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That tender fondness alters in an instant from sweetly maternal to sharp and wary. Internally, I chastise myself. Externally, I don’t react. I don’t even blink. After a second or two, I feel almost proud of myself for holding steady what feels like my most bland of expressions.
“Why would you ask that?” Her question carries that unique tone of curiosity, but I sense a thin layer of suspicion beneath it.
“We’re friends.” I shrug in the most nonchalant way I can manage. “And I sense you’ve got something on your mind, that’s all.”
“I do. But it will take care of itself.” She drifts away again. “It must, and soon.”
A silence drops between us. Then Ursula regards me again with a look I recognize. A few weeks ago, I would have called it her teaching mode or her get-the-job-done mode, but as I’ve replayed every interaction over in my mind, it’s taken on a darker texture. I’ve debated with myself if I’ve exaggerated this one, but I haven’t been able to talk myself out of it yet.
It feels most like the application of a mask, the fixation of a role she must play or a personality she must embody. When it falls into place, she’s all business. We move around the kitchen as if in a London restaurant, no wasted motion and everything expertly executed. And if I stumble or lag behind, she simply picks up the pieces, asks me to shift aside, and carries on.
Ursula steps towards me. “There is something you can do. It’s Len’s birthday today, and I ordered a lamb shoulder from the butcher in Woodstock to be picked up this morning. But I really must take Peter and Nina—” She pauses, then rushes on. “Could you please pick it up?”
“But—” I stop myself. I was about to say that last week Peter told me it was his birthday that was coming up and that he wanted a chocolate cake.
“Yes?”
“I was just thinking about the bus schedule,” I lie and glance at my watch. “If I leave now, I can catch the next one.”
“Thank you.” Ursula squeezes my arm in a gesture of gratitude and strides out of the kitchen to the small table just inside their front door. She opens her coin purse and hands me a few coins. “You shouldn’t pay for your bus fare to run an errand for me. The shoulder will be on our account at the butcher’s.”
I accept the money. “Anything else I can do?”
“No, thank you. Just bring it back here. If I’m not home, Len should be here. It’s not a surprise.”
I rush out Ursula’s front door and point my bicycle towards the general store, as that is where I should catch the bus. But after sending up a brief prayer in hopes she’s not watching me, I don’t hop off there. I continue up High Street and turn right at the Hook Norton Road. A few minutes later I barge into the parish office. Thank goodness Peggy is alone.
“Can you follow Ursula today?”
“Where? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. She canceled our baking lesson and asked me to run an errand for her. I get the sense it’s to keep me busy. Earlier I saw something I wasn’t supposed to, and I’m not sure if she knows.” I wave my hand at Peggy’s quick intake of breath. The kind of intake that often precedes a litany of questions. “Later. We don’t have time for me to explain now. Can you?”
“Sure. The vicar is out today. But how? My bicycle’s at home.”
“Take mine and go to my place. You can watch both ways along High Street from my window. She’ll either ride right by you or you’ll be able to see her go south towards Kidlington. Then just ride after her.”
“I’m not going all the way there or to Bloxham. You can’t be serious. I’m not as strong as you.”
I squeeze her arm. “You can do it. You won’t keep track of her if you take the bus, but take it home if you want. Leave my bicycle anywhere you need, and I’ll gather it tomorrow.” I lift my watch. “I’ve got to catch the bus to Woodstock.”
“Fine. Go.” She flaps her hand at me. “You’re buying me supper at the Unicorn tonight. Sticky toffee pudding too.”
“Right you are.”
Peggy stands, sorting her coat, hat, and handbag. “I can’t believe this. What if, after all this effort, we’re wrong?”
“We’re not. More than ever, I believe we’re right.”
Chapter 21
The bus drops me in the center of Woodstock a full thirty minutes before the butcher shop opens at ten o’clock. Nevertheless, I walk by the store to get a sense of the shops, the street, who is where, and what is going on. For all the good it does me, as I’m not sure what I expect to be suspicious of anyway, and I’m not truly a Miss Marple who is going to solve a great crime walking High Street.
I finally remind myself to stop imagining things and think practically—and to purchase a bit of stew meat for my own supper, if not for tonight then for tomorrow night. Because my budget, at present, can’t afford lamb shoulder nor can it afford so many nights at the pub, especially if I’m buying Peggy’s dinner—and sticky toffee pudding—as well as my own.
After my third pass of the butcher shop, I realize pacing is ridiculous, but I have too much energy to sit. So rather than loop back for another pass, I keep walking down the street towards a sign marked for Blenheim Palace.
The gate into the grounds is open, so I step through, curb my churning thoughts, and stop. My jaw drops at a gorgeous sweep of lawn to the most massive palace I’ve ever seen across a steel-colored lake. It’s simply monstrous in size and formidable in the grey and cold, but I can imagine that in the summer, with green grass, bright-blue skies, and the lake’s deep blue reflecting the light, the yellow-stoned palace must look magnificent—like from a fairy tale. The most magical fairy tale of all time.
