Chapter 3
Chapter Three
“There it is,” Constance said some three-and-a-half hours later, as we drove into the picturesque village of Lower Slaughter. By then, I had had my fill of beautiful thatched cottages and meandering waterways and most of all, the unending road in front of us. I was feeling cross.
“There what is?”
“The church,” Constance said, as if it were obvious.
The trip here had been uneventful, if long. I had started to heartily wish that I had never suggested this outing.
“My derriere has gone to sleep.”
“Hop out and move around,” Francis said as he stopped the Crossley outside one of the many honey-colored walls surrounding a honey-colored house.
They were all built from the same material, probably some sort of local limestone.
Even the church, with its square tower and pointy witch’s-hat roof, was honey-colored.
“I want to look at it,” Christopher said, blue eyes already fastened on the arched windows. He took a first in history at Oxford, and old churches appeal to him.
I made my way out of the backseat—at this point I wouldn’t put it past Christopher to crawl across me were I not to get out of the way quickly, and sure enough, he didn’t even glance my way as he followed me out onto the grass.
“Go,” I told him as I raised my arms over my head and stretched.
While the leather seats of the Crossley were among the more comfortable I had experienced—nothing but the best for the late Lady Peckham—it wasn’t the same as sitting on the Chesterfield at home.
Not after more than three hours of humping along the roads from Salisbury to Swindon to Cirencester and beyond. “We’ll take a look at everything else.”
“There’s not much else to look at,” Francis pointed out as Christopher trotted towards the thatched gate in the church wall.
I looked around. No, there wasn’t. A few lanes of cottages, and a larger, manor-style house beyond the church. A water wheel spinning slowly in the river. Children’s voices from somewhere not too far off. And—
“War memorial cross,” Constance said softly, making her way over to it. After a second’s hesitation, Francis followed. Constance cleared her throat. “In memory of the men of this parish who laid down their lives in the Great War 1914-1918. Their name liveth for evermore.”
“Just one name?”
I made myself move in that direction, too. I don’t like war memorials—there are too many of them, and some include the names of people I know, like Cousin Robert’s in Beckwith.
Constance shook her head. “Fifteen.”
“Fifteen?”
There couldn’t be more than thirty homes here. Forty on the outside. That was an enormous loss, even for a war that killed fully six percent of the male population.
She nodded. “There are two different Lockeys and two different Griffins on this list. Two of the four were named Ernest.”
“That’s awful,” I said. At least Aunt Roz and Uncle Herbert had only lost Robbie. I hated to think what would have happened had Francis perished, too.
“I suppose it’s a fitting name for the town, really,” Constance opined after a moment. “You don’t suppose…”
I shook my head. “The name is much older than that. Slohtre—” I spelled it, “is an Old English word that means ‘muddy place.’ It has nothing to do with the War. Even if I agree that it would be fitting.”
There was a moment’s pause, and then Francis cleared his throat. “Here’s Kit.”
We looked up, and yes, there he was, coming towards us from the church gate. “Wrong Slaughter,” he announced, while he was still several yards away.
“Pardon me?”
“This is the wrong Slaughter. There’s another one, called Upper Slaughter. And that one has a Primitive Methodist chapel.”
Francis looked nonplussed, but of course he hadn’t been in the servants’ dining room for the conversation last night.
“How do you know?”
Christopher had found the vicar’s wife, he said. “She told me that the church was built in the 13th century, but that it was renovated less than a hundred years ago. I didn’t bother to go in.”
No, that wasn’t surprising. Not if all the history had been removed from it.
“But you spoke to her?”
He nodded. “She didn’t remember Shreve, nor does she know who Morrison is, but she said there’s a Primitive Methodist meeting place in Upper Slaughter, and that Morrison likely settled there rather than here because of it.”
“So it’s back into the motorcar, then?”
“It’s only a mile away,” Christopher said. “And there’s a footpath. Although the vicar’s wife said that it would take twenty-five minutes to walk it. We’d get there much faster by road.”
And more dry, if the sky decided to open up. “We can walk about once we get there, I suppose.”
“We’ll likely have to,” Constance said, and headed for the passenger side of the Crossley. “Come along, Pippa.”
I came along, and let myself be chivvied back into the backseat. Francis fitted himself behind the wheel, and we were off.
