“No!” The sisters spoke together.
“Oh yes! Sir William tries to brush him aside and go on his way, but ol’ Silas ain’t having any of that, and he follows Sir William and grabs him by the arm.”
“By the arm!” gasped Effie.
“As true as I’m sitting here, Ma’am, and he says again, “Aint you come to give a little something to a poor working man who you cast out into the cold world? Especially now he hasn’t got a daughter to look after him any more.”
“Goodness!” said Effie.
“And what did Sir William say?” asked Harriet, breathlessly attentive.
Mr. Benjamin leaned a little closer over the teacups. “Well, ladies, Sir William kep’ his voice down - which is more than I can say for Silas, but I swear to you that I heard every word.”
“But what were the words, Mr. Benjamin?”
Mr. Benjamin smiled a little. He didn’t get much company in the pottery; clay didn’t tend to say much, on the whole, and although the kiln made a fair amount of noise when it was getting up to temperature, it wasn’t rightly something that you could have any sort of a conversation with. There was no doubt that he was enjoying sitting here in this little room, stuffed with female nonsense and knickknacks, and the focus of attention of two rather pleasant ladies. Old maids they might be, but Miss Harriet was sharp as a knife and Miss Effie’s chatter could make a dog laugh at times. He nodded portentously. “Sir William said,” he paused, “‘Well my man, I rather think that now you haven’t got a daughter any more, there is no need for me to give you any more little somethings, if you take my meaning?’”
The two ladies leaned slowly back. Effie put her hands to her mouth and gazed at him with all her eyes.
“Blackmail,” said Harriet, in hushed tones.
“It certainly sounded that way to me,” said Mr. Benjamin.
“But why?…Oh dear!” said Effie. “Poor Lady Weston!”
Harriet gave her sister a sideways look. ‘Poor’ was not an epithet that sat easily on Lady Weston’s shoulders, what with her domineering ways, her sublime confidence in her position at the top of village society, her money, her power, her charming son - and her unlimited supplies of good quality tea. Although of course it was Sunday and we are taught to love our neighbours.
“And then…” said Mr. Benjamin.
The two sisters shook themselves out of their thoughts and paid strict attention.
“And then Silas poked his face a bit closer to Sir William’s and said ‘I’m warning you, your Lordship, if you don’t look after me, it’s not just her Ladyship I’ll be having a little word with - it’s the Police!’”
“The Police!”
“What can he know?” gasped Harriet. “Surely, to make a threat like that, he must know something more than…than…what one might have thought from…from…”
“From what he said before.” said Effie, pleased to be in the position - unusual for her - of being able to clarify her sister’s words.
“Did everyone at The Bull hear all this?” said Harriet, scandalised.
“That I couldn’t say, Ma’am. I tends to have sharp ears, y’see, living out on the river like I do with nothing more to listen to than the wind in the rushes from one week’s end to the next. It might be that t’other men didn’t catch it all - but they certainly heard what came next…”
“What came next?”
“Sir William pushes ol’ Silas away, and rounds on him, like, and shakes his stick at him, and says - right out loud, ‘Don’t you talk to me like that. Everyone knows you didn’t care tuppence for your daughter’, and Silas goes staggering back to avoid the stick - I just about caught him before he fell…”
“Oh, you were standing right behind him, were you, Mr. Benjamin?”
“Best place to hear,” said Mr. Benjamin cheerfully. “And Silas shouts out ‘My daughter’s worth a lot more than tuppence to me, I can tell you. Dead or alive!”
“No! What a horrible thing to say!”
“Horrible indeed, Effie, and what can he have meant?”
“Yes, what can he have meant? And then what happened, Mr. Benjamin?”
“Oh, his Lordship walked off then, but that still wasn’t the end, because some of the other chaps in the pub started on at Silas, as you can imagine, after him coming out with a crack like that. I think it was one of the Carter lads as said that if Silas had really cared about his daughter he’d be in church praying for her, not getting drunk at The Bull - all the Carter family is strong Dissenters, hot as hot.”
