Deadly Inheritance (12 page)

After a little Ursula said, ‘Are we going to Hinton Parva?’

The Colonel glanced at her and seemed almost surprised to realise that he had a passenger.

‘She was with child.’

For a moment Ursula was taken aback. ‘Polly?’

He nodded.

‘What is the coroner going to do?’

‘Hold the inquest
in camera
. No press, no public.’

‘Can he do that?’

‘He says, yes. He said he sees no point in exposing the poor girl to more public scrutiny than absolutely necessary.’ He took a deep breath. ‘My brother has more or less demanded that the matter be kept as quiet as possible. He may talk about protecting the girl’s reputation; what he means is the reputation of the Stanhopes.’

The Colonel’s voice was cold.

‘You do not agree with him?’

He turned and Ursula was shocked at the raw anger in his face.

‘They are saying Polly committed suicide because she knew she was expecting.’

‘And you do not believe that was the case?’

He turned his attention back to his driving.

Ursula waited.

‘Polly was a children’s nurse, she adored Harry.’

‘You knew her?’

‘She was here when I returned two years ago from South Africa, injured. I was unable to do much. So I spent time with little Harry, he’s a delightful child – and that meant with Polly as well. Polly was a welcome contrast to all that had gone on out in Africa.’

Ursula thought of the faded magnificence of Mountstanton House; of the social life that Helen pursued there. Had life in the nursery been a refuge for the Colonel? And exactly what role had Polly played in that refuge?

‘Don’t imagine, though, that I conceived a
tendresse
for her,’ he continued, as if reading her thoughts. ‘We were just friends. But I got to know her and her commitment to children. Believe me, she would never have killed her child as well as herself.’

‘Not even if that child meant a ruined reputation?’

‘She was tough; she would have been sure something would turn up to save her.’

Ursula thought of the poor bundle of broken body she had found in the river.

‘Mrs Comfort told me yesterday that Polly had set off for the village that last day in high spirits, saying, “Don’t expect me back”. Mrs Comfort thought that meant she was going to meet a young man and that she would be out some time.’

Nothing was said for several minutes as the horse trotted along the dirt road, her head held high.

‘What do
you
want to happen?’ asked Ursula.

‘I want a proper inquest. I want to know who fathered that child. I want to know if it was a pure accident Polly fell and finished her life in the river.’

‘Would an inquest reveal who was responsible for her condition? Surely the man, whoever it is, is not going to own up?’

‘Somebody must know something,’ he said obstinately, his face set and hard. ‘Trying to cover up what has happened will not help anyone.’

Ursula thought of the proud nature of the Earl; the supreme self-confidence of the Dowager Countess; the determination of Helen.

‘Why are we going to Hinton Parva?’

The Colonel allowed the reins to slacken and the horse to slow its gait.

‘I had not intended to when we started out,’ he said, sounding surprised. ‘I just wanted to get away and I thought …’ His voice tailed away.

‘You thought that nice Miss Grandison, who found dead bodies, would make an entertaining companion, was that it?’

He looked at her again, this time with the glimmer of a smile. ‘How well you know me!’

‘I know nothing about you. Except that you appear to have a highly developed sense of justice – and that your sense of loyalty to your family is rather less than that of your brother’s.’

‘Damn Mountstanton and all it stands for!’ The anger was back. ‘I thought I had got away from all that. Instead, what do I find? That the death of one of its faithful servants matters less than its standing in the world. Why am I not surprised?’

‘Why did you return, if that is what you feel?’

‘Why, indeed?’

After a moment, Ursula said, ‘I have to confess that I have not visited the village and have no idea how large it is.’

He gave a curt laugh. ‘Quite small. But it has a police station and a constable who is ostensibly in charge of the investigation into Polly’s death. I want to find out if he means to do exactly what my brother and the coroner tell him, or if he is going to hold out for a wider justice.’

‘Does he have the power to do so?’

Her companion shrugged his shoulders. ‘That’s another thing I need to find out. There is also a village shop, hotbed of all village gossip. I thought I might hear something about Polly there. The tittle will certainly be tattling.’

‘And what would you like me to do in the meantime? I am afraid I am unable to walk the dog.’

