Curiosity had brought the two maids over to join the conversation.
“Betty was showing out Miss Fernie,” said the first maid, “when she caught sight of Alice scuttling up the path. So Alice just gave Betty the note and waited outside while Betty ran up for the vicar’s instructions.”
“Did Betty leave the front door open?” Solomon asked.
Constance almost wished he hadn’t.
“She did,” the second maid said. “I know, because I was polishing that big mirror in the hall that someone had breathed on, and the wind howled in!”
“Thank you,” Constance said. “You’ve all been very helpful.”
Almost blindly, she turned away, heading back the way they had come.
“Alice,” Solomon said, catching up with her easily. “Not Mavis but Alice, resentful on her mother’s behalf?”
“I hadn’t thought of it, but… I suppose it makes sense. She could easily have darted inside without the maid’s noticing and left the letter on the hall table with the others. Her grudge against the Mortimers must be huge. And against Nolan for rejecting her mother and failing to give her the respectability that would have saved them both from scorn. Mrs. Chadwick, the Keatons… Just examples of unkindness from apparent leaders of the community?”
“And it would explain why the vicar and his wife are the only prominent people in the village who didn’t get a letter. The vicar visits Mavis, is kind to her, tolerates her haunting the church at all hours, and he and his wife employ Alice.”
“All true…” Constance shook her head. “No, I still think it’s Mavis, though perhaps with Alice’s connivance for this first letter. A matter of luck, perhaps, if Mavis met her scuttling up to the manor house. But I don’t see how Alice could creep in and out of the vicarage at night without being seen or missed. She’d surely be far too tired, for one thing. There’s a cook employed there too, and I daresay the vicar can be up and about at all sorts of odd hours. Mavis answers to no one, and if she is seen in the street, everyone assumes she’s on her way to or from the church.”
Solomon considered. “Maybe you’re right. If so… Do you think Alice knows what her mother is about? Could they be allies? They must be close, after all. For years it must have been the two of them against the world.”
Constance cast him a sardonic glance. “What, like me and my mother?”
“You stand by each other,” Solomon said.
“We don’t conspire together and never have. On the other hand, my mother and I are not everyone. Theycouldbe in alliance.” She sighed. “I suppose we should go and visit Mavis and see what she says.”
Solomon took her hand. “You don’t want it to be Mavis.”
“I think she has suffered enough. I don’t want to add to the village’s scorn for her.”
“And yet we can’t allow her to continue writing such letters,” Solomon said gently.
“No. No, we can’t, of course.” She clung to his fingers. “Am I right, Solomon? Are we right? I’d hate to accuse her of something else and be wrong.”
“Then let’s go back to the inn and look at everything again.”
*
Alice’s half daywas on a Saturday, and she always spent it with her mother. At least it kept her out of the church for a few hours.
Not that Alice disapproved of churchgoing. She could hardly do so and work for the vicar, who was a kind, if distant, man. Besides which, his fiery sermons gave her hope that the true wrongdoers in her mother’s past would face their punishment on Judgment Day.
Over the tea that her mother always tried to make into a special meal for her on Saturdays, Alice said, “That Mrs. Silver was asking me about your missing box.”
“What box?” her mother asked in surprise.
“The little carved one with the secret catch that Miss Mortimer gave you.”
“I thought she was interested in letters, not boxes.”
“So did I. Maybe she’s just a general nosey. Though what Dr. Chadwick’s thinking of, setting her and Mr. Grey on us, I don’t know.”
Mavis picked up a slice of bread and butter. “I don’t think she’s a nosey. But she is curious, by nature. I rather liked her.”
“You like everyone.”
