Murder Most Welcome Page 3

  Charlotte sat demurely, hands folded tightly in her lap, lips folded tightly in her impassive face. At Mrs Richmond’s last remark, Charlotte glanced upwards and intercepted a significant look between her new brother, Barnard, and the pleasant Mr Knightley. As Barnard shifted his feet awkwardly and Mr Knightley looked away with a frown, she wondered if, as seemed possible, the two men had their own conjectures regarding Frampton Richmond’s long-drawn-out bachelorhood; had perhaps speculated also on the topic of the rapid promotion arriving so promptly in the wake of that timely wedding.

  Poor, dear Charlotte indeed. She grimaced inwardly as she politely turned her attention once more to her mother-in-law’s history.

  ‘Poor girl.’ The tone was lowered and confidential but Charlotte could still make out the words. ‘She and her father had but recently arrived in Meerut, you know, on their way to Mr Glover’s new church. Such a courageous act, to accept an appointment in such troubled times.’

  ‘It was a fever, was it not?’ Elaine Knightley included Charlotte in her kind smile, but Mrs Richmond was not to be cheated of her narrative.

  ‘Indeed,’ she repeated, applying her dainty lace handkerchief to a melancholy tear. ‘They had been there a mere week, was it not, Charlotte, my dear? Awaiting safe conduct to the hill station, but most happily dear Frampton was at hand and formed an attachment to the dear girl at once, so in the midst of her grief, poor, dear Charlotte found joy. A very quiet wedding, of course, in the circumstances, and soon, so very soon afterwards …’

  The lace handkerchief fluttered violently, the maternal voice failed utterly.

  ‘Mama.’ Agnes was fluttering, dutiful and distressed, at her mother’s side. ‘Oh, pray do not distress yourself so. Shall I fetch the sal volatile? Or call Old Nurse?’

  ‘Oh, do hush, Agnes dear.’ The command was muffled with motherly tears and in the slight pause which ensued, Mrs Knightley addressed Charlotte.

  ‘I believe you have still no details of what occurred, of how Major Richmond met his death, have you, my dear?’ Her low, sweet voice held only kindness and concern and Charlotte warmed to her.

  Mrs Richmond cast aside her handkerchief to answer before her daughter-in-law could open her mouth. ‘Alas, no,’ she sobbed, with a shudder of anguish. ‘Not even a grave to call his own. Identification was …’ Her voice sank to a hoarse, dramatic whisper. ‘Difficult.’ She rallied and raised glowing eyes to her son’s portrait. ‘He must be counted a hero,’ she thrilled. ‘Along with his fallen comrades – the most noble, the most noble scion of the family of Richmond.’

  Charlotte was relieved to find herself seated beside the amiable Mr Knightley and the relentlessly fussing Agnes when they were announced into the dark panelled cavern of the dining-room with its billowing draperies and chair seats of dark and dusty green plush checkered with purple to form an unlikely tartan. More heraldic banners decorated the room, together with animal heads of every kind anchored to the walls. (‘Dear Grandpapa was exceedingly fond of animals,’ confided Agnes proudly as Charlotte looked askance at the stuffed polecat that glared directly opposite her). A meal partaken beside Lily Richmond would give her galloping indigestion, she decided, while Agnes, on the other hand, appeared to be a kind and harmless enough creature. A distinctly irritating one, in truth; she had to admit to a modicum of sympathy for Mrs Richmond’s automatic. ‘Oh, do hush, Agnes dear!’ which continued to ring out at regular intervals.

  Bearing in mind yet another of her godmother’s maxims – ‘eat what you are given no matter how unpalatable, it may be the last food you see for many a day’ – Charlotte quietly worked her way through the substantial dinner, manfully indifferent to the prevailing brown hue of the food – brown soup, an unidentified brown-tinged fish, boiled fowl in a brown onion sauce, brown cauliflower cheese (though in this case the dark colour was evidently due to scorching), ending with brown batter puddings. While she was thus employed she cast unobtrusive glances round the room at the assembled company. Used to summing people up rapidly or rue the consequences, she knew herself to be a fairly accurate judge of character at first sight.

