by Amy Myers
‘I’ll make a guess, shall I?’ he asked jovially. ‘Jane Austen murdered her lover and left his body in the folly.’
Elena gasped, but Gerald and Dora merely seemed bewildered. ‘Oh no, nothing like that,’ Gerald replied.
Peter looked somewhat abashed. ‘I’m sorry, Elena. If you knew Amelia, you must have known Robert Luckhurst too, and so I should not be making jokes about him. He doesn’t seem to have been a particular friend of yours, though,’ he added awkwardly.
‘No, darling. He was very reclusive,’ Elena replied. ‘I hardly knew him and I knew Amelia only a little better . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Not a very happy marriage, I’m afraid.’
‘So the rumours that she sought fresh woods and pastures new in the way of gentlemen friends might be true?’ Georgia said.
‘Oh, no.’ Elena looked shocked. Then she must have caught Peter’s eye because she giggled. ‘Well, perhaps. Just occasionally.’
Something tugged at Georgia’s heart. Some distant memory of Elena laughing one magical day in Georgia’s childhood when they had been picnicking on the downs. All of them: Elena, Peter, herself – and Rick. Peter had slipped over and landed with one hand right in the middle of the jelly. Judging by Peter’s expression, he had some similar memory.
‘With Max Tanner?’ he almost snapped at Elena.
‘I never knew. I really didn’t know her well.’ Elena retreated, perhaps alarmed at the shared moment of intimacy.
Nonsense, Georgia told herself, nonsense. She was imagining this emotional tension, perhaps because she wanted to – but what did that imply? Change the subject quickly. ‘What happens at this Gala?’ she asked.
Dora needed no urging. ‘It’s going to be such fun. Laura Fettis, who owns Stourdens, is my greatest friend – except for you, Elena,’ she added diplomatically. ‘Such fun. I am sure she will show you the Stourdens Jane Austen collection which dwarfs our own modest memorabilia.’ She put her finger to her lips. ‘But I must say no more about that until Laura has spoken. I can tell you about the Gala itself, though. There will be Georgian cookery demonstrations and a buffet of Georgian food – and shuttlecock. You must all play shuttlecock, you really must. There will be riding, fencing, and of course dancing. Naturally, you must all come in costume.’
Dora beamed, and Georgia saw Peter’s face fall. She shared his feelings. To be clad in period costume was not something she warmed to. ‘And bring your dear husband, Georgia,’ Dora added, oblivious to their reactions. ‘After all, as a local publisher he should be present. He might even discover another Jane Austen.’
‘I’ll ask him,’ Georgia said, trying to imagine Luke dancing the cotillion while checking out hopeful authors.
‘Costume,’ Peter muttered. ‘I’m afraid breeches and swallowtails are somewhat beyond me.’
‘But you must come, Peter,’ Elena said firmly. Georgia saw him hesitate, and her misgivings returned now that it seemed certain this was not going to be the last they saw of Elena on this trip to England. Nevertheless, Georgia was all too conscious that there was a gulf between them that had to be faced and somehow crossed, which could not be achieved by retreat. Was seeing Elena again on Saturday going to help that problem disappear? No, in Georgia’s view. At best Saturday would produce the sort of situations that Jane Austen’s novels depended on, in which private emotions were frustrated by social demands. At worst the day might bring forth far more than frustration. Stourdens was not only a place where Jane Austen had seemingly suffered great unhappiness, but also one where twenty-five years ago the owner had been murdered.
Neither of these factors should cast its shadow over the Stourdens of today, and yet not wanting to back away from meeting Elena again was the only reason that she had not pleaded an earlier engagement for Saturday. Stupid, Georgia told herself, because the murder of Robert Luckhurst was a case that had been solved, and the killer was probably free by now. Still proclaiming his innocence? She couldn’t help wondering.
Going home to Medlars brought its usual comfort. Georgia felt a lift of the heart when she pushed open the heavy wooden door into the old house, a door that almost seemed to be welcoming her home with a ‘Cheer up, I’ve seen many problems far worse than this’. She could hear Luke in the kitchen, probably already cooking supper, so she dropped her shoulder bag and hurried to join him. A wave of pleasure swept over her as she hugged him – which seriously impeded his risotto and resulted in a cascade of rice grains landing on the floor. After dealing with this emergency, he listened patiently to her account of her evening before speaking.
