‘It would not matter to me if she was related to the Emperor of China,’ his son answered with what the father clearly considered to be an appalling lack of respect. ‘Nothing would induce me to marry her.’
‘Well, there are other young ladies....’
‘I am to marry Lydia,’ John said with finality. ‘That is absolutely settled, and I think it most impolite of you to be mentioning any other plans you might have had at such a moment.’
‘Forgive me, Miss Bramwell,’ Thomas said with a slight bow. ‘You are, of course, a charming young woman, and I’m sure will make my son very happy.’
‘But I am not your first choice,’ Lydia lamented, deciding that she would enjoy the man’s discomfiture as much as possible. ‘I quite understand, sir. I am a Nobody.’
The older man produced a look of pained surprise, saying, ‘I would never say such a thing to you, my dear.’
‘But you think it.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘Naturally you must think so. After all, your son could have his pick of the young ladies around Diddlington, and to be entrapped by a mere Miss Bramwell....’
‘Entrapped!’ John cried.
‘Entrapped!’ his father echoed with greater volume. ‘I am sure—’
‘I know I behaved shamelessly,’ Lydia interrupted him once more, while John began to grin at her comic performance. ‘Setting my cap at him in such a way ... I do not know what can have possessed me, sir.’
‘Well, he’s a fine catch, my John.’ Mr Savidge preened like the cockerel for which his inn was named. ‘One can hardly blame a girl for—’
‘For the Lord’s sake, papa,’ his son cut short his improper utterance, ‘pay no heed to Lydia’s Banbury stories. She is roasting you, sir.’
Thomas Savidge started, staring at the young lady in disbelief. It was beyond his comprehension that anyone could make a May game of him - and certainly not a chit of a girl, even one who had been elevated by a betrothal to his son. He dismissed John’s words and bent an indulgent look upon Lydia.
‘Well, well,’ he said heartily, ‘you are obviously a young lady who is up to every rig, and I suppose my boy could have done worse for himself.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ she answered demurely. ‘I promise you that I will try to be a credit to the name of Savidge.’
John gave a snort of mirth. ‘I don’t doubt that you will,’ he said, ‘depending on how you spell it.’
‘What do you mean by that, son?’ his sire asked, never suspecting a jest.
‘Nothing, sir,’ his dutiful son answered, then added with the air of someone who had produced an unanswerable argument, ‘But I have it on the authority of no less a personage than Mrs Wardle-Penfield herself that Lydia and I are very well suited and will assuredly make a go of our marriage.’
Had he produced a revelation from the sacred scriptures themselves, he could not have so completely reconciled Mr Savidge to the match. He now treated Lydia to the hearty but embarrassing embrace he had withheld at the outset and, after congratulating his son on his good sense, he very properly left them alone together.
* * * *
Here was Lydia’s opportunity to acquaint her beloved with the details of her visit to Bellefleur. He must have realized that argument was fruitless, and listened patiently to her recital.
‘You must acknowledge now, John,’ she concluded, ‘that something is amiss at the home of Sir Hector.’
‘It would seem so,’ he replied cautiously. ‘I would be very interested to hear what the maid has to say.’
‘Kate?’ Lydia nodded emphatically, in perfect agreement with him. ‘I own that I never looked forward to attending church with such anticipation. Not that the vicar is not a fine preacher in his way, but I can hardly wait to hear what else Kate has to tell me.’
‘In three days,’ he said, affecting an air of ominous mystery, ‘all will be revealed!’
‘You may jest as much as you like.’ She drew herself up with great dignity. ‘But you will soon see that I am right.’
‘Forgive me, Lydia.’ He reached out and took her hands in his. ‘I am willing to admit that there is more here than I had first supposed. But I beg you, in future, do nothing without first consulting me.’
‘I do not intend to ask your permission for anything,’ she protested. ‘We are not married yet, after all.’
‘It is not my permission,’ he said gently, ‘but my protection which I hope you will seek.’
‘Your protection?’ For once she was mystified.
‘I believe I have that right, love.’
‘From what do I need to be protected?’
He was in deadly earnest now as he looked straight into her eyes.
‘If what you suspect is true,’ he reminded her, ‘then someone at Bellefleur has already committed murder at least once. You may be putting yourself in greater danger than you realize.’
