Murder Most Welcome

by Slade, Nicola

  What? Beef? That great bull of a man, eating beef? With Lily, piggy little Lily, eating pork, too – are they all cannibals? Charlotte shook her head slightly. I must remain calm and sensible, she warned herself. I cannot indulge in hysterics. Her thoughts returned to Henry Heavitree. Why had he collapsed with that seizure? Agnes had said that her uncle looked strange as he came downstairs after looking in on Frampton; had he done more than look? But was it, after all, so strange? A man in his sixties, heavily built and given to gratifying his every whim with regard to food and wine, not to mention his less genteel pursuits – might not a shock bring on just such an apoplectic turn? And what more shocking than to find oneself murdering one’s own nephew?

  Charlotte came back to her surroundings to hear the butler announce, in sepulchral tones, that the curate was at the door.

  ‘Oh, oh, Percy!’

  ‘That’s enough, Agnes.’ Barnard hushed her and waved her back into her seat. ‘Ask Mr Benson to join us, Hoxton, and bring some more coffee.’

  Percy Benson scuttled in to the room, halted at the sight of Agnes and blushed crimson, then looked at the other women and shifted his feet nervously.

  ‘Ah, Benson.’ Barnard took pity on him and gestured to the chair that the butler was pulling out. ‘Join us for breakfast, won’t you? My mother is, of course, laid down upon her bed but the rest of the ladies felt strong enough to come downstairs, though they will not, of course, be going outside until after the funeral – which, by the way, we must discuss later this morning. Dr Perry has already called, so there is no great rush for your services, I’m afraid, except in a pastoral role.’

  Charlotte had been present at that early morning consultation after Barnard had roused the butler to send for their medical man.

  ‘What can I say?’ Dr Perry straightened up and gazed at them, his bushy eyebrows meeting in a frown above his long nose. ‘A trifle surprising, but as I said, we know very little about these eastern fevers. It has to be said that it is a blessing in disguise, but you need not fear; I shall not mention that outside this room!’

  No, Dr Perry was clearly under no illusion about Frampton. And what a fortunate circumstance, reflected Charlotte, that the butler had seen, with his own eyes, the doctpr’s carriage the previous evening. Dr Parry’s unexpectedly early return from Portsmouth had certainly made everything much easier for the family. He had gone with Barnard to break the news to the one person in the world who would sincerely mourn the dead man and Charlotte, hovering in the background, had been relieved to see her mother-in-law soundly dosed with a sedative once the first outpouring of grief was on the wane.

  Now Percy Benson sat beside the woman he loved, at the table of the man who had despised him, and ate his way steadily through a plate of thick ham, marbled with white fat, raising his eyes now and then in mute adoration as he gazed at Agnes.

  Barnard set down his knife and fork and caught Charlotte’s eye, then he nodded to the curate.

  ‘You’ll excuse me, Benson. Agnes will take you up to my brother’s room when you are ready. Gran, Lily, you should rest; yesterday was difficult for you both and the next few days will be very full. Charlotte, may I have a word?’

  Outside the door he looked at her in entreaty.

  ‘We’ve quite forgotten Lancelot Dawkins,’ he said and when she exclaimed in agreement he added, ‘I think I may forget myself if I have to see him. Do you think…?’

  ‘Heavens, I’d forgotten him too. Of course.’ She smiled faintly. ‘You’re quite right, a brawl would be most unseemly. I’ll arrange for Hoxton to send him packing but it will give me great pleasure to announce the fact myself.’

  And ask him a few pointed questions, she resolved. Dawkins! Barnard had spoken nothing less than the truth – they had all forgotten him. She considered Frampton’s young travelling companion in the light of her secret knowledge. Left alone and unregarded in isolation in the attic, might not Dawkins have tiptoed down the stairs and smothered Frampton? The man who had presumably paid his passage home and who gave every appearance of doting upon him? No, it did not make sense. Dawkins was the only person Charlotte could think of who did not benefit by Frampton’s death – apart, of course, from his grieving mother.

  She marched into the spartan attic room and flung open the low window, taking a tray of breakfast from the footman who had accompanied her, and setting it on a table. ‘Mr Dawkins, do forgive me, but I have to tell you some sad news. Awake? Good. As I said, there has been a sad occurrence. You will be sorry to hear that Frampton succumbed to the fever during the night.’

