Anne Perry s Christmas Mysteries Page 0,3

she felt cold, not of the body so much as of the mind. She did not belong here. She was acquainted with no one. Even the servants were strangers about whom she knew nothing at all, nor they of her. There was nothing to do and no one to talk to.

When she had finished she stood up and went to the long windows. It looked bitterly cold outside: a wind-ragged sky, clouds torn apart and streaming across a bleached blue as if the color had died in it. The trees were leafless; black branches wet and shivering, bending at the tops. There was nothing in the garden that looked even remotely like a flower. An old man walked along the lane beyond the gate, his hat jammed on his head, scarf ends whipped around his shoulders and flapping behind him. He did not even glance in her direction.

She went into the withdrawing room where the fire was roaring comfortably, and sat down to wait for Caroline and Joshua to return. She was going to be bored to weeping, and there was no help for it. It was a bitter thing to be so abandoned in her old age.

Might there be any sort of social life at all in this godforsaken spot? She rang the bell and in a few moments the maid appeared, a country girl by the look of her.

"Yes, Mrs. Ellison?" she said expectantly.

"What is your name?" Grandmama demanded.

"Abigail, ma'am."

"Perhaps you can tell me, Abigail, what people do here, other than attend church? I presume there is a church?"

"Yes, ma'am. St. Mary the Virgin."

"What else? Are there societies, parties? Do people hold musical evenings, or lectures? Or anything at all?"

The girl looked dumbfounded. "I don't know, ma'am. I'll ask Cook." And before Grandmama could excuse her, she turned and fled.

"Fool!" Grandmama said under her breath. Where on earth was Caroline? How long would she walk in a howling gale? She was besotted with Joshua and behaving like a girl. It was ridiculous.

It turned out to be another hour and a half before they came in cheerful, windblown, and full of news about all kinds of local events that sounded provincial and desperately boring. Some old gentleman was going to speak about butterflies at the local church hall. A maiden lady intended to discuss her travels in an unknown area of Scotland, or worse than that, one that had been known and forgotten-doubtless for very good reasons.

"Does anyone play cards?" Grandmama inquired. "Other than Snap, or Old Maid?"

"I have no idea," Caroline replied, moving closer to the fire. "I don't play, so I have never asked."

"It requires intelligence and concentration," Grandmama told her waspishly.

"And a great deal of time on your hands," Caroline added. "And nothing better to fill it with."

"It is better than gossiping about your neighbors," Grandmama rejoined. "Or licking your lips over other people's misfortunes!"

Caroline gave her a chilly look, and controlled her temper with an effort the old lady could easily read in her face. "We shall be having luncheon at one," she observed. "If you care to take a walk, it's wintry, but quite pleasant. And it might rain tomorrow."

"Of course it might rain tomorrow," Grandmama said tartly. "In a climate like ours that is hardly a perspicacious remark. It might rain tomorrow, any day of the year!"

Caroline did not try to mask the irritation she felt, or the effort it cost her not to retaliate. The fact that she had to try so hard gave the old lady a small, perverse satisfaction. Good! At least she still had some semblance of moral duty left! After all, she had been Edward Ellison's wife most of her adult life! She owed Mariah Ellison something!

"Maybe I shall go for a walk this afternoon," she said. "That maid mentioned something about a church, I believe."

"St. Mary the Virgin," Caroline told her. "Yes, it's attractive. Norman to begin with. The soil is very soft here so the tower has huge buttresses supporting it."

"We are on a marsh," Grandmama sniffed. "Probably everything is sinking. It is a miracle we are not up to our knees in mud, or worse!"

***

And so it passed for most of the next two long-drawn-out days. Walking in the garden was miserable; almost everything had died back into the earth, the trees were leafless and black and seemed to drip incessantly. It was too late even for the last roses, and too early for the first snowdrops.

There was nothing worth doing, no one to speak