TERM BEGAN ON A GOLDEN SEPTEMBER MORNING. Knowing what was being said about her. Miss Mayfield found facing her class for the first time something of an ordeal, and was secretly relieved that Juliet Reeve was no longer in school. She had passed her examination satisfactorily, a fact for which Miss Mayfield could take no credit at all. So far as the children were concerned, however, the rumour might never have been born. Miss Benson did refer to it, saying:

‘Not to worry. If it wasn’t that, it’d be something else. We stand to be shot at. They always maintained that Mrs Westleton was Canon Thorby’s mistress, and as for me, I’m not only loose but frequently drunk and disorderly as well.’ She gave a snort of laughter. ‘It’s astounding that they entrust their precious offspring to our care, don’t you think?’

Miss Benson had had a birthday during the summer holiday and now owned a new two-seater convertible, red as a fire engine.

*

When the term was three weeks old, Miss Benson, opening the piano, said:

‘I don’t think you’ll have Sydney Baines today, Miss Mayfield. And I shall have something to say to his mum when next I see her.’

Miss Mayfield’s heart gave a little jump.

‘Why?’

‘Well, on Friday Mr Tharkell drove her and Sydney to Selbury. They were off to spend the weekend with her sister in Cambridge. And he promised to pick her up last night at eight; that’s the last train in from Cambridge on Sunday. Sunday morning one of his horses went down with the staggers or the glanders or something, so he rang up Uncle Eric and asked whether he’d oblige by “just running in” and fetching her. Uncle Eric was otherwise engaged, so he shoved it on to me; I was going to be in Selbury anyway, and it wouldn’t hurt me for once to come away early and do a good turn. So I went and I waited, and the train came in, no Baines. I made some inquiries and learned that it was just possible, if you were mad enough, to get a later one which went round by Ely and got in at ten to eleven. Like the muggins I am, I waited, thinking what a fix she’d be in if she had missed the good train and had to take the slow. I hadn’t got a coat, and it turned bloody cold, and I smoked all my cigarettes – you know what Selbury is like on Sunday. And the ten to eleven came in, and still no Baines. Mucked up my whole evening.’

*

And that, so far as Walwyk was concerned, was Mrs Baines’s and Sydney’s epitaph.

Village gossip, turning like vultures from the well-picked-over carcass of Miss Mayfield’s association with Wesley Baines, began to chew over his new morsel: Mrs Baines’s curious disappearance.