The Problem at Two Tithes (An Angela Marchmont Mystery Book 7) (4 page)

Angela resisted the temptation to say, ‘Yes, sir,’ but merely nodded.

‘I’ll come with you if you like,’ said Kathie. ‘I promised Mrs. Hunter I’d visit her this week. I meant to go yesterday but I forgot.’

Angela accepted gratefully, for she foresaw an uncomfortable hour or two ahead of her and she hoped that Kathie’s presence might ease the awkwardness. Accordingly, after lunch the two of them set out in the direction of the vicarage, accompanied by Peter. They had not gone far when they saw a man coming towards them.

‘It’s Norman,’ said Kathie, and then as he came up to them, said, ‘Hallo, Norman, this is Angela. I don’t believe you’ve met before.’

The two of them acknowledged the introduction politely and Angela now had the opportunity to examine the man who seemed by all accounts to have been marked out for Kathie. He was solidly built and of middle height, with thinning hair. He was neither particularly handsome nor particularly plain, but his face wore a habitually serious expression which made it less attractive to look at than it might have been had he smiled more. At any rate, he looked the very essence of country respectability and as far as Angela could tell, Kathie liked him well enough.

‘Hallo, Peter,’ said Norman heartily as he caught sight of the boy, who was standing to polite attention. ‘You’re looking rather better today. You’ll be back at school before you know it. Here, take this,’ he said. He fumbled in his pocket and brought out sixpence, which he gave to Peter. ‘I know what you boys are like—always wanting money to buy tuck. I remember it very well myself.’

‘Thank you very much, sir,’ said Peter.

Norman Tipping nodded and passed on, and the ladies continued on their way. Angela glanced at Peter and felt rather sorry for him. If that was the sort of largesse that his future father dispensed in general, then he was unlikely to get much in the way of extra food at school. She made up her mind to give the boy half a crown later when no-one was looking.

‘So that is your intended, I take it,’ she said to Kathie. Kathie blushed and glanced at Peter, who was walking ahead out of earshot.

‘Not exactly, no,’ she replied, ‘although he is very kind.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Angela. ‘I was under the impression that it was pretty much all arranged. I must have misunderstood. I do apologize.’

Kathie laughed.

‘Oh, no need for that,’ she said. ‘I know everyone in the village talks about it as though we were on the point of putting up the banns, but they’re far ahead of us, I’m afraid.’

‘Has he asked you?’

‘Not in so many words,’ said Kathie cautiously. She lowered her voice. ‘To be perfectly honest,’ she went on, ‘I wonder sometimes whether he doesn’t consider my acceptance to be an established fact.’

‘Then you think he has no intention of getting to the point?’

‘He seems in no hurry, certainly,’ replied Kathie.

‘And is it?’ said Angela. ‘An established fact, I mean.’

Kathie hesitated.

‘It would be a very suitable match, of course. I know that,’ she said at last.

‘You don’t seem very sure,’ said Angela with a smile.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Kathie suddenly. ‘Perhaps I have been on my own for too long. For years it’s just been Peter and I and we’ve mostly been very happy. But Peter’s father didn’t leave us much money, you see. Humphrey has been very kind and helped out, but he worries about school fees, what with having two boys of his own, and I know he and Elisabeth are keen for the thing to go ahead.’

‘I see,’ said Angela. That sounded like Humphrey, all right: he had always been very jealous of his money as a child, and she could easily see that the responsibility of having to pay for his nephew’s schooling would not sit well with him. It seemed a little unfeeling of him to push his sister-in-law into marriage merely to relieve himself of the burden, however—for it was clear to Angela that Kathie was not in love with Norman Tipping in the least, and indeed, any woman who could refer to her future marriage as ‘the thing’ could not possibly be
wholly
enthusiastic about it. It was none of her business, however, and so she let the subject drop and the talk moved onto other topics.

Peter had been given special dispensation not to partake of the visit to Mrs. Hunter, and so when they reached the gate of the vicarage he ran off with a whoop on business of his own, leaving Angela and Kathie to knock at the door and be admitted by an aged parlourmaid.

‘Is that you?’ boomed a voice from a room somewhere off to their right. It was shortly followed by Mrs. Hunter herself. The vicar’s wife was a woman of large and hearty bearing and a manner to match. As far as Angela could remember she must be in her late seventies now, but she seemed to have lost none of her ebullience over the years, and indeed, still insisted on riding her bicycle around the village, to the great danger of the rest of its inhabitants. She greeted her visitors loudly, and then looked Angela up and down with bare-faced curiosity.

