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the weir when she jilted him. They never found her body, but someone saw him do it. The books say Arabella got an offer from some man she liked better and gave Vanejul the boot. I don’t know how she had the heart to do it, for he was fascinating. Perhaps it was just a dream you had. Vanejul would have no reason to come back. He wasn’t murdered.”
    “What did happen to him?”
    “He died of a fever in Greece years after Arabella’s death. His body was sent home. It’s buried at Oldstead Abbey, about ten miles north of here. The Raventhorpes still live there. His real name was Baron Raventhorpe. Vanejul was his nom de plume. He wrote poetry.”
    “Did he ever go to trial?”
    “Devil a bit of it. He drowned poor Arabella, then ran off and caught the first ship out of England before they could find him. According to the writings that came out after his death, he went straight to the bad, whoring around Europe with anything in a skirt. Mind you, he left some wonderful poetry for posterity.”
    “I’ve heard of Vanejul. He wasn’t one of the major romantic poets, though. Not like Wordsworth or Byron. I read a few of his poems when I was in college. They were a little cynical for my taste, although his first few love poems were tender and romantic.”
    “That’d be the stuff he wrote before he went to Greece. There are all kinds of books about him in the local shops, if you’re interested. This is Vanejul territory.”
    “Vanejul—that’s an anagram for Juvenal, isn’t it? Some famous Englishman used that pen name for a column he used to write in the journals, to hide his identity. Sydney Smith, they think it was.”
    “I don’t know about that, but around here everybody knows Raventhorpe as Vanejul.”
    “I wonder why he didn’t publish under his own name.”
    “He was wanted for murder, that’s why. Not that he would have been easy to find in a foreign country in those days, I suppose, before they had telephones and fax machines. There was a big war going on as well, the Napoleonic war. Vanejul’s real identity wasn’t discovered until after he was dead.”
    “I’ll drive into Lyndhurst this afternoon and see if I can find some books. Actually I’m more interested in Arabella.”
    Mollie shook her head. “You won’t find much on her. There’s a chapter on her in a book about ghosts in famous English mansions, but she never did anything to merit a book of her own. Not many women did in the old days, unless they were queens or courtesans. And of course, she died young.”
    Tracking down the research was beginning to seem a formidable task.
    “Why are you so interested, if you don’t mind my asking?” Mollie said. “Are you thinking of writing about her?”
    “Maybe, if I could find enough material.”
    “Sappho talks about doing a book, but I think it’s Vanejul she’s more interested in. She’s all talk, that one. You might find enough for an article on Arabella’s legend. She’s mostly just a footnote in books on Vanejul. I’ll tell you who might be able to help you is Emily Millar. She’s some kin to the Throckleys. You can bet she’ll never help Sappho.”
    What Emily had would only be hearsay, but better than nothing. “Emily asked me to call. Where does she live?”
    “In that big stone mansion just on the edge of Lyndhurst. Emily’s loaded. The only reason Matt Millar ever married her was because of her noble connections. They cut quite a swath in society when he was alive, and she was younger. She’s related to the Raventhorpes and a few other noble houses as well. There’s a lot of inbreeding in the aristocracy.”
    “Was Arabella from a noble family?”
    “Maybe related to the nobility, but she didn’t have a title. You can tell by Chêne Bay the Comstocks were very rich, and wealth usually means power."
    We finished our coffee, and Mollie rose. “I have to show a cottage this afternoon. Another retired civil servant wants to come to the New Forest to paint. If all