  So, whom have we here? Mrs Richmond, Frampton’s dear, sweet, little mother. Hmmm, yes, I can see why he thought so, she decided, looking under her lashes at her mother-in-law. It must have been devastating to her, an active woman and the ‘lady-lord’ of the manor, to have her freedom snatched away by a horse’s false step. It argued considerable strength of character to take up her life again as she had. But sweet? Hmm, we’ll see.

  At this point Charlotte realized, to her mortification, that she had absent-mindedly palmed the silver salt cellar, in the shape of a shell, that had reposed on the snowy linen in front of her. Frowning at such a slip, she contrived to retrieve the charming trifle and, feigning nonchalance, replaced it on the table under cover of her napkin. She held her breath for a moment half expecting an uproar – shock, horror, condemnation and the summoning of a constable – before continuing with her observations.

  Lady Frampton? Well, now, there was a surprise. Not quite the aristocratic lineage Frampton had led her to expect. Obviously the title was a knighthood, or Frampton would have been Sir Frampton or something of the sort, wouldn’t he? A nice enough old woman, but distinctly smelling of the shop. Charlotte had met plenty like her; she would have flourished in the colonies, taken it all in her stride.

  Unlike Agnes perhaps. Or perhaps not. Plenty of clinging ivies turned into hearty oaks when they had to. A tiny chuckle escaped her lips – what a ridiculous mixed metaphor.

  ‘I suspect, Mrs Frampton Richmond, that you have been having something of a game at the expense of your new family. Come now, confess that you have a wayward sense of humour which is likely to get you into all kinds of hot water.’

  Mr Knightley spoke quietly as the elder Mrs Richmond turned her attention from him to her second son. Charlotte looked up at him with a slight, guilty smile.

  ‘I fear you are only too correct, Mr Knightley. Pray do not encourage me to be uncivil to my hosts, it would be quite shocking behaviour in me.’

  ‘Indeed it would,’ he agreed seriously, echoing her prim manner. ‘Indulge me by telling me just one thing, though. Was your father’s name really Lucy? Or was it merely the inspiration of the moment?’

  ‘The latter, I fear,’ she admitted. ‘But please don’t disgrace me by telling anyone. I don’t know what my … I mean, my father died when I was an infant and I have been called by my stepfather’s name for almost as long as I remember.’

  He gave no sign of noticing the slight stumble and turned the conversation to Miss Jane Austen and her novels.

  ‘I know that you have read Emma,’ he remarked. ‘I obviously have a particular interest in that novel, but what of Miss Austen’s other novels? I must confess to a fondness for Mansfield Park.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she exclaimed eagerly. ‘That’s my least favourite. Emma and Lizzie Bennet were always my heroines.’ She composed herself and continued. ‘We had very few books,’ she told him. ‘But, as a girl, my godmother, Lady Margaret Fenton, met Miss Austen when the countess, Meg’s mother, was taking the cure at Southampton, not long before Miss Austen’s untimely death. That led to Lady Meg purchasing every one of Miss Austen’s books and she would never be parted from them, carrying them years later all the way to Australia with her, so I was able to devour them as soon as I was old enough.’ She smiled at him. ‘I believe I knew them almost all by heart when I was younger.’

  He seemed touched by the wistfulness of her tone.

  ‘I had not realized that you were an Australian, Mrs Richmond.’ He spoke with friendly warmth. ‘You must have some interesting stories to tell. What a very large swathe of the globe you must have seen in such a short lifetime.’

  As she was about to respond, she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror, partly obscured by the stuffed animal opposite her. Who could this confident, laughing young woman be, with her angular features softened by a smile and a slight flush bright
ening her brown complexion? As she stared, the smile vanished and a guarded expression took its place. The colour deepened in her cheeks as she looked away.

  ‘How very tactful.’ She had regained her composure, smiling again but ever watchful. ‘But it’s not so short a lifetime indeed. I’m twenty-four years old, you know.’

  ‘Do, pray, accept my apologies.’ He laughed down at her, looking mused at the sparkle in her clear hazel eyes. ‘A hoary old age indeed. But I must repeat myself, that seems a mere child to an elderly gentleman of ten years seniority.’