  She watched the young man’s face keenly, searching for signs of sorrow. There were none. Shock, panic and a sudden calculation all flitted across his dark, young face, but not a single sign of regret at the death of one who had loved him.

  ‘Dr Perry believes that you have escaped the worst of the disease,’ she reassured him briskly. ‘Now, Hoxton is arranging for you to be taken to the station, so pack up your belongings as soon as you are up. Here is your breakfast.’ She indicated the tray. ‘Mr Richmond, Mr Barnard Richmond, that is, has authorized me to tell you that he will pay your wages for the next two months, but that you must not apply to him for a reference.’

  He sat up in bed and glared at her, disappointment written clear upon his face.

  ‘I told Frampton you were no lady,’ he said pettishly. ‘Look at you, standing there bold as brass in a gentleman’s bedroom. Have you no shame?’

  ‘Take your breakfast,’ she said kindly. ‘Don’t let it get cold. No, of course I have no shame, but then, neither are you a gentleman. Let us not mince words, I shall be heartily glad to see you go and so will everyone in this house, but there are one or two questions I believe you can answer for me.’

  ‘Why should I?’ He sounded more than ever like a sulky boy rather than the smooth creature in attendance on the late master of the house.

  ‘Why should you not? All I want to know is where Frampton got the money to pay for his journey home. And what, if anything, you know about the circumstances of his escape from the ambush that killed his men.’

  He gave her a disdainful stare and took another mouthful. After a moment or two, during which she could see that he was weighing up the advantages and disadvantages of co-operating with her, he made up his mind.

  ‘He never told me anything about the ambush,’ he told her with a sniff. ‘I kept asking, because I thought it must have been exciting, but it made him start to rage at me, so I stopped. When I met up with him he had been hanging around the port for an age, I gathered, in disguise. I think he was waiting for somebody, but in the end he gave up, took me into his employ and we started for England.’

  A spiteful smirk flashed across his saturnine features and Charlotte felt her hand itch to slap him.

  ‘Who was it?’ she asked. ‘That he waited for? Did he ever tell you?’

  ‘No, but he wept every night on the voyage home,’ the young man said with a shrug.

  ‘What about the money?’

  ‘He never told me that either, but he used to disappear now and then, and come back with cash. I think he had some jewels that he was selling, but he was very secretive. I was never allowed to see them.’

  Charlotte scrutinized his face again. As far as she could make out, he was speaking the truth. Indeed, why should he lie? For a moment she toyed with the notion that the boy might have taken some of Frampton’s supposed jewels for himself, but she discarded it. If you had found Frampton’s hoard, she addressed him inwardly, I think you would have taken the whole, and would not be here now, for me to dismiss.

  Not unkindly she bade him hurry up with his breakfast and be ready to leave, then she slipped downstairs to have a word with the butler, whom she discovered giving orders to a skinny lad who looked familiar.

  ‘Mr Dawkins is almost ready to leave, Hoxton,’ she announced. ‘Did Mr Richmond give you the packet with his wages? Good. Make sure that he is seen on to the train and that it departs with him
aboard.’ She hesitated. ‘That boy just now, wasn’t that the boot-boy, Tom? Your grandson? I hope this means his mother is well?’

  ‘Er, yes, ma’am, thank you, that she is.’

  Hoxton gave her one of his stately bows and went upon his dignified way. Charlotte looked in at the breakfast parlour where Agnes was languishing around the curate, who had moved on from the ham to the beef.

  ‘Agnes, Mr Benson.’ She nodded and paused on the threshold. ‘What did the bishop say, Mr Benson, when you saw him?’

  The curate choked as a crumb of beef went down the wrong way and Charlotte waited patiently while Agnes applied various remedies, such as banging him forcefully on the back, slopping a glass of water at his face and finally indulging herself in a small fit of the vapours. However interesting this performance promised to be, Charlotte reflected that she herself had little time to spare and that Percy was turning blue so she entered the room with a resigned air, took the unfortunate young man in a firm grasp from behind and dealt him a vigorous blow in the chest. With a wheezing whoop the offending morsel shot across the snowy expanse of the breakfast table.

  Charlotte waited for the vapours to cease and when Percy, too, had gathered his wits about him, she returned to her interrogation.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Percy did not feel he could interrupt His Lordship.’ Agnes rushed in on the defensive. ‘His Lordship was extremely occupied.’

