by Faith Martin
With a scowl, Effie forced herself back to the task at hand, and looking down at the old lady’s grave, she realized that someone, almost certainly Isabel, had laid fresh flowers recently: a bunch of bright and cheerful daffodils with forsythia sprays. At that moment, the sun went behind a cloud and, as it nearly always did on a brisk spring day, an instant cold breeze seemed to rise up to replace it. Smiling at the cliché, Effie turned up the collar of her caramel-coloured suede coat with its warm sheepskin lining, and continued staring down thoughtfully.
Not that the patch of disturbed earth was being particularly helpful. But then, what had she expected? Unlike Gisela, she was certainly no ‘sensitive.’ No ghostly voice talked to her. Amused at the idea, Effie sighed and glanced around, vaguely seeking some kind of distraction from her introspection.
Beyond the stone walls, the village seemed determined to be unhelpful, as it remained silent and seemingly empty. But from her experiences of living in her own small village for so long, that didn’t particularly surprise her. Often there would be a flurry of activity from her neighbours in the morning and evening rush hours, leaving the streets empty during the day. Occasionally Effie would see another dog walker, like herself, and they’d exchange the usual pleasantries about the weather and each other’s canines, but mostly she could walk for miles and not meet another soul.
Perhaps, because Adderbury was by far a much bigger village than her own, and so very near to a large and popular market town, she’d expected a little more from it.
With a last brooding look at the final resting place of the lavender lady of Corwin’s latest case file, she turned away, her little dog bounding eagerly in front of her, joyously exploring the new smells and sights around him. He paused to bark maniacally at a grey squirrel that was scurrying along the low stone wall surrounding the churchyard before leaping up into an adjacent tree, and she had to pull hard on the lead to tug him away from it.
Back out on the lane, she randomly chose to turn right, and found herself wandering down pretty little side streets and lanes filled with attractive cottages and other prime real estate before finding herself in a little square that housed a handful of small and bespoke shops.
A tiny butcher’s shop that specialized in local game had a hare and a brace of pheasant hanging in the window. A cheese shop that, from its odd and meagre opening hours had to be someone’s hobby rather than a money-making concern, boasted a selection of hand-crafted cheeses, including a goat’s cheese with milk sourced from a local farm. Attached to it, in a tiny lean-to, a baker had set up another business, offering intricately flavoured homemade breads. Effie suspected the wife of the cheese-maker had taken up bread making as a hobby.
The butcher’s shop was open, as was a second-hand vintage clothes boutique. And sited next door to that was a delightfully quaint little herbalist’s shop, bearing the enchanting name of Jasmine’s Apothecary, which instantly drew Effie’s eye. Like the other shops, it had clearly once been a large cottage built solely as living premises, but now one large display window in what must have formerly been the parlour was packed with enticing wares. Intriguing lotions in a variety of jewel-coloured jars warred for attention with attractively shaped, unwrapped soaps in pastel shades.
The floor above, Effie guessed, had probably been remodelled into a small flat, which was either rented out or provided accommodation for the business owner.
She nervously eyed the hand lotions and face creams. Clearly the herbalist made all her own stuff since there were none of the generic, high-street brands on offer, only pretty, good quality glass jars with hand-written labels. They looked, she had to admit, very bespoke and attractive. But she had always used the high-end, well-known commercial products herself, since they were the kind that Michael had always bought for her on her birthday. And the thought of buying something that had been made in the back room of what was, literally, a little cottage like this, worried her. What if the herbalist didn’t know his or her job very well? What if she bought some hand lotion and found herself coming out in a rash?
Just as she was contemplating such a hideous fate and deciding that it was probably best not to risk it, the door opened and the old-fashioned bell situated in the opening tinkled merrily. An old lady came through the aperture, followed by a large, heavy-set younger woman with a mass of dark brown hair and big brown eyes.
‘Now, you be sure to soak your feet in warm water and one dash of that every night, and I guarantee . . . Oh, hello,’ the younger woman broke off abruptly as she spotted Effie.
