Beatrice

by King, Rebecca

  Ben sighed. “Do you think that Archie was lying because he was involved in the plant in some way, only doesn’t want us to know about it?”

  Beatrice hated to think that someone as nice and affable as the elderly scholar could be an outright liar, but she had to be honest. “I have to consider the facts, Ben. It galls me to think that I was drawn in by the man’s niceness yesterday. However, I cannot help but feel that there was something wrong with the entire visit.”

  “I know,” Ben sighed with relief. “I completely agree.”

  “What about that man in the entrance hall?” She asked with a frown.

  Ben turned to look at her. “What do you mean?” He felt tension creep over him as he thought about the strange vanishing act the man in the entrance hall had done. “Do you think that he deliberately sent us to Archibald Harrington?”

  “It all sounds too wild to be true, but I cannot help but wonder why he would suddenly vanish from his duties. If he was supposed to be on the desk to help people, why had he not returned to the desk by the time we came back down the stairs nearly an hour later?”

  “Do you think the two men were linked in some way?”

  “Oh, I know it sounds too far-fetched to be true. To be honest with you, I am not sure if I believe it myself, but I have to tell you that I would feel a lot easier about yesterday’s visit to the university, and Archibald Harrington, if I knew what the men on that list look like.” She turned to him. “We know what Brian Mottram and Jules Sanders look like. How do we know that we didn’t meet the two surviving men on that list at the university yesterday?”

  Ben puffed out his cheeks on a sigh and shook his head. He had to agree with her. It galled him to think that they had been duped so easily, but they had very little in the way of actual facts to go on. She was right, they at least needed to know what the men looked like.

  He sensed that there was something else she was not telling him, and gave her a gentle nudge. “You can confide in me you know, Beatrice.”

  “I don’t know if it is just me being silly,” she confessed. “There is something about the creation of that list that bothers me. Why did uncle write it? If the four people knew my uncle, and were friends, Matthew would not need to write their addresses down. He put that list of names and addresses in a book, where it may never be found. Why? If it held any importance, surely he would have spoken to me about it, or at least put it somewhere where it would be found?” Frustration rang clearly in her voice.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” he conceded.

  Ben scowled off into the distance while he thought over their meeting with Archie. Had the scholar lied about his association to Matthew? If so, why? Was he just trying to gain an invitation to Brantley Manor so that he could get his hands on that plant? The thought gave Ben the chills and turned his attention back to Beatrice.

  “Did your uncle seem worried about anything at all in the last months before his death?”

  Beatrice shook her head. “No. Right up until the day of his death, he seemed fine. He spent most of the last few days of his life buried in his study, but that was nothing unusual.” Ben reached out and held her hand in silent support. She smiled at him. “I am sorry. I just find this entire situation so confusing that I could rip my own hair out with the sheer frustration of having so many questions, and no answers. I just wish he was here so I could ask him. Why did he keep so many secrets from me? I mean, if he had just included me in his life a bit more, maybe we could have operated as a family. Even a small, slightly eccentric family would have been better than the cool, almost aloof duo we made.”

  “He was a bachelor, Beatrice. He didn’t expect a beautiful young lady to turn up on his doorstep and probably had no idea what to do with you,” Ben reasoned. He could only sympathise with the man’s predicament because if he was faced with the same situation, he had no idea how he would handle it.

  “Maud did take over as parent, nurse-maid, and surrogate mother,” Beatrice acceded. “If it wasn’t for her, I don’t know what would have happened to me.”

  He couldn’t help it; he drew her closer until she was sitting right beside him; then slid an arm around her waist.

  “Look, let’s go and visit both men on that list so we know what they look like. We will then know if they had anything to do with yesterday’s visit to the university. We need to see if we can at least get one of them to tell us about that plant. If their story is different to Archie’s, then we can make a decision about whether it is worth mentioning this to a solicitor, or Mark.”

  Ben sighed and took a moment to turn the carriage into another lane that took them directly to Marchwell Bishop. The village came into sight in the valley below them, and looked so blissfully tranquil that he couldn’t believe for one second that anyone with any nefarious purposes could live in such a place. Southside in Great Tipton – yes; a sleepy little village like Marchwell Bishop – definitely not.

  He was suddenly very glad that he had decided to surprise Beatrice, and couldn’t wait to get the visit to Browning out of the way so that they could get on with enjoying the rest of the day.

  “How delightful,” Beatrice whispered moments later as they made their way down the main street.

  The sleepy village was as beautiful as she had first thought it would be. The street was lined with an assortment of quaint little cottages of various indeterminate ages, complete with little window boxes beneath the windows and brightly painted front doors.

  Unfortunately, given that he was unfamiliar with Marchwell Bishop, Ben was forced to stop and ask for directions from a man who was walking along the path. When he asked where to find Browning’s house, the man stared at them for several moments as though they were completely mad. They looked at each other in concern when he seemed to give himself a visible shake before he pointed down the road behind them.

  “Turn around. Go back up there. At the end of the road go right and follow the road. The house is down the narrow lane at the end of that, but is barely visible from the road.” His voice had trailed off and he had stared hard at Ben for a moment before his gaze wandered to Beatrice. His mouth opened as though he wanted to say something else but, at the last moment, he closed it again with a snap and hurried off.

