Slaying is Such Sweet Sorrow (16 page)

He gave a snort of laughter. “If Mr. Folke’s any criterion, you’d be better off taking up cigars. Enjoy it while you’ve got it, that’s my philosophy. Carpe diem all the way.”

“Right, that
would
be your philosophy—the same one my cat lives by.”

“You’ve got a cat? Hey, we were always dog people! I seem to recall you saying cats only put up with people for what they can get out of them.”

“That pretty well describes my cat’s attitude toward me.”

Tyneford had petered out to just the occasional house now, and a two-lane motorway had taken the place of the High Street. The sun was warm, sheep were grazing, wildflowers splashed color across the hedgerows. It was an altogether perfect spring day in one of the most beautiful countrysides on earth.

“This is the first time I’ve seen the famous English countryside up close,” Quin said. “Pretty, isn’t it? A really
green
green, with sort of—soft edges.” He laughed self-consciously, and I frowned. It made me nervous to have us thinking of the same thing at the same moment, the way we’d done when we were together.

“Is it like this where you live?” he went on.

“The whole country’s like this,” I answered shortly.

“You’re telling me all of England is green fields and sheep and little hills?”

“Oh, they have mountains too, and seacoasts, and things,” I said vaguely. “I haven’t seen the whole country yet, but I’m going to. I’m going to walk all over it.”

“That doesn’t sound too safe,” he said as a car swished past us, powdering our clothes with the dust of the shoulder. “You’re liable to end up roadkill.”

“No, no, there are these footpaths all over the country, following the fields and rivers and hills, leading from one village to another—you don’t have to see a car all day. But you can stay at inns and pubs, you don’t have to sleep in a tent like on the Appalachian Trail. Remember how Ellie Markham and I used to say we were going to walk the trail from Bear Mountain to—”

I broke off, feeling as if I were hopping out of the way of one of those speeding cars. I glanced quickly at him and then away. He was smiling down at me, and his blue eyes were softer, not arrogant or mocking now.

“Yeah, I remember that. And Frank and I used to make fun of you. He drew that picture of a bear chasing you two up a tree, and Ellie got it framed and hung it in the hall?”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Frank was a good cartoonist, for an accountant.”

“You know, their second boy got married last month—Mark, remember him? They asked me to come, but—Really big wedding, I heard. Out in Connecticut.”

He didn’t have to tell me why he hadn’t gone. I wondered how many of our old friends’ events he had missed because Janet wasn’t welcome. Serves him right, I told myself staunchly.

“There it is,” he said, and I looked where he pointed, to a small dirt road leading up a hill on our left. There was a sign at the junction with a crude hand-painted picture of a cow and the words T
OP
B
ARROW
F
ARM
.

“What do you think—could Frank do a better cow than that?” he asked as we started up the little road. This time I let myself laugh out loud.

At the top of the hill stood the old stone farmhouse and a cluster of outbuildings. A boy was pouring grain into a trough in the barnyard, black and white cows pushing around him to get at it. He smiled as we passed, unconcerned about the big beasts almost trampling him.

“You the artist?” Quin called.

The boy looked uncertain, and I gestured back down the hill and said, “The cow picture.”

“Oh. Nah, me brother done that. Awful, i’n it?”

Quin and I laughed and started down the other side of the hill, with forest on our right and a fallow field on the left. There had been a lovely breeze at the top, but it diminished as we came down into a deserted little valley, and I felt sweat running down the back of my neck. The farm ended abruptly with a wire fence, and the fields gave way to weedy, uncultivated open land and patchy woods. There was no sign of human habitation, no animals grazing down there. The silence was so profound that I strained my ears to pick up some sound, the call of a bird, the rustle of leaves. But there was nothing.

“Hell of a change from the other side, isn’t it?” Quin said.

I hated to admit it, but I was glad I wasn’t alone in that desolate landscape. Tramping through strange ground toward the bolt-hole of a mad woman, I couldn’t really tell myself I’d rather be alone.

“Think that’s it?” he said a few minutes later, and again I followed his pointing finger. Through a tangle of branches and vines, a few hundred yards off the road, you could just make out the shape of a fairly large brick house. I was reminded of the picture of Sleeping Beauty’s castle in Emily’s old fairy-tale book, entwined with wild roses and briars, holding the royal family and its retinue in charmed slumber.

“Looks like that Sleeping Beauty picture, doesn’t it?” Quin almost whispered. It seemed appropriate to whisper as we approached the house, pushing our way through the overgrown vegetation, especially when we saw that the front door was standing open. Up close, I could tell it had been a nice, substantial house before McCreary’s daughter had abandoned it. But now the woodwork was almost bare of paint, bricks were missing from the walls, windowpanes were broken, roof slates lay shattered on the ground.

