Dead as a Scone

by Ron Benrey

  “Of course you knew Dame Elspeth from the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum,” Nathalie said to Nigel. “She was quite striking twenty years ago, wasn’t she?”

  “Indeed. Did you know her well?”

  “Oh my, yes. We were friends for many years. It nearly broke my heart when my doctor forbade me to travel to Elspeth’s funeral.”

  Flick came in quietly, carrying a tray, her eyes gleaming. Nigel realized that she had heard Nathalie’s answer and was eager to ask an obvious follow-up question.

  We made the trip—I might as well do it.

  Nigel said, “May I ask how you and Elspeth became friends?”

  Nathalie sat down in a straight-back chair and hung her canes on hooks attached to the frame. Her expression had become reflective, but also, Nigel thought, rather content. Perhaps she hadn’t expected such an easy opportunity to summon up more festive days.

  “William—my husband—and I moved to Tunbridge Wells in 1970. We bought a row house on Sherwood Road, quite close to St. Stephen’s, and we attended more or less regularly. William died twenty years ago. I was a widow; Elspeth was a spinster who rarely left her house. We became fast friends. Compared to her fortune, I didn’t have two pins to rub together, but that didn’t make any difference to Elspeth—or to me.”

  Flick set the tea tray on a small table and moved it close to Nathalie. Nigel placed two of the assorted chairs opposite her, then he and Flick sat down.

  Nathalie went on. “Four years ago, I moved to London. Naturally, I saw Elspeth less frequently—perhaps every other month. Blessedly, she paid a visit only a month before she died. And, of course, she brought Cha-Cha.”

  Nigel glanced down at the Shiba Inu, who had curled up next to his left foot. When Cha-Cha chose to behave, he could be the most obedient of dogs. When he looked back, he saw Nathalie filling her teacup by carefully pouring the tea over a teaspoon she had placed inside the cup. Flick put her teaspoon in the cup and did the same.

  “You, too, Nigel,” Nathalie said. “These teacups are older than I am.”

  Nigel leaned forward and looked in Flick’s teacup. “I don’t understand what we are doing.”

  “A silver teaspoon absorbs heat quickly,” Flick said, “and prevents the stream of hot tea from shocking the porcelain. Without the spoon, the teacup might shatter.”

  “Ah. One learns something new every day.”

  “You should also remember to put the milk in your teacup before you add the tea,” Nathalie said. “Your cuppa tastes better than if you do it the other way around.”

  Nigel resisted the urge to laugh in her face. “Milk first is superior to tea first?”

  Flick jumped in. “A well-attested fact recently proved by scientific research. The milk heats more slowly and uniformly when the tea is added last. The chemistry of the brew is different.”

  Nigel sighed softly. Was there really a scientist who set such a low value on his time that he wasted it conducting such an experiment?

  “I’d like to ask you what might seem a foolish question,” Flick said to Nathalie. “When Elspeth paid her last visit, did she talk about the antiquities on display at the museum?”

  Nathalie looked startled by Flick’s question. Her brows arched and her lips parted in surprise.

  “My goodness! You must be a mind reader,” Nathalie said. “We spent most of the three hours she was here talking about the teacups and Tunbridge Ware. She wondered if my historical research about St. Stephen’s had turned up any new information about the many antiques Desmond had acquired during his lifetime. I told Elspeth that the old rumors undoubtedly were just that: old rumors begun by mean-spirited people who were jealous of Desmond Hawker’s success.”

  “Old rumors?” Flick pressed gently.

  But Nathalie seemed determined to tell her story her way. “In truth, I’ve never cared much about crockery or bits of wood at the museum. I prefer the ship models and the paintings and the old maps. Curiously, though, my favorite exhibit is about the Portuguese Jesuit who first brought tea to Europe. Father Jasper de Cruz, in the year 1560—am I right?”

  “On all counts,” Flick said.

  “Just think…” Nathalie had a faraway gleam in her eyes. “In those early days, a pound of tea cost more than a hundred pounds sterling.” Nathalie lifted her teacup and took several satisfied sips.

