Page 23 of Word of the Wicked (Murder in Moonlight #5)

C onstance woke before he even touched her bedchamber door. It was not yet fully light, and her arm protested sharply enough to make her wince as she threw herself out of bed and staggered toward the door, which she wrenched open at the first brush of his fingers.

Without hesitation, she cupped his cheek and kissed his mouth. “Safe journey,” she whispered. “Write if you cannot come back.”

“Of course.”

Even in the gray gloom of the morning, she could see in his eyes that he did not want to go. That made her ache and rejoice.

“Let’s get married, Solomon,” she blurted, and his face lightened like sunrise.

He kissed her back and then he was gone, leaving her to slip back into her room before the inn staff caught her in her nightgown.

For some reason, her heart felt bright and hopeful. She washed in cold water and dressed before opening the shutters and letting in the lightening gloom. She imagined she heard the train puffing its way out of the village, carrying Solomon to London.

Fetching her notes on the case from the desk drawer, she spread them out across the bed and updated them with what they had learned last night—including the fact that someone, probably either Miss Fernie or Peregrine Mortimer, had pushed her down the stairs.

She would tell Solomon when he returned.

And in the meantime, she would take more care.

She reread the letters that had survived, along with what they had been told about the others.

Had they been properly written by hand, or even spoken face to face, they could hardly be called spiteful or nasty.

In fact, they were almost polite, except for the you will pay bits at the end, which had a certain element of parental warning about it.

Like it won’t get better if you pick it or don’t make faces because if the wind changes, you’ll stay like that .

A parental-style warning to adults? Or children reflecting their words back at them? Kindness. Responsibility. The injustice of false accusation. There was nothing inherently wrong in any of that, so why communicate it in such a way?

Someone with no power, as Mr. Raeburn had said, or someone who feared the consequences of speaking out?

Against the lady of the manor, the local shopkeepers, the blacksmith, the doctor’s wife.

What on earth did they have in common? Who had somehow been wronged by all of them?

Or at least witnessed their wronging of someone else?

Miss Fernie might imagine herself wronged, but in fact, she had stolen. She was in the wrong. But she had denied receiving any letter. She might have lied, of course, but Constance didn’t particularly want to visit her alone to ask more forcefully.

Then there was Mavis Cartwright, whose illegitimate daughter was the vicar’s maid. Would Mavis not be a traditional target for moral outrage? The children certainly did not appear to respect her, which was probably learned from their parents. Perhaps she was worth talking to again.

Though neither Mavis nor her daughter had pushed Constance down the stairs. If that was related to the matter of the letters, then it was either Miss Fernie or Peregrine Mortimer. Neither of which seemed right.

There were more facts to collect. Someone had sent these letters, and however polite they were, however moral the intention, the nature of the act was malicious and frightening.

Good people had been upset and made fearful of their neighbors.

Suspicion had been sown, and in such an atmosphere, ill feeling could easily get out of hand.

Constance had already been pushed down the stairs.

Her stomach rumbled. She gathered everything up off the bed and put it back in the desk drawer before she went downstairs for breakfast.

“Which house belongs to Mrs. Cartwright?” she asked the innkeeper’s wife.

“Mavis? First in Green Lane behind the square,” came the answer. “But you’re more likely to find her in church. Haunts the place, she does, poor old thing.”

Constance returned to her room, donned her hat and coat, and sallied forth to church. She hoped she would find Mavis there, for it struck her that the woman might be more inclined to tell the truth—whatever that might be—in God’s house.

In fact, she sat in the same pew as before, or at least knelt there, clearly praying.

Unwilling to interrupt her, Constance walked quietly around the church, admiring a stained-glass window and enjoying the sense of timeless peace generally found in churches.

She could understand why a troubled soul would come here so often.

When the figure in the corner rose from her knees to her seat, Constance walked toward her, though she gazed up at the vaulted ceiling in an admiring kind of way.

“Good morning,” she said, as though noticing Mavis for the first time—then, as the other woman jumped to her feet, “Don’t let me disturb you.”

“You’re not. It’s time I got on, anyway. I’ll come back later.”

Constance sat down next to the place Mavis had been occupying. “Do you know all about the church and its history?”

“Not really. Mr. Raeburn is most knowledgeable, though.”

“Then I shall ask him. Actually, it’s quite fortuitous I ran into you here. I had been going to call on you later.”

Mavis blinked. “You had?”

