Page 14 of Word of the Wicked (Murder in Moonlight #5)

To her annoyance, she had no sooner closed the front door behind her than her mother emerged from the dim parlor.

“Yes, of course,” she said lightly. “I hope you were not waiting up. Mrs. Lance sent me home in their carriage.”

“I thought she would. I just worry until you are home. I’m the same with Edgar and even your father.”

“You worry too much, Mama. Do go to bed now, or you’ll be exhausted tomorrow.”

“So will you.”

“But I am young—as you keep telling me.”

“And I am not yet in my dotage, thank you! How are things over the hill?”

The Lances’ estate was called Chettering, but in Sutton May, it was always referred to as over the hill . Even though the hill was barely a bump in the landscape, it stood out in the unrelieved flatness of the surrounding countryside.

“They all seem well. They are going to Miss Mortimer’s party tomorrow night, as we thought.”

“Excellent. I own I am looking forward to it—aren’t you?”

“Yes, of course.” Except, of course, that Perry Mortimer would be there too with his hot eyes and wandering hands. And he would not be there.

“Edgar says you went to Miss Mortimer’s for tea,” Mama said casually.

“She is always at home on Wednesdays.”

“Was Peregrine there?”

“Sadly, yes.”

“Why sadly?” her mother demanded. “Any other girl would be flattered to have such distinguished attention, which you appear to delight in thwarting!”

“Trust me, there is no delight,” Sophie said. “I do not like him, and I very much doubt that his attentions, as you call them, are honorable.”

“Sophie!” her mother said, genuinely shocked.

“He already sees himself as lord of the manor. And trust me, the daughter of a country doctor is not the bride he will choose.”

“You cannot possibly know that. He is merely a gentleman of deep feeling, which you would recognize if you spent time with people of your own class.”

“I count Netta Lance as my dearest friend,” Sophie said patiently, although she knew exactly whom her mother was referring to. “And she is very much a gentleman’s daughter.”

“Was Ogden there?”

“At Chettering? Oh no.” She met her mother’s gaze. “He was at the manor this afternoon, though. Teaching is considered an honorable profession by most people.”

“I suppose he will be there like a lowering black cloud tomorrow night, too.”

“No,” Sophie retorted. “Nor do I blame him when he has to face down snobbery like yours.”

“How dare you speak to me like that?”

Sophie dropped her gaze. She did not really want to fight. Or not yet. “I’m sorry. I know you aren’t really snobbish. It’s just that you never used to be like this.”

“Like what?”

“Unkind about people who might be a little…different.”

A strange look came into her mother’s eyes. A mixture of horror and fear that made Sophie feel instantly ashamed.

“Are you suggesting I return to kindness ?” Mama said unsteadily.

Sophie swallowed. “Perhaps I am.” She brushed past her mother to the stairs. “Goodnight, Mama.”

*

It had rained during the night, so the path to the Dickies’ piece of land was somewhat muddy for the inn’s horse and gig.

According to the innkeeper, the Dickies had always owned that same square of land, back through the centuries, maintaining their independence in the face of powerful landowners and occasionally unfriendly villagers.

“They make a living,” the innkeeper had told Constance and Solomon with a shrug. “But only just. It was touch and go in the forties—though everyone was hungry then, weren’t they?—and they’re certainly not well off now. But they seem happy enough.”

“Is there ill feeling against them in the village?” Constance had asked.

“Not really. Some tenant farmers like to pretend they’re better because they farm more land—but Hen Dickie just laughs and points out he owns his.

They’re a bit of a ragtag bunch and get the blame for any poaching or thieving, but it’s just like a habit.

No one’s ever laid any charges against them in my lifetime. ”

“I understand it came close,” Solomon had said, “in the Keatons’ shop a few weeks ago.”

“I heard about that.”

“Could Mrs. Keaton have been right?”