  Nigel could not fathom the connection between the price of tea and a Portuguese cleric, but it seemed better to sit back, listen quietly, and let Flick guide the conversation as best she could. This junket had been her idea.

  She tried once again to corral Nathalie. “You mentioned old rumors. I’ve never heard any pertaining to the ownership of the Hawker collection.”

  “Oh, they go back many years—most have their roots in the nineteenth century. I heard all sorts when I gathered information to assemble a history of St. Stephen’s on the occasion of its centennial.” Nathalie’s face brightened. “I hope Vicar de Rudd told you that I wrote the official history of St. Stephen’s in 1999.”

  “He almost did,” Flick said kindly. “He told us that you were the church historian, so naturally we assumed you wrote the official history.”

  The answer apparently satisfied Nathalie, because she went on. “Well, Commodore Hawker played a vital role in much of St. Stephen’s early history. His generosity continued long after the church was built. And that made many of his contemporaries suspicious. They knew that the commodore could be a merciless competitor in business. Why then, they asked, did he choose to build and support a little church in the countryside northeast of Tunbridge Wells?”

  Nigel let himself grin at Nathalie. “I admit that I have wondered the same thing.”

  “There are two quite preposterous answers that one often hears. The first is that the commodore used to attend St. Peter’s Church on Bayhall Road, until he had an unpleasant fight with the vicar. By building St. Stephen’s, so this assertion goes, he could choose his own clergyman.” Nathalie grimaced. “Pure harebrained nonsense, but there you are!

  “The second, more common answer is even sillier. I suspect you have heard that Desmond became guilt ridden by his years of playing fast and loose in commerce and built St. Stephen’s to buy his way into heaven with good works.”

  Nathalie’s statement unexpectedly had become a question. Nigel didn’t know how to respond. He glanced at Flick; she looked equally uncomfortable.

  “No need to answer,” Nathalie said. “Your silence speaks eloquently. Vicar de Rudd is fond of that explanation. It is a point of contention between us.” Nathalie paused to gather her thoughts. “You see, the chief problem is that many people refuse to separate Commodore Hawker’s private life from his public life. They tell hurtful jokes about his so-called ‘conversion on the road to Tunbridge Wells’ because they won’t accept the simple truth that Desmond Hawker became a genuine man of faith toward the end of his life. He built St. Stephen’s for one reason only: God laid on his heart the need for a new church in that part of Tunbridge Wells. The commodore’s walk through life has much in common with that of John Newton, the slave trader who went on to become a minister and write the brilliant hymn ‘Amazing Grace.’ ”

  Nigel watched a flash of skepticism cross Flick’s face. He had seen the same look in the vicarage. For some reason, she didn’t buy into the notion of Desmond Hawker, like fine wine, became better as he aged.

  Nathalie also must have twigged Flick’s apparent disbelief. Her tone became earnest. “Like you, I once doubted the truth of Desmond Hawker’s late-in-life conversion. It seemed easier to see him as merely a hypocrite in his later years.”

  Flick shrugged. “The kinder, gentler Desmond seems so out of character with the cold-blooded businessman I have come to know.”

  “Oh, I fully understand your unease. The Desmond Hawker on display in your museum was ruthless in his early years. He fought cruel battles against his enemies—other ruthless men. I have no doubt that he was the epitome of what Americans call a robber
baron.”

  Flick nodded. “A perfect label.”

  “Until the mid-1880s. Something happened—I don’t know what. But it began a process of change that spanned five long years. We do know that Desmond Hawker considered himself a faithful Christian during the influenza epidemic of 1890. Desmond’s wife died of the disease, but he and his lone son survived. He wrote that his new faith gave him comfort in a time of great tragedy.”

  “He wrote about being a Believer?”

  “Oh my, yes. Scores of letters he wrote to people in need and hundreds written to him by people he helped. They currently repose in the basement of your museum.”

  “You mean the Hawker archives?”

