Death in a Scarlet Coat by David Dickinson

Author:David Dickinson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781569479131
Publisher: Constable & Robinson
Published: 2011-12-18T20:00:00+00:00

Lady Lucy had been persisting loyally with her Lincolnshire ladies’ lunches. They had, she felt, become rather a strain. There had been one where all the guests combined to claim a vicar as the murderer. Other candidates had been denounced, a Justice of the Peace, Lincolnshire’s biggest landowner, a doctor who was widely suspected of murdering his patients. Her guest on this day had insisted on coming alone. Rachel Cameron was a tall good-looking woman of about forty years of age with dark brown hair and a bossy manner. She made interesting but inconsequential small talk until they had finished the fish. When the waiter had cleared the plates away she made her move. She leaned forward in her chair and fixed Lady Lucy with a conspiratorial stare.

‘Lady Powerscourt, I’m sure you must have heard some pretty incredible stories about the murder of Lord Candlesby. The women in these parts don’t have enough to do, so gossip and fantasy take the place of charity work or improving the lives of one’s tenants.’ She made it sound as if she, Rachel Cameron, lived on a higher plane than the ladies of Horncastle or Ingoldmells. ‘I’m sure you will have heard of the terrible fate of Lady Flavia Melville last summer.’

‘The poor woman who was having an affair with the Earl and committed suicide after their love letters were sent to her husband?’

Mrs Cameron nodded. ‘I happen to know rather a lot about that affair. You see, I was very close to Flavia Melville, as she became after her marriage. I think I was probably her only friend in the county. It must have been so strange, living here surrounded by these philistines after a German university town. She used to say that the conversations were so different. She had replaced the pursuit of knowledge with the pursuit of the fox.’

Mrs Cameron paused for a moment. Lady Lucy said nothing. ‘Her husband was perfectly polite, perfectly pleasant. But that was all there was. You know how you wonder with some people if the public persona is a facade, an invented personality? Flavia was deceived by the English customs. She once told me her husband’s good manners were a facade hiding an abyss, that there was nothing behind them, nothing at all. It was, she said, like being married to a clothes horse that could speak a few stock phrases, nothing more. I think Sir Arthur began to irritate her intensely after about six months of marriage. I remember her coming to my house one day in the spring and walking up and down the garden saying, “What am I to do?” over and over again. I don’t suppose many married women begin affairs out of exasperation with their husbands; perhaps they do. John was so very different from her husband. Decisive, arrogant, determined to take what he wanted without paying any bills, and I don’t mean the bills you can settle with money. I don’t think he treated her very well – he didn’t know how.

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