She had barely settled when she saw two elderly women approaching. They were both short and plump, bundled in thick brown coats, matching bonnets tied beneath their chins.
Isabella slid along the seat to the far side as one of the women climbed in with surprising agility and settled opposite. The second woman followed more slowly and sat beside the first, the door clicking shut behind her. There was an odd symmetry to them, like two halves of a cracked porcelain doll.
“Off to Marlow, are you?” the first woman asked, her voice high and lilting, almost childlike.
“I am, yes,” Isabella said.
“Visiting?” the woman pressed.
“I have a position waiting for me,” Isabella murmured.
The second woman stared at her in silence. With her cocked head and brown clothing, she reminded Isabella of a wren perched on a branch, sharp-eyed and twitching. She tipped her head, first one way, then the other, pale blue eyes fixed on Isabella’s face. There was something unsettling in her stillness, in the way her gaze never wavered, probing, assessing, as though Isabella were a curiosity laid out on a tray for inspection.
The chaise lurched forward then. The wheels struck uneven stone, then settled in a rhythmic clatter as they wove through the narrow streets of Maidenhead. The women stared at her in silence as the chaise passed beyond the outskirts of the town. Fields swept out on either side, hedgerows blurred by a low mist.
“I am Miss Viola Burns,” the first woman said. “This is my sister, Miss Pansy Burns.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Miss Isabella Barrett.”
“We live in Great Marlow,” Pansy said.
“In the white cottage at the very end of Chapel Lane,” Viola said.
“You must visit,” Pansy said.
“We are always happy for company,” Viola said. “Life in Marlow can be quite?—”
“Boring,” Pansy interjected.
“Uneventful,” Viola said, ignoring her sister’s interruption. “Going through our days without someone with whom to converse?—”
“Other than ourselves,” Pansy said.
“Is hardly exciting,” Viola said.
They both leaned forward in unison, peering at Isabella expectantly.
“I…” Isabella looked back and forth between the two. “I do not yet know all the details of my position. I do not know when I will visit the village.”
“Visit the village?” Pansy said.
“Is your employment not in Marlow?” Viola asked, then cast a speaking look at her sister, one that made Isabella wary.
“Near Marlow, I believe,” she said. “I am expected at Harrowgate Manor…”
Both women froze. Pansy’s eyes widened and her hand darted to her mouth.
“Harrowgate?” Viola said.
“Oh, my dear. You do not want to go there,” Pansy said. “I suggest you turn right back around and go home.”
Isabella stared at her, a bubble of uneasy laughter rising. She held it back. Something in Pansy’s tone, intense and utterly certain, scraped against her nerves.
“Pansy…” Viola warned. “Do not gossip.”
“Gossip?” Pansy’s eyes gleamed and her lips curled in a tight smile. “It’s hardly gossip when anyone in the village could tell the same tales.”
“What tales?” Isabella asked before she could think better of it.
