The Murder of Busy Lizzie mb-46 Read online

  ‘The illegitimate son has been adopted’, went on Marius, disregarding her, ‘and can have no claim on the estate. I regard it as my bounden duty, therefore, to allow nothing to stand in the way of a reconciliation with your aunt.’

  ‘Great expectations!’ muttered Sebastian. ‘Very well, Father,’ he said aloud, ‘I love to think that birds in their little nests agree. By all means let us suck up to Aunt Eliza if you think the pickings will be worth it. All those in favour?’

  ‘When did she have the baby?’ asked Margaret. ‘Was it a long time ago?’

  ‘Yes, my dear,’ replied Marius, ignoring his son. ‘It was quite a romantic story, I believe. It happened nearly thirty years ago.’

  ‘Long enough ago to be respectable, and therefore long enough ago to be uninteresting,’ said Sebastian. ‘That means the little intruder will be a man of early middle age by now.’

  ‘I am a man of early middle age,’ said Marius, who was forty-four. ‘Ransome would be something under thirty. In any case, whatever his age, he can be disregarded as a possible heir to his natural mother’s estate.’

  ‘I wish I were as sure of that as you seem to be,’ said Clothilde.

  ‘But what actually happened?’ asked Margaret. ‘I mean, how did she meet the father and why didn’t your family make him marry her, and all that sort of thing? I thought that, in their station of life, pressure was always brought to bear.’

  ‘In this case that was impossible,’ said Marius stiffly. ‘I regret to say that the father of the child was already married.’

  ‘Well, couldn’t they find some other poor daffy-down-dilly to take the rap?’

  ‘Now really, Margaret!’ protested Marius.

  ‘See what dreadful ideas this sordid story has already put into my small sister’s hitherto innocent head,’ said Sebastian. ‘So they had the baby adopted, did they?’ he went on hastily, catching his father’s eye. ‘So that puts him out of the line of direct succession, does it?’

  ‘If he was legally adopted, and if Eliza does not remember him in her will,’ said Clothilde.

  ‘Well, as I said before, I’m willing to take a chance,’ said Sebastian. ‘ “The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold”—although it seems as though Ransome’s father was the wolf, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, and you and your father are only the silly sheep who are going bleating to Great Skua to see what you can get, and that will be exactly nothing,’ said Clothilde contemptuously. She turned her back on them, picked up a book and began to turn over the pages.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind spending a month at Aunt Eliza’s hotel,’ said Margaret, ‘especially as it’s on an island. It would make a change, if nothing else.’

  ‘Well, my dear,’ said Marius to his wife’s back, ‘it appears to be a majority decision, doesn’t it? I will answer Eliza’s letter as soon as we have dined and tell her that we accept with pleasure and are delighted with her suggestion that we should spend a holiday month with her at her hotel on Great Skua.’

  ‘You three must please yourselves,’ said Clothilde, ‘or, rather, you must please yourself, Marius, and leave the children to please you. However, I consider that I am entitled to my own point of view on the matter of Eliza and her desert island.’

  ‘Surely, surely, my dear,’ agreed Marius soothingly. “This family is not a dictatorship. I should never dream of attempting to persuade you to alter your opinions just to please me.’

  ‘That is just as well, for I have not the smallest intention of altering them. I neither like nor approve of Eliza, nor can I imagine anything more boring than spending a month on her sea-girt little piece of rock and mud.’

  ‘We shall all be there together, my love, and, as intelligent people, we can surely manage to entertain ourselves without ennui for a matter of four short weeks. Besides, if we pride ourselves on a democratic approach to family matters, it seems to me that you have been out-voted and must perforce fall in with the wishes of the majority.’

  ‘I do not feel myself bound in any such way, Marius,’ said Clothilde, slamming her book down and turning to face him. ‘I shall not go with you to Great Skua. The best I can do is to promise you a warm welcome and a substantial meal when you return from this unnecessary and ill-advised expedition. The good meal you will certainly need, I imagine, even if the welcome is supererogatory.’

  ‘What have you got against Aunt Eliza, Boobie?’ asked Sebastian, putting his long thin arm round her shoulders. ‘Tell your devoted and most inquisitive son. Is there some ghoulish secret hidden in your heart concerning her? You can’t dislike a woman simply because she has begotten a child without benefit of clergy, can you?—or can you?’