  “Thank you,” Ben called and studied the hurried stride of the man who seemed to be eager to get away from them. He turned to Beatrice and lifted his brows. “Was it something I said?”

  She shook her head and began to feel more than a little doubtful that they were doing the right thing. While Ben turned the carriage around, she studied the houses a little closer, but couldn’t detect anything amiss. Children played in some of the front gardens, and out in the street. Lines of washing were strung between the houses. People hurried this way and that as they went about their daily business. Everything appeared perfectly normal.

  “Why did he stare at us like that?” Beatrice glanced at the road behind them, but there was no sign of the man, who had vanished completely. She turned to face forward with a frown and was suddenly very glad that Ben was right beside her.

  “There is nothing as strange as folk,” Ben sighed and took the turn to the right as instructed.

  The directions took them onto a cart track that was barely visible through the grass. If it wasn’t for the stone walls that ran along either side of them, Ben would have thought they had been given wrong directions on purpose. They came to the end of the track several minutes later and, sure enough, to the right lay a narrow lane which disappeared into a small copse of trees. Beatrice shivered and drew her shawl higher on her shoulders.

  “I don’t like this, Ben,” she whispered.

  “Me either, but I can’t turn the carriage around,” Ben sighed worriedly as he studied the narrow lane. He had no choice but to keep the carriage going, right into the thick copse of trees. The temperature suddenly dipped, and the air around them grew still and quiet. The silence that greeted them was so unnatural that even Ben started to wonder if they were doing
the right thing.

  “Good Lord,” Beatrice whispered when they suddenly emerged from beneath the canopy of trees, and discovered a house that seemed to be the reason for the creepy atmosphere. “I thought Richard Browning was supposed to be wealthy?”

  The huge Edwardian mansion would have been beautiful – when it was built. Unfortunately, it was now old, decrepit, and dark. Moss covered every inch of the stonework, and was only broken by the dark voids of empty windows. It was evident that nobody had maintained the property for a very long time; if ever and could, quite conceivably, be uninhabited.

  While the carriage was still in motion, Ben took the opportunity to swing it around in a wide circle until it faced away from the house. Although he would never say so to Beatrice, if they needed to make a swift exit, he didn’t want anything to hinder their escape.

  Minutes later, he tugged on the bell pull which was nestled in some ivy beside the door, and stood back to wait. Tension hovered over them as they studied the peeling paint on the door.

  When nobody answered his summons, Ben knocked loudly.

  “Shall we go?” Beatrice asked softly after several moments of silence.

  Ben nodded and took her elbow, only for the sound of the bolt being slid back inside to suddenly shatter the silence.

  Beatrice immediately sidled closer to Ben, who gave her a gentle smile of reassurance. He tipped his head to see though the narrow, six inch gap that suddenly appeared between the door and the frame but at first, to his consternation, couldn’t see anybody inside.

  “What?”

  His looked down at the small, bird-like woman who was glaring out at them with black, beady eyes full of suspicion.

  “We are here to see Mr Browning. Richard Browning.”

  “Ain’t ‘ere. Go away.”

  When the woman went to slam the door, Ben wedged his foot in the narrow gap and put his hand on the door. He knew that if he gave it one firm push he could get in, but didn’t want to force his way into the house unless he absolutely had to. Rather than argue with the woman, who he assumed was the housekeeper, he scowled darkly in warning.

  “Do you intend to tell him that someone called for him?” Ben growled. “If so, what name do you intend to give him?”

  “He ain’t ‘ere,” the woman repeated.

  “Are you deaf?” Ben snapped. “Where are your manners, woman? I shall have a word with Browning myself about your incompetence. I will leave him my card so he is aware that I have called, and shall wait for him to contact me.”

  He could understand why Browning didn’t have that many friends with this old harridan protecting the battlements. A small part of him wondered if the man was cowering behind a desk somewhere in fear of her.

  “What’cha want?” The woman demanded as she glared down at Ben’s foot.

  “I want you to tell him that Mr Benedict Addison called. I spoke to Mr Archibald Harrington at the university. He told me to speak to Mr Browning about a rare orchid. Tell him I called.” Ben shifted his weight to remove a card from his pocket and quickly handed it to the woman through the narrow gap.

  Unsurprisingly, she didn’t even look at it before she slammed the door in his face.

  With a sigh, he turned around, shared a look with Beatrice, and led her back to the carriage.

  She had never been left speechless by anything in her life before, but this was one of those rare occasions when words just failed her. Ben appeared to feel the same because silence settled over them as he nudged the horse into a walk.

  Before the house disappeared from view, she turned around to take one last look at the unwelcoming monstrosity.

  “Look,” she whispered, and gave him a rough nudge.

  Ben turned around in time to watch one of the lace curtains in an upstairs room lower slowly back into place.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “What do you think he is hiding?” Beatrice whispered as they disappeared into the canopy of the trees again. “God, I hate this,” she added with a shiver as she studied the thick branches of the trees that seemed to loom menacingly over the driveway.

