by Winona Kent
Earl Grey. English Breakfast. Yorkshire.
She hoped it was Earl Grey, which was her favourite on a lazy Sunday morning.
Tap on, water in the kettle.
The next bit was the tricky part.
“Plug the kettle into the wall,” Charlie said to herself, repeating what she’d told Mr. Deeley the last time he’d decided to surprise her with breakfast in bed.
Fortunately, she’d got downstairs before the entire cottage had gone up in flames. Her kettle, however, had been reduced to a toxic lump of melted plastic in the sitting room fireplace.
The sitting room fireplace was now off-limits to Mr. Deeley. For food preparation purposes, anyway.
She could not smell anything burning. Excellent.
“Mrs. Collins!” Mr. Deeley called from the bottom of the stairs.
“Yes, Mr. Deeley?” she inquired.
He had a first name. Shaun. But it was impossible to call him that, as impossible as it was for him to call her Charlie. And anyway, it suited them. John Steed had never addressed Mrs. Peel by her Christian name. And Emma Peel had only ever referred to the most important man in her life as Steed.
“Do you wish your eggs hard boiled, or soft?”
In fact, Charlie wished them scrambled, but she dared not suggest this to Mr. Deeley, as it would mean butter, and a frying pan. Boiled eggs were simple, and involved only water in a pot. He could be trusted with that.
“Are you all right with the cooker?” she checked.
“Yes,” Mr. Deeley said, with a little less certainty than Charlie would have preferred. “I have turned the handle, and the surface is hot. I have placed the eggs in the water. And the pot is now upon the fire.”
“The fire…?” Charlie faltered, sitting up in bed.
“Forgive me,” said Mr. Deeley. “It is a turn of phrase I cannot easily abandon. The pot is upon the hob. And you have not yet replied to my question, Mrs. Collins.”
“Soft boiled,” Charlie replied. “Please.”
She heard him go back into the kitchen. In the years before Mr. Deeley, she had more or less abandoned cooking. Proper cooking, anyway. The microwave oven had been enough, because there was only herself to look after.
But since Mr. Deeley’s arrival three months earlier, preparation of food had become an altogether worthwhile—and surprisingly pleasant—pastime.
The old AGA that her mum had bought decades earlier still sat abandoned in its alcove, a useful place for putting newspapers and odds and ends that hadn’t yet found a more permanent home. But taking its place, at the end of the counter underneath the window, was a newly installed electric cooker, with a double oven and grill, and a four-element ceramic hob. It was upon this hob that Mr. Deeley was now attempting to boil eggs.
“Mrs. Collins,” he called, again, from the bottom of the stairs.
“Yes, Mr. Deeley?”
“You have not yet replied to my other question.”
Charlie smiled. “That is because,” she said, “I have not yet had ample time to consider it.”
He was coming up the stairs.
He paused at her open bedroom door, and knocked.
“You may come in, Mr. Deeley. I’m perfectly decent.”
Mr. Deeley entered and stood at a modest distance from Charlie’s bed, his eyes averted.
“Mr. Deeley,” Charlie reminded him. “You’ve seen me in a far less respectable state than this. And I have seen you in an altogether less respectable state than the clothes you’re wearing now.”
What he was wearing now was new jeans, and the white cotton shirt he had worn when he escaped from prison in 1825. The loose sleeves were rolled halfway up his forearms, and he was without shoes or socks. He looked, Charlie thought, quite dishy. For someone who was more than two hundred years old.
“The circumstances of our mutual disrespectability,” Mr. Deeley said, trying very hard to maintain his composure, “were… were….”
He stopped, struggling to find the right word.
“Dire?” Charlie suggested.
“Indeed. Dire. Yes.”
“If we’d been given more than one hour together,” Charlie said, “I suspect our circumstances might even have progressed to direness in the extreme.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Deeley. “And therein lies my dilemma. For I feel, Mrs. Collins, that our mutual consummation of nature’s urges must lead us to an inevitable, yet not unpleasant, conclusion.”
