Chapter 4

The following morning I was a little late for breakfast. Gladys, with a broad grin on her face, took pity on me and made me a bowl of porridge. With that under my belt I felt able to face the rest of the day.

I was attempting to creep out unnoticed when I was stopped by a call from my Mistress.

“Cillian!”

“Yes, Mistress,” I went in to her private apartment.

“You have new information for me, I am sure, although hopefully nothing of a pornographic nature,” she said. Nancy was sitting with her, giggling.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Mistress,” I said. I had no intention of telling anything which might cause embarrassment. “I have gained very little since last evening, Mistress, apart from the fact that Mistress Merridew was betrothed to Sir Warburton many years ago, before he left the village. She said she broke it off over a canary.”

“A canary, you say?” Mistress Americk said thoughtfully.

“A small yellow bird, Mistress.”

“I know what a canary is, thank you Cillian!” she said, sharply.

“I’ll get on then, Mistress.”

I escaped out into the village street with a broad grin on my face. I decided to go and see Doctor Willis. I had had a problem with one knee for some time, so it seemed like a good excuse to consult him.

“Master Cillian!” Doctor Willis greeted me. “What can I do for you? Not worried about being murdered are you?”

“No,” I replied, “I don’t think so, d’you feel there might be a possibility of that happening?”

“No, no, I’m sure not. But I hear you’ve been asking some very pointed questions,” he smiled.

“You’ve had a number of accidents, and unexpected deaths that make a man wonder. But my Knee is my problem at the moment.”

“Well rest easy, there have been no unaccountable deaths. Now let’s have a look at that knee.”

He prodded and twisted, eliciting various grunts and intakes of breath from me, and finally agreed with the previous doctor I had seen, that I needed to take care and rub in some cream that he instructed me to go to the apothecary for.

I suppose you will say that I have an inflated view of my attraction to the females of our species, but as I made my way back to the road I met up with a young lady who could only be described as breathtaking.

“Master Cillian,” she greeted me. “I am Bella Hornbeam. I wanted to talk to you.”

Would it seem unreasonable if I said that I would like to do more than talk to her?

“Indeed, Miss Hornbeam, what did you want to talk about?”

“My father, Master Cillian. I am convinced he was murdered.”

“What makes you think that, Miss Hornbeam?” I asked.

“I don’t really know, but he was always so careful. And now people are saying that Samuel did it.”

“Samuel?” I asked.

“Doctor Willis. They didn’t always see eye to eye. Samuel was supportive of Sir Warburton’s sewage disposal scheme. Father didn’t approve. He said the way it had always been done was fine.”

“Miss Hornbeam, I shall bear that in mind,” I told her. Which of course was true, if meaningless.

I decided that a visit to Major Hoxton was in order.

The Major seemed pleased to see me, I suppose he had few visitors.

“Come in, come in. Now sit yourself down. You’ll take a drink? Jamaica rum, it’s not just the navy who drink it y’know!”

He proceeded to tell me a long and involved tale about drinking rum in the officers’ mess, but I could hardly follow it, and can remember very little of it, but I managed to laugh in the right places. The rum, however, was excellent.

“You’re all by yourself now, Major?”

“Yes. Poor Harriet, she did suffer. Her illness went on and on, and then just as we thought she was getting better, she went quickly downhill and I lost her. Several ladies from the village helped, Mistress Pemberton and Mistress Merridew in particular. Even Sir Warburton sent grapes for her from his hot houses, and that despite her telling him that he was still the butchers boy. He really didn’t like that. I’m at a bit of a loose end now, without her. The dogs help, of course.

We chit chatted for another half hour or so over another glass, and then I left him. My overall impression was of a man who had loved his wife and missed her deeply.

As I made my way home Mistress Merridew came out of the general store that was run by Roger Green’s mother.

“Cillian! You are looking well,” she said.

“You are looking well yourself, Mistress,” I replied. “I was just on my way back to Mistress Americk, but I might talk to Mistress Green.”

Caroline appeared to stare over my shoulder, an odd look on her face for a moment. I wondered what she had seen. But then she smiled.

“A good idea, Cillian. I’ll see you later,” she said, and left me.

It should have been, I felt, a question. But there was no inflexion in her voice that would indicate that was the case. It was more of a command.

After a pleasant but basically fruitless chat to Roger’s mother, the only conclusion I could come to was that Roger had been two distinctly different people. There was the one whose mother was convinced the sun shone from his fundament. Then there was the one that everyone else knew. A long conversation with Mistress Green would have been pointless since she was quite convinced that the village had a down on her little angel. Yes, of course he like to climb the church tower, what boy wouldn’t? And the other choir boys were always fighting and bullying him. William Barr was an unpleasant man who had secrets that he was afraid Roger would find out, so he sacked him, which made me wonder why he employed him in the first place. And as for Sir Warburton, well, village benefactor? She thought definitely not. Roger had been a good mimic, and Sir Warburton hadn’t seen the humour in his act. The other men thought it was very funny.