Deadly Inheritance (26 page)

He shrugged. ‘Matthews is getting the constable to investigate and has ordered Mason to perform an autopsy. There will undoubtedly have to be an inquest.’

‘Another one,’ Helen sighed, rising from her chair. ‘Luncheon will be late, I’ve asked for it in half an hour’s time. I hope by then both Richard and Belle will have returned; they are out horseback riding.’

The Colonel smiled. ‘You have never lost your American habit of tautology. What else could they be riding but horses?’

‘Donkeys, maybe, or pigs,’ she said caustically. ‘In America we prize accuracy.’ She shut the door behind her with a decided click.

‘You haven’t told her Miss Ranner’s story?’ Ursula asked the Colonel.

‘I need to speak to Richard first.’

* * *

Luncheon was a sombre meal. The Dowager banned any discussion of the inquest.

‘That girl brought nothing but trouble to this house. I am not going to have her shade disturb us now,’ she said.

‘Mama, I have to agree with you,’ said the Earl.

Ursula asked Belle about her ride.

Belle praised Pocahontas’s spirit and speed, then turned towards Helen and added, ‘I suppose you called her that because you think of yourself as some native American princess making peace with the English, then marrying one, coming over here and meeting the Queen.’

Helen narrowed her eyes.

The Colonel swiftly said, ‘Is that what Pocahontas did? I don’t know much more than her name and that she was a Red Indian.’

Belle looked pleadingly at Ursula.

‘Belle has neatly summed up the story,’ she said. ‘She came from Virginia and helped maintain peace between the early colonists and the natives, and saved the life of an adventurer who was at the mercy of her tribe.’ Ursula looked around the table. ‘Had it been a properly romantic story, they would have fallen in love but she actually married another Englishman, one John Rolfe, and became a Christian.’

‘I thought she married John Smith, the man she rescued,’ pouted Belle.

Ursula smiled at her. ‘No, it was John Rolfe. He brought her to England and she did meet the Queen.’

‘That’s romantic, I suppose.’ Belle looked as though she was not quite sure.

‘All you Americans want to meet our monarch,’ said the Earl. ‘For a republic you have an unhealthy love of titles and royal blood.’ He rose from the table. ‘I have matters to attend to.’

The Colonel also rose. ‘I need to speak to you, Richard.’

‘Now?’

‘Now.’

‘Then you’d better come to the library.’

The two brothers left the room.

The Dowager sighed. ‘I don’t know what has happened to manners these days. Helen, you should insist on proper behaviour at the table. Sometimes it’s like bedlam here.’

Helen merely reached for an apple from the dessert arrangement.

‘Belle, shall you and I go for a walk this afternoon?’ suggested Ursula.

‘I have arranged that we are to take tea with some neighbours,’ said Helen swiftly.

‘Oh,
more
boring people?’

‘Belle!’ said the Dowager sharply. ‘No one likes girls who whine.’

‘And what about Harry? Isn’t tea time when we see him?’

‘Harry will come down after we return. It will not take us long. Lady Moore is to give a ball for her daughter this season. I shall invite her and Lavinia to your ball and you will receive an invitation to the Moore’s. It is right and proper that you meet her before then. You will like Lavinia; she is very pretty and well-mannered.’

A footman entered the dining room and spoke to the butler.

‘Miss Grandison, his lordship asks if you could attend him in the library.’

Ursula stood up with a feeling of relief. ‘Of course, Benson.’

She followed the footman down the corridor.

In the library the two brothers stood either side of the fireplace. Anger crackled between them.

The Colonel was very controlled; his well-shaped mouth firm, his eyes steady. But the hand that held the edge of the mantelshelf was white with the intensity of his grip, and the fingers of his other hand tapped a silent rhythm on his leg.

The Earl had his hands buried deep in the pockets of his beautifully tailored trousers. His face was red and his pale blue eyes, always slightly protuberant, looked as though they might pop out of their sockets.

As Ursula was shown into the room, he thrust one of his hands through his hair, smoothing it back in a gesture of frustration.

‘Miss Grandison, my brother has told me some cock-and-bull story that he said he heard from you, who was told it by that village busybody Miss Ranner. I want you to repeat it to my face.’ His voice was dark and disturbed.

