Free Styx and Stones by Carola Dunn

their hangers-on, it was the only place he could be fairly sure of peace and quiet.
    He tossed the letters on the table. Taking from his pockets his tobacco pouch and the tin of tobacco he had just bought, he transferred the contents of one to the other. Gold Flake would have to do until his own blend arrived from Fribourg and Treyer in London.
    Dammit, Rosa ought to have sent in the order sooner! Just because he forgot to tell her he was nearly out …
    He took his favourite pipe down from the wall rack, filled it, and struck a match. His hand trembled as he held the flame to the bowl. What he needed was a stiff peg, but the sun was still below the yardarm.
    On the third match the tobacco caught. Puffing, the brigadier turned to the post.
    Rosa and the children had already taken any addressed to
them. In the old days, when a man was master of his household, no one would have dared to touch the post before the paterfamilias had gone through it. Things weren’t what they used to be.
    Flicking through the pile, his liver-spotted hand—was it really his, that shaky old-man’s hand?—stopped on a cheap white envelope crudely addressed in block capitals, in pencil. Another of the confounded things! He ripped it open, tearing the letter inside.

    YOU DESGUSTING OLD TOPER, YOU HAD WHISKY ON YOUR BREATH IN CHURCH ON SUNDAY. ONE OF THESE DAYS YOU’LL DROP THE COLLEXION PLATE. YOU’VE GOT A FILTHY TEMPER WHEN YOU’RE DRUNK. EVERYONE KNOWS YOU HIT YOUR WIFE. REPENT!

    â€œPah!” Brigadier Lomax ripped letter and envelope to shreds and buried them in the waste-paper basket.
    He wondered uneasily if it was true everyone knew he had slapped Rosa. She made him furious with her whining. Did he really need another nightcap, indeed! That was for him to decide. Dammit, it was a man’s prerogative to keep his womenfolk in order, but one didn’t want everyone talking about it.
    Besides, he had said he was sorry, hadn’t he? She had no need to go running to talk to Osborne about it, devil take it! Someone must have overheard her, the vicar’s busybody wife, or their maid, or one of those wretched old women with nothing better to do who always hung about clergymen. That was the sort who wrote anonymous letters, by Jove.
    If he could just lay hands on that damned letter writer …
    Defiantly he reached for the tantalus, poured a good-sized tot of scotch, and swallowed it down. Then he went over to
the gun rack and took down a double-barrelled shotgun. His hands steady now, he loaded it, stuffed several cartridges into his pocket, and stalked out through the French doors.
    Â 
    Sam Basin rode his Wooler motor-cycle home from Ashford for his midday dinner. Setting it up on its stand, the large young man took a clean rag from his pocket and lovingly polished the dust off the bright yellow mudguards and petrol tank.
    What a corker! Still as shiny as the day he’d bought her, and running smooth as silk, he made sure of that.
    He patted her tank and went into the cottage. Mum had his dinner ready, a nice shepherd’s pie, crisp on top and sizzling hot inside, with plenty of gravy. Poor old Dad had to make do with bread and cheese in the hop-fields. Catch Sam getting stuck as a farm labourer—no fear!
    Elbows on the kitchen table, he ate hungrily, while his mother pottered around making tea, pouring it into the big, thick mug, taking a plum pie from the Aga.
    â€œCor, Mum, you done us proud.”
    â€œMight as well use the oven while it’s hot,” she said. “You want a piece now?”
    â€œNah, save it for tea.” Sam swallowed the last of his tea, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and stood up. “I got to get back.”
    â€œHere, if I wasn’t forgetting, a letter come for you. You got yourself a girl in town, our Sam?”
    â€œNah, I got better things to do with my money than taking girls to the pictures. Give it here, then.”
    He glanced