Chapter 21
Evie had promised to go to Culworth and collect their exhibits from the embroidery exhibition that very morning so they would be available for everyone to take home in the afternoon when the embroidery group met.
The only member not present at two o’clock was Merc, which surprised them all. Somehow she had woven herself into the village’s fabric. They all liked her and were so proud of her embroidery skills that they boasted to friends and family about how brilliant she was and they meant to tell her that very afternoon.
‘Did she tell any of you she wouldn’t be here?’ Evie asked, disappointed she wouldn’t have a chance to say how proud she was to Merc’s face.
Vera said no, she hadn’t seen her at all this last week.
‘I drove over on Wednesday morning ’cos I couldn’t wait till the weekend to see our display and I met Merc,’ said Barbara the weekender. ‘She’d been to see the exhibition, she said, and was on her way home. She asked me about when the exhibits would be available and I told her, like you said, Evie, that she’d be able to take them home this afternoon. She nodded and went off.’
‘Don’t know how many times she saw that exhibition, because I met her Friday and she’d been then,’ said Dottie.
Bel chimed in that Merc’d been in the Store on Tuesday and said she was going with Ford after lunch in the car.
‘Mmm. Sounds like she’s been every day ’cos Caroline told me how proud she was when she went to see the exhibition on Saturday and that she talked to Merc then. But she thought Merc seemed very depressed,’ Sheila said.
‘But wasn’t it marvellous, all our work looking so good? I was so proud,’ Barbara said.
Bel agreed. ‘I didn’t think there was anything there that could beat our offering, and Merc’s stuff absolutely put the icing on the cake.’
‘She is very talented,’ Evie said, ‘and what’s so nice, very modest about it, too. I had several people speak to me about asking her to do a commission for them. I was longing to be able to tell her. I’ve got their names and addresses for her.’
‘She’s never late, and now there’ll be no racing tips if she doesn’t come.’
There were sighs of disappointment all round.
‘I had plans for my winnings,’ Bel announced.
‘You have?’ said Vera.
‘What?’ asked Dottie, who’d enjoyed that weekend in London so much she could have gone again the following week.
The embroidering came to a full stop as they waited to hear Bel’s plans.
‘Well, I was thinking of going to a hotel I’ve seen advertised in a magazine. It does trips out for its clientele. You set off Friday night, champagne lunch on the Saturday, Christmas market in the afternoon and a theatre on the Saturday night, and a visit to the biggest fashion outlet in the North on the Sunday first thing before you drive home. Thought it would be just right for Christmas presents and that.’
By the time she’d finished speaking she knew they were all fascinated by the whole idea.
Barbara almost leapt across the table she was so excited. ‘I’ll go! Sounds great. Just what I need with it getting dark so soon now. It’s so depressing. Cheer me up no end. How do you get there?’
‘Well,’ said Bel, ‘they pick you up by coach if you have ten or more, and one of the pickups is Culworth.’
‘No!’
‘Brilliant! Barbara, you’re our booking person - can you do it for us like you did last time?’
‘Yes, but there’s not ten of us.’
Spirits fell. Silence reigned.
Evie said, ‘It doesn’t have to be just this group. We wouldn’t mind others coming, would we? Compatible people from the village.’
A spontaneous outburst of excited voices filled the hall.
‘Ah! But just a minute. How much is it?’
This dampened their enthusiasm for a moment, but at that precise moment Zack appeared at the door.
Sheila shouted, ‘Sorry, Zack, we’ve been too busy to make tea. What are you doing here anyway? You’re not mowing now, surely?’
‘Who’s worried about tea? I’ve just been to Glebe House with a message for Merc from a neighbour of mine about her embroidery but there’s no reply.’
They were puzzled by his extreme excitement over them not being in.
‘But,’ said Dottie, ‘they are free to come and go as they please, you know. They don’t have to stay home in case someone calls.’
‘That isn’t it. They’ve gone!’
‘Gone where?’
‘Who knows? The side gate wasn’t locked so I went to knock on their kitchen door, thought they might not have heard me, and couldn’t help but see in through the glass.
They’re not there
.’
Growing increasingly impatient with Zack’s lack of clarity, Barbara said sharply, ‘For God’s sake man, explain yourself.’
‘They’ve flitted. Gone. Left. Moved house. Is that plain enough?’
Moved house? They all sat appalled by this news. Speechless, shaken and incredibly disappointed. What on earth had happened? They’d been so happy here, what with Merc’s embroidery and Ford’s wonderful singing voice and his help with the youth club and those outrageous trips they’d done and one still to be finalised before Christmas. And that fabulous Elizabethan banquet. Now what were they going to do? No more betting tips! Most surprising of all was Merc leaving her embroidery behind. She’d never do that. No, he must be wrong.
Evie, shocked to the core, muttered, ‘I don’t believe it, Zack.’ None of them did.
‘It’s true. There’s not a stick of furniture left downstairs. I looked in all the winders.’
‘Well,’ said Sheila Bissett, getting to her feet, ‘I won’t believe it till I see for myself.’
‘And neither will I,’ they all said.
There was a rush to be first through the door, and the whole group marched down the church hall path to the road, past the church and Glebe Cottages, and turned up the garden path of Glebe House. Evie realised it was true before they reached the door, because two huge garden pots placed either side out at the front, which Merc had filled with flowers in riotous colours and tended with loving care all the summer long, had gone.
