Chapter Seven
I have to say, Georgie, this is truly the most interesting thing you’ve ever done!” Abigail declared, flinging herself into a chair.
“Not the three separate murders I’ve solved in the past year?” Georgie asked dryly.
Abigail shook her head. “Sleuthing is one thing. But bringing home a posh blond man from London? That is fascinating.”
It was just before dinnertime, and Georgie, Abigail, and Papa were in the drawing room, where they gathered each evening for drinks and perhaps to listen to the wireless before heading through for dinner.
Very little of the glory days of Radcliffe Hall remained, but Georgie’s mother had continued this tradition upon her marriage, even allowing the children, no matter how small, to join their parents, and Georgie had therefore been determined to continue it as well, after her mother’s death.
When Abigail and Georgie were young, this had involved mugs of extremely milky tea for them, while Papa had tea as well (only he’d poured whisky into it).
As the girls had grown, however, they’d begun to dabble in a bit of wine or sherry, then champagne, and these days Abigail had become obsessed with cocktails, which she never had the opportunity to acquire anywhere else in Buncombe-upon-Woolly, seeing as the village did not offer much in the way of fashionable entertaining.
She had acquired a copy of The Savoy Cocktail Book and was apparently determined to eventually work her way through the seven hundred recipes, although the Radcliffes did not entertain frequently enough for her to make much of a dent in it.
Tonight, the menu was aviations with a garnish of interrogation.
“This is only a professional relationship,” Georgie said, accepting the glass her sister handed her. “We are working on an investigation together. He’ll be back in London by this time next week.”
“That’s how it started with Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, but I’m not convinced wedding bells aren’t in their future,” Abigail said, sinking down onto the faded velvet love seat opposite Georgie.
Almost everything in Radcliffe Hall was somewhat faded, full of relics from the family’s wealthier and more glamorous days, and the drawing room where they currently found themselves ensconced was a perfect example of this, featuring a set of mismatched sofas and chairs, a battered coffee table, a scarred and chipped sideboard that Abigail had turned into a bar, a bookshelf buckling under the weight of two complete (and extremely outdated) encyclopedia sets and decades’ worth of issues of National Geographic, and wallpaper in a William Morris print that had likely looked spectacular fifty years earlier when it was hung, but which was showing definite signs of its age.
“Who?” Georgie asked blankly.
“From Dorothy Sayers’s novels,” Abigail said impatiently. “Don’t you read?”
“Strangely, I find the actual murders in my day-to-day life sufficient and don’t need to seek them out in novels,” Georgie shot back.
“Clearly not sufficient, since you’re determined to see a murder where there wasn’t one, with poor Mr. Penbaker.
” Georgie had to swallow back a sharp retort at the “poor Mr. Penbaker,” considering that not a week before his death, Abigail had been complaining vociferously about the fact that he’d refused to allow her to sell cocktails to the Murder Tourists on Murderous Meanders, a series of guided tours he’d arranged along the village’s high street.
The Murderous Meanders took place every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, meaning Georgie’s plans to commence a subtle investigation that weekend would be a bit more difficult with would-be amateur detectives popping out from around every corner.
“Besides,” Abigail added, not seeming to notice Georgie’s disgruntlement, “Dr. Severin examined Mr. Penbaker—surely if he’d been stabbed, he’d have noticed.”
“I don’t think he was stabbed,” Georgie said patiently. “If he was murdered, he was poisoned. There are numerous poisons that can induce cardiac arrest.”
“Your fondness for poisons is disturbing,” Abigail said, sniffing and taking a dainty sip of her drink.
“I’m not fond of them,” Georgie said, nettled. “In fact, I’d love it if people in this village could see their way to being poisoned a bit less frequently.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Abigail said, with a trace of smug knowing that Georgie found infuriating coming from her baby sister. “Because then you’d have nothing to do.”
Georgie opened her mouth to protest, but at that precise moment there were footsteps on the stairs, and a few seconds later, Sebastian poked his head into the drawing room.
“Hello,” he said cheerfully, beaming at the assorted Radcliffes.
“Hello!” Abigail said, brightening. “Would you like a cocktail?” She was already making for the bar; it was a great thrill for her whenever they had visitors, as she evidently found Georgie and their father to be somewhat dissatisfactory as far as cocktail hour company went.
