by Issy Brooke
Mrs Smith bent her head and her voice shook as she said, “Well, then, it is this. I am dreadfully afraid that my husband was ... was there.”
“There? On the bell tower?”
She looked up, her eyes shining, and grabbed Adelia’s hands, making Adelia jump. Mrs Smith’s grip was firm. “Yes! Yes, right there! If Sir Phileas did not fall by accident, if he was pushed, then I believe ... may the Lord forgive me! ... but I believe my husband Grayson pushed him!” She wrenched her hands away and covered her mouth, moaning, “Oh, what have I said!”
“You must be brave,” Adelia said. “Why do you believe your husband is involved? Did you see him on the tower?”
“No – I was – I must have been at home – I cannot remember,” Mrs Smith said. “But that hardly matters. Grayson was out, as usual, but he has had a long-standing feud with Sir Phileas. Oh, they have often argued and I have sometimes been afraid that they might even come to blows!”
“Really?”
Mrs Smith drew in a shuddering breath. “You may find it hard to believe, but Grayson can be a violent man. He...” She tailed off.
Adelia narrowed her eyes and waited for Mrs Smith to continue. But the door swung open and the men entered, bringing a waft of cigar smoke and brandy on the air as they came. Adelia sat back, and watched Mrs Smith carefully. Mrs Smith’s face was quickly composed into a polite smile, and she turned to greet the three men. Wine was poured, and a card table set up. The evening became an ordinary sort of one, pleasantly convivial but not terribly exciting, and the death of Sir Phileas was not mentioned again.
Until later that night, when Adelia and Theodore were once again in private.
“She is trying to blame her husband, you know.”
“Typical wife.”
Adelia threw a rolled-up stocking at him and he caught it deftly. He came to sit alongside her on the bed, already in his nightshirt. She was putting cream on her hands. “No, listen. As soon as she realised her alibi had been proved false, I think that she panicked, and tried to deflect all the attention onto Grayson. It’s hardly a secret that she despises him. Even you must have seen that.”
“Yes. Poor chap. I mean, he’s as dull as ditch-water, but I don’t think he deserves her open spite.”
“She has suggested that he is violent.”
Theodore burst out laughing. “The man would lose a fight against a rosewater blancmange!”
“Quite so. My suspicions, therefore, fall even more strongly upon Mrs Smith. What do you think?”
Theodore scratched his beard. “I agree that she is not helping her own case by trying to cast doubt onto her husband. However, can you think of any reason she might have wanted to kill Sir Phileas?”
Adelia swallowed. “I know that Reverend Shale is an old friend of yours...”
“Acquaintance.”
“Very well, an old acquaintance of yours. But is it at all possible, do you think, that he and Mrs Smith are engaged in criminal conversation with one another?”
Theodore laughed again but not for long. He grew serious. “Shale does seem to hold a candle for her, it is true. But I could not possibly imagine that the feelings are reciprocated! She is not of his class.”
“We women have strange tastes,” Adelia said, giving him another meaningful look.
He snaked his arm around her waist. “I am glad of it.”
She pushed him away. “So I propose that I look more closely into Mrs Smith and the reverend.”
“But we cannot discount this accusation against Mr Smith.”
“That is for you to investigate tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” he said, inching his arm around her waist again.
This time, she didn’t push him away.
Seven
Adelia tried to picture an illicit romance between Reverend Shale and Selina Smith. She had explained to Theodore that women were sometimes inclined to dalliances with men that seemed unsuited to them, and that the motives were often to do with boredom, or even just to see if it were possible. And, she reminded her husband, how men and women presented themselves in public was often different to how they were behind closed doors. Perhaps, she had hinted, the reverend was actually a suave and charismatic lover.
Theodore had laughed like a blocked drain.
And she was inclined to agree, in spite of all her efforts to convince him otherwise. She thought that an affair between the pair was highly unlikely. Still, it was important that she had that notion confirmed, one way or another.
And the people best placed to know the truth were the invisible constant presences of the vicarage – the household servants.
She went to the kitchens the next morning with the declared intention of complimenting the cook on her eggs which had been poached to perfection. Theodore’s task that day was to try and ascertain Vice Admiral Frankhaus’s movements on the day of the death. Adelia knocked lightly on the kitchen door before entering. This was not, after all, her own domain.
The cook was surprisingly young and not at all fat. She had a strong local accent with rolling open vowels and an easy manner of speaking. She was delighted to hear Adelia’s praise for her eggs.
“I learned in Bristol, my lady, in a big house there, but I missed home too much and came back after only a few years. I’m lucky to have this position. I was only the general maid here but the previous cook got ill and retired all of a sudden and I stepped up and in.” She beamed.
“What a wonderful opportunity for you,” Adelia said. She admired the clean, well-ordered kitchen.
“Oh, it is, it is, my lady! The Reverend Shale is simply a saint, in my opinion. He took a chance with me, I know it, but I cannot ever repay him enough.”
“Yes. He has a good heart.”
“Oh, the very best.”
