“You cannot possibly know that. He is merely a gentleman of deep feeling, which you would recognize if you spent time with people of your own class.”
“I count Netta Lance as my dearest friend,” Sophie said patiently, although she knew exactly whom her mother was referring to. “And she is very much a gentleman’s daughter.”
“Was Ogden there?”
“At Chettering? Oh no.” She met her mother’s gaze. “He was at the manor this afternoon, though. Teaching is considered an honorable profession by most people.”
“I suppose he will be there like a lowering black cloud tomorrow night, too.”
“No,” Sophie retorted. “Nor do I blame him when he has to face down snobbery like yours.”
“How dare you speak to me like that?”
Sophie dropped her gaze. She did not really want to fight. Or not yet. “I’m sorry. I know you aren’t really snobbish. It’s just that you never used to be like this.”
“Like what?”
“Unkind about people who might be a little…different.”
A strange look came into her mother’s eyes. A mixture of horror and fear that made Sophie feel instantly ashamed.
“Are you suggesting Ireturn to kindness?” Mama said unsteadily.
Sophie swallowed. “Perhaps I am.” She brushed past her mother to the stairs. “Goodnight, Mama.”
*
It had rainedduring the night, so the path to the Dickies’ piece of land was somewhat muddy for the inn’s horse and gig.
According to the innkeeper, the Dickies had always owned that same square of land, back through the centuries, maintaining their independence in the face of powerful landowners and occasionally unfriendly villagers.
“They make a living,” the innkeeper had told Constance and Solomon with a shrug. “But only just. It was touch and go in the forties—though everyone was hungry then, weren’t they?—and they’re certainly not well off now. But they seem happy enough.”
“Is there ill feeling against them in the village?” Constance had asked.
“Not really. Some tenant farmers like to pretend they’re better because they farm more land—but Hen Dickie just laughs and points out heownshis. They’re a bit of a ragtag bunch and get the blame for any poaching or thieving, but it’s just like a habit. No one’s ever laid any charges against them in my lifetime.”
“I understand it came close,” Solomon had said, “in the Keatons’ shop a few weeks ago.”
“I heard about that.”
“Could Mrs. Keaton have been right?”
“She could have been, but more likely, she made a mistake. What would Nell Dickie want with a silk shawl? She’s hardly going to wear it to church.”
And at first glance, the muddy yard, which contained a ramshackle little house and a couple of outbuildings with hens and a pig, certainly did not seem the right environment for silk. A ball and a couple of other battered old children’s toys were scattered in the mud.
No one answered Solomon’s knock on the door, but in the field beyond the house, a man and a woman were laboring with spades and hoes, turning the soil ready for planting. The couple clearly saw them, for the woman called something to her companion and began to walk down the field toward them.
“Mrs. Dickie?” Constance said as she approached the gate. “My name is Constance Silver. This is Mr. Grey. Could we possibly have a word with you?”
“What for?” the woman asked suspiciously. She was still young, not much more than thirty, despite her five children. And she was pretty in an untidy, careless kind of way that made Constance think of Lady Grizelda Tizsa. Beneath a square of cloth, her hair was escaping from its pins. There was a streak of dirt across her nose and one cheek, and her once brightly colored clothes had faded with too many washes.
“We’re friends of Dr. Chadwick,” Constance said, since the connection seemed to soothe people.
It seemed to work, for Nell opened the gate and came into the yard. “Nothing wrong with the doctor, is there?”
“Not with his health,” Constance said, watching the frown clear from the other woman’s brow. “You are another of his friends.”