  ‘You none of you know what I can do,’ said Clothilde. ‘I hope you will all enjoy your stay on Great Skua. That is all I can say.’

  ‘Oh, now, really, my dear!’ protested Marius.

  ‘No,’ said his wife. ‘You go and toady to Eliza if you think fit, but I have not the smallest intention of going with you.’

  chapter two

  Theory and Speculation

  ‘No tales of them their thirst can slake,

  So much delight therein they take,

  And some strange thing they fain would make,

  Knew they the way to do them.’

  Michael Drayton

  « ^ »

  So what was all that about?’ asked Sebastian, when he and his sister were alone. ‘Why is poor Boobie all stewed up? What’s the idea of her outfacing The Tutor and repudiating Aunt Eliza’s little island?’

  ‘Do you think she means it?’

  ‘About not going? Yes, I’m sure she does. No wonder The Tutor looked so flummoxed. I should think it’s the first time she’s ever flouted him.’

  ‘Well, you can’t really blame her, I suppose. She has pretty good reasons.’

  ‘Because Aunt Eliza had a little fly-by-night all those years ago?’

  ‘No—well, not only that.’

  ‘What do you know, then, that I don’t?’

  ‘Nothing—well, not really anything, I suppose.’

  Sebastian picked up a gramophone record and glanced at the label.

  ‘Don’t thwart me, you miserable child,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to smash up Clifford Curzon and the London Philharmonic?’

  ‘You wouldn’t, anyway. Put it down, and I’ll tell you what I think. Mind, it is only what I think, not what I know.’

  ‘How do you come to think anything?’

  ‘It’s only because of something I heard at the Singletons’ last November. I’d forgotten all about it until now.’

  ‘The Singletons? Not at that famous sherry party where I broke their crystal goblet to try to cover up for Boobie’s fearful gaffe?’

  ‘Well, how was she to know there was going to be that sudden ghastly silence just as she was talking to Vivian Spofforth about Tony Singleton’s goings-on in the village?’

  ‘She shouldn’t have been talking about any such thing in the Singletons’ own house. It was perfectly frightful of her. No wonder we’ve never been invited there again. However, never mind that now. What did you hear and how did you come to hear it?’

  ‘Put this cushion across your bony knees, and let me sit on you. It’s a nuisance we’ve only one armchair in here.’

  ‘Put the cushion on the floor and sit on it there. Your place is at my feet, not in my lap. You’re getting a big girl now.’

  ‘But it’s cold in here. I thought you could keep me warm.’

  ‘Such thoughts are most unbecoming, my child. Besides, I want to stretch my legs and I can’t do that if you’re sitting on them. What did you learn at the Singleton home about Aunt Eliza and her island?’

  ‘Nothing, really, that you could call anything much, but I did get a hint or two which might explain Boobie’s reactions.’

  ‘The only hint I got at the Singletons’ was that we were expected to leave before eight so that they could get the supper (dignified by the name of dinner) on th
e table.’

  ‘Well, we call it dinner, so why shouldn’t they? And what’s the difference, when you come right down to it?’

  ‘I never answer rhetorical questions. But come along! Your story. We haven’t got all the evening.’

  ‘Well…’ Margaret flung the cushion on the floor, plumped herself down on it and rested her arms across her brother’s long legs ‘… you know that downstair cloakroom of theirs where we parked our things? I was in the little wash-place, sponging strawberry mousse off my frock, when Cousin Marie and that ghastly friend of hers came out with Barbara Singleton to get their coats because they were all going to the church concert. I don’t think anybody had noticed me slip out except Barry Singleton, who’d spilt the mousse on me, the clumsy idiot, so I don’t imagine they realised they could be overheard, especially by one of our family. Barbara said she didn’t suppose it would affect the Lovelaines, even if they knew, and Cousin Marie said that of course Marius and Clothilde didn’t know, and even if they came to hear of it later on she didn’t think they would take in what it might mean, because they were so unworldly.’