The Colonel indicated a chair. ‘Please sit, Miss Grandison.’ He did not look at his brother.

‘Yes, do,’ said the Earl irritably. ‘Accept my apologies for not offering one to you immediately.’

Ursula sat down and allowed the Colonel to place her crutches suitably to hand.

Speaking in an expressionless voice, she repeated Miss Ranner’s story, editing her words into a concise account of how the woman came to be in the lane and what she had seen. ‘I suggested she might have been mistaken in her identification of the rider but she said she recognised both his outline and his horse.’

The Earl brought a clenched fist down on one of the library tables with such force that a book fell to the floor. ‘Damn it, woman, she could not have seen me. I was not there, I was here.’

‘There are not many grey horses in the district, Richard.’

The Earl swung round on his brother. ‘Do you dare to disbelieve me? God’s sake, man, it was night! All cats are black and don’t tell me it was bright moonlight. Yes, the moon was full but clouds scudded across.’

‘How could you tell, if you were inside Mountstanton?’ The Colonel sounded like a reasonable man with a reasonable question but his gaze bored into his brother’s face.

‘I said I was here, not that I was fast asleep behind curtains!’ The Earl raked his hair with his hand again, strode to the end of the library, turned and strode back. He had all the tension of a coiled spring. ‘I smoked a cigar on the terrace, if you must know. In fact, I looked for you to join me but apparently you had gone to bed. Everyone had gone to bed, it seemed, but me.’ He thrust his hands back into his trouser pockets. ‘Even Benson was locking up. I had to promise to attend to the terrace door when I had finished. At least
he
trusted me,’ he finished bitterly. ‘I then had a nightcap and went to bed. I did not,’ he added through gritted teeth, ‘go to the stables, saddle Snowy and ride off to Hinton Parva.’ He glared at his brother.

He sounded positive but did he protest too much? ‘Is there anything further you wish to know, my lord?’

‘What? Oh, no, Miss Grandison, you may go. Wait – I would rather you did not spread this story around. There is no need to distress my mother. I find it difficult to understand why Miss Ranner spoke to you in the first place. Had she even met you?’

‘Yes, my lord. On a previous occasion, she and I had talked at some length in her cottage. The Colonel was busy talking to the coroner and I think she felt I might be someone who could, well, make you aware of what she believes she saw.’

The Earl said nothing.

Ursula took her crutches from the Colonel. He laid a hand briefly on the top of her arm as she prepared to leave the room. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

She felt very sorry for both men. Whatever the truth of the matter, trust between the brothers seemed to have broken down.

‘Whatever the truth of the matter’; the words repeated themselves inside Ursula’s head. However convincing the Earl might have sounded to her, she knew that his brother did not believe him.

Did the Colonel really believe that Richard, Earl of Mountstanton, had secretly visited a man whose stated intention was to give evidence at the dead nursemaid’s inquest? A man who this very morning had been found murdered?

Later that afternoon, Ursula was quietly knitting in the small sitting room used for casual activities, and trying without success to engage Belle in conversation. The young girl sat playing a game of cat’s cradle, silently refusing to respond to any of Ursula’s light comments.

The door opened and Belle looked up, her eager expression changing to one of disappointment as the Colonel entered.

‘I must change for this visit Helen wants to make,’ she said, and left the room.

The Colonel courteously held the door open for her.

Ursula smiled and indicated a convenient chair.

‘I thought you would like to know what has been decided regarding Polly’s burial, Miss Grandison.’

Ursula put down her needles. ‘I have been wondering what should happen. I suppose, the verdict being what it was, she cannot be buried in a church graveyard.’

He sat down. ‘No, I fear not. However, I understand there is a space just outside the Mountstanton church environs where a grave could be dug, and Richard has agreed that this would be most suitable. The plot is now being prepared and Polly will be buried tomorrow morning. The Reverend Taylor has been consulted and he has agreed to say a few simple prayers at the graveside.’

‘May I attend?’

He looked pleased. ‘I hoped you might want to be there. The poor girl will not have many to say goodbye to her; there is the stigma of suicide and the lack of any family.’

‘Perhaps she thought of her fellow staff as family?’

He coloured slightly. ‘I hope so. What are you knitting?’

