Page 4 of The Villain’s Fatal Plot (Gravesyde Village Mystery #1)
FOUR: PAUL
After escorting drunken Clement back to the orchard footpath, Paul Upton didn’t return to the tavern. He sat on a bench in front of the parsonage, contentedly finishing his lunch and admiring the lovely day. And studying the firewood needing cutting and the garden he’d promised Patience that he’d weed.
He had seen Bosworth’s carriage drop off a passenger, but he’d been too far away to greet the visitor. She’d been gone by the time he reached the street again.
Odd to have three new visitors. Perhaps they knew each other.
The two male arrivals in the village wore the uniforms of soldiers, and the unshaven beards of travelers. He’d gathered they were friends of Jack, so he thought no more of them. Jack had a stable where he raised and sold carriage horses to city folk. Paul’s duties were firmly rooted in helping the village survive.
His stepsister and stepmother were part of the manor folk, but he was the orphaned grandson of Irish immigrants. Even though Oxford educated, he’d known since childhood that he’d follow his adopted father into the ministry. The world held so much suffering, someone had to lend a hand.
He was dusting off bread crumbs when he heard a woman’s scream. Or thought he did. It was a fair distance .
He pushed through the chapel gate to the road and saw men and the pony-sized hound running from the tavern toward the other end of the village. Gravesyde wasn’t large. Mr. Oswald from the mercantile stepped onto his porch, and a few women peered around their front doors. He wasn’t the only one hearing screams.
Paul picked up his pace and was on Henri’s heels by the time the men halted at the end of town, glancing about in puzzlement. The screams had stopped.
“Miss Edgerton’s,” Paul said tersely, pushing the half-open gate into the flower garden. “Her door is open.”
He’d only arrived in Gravesyde in the spring. He’d spent a great deal of the time since then helping at the manor, while learning his congregation as he could. The smiling former governess had attended services regularly and aided his other church ladies in restoring the neglected chapel to order. He couldn’t say he knew much of her beyond that. He pushed the door wider.
Inside, a veiled stranger kneeled on the carpet, clinging to a pale hand and weeping silently. At the arrival of four bulky men, she merely wept harder, shoulders shaking. Mercifully, the hound remained outside.
Biting back an epithet, Paul slipped into full parson command. “Henri, Minerva is with Betsy’s mother. Send her over, if you will, then fetch Meera.” Slighter than the two bulky soldiers, Paul pushed past to kneel beside the woman.
Clever-witted Henri understood immediately. He ran out, muttering French imprecations under his breath.
“I’ve sent for a physician,” Paul murmured, for the benefit of the widow as well as the looming soldiers. He took Miss Edgerton’s limp hand in his own and knew at once that a physician couldn’t save her. “Sgt. Russell, Major Ferguson, if you would, guard the doors. We don’t need curiosity seekers. Whoever takes the kitchen might make a fresh pot of tea.”
Well-versed in death and taking orders, the soldiers did as told. The major took the front and the sergeant retreated to the kitchen.
Paul didn’t explain that Gravesyde and Wycliffe Manor had more than their fair share of inexplicable deaths, and he was taking no chances that this might be one.
The governess wasn’t exactly elderly, possibly in her fifties, as best as he could ascertain. Blond hair fading to silver, she’d worn spectacles, which had fallen on the floor. Two teacups sat on the table between the sofas, along with the teapot. He touched the pot. It wasn’t quite cold.
Paul pried the weeping widow off the floor and led her to the other sofa, offering his handkerchief since her lacy one was sodden. Having been brought up as a cleric’s son, he had a natural facility for speaking on all occasions, but he was at a loss here.
“I’m Paul Upton, the local curate, Mrs. . . ?”
She shook her head and pushed her veil aside to wipe her cheeks. She wasn’t a beauty, but she was much younger than he’d expected. Silky, light brown hair framed a clear, rosy complexion and big dark eyes.
“Is she...?” She didn’t complete the question, but Paul understood.