He hit his forehead in a gesture of frustration. ‘My dear Miss Grandison, I am a complete and utter fool.’

‘By which I assume you had forgotten about me,’ Ursula said cheerfully.

He gave her a rueful look. ‘I think I have remarked before on your intelligence, Miss Grandison. I now turn to you for the solution to the problem. Shall we return to Mountstanton and allow you to have lunch there? Or shall we abandon the village. I can, after all, come back on my own later this afternoon.’

‘Nonsense, Colonel. Not when you are as fired up as Don Quixote. I think the answer is that you assist me to descend at the village store and allow me to venture in and see if I can gather anything from the gossip. As I am not a Mountstanton, and a foreigner not bound by English conventions of loyalty, they may hope I can provide some meat for their gossip.’

‘And in the process may provide you with some meat of their own?’ He looked admiringly at her. ‘Miss Grandison, you understand the way small societies work much better than I.’

Ursula gave a peal of laughter. ‘Colonel, you beat everything! I dare you to tell me this is not what you intended from the start.’

‘Miss Grandison, you disappoint me. How could you impugn such Machiavellian motives to me? I’m just a bluff, honest soldier.’

Ursula gave him a straight look. He grinned at her but said nothing.

How very different this man was from the Earl, Ursula thought. Helen’s husband had no wit, and little sense of anything beyond his own importance. She wondered what made Helen think she could persuade Charles Stanhope to make a match with Belle. Why, in fact, did she want to achieve such an unsuitable union? And what sort of relationship did she have with her brother-in-law?

The trap reached the first cottages on the outskirts of Hinton Parva. Neat, thatched, with gardens planted with colourful flowers, they led up to a large green. This had a pond with ducks and a couple of white swans. On one side stood an inn with a sign illustrating its name: The Lion and Lamb. There was a rough table outside with a bench. On it, enjoying the sun with a tankard of what Ursula thought had to be some local beer, sat an elderly countryman wearing a large-brimmed hat. Not far from the inn was a church and beyond that a street, which seemed to offer several shops.

As the Colonel brought the trap to a halt, the countryman lifted his wrinkled face and gave him a warm smile. ‘Master Charles,’ he called. ‘You’m be back then?’

‘As you see, Joshua. How’s yourself?’

‘Fair to middling. Mustn’t complain.’

‘I’ll come and drink an ale with you in a little while. But first I have business to attend to.’

‘Aye. Soon as I saw you, I knew what you’d come for. Constable’s at home, wrestling with what he calls them awk’ard pieces of paper.’

The Colonel laughed. ‘You haven’t changed, Joshua. You always did know everything. This is Miss Grandison, who accompanied her ladyship’s sister, Miss Seldon, over from America. This is Joshua Barnes, Miss Grandison, one of the oldest and most valued members of the community.’

Ursula raised a hand in greeting. ‘I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr Barnes.’

Joshua pulled at a forelock. ‘Glad to make yours, miss.’

The Colonel put the horse into motion again and drove down the little street. Ursula noted a butcher’s, a cobbler’s, an ironmongers and, halfway down, a general store. The trap was brought to a stop outside this emporium.

The Colonel got down, retrieved Ursula’s crutches from the back of the trap, then helped her descend. As Ursula gingerly stepped onto the ground, gripping her escort’s arm tightly while he handed her first one and then the other crutch, two respectably dressed women came towards the shop entrance, nodded at them both, then opened the door. A gust of busy chatter came forth.

The Colonel looked at Ursula. ‘It’s a serious matter, Miss Grandison, and I’m relying on you,’ he said in a low tone. Then, loudly, ‘Well, I’ve brought you here. I will be no more than half an hour, do not keep me waiting.’

With a tilt of his hat, he hoisted himself into the trap, picked up the reins, and drove off down the street.

Ursula took a deep breath and worked her way towards the shop door. How on earth, she wondered, could she achieve what he wanted?

‘She was a hussy,’ a voice said as Ursula entered the shop. Then silence fell while she negotiated a couple of steps down into the interior.

The space was larger than she had imagined but so full of goods that the four or five customers it contained took up most of the room.

All there looked round as Ursula wielded her crutches. ‘Why,’ she drawled, hamming it up, ‘I surely do need to sit awhile. That trap throws a body around like I don’t know what. I declare it was almost as bad as the racketing I received the time I travelled by covered wagon over the Sierra Nevada.’

