Imogen Robertson - Anatomy of Murder

Rachel stood and held out her hand. “Harry, I only say these things because I love-”

Harriet held up her hand sharply, keeping her eyes fixed and unseeing on the new page in front of her.

“Do not say it, Rachel. Leave.”

She heard the tap of her sister’s slippers on the Earl of Sussex’s floorboards and the click as his finely fitted door closed behind her. Mrs. Westerman lowered her hand, but made no further movement for some time.

Jocasta arrived at the hedgerow at a smart pace, picked up Boyo by the scruff of his neck and dropped him into Sam’s arms.

“Did he find something, Mrs. B?” And when Jocasta frowned at him: “Mrs. Bligh, I mean to say. . ma’am.”

She looked back into the grass without replying. The way was scattered with odds from the kiln behind them. The fires must have been burning there for fifty years, and it had had the time needed to throw its offcuts around. When the man who owned this field now turned them up with his plow, or the boy walking in front to guard his blades found any, they were picked up and chucked to the edges-thickened and twisted slices of unglazed slate, half-bricks. She took a step or two from the path and reached down to where Boyo had been snuffling. There was a little pile of stones here; not so raggedy and fallen-about-looking as the others, and whereas between all the other little heaps and falls, grasses had stuck their heads up and fallen back, no living thing had been given time to crawl up among these.

Jocasta lifted the topmost piece and put it aside, then pushed away one or two from the edge. The bitter and sick taste crawled into her mouth.

“What is it, Mrs. Bligh?” She felt the lad come up and look over her shoulder. “Oh. I see it.” His shadow slunk away again.

Under the top slate sat a half-brick, with a jam of red on it and a little swirl of hair. The ends not caught up in the blackening slick gleamed guinea gold in the last of the daylight. Jocasta carefully placed the slate back on the pile, and looking about her added a couple more, then sat down on the stile and stared back the way they’d come.

Sam tucked Boyo through the hedgerow beside her, so he could gad about without snuffling at the little stone tent she’d made.

“Fools,” Jocasta said at last. “If they’d left that rock lying in the path, I might have said, ‘Jocasta, old girl, the cards are taking you scrambling.’” She patted the stile beside her. “Might have thought, the girl could have stepped up here and fallen off and knocked her head on one of these stones. Easy enough to do. Might have thought all those lies in the cards were just chatter and they were no more than mocking me with an accident to come. But no. Those two hid the stone-and that means they are as guilty as the serpent himself.”

Sam put his head on one side. “But you’ve got them now, haven’t you? I mean, if you bring the constable out here or take him the brick. .”

“It’s the placing that tells the story, lad. They can say I did that if we don’t know the whys as well as the ways. Let it bide there. If we have a fuller story, then they’ll see it with our eyes. We’ve time.”

Sam kicked at a bit of stone on the other side of the path. “But why are you looking so sudden sad now, Mrs. Bligh? You knew they did her in yesterday. You called them murderers to their faces, I heard you do it.”

Jocasta leaned back, watched the sun turning the clouds purple and pink and sighed. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you, lad, that being right leads to being content. Most of the time in my experience it leads just the other way.”

It was some time later that there was another knock at her door and Harriet jumped. She half-expected to see Rachel come back into the room, but it was Lady Susan who stepped in.

“You and Rachel had a fight,” she said without preamble, and hopped up onto the bed.

“Yes, we did, my lady. Did she send you to plead for her?”

Lady Susan dropped back onto Harriet’s blankets and plucked at her skirts. “Pah! Of course not. There was shouting, then she ran out of here crying. Was she telling you you should be more ladylike?”

Harriet twisted around in her chair to find Lady Susan’s clear blue eyes peering at her from the heap of cushions. “She was, in her way. How did you guess such a thing?”

“When Graves or Mrs. Service is angry with me, that is usually the cause.”

Harriet smiled. “They are right, Susan. Do not follow my way.”

Lady Susan turned onto her front and sighed loudly. “But if you had been ladylike last year I might be dead now. And Jonathan. And Graves too, most likely. Isn’t that so?”

It was a fair remark, and Harriet paused before answering. “Perhaps. But Rachel tells me I must think of baby Anne now.”

Lady Susan crossed her ankles and scratched at her side, complicated maneuvers that dislodged her slippers from her stockinged feet.

“Well. When Anne is nineteen, I shall be. . twenty-eight, so very old and respectable and married, and rich and with plenty of rank. So I will find her a nice husband if you are too busy finding murderers and saving people like me.”

Harriet was surprised to feel her throat tightening. “Thank you, Susan.”

The little girl sprang off the bed and kissed her. “I’d be glad to, you know. Now it is time for you to dine soon, and Cook has been cross and had a great deal of trouble getting oysters today, so remember to be especially nice about them.” Then she pulled her slippers back on and was out of the room before Harriet could say another word.

Crowther had a sense of some danger as he mentioned to Harriet that he had asked Mr. Harwood to call on them after dinner, and then murmured his reasons for doing so. Mrs. Westerman’s movements were constrained, her only remarks insipid in the extreme and the muscles in her jaw tightened considerably when Rachel joined them. Once the formalities of dining were disposed of, rather more swiftly than usual, and she had spoken at some length of the quality of the oysters and demanded the recipe be brought to her as soon as convenient, Harriet retired to the library. Crowther did not linger long over his wine with Graves, and joined her there after only a few minutes.

“Dear God, Mrs. Westerman, what was that?”

She was slumped again in the armchair by the fire-which, Crowther hoped, indicated that her performance was at an end.

“What are you talking about, Crowther?” she said wearily, without looking up.

“I understand you have had some disagreement with your sister, but it seems cruel to subject Graves, Mrs. Service and myself to your simpering parody of good manners. I am glad it was not one of the occasions where Lady Susan dined with us.”

Harriet folded her arms. “Do not lecture me, Crowther.”

“You are a guest in this house.”

Harriet was silent for a while. She had been angry, she still was, but it was that most bitter and uncomfortable anger that came with a sensation of guilt. She did not think it would ever occur to Graves, admiring her as he did, to question her behavior. For that kindness she had called him a fool in the blackness of her heart. Mrs. Service was never anything but reasonable and friendly. Rachel was still in many ways a prim little girl, much more the vicar’s daughter than Harriet, but she did not deserve Harriet’s scorn, and it had been scorn that was the driver of her performance at dinner. She had been mocking and humiliating Rachel, she had known she was doing it, and now here was Crowther to tell her so. Graves it had left confused, Rachel miserable, Mrs. Service slightly exasperated and Crowther angry, and she had got no relief from it.