by Beth Byers
They finished and exited the teashop after Georgette visited the ladies once again. The street was a bit crowded and Robert waved, seeing Joseph and Marian walking down into the village. There was a large family across the way who looked an awful lot like the vicar’s.
“Marian!” Georgette called, waving happily.
“She loves her more than me,” Charles told Robert loudly enough to have Georgette elbow him.
“So do I,” Robert told Charles, who pretended to be wounded. “I am looking forward to the next few days. Tell me we’re going to have the flaming Christmas pud, Georgie.”
“Eunice stirred it up weeks ago,” Georgette told him.
“Gingerbread biscuits?”
She nodded.
“Yule log?” he pled, winking at Marian when she reached them.
“All the things,” Marian told him. “You aren’t a trio of bachelors anymore, gents. Stockings by the fire, mistletoe, roast goose. All of the delightful things.”
Robert groaned, rubbing his stomach, and Joseph grinned down at his betrothed. Her dog barked and he reached down to pet it, kissing her cheek on the way up. Charles was pleased to see his nephews so content.
“It is fun to be together, isn’t it?” Georgette blinked rapidly. “Oh no. No. Don’t mind me. It’s just the baby playing havoc with my heart.”
Robert and Joseph winced while Marian laughed deeply, taking Georgette’s face between her hands and kissing each cheek. “I have missed you, my favorite watering pot.”
“Oh you!” Georgette said, smacking Marian’s hands away.
There was a squeal of something loud and Georgette and Marian both gasped. Charles instinctively grabbed his wife’s arm and pulled her closer to him while they looked about. Joseph pointed, and they turned as one.
At the end of the street near the pub was a large group of local fellows who played cricket together. Charles had seen them having a post-game pint many a time. One of them leapt back with wind-milling arms and he guessed the man had drowned himself in his cups. His arms wheeled, his cheeks ruddy and his mouth gaping as he fell onto his bottom and then banged his head against the feet of one of the fellow players.
The gents burst into laughter, but one laughed so hard, he had his hands on his knees. His eyes were wide and then he clutched his chest.
“Charles—” Georgette grabbed his arm. “I don’t—”
Charles took a step forward in concern as the man keeled to the side. Georgette gasped, covering her eyes.
“Robert!” Joseph said. “The doctor. Marian—” He didn’t look back as he ran towards the fellow on the street.
“Yes, I know.” She took Georgette’s arm while Charles took his wife’s other. He wasn’t entirely certain if it was to keep her from following or keep her steady. With Georgette, it could be either. Or both.
Joseph had reached the fellow outside the pub, shoving the others back. They watched as he turned the man onto his back, checked for an obstruction in his throat, and then checked his pulse. To the fellows around him, Joseph shook his head.
“Oh no!” Georgette moaned, turning into Charles’s chest.
He rubbed his hand down her back as he waited with Marian. The doctor came running. It was moments like these, Charles thought, that a young man who could speed down the road was quite of use. The fellow looked down at the patient, frowned, and then dropped to his knees. He checked the fellow over and then he, too, shook his head.
Charles frowned as he saw the doctor rise, take Joseph’s arm, and tug him to the side. They conferred quietly and then the local constables appeared to help the doctor with the man’s body. Joseph frowned and then crossed back to them.
“Well?” Charles asked. The look on his nephew’s face was enough to tell Charles that something was quite wrong.
Joseph glanced at the weeping Georgette, the white-faced Marian, and then at Charles. “The doctor doesn’t believe that things are quite right. He’ll come by later after he has some time to formulate his thoughts.”
Charles nodded and then simply lifted Georgette in his arms, asking, “Someone get the door, please.”
“My sweet pup and I will go with you,” Marian told Charles. “Joseph—”
She smiled at him and sidled into the auto. She didn’t say ‘don’t be late.’ Or ‘hurry home.’ Or anything that would weigh on Joseph’s mind while he was working with the family. And Charles knew how much Joseph would appreciate that.
