colored plaits flying away from her shoulders and eyes too big for her face, a face too old for a girl of thirteen or fourteen. Eyes that didn’t smile. But her mouth did, in a curve of shy, almost secret, recognition. I forced myself to smile back. She was Jenny Spender. A girl who knew a lot about the unfairness of life. Whenever I thought about my wedding day, I thought of Jenny.
They were gone. Their voices thinned to a wordless howl. I brushed away a dead leaf that blew against my cheek and went on. Every time I came to a dip in the road a swath of mist would engulf me and I hugged close to the right. Rocks and briar scratched my legs, but it would have been fatally easy to stray too far across the road, as a Mr. Woolpack, a local locksmith, had regrettably done the previous year. Chitterton Fells had been stunned by the tragedy. I remember showing the headlines to Ben…
A car motor shattered my reveries. Turning, I peered back up the hill. Out of the mist, a long dark car was nosing around the bend. Only it wasn’t a car in the usual sense of household vehicle. It was a hearse.
Odd! Shouldn’t it have left the cemetery much earlier? It stopped about twenty yards from me. Backing even farther onto the verge, I flagged the driver on. But the hearse stood motionless. I wished I had not read that book about the car with a mind of its own.
The mist had thickened and a pulse began to beat in my head. If the hearse would not get going, I would. There could be no question of its driver being inextricably lost because the road led directly down into the village, and its motor was running at an even purr so the hearse wasn’t stalled. Ignobly, I turned. One foot in front of the other. The road twisted. The hedgerow ended and a cobbled wall began. Once or twice I was tempted to look back over my shoulder, but I experienced a growing certainty that if I did, the hearse would be stopped and sitting, looking at me.
My pace quickened. I craved the comfort of a cup of tea. Lights. At last. Street lamps gleamed palely ahead, like illuminated dandelion puffs. I could discern the crumbling Roman archway which divided Plum Pretty Lane and The Square. I pelted toward it.
A youth on a bicycle slammed to a halt smack in front of me, face livid in the glare from his lamp. Flipping an obscene gesture under my nose, he sucked in a fetid breath.
“Lady, you shouldn’t be let out without a bloody seeing-eye dog!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Bleeding right you are. When did Her Majesty give you the flaming right of way, Miss?”
“Mrs.,” I said automatically. “Mrs. Bentley T. Haskell.” The hearse was pulling to the curb in front of Pullets Jewelers, where six months ago Ben had bought my engagement ring.
Kicking down on a pedal, the youth let out a low whistle. “What! The woman with the recipes men die for! Reckon I should count meself lucky to have crossed your path and lived!”
He was still yelling after me as I entered The Square. “How rude! Know what, lady? Why don’t you drop a line to Felicity Friend. You know, the woman what writes that sob page in
The fat Ellie could not have run from the kitchen sink to the refrigerator without getting winded, but now, pursued by his insults, I sprinted the length of Market Street without catching my breath.
In daylight, Chitterton Fells abounds with the cobblestone charm of a Victorian card. Now, in the dusky twilight, each facade looked secret, a little sly. All the shops were closed. Lights gleamed through grilled windows. Silence hung thicker than the mist. Reaching The Dark Horse pub, I cut a curve around Mother, feathers glistening like soap flakes, now waddling patiently up and down outside the saloon bar.
At last! There it was-Abigail’s-the gabled Tudor building with Georgian bow windows on the ground floor. At one of those windows, a curtain twitched. Otherwise, the place was depressingly lifeless. A sudden bang made me jerk around.
But the person closing the door of Bragg, Wiseman & Smith, Solicitors, was no ghostly apparition. It was a solidly built, middle-aged woman. Lady Theodora Peerless, Mr. Wiseman’s private secretary. As she drew near, I called out a greeting. She made no response and my silly, expectant smile slid off my face. Bracing myself, I called again, but her footsteps were already swallowed by the mist. She must not have heard me. Teddy Peerless liked me, or rather, hadn’t shown unmistakable signs of loathing. But that was before… She
Slowly I went up the red brick steps and under the dark green awning lettered
Portraits of famous chefs hung on the wainscotted walls of the octagonal foyer. How sad to remember the day I purchased them and the night-watchmen lanterns, now electrically wired and mounted, and the gleaming library table that was to do duty as a reception desk. Despite its unpleasant, sad associations, Abigail’s was sanctuary, a place where even phantom hearses could not get me.
A waiter trod softly across the parquet floor, his lips hooked into a smile, hands fluttering in a display of welcome. I could not recall meeting him before, but Ben had proved a hard taskmaster during the probationary period, and staff had come in one door and out the other.
“Out jogging, Mrs. Haskell? I perceived you from the window in the Bluebell Room while smoothing out a wrinkle in the curtains.”
I undid another button of my coat, unable to speak. My eyes turned toward the Bluebell Room. I considered its remodeling and furnishing one of the finer moments of my career as an interior designer. Moss green carpet, walnut-panelled walls. The fabric that covered the chairs and couches grouped around the fireplace repeated the bluebell pattern of the curtains and valances. My favorite touch was the portraits of children rambling through local woods in springtime. Ben had been delighted with the results. Now the room was flawed in a way I could never put to rights. At six o’clock on a Friday evening it should have been crowded with sherry-sippers and cigar-puffers waiting to be summoned to one of the dining rooms. Guests should be anticipating such delights as Ben’s inimitable fricassee of pheasant (to be featured in a full-colour photo on page 239 of the cookery book). Instead, it stood empty.
The waiter, whose name (according to the discreet name tag on the lapel of his jacket) was William, took my coat and folded it over his arm.
“Permit me to offer my sympathy, Mrs. Haskell. This is an ’orrible,” he cleared his throat, “horrible time for you. But mustn’t despair of business picking up.” Removing a piece of lint off my coat, William rolled it between his fingers. I fought an insane desire to yelp.
He quelled it by adding soberly, “Death does seem to have reached epidemic proportions of late in Chitterton Fells. Especially among the gentlemen. We have the late manager of the Odeon, gone missing, then found in the deep freeze with the ice lollies. And only this afternoon two police constables stopped in for coffee (most gratifying) and mentioned the discovery of a male cadaver down a disused well in Chitterton Woods.”
Those pictures in the Bluebell Room! One of them had shown children throwing pennies down that well. A dish of chocolates sat on the rent table, and I had to squeeze my hands behind my back to stop them from lunging.
“Did the policemen say if the man was Mr. Vernon Daffy, the estate agent?”
“They did.” Butler’s face assumed an expression of gravity. “But I should not be keeping you, Mrs. Haskell. Would you be here to see Mr. Flatts? He is presently engaged in practicing gravies, but I know he will be delighted to see you.”
“No, please! Don’t even mention I am here. I would like a pot of tea, after which I will ring for a taxi to take me home.” Poor Shirley Daffy, she had been so wonderfully brave when Vernon disappeared last week. And now he’d been found down a well!
“As you wish, madam.” William’s tone was reproving.
No matter. I absolutely would not see Ben’s assistant, even though he was my cousin Freddy. After all, he had failed me in the Cooking Crisis that awful day…
William ushered me into a small room. The words Coffee Parlour were engraved on the brass doorplate, but the room was designed for afternoon tea as well as morning coffee. It was softly lit by brass wall lamps shaded in pink silk. Warm and rosy shadows played upon the stuccoed walls between the age-blackened beams. I wished I could get warm.
“Some hot buttered toast with your tea, Mrs. Haskell?”
“Thank you, but I’m not hungry.”
I had grown adept at lies of this sort. Besides, I had been afraid to eat ever since it happened, in case I