‘I can’t wait to see you in bonnet, bulging panniers and white muslin dress. Got any old pillow cases you can wear?’
‘I’ll find something,’ Georgia said hollowly. ‘Anyway, don’t laugh. You’re coming with me. They all want to meet the famous publisher.’
He groaned. ‘Famous publisher not want to meet them. Count me out. I hate costume events.’
‘I need support, Luke,’ she pleaded. ‘Elena will be there.’
He pulled a face. ‘Point reluctantly ceded. What’s her game?’
‘I don’t know, but there’s a hidden agenda somewhere. All my antennae are waving.’
‘She is your mother,’ he said gently. ‘Suppose she wants to return to England?’
Trust Luke to put into words her secret fear. ‘That’s a scary thought.’ And that was putting it lightly.
‘Because she might interfere with Marsh & Daughter’s work?’
She considered this. ‘Perhaps,’ she admitted, ‘but it’s more than that. I can’t forget the way she walked out because she didn’t want the responsibility of looking after Peter.’
‘Perhaps she can’t either, but you should all be able to move on now that Rick’s disappearance has been solved. That’s no longer lying between you.’
Rick had disappeared on a walking holiday in France, and for fourteen years there had been no clues as to what had happened to him. Then two years ago, thanks partly to a tip from Elena on a possible witness, they had followed the trail to a boating tragedy on the Danube in which he drowned. Georgia had finally managed to get Peter to accept that that was fact and not theory. Elena’s current visit seemed to have nothing to do with Rick, and yet Georgia was afraid that even her presence might trigger Peter’s doubts again. And as for Luke’s suggestion, surely Elena would not wish to return permanently to England? She had not needed her former family when her husband died last year, so why should she now? The question mark hung in the air like a sword of Damocles, until she firmly banished it.
When she reached Marsh & Daughter’s office in Peter’s home in nearby Haden Shaw on the Friday morning before the Gala, Peter began without ado: ‘Max Tanner. Press references. A few stray ends. DI Hamlyn took the case. Remember him?’
‘Dimly,’ Georgia replied, relieved that Peter seemed to be throwing himself into the Luckhurst case. She had spent the day before reading the proofs of Marsh & Daughter’s current book, but she had been worried that Peter might be brooding about Elena. ‘Solemn and sarcastic comes to mind,’ she added.
‘Spot on. I’d like to get one up on him.’
‘Hasn’t he retired by now?’
‘That won’t spare him.’ Peter paused. ‘Might be worth our giving that Jane Austen Gala a go on Saturday.’
She took the bull by the horns. ‘Is this about Luckhurst or Elena?’
Another pause, longer this time. ‘Let’s find out what she’s up to, daughter mine. Meanwhile, let’s assume it’s about Robert Luckhurst.’
The subject of Elena was clearly closed, and on the whole, Georgia reflected, remembering Luke’s advice to keep it cool, that was a good thing. Was Peter seriously considering taking on this case, though? So far, probably not. Marsh & Daughter had their own ‘rules’ for choosing new cases, and this one did not qualify. She suspected that Peter was merely using it as a distraction from Elena, and if so, there was no reason she couldn’t do the same.
‘You said th
ere were a couple of loose ends over the Tanner conviction,’ she prompted him.
‘Yes. For instance, why should he choose to take his revenge for a lost licence twelve months after losing it?’
‘There was another reason for the murder,’ Georgia reminded him, ‘if it’s true that he and Amelia Luckhurst were an item.’
‘Worth bearing in mind. Luckhurst seems to have been a funny sort of chap,’ Peter reflected.
‘Don’t tell me he was the Stourdens Jane Austen fan?’
‘An understatement. I rang Dora and badgered her into telling me more. He seems to be of the obsessive collector genus.’
‘Expensive hobby when Jane Austen is the subject.’
‘Not if you’re handed down the goods by your father,’ Peter said. ‘But the Luckhursts owned Stourdens from the middle of the nineteenth century, so it seems odd that we are only hearing about this collection now. A question mark, don’t you think?’
