by Beth Andrews
‘Ghosts!’ Cook was highly affronted, appearing like a poor man’s version of Mrs Wardle-Penfield at her most forbidding. ‘I’ve been at Bellefleur nigh on thirty years, Mr Savidge, and there ain’t no ghosts in this ‘ere house. That I can swear to.’
‘Do you know of any enemies Kate might have had?’ John enquired, returning to more practical matters.
‘I can’t say, sir,’ the old woman answered. ‘She didn’t even have a young man that I know of.’
That avenue seemed fruitless, so he tried another.
‘And you last saw her this morning?’
‘I was just preparing the meat for dinner,’ she explained, ‘when I looks up and sees Kate passing by, dressed for church.’
‘And how long after that did Mrs Chalfont give the alarm?’
‘Not more than quarter of an hour.’
‘You are quite certain of that?’
‘I am.’
John pondered this. It was an absurdly short span of time. Of course it did not take very long to kill someone. No, not long at all.
* * * *
When John had finished reciting this news to Lydia, her spirits were lower than they had ever been in all her seventeen years. It would have been bad enough if her efforts had produced nothing. Instead, they had made everything infinitely worse.
‘Oh John!’ she almost wailed. ‘What have I done?’
‘It is foolish to blame yourself, Lydia,’ John told her with his usual common sense.
‘Had I not gone up to Bellefleur, asking questions and generally interfering in things which did not concern me, Kate would be alive today.’
‘You are hardly responsible for Kate’s death.’ John held her by the shoulders and looked squarely into her eyes. ‘It was not you who placed that cord around her neck. It was somebody whose heart has become hardened to evil - which yours clearly has not.’
‘But whatever it was she remembered that day,’ Lydia persisted, ‘that was what led to her death. Whoever killed her knew that she was going to speak with me after church and they made very sure that she never got there.’
‘Even if that is true, you are not the one at fault.’
‘But it was my going there which led to all this.’
He apparently realized that it was useless to argue with her in her present emotional state, and so he wisely turned the conversation in another direction. This was to prove almost equally unhappy, however.
‘At least,’ he said, ‘this has proven that your suspicions were correct.’
‘My suspicions?’
‘Obviously, someone at Bellefleur is a killer, and that person was almost certainly responsible for the death of Mr Cole.’
‘And now,’ she added, her head bent and held in her two hands, as though weighed down by an intolerable burden, ‘now everyone will believe that Monsieur d’Almain is the murderer.’
‘You can hardly blame yourself for that as well,’ John groaned, becoming impatient with her self-imposed martyrdom. ‘If you want to blame anyone, blame Mrs Chalfont.’
‘She only told you what she saw.’
‘Or thought she saw,’ John corrected. ‘She merely said that it might have been d’Almain, after all.’
‘Which is all that is needed to confirm what has been said in the village for weeks!’
‘I wonder if she is aware of the village gossip?’
‘She must know!’ Lydia protested. ‘Unless she is deaf. I’m sure the servants at Bellefleur have tongues, and they must be repeating all that goes on in Diddlington.’
‘Well, at least this must clear Sir Hector of suspicion, in your mind,’ John said. ‘He is clearly in no condition to commit such a crime.’
‘He could have easily paid someone else to do it for him,’ Lydia pointed out.
‘True.’ He frowned. ‘But there is more to this than meets the eye.’
‘I wish I had never gotten mixed up in it,’ she cried with genuine sincerity.
‘I did warn you of the danger,’ he answered, not without a certain grim satisfaction.
‘To me!’ she reminded him. ‘I was willing to take the risk. But how could I imagine that it could lead to someone else’s death?’
‘For my part,’ John said practically, ‘I am glad that, if someone had to perish, it was Kate Eccles and not you.’
‘How heartless!’ Lydia was shocked at this ruthless point of view.
‘Well, I was not intending to marry her.’
He stood up and took a brief turn about the room. Lydia wished that she could find fault with this argument, but it was perfectly reasonable.
‘What do you think,’ she asked instead, ‘will happen to Monsieur d’Almain?’
‘My father will have him in for questioning,’ he answered promptly. ‘Well, he must. I only hope that he can prove that he was elsewhere this morning between the hours when Kate was last seen alive and the time Mrs Chalfont found her.’
‘And if he cannot?’
‘I’m afraid my father will have little choice but to arrest him.’
‘You do not really think that he... ?’ her voice trailed off, afraid to even voice the question.
‘I don’t know,’ John said, not pretending that he didn’t understand what she was suggesting. ‘Until today, I would have sworn it to be impossible and I still find it hard to establish a connection between d’Almain and anyone at Bellefleur. But Kate is dead. I must wait until I hear from the man himself.’
‘Will you tell me what you discover?’
‘I have told you more than I should have already.’ He came to stand beside her and put his arm around her shoulders in a gesture partly tender and partly bracing. ‘But if anyone deserves to know, it is you, and I know I can trust you completely.’
With that, he was gone. Now she had to wait, and to hope that nothing worse might happen.