“But Mr. Carter was at The Bull?”
“That he was, but to be fair, Ma’am, he don’t drink no more’n I do - just my usual one…”
“And one to follow,” nodded Effie.
“What did Silas say to that?”
“He said ‘Oh yes, that Parson and them up at the Manor was always trying to get my Millie to go to church, but what happened after church, eh?’ and he tapped his nose.”
“He tapped his nose, Mr. Benjamin?” said Effie, looking puzzled.
“Like this, Ma’am.” Mr. Benjamin demonstrated, leering slightly to enhance his imitation. “Only ol’ Silas wasn’t in any condition to go tapping anything with any accuracy, so it looked more like he was swatting flies away.”
“Well!” Effie flopped back in her chair.
“Well indeed,” said Harriet, leaning back more slowly. “Is there any more, Mr. Benjamin?”
“No, M’m, he fell over just about then and we dragged him out and put his head under the pump, and after that, what he said I don’t feel able to repeat.”
“Indeed, no!” said Effie, thankfully. “But what…?”
There was a scratch at the door and Becky’s head appeared round the edge. “It’s Grace, M’m - she’s brought your hanky back and you said as how you wanted to talk to her when she come.”
Miss Harriet nodded graciously, “Bring her up please, Becky.”
“Shall I go, ladies?” asked Mr. Benjamin.
Harried looked at him consideringly. Would Grace be inclined to be more open if they were just three females together, or would she see Mr. Benjamin as someone who had already proven himself to to be a friend? The latter seemed very probable, but, on the other hand, if Mr. Benjamin had already received the maid’s confidence and gained any useful information, he would probably already have told them. No - better to see the girl with just the three of them present! “I think it might be better if you did,” she replied, and Mr. Benjamin was up and touching his forehead to them just as Becky pushed Grace through the door. The potter smiled kindly at the girl as he held the door for her - as who would not, faced with those clouded, Spring sky eyes, in which traces of one shower could still be seen, and another seemed likely to follow? There were dark circles under the eyes now, Harriet noted, as if their owner had slept very little during the past week.
“Come and sit down, dear,” invited Harriet, “and Becky, bring up a kettle of hot water to refresh the teapot, please, and another cup and saucer.”
“Oh no, Ma’am,” said the girl, looking distressed as Becky clattered off downstairs again with Mr. Benjamin. “I can’t stay - I only stopped by to return your handkerchief, and to thank you for your kindness…”
“We would like to be a great deal more kind than the simple loan of one handkerchief - however prettily embroidered,” said Harriet, and was rewarded by a faint smile, although the lower lip trembled.
“Now, as we know, Lady Weston seems to think that one of the gardeners had something to do with the tragic death of poor Millie Budge.”
“No!,” the girl said, “I don’t believe it - I can’t believe it, Ma’am - although..” her face quivered as a sharp wind blew across it.
“Although?” prompted Harriet.
The girl looked down at the carpet and traced the pattern of one of its curling leaves with the toe of her boot, “although I wouldn’t have believed that Elwy would have…,” a
sob broke from her throat and she fumbled for a scrap of linen to blow her nose. Poor little thing, thought Effie, but at least she has had the foresight to bring her own handkerchief this time.
The rattle of tea things warned that Becky has just placed the tray on the little table at the top of the stairs, situated there in order to free her hands to open the door. The door itself swung open, and a moment later Becky and the tray entered. She gave a quick, troubled glance sideways at Grace, attempting to stifle her tears in her handkerchief, and looked enquiringly at her mistress.
“Thank you, Becky, we will see to the tea ourselves.”
Becky bobbed a curtsey and went out - leaving, Harriet noted, the door just slightly ajar. She very nearly called to Becky to close it, but decided to leave well enough alone; Becky could probably hear equally well through the keyhole if pushed to it.