The old woman blushed a little, and clearly not liking to discuss her podiatry problems in public, mumbled something about knowing how to use the tincture and hurried away.
Effie smiled to cover the slight awkwardness that followed, and to cover the silence, nodded towards the window. ‘The, er, lily of the valley hand cream. Is it for sensitive skin?’ she asked. Not that she had particularly sensitive skin.
‘Yes, I’m always very careful to get the pH balance right,’ the younger woman said, thrusting out a friendly hand, which was as big as that of a man. ‘Jasmine Carteret. I’m the apothecary. Or herbalist. Or village wise-woman, or whatever you want to call me.’ She laughed.
‘Oh, hello. Effie James. I’m a . . .’ Effie suddenly stumbled. How exactly did she go about introducing herself nowadays? ‘Er, a friend of Isabel Cadmund’s,’ she selected finally. After all, she could hardly introduce herself as your local friendly ghost hunter, could she? Not that she believed this woman would bat so much as an eyelid if she did.
Large, pleasantly plump, and wearing a long floral skirt and gypsy-style white blouse that left her fast-bronzing shoulders bare, Jasmine wore her ‘alternative lifestyle’ attitude like a badge of honour.
‘Oh, Izzie. Isn’t she a pet?’ she said with a grin.
Effie blinked, rather taken by surprise. She knew, of course, that in this day and age, having a title meant little to nothing, but she still felt rather wrong-footed to hear Isabel Cadmund being referred to so casually, and seeing it, Jasmine laughed.
‘Sorry, don’t mind me. But Izzie’s family. Well, sort of. That is, by marriage.’ Jasmine laughed again and took another huge breath. ‘Sorry, that all sounded rather scatty. A thing I’m often accused of, sadly.’ But she grinned widely, showing rather uneven but very white teeth. A good advertisement, presumably, for her own homemade toothpaste? ‘Let me start again. Clive, my brother, is married to Izzie’s daughter, Ros.’
Effie nodded. ‘All right, I think I’ve got it!’ she said with a smile.
‘Sorry, do come on in! Here I am keeping you chatting on the doorstep. When the sun goes in it still gets quite chilly, doesn’t it?’ Jasmine said, standing to one side.
Effie looked down to where Toad was standing patiently by her feet. ‘Oh, I don’t want to bring a dog inside your lovely shop.’
‘Oh, isn’t he gorgeous!’ Jasmine said, spotting him for the first time and instantly bending down to stroke him. Naturally Toad agreed with her — he was gorgeous, as nearly every human he met seemed to tell him. He did his usual tail-wagging dance as Jasmine ruffled his ears. ‘Don’t you worry about bringing him in,’ she said, looking up at her. ‘He’s such a cutie, I’m sure he’ll be fine. You were asking about the hand lotion?’
Effie, less sure than ever that she could trust anything that was produced by this woman, followed her a shade reluctantly into the shop and promptly felt a little ashamed of herself. For not only was the interior scrupulously clean and well kept, the walls also housed several reassuring certificates and licences that proclaimed her to be a well-educated and fully, legally qualified herbalist.
Dried flowers hung appealingly from the ceiling, and several small pots of sweet-smelling herbs grew on the window sills. And inside a large and clearly old glass display cabinet — one that would have had an Antiques Roadshow expert salivating — were several jars of pills and potions, all neatly labelled with a brief explanation of what herbs they contained,
and what use they should be put to.
One bottle in particular, with a pretty label showing a sketch of a rather nondescript little yellow flower, caught her eye. St John’s wort. Effie had heard of it, of course, since it was a fairly common and well-known product, but for a moment couldn’t figure out why it was ringing such a loud bell in the back of her head. And then suddenly she remembered.
Isabel had said that her mother took it regularly.
‘Do you suffer from depression?’ Both the voice and the question made her jump slightly, and Effie turned quickly to look at Jasmine.