“What a shame,” I said.

“The woman’s got to be terminally nutty if she’s moved into this place,” Quin remarked.

“Believe me, she is. But I’m not giving up now, not after coming all this way.” I started through the door, and he followed me.

The inside was worse than the outside. Rain and snow had come through the broken windows and roof, stained and warped the floorboards, soaked the furniture the tenants had left behind. The whole place smelled sickeningly of rot and mold.

“Kit, there’s no way she could be here,” Quin whispered. “Even a crazy woman would have taken one look and run for the Oxford train. Let’s get out of this hole.”

I called, “Mrs. Stone! Perdita? It’s Catherine Penny. Are you here?”

Nobody answered. There was a doorway on each side of the hall, and I forced myself to go through the one on my left. The room was dark, the windows completely covered by overgrown bushes. A small, dark shape ran from one corner to another. I backed out quickly into the hall. It stretched back at least ten feet and ended behind a staircase with missing risers. Since there were no windows, it got darker and darker as it went, finally too dark to make out anything, or anyone, who might be lurking there.

“Come on, Kit,” Quin said aloud. “There’s nobody here!”

“I have to know for sure,” I whispered, shaking him off. With a hammering heart, I stepped into the room on the right, and then I knew for sure.

Perdita sat in a dark red velvet chair, staring at me. Her arms, in a long-sleeved white blouse rolled up to the elbows, stretched along the arms of the chair. I was briefly reminded of a queen receiving homage from her throne. I whispered her name and stepped closer, and suddenly I realized that her black eyes were not focused on my face. They were blank, like a doll’s eyes. They didn’t blink. Then I saw that the arms of the chair were crusted with dried blood. It had run down to form twin pools on the floor at either side, still wet. I saw the deep, red open gashes in her wrists and the razor blade still clutched in her left hand.

I stopped abruptly, and I must have made some sort of noise, because Quin’s voice said in my ear, “It’s all right, baby, she can’t hurt anybody now.” He stepped over to the corpse while I backed away from it, and picked up a scrap of paper from its lap. He shook his head as he read it. Then he showed it to me.

My legs were suddenly too weak to hold me. I staggered and immediately felt his arms around me, turning me to face him, drawing me against him while his gruff voice murmured words I couldn’t understand. I grabbed hold of his shirt and hung on as if survival depended on it, enveloped in the old, familiar smell of his tobacco, letting myself weep for Perdita Stone.

Tonight, grave sir, both my poor house and I

Do equally desire your company;

Not that we think us worthy such a guest,

But that your worth will dignify our feast.

—Ben Jonson

L
ighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord, and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night, for the love of Jesus Christ.”

Mr. Ivey sat down in the celebrant’s chair, and the village choir stood up. Their earnest, slightly discordant rendition of the Twenty-third Psalm floated over us from the rear pews like a soft breeze: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want, He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He restoreth my soul…”

It had been four days since we’d found Perdita Stone, and I was still shaky. I had come to Evensong to get my soul restored, to try to rid myself of images of mutilated arms and dead eyes, and it was helping. Sitting between Alice White and Fiona Bennett, surrounded by solid Norman stone and listening to the beautiful Jacobean English Mr. Ivey had restored to our services, I did feel calmer. Maybe I wouldn’t have a bad dream tonight.

Of course, it wasn’t just the horror of finding the body that had me upset. However much I’d have liked to, I couldn’t very well tell myself the other thing hadn’t happened. I had to face the appalling fact that I had fallen into Quin’s arms and stayed there for a while.

It hadn’t been very long, I was sure of that. He had drawn me out of the house and we had climbed the hill again to the dairy farm in shocked silence, his hand tight around mine. The farmer’s astonished wife had showed him to the phone and he’d called the Tyneford police. They had arrived in a very few minutes, sirens screaming, and Quin had taken them back to the abandoned house while I turned down offers of tea and biscuits and heard at length about how awful I must be feeling. The boy from the barnyard came and stood in the doorway, staring at me with avid curiosity. I didn’t want to be rude, but I just couldn’t bring myself to speak.

We were driven to the Tyneford police station where Quin had recounted our story, and I’d just nodded or shaken my head whenever a question was addressed to me. They’d called the Thames Valley Constabulary, and eventually we’d been taken back to Oxford, to be questioned again. Then I’d driven home and had been there ever since. I talked to the Tylers after Peter came home again. But Quin and I hadn’t seen or spoken to each other.

I’d heard through Fiona that Perdita’s only living relative, a sister, had come from Kent and identified the handwriting in the suicide note from letters she’d received years ago. They hadn’t been in touch since Perdita had somehow insulted her, back when her mind had started going. She’d seen to the cremation specified in the will and, as sole heir, was now moving out the contents of the Oxford house preparatory to selling it.

