Page 81 of A Scottish Highland Surprise

Chapter Thirty-Eight

It was a copy of a newspaper article, dated 5th February 1900, from the Briar Glen Informer.

It wasn’t formal in its tone. It was more gossipy and pretentious and appeared to have featured in the local paper’s version of our modern society column.

Annabel had photocopied it and pasted it onto the right-hand page. It read:

It is reported that an employee at the spectacular stately home that is Castle Marrian has departed from their employ in haste, after the alleged theft of a valuable bespoke tea set belonging to Mrs Leonora Gray.

Although it is understood that the Gray family have requested the local constabulary halt their investigations into the unfortunate situation, which took place on 31 January, a female employee was dismissed shortly after the theft became apparent.

The Informer understands that the dismissed member of staff is a Ms Briar Forsyth, aged twenty, who resides in Briar Glen.

I stopped reading, my emotions spiking in a carousel of surprise and indignation on behalf of Briar. So, Briar had been accused of stealing the tea set after all and was dismissed from her job at Castle Marrian. But what happened to being innocent until proven guilty?

I reached for my phone and called Ophelia. I remembered she had her two young grandsons visiting, but I knew she would want to be made aware of this latest discovery.

Once Ophelia had managed to bribe the boys with a chocolate digestive each and a promise that “Nanna would read them an extra bedtime story,” she managed to secure a few minutes’ peace so that I could read the article Annabel had attached inside this notebook.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” I remarked, once I’d explained my latest discovery to her. I eyed the article lying face up in the notebook. “Why didn’t the Grays want the police to continue investigating the theft, if they believed a member of their staff had stolen from them?”

Ophelia made murmurs of agreement.

“And that letter stashed inside the tea-set case – if you were guilty of stealing from the family of the man you loved, surely the last thing you would do is write a passionate letter to him?”

I imagined what I would have done if I had been in Briar’s position and guilty of what I was accused of. Most people would have put as much space between themselves and their former employers as they could, have gone somewhere far away and sold the tea set, before pocketing the proceeds and vanishing into thin air. I was sure you wouldn’t want to maintain any sort of communication with him or his family. Not to mention that if Briar sent the letter to Jonathan Gray, she wouldn’t have been able to keep it with the tea set.

Ophelia clicked her tongue as she considered what I was saying. “Quite so. If you were guilty of something like that, especially in those days, I would have thought you would have vanished with your spoils too.”

I chewed my lip. “Something doesn’t ring true about all of this.”

“I agree. And from the little I do know about Isadora’s ex-husband, I think Jonathan Gray would be capable of just about anything. If he was capable of fathering and then abandoning a number of his own children, I’m sure having an employee blamed for stealing would be nothing in his eyes.”

I paced backwards and forwards in my sitting room, watching the rain shimmer and sliver down the window. “We need to find out what happened to Briar Forsyth.”

If we could locate a thread back to Briar, then perhaps we stood more of a chance of finding what happened between her and Jonathan Gray.

Before we ended the call, Ophelia informed me that her son and daughter-in-law were planning on taking the two little boys to Edinburgh Zoo for the day on Monday. “So, I can drop by the library first thing on Monday morning and do some digging about Briar Forsyth.”

“Are you sure? Don’t you want to put your feet up and have a rest?”

I swore I could almost hear Ophelia shaking that silver crown of hair. “We’ve got to get to the bottom of this!” she assured me. “And anyway, it will be rewarding, carrying on the research Annabel never had the chance to finish.”

I went to bed that night, buzzing with anticipation.

I travelled to The Cup That Cheers as normal on the Monday morning, with Ophelia’s promise to drop by with any information she might find swirling around my head.

Drizzly July rain brought with it a slow start so I decided to set up my laptop on the counter and update the shop’s social media accounts, while Cass was on the office PC, placing another stock order.

I turned to The Cup That Cheers’ website first, to launch a “Who would you like to have afternoon tea with and why?” competition. The best entry would win a £25 gift voucher to spend in the shop.

After I typed up the blurb, I included a few pictures of famous faces such as Marilyn Monroe, Barack Obama and William Shakespeare, which might give potential entrants some ideas.

I also posted an update and photos that Cass had taken of a selection of our latest crockery arrivals, with the enticing heading “Just In! How Can You Resist?!”, on the Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts.

I had chosen a perfect eclectic mix of funky, student-y sets, with sunflowers, multi-coloured triangles and rainbow stripes. I’d also included something for more conservative tastes, from teapots sprinkled with discreet daisies to plain tea sets in the palest duck-egg blue and vanilla.

Monday morning brought a few sales and a brief but productive meeting with a sales representative for a new crockery company, keen to have their ceramics, featuring gorgeous paintings of Scottish wildlife such as Highland cattle and birds of prey, stocked in the shop. I was very enthusiastic and was sure the tourists to Briar Glen would be drawn to them.