‘What? No. Why?’ she instantly responded defensively. Did she look depressed? She knew she hadn’t been sleeping as well as she might, but the black hole that had seemed to swallow her after losing Michael had begun to recede at last, and even in her darkest hour, she’d never taken antidepressants. Surely it wasn’t so obvious that she still sometimes found life rather overwhelming?
‘It’s just that I saw you looking at the St John’s wort,’ Jasmine said, with a small smile. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound as if I was prying. Or judging. Believe me, that’s the last thing I’d ever do,’ she assured her warmly. ‘I suppose I just assumed that because you were so interested in it, that’s what you’d come in for.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Effie said with some relief. And ruefully told herself that that’s what came of allowing herself to be so paranoid. ‘It’s just that Isabel told me just the other day that her mother used to take it, so . . .’ She trailed off, not willing to discuss either Isabel or her family’s private business.
‘Oh, Claudia. Yes, she did,’ Jasmine nodded vigorously. ‘In fact, I was the one who put her on to it, actually. The grande dame saw it as her duty to patronise all of our village shops, bless her, and she started coming in to buy the lavender range of toiletries I make. But after a while, and as I got to know her better, I realized that the usual complaints of old age were starting to wear her down, and I recommended the St John’s wort. She was a little sceptical at first, and I think she only bought the first jar just to show that she trusted my judgement. But where she led, others followed, I’m glad to say.’ Jasmine laughed. ‘They wouldn’t dare do anything else! And after that, I got several people coming in and buying it regularly. Still, it keeps us in business,’ she added, waving a hand at the cluster of shops outside her window.
Effie, realizing that she had obviously been gifted with a readymade source of intelligence about the lavender lady, said casually, ‘So St John’s wort is good for the elderly, is it? What was it poor Mrs Watkins suffered from? Arthritis?’
‘Oh no. Well, yes, she might have had a touch of that,’ Jasmine said with a frown. ‘And I know she had a heart condition,’ she mused, then added hastily, ‘not that I had anything to do with treating that. As I tell all my customers, I’m not a doctor, or a pharmacist. If anyone has any kind of medical condition, I always tell them to see a GP,’ Jasmine said firmly, once more making Effie feel bad for doubting either her professionalism or her credentials. ‘No, St John’s wort is basically nature’s antidepressant. And let’s face it, most old folks these days are depressed. Just read a newspaper! But this lovely stuff,’ Jasmine tapped one of the bottles of pills, ‘has far fewer side effects and can act more quickly than the stuff that doctors prescribe on the NHS. In addition to hypericin and hyperforin, it has other naturally occurring substances to help with depression.’
Jasmine indicated one of her diplomas. ‘I might have studied chemistry, and have a good deal of respect for modern medicine, but as I also tell all of my customers, naturally occurring chemicals are better than the man-made, manufactured ones any day of the week! And luckily for me, good old Claudia agreed.’
‘You sound as if you liked her but found her exasperating in equal measure! I never met her myself,’ Effie added craftily, ‘but from what Isabel let slip, I get the feeling that her mother was . . . well . . . a bit of a martinet?’
Jasmine threw back her head and laughed. ‘Oh my word, yes. A total dragon, in fact. But a smart dragon, with a good heart. Well. Goodish,’ she added judiciously, but with a twinkle in her eye. ‘Mind you, I’m careful not to let my brother hear me praise her. I’m afraid they never did get on. Not that that was surprising. Claudia had a very high opinion of herself and her family, and Clive was never going to be her choice for Ros.’
Effie nodded. None of this was news to her, though, so she carefully steered the conversation back to where she wanted it.
‘What else was it about St John’s wort that she liked, do you think?’
‘Well, for Claudia, I rather suspect that she used it mainly because she suffered from insomnia. It has other uses too, mind you — it helps with nervousness for instance. Not that that was Claudia’s problem at all.’ Jasmine laughed. ‘If ever there was a woman who was sure of herself, and unlikely to suffer from nerves, it was her!’ she confided with another grin. ‘But like a lot of people, as she got older she found it harder to sleep.’
