by B G Denvil
“Ah,” Peg said, very loudly as she marched into the kitchen from the garden. “What a pleasant surprise. Just who I wanted to talk to.”
Opening the other eye, Alice stared, disgruntled. “Why?”
“Oh, ancient history and a few other things,” she said. “And I have a few questions regarding your dear daughter. I just had the pleasure of visiting your husband. Have you seen Alfred lately?”
“Not for a few years,” sniffed Alice. “Six or seven maybe. But the crows would tell me if he’d dropped dead or caught malaria.”
“And would it seem dreadfully odd,” Peg asked sweetly, “if I was to ask you all about Rosie’s birth. Your only child. Such a drama, I’m sure. You must remember.”
“Of course I remember,” Alice snapped. “Doesn’t mean I want to talk about it. The greatest pain a woman ever has, you know. Well, of course, you wouldn’t know. There’s few witches have children these days. There’s few who even get married, let alone do the mother thing. So buzz off and talk to the crows about their eggs, and what a fuss and bother it is feeding the silly little things every year.”
“I presume,” Peg sat opposite as if starting an interrogation, “you feel quite proud of yourself being one of our few actual mothers?”
“Why not?” demanded Alice with a curdled smile. “Now if you’re writing a history book or something, get on with the questions. I haven’t got all day.”
“Actually, you have several days,” Peg replied. “But I only want to know about Rosie’s ten years test. She came out as a fifty, as we all know now. But who did the test? Was it the official tester? And was it a straight fifty? No little scaramouch tails on the end?”
“Oh, this is so boring,” frowned Alice. “Let me try and remember. Yes, Rosie was ten. Her tenth birthday, as is proper. It was all very conventional, you know. And, yes, it was a straight fifty.”
“Who did the test?” Peg insisted.
“Oh, I don’t remember that. It might have been Whistle himself,” Alice said, clearing her throat as though uncomfortable in some way. “But I’m afraid I lost the papers years back.”
“And you haven’t summoned their return?”
“Not important enough,” Alice was getting impatient. “If you think Rosie is not a fifty any longer, then test her yourself. It couldn’t be official, naturally. But for you to satisfy this irritating curiosity.”
“I do so like to irritate,’ said Peg. “I might just do that. I would have supposed it was that Edna person. Edna Edith Elsie Ethel or something like that. She did all the tests before she flew off to some cave in Scotland.”
“Never heard of her,” grumbled Alice.
“Really?” Peg’s grin turned into a cackle. “Sounds like your dear husband whose name you’ve probably forgotten, who said he’d never met Whistle. In the meantime, exactly when is Rosie’s birthday? Now don’t tell me you’ve lost that as well?”
The deep crimson flush rising from jaw to eyes was a reasonable indication of how the irritation was affecting Alice. “Ridiculous,” she mumbled. “Of course I remember. I was there, wasn’t I?”
“And?”
Rosie, standing quietly behind Peg, was tempted to interrupt since she knew her birthdate perfectly well, but she snapped her mouth shut again and lowered her eyes to her lap.
Alice meanwhile said loudly, “Absurd, Mistress Peg. That’s enough. Why didn’t you ask Alfred if you were over there a minute ago? I’ll answer this and no more. Rosie was born on the ninth of June. Umm, yes, twenty-three years ago. Now, satisfied? Good, I have work to do now. Goodbye.”
And she scuttled off, disappearing into the garden with an empty basket she had quickly grabbed on the way out.
Peg looked at Rosie, and Rosie’s mouth had fallen open again. Peg grinned. “Well, my dear,” she said. “I hope you found that most interesting?”
Rosie gulped. “So my mother has a bad memory. That’s not important,” Rosie muttered. “You keep forgetting things and get them muddled as well.”
“But I hope I am right in saying your birthdate was the eighteenth of June when you’ll turn twenty-five? And now you’re twenty-four?”
Rosie nodded. “But who cares? I don’t care about my mother. Never have. She’s looked after me for years, and I’m grateful, but she’s no darling. Anyway, the important thing is Whistle’s death, and none of this about me has any relevance at all.” Rosie felt upset and said so. “You’ve just made me feel even more rotten about my stupid mother, which doesn’t matter in the slightest. I care about Whistle. So let’s get on with it.”
