The Passions of Bronwyn (5 page)

‘Be quiet,’ he told her, ‘I’ll go and see what it is.  Give it a few minutes then leave.’ 

He gave her a kiss goodbye and left.  Annie waited until she could hear whoever it was moving away with Mr Charles and then she walked out of the barn.  Wyn looked at Betty and they both started giggling. 

‘Oh my,’ exclaimed Wyn, ‘did you see the size of that?’ 

‘It was almost purple on the end,’ laughed Betty. 

‘What about the size of Annie’s breasts,’ said Wyn. 

‘I’ve never seen ones that big,’ agreed Betty.  She pulled up her blouse and said, ‘look at these, they’re so small compared to hers.’ 

‘Maybe,’ replied Wyn taking a nipple into her mouth, ‘but they are just right for me.’ 

‘Stop that,’ Betty replied.  ‘We have to get back to the house.’ 

She adjusted her clothes and they walked to the door of the barn, looked out to make sure no-one was there and ran giggling back to the house.

‘Where have you two been?’ asked Mrs Davis, ‘I need the two of you to peel the vegetables for dinner and set the table upstairs.   Come on get on with it.’ 

Wyn and Betty went into the pantry to get the vegetables then took them into the scullery the start peeling them.  While they were doing it, they couldn’t help talking about what they had seen in the barn. 

‘It made me feel all funny inside,’ Wyn confided to Betty, ‘I really want to feel what it’s like with William.’ 

‘Yes well I’d like to know how it feels with Ned too, but we can’t do it with any man until we are betrothed to them, and even then we’d have to be careful.’ 

‘Maybe we could do what Annie did for Mr Charles, nothing would happen then,’ suggested Wyn. 

‘Yeah,’ replied Betty, ‘but you’d have to trust them to stop before anything happened.’ 

‘Stop whispering and get on with your work,’ shouted Mrs Davis. 

They smiled at each other and carried on peeling vegetables.

After dinner they met up with William and Ned.  They had decided not to tell them what they had seen in the barn as they thought it might give them ideas.  As Wyn and William linked arms, Ned and Betty did the same and they all decided to walk around the estate as it was a nice night.  They talked about all the things they wanted to do on their next day off which   was coming up the following Sunday.  As the weather wasn’t very warm anymore, they didn’t have much choice so had just decided to spend time in the local inn.  They walked into the trees and Betty and Ned walked off in front.  William pulled Wyn into his arms and kissed her passionately.  He put his hand on her breast and started rubbing, Wyn felt a sensation go all the way to her sex.  She didn’t stop him this time and his hand started moving lower.  Wyn moaned and moved her hand over his chest.  It felt hard and strong.  William started to breathe a bit heavier as Wyn’s hand moved further down his body and brushed against his hard cock. She started to move her hand up and down through his clothes.  ‘Oh he,’ moaned, ‘don’t stop, stroke harder.’  She moved her hand harder and faster against him and could feel his body starting to tense.  ‘Faster,’ he cried, ‘keep going.’  She moved her hand faster and he suddenly tensed and then cried out as his body exploded.  ‘Oh Wyn,’ he said, ‘that was wonderful.  I’ve never felt like that before.’

Just then they heard Betty and Ned coming back towards them.  ‘We better get back,’ Betty told them.  ‘It must be getting near bed time.’ 

‘Can we come with you?’ asked William winking at Wyn, ‘going to bed sounds good.’ 

‘Don’t be so rude,’ Betty told him laughingly. 

When they were in bed that night Wyn asked, ‘what did you and Ned get up to when you were by yourselves?’  Betty told her that Ned had taken her into the trees and kissed her hard.  ‘How did that feel?’ asked Wyn, 

‘Oh it was really nice.  I let him touch my breasts as well, he made my nipples go very hard and I felt like I wanted him to go further.  I could feel how hard it made him as he pressed against me.’ 

‘That’s nothing,’ Wyn told her, ‘William starting kissing me passionately and feeling my breasts.  He touched me everywhere and I put my hands all over his body.  I touched his hard cock through his trousers and made him cry out in pleasure.’ 

‘Oh my!’ exclaimed Betty, ‘you went a lot further than me and Ned.’ 

‘Well,’ replied Wyn, ‘seeing Mr Charles and Annie made me feel quite excited but William didn’t touch me, so I still feel like that.’ 

‘Me too,’ said Betty.  ‘Come here.’