Effie nodded. ‘Perhaps her illness worried her too. She did die because of her heart problems after all. She’d had the condition for some time, I understand?’
‘Yes, she had,’ Jasmine said with a small frown. ‘But I don’t think that it affected her that much. It didn’t seem to curtail her life. Mostly Claudia pretended it wasn’t happening — and she was certainly fit enough for her age, considering. Her attitude was that there was nothing wrong with her, and she intended to live to be a hundred. Which was a good attitude to have — you’d be surprised how often the body believes what the mind is telling it. You wouldn’t have the placebo effect otherwise. And to be honest, I was as surprised as could be when I heard that she’d upped and died. She was just the sort of stubborn old trout that you thought would live to see her century in, just to prove a point. You know what I mean?’
Effie laughed, and agreed that she did.
‘So, do you want some St John’s wort?’ Jasmine asked, and again there was something in the look she cast over Effie — a sort of professional, gentle concern — that instantly raised her hackles.
Was the fact that she was still in mourning, and often lay awake for long periods at night, really visible on her face?
But before she could speak, Jasmine went on, ‘I make all the pills myself out the back in my lab. It’s really quite a simple process when you know how. I gather all the raw materials myself — the actual flower is practically a common weed, and it might surprise you to know just how much of it grows in the wild. You need to know how to extract and distil it properly and safely of course, and get the doses right, but the actual physical manufacturing of the pills themselves needs little more than gelatine to set the liquid extractions, and pill moulds to shape the end product.’
Effie glanced at one of the full bottles, noting that the slightly yellowish pills did indeed look a bit like round pieces of very hard jelly, and shook her head firmly.
‘Oh no, thank you. No pills. I’ll just take the hand lotion,’ she said.
And Toad, who had been getting bored with the waiting — especially as nobody seemed to be interested in stroking him or telling him how gorgeous he was anymore — gave a sudden sharp bark, as if in agreement.
Jasmine laughed and reached down once more to fuss over him, before going behind the counter to get Effie’s impulse buy and pop it into a small white paper bag.
* * *
That evening, and for the first time in a long while, Effie began to feel restless. She felt that the evening seemed to stretch ahead in a way that unnerved her. The silence of her lovely, comfortable home seemed heavy and repressive.
Was she beginning to feel lonely?
That thought was a very uncomfortable one, and one she didn’t feel up to exploring. Where had her moment of carefree happiness of the morning gone?
She turned on the television and found an old episode of Time Team being repeated. It had always been one of Michael’s favourites, and it had triggered in herself a mil
d interest in archaeology.
But after ten minutes of it, she found herself unable to concentrate. Finally conceding defeat, she let her mind wander to where it really wanted to go — which was to tomorrow afternoon, and the next vigil at Adderbury with Corwin and the others.
True to his word about research needing to be done both in the daylight as well as in the evening hours, the C-Fits were scheduled to arrive in Adderbury at four o’clock. Naturally, Lonny and Malc wouldn’t be able to make it that early, since they would still be at work. But the retired Jean had no problems with it, and neither would Mickey, who seemed to have no compunction about skiving off lectures or classes whenever it suited him. Gisela worked flexi-hours and so had managed to arrange her time to fit it in, and the men would join them later, going straight to Isabel’s from their workplace.
And Effie had to admit that she was really looking forward to it. Although, when she tried to analyze why that was, it wasn’t so easy to say. Certainly, finding the cold spot on their last vigil had been, if nothing else, interesting. But the following long hours of inactivity had hardly been entertaining. And yes, there was a growing sense of friendship with the rest of the group, especially, perhaps, with Jean Bossington-Smith, with whom Effie felt a growing rapport.
Perhaps it was simply time that she got away from her old routine and did something totally out of character. And Corwin Fielding was a very warm, intelligent and interesting man to be around.
Whatever the reason, Effie was forced to come to the conclusion that time was chafing her now simply because she felt like she finally had something to actually look forward to. Something that was novel, exciting and compelling which challenged her and took her out of her comfort zone. Well out of her comfort zone, in fact.