“Are you and…Elwy?…walking out together?” asked Harriet, adding hot water to the teapot and stirring it up well.
“Elwin, Ma’am,” said Grace, “his proper name is Elwin.”
“But how charming,” said Effie, “a very old name, and it suits…”
“A very old name,” interrupted Harriet before Effie could disclose that they had already met its owner. They were not, after all, yet sure of the faun’s identity, although circumstances seemed to point to it.
“Is it?” said the girl, and again there was that sensation of a scrap of blue sky, swept away by clouds.
“You are friends?” said Harriet, trying a different tack and handing the girl a cup of tea.
The girl nodded. “Thank you, M’m. Yes’m. I’m still his friend, anyways.”
“But you have reason to believe that he is not yours?” said Effie, sympathetically.
The girl’s face set into the bitterness of a Spring frost. “Her ladyship don’t allow followers,” she said, eventually.
“But he would have liked to be your follower?”
Grace stared at the window where the fugitive sunlight made flickering patterns among the geranium leaves. Then she gave a sigh which seemed to drag her soul up from her booted feet.
“What do you want to know for, Ma’am? What’s the point?”
“The point, young lady,” said Harriet sharply, for she began to feel that only sharpness would get her anywhere with Grace, “is that if Lady Weston has her way she will have your Elwin arrested for murder. And if that happens then I would like to be very sure that the police take the right man to prison…”
“He’s not my Elwin,” Grace started to say, but she was interrupted.
“…And to the gallows,” finished Harriet.
That got the girl’s attention. Every scrap of colour drained from her face and she raised horror-struck, imploring eyes to Harriet’s. “No!” she whispered.
“Now, if you are, as you claim, a friend of Elwin’s, I suggest you tell us everything you can about him and about Millie,” said Harriet, more kindly.
Grace looked at the carpet again, while Harriet felt like shaking her, but eventually she turned her eyes to Harriet. Her lips had gone white, but they were firm.
“We was walking out, me and Elwy,” she said. “In secret, of course, because of her ladyship, but he said, as soon as we’d saved enough… We used to meet when we could, down by the glasshouses, where the gardeners tend up seedlings, after chapel on a Sunday. Millie used to joke me about it, about the way he looked at me. She said he was nutty on me; that felt good, particularly since I knew she’d have liked him if she could get him, so it made it, like, even more special to know…to think…that someone like her wanted him, but knew…thought…that he only wanted me. 'Cept he didn’t.” Grace’s eyelids fell over those watery blue skies and she turned her gaze to the carpet again.
“He wasn’t faithful to you?” asked Effie in hushed tones.
Grace shook her head, but no tears came. “I suppose Millie got her own way in the end. I expect she offered him what all men want, and, like all men, he took it.” Now there was a snap; the girl could do more than just cry.
“How did you find out?” said Harriet.
“Peter told me,” said Grace. A rising tide of flame filled her face. “In fact he told the whole blessed hall!” She looked at the sisters, a virulent mixture of anger and shame and deep hurt, coloured by the red tide, “Peter said he’d heard her ladyship raking down Elwy for keeping company with Millie; told him that he was dismissed and he was to go straight and get his things and leave the estate, and not to come back.”
“Perhaps Lady Weston was mistaken,” offered Effie timidly, “perhaps someone had lied about Elwin?”
“Peter said he heard it from Elwy’s own lips, that Elwy up and told her ladyship that he’d been with Millie. There wasn’t no doubt, Ma’am.” She shook her head, but then raised it defiantly. “But I don’t believe as he drownded her, Ma’am, and I never will. He hasn’t got it in him!”
“Dear me!” said Harriet, “but have you spoken to him since, Grace?”