From the expression of sheer devotion on the young woman’s face, Adelia could tell that she would die for the reverend, and no wonder. She had control of the kitchens and she was a talented cook whose skills were recognised and praised. It must have been very different to labouring as one of many faceless servants in a large establishment in the city of Bristol. Adelia knew that she wouldn’t get an unbiased opinion of the reverend. She decided to ask instead about Mrs Smith.
“I just wanted to say that last night’s meal was marvellous, too. You did so well to feed those two last-minute guests. It was as if you had had three weeks of notice. Mrs Smith particularly remarked upon the cherry pie last night.”
The cook’s nostrils flared. “Did she,” she said, rather flatly.
“Yes, she was most complimentary though she wondered why it had been made in an oval dish?”
“It should have been in a round one, I do know that,” the cook replied mulishly. “But the earthenware dish was broken last week and due to the sudden arrival of the guests, I had no time to send out for the ingredients for a different sort of pudding. I didn’t think that it would really matter. But I suppose she has standards.”
Adelia adopted a conspiratorial tone. “Personally, I don’t care one whit what shape a delicious pie takes. It’s all the same once it’s in the dish on the table and smothered in cream. Does Mrs Smith come to dine often? Is she always so very picky?”
“She and her husband do not come here, no.”
“You seem glad about that.”
The cook had not yet learned to maintain a professional distance. She might have been holding a great deal of responsibility in the household, but Adelia guessed that it was probably a lonely position too. She seized the chance to indulge in some gossip. “Well, as to that, Mr Smith is a fine man from an old family. Mrs Smith, however, lacks some of the proper manners that we expect a leading member of the better classes to demonstrate. I don’t speak for myself, of course,” she added as if she were a matron of fifty years. “But the young girls in the village look up to her and she is not the sort of person that one ought to idolise.”
“She sets a bad example?” Adelia said, summarising the cook’s wandering
speech.
“She does, she does.”
“In what way exactly?”
“She has a manner about her. A tempting one. She likes to play with people. With men. It’s not their fault, you know, if they look at her. They are innocent, they can’t help it. But she ... she is no better than she should be, if you know what I mean.”
Adelia had never understood that phrase but she knew what it meant in broad terms. Mrs Smith, then, was well-known as a temptress and a siren in the local area. Adelia said, carefully, because she felt she had a responsibility to the young cook, “I accept that Mrs Smith might be an unwelcome influence but you know, men aren’t forced to look at her or fall for her; they do have some control over themselves. They make a choice too.”
The cook shook her head. “She doesn’t do her hair right. She lets it tumble over her shoulders and it’s not proper. No wonder men look at her. She thinks she’s in London.”
Adelia guessed that the cook had never been to London for such behaviour would only be tolerated in certain private circles. It wasn’t quite the hotbed of vice and debauchery that people thought it was. “Given her reputation, then, it is a wonder that the reverend allows her into his house,” Adelia said.
“I told you, it’s not his fault!” the cook blurted out, loyalty sending her spine straight and her voice rising in indignation. “He doesn’t have a choice. She comes around sometimes and talks to him and says it’s about her soul or whatever but it’s a lie. He’s always upset after she’s gone. He goes for a long bath and then a walk and we don’t see him for hours. Hours. She’s a bad influence and I wish she’d go away.”
The cook was getting upset and Adelia didn’t want to push things too far. She thanked her for her cooking, once more, and left, deep in thought. She went first to her chamber where Theodore had left his things scattered about in his usual disarray. She picked up a large iron key from the dresser, deciding to head for the church.
She headed out into the fresh air of the late morning. Were they having an affair? It sounded, now, as if Selina Smith was simply playing a game with the poor love-struck reverend. He adored her, and she must have enjoyed the attention. As for anything more than that, Adelia decided it was almost impossible.
She walked to the church, and spent a little while looking up at the tower, dangling the bell tower key from her fingers idly.
Then she pushed open the wooden door, and entered.
ADELIA DID ENJOY A wander around a country church. She attended services regularly, weekly if possible, and had tried to instil a sense of devotion in her daughters, too. Though she was hazy on some of the finer points of theology, and tried to keep out of the usual arguments that raged across the press as people continually tried to interpret and re-interpret the Gospels as times changed, she liked the rhythm that the liturgical calendar brought to the year. There was a reassuring certainty in the slow march of festivals and she felt comforted by knowing she was part of a larger community where everyone knew the procedures and the symbols.
She worried, sometimes, that she was more interested in the institution of the church than the figures and deeper meanings behind it, but her best friend Harriet was married to a bishop and often told her not to be so concerned with her own motives. “Just be nice,” Harriet said. “That’s all you need to do. Be kind. Everything else is window-dressing.”
Adelia sat in a pew at the front of the church for a few moments, silently reflecting on matters of fairness and justice, and how it wasn’t really up to her – or to Theodore – to mete out any punishments or cast any aspersions towards another.
But it was her duty, as a wife and a member of society, to bring events into the light.
She got up, brushed off her skirts, and headed up to the tower. She unlocked it without difficulty, the lock having been oiled recently. Theodore had warned her she had to be careful. After all, a killer might be on the loose, and though it was likely that Sir Phileas had died as a result of a targeted action, the murderer would obviously be keen that no one discovered their secret.