She moved forward towards the counter. As one, the others drew back – and revealed a bentwood chair standing beside the counter.

‘My, that gives a body ease,’ Ursula said in heartfelt tones, lowering herself onto it. ‘If you all will forgive me, I’ll just sit a few moments.’ She closed her eyes and leaned against the back of the chair. A soft motion of customers said they were settling back into the pattern she had disturbed.

‘And how be Lady Frances, Mrs Sutton?’ The voice was soft but composed and Ursula, running through the brief look she had gained of the shoppers as she moved towards the chair, decided it had to belong to a small, neat-looking woman dressed in clothes of a faded gentility.

‘Not so good, Miss Ranner, I’m afraid.’ A voice with a stronger local accent. Its owner sounded genuinely regretful. ‘Don’t reckon she can last much longer.’

There was a general muttering of concerned regrets from the other shoppers.

‘And what about young Mr Russell?’ asked the same soft voice that had spoken before.

‘Poor lad is like a ghost,’ said Mrs Sutton. ‘Don’t know what to do with himself, he don’t. Talks of America. Wants to go there, after …’ she faded to a stop. For a moment nobody said anything, then: ‘Not much of a life they’ve had, either of them,’ a third shopper entered the conversation.

Ursula realised with a slight shock that they were talking of the delightful partner she had had at Helen’s dinner party. It had only been the other night but now it seemed weeks ago.

‘Your sins will always find you out,’ said another, and it was the same voice that had been stridently proclaiming someone a hussy.

Ursula opened her eyes in time to see the shopkeeper, a man with a gentle face and skin the texture of fine suede, lean forward and say in a peaceable tone, ‘Now Mrs Clarke, if that be true, we’ll all be for the hangman’s rope.’

‘She’s right about that little strumpet from the big house, though.’

The women tutted. The speaker was a slight man, his shoulders bent, his thinning hair long and straggly. He looked, decided Ursula, like some minor clerk fallen on hard times, his clothes shiny with wear, the waistcoat plentifully stained with food. ‘I saw her, in the woods, flaunting herself.’

Ursula shivered at how he managed to sound both vitriolic and lecherous at the same time.

‘Who with, Mr Snell?’ breathed out a wispy woman of uncertain years, dressed in what looked like an assembly of scarves that floated around a dowdy-looking skirt and jacket. A romantic who had never had her day, Ursula wondered? Both this woman and Miss Ranner seemed to be in the store on their own account; the others shopping for their employers. She was amused for a moment at how confident she was of this analysis of status.

‘Were you looking for something in particular, Miss Grandison? It
is
Miss Grandison, isn’t it?’ said the shopkeeper, bending towards Ursula. There seemed to be a note of warning in his voice, but the warning was not for her.

‘Why, I thank you, sir. I was wondering, could you supply knitting needles and wool? See, I have time on my hands,’ Ursula said cheerfully.

‘Miss Grandison,’ said Miss Ranner with a quick gasp. ‘You came with Miss Seldon from America, did you not? She who’s come to see her sister, the Countess? Of course, you hurt your ankle, didn’t you? When you found poor Polly Brown.’

A murmur ran through the little group; it was obvious not everyone had realised until now who they had in their midst.

The shopkeeper started to hunt through a series of drawers that ran along the wall at his back.

In front of the counter were sacks and barrels of flour, beans, potatoes, carrots. Cabbages were in a crate and gave off a freshness that was welcome. The store was redolent with a combination of lamp oil, kerosene, candles, well-matured cheese, brown sugar, soap, loose tea, coffee, and other comestibles. It caught at Ursula’s throat. All at once she was back with the horror of the worst time of her life.

‘Are you all right, Miss Grandison?’ asked Miss Ranner. ‘You look terribly pale. Mr Partridge, a glass of water for Miss Grandison.’

With an effort Ursula wrenched her mind away from the Sierra Nevada and back to the safety of a small village in the English countryside.

A glass of water appeared and she sipped at it gratefully.

‘Who did you see Polly Brown with, Mr Snell?’ The romantic spinster was not going to leave the matter alone.