Page 34 of The Villain’s Fatal Plot (Gravesyde Village Mystery #1)
THIRTY-FOUR: VERITY
After church the next day, Verity was overwhelmed by parishioners inquiring about the new school. Even one of the farmers asked, although she had a suspicion he was on the hunt for a wife who might take care of his motherless offspring.
She had thought herself plain and dowdy and firmly on the shelf. She was a trifle dazed at the preposterous notion she might not need to spend her life alone. She should have heeded Miss Edgerton’s invitations much sooner, instead of clinging to the familiarity of her father’s home.
She’d been spineless.
Now that she’d realized it, she was determined to grow a backbone. Did stealing her uncle’s money count as an act of courage? Probably not. Returning it might have been. It would have also been stupid. Oh well. So she wasn’t simply plain and clumsy but clever and criminal. And homeless, again .
“You’ve attracted a new admirer,” Minerva whispered teasingly as the widower walked away.
“I’m not much inclined to mother children half my age.” Verity hid a blush that anyone had noticed.
“Ah, I had meant to ask, when is your birthday? We’ve taken up celebrating birthdays since we’ve learned some of us never had parties. Davy’s is next Saturday, and we’re to decide how to celebrate that won’t terrify him into hiding.” Minerva indicated one of the little boys leaving with the tutor.
“Oh, mine is that Friday!” Verity exclaimed without thinking. She really was bad at hiding who she was. She hastily bit her tongue. There were disadvantages to being dead. She hadn’t celebrated a birthday in ever so long, that she’d quite forgotten about it.
“Then we should have an extra cake made for you! I’ll tell Elsa. Come with us and help choose which of our attic artifacts should be transported to the inn.”
She resisted. Rafe was intent on questioning everyone in the chapel yard. “It’s not my place to make the sergeant’s choices,” she demurred.
Verity missed sharing meals with him in the cozy cottage. After her quiet life, the manor company was a trifle... excessive. She almost longed for her lonely cellar and the company of a good book. But she was done hiding.
Steeling herself, she turned to the gentle Valkyrie of an earl’s granddaughter to ask if she wished to gather seeds and roots from the cottage garden, in case Mr. Sullivan bought it. Patience jumped at the opportunity.
“I never properly thanked Mrs. Holly for helping the day of the fire. I’d like to take her some of Miss Edgerton’s jams, and since her tree died, perhaps bring her some apples from the mercantile.” Following the others from the chapel yard, Verity stopped at the inn where Rafe had squirreled away all the cottage’s pantry contents, and she’d left her old clothes hanging out to dry. “I’ll need to change first.”
“You don’t have to buy apples!” Patience cried. “I’ll bring down a basket. I’ll need one to carry the roots anyway. Let’s meet at the cottage in half an hour.”
Verity waved the others off and veered into the inn yard. Wolfie ran to greet her, and she rubbed his wooly head. “If only kittens could be trained like dogs!” She had left Marmie in the manor’s warm kitchen.
Wolf barked his agreement, and when she had no treats to give him, wandered off.
The bare room Rafe had assigned her had acquired a new mattress, a battered washstand with mismatched legs, and a washbasin, but no chamber pot. The workmen were working on a spacious new outhouse, she knew, but traipsing outside in the middle of the night, in a strange place, with a murderer about, did not appeal.
She’d left her blacks hanging on the bedframe to finish drying. She needed to find a laundress for her new gowns, but this old one she managed to wash on her own. After being scorched, it scarcely needed pressing for digging in a garden.
As she changed, Wolfie barked at some perceived intruder in the yard. She glanced out the window but couldn’t see him. The woods were full of animals for the dog to chase. She was amazed he didn’t gallop after them.
Rafe had evidently returned here last night. A fresh loaf of half-eaten bread waited in the kitchen. She took a slice for herself, stole a bit of cheese, and added a jar of blackberry jam to a basket. Perhaps Patience could show her which herbs might be moved to the inn.
She met Rafe entering as she left. “I am taking some jam to Mrs. Holly. Patience and I are going to dig up a few roots. Do you think the inn might use some herbs?”
“I’ve been hoeing a plot out back. Let me change, and I’ll join you. Why is Wolfie barking?” His Sunday coat didn’t fit him nearly as well as his soldier’s garb, but he still looked much too handsome for her overwrought nerves.
“I assumed a rabbit. You’ll need him to keep them out of your garden until you can build a wall. I told Patience I’d meet her at the cottage. Come along later, if you like. Bring shovels, if you see any.” She hurried out, hoping Patience brought her own tools. She was hoping to use the ones in Miss Edgerton’s shed. Between the cane and basket, she couldn’t carry more.
She met Minerva and the curate strolling from the chapel gate. They were so obviously engrossed in each other that she smiled and didn’t intrude with a greeting.
But even in their cocoon of happiness, they saw her and stopped. She was starting to enjoy being recognized instead of flitting invisibly through the streets.
