Grave Matters

by Margaret Yorke

  ‘Jane – all that stuff about the Slade House motto – virtue is my breastplate or whatever you said it was – what would Miss Amelia have thought about goings-on by any of her girls?’

  ‘Do you mean what would she have thought about adulterous associations?’ asked Jane firmly.

  ‘Well—yes.’

  ‘She would have been slow to accept that any of her girls could indulge in such acts,’ Jane said. ‘But once convinced, or if she should learn that any of her girls had done anything else she deplored, she’d do her best to expunge them from her memory. It would be as if they’d never existed.’

  ‘Now? In the nineteen-seventies?’

  ‘Very much so. She’d go on till the very last moment believing the best of everyone, and she’d admit that her own code was strict, but if someone she’d had influence over didn’t live up to her standards she’d think it her own failure.’

  ‘You’re sure of all this? She left before you went there, remember.’

  ‘Thank goodness she did. She must have been a tartar,’ Jane said. ‘But it was part of the Slade House legend, handed down as the lore of the past.’

  ‘Hm,’ Patrick grunted.

  ‘I don’t see what you’re getting at.’

  ‘I don’t see it myself. I’m thinking aloud, really.’ Patrick rootled in his pocket and pulled out a dried seed pod; he ferreted about in the depths near the seam and found some actual seeds, small and black. ‘Do you know what these are?’ he asked.

  Jane looked at them.

  ‘Laburnum seeds, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes. Very poisonous. I got them from the Bruces’ garden.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The dog died. Carol Bruce was sick.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting someone fed them both laburnum seeds?’

  ‘There’s a yew hedge, too, round the house. That’s also poisonous,’ Patrick said.

  ‘Patrick, no. People don’t go round murdering their wives just because they fancy someone else. They get divorced, or have affairs,’ said Jane.

  ‘David Bruce may not have wanted a divorce,’ Patrick said. ‘His wife may have a lot of money. She’s certainly got expensive tastes. And Ellen isn’t the sort of girl to be happy just being someone’s mistress indefinitely.’

  He could not now ask Ellen whether it was Carol who had bought the house; he knew that it was she who had wanted it, much more than David. But then again, he had only Ellen’s word for that. What if it were David who had decided on the house?

  ‘Leave it, leave it, Patrick,’ Jane urged him. ‘Wait a year. Keep away from Ellen and find someone else, or if you can’t do that, at least stop looking for mysteries. Ellen will get over David in a year, if she’s as you say she is. Then, if you still find her special, try again.’

  The thought that this wretched girl preferred anyone to her brother was anathema to Jane.

  ‘Oh, I’m not smitten,’ Patrick said lightly. ‘She’s just different – one on her own.’

  Jane was not deceived.

  ‘And I can’t leave it alone. Something’s wrong, but I don’t know what it is. A dog has died. An innocent woman keeps having accidents, and two old ladies have fallen to their deaths.’

  ‘We’ll accept that Ellen and David are having an affair,’ said Jane. ‘What possible link can that have with Amelia?’

  ‘She wouldn’t have approved.’

  ‘She didn’t know about it. She was dead before the Bruces came to Meldsmead. And if she’s doing a haunt, it would be David she’d be badgering, or Ellen, not Carol.’ Jane had abandoned her knitting now and was gazing at him earnestly. ‘Patrick dear, do leave it. This time it’s you that will get hurt,’ she said.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m hurt already,’ Patrick admitted. ‘I can’t leave it. I’m so sure something else dreadful is going to happen. You can’t just walk away from things because they’re unpleasant. That doesn’t make them vanish.’

  Jane had often heard Patrick hold forth about the sin of indifference.

  ‘What’s this David like?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh – all right, I suppose. I’d dislike him whatever he was like in fact,’ said Patrick. ‘He was a bit hopeless about the dog – the burying of it, and all that. I was surprised he didn’t want a post-mortem, to know why it had died.’ If he’d poisoned it, of course he wouldn’t want the fact disclosed. ‘The wife’s the stronger character.’

  ‘Why are you so sure of that? You’ve only met her once, haven’t you?’

  It was true.