“We did not consummate nature’s urges,” Charlie reminded him. “Much as we both had wished it so. That circumstance has yet to be… concluded.”
Mr. Deeley approached the side of her bed. He knelt on one knee, and took Charlie’s hand in his.
“Then marry me, Mrs. Collins,” he said, looking into her eyes. “For I will not accept a refusal.”
“Mr. Deeley…” Charlie paused. “It’s not necessary to be married in order to conclude the circumstances you and I began in your prison cell in 1825. Truly.”
“But I wish to spare you a terrible dishonour, Mrs. Collins.”
“What dishonour, Mr. Deeley? I don’t understand.”
“If we should so conclude said circumstances, Mrs. Collins, and not once but upon regular and, with hope, frequent re-examination… you would soon be with child. And I could not bear to see you scorned by the villagers.”
Charlie clasped both of Mr. Deeley’s hands in hers.
“Mr. Deeley,” she said. “There are ways to prevent such occurrences. Extremely reliable ways. I’m in no rush to become a mother. We may conclude to our hearts’ content.”
Mr. Deeley’s face brightened.
“And these methods are well-known to you? And without attendant danger?”
“Extremely well-known,” Charlie assured him, adding a kiss. “And completely without danger. Now then, what about those eggs?”
• • •
The eggs had been boiled to perfection. Charlie added toast and butter, and ginger marmalade, and poured the tea—it was, in fact, Earl Grey—with milk and sugar. Mr. Deeley sat on one side of the old wooden table in the kitchen while Charlie faced him on the other, with some sprigs of freshly picked autumn-flowering Clematis from the garden completing the setting.
“Mrs. Collins,” Mr. Deeley said. “Forgive my curiosity, but the knowledge you imparted to me earlier has intrigued me greatly. Have you the means at hand to prevent an unintended outcome to a possible…happy conclusion…?”
Charlie laughed. “I do indeed, Mr. Deeley. In fact, I took the necessary steps three months ago. It was rather pre-emptive of me, I know. But under the circumstances, I felt it a wise precaution.”
“Does it involve a concoction? A disagreeable unguent composed of foul-smelling ingredients?”
“It does not, Mr. Deeley. It involves a tablet.”
“Things have much improved,” Mr. Deeley remarked, “from two hundred years ago. My knowledge is intermittent. However, one cannot share a kitchen table with servants, particularly the housemaids, without gaining some understanding of this… delicate subject matter.” He paused. “Do you then place this tablet in the specified location… so as to interfere with what… issues forth?”
Charlie laughed.
“No, Mr. Deeley. I swallow it with my morning tea, and that’s all that’s required. Chemistry and biology take care of the rest. Look.”
She pulled the packet of tablets from her bag and showed it to him. Then she took one out of its slot and popped it into her mouth.
Mr. Deeley shook his head in amazement.
“I am much cheered by this news,” he said. “And as such, I believe we should consider concluding our circumstances at the earliest possible opportunity.”
Charlie laughed again. “I do love you, Mr. Deeley,” she said. “It’s a wonder I discovered you single and not spoken for in 1825. Were there no attractive and marriageable young ladies at all who had caught your eye?”
Mr. Deeley knew all about Charlie’s husband, Jeff, and the car accid
ent that had killed him five years earlier. She’d told him everything. They’d visited his grave, delivering a fresh pot of flowering geraniums. But Mr. Deeley himself had been very circumspect about his own romantic past.
“There was a young lady,” he began carefully. “Miss Jemima Beckford. The eldest daughter of Mr. William Beckford.”
“From Beckford Farm?” Charlie guessed. The farmhouse, near Stoneford, was long gone, and the outbuildings reduced to dereliction. And the land upon which the buildings had once sat was tumbling into the sea, a few feet every year.
“Yes, the same. It was rumoured that Mr. Beckford provided a safe house for smugglers, although it was never proven. In any case, it was his daughter that I loved. And I would have married her, had tragedy not intervened.”
“Oh, Mr. Deeley,” Charlie said. “I’m so sorry….”
