Chapter Thirteen
I was late coming down for breakfast the following morning and found only Lissette, Hetty, and Fiona at the table. The morning sun filtered through the sheer draperies on the east-facing window, indicating that snow was still nothing more than a fantasy, but chilly air was very likely.
A footman swept crumbs from the white linen, an obvious marker of where the children had been seated.
Lissette had her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her fist while she gazed out the window.
I accepted Fiona’s offer of coffee and filled my plate with a few breakfast items from the sideboard before joining this abbreviated version of my family at the table.
“Should I assume the children have returned upstairs to work on their book?” I asked.
“They have indeed,” Hetty said. “They were sorely disappointed that it still hasn’t snowed, so having the book to work on is something of a godsend.”
“While the weather has been reasonably pleasant the past two days, for Norfolk, that is, I do hope it breaks and we have some snow for Christmas.” Fiona frowned at the paltry streaks of sun across the table. “Then at least something would be going right.”
I patted her arm in sympathy. “We still have two more days,” I reminded her. “It looks as though I’ve missed Dr. Bertram, too. Is he already back at work?”
Lissette sighed and shifted her chin from one fist to the other.
“I assume that means yes,” I said.
“Isn’t he handsome?” she asked, speaking generally to the group of us.
“He is,” I said cautiously. “But he is here to work, not to be mooned over.”
Her eyes flashed dangerously as she focused on me. “You haven’t stopped him from mooning over Christine.”
Hetty chuckled. “I suspect Christine will put an end to that herself.”
“I didn’t notice him mooning over Christine,” Fiona said.
“He was clearly taken with her when he first arrived, but I wouldn’t say he was—” Lissette’s look of utter disbelief stopped me mid-sentence. “Ah, yes, mooning, he was definitely mooning, but as Hetty said, I didn’t see any interest on Christine’s part.”
“She’s with him now,” Lissette said with a sullen pout. “Helping him, they said, but you told us yesterday that he didn’t want help.”
I didn’t like the sound of this, or Lissette’s tone. “Dearest, Christine is your sister. If you allow the preference of one man to chill your relationship with her, I promise you will regret it for the rest of your life.”
Lissette struggled to hold back tears. “But I … but she …”
Hetty, who was seated beside Lissette, took her hand, which was all that was needed to start the tears flowing.
Lissette buried her face in Hetty’s shoulder.
“I know, I know, dear.” Hetty stroked Lissette’s hair.
“It isn’t fair. You saw him first. Christine didn’t even seem interested.
But none of that matters. Attraction simply doesn’t work that way, and sadly, it is not always mutual. ”
“Not to mention you are far too young to even be thinking about men in a romantic sense,” Fiona said in a dismissive tone.
Ouch! I could feel Lissette bristle at the comment.
She pushed away from Hetty’s embrace and dabbed her eyes with a napkin. “I am fifteen,” she said. “Older than Juliet.”
“And we all know how well that turned out,” Fiona replied.
“Don’t be in such a hurry to grow up. Adulthood is not always a jolly place, and once there, you are well and truly stuck—forever.
” She shook a finger at Lissette. “There is no going back,” she added, just in case Lissette didn’t understand the concept of forever.
“Enjoy the age you are now. You will have plenty of chances for falling in love in a few years’ time. ”
Though I had to agree with Fiona, I worried that her words had struck a blow to Lissette’s pride.
For a moment, she appeared to have recovered and actually seemed to be taking Fiona’s words to heart.
Then a glint of defiance, which I knew so well, lit her eyes. “Do you suppose he sees me as a child?”
Dear heavens, she was looking straight at me!
Yes, of course, I was certain he saw her as a child.
A man of twenty-five or twenty-six must see a fifteen-year-old girl as exactly that—a girl.
He was too old for her, and she was too young for anyone at this point, but how to explain to her that such an age gap would be socially acceptable were she eighteen and he twenty-nine?
I was Eighteen when I first married, and even then I had been terribly na?ve.
She waited for an answer.
“Not a child exactly,” I said, delicately choosing my words, while Hetty and Fiona both took a sudden interest in their breakfasts, leaving me to sink or swim. “From his perspective, I would assume he considers you too young to be thinking of romance.”
“But Christine is old enough.” Lissette threw out the words like a challenge.