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps I felt that David was weak, and two weak people don’t get married to each other.’

  ‘Oh Patrick, yes they do. They flutter happily together in perfect harmony,’ said Jane, laughing at him. ‘I think you’re biased against David. He may be perfectly delightful.’

  ‘Maybe he’s loaded to the gills with sex appeal,’ said Patrick gloomily.

  ‘Well, so are you, so you should worry,’ Jane declared, and saw him turn a deep crimson shade. ‘I know. I’ve seen the effect you have on women,’ she declared. ‘Otherwise I couldn’t tell you so – it’s not an aspect of their brothers that sisters take much heed of and can judge.’

  ‘Michael sometimes cooks the supper, doesn’t he?’ he said, abruptly changing the subject.

  ‘Yes. When he’s in the mood. Why?’

  ‘Does he make things like pies? Blackberry and apple, that sort of thing?’

  Jane stared.

  ‘Good heavens, no. He makes jolly good meat dishes but never a pud – and before we were married, when he was busy seducing girls in his flat, he used to buy ready-made pavlovas and what-not from a patisserie nearby. Lots of people buy ready-made puddings.’

  ‘Oh. That’s a useful bit of information you’ve given me,’ Patrick said.

  ‘Any time,’ said Jane, picking up her knitting once again.

  The next Wednesday night Patrick went down to Meldsmead once more. He drove through the village, fortunately meeting no one, and parked where he had left the car before his previous walk across the fields. Then, on foot, as on that other occasion, he climbed the stile, but this time he went to Mulberry Cottage. No lights showed: a quick look round revealed no car outside, and the windows were blank, the curtains still drawn back; no one was there. He had no real plan, just the feeling that some key to what was troubling him lay here, if he could only find it.

  The front and back doors were both securely locked, and all the windows were tightly closed. He could not get in. He did not know what he expected to find, just something to trigger his mind in a new direction. He went into the shed where he had found the kindling wood on Sunday. There was the pile of papers and magazines, stacked on a shelf. He could use his torch freely in here without fear of being seen, and he took them down, careful not to disturb the dust and bird droppings from the top copy of The Times. It was, he saw, three years old. He lifted it carefully off. Below were copies of Punch, The Illustrated London News, and then, wrapped between two venerable copies of the Sunday Times, he found a photograph album. It was old and spotted with damp; some of the photographs were yellow and some had stuck together. It seemed to consist wholly of groups of schoolgirls. He wrapped it up again, separated it from its pile, and then replaced the other papers where he had found them.

  II

  ‘If I were a policeman, it would be so easy to find out all the things I want to know,’ said Patrick.

  It was the following afternoon, and he was back with Jane. Andrew had gone out to tea with a small boy who lived nearby.

  ‘Won’t your pal at Scotland Yard do it for you? He has before, I seem to remember.’

  ‘We haven’t got a body this time. We had then.’

  ‘I thought you just had a missing person the last time you started rooting around. You didn’t wait for the body to turn up.’

  ‘No one’s missing now.’

  ‘No. And no one’s acting suspiciously. One dog has died in mysterious circumstances, that�
�s all. What do you want to find out?’

  ‘What sort of people they all are. How much money they have, what they want from life – all that.’

  ‘Who specially?’

  ‘Oh, the Bruces. And Ellen, I suppose.’ He looked bleak. ‘And everyone else in the village. I went back there last night.’

  ‘Whatever for?’ Jane stared.

  ‘I don’t know. Some odd compulsion. I’m still worried about my old ladies.’

  ‘What happened last night, then?’

  ‘Absolutely nothing, except that I found this.’ He prodded his newspaper parcel. ‘It’s an album of Slade House photographs. It was in the shed at Mulberry Cottage buried under some old newspapers and magazines. It’s pretty ancient. Is there the slightest chance that you’d recognise anyone? I’ve looked through them myself but they’re meaningless to me.’

  He wanted to wipe out all possibility of Ellen being involved in any scheme to harm Carol Bruce. She could not be a party to any such act, and if David were in any way wanting to threaten his wife, the sooner he was exposed and Ellen disillusioned the better.