‘It’s possible. Lots of old mansions still have unexplored attics full of goodies. It just needs an enthusiast to inherit – and Robert Luckhurst seems to have been just the chap. Any idea what the collection consists of?’
‘None, so we’re left with the Clackington Claptrappers’ heavy hints. Anyway, it’s hardly relevant to the Luckhurst murder because theft wasn’t the motive for it. Not a mention of theft in the trial reports or from what Dora could tell me. Jane Austen’s archive was in the Folly when Luckhurst was killed, but it wasn’t touched. So we have to look elsewhere for a motive, if we exclude the ones we know about. And there seems no reason to do that at present. Tanner seems either to have planned his crime very oddly or to have been seriously unlucky in having so many potential witnesses turn up.’
‘Explain please.’ She knew he liked nothing better than explaining. Anything to stop thinking of tomorrow and meeting Elena again. Georgia was painfully aware that her reluctance to think about her mother might be linked to emotions whose origins were too deeply buried to want to unearth, as well as those springing from more obvious causes.
Peter obliged. ‘It was Saturday sixteenth June. Tanner and Luckhurst were mates of a sort, because they belonged to the same classic car club, which met every month at the Edgar Arms and had a summer annual beano at Stourdens. Apart from that one day, Luckhurst was severely reclusive, being paranoid about having his precious Austen collection pinched. Which, as I told you, it wasn’t.
‘What happened was this,’ he continued. ‘Just as the classic car owners were getting into their serious technical jargon stride, their numbers were swelled by a protest group of twenty or thirty Dunham residents complaining about the closure of a footpath across Stourdens’ land. It had apparently been used by farmers for time out of mind, and a diversion had been agreed through the woods. That wasn’t much help to the farmers, though, as only the path that led through Stourdens was wide enough to take farm machinery and animals – which it had duly done for ages past, with no objection being raised by the Luckhursts. Robert Luckhurst was a councillor, however, and had taken it into his head to decide that the footpath in question was a threat to his precious collection. Unfortunately, the protest group was not a peaceful reasonable deputation, as it was led by a determined hothead, one Tom Miller. He soon winkled out that Luckhurst had fled from the classic car line-up to take refuge in his beloved Abbot’s Folly.’
‘Just what is that? Gerald just said it was a monstrosity.’
‘Patience. I gathered from Mike Gilroy that—’
‘I knew it!’ Georgia said resignedly. ‘You just had to get on the phone to him, didn’t you?’ Chief Superintendent Mike Gilroy had been Peter’s sergeant in his police career days, and to Peter he still was. Mike was extraordinarily patient, but Georgia had no intention of letting Peter take too much advantage of this.
Peter had the grace to blush. ‘One more call wouldn’t upset him, and the records must have been easy to access. I was working there at the time, for heaven’s sake. Anyway, since you ask,’ he continued firmly, ‘this mock folly was a—’
‘Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? All follies are mock.’
‘Wrong. Follies were beginning to parody themselves towards the end of the eighteenth century, and this one is apparently hardly a ruin. It’s a gothic horror, and Robert used it as a study. On the day he died, the protesting horde swept through the grounds to it and found Tanner there talking to Luckhurst on a mission of his own. For whatever reason, in due course the protest group retreated, but Robert was found shot an hour later. He’d been dead at least half an hour. Tanner had witnesses who swore he returned to the main house with the protest group, but then went straight back to the pub. According to him, the real villain had been the village toughie, Tom Miller.’
‘What good would killing Luckhurst do for their cause?’ Georgia objected.
‘I presume that Amelia might have been seen as the softer touch in the footpath battle. It never came to be an issue, however, because it was revealed that Tanner’s chief witness was an outsider who had done more time than Big Ben.’ A pause, then Peter added, ‘I wonder if Amelia Luckhurst is going to be at the Gala?’
‘She can have my ticket,’ Georgia muttered.
‘Not keen, eh?’
‘No, for obvious reasons.’ She didn’t have to spell them out. ‘Plus the fact that I have to conjure up a Jane Austen outfit not only for myself but for Luke too. How are you going to cope? Can I help?’
‘No need. I rang Kate.’
‘Who’s she?’
‘Costume Kate, Ltd. She hires them out.’