  “Elspeth kindly arranged for me to have access to the commodore’s papers when I prepared St. Stephen’s history.” Her face softened. “Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but I have often imagined Desmond the Believer blustering at the very idea of a Commodore Hawker Room at the museum. He refused many worldly honors after he...changed. He set up his foundation to quietly promote the betterment of mankind in ways that would not give him direct credit.”

  Nathalie paused to sip her tea. Nigel decided to ask a direct question.

  “Nathalie,” he said, “do you know why Desmond might choose to describe himself as a thief?”

  “You must be thinking of the blinking verse from Exodus on the bloody bronze tablet.” Nathalie put her hand to her mouth as she blushed beet red. “Forgive me my language. Elspeth often called it that. I am afraid I got into the same habit.”

  Nigel couldn’t help grinning. “No need to apologize; I feel much the same—”

  Flick interrupted. “Nathalie, are you saying that Elspeth didn’t like that verse?”

  Nigel felt angry for an instant—until he realized that Flick had grasped a vital point he had missed.

  Nathalie’s face clouded. “Elspeth came to loathe ‘the gift of a thief who made every effort to pay back double.’ She began to avert her eyes whenever she entered St. Stephen’s.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Certainly. She blamed the verse for putting wrong ideas in Philip Oxley’s head.”

  Nigel reacted first. “Who is Philip Oxley?” he said.

  “A well-known historian. I believe he holds a chair at Oxford. He is purported to be an expert in the field of industrial history.” Nathalie sniffed. “Disappointingly, Oxley fell for the old tittle-tattle that Commodore Hawker filched things from his former business partner”—she frowned—“I can never remember the man’s name.”

  “Neville Brackenbury,” Flick offered. “Desmond and Neville launched a tea importing business together. Desmond later bought out Neville’s share of the partnership.”

  “Well, there were rumors in the nineteenth century that Desmond sailed very close to the wind when he acquired Neville’s property.”

  “What kind of property? Neville’s share of the tea business?”

  “That, certainly—but also his private collection of paintings, maps, crockery, and Tunbridge Ware.”

  “Do you mean the Hawker antiquities that are now on display in the museum?”

  “Yes. Some people claimed that the commodore got them by somehow robbing Neville.”

  Nigel felt his stomach tighten. He put forth the next question with considerable foreboding. “Nathalie, did Elspeth talk to you about the antiquities on display when she last visited you?”

  Another nod. “Elspeth wondered if Philip Oxley might have been right to believe the rumors, after all. She wanted to reread the copy of the book she gave me.”

  “Book?” Flick shot straight up in her chair. “What book?”

  “Philip Oxley’s book, of course,” Nathalie said. “He wrote a book about Desmond Hawker.”

  “The museum owns every book ever written about Desmond Hawker. I’ve never heard of one written by Philip Oxley.”

  “Of course, you haven’t,” Nathalie said grandly. “The book was never published. Mary Evans Hawker commissioned the work as a tribute to the commodore, but she decided not to put it into print. Elspeth was so furious when she read the manuscript that she refused to keep it in her house. She gave it to me with the hope that I could use the historical details that Oxley got right. That was more than fifteen years ago. I suppose a year before Mary Hawker Evans died.”

  “Do you still have your copy?”

  Nathalie pointed to a bookshelf across the room. “The manuscript is about an inch thick. Look for green cardboard covers. Its title is Transformation in the Tea Trade: How Desmond Hawker Turned Over a New Leaf. ”

  Nigel found it immediately, neatly shelved next to an unabridged dictionary. He thumbed through the document. It seemed to be a copy of a professionally typed and edited manuscript, some two hundred pages long. In the middle of the document, simulating the photographs that would appear in a published volume, were four pages of photographic prints taped to sheets of blank paper. The first page had two photos of Desmond Hawker, the first taken in 1875, the second in 1896. They were indisputably of the same person but were remarkably different. Hawker had changed considerably as he grew older, although Nigel couldn’t put his finger on what the differences were.

