Charlotte came over to them. Polite, everyday conversation resumed. Adelia only half listened. Her mind was making more connections.
But she didn’t like the tentative conclusions she was forming.
Sixteen
The house was in a typical pre-Christmas turmoil the following day which was Christmas Eve. The servants were frantically getting ready for the elaborate dinner that would take place on Christmas Day. As much as possible had to be done in advance because on Christmas Day itself, the servants would be expected to visit their own families, go to church even after attending Midnight Mass the previous night, and still ensure the good running of the household. Adelia and Theodore hid in the sitting room while Charlotte’s voice was heard from all corners of the house, issuing orders. She had a full schedule of dinners to host and to attend over the coming few days and she was keen to “have everything just so.”
Adelia felt a little twitchy, as if she “ought” to be doing things. But this was not her house. If she was at home at Thringley, she’d be deep in the same sort of domestic morass herself. She realised she didn’t miss it and her feeling of discomfort was merely habit born of expectations. She tried to let go of it.
Theodore stood by the window and grumbled to himself. “I am not a particularly church-going man, as you know,” he muttered. “But even I am beginning to think that all this attention to food and feasting is rather against the whole spirit of the thing. The Earl had a point perhaps?”
His mother, Grace, was also present. She was sitting as close to the fire as a body could get without bursting into flames, and she cackled with laughter. “You idiot boy,” she said to her adult son. “All this carousing is more in keeping with the oldest traditions of this time of year. You ought to embrace the Pagan side if it bothers you so much.”
Adelia said, “It’s not the history or theology that bothers him at all. A few days ago he was actually extolling the virtues of licentiousness and positive Saturnalia. He loves the excuse to eat and drink and make merry. He is being contrary now only because he is tired of town life and wants some peace and quiet.”
Theodore turned around. “I am tired, it is true. It’s hard to sleep in a strange bed with all this noise.”
“Again, no, that is not true.” Adelia said aloud in mock-confidentiality to Grace. “What’s stopping him from sleeping is this murder case that we are not even officially investigating.”
“Ah, yes,” said Grace. “While you were gallivanting last night at that dreadful party – and yes, all the town already knows what went on, you know, and they all know exactly who was present and what was said to that poor Mrs Dymchurch! – I was conducting an investigation of my own, on your behalf.”
Theodore came to sit with them. “What went on?”
Adelia had not yet told him. She was afraid that she would have to tell him about Charlotte, sooner or later, and she knew it would break his heart. Ideally, she would persuade her daughter to break it all off, whatever it was, and never speak of it again.
Grace said, “Well, that Octavia Dymchurch’s carryings-on with Digby Nettles all came out at last.”
“Did you already know? Is it really true?” Adelia said. “They all believed it.”
“I had heard a whisper while it was going on but nothing more and anyway, I kept it to myself. She had to find her happiness somewhere. I don’t condone it but I do understand it. But when the news broke yesterday and it was confirmed, many things made sense. I do believe it is true.”
“Why did this all come out yesterday?” Adelia said. “Someone has chosen to reveal this now, and I believe it is a distraction from something else. The man is dead and this could have all been forgotten.”
“By someone, you mean Lady Purfleet,” Grace said.
“Yes. I am inclined to see more to that lady than I had first suspected.”
“You mean to say that I am correct! And I always have been!”
“Yes, yes. We bow to your superior knowledge. Theodore, what do you think? Is it a distraction?”
“Perhaps so,” said Theodore. “But let us not be distracted at all from our main purpose. If they were lovers, Nettles and Mrs Dymchurch, then she is a prime suspect and it makes me ask again about the death of her first husband. Stomach issues? Really? It is now conceivable that Octavia Dymchurch poisoned her first husband and then killed Nettles.”
“It fits. Everyone is quite resolute in their refusal to think that Nettles was killed for any other reason. But why would she poison her lover? She would be more likely to marry him, surely?” Adelia said. “And you saw them together, Theodore, and they did not strike you as close, did they?”
“They didn’t but many is the time that a clandestine relationship is hidden by the principal actors behaving as if they hate one another in public.”
Adelia nodded. She agreed. But there was another mystery that had raised itself the previous night. “This Mariana da Costa is not Spanish, you know. She cannot speak a word of the language.”
Grace burbled with laughter once more. “And that is what I have been waiting to tell you!”
“That she’s not who she says she is?”
“Ha ha, no; more than that. Her father is a Cockney pharmacist called Mr Cox, not Mr da Costa.”
Even Adelia had to laugh at that revelation. “That makes perfect sense. What a cunning woman.”
But Theodore was not laughing. “A pharmacist?”
“Indeed so.”
“Then he has access to all manner of poisons. Including, of course, arsenic.”
“Oh,” said Adelia and “Ah,” said Grace. No one was
