Miss Seeton Flies High (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 23)

by Hamilton Crane

  Pointing again, Susan-now-Brenda continued to ignore her sceptical friends as she enlarged on her theories to this new acquaintance who already grasped the basics. “Sir Thomas Malory in the fifteenth-century Le Morte D’Arthur writes of Mirandoise, the sword young Arthur drew from the miraculous stone to prove himself the rightful king. Wace had already described in the twelfth century how Caliburn was given to King Arthur by the Lady of the Lake.” Susan took a deep breath, struck a pose, and straightened her robes. “And in the Alliterative Morte Arthure of the fourteenth century the writer explains how—” she closed her eyes, reciting from memory—“Clarente was Arthur’s ‘daintiest darling sword and held full dear’, and kept for ceremonial purposes only, until his treacherous wife Gaynor gave it to Modred, and Arthur laments that now Clarente and Caliburne will meet in the final battle.”

  She opened her eyes, which brimmed with tears. Alison and Vincent were tactfully silent. Miss Seeton murmured that it sounded interesting, and must have involved Miss Callender in much reading and research.

  Susan sniffed, dabbed at her eyes, and beamed. “It was the discovery of the Sweet Track just a few years ago, in 1970, that first revealed the truth,” she enthused. Miss Seeton approved of enthusiasm, and gave her an encouraging smile.

  “Our ancestors,” said Susan, “had deeper knowledge than we can ever possess. What little we now know can be only the faintest shadow of enlightenment concerning the ancient wisdom. The Sweet Track is thought to be the oldest wooden walkway in the world—and could those who built it have been unaware that in due course of time it would run directly across the railway road that followed a pathway only a little less ancient than their own creation? The road denotes the blade of the sword—the Sweet Track forms the hilt.” Tears once again filled her glowing eyes. “And I am the one destined to rediscover its secret—just as Katherine Maltwood rediscovered the Temple of the Stars!”

  Miss Seeton braced herself for further outpourings on the Glastonbury Zodiac, but the other two in the balloon evidently knew Susan of old, and hurried to the rescue. Vincent applied himself to the burner, and Alison, when he turned it off again, began to show Miss Seeton the old peat workings that were being turned into a nature reserve.

  “People worry about my plant nursery, and despoiling the environment, but there’s talk of an experimental enzyme to turn shredded tree-bark into compost,” she said. “Susan’s cousin Octavia tipped us the wink, so we’re keeping our eyes open for when it becomes commercially available. There’s no shortage of willow trees around here.”

  “Tavy worries about things like that,” Susan said. “She took a First in Biology, after all, so she knows what she’s talking about.” She sighed. “I used to admire her so much, for not taking the easy route and going into the family firm—and now she hardly talks to me!”

  Vincent patted her on the shoulder. “When Tavy makes up her mind, it stays made up. There was no changing her when she said we were finished, though truth to tell I wasn’t heartbroken, liking the peaceful life but not liking having to give way all the time to get it. But I’m glad she set me on the right path with my photography and all. I’ve no mind to be a tycoon just because me dad’s by way of being one. To each his own—or hers, of course. She’ll make a go of that bookshop, or bust—and you should cut her a bit of slack, lass. You can’t blame her for sticking by her immediate family, right or wrong as they may be about that field—not that I want to know,” hastily, “for it’s no business of mine, but give them a chance, can’t you? They’re all still in shock from losing their dad in such a way—”

  “And this is hardly a cheerful topic of conversation,” put in Alison, as Susan opened her mouth to interrupt. “Poor Miss Seeton has come to enjoy herself, not be forced to listen to local gossip. Tell her how you taught yourself to weave, Vince. Talk her into buying one of your baskets to take home.”

  Miss Seeton jumped. “A basket? I fear there would be no room in my cottage for one of this size, Mr. Weaver, splendid work though it undoubtedly is. Moreover, I doubt if it would be possible to take so large an item home with me on the train, even in the luggage van.”

  Even Susan laughed. The old dear was quicker than you’d think, for all she seemed so strait-laced and conventional. Apart from that hat, of course. Looked as if she took it all seriously, but able to crack a joke and keep a straight face at the same time.