“Take care,” Marian called as Joseph stepped back. “Be safe.”
JOSEPH AARON
“I’ve played cricket with Davis Mangan,” Joseph told the doctor as he stepped into the office. “He barely got winded while we played.”
The newest of the constables was there. The oldest, a long-time friend of the Mangan family, was attempting to outrace gossip to deliver the news.
“I saw him a few weeks ago,” Dr. West said, snuffling. “He was quite healthy then. Came in for a rather large cut on his leg. I took his stitches out and made sure he was fine after it healed. Then, I saw him only two days ago. He was quite ill. Heart palpitations, nausea, vomiting. I thought it might be quite a bad bout of influenza.”
“And now?”
“Now two days have passed and no one else has come in with the influenza. It’s unlikely that we wouldn’t have had a flock of cases. Especially from his home. He has several small children. At least one of them would have gotten it, if not all of them.”
Joseph sighed, looking down at the dead man. He did look sickly. “Odd that he played cricket if he felt as ill as he appears.”
“Not really,” Constable Rogers said. “Those boys would have never let him forget missing. You’d have to be at death’s door to get away with it, and even then—you’d still get mocked endlessly.”
“He was at death’s door,” Dr. West said. “That game may well have been the final nail in his coffin, so to speak.”
“Seems to me,” Joseph said, “it was that hysterical laughter.”
“Doesn’t feel quite right to say a man died of laughter,” Dr. West muttered. He examined the dead man’s eyes and shook his head. Joseph noted the doctor’s hesitation to proclaim a cause of death.
“Dr. West, do you suspect something in particular?”
The doctor sighed. “I can’t be certain, you understand, but I do think he was poisoned.”
The three men looked at the corpse in silence. Joseph spoke first. “Any idea of what might have done it?”
Dr. West shook his head. “Well—I haven’t spent a lot of time researching poisons. Perhaps digitalis? Ah—a non-deadly amount of cyanide? Or arsenic? It might have been a slow poisoning and the final dose did him in or weakened his heart enough that it caused an attack. I’ll have to run tests, of course, before I know. We might need to call in to London,” he added with a look to Joseph, “to confirm poisoning.”
“Cynthia Mangan is not a woman who would slowly poison her husband,” Constable Rogers said firmly. “She’s my cousin, and I’m sure she loved him. She’s going to be destroyed by this, just destroyed.”
Joseph sighed. “You can’t rule her out because she’s family.”
“I think we need to ask you in, Joseph,” the constable said, “seeing as how she’s family, but I have no doubt that you won’t be able to show she did it.”
Joseph nodded, sighing. “Then until we know otherwise, we are going to quietly treat this as a murder.” With a sarcastic twist to his mouth, he declared, “Happy Christmas, everyone.”
Chapter 3
GEORGETTE AARON
Georgette took refuge in her bedroom. She had been rather tired before they’d seen that poor man fall dead. Given the look on Joseph’s face, Georgette was afraid they’d discover there was more to his death than an apoplectic fit. She shook off the idea and found her way to the bath. When she returned to her room, she found that an angel had brought in a pot of tea. Georgette doctored her cup and took it with her to bed. She wished her dogs were with
her, but they’d abandoned her for the smells coming from the kitchen.
She wrapped herself in her ratty old terrycloth robe and climbed into bed, leaning back against a stack of pillows. Dinnertime would come soon, and she’d need to rise and dress, but she rather needed some long minutes alone before she suffocated on familial love.
She opened the book she’d bought herself while they had been shopping and sank into the pages. The journey from the pages to sleep was easy and she woke when Charles sat on the bed next to her. She noticed the tight frown about his mouth and darkness in his eyes.
“Joseph has returned?”
Charles nodded.
“Was it—”
“The doctor thinks it might have been a poisoning.”
Georgette took Charles’s hand and squeezed.
“Does anyone have any idea why?”
Charles shook his head. “He doesn't want to approach it as a poisoning while he gets a handle on what happened. He doesn’t want to spook the killer if there is one. It is likely that it was a well-planned crime that points to his wife.”
