Ten Lords A-Leaping: A Mystery Part 21

"You weren't awoken by distant thunder?"

"No." That was at least true. Thunder had not awoken him.

Bliss's mouth widened to emit another question when a knock on the door interrupted. The door opened a crack and a man's head peeked through, followed by a uniformed arm. Bliss took the paper proffered, nodded a thanks to the departing figure, and studied the doc.u.ment a moment, his mouth parting with the beginning of a smile. He glanced at Tom as if wondering why he was still in the room.

"Thank you, Vicar," he said, handing the paper to Blessing. "I think that will be all ... for the minute."

Tom understood he wouldn't be leaving Egges...o...b.. anytime soon.

"To get a decent egg, I really think you need to keep your own hens."

"Yes, I expect that's true." Tom regarded askance the congregation of frisky poultry, snowy white and reddish brown, mobbing the dowager countess's legs and tried to imagine the effect in the vicarage garden. A brief one, he thought: pure carnage. Powell and Gloria, the vicarage cats, weren't awfully interested in eggs.

His eyes went up to the top of the high brick wall. He doubted even the most athletic fox could scale it.

"There's wire netting dug nearly two feet into the ground." Dowager Lady Fairhaven seemed to guess his thoughts. "I've only lost one and that's because Roberto's cat-I think of it as Roberto's; Fred Astaire, as Max calls him-snuck through the gate after him."

It was all a bit Hameau de la Reine, the rustic henhouse, the tidy fencing, the pretty chickens, the wicker basket at her feet. Lady Fairhaven in a muslin dress and a straw hat comme Marie Antoinette would have capped the scene quite nicely, but, as she had on Sat.u.r.day when he'd first met her, she was dressed in practical fashion in jeans and an old shirt and looked, as her sobriquet suggested, marvellous-authentic, very much in her milieu.

He had only happened upon the chicken run, drawn by a sudden collective shriek that startled him as he limped along a track near the dower house, gingerly giving his healing ankle in its cast boot a little exercise. He had left the detectives, choosing a path that took him into a wood and along a gra.s.sy bank of the Eggesbrooke to sit for a time under a huge willow that leaned over the water, trailing its branches on the surface, making ripples in the flow. Walking back, the noise he'd heard was unmistakably that of poultry under provocation, but by what, he'd wondered-vermin? He skirted the high wall past the rhododendron shrubs to investigate. No, he'd quickly seen, peeking through a wooden gate, the poultry had been aroused by the dowager countess who was tossing corn from what appeared to be an antique biscuit tin. She invited him to join her.

"Have you been keeping chickens long?" he asked.

"Some few years. You look a little bemused."

"You mentioned chickens to the children yesterday, but I didn't think-"

"My mother was very fond of chickens. She even wrote a book about them, a sort of memoir, with poultry. Three French Hens. My mother was Nancy, Lady Moncrieff."

"Oh!" The name pinged a bell. "I didn't realise you were-"

"One of those Moncrieffs, yes. I'm the quiet one, socalled-the youngest." She threw another handful of corn on the ground, sending the chickens scattering. "My brothers and sister were the tearaways, really. Certainly by comparison." She smiled with her piercing blue eyes.

Tom had a vague notion-largely from television interviews and book reviews, as the Moncrieffs had become prolific published diarists-of the siblings as cynosures of Swinging London in the years before he was born, then later falling into various forms of darkness. One brother, he believed, had died of a drug overdose, but the others had lived to ... Did one join the Baader-Meinhof in Germany? Oh, surely not. And didn't another defect to the Soviet Union? Had he been a spy?

"Which is how in a way," Marguerite continued, "your parents came to a party here and where they learned they would be adopting you. I had met them at a gallery opening in London, though my husband had already met your father in some business situation. He more or less managed your mother's all-too-short career, I think. Didn't I say this when we were looking at the photos yesterday? Interesting days, I must say." She threw another handful of corn over the yard. "But they didn't last. My father-in-law died quite young, as did my husband-there's a congenital heart condition among the Strickland males, which is one reason I do wish Hector would stop jumping from airplanes-so we had to devote our attentions to this estate and the other businesses.

