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She clucks her tongue, pondering. “I’m not sure what I want to bake yet, so no. If we get along, you can bring the ingredients the next time. For now I’ll think about it on my ride and pick up whatever we’ll need. For Friday, simply bring yourself.”

We reach the door, and rather than open it and usher me out, she opens the door to a small closet and retrieves her coat, hat, and gloves. She follows me out the door and grabs her bicycle from its perch against the house.

I follow her down the walk. “Are you coming into the village?” I gesture north up High Street towards the general store and the few shops surrounding the green.

She points her bicycle south. “I’m off to Kidlington this morning.” She nods at me. “It was lovely to meet you, Gemma Brown. I’ll see you on Friday. Let’s say eight o’clock. That’ll give us plenty of time before you’ll be needed at work.”

With that she hops on her bicycle, pushes down hard on the pedals, and off she goes. I stand staring after her, almost mesmerized. In a village where gossip is as ubiquitous as cows, tea, and toast, and everyone knows everything about everybody, I’ve just met my first mystery.

Chapter 8

“You did what?”

Peggy sits straight on the edge of the store’s backroom desk, one stocking leg bent and the other straight, posed like a film star. She wears a purple wool skirt, pumps, and a fitted pink sweater, and she looks like Lauren Bacall from Key Largo, long and statuesque with her blond hair blousy, curls unfurling at her temples, sharp eyes snapping.

In contrast, I feel a little like Bergman to her Bacall. Not that Ingrid Bergman wasn’t lovely in Notorious, but she was shorter, squarer, quieter, and brunette. She was also in a muddle most of that film—exactly as I feel now.

“How are you surprised? It was your idea.”

“I was joking. At least a bit.” Peggy thrusts out both hands as if reprimanding me for missing a joke’s punchline. “I never thought you’d do it. Mrs. Beurton is a bit of a black sheep, Gemma.”

“You said she was perfectly friendly.”

“And she is, but the gossip isn’t exactly kind about her. Even if she wanted to join any of those committees, I doubt they’d let her in. She said yes?”

“She did.” I sit back. The desk chair, a half-century-old accountant’s chair, bounces on its springs, sending me up and down like a tiny seesaw. “Now what do I do?”

All the memories and emotions that rose just hours ago as I was talking to Mrs. Beurton float before me. And more than simply learning to bake biscuits and cake, there is something else about her, from her, I sense I can learn. Something akin to courage and confidence. Something she carries within her. A mystery, a puzzle—something I can solve, something I can gain.

“You let her teach you.” Peggy’s voice comes out flat and dull as if it’s beyond tedious to have to explain the punchline. She reaches into her handbag, which dangles from her hand, and pulls out Taken at the Flood. She rests it on the desk before me. “I finished it, and it was riveting.”

I push the book towards her. “It’s for you to keep.”

“Thank you, but you need to make a profit in that corner of yours, especially with all those extra books you had to order. Every sale matters, and I want to buy it.”

I moan. She’s right. I had to order another fifty nonmystery titles to round out our inventory—quite a bit more than I’ve sold in total. Mr. Hastings, who had been so excited about the book corner, physically blanched at my request. He agreed that it needed to be done, but he wasn’t pleased.

I push the book back towards her. “It was a sale. I paid for it.”

Peggy concedes and picks up the book. “Thank you. I’ll buy another then. You’ve turned me into a reader.”

“So what did you decide about my question?”

“The feeling of ill will in the world since the war?” Peggy heaves a sigh. “I hate that Agatha’s right. But it’s true. We watch each other more now. We’re more wary and guarded. More gossipy and judgmental too. And that’s among friends here in the village. Nationally, it’s worse. We have this unnamed, even unseen, enemy that surrounds us, but we can’t point to it, as we could during the war, and say, ‘There it is. That’s what we’re fighting.’ I mean, how do you fight a Red Menace or a Red Scourge? They’re not concrete. They’re ideas, and they leave you afraid and suspicious of everyone.”

Again, it is not the answer I wanted, but it is what I expected. “You said at the pub that we can’t go back, but how does one fix it?” My question surprises me, as does the vulnerable note to my voice.

“I wish I knew.” Peggy pushes off the desk. “But it’s like what you say about mysteries in general—you can’t fix everything for the individual, but the story can reach a place where everything is okay.”

“Equilibrium.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s what I mean. We fight for what’s right writ large.” She stands before me. “But on the individual level, be careful, Gemma. Don’t forget that Mr. Beurton is still on the government blacklist for Communist sympathies. That’s more than a rumor. Last year a couple officers from the Security Service came to question him.”

I lift a brow in skepticism.

“I was here. They didn’t take him away or anything, but suspicions linger. Just be careful. I did say Mrs. Beurton is friendly, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” I balk at that. It feels too dramatic, too exaggerated.