Anne Perry: A Christmas Guest

A few minutes later the doctor arrived and was taken upstairs.

“Heart failure,” he informed them when he came down again. “Very sad. She seemed in excellent health otherwise.”

“She was!” Grandmama said quickly, before anyone else could reply. “She was a world traveler, walked miles, rode horses, and even camels. She never spoke of any ailment at all.”

“It can come without warning,” the doctor said gently.

“An attack that kills?” Grandmama demanded. “She did not look as if she were in that kind of agony!”

“No,” he agreed with a slight frown. “I think it more likely that her heart simply slowed and then stopped.”

“Slowed and then stopped?” Grandmama said incredulously.

“Mama-in-law!” Caroline remonstrated.

“I think it may well have been peaceful,” the doctor said to Grandmama. “If that is of comfort to you? Were you very fond of her?”

“She barely knew her!” Caroline said tartly.

“Yes, I was fond of her.” Grandmama contradicted her, equally tartly.

“I’m very sorry.” The doctor was still gentle. He turned to Joshua. “If I can assist with arrangements, of course I shall be happy to.”

“Thank you,” Joshua accepted.

“We shall have to inform the rest of her family,” Grandmama said loudly. “Bedelia whatever-her-name-is.”

“I have been thinking how on earth I can write such a letter,” Caroline acknowledged. “What to say that will make it … better sounds absurd. If I simply say that we are terribly sad to inform them, will that be best?” She looked worried, and “sad” would be no exaggeration. There was a grief in her face that was quite genuine.

Grandmama’s mind was racing. What was she allowing herself to think? Heart slowing down? Nuts that everyone knew were indigestible? One dose of peppermint water? Had Maude been murdered? Preposterous! That’s what came of allowing one’s daughter to marry a policeman. This was Caroline’s fault. If she had been a mother of the slightest responsibility at all she would never have permitted Charlotte to do such a thing! Thomas Pitt, as a law enforcement official, was not a suitable husband. He had absolutely nothing to commend him, except possibly height?

But if someone like Pitt could solve a crime, then most certainly Grandmama could. She would not be outwitted by a gamekeeper’s son, half her age!

And if Maude Barrington had been murdered, then Mariah Ellison would see that whoever had done so was brought to justice and answered to the last penny for such an act. Maude might have been an absurd woman, and a complete nuisance, but there was such a thing as justice.

Grandmama felt as if a light and a warmth had gone out of the air and a heaviness settled in its place, which she did not understand at all.

“You should not write,” she said firmly to Caroline. “It is far too dreadful and sudden a thing to put in a letter, when apparently they live so near. Snake, isn’t it? Or something like that.”

“Snave,” Caroline corrected. “Yes. It’s about four or five miles away. Still well within the Marsh. Do you think I should go over and tell them myself?” Her face tightened. “Yes, of course you’re right.”

“No!” Grandmama said quickly. “I agree it should be done personally. After all, she was their sister, however they treated her. Perhaps they will even feel an overwhelming guilt now.” She thought that extremely unlikely. They were obviously quite shameless. “But I will go. You have arrangements to make for Christmas, and Joshua would miss you. And I imagine I actually spent more time with Maude than you did anyway. I may be able to be of some comfort, inform them a little of her last days.” She sounded sententious and she knew it. She watched Caroline’s expression acutely. It would be a disaster if she were to come, too; in fact it would make the entire journey a waste of time. In order to have a hope of accomplishing anything she would be obliged to tell Caroline what she suspected with increasing certainty the more she considered it.

A spark of hope lit in Caroline’s eyes. “But that is a great deal to ask of you, Mama-in-law.”

Of course she was dubious. Mariah Ellison had never in her life been known to discomfort herself on someone else’s behalf. It was totally out of character. But then Caroline did not know her very well. For nearly twenty years they had lived under the same roof, and for all of it Grandmama had lived a lie. She had hidden her misery and self-loathing under the mantle of widowhood. But how could she have done anything else? The shame of her past continually burned inside her as if the physical pain were still raw and bleeding and she could barely walk. She had had to lie, for her son’s sake. And the lie had grown bigger and bigger inside her, estranging her from everyone.

“You did not ask it of me,” she said more sharply than she meant to. “I have offered. It is the answer that makes the greatest sense.” Should she add that Caroline and Joshua had made her welcome here and it was a small repayment? No. Caroline would never believe that. They had allowed her in, she was not welcome, nor was she stupid enough to imagine that she could be. Caroline would be suspicious.

“I have nothing else to do,” she added more realistically. “I am bored.” That was believable. She was certainly not about to admit to Caroline, of all people, that she actually had admired Maude Barrington and felt a terrible anger that she should have been abandoned by her family, and very possibly murdered by one of them. She waited for Caroline’s reaction. She must not push too hard.

“Are you certain you would not mind?” Caroline was still unconvinced.

“Quite certain,” she replied. “It is still a pleasant morning. I shall compose myself, have a little luncheon, and then go. That is, if you can spare the carriage to take me there? I doubt there is any other way of travel in this benighted spot!” A sudden idea occurred to her. “Perhaps you fear that …”

“No,” Caroline said quickly. “It is most generous of you, and I think entirely appropriate. It shows far more care than any letter could do, no matter how sincere, or well written. Of course the coachman will take you. As you say, the weather is still quite clement. This afternoon would be perfect. I do appreciate it.”

Grandmama smiled, trying to show less triumph than she felt. “Then I shall prepare myself,” she replied, finishing her tea and rising to her feet. She intended to remain at Snave for as long as it required to discover the truth of Maude’s death, and to prove it. Knowing alone was hardly adequate. Her visit might well stretch into several days. She must succeed. It was not a matter of sentimentality, it was a matter of principle, and she was a woman to whom such things mattered.

PART TWO

The journey was bumpy and cold, even with a traveling rug wrapped around from the waist downward. There was a bitter, whining wind coming in off the sea, though now and again it cleared the sky of clouds. The light was chill and hard over the low-lying heath. This was the invasion coast where Julius Caesar had landed fifty-five years before the birth of Christ. No such thing as Christmas then! He had gone home and been murdered the following year. That had been by his own people too, those he had known and trusted for years.

Eleven centuries after that, William, Duke of Normandy, had landed with his knights and bowmen and killed King Harold at Hastings, just around the coast from here. Somehow she was faintly satisfied with Caesar coming. Rome had been the center of the world then. England had been proud to be part of that Empire. But William’s invasion still rankled, which was silly, since it was the best part of a thousand years ago! But it was the last time England had been conquered, and it annoyed her.