Sebastian winked at her; Georgie contemplated homicide. “Strong drink and the company of two fetching maidens—who could resist?”
Abigail dimpled at him. “We’re having aviations, if you’d like one?
” She didn’t go so far as to bat her eyelashes, but Georgie was certain she’d considered it, and felt like reminding her sister that earlier that same day, she’d feigned a dire illness to lure a certain village doctor to Radcliffe Hall, and could she perhaps make up her mind as to which inappropriate man to flirt with?
“I’d love one,” Sebastian said, entering the room and taking a seat on the settee next to Georgie.
He had changed his clothing, she noticed—he was now wearing a cream-colored jumper and a pair of gray trousers.
Catching her glance, he said, “I didn’t think this seemed like the sort of household to dress formally for dinner—unless I was incorrect? ”
Georgie looked down at her outfit—the same one she’d been wearing all day, her blouse a bit limp and wrinkled by this hour.
“Not incorrect, unfortunately,” Abigail said, turning to present him with his drink. “We’re not very formal in Buncombe-upon-Woolly.”
“All part of your charm,” Sebastian said brightly, raising his glass to her. “Cheers.”
“Georgie tells me you’re a fellow Cambridge man,” Papa said now, eyeing Sebastian approvingly. “Which college?”
Papa and Sebastian proceeded to fall into a lengthy conversation in which they compared colleges (King’s versus St. John’s) and reminisced about May Balls and afternoons spent punting on the Cam. Georgie and Abigail exchanged weary looks and dedicated themselves to their cocktails.
“Did you never think to attend, then, Georgie, old bean?” Sebastian asked sometime later, drawing Georgie out of her thoughts with a start.
“What?” she asked blankly, staring at him.
“Or Miss Abigail, of course,” he added with a polite nod at her sister. “Attend one of the women’s colleges, I mean,” he clarified, seeing that she was still regarding him with confusion. “Girton, perhaps. Or Newnham.”
“No,” Georgie said shortly. “I couldn’t possibly leave Papa and Abigail.”
“And I was never all that good at schoolwork,” Abigail said, not looking remotely bothered by this. “It was all right at our boarding school, but a Cambridge education would be wasted on me.”
“However,” Georgie said quickly, spotting an opportunity, “Abigail may still leave the village—she’s been invited to spend the summer with our aunt in London.” Perhaps the presence of a handsome man from the capital would make the prospect seem more appealing to her sister.
Abigail’s face darkened like a sudden storm cloud.
“Nothing’s been decided yet,” she said shortly.
“You’re not the only person who has responsibilities here, you know.
I’m on the fete planning committee, and I wouldn’t like to abandon them—the other ladies don’t have quite the flair for the dramatic that I do, and I really think the quality of our fetes would suffer if I were to leave. ”
Georgie set down her glass. “Aunt Georgiana has already said that you’re welcome to stay with her,” she said with a frown. “There’s no reason you should be dillydallying about letting her know if you’re coming.”
“If you’re so eager for one of us to spend the summer with her,” Abigail said, a definite edge creeping into her voice, “then why don’t you go to visit instead?”
“Because I’m needed here,” Georgie said, which she thought should have been obvious.
Did Abigail not realize who kept the house running?
Who ensured that Mrs. Fawcett was paid on time?
That local boys from the village were hired each spring and summer to help with the landscaping around the ever-more-overgrown Radcliffe Hall?
The surrounding farmland had been sold off decades earlier, so at least she didn’t have to worry about tenant farmers, although the income would have been welcome.
Did Abigail not notice the number of villagers who sought her out, asking her advice on matters ranging from the keeping of bees to the timing of their milk deliveries to the changes to the bus schedule to Cheltenham?
And what of the three—three!—murders that Georgie had solved in the past year?
Abigail seemed unmoved by this explanation.
“Of course you are,” she said coolly, and then turned to their father and determinedly commenced a surprisingly detailed discussion of the mechanics of bell-ringing in The Nine Tailors, the latest novel by Dorothy Sayers, which both had evidently read for Miss Halifax’s murder mystery book club at the library.
(Georgie harbored a dark suspicion that, under other circumstances, both Papa and Abigail would be Murder Tourists.)
Sebastian turned to Georgie. “Didn’t mean to strike a nerve,” he said, sipping his drink with apparent satisfaction.
Georgie sighed. “It was my fault—it’s a bit of a sore subject between us. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”