Anne Perry's Christmas Mysteries: Two Holiday Novels (12 page)

She looked at the light from the chandeliers glittering on the silver, the crystal, at the white linen, the lilies from the hothouse, and the red wine, all the different faces, and wondered if she really wanted to know the answer.

Then she remembered Maude’s laughter, and the memories in her eyes as she described the moonlight over the desert. There was no escaping the answer. That would be the ultimate, irredeemable cowardice.

T
he following day the scullery maid cut her finger so badly she could not use her hand, and the kitchen was in pandemonium. Agnes had been going to take the pony trap to deliver gifts to the vicar’s widow in Dymchurch, and now all plans had to be rearranged.

Without a thought for her own competence for such a task, Grandmama offered to go in her stead. The stable boy could drive her and she would call, with explanations, upon Mrs. Dowson and give her the already wrapped gifts for herself, and one or two other families.

Her offer was accepted, and at ten o’clock they set off, she feeling very pleased with herself. It was a bitter day with clouds piling slate gray on the horizon, and the wind had veered round to come from the north with ice on the edge.

Grandmama sat with the rug wrapped tightly around her knees and tucked in under her, hoping profoundly that it would not snow before she returned to Snave, or she might find that the chill she had considered pretending could be only too real. She had no desire whatever to spend Christmas in bed with a fever!

And then another thought assailed her, even more unpleasant. What if she discovered beyond doubt who it was that had picked the foxglove leaves and distilled their poison, and could prove it? And that person became aware of the fact! Then it might be a great deal more than a chill that afflicted her. She wondered if it was painful to die of a heart slowing until it stopped altogether. She could feel it bumping in her chest now with fear.

If she died, would anyone miss her enough to be sorry? Would anyone’s world be colder or grayer because she was not in it?

She thought of Maude alone in the house of strangers who had taken her in out of kindness, or worse, a sense of duty. Or pity? That was even worse again. Had Maude felt obliged to work hard to be charming, hide the rejection she must feel inside in order to win their warmth? Had she even known that Grandmama liked her, genuinely liked her?

Now, that was a lie. Her face was hot in spite of the knife-edge wind. She had loathed Maude, even before she arrived, because Maude would displace her as the center of attention. She had realized only after Maude was dead how much she had liked her, admired her, found her exciting to listen to, freeing the imagination and awakening dreams. She wished now with a desire so strong it was like a physical ache that she had allowed Maude to see that she liked her, more than anyone else she could think of.

They were going toward the sea and she could smell the salt more sharply. Dymchurch was not far from St. Mary in the Marsh. She could not return home until she had solved this. It would be a betrayal not only of Maude, but of friendship itself. The length of it was irrelevant, it was the depth that mattered.

She ignored the great ragged skies, clouds streaming across its vastness like the torn banners of an army, spears of ice not far behind. As they drove into the village itself she could hear the roaring of the surf on the shore and the tower of the church seemed to stand aloft against the racing darkness coming in on the storm.

They pulled up to a small cottage with bare vines covering the arch over the gate and the stable boy announced that they had arrived. He said he would take the parcels in for her, as soon as they had ascertained that Mrs. Dowson was at home. Then he would take the pony and trap around to the stable to shelter until she was ready to leave again. He looked anxiously at the sky, and then smiled, showing gapped teeth.

Grandmama thanked him and with his help alighted.

Mrs. Dowson was at home. She was a lean woman with narrow shoulders and bright eyes. She must have been closer to eighty than seventy, but seemed to be still in excellent health. There was a color in her cheeks as if she had recently been outside, even in this darkening weather.

Grandmama introduced herself.

“My name is Mariah Ellison, Mrs. Dowson. Please excuse me for calling unannounced on Mrs. Harcourt’s behalf, but I am afraid I have accepted their hospitality in the wake of tragedy, and the whole family is bravely making the very best of a hard situation. I offered to come on this errand for her. I feel it is the least I can do.”

“Oh, dear. I’m so sorry. Very kind of you, Mrs. Ellison.” She looked at Grandmama curiously but without apprehension. “May I offer you tea, and perhaps a mince pie or something of the sort?” She did not ask what the tragedy had been. Was that extreme discretion, or had word somehow come this far already?

“Thank you,” Grandmama accepted, wondering if there were a third possibility, that she simply did not care. “I admit, it is remarkably cold outside. I do not know this area very well. I live in London and am merely visiting, but I find something most pleasing about the sea air, even when there is so very much of it.”

Mrs. Dowson smiled. “It pleases me, too,” she agreed, conducting the way into a small but very pretty sitting room. It was low-ceilinged, with furniture covered in floral chintz, and a fire burning in the hearth. She rang the bell, and when the maid came, requested tea and tarts.

“Now, my dear,” she said when they were seated, “what is the trouble with poor Agnes now? I imagine it is Agnes, is it not?”

How interesting, Grandmama thought. Aloud she said, “I am afraid it is all of them. Did you ever know the third sister, Miss Maude Barrington?”

Something hardened in Mrs. Dowson’s face, and her eyes were chill. “I did. But if you have come to say something uncomplimentary about her, I would thank you not to. I know she was a little unruly, and perhaps she threw herself too fully into things, but she had a good heart, and it was all very long ago. I think one should take one’s victories very lightly, and one’s losses with silence and dignity, do you not agree, Mrs. Ellison?”

How curious! Not at all what Grandmama had expected. Mrs. Dowson’s eyes might be bright and cold, but they kindled a sudden new warmth in Grandmama’s mind.

“Indeed I do,” she said heartily. “That is one of the reasons I felt an affection for Maude the moment I met her. It is one of the great sadnesses of my life that I knew her such a very short time.”

“I beg your pardon?” Mrs. Dowson said huskily, her face now filled with alarm.

