Anne Perry: Anne Perry's Christmas Mysteries

“It is fortunate Lord Woollard left when he did,” Clara observed.

Grandmama wondered whether that remark was made to convince her that they had not had sufficient accommodation for more than one further guest at a time, hence the need to turn Maude away. If so, it was ridiculous. She knew there were at least two more rooms unoccupied. And family should be first, most particularly when they were returning from a long time away.

“Indeed,” she said, as if she were agreeing. “Is he a close friend? He will be very sad to hear of Maude’s demise.”

“He never met her,” Bedelia said hastily. “I do not think we need to cloud his Christmas by telling him bad news that can scarcely be of concern to him.”

So they had entertained a mere acquaintance in Maude’s place!

“I thought perhaps he was a relative,” Grandmama murmured.

Arthur smiled at her. “Not at all. A business acquaintance.” He sounded tired, a strain in his voice, a kind of bitter humor. “Sent actually to assess whether I should be offered a peerage or not. See if I am suitable.”

“Of course you are suitable!” Bedelia said sharply. “It is a formality. And I daresay he was pleased to get out of the city and visit us for a day or two. Cities are so…grubby when it snows.”

“It isn’t snowing,” he pointed out.

She ignored him. “At least his visit was not marred by tragedy.”

“Or anything else,” Clara added quietly.

“I think it will snow,” Agnes offered, glancing toward the curtained windows. “The wind has changed and the clouds were very heavy before sunset.”

Grandmama was delighted. Snow might mean she could not leave tomorrow, if it were sufficiently deep. “Oh dear,” she said with pretended anxiety. “I did not notice. I do hope I am not imposing on you?”

“Not in the slightest,” Bedelia assured her. “You say you were a friend of Maude’s, even on so short an acquaintance. How could you not be welcome?”

“Of course,” Agnes agreed again, echoing Bedelia. “You said Maude spoke to you a great deal? We saw her so little, perhaps it would not be too distressing if we were to ask you what she told you of her…travels?” She looked hastily at Bedelia. “That is…if it is seemly to discuss! I do not wish to embarrass you in any way at all.”

What on earth was Agnes imagining? Orgies around the campfire?

“Perhaps…another time,” Arthur said shakily, his voice hoarse. “If indeed it does snow, you may be here with us long enough to…” He trailed off.

“Quite,” Bedelia agreed, without looking at him.

Zachary apologized. “We are all overwrought,” he explained. “This is so unexpected. We hardly know how to…believe it.”

“We had no idea at all that she was ill.” Randolph spoke for the first time since Grandmama had come into the room. “She seemed so…so very alive…indestructible.”

“You no more than met her, my dear,” Bedelia said coolly.

Grandmama turned to her in surprise.

“Maude left before my son was born,” Bedelia explained, as if an intrusive question had been asked. “I think you do not really understand what an…an extraordinary woman she was.” Her use of the word extraordinary covered a multitude of possibilities, most of them unpleasant.

Grandmama did not reply. She must detect! The room was stiff with emotion. Grief, envy, anger, above all fear. Did she detect the odor of scandal? For heaven’s sake, she was not achieving much! She had no proof that it had been murder, only a certainty in her own suspicious mind.

“No,” she said softly. “Of course I didn’t know how extraordinary she was. I spoke with her and listened to her memories and feelings, so very intense, a woman of remarkable observation and understanding. But as you say, it was only a short time. I have no right to speak as if I knew her as you must have, who grew up with her.” She let the irony of the forty-year gap hang in the air. “I imagine when she was abroad she wrote wonderful letters?”

There was an uncomfortable silence, eloquent in itself. So Maude had not written to them in the passionate and lyrical way she had spoken at St. Mary. Or she had, and for some reason they chose to ignore it.

She plowed on, determined to stir up something that might be of meaning. “She had traveled as very few people, men or women, can have done. A collection of her letters would be of interest to many who do not have such opportunities. Or such remarkable courage. It would be a fitting monument to her, do you not think?”

Agnes drew in her breath with a gasp, and looked at Bedelia. She seemed helpless to answer without her approval. A lifetime habit forged in childhood? Perhaps forged was the right word, it seemed to fetter her like iron. It made Grandmama furious, with Agnes and with herself. It was a coward’s way, and she knew cowardice intimately, as one knows one’s own face in the glass.

Clara turned to her husband, then her mother-in-law, expecting some response.

But it was Arthur who answered.

“Yes, it would,” he agreed.

“Arthur!” Bedelia said crisply. “I am sure Mrs. Ellison means well, but she really has no idea of the extent or the nature of Maude’s…travels, or the unsuitability of making them public.”

“Have you?” Arthur asked, his dark brows raised.

“I beg your pardon?” Bedelia said coolly.

“Have you any idea of Maude’s travels?” he repeated. “I asked you if she wrote, and you said that she didn’t.” He did not accuse her of lying, but the inevitability of the conclusion was heavy in the air. She sat pale-faced, tight-lipped.

It was Clara who broke the silence. “Do you think it will still be acceptable for us to have the Matlocks and the Willowbrooks to dine with us on Christmas Eve, Mama-in-law? Or to go to the Watch Night services at Snargate? Or would people think us callous?”

“I don’t suppose we can,” Agnes said sadly. “I was looking forward to it too, my dear.” She looked at Clara, not at Zachary who had drawn in his breath to say something.

“Death does not alter Christmas,” Bedelia responded after a moment’s thought. “In fact Christmas is the very time when it means least. It is the season in which we celebrate the knowledge of eternity, and the mercy of God. Of course we shall go to the Watch Night services in Snargate, and show a bond of courage and faith, and solidarity as a family. Don’t you think so, my dear?” She looked at Arthur again, as if the previous conversation had never taken place.

“It would seem very appropriate,” he answered to the room in general, no discernible emotion in his voice.

“Oh I’m so glad,” Agnes responded, smiling. “And we have so much to be grateful for, it seems only right.”

Grandmama thought it an odd remark. For what were they so grateful, just now? The fact that Lord Woollard had considered Arthur suitable for a peerage? Could that matter in the slightest, compared with the death of a sister? Of course it could! Maude had not been home for forty years, and they had considered her absent permanently. She had chosen to return at a highly inconvenient time, otherwise they would not have dispatched her to stay with Joshua and Caroline. Was there really some family scandal she might speak of, and ruin such a high ambition?

Any further speculation on that subject was interrupted by the announcement of dinner. The meal was excellent, and richer than anything Caroline had offered.

Conversation at the table centered on other arrangements for Christmas, and how they might be affected either by Maude’s death, or the weather. They skirted around the issue of a funeral, and when or where it should be conducted, but it hung in the air unsaid, like a coldness, as if someone had left a door open.