  Vincent grinned. “You’re a card, Miss Seeton! Why, it’d be the balloon canopy taking up most of the luggage space, for the baskets I make to sell are no bigger’n two inches square. The whole outfit stands a foot high at most—or rather, hangs, for it’s designed to be slung from a hook on the wall, even from the ceiling. But I’d guess it was a shopping basket Alison had in mind for you as a souvenir, being as I work only with genuine Somerset willow. If we were flying that way—” he pointed—“we’d pass over the withy beds, but we seem to be making for Cadbury Castle and with Susan, sorry, Brenda, so interested in King Arthur, if nobody has any objections that’s where we’ll probably go.”

  Nobody had any objections. Alison cheerfully discoursed upon other items that could be made of willow, such as garden features, pea-sticks, and eel traps. “And charcoal, of course. Somerset willow makes the very best charcoal for artists.”

  Miss Seeton slowed her sketching long enough to note the address of the shop.

  The balloon drifted on, with only an occasional short burst from the burner to disturb the serenity of the flight. Far below, sheep and cattle scarcely raised their heads as the strange shadow traversed the grass on which they grazed. Dogs barked, horses whinnied and cantered; walkers paused to wave, and cyclists dismounted to do likewise, or rang their bells in greeting.

  “Eh,” sighed Vincent, “but this is the life for me! It’s grand!” His three guests could not disagree. “Aye,” he continued, “I’d be up every day, if I could, only there’s always arrangements to be made, and finding people to help. That’s the one thing I miss about California, the freedom. When I lived there, if I wasn’t hang-gliding I was surfing—and we’ll forget the rest,” he added sternly. Both Alison and Susan had begun to giggle before recalling the presence of Miss Seeton, whose elderly ears would no doubt be shocked by even an oblique reference to the Flower Power counter-culture of free love, drugs, wild music and Doing Your Own Thing.

  “But I had some rare good times, there’s no denying,” he went on dreamily. “Once, me and my pal Chris—but all that was years ago.” Vincent shook himself. “You can’t keep on like that for ever, not if you’ve any sense.”

  “If you mean Christy who’s always in the news,” put in Susan, “he doesn’t seem to have come to his senses at all.” Vincent, reddening, ignored her. “You should invite him here,” she urged. “There’s a healing spirit in the Vale of Avalon, otherwise why would Arthur have been taken there? The waters of the Chalice Well—”

  “There’s more than one Chris in the world,” snapped Vincent. “And I’m not one to tell secrets. What’s past is past. You’ll oblige me by making no further comment, Susan, or over the side of the basket you go. Right now!”

  This flash of unaccustomed temper startled his younger passengers, but Miss Seeton, still busy with her sketching, noted nothing beyond a brief disturbance of the general calm that embraced them all, and a jagged line or two in her depiction of the drifting clouds that cast fluffy shadows on the ground beneath. She wondered if it might signify a thunderstorm later.

  Throughout the flight Vincent had checked his watch as he switched from one cylinder of gas to another. “Time to think about landing,” he announced. “Camelot, here we come!”

  The ancient hill-fort, with its bare grass summit and clustering fringe of trees, had been visible almost from the moment of take-off, once its darker shape had been pointed out against the merging blue haze of the hills behind. Miss Seeton uttered a little murmur that combined pleasure with regret. For the rest of her life she would remember this experience. There would be her sketc
hes, of course, but she somehow felt there would be no real need of any visual reminder ...

  “Remember what I said about pulling down the seats.” Vincent was busy scanning the ground for a likely-looking field. “I’ll say when.” He tugged thoughtfully on a rope, and the balloon began to sink. “Miss Seeton, you take the seat by the plate,” he added.

  She was surprised. Had he not explained that he carried nothing breakable with him, in case of accident? Then she recalled the mention of champagne. Maybe a picnic was to be enjoyed after landing? The plates must therefore be plastic.

  As he tugged again to release more gas and send the balloon even lower, he saw her surprise, and chuckled. “A metal plate with my name and address,” he explained. “That’s the law.” He winked, and put a finger to his lips. “Even for a free spirit like Vince Weaver.”

  The burner roared once more; the balloon rose to avoid a tall tree directly in its path. Then more air was released; the gentle drift to the ground resumed. “Take your seats, ladies,” instructed Vincent, still busy with the rip cord. “Hold on to the top of the basket and don’t let go.” He switched off the burner. “When I tell you, start the countdown from ten.” He leaned over the side to take a coil of stout rope from a canvas bag, and dropped it. “Trail rope, to keep us upright as possible,” he told Miss Seeton, as the onward drift of the balloon slowed almost to a halt. “Right ... All together—ten, nine, eight ...”

