The Complete Tommy & Tuppence Collection (99 page)

It was an attractive old church standing in a sizeable churchyard with a lone yew tree standing by the church door.

Tuppence left the car outside the lych gate, passed through it, and stood for a few moments surveying the church and the churchyard round it. Then she went to the church door with its rounded Norman arch and lifted the heavy handle. It was unlocked and she went inside.

The inside was unattractive. The church was an old one, undoubtedly, but it had had a zealous wash and brush up in Victorian times. Its pitch pine pews and its flaring red and blue glass windows had ruined any antique charm it had once possessed. A middle-aged woman in a tweed coat and skirt was arranging flowers in brass vases round the pulpit—she had already finished the altar. She looked round at Tuppence with a sharply inquiring glance. Tuppence wandered up an aisle looking at memorial tablets on the walls. A family called Warrender seemed to be most fully represented in early years. All of The Priory, Sutton Chancellor. Captain Warrender, Major Warrender, Sarah Elisabeth Warrender, dearly beloved wife of George Warrender. A newer tablet recorded the death of Julia Starke (another beloved wife) of Philip Starke, also of The Priory, Sutton Chancellor—so it would seem the Warrenders had died out. None of them were particularly suggestive or interesting. Tuppence passed out of the church again and walked round it on the outside. The outside, Tuppence thought, was much more attractive than the inside. “Early Perp. and Dec.,” said Tuppence to herself, having been brought up on familiar terms with ecclesiastical architecture. She was not particularly fond of early Perp. herself.

It was a fair-sized church and she thought that the village of Sutton Chancellor must once have been a rather more important centre of rural life than it was now. She left the car where it was and walked on to the village. It had a village shop and a post office and about a dozen small houses or cottages. One or two of them were thatched but the others were rather plain and unattractive. There were six council houses at the end of the village street looking slightly self-conscious. A brass plate on a door announced “Arthur Thomas, Chimney Sweep.”

Tuppence wondered if any responsible house agents were likely to engage his services for the house by the canal which certainly needed them. How silly she had been, she thought, not to have asked the name of the house.

She walked back slowly towards the church, and her car, pausing to examine the churchyard more closely. She liked the churchyard. There were very few new burials in it. Most of the stones commemorated Victorian burials, and earlier ones—half-defaced by lichen and time. The old stones were attractive. Some of them were upright slabs with cherubs on the tops, with wreaths round them. She wandered about, looking at the inscriptions. Warrenders again. Mary Warrender, aged 47, Alice Warrender, aged 33, Colonel John Warrender killed in Afghanistan. Various infant Warrenders—deeply regretted—and eloquent verses of pious hopes. She wondered if any Warrenders lived here still. They'd left off being buried here apparently. She couldn't find any tombstones later than 1843. Rounding the big yew tree she came upon an elderly clergyman who was stooping over a row of old tombstones near a wall behind the church. He straightened up and turned round as Tuppence approached.

“Good afternoon,” he said pleasantly.

“Good afternoon,” said Tuppence, and added, “I've been looking at the church.”

“Ruined by Victorian renovation,” said the clergyman.

He had a pleasant voice and a nice smile. He looked about seventy, but Tuppence presumed he was not quite as far advanced in age as that, though he was certainly rheumatic and rather unsteady on his legs.

“Too much money about in Victorian times,” he said sadly. “Too many ironmasters. They were pious, but had, unfortunately, no sense of the artistic. No taste. Did you see the east window?” he shuddered.

“Yes,” said Tuppence. “Dreadful,” she said.

“I couldn't agree with you more. I'm the vicar,” he added, rather unnecessarily.

“I thought you must be,” said Tuppence politely. “Have you been here long?” she added.

“Ten years, my dear,” he said. “It's a nice parish. Nice people, what there are of them. I've been very happy here. They don't like my sermons very much,” he added sadly. “I do the best I can, but of course I can't pretend to be really modern. Sit down,” he added hospitably, waving to a nearby tombstone.

Tuppence sat down gratefully and the vicar took a seat on another one nearby.