‘And so this is what time has done to you,’ she said. ‘You’re wearing reasonably well, I suppose. I shouldn’t take you for a day older than thirty-five. Not a scrap on you, I see. That’s a mistake. It’s all very well when you’re young, but it doesn’t become an older woman. You can just about carry it off now, but if you’re not careful your face will collapse and you’ll start looking positively desiccated in about ten years. Like one of those Egyptian mummies, you know. Still, it’s nice to see you both. Come in, come in!’

Not entirely sure which was worse—being compared to a three thousand-year-old cadaver or being told she looked as much as thirty-five—Angela threw a glance at Kathie, who appeared to be trying not to laugh, and followed their hostess into the parlour.

‘Stephen is not at home,’ said Mrs. Hunter, ‘so we can have a nice, friendly chat without having to talk about the church roof for once. Tea, Esther,’ she said to the parlourmaid, who looked to be about twenty years older than Mrs. Hunter herself, and who tottered off obediently. ‘Shall you be giving us a hand at the fête tomorrow, Mrs. Marchmont?’

‘I believe so,’ said Angela. ‘I think Elisabeth has plans for me. She mentioned something about putting me on the bric-à-brac stall.’

‘I see,’ said the vicar’s wife. ‘You’ll have to have your wits about you, then, or you’ll be fleeced. Watch out for Mrs. Goddard in particular: she’ll beat you down until you end up paying
her
two shillings to take the stuff off your hands. And she’s not above helping herself to things when one’s not looking. I only say what’s true, my dear,’ she said to Kathie, who had seemed about to protest. ‘I hope you know how to stand firm,’ she went on, regarding Angela narrowly, ‘or you’ll be flayed alive.’

Having established to her satisfaction that they were not to attend a church fête but rather a bear-baiting, she paused to pour the tea, and then returned to the attack.

‘And was your brother pleased to see you again?’ she said. ‘I understand you hadn’t seen each other for many years.’

‘That’s not quite true,’ said Angela. ‘I have seen him since I returned from America, but this is the first time I’ve returned to Two Tithes since I left.’

‘Of course, now I remember,’ said Mrs. Hunter. ‘You ran off to mess about with a typewriter in London, didn’t you? Broke your parents’ hearts, of course. Still, as I told them at the time, it’s best to let girls get these things out of their system. She’ll get over it, mark my words, I said. Once she’s tried to live on twenty-five shillings a week and had her fill of eating stale rolls for breakfast and sharing a bathroom with ten other girls, she’ll be back and begging to be forgiven. I was wrong, though, wasn’t I? You never did come back. I suppose I ought to have seen it, really. You always had that fire in you—that independent spirit. Ungovernable, they used to call you at home. Always up to something. Not like your brother, of course. He was the well-behaved one. Not that I particularly admire a boy who is never naughty. There is something about it that doesn’t appeal—something a little unnatural, don’t you think?’

Here she paused to take a breath and a sip of tea, while Angela tried and failed to think of a suitable reply to all this. Mrs. Hunter’s memories of that period were evidently very different from hers. When she had left Two Tithes her mother was already dead, and her father had been more annoyed than broken-hearted at her insistence on earning her own living. She was about to change the subject and make some remark about how the village had altered since she had last seen it, when Mrs. Hunter found her second wind and began again with breezy unconcern for the niceties of social intercourse.

‘I understand you are separated from your husband,’ she said, then, as Angela was struggling for an answer, went on, ‘Tell me, did he have other women? They so often do, you know, but that’s no reason to separate. The marriage vows seem to be taken less and less seriously these days, I find, and just because a man can’t manage to be faithful that’s no reason to throw him out. We women are put on this earth to suffer, you know. You must look the other way and make home all the more enticing, to make him come back to you. How is your cooking? Perhaps it wasn’t good enough for him. A man likes to be well fed at home, and he’s much less likely to stray if he feels he is being well looked after. I have a recipe for a rather marvellous chicken pie which has never failed me yet. I must look it out for you.’

