Fire in the Thatch by E.C.R Lorac

Author:E.C.R Lorac [Lorac, E.C.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781464209680
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, Inc.
Published: 2018-02-05T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

1

The matter of the fire at Little Thatch and Nicholas Vaughan’s tragic death had inevitably provided food for discussion and debate throughout the locality. It has been said by many townsfolk—especially by Londoners—that countryfolk who have not suffered from bombing or the major tragedies of war are callous in their disregard of other people’s sufferings. The Billeting authorities and the W.V.S. had frequently to argue with recalcitrant housewives who wished to refuse to accept billeting orders which would bring bombed-out townsfolk into farms and cottages. “We don’t want them here and we can’t do with them.” Anne St Cyres had often countered this objection by saying: “Can’t you imagine what it feels like to have had your home destroyed, to be left standing in a bombed street with nothing but the clothes you’ve got on, and then to hear people who have lost nothing at all saying ‘We don’t want you. You’re only a nuisance’?”

The fact was, of course, that imagination—particularly the slowly moving imagination of folk in a safe and remote countryside—fails to realise the distresses of those who are strangers. London, Bristol, and Hull might be showered with incendiaries and thousands might be homeless, but this fact did not impress the rural mind as did the burning of one thatched cottage and the death of one man who was coming to be regarded as a neighbour.

“That’s a bad business: oughtn’t never to’ve happened, and him a careful, sensible fellow. Can’t see how’t came about. ’Tisn’t natural.” So said the farmers and their wives, who had lived in thatched houses for generations. “’Twasn’t as if he went meddling with t’place, putting in new fireplaces and that,” argued old Amos Coddling in the bar of the Blue Boar, but Joe Hosgood replied: “’Twas all along o’ they wires he put in. Better’ve left well alone and used lamps like all of we.”

The Coroner’s verdict had been accepted on the whole, though a few dissentient voices argued darkly that if all were known that ought to be known, ’twould have been other than accident the Coroner would have found. Macdonald’s appearance on the scene reanimated the discussion.

“Iss, what did I tell mun? ’Twas no accident at all,” cried many, and theorists aired their views in field and kitchen and bar regardless of the law of slander. One of the suspects named by many was Tom Benworthy, the farm labourer who had applied for a tenancy of Little Thatch prior to Nicholas Vaughan and had been refused it. “Mun did it for spite,” declared his neighbours—for Benworthy and his slatternly young wife were unpopular and generally distrusted. “No, not Tom. Him’d never have dared,” argued old Amos Coddling. “More like ’twas that London gent to Hinton Mallory: hated Mr. Vaughan proper, mun did—and goings on there such as shouldn’t be with that brass-faced young madam the Colonel’s so good to.”

“Now, now, none o’ that, Tom,” expostulated Joe Hosgood. “Her’s wed to young Mr. Denis, and I won’t hear nought like that.

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