“I think we have solid support for the school,” Mr. Upton said first. “We’ll have Walker order at least a dozen chalk tablets. Parents say they will send their children with stools until we can provide better. There will be a scarcity of textbooks until we can assess their needs.”
“Mr. Birdwhistle will help with that,” Minerva reminded her.
“This is happening so fast!” Overwhelmed for the hundredth time these past days, Verity didn’t know whether to be elated or run and hide. “I am grateful for all you’ve done.” The shadow of Miss Edgerton’s death darkened her happiness. Her late governess would have loved to have seen this come together. “Do you think Mrs. Walker might be interested in any of the herbs in the cottage garden? If Mr. Sullivan buys it, all those wonderful plants will be lost.”
“I’ll ask her. Is that where you’re going?” Minerva asked.
“I’m meeting Patience there. I know nothing, but she will help me choose for the inn.” Verity turned to the curate. “Will your mother mind taking Marmie a while longer? It’s so awkward not knowing where I’ll sleep from one night to the next!”
“Walker is making a list of vacant properties the estate owns,” the curate said. “Until then, I’m sure you and your kitten are welcome at the manor.”
Verity couldn’t tell these nice people that she preferred a tiny cottage of her own to a towering manor belonging to others. She left them at the manor drive and strolled through the village, studying the few remaining buildings in town. She’d ascertained that most of the habitable ones were occupied by the elderly unable or unwilling to go elsewhere. She understood why the hardware store man considered hers the best-kept cottage in town—or once best-kept.
Perhaps she could find one outside of the village—where everyone feared Clement had left his wife, who might be the mysterious lady in black. Rural properties were so very isolated...
She felt a moment’s trepidation in opening the cottage gate without Rafe’s accompaniment. Reminding herself that she’d traversed London’s streets unscathed and it was the unfamiliarity frightening her—and that she wasn’t to be spineless any longer—she used her cane to push open the gate. The beautiful garden was already showing signs of neglect.
Avoiding the damaged cottage, she took the side path around back to see if Patience had arrived. Hearing a digging noise, she hesitated. The manor’s eager gardener might have begun without her, but too many frightening events prevented dropping all caution. So where did caution become cowardice?
Wishing she’d brought Wolfie with her, she set down her basket, raised her cane, and peered around the back corner.
A woman in full black skirts and a shabby black bonnet chopped at the ground in the back of the garden bed.
Verity’s first instinct was to rush in and pound the thief’s head with a cane, but her natural wariness overruled rash action. If she waited for Patience to enter by the back gate, together they could trap her.
Fighting fury and the urge to demand answers, Verity froze as she always did. How much longer before Patience arrived? The Valkyrie was too sweet-natured to be much of a fighter, but she was larger and stronger than Verity. Between them, they might overcome one old woman.
Although she didn’t appear terribly old. Not young, certainly, but strong enough to wield the spading fork in hard ground with vigor. Verity couldn’t get a good look at the intruder’s face. She was hunched over her work .
Before Patience could arrive, a familiar voice called over the wall, “Yoo hoo, dearie, are you out there?” And Mrs. Holly’s gray head popped above the wall.
The woman in black dropped the fork, grabbed a sack, and raced for the back gate.
Shouting in frustration, Verity dashed after her, stumbling on the rough ground with her bad foot. “Stop her! Someone stop her!”
The black skirt swept out the gateway.
Verity practically wept upon rushing outside the wall to see the woman leap into the stream with booted feet. In relief, she heard Patience calling a question from the path.
“The thief is getting away!” Verity shouted as Patience came into view and Mrs. Holly hobbled out the gate in her hedge.
Behind her, she heard Rafe’s shouts and almost dropped in relief. “In back, she’s running away!”
Carrying shovel and spading fork in both arms like a loaded musket, he burst through the open gateway onto the narrow footpath, looking both frantic and furious. She pointed at the black skirt vanishing into the foliage on the rocky, nearly impassable side of the hill.
Rafe dropped the tools and took off, splashing through the low stream and crashing through brush without a second look back.
That could be the woman who had shot him before! Verity froze and watched them vanish around the bend.
Patience picked up Rafe’s tools to add to her own and stood at Verity’s side to watch them disappear in the distance. “There’s nothing over there but the river. Surely, she can’t go far.”
Mrs. Holly followed their gazes. “Old Gypsy camp,” she said. “Long way over. Ain’t had Gypsies about since the old days. River used to flood them out until the captain built that dam upstream.”
Gypsies ? Furious at herself and everyone else, Verity limped back to the garden. “Patience, you need to warn your husband, ask if he can summon searchers. I’ll see who I can find. If there is a camp over there, Rafe could be in trouble.”
He’d been shot once. Despite his size and great strength, he couldn’t fight an entire encampment. Unlike her, the foolish man dashed into trouble without a second thought.
If only she’d confronted the thief... She despaired of ever being bold.