Blood on the Wood Read Free

setting, quite small and modest. Her hands looked younger than the rest of her; rounded and childish, they had nails nibbled down to the quick. She and Mr Venn must have exchanged one of those little signals that well-run households have, because she left the room as soon as we’d been introduced and soon after that a gong sounded from the hallway. It was a tactful, unaggressive bong, in keeping with the atmosphere of this very civilised household.
    *   *   *
    Felicia was already waiting for us in the dining room, standing next to a good-looking man in his early thirties. Quite tall, dark brown hair, light tweed suit with a black mourning band round the right arm. Mr Venn introduced us.
    â€˜My nephew, Adam Venn.’
    He smiled and asked some conventional question about my journey. Quite how you tell, from the first contact, that a person is intelligent I’ve never known, but it’s unmistakable, like a little jolt of electricity. Adam Venn was intelligent. More than that, he was glinting me a look that said: Yes, I know this thing has its ridiculous side but let’s see it through, shall we?
    I said yes, it had been a very good journey thank you. Then we sat down and Annie served lamb cutlets and green beans. The picture wasn’t mentioned over lunch. I suppose that would have counted as business. Most of the talk was of Philomena and her work in the suffrage movement, which her husband had supported with great enthusiasm. His admiration and love for her were clear in every look and word and more than once his bulging eyes filled with tears and his voice broke. When that happened, Adam and I would carry on talking about nothing in particular until he recovered. Felicia didn’t say much, but organised unobtrusively the clearing of plates and the arrival of plum compóte and cream, then coffee. Over the coffee cups, Mr Venn apologised for his show of emotion.
    â€˜Philomena would have hated that, positively hated that. She even made me promise not to wear mourning for her.’
    I glanced without meaning to at the broad band on his nephew’s arm. Adam Venn said, catching the glance, ‘It takes too much energy to defy all the small conventions. Don’t you think so, Miss Bray?’
    â€˜But how do you decide which are the small ones?’ I said.
    I’d have enjoyed a discussion with him, but Mr Venn was still talking about Philomena.
    â€˜She said life would go on quite well without her. She was really quite angry when we decided to delay the wedding because she was taken ill. Young people shouldn’t be made to wait for an old woman, she said.’
    Felicia was blushing, an attractive peach shade. Was she so much in the grip of the small conventions that it embarrassed her to have her matrimonial arrangements discussed in front of a stranger? To give her time to recover I turned the conversation to Adam.
    â€˜Thoughtful of your aunt, not to want to delay your wedding.’
    For a moment he looked alarmed. When he recovered, his eyebrows went up and the smile on his face told me I’d said something stupid. ‘Not my wedding, Miss Bray. Felicia is engaged to marry my younger brother, Daniel.’
    I dare say I blushed, and not as attractively as Felicia. I was annoyed too, feeling that Mr Venn had let me fall into a social trap.
    â€˜Adam’s wife Carol is away for a few days in London,’ he said. ‘As for Daniel, he’s hunting in Berkshire at the moment.’
    â€˜Hunting!’
    It wasn’t the season for it and anyway they didn’t seem like that sort of family.
    â€˜In fact,’ Adam said, a little edge to his voice, ‘if all has gone according to plan – which it won’t have necessarily with Daniel – by now he’ll be in Faringdon workhouse.’
    â€˜Workhouse?’
    Mr Venn came anxiously to the rescue again.
    â€˜Daniel has a great interest in collecting English folk-songs. He tells