Georgette reached up to his face and told him softly, “I’ll never poison you, dear Charles.”
He pulled her up, lifted her into his lap, and leaned against the headboard on their bed. “This is true love, isn’t it? Not murdering your spouse.”
“We set a low bar,” Georgette told him.
“What did Robert want to speak to you about?”
Georgette kissed him on the chin. “You know, I don’t think I’ll tell you.”
Charles laughed. “Is he in love?”
She shook her head.
“Has he found a home to be fixed up outside of Harper’s Hollow?”
“He would never!” Georgette grinned and then Charles tipped her face to his, kissing her deeply. The moments passed quickly and when Eunice rang the dinner gong, they both jumped. They glanced at each other, Georgette still in her favorite ratty robe, and Charles in the same day suit he’d worn to London.
They laughed as they raced through dressing, Georgette throwing on her new dress cut for a baby to grow, and Charles shaving and changing quickly.
“I like your dress,” he lied.
She laughed. “It makes me look like a tent, but the other one is quite a hard time buttoning. I might have been wearing that cardigan to disguise the fact that not all the buttons were closing.”
“Everything about you is beautiful,” he told her, and that wasn’t a lie.
“You seem to love me in my robe,” she told him. “Perhaps the dress won’t detract from your adoration too much.”
As Charles laughed, Georgette put on her same pretty cardigan because it was December and the heating system didn’t quite remove the wet chill from the air and she tended towards being chilled on the best of days. They joined everyone else in the dining room as the last to arrive. Eunice had made a fine fish stew to start, followed by roasted chicken, potatoes, and carrots, and then a ginger spice cake.
“This isn’t even Christmas dinner,” Robert said, groaning from over-indulgence. He glanced at Charles. “You’re going to be fat, old man.”
“You’ll be quickly let go, young man,” Charles replied idly, “if you’re not careful.”
A moment later, Janey asked, “You wouldn’t really remove him from his position, would you, Charles?”
Charles laughed and shook his head. “Never fear, poppet. My arrogance isn’t quite so angry.”
Her eyes were wide and worried as she slowly asked, “Is it true that someone died today? In the village?”
Georgette closed her eyes and debated answering, but there was no lying about this one. “It looks like he might have had a heart attack. A fellow named Davis Mangan.”
Janey paled even further, glancing around the table, and then she said hoarsely, “But he’s younger than you, Charles.”
Charles frowned, examining the child, who was trembling.
“Are you worried that Charles will die too?” Georgette asked gently.
Janey bit down hard on her bottom lip. “I’ll end up in an orphanage for sure if Charles dies. I won’t be so lucky twice.”
Georgette felt her tears overflow. “Darling, your safety from an orphanage doesn’t rely on only Charles.”
“But he pays for things.”
“Georgette writes books,” Charles told her. “She took care of herself and Eunice before I came along. She won’t throw you into the street even if something happens to me.”
“But—”
“And there’s me, little one,” Robert announced. “I’d look after you. Joseph and Marian would look after you. Lucy, when she’s settled, will look after you. Eddie will. And Charles isn’t going to drop dead in the street.”
“Mr. Mangan did,” Janey said. “My mother and father died. I don’t…I can’t…I don’t want anyone else to die!” Her voice was a wail and she threw herself from her chair and out of the room.
Lucy rose to follow, saying, “I’ll calm her down. She just needs to cry it out. She’s been having bad dreams. That’s all. She gets like this when she’s overtired.”
Georgette watched Lucy go. “I’m not sure if it would be better or worse to tell her what really happened.”
“Until it’s fully in the open,” Joseph said firmly, “she can’t know.”
“Did he not have a heart attack?” Eddie asked, staring around the table.
“It could have been a poisoning,” Joseph told Eddie. He eyed the boy hard and added, “Not a word.”
Eddie nodded. “Of course. All right. All right. You can count on me.”
