“It was not my idea, but hers.”
“Then it is most fortuitous that you happened upon Miss Jones just in time for her to warn us of impending doom. And what did
“I saw a clump of wet tea leaves and a fortune-teller who is herself our bad luck.”
Darcy went to a decanter on the side table and poured two glasses of wine. He handed one to Elizabeth. “Was your call at the vicarage any more successful?”
“Potentially. It seems the housekeeper hired two local girls to help in the kitchen on the night of the Eltons’ dinner party. Mrs. Knightley and I were on our way to speak to them when we encountered Miss Jones, and I must confess that I forgot our errand entirely once I saw her.”
“We can seek them out tomorrow. My visit with Mr. Knightley to the post office proved as futile as predicted. We had to rouse Mr. Fletcher from a sound sleep when we entered, and he has no memory of either letter’s being left there. Is Mrs. Knightley yet convinced that Mrs. Elton authored the riddles?”
“More than ever. Mrs. Elton admitted to sending the first, though I believe Mr. Elton wrote most of it. As to the second, however, she claimed ignorance. I must confess that after today, I understand Mrs. Knightley’s inclination to attribute any unpleasantness to the vicar’s wife. Mrs. Elton is more boastful and vulturous than the bunch of crows we observed fighting over carrion as we departed.”
Her choice of words amused him.
“You would criticize me for linguistic imprecision after I just endured gruel?” She paused. “Very well — flock of crows. Though three seems rather small to constitute a flock. And doubtless there is some more colorful word than ‘flock’ to describe crows. Something akin to a ‘gaggle’ of geese, or a ‘parliament’ of fowls.”
“I believe that there is, but I cannot recall the term.”
“The way they were cawing and vaunting their triumph, I might use our mysterious riddler’s ‘gathering of braggarts.’ The village children found them quite a spectacle.”
Darcy sipped his wine, his thoughts idly skipping upon other names for groups of birds, terms he used when shooting. A nide of pheasants, a bevy of quail, a covey of partridges. He had never hunted crows, though anyone who had ever heard the wretched cries of the troublesome creatures might be tempted to cut them short. A group of crows in great agitation sounded like they were screaming bloody—
Murder.
“This was a device, I suppose, to sport with my curiosity, and exercise my talent of guessing.”
“A murder of crows.”
Elizabeth, who had been about to sip her wine, lowered her glass. “I beg your pardon?”
“A gathering of crows is called a ‘murder,’ ” Darcy said.
“Indeed? Well, now — that is a rather ominous term.” She took a drink from her glass after all.
“It is an old word. I cannot now recall where I read it.”
“I think I prefer ‘gathering of braggarts.’ ”
He was silent a moment, brows drawn together. “If a braggart is one who crows—”
She set aside her wineglass. “ ‘Perhaps an unkind individual witnessed the
“Maybe it is not the abbey.”
She recalled Miss Jones’s flippant dismissal of his question regarding the Churchills. “The village church, then? It sits on a hill.”
Darcy was silent, his countenance drawn into the expression that always overcame it when he was deep in contemplation. His gaze seemed to light on various objects in the room, but Elizabeth knew he saw none of them.
“Suppose Churchill himself is the elevated religious house?”
Her eyes widened. “His name! Of course — a church on a hill. ‘Perhaps an unkind individual witnessed the murder of Churchill.’ Now we are progressing!” She was so delighted by the breakthrough that she repeated the sentence. “Oh! — but who is the individual? It all keeps coming back to that, does it not? Somebody saw more than he — or she — has revealed. But is it
The return of Mr. Knightley from the parish meeting temporarily suspended their discussion. Upon entering the room, he sensed their excitement. “What occurred in my absence?”
“We believe we have solved part of the riddle,” Darcy said.
“Does it shed light on the Churchill matter?”
They shared their partial solution. Mr. Knightley was at once galvanized. “A murder of crows. .. I never could have provided the word myself, but now that you say it, I remember having heard the term before.”
“Perhaps now that we have worked out part of the riddle, you might supply the identity of the unkind individual, since you know the villagers better than we,” Elizabeth suggested.
“The more I think upon it, the less I believe the first portion of the message simply refers to a disagreeable resident of Highbury,” Darcy said. “As the message’s second and third parts required deeper penetration to divine ‘murder’ and ‘Churchill,’ doubtless the first part holds hidden import as well. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about words and language — a professor or philologist — could make better sense of it.”
“Are you acquainted with any such persons?” Mr. Knightley asked.
“Not directly. But I would wager we all know someone who is.”
“I trust it is an individual who understands the need for discretion?”
“Without question,” Darcy said, and Elizabeth knew precisely whom he had in mind. “Lord Chatfield.”
Though of ordinary English origins, Miss Loretta Jones was the most exotic creature in the village’s collective memory to take up residence in Highbury. The young woman and her tale offered a combination of beauty, tragedy, and mystique that trumped even Hiram Deal’s charm. When word spread that the former gypsy captive had set herself up as a fortune-teller to earn her way back home, men, women, and children flocked to have their palms or tea leaves read — and to have a look at Miss Jones.
To her own happy fortune, having taken up residence with Mrs. Todd lent Miss Jones a degree of respectability. The honest widow held a solid reputation within the village, and many took it as a sign of endorsement that Loretta now enjoyed her hospitality. Mrs. Todd, everyone agreed, would not allow just anybody into her home. Though in their minds, some harbored dark doubts about the extent of misuse a pretty, unprotected young woman might have suffered at the gypsies’ hands, no one dared ask her about it directly. They accepted her outward show of wide-eyed innocence as hope that she had somehow maintained it in truth, and her entrepreneurial efforts as proof that her innate quickness had not left her entirely defenseless.
In short, the good folk of Highbury saw in Loretta Jones the same thing Loretta saw in their palms and teacups — precisely what they wanted to see.
“A ring! That means a wedding.” Miss Jones looked up from the teacup into which she had been peering. The young woman seated at the table with her blushed but could not suppress a smile.
“When?”
“Before too long, I should think. Within a twelvemonth.”
“A whole year?” The woman cast a disappointed glance across the common room of the Crown Inn, where Loretta conducted her augury. The soothsaying trade had proved too brisk for Mrs. Todd’s cottage to accommodate it, so she had commandeered a corner of the public house as her workplace. As her prophecy-seeking clients consumed not only tea, but considerable quantities of other food and drink while awaiting their few minutes of forecasting, it was an arrangement that proved as beneficial to the proprietors of the Crown as to Miss Jones.
Elizabeth followed the woman’s gaze. A group of farmhands, one of them quite handsome, occupied a table
