A Crowded Coffin(20)
She looked over his shoulder. ‘That little booklet was in amongst my father’s things,’ she commented. ‘I do vaguely remember the story but it must be twenty-odd years since I read it. Mother had kept all Dad’s stuff in boxes and I’ve only just got round to checking them. I unpacked some of the books the other day; they’re just stacked on my desk until I get a chance to go through them properly. That particular one was top of the pile, though, so I fished it out to show you. It was written by a Victorian spinster, one of those poor relations people used to have.’
She grinned and went on, ‘Unlike now, when we’re all poor relations. Anyway, Miss Evelyn Attlin supposedly cobbled it together from ancient fragments of parchment and called it The Atheling Chronicle but I suspect that what she didn’t know about the past, she simply invented. According to her, as I recall, Lucius married the daughter of a local chieftain of the Belgii – it’s never just a cook or bottle-washer, is it – but we don’t know her name. In fact there are no further names mentioned in the chronicle until the Athelings come into the picture.’
She twitched the little book out of his hand and flicked through the pages. ‘Yes, here it is. It’s believed the angel story was inspired by the stone in the field. It’s probably a menhir, a standing stone, but it might, if you squint sideways at it, resemble an angel. Only to the eye of faith, as far as I can tell, though. Here, read the bit about Alfred the Great – you’ll like him.’
‘Good grief.’ Sam looked up from the yellowing booklet. ‘How does he get in on the act?’ He scanned the next couple of pages. ‘I see, I wondered where the name came from. So Attlin was once Atheling? That sounds Anglo-Saxon. Oh, it’s here, “King’s Heir. The title was borne equally by all the King’s sons.”’ He glanced up at her, and she rejoiced to see the interest in his face; Sam was definitely coming back from the desert of life without Avril. ‘So it means younger ones were eligible as well, and it wasn’t automatic that the eldest son would inherit. The local Atheling is said to have been a sprig of King Alfred’s.
“Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, lived from AD 849 to approximately 900 and drove the Danes from his territories. He built a navy, restored law and order to his people, encouraged literacy and personally translated works from the Latin into English.”’ Sam stopped reading and grinned. ‘It seems to me that Miss Evelyn is having a little difficulty here,’ he laughed. ‘She’s trying not to admit that the Edmund Atheling that the present Attlin family are supposed to be descended from doesn’t seem to have been legitimate but she’s couched it in such genteel language it’s hard to make out.’
‘Ah well,’ Harriet said philosophically. ‘What’s a little irregularity among friends? Didn’t hurt William the Conqueror, did it? Here, put it away, it’s too late for ancient history, especially written in Miss Evelyn’s purple prose. I’ll get us a drink.’
‘I enjoyed this evening,’ Sam remarked as they sipped their Laphroaig. ‘I was particularly impressed by the cabaret.’
Harriet grinned. ‘Yes, our Elveece is terrific, isn’t he? He doesn’t just look the part, he can really sing too.’ She sobered suddenly. ‘I was a bit surprised, though, when I was talking to him tonight, to find he had been here the same day in January that our local murder mystery took place….’ She caught herself up. ‘I mean when that young man went missing. I could have sworn Karen said they hadn’t been in this neck of the woods for years till just before Easter when they heard about the job vacancy at the farm. But Elveece told me tonight that he dropped in for a drink that night, after he’d been doing a plumbing job in Hursley.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘He said that was the first time he’d been over here but he liked the look of the place so when Karen spotted the job here with the Attlins, he was all for it.’
‘What local murder? What young man?’ Sam stared at her, bemused, his whisky glass halfway to his lips. ‘Who’s missing? Sorry, Harriet, I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about. And what’s all this about Elvis?’
She pulled herself together. ‘Of course you haven’t a clue, I’m sorry. And it’s not really a murder, in spite of the village scandalmongering, just a worrying mystery. It all started when you and I went to Sicily over the New Year, remember? We’d had a pretty fraught run-up to Christmas so you came up with a last-minute bargain trip. And don’t forget, as soon as we got home, you went straight off to that course you were teaching. I suppose all the commotion had died down by the time I next saw you.