Afterwards they lay there quietly talking.  ‘I don’t know why more women don’t do what we do because it feels so nice and its safe,’ remarked Betty. 

‘Maybe they do,’ replied Wyn, ‘how would we know?

‘Maybe all women do this until they are wed.  It’s alright for men, they don’t have to worry about babies like we do.  That’s why I think maybe this is normal for us women,’ said Betty.  ‘It doesn’t stop me wanting William,’ though Wyn replied.  

‘No I must admit,’ said Betty, ‘I still want to feel Ned inside me, hopefully soon.’

CHAPTER SIX

It was a couple of weeks later when Ned came running into the kitchen shouting for them to get Mr Carter. 

‘What’s up?’ asked Mrs Davis. 

‘I really need to speak to Mr Carter,’ replied Ned.

Mr Carter came rushing into the kitchen, ‘what’s all the noise about?’ 

‘Nero, Mr Charles’s horse has come galloping back to the stables,’ Ned told him breathlessly, ‘Mr Charles wasn’t on him.’ 

‘Oh no!’ exclaimed Mr Carter.  ‘Quickly all of you, get everyone you can find to go out and look around the estate for Mr Charles, I’ll go and tell Mrs Brompton what’s happened.’ 

Ned ran back outside to see who he could find. 

‘Take your aprons off,’ Mrs Davis told Wyn and Betty, ‘go and help look for Mr Charles.’  Wyn and Betty did as she told them and then ran out of the house.

When they got outside, Wyn turned to Betty and asked if she thought this had got anything to do with what they had seen in the barn. 

‘I don’t know,’ replied Betty, ‘I think we should keep quiet about that for now.  This might not be anything to do with that so we might be dropping Mr Charles and Annie right in it.  We’ll just have to see how things go.  Let’s go towards the barn now and see if there is any sign of Mr Charles there.’ 

They walked across the estate towards the barn, looking all around them as they walked in case there were any signs on the ground.  They had seen nothing by the time they got to the barn.  They walked inside and looked all around the ground floor but, without moving all the hay bales, they couldn’t see much. 

‘We’ll have to get William and Ned to try and move some of these,’ Wyn said. 

‘Let’s try up the ladder,’ Betty suggested.  ‘I’ll go first.’ 

Betty went up the ladder and told Wyn that there was nothing up there. 

‘Come on,’ she said, ‘let’s go back and get the others.’

When they got back to the house they found chaos.  All the men from the hunt had turned up to help look for Mr Charles and had brought the dogs with them.  Mrs Davis was running around the kitchen making tea for them all. 

‘Quick,’ she said, ‘get all the cups and saucers you can find. I don’t think we’ll have enough’ she muttered to herself. 

Wyn started opening all the cupboards pulling out every cup and saucer she could see. 

‘Some of the cups don’t have saucers,’ she told Mrs Davis. 

‘Don’t worry about that,’ Mrs Davis replied, ‘just put them on the table, they’ll just have to rough it today.’ 

With all the tea made Mrs Davis, Wyn and Betty took all the cups up to the drawing room and handed them around. There was a lot of speculating going on amongst the men as to where Mr Charles could be.  Wyn and Betty kept their ears open but it seemed no-one knew of the relationship between Mr Charles and Annie except for them. 

After the men had drunk their tea they all filed outside, gave the dogs one of Mr Charles’s jackets to smell so they could get his scent and then walked off onto the estate.  Wyn and Betty could hear the baying of the hounds as they ran around trying to get the scent.  Suddenly they took off with the men running behind them. 

‘Maybe they’ve found something,’ said Wyn. 

‘I hope so,’ replied Betty, ‘I don’t really want to have to say anything.  We’ll wait to tell William and Ned about the barn.  We might not need to now.’ 

William and Ned came back from searching around the stables.  ‘Nothing,’ William said.  ‘He’s not around there.’ 

Wyn told them that the dogs seemed to have got the scent of something. 

‘Hope so,’ Ned said, ‘we’ll wait here to see what they’ve found.’

It was a lot later that day before the men came back to the house.  All the dogs had found was a piece of Mr Charles’s shirt that had been snagged by a tree.  Everyone in the house was   disappointed as they knew it was now going to be another long day tomorrow.  Mr Carter just told them that as it was dark now, they couldn’t start looking again until the morning so they might as well just have some dinner and go to bed.  Mrs Davis called to Wyn and Betty to come and help her do the dinner as Emily Danvers was going to try and get Mrs Brompton to eat something. 

