Chapter 11 #2
‘Indeed,’ Abby agreed. ‘Tell me, Thomas, was Lady Porter a keen gardener? I presume you knew her?’
‘She be worse than some, better than most,’ he said grudgingly. ‘She liked a drink mind.’ Thomas cackled.
‘Who doesn’t?’ Abby replied.
Thomas cackled even louder at this mild sally. This brought on a bout of wheezing and coughing. Thomas cleared his throat noisily and spat into a watering can.
‘Thomas, I can see you are an observant man. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions about Lady Porter?’
‘Wha’ d’you wanna know?’ Thomas asked suspiciously, shifting in his seat and sniffing loudly.
Abby was beginning to wonder if Thomas’s mother had ever taught him anything, and had she had a large enough handkerchief she would most definitely have offered it to him.
Instead she asked, ‘Did Lady Porter spend much time in the garden?’
Thomas nodded. ‘Come rain or shine she’d walk round t’ old place.’
‘Did she ever have other people with her?’ Abby asked, as she perched herself on a pile of crates and arranged her skirts neatly about her.
‘There was thems what was her family. I’ve seen ’em a few times.’
‘Ah, her son and his wife?’ Abby wanted to be certain.
‘Yerp, they came an’ went. Didn’t see t’ garden like she did though. Some folks is blind to what’s around ’em.’
‘To be sure,’ Abby agreed. ‘Did they get on well, would you say?’
‘Wha’ them?!’ Thomas spat again. ‘That lot never listened to ’er.
She’d tried to show ’em the Camellia Japonica – that’s a rare beauty that is, Miss.
Dirt great big heads the size of plates – but they just nagged on.
It were, “Don’t do this, Muther, you must do this, Muther, I need more money, Muther.
” There’s some that would benefit from a sharp bite when they be young ’uns. That’s what pigs do.’
And Abby felt sure in Thomas’s book, pigs knew best. ‘You mentioned they talked about money. Did they ever discuss Lady Porter’s will with her?’
‘Naw,’ came the unpromising reply from Thomas. He set about refilling his pipe from a tattered bag of tobacco he kept in his trouser pocket. ‘She talked about it though.’
‘Who did?’ Abby asked.
‘Tha’ Lady Porter, of course. Ain’t you be listenin’?’ Thomas lit his pipe, grumbling as he did so, ‘Women!’
‘Ah, I see. Thomas, do you know who she was talking to when she mentioned her will?’
‘Yerp,’ Thomas replied and continued gnawing at his pipe end with obvious satisfaction.
Abby waited.
Thomas kept on chewing.
Abby drew herself up to her full height and turned a steely, uncompromising eye upon Thomas.
Not for nothing had she spent years commanding an extensive household.
Thomas chortled to himself and, sniffing a bit less loudly than normal, unbent, ‘T’was tha’ young lad out there,’ he pronounced, nodding towards the door.
‘Joe?!’ Abby could not keep the surprise from her voice.
Thomas was obviously delighted to have wrong footed her and humphed and cackled a bit more. ‘She’d taken a fair fancy to ’im. Not that he’s a bad lad. Needs a bit of lickin’ into shape mind, but he ain’t a bad groundsman. Has a way with a lawn.’
Abby suspected this was high praise indeed from Thomas. ‘So what did she say to Joe about her will?’ Abby asked, intrigued.
‘Talked about ’im being like t’ family she should have ’ad. Said he was the spit of ’er Reggie.’ Thomas marked his words with the appropriate action. ‘Wanted to leave him a slug of her brass to set ’im up she said.’
‘Did she now.’ Abby was more than a little thoughtful.
‘Truth be told, he weren’t too taken with t’ idea. Young fool. But there was no stoppin’ her, ’specially when she’d bin on the sauce. Fair made ’er mind up, she ’ad, despite everything he said.’
‘Well, thank you very much, Thomas, that is very helpful and I do appreciate your confiding in me.’ Abby smiled at Thomas.
‘Well, I ain’t got a pile of other folk to be tellin’,’ Thomas replied, if not graciously, at least honestly.
‘May I ask what it was that made you think Lady Porter was addicted to the drink?’ Abby knew that Lady Porter had been fond of a Pink Gin, but Lara had certainly not given her the impression that her Ladyship was a drinker.
‘Clear as the nose on your face! A stumblin’ and a slurring when she’d ’ad a few.’
‘Umm,’ was all Abby said in response to this. ‘May I ask was there anybody else who was a frequent visitor that you can recall? Perhaps someone she drank with?’ Abby asked.
‘There was tha’ Indian chap. Dr summit or whatsit.
He was always round a talkin’ to her. Now he did listen and ’e knew his Amaranthus from his Acanthas.
’ Abby thought Thomas was going to fall off his chair as he bent double, spluttering at his own joke.
She would have liked to ask more but the coughing that followed this paroxysm of laughter appeared to tire him, and he sank down gloomily into his chair.
As Abby turned to leave she almost missed Thomas’s next comment, ‘And ’e weren’t the only one a visitin’. There be one chap who’s bin sneakin’ round t’ back of house. Goin’ in where he ’ad no reason to be.’
‘Do you know who that was, Thomas?’ Abby asked, as she retrieved her riding crop from where she had left it on top of a tray of daffodil bulbs.
Thomas shook his head but said cryptically, ‘Primula Vulgaris,’ then snorted to himself, repeating ‘tha’ be abou’ right, Vulgaris.’
‘Ah, a gentleman in a waistcoat, maybe?’ Abby smiled.
Thomas winked at her.
‘Ah, and maybe that waistcoat was the colour of Primroses,’ she said.
Thomas laughed and then took her completely by surprise by shuffling to the door to see her out, tipping his cap at her as he did so.
But it seemed Thomas had one Parthian shot left in him, ‘She never killed ’erself, that one.’
‘How do you know?’ Abby turned back from the doorway.
‘Takes one to know one. And she ain’t one,’ Thomas said firmly. He lifted his filthy scarf from around his neck and showed Abby the scarlet, mottled mark left by the rope that he had used to hang himself one cold January morning.