TWO
Georgia forced herself to rise early on the Saturday morning. It was either that or diving under the bedclothes and claiming a sudden dose of flu. She was not, but not, looking forward to this Gala. Even Peter was more interested than she was in seeing the folly where Robert Luckhurst had died, but she still saw it only as a distraction from Elena’s presence.
‘At least it’s not raining,’ Luke observed, regarding his image gloomily in the mirror. He had an uncommon knack of echoing her own reservations, Georgia thought. At the moment these were concentrated on her costume. The sheer stupidity of donning Regency dress on a Saturday morning in the twenty-first century was taking its toll. Dora had eventually conceded that Regency, for Gala purposes, could be taken in its broader sense of beginning from about 1800 rather than from 1811 when the future George IV formally became Regent during the mental instability of his father. After all, Georgia had pointed out (having done some hasty research), Jane Austen was visiting Kent well before 1800.
She had therefore opted for the earlier fashion of a high-waisted open-fronted dress over a silk underskirt, rather than the later straight clinging classical-style dresses of muslin or lawn for which her figure was hardly a bonus, being tall but not sylphlike. Besides, she had been too mutinous to follow Peter’s example and hire a costume, and an ancient long silk nightdress seemed to serve the purpose well, with the help of some speedy work on an out-of-date red evening dress. Nevertheless, she had eyed the result with some dissatisfaction the previous evening, until Luke solved the problem by fishing out a rather dashing scarf, which he deftly turned into a pseudo cap with a sprig of grapes attached.
‘High fashion then,’ he informed her. ‘Looked it up in a book.’
With the long gloves apparently so essential, the outfit looked passable, although showers were forecast.
‘I’m sure umbrellas were invented by then,’ she said, fixing on the cap and grapes and adding an artistic ribbon she had tracked down in her meagre haberdashery supplies. ‘At least for women. Not sure about men. Anyway, we can pop one in the boot.’
‘I think Sheridan had something to do with popularizing umbrellas for men, but I doubt that ran to fold-up National Trust brollies,’ Luke observed. ‘They were probably so huge that they required a servant to run alongside carrying it aloft. Just at the moment I’m out of servants.’ He gave another disparaging look at the Luke Frost Famous Publi
sher image of pantaloons hastily improvised from grey trousers tucked into long grey socks fished out of their walking gear drawer, a flashy waistcoat and an outgrown tailcoat from his past, plus – a great find this – an ancient opera hat.
‘I do not feel an up to the knocker Regency gent,’ he announced nevertheless. Being Luke, he had consulted a book on Regency jargon in case it came in useful at the Gala.
‘How do I rate as your bit of muslin?’ she retorted.
Luke laughed. ‘Bang up. Ah well, let’s get it over with. At least we’re allowed to take a car. I thought we might have to hire horses.’
‘We could walk,’ Georgia threatened him. ‘The Regency folk were great walkers.’
‘We’ll take the car and tell them it’s a landau.’
Dunham itself consisted of little more than a pub and a few cottages on the Canterbury to Ashford road with farms and farmland stretching into the hinterland. Just past them Georgia spotted the lane that led only to Stourdens, and she began to feel more optimistic. The late June sun was shining, albeit weakly, the trees and meadows were flaunting their summer green glory, and rural calm seemed to prevail. From what Dora had told them, she reasoned that there would be enough diversions at this Gala not to become too heavily embroiled in emotional discussions with Elena. They might even escape the Clackingtons, once Peter had satisfied his interest in the Luckhurst murder.
Beyond them the ground rose gently to hill and woodland. The lane crossed the railway line and led on to the end of the tarmacked roadway and the beginning of Stourdens’ drive. Georgia’s optimism began to fade as they drove along it. The gravel needed weeding, and rhododendrons and undergrowth on both sides of the path blotted out what sun there was, which made the path in front of them look forbidding. As Luke turned into the field signposted for car parking the day ahead once more felt to Georgia like a very bad idea indeed.
The house looked less dilapidated than when she had last seen it, but that was perhaps because the sun had emerged once again, at least temporarily. Closer inspection revealed that the Georgian portico was roped off to prevent the unwary from walking under it, the roof was concave in places, and there were cracks in some of the stonework. Georgia decided that as a mere outsider she rather liked the air of decayed grandeur.