A Stranger in Honeyfield

by Anna Jacobs

  ‘How do you know the town so well?’

  ‘My army unit was stationed near Swindon for a few weeks.’

  They found a good shoe shop and she bought two pairs. As they were about to leave it, he stopped dead in the doorway and said in a low voice, ‘Get back.’

  She moved quickly away from the door.

  When he saw the assistant look at them strangely, he explained, ‘I saw someone I know. It’s a chap I don’t want to bump into, to be frank. And in any case, I was tempted to buy myself a new pair of shoes. It looks as if fate has sent me back to do so.’

  Isabella waited while he tried on shoes, then he checked the street again and said it was safe to leave the shop. He had intended to take her out for tea, but now hurried her back to the car.

  She let him get her seated then waited for him to start the car, but he got into the driving seat instead and stared down at the steering wheel. ‘It was Spencer Cotterell whom I saw, so don’t be surprised when I take a roundabout route out of town. We don’t want to bump into him.’

  ‘Oh. And did he see you?’

  ‘I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure. I wonder what he was doing in Swindon. You’d not think it the sort of place he’d visit on a Monday morning, would you?’

  She looked at him in dismay. ‘It’s going to make my life very difficult if I can’t even come shopping here without worrying about bumping into the Cotterells or that horrible man who used to be engaged to Philip’s sister.’

  ‘It is a problem, isn’t it? I’ll just start up the car. I’m getting quite good at doing it with my right hand.’

  ‘I could do it for you.’

  ‘No. I’m not that weak now.’

  He got out and cranked the car engine into life, then got back in and drove them out of town, going through the backstreets and then along country lanes to Honeyfield, rather than using the main road.

  They hardly said a word on the way back, both of them lost in thought, wondering what to do to keep her safe and hide the fact that she was expecting a baby.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In Swindon, Spencer parked his car and sat smiling for a moment. He intended to enjoy meandering round the shops and buying whatever he wanted, without having to go to his mother for the money. Or listen to a scolding because he’d bought something she considered unnecessary and had ‘wasted good money’ on it.

  He got out and walked along towards the main shopping street, stopping in surprise when he saw Philip’s car. Since there was no one around, he walked up to take a good look at it. It had dents in the back, of course. Pity about those. Had she sold it to someone or was the jumped-up little nobody still driving it about herself?

  He glanced up and down the street, but there was no one around so he peered into the interior. She had kept it nice, with the leather upholstery polished and the windows clean inside: he’d grant her that much.

  Even with the dents, it was a much nicer car than his own, damn her! His might be bigger but he’d had to buy it second-hand and not only was it older, but its first owner hadn’t taken proper care of it.

  Should he hang about and confront her again about selling Philip’s car to him? Or wait and follow her to find out where she was living? And then do what? He wasn’t sure. He was still surprised he’d had the courage to try to edge her off the road into an accident. He’d not managed to hurt her but at least he’d damaged the car a little. He’d been furiously angry at her rejecting his offer to buy it. He probably should have offered her a little more money, he now realised. She might have been tempted then.

  He hung about for a few moments at the corner of Regent Street, uncertain whether to go or stay. He began to stroll slowly along the main street. If he stayed nearby he’d see her coming.

  He walked along slowly, stopping now and then as if to look at the goods in the windows but really to check the people on the street. At one point he stopped in front of a draper’s window to study a rack of ties. Instead his eyes were drawn to the reflection of a man in the doorway of a shoe shop on the other side of the street. Tesworth! What was he doing here? He was staring in Spencer’s direction then he gesticulated to someone inside to go back and moved quickly into the shop again himself.

  Damn! Spencer couldn’t see who the other person was. But it was obvious that Tesworth had seen him.

  He acted as if he hadn’t noticed the other man and continued to stroll slowly along the street until he came to another side street and turned into it. This was as good a spot as any from which to keep watch on the shoe shop because he could see it through the corner of a shop window without anyone who came out of it seeing him.

  Had it been her inside? Or was Tesworth out shopping with someone else? Spencer intended to make sure, so lingered there and lit a cigarette. But it mostly burnt unheeded because his attention was on the shoe shop.

  Eventually, the door opened again and Tesworth appeared, staring up and down the main street, checking who was around. After a few moments he turned and offered his arm to the lady behind him and they set off in the opposite direction to the watcher. It was indeed her.

  Spencer smiled. This was his lucky day. Tesworth was still seeing Bella Jones. Well, they were both going to get a few shocks in the next few weeks.

  But it was he who got a shock when the wind blew her frock against her body as she turned to point out something in another shop window and he saw the protruding belly. She was expecting! Hell fire! Was it Philip’s child? Or was it Tesworth’s?

  No, she was too far advanced for it to be Tesworth’s. He was one of those goody-goody chaps Spencer despised for their weakness and would hardly have cheated on his friend. Tesworth must be looking after her now, though, or they’d not be out shopping together.

  Spencer allowed himself to contemplate the choices. Would it be best to frighten her and drive her away from the district … and if so, how? Or would he take a more serious step, as he’d tried before, and get rid of her once and for all? The thought of that tempted him, but he wasn’t sure he could go through with it.

