Anne Perry - A Christmas Secret

“Poor man. That was a terrible thing.” Mrs. Paget shook her head. “But vicars sometimes get to know secrets people can’t bear to have told. You be careful, Mrs. Corde. There’s wickedness in the village in places you wouldn’t think to look for it. You watch out for your husband. A pleasant face can very easily fool men. Some look harmless that aren’t.”

Clarice decided to be just as blunt.

“Indeed, Mrs. Paget.” She thought of the marks of dragging in the cellar floor. The vicar had trusted a woman he should not have, perhaps even trying to help her. “Do you have anyone in particular in mind?”

Mrs. Paget hesitated again, but it was clear in the concentration of her expression that she was not offended at being asked.

The kettle started to steam. Clarice warmed the teapot then placed the leaves in and poured on the water, setting it on the table to brew. She sat down opposite Mrs. Paget, still waiting for an answer.

Instead Mrs. Paget asked another question. “What did you find down there?”

Clarice was not sure how much she wanted to answer. “Nothing conclusive.”

Mrs. Paget surprised her again. “No doubt you were disturbed by my coming. I’m sorry about that. I did call out, but not loud enough for you to hear downstairs. Perhaps there is something, if we looked properly. The poor man deserves justice, and that old fool Fitzpatrick isn’t going to do anything about it. I’ll come with you, if you like? Hold the lantern.”

Clarice felt her stomach tighten, but she had no possible excuse to refuse. And she could not bring herself to tell Mrs. Paget a deliberate lie. For one thing, it could be too easily found out if anyone at all were to go down there, and what could she say? She needed to keep the evidence; it might be the only proof of what had happened. “Thank you. That would be a good idea. I didn’t really have time to look.”

After tea and cake Clarice went gingerly down the steps again with Mrs. Paget behind her, holding the lantern. Of course they found exactly what Clarice had already seen. “That was where I found him.” She pointed to the doorway of the second cellar.

“So he fell here,” Mrs. Paget said quietly, pointing to the bottom of the steps. “And whoever it was dragged him there—” She indicated the marks. “—over to there.”

“Yes, I think so.”

Mrs. Paget studied the floor. “By the shoulders, from the look of it. And those are their own footmarks…unless they are yours?”

Clarice stared at the distinct mark of a boot well to the side of the tracks. “It might be Dr. Fitzpatrick’s,” she said with a frown.

“Going backward?” Mrs. Paget asked gently, her eyes bright. “Why would he do that, unless he was dragging something? And it looks a little small, don’t you think?”

She was absolutely right. It was a woman’s boot, or a boy’s.

As if reading her thoughts, Mrs. Paget said the same thing. “Tommy Spriggs, one of the village boys, said he saw a woman hurrying away from here the day the vicar was last seen. He’ll tell you, if you ask him. Hurrying she was.”

“Who was it?”

“Ah, that he doesn’t know. Could’ve been any grown woman who could walk rapidly and wasn’t either very short or very tall.”

“Can you take me to him?” Clarice asked.

“Of course I can.” Mrs. Paget picked up her skirts to climb back up the stairs. “Good thing you came down here, Mrs. Corde. And a good thing you’re not minded to let injustice go by, simply because it’s easier and, I daresay, more comfortable.”

I n the evening Clarice told Dominic about it, and of finding Tommy Spriggs and confirming what Mrs. Paget had said.

“Had he any idea who she was?” Dominic asked.

“None at all. What he had told Mrs. Paget was all he knew,” she answered. She looked at him, both fearing the same answer. Neither spoke it.

C hristmas Eve dawned so cold the windows were blind with fresh snow, and even inside the air numbed fingers and toes. Outside all color was drowned: white earth, white sky. Even the black trees were mantled in white. Just a few filigree branches were hung with icicles here and there, though when it had thawed sufficiently for them to melt into daggers of ice was hard to say.

Blizzards blew in from the east, and through that cold-gripped world Genevieve Boscombe came to the door and asked to see Dominic.

The study fire wasn’t lit, so he took her into the sitting room. He spent several moments poking the wood and coal until the fire caught a better hold and started to give a little more heat. Only when she sat down and he looked more closely at her eyes did he realize that no hearth in the world was going to assuage the cold inside her.

“I killed the Reverend Wynter,” she said quietly. Her voice was flat, almost without emotion. “I lied to you when I said he wasn’t going to do anything about John and me not being married. He was going to tell everyone, so all the village would know. I couldn’t take that, not for my children.”

Dominic was stunned. After what Clarice had told him the previous evening, they both knew it was horribly possible that Genevieve Boscombe was guilty. Even so, he could not easily believe it. He hated the thought. He had liked both of them. But then how good was he really at judging character any more deeply than the superficial qualities of humor or gentleness, good manners, the ability to see what is beautiful? And he sympathized with her. He well understood those who truly loved and could not bear to lose the warmth and purpose from their lives.

“I did!” she repeated, as if he had not heard her. “It’s not a religious confession, Vicar. I expect you to tell the police so they can arrest me.” She sat with her back straight and her hands folded in her lap. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but there were no tears in them now. He thought she had probably done all her weeping, at least for the time being.

“How did you do it, Mrs. Boscombe?” he asked, still reluctant to accept and looking for a way for her to be not totally at fault.

She looked surprised, although it was visible as just a momentary flicker of the eyes. “I carried the coke scuttle down for him,” she replied. “I hit him with it. He fell, and I pulled him into the other cellar, so he wouldn’t be found too soon.”

“But you knew he would be found sometime,” he said.

“I didn’t think. I don’t remember.” And she refused to say anything further, merely requesting that he report her to the constable so she could be arrested.

There was, in effect, no constable, only the blacksmith who was appointed to represent the law in the village. She insisted on going with him. After much protest, the blacksmith locked her in the large, warm storeroom next to the forge.

Dominic went straight to tell John Boscombe what had happened, trudging through the snow. He was cold inside and out, even when he stood in Boscombe’s kitchen in front of him.

“She only said it to protect me!” Boscombe said frantically. His face was haggard, his eyes wild. “Where is she? I’ll reason with her. I was the one who killed the vicar. I quarreled with him because he wanted me to get straight with the law, and the church.” His voice was rising in pitch, rising desperately. “I had an accident in the summer. Could have been killed. Was then the vicar told me that if I had been, my family would get nothing, not even the house, because they weren’t legal. Genny and the children would be thrown onto charity, and folks might not be that kind to them, seeing I still had a wife alive that I’d never sorted things with.”