“I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” the choir finished and rustled back into its seats. Mr. Ivey stepped to the altar and invoked “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost” on us, and Evensong was over. As we got into our jackets and picked up our handbags, I wondered if Perdita dwelt in the house of the Lord now. I wasn’t sure about any of it, but if there was a God who welcomed the good to his house and condemned the wicked to some dark, eternal homelessness, he’d surely have found a corner for a poor sick woman like Perdita. On the other hand, maybe she’d simply been snuffed out, like a guttering candle that couldn’t give a steady light, and hadn’t gone anywhere at all. As I approached the south porch where Mr. Ivey stood shaking hands, I wondered why he had chosen to devote his life to something nobody could prove positively, why his face shone with such serenity, as if he possessed some secret knowledge closed to people like me.

“Ah, Catherine,” he exclaimed when I gave him my hand. “How good it was to hear of Peter’s release! You must be tremendously relieved to know he is cleared of suspicion, and largely through your agency.”

“Oh, I am, vicar,” I assured him. “I’m very happy.”

“If I may say so without offense, your aspect suggests disquiet more than happiness,” he said, peering into my face with concern. “Is something still amiss?”

“No, I assure you all is well.” It was devilishly easy to pick up his speech patterns. “I suppose I feel some regret because the killer didn’t turn out to be a really evil person who deserved a bad end.”

“Yes, poor lady,” said Alice White, beside me. “Hearing of such things makes one feel fortunate to be a spinster. Marriage so often leads to violent death, doesn’t it?”

“Not nearly so often as it leads to perfect love and peace,” Fiona said briskly.

“Ah, yes, the words of the marriage ceremony,” said Mr. Ivey with delight. “And based on my own experience I should certainly agree with you, Fiona.”

The subject was making me uncomfortable.

“I suppose I’ll be seeing your son tomorrow evening, vicar,” I put in, to change it. “I’ve been invited to dinner at Cyril Aubrey’s with the faculty—sort of a joint celebration of Peter’s freedom and commemoration of Perdita and, I suppose, Edgar Stone too.”

“Have you indeed? I didn’t know about that. I haven’t heard from Tom for several days,” he said rather wistfully. “It was a mistake, I think, to express any misgiving at his relationship with that young woman. Do greet him in my name, won’t you, if he is there?”

Fiona, Alice, and I left him soon after and hurried down the churchyard path. It had rained most of the day, and the enormous oaks dripped on the gravestones, the blossoms of ragged robin that dotted the grass, and us. The ancient stone cross beside the church was so soaked it looked darker than it really was, its delicately carved scenes from the life of Christ almost indistinguishable. The grass had grown back over the ground beside it, and no sign remained of the hole that was opened there on my first day in Far Wychwood. I shuddered a little at the memory, but I remembered how the two women walking with me had come into my life the same day, and that warmed me.

“Why don’t both of you come back to Rowan Cottage for dinner?” I asked them.

“I’d love to,” Fiona said without hesitation. “John’s on a case and will be out until all hours, and you know I’m not fond of eating alone.”

“Oh dear,” Alice began timidly. “I should like to come, Catherine, only—well, I don’t like to miss tonight’s episode of
Doctors,
the young Indian pediatrician is treating a little boy for a most mysterious condition, and his sweetheart, I mean of course the pediatrician’s sweetheart, appears to be developing an attachment to the new houseman, not at all a nice young man—”

“I understand,” I said quickly. “Another time, then.”

She scurried off, exuding apologies, when we reached my gate. Fiona and I crossed the road to take a look at the slab of cement that would form the foundation of the new house. I had watched the pouring process from my front window two days before. It covered a lot more of the property than George Crocker’s hovel had.

“I predict three or four people, at least, will be living in that house,” Fiona said.

“Well, not even a single person would want to live in the amount of space George did.”

“And yet his parents raised four children there, and his grandparents even more! I wonder what kind of people the new owners will be—perhaps a nice little family with kiddies for Archie to play with when he comes over.”

“That would be wonderful,” I said. “But as long as they aren’t weekend people or long-distance commuters, I’ll be satisfied.”

Muzzle was sitting on the doorstep, and as we got closer I saw a dead field mouse lying at his feet. Fiona and I both stopped and made disgusted sounds, and the cat stood up and greeted us with a trilling kind of meow, looking smug.

“That’s a token of esteem, I believe,” Fiona said. “I’m sure I’ve heard somewhere that a gift of vermin is considered a very high honor among cats.”

I kicked the little victim off the step, into the high grass. “I’m afraid I’d rather be treated with his usual disdain than honored like that,” I said. “I guess I’ll have to get out the shovel and bury the poor thing later.” Muzzle sat down again and withdrew his gaze from me reproachfully.