‘Peel the vegetables,’ she told them, ‘but don’t do too many as I’m only going to prepare a light meal. 

After dinner had been taken up to Mrs Brompton on a tray, Wyn and Betty sat down with William, Ned and Mrs Davis to eat.  All the talk was about Mr Charles and what could have happened to him.  They asked William and Ned about moving the hay bales in the barn the next day just so they could search underneath them.  William and Ned agreed to help them. 

‘I don’t think there’ll be anything there,’ Wyn told them, ‘but we should have a look anyway.’

The next day they walked across the fields to the barn.  William and Ned walked in first and started moving the hay bales from one side of the barn to the other.  They had got halfway through moving them when Wyn saw something. 

‘Hang on a minute,’ she called out, ‘I can see something.’ 

William came over to where she was standing and looked down.  They could see part of an arm underneath the bale. 

‘Oh no,’ exclaimed William, ‘it looks like we’ve found Mr Charles.  Wyn, run and get Mr Carter and tell him, he’ll know what to do.’

Wyn ran back to the house and shouted for Mr Carter.  He came out and Wyn told him that they thought they had found Mr Charles.  She told him to quickly follow her and they ran back to the barn.  He went into the barn and leant down to see what they had found.  He then told William and Ned to carefully lift the bale off Mr Charles so that he could see if there were any signs of life.  Once the bale had been lifted, Mr Carter leant down to look.  He suddenly jumped back and stood staring down in shock at the lifeless body of his employer. 

‘Take your shirt off and cover Mr Charles up,’ he instructed William.  He turned to Wyn, ‘run back to the house and tell Mrs Davis to send for Constable Wilson as it looks like Mr Charles is dead.  Oh yes and tell Mrs Danvers so that she can break the news gently to Mrs Brompton.’ 

Wyn ran back to the house and down into the kitchen.  Mrs Davis was sitting at the table drinking a cup of tea. 

‘They’ve found him,’ she told her once she had got her breath back.  ‘Mr Carter says you are to send for Constable Wilson and I need to see Mrs Danvers.’ 

‘She’s in her room,’ Mrs Davis told her, ‘go and tell her while I find someone to go and get the constable.’ 

Wyn ran up to Mrs Danvers room and knocked on the door.  ‘Come in,’ she was instructed.  She walked in and told Mrs Danvers what Mr Carter had said. 

‘Oh dear,’ replied Mrs Danvers, ‘I can’t begin to imagine what will happen now.  Run along now and go and get yourself a cup of tea, you have done enough for one day.’

By the time Wyn got back to the kitchen Betty, William and Ned were there.  They had a pot of tea on the table and Wyn got a cup and saucer and helped herself. She and Betty looked at each other and nodded.

‘What do you two know?’ asked William. 

Wyn told them about what they had seen and heard in the barn. 

‘You’ll have to tell Constable Wilson’ William told them.

‘We know,’ Betty said.

The next few hours were chaotic when the constable and a couple of his men turned up.  They went up to the barn and had a good look at Mr Charles.  The Undertaker had been sent for and turned up with his hearse.  He and his assistants put Mr Charles into a temporary coffin and took him away. When Constable Wilson came back to the house after inspecting the barn, he told them that Mr Charles had been killed with a sickle so it was definitely murder and he asked to see Mrs Brompton.  Mrs Danvers took him upstairs to the drawing room.  After a few minutes they could hear Mrs Brompton sobbing loudly. 

‘Put the kettle on,’ Mrs Davis told Betty, ‘I think some very sweet tea will be needed.’ 

It was a long time before Mrs Danvers returned slowly into the kitchen. 

‘Take a cup of sweet tea up to the drawing room,’ she told Wyn, ‘give it to Mrs Brompton but don’t speak to her, she needs time alone.’ 

Wyn took the cup upstairs.  Mrs Brompton was sitting in a chair by the window just staring out.  Her face was tear streaked and pale and she was holding a very wet handkerchief.  Wyn put her tea down on the small table next to the chair.  She had a clean handkerchief in her pocket so she prised the wet one out of Mrs Brompton’s hand and gave her the clean one.  Mrs Brompton didn’t move or even acknowledge her presence so Wyn just left the room.

When Wyn got back downstairs she told Betty that Mrs Brompton was in a bad way. 