  When the countdown reached one he pulled hard on the rip cord, and as the deflating balloon continued on its way the basket bumped heavily to the ground, tilted, dragged a few yards and then rocked itself, upright, to a bumbling halt. The balloon, a shrunken wraith of its former glory, moved onward to slump at last in whispering wrinkles to the ground.

  “And now count to twenty before you even think of moving!” Vincent’s eyes were busy as he checked that all was well. At nineteen he nodded. At twenty he grinned. “Well done, all of you—and out you get. And especially well done you, Miss Seeton. I’d never have thought this was your first time, the way you took it all in your stride. Enjoy yourself?”

  The two younger women scuffled slightly over who should leave the basket first, but Miss Seeton could only nod in answer to Vincent’s remark. Her eyes sparkled. Her hands, released now from their clutch on the edge of the basket, moved quickly to open her bag for the sketchbook she had packed away before landing. She must capture before she forgot the sudden change from blissful calm to busy-ness and movement, from stillness in the air to the earthbound billowing of Susan’s white robes, the disarray of her long hair by the wind, the rustle of breeze-rippled grass ...

  “ ’ere!”

  Vincent, leaping from the basket without recourse to the footholds, left Miss Seeton to her happy sketching and joined his two lady-friends in preparing the now almost empty balloon for packing up. When the ground crew arrived they would manhandle the awkward bundle of fabric, rope and cable into the trailer towed behind the estate car, and everyone would enjoy a glass of champagne before the basket was added to the cargo and secured under a tarpaulin. Even Susan, a far less frequent flyer, knew (under instruction) what to do; Vincent had many, more than willing, helpers who took turns to stay on the ground as the others in their turn took to the skies.

  “ ’ere, young man!” The rapidly approaching voice was loud, male, and indignant. “What’s all this then, you and that heathen contraption dropping on my land without so much as a by your leave?”

  “Oh, heck,” muttered Mr. Weaver. “I’d clean forgotten where we were. Wildfell Farm.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Alison, who had been on the previous flight to arrive there.

  “Oh?” said Susan, who hadn’t.

  Wasting no time in enlightening her, the balloonist advanced to greet the older man who, as Miss Seeton saw, carried a shotgun broken over one arm. She supposed he had been hunting rabbits or other pests, as Nigel and Sir George so often did; she was glad to see that, angry though he sounded, he had taken quite as much care of his weapon as ever the Colvedens would. In moments of confusion accidents could so easily occur, and she supposed that the unexpected landing of a hot air balloon would certainly confuse the one who farmed the land on which the balloon had, well, landed.

  “Mr. Huntingdon,” Vincent began, “I’m very sorry, but—”

  “Never you mind wi’ your but-butting, young Weaver. Din’t I tell ’ee last time as I don’t hold with it? Which I still don’t, an’ never shall.” Arthur Huntingdon had now come up to the balloon, and was scowling at the aeronauts. “If the good Lord had intended us to fly He would have graced us with wings, as He did the angels—but He in his wisdom clearly did not so intend, for we were not so graced. Why, ’tis nothing less nor blasphemy for you and your friends to go a-gallivanting through the air pretending to be birds, scorning the ways of creation and making mock of the Commandments.” His gaze flashed towards the innocently bystanding form of Miss Seeton, her pencil and sketchbook for the moment stilled.

  “An’ you,” snapped the farmer, “old enough to know better! Older,” he amended, after a closer view of her demure grey locks and decorous tweeds. “Taking to the skies at your age! Mimicking the birds, wi’ they feathers in your hat! A fine example to be setting these idolatrous rapscallions—and worse, if a weaker vessel such as you has allowed them to lead you into wicked temptation!”

  Miss Seeton was indignant on behalf, not of herself—a gentlewoman must never make, and should always ignore, a personal remark—but of her new young friends. “Nobody,” she protested, “has led anyone anywhere. All I did was purchase a raffle ticket, and—”

  “Oops,” said Vincent.