It might have taken twenty-five minutes to walk, but the drive—quite pretty—was much shorter.
It was only a few minutes before we rolled into yet another charming little village full of honey-colored houses, with another honey-colored church—this one a Norman style, with a square belltower with crenellations, according to Christopher—and the same burbling little river.
What looked like a small chapel sat tucked into a row of other buildings on the other side of a stone bridge.
“That must be it,” I said.
The others eyed it consideringly. It looked nothing like the church, with its tower reaching for heaven, but there was something about the squat modesty of the barely-curved tops of the windows and doorframe—so different from the defiantly arched stained glass of the church—that nonetheless advertised piety and religious humility.
“Looks like we missed the mass,” Francis commented, “or whatever Primitive Methodists call their worship.”
I nodded. “It looks empty. I wonder whether there’s a vicarage or whether the vicar—or the priest or minister; do you know what Primitive Methodists call their head bloke?”
“God Almighty, I imagine,” Francis said dryly. And added, “No, I can’t imagine that anyone who would build that as a church—” He gestured to the humble building, “—would bother with a residence for their vicar.”
No, I couldn’t either. “He must live elsewhere. I wonder who would know?”
“There’s a pub,” Francis pointed. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I could go for a pint and a Ploughman’s.”
So could we all, I imagined. Unfortunately— “It’s Sunday, and it’s just gone noon. Do you think it’ll be open?”
Francis made a face. “Likely not, now that you mention it.”
He tried the door of the establishment, but it was locked.
“Shall we find somewhere to picnic and bring out Cook’s basket, then?” Constance suggested. “Perhaps someone will come by that we can ask about Morrison. Perhaps Morrison will come by. And if not, at least we’ll have had food.”
“Let’s do,” Christopher agreed, while I sighed.
“Why didn’t one of you remind me that today is Sunday and everything would be shut?”
“Because we came here looking for Morrison,” Constance said, opening the boot of the Crossley for the picnic basket, “and besides, I think we all assumed that you were looking for an excuse to get away from Sutherland Hall and Geoffrey, and it didn’t matter what day it was.”
“More Lady Laetitia than Geoffrey,” Christopher added.
“Not to mention His Grace,” Francis said. “Give it here, Connie.”
He took the basket out of Constance’s hand and offered her his other elbow. “Down there by the river looks like a pleasant place.”
He headed in that direction. I squinted at it. Sitting on the cold, wet grass in November didn’t look particularly pleasant to me, but there was nothing for it, I supposed.
Christopher glanced at me. “We could sit in the Crossley and eat, if you prefer?”
I shook my head. “I think we’ve all spent enough time in the motorcar for now, don’t you?
Besides, the food basket has already departed.
Better we follow it, and get some air and stretch our legs and then find someone to talk to once we’re done.
Perhaps there’s a vicar’s wife in this hamlet, as well. ”
“No doubt there is,” Christopher nodded and offered me his elbow to hang onto across the uneven ground, “although I don’t know that the churchyard is an appropriate place for a picnic.”
“Certainly not. But we can go there after. It’s cold and wet enough that I don’t see us lingering long over luncheon.”
And indeed we didn’t. We ended up crowded together on a bench, which was marginally better than squatting on the wet ground.
But the sky was still lowering, and the wind was blustery, and there was rain threatening, and so we scarfed the food as quickly as we could before loading the basket back into the boot of the Crossley.
And it was at that point that footsteps came toward us and, when we looked up, we beheld that village staple, the local bobby.
“Good afternoon, Constable,” Francis said politely. The bloke was around his age, with a freckled nose under the regulation helmet.
He nodded back. “Sir. Can I help you find anything?”
I opened my mouth to ask him whether he knew where Lydia Morrison might live, but before I could get the words out, Constance had opened her mouth.
“I don’t see a war memorial in this village.”
The constable shook his head. “No, Miss. Upper Slaughter got lucky. Everyone who went to the front from here came back.”
“Lucky, indeed,” Francis muttered.
The constable nodded. “There were plenty of days I thought I wouldn’t make it home.”
“Same here,” Francis agreed, and with that they were off, reminiscing about where they’d been stationed and whether they had had any friends in common, dead or alive. Which of course they had, and then they started talking about those.
I stood it for about three minutes before I cleared my throat. They both turned to me with identical expressions of mingled annoyance and sheepishness.