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  ‘Among his pupils? Well, not exactly. As far as I know, they’re the only two he’s got. Money in them, though. Wealthy families. Adrian Waterbird is a Shropshire Waterbird.’ Dr Howard paused to chuckle at what might have been an odd piece of ornithological information. ‘And Ralph Jenkins’ father manufactures something or other in a really big way.’

  ‘Indeed? I didn’t much attend to them.’ Miss Pringle hesitated, and then proceeded against her own better sense of caution. ‘You seem to believe in knowing about your parishioners.’

  ‘I shouldn’t be much of a country parson if I didn’t. Even the casuals, Miss Pringle. I like to get to know a little about them.’

  ‘I see you are referring to me as in that odd category.’ Miss Pringle laughed a laugh rather in Miss Vanderpump’s silvery manner. ‘And you know a little about me already.’

  ‘The jack can come out now. When I saw you in my congregation – and recognised you from those photographs – I told myself you must be doing field work.’

  ‘Field work, Dr Howard?’

  ‘Collecting copy, as they say. Not that you mustn’t have done enough of that long ago. For I take it you are a daughter of the vicarage?’

  ‘My dear father was an Archdeacon,’ Miss Pringle said with dignity. ‘And as for my purpose in attending–’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Dr Howard glanced at Miss Pringle with a horridly justified scepticism. ‘But what about those two lads? Mightn’t you make something of them? After they’d been down in that deep well of unconscious cerebration, of course. Did they get talking about the Bulgar?’

  ‘The Bulgar?’ There was a convincing blank bewilderment in Miss Pringle’s voice.

  ‘Their name for Bulkington. Talking of deep wells, by the way, my predecessor at Long Canings abruptly ended his days in one. It occurred to me during the Benedicite that you might have heard about that.’

  ‘Nothing of the kind. And I should have supposed that your mind–’

  ‘Perfectly true. But my thoughts do culpably stray at times during a service. I’m sure it’s not something that ever happens in one’s congregation. There! You’re fit for the road again. Shall you be home in time for evensong?’

  He was laughing at her – and in a manner, surely, that ill befitted his cloth. But Miss Pringle found that, though perturbed, she was not indignant. There was something rather exciting about Dr Howard. She wondered why so masculine and handsome a man wasn’t married. He had a vocation for celibacy, perhaps. If so, it seemed a pity.

  ‘Thank you very much, indeed,’ she said, as she climbed into the driving seat of her car. ‘It has been most kind of you. And I hope I haven’t too much delayed your work on that beautiful hedge. Gibber Porcorum is a delightful place. I shall always remember it.’

  ‘Either here or at Long Canings’ – Dr Howard was suddenly decorously conventional – ‘we are always glad to welcome visitors.’

  ‘That is something very nice to know.’ And Miss Pringle extended a gracious hand, let in the clutch, and drove away.

  9

  In fact our heroine stood not upon the order of her going, but went at once. And this proved to be a mistake, since her more haste ended in the less speed. The road out of Gibber Porcorum was less a road than a lane; it wound; it ran between high banks. Rounding a bend with her foot a little too confidently on the accelerator, Miss Pringle received a confused impression of imminent collision with a large brown mass, and pulled up with her bonnet sited alarmingly and grotesquely beneath the hind quarters of a horse.

  The horse had pulled up too. Miss Pringle, calling out words of apology (for the horse had a rider), put her car abruptly into reverse. The horse screamed in agony. The rider swore. Miss Pringle, who hadn’t even known that horses could scream, or even that a lady (for the rider was a lady) could swear quite like that, managed to arrest her retrograde progress just before the brute would have been brought sprawling to the ground. The disastrous truth was evident. Incredibly, the greater part of its tail had got itself tangled in her radiator.

  Lady Pinkerton, who had looked at Miss Pringle stonily in church, was looking at her stonily now. That she was doing this from the saddle made the effect the more intimidating. But at least she had stopped uttering those quite shocking imprecations. She seemed, indeed, to be going through the process known as choosing one’s words.

  ‘Who are you?’ Lady Pinkerton asked.