  “Either he does not wish to be seen – identified - or that wasn’t Richard Browning upstairs.”

  “It’s Browning’s house,” she argued.

  “Yes, but we don’t know who lives there, do we?” Ben argued. “I mean, how do we know that was not Sigmund Hargraves looking out of the window?”

  “Whoever it is in there, if they want the plant, why didn’t they just talk to us? They could have taken the opportunity to argue that the plant is theirs,” Beatrice muttered thoughtfully and shook her head. “I don’t believe it was Hargraves.”

  Ben sighed and struggled to withhold the curse of frustration that hovered on his lips. “I know. I think it was Browning too. We just don’t know for definite.”

  “If it was Browning, why wouldn’t he speak to us? He didn’t even know who we are.”

  “Oh, I think he knew alright. It may be that he has no interest in the plant, and just wants to be left alone.” He didn’t believe it for one second, but they couldn’t start to see shadows where there were none; no matter how haunting Browning’s house was in broad daylight.

  “We don’t know that Browning was involved in the cultivation for definite. We only have Archie’s word, and cannot really be completely confident about that.” He sighed and looked across at her. “Browning may be afraid, darling. After all, two men on that list are dead. He may be reluctant to meet with anyone while danger lurks.”

  Beatrice sighed and conceded that he had a point. As they left the house behind, she felt herself slowly begin to relax. “If I was on a list like that, I think I would be scared too,” she admitted carefully.

  “All we can do is wait and see if he gets in contact,” Ben added and nudged the horse into a trot. Although it made their journey bumpier, nothing mattered more than getting Beatrice away from that house. He wished now that they hadn’t decided to drop by, and was relieved to be able to put the entire episode, and the house, behind them.

  “I can only hope that the man isn’t like that house, or you can expect the grim reaper to turn up,” Beatrice retorted in disgust. She threw him an apologetic glance when she realised what she had said. “Sorry.”

  “It’s alright. To be honest with you darling, I have to raise serious doubts about the reputation this man has of being wealthy. Nobody with money in their bank leaves their house to fall into such disrepair.”

  “It should have been knocked down years ago,” Beatrice muttered. “Whatever he spends his money on, it certainly isn’t his home.”

  Silence settled over them while Ben navigated the narrow lane, and they both sighed with relief when they turned out into the main street without incident.

  “Are you ready for your surprise now?” He grinned openly as her eyes lit with somewhat youthful pleasure.

  “Of course I am. I cannot wait,” Beatrice sighed and drew in a deep breath of crisp, clean air as happiness swept through her. “Lead on,” she ordered enthusiastically.

  Within minutes, Ben pulled the carriage to a stop beside a small river that ran around the outskirts of the village.

  “Come on,” he murmured, and lifted her down. Once her feet touched the floor, he walked to the back of the carriage and removed a wicker picnic basket and blanket before he turned to her with a mischievous smile. “Let’s go and get something to eat,” he suggested softly.

  “This is beautiful, Ben,” she enthused as she studied the trickling water, and the flower laden banks that ran alongside.

  “Take a seat,” Ben said as he waved toward the picnic basket. “My housekeeper suggested this spot when she found out that we were coming here,” Ben replied.

  Now that he came to think about it, his housekeeper had been remarkably helpful. Not only in providing a picnic basket without notice, but in knowing exactly where best to take Beatrice.

  He sat down beside her and opened the basket. Two glasses and a bottle of wine la
y on top of an assortment of fruit, cheese, meats, a pie, and bread. The veritable feast was everything a discerning picnicker could want when trying to impress a lady. He mentally thanked the housekeeper for her unwavering support of his extremely worthwhile cause, and threw Beatrice a rueful smile.

  “It seems that my housekeeper has outdone herself. I hope you are hungry because there is enough food here to feed a small army.” With that, he started to pull the contents out, and handed them, one by one, to Beatrice.

  They sat in companionable silence for a long time while they ate, each lost in their own thoughts.

  “Thank you,” she murmured when Ben topped her wine up. She smiled at him. “Do you know something? I cannot remember a day that I have enjoyed more.”

  Ben looked as relaxed as she felt, and didn’t do anything other than turn his head to look at her.

  “Lie back and look at the clouds with me?” he suggested softly.

  Beatrice smiled and did just that. They spent several minutes discussing various shapes of the clouds before the empty blue sky left them silent. “Thank you for this. It has been wonderful.”

  “We needed to begin courting properly,” he replied simply. He rolled onto his side, and propped his head in his hands while he studied her.

  Her heart flipped at his suggestion that they were now ‘courting’, and this officially counted as their first outing together. She couldn’t think of anything more perfect.

  “Whatever is going on with the plant, we shouldn’t put our lives on hold until we establish who owns it. For both of our sakes, it is important that we start to get our relationship on a firmer footing.” His voice grew quiet and thoughtful as he spoke. “I want you to know, Beatrice, that once the mystery is solved I have absolutely no intention of following the usual courting process.”

  Beatrice froze in the process of taking a sip of wine and stared at him. “Is there such a thing as a normal courting process?” She was only half-joking and, for a moment, wondered if there was something she may have missed.