The Passions of Bronwyn (6 page)

‘Where?’ asked William.  The man had gone and William had missed seeing him.  ‘You and Betty are seeing things,’ he added. 

‘I’m not seeing things,’ Wyn retorted, ‘I did just see him.’ 

‘It’s probably a trick of the light that makes it look like him,’ William told her, ‘it can’t be him, he’s dead, I know, I cut the body down.’ 

Just then Betty shouted for Wyn to go back to the house.

Wyn walked back to the house thinking, I did see him, I know I did, it’s very strange.  When she got back she told Betty what she had seen. 

‘I thought it was just me,’ Betty said, ‘maybe we should tell Constable Wilson, he might not think we are seeing things.’ 

‘Yes you’re right,’ agreed Wyn, ‘he probably should know.’ 

After they had finished their morning duties, they went to find Constable Wilson.  They found him back in the barn searching the ground again.  Betty told him what she had seen before Mr Charles’s death and Wyn told him about seeing the same person again that day. 

‘That sounds very strange,’ agreed Constable Wilson.  ‘I think I should try and find out more information about Mr Cooper.’

‘I think he came from Huddersfield,’ Wyn told him.  ‘I’ll send a telegraph to the Constable up there,’ he said, ‘he might know something about him or his family.’ 

As they all walked out of the barn, William came running towards them and shouted to Wyn and Betty to get back to the house as Mrs Davis was shouting for them. 

‘Oh dear,’ exclaimed Wyn, ‘what’s happened now?’ 

They ran back to the house and Mrs Davis told them that Miss Catherine was in a state because she had seen the ghost of Frank Cooper lurking around the stables. 

‘We know he’s there,’ Wyn told her, ‘we’ve both seen him too.  I don’t really think he’s a ghost,’ Wyn said, ‘he must be real.’ 

They told Mrs Davis that they informed Constable Wilson about him already and the Constable was going to look into it. 

‘That’s good,’ said Mrs Davis, ‘I’ll go and tell Mrs Danvers so that she can tell Mrs Brompton and Miss Catherine.’

After dinner Wyn and Betty went outside to meet William and Ned.  It was getting harder to meet up outside as the weather was getting colder. 

‘It’ll soon be winter,’ Betty exclaimed, ‘what will we do then?’ 

‘I don’t know,’ replied Wyn, ‘I’m not sure we’ll be staying in the country anyway.’ 

‘What’ll happen to Ned if we go back to London?’ asked Betty in a panic. 

‘I’m sure Mrs Brompton will need him in London,’ Wyn told her. 

They walked up to William and Ned and both of them received a long kiss.  They told them that Miss Catherine had seen the ghost of Frank Cooper too. 

‘We’ve told Constable Wilson and he’s looking into it’ Wyn said. 

‘There are some strange things going on around here’ William remarked, ‘the other day I saw a man I know who works for Sir John Porchester.’ 

‘What’s he doing around here?’ asked Ned.  ‘I’d tell Constable Wilson about him too,’   William nodded, ‘I’ll do it tomorrow,’ he said, ‘but tonight we have better things to do.’  ‘Where are we going?’ Wyn and Betty asked. 

‘We thought we might walk to the village Inn,’ Ned told them.  ‘It’s not going to be easy to get there when the snow comes so we might as well enjoy it now.’ 

They started walking briskly towards the village, it was too cold for a slow stroll.  The Inn was lovely and warm when they walked in with a roaring fire in the corner.  There were four chairs empty in front of the fire so they all sat down. 

‘This is nice,’ commented Wyn. 

William got up and went to the bar to buy four beers, while he was up there he started speaking to another man standing on his own at the bar.  When he came back he told them that the man he was talking to was the one who worked for Sir John.  They all turned round to look but the man had gone. 

‘That’s strange,’ William said, ‘he still had a full tankard of beer to drink.’  He turned to Wyn and Betty and said, ‘I don’t think you should go anywhere by yourselves until the mystery of who killed Mr Charles has been solved as there are too many mysterious things happening.’ 