  Across the snowy linen of the dining table, Charlotte noticed that Elaine Knightley was watching them with an indulgent smile as she listened to Barnard’s plodding account of the spring sowing, until something, an unhappy thought or a sudden discomfort perhaps, wiped away the smile as she hunched her shoulders a little and, frowning, bit her lip. Charlotte felt a moment’s anxiety but Mr Knightley claimed her attention once more and when she looked again at his wife Mrs Knightley’s serene smile was once more in place, that greyish tinge to her skin quite vanished.

  ‘Pray allow me,’ he was saying to Charlotte, ‘just this once, to convey our condolences, my own and my wife’s, on the sad loss of your husband. I am better acquainted with his brother, Barnard, as it happens – we were at school together – but I always found Frampton an amiable enough fellow.’

  ‘You are too kind.’ She was serious once more, looking earnestly up into his friendly blue eyes. ‘I fear I scarcely deserve such generosity, for I myself was barely acquainted with Frampton, you know.’

  He looked taken aback at her frankness but apparently decided that he liked her for it as he gave her a nod of approval.

  ‘I am afraid Mrs Richmond Senior was much distressed by circumstances, the difficulty in identifying the bodies, I mean.’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered him very gravely. ‘In fact, it was decided – by the colonel, I believe – that there should be a memorial service which encompassed all the fallen, for there was only one survivor of the ambush and he was sadly wounded. In fact, they say he may never recover his wits from a savage blow to the head. The colonel was most kind to me, but I know he was greatly disturbed by the whole affair. Indeed, there were shocking rumours flying around in the bazaars and in the cantonments.’

  He expressed surprise and she continued in the same low, confidential voice, making sure that Agnes and her mother-in-law could not hear.

  ‘Indeed, although, of course, hysteria was running very high at the time, I myself heard every rumour under the sun, ranging from talk of incompetence to treachery.’ She shuddered slightly. ‘I cannot forget that once, when I entered a room unexpectedly, a conversation was hastily choked off.’ She shook her head slightly, raising a hand to shade her eyes for a moment. Meeting Mr Knightley’s grave but friendly gaze, she whispered: ‘The man who was speaking, I think he was a major, was saying that murder had been done.’

  CHAPTER 2

  Charlotte was glad to follow the household custom and retire early. ‘Oh yes.’ She gave a weary sigh when Agnes accompanied her to the cosy bedroom along the corridor. ‘It has certainly been a most exhausting day.’

  She unpinned the severely plain black silk cap that sat primly on her shining brown hair and laid it carefully on the walnut dressing table. Just because I seem to have landed in clover, she reminded herself, there is no reason to be careless with my clothes. It may all come unravelled at any moment and I’ll be back where I was before, relying on my wits as usual.

  ‘You should have telegraphed to us,’ Agnes scolded fondly. ‘Fancy coming all the way from Southampton today. And straight off the boat, too. Why did you not spend the night at some hotel?’

  ‘It is hardly “all the way” from Southampton, Agnes, it is less than twelve miles, after all. Besides, I couldn’t afford a hotel,’ came the blunt reply.

  ‘But surely, dear Frampton…?’

  ‘Frampton’s affairs were left in such disarray’ – Charlotte frowned as she stared in the mirror – ‘that it was not possible to make out just what I was entitled to, so the colonel simply made me a small allowance from Frampton’s pay until things could be settled. Besides, the state of unrest in the country made everything ten times more difficult. That is why I have taken so long to reach England.’ No need, at present, to mention the nebulous whisper she had heard, about funds missing from the officers’ mess, or that other whisper, even more nebulous, concerning the truth of Frampton’s death.

  ‘Oh, oh yes, I see.’ Agnes plainly did not see but Charlotte did not enlighten her. ‘We did wonder, dear. After all, it is nearly six months since …’

  Charlotte turned to her with an apologetic smile.

  ‘Indeed I did not mean to be so dilatory in making myself known to my new family. But with the Sepoys on the rampage and all communications broken down, it simply wasn’t safe to travel far. I spent the time making my way to the west coast whenever I could find an escort, stopping at settlements on the way and helping with the nursing where and when I was able. Besides all the wounded, there was an outbreak of cholera, you see.’

