The vicarage housekeeper, Mrs. Landon, a bit more faded than I remembered her, answered the door and peered up at me without surprise.
"I heard you'd returned, young master Lacey. And about time too. Come in and shut the door. Mr. Reaves is not here, if that's who you've come to see. He isn't much for tending his flock, is Mr. Reaves. Not like dear Dr. Quinn. But come to the kitchen, and I'll fix you a bite."
Mrs. Landon's son, still working here too, took my horse away to the tiny stable behind the house. I hefted the bundle of silver and followed Mrs. Landon down the hall to the large kitchen.
She fetched a cup from the kitchen dresser and poured steaming coffee into it. "They say you're opening the house again," she said. "And getting married. Happy times, happy times. Now, what are you carrying there all secretive?"
I cleared a space on her table, extracted the items one by one, and set them out. Mrs. Landon's eyes widened, and she sat down hard on a chair.
"Good Lord." She stared at each piece in turn. "I never thought to see these again."
"Then I am correct that they're from the chapel?"
"That you are. Wherever did you find them? At a pawnbroker's somewhere? Is that why you came back to Norfolk, to return them?"
I touched a candlestick. "I found them stuffed up the kitchen chimney in my house a mile away. I imagine the thief thought an empty house a good hiding place."
Mrs. Landon gave me an odd look. "But the house wasn't empty when these went missing."
My brows rose. "No?"
"No, indeed, dear. They went missing about the same time Miss Quinn ran off. Everyone was convinced that Miss Quinn and her young man took them away with them."
I sat down at the table, my hand tight around my coffee cup. Helena Quinn had run away nine or ten years ago. What might or might not be her gown had been left in my mother's sitting room. At the same time, someone had robbed the chapel and hidden the stash up the chimney. My father had been still living in the house, growing poorer, sicker, and more alone as the years went by.
"They could not have been put in the kitchen chimney then," I said. "It would still have been in use. Someone would have found it."
Mrs. Landon gave me a pitying look. "You weren't here for your father's last years. Not your fault-you were off with the fighting. My nephew was there, you know, in the war, and we didn't hear from him for years and years. He came back right as rain, cheerful as ever, but a bit deaf from all the canons. Not like young Mr. Quinn, poor soul. And for Mr. Quinn to find his cousin had eloped out from under his nose. They were to have been a match, you know." Mrs. Landon paused to pour out more coffee. "Mr. Quinn thought Miss Helena would wait for him. They grew up so close, and everyone thought they'd marry and settle down right here."
"My father," I prompted when she stopped to drink.
"Oh, yes, I was telling you about him. Old Mr. Lacey, he started letting the staff go a few years before he died. He knew he was ill, poor lamb, and understood he wasn't long for the world. Not much money left, either. When I was a girl, the Lacey estate was a big, fine house with a big, fine farm. All gone now. The world changes. Anyway, he let go the cook and took his meals at the public house. When he got weaker, he had a local lad come and do for him, bring him food and so forth. No hot meals anymore, though I sometimes went and brought him a bit of dinner. And he'd be so angry, not liking to take charity. A proud man, was your father. So you see, someone could have hidden the silver there with no one being the wiser."
"Who was the local lad that brought him the food? Perhaps he saw something."
"Robert Buckley, the publican's boy. Robert's grown up now, got a farm of his own down by Letheringsett. He didn't much like your father, but he'd deliver the food, make sure Mr. Lacey wasn't too ill or hurt, and leg it again. He wouldn't have nicked the silver, though. He's a good lad."
I believed that Robert probably hadn't stolen it. If he had, he'd have had plenty of opportunity to go back and fetch it from the kitchen chimney. "How does young Mr. Buckley have his own farm? Did he inherit it? Come into some money?" I did not think the business at the public house ran to buying land.
Mrs. Landon chuckled, her faded blue eyes showing amusement. "He married it. She's the daughter of a farmer who didn't have a son to leave anything to. Farmer fixed it up so his daughter and her husband could get the lot. Robert was lucky. The wife is a sweet thing too, and now they have a little boy of their own. I always say that marrying money is much easier than grubbing for it yourself. But you know that. I hear your lady is quite plump in the pocket."
I took another sip of the good coffee. I should be offended, but I'd always liked Mrs. Landon. She spoke her mind but had no resentment in her.
"Does everyone in Parson's Point suppose I'm marrying for money?"
"Of course, dear. Your father left you nothing, and your lady has plenty to go around. One of the aristocracy too. You played your cards well."
I gave her a severe look. "Please put it about that I am very fond of Lady Breckenridge."
"Fondness never hurts. Mr. Landon and I were very fond of one another, rest his soul. I'm sure you and your lady will get on well. Not like that frivolous chit who was your first wife. I'm sorry she passed on, of course, but it was not a good choice. You were only a lad yourself at the time. You weren't to know."
My first wife, Carlotta, was not, in fact, deceased, but living in France with the French lover for whom she'd deserted me. My marriage to her had been legally ended, thanks to James Denis, but to save reputations all around, we'd agreed that Carlotta Lacey would be deceased, and Madame Colette Auberge would return to France with her husband.
"The follies of youth," I said. "Miss Helena made a bad choice too, do you think?"
Mrs. Landon gave me a dark look, then she rose and moved about the kitchen, bringing out a loaf of bread, slicing it, and putting pieces on a toasting fork. "Miss Helena Quinn needed a swat on her behind, in my opinion. Twenty-two she was, old enough to know better." Mrs. Landon showed her disapprobation by thrusting the toasting fork hard into the fire. "Young Mr. Quinn was off to war, and she was acting virtuous about waiting for him. Then in comes a bloke from Cambridge. Well dressed, swanning about, turning Miss Quinn's head. After that, Terrance Quinn was as nothing to her."
When the bread had toasted to her satisfaction, she plopped the pieces onto a plate and scooped a hunk of creamy yellow butter onto the toast. The hot bread melted it, spreading rivulets of yellow across the blackened surfaces. Mrs. Landon shoved the pile at me and sat down again.
"Who was he?" I asked. I wiped my hands on my handkerchief and dug into the buttered toast, feeling ten years old again. The bread was chewy and nutty, the butter creamy light.
"A man called Braxton. Let me see. His Christian name is Edward, I think. That was it. Edward Braxton. A solicitor by trade. He'd come to settle the estate of a Cambridge gent who owned a farm near Binham Priory. Braxton adored the sea, and he liked to come up and walk along it when business didn't press him. He met Helena on one of these walks. We knew nothing about it, or about him, until someone saw her with him. And they weren't simply walking, if you take my meaning. Well, her father was a bit put out, as you can imagine. Scolded her something horrible. Next thing you know, Mr. Braxton has returned to Cambridge, and Miss Helena has disappeared. Up and gone with him."
"You are certain of that? Did she leave a note, tell anyone?"
Mrs. Landon shrugged. "Not that I hear. But she was gone, with a change of clothing, and Mr. Braxton was gone too. And we all suspected she'd crept into the church and stolen the plate-to set herself up in housekeeping maybe. But now you say it was in the chimney at your house all this time? Why would she have put it there?"