Death Comes to the Village (2 page)

“He likes the income, though, doesn’t he?” Anthony finished his tea in one gulp.

“That’s none of our business,” Lucy said severely. “Despite his private income, Papa also has a large family to provide for. How do you think he pays for your tutor?”

Anthony’s mouth settled into a sulky line. “He pays more for his horses than he does for my education, and he barely pays his curate a pittance.”

The curate, Edward Calthrope, was a worthy man of about Lucy’s age who lived with them at the rectory. He performed all the mundane tasks associated with the parish of Kurland St. Mary and the adjoining parishes of Lower Kurland and Kurland St. Anne that the rector was supposed to spiritually mentor, but preferred to avoid. Lucy wasn’t quite sure of Edward’s background as he rarely spoke about his family. How he had found his way to Kurland was something of a mystery.

“You should go and help Edward,” Lucy admonished her brother. “He works far too hard.”

“And I don’t?” Anthony yawned, stretched out his legs, and looked down at his top boots. “I
am
cramming for Cambridge, you know.”

Lucy picked up the nearest pile of plates and headed for the door. “And I have to visit Major Kurland. As Papa said, we all have to do things we’d rather not.” She studied her brother. “You might not be so tired if you slept at night. I heard you creeping up the stairs at dawn this morning.”

“Spying on me, Lucy? I didn’t think it of you.”

“Not spying, I was just getting up.” She paused, but Anthony made no effort to explain where he’d been, and why should he? As a young man he was perfectly entitled to disappear when it suited him.

Anthony picked up his cup and plate. “All right, my dearest sister. I’m off to the church to scrape off candle wax and reset the mousetraps.”

“Thank you.” Lucy paused to smile at him. Despite his exasperating male habits, he was a remarkably good brother. She’d be losing him, too, if he passed his examinations and went up to Cambridge. That wasn’t as worrying as the thought of losing the twins, but it still meant that her family was moving forward with their lives while she . . .

“Oh Miss Lucy!”

She turned to find the twins’ nurse running down the main staircase of the house, her cap askew and her skirts held up to her knees.

“What is it, Jane?”

“Them two young heathens have run off, again! Whatever am I to do with them?”

“Let them be for the moment. They’ll have to stop running wild soon enough.”

Jane mopped her brow with the corner of her apron. “That’s true enough, miss, although how they will get on at school, I cannot imagine.”

Unfortunately, Lucy already knew from Anthony’s experiences that life at boarding school would soon beat any willfulness out of the twins. She hated the very thought, but there was nothing she could do about it. Her father insisted they needed to become English gentlemen, and apparently, a
gentleman
had to withstand anything his enemies cared to throw at him without flinching. Despite her father reading passages to her about how the English school system mimicked the finer points of the Spartan
agoge,
Lucy was still not convinced it was the best way to bring up a child.

“They’ll come back when they are hungry. Now, why don’t you help me clear the table and get Miss Anna started on that huge laundry pile?”

It wasn’t until much later that she remembered to search her father’s study for the latest London newspapers to bring for the edification of Major Kurland. Not that he would appreciate the gesture. If he wanted to know all the latest gossip from Town, he could certainly afford to have his own newspapers delivered. His father had married an heiress from the industrial north, and unlike many aristocratic estates, Kurland was thriving.

Lucy chided herself for her unchristian thoughts and gathered up the printed sheets. The study smelled of brandy, saddle leather, and the bay rum her father’s valet used after he shaved him. She glanced at the rows of books and imagined herself in Anthony’s place being tutored for Cambridge. Her father always said she was far too intelligent for a girl, but he’d never stopped her from reading any of the books she requested, even the slightly scandalous ones. She replaced the stopper in the inkwell. Perhaps with Anthony and the twins leaving, she might finally be able to talk to her father about her plans for the future.

After checking that her basket held everything she needed for her various visits in the village, Lucy set out. She kept a wary eye on the weather, which was still quite unpredictable and veered from sunshine to clouds within moments. She tied the ribbons of her plain straw bonnet firmly under her chin, and buttoned up her blue wool pelisse. She might look like the spinster aunt she was surely destined to become, but at least she was warm.