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ said Jane. ‘You’d recognise Valerie, wouldn’t you? But people change so. I hope I’ve improved since then.’

  ‘Valerie didn’t go there. She was educated abroad somewhere,’ Patrick said. ‘It’s rather grubby,’ he warned, handing her the album.

  ‘Hm. Sniffs a bit, doesn’t it? Why on earth was it in the shed?’

  ‘I can’t imagine. Perhaps it got thrown out by mistake.’

  ‘Maybe Valerie put it out there meaning to give it to the dustmen. She must have done a lot of sorting after Amelia died.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s got around to much of it yet. I expect she had to wait for valuers and things, for probate, and apart from the books I doubt if anything else has been done. Miss Amelia must have been a pretty orderly sort of person, I shouldn’t think she left a muddle.’

  Jane turned the first page. Some schoolgirls in gym-slips looked at her with plain round faces. ‘They all look alike,’ she said. ‘Plaits prevail, don’t they? Funny how fashions come back and we’re longhaired again now.’ She scrutinised the faded prints. ‘So you want to know about the Bruces, do you? You think friend David married Carol for her lolly and that’s why he won’t leave her and run off with your Ellen.’

  ‘She’s not my Ellen. But why doesn’t he? And why move to the very village where Ellen has connections?’

  ‘Try to stay objective, ducky,’ Jane advised. ‘He may not have been entangled with Ellen when he bought the house – it doesn’t take long to start an affair, after all.’

  ‘Or else it may have been sheer brazen nerve,’ said Patrick. ‘Installing himself on her doorstep.’

  ‘But he must have begun to negotiate for the house before Amelia died. These things take ages.’

  ‘Exactly. And Ellen used to stay with Amelia sometimes. She said the old girl was trying to educate her.’

  ‘The old girl would have had something to say if Ellen was carrying on with David in the boskage,’ Jane remarked. ‘Look, here’s Miss Amelia and Miss Forrest.’

  Sure enough, there was Miss Amelia, upright and with dark hair; and beside her stood Miss Forrest looking quite plump. Five other women were with them.

  ‘That’s surely Miss Chesterfield,’ said Jane. ‘Golly, doesn’t she look young! We thought her antique. Sofa, we called her, poor thing.’

  ‘Who was she?’

  Jane pointed out a smiling young woman wearing a blouse and pleated skirt.

  ‘She taught history. She can only have been a girl when this was taken. Look at her smooth cheeks.’

  Miss Chesterfield did look very young, Patrick agreed.

  ‘Where is she now?’ he asked.

  ‘Goodness, I don’t know – yes, I do remember what happened to her,’ Jane said. ‘She married a parson and went out to some place in Africa. There was a whip-round for her among her former pupils and I coughed up because she taught me a lot and but for her efforts I wouldn’t have scraped into our great university.’

  ‘Is she still out there?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Probably. People get the call and stay in those places for ever, don’t they? Or get killed by rebels.’

  ‘Which bit of Africa? Any idea?’

  ‘None,’ said Jane tranquilly. ‘But I expect the Slade House secretary will have a note of her address.’

  ‘Will you get it, Jane? Do it tomorrow. Make some excuse. Miss Chesterfield-that-was might be in England now,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a feeling we may need someone who knows about Slade House in Amelia’s days.’

  ‘Well, most of the old brigade of the staff will be dead, I should think,’ Jane said. ‘But probably old Chesterfield’s minding lots of little sofas somewhere. I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Do you crack ghastly jokes like that to Michael?’ Patrick asked her.

  ‘Sometimes. He thinks I’m very amusing,’ Jane said.

  ‘I suppose he’s got to humour you, in your condition,’ said Patrick, but he was grinning, which was something, Jane thought, having striven to make him smile. ‘Thanks. Your Mrs. Sofa would be able to put names to most of the people in this book, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘I’m sure she would. But I don’t see how that will help.’

  ‘Suppose someone in the village had been to Slade House—’ he paused. ‘Miss Amelia would have known them.’

  ‘Patrick, are you thinking that there’s someone who’s photograph may be in this album, who blotted her Slade House copybook so that Miss Amelia chucked the whole thing out – maybe meaning to go through it later but instead left it in the shed?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ he said. ‘But I don’t know where that gets us.’

