Page 20 of Murder in Highbury

Emma subsided onto the plump chintz cushions. “She was quite overset. Thankfully, she recovered and went off to find Dr. Hughes and George. I would have been in a terrible fix without her.”

Mrs. Weston prepared a cup of tea, slipping in an extra lump of sugar as a treat. She’d done the same when Emma was a little girl, whenever she had fallen and skinned her knee or engaged in some other childish misadventure.

“Then I’m so glad that Harriet was there, so that you needn’t face such an awful scene alone.”

“I’m afraid the awfulness will continue for quite some time.” She took the cup and gloomily stared into the brew as her mind’s eye once more conjured up the hideous scene.

Mrs. Weston gently touched her shoulder. “I don’t mean to press. If you’d rather not talk about it, I perfectly understand.”

Emma mustered a smile. “I want to tell you, and I also need your advice. I’m in a stew, and I’m not quite sure how to proceed.”

“I am always here for you, as is Mr. Weston.”

“And that is a great comfort.”

She plunged back into the events of yesterday, keeping her description as brief as possible. Still, Mrs. Weston went pale when Emma related how she’d checked the body.

“Heavens,” she exclaimed. “I think I would have fainted dead away. However did you manage to keep your composure?”

“If Harriet hadn’t been with me, I’m not sure I would have. Fortunately, she almost swooned, thus relieving me of the necessity to do it myself.”

“Now, my dear, you can hardly blame the poor girl. She’s been very sheltered, you know.”

“It hasn’t been my habit to stumble upon dead bodies, either.”

“No, but you have never been prone to the vapors or irrational behavior. I shudder to think of your father or dear Isabella coming upon such a situation.”

“Yes, they both have a great deal of sensibility. I seem, on the other hand, to have very little, and thank goodness for that, or we would be suffering the vapors at Hartfield every day.”

Mrs. Weston smile was wry. “Not a likely scenario with Mr. Knightley in residence, I suspect.”

“As you know, his influence on me started years ago. I learned early on that emotional flights of fancy impressed George very little. He either ignored me or gave me an improving book sure to bore me to tears. The latter was a very effective method of correction.”

Mrs. Weston chuckled but then fleetingly pressed a hand to her lips. “How dreadful of me to laugh when poor Mrs. Elton is lying dead in the vicarage.”

Emma shrugged. “I’m not sure how to act, to be frank. Part of me still refuses to believe it, and to believe that I’m involved in such a situation.”

“Only as a witness. I assume you’ll have to give testimony at the inquest—which naturally will be quite unpleasant—but that should be the end of it.”

“Perhaps not quite,” Emma replied after a moment’s hesitation.

Mrs. Weston put down the teacup she’d just been raising to her lips. “Emma, what did you do?”

“It’s not what I did so much as what I found.”

Now that she’d come to it, she was again reluctant to share her suspicions.

“I will keep in the strictest confidence whatever you tell me, if that is what you wish,” Mrs. Weston quietly said.

“Thank you, but it’s bound to come out sooner or later. George knows of it already, if only in part.”

That startled her former governess. “What can you tell me that you couldn’t tell your husband?”

“First, you need to know that there was someone else in the church. I heard that person in the vestry after Harriet left.”

“Good heavens! Emma, it could have been the . . .” Mrs. Weston obviously couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

“Murderer? I doubt it, although I did have to steel myself before investigating.”