‘It’s to be expected’ Betty said, ‘her husband has just been murdered.’ 

‘I know,’ replied Wyn, ‘but it just makes me feel so sad for her.  What about Miss Catherine, who’s going to tell her?’ 

‘I don’t know,’ Betty said, ‘I suppose someone will send a telegraph to the school.’ 

‘Poor Miss Catherine,’ Wyn remarked, ‘not only has she lost her lover but now her father has been murdered.’ 

‘Just as well Frank Cooper’s dead, he would be the main suspect otherwise,’ Betty suggested.  ‘I suppose he would,’ agreed Wyn, ‘you don’t suppose the murder is related to that somehow do you?’ 

‘No,’ replied Betty, ‘I think it’s more to do with Annie.  We better go and see Constable Wilson and tell him what we saw.’

They both went outside to find the constable.  They found him in deep discussions with Ned by Nero’s stable. 

‘We think there’s something you need to know,’ Wyn said. 

‘Oh yes, what’s that?’ asked Constable Wilson looking at both of them intently.  Betty told him what she and Wyn had seen.  ‘That’s very interesting,’ he remarked, ‘I think I’d better go and talk to farmer Jenkins.’ 

The farmer’s name was Horace Jenkins but he was known to the villagers as Horrid Horace as he was not the nicest person in the village and was rude to almost everyone he came across.  He was also extremely bad tempered and would blow up at the smallest thing.  It seemed there was a good chance he could have killed Mr Charles if he had known about Mr Charles and Annie.

Constable Wilson went to see farmer Jenkins and was with him for a long time.  When he came back, they all asked him what he thought.  It couldn’t have been farmer Jenkins,’ he told them, ‘he and Annie were on a neighbouring farm all that day and the farmer confirmed it.’ 

‘Does he know about Annie and Mr Charles?’ Wyn asked him. 

‘No,’ he replied, ‘I didn’t think he needed to know, it would just cause more problems.’  They all breathed a large sigh of relief, at least Mrs Brompton would be spared that information, she had enough on her plate.  Constable Jenkins now had a huge problem though, after asking around he knew there were dozens of possible suspects as Mr Charles owed money to a lot of people, so he went back to the barn with extra men to see if he could find any other clues.

The next day the Undertaker brought Mr Charles back to the house where he was put into the front parlour in his temporary coffin while the funeral was being arranged.  Mr Carter and Mrs Danvers were both helping Mrs Brompton with this as she was too upset to do it on her own. All the relatives had to be informed and cards were written and posted, the cards and the envelopes they were put in, had a black edge to them so that the person receiving them knew that someone had died even before they opened the envelope.  Three days later Mr Charles was put into his permanent coffin.  The front parlour was already full of flowers that neighbours and villagers had brought to show their respect for Mr Charles and it smelt lovely in there.  He was in an open coffin and most of the villagers had come to see him out of curiosity.   The Undertaker had done a good job on him and had dressed him in his best morning suit.  Mrs Brompton had taken to sitting in there with Mr Charles for hours just talking to him.  They all felt very sad for her.

There were several tradesmen coming to the house as Mrs Brompton, Miss Catherine and even the servants had to have mourning dress. Mrs Brompton and Miss Catherine were to have dresses made of silk in deepest black with a full black veil, the female servants were also to have black dresses made and the men were to have dark suits along with black gloves, hatbands and cravats.  Mrs Davis was also busy making preparations for the funeral tea and the butcher was a frequent visitor to the house. There was to be joints of meat, cider, ale, pies and cakes.  She was keeping Wyn and Betty very busy as she had a lot of preparation and cooking to do.  ‘I’ll be very happy when this this funeral is over,’ she kept telling them. 

‘So will I,’ muttered Betty after Mrs Davis had shouted at her again for some imagined mistake.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A few days later William was sent to the station to pick up Miss Catherine who had come back to attend her father’s funeral.  There had been no further clues as to who had killed Mr Charles and Constable Wilson had almost given up hope of ever finding the culprit.  Wyn was out in the yard when William brought the carriage back. 

‘How is she?’ Wyn asked him. 

‘She’s very upset and hardly said a word the whole journey,’ William told her.  ‘She looks terrible, this has obviously affected her badly.’ 

Just then a man crept around the corner of the stables.  ‘Look at that,’ whispered Wyn, ‘it’s the ghost of Frank Cooper that Betty saw.’