  ‘One thing’s certain,’ Jane said, turning another page. ‘Oh?’

  ‘These are the bright girls. They’re the Sixth Form or the scholarship set – look, some of them are labelled like that. It should help to put names to them. Amelia wouldn’t have bothered with the dunderheads. I should think this one, for instance, is the head girl of the day; look at how she’s sitting, all busty and proud.’

  ‘There’d be records at the school of who was in what form and when?’

  ‘Bound to be. Surely all schools must keep files like that? But I can’t go as far as that for you, Patrick. I’ll ask for Chesterfield’s address, that’s fair enough. The rest will have to wait. If you stumble on anything concrete the police will be able to check.’

  ‘If no one else falls down stairs first,’ said Patrick.

  ‘I can’t see why you’re so obsessed with this idea,’ said Jane. ‘Your steely heart has got itself affected at long last, and it’s gone to your brain. You’re demented, my poor brother.’

  ‘I hope that’s all it is,’ Patrick said heavily. ‘Jane, there’s one other thing you can do for me. You’re quite fit now, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, fine. Just bone idle.’

  ‘Are you fit enough to come with me to Meldsmead, have a noggin at the pub, and if necessary do a fake faint outside the vicarage or some other house?’

  ‘So that we can lawfully get in? Only one house?’

  ‘Well, one to start with.’

  ‘The things I do for you,’ she sighed. ‘Why?’

  ‘I want you to meet some of the natives. There’ll be a few in the pub. We’ll play it by ear from there.’

  ‘Will I meet the fair Ellen?’

  ‘That’s not in my plan,’ said Patrick. ‘Oh. Pity. Your female intuition might stumble on something. I’ve met several husbands but not their wives – something rum may be going on that I haven’t thought of.’

  ‘Someone other than Ellen fancying David Bruce and putting yew berries in Carol’s tea, you mean,’ Jane said.

  ‘I deplore your phraseology, but that’s the general idea,’ he said. Mrs. Merry had, on her own admission, made tea for Carol, but that was after she was sick. There may have been other ministering angels
at work earlier. ‘I rather favour the idea that Abbot’s Lodge could have been used as rendezvous for something or other,’ Patrick went on.

  ‘My suggestion.’ Jane preened herself.

  ‘But what? Lovers’ meetings? Very uncomfortable in an empty house.’

  ‘You could take a li-lo along, I suppose,’ Jane said. ‘But wouldn’t it be risky, right under the nose of the other spouse?’

  ‘It’s so isolated, and so handy. Ideal for brief meetings,’ Patrick said.

  ‘But mightn’t it have been used by a different set of people than those you’ve met? The young people – ordinary village people?’

  ‘Easily. And I don’t see how we’d find that out. But if someone’s trying to scare Carol off, it should be possible to find out who it is.’

  ‘Only by watching the place night and day,’ said Jane.

  ‘Even that’s not impossible to manage,’ Patrick said.

  ‘It’s like a sort of voodoo thing, isn’t it? You’ll be finding a wax image of the wretched Carol speared through the middle next,’ said Jane. ‘I feel very sorry for that girl. Her husband’s having an affair with Ellen, and spooks are getting at her almost daily. Do you like her?’ She shot the question at him.

  ‘I don’t really know,’ he said slowly. ‘I’ve only met her once, and to be quite honest, I was taking more notice of Ellen. She seemed very thrilled with the house – full of plans for improving it. A very efficient woman – strong personality.’

  ‘Attractive?’

  ‘Not my type,’ he said promptly. ‘But I should think so, yes. Well turned out.’

  ‘You didn’t see her the day the dog died?’

  ‘No. She drove back after I’d left.’

  ‘She’s lucky to have one of those Lancias. They cost a bomb,’ said Jane. ‘Where had she been that day?’

  ‘Chatting someone up or photographing them for a piece she was writing, I believe,’ said Patrick.

  ‘Must be keen, working on a Sunday.’

  ‘Maybe it was someone not available in the week.’

  ‘Maybe it was a dishy man. If David’s playing around, why shouldn’t she?’