  This is a question, inoffensive in many tones and contexts, into which much arrogance can be stuffed. Lady Pinkerton had stuffed it. And Miss Pringle instantly reflected – for she was a woman of swift-moving mind – that if Sir Ambrose Pinkerton’s diffident air so much belied him that he was at all like his wife, then the lethal feelings and intentions of Captain Bulkington had a good deal to be said for them. She decided, however, to ignore the unmannerly question flung at her.

  ‘I am afraid,’ she said politely, ‘that you will be obliged to dismount. Your horse has thrust its tail into my engine. If it has caught in the fan-belt we shall need a pair of scissors. Do you happen to carry one?’

  ‘Don’t be a fool, woman.’ Lady Pinkerton, nevertheless, climbed from her horse. ‘And I know you perfectly well. You are the gardener’s aunt.’

  ‘And this, I suppose, is the car of the gardener’s aunt?’ The indignation of Miss Pringle was mounting rapidly, and had produced this sarcasm.

  ‘Impertinence will not be of service to you. I expressly forbade Lurch to have you visit him, or come near the village. Your husband is a shop steward in Swindon, and you are both notorious agitators.’ Lady Pinkerton paused, and regarded Miss Pringle fixedly. ‘Good God!’ she exclaimed. She was evidently very much shocked. ‘You even had the insolence to come to church.’

  ‘Your assertions are merely absurd.’ Miss Pringle was now very angry. Although a person of sound democratic principles she resented the charge of living in Swindon. ‘My business in Long Canings’ – she added rashly – ‘has been with Captain Bulkington.’

  ‘So much the worse. The man’s a scoundrel. And he takes in Borstal boys on parole. He has two of them now.’

  ‘You are again most laughably mistaken. Mr Jenkins and Mr Waterbird are being prepared for entrance to Balliol College – my nephew Timothy’s college, as it happens to be. And Mr Waterbird is a Shropshire Waterbird.’

  ‘There is no such family. So stop talking rubbish, my good woman, and raise the bonnet of your wretched little car.’

  Although this speech could scarcely be called persuasive, or even pardonable, Miss Pringle acknowledged that it held a kernel of sense. Keeping a wary eye on the hind legs of the horse, she edged round a front mudguard, pressed a spring, and swung up the bonnet. The two gentlewomen surveyed the situation. There could be no doubt about the fan-belt. It was so tangled with horsehair that the little engine had the appearance of an upholstered object disgorging its inward parts.

  The horse made an impatient noise (as it well might), causing Miss Pringle to skip hastily to the side of the road.

  ‘Haven’t you even got a pocket-knife?’ Lady Pinkerton demanded.

  ‘No – but haven’t you? Isn’t there usually a knife in one of those things that get stones out of horses’ hooves?’

  ‘I am foolishly without anything of the kind.’ For a moment Lady Pinkerton was almost reasonable. ‘Won’t that fan-affair revolve? The tail might then come away from under the belt.’

  ‘I believe if we were to push the car–’ Miss Pringle hesitated. ‘I am not quite sure. But I believe that that’ – she pointed – ‘would then go round, so that possibly–’

  ‘Then we’ll try. So don’t stand gaping, woman.’ Lady Pinkerton was recovering tone. ‘The horse will have to be led forward while the car is pushed. You shall push. I will lead.’

  Miss Pringle, being fair-minded, saw that this was a just and proper proposal. She therefore retreated to the tail of her car. Lady Pinkerton advanced to the head of her aggrieved mount, and urged it forward. Miss Pringle, having
given a warning call, pushed. The vehicle’s initial inertia almost defeated her, but she gave an extra heave, and it moved. For a moment it was hard work – and then not so hard work. She heard the clop of the horse’s hooves from in front. At first they were slow and deliberate. Then they turned surprisingly brisk. There was a shout of rage from Lady Pinkerton; Miss Pringle found herself running with her hands resting only lightly on the boot of the car; she had a sudden and perplexing view of Lady Pinkerton in a ditch. And then car and horse simply vanished from her view. The sagacious quadruped had solved the ladies’ dilemma (in the most well-intentioned way) by converting itself into the dynamic component or a horse-drawn conveyance.

