Dr. Bones and the Lost Love Letter (Magic of Cornwall Book 2)

by Emma Jameson

  After they’d settled themselves around his coffee table, poured the tea, discussed the weather, and shared a plate of McVitie & Price’s digestive biscuits, Mr. Dwerryhouse cleared his throat.

  “Well. Now. It falls to me, naturally, to address what Aggie would call the elephant in the room,” he said. “She was kind enough to call on me Tuesday, you see, after I closed the shop early—”

  “‘Aggie?’” Juliet repeated. “I thought you were called Aggie, informally, I mean.”

  “So I am,” Mr. Dwerryhouse agreed. “And so was she, when we were both young. Agatha and Augustus became Aggie and Aggie. We were so thick, it gave rise to the general expectation of matrimony. But we were only dear friends. I believe that Tom, God rest his soul, was the only man she ever loved. As for me….”

  “Mr. Dwerryhouse,” Ben said when the little man seemed unable to continue. “You don’t owe us an explanation. We meant no harm when we brought you the letter, but clearly we dredged up memories you preferred to keep private. It was never our intention to force a confidence.”

  “I know, Dr. Bones, and thank you,” Mr. Dwerryhouse said. “Aggie explained that to me. Do you know, she’s the first living soul with whom I’ve ever discussed the matter? All these years, I’ve pretended it never happened. And the sad truth is, nothing happened in the first place.

  “I did have a shop assistant called Bertie years ago. He was handsome and charming, and cruel, when it came to it, but I was the last person to see that. My affection for him was perhaps greater than it should’ve been, and certainly never returned. Now, over the gulf of years, I can see he viewed me as a sort of patsy, forever lending him money and excusing his shortcomings instead of giving him the sack. In those days, being so young and naïve, I thought I could earn his regard, and then….” He smiled self-consciously. “Then confess the truth. Now I know Bertie guessed the truth about me almost at once, and relied upon it to keep his position and to secure those loans. It took me a year to say, enough. When I did, he threatened blackmail.

  “The fact is,” Mr. Dwerryhouse went on, looking from Ben to Juliet, “I didn’t write that letter. I never breathed a word of my feelings to Bertie or anyone else. I didn’t take his threat of blackmail seriously, because my sins were sins of the heart. Again, I must remind you, I was young and naïve. It didn’t occur to me that he would simply lie.

  “The things he spread about the village shocked me to my very soul. I thought I might be arrested, or driven away. It was around that time that Aggie stopped speaking to me. I thought she believed the lies, but it was only that she was mortified, and had no idea what to say. If only one of us had had the courage to talk about it!” He shook his head.

  “But you’ve renewed your friendship now, haven’t you?” Juliet asked. Surely she could find a silver lining if she looked hard enough.

  “Yes, we have, at long last,” Mr. Dwerryhouse agreed, brightening. “And that’s down to the two of you. But I have one more thing to say.”

  Rising, he went to the bookshelf and returned with a battered leather scrapbook. “This is from 1910 to 1915,” he said, thumbing through its yellowed pages, some of which were beginning to crumble. “The fact is, the moment I saw the letter, I recognized the handwriting. I remember the story about that poor man who died in the car crash, too. I heard it from a man who used to run a curiosity shop in Barking. His name was Bryce Pasquette. There he is,” Mr. Dwerryhouse said, pointing at a man in one of the photographs. “In front of his shop beside the old rector and some of the WI. Most of them dead, now, or very feeble, I expect.”

  Juliet looked at the man in the photograph. He was tall and spare, with a long face and a lantern jaw. A shock of hair hung in his eyes, and his clothes were better suited to a laborer than a businessman. Something about his face made her think of a revolutionary, one of those passionate young men who gave out leaflets about the coming rise of the working class.

  “You said ‘used to run,’” Ben said. “Did he retire?”