Even a week ago Grandmama would have made a condescending reply to that. Now all she wanted to do was find some kinder way of telling the news.

“I am so sorry. Maude arrived home from abroad and because of other family commitments at her sister’s house, she came and stayed with her cousin, Mr. Joshua Fielding, who is also a relative of mine, hence my presence there. Maude died, quite peacefully in her sleep, three days ago.” She saw the undisguised pain in the old lady’s face. “I felt so very grieved I chose to take the news to her family in person, rather than merely send some written message,” she concluded, “which is how I come to be still staying with them now. I am doing what little I can to help.”

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Dowson said, shaking her head a little. “I assumed it was no more than another of Agnes’s chills, or whatever it is she has. How stupid of me. One should not assume. This is a deep loss.” Suddenly the tears filled her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she apologized.

Grandmama did not find it absurd that after forty years Mrs. Dowson should still grieve so keenly. Time does not cloud certain memories. Bright days from youth, laughter and friendship can remain.

But crass as it seemed, it was also an opportunity that she could not afford to ignore. “Did you know her well, before she left to travel abroad?” she asked.

“Oh yes,” Mrs. Dowson smiled. “I knew all the girls then. My husband was a curate, just young in his ministry. Very earnest, you know, as dedicated men can be. I rather think Maude overwhelmed him. She was so fierce in her love for Arthur Harcourt. And of course Arthur was quite the dashing young man-about-town. He was extraordinarily handsome, and he knew it. But he could hardly fail to. If he’d crooked a finger at any of the girls in the south of England they’d have followed him. I might have myself, if I’d thought he meant it. But I was never very pretty, and I was happy enough with Walter. He was genuine. I rather thought Arthur wasn’t.”

“Sincere? Was he simply playing with Maude?”

Suddenly Grandmama’s liking for Arthur Harcourt evaporated as if she had torn the smiling mask off and seen rotten flesh underneath.

“Oh no,” Mrs. Dowson said quickly. “That was where Walter and I disagreed. He thought Arthur loved Bedelia. He called them a perfect match. Something of an idealist, my husband. Thought beauty was bone deep, not just a chance of coloring and half an inch here and there, and of course confidence. Self-belief, you know? Imagine how the map of the world might have been changed if Cleopatra’s nose had been half an inch longer! Then Caesar might not have fallen in love with her, or Mark Anthony either.”

Grandmama was carried along in a hurricane of thought.

“I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Dowson apologized again. “Walter always said my mind was totally undisciplined. I told him that was not so at all, simply that it moved in a different pattern from his. Bedelia Barrington could twist him around her little finger! And half the men in the county, too. Poor Zachary never got over it, which is such a shame. Agnes was the better girl, if only she could have believed that herself!”

Grandmama did not interrupt her. The tea arrived. Mrs. Dowson poured, and passed the mince pie and jam tarts.

“Bedelia thought she was glamorous, Agnes was dull, and Maude was plain and eccentric. Because of her confidence, far too many people believed that she must be right.”

“But she was not…”

“Certainly she was,” Mrs. Dowson contradicted her. “But only because we allowed her to be. Except Maude. She knew Bedelia’s beauty was of no real value. No warmth in it, do you see?”

“But she fell in love with Arthur? So much so that she could not bear it when he came to his senses and married Bedelia after all?” Grandmama deliberately chose her words provocatively.

“I used to think he lost his senses again,” Mrs. Dowson argued. “I was furious with Maude for not fighting for the man she loved. Fancy simply giving up and running away like that! Off to North Africa, and then Egypt and Persia. Riding horses in the desert, and camels too, for all I can say. Lived in tents and gave what was left of her heart to the Persians.”

“She wrote to you!” Grandmama was astonished, and delighted. Maude had had a friend here who had cared for her over the years and kept her in touch with home.

“Of course,” Mrs. Dowson said indignantly. “She never told me why she left, but I came to realize it was a matter of honor, and must not ever be discussed. She did what she believed to be the right thing. But I don’t think that she ever stopped loving Arthur.”

New ideas began to form in Grandmama’s mind. “Mrs. Dowson, do you know why Maude chose to come home now, after so long?” she asked. “Did she have any…any anxieties about her health?”

“Not that she confided in me.” Mrs. Dowson frowned. “She was certainly afraid, a little oppressed by the thought of returning after so long. But the gentleman she had cared for in Persia, and who had loved her, had died. She told me that. It grieved her very much, and it also meant that she had no reason for remaining there anymore. In fact she implied that without his protection it would be unwise for her to do so. I do not know their relationship. I never asked and she never told me, but it was not regular, as you and I would use the term.”

“I see. Was Bedelia aware of this?” Was that the scandal she was afraid might come to Lord Woollard’s ears—even perhaps quite frankly told by Maude, in order to shock? After Bedelia’s coolness over the years, and the fact that it was she Arthur had married, whatever his reason, it would not be unnatural now if Maude had been unable to resist at least preventing her sister from becoming Lady Harcourt. She asked Mrs. Dowson as much.

“She may have been tempted,” Mrs. Dowson replied. “But she would not have done it. Maude never bore a grudge. That was Bedelia.”

“Was Bedelia not very much in love with Arthur, even before Maude returned from caring for her aunt?” Grandmama asked.

“Maude did tell you a great deal, didn’t she?” Mrs. Dowson observed.

Grandmama merely smiled.

“However much Maude had despised Bedelia, she would never have hurt Arthur,” Mrs. Dowson continued. “As I said, she never stopped loving him. And I refer to that emotion that seeks the best for the other, the honor and happiness and inward spiritual journey; not the hunger to possess at all costs, the joy for oneself in their company and the feeling that they are happy only when they are with you. That is Bedelia, all about winning. And poor Agnes was concerned she was always going to be no more than second-best.”