‘I don’t think I want to,’ Wyn remarked. 

‘Me neither,’ Betty agreed. 

Then they put it out of their minds as they wanted to have a very happy night.

The next day William went to find Constable Wilson and told him about the man he had seen lurking around the estate.  ‘This is getting very interesting,’ the Constable replied.  ‘I’ve gone from no suspects to two of them in a couple of days.  Do you know what this man’s name is?’  ‘I’m afraid not,’ replied William, ‘I only know him to nod to because he works for Sir John Porchester and I work for Mr Charles and they used to meet up sometimes to play cards.’  ‘I’ll have to see what I can find out,’ said Constable Wilson.  ‘One of these men must have something to do with it.’   

Just then one of his men came running up.  ‘What is it?’ asked Constable Wilson. 

‘We’ve found a campsite where someone has been sleeping.  There’s a bed of hay with an old blanket on it and old food scraps lying around.’ 

‘Show me where,’ instructed Constable Wilson. 

William went with them in case an extra person was needed, after all this might be the man who killed Mr Charles.  The camp was right at the edge of the estate hidden in the undergrowth.  It was situated a long way into a large shrub which gave some protection from the elements.  There was no sign that anyone had been back so the Constable told one of his men to stay there hidden amongst the bushes in case whoever it was came back. 

‘Don’t let him see you,’ he instructed, ‘just see who it is and report back to me.’ 

He sent his other man back to town to arrange a rota so that they took it in turns to stay and wait.  ‘Don’t worry about staying overnight,’ he told them, ‘it’s getting too cold for that, just concentrate on daylight hours, hopefully it won’t be too long before he comes back.’  William told him he had to get back to the house as it was the funeral the next day and there was a lot to do. 

‘Alright,’ the Constable said, ‘but keep your eyes open for anything else unusual.’

It was finally the day of the funeral and Wyn and Betty had been up since early light as they had to light fires in all the rooms as several relatives would be staying after the funeral.  They also had to make sure the rooms were clean and the beds were made.  They put flowers in every room to make sure the whole house had the scent of flowers, not of death.  After they had finished they then went down to the kitchen to help Mrs Davis finish off the funeral food.  ‘Hurry up,’ Mrs Davis told them, ‘finish here and then go and get ready, the funeral guests will start arriving soon.  Mrs Brompton will expect to see us outside and ready to go when the hearse arrives.’

Carriages started arriving with the relatives and they were shown into the house by Mr Carter dressed in his black suit.  They were shown to their rooms by Mrs Danvers.  Once they had settled in, William was waiting to show them into the drawing room where they were given a glass of sherry.  The mood was sombre and quiet and any talking was done in soft whispers.  The room went silent when Mrs Brompton and Catherine walked in hand in hand.  They walked around the room talking quietly to the relatives gathered there.  After a few minutes Mrs Danvers came into the room and whispered to Mrs Brompton that the hearse had arrived outside.  They walked outside to see the servants all standing in a line in their mourning clothes with their heads bowed.  Mrs Brompton and Catherine smiled as they walked past them towards the hearse.  It was black with glass sides, it had lots of silver and gold decoration and was filled with flowers. The coffin was covered with a black cloth that was attached to it with brass nails. Six black horses with black ostrich feather plumes on their heads, pulled the hearse.

They got into the first coach behind the hearse and their relatives followed behind in coaches with their blinds drawn. The men were in their full mourning suits and had black bands around their top hats. The women were in black gowns with black veils and black gloves. They held black-edged handkerchiefs to their eyes. Wyn, Betty and the rest of the servants walked slowly behind the coaches as it wasn’t far to the church in the village.  They went past the villagers who were lined along the narrow road. They all bowed their heads in respect as they went past.

The procession stopped at the church which was in the centre of the cemetery. They all entered the church quietly and sat down with Mrs Brompton and Catherine in the front row and the servant’s right at the back. Everyone stood as the coffin was carried in and laid on a bier. After a short service everyone walked to the grave where the minister said a few words before committing his body to the grave. Mr Charles was then laid to rest.  Wyn and Betty gave sighs of relief when it was all over.  With everyone in black and all the crying it had been totally depressing and they were both quite upset. 