“I can't stand very long,” he said, apologetically. He added, “Can I do anything for you or are you just passing by?”

“Well, I'm really just passing by,” said Tuppence. “I thought I'd just look at the church. I'd rather lost myself in a car wandering around the lanes.”

“Yes, yes. Very difficult to find one's way about round here. A lot of signposts are broken, you know, and the council don't repair them as they should.” He added, “I don't know that it matters very much. People who drive down these lanes aren't usually trying to get anywhere in particular. People who
are
keep to the main roads. Dreadful,” he added again. “Especially the new Motorway. At least,
I
think so. The noise and the speed and the reckless driving. Oh well! pay no attention to me. I'm a crusty old fellow. You'd never guess what I'm doing here,” he went on.

“I saw you were examining some of the gravestones,” said Tuppence. “Has there been any vandalism? Have teenagers been breaking bits off them?”

“No. One's mind
does
turn that way nowadays what with so many telephone boxes wrecked and all those other things that these young vandals do. Poor children, they don't know any better, I suppose. Can't think of anything more amusing to do than to smash things. Sad, isn't it? Very sad. No,” he said, “there's been no damage of that kind here. The boys round here are a nice lot on the whole. No, I'm just looking for a child's grave.”

Tuppence stirred on her tombstone. “A child's grave?” she said.

“Yes. Somebody wrote to me. A Major Waters, he asked if by any possibility a child had been buried here. I looked it up in the parish register, of course, but there was no record of any such name. All the same, I came out here and looked round the stones. I thought, you know, that perhaps whoever wrote might have got hold of some wrong name, or that there had been a mistake.”

“What was the Christian name?” asked Tuppence.

“He didn't know. Perhaps Julia after the mother.”

“How old was the child?”

“Again he wasn't sure—Rather vague, the whole thing. I think myself that the man must have got hold of the wrong village altogether. I never remember a Waters living here or having heard of one.”

“What about the Warrenders?” asked Tuppence, her mind going back to the names in the church. “The church seems full of tablets to them and their names are on lots of gravestones out here.”

“Ah, that family's died out by now. They had a fine property, an old fourteenth-century Priory. It was burnt down—oh, nearly a hundred years ago now, so I suppose any Warrenders there were left, went away and didn't come back. A new house was built on the site, by a rich Victorian called Starke. A very ugly house but comfortable, they say. Very comfortable. Bathrooms, you know, and all that. I suppose that sort of thing
is
important.”

“It seems a very odd thing,” said Tuppence, “that someone should write and ask you about a child's grave. Somebody—a relation?”

“The father of the child,” said the vicar. “One of these war tragedies, I imagine. A marriage that broke up when the husband was on service abroad. The young wife ran away with another man while the husband was serving abroad. There was a child, a child he'd never seen. She'd be grown up by now, I suppose, if she were alive. It must be twenty years ago or more.”

“Isn't it a long time after to be looking for her?”

“Apparently he only heard there
was
a child quite recently. The information came to him by pure chance. Curious story, the whole thing.”

“What made him think that the child had been buried here?”

“I gather somebody who had come across his wife in wartime had told him that his wife had said she was living at Sutton Chancellor. It happens, you know. You meet someone, a friend or acquaintance you haven't seen for years, and they sometimes can give you news from the past that you wouldn't get in any other way. But she's certainly not living here now. Nobody of that name has lived here—not since I've been here. Or in the neighbourhood as far as I know. Of course, the mother
might
have been going by another name. However, I gather the father is employing solicitors and inquiry agents and all that sort of thing, and they will probably be able to get results in the end. It will take time—”

“Was it your poor child?”
murmured Tuppence.

“I beg your pardon, my dear?”

“Nothing,” said Tuppence. “Something somebody said to me the other day.
‘Was it your poor child?'
It's rather a startling thing to hear suddenly. But I don't really think the old lady who said it knew what she was talking about.”

“I know. I know. I'm often the same. I say things and I don't really know what I mean by them. Most vexing.”