  Flick interrupted Nigel’s musings. “Nigel, I’d like to see the manuscript, too.”

  “Certainly.” He passed it on.

  Flick hastily examined the document, then asked Nathalie, “What did the Hawkers object to in the book?”

  “As Elspeth often said, Oxley proved too creative for his own good. He invented relationships among events where none existed.”

  Nigel found himself baffled by Nathalie Stubbings’s curious answer. Apparently, so did Flick, who took a deep breath, then asked, “What do you suppose Elspeth meant by ‘relationships among events’?”

  “The best example is in the last chapter of Oxley’s manuscript,” Nathalie said. “Oxley concluded that the big fire at Lion’s Peak in 1925, the one that nearly killed Elspeth, was an act of revenge against the Hawker family. He assumed that the man who died after he set the fire was a descendant of Neville Brackenbury—and that he wanted to destroy the fruits of Desmond’s thievery.”

  “Criminy!” Nigel said. “The tea trade is one tough business.”

  Flick tossed the manuscript into his lap. “Stop talking and read the last chapter.”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  Nigel began to turn pages.

  It had been another of Flick’s snap decisions — a simple tactic to cover as much ground as possible. Nigel would review the manuscript while she continued to speak to Nathalie Stubbings.

  If only I can guide the bouncing ball in Nathalie’s brain.

  Flick fought to keep the annoyance she felt off her face. The elderly woman’s thoughts caromed erratically from topic to topic. She clearly possessed a wealth of information that might prove useful—but her mind seemed to wander as she talked.

  Nathalie had poured herself another cup of tea. As she sipped, she gazed off into the distance. Flick glanced in the same direction and discovered that Nathalie was staring at a picture frame across the small room. The old sepia-toned photo was of a girl in her teens.

  “Is that also a photograph of Elspeth?” Flick asked.

  Nathalie smiled. “She was fourteen at the time. It was taken at the seaside at Brighton on a Sunday afternoon in July 1934. I was probably on the same stretch of English Channel coastline on the same day at the same time.”

  Flick moved closer to the photograph. It showed a pretty teenager wearing a high-necked, long-sleeved white dress and off-white stockings. Elspeth stood near the water, grinning joyfully, holding her shoes in her hand. She had a large bow in her blond hair, which was cut short in the sort of bob that had been the fashion during the 1930s.

  “She was lovely,” Flick said. “Elspeth must have turned heads a few years later. Do you know why she never married?”

  Natalie became pensive. “I often have wondered that very thing. The Elspeth I knew certainly seemed th
e kind of woman to make a success of home and family. Women a few years older than Elspeth were forced to become spinsters because a whole generation of young men died in the Great War of 1914–1918. Perhaps she also was swept up in the shortage of eligible men—although it is hard for me to imagine that a wealthy, attractive young woman would find it difficult to attract a suitable match.”

  Flick looked over at Nigel, who appeared wholly absorbed by the manuscript. His head jiggled slightly as his eyes flashed down the page. She thought of something he had said the day before.

  “Nathalie, what sort of relationship did Elspeth have with Vicar de Rudd? Were they good friends?”

  Nathalie hesitated, plainly uncomfortable at the questions. Flick regretted that she had not asked them more obliquely.

  “I hardly know how to answer you. When I lived in Tunbridge Wells, they were quite fond of each other. I suppose they drifted apart during the past year. Elspeth was quite circumspect when I saw her last. She mentioned something about the vicar chastising her for foolishly stirring up the past. She seemed…exasperated rather than angry when she spoke of him.”

  Flick imagined Elspeth approaching Vicar de Rudd and timidly seeking his advice about the “old rumors.” Could the whispers about Desmond Hawker have been true? Might there be church records, old letters, diocesan documents—anything—that would help her find out, one way or another? The vicar didn’t know how much importance she placed on learning the truth. And so, he urged her to let sleeping dogs lie. Or offered an equally banal cliché about leaving the past alone.

  I’d get exasperated at de Rudd, too.