  “No,” Mr. Dwerryhouse said. “I should add that although I considered him a friend, and certainly a clever conversationalist, he never took me into his deepest confidence, nor did I take him into mine. I knew he was carrying on a passionate love affair with some woman in Birdswing, because he turned up here so often, and at various times. I waited for the day I would glimpse them together, or Bryce would share his happy news. But it never happened. Then, one day, I heard that he’d closed the shop and left Barking without a forwarding address. Now that I’ve seen the letter, I know why, even if I don’t know the name of the woman who broke his heart.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t tell us about him right away,” Juliet said, “if only to divert further discussion about you and Bertie.”

  “I couldn’t, out of loyalty to Bryce, even after all these years,” Mr. Dwerryhouse said. “He was a goodhearted man, slow to make friends, hesitant to reveal himself, but remarkably decent. I’ve told you that when Bertie went about, telling his lies, I was terrified of what might befall me. I had no money left to pay his price, so I went to the only shop owner I dared approach, Bryce. It took every drop of courage I had to ask for a loan. He heard me out, and he said no, but kindly. I went away, and the next morning I heard that Bertie had left Birdswing under cover of darkness. Never to return.”

  “So rather than lend you the money, he paid Bertie off himself,” Juliet said.

  “So I believe, though he denied it,” Mr. Dwerryhouse replied. “How typical of the goodhearted man, to do such a kindness and refuse to speak of it. For a while, I hoped to repay him, but then he, too, went away and never returned.” The little man took in a deep breath, exhaled, and smiled at them both. “Aggie told me that if I would simply repeat the story in its entirety, if I would say the words aloud, a weight would be lifted. And it is.”

  “That’s a relief,” Ben said. “I’ve been berating myself for not burning that letter.”

  “I’m very glad you didn’t,” Mr. Dwerryhouse said. “Even if I didn’t write it, its reappearance has been a blessing. I’m terribly grateful to you both.”

  “It might not be spring, technically,” Juliet declared as they walked back to Fenton House. “But it’s springtime in my heart. Do you suppose it’s possible I’ve become addicted to the happiness of others?”

  “I don’t know. But as addictions go, you could do worse,” Ben said. “If you’d like to make me happy, you have only to go up to the attic, you know. I have patients booked this afternoon, but I’ll find a way to steal up there somehow.”

  “Very well,” Juliet said. “Perhaps I’ll reread the letter and come up with a list of suspects for the recipient.”

  Ben groaned. “Just because Mr. Dwerryhouse has chosen to view the intrusion positively doesn’t mean we should go about overturning more apple carts. Mrs. Richwine specifically told me to use my judgment. At this point, my judgment is to destroy the letter and forget it.”

  “Oh, very well,” Juliet said, not at all sure she would allow the lost love letter to be destroyed or forgotten. She’d tucked it into her handbag for safekeeping, afraid that if she left it with Ben, it would soon be reduced to ashes. “But I’ve grown rather attached to it for obvious reasons. Probably because I’m still waiting for any sort of missive from you.”

  Ben seemed not to hear. As he led her through the garden gate and up the stone path toward Fenton House, she waited for a reply with rising irritation. Her nascent addiction to other people’s happiness was swiftly giving way to impatience for more of her own.

  “Then again, I suppose I may wait forever,” she said. “Perhaps you can’t be bothered, or the spirit doesn’t move you.”

  He looked sideways at her. “I think you have this muddled,” he said, opening the cottage’s front door and allowing her to enter first. “Of the two of us, which one is better suited to write a rambling letter full of hyperbole and words you’d need a thesaurus to decode?”

  There were almost too many possible
ways she could take offense to that question. As she decided which sort of outrage to profess first, Ben hung his hat on the rack, then went to the stairs and called, “Mrs. Cobblepot?”

  “I confess, I find your insensitivity on this matter troubling,” Juliet said coolly.

  Once again, Ben didn’t seem to hear. “Mrs. Cobblepot?”

  Unwinding his scarf, he went to the kitchen. Juliet heard the back door open and close, and then he reappeared.

  “She’s out by the shelter, pinning shirts on the line,” he told her, smiling as if she were dancing a jig instead of glaring at him. “We have five minutes. Possibly ten, if Mrs. Parry stops by to pass the time of day.”

