Page 49 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #3)

The train was crowded, and until Salisbury, where she changed, Linda had to share the compartment with four others: a middle-aged woman with two grown daughters, who chattered without pause, and a dyspeptic elderly man, who looked as though he believed women ought to travel in separate carriages.

Luckily, the three females got out at Salisbury, leaving behind a magazine.

Linda lingered long enough behind them to seize it before she descended, despite the old man’s glaring at her and tutting.

There was always half an hour to wait for the branch-line train to Frome Magna, and the latest Tatler was a godsend, though she would never actually have spent money on it.

There was no station at Frome Monkton, and it was a long time since she’d had any horses, which meant taking a cab to Holme Manor.

When she stepped out into the station yard, however, there was a carriage waiting, with a coachman who touched his hat and a groom who opened the carriage door for her.

She recognised them as the servants of her neighbour, Colonel Havering.

The momentary relief was enormous, but as the carriage rattled through the dusty green lanes, she wondered about the reason for such neighbourliness.

She was never unnecessarily kind to anyone.

Had Cordwell been taken ill? By the time the carriage swung round the sweep in front of the house, she was so concerned she forgot the Tatler and left it on the seat.

The house seemed to be more or less intact as she had left it; and here was Colonel Havering, coming towards her. Behind him on the steps were Mrs Clegg, the housekeeper, and her son Job, who wasn’t right in the head, but who was biddable enough to act as footman, and for reduced wages.

The colonel reached for her hand, but instead of shaking it he covered it with both his, and looked at her with the melancholy eyes of a scolded dog. ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘you must ready yourself for bad news. Come into the house and sit down.’

She pulled her hand away and stood firm. ‘Where is Cordwell? Why did you send for me like that? What is going on?’

‘You had really better be sitting down,’ the colonel said anxiously.

Linda was afraid, and fear always irritated her temper. ‘Tell me this instant, or I shall box your ears!’

Colonel Havering was old enough to have earned respect and politeness from all ages and stations, and it was only his pity for her that restrained him. He drew himself up, ‘I’m afraid there has been a dreadful accident,’ he said, in a quiet, level voice. ‘Lord Cordwell is dead.’

He was shocked when Linda laughed. She was shocked at herself, but for some reason there seemed something irresistibly funny about the whole thing.

The old man’s solemn face, the servants huddling like sheep in the background, even the rooks, cawing like vulgar laughter in the tall elm trees that kept all the sun out of the rooms on that side of the house – the house that was so cold and damp and was falling gently and relentlessly to bits .

. . It was laughable, wasn’t it? Like some ridiculous Gothic story by Mrs Radcliffe where the heroine turned out to be the long-lost heiress. Only Linda was heiress to nothing.

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said, and enjoyed the extra degree of shock on the old man’s face at the discourtesy. ‘He can’t be dead. What happened?’

‘An accident with his gun, while out shooting,’ said the colonel, reluctantly. ‘Please, come into the house, my dear.’

He actually got her moving. But she still couldn’t see it.

A gentleman sometimes got in the way of another gentleman’s gun at a shoot, and received a rump full of pellets; occasionally, with an up-swinging gun, there had been a fatal incident.

But you couldn’t get in the way of your own gun. How was that possible?

‘No, there’s been some mistake,’ she said.

The colonel would not be goaded any further. He tried to take her elbow to guide and support her, but she shook him off, and walked ahead of him into the dark house.

According to the footman, Lord Cordwell had gone out after pigeons, said the colonel.

A hedger, Harry Beck, who was working in the lane beside Glebe Wood, had heard the sound of the shot, but had thought nothing of it – gunshot was a normal background sound in the country.

It must have been about half an hour later that he had worked his way along to the stile that led into the woods, and found his lordship huddled up on the other side of it.

‘It seems as though he must have caught his foot, or otherwise somehow stumbled, and the gun went off, with tragic consequences,’ said the colonel.

Linda frowned. ‘But—’ she began, and then stopped.

She was a woman of almost no imagination, and was gloriously lacking in tact; but sometimes self-preservation kicks in, in spite of oneself.