“There is nothing to be sorry about,” Mr. Deeley replied. “The tragedy was another gentleman. Miss Beckford was, unhappily, not constant in her affections. She accepted a proposal of marriage from Mr. Cornelius Quinn, the son of the village blacksmith. And six months following, gave birth herself to a son, whom she named Thaddeus.”
“Six months following,” Charlie mused.
“A not uncommon occurrence,” Mr. Deeley provided. “When human nature is allowed to pursue its most inquisitive course.”
“Mr. Deeley,” Charlie said. “If this is not too indelicate a question…did you allow your human nature to pursue its most inquisitive course with Miss Beckford at any point prior to her wedding to Mr. Quinn…?”
“It is not too an indelicate question, Mrs. Collins. We had, in fact, given free rein to our inquisitiveness upon four separate occasions prior to the wedding. I had every reason to believe Miss Beckford would soon become my wife. And as she had not provided any indication to the contrary, we happily indulged.”
“Mr. Deeley,” Charlie said carefully. “Might it be possible that Thaddeus Quinn was not actually the son of Cornelius Quinn?”
“That complication had occurred to me,” Mr. Deeley replied. “Alas, Mr. and Mrs. Quinn took up residence some distance away, in Middlehurst, when young Thaddeus was no more than a few months old. It was therefore impossible for me to observe his features and his character, to determine whether there might be some likeness to myself. And so, Mrs. Collins, that is where it was left. He would have been nine years of age when you made my acquaintance. And, in truth, I had not loved another since Jemima. Not as I love you now.”
“Oh Mr. Deeley….”
Charlie was lost for words. She had wondered why a man in his midthirties, in 1825 Stoneford, should not be spoken for, but until now, it had not seemed overly important to know the answer.
But the idea that he might have had a son did fill her with a sense of intrigue. She made up her mind to investigate further.
“Finish your breakfast, Mr. Deeley. It’s time we put in an appearance at the museum.”
Chapter Three
The Stoneford Village Museum building had once been the vicarage attached to St. Eligius Church. It was there that Charlie spent her days, immersed in her role as Historical Guide and Interpreter. It wasn’t actually necessary for her to work. She’d acquired quite a nice sum of money from the sale of a rare deck of Tarot cards that had come into her possession earlier in the year. But she enjoyed the history, and she enjoyed sharing that history with the museum’s visitors. And so she’d stayed on as a part-time, unpaid consultant.
Charlie walked with Mr. Deeley to the Old Vicarage, their journey taking them past the Village Green and the ancient Village Oak. It was October, and the sun was shining wanly through a high marine haze. Children on the green kicked a football around.
There weren’t many tourists; in the summer, Stoneford, on the south coast of England, was awash with visitors. All of the little shops and coffee places around the Village Green did a roaring trade, as did the concessions closer to the beach, which were just down the road, at the bottom of a low, sandy cliff. The Village Museum was always on their list of Things to See. Because of this, Charlie had installed a shop in the vicarage’s entrance hall, selling posters and mugs and T-shirts, as well as smugglers’ loot, gypsy tambourines, and other souvenirs inspired by the displays.
She unlocked the vicarage’s front door and switched on the lights. The shop stayed dark, its inventory locked away, an apologetic sign on its empty display shelves stating it would open again in June.
She wasn’t expecting many visitors. Once the summer rush was over, Stoneford reverted back to what the locals had always known it as, a former fishing village that had once been notorious as a haven for smugglers and pirates. An out-of-the-way stop on the coastal road, midway between Southampton and Bournemouth. The museum was open only on weekends now, and even then just for half days.
If anyone did pop in, Charlie’s office was in the vicarage’s kitchen, at the back. She kept the door open and could appear at a moment’s notice for an impromptu tour of the museum’s latest display, a yearlong tribute to Stoneford during the Blitz. And Mr. Deeley was employed outside, using his nineteenth-century handyman skills to restore the derelict coach house to its former glory.