Chapter Seventeen
SUSPICION UNLIMITED
John might be circumspect in his speech, but either his father or the housekeeper was not so cautious. By the next day, the news had somehow escaped that Mrs Chalfont had seen the French gentleman in the garden just before the poor maid was murdered. Lydia had certainly never mentioned the matter to anyone. Her tongue was not so loose, for one thing and, for another, she was really afraid to think of what the effect might be upon her aunt.
Lydia herself heard it from none other than the Misses Digweed, whom she happened to see when she looked through the front window. They were passing by on their way into Diddlington to harass the butcher for some mutton, and could not stay, but they beckoned her outside for a moment and were quick to inform her of the latest on dit.
‘He was in the shrubbery,’ said the eldest.
‘The rose garden,’ her sister corrected.
‘With a knife.’
‘A rope.’
‘Such a nice gentleman.’
‘Choking the life out of her.’
‘So polite.’
‘Menacing, I’d call him.’
‘Bound to be arrested.’
‘Bound to be.’
On this last point, for once they were both in agreement. By the time they finished speaking, Lydia’s head was aching. They were eager to be gone, but not as eager as she was to see the backs of them. How was she to keep this from her aunt?
As it turned out, Aunt Camilla was so overset by the news from the previous day that she did not leave her bed. It was an unexpected mercy that she was closeted in her bedchamber and so heard nothing of what was happening in the world outside. When she did manage to ask her niece if there was any news, Lydia replied that it was too soon yet to know just what had happened. She urged her aunt to put the matter from her mind for the moment, and told the maid not to breathe a word of anything she might hear.
In the meantime, she sent round a note to the Golden Cockerel, begging John to please see her as soon as possible. All day long she stayed indoors, attending to her aunt and fretting herself into a state of near exhaustion. Never had she been so weary
; never had the future looked so dismal.
After the most interminable day she had ever endured, at half past eight that evening there was a knock at the front door. Lydia flew to answer it, almost falling upon John’s chest when he entered.
‘What news?’ she said breathlessly, not even bothering to greet him properly.
He shook his head slowly.
‘It is not good.’
* * * *
Lydia had expected as much. Indeed, she was growing so accustomed to bad news that she felt nothing could surprise her anymore. Nevertheless, it could not but add to her burden.
‘What has happened?’ she asked with the calm born of resignation rather than hope.
‘My father brought Monsieur d’Almain in to be questioned.’
‘I suppose he could not account for his movements yesterday morning?’
‘He was walking - alone - in the vicinity of Bellefleur.’
Lydia closed her eyes. ‘How could he have been so foolish?’
‘To confess something so damning?’
‘To be so absurdly honest, when the situation clearly called for a little dissimulation!’
John smiled at her.
‘Perhaps he is not such an accomplished liar,’ he suggested ironically, ‘and feared that the truth might well come out later.’
‘He has done his best to make himself appear guilty.’
‘Is that because he is clever, honest, or... ?’
‘Or merely stupid,’ she finished for him.
‘He admitted that he had visited Bellefleur on several occasions in the past,’ John informed her, settling himself comfortably in a chair across from her. ‘Apparently, Sir Hector had privately commissioned him to design a presentation box as a gift for his valet, in honor of his years of devoted service.’
‘Does Mr Tweedy have such a box?’ she asked.
John nodded. ‘We have already confirmed that he received such a box last Christmas.’
‘Then we know that d’Almain was telling the truth.’
‘In that instance,’ John assented.
‘You do not really believe him capable of murder?’
‘Most of us are capable of murder,’ he answered, ‘given the proper circumstances.’
‘I simply cannot imagine him strangling poor Kate,’ Lydia insisted.
‘Nor can I. But someone did. Someone she knew.’
This captured her attention at once, and her eyes narrowed as she contemplated her betrothed.
‘How can you be sure that she knew her killer?’
‘If she was killed where her body was found,’ John explained, ‘it seems improbable that she was confronted by a stranger.’
‘How so?’
He leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers on the arm while he collected his thoughts before speaking. He said that, after examining the body and the area surrounding it more closely, he could perceive no signs of a struggle. Nor was there any place nearby where someone could hide from view. The hedge was against a wall which blocked the view from the house, but there was no space amongst the bushes for someone to hide: they were packed too closely together.
‘In spite of what Mrs Chalfont and the other servants might think,’ he concluded, ‘Kate could not have been taken by surprise.’
‘You mean that she was simply speaking to someone in the garden, and she....’
‘She turned around,’ John finished her thought, ‘and whoever was there with her, quickly slipped the cord about her neck and tightened it.’
‘How horrible!’ Lydia caught her lips between her teeth and stared unseeingly at the floor.
‘But very simple.’
‘And then the killer just slipped away unseen.’ Lydia looked up at him again.
‘Or returned to the house as though nothing had happened.’
‘So you do suspect someone at Bellefleur!’
‘I suspect everyone at Bellefleur,’ he said with a smile.
‘Except Sir Hector,’ she quizzed him.
‘Tell me,’ he asked, ignoring her last remark, ‘who overheard Kate’s remark to you that afternoon?’
‘Mr Tweedy did,’ she said promptly. ‘He came up behind her as she stood at the door, talking to me.’
‘And nobody else was about?’
