Page 9 of Lies in Little Sutherland
The trip here had been uneventful, if long.I had started to heartily wish that I had never suggested this outing.
“My derriere has gone to sleep.”
“Hop out and move around,” Francis said as he stopped the Crossley outside one of the many honey-colored walls surrounding a honey-colored house.They were all built from the same material, probably some sort of local limestone.Even the church, with its square tower and pointy witch’s-hat roof, was honey-colored.
“I want to look at it,” Christopher said, blue eyes already fastened on the arched windows.He took a first in history at Oxford, and old churches appeal to him.
I made my way out of the backseat—at this point I wouldn’t put it past Christopher to crawl across me were I not to get out of the way quickly, and sure enough, he didn’t even glance my way as he followed me out onto the grass.
“Go,” I told him as I raised my arms over my head and stretched.While the leather seats of the Crossley were among the more comfortable I had experienced—nothing but the best for the late Lady Peckham—it wasn’t the same as sitting on the Chesterfield at home.Not after more than three hours of humping along the roads from Salisbury to Swindon to Cirencester and beyond.“We’ll take a look at everything else.”
“There’s not much else to look at,” Francis pointed out as Christopher trotted towards the thatched gate in the church wall.
I looked around.No, there wasn’t.A few lanes of cottages, and a larger, manor-style house beyond the church.A water wheel spinning slowly in the river.Children’s voices from somewhere not too far off.And?—
“War memorial cross,” Constance said softly, making her way over to it.After a second’s hesitation, Francis followed.Constance cleared her throat.“In memory of the men of this parish who laid down their lives in the Great War 1914-1918.Their name liveth for evermore.”
“Just one name?”
I made myself move in that direction, too.I don’t like war memorials—there are too many of them, and some include the names of people I know, like Cousin Robert’s in Beckwith.
Constance shook her head.“Fifteen.”
“Fifteen?”
There couldn’t be more than thirty homes here.Forty on the outside.That was an enormous loss, even for a war that killed fully six percent of the male population.
She nodded.“There are two different Lockeys and two different Griffins on this list.Two of the four were named Ernest.”
“That’s awful,” I said.At least Aunt Roz and Uncle Herbert had only lost Robbie.I hated to think what would have happened had Francis perished, too.
“I suppose it’s a fitting name for the town, really,” Constance opined after a moment.“You don’t suppose…”
I shook my head.“The name is much older than that.Slohtre—” I spelled it, “is an Old English word that means ‘muddy place.’It has nothing to do with the War.Even if I agree that it would be fitting.”
There was a moment’s pause, and then Francis cleared his throat.“Here’s Kit.”
We looked up, and yes, there he was, coming towards us from the church gate.“Wrong Slaughter,” he announced, while he was still several yards away.
“Pardon me?”
“This is the wrong Slaughter.There’s another one, called Upper Slaughter.And that one has a Primitive Methodist chapel.”
Francis looked nonplussed, but of course he hadn’t been in the servants’ dining room for the conversation last night.
“How do you know?”
Christopher had found the vicar’s wife, he said.“She told me that the church was built in the 13thcentury, but that it was renovated less than a hundred years ago.I didn’t bother to go in.”
No, that wasn’t surprising.Not if all the history had been removed from it.
“But you spoke to her?”
He nodded.“She didn’t remember Shreve, nor does she know who Morrison is, but she said there’s a Primitive Methodist meeting place in Upper Slaughter, and that Morrison likely settled there rather than here because of it.”
“So it’s back into the motorcar, then?”
“It’s only a mile away,” Christopher said.“And there’s a footpath.Although the vicar’s wife said that it would take twenty-five minutes to walk it.We’d get there much faster by road.”