  It was one thing to ram her car and claim it as an accident, though when he’d thought about it afterwards, he’d wondered if the police would have accepted that explanation if she’d still have been alive to tell them the truth.

  It was quite another thing to kill her with his own hands. He doubted he was a good enough shot to hit her fatally from a distance and he didn’t think he could strangle anyone.

  No. He’d better not go to that extreme. The penalty for failure would be too high – hanging! Besides, if he killed her now, that would kill the child too. Did he want to do that?

  He gasped as he suddenly realised that a child would solve his own problem of feeling pressured to marry and produce an heir.

  And why was he standing here daydreaming when he should be following them and finding out where they went?

  He ran towards his own car, darting behind a postbox when he saw Philip’s car coming towards him along the street. Tesworth was driving it, not her.

  Spencer raced along to his car, which started first time, for once. He set off after them along the only main road that led out of this part of town. But though he drove fast, he didn’t catch up with them.

  Where the hell had they gone?

  He drove all the way into Malmesbury but there was no sign of them, and when he stopped to ask a lad sitting on the wall if a Model T Ford had gone past, the lad shook his head.

  ‘No cars have come by for the last quarter of an hour, mister, only two farm carts and a woman on a horse.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Tossing him a penny, Spencer drove slowly home.

  Where could they have gone? He needed a good county map to see what other villages and hamlets there were along the nearby side roads.

  And he needed a rest. He seemed to get tired more easily lately and then he didn’t think as clearly.

  Maybe the best thing to do would be to tell his mother, and then they could consult a lawyer about getting hold
of the brat once it was born. Let’s hope this new lawyer she’d found had as sharp a brain as she claimed.

  They’d have to find out where the woman was living and when the baby was due, then make their plans accordingly.

  He grinned as something else occurred to him. His mother could pay for it all, would be eager to do that. She knew his father was paying him his allowance directly, but she didn’t know about his father’s sudden generosity in doubling the amount. And he knew his father wouldn’t tell her, because he never told her anything if he didn’t need to. It was one of her biggest complaints about him.

  He’d have to be careful not to upset his father.

  When they got back to Honeyfield, Isabella carried in the boxes of shoes without any protest from Tez. He was looking tired now, but he seemed to know the side roads well so she hadn’t tried to take over the driving.

  He let her install him in the sitting room while she produced a cup of tea. He leant back in the chair, admitting to himself that he’d done a bit too much with that hand today.

  ‘That was a close call,’ he said when she joined him.

  ‘Yes. I still feel shuddery inside. I peeped out at him through the shop window. Has Spencer always been so thin and, well, yellowish? I thought he was getting over some illness when I went to meet Philip’s family but he looked just as bad at the funeral and even worse today. He’s like a caricature of Philip, isn’t he?’

  ‘Spencer never looks well. Rumour is that he’s not going to make old bones, though no one seems to know exactly why. He didn’t pass his army medical, that’s for sure. He wasn’t fit even as a lad, but you’re right. He looks terrible.’

  ‘I was surprised when you told me someone had given him a white feather. How could anyone with eyes in their head think him capable of fighting?’

  ‘He can look a lot better sometimes when he’s in high spirits, especially if it’s at night.’

  ‘Well, let’s not think about him any more. I didn’t see any sign of him following us, thank goodness. I’m going to put on my new shoes and start wearing them in.’ She got them out of the box and stroked the leather with gentle fingertips. ‘I’ve never had such expensive shoes, or ones that fit my feet so well.’

  ‘Put them on, then. That’s what they’re for, after all. I doubt you’ll need to “wear them in”, as you put it.’

  ‘That would be marvellous. I’ve never owned a pair of shoes that I didn’t need to break in to get them comfortable.’

  They sat in the two armchairs in the sitting room, drinking their tea. To his amusement she sat with her legs stretched out and kept sneaking glances at her new shoes.

  She was a darling! But not his darling. Not yet.

  When Spencer got back, his mother was in a foul mood, so he didn’t tell her what he’d found out.

  He listened to her rant and rave about how much she’d had to pay for that house, murmuring soothing phrases here and there.

  By the time she calmed down he was exhausted and she suddenly noticed it.

  ‘You need to go and lie down. You’ve overdone things today.’

  ‘Yes. I am a bit tired.’

  She studied him, frowning, and he knew what she was thinking, but she didn’t say it, thank goodness.

  He went to bed but he couldn’t even doze off because what he’d seen today kept going round and round in his mind.

  He wanted to discuss it with his mother but not until she was in a good mood and ready to make sensible plans about what to do instead of ranting and raving.

  It suited him to live here, with all expenses paid and people nearby knowing he’d been turned down for the army on medical grounds. But sometimes he wondered if the price he paid for it of humouring a bad-tempered old woman was a bit too high.

  A few days later, settlement came through on the house and his mother decided to go and have a good look round her house. But as she was coming down the stairs, she stumbled and fell a few steps, spraining her ankle badly. She made such a fuss about the pain that the doctor took pity on them all and gave her something to make her sleepy.