This had, in all honesty, not occurred to Lydia before. If Sir Hector, or someone else, had not hesitated to kill before, why should she be immune? Suddenly she shivered, at which John drew her into his embrace. This was an unlooked-for pleasure, she thought. Really, had she known he would do such a thing, she would have shivered before this.
‘I promise not to proceed any further,’ she told him solemnly, ‘if you will promise not to laugh at my speculations in future.’
‘I swear it!’ he cried, ‘And thus I seal my vow.’ Naturally, he kissed her. Just as naturally, she returned his kiss.
‘One of the benefits of being engaged,’ he said when at last he raised his head, ‘is that I may kiss you as often as I choose.’
‘I’m sure,’ she quizzed him, ‘that Mrs Wardle-Penfield would not agree.’
‘At least her approval of our engagement has helped reconcile my father to the match.’
‘Your papa is such a zany!’ she exclaimed.
‘It was wicked of you to tease him so,’ John chided her, though with a glint of sympathetic humor in his eyes.
‘I hope my own father will be as easy to persuade!’
‘My knees knock together at the thought of his response to your letter.’
‘It will not be many days before we know in what spirit he receives it.’
So they parted. Lydia considered that, although they might quarrel often, their arguments were quickly forgotten and their reconciliations were quite delightful.
* * * *
In the course of the next few days, Lydia and John were quizzed and questioned endlessly on the subject of their betrothal. It was, she supposed, a welcome diversion after the events of the previous weeks. A wedding was a much more comfortable source of gossip than murder and armed ruffians in the woods.
And so, although she was anxious to meet with Kate on Sunday morning, the time passed more swiftly than she had anticipated. Before she well knew it, she was fastening her straw bonnet and walking arm-in-arm with Aunt Camilla to the small church but two streets away from their cottage.
The church was a fine old building, with a thatched roof and rounded apse. Some said it dated to before the Conquest; others placed it just after the advent of the Normans. In either case, it was a place of historic as well as spiritual significance, and a source of pride to the parish and the inhabitants of Diddlington.
A goodly number of people were gathered together as the two ladies entered, but although Lydia craned her neck in every direction, there was no sign of Kate. She sat through the service in a kind of dazed distraction, constantly turning around at the slightest sound, in hopes of seeing the young girl.
At last the final anthem was sung and the benediction uttered. The congregation began to file out. Lydia was conscious of acute disappointment. What had become of the maid? Had she been taken ill? Perhaps she had not been permitted to leave Bellefleur.
They stepped out into the sunshine, the green grass around them dotted with gravestones, and Lydia and Camilla were just about to engage John and his father in conversation when a rather noisy diversion occurred.
A young village boy named James Tredwell dashed onto the lawn, flushed and out of breath.
‘Mr Savidge, sir!’ he cried. ‘Come quick, sir!’
‘What is it, James, my lad?’
‘It’s Kate Eccles!’ the boy gasped out, his big blue eyes seeming almost to pop from their sockets. ‘She’s dead, sir!’
They found her sprawled like a discarded doll behind a hedge in the gardens at Bellefleur. She had been strangled with a length of twine of the kind commonly used to secure parcels. In her Sunday best dress, she must have been on her way to church when her killer had surprised her - perhaps springing from his hiding place behind that very hedge.
All this Lydia and her aunt learned later that day from John. The moment the innkeeper heard the news, he had rushed off to the scene of the murder. John excused himself from his fiancée and her aunt, who accepted his departure without demur, and took himself off in pursuit of his father.
The small band of parishioners left standing by the church was silent for almost a minute as they watched the departing figures on their way to the great estate. Then, as if released from a magic spell, they all began to babble almost incoherently. Everyone expressed their shock and grief over yet another instance of violent evil in their midst.
‘I cannot conceive,’ Mrs Wardle-Penfield managed to project her voice above the hubbub, ‘what reason anyone could have for killing poor young Kate.’
‘It is so dreadful,’ Aunt Camilla said faintly. ‘And it was but three days ago - or was it four? - that we were there at Bellefleur ourselves.’
‘It seems,’ the vicar said, wringing his hands in great agitation, ‘as though the Devil himself has come amongst us, having great wrath.’