  Unfortunately there was a hill, and the incidents here described had been enacted on its brow. Miss Pringle had just hauled Lady Pinkerton to her feet – for it would have been inhumane to stand exulting at her overthrow – when a shrill neigh of terror made itself heard in a middle distance. This was followed by a crash, and the crash by an ominous silence.

  ‘He will have broken his back,’ Lady Pinkerton said, and it was hard to tell whether her voice held horror or fury in the fuller measure. ‘You are no better than a murderess.’ For a moment Miss Pringle thought she was going to be attacked, and she noted with apprehension that her adversary had retained possession of a nasty-looking little whip. But fortunately Lady Pinkerton’s thoughts were, so to speak, in the right place, and she turned away and ran down the hill. Miss Pringle, who hadn’t at all cared for the word hurled at her, but who felt a certain responsibility for the unfortunate state of affairs nevertheless, ran after her.

  The car had gone over a low stone wall and lay upside-down in a turnip field. The horse, although its nervous distresses had brought it out in an ugly lather, was standing quietly at the roadside, nosing experimentally at a tussock of grass. It was, however, bleeding rather profusely at the spot where its tail had been.

  Lady Pinkerton took the creature – in every sense so injured – by the bridle and began to lead him away without a word. But then she paused, and briefly addressed Miss Pringle.

  ‘You needn’t bother about ringing up the police,’ she said grimly. ‘I shall do so the moment I get home. I shall also put a call through to the Chief Constable himself. He is a fox-hunting man.’

  Miss Priscilla Pringle to Miss Barbara Vanderpump

  MY DEAR BARBARA,

  How very kind of you to send me an advance copy of The East in Fee. I have often thought that Venice, chosen as a setting, would educe one of your finest historical novels – and here, I am sure, it is! I shall read it slowly, savouring every nuance of style. And then you shall have what I promise will be my candid opinion!

  Meanwhile, I think it may amuse you to receive a short account of my little expedition into Wiltshire. I did get to Long Canings! Incidentally, the mystery of the odd place-name is solved. I got a hint (quite acutely, I feel) from the name of an inn in which I had a peaceful sandwich and a solitary half-pint of ale. It is called the Jolly Chairman. And, of course, one canes chairs – either with imported material or with cultivated bamboo. At Long Canings they used to cane high-backed chairs, which required that the stuff should be prepared in five-foot lengths. Hence the name. How interesting these things are!

  It is a charming little village, with some very nice people who welcomed me, simply as a fellow Christian, at matins in the small but beautiful church. Arriving early for the service, I was spoken to most delightfully by a dear old man who might have been one of Thomas Hardy’s rustics (only he was much more truly devout) and whose duty it was to ring the bell. Sir Ambrose and Lady Pinkerton live in the manor (which is unusually imposing), and I was particularly attracted by Lady Pinkerton, whose conversation is robust and full of character. I have some reason to believe her to be a notable horsewoman. Sir Ambrose is extremely quiet. Indeed, I can’t say that he really said a word to me! But he read the lessons most movingly, in an exquisitely modulated voice. Dr Howard (who is the incumbent of both Long Canings and Gibber Porcorum) is a Howard. There is also a Miss Anketel, a woman of the most pungent presence, to whom I was not introduced.

  And now my big surprise. I conversed with our eccentric Captain Bulkington, and rather liked him! We were quite wrong in imagining that there could be something fishy about his interest in detective stories and so on. This in fact revealed itself as a wholly harmless foible, and he is the most gentle of men – as true soldiers so often are. It amused me that he renewed his odd notion that we might collaborate in a novel. And – do you know? – I am almost inclined to indulge him. It might (as you yourself so thoughtfully said) be a kindness, since it is possible that time hangs a little heavily on his hands. (At the moment, indeed, he has only two pupils – but hand-picked, I imagine, since they are both delightful and brilliant young men.) Of course it would come to no more than an occasional letter telling him how he could contrive some imaginary crime or another. I think I shall suggest that he ‘has a go’ at Sir Ambrose!! Sir Ambrose is a baronet, it seems, and baronets are always fair game, are they not?

  (Of course, my dear Barbara, there is very little in all this nonsense of mine.)