Grandmama heard the scurry of many feet and looked out to see what was afoot. She joined the crowd, and neither could she believe they’d gone. They all peered in through the windows, even into the room that had been Neville Neal’s sacred sanctum, as well as the drawing-room, the kitchen and, the dining-room where the curtains had caught fire that time from Wee Willie Winkie’s candle being carelessly left alight on the window sill.
‘But I saw her only yesterday. She was in church, and so was he, in the choir. I spoke to her and she never mentioned a word about going.’
‘They must have been in a terrible hurry, her leaving her embroidery behind.’
‘When did they go?’
‘Must have gone after dark. Late, like when they came. Remember how surprised we all were?’ Zack recalled.
Well, I never! each of them thought. Now what? The biggest question in all their minds was
why
?
Craddock Fitch had a nasty feeling he knew
exactly
why, when he heard the news which had excited the entire village with its unexpectedness. Unusually for him, he’d gone to the Village Store just before closing time. Kate was away on an educational freebie and wouldn’t be back until very late, it was the housekeeper’s day off and Craddock felt too idle to potter in the kitchen trying to make the kind of meal he’d become accustomed to since marrying Kate. So here he was looking through the freezer for something to tempt his tastebuds and finding himself listening to the big story of the week, if not the year, which was still bubbling round the shelves as it had been since four o’clock.
He hurriedly picked out a chicken casserole (which he later discovered was a chicken curry) and fled. It had happened then. This thing had been preying on his mind ever since that fateful game of golf, and he was to blame. It had led to the hurried departure of Ford in a desperate attempt to hide all over again. He’d heard all about Ford’s marvellous singing voice and sneaked a quick look at Merc’s embroidery in the town hall. Embroidery, for heaven’s sake! It was only his guilty conscience that had made him go, and very guilty he felt, too, but it was exceptional, even he could see that.
It was no good him thinking that Kate would never find out. She probably knew already, even though she was fifty miles away; her village grapevine information centre was second to none.
It seemed that Nigel Farrow had indeed put paid to Ford Barclay’s love for Turnham Malpas. Damn and blast. Sentimentality never intruded on his business dealings but Craddock Fitch felt remarkably disappointed by Ford Barclay moving away. A man who, despite appearing insensitive and very down-to-earth, had picked out the fact that the two of them, Ford and Craddock, had pulled themselves up from the bottom of the pile, and what’s more had told him so. He had rather liked that. How could he sort it out? Obviously Ford couldn’t come back to live in Turnham Malpas no matter what, but at the very least . . .
Well, that Nigel Farrow had plenty of dirt sticking to him, so it was up to him, Craddock Fitch, to dig something out and make Nigel suffer. After all, even though he’d set up the lunch and the round of golf and the idea of finding out if Ford was crooked, he hadn’t meant to go this far. Not ruin the chap.
But why oh why had they disappeared in such secrecy?
That same night in the Royal Oak, the table with the settle down one side was the centre of the gossip.
‘I mean, what can we do about her embroidery? Such beautiful stuff; Merc was so clever. It’s nothing short of a tragedy,’ Dottie said as she placed the next round of drinks on the table.
Willie had his own opinion. ‘There must be a blooming good reason for it. This disappearance in the night, that’s significant, that is. Who in their right mind moves house in the night?’
‘You mean something illegal?’ Sylvia asked him.
‘What else can it be? Who sitting round this table would move house in the dark? None of us, not one. Therefore, it stands to reason they’re avoiding the police. They don’t want no one to find out where they are.’
‘Now, Willie, that is ridiculous. He told us the furniture van had broken down and that was why they were so late when they first arrived.’
‘That was
their
story,’ Willie said emphatically.
Sylvia pleaded, ‘There couldn’t have been a nicer man than Ford, and as for Merc, she was a treasure, she truly was.’
But Willie persisted. ‘They don’t have thief written on their foreheads, you know. There is such a thing as gentlemen thieves.’ Rather wistfully, he picked up his tankard to take a drink, then hesitated and said softly, ‘I shall miss Merc and not half. She was a lovely woman. She doesn’t deserve all this flitting about in a damn big hurry.’
‘I’m sorry, but much as I liked Ford, he was no gentleman, was he? Not like Sir Ralph of blessed memory.’ This from Barbara who, instead of going home straight after embroidery, had stayed on, hoping to find out the true reason for the Barclays’ hurried departure.
‘No, but he was lovely.’ Dottie smiled, thinking of Ford and his generosity and the money she’d made betting on his tips. She’d miss that for certain.
‘He was, and speculate as we might,’ said Sheila, ‘I’ve an idea we shan’t ever find out why, so we might as well save our breath.’
‘Is there anyone they gave their address to?’ asked Bel, who’d joined them after finishing supervising in the dining room. ‘Who’s the most likely?’
Various suggestions were put forward and the most likely was felt to be the Rector, so Dottie was given the task of enquiring from him the following morning about Ford’s whereabouts.
‘Well, Reverend, we’re all that disappointed, not to say shocked, about Ford and Mercedes, and we wondered last night, all of us in the pub, if you knew anything . . . unless it’s all confidential, of course. But it seems that awful. We all liked ’em, you know. Everybody’s that upset.’