“I’m afraid so. Perhaps an attack of the heart?” He was no physician. That’s why he’d called for Meera. He didn’t like those two teacups on the table. “Were you having tea with her when it happened?”
She shook her head in reply. A kitten wriggled out of her cloak pocket, and she held it up to her chin, closing her eyes, presumably in grief. The kitten mewed pitifully.
“Sergeant Russell, along with the tea, see if there’s anything for a kitten, please,” he called back to the kitchen. “Perhaps you would like to go to the kitchen until the physician arrives?” That would give him the opportunity to poke about a bit.
The widow squeezed the kitten tighter. “No. I will stay with her. I wasn’t there when she needed me. I am here now.” She burst into tears again.
Paul had the impression of a strong-willed woman behind the cascade of tears, one who might have been pushed to a brink but not over, not yet.
Minerva rushed in the front door just as the ginger-haired Sgt. Russell returned with a tea tray and a fresh pot. The burly soldier ought to look awkward holding the delicate china, but he slid the tray onto a tea table with expertise, then pulled up two chairs near the empty hearth.
Paul’s betrothed was a petite whirlwind. Minerva tested the prone governess’s eyelids, her pulse, then briskly turned to the weeping widow on the sofa. “Up you go, let’s have a spot of tea. Oh, look at the lovely marmalade kitty! What’s his name?”
“Marmie,” the widow whispered, unable to resist the tempest that was Minerva. She took the seat the soldier held out for her.
“Marmie! Is that a male name? Aren’t all marmalades male?” Minerva took the opposite seat and offered the sugar.
While the women conversed about cats and performed the tea ritual, the soldier gestured toward the kitchen. Paul followed him back.
Closing the door between the rooms, Sgt. Russell nodded at the open kitchen door. “There’s a muddy footprint on the doorstep, and the door wasn’t closed proper. I’m thinking as neat and tidy as everything is, that the footprint would have been swept up if the lady had time to notice it.”
Paul refrained from expressing surprise but stepped outside to examine the doorstep and garden. “It’s been dry lately. The ground is hard. There’s a stream runs back of that hedge.” He stepped down to examine the neat flagstone path through the rows of vegetables and herbs. “More muddy steps. So someone came in through the hedge gate.”
“Did the lady make herbals?” The soldier picked a few of the green leaves edging the vegetables and sniffed them. “Thyme and rosemary. There’s mint and oregano in those pots. That’s lavender and foxglove—those two aren’t for cooking, but she has them planted close, with the herbs.”
A soldier who knew herbs and cooking? And who also spoke with educated, if not aristocratic, accents. Jack had interesting friends.
“She may have. Minerva will know.” Paul examined the footprints, but it wasn’t a full outline, just the edges where dirt had fallen off. He’d say male, simply because ladies usually didn’t clomp through mud unless they wore boots or pattens. The maids though... He hated thinking like this. Some poor girl could have delivered eggs.
Returning to the kitchen, neither of them spoke their thoughts. Sgt. Russell opened a pantry door and found a tin of fresh biscuits he added to a plate. Paul carried them into the front room, where Meera Walker had arrived to examine the deceased.
The manor’s physician/apothecary glanced up at their entrance. Stoic Meera seldom expressed alarm, but the line on her brown brow warned she wasn’t happy. “I cannot do anything.” She waited until Paul was closer before murmuring, “There are signs of irritation in her mouth. It was an herbal tea from the smell of it. I will take the teapot back to the manor. One teacup was empty and the other spilled.”
“You might want to leave by way of the back garden. Sgt. Russell noted plants he thought might be used in herbals and not cooking. Perhaps she treated herself?” That was Paul’s hope, although the extra teacup and the muddy footstep...
Perhaps in other, more normal towns, this death would have passed as natural. Here in Gravesyde, after a few too many incidents, they’d all learned to be suspicious. Perhaps ignorance was bliss, and one could believe crime didn’t happen if it wasn’t detectable, but that didn’t make murder any less criminal.
Who would want to kill an unassuming maiden lady?