  “So,” Juliet said in her most withering tone. “Must I assume from your unwillingness to communicate on the matter that I shall never receive a letter approaching any of the sentiments expressed by Mr. Pasquette?”

  “Yes. No. I’m not sure,” Ben admitted. “When you get like this, I start to get muddled, too. But I’m not going to write a letter.” He cupped her face in his hands. “I’d rather just say it. I love you, Juliet. That’s all. I love you.”

  She’d waited so long for him to say those words that when they finally came, hearing them twice wasn’t nearly enough. “Tell me again,” she whispered. And he did.

  Postscript

  It was after two o’clock in the morning when Victoria Linton stole downstairs in her dressing gown. Juliet often read late into the night, occasionally roaming about Belsham Manor in search of a new book, a midnight snack, or both, so Victoria had waited until she could wait no more.

  Her daughter had come back from Fenton House talking of nothing but Ben, a conversation they’d been obliged to have in secret, given the requirements of her faux marriage. Over dinner, the topic had shifted to Mr. and Mrs. Jeffers, and in the parlor, the after-dinner discussion had been a superficial explanation of Mr. Dwerryhouse’s renewed friendship with Mrs. Cobblepot, with no reference to the story about Bertie, which Victoria already knew. It seemed that Juliet had accepted the notion of hole-and-corner, in the Birdswing sense, and fully understood that the matter was never to be spoken of, except under the most dire circumstances. That had given Victoria a little glow of pleasure. Gossip could be irresistible, but she was glad her daughter understood the value of benevolent amnesia, too.

  Only after they were in their night clothes and saying good night did Juliet seem to remember one last bit of news.

  “By the way,” she’d said. “Mr. Dwerryhouse told us who wrote the letter. It was someone called Bryce Pasquette. Apparently, he left Barking years ago and never came back.”

  It didn’t take long for Victoria to find the letter inside her daughter’s purse. But it did take her several minutes to gather the courage to open the envelope and withdraw the pages. The moment she saw that handwriting, so familiar even after twenty-seven years, tears sprang to her eyes. Soon they blurred her vision, mercifully obscuring some of the words, but she wiped them away and forced herself to read it all.

  “Oh, Bryce,” she whispered. “Forgive me.”

  THE END

  From the Author

  Thank you so much for reading the second novella in my Dr. Bones companion series, Magic of Cornwall. These supplemental stories allow me to explore the characters in Birdswing in extra depth, and to discuss Cornwall’s rich history of folk beliefs and legends, including the Arthurian legend.

  As always, I left a few threads dangling in this story. So if you’d like to know more about Lady Victoria’s youthful affair with the as-yet-still-mysterious Bryce Pasquette, or about what will happen to recurring characters like Nora Garrigan or A.C. Dwerryhouse, stay tuned. There’s a great deal more to come.

  As for the Dr. Bones mysteries, the next full-length novel will be called Friendship Can Be Fatal.

  Thank you again for reading. If you enjoyed this book, please consider returning to the retailer and leaving an honest review. Reader’s reviews are the lifeblood of modern book sales, making the difference between books that get noticed and books that quickly disappear.

  Cheers!

  Emma Jameson

  2018

  Also by Emma Jameson

  Emma Jameson is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Lord & Lady Hetheridge cozy mystery series. Book #1, ICE BLUE, Book #2, BLUE MURDER, Book #3, SOMETHING BLUE, Book #4, BLACK & BLUE, and Book #5, BLUE BLOODED are available now.

  She is currently at work on FRIENDSHIP MAY BE FATAL, the third of her new series starring amateur sleuth Dr. Benjamin Bones. Set in Cornwall during the Second World War, the Dr. Bones Mysteries are a romantic look at the bravery and sacrifices of the English during the era of "Keep Calm and Carry On." Book #1, MARRIAGE CAN BE MURDER and Book #2, DIVORCE CAN BE DEADLY, are available now.