  I expect the proofs of Poison at the Parsonage quite soon. I do seriously believe it to be the best thing I have done, and it is perhaps a little depressing to know that it will sell no better, and no worse, than any of the others. Unassisted literary merit appears to be of little avail in winning any wide public regard. But if something quite extraneous happened – if one of us two was murdered, for example – whatever we had lately published would go like hot cakes! But I certainly don’t intend to be murdered, and am sure you don’t either.

  And now I must (as servants say at the end of their letters) ‘close’. I am all agog to get at The East in Fee.

  Ever your affectionate friend,

  PRISCILLA PRINGLE

  PS You may recall my mentioning having been told that the last rector of Long Canings (as an independent living) had been murdered. In fact, it seems that the poor man simply fell down a well and was drowned. Malicious gossip must then have got to work, transforming this simple if sad fatality into an occasion of sinister rumour. It is happily true that the kind of thing with which I entertain my readers (innocently enough, I hope) simply does not happen in real life.

  P P

  Part Three

  A PLOT THICKENS

  10

  Sir John Appleby glanced up from his road-map.

  ‘Frome?’ he said interrogatively. ‘And Trowbridge? I don’t see why we should be working round by these places at all. They’re not my idea of a quick run home.’

  ‘It’s only a small detour.’ Lady Appleby swung the Rover rapidly round a bend as she produced this soothing reply. ‘And, you see, there’s the problem of lunch.’

  ‘The problem of lunch?’ Long experience, sharpened to intuition, had brought a note of suspicion into Appleby’s voice. ‘Why should lunch be a problem? These are fairly civilised parts. I’ll get out the Good Food Guide.’

  ‘Spare yourself the pains. I’ve fixed us a free meal, as a matter of fact. With Kate Anketel.’

  ‘Kate Anketel?’ Appleby’s heart sank. ‘And who the devil, my dear Judith, is Kate Anketel?’

  ‘You must remember Kate. I was at school with her.’

  ‘You were at a great many schools, if your account of your early years hasn’t been, as I sometimes suspect, pure fantasy. They kept on turning you out. It’s why you discreetly declare yourself in the reference books as having been privately educated. It was while still privately educating yourself that I stumbled across you. How should I know anything about your Free Lunch Kate?’

  ‘You’ve met Kate, at least once. At the Parolles in Dorset.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of the Parolles in Dorset.’

  ‘Kate lives at Hinton House, near a place called Long Canings. We’ll make it in half an hour. Kate trains horses.’

  ‘I might have known it. Another Stone in the Rain.’ This was Apple
by’s term, drawn from his favourite poet, for a certain category of his wife’s acquaintances. Judith was a sculptor, but these Stones weren’t of the sort she might attack with a chisel. They were her inheritance from a childhood lived amid what Appleby considered to be a completely dotty landed gentry. ‘I will not be led round endless loose-boxes, or whatever they’re called, hazarding totally ignorant remarks about racehorses. Racehorses are even stupider than hunters, just as hunters are even stupider than hounds. And the people who muck around with such creatures are even–’

  ‘Don’t be so atrabilious. It’s only because you’re hungry – and thirsty. Kate’s father built up – or laid down – the best cellar in this part of England.’

  ‘If your Miss Anketel is a contemporary of ours, most of the stuff will now be dead in its bottles.’ Appleby pulled himself up, conscious that this was a disobliging speech. ‘However, we’ll see.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Lady Appleby said, and pushed the Rover up to seventy. Appleby, resigned, sat back and unwound. He deprecated his wife’s bouts of regressive behaviour. But he had complete faith in her driving.

  Nevertheless – and it was just outside Long Canings – Lady Appleby almost had an accident. Rounding a bend, at only moderate speed, she had to draw up with an abruptness that jolted her husband and herself hard into their seat-belts. The respectable bonnet of the Rover was within inches of the hindquarters of a respectable horse. The horse’s owner, who was dismounted and with one of the creature’s forelegs between her knees, looked up with an expression of unrestrained indignation. She was a woman of weatherbeaten but commanding appearance, whom Appleby had no difficulty in identifying as another Stone in the Rain.