“Do not make Christine the problem,” I said. “She is your sister and far more important than any man you simply wish to flirt with.” I hoped she wanted only to flirt with him.
Lissette heaved a dramatic sigh and dragged herself to her feet. “You don’t understand. I’m going to my room,” she announced. I was surprised when she simply walked out rather than stomping across the floor.
The moment she was gone, it was as if Hetty and Fiona came back to life or at least found their voices. “I wouldn’t be fifteen again for any amount of money,” Fiona said.
“I don’t recall it being a difficult age,” I mused. “But there weren’t any young men in my life at the time.”
“You had no time for young men back then,” Hetty said. “Your mother was preparing you to be the perfect countess.”
That was true enough. I’d attended Mother’s version of finishing school. Hetty was right. That had left me no time for anything else. “With that in mind, I must agree with you. I wouldn’t want to be fifteen again, either.”
“Hear! Hear!” Hetty lifted her coffee cup in a toast. Chuckling, Fiona and I joined her.
“What’s so funny?”
We all glanced to the doorway as Rose wandered up to the table.
“Nothing important, dear.” Rose slipped up next to me, and I dropped a kiss atop her head. “How is your story coming along?”
“We have decided the Ghost of Christmas Present killed Mr. Scrooge.”
“Should you be telling us that?” Hetty asked. “Won’t that ruin the story for us?”
Rose made a face. “We’ll probably change it. We’ve changed it so many times already.”
“I’m told revision is part of the writing process,” Fiona said with a hopeful tone.
“It’s hard.” Rose’s voice bordered on a whine.
“Gregory wanted Bob Cratchit to kill him, but if he did it, what would happen to Tiny Tim and all Bob’s other children?
Then we picked someone else, but they are all nice people, and we didn’t want them or their families to be hurt if they were arrested.
” Her expression was pained. “When Grace asked if one of the ghosts could have killed him, we all liked that idea.”
“It seems you found a solution,” I said.
Rose turned her wide blue eyes up to mine. “A ghost didn’t kill Dr. Penhollow.”
“No, but right now, we don’t know if anyone did. Sometimes, when people are older, a part of their body will just stop working. That’s why we asked Dr. Bertram to help us.”
“Scrooge chased all his family away, but Dr. Penhollow’s family is sad, aren’t they?”
“I’m sure they are.” I gave her a squeeze. “You know, the three of you are creating this story. It’s up to you to decide if Scrooge chased all his family away or not. Someone engaged your detectives, didn’t they? Someone must care.”
I could see her mind working as she sifted through all the characters in the story. Her eyes brightened. “Maybe someone does care,” she said, then gave each of us a hug before returning to the schoolroom with her new idea.
“I really do wish it would snow, so the children would have something more cheerful to do,” Fiona said. “They can’t work all the time.”
“Even though Rose said it was hard, I don’t think they consider their story as work,” Hetty said. “But speaking of something to do, what have you planned for your investigation today, Frances? Or do you intend to wait until the doctor has come up with a cause of death?”
“Since I have no idea how much time the doctor will need, I’d like to call on the widow and see what I can learn about her actions on the day of the murder.
And those of her daughter. I also feel I ought to call on Constable Ellis and tell him about the too-large gum boots. Would either of you care to join me?”
“You are likely wasting your time with the constable,” Fiona said. “But interviewing the Penhollow ladies is a good idea.” She consulted the diary next to her plate and shook her head. “I’m afraid I have plans today, so I will not be able to accompany you.”
“I have time,” Hetty said, “and would be happy for the distraction. When do you wish to leave?”
“There is no time like the present,” I said.
Fiona’s plans involved dragging the children away from their story to go out and select a Christmas tree, an event I was rather sorry to miss, but I had an investigation to pursue.
I asked her to send one of her staff to the train station to inquire about Mr. Timms’s arrival from Cromer on the day of the murder.
He claimed he had been on the afternoon train, but I hesitated to assume he was telling the truth.
If he had been on the train that arrived shortly before eight o’clock, he would have had time to murder Dr. Penhollow.
I didn’t consider him a very likely suspect, but it couldn’t hurt to check.
Hetty and I considered asking Lissette to join us, but she was already ensconced in the conservatory with Dr. Bertram and Christine. I thought it might not be a bad thing for the two of them to have a chaperone, so we opted to leave Lissette where she was.