“You don’t want the test?” Peg asked with a sniff. “I have no official permission to do the test, but I’m perfectly capable, you know.”
“Like the occasional visit to the Gobi Desert?”
“Oh, pooh,” Peg’s nose twitched several times. “Anyway, it wouldn’t prove anything. So, come with me, my dear.”
“Where?”
A stubborn desire had left Rosie with a stubborn desire expression. “Nothing more about me,” she said through her teeth. “No more me, me, me or my mother or even my father. Only and strictly just Whistle.”
Peg sighed. “Come on then, my dear. Whistle’s bedchamber it is.” And she clicked the fingers of her right hand, flying Rosie and herself from the back doorstep up to the top floor where the grandeur of Whistle’s two rooms still remained vacant.
Both rooms had been cleaned and tidied. A strong cider and wet parsnip smell pervaded. Kate, the maid, had clearly used her homemade disinfectant. The bedchamber seemed surprisingly banal. Without any hint of the previous occupant, the bed was made, the table top was empty, the shelves were neat and the Turkey rug on the floor lay flat.
They wandered through to the second chamber and gazed at the nothingness. A chair and two stools stood around an empty hearth, another rug beneath and another empty table off to the side.
“Bother,” said Rosie.
Peg said a lot more, but kept the words under her breath. Finally, she shrugged, nodded for Rosie to take her hand and follow, and flew down the stairs to the ground floor at the back, just beyond the courtyards where the abandoned stables had been taken over by the staff, both Kate and Dipper now lodging there.
Knocking on Kate’s door first, Peg pushed the way open and marched inside. “Right,” she said. “What have you done with all Whistle’s papers and books and scrolls?”
Once again outside amongst the crows and other birds, Rosie smiled. She could understand very well why her father had taken to the trees. The rustle and song were far more beautiful than the shouting and the kitchen bell within the building. But, as her father had shown, Kate was not overjoyed at being so abruptly visited. She wiped her hands on her apron, sniffed onto her sleeve, and made a sort of haphazard curtsey. “I weren’t skiving orff,” she said. “’Tis my time fer meself.”
“Just a friendly visit,” Peg assured her. “Now, what have you done with all Whistle Hobb’s papers? Quick, and we’ll leave you in peace.”
“I ain’t stole nuffing.”
“Prove it, and hand them over,” said Peg.
Kate scowled. “Torn up and burned,” she said. “Mistress Alice done ordered it, and she done lit the fire fer me an’ all. So I ain’t got nuffing.”
Peg stepped backwards with an expression of fury mixed with disappointment. “My own stupid fault,” she muttered to herself. “I had those things in my hands. All of them. And I let them go. Botheration and diddley-poo with horns on.” She turned back to Kate. “When you cleaned up,” she said with an encouraging smile which seemed distinctly false, “did you see anything odd you can tell me about? And better still, have you kept anything?” She paused, then added, “I shall pay to get it back, whatever it is.”
“I done gived it all to Mistress Alice,” Kate said. “Now I ain’t got nuffing. But yous can pay me anyways.”
“Tell me what you remember?” Peg pleased, attempting a softer approach. “It’s most important. Just try.�
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She sighed, still frowning at Peg. Rosie was sitting in the corner, gazing out of the window at the crows. She wished she could join her father and go and feed them.
“Jumble and rumble,” muttered Kate. “There were papers o’ so many kinds it were real tedious, and they all done shouted at me. I screwed ‘em up. That shut the little moaners up. Then there were scales what I dropped and broke, and Master Hobb’s cape what wouldn’t sit still. Some stuff were silver, and I knows as how that were proper valuable, so I gived it all to Mistress Alice.”
“Really?” Peg smiled faintly.
“There were little tufty things and scoopy stuff. I reckon there was some o’ the gent’s brains, but I just wiped that up an’ all.”
“Oh, very well,” Peg said. “Just one thing more. Give me the two silver items you stole, and I shall give you two honest sovereigns.”
Kate blinked. “Not made up coin what’s gonna fade out tomorrow?”
“No. The real stuff. And not a single word to Alice. Just a secret between us.”