  ‘The Tutor didn’t sound so very unworldly when he was plotting for us to ingratiate ourselves with Aunt Eliza in order to cut ourselves in for her worldly goods,’ commented Sebastian. ‘Never mind. Go on. This is rather interesting.’

  ‘Cousin Marie said it seemed very peculiar to her, considering Eliza’s previous lapse from respectability, and that she was glad to be on Clothilde’s side of the family and so did not need to be mixed up in anything strange and rather (she was afraid) unsavoury. Then the ghastly friend said, all the same, wasn’t it rather romantic, in its way, that after all these years Eliza had taken a partner? To that Cousin Marie said there were partners and partners, and that nothing had been said about Eliza getting married and that she felt pretty certain that nothing of the sort was contemplated.’

  ‘How did Marie come to know anything about it?’ asked Sebastian.

  ‘I’m coming to that. Well, Barbara Singleton, who isn’t a bad sort in spite of being a district visitor, said that business reasons could make any alliance respectable, she supposed, so long as there was no jiggery-pokery, and that probably all Eliza had been after was a bit more capital. To this Cousin Marie said there were other ways of obtaining a bit more capital and that, for her part, she would sooner do without it than get it by some people’s methods.’

  ‘Cousin Marie,’ said Sebastian, ‘is a prize bitch, and always has been. I don’t know why The Tutor ever has her to stay with us.’

  ‘Well, she’s Boobie’s only living relative, that’s why. Still, I do think she might come without that other creep.’

  ‘Oh, The Tutor’s too gullible for his own good. Cousin Marie told him that the blighted Potter woman is too nervous to be left alone in their cottage, so she has to tag along wherever Cousin Marie goes. That’s why we have to put up with her as well as Cousin Marie.’

  ‘Mary and the lamb. It’s quite a common relationship, of course,’ said Margaret.

  ‘What on earth do you know about it?’ asked Sebastian, amused. ‘And take your pointed elbows off my legs. You’re making dents in me. Go on about your eavesdropping.’

  ‘It wasn’t eavesdropping! There’s a sort of grille at the top of that door, so I couldn’t help hearing what was said, and I didn’t like to emerge in the middle of their conversation, because it was obvious they hadn’t a clue that anybody was near them.’

  ‘Stop making excuses. I bet you stayed put with your ears flapping and forgot about the stain on your frock.’

  ‘Well, of course, it was rather interesting in a way,’ confessed Margaret, ‘and you needn’t put on airs. You’re keen enough to hear what I’ve got to tell you.’

  ‘Touché, mademoiselle! So now get on with it. One thing, though. This partnership is going to play havoc with The Tutor’s little game. I can’t think we stand any chance of coming in for Aunt Eliza’s property later on. It seems to me more than a fifty-fifty chance that, even if she leaves nothing to this son of hers, the partner will take most of the pickings. He’ll be no end of a fool if he doesn’t. After all, he’s the man on the spot. Anyway, was there more?’

  ‘Yes, there was, and this, I think, is most peculiar.’

  ‘Peculiar-strange or peculiar-nasty?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nothing was said straight out, but, unless I’m mistaken, Aunt Eliza’s previous boy-friend and their son Ransome are also living on the island, and I’m absolutely certain that’s a thing which The Tutor and Boobie don’t know.’

  ‘Living on the island? Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, not absolutely sure, but Cousin Marie seemed pretty confident about it.’

  ‘How did she get hold of the dirt?’

  ‘Well, that’s just it. She and the Potter woman have been to the island and stayed at Aunt Eliza’s hotel. It seems they went there last summer, after the Potter saw Aunt Eliza’s advertisement in a newspaper and thought the island sounded “rather fun”. She would, wouldn’t she? So they talked it over and sent for the brochure and they went, not knowing until they got there that it was Aunt Eliza’s hotel.

  ‘ “Of course, it was expensive for what we got,” Cousin Marie told Barbara Singleton, “but, although the meals were monotonous, the vegetables were fresh, and I must say Eliza, considering what a busy woman she is, made us very welcome.” Well, it turned out that the vegetables came from a smallholding and the dairy produce and eggs from a farm on the island and, according to what Cousin Marie was saying, the owner of the smallholding was the farmer’s son and Aunt Eliza had known the farmer for more than thirty years and the son since she was a girl of twenty. And’, concluded Margaret, ‘if that doesn’t ring a bell, nothing will ever make sense again.’