  Charlotte sighed and bit her tongue. It was nothing more than she had expected.

  ‘Oh well.’ She shrugged as she left the room. ‘I don’t suppose it matters any more.’

  Exasperated by the spineless behaviour exhibited by Agnes’s suitor and frustrated by the knowledge that the sight of a distraught young widow enjoying a good, healthy tramp across the hills would scandalize the neighbourhood, she climbed the stairs with a determined step that came perilously near a stamp.

  In her room she pulled herself together. How quickly I have become accustomed, she thought ruefully. Yesterday I faced the prospect of Frampton’s blackmailing scheme and gave serious thought to committing murder, while today I am irritated by Percy Benson’s inadequacies. What a change to my priorities.

  She stood at her window for a few minutes and watched the groom bring the pony and trap round from the stables. That must be for young Dawkins, she thought. Hoxton clearly didn’t consider him worthy of the carriage. She was shaken by a sudden, unexpected fellow feeling for Lancelot Dawkins. If Hoxton knew anything about me, she grimaced, I wouldn’t even merit the pony trap, I’d be out on my ear before I knew it. The impulse stayed with her and she ran across the room and thrust her hand into the secret compartment at the bottom of her stepfather’s old valise, then she hastened downstairs and flung open the front door.

  ‘Just a moment, Mr Dawkins,’ she called out, breathlessly. ‘May I have a word with you?’

  He swung himself down from the trap and she nodded to the groom to wait, then indicated to Dawkins to walk a little way with her.

  ‘I just thought …’ She was finding it difficult to understand that moment of sympathy and she stumbled over the words. ‘I – Frampton was so fond of you and whatever else, I felt he would have wanted to … Here …’

  She thrust some banknotes and some gold into his hand.

  ‘There’s fifty pounds there,’ she told him abruptly and watched as he slowly realized what she had done. For a moment he stared at the money in his hand then he raised his dark eyes to her in genuine astonishment.

  ‘Blimey!’ he said, all pretensions to gentility stripped from him by surprise. ‘What’s this for?’

  ‘I told you.’ She fidgeted uncomfortably. ‘Frampton was … well, I expect you know that I can’t be sad that he has died, but you’re young, you can make a new start.’ She looked at him curiously. ‘Did you know what he planned, for me?’

  The dark eyes lit up with a sardonic gleam and one shoulder lifted in a jaunty shrug, a street arab from head to toe, the foppish young gentleman quite vanished.

  ‘Of course I did,’ he grinned. ‘That’s all he kept on about, how his mother would go on at him about having an heir. I waited till I saw what you looked like and I suggested a way out of his troubles.’

  ‘And Agnes?’ Charlotte was too intrigued to be angry at this impertinence. ‘Surely you wouldn’t have married poor Agnes?’

  ‘Ah well, we’ll never know now, will we?’ He nodded coolly and turned back towards the waiting pony trap. ‘I’ll tell you one thing’ – there was an imp of mischief in his eyes – ‘I’ll be glad to stop being Lancelot Dawkins. He was a clerk I came across at Bombay: he’d just died, poor bugger, so I didn’t think he’d mind me pinching his papers, or his baggage, or his name.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, come on.’ He moved closer so that the groom could not overhear them. ‘You’re a chancer, same as me, I knew that soon as I saw you. I was in the army, just arrived in India, but when the bloodshed started I made myself scarce. It was a stroke of luck bumping into Frampton like I did.’

  Charlotte found herself quite unable to be shocked and at once understood her curious feeling of sympathy. He was a liar, a cheat, he was devious and manipulative; they were, as he had said, two of a kind, though she had, she hoped, changed her ways. Impelled by a sudden curiosity she asked: ‘What’s your real name, then? I won’t tell.’

  ‘Don’t care if you do,’ he said as he stepped lightly up into the trap. ‘Jem Barlow, at your service,’ he said with a mocking flourish.

  ‘Make good use of the money, Jem Barlow,’ she told him as the groom clucked to his horses. ‘Maybe you should go on the stage. You fooled us all. Perhaps you were born to act.’

  It seemed tactless, to say the least, to return through the front door with a broad smile on her face so she walked round to the rear of the house where she encountered the boot-boy, Tom.