Joseph snorted. “It’s why we told you, Eddie.” He grinned and then glanced at the others. “I suppose I have to get up early and visit the widow tomorrow. Track down the last few days, see what I can learn.”
Georgette found Lucy and Janey in the morning. Janey looked as if she’d cried herself to sleep and Lucy looked as if she’d held Janey the entire time. She bid the girls a gentle “Good morning,” which they returned weakly.
“It’s just hard,” Lucy explained when Georgette said nothing more. “Papa was friends with Mr. Mangan. Mr. Mangan dying brings it all back—for all of us.”
Georgette crossed to sit next to Janey at the kitchen table and ran her fingers along the girl’s back as she tried to find the right words to say, but there weren’t right words for losing your parents. That hurt didn’t go away. It just became a part of you. Georgette felt as though all she could do was be there.
Finally, Janey looked up and asked, “May we do something for the Mangan family? May we bring them—I don’t know—what do you bring people who lost their papa?”
“What did people bring your family?”
Janey frowned. “They were too worried about what to do with us. No one brought anything.”
“Mrs. Hill brought us quilts,” Lucy reminded Janey.
Janey was unimpressed. She crossed her arms over her chest and Georgette said, “It’s common to bring something for the family to eat so they don’t need to worry about preparing anything.”
Janey sighed. “I can’t cook.”
“I’ll help you, poppet,” Eunice said as she set out breakfast. “What would you think about a nice game pie?”
Janey looked unhappily at Eunice. “That would be more from you. I want to do something from me.”
Janey disappeared into her bedroom and was gone for some time. The others finished their meal, with Charles and Robert joining them before heading into Charles’s office.
When Janey returned, she had a basket full of things for the family. Several toys for the children, along with an afghan she’d knitted over the previous few months with Eunice’s instruction.
“Those are nice things,” Georgette told Janey. There was a part of Georgette that wanted to tell Janey she didn’t have to give away so much, that Georgette would take care of it, but she knew better than doing so. Instead, she said, “You’re very generous.”
Janey sm
iled and then started helping Eunice make the pastry for the game pie along with a pastry for a treacle tart. They worked together, with Janey unusually silent. Georgette helped as she could, but she ended up being shooed to her typewriter in the library. She didn’t turn to it, however. She pulled out the manuscript she’d placed in her desk, took out a pencil, and began to read and make notes.
Georgette worked until Janey and Lucy appeared in the doorway.
“We have everything ready for the Mangan family,” Lucy said. “Did you want to walk with us?”
“Why don’t we take the auto,” Georgette countered. “I’ll be happy to come.”
Lucy hesitated and then admitted, “I’d like to stop and bring a tart to the doctor as well. His family is quite far away, and he won’t be going home for the holidays.”
Georgette eyed the blush on Lucy’s face. Merrily, she said, “We can’t allow that. Why don’t you invite him to our home?”
Janey scoffed, eyeing her sister sideways with enough mockery that Georgette was sure that Lucy did have something of a crush on the doctor. Was it returned? Georgette bit down on her bottom lip and wondered just what she was supposed to do about it. Then she remembered that Lucy was old enough to make her own choices and the doctor seemed to be quite a nice man, even if he did look like he was a very tall peer of Janey’s.
Georgette rose and went to get her coat. It didn’t close over her baby bump anymore, but she’d been silly enough to buy a fitted coat that accented her waist. She left it open, wrapped a scarf around her neck several times, and put a hat on her head.
“We’d better tell Charles,” Georgette said. She went to him in his office. He was seated at his desk, with a book on his lap, puffing on his pipe. Across from him, Robert was a mirror image. The two of them had steaming cups of tea between them. Georgette reached for Charles’s cup and sniffed the tea and then laughed, “It’s the chili one.”
“I was intrigued,” Charles told her, taking her hand and kissing her fingertips. “Are you leaving?”
She felt a blush hit her and she glanced at Robert, who was smiling fondly at the two of them. She lifted a brow and glanced at his cup.