Along the driveway that led up to the rectory, some straggling spring flowers raised their heads toward the bright sunlight. In a few weeks the rest would follow and the flower beds would be a sea of yellow and purple. About ten years previously, her father had rebuilt the rectory in a soft yellow stone that reminded Lucy of the houses in Bath. It was a square and symmetrical building with four rectangular windows to each side of the white front door, very much in the classical style of Robert Adam, whom he had greatly admired.

The rector had given up trying to repair the two-hundred-year-old house that stood there previously, and had it demolished. Lucy still fondly remembered the older rectory with its diamond-paned windows, wooden beams, sloping ceilings, and winding staircases. As a child, it had felt like living in a fairy-tale castle. She was practical enough to admit that it must have been difficult to maintain for a man with a young and ever-increasing family. The new house still seemed a little ill at ease and out of place, the scars of its construction evident in the hard edges of the new pathways and the lack of large trees.

Lucy did appreciate that the roof no longer leaked, and that the kitchen had both a proper chimney and a closed stove rather than the huge open medieval fireplace that belched smoke and soot over the food being prepared. Her mother had loved having fires in every room and the light the big rectangular windows provided.

At the bottom of the driveway, Lucy turned right and headed along the main thoroughfare to Kurland Village. The ground was wet and muddy, and she was glad she had worn her stout boots. There was no one else visible on the road, but that was to be expected in the middle of the day. Despite the sunshine, her breath condensed as she exhaled, and she could still feel the brush of winter’s icy fingers against her cheeks.

She walked past the first of the thatched cottages that housed the laborers who worked the fields of the Kurland estate. A woman was hanging washing out to dry, and nodded at Lucy through a mouthful of pegs. Lucy smiled and nodded back, aware as the wind picked up and flattened the woman’s gown to her belly that she was expecting another child. Mentally, Lucy added another set of birthing clothes to the list of garments she needed to knit or sew for upcoming happy events.

The cottages grew closer together until Lucy was in the village proper facing the green and the square of buildings huddled around it. The ice had finally thawed on the duck pond, and Lucy was pleased to see that several of the local birds had returned to claim their spots at the side of the weed-choked pond. Something large Lucy couldn’t quite identify stuck out above the surface of the water like an awkward elbow. She should speak to Major Kurland about that. It was his responsibility to keep the pond from becoming stagnant and overgrown.

In truth, she had no inclination to speak to Major Kurland about anything that might raise his ire. Perhaps it would be better to take her concerns to his rather obnoxious land agent. At least he might listen to her, even if he chose not to do anything.

“Miss Harrington?”

Lucy turned from her contemplation of the duck pond to find Mrs. Weeks, the wife of the baker, waving at her from the door of her shop. The fragrant scent of baking bread laced with a hint of cinnamon sugar tantalized Lucy’s nostrils. When she was a child, Lucy had often saved her pennies and sneaked down to the village just to buy an iced bun or an eccles cake from the bakery.

“Good morning, Mrs. Weeks.” Lucy stepped into the baker’s store and closed the door against the chill. “Is there something I can do for you?”

Mrs. Weeks folded her arms across her chest. “I was wondering if you wanted me to make the cake for the rector’s birthday.”

“I would love you to make it, Mrs. Weeks, but there is the little matter that Mrs. Fielding might take offense.”

“She always takes offense, but there is no denying that her cakes aren’t as light as mine.”

Lucy had heard variations of this argument her entire life. The rivalry between the baker’s shop and the rector’s cook had started before Lucy was born, when her mother had inadvertently begun the tradition of having a special cake made as a surprise for her husband’s birthday. She’d asked Mrs. Weeks to make it, and Mrs. Fielding had never forgiven her. The problem was that Mrs. Weeks did make a far superior cake, which Lucy’s father much preferred.

“Please make the cake, Mrs. Weeks,” Lucy said, cutting through the other woman’s long discourse on what Mrs. Fielding had said to her, and what she had said back. “I’m sure it will be as delightful as always.”