“Indeed. Knowing the village as well as you must…”

“Idle tongues…” Mavis began, bridling visibly.

“Oh, not idle,” Constance said, hoping she looked suitably shocked at the very idea. “I’m sure you know—because everyone else seems to—that Mr. Grey and I have been asked to look into the matter of some unpleasant letters sent anonymously to various people in the village.”

To her relief, Mavis sat down again. “Mrs. Chadwick. That’s why the doctor brought you.”

“Yes, but it isn’t just Mrs. Chadwick who has received one. I believe you were the late Mrs. Mortimer’s personal maid? Did you know her daughter well?”

Redness mottled Mavis’s face. “Miss Jessica? Yes, of course. Lovely girl, she was.”

“Pretty? Good-natured?”

“Oh yes. I was always surprised she didn’t marry.”

“Were they a kind family to work for?”

“Oh yes.” Mavis slid her gaze free. “The kindest.”

“But they wouldn’t keep you on,” Constance said delicately, “once you had your baby?”

“Well, they couldn’t really, could they?” Mavis gave a quick glare, shifting on the pew. She seemed to catch sight of the altar and the cross behind it and groaned. “I sinned, but I won’t add to it in this place. They had to turn me off because of the father.”

Constance caught the other woman’s rather desperate gaze. “The father of your child?”

Mavis closed her eyes. “Mr. Mortimer,” she whispered.

Of course. Miss Mortimer had never married because she had been repelled by her father’s faithlessness, his adultery even with his wife’s maid…

“You couldn’t say no to the master,” Mavis said.

“No one did. But I should have. I should have had the strength and I didn’t.

But you mustn’t think the mistress turned me off with nothing.

I got a pension and the right to live in the Green Lane cottage.

Miss Jessica never took that away, though she must know. Everyone knows.”

“It must be hard in a small community like this,” Constance said gently. “When everyone is aware of your business.”

Mavis shrugged. “It’s old news and no one can say I haven’t repented. Mrs. Raeburn even took my innocent Alice on. She’ll be fine.”

“And you?” Constance asked.

“Me? I’ll be fine too.”

“No one is unkind to you? No one casts up your past?”

“No point, is there?”

Constance resorted to bluntness. “Then you have never received one of those anonymous letters?”

“Course not. Not one can say I don’t know my own sin!”

“Who doesn’t?” Constance asked, watching her carefully. “Who is too full of their own righteousness?”

Mavis sniffed. “Not for me to say.”

“I don’t mind saying. For the greater good, you might nod or shake your head. Miss Fernie?”

Mavis didn’t answer, but then, she didn’t need to. Her wildly flaring nostrils said it all.

“Miss Jenson?”

Mavis shook her head.

“Young Mr. Mortimer?”

Mavis’s lip curled. “The apple didn’t fall far from the tree there. Old Mr. Mortimer to the life, he is. But he knows he isn’t righteous. He just doesn’t care.”

“Mrs. Chadwick?”

A vehement shake of the head.

“Sophie Chadwick?”

A puzzled frown, a shrug, and a half shake.

“Edgar?”

“He’s a child!”

“Children can see things in very black-and-white terms.”

“And in that they are right,” Mavis declared.

“Hmm. Tell me, in your opinion, would it ever be right to send an anonymous letter of accusation? Frightening people?”

Constance watched the expressions chase across Mavis’s bewildered face.

She had been judged for most of her life since she had conceived her daughter, even though servants were all too often powerless to deny their masters.

But she seemed singularly incapable of judging.

What Constance had imagined might be scorn for others was merely the armor protecting Mavis from the constant slights she felt she deserved.

*

Solomon, having seriously considered going first to the Silver and Grey offices, got the hackney to set him down in front of his own house.

Jenks emerged as usual as soon as he entered the house. The butler betrayed no surprise, merely took Solomon’s hat and coat. “Your guest is in the sitting room, sir.”

Solomon regarded him. “You know it isn’t me.”

“I have been with you for more than two years.”

“And so I should know better than to ask if you’ve told anyone else your…suspicion.”

“You should, sir.”

“Then I shan’t. Thank you, Jenks.” Solomon strode forward, then paused, saying awkwardly, “How is he?”

“I could not say. He eats.”

“It’s a start,” Solomon said. “Any…unusual visitors?”

“None at all, sir. One moment.” Jenks vanished into his cubbyhole and emerged with a thick pile of letters in one hand. “These arrived while you were gone. I took the liberty of keeping them for you.”