in love with the woman who runs the local New Age shop, and she with him—they fondly believe no one notices this, which is rather sweet of them, we all think. They are a charming couple, and made for each other, so no one can help but wish them well. Watch this space for an announcement of a wedding, or so we all hope. What a celebration that will be! We—the villagers, and I have quickly come to count myself as one of them, you see—we have rather banded together to try to ensure Max’s bishop doesn’t get wind of this news before Max and Awena are ready to announce the banns. Awena is … well, she’s rather a spiritual person and goes her own way in the religion department. There may be trouble if the purple-robed brigade learns of this too soon. They’d be worried about what the press may make of it, of course. Otherwise, I am not sure they’d care, although some people will, of course. Some people always care too much about others’ business, as we well know.

  I did tell you I’ve been invited to join the local writers’ group? I gather the standards for membership are minimal, simply a pen and a notebook and a desire to write. “We let Frank join” is how Suzanna Winship, the doctor’s sister, puts it. The desire to write is there inside me; I suppose it always has been. They say it’s never too late. But what could I write about? I’ve lived a life of little incident. I’m too shy to read aloud my little scraps of poetry (I suppose people would call it poetry, for lack of a better term), and I gather reading aloud is another requirement of joining the group. Maybe it’s time to outgrow that reluctance.

  I have to run now—tonight is Lucie’s dinner party. I am happy, keeping busy. I hope you are happy, too.

  Your ever-loving, Gabby

  CHAPTER 4

  Dinner Party

  Friday, March 23, 7:00 P.M.

  Lucie and Frank Cuthbert lived embraced by peaceful woods in an old Georgian house at the west end of the village, on the road to Chipping Monkslip. They recently had moved there from the cramped quarters over their shop.

  Rather than take the Land Rover, Max had slogged his way over on foot, passing St. Edwold’s graveyard with its enormous Plague Tree, dodging puddles, and using his umbrella as a windshield. The weather, which had threatened rain for most of March, had seldom delivered, and parts of the South West were officially facing a serious drought. But when it did rain, it tended to pour, as now, chucking it down, with high winds added to stir the River Puddmill’s waters into a froth, and to rattle shutters and windows. Oddly, there was never quite enough water to alleviat
e drought, but enough to disrupt the various trade routes to and from Nether Monkslip, and, on occasion, to swell the normally placid river into a surging torrent.

  Max arrived at the house to effusive greetings and cluckings from Lucie Cuthbert, who helped him peel off his wet raincoat and hat and divested him of his umbrella in the entry hall. The other dinner party guests were already gathered in the Cuthberts’ living room, for Max was last to arrive: He’d been held up by a last-minute phone call from a parishioner asking about available wedding dates at St. Edwold’s. As he rang off, Max thought placidly how nice it was that when the time came, he would be able to pick and choose practically whatever date he and Awena liked.

  Max, joining the others, counted off the eight for dinner. Representing the men’s team were himself, Thaddeus Bottle, Dr. Bruce Winship, and Frank Cuthbert; for the women, Melinda Bottle, estate agent Bernadina Steed, and Gabby Crew, in addition to their hostess, Mme. Lucie Cuthbert. Max recognized Gabby as the eldest of the three hairstylists who had passed by his window yesterday morning.

  Lucie settled everyone with their drinks before going to check on the meal. They all politely eyed one another as they sipped their aperitifs and breathed in the beguiling aromas coming from the kitchen.

  As with Gabby, Max had only a nodding acquaintance with Bernadina Steed. She sold properties in the area, and her photo, with its slightly manic expression, often appeared in ads in the Monkslip-super-Mare Globe and Bugle. From what little he knew of her, she was a clever and attractive middle-aged divorcée with time and money to devote to her springy, youthful appearance. She had dark corkscrew hair that curled softly at the chin, and she wore a smart navy suit over a striped silk shirt. At her neck was a string of oversized red beads, and strapped to her feet were matching red shoes with heels that must have played havoc with her ability to walk on the cobblestone streets of Nether Monkslip. Her tan (an artifact, he heard her saying, of a recent trip to the south of France) was fading to a somewhat orangey glow.