Kate bustled off and returned with a clutch of silver, which she stuffed into Rosie’s apron pocket with a snicker. “Right. Where’s me dosh?”
Peg handed over the two golden sovereigns, and leaving Kate to gloat over her coins, Peg and Rosie left the stables and flew back up to Peg’s bedchamber.
Chapter Eight
Peg stretched out both hands and stared at the silver items she held, one in each. One small pile of glitter appeared to be a misshapen silver toadstool. Peg’s right hand clutched something far larger. This was a spoon, big enough to feed an overgrown ox. She laid both objects beside her on the bed and stared, then rubbed her index finger carefully over each one. She whispered at both, held one and blew on the other, swapped over, and eventually pointed at one after the other and demanded, “Explain yourselves.”
The spoon was reflecting Peg’s pursed mouth. It had a deep voice. “You may have noticed,” it said, “that I’m a spoon.”
The toadstool sniggered. “He’s fibbing,” it said. “He’s a clock. Tells the time, the date and the past. Sometimes, when he’s in the right mood, he can tell the future.”
Leaning forward with sudden delight, Rosie began to take an interest. “Brilliant,” she said, ignoring Peg. “So who killed poor Whistle.?”
“Not me,” said the spoon at once. “And anyway, you’ll have to wait for permission. In the meantime, you’ve got a visitor. Come back later.”
The toadstool was sniggering again. “He’s an arrogant spoon,” it advised. “Needs a spoonful of wine, I expect.”
When there was a knock on the main door downstairs. Peg cursed again. “Who is it?”
“The sheriff’s assistant,” said the spoon with a voice of vague boredom. “It’s you lot he wants. I may see you later, unless I’ve gone back to sleep.”
“Upstairs, downstairs, up and down, up and down,” Peg complained. “Come on, my girl. Your admirer won’t take long, I hope, and we can come back here.”
“My admirer?” Rosie was not amused.
“Not only just a pathetic fifty,” Peg shrugged, “but blind and deaf as well. Come on, dear. We’ll fly.”
Rosie was a little surprised at such unaccustomed insults, but with hands clasped tight to Peg’s, she followed her down to the front door and watched as Alice opened it to Dickon, the same sheriff’s assistant who had come two days previously. They showed him into the meeting hall where he sat and surveyed his audience.
With a quick sideways smile at Rosie, he turned back to Alice, saying, “Well, mistress, I must investigate this most unpleasant murder. So I need to interview every one of your residents.”
Alice, Peg and Rosie all pulled a variety of faces, but there seemed little escape. “I shall send them in one at a time,” Alice sighed. “But I warn you, Master Wald, my resident folk here are a somewhat eccentric bunch. Please don’t judge them too harshly.”
“And perhaps,” he smiled sweetly again, “I could start with Mistress Rosie Scaramouch?”
Rosie sat. “I’ve been trying to work it out myself,” she said at once. “And I’ve got nowhere. But I’m not giving up.”
“And what were you doing that night?” the young man asked.
“Nothing.” Rosie managed a half smile. “I mean, I was in bed. I always am at night. There’s not much else to do.”
“And have you discovered nothing from your own investigations, mistress?”
“Not a twinge.”
“And who actually discovered the body?”
“Well,” Rosie remembered, “actually, I think it was me. Except no, it must have been Kate before me.” She bit her lip. “Not me. Kate. She’s the maid. Or maybe my mother.”
“I don’t wish to be rude,” Dickon said with an apologetic frown, “but this sounds a little like prevarication, Mistress Rosie.”
“I don’t care what it sounds like,” Rosie objected. “My mother told me Whistle was dead. He’d died in the night. She told me to go and clean up so we could rent the rooms out again. So I did. There was an awful mess, and Whistle was smashed up really badly. I liked Whistle, but I never knew him very well. Then I ran back downstairs, and my mother got the maid to clean up instead.”
“So how did your mother know in the beginning?”
Rosie thought about it. “She has quite good – instincts,” she smiled, determined to go and ask her mother the same question.
After leaving the interview, Rosie ran outside again, avoiding both Alice and Peg for a few moments. She needed to think and squatted down beside Whistle’s grave. “I do wish,” she mumbled, “you could come and tell me what happened.”