  ‘You go too fast,’ said Sebastian.

  ‘No, I don’t. It sticks out a mile. The farmer is Aunt Eliza’s old boy-friend and the smallholder is their son Ransome. I suppose the son couldn’t also be this partner she’s taken? If he is, a fat chance of The Tutor’s rather muddy little plans coming to anything, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘It would delight me to think that you are right and that the farmer is Aunt Eliza’s boy-friend and that she’s taken Ransome into partnership, but I rather doubt it, you know. Did Marie and Potter meet the partner?’

  ‘Oh, no, he hadn’t taken over at that time. It was only in the air, so to speak.’

  ‘So how did Marie know it had come off?’

  ‘I expect she’s received this year’s brochure, the same as we have.’

  ‘I don’t remember reading anything in it about a partner. It said, Eliza Chayleigh, Resident Proprietor.’

  ‘No, there wasn’t anything, I’m sure. I expect, as they’d been there before, Aunt Eliza sent Cousin Marie and the Potter a covering letter. She must have mentioned the possibility of the partnership, though, while they were there.’

  ‘You began your story in the middle, as I suppose you realise. What brought up this matter of the partnership and our parents’ unworldliness?’

  ‘Well, you know, Seb, it didn’t occur to me at first to take in what Cousin Marie was saying. She’s a frightful gossip, anyway, so it was quite a long time before I really began to cotton on.’

  ‘Oh, yes? Well, and when you did?’

  ‘She said, “I don’t know what difference Eliza thought it might make to me whether she took a partner or not, but I must say she gave me a very straight look, almost like a challenge, when she mentioned the parents’ legacy. I’d always thought that the Lovelaines’ chances disappeared when Clothilde’s straight-laced mamma boycotted Eliza at Clothilde’s wedding and Clothilde followed suit and looked straight through the poor woman, but, after what Clothilde let out to me the last time Pottie and I were there, it almost sounds as though, if this partnership should turn out to be a marriage, the parents’ legacy goes up the spout.” ’

  ‘What on earth did she mean by that?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, S
eb, but it sounded to me as though Boobie, as usual, had let some cat out of the bag.’

  ‘The parents’ legacy? Whose parents?’

  ‘The Tutor’s and Aunt Eliza’s, I suppose. It sounded as though they might have left her some money.’

  ‘Cousin Marie could have made that up.’

  ‘And the statement that Aunt Eliza had known the boy since she was twenty?’

  ‘People like Cousin Marie can stretch dramatic licence a pretty long way, you know. I think we’ll wait and see, but, after what you’ve said, nothing on earth will keep me from spending a holiday on Aunt Eliza’s island.’

  ‘You don’t think I ought to tell The Tutor what I overheard and deduced?’

  ‘He’ll only wonder why you haven’t told him before.’

  ‘No, he won’t. Until today there has never been any thought of our going over to the island, so there would have been no point in telling him. He would just have thought I was tattling, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘True, my child, and for pity’s sake don’t worry about it now. I like a bit of clean fun, and this summer holiday begins to take on a charm which I never expected.’

  ‘I wonder whether The Tutor and Boobie know that Cousin Marie and the creep went over to the island last summer? It seems so strange they should hit on that particular spot,’ said Margaret. ‘It would be just like Cousin Marie not to tell anybody, of course. She loves her little secrets. I can’t help feeling there’s more than that behind it though.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ said Sebastian. ‘Knowing what Boobie thinks of Aunt Eliza—we didn’t until today, but apparently Cousin Marie did—I expect she thought she wouldn’t be invited here again if it were known that she’d been hobnobbing with the busy hôtelière on the mystical island of Great Skua. Perhaps she’s got her fishy eye on the main chance, too.’

  ‘I wonder?’ said Margaret. ‘Well, we’d better get changed for dinner.’

  ‘Supper,’ said her brother, with a grin.

  Far to the south, on the edge of the New Forest in a small square mansion just on the outskirts of the village of Wandles Parva, a tall, well-built, comely woman was talking to her husband.