  Arthur Huntingdon turned purple. “Gambling!” he cried. “Let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us—and evil indeed it is to waste hard-earned money on idle pleasure—on gluttony, and wanton drunkenness, and all manner of selfish pursuits when there is all too much room in this sinful world for charitable causes ...”

  As he drew breath and brandished his shotgun a small, dumpy, red-cheeked woman in a wrap-around apron and heavy black gumboots arrived, breathless, at his side and tugged his other sleeve with a pink, damp hand and an urgent “Arthur!” on her lips.

  “Let your women keep silence,” he began, trying to shake her off; but she stood her ground and tugged more firmly.

  “Arthur, enough!” Nell Huntingdon could quote scripture as readily as her husband. “You know full well the Book tells us how the wind bloweth where it listeth and there’s nothing to be done, as Mr. Weaver explained before. I’m sure he didn’t mean to land at Wildfell again—did you, Mr. Weaver?”

  “I did not,” said Vincent. Nobody doubted his sincerity. “It was only that we wanted a closer look at Cadbury Camp—King Arthur and his knights, and Camelot—and when I saw we were running short of fuel we had to come down here, though I promise you we’d have gone further if—” he shot an apologetic glance at Susan—“we’d not made a bit of a detour beforehand, which used more gas than I’d bargained for wi’ moving up to take advantage of the higher current. But surely there’s no real harm done? And we’ll be off your land just as soon as the retrievers arrive—”

  “I’ll have no dogs on my farm!”

  “—to help us pack everything away, same as they did before. I know you’ve no telephone, or they’d be here even quicker, but they’ve been following us in the estate car and I reckon it won’t be too long before we’re safely off your land.”

  “And your sinful drink with you!” Arthur Huntingdon did not forget the previous incident, when Vincent had offered him, for the inconvenience caused, a half-bottle of champagne as well as a coloured print of the balloon signed and dated by passengers and landowner alike.

  Nell Huntingdon smiled kindly. “But we’d be glad of the picture, wouldn’t we, Arthur?” Arthur muttered something inaudible. Miss Seeton found her fingers gripping her pencil ...

  “And I told you last time,” said the exasperat
ed Vincent, “if the worst comes to the worst and you’ve suffered real damage, I’ll speak to me father and he’ll buy the whole blamed field from you! How can a man say fairer than that?”

  “Not one inch of their land do the Huntingdons part with!” thundered Arthur.

  “There have always,” murmured Alison, “been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm ...”

  “Excuse me,” ventured Miss Seeton, who as the argument ebbed and flowed around her had been busy and absorbed in her work. “There was, as I recall, some mention of a picture. Might this be the sort of thing you had in mind?”

  She handed her finished sketch to Vincent, who accepted it with automatic thanks, glanced quickly at it, paused to look again, and then handed it to Arthur Huntingdon. As the farmer scowled and his wife, leaning close, began to smile, Mr. Weaver clapped his helpful passenger on the shoulder and favoured her with a broad grin of relief.

  “You’re a grand lass, Miss Seeton, and thanks. Any time you fancy another flight wi’ me you’ve only to say the word!” For Mr. Huntingdon’s scowl had faded, and he joined his wife in exclaiming with pleasure at Miss Seeton’s swift depiction of their distant farmhouse with a balloon hovering above. Although Vincent’s party had not approached so close the sketch showed the farmhouse with surprising accuracy, and there were two small figures in the foreground, one with a shotgun and another with a laundry basket at her feet. Miss Seeton, decided Vincent, must with her artist’s eye have had a better view than he, busy with burners and rip cords and ropes, had realised.

  “We’ll set this in a frame to match the photograph from last year,” announced Nell Huntingdon. “And will ’ee sign it for us like a real picture, midear?” Miss Seeton turned a modest pink. “An’ all the rest, you can write your names together on the back.”

  Nell spoke with such assurance that even her husband was nodding and agreeing with her pronouncement. Vincent grinned once more at Miss Seeton, then suppressed a cheer as the approaching rattle of an engine announced the arrival of Ned and Dylan, who had followed the balloon in the estate car. Arthur Huntingdon, to his own surprise, found that it did his god-fearing soul no particular harm to lend a hand in rolling and folding the fabric canopy into a manageable bundle. Nell Huntingdon, holding the broken shotgun, smiled as she watched him while Miss Seeton, asked by Vincent to chronicle the end of the excursion in further drawings, stood by her side and drew.