She had been going to say, ‘Why would he climb a stile with the gun unbroken?’ But then it seemed to her a question better not asked at that moment. Instead she said, ‘Where is he?’

The colonel looked away. ‘At the church,’ he said.

‘It seemed better. The vicar arrived at the same time as Dr Pinchbeck, and he said . . .’ What the vicar had said was that the lean-to shed where the sexton kept his tools was very cold, and as there would have to be an inquest it was better to keep the body as cool as possible.

But that seemed more information than was necessary.

‘I want to see him,’ Linda said at once. Somehow, she couldn’t shake the idea that there was a mistake somewhere.

The colonel looked extra kind. ‘That would not be a good idea. No, my dear, believe me, it’s better not to.

Better to remember him the way he was.’ There hadn’t been a great deal left of Lord Cordwell’s head.

The housekeeper had produced a white damask tablecloth to wrap it in, and the sexton and his lad had brought up a long box they kept old bell-sallies in, and carried him away in that.

The colonel wanted Linda to come back with him to Frome Abbey to be looked after by his sister, who had kept house for him since his wife had died.

He said several times that she should not be alone at such a moment.

But Linda wanted to be alone – if nothing else, to think.

And the colonel’s sister was the sort of female who would weep all over her and offer her sympathy that she would not know what to do with, the most glutinous, sickly sort.

She got rid of him at last, and sat for a long time alone in the parlour, where dusk came early because of the trees. Then she rang.

Mrs Clegg came in, shoulders hunched, like a cold bird, wringing her hands in her apron.

‘Job saw him go out, my lady,’ she said, under questioning.

‘He said he was going to get some pigeons for supper. He just took the one gun and went off on his own towards Glebe Woods. And that’s all we knew until Harry Beck came with Colonel Havering and said they was bringing his lordship in.

And straight after, four men from Abbey Farm came with him on a hurdle.

The colonel was ever so kind, my lady, and did everything.

He sent for doctor, though there was nothing to be done, my lady, you could see that.

’ She looked closely at her mistress as if trying to gauge what she was thinking.

‘I don’t ’spect he suffered any, my lady.

It’d be all over soon as the gun went off. ’

‘Keep your opinions to yourself,’ Linda snapped. The house seemed too quiet; and she remembered her arrival, with no-one but Mrs Clegg and her son at the door. ‘Where is everybody?’ she asked. ‘Where are the other servants?’

Mrs Clegg looked away awkwardly. ‘They’ve all gone, my lady.’

‘Gone?’

‘Left. Gone home. Give their notice. They’ve not been paid, you see, not for months, and after his lordship was brought in, they reckoned . . .’ They had held an impromptu meeting and decided the chance of getting paid had been blown away with the master’s head, so there was nothing to stay for.

‘You stayed?’ Linda said, wondering at such loyalty.

‘Yes, my lady,’ said Mrs Clegg. She didn’t say that she and Job had nowhere else to go.

She had lived here all her life, since she came as a housemaid at the age of twelve.

She had worked her way up to head parlour-maid, married a footman, and had six months away when she was having Job.

Then her husband was killed by a runaway dray in Frome Magna high street when Job was just a few months old and she’d come back as housekeeper with the baby and been here ever since, through thick and thin – mostly thin, since the old master died.

Her parents were both dead, as was her only brother.

And to get another position with Job in tow would be very hard. So stay she must.

Linda stared at the empty grate, wondering what to do next. ‘You’d better light the fire in here,’ she said. There weren’t many days in the year when it was warm enough inside this house to sit without a fire.

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘And I suppose I’ll have some dinner.’

‘There isn’t anything in, my lady,’ said Mrs Clegg.

Linda looked up, frowning. ‘What do you say?’

‘There’s no food in the house, my lady, bar a bit of rabbit stew left from yesterday that Job and I were going to have.’ She swallowed bravely and said, ‘You could share that, I suppose.’

‘Rabbit stew? No, thank you. There must be something else.’

‘Nothing, my lady.’

‘What about the kitchen gardens?’