Read The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton for Free Online

the original floor, I think,’ Frances said. ‘But I like it much better now it hasn’t got all Digby’s guns.’
    Laurence was surprised that he hadn’t noticed that the small part of the room not covered in drawings and maps held empty gun racks. Only two guns were left, high up, both old Purdeys.
    ‘Julian’s,’ Frances said, following his gaze. ‘He inherited them from Digby. He rarely shoots now and there’s no keeper any more, though David takes the fatherless Kilminster boys out for rooks and rabbits for the pot. He’s an amazing shot, the boys say. Julian never enjoyed shooting. Country sports were Digby’s passion. Patrick’s too when he was young. But Julian says his hands were always a bit stiff from the scars.’
    ‘His war wounds?’ Laurence said.
    Frances looked slightly embarrassed. ‘The scar on his neck was from the war, but not those on his hands. Julian had the so-called Easton fingers. Kitty did too.’
    Laurence was lost. ‘I’m sorry?’
    ‘He was born with an extra finger on each hand. His father removed Julian’s. He said it was no different to docking a puppy’s tail. But apparently it was awful. Digby once told us Julian screamed and screamed and one hand went septic.’
    ‘Do you mean that he did this with no anaesthetic?’ Eleanor said, looking appalled. ‘On his own child? What a vicious man.’
    William made a face. ‘Unbelievably barbaric.’
    ‘Lydia absolutely refused to have Kitty operated upon,’ Frances said, ‘even by a doctor. She thought the idea of mutilating her child was much more monstrous than two tiny extra fingers.’
    Eleanor still looked shocked. ‘Little Tich, the music-hall man, has extra fingers,’ she said. ‘It’s far from unknown. And it often runs in families. It’s possible Patrick’s heart trouble has the same origin,’ she added. ‘They’re sometimes connected.’
    ‘Then Julian got off best, I suppose,’ Frances said.
    Eleanor nodded, but Laurence thought that Julian’s scars had accompanied him to the battlefields of France, whereas Patrick’s problem had seen him honourably kept out of harm’s way.
    William cleared his throat and gestured to his plan with his unlit pipe.
    ‘Laurence wanted to know what we’d planted. Or at least I wanted to tell him.’
    ‘Yew,’ Frances said. ‘We put in thousands last November. Millions, it seemed like,’ she said, clearly happy to move away from the Eastons’ childhood.
    William looked cheerful. ‘We laid out the design with pegs and string, then everybody set to: David, Walter Petch—that’s Maggie’s grandfather, Ellen Kilminster, her lads, Mr Hill and even Maggie helped. And Frances, of course.’
    ‘Bluestockings, green fingers,’ Eleanor said, tucking her arm in her friend’s.
    ‘Yew is the right choice here, I think,’ William said. ‘There are the two splendid and ancient ones in the churchyard so we know it can prosper in this soil. It’s the plant of resurrection too, of course, although I’m keen that the maze shouldn’t be a sad place. Entering it should be more in the spirit of hide-and-seek. It’s for children or lovers, with voices heard but not seen.’
    ‘That seems very jolly,’ Laurence said, in an attempt to cover up his own instinctive aversion to entering any maze, ‘and a link with the druids, or whatever went on in these parts.’
    Eleanor gave him a cool look. ‘All Victorian make-believe,’ she said.
    ‘Actually the early communities here were undoubtedly pagan,’ William said. ‘They may have worshipped the sun, or horses, or mistletoe, but very few societies don’t worship something. Ask Patrick when he comes. He’s bound to know.’
    Frances bent over the plan.
    ‘It’s likely there was an earlier maze at Easton Deadall.’ She looked up at Laurence. ‘There’ve always been stories of the Easton Deadall maze. People getting lost for ever. Digby swore there’d been one originally.’
    ‘From before the war?’
    ‘Much longer