Kathie, in sympathy to Angela, was about to interject with a change of subject, but she had no time, for Mrs. Hunter went on:

‘Or was it another man? I do hope you’re not that type. Now, that kind of thing really does make me cross. One reads about all kinds of scandalous conduct coming out in the divorce courts these days, which simply wouldn’t have been allowed fifty or even twenty years ago. Women like that would have been ostracized, and rightly so, in my opinion. That sort of behaviour is simply disgraceful. But you wouldn’t do anything like that, would you? Of course not—why, it’s quite unthinkable. What was it, then? Was it to do with money? I understand you worked when you were in America. I shouldn’t be surprised if that’s why he left you. Men don’t like their wives to work, you see. It hurts their pride and makes them feel unimportant. A man needs to feel as though he is king in his own home.’

Angela by now was nodding politely at everything and counting the flowers on the wallpaper above her hostess’s head. At last Mrs. Hunter seemed to decide that she had dispensed enough words of wisdom to resolve Angela’s marital difficulties, and turned her attention to Kathie.

‘And so Norman Tipping still hasn’t asked you to marry him, I hear,’ she said. ‘Send him to me, and I’ll have a word with him. He oughtn’t to keep you hanging on like that. It’s not fair on a woman. You’re not getting any younger and you don’t want to leave it too late to have more children.’

Kathie was used to Mrs. Hunter’s ways and so she merely smiled and said:

‘It’s very kind of you, but there’s no need to worry about me. Peter and I are quite happy as we are at present. There’s no hurry at all.’

‘Well, just you make sure he doesn’t think he can get out of it,’ said Mrs. Hunter. This was a conversation they had had many times, however, and she soon ran out of things to say on the subject, so Kathie was spared any further impertinent observations, and the visit soon came to an end, after a mercifully brief diatribe from Mrs. Hunter about a spate of bicycle thefts in the village, which she suspected to be the work of some gipsies who had recently been seen in the area.

‘Whew!’ said Angela as they walked away from the vicarage. ‘I feel rather as though I’d spent the last hour being hit repeatedly over the head with a sandbag or something of the sort. I’d forgotten about Mrs. Hunter and her—er—idiosyncrasies.’

Kathie laughed.

‘Yes, she is rather forthright, isn’t she? She means well, but I find it’s best not to take what she says too much to heart.’

Angela agreed, although naturally it was easier said than done. The ladies parted, and Angela made her way back to Two Tithes via a path that led through the grounds and to the side of the house. As she passed the open door to the kitchen-yard she glanced through it and spied William leaning in his usual spot against the wall, smoking, and went to speak to him. He straightened up when he saw her approaching, but she motioned to him not to bother putting out his cigarette and instead said:

‘Have you got any more of those? I’ve just had a rather bruising encounter with the vicar’s wife and I’m dying for a cigarette, but mine are in the house and I don’t think I can bear to go back in just yet.’

He obliged immediately and lit it for her, and they stood in companionable silence for a few minutes, although Angela could not help casting the occasional nervous glance about her in case Elisabeth or Humphrey should come upon them and tell her off for hob-nobbing with the lower orders.

‘I hope you’re quite comfortable here,’ she said at last. ‘Have the servants made you welcome? I don’t know much about this lot. Most of the ones I knew seem to have left long ago.’

‘Yes, quite comfortable, ma’am,’ he said. ‘And the servants are friendly enough.’ He glanced at her sideways. ‘They all seem a little frightened of her ladyship, though.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Angela. ‘I’m rather frightened of her myself. But don’t you dare tell anyone that.’

‘I shouldn’t dream of it,’ he said in some amusement. He paused for a second, then said hesitantly, ‘I guess she’s scared of you too.’

‘Scared of
me
?’ said Angela in astonishment. ‘Whatever for?’

‘Why, because she doesn’t know how to take you. She’s lived all her life in the same place with the same people, but you—you’ve been places, and you’ve seen and done things that she’ll never see or do. Maybe she finds that a little intimidating.’

Angela paused to absorb what William had said. She had never considered things from this angle, and had always supposed that Elisabeth’s air of barely-concealed impatience when in her presence was due purely to disapproval.

‘I’d never thought of it like that,’ she said. ‘I wonder whether you mightn’t be right. Banford is a small place and most of the families here have lived in the area for centuries without feeling the need to go anywhere. I suppose they might be wary of someone who has lived abroad and developed foreign habits. Odd, though, isn’t it, to think that I might be the only person from here ever to have travelled.’