“She could have been, but more likely, she made a mistake. What would Nell Dickie want with a silk shawl? She’s hardly going to wear it to church.”

And at first glance, the muddy yard, which contained a ramshackle little house and a couple of outbuildings with hens and a pig, certainly did not seem the right environment for silk. A ball and a couple of other battered old children’s toys were scattered in the mud.

No one answered Solomon’s knock on the door, but in the field beyond the house, a man and a woman were laboring with spades and hoes, turning the soil ready for planting. The couple clearly saw them, for the woman called something to her companion and began to walk down the field toward them.

“Mrs. Dickie?” Constance said as she approached the gate. “My name is Constance Silver. This is Mr. Grey. Could we possibly have a word with you?”

“What for?” the woman asked suspiciously.

She was still young, not much more than thirty, despite her five children.

And she was pretty in an untidy, careless kind of way that made Constance think of Lady Grizelda Tizsa.

Beneath a square of cloth, her hair was escaping from its pins.

There was a streak of dirt across her nose and one cheek, and her once brightly colored clothes had faded with too many washes.

“We’re friends of Dr. Chadwick,” Constance said, since the connection seemed to soothe people.

It seemed to work, for Nell opened the gate and came into the yard. “Nothing wrong with the doctor, is there?”

“Not with his health,” Constance said, watching the frown clear from the other woman’s brow. “You are another of his friends.”

Nell shrugged. “He’s been good enough to us. Came when the little ’uns were sick and never dunned us for payment. Not many like that around here.”

“Is his wife kind, too?”

“You should know, if you’re his friends.”

“Well, she’s kind to us,” Solomon said. “That doesn’t mean she’s kind to everyone. In fact, the doctor is concerned because someone insulted her.”

“Yes? Insults ain’t sticks and stones,” Nell said. “They won’t hurt her—I should know.”

“Someone insulted you, too?” Constance asked.

Nell laughed. “Would I notice?”

“I heard Mrs. Keaton implied you had stolen from the shop.”

“ Implied ?” Nell mimicked. “Accused, tried, and convicted me, more like. She still spreading that around? I can’t even go into the shop now.

I’m afraid to send the children in case she has Heron chain them up, and Hen don’t have time to go.

I’ve got to wait for the market every week and get what I need then. I don’t care. Market’s cheaper anyway.”

“Someone pointed out to Mrs. Keaton that she shouldn’t bear false witness.”

“Good,” said Nell, glancing up at the sky.

“Is it just you and your husband working?” Solomon said. “No children around to help?”

“They’re all at school.” For the first time, there was an air of pride about her. “Even Tommy, our youngest, and he’s only five. He’s another good man, that Mr. Ogden. He sees the brightness in the kids and makes it shine brighter. If you see what I mean.”

Constance nodded sagely, although, in fact, she didn’t really see the clumsy, silent young man as much of an inspiration to scholarship for wild boys and girls. She imagined he was more likely ridiculed, in much the same manner as Peregrine Mortimer had mocked him yesterday.

“You never went to school yourself, Mrs. Dickie?”

“Nah, nor Hen neither. But the world’s changing and I’m glad ours will have chances we didn’t. Not enough land here to provide for five in the future. They’ll have to make their own way —the girls and all, though I know there’s some against educating females.”

“I’m all in favor of it myself,” Constance said. “I didn’t go to school either, though my mother taught me to read and write.”

Nell looked at her with more interest. “You done all right for yourself, then, ain’t you?”

“I hope so. Thanks for your time.”

“Pleasure,” Nell said, puzzlement in her voice as she turned and strode back into the field.

As they walked back toward the gig, Solomon murmured, “Look at the window.”

A white-whiskered old man watched them from the small window beside the door of the house. Presumably Hen Dickie’s father Harry.

“Upstairs,” Solomon said, and then she saw what he had. A patch of newspaper had been tied across the tiny, broken attic window.

The adults might not read, but they certainly had uses for newsprint.