She’d placate Mrs. Fielding by keeping her busy cooking a sumptuous dinner of all the rector’s favorite foods, and hope she wouldn’t notice the addition of an extra cake. Of course, she’d notice it eventually, but by then it would be too late for her to do anything about it. The strategy had worked quite successfully in the past few years and Lucy was confident it would be successful again—as long as Mrs. Weeks didn’t boast of her triumph too loudly after church on Sundays.

Lucy realized that Mrs. Weeks was still speaking and tried to pay attention.

“My Daisy, Miss Harrington.”

“I’m sorry, what about your Daisy?”

“She’ll be wanting a new job soon and I was wondering if you’d have anything up at the rectory for her. She’s a sturdy, hardworking girl, and she knows her place.”

Lucy tried to recall Daisy and remembered thick braids, brown eyes, and a permanent scowl. “Does she not wish to work in the shop with you?”

“Not anymore, miss. She
says
she wants to go up to London and become a lady’s maid.”

“And you do not want her to do that?”

“She’s my youngest, and I was hoping to keep her by me for a while. I don’t think she is ready to move up to London yet. She disagrees with me, of course. In fact, she’s still sulking in her bed upstairs after our latest argument.”

“How old is she?”

“Eighteen, miss.”

Lucy reviewed the current staff of the rectory. “If my brother goes up to Cambridge, and the twins leave for school in the autumn, I will probably have to reduce the staff rather than increase it. I’m sorry, Mrs. Weeks. But I will inquire among the neighboring houses as to whether anyone needs a new maid.”

“Never mind, miss. It can’t be helped.” Mrs. Weeks wiped her hands on her apron. “I’m sure with God’s help, she’ll find something. Now is there anything I can get you while you’re here?”

Lucy departed with half a dozen iced buns and went next door to the haberdasher’s and general store to replenish the contents of her sewing box. She chatted with the proprietor and then spent another quarter of an hour talking to the butcher about the excellence of the Christmas goose and tactfully mentioning that they would not require any more mutton in the foreseeable future. She was aware that she was dawdling because she didn’t want to retrace her steps to Kurland Manor but, eventually, even she ran out of things to say.

As a child, she’d loved visiting the manor house. The major’s mother had been a charming, welcoming hostess who had encouraged the rector’s children to treat her home as an extension of their own. Of course, Lucy’s mother had gently suggested that this was because Mrs. Kurland was not wellborn and rather too familiar, but Lucy hadn’t cared about that. She’d enjoyed getting away from her mother and running after the two Kurland boys.

Even then, Robert Kurland had been rather aloof and above their childish games. As the oldest son and heir, he’d had none of his younger brother’s carefree spirit and had stopped taking any notice of the crowd of village children who gathered to swim and play in the extensive grounds of Kurland Hall. And, after starting at Eton and his brother’s death, he’d withdrawn from them completely.

She trudged up the long drive to the major’s ancestral home with all the anticipation of a cavalry unit sent uphill to dislodge some enemy cannon. The military cant made her catch her breath and wish painfully for Tom, her other brother, the one who now lay in the family crypt by the church awaiting the resurrection.

She forced herself to think of more cheerful matters. She was secretly glad that Major Kurland hadn’t followed her father’s example and replaced the Elizabethan manor with a modern stucco box. The house was shaped like an
E,
with thick beams, narrow windows, and fantastically tall, lopsided Elizabethan chimneys in the grand manner of Hampton Court. Local legend said that many of the internal beams had been salvaged from the destruction of King Henry VIII’s naval ships, which would explain both their thickness and their inconvenient curves.

Generations of Kurlands had added to the manor house, some more successfully than others. It now resembled something of a hodgepodge with stairs that led to nowhere, large windows where once had been arrow slits, and a beautiful park laid out by Capability Brown.

Lucy knocked on the old oak door and frowned fiercely at the worn Kurland family crest carved into the panel. She should have more sympathy with Major Kurland. He had survived Waterloo, even if her brother hadn’t.

Foley, the butler, opened the door for her and smiled. “Good afternoon, Miss Harrington. Have you come to visit the major? He’s tucked up in bed again.”