"Anyway." She paused. "What were we talking about? Chickens! We were talking about chickens. My mother kept them. She found tending to them soothing, oddly enough. As do I, though when they're flocked about me as they are now"-she looked down-"I feel rather like I'm at the Women's Inst.i.tute about to give a little talk."

Tom laughed. "You must come to ours then."

"Thornford? Oh, I think I have been in the past. But that was before the chickens. I could come again and talk about poultry management. Usually people have me talk about my family or the sixties. Were you out for a walk? I wasn't expecting to see you until teatime."

"I thought I might take some air. I had a short interview with the police, which was a bit ... cheerless."

"Oh?" She regarded him curiously. "I talked with them yesterday evening after they'd sorted out that poor deranged man who confessed. I told them," she added, her voice growing cross as she reached into the biscuit tin, " 'I'm not trotting back and forth to the Hall at your whim. If you want to talk to me, you can get it over and done with at my cottage.' " She scattered the corn. "They're a pair, aren't they?"

"Those two hens?" Tom had been admiring a pair with coppery hackles jostling and pecking each other.

"No, those two CID-Bliss and Blessing. Not quite Morse and Lewis, are they?"

"They're ... adequate to the task, I think, on the whole."

"Oh, you've met before?"

"There have been some unhappy incidents in Thornford."

"Of course, that poor girl in that drum!"

"How did you know?"

"I ... must have read it in the papers," she replied, handing him the biscuit tin. She swiftly and expertly scooped up a hen, tempted by a new handful of corn, and tucked it under her arm. "You must take some eggs away with you when you leave."

"That's very kind." Tom felt absurdly as though he were addressing the hen, whose beady gla.s.sy eye fixed him with alarm. "I'm not sure when that will be, though."

"After tea, at the earliest," Marguerite said firmly. "It's a birthday tea. Happy birthday, by the way. So, you see, you really mustn't leave." She released the hen and picked up the wicker basket. "Did Bliss and Blessing-what peculiar names they have-say anything that would lead you to believe they had ..." She seemed to search for the words. "... focused their enquiries?"

Tom reflected. "Not really. My interview was brief. We weren't long in it when a constable interrupted us with some paper or other and they dismissed me."

"But you said the interview was cheerless."

"I can't help thinking that anything I say could send them haring down the wrong garden path."

"You have a kind heart, I think."

"I don't think I'm unusual in wanting redress, but I don't really want to see someone innocent troubled along the way-which I suppose is a fair bit of wishful thinking." To the flash of curiosity in her gaze, he explained. "When my wife was murdered-"

"Of course."

Tom hesitated over her brief acknowledgement as Marguerite turned towards the henhouse and began plucking eggs from the nesting boxes. "Did you know?"

"Yes ..." She plopped an egg in her basket. "I did, and I'm very sorry. I can't imagine anything more dreadful."

"You're remarkably well informed, Lady Fairhaven-"

"I'm pottered down here in Devon most of the year. One ... hears things. Anyway, you were saying ...?"

Tom continued as Marguerite gathered eggs: "When my wife was murdered-we lived in Bristol at the time-the police held me under suspicion for a time. It's routine of them, I suppose, to suspect the nearest and dearest, but it's the most awful feeling, dealing with your own grief, your child's, too, and having them on at you all the time. You start to wonder if you did do it and lost your mind somehow."

"And the murderer's not been found? I believe I know that."

"I'm afraid not."

Marguerite closed the coop. As she shooed the chickens past the fence and closed the gate, she murmured, "I'm not certain I want Oliver's murderer found."

"Lady Fairhaven, surely not."

"Do call me Marguerite at least, Tom, and you can leave the tin here." She shifted the wicker basket to her other hand and closed the latch. "I know I'm being blunt, but Oliver-and I'm sure others have remarked on this to you in one fashion or another-could be quite a dreadful man."