  She stood up and gave Agnes’s shoulder a squeeze.

  ‘I’m a capital nurse, you must know. We lived in such remote parts all my life that I had to learn to be doctor and nurse together. If you are ever taken ill, I promise you I’ll nurse you splendidly back to health!’

  With these encouraging words, she propelled Agnes gently towards the door and out on to the landing.

  ‘There now, I’m sure you are just as tired as I. It’s plain to see that all the management and worry of the house falls on your shoulders. Off to bed now, and thank you for my kind welcome.’

  As Charlotte closed the door firmly but gently on Agnes, she read first bewilderment in the plain, honest face, then a dawning realization. Oh dear. Charlotte frowned guiltily. I shouldn’t have said that; Agnes is obviously a willing doormat and I may have sown the seeds of rebellion. I must watch my tongue, she scolded herself, it is no part of my plan to make myself unpopular with Mrs Richmond. I am to be meek and mild and dutiful; quite unexceptionable.

  Alone in her own room at last, Charlotte undressed, feeling unutterably weary. She blew out her candle and climbed into the four-poster bed with its blue brocade drapery, while she struggled to call to mind something that had struck her about her new family’s appearance. It was no use, the notion refused to reappear; as she had admitted to Agnes Richmond, it had been an exhausting day.

  The previous night had been a sleepless one as the ship made her way across the Bay of Biscay and up the English Channel; many passengers had scarcely bothered to retire to their cabins at all, preferring to watch the coastline and pick out familiar landmarks in the shadowy greyness of early dawn. While they were thus preoccupied, Charlotte was tempted, impelled by habit and the lifelong, ever-present anxiety as to money, to flit from empty cabin to empty cabin, employing skills learned from her enterprising stepfather; a ring here, a few coins there, a brooch or two, calculating to a nicety the risks involved. She had actually opened her door when conscience intervened. No, that’s all in the past, she vowed, life is different now and I want to be like other people. I’m going to be respectable from now on.

  On disembarking at Southampton some time after noon, Charlotte had stowed her luggage safely for the time being while she bade farewell to her shipboard acquaintances.

  ‘No, no,’ she assured more than one kindly enquirer, with scant regard for truth. ‘I am to be met shortly. No, thank you, I am not afraid to wait by myself.’

  Old habits died hard and Charlotte had been careful to make herself pleasant to the other passengers but to avoid intimacy.

  ‘Don’t get too friendly,’ her stepfather always said. ‘Keep a little distance. That way you can stick to a simple story and not forget which one you’ve told; let people get too close and you start making up more and more elaborate tales so you’ll trip yourself up. Mark my words, Charlotte, that’s the way to disaster.
Always remember, love, keep it simple.’

  No danger of forgetting, not ever. Will Glover’s words had been dinned into her since childhood so she turned on her heel with a friendly nod and wave of farewell and made her way into the anonymity of town, with a definite end in sight.

  On the way up the High Street, her eyes darted from side to side, taking in the terrain, shrinking a little at the press of people while marvelling at the size and bustle of the city and pausing now and then to admire the grey stone of the mediaeval walls with the great arched gateway that was the Bargate, as a passerby told her, visible in the distance. Yet another of the abiding watchwords of her upbringing: ‘Always take notice of your surroundings,’ Lady Meg used to say. ‘A sensible woman will always know where to find a church, a bank, a pawn shop and the nearest stagecoach stop in case embarrassment forces an early retreat.’

  Charlotte hesitated outside a wide-fronted building at number 57 High Street, but it proved to be the offices of yhe Peninsular and Oriental Steam Ship Company and she was disconcerted to be hailed by one of the officers from the ship. He seemed disposed to linger so she gracefully side-stepped his conversation and admiring glances and with a hasty nod of farewell soon found what she was seeking, yet another imposing building that must certainly be a bank, flanked by an equally large building that was evidently an inn. She had already asked a porter where to find the railway station – Lady Meg’s advice needed to be revised as her own hurried departure from England had pre-dated the spread of the railways – and that sudden gleam was surely caused by sunlight breaking through the murk of a nearby alley to shine on to the golden balls of a pawnbroker’s shop.