She held up the cobwebby confection. ‘It’s a wrap. I bought the wool at your village store and Miss Ranner lent me the pattern.’

He leaned forward to examine it. ‘It is beautiful. If it didn’t sound too fanciful, I would say it was fairy work! Who will be lucky enough to wear it? Perhaps Miss Seldon – over a ball dress?’

Ursula laughed. ‘Knitted wraps are not fashionable.’

I have seen women knitting in South Africa,’ he said. ‘It seems a very peaceful and productive activity.’

Ursula smiled but said nothing.

‘I thought coming home was going to offer me a period of quiet contemplation, a time to consider the future,’ he said slowly, his gaze on the leaping flames of the fire. ‘Instead …’

‘Instead you’ve been plunged into a tragedy with unpleasant ramifications.’

‘Quite so. In many ways it reminds me of war.’

‘You mean, unexpected attacks, that sort of thing?’

He smiled. ‘You understand, I think. Guerrilla warfare is always the most difficult for an army to counter and overcome.’

* * *

The next morning was sunny and warm. A small party set off from the Mountstanton side door towards the grey-stone church that stood in the grounds surrounded by a haphazard arrangement of headstones and tombs set in well-tended grass.

On the far side of a low stone wall, a grave had been dug. Waiting there was the local vicar, a light breeze teasing his surplice. Resting on webbing was a coffin of quality wood with brass handles, on its top a simple wreath of white roses. Four undertaker’s assistants were in attendance.

Polly might not be allowed to lie in hallowed ground but Ursula was glad that an effort had been made to see that her burial was as dignified as possible. She suspected that it was the Colonel who had made the arrangements.

Both brothers were there, as was Helen. The Dowager had announced that it was unsuitable for either herself or Belle to attend and she was surprised at any of the family ignoring the criminal taint of suicide. Mrs Comfort walked beside the Mountstanton housekeeper and butler. Behind them came Maggie Hodgkiss, the laundry maid, and she was followed by several of the other servants. Ursula noted that the footman, John, was amongst them.

The vicar opened his prayer book.

Across the fields came a furiously ridden horse. All turned as Adam Gray, the agent, pulled up and dismounted, handing the reins to one of the assistants.

‘Your note has only just reached me,’ he said angrily to the Colonel, taking his stand beside the brothers.

There was a short committal service, then the coffin was lowered into the grave. Helen cast the first handful of soil, followed by her husband and brother-in-law. The Colonel handed Ursula a small quantity of the earth to save her the necessity of bending. She threw it in. The Mountstanton servants added their handfuls.

Last of all was Mr Gray.

Resting on her crutches, Ursula watched the way his square, rugged face worked and his light blue eyes blinked hard to clear them of tears. His generous mouth, though, was firmly controlled.

Then it was all over. The vicar exchanged a few words with the Earl and Countess, and the Colonel turned to the agent.

‘Will you join me in a sherry, Gray?’

The agent shook his head. ‘Thank you, Colonel Stanhope, but I have matters to attend to.’

‘I’m sorry my note reached you so late.’

‘Not really your fault; I was late getting home last night and didn’t check my correspondence until this morning.’

The servants headed for the house and Ursula limped behind them.

* * *

The following day, Ursula spent the morning practising on the piano. Everyone else was out; the Earl and his brother off on some business in Salisbury, and Helen had taken Belle for a luncheon some distance away. Emerging from the drawing room, Ursula encountered Mrs Comfort and Harry.

‘Miss Grandison!’ exclaimed Harry. ‘I have been wondering who can play cards with me.’

Mrs Comfort shushed him.

Ursula laughed. A simple game with a five-year-old boy sounded a perfect way of passing the time.

Negotiating the stairs, Ursula realised that her ankle, at long last, really did seem much stronger.

Harry ran to a cupboard and found a pack of cards. ‘I like snap,’ he said happily. ‘I always win.’

‘Who do you play with?’ Ursula shuffled the cards. The pack seemed well worn.

For an instant his expression trembled. ‘Polly liked to play snap.’ He sat at the table and set his mouth in a straight line.

‘And remember how Colonel Charles played with you and Polly when he was recovering from his wound?’ Mrs Comfort said in an encouraging tone.