"I do know about Mr. Sica's sister, Marguerite, but-"

"Oliver's offended more people than Roberto. The fforde-Becketts are a troubling lot, really. At least my brothers and sister, however wrongheaded they were with their politics, had some little notion of something larger than themselves, but the fforde-Becketts have an enormous streak of debauchery and selfishness. With the exception of Georgina, I suppose. Hector's father and I weren't pleased with his choice of Georgina for a wife. We didn't know how ... fforde-Becketty she might become. She was quite vivacious when she was younger, but she's become terribly conventional. I'm afraid my son's made a very dull marriage, and in the end there's nothing more unthinkable than a dull marriage."

"Lady Fairhaven has had a tragedy."

"Then you've been told. I sympathise with my daughter-in-law. I do, utterly. I would so adore to have had another grandchild, but it's been ten years since Arabella died so tragically. I find myself thinking-perhaps unkindly, but I can't help myself-that Georgie with her migraines and her helplessness has only found a way different from her brother and half sister of claiming everyone's attention." She paused. "Yes, I know I'm being harsh. I can be an awful mother-in-law at times!" Her blue eyes flashed. "I just want to poke Georgina with a stick some days. I know I'm contradicting myself, but sometimes I wish she would show a bit of Oliver and Lucinda and Dominic's spark." She laughed. "And here I am telling you family secrets and I barely know you."

"I'm much in favour of discretion, so you can rely on it."

"I sensed that. The vicar in Abbotswick-do you know him-?"

"No, I can't say I do, though I've probably met him at some church affair."

"-is an awful gossipy old woman, and he's a man." She laughed again, then grew serious. "Tom, I do want to explain something: I don't mean to say that I don't want Oliver's murderer found because I think Oliver somehow deserved what he got. It was your phrase nearest and dearest. I felt a weight lift when that deranged man made his claim, but since then-well, I think we both know that someone near and dear has most likely taken Oliver's life. I suppose I'd rather not know who."

Tom felt the weight fall on him. "Marguerite," he began as they stepped through an iron gate into the dower house's walled back garden, "in that regard, there is something I do feel I should tell you-"

"Oh, dear, what?"

"-so you might be ... prepared. The police of course asked me for any information that might help them with their enquiries, so I didn't think I could not tell them about ..."

"Idiot boy!" Marguerite retorted when Tom finished telling of Hector's machinations over Oliver's corpse. "Whatever can he have been thinking? And you talked to Hector before talking to the CID, so you must know why he would-"

"Marguerite, you wouldn't want me to behave like Abbotswick's vicar."

The dowager countess's mouth pressed to a thin line. "No, I suppose not. I know he and Oliver have been having a go at each other, but Hector's mostly bl.u.s.ter-which is why he's perfect for Parliament. Oh, h.e.l.lo."

Marguerite addressed a young woman perched on the edge of a stone bench by a garden of pinks and roses. She was wearing a striped T-shirt and pale blue jeans.

"Lady Fairhaven." The woman rose. Her tone was apologetic, faintly tentative.

"I wasn't expecting you today."

"I thought I would come in any case."

"Were you let in?" Tom couldn't help asking. Between the police and Hector's private security Egges...o...b.. Park was, he thought, made impenetrable to outsiders.

"Forgive me," Marguerite interrupted. "Tom, this is Anna Phillips. She lives in the village. Anna, this is the Reverend Tom Christmas, who ... has been staying with us this weekend."

Anna's eyes darted between him and the dowager countess as he took her hand. Tom sensed a strained atmosphere between the two women, a guarding of words that would have been voiced but for his presence. He looked more keenly at her face, a pale oval, delicately boned and eloquent, small ears exposed by her fair hair loosely tied at the back.

"I clean for Lady Fairhaven," Anna dropped his hand, "and at the Hall, too, as part of-"

"I know your name," Tom responded. "You recently lost your brother. It was in the local newspaper. I'm so sorry for your loss. I certainly hope the driver of the car is found very soon and some justice is had, although"-he found himself stumbling over the familiar encomium, unnerved by the stoical misery in her eyes-"I know of course that won't bring back-"

"Rough justice may have already prevailed, Mr. Christmas," Anna interrupted.

Startled, Tom opened his mouth to respond, but as if regretting her words, Anna swiftly turned her attention to Lady Fairhaven. "I thought I'd prefer to keep busy."

"Of course, my dear. I quite understand."

"I wasn't seen."