‘We have to pull ourselves together,’ Wyn told Betty, ‘we’ve now got a funeral tea to serve.’  ‘I know,’ replied Betty, ‘it’s going to be hard though.’ 

‘Come on girls,’ said Mrs Davis coming up behind them.  ‘I know it’s very sad but we’ve got things to do, so come on, there will be time to be sad later.’ 

They walked back to the house briskly as they had to get back before the other funeral guests so that they could lay out the funeral tea in the dining room as, although it was a buffet, this was the largest room.

Once Mrs Davis, Wyn and Betty got back to the house they stripped off their coats, put their aprons on and started work straight away as they knew they didn’t have much time before the rest of the guests would be back.  Wyn was taking trays of food up to the dining room where Betty was already waiting.  She would then spread it out on the tables.  There was all kinds of meats and pies.  They could choose to carry on drinking sherry or brandy but there was also ale or cider. The villagers would be sitting in the servant’s dining room downstairs and would have the same food but they would only be offered ale, cider or gin. 

William was greeting the guests at the front door and taking them to the dining room.  Mr Carter was there to serve them.  They were all talking together very quietly when Mrs Brompton and Miss Catherine walked in.  It went very quiet but as Mrs Brompton walked around the room talking to people, the noise got a bit louder as everyone relaxed.  William had gone downstairs to show the villagers into the servants dining room where the noise was a lot louder.  Betty was in the upstairs dining room serving and Wyn was downstairs.  Wyn was having more trouble with the downstairs guests than Betty was with her upstairs ones and she was feeling extremely tired.  They were keeping her running around serving them. It was very late before the last funeral guest had left and both Wyn and Betty felt absolutely drained. As they had managed to get something to eat during the long day, all they wanted to do was go to bed but Mrs Davis made them sit down and have a cup of tea first, then told them to go up and sleep.  When they got up to their room they both quickly stripped off their clothes and jumped straight into bed as the room was extremely cold.  They snuggled up together for warmth and started touching each other’s bodies until they both cried out in pleasure and then fell into a satisfied sleep.

The next day there was a commotion coming from the stables and Ned came running up to the house. 

‘Nero has gone,’ he shouted, ‘his stable is empty.  He can’t be far away because I have only just mucked him out, he was there then.  I only went to get fresh hay and when I got back he was gone.’ 

All the available staff ran back to the stables with him.  Wyn, Betty and William were amongst them.  They spread out to see if they could find anything. 

‘Let’s go back to the barn,’ suggested Wyn.  ‘You never know, he could have been taken there.’ 

Betty and William agreed. 

We’ll all go together,’ said William, ‘if there is someone there he could be dangerous.’ 

They crept up to the barn door and looked through a crack in the wall.  They could see a horse’s tail so knew Nero was in there. 

‘Go and get Ned,’ William whispered to Betty. 

Betty ran off. 

‘Keep quiet,’ William said very quietly, ‘we can’t do anything until Ned gets here.  Just stay out of sight.’ 

Luckily there was no movement inside or outside the barn. Ned and Betty came running back.  Ned had a shotgun with him so he and William pushed open the barn door.  Inside they could see Nero but there was no sign of anyone else. 

‘What now?’ asked William. 

‘We wait,’ replied Ned. 

William called to Wyn and told her and Betty to go and see if they could find Constable Wilson.  They ran back to the house where Constable Wilson was sitting in the kitchen having a cup of tea. 

‘Come quick,’ Wyn said, ‘they’ve found Nero but there is no sign of anyone else.’ 

When they got back to the stables they found William and Ned inside.  William was sitting on top of a man. 

‘This man is employed by Sir John Porchester,’ William told Constable Wilson, ‘his name is Pratt.’ 

‘Let him up,’ the Constable told William, ‘I want to talk to him.’ 

William let Pratt up and Constable Wilson sat him down on a hay bale. 

‘Alright, why did you steal the horse?’