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Clementine remained silent and watched her father shepherd the still somewhat absent clergymen out of the door. She didn’t follow them but remained perfectly still and silent as she listened to her father bid the vicar goodbye. While she listened to the conversation in the hallway with only half an ear, Clementine took a few moments to herself to absorb what the vicar had just told her. Sally had been a permanent fixture in the village practically all of Clementine’s life. It was distressing to think that she wasn’t going to be around anymore.
“I don’t believe it,” Clementine whispered. “I just don’t believe it.”
“What, dear?” Cameron murmured when the vicar had left. He ambled back into the room and slid into a high-backed chair beside the fire to study his daughter, who looked so lost in thought he knew the instant he saw her that trouble was afoot.
“I cannot remember Sally ever having so much as a cold,” Clementine stated.
“Well, like the vicar has just said, death comes to us all. There is nothing to say that anybody has to have a lingering death.” Cameron sought to sooth his daughter’s disquiet, preferably before she did something rash.
Clementine nodded but wasn’t at all sure what she should think, feel, or do now. She had planned to go to see Sally, but now she – couldn’t. At a loss, she wandered aimlessly around the sitting room before ambling over to the window seat. Perching on it, she stared thoughtfully out of the window in the direction of Sally’s house. She opened her mouth to speak to her father, who turned around in his chair so he could see her, but words failed her. There wasn’t anything she could say because she wasn’t at all sure what she should feel or do. What could one do in such circumstances? Inane platitudes had already been exchanged with the vicar and needed to be reserved for Sally’s sister, Dotty. Her father certainly didn’t need them.
“Dotty has to informed.”
“I am sure the funeral director, or doctor, or vicar, will see to that. It isn’t really any of our business.” Cameron sighed when Clementine glared at him. “This is a family affair. While I know Sally was an acquaintance, you weren’t the best of friends with her, were you?”
“But she was an acquaintance. Besides, I was the last one to see her alive. I was the last one she spoke to. You saw the look on the vicar’s face just now. He thought I had something to do with her death.” Clementine fought hard to keep a hold on her panic, but it flourished anyway. The thought of anybody contemplating what that might mean, and reading all sorts of things into it, was horrifying.
“Don’t get hysterical. I know this is distressing, but I am sure the vicar didn’t mean anything by it. You saw how upset he was when he arrived. Why, I have never seen the vicar that distracted before,” Cameron soothed.
“Yes, which is odd, don’t you think? I mean, if he doesn’t think there is anything untoward, why would he be so anxious about telling us?” Clementine argued.
Cameron contemplated that but couldn’t come up with an answer. “I have no idea how well he knew Sally.”
“No better than he knows any of the other ladies who help out at the church,” Clementine argued. “There is no reason why he should be so fearful. Unless he knows something.”
Cameron’s sharp gaze flew to Clementine. He sat up straighter and instantly became alarmed by the thoughtful tone of his daughter’s statement.
“Now, don’t go reading too much into Sally’s death. Like we have said, unexpected deaths do occur. How do you know Sally hadn’t been feeling all that well, and the seizure is the result of something she has just ignored for a while?” Cameron argued. “If the doctor said she died from a seizure then it is a seizure that took her. He is more qualified to be able to say what took her than you or me, Clementine. Best leave him to it, eh?”
/> Cameron knew his words hadn’t even registered on his daughter when Clementine didn’t even look at him. He sighed heavily and sought to find some other way of allaying Clementine’s suspicious nature. If he didn’t manage to Cameron suspected she was going to get herself into a muddle, and it would undoubtedly ruffle a lot of feathers doing so.
“The last thing we need to do is become embroiled in the woman’s private affairs,” Cameron sighed. “You were her friend, Clementine, not a close confidant.”
“I was the last person to see her alive,” Clementine persisted.
“That may be so, but it doesn’t mean you have to go sticking your nose into the woman’s business. Stay out of it, before you upset someone.” Cameron glared pointedly at his daughter, who returned his look with an affronted glare.
“I am not meddling,” she snapped pertly.
Cameron snorted and picked up his broadsheet, flicking it crisply as if to make a point.
“Stick to the facts, and stop looking for things that aren’t there,” he warned.
Clementine didn’t deign to answer. She couldn’t. Her thoughts were already focused on the house further along the street, where her newly deceased friend still presumably lay on her death bed.
Sally’s demise was a personal, family affair. Of course it was. She knew that. Clementine also knew that Sally’s sister was the one who had to see to the funeral arrangements, and she would. As eccentric as Dotty was, she was sensible enough to oversee the organisation of such a dire event. On this occasion, despite her close acquaintance with Sally, Clementine was left to do nothing but contemplate the sad loss of her friend and wonder if there was anything she could have said or done differently that would have helped in some way. It was not being able to come up with any answers that urged Clementine to find the answers, if only to settle her mind to the shocking reality that Sally Walcott was dead.
“I don’t believe it,” she whispered when she sensed her father had moved to stand beside her. Sure enough, his hand settled on her shoulder in a comforting gesture.
“I know, my dear. But like the reverend said, these things happen to us all. Nobody stays on the earth forever. Everyone must die at some point. Life is a like a book, isn’t it?”
“How so?” Clementine dragged her gaze away from the quite country lane outside the front of their house and looked searchingly at her father.
“Well, some books are huge thick tomes with plenty of adventures inside. Others are long, family-based sagas. Others are short stories, or teenage adventures cut short before adulthood weighs its heavy burden. On this occasion, Sally’s book seems to have been ended mid-stride, but she made an impact while she was here, didn’t she? She used to help the church and village a lot,” Cameron murmured gently. “I am sure everyone who is involved in the fair will miss her terribly, but life has to carry on.”
Clementine felt the sharp sting of tears but blinked them away. “I just don’t understand how someone so healthy can take ill and die so suddenly. Sally never even said she had a stomach-ache, or even a headache.”
Clementine’s voice trailed off to a whisper as she thought over yesterday’s meeting with Sally. Over and over they whirled and churned in a kaleidoscope of worry and self-doubt. Had she missed something; some vital clue as to her friend having a hidden illness? Was there anything Sally might have hinted at that would have given her some idea that something was wrong, if only she had paid a little closer attention?