Grace’s nostrils narrowed. “D’you think I don’t have any pride, just because I’m a maid, Ma’am?” And the look she gave Harriet could hardly have been bettered by Lady Weston at her most arrogant. “I haven’t seen him from that day to this and I would scorn to even ask after him. I have no idea where he is - I only hopes as he’s a long way from here to keep him out of her ladyship’s eye.” She gave a slight toss to her russet head. “And before you ask, no, he hasn’t made any attempt to see me - not that I’ve heard of, anyways. And why should he? He knows I know it all now. He knows as he aint got no chance with me any more. He can go find himself a new girl to play with; I don’t suppose he’ll have to wait long to find one.”
Nor do I, thought Effie, not with those looks.
CHAPTER 6
In which Silas Budge damns Sir William, and Mr. Myers more generously includes all the Quality in a general damnation
“Harry, dear, what do you make of it all?”
The two sisters faced each other across the geranium, their comfortable chairs angled to catch the best of the afternoon sun on their work. Harriet had an interesting piece of worsted to occupy her hands while Effie was about the decoration of a table runner, a rainbow of silks laid out neatly over the arm of her chair, but Effie’s needle remained stationary in mid-stitch as she looked at her sister’s bent head, and noticed how the lace of her cap cast pretty shadows over her forehead and nose. Harriet looked up at Effie and pursed her lips.
”Well,” she said, turning back to her work, “there is certainly a lot to mull over.”
“Exactly!” said Effie. “I have to say I find the…the situation between Sir William and Silas Budge quite fascinating. Why do you think Sir William would be giving money to Silas? Well, I mean, obviously Silas knows something, or saw…. and Sir William said that he wouldn’t have to pay any more now that Millie is dead! What could that possibly mean?”
Harriet paused again in her work and frowned. “Could Sir William have been…involved with Millie?”
“And Millie told her father…”
“Who blackmailed Sir William.”
“But surely Sir William could simply have ended the… liaison?”
“That wouldn’t have prevented Mr. Budge from threatening to tell Lady Weston.”
Both sisters thought for a while; the image of Lady Weston - imperious, commanding - rose up in the little parlour and dimmed the light - or it might have been just a cloud passing over.
“The question is, or, at least, one question is,” said Harriet, “would Lady Weston have cared?”
“Would she have cared, Harry? Of course she would have…her own husband!…even if she herself didn’t…although we have no reason to think she does not…they always seem so…well, perhaps not exactly affectionate, but on very good terms…as if they understand each other, which is only to be expected after so many years of marriage, but then - as you say - after so many years…would she indeed have cared? Oh dea
r!”
Having worked herself round to a full circle, Effie set a few more stitches in the leaf of a rosebud.
“I could imagine,” said Harriet, plying her needle with an accuracy born of long practice, “that her ladyship would simply ignore any tendency of Sir William to stray, shall we say, unless it appeared that a greater problem seemed likely to arise.”
“Such as a baby,” whispered Effie.
Harriet nodded. “Though even there the girl could just be sent home to her mother - with or without some sort of douceur.”
“If she had a mother.”
“Yes, if she had a mother.”
“But if, instead of a mother, she had a father like Silas Budge…”
“Indeed.”
There was a pause. Harriet continued industriously working, but Effie stared at the geranium. It looked a little dusty; perhaps tomorrow she should wash its leaves, she always felt the geranium enjoyed the attention.
“Mr. Budge said that his daughter was worth money to him, alive or dead,” she reminded her sister.
Harriet knotted her wool and took up her tiny pair of scissors to cut the end close to the stuff. She shook out the piece and then laid it in her lap and smoothed it with one hand, admiring the colours. Then she looked at her sister, her head slightly on one side like a neat, middle-aged blackbird listening for the movement of a fat worm just below the surface.
“If Mr. Budge was blackmailing Sir William because Millie was carrying his child, that would explain his saying that his daughter was worth money to him alive. And if he is now intending to blackmail Sir William because of her death, that could explain why he thinks that she would be worth money to him dead.”
“But that means…”
“That Silas Budge thinks Sir William killed his daughter.”
The Miss Fotheringays and the Faun (The Miss Fotheringays Investigate Book 1) Page 4