Danger stalked the air, unseen.
She found the height dizzying and it took all of her courage to step up to the battlements and peer over the high stones. She could see immediately that Theodore was correct in his assertion that Sir Phileas could not have accidentally fallen. Why on earth did the local police write it off as an accident? She shook her head in exasperation.
The police, of course, were mostly of working stock and they were very good at keeping order amongst men who brawled in pubs or pickpockets who made mischief in markets. They hesitated, however, when it came to crimes involving the upper classes. They preferred to keep a distance in such cases. If the crime was a newsworthy one – for example, if it involved a beautiful heiress – then an educated and clever detective would be sent from a nearby town or London itself.
If Sir Phileas had been more involved in local life, if he had not lost his influence, his money and his wife, perhaps the response from the authorities would have been different. If he had strident family members, well-connected in the local set, then they would have pressed the county commissioners or magistrates to take the matter more seriously.
Adelia felt sorry for the man. She’d never met him, but he’d clearly suffered tragedy all his life – and for his fate to be this! He might have had his faults but had he deserved to be thrown off a tower?
She pursed her lips. There must have been some reason for this.
She stepped away from the edge, even though there was no likelihood of her tumbling to her own messy death, and made a complete circuit of the top of the tower. She didn’t expect to see anything that Theodore had missed, and she was proven right. No clues, no secrets, no tell-tale hints of what had gone on here.
She sighed and started her descent. The wooden steps were wide but she was still nervous about making her way down. She had to lift her skirts out of the way of her boots, and she clutched the fabric in one hand so that she could hold the rickety handrail with her other hand. This made it slow going, and she stopped for a moment when she reached the platform that gave access to the bells.
It was dark here in the belfry proper. She peered down, and immediately recoiled, finding the height as dizzying inside as it had been from the top of the bell tower outside. She looked at the cracked bell which was huge and intimidating when seen up close. It was marvellous how large they were when one saw them on the same level. Two smaller bells hung alongside the large one, and above them were the great wheels that would slowly turn when the ropes were pulled, coaxing the bells to speak.
Her head spun. She looked down to steady herself and that was when she noticed it.
There was a scrap of white to the side of the wooden platform. She had not seen it as she had passed by, and if she hadn’t been looking around, she would not have spotted it now. She bent and picked it up.
It was a delicate white handkerchief with careful lace edging, a lady’s accessory, and it was embroidered in the corner with the initials SS.
Eight
Adelia bunched the handkerchief into her hand and rushed back into the vicarage, hunting for Theodore but he was nowhere to be found. Revered Shale was likewise absent, and no one knew where they were. Frustrated, Adelia took a cup of tea and sat in a shady part of the garden, pondering what to do next.
The handkerchief must belong to Selina Smith. Perhaps another person had the initials SS – but who else was involved in the whole affair? Only a woman would have been carrying such a decorated item. Men’s handkerchiefs were much larger and plainer. There was a slim chance that a village woman had dropped it, but Adelia could not imagine that it would have been made of the finest cotton with a lace trim if it had belonged to the average working woman. They often spent their few spare hours decorating their accessories with embroidery, it was true, but the materials themselves tended to be less costly.
Of the gentry and aristocratic folk in the area, only Mrs Smith’s initials matched.
Adelia smoothed the fabric out on her knee, and studied it. She had already got Mrs Smith onto the back foot by challenging her alibi. Perhaps, then, the time was right to strike. And she had to conclude that there still could be a very reasonable explanation for the handkerchief to be in the belfry. Perhaps Mrs Smith had made a visit to the bells when the reverend had launched his campaign to raise funds. It was plausible, and if Mrs Smith spontaneously conjured up such an explanation with ease, it would add to her innocence.
If her reaction was one of shock and hesitation, however, Adelia felt sure that it was a sign that she was involved – if she was not, indeed, actually the main culprit.
She folded it neatly and got to her feet. She went inside with a decisive air, and asked her maid to help her dress for walking out and paying calls.
ADELIA WALKED OVER to the Smiths’ crumbling manor house with her own maid in tow. Her maid was happy to be out and about, having found no one of her own age and interests to gossip with at the reverend’s house. She was far older than the cook. Adelia was shown into the main hall again, and asked to wait while the sniffy housekeeper went to ascertain if the mistress was At Home or not. It was too early for social calls, and Adelia had no arrangement to drop in. She was hoping that Mrs Smith’s previous declaration, that they didn’t follow the strict rules of previous generations, was true.
Mrs Selina Smith soon appeared. She was dressed in an elegant day dress of emerald green which made her red hair seem to glow. She greeted Adelia warmly but with a slight stiffness to her face. She was suspicious as to why Adelia had come back so soon, and no doubt she was on her guard since being caught out about the false alibi. She led Adelia to a pleasant downstairs parlour and called for tea to be served.
“No need,” Adelia said. “Not at this time – your servants will be busy preparing luncheon.”
“Will they?” Mrs Smith shrugged. “But we must have some refreshments.”