‘No doubt Satan has his share of disciples in every parish.’
This last was spoken by old Mr Jurby, the apothecary, and not even the vicar was inclined to answer it. Lydia, meanwhile, was eager to get her aunt away from the scene before her nerves could overcome her. She was looking very pale, and trembling dreadfully.
‘Let us go home, Aunt Camilla.’ She spoke gently but was insistent in pulling her along to the open gate leading to the wide lane outside the churchyard.
In a few minutes, they were at her aunt’s cottage, where that good lady immediately took to her bed. For once, Lydia did not blame her. Indeed, she was much inclined to follow Camilla’s example. Mrs Wardle-Penfield might not be able to discern a motive for the killing of Kate Eccles, but Lydia could. In her mind, she heard Kate’s voice as it had been that afternoon at Bellefleur. Something she had remembered. Something she knew. Something which somebody had made sure she did not reveal to anyone else. Somebody had been willing to kill to keep Kate from telling what she had seen. But who was it? And would anyone ever know the truth, now that the maid was dead?
* * * *
What Lydia later learned of the events which transpired that day, she got from John. He accompanied his father to Bellefleur and helped to interview the servants. They did not trouble Sir Hector. As Mrs Chalfont explained, it was useless to ask him anything. His mind was wandering, and he could certainly have nothing to say which was pertinent to the death of Kate.
The other servants were hardly more enlightening. For all the help they gave, they might as well have been laid up in bed with their master. Only Mrs Chalfont was of any assistance, and it was her evidence which John recounted to Lydia that very evening.
It was Mrs Chalfont who found the girl’s body. It must have been a great shock, for John could not recall ever having seen the housekeeper so distraught. He considered her a cold, haughty woman, but she seemed genuinely distressed at what had occurred. He was almost inclined to consider her emotions rather excessive. It was, of course, a terrible tragedy, but the normally reserved housekeeper was several times on the verge of tears as she recounted what had happened that day.
‘How did you come to discover the body, ma’am?’ Mr Savidge asked her, somewhat more gently than was customary for him.
‘I - well, really, I hardly know.’ The lady looked down at her hands, up at the ceiling - anywhere but at the JP or his son, seated just to his right.
‘Take your time, Mrs Chalfont,’ John suggested. ‘Think back to what occurred just before you found Kate.’
She attempted to follow his advice, pausing for several moments to gather her thoughts and her emotions together into something coherent. She had assumed, she said, that Kate was gone to church as she usually did of a Sunday morning. She had not seen her for half an hour or more. Like the other members of the household, she neither heard nor saw anything unusual at first.
‘But then,’ she went on slowly, choosing her words with almost too much care, ‘I glanced out of a window and saw a man....’
‘A man?’ Mr Savidge was quick to catch this important piece of information.
‘It was just for a moment.’ Mrs Chalfont seemed eager to impress this point upon them. ‘Just a figure in the garden. I thought ... but really, I could not be sure....’
‘What did you think?’ John pressed her.
‘The gentleman was wearing an old-fashioned frock coat,’ she explained. ‘I thought it might be the Frenchman. It is the kind he wears, I believe.’
‘Monsieur d’Almain?’ Mr Savidge demanded.
‘Yes sir.’
‘Has he been to Bellefleur before?’ John asked.
‘Once or twice,’ she nodded assent. ‘It was more than a year ago, but he had some business to conduct with Sir Hector, I believe.’
‘Indeed?’ His father’s voice was grim, John noticed.
‘I could not swear that the figure I saw was Mr d’Almain,’ Mrs Chalfont stressed again. ‘It was just out of the corner of my eye, so to speak. But it made me curious, because we certainly were not expecting any visitors.’
She went into the garden to confront the person she had seen, but there was no sign of them. They had, it seemed, disappeared. Still, she decided to look about for any further sign of the mysterious visitor. It was while she was searching that she turned a corner of the garden and almost stumbled over Kate’s body lying along the path by the yew hedge.
‘Such a turn it gave me,’ Mrs Chalfont confessed, closing her eyes momentarily and placing a hand over her breast as if to still her beating heart. ‘I hope never to see such a sight again in my life.’