“I expect you know everything about the people who live here
now?
” said Tuppence.

“Well, there certainly aren't very many to know. Yes. Why? Is there someone you wanted to know about?”

“I wondered if there had ever been a Mrs. Lancaster living here.”

“Lancaster? No, I don't think I recollect that name.”

“And there's a house—I was driving today rather aimlessly—not minding particularly where I went, just following lanes—”

“I know. Very nice, the lanes round here. And you can find quite rare specimens. Botanical, I mean. In the hedges here. Nobody ever picks flowers in these hedges. We never get any tourists round here or that sort of thing. Yes, I've found some very rare specimens sometimes. Dusty Cranesbell, for instance—”

“There was a house by a canal,” said Tuppence, refusing to be sidetracked into botany. “Near a little humpbacked bridge. It was about two miles from here. I wondered what its name was.”

“Let me see. Canal—humpbacked bridge. Well . . . there are several houses like that. There's Merricot Farm.”

“It wasn't a farm.”

“Ah, now, I expect it was the Perrys' house—Amos and Alice Perry.”

“That's right,” said Tuppence. “A Mr. and Mrs. Perry.”

“She's a striking-looking woman, isn't she? Interesting, I always think. Very interesting. Medieval face, didn't you think so? She's going to play the witch in our play we're getting up. The school children, you know. She looks rather like a witch, doesn't she?”

“Yes,” said Tuppence. “A friendly witch.”

“As you say, my dear, absolutely rightly. Yes, a friendly witch.”

“But he—”

“Yes, poor fellow,” said the vicar. “Not completely
compos mentis
—but no harm in him.”

“They were very nice. They asked me in for a cup of tea,” said Tuppence. “But what I wanted to know was the
name
of the house. I forgot to ask them. They're only living in half of it, aren't they?”

“Yes, yes. In what used to be the old kitchen quarters.
They
call it ‘Waterside,' I think, though I believe the ancient name for it was ‘Watermead.' A pleasanter name, I think.”

“Who does the other part of the house belong to?”

“Well, the whole house used to belong originally to the Bradleys. That was a good many years ago. Yes, thirty or forty at least, I should think. And then it was sold, and then sold again and then it remained empty for a long time. When I came here it was just being used as a kind of weekend place. By some actress—Miss Margrave, I believe. She was not here very much. Just used to come down from time to time. I never knew her. She never came to church. I saw her in the distance sometimes. A beautiful creature. A very beautiful creature.”

“Who does it actually belong to
now?
” Tuppence persisted.

“I've no idea. Possibly it still belongs to her. The part the Perrys live in is only rented to them.”

“I recognized it, you know,” said Tuppence, “as soon as I saw it, because I've got a picture of it.”

“Oh really? That must have been one of Boscombe's, or was his name Boscobel—I can't remember now. Some name like that. He was a Cornishman, fairly well-known artist, I believe. I rather imagine he's dead now. Yes, he used to come down here fairly often. He used to sketch all round this part of the world. He did some oils here, too. Very attractive landscapes, some of them.”

“This particular picture,” said Tuppence, “was given to an old aunt of mine who died about a month ago. It was given to her by a Mrs. Lancaster. That's why I asked if you knew the name.”

But the vicar shook his head once more.

“Lancaster? Lancaster. No, I don't seem to remember the name. Ah! but here's the person you must ask. Our dear Miss Bligh. Very active, Miss Bligh is. She knows all about the parish. She runs everything. The Women's Institute, the Boy Scouts and the Guides—everything. You ask
her.
She's very active, very active indeed.”

The vicar sighed. The activity of Miss Bligh seemed to worry him. “Nellie Bligh, they call her in the village. The boys sing it after her sometimes.
Nellie Bligh, Nellie Bligh.
It's not her proper name. That's something more like Gertrude or Geraldine.”

Miss Bligh, who was the tweed-clad woman Tuppence had seen in the church, was approaching them at a rapid trot, still holding a small watering can. She eyed Tuppence with deep curiosity as she approached, increasing her pace and starting a conversation before she reached them.