  Spencer told her maid to go and have a rest. ‘You’ve borne the brunt of it, Gladys. You’ve more than earned a break.’

  She gave a little nod to acknowledge this. She never complained about how she was treated. ‘Your mother made me promise not to leave her.’

  ‘She won’t know whether you’re there or not, and I can stay with her till you get back.’ He gestured to the bed, where his mother was more asleep than awake and was making little whiffling noises that made him want to stuff something into her half-open mouth.

  ‘Well, maybe just for half an hour, sir. I could do with something to eat to keep up my strength. Thank you.’ She looked at him as if she knew he had an ulterior motive but he didn’t care what she thought.

  As soon as Gladys had left, he locked the bedroom door from the inside and went through the leather handbag his mother insisted on carrying around with her everywhere, contrary to the fashionable practice of carrying a small, purse-like contraption.

  The bag felt surprisingly heavy and no wonder. The keys to the Malmesbury house were inside it, three copies of each one, with the set of four small key rings all hanging from a larger one. He could only suppose she was keeping them all in her handbag to make sure he didn’t get his hands on them.

  He unhooked one small key ring from the big one, with what he hoped was a complete set of keys on it and put the bunch back into her handbag, then stared down at her. How old she was looking! And how disgusting she looked without her false teeth. One day she’d die and life here would be much more pleasant without her, though the house would still belong to his father, in theory. But he doubted the old man would ever give up his busy life in London, or turn his older son and heir out of the family home.

  When Gladys came back, he’d unlocked the bedroom door again and was yawning over the newspaper.

  ‘You’re looking more relaxed,’ he told the maid. ‘I think it’s my turn for a rest now.’

  He was driving away from Westcott within ten minutes, on his way into Malmesbury. He smiled as the keys he’d tied together with string and flung carelessly on to the other front seat clinked every time he drove along a bumpy bit of road.

  Spencer parked further down from the house and waited till there was no one in the street before going in. The key turned easily in the lock and he slipped inside quickly, shutting the door at once – then opening it again because the hall was so dark and he didn’t know whether the furniture had been rearranged since his last visit. He didn’t want to follow his mother’s example and sprain his ankle.

  He opened the nearest internal door, but the room had the curtains closed. Since it faced onto the street, if he opened them, the neighbours would notice, he was sure, and perhaps knock on the door to introduce themselves. Then they might prattle to his mother about him being here.

  He went into one of the back rooms and flung open the curtains there, then went to close and lock the front door, shaking his head in astonishment at the cluttered interior. His last visit had been after dark and the jumble of furniture and other ornaments hadn’t shown up so clearly. Who would want to live like this? The décor was positively Victorian.

  And why on earth was his mother claiming to be fond of this house? It wasn’t all that big and he found it oppressively dark, with wood panelling in the hall and stairs and heavy curtains everywhere. It must have belonged to a troglodyte!

  He followed the short corridor behind the stairs into the kitchen, which was lighter because it didn’t have any curtains, grimacing as a mouse scampered across the floor. He didn’t think his mother would have hidden anything here.

  Not sure where to start his search, he simply walked round the house from room to room, trying to work out where he would hide something.

  Unless the panelling had a secret compartment, he’d not hide anything in the hall and stairs. Not in the sitting room either, which turned out to be the only room with
modern furniture. Soft, overpadded armchairs were grouped near the fire, and one was sitting on its own in the bay window. But the wallpaper was in a dark flock pattern, which would show any breaks for secret panels, and the only bookcase was crammed full of well-used books and looked quite flimsy and modern. No place in it for secret compartments.

  He peered into an embroidery box, but that didn’t seem like a place where you’d hide anything because it would be kept where any person passing could open it. The interior was neatly set out with rows of cards, each with a different colour of wool wound round it.

  He was about to go up the stairs when someone knocked on the front door. He hesitated, then tiptoed into the nearby room to peep out of the window and find out who it was. Damnation! A policeman. He’d better answer it.

  He flung the front door open. ‘Can I help you, Officer?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry to trouble you but a neighbour saw the front door open and knew the house was unoccupied, so called the police. May I ask who you are?’

  He pulled out a card. ‘I’m the son of the new owner. My mother has sprained her ankle, so sent me to check that everything is in order here.’

  ‘I see, sir. Yes, she mentioned a Mrs Cotterell. Sorry to trouble you. But better safe than sorry, eh? We’re here to look after people’s lives and property.’ He strolled off down the street.

  Spencer shut the door gently, but then tripped over the doormat and kicked the hallstand, setting the umbrellas and walking sticks rattling in it before going upstairs.

  He walked round the five bedrooms, finding them just as dreary as the downstairs rooms. One seemed to have been used as a storeroom and was crammed with furniture, while the other bedrooms were more sparsely furnished. Whoever had moved the furniture around had done a good job of packing it in tightly. It was going to be hard to check everything in the storage room.

  He didn’t think Cousin Audrey would have had the strength to do that, so someone must have helped her.