“Well,” muttered a small gravelly voice from beneath her chin, “what do you think I’m here for? Just to decorate your collar? Very pretty, I’m sure, but I have better things to do than just tickle your chin.”
Startled, Rosie nearly fell over. But she knew exactly who had spoken, and it wasn’t Whistle. “You’re a very nice hat-pin,” she told it, one finger rubbing gently over the ruby. “But you weren’t here when Whistle was murdered. If you can tell me anything magically, then I’d be most grateful. But how could I be sure whether to believe you?”
“Please yourself,” said the hat-pin. “I’m quite content to go back to sleep. Admittedly the view just under your chin gets a little monotonous, but I won’t complain.”
“You just did,” Rosie pointed out.
There was no answer, and she sat back, cross-legged, on the damp grass. It was true, of course, that her mother had been the first to speak of Whistle’s death, but presumably someone had told her, since she was not one to make early morning visits, and she certainly never went to clean or tidy anyone else’s bed. Yet Kate, when finally ordered to do the whole job, had not known what a terrible task she had been given. And Rosie couldn’t remember anyone else who had known of the death before she did – just her own mother. And her mother was already in with Dickon Wald when she went to find her.
She bumped into Peg and accepted the inevitable. “So who actually discovered Whistle’s body?” she demanded.
“Come with me,” Peg said, grabbing her arm. “This time we have to get well away from the influences of the house. No Rookery. No Kettle Lane.”
“The tavern?” Rosie quite liked the idea.
“Not even that.” And Peg smiled. “Now, my dear. Close your eyes and breathe deep. We have to fly high, since we can’t risk any of these boring mortals seeing us, especially Dickon the idiot.”
Dutifully Rosie closed her eyes and smelled cold air and salt. She hoped it was dinner. But when she opened her eyes, she realised it was nothing of the sort.
The ocean swept before them. The soft blue waves echoed the sky and swirled gently into white froth as they climbed down to the beach. The tide was out, the day was calm, and the wind was a tiny breeze from the east. Beneath their feet, the sand was warm, and sailing through the tiny wisps of cloud above, the gulls wailed as they swooped.
The brine smelled salty, of great journeys, of storms far off in the greater waves, and of strange shores.
Rosie clasped her hands together in delight. Visiting the English beaches was not an activity she had ever indulged. The ocean was for fishing, for the stark fear of adventure that ended in drowning, submerged beneath the unforgiving waters. Therefore, no one called the beach entertainment. Yet Rosie stood there now under the sun, and thought she had discovered another kind of magic.
“Exactly,” said Peg, as though Rosie had spoken aloud. “And now I can start my own investigation. Are you comfortable? Good. Then I’ll begin.”
Keeping her eyes on the seemingly never-ending beauty before her, Rosie nodded. But when Peg began, Rosie interrupted. “Oh, not all about me again,” she complained. “I thought we were going to investigate Whistle.”
“We’ll get to that,” Peg insisted. “Now answer my question, dear. What do you remember of your magical test? I presume it was your tenth birthday?”
Lying back suddenly, Rosie clasped her hands behind her head, felt the soft nest of the sand beneath her and stared up at the sky and its family of swooping gulls. “I remember it in bits,” she said patiently. “It was only fourteen years ago, but I must admit some of it is extremely wobbly. Bits up and holes down. To start with, I know it was my real birthday, and that’s the first of July. Goodness knows why my stupid mother forgot my proper date and somehow dreamed up the ninth of June.”
“A hint of problems to come,” Peg murmured and continued, “So, my dear. Who was it exactly who monitored your test?”
“My mother was there.” Rosie had closed her eyes. “I remember her standing at the back, looking cross. I expect she hoped I’d get a better result, but I didn’t. I remember Whistle being there too, Not sure why. He stood beside my mother with a neat little smile. But the main person, very tall with one of those funny hats, was a stranger. I didn’t know him at all, and I’ve never seen him since.”
“That’s the way it should be,” Peg nodded. “Has to be someone over ninety him or herself, without knowledge or prejudice of the child being tested. Your mother should have remembered who it was, but it seems she has a remarkably poor memory.”