  ‘Good morning, Tom,’ she said kindly. ‘I’m glad to hear your mother is feeling better now. I hope she can manage without you?’

  ‘Oh yes, miss – ma’am,’ he mumbled shyly. ‘My brother will come back home now and Grandfer, that’s Mr Hoxton, miss, he says he reckons Mr Barnard’ll give him his old job back.’

  ‘Your brother? When did he leave Finchbourne? And why?’

  ‘Oh, miss.’ The boy turned scarlet and hopped from foot to foot. ‘It was when Mr Frampton was home last time, miss. I dunno why, miss.’

  She sent him on his way and returned to the morning-room to find Barnard and Lily making a list of people who must, on no account, be omitted from the mourners invited to the funeral which, she learned, was to be held the day after next.

  ‘Yes, I watched him leave,’ she replied when Barnard asked about Dawkins, then she frowned. ‘Barnard? Do you know anything about Hoxton’s grandson? The elder brother of Tom the boot-boy?’

  Barnard frowned in turn. ‘As I recall, Frampton told me he had been sullen and disobedient. Why?’

  ‘Just that Tom tells me his brother is hoping to return to Finchbourne after two years’ absence, to his old job.’

  He raised his head at that and their eyes met, then he sighed and his shoulders slumped. ‘I I see. Very well, I’ll speak to Hoxton.’

  At that moment the butler announced Kit Knightley, who edged past him with a nod of thanks.

  ‘Barnard, old fellow,’ he greeted his friend. ‘And Charlotte.’ He turned his head to where Lily was now hastily arranging herself in a languid pose upon the chaise longue in the bay window. ‘Mrs Barnard, I beg your pardon. I have just been informed of the news. I can scarcely believe it.’

  As Barnard began to explain the circumstances of his brother’s death, Charlotte retired discreetly and went to sit beside Lily, who was gleefully explaining how she would redecorate the room if only her mother-in-law would permit. Charlotte listened with half an ear, throwing in a word of restraint now and then as Lily enthused over a scheme of gothic furniture and gilded trimmings or a Pre-Raphaelite drapery; all the
while she watched Kit Knightley under her eyelashes. It seemed to her that he looked like a man who had been released from a strain and she wondered anxiously about Elaine. That she had felt again the same surge of relief and happiness on his arrival was something to be repressed, now and for ever. He is Elaine’s husband, she reminded herself, and Elaine is my friend – my friend.

  His visit was a brief one and she walked to the front door with him, her unruly emotions now firmly under control.

  ‘I met Dr Perry in the village,’ he told her. ‘He sees the hand of Providence in this and so, I must admit, do I.’

  ‘Ye-es.’ She bit her lip but said no more and he looked down at her in inquiry.

  ‘I understand that Colonel Fitzgibbon called at Finchbourne yesterday?’ he said suggestively.

  ‘I believe so,’ she answered briefly. ‘I did not, myself, see him, but Agnes has told me of his visit.’

  ‘Did he see Richmond? Frampton Richmond, I mean?’

  ‘Apparently not.’ She felt a curious reluctance to discuss Frampton with Kit Knightley. Frampton was gone, this time for good. Let him lie, she thought, there is no use in poking and prying. Let him lie.

  It was obvious that Kit was a little hurt by her reticence, as he bowed gravely over her hand in farewell. She felt a pang, but there was no time for regret or reflection as she was once again summoned by Agnes to Henry Heavitree’s bedside.

  ‘What is it this time?’ she panted as she hastened up the shallow oak treads of the main stair. ‘Is he worse?’

  ‘I can’t tell.’ Agnes huffed and puffed alongside long-legged, rangy Charlotte. ‘I found him on the floor, though how he managed to get out of bed, I can’t imagine.’

  It took the combined efforts of Charlotte, Agnes, Old Nurse and the footman to manoeuvre Henry’s vast bulk back into his bed.

  ‘There’s always a silver lining, my dearie.’ Nurse patted the invalid on the arm. ‘Look there, my dear, if he hasn’t got back some of his strength.’ She spoke loudly over the incomprehensible groaning and flying spittle, then when Henry let out an even louder roar as they hoisted him up against his pillows, she took a closer look. ‘Oh dear, I spoke too soon, poor lamb. He’s gone and broke his leg, poor dear, and the good one at that, the left one, not the poor twisted one at all.’