But he slipped into the cottage when I opened the door and accompanied us to the kitchen, meowing loudly. I put his food down before starting on our meal.

“You know, the vicar was right,” Fiona said as I rummaged in the cabinets. “You don’t look as happy as you might, what with Peter being free and all. And I don’t think it’s all sorrow for that woman’s suicide. You’re worrying over something more personal.”

I put the opener to a can of tomatoes, and sighed. “Oh, Fiona, I’ll feel like such a fool telling you!”

“Rubbish, my dear. Didn’t I tell you about that silly argument I had with my sister last fortnight? It certainly showed me up for a mug, and yet you were as supportive as one could wish. Let me return the favor.”

I turned to look at her, still holding the can opener. “I don’t know how it happened. I was
over
him. I was okay with how things had turned out. I can’t understand it!”

“Oh, my dear, you haven’t got involved with your ex-husband again?”

“No, not
involved
! What happened was, when we went to look for Perdita Stone, somehow he got me talking to him after I’d sworn I’d never do it, and by the time we found her, well, I was shocked, of course, and—I actually let him take me in his arms.”

“Good heavens. And?”

“There’s no ‘and’! He just held me for a few minutes. But it felt good, Fiona! It felt
right
, you know? And I’ve been wondering if it felt that way to him too. And whether it meant he still—But of course I don’t want him to! I dread going to the Aubreys’ tomorrow night, but at the same time I’ve got to see how he acts when we meet again. Isn’t this the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard?”

I slammed the can of tomatoes down on the counter, and the juice splashed against the wall.

“My poor girl, come and sit down. Do you know, I always thought you protested too much. If you’d really got over him, you wouldn’t have been so furious with him all the time, unable even to hear him mentioned without going all mental. No, let me finish—you
can
get over him, but it will take more time than you’ve given it. And perhaps—now, don’t get shirty with me—perhaps he’s finally realized what he’s lost. It’s not impossible.”

“Listen to what I’m saying, will you? I do not
want
him realizing what he’s lost. Whatever this is, it’s happening completely against my will.” I dumped the tomatoes into an enamel pot and set it on the surface of my Aga stove. “I must have walked the equivalent of the distance to London in the past four days, and it hasn’t helped a bit.”

She came over and moved the furiously boiling tomatoes to a cooler spot. I was not yet an expert at Aga cooking, which involves a good bit of instinct. The cast-iron monsters cook by storing heat and radiating it over a broad surface, not by lighting a gas flame or electric element. It takes a while to get used to finding the spot with the right temperature, instead of turning a dial.

“What are you making?” Fiona asked.

“Vegetable soup, if that’s all right with you.”

“Yes, lovely. I’ll get started slicing the onions.”

We talked about my dilemma while we chopped vegetables and simmered them, and while we ate our soup with “biscuits,” which to me were still crackers. We never came to a conclusion, because of course there was none. If exercise and evensong hadn’t rid me of this revolting weakness, I didn’t know what else to try. But it was good to get it off my chest.

After she’d gone, when I settled in the wing chair by the fireplace to listen to the penultimate chapter of
Cranford,
I felt a pang of regret that I wouldn’t be in my place for its ending tomorrow night. Good, Catherine, I encouraged myself silently. In your own cottage, with your radio and your cat and your books, that’s where you’re happiest, and safest. Don’t let anybody interfere with what you’ve created here. Well, of course I won’t! I answered myself fiercely.

But another voice whispered that I sounded just a bit like Alice White, experiencing life and love through characters in a television show because people so often get hurt when they take chances on real life.

That’s ridiculous, I grumbled inwardly, sipping my Horlicks. I don’t even own a TV.

They started framing the new house the next day. When I left for the dinner party in the early evening, the wooden skeleton was starting to take shape, laid out on the concrete slab. The hammering and drilling didn’t even annoy me, although it drove Muzzle to parts unknown. It was exciting to think I’d soon see my neighbors moving in.

I happened to glance at the dashboard as I drove through the village and was surprised to see my gas tank was close to empty. Forgetful as I was, one thing I’d never done was run out of gas. I’d always imagined that to be one of life’s ultimate humiliations. But it tended to slip my mind more since I’d moved to England, probably because gas cost about five times what it did in the States, making filling up a painful experience one would rather not think about.

Fortunately the village petrol station was still ahead of me, at the junction with the big road to Oxford. As I pulled in and Harry Ames ran out to pump my gas, I saw Audrey, his wife, holding her baby daughter in the doorway. She waved Diana’s tiny hand at me, and I waved back. After Harry was inside again and I was starting away, I caught a glimpse of them together, their arms around each other’s waists, working up to a kiss.