‘Nobody,’ she asserted confidently.
‘I think I had better have a word with Mr Tweedy tomorrow,’ John said, rising from his seat.
‘Please be careful, John,’ she urged him.
He put his arm around her as she came up beside him.
‘How long has it been since I kissed you, Lydia?’
‘Much too long,’ she said, pouting.
He promptly remedied the situation. Then, after a considerable amount of time had passed, he stepped back and straightened his neck cloth.
‘I had best leave before I forget that we are not yet married!’
‘Do you think we shall ever be?’ she asked doubtfully.
‘What kind of talk is this?’ he demanded.
‘Your father is right, John,’ she said seriously. ‘You can do much better for yourself than to marry me. I seem to do nothing but cause trouble.’
‘You certainly do not sit at home stitching samplers,’ he agreed with a grin. ‘But that’s not the sort of wife I’m hanging out for, love.’
‘I’m not very pretty,’ she said, pressing home her point.
‘You’re not a beauty,’ he agreed, not being one to pay empty compliments. ‘But I’m no Adonis either. I like your face. It suits me.’
‘I think I should cry off.’ She sighed, not at all offended by his honesty. ‘After all, we do not yet know what my father will say.’
‘It does not matter what he says,’ John replied with cheerful ruthlessness. ‘Unless you want to be branded a fast female and a jilt, you must marry me.’
‘I think,’ she said a little wistfully, ‘that it might be rather pleasant to be considered a fast female.’
‘Not at all the thing,’ he corrected her. ‘You wouldn’t like it at all.’
‘You may be right.’
‘Of course I am.’
Chapter Eighteen
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE
The following day, Aunt Camilla felt well enough to come downstairs and have some toast and a little weak tea. She still did not feel strong enough to venture out of doors, and Lydia was beginning to think that the evil moment might be put off indefinitely - but it was not to be.
The two women had not been downstairs together for more than a quarter of an hour before they were forced to receive a visitor: Mrs Wardle-Penfield. She protruded into the room rather like the bow of a ship jutting out over a dock. In this case, it would have been a naval vessel engaged in battle, for her words fell like cannon balls into the placid waters of her aunt’s sitting-room, throwing up a splash and unsettling everyone.
It did not take her long to fire the first shot, proclaiming that Monsieur d’Almain had been questioned by Mr Savidge the previous day and had practically confessed to murdering poor Kate Eccles! Shameless, she called it: positively shameless. To be killing people when his good neighbors were all at their prayers! Those monstrous French ... good for nothing but revolution and rebellion. Well, he should have a taste of English justice now. It was a pity, though, that the English did not at least allow the use of the guillotine.
To Lydia’s surprise, her aunt sat through this swelling diatribe in complete silence and apparently in full command of her faculties. So stiff and straight she was that Lydia presently began to wonder if she had not died and her body stiffened with rigor mortis.
At length Mrs Wardle-Penfield concluded her speech and relieved them of her presence, saying that she must be off to the inn to find out whether or not the Frenchman had yet been arrested.
After seeing her to the door, Lydia returned to the room to find Camilla gone. She dashed up the stairs to her aunt’s bedchamber. The door was open, and her aunt was plainly visible as she struggle
d to put on a bottle green spencer and a neat round bonnet.
‘Where are you going, aunt?’ Lydia asked in some consternation. Never had she seen the older woman so active and vigorous.
‘I must go to him, Lydia,’ Camilla stated, her voice strong and sure, though her hands trembled as she tied the ribbons under her chin in a lop-sided bow. ‘He is my love, my life! He needs me, and I shall not fail him.’
Lydia blinked. She could only be referring to Monsieur d’Almain.
‘I shall go with you,’ she said.
‘Do as you please.’
Within minutes they were walking down the high street on their way to the Frenchman’s lodgings. Lydia almost had to run to keep pace with her relative, who was progressing much faster than usual. She passed by several of her acquaintance without even acknowledging their presence, and it was left to Lydia to attempt a polite bow as they flitted away. They were attracting considerable attention, for it was clear even to the most disinterested observer that this was no mere afternoon stroll.
At last they reached the door of the gentleman’s humble house, and Aunt Camilla knocked loudly. It was a matter only of seconds before the occupant opened it and stared at them both with a look of astonishment on his handsome countenance.
* * * *
‘Miss Denton ... Miss Bramwell,’ d’Almain began formally, but his speech was forestalled.
‘I came as soon as I heard,’ Aunt Camilla began, going forward impetuously and leaving her niece to close the door behind them. ‘Oh Monsieur d’Almain, tell me that it is not so!’
‘I assure you, ma’am, that I am innocent of any misdeed with which they seek to charge me.’
‘Oh sir,’ Camilla choked out the words, ‘never could I believe any such wicked slander against you! But if anything were to happen to you—’
Here she put them both completely out of countenance by succumbing to a sudden bout of weeping which prohibited further speech. Lydia would have rushed forward to help her, but she perceived at once that d’Almain already had the situation - along with her aunt - firmly in hand.
‘Oh, my dearest love,’ he said most improperly, clasping her in his manly arms, ‘I would have done anything to spare you this pain and distress.’