"Ah, good." Marguerite smiled thinly. "Anna knows many of Egges...o...b..'s less frequented paths," she explained to Tom. "Have you been in the house?"

"No," Anna replied. "I've only arrived."

"Come along, then." Marguerite led the way down the gra.s.sy path between the borders of flowers. Tom fell in beside Anna.

"I hope you don't think me rude or abrupt," he began, "but I must ask you if you ever lived in the Highlands, on an estate named Tullochbrae?"

Tom noted Marguerite's shoulders stiffen. Anna glanced, too, at the dowager countess's back. She didn't answer immediately. When she did she turned watchful eyes to Tom and said simply, "Yes, I did."

"Then you are-or at least once were-Ree Corlett."

"Yes."

"Jane Allan-Lady Kirkbride-guessed you might be she after reading the story in the paper yesterday. Of course," he added, gesturing towards the silent Marguerite, "it's n.o.body's business why-"

"It's all right. Lady Fairhaven knows. When I moved down south, with my brother, I took my mother's maiden name, Phillips. My mother had me christened Rhiannon. She was Welsh and had a certain romantic streak." She cast Tom a tentative smile. "Everyone at Tullochbrae called me Ree, but when I left I decided to call myself for one of the other syllables."

"Why, if I may ask? You've altered your accent, too, have you not?"

"It ... it felt the right thing to do." Anna's hand brushed a drooping peony as they pa.s.sed, setting petals scattering to the lawn. "Did Lady Kirkbride tell you my father was land agent at Tullochbrae?"

"Yes. I understand he died a few weeks before her wedding to Jamie."

"I had turned eighteen the month before. David was thirteen. Our mother, you may have been told, had died well before our father. It was my father who raised us, really. As well as he could in the circ.u.mstances. Although the other staff at Tullochbrae were very kind."

"I expect you did more than your share in raising your brother." Tom glanced at her pensive profile, impatient with a new question.

Anna turned her head to acknowledge his remark with a small smile. "I'm not certain that's true. As I'm sure the newspaper said, my brother was mentally handicapped. During the week, he was boarded at a Steiner school near Aberdeen. Weekends, he was with us at Tullochbrae." She paused. "I left Tullochbrae not long after the Allan wedding. There was really nothing for me to do there, although Lord Kinross-Jamie's father-offered to help me, which was very considerate, especially given ... the terrible ordeal he was going through-the whole Allan family was going through."

"You mean the death of Jamie's older brother, William-Boysie, as they called him. Did that have anything to do with your leaving?"

As they turned towards the brick courtyard adjoining the dower house, sunlight caught Anna's face and played along her high cheekbones. She looked to the sky, as if some memory could be captured from the air. "I left because that's what eighteen-year-olds do, if they're able. I had reached my majority. My father's insurance paid out a very good sum. And Tullochbrae had become a place of grief ... grief of many kinds," she added, glancing back to him. "David and I left and moved to Bournemouth. I was able to get him a weekly boarding placement at a sister Steiner school nearby. I bought a flat in town, and David would join me at weekends. I ... I suppose I should have taken some training in something-it's what my father would have expected-but I took a temp job for a cleaning service and found it ... satisfying. I still do."

"Then it was at Bournemouth you modified your name-and your brother's."

"I wish I could give you a good explanation why," she responded, casting him an uneasy glance as the three of them stepped onto the brick. "As I said, it felt very much like the right thing to do. A new life, a new town, I suppose was part of it. David and I had no real family that would mind. Both our parents were only children; we had no cousins, for instance."

Tom voiced his perplexity: "I believe there's more, if you don't think me unkind for saying so."

Anna glanced at Marguerite, who had stopped by the boot sc.r.a.per, before replying, "I won't say I have second sight. I don't, I'm sure. My mother did, according to my father. She apparently foresaw her own death. But"-she hesitated in her movements-"perhaps a little rubbed off. I had a strong feeling that if I altered my ident.i.ty, I would draw a ring of protection around David and me-that if no one knew who we once were, or where we had once lived, then we would be safe."

"And were you?" Tom asked.

She glanced at him. A shadow crossed her face. "For a time." She slipped from his attentions, towards the back door, as if she regretted her candour.