Charlie sat down at her desk and switched on her computer, while Mr. Deeley went through to the back garden. In the summer, he provided historical tours of the village in a horse-drawn wagon borrowed from a local farmer. Now that the tourists had stopped coming, he was a bit at loose ends. In 1825, he’d been the head groom at Stoneford Manor, on top of the hill overlooking the village. It wasn’t really the kind of skill that transferred easily into the twenty-first century. Like Charlie, he didn’t need to work. Indeed, he couldn’t work, since he had no identification and didn’t officially exist. But, like Charlie, he needed to do something to occupy his time. Today, he was painting the doors of the old coach house, located at the bottom of the garden.
Charlie went online to her favourite family tree site, thinking she might look up Thaddeus Quinn.
She loved digging into the past. She was just old enough to remember a time before the Internet, when her essays at school were researched, not by googling, but by enlisting the helpful assistance of Mrs. Bamber at the village library. Endless fingerings through the cards in little wooden catalogue drawers. Pencilled reference numbers on slips of paper, a wander through the stacks of bookshelves. Sitting in front of a dodgy microfilm reader, whirring weeks of newspapers through the winder, battling queasiness not unlike seasickness, trying to follow the text.
The Internet had come along just in time for her university degree in history, igniting and facilitating a passion for research into her family’s past. In the old days, she’d have spent months ploughing through dusty birth, death, and marriage records in local council offices, and christening entries in church ledgers. But with everything now online, what previously would have taken years could now be accomplished in a matter of mouse clicks.
Charlie signed into the website and was about to type “Thaddeus Quinn” into the search box when the front door to the vicarage opened.
Charlie stood up. And when she saw who it was, she sat down again. Reg Ferryman, the proprietor of The Dog’s Watch, a historical coaching inn that, centuries earlier, had serviced carriages, horses, drivers, and passengers. These days it was, like many of the buildings in Stoneford, Grade II listed. That hadn’t stopped Reg from coming up with dozens of plans to renovate the place, all of them roundly disallowed at council meetings.
Reg hadn’t given up. He’d turned his sights to other properties and other endeavours, and was currently eyeing the Old Vicarage as a venue for his latest idea, a Hampshire rip-off of the London Dungeon.
“Afternoon,” he said, walking through to the kitchen and stopping in front of Charlie’s desk.
“No,” Charlie replied. He was repulsive. And greasy. And he smelled like last week’s mopped-up beer.
“I haven’t said anything yet.”
“I know what you want, and the answer’
s still no.”
He’d offered her a job managing his new attraction. Because the Old Vicarage was not, for some unfathomable reason, listed with English Heritage. It was an oversight Charlie had taken steps to remedy, but the process was slow. At this rate, the Old Vicarage would be gutted and turned into the Hampshire House of Horrors before English Heritage even had the time to consider Charlie’s application.
“You’ll change your mind once you see this wreck of a place transformed into an unmissable seaside attraction. Midnight slaughters. Cut-throat smugglers.” His eyes lit up. “The Plague Pirates.”
“I don’t need a job,” she reminded him.
“So you say.”
Reg Ferryman was a very poor loser. He had briefly been in possession of one of the Tarot cards that had made Charlie’s fortune. The one missing card that had been necessary to complete the deck. But it was, by law, hers. And the law had prevailed. It was Charlie’s considered opinion that Reg Ferryman’s plans for the Old Vicarage were personal payback for being cheated out of his share of the loot.
“What about your friend? That Deeley bloke. He’d be a good bloodthirsty murderer. He looks the part.”
“No,” Charlie said. “Go away.”
“The Middlehurst Slasher.”
Charlie knew all about the three women who’d been found with their throats cut, near Middlehurst in the New Forest, in 1849. Stoneford was only a short drive away from the area where their bodies had been located. The killings were all fairly grisly, and had never been solved.
“Since one of the victims was married to one of my distant ancestors. A personal connection. Just saying…”
“Go away,” Charlie said, again.
“I will,” Reg replied. “But I just wanted you to know, I’ve got a meeting with the Village Council on Wednesday. We’re discussing the sale of this building. To me. There are some who would like to see Stoneford put back on the tourist map. There are some who could do with the employment and the knock-on benefits.”
“Please leave, Reg.”