by Beth Byers
As soon as she was alone, her mind turned back to the woman. Had the wind picked up first or the sound she heard? Were they connected? Surely there would have been a scream if it were an attack?
Unless, whoever had struck her down had crept up behind her. How horrifying. Maybe the woman had been stretching her legs in her mother-in-law’s garden and then been struck down by a passerby.
But that didn’t strike Georgette as likely. Why would someone find Katherine’s house, which was off the beaten path, and then attack a woman in the orchard? What if—what if the woman had been cut down by someone she knew? What if the woman had been walking with another person and then been attacked in a rage? It made an unfortunate amount of sense to Georgette, but the equivalent would be Georgette being struck down by Charles or Eunice or Marian or Lucy. The idea made Georgette shiver despite the hot water. She got out of the bath, having lost the relaxing nature of the lavender salts.
Chapter 4
CHARLES AARON
Charles expected Georgette to take a bath and he relaxed at the sound of the water and then left their bedroom for the office. He knew he was too worried over her with their baby. It was only that he hadn’t expected to be quite so happy in their marriage, and carrying and giving birth to a child was a dangerous endeavor.
Charles found Joseph in his office when he entered and the two of them looked at each other.
“Your pretending it wasn’t serious didn’t work.”
Joseph shook his head. “You should have known it wouldn’t. Georgie is way too smart for that, and who can gloss over a woman with a wound on the back of her head and a broken fence post nearby? The thing was bloody, Charles.”
Charles sighed as he leaned back in chair, reaching for the decanter and two glasses on the small table behind his desk. Joseph poured the brandy while Charles lit his pipe. “What happened?”
“She’s not awake yet. Dr. West said we won’t know if she’s going to be all right until she does. We have the bloody fence post, which is obviously the weapon used on the woman, but there doesn’t seem to be anything else to find. Georgette didn’t see anything. No one else was near. The constable sent for Katherine Lynd. Perhaps she will know something. But so far, we’re paused.”
Charles sighed. “What are the chances that Georgette is in danger?”
“Slim, I’d think. The dogs were barking when she approached. It would have warned off whoever hit the woman. He’s going to know that he’s safe since we haven’t come for him.”
Charles wasn’t comforted. He rubbed the back of his neck as he considered. After the events with Dr. Fowler, Charles had changed the locks on the house, both doors and windows. He wasn’t going to have another man entering his house easily and send Georgette running for her life. Not again.
“Being in love is stressful,” Joseph told Charles, lighting his cigarette and then glancing at his uncle. “Marian’s family is driving me mad.”
Charles puffed on his pipe. “Is Marian arriving?”
Joseph shook his head. “Her mother wanted Marian to accompany her to something or other. Do you know—” Joseph snapped his mouth shut, took a sip of his brandy, and then added, “Do you know I told her family that I wasn’t going to be able to come to dinner two days ago. I stopped by after to see if she wanted to walk. They had a fellow there.”
“A fellow?” Charles sipped his own brandy, suspecting he’d need it before Joseph finished.
“A young law school graduate. Handsome. Rich.”
Charles refilled Joseph’s glass in answer.
“Marian was laughing.”
“Georgette swears she loves you.”
“Her mother doesn’t,” Joseph grumbled and then swallowed a large drink. “I think that might matter more.”
GEORGETTE DOROTHY AARON
The next morning, Charles had slept longer and later since he wasn’t going into the office. When Georgette woke, one of his arms was still under her cheek while the other rested across her hip. She breathed in slowly and realized he wasn’t sleeping.
She opened her eyes and found that he was staring at her. “That’s spooky.”
“Me watching you?”
She nodded and he grinned. He pressed a kiss on her forehead then said, “I suppose you’ll be dragging me through the village today.”
“You don’t have to come.”
“There’s a special kind of pleasure in watching you interact with the world.”
She frowned at the glint of humor in his eyes and then turned onto her back, stretching out her toes. She left him in the bed and went to wash her face and brush her teeth and dress. For visiting the local surgery on an early autumn day, Georgette chose a light blue dress, a cardigan, and a sturdy pair of shoes. Topped with her coat and hat, she’d be quite respectable enough.
When she found Charles in the breakfast room, Joseph had joined them from his cottage, Lucy was actually in attendance, and Eunice had lingered. She hadn’t been merciful either. There were poached eggs, bacon, sausages, and a glint in her gaze that dared Georgette to object.
“Well?” Eunice demanded without preamble. “What have you to say for yourself? What happened?”
“I saw nothing but a bloody branch.”
“Why didn’t you come back here instead of to the Mustly’s?” Eunice sniffed and then made Georgette toast, shoving it in front of her. “You need to eat. What happened?”
Georgette frowned. She didn’t enjoy mornings and she enjoyed them even less when Eunice was both angry and protective. Georgette was never prepared for that level of interaction before at least two cups of tea.
“You’d gone before I left,” Georgette told Eunice, striving and failing at a patient tone. “I’d have asked you to go with me if you were here. I knew that Anna and Barnaby would be home. And I knew that Anna could show the constable where we were and that I could take Barnaby with me, so I wasn’t alone with whatever had happened. At the time, I thought it was all a rather horrible accident and that the woman was in need of immediate help.”
Georgette closed her eyes against all of the gazes on her. She said, trying again for patience and possibly succeeding, “I saw nothing. I found the woman because Susan was upset and led me there. She let out quite a ruckus. The only thing Barnaby and I saw out of place was one bloody piece of wood.”
Georgette ate quietly and they let her, to her utter relief. When she rose, however, Charles rose with her. “Shall we go for a walk?”
Georgette eyed him sideways.
“I know you’ll be visiting the woman at the doctor’s surgery and Katherine,” he said, “and I’d rather do that with you.”
Charles gathered their coats while Georgette placed her hat on her head and pinned it into place. When she stepped out onto the walk with her dogs, Charles stepped out beside her. “Inside.”
Susan whined while Dorcas let out a mournful moan.
“Inside,” Charles commanded, and all three dogs returned inside, glancing back, as they walked as slowly as possible. Charles closed the door and held out his arm. The two of them walked along the river after they’d reached the end of their street. The doctor had not taken the same place as Dr. Fowler, but Joseph had discovered the location the previous day. It was a small storefront with a set of rooms overhead and the new doctor had taken both.
When they reached the door, they found a simple name in block writing, ‘Dr. Nathaniel West,’ on the door and nothing else. The bell above the door rang as they entered, and they stared around the waiting room. There was an unattended desk, several comfortable chairs that were empty, and from behind a swinging door—the man appeared.
Georgette had seen him the day before, but she’d been too distracted to take note. He was young. He seemed barely older than their Eddie who was merely 16 years old. Even if this fellow had graduated already, he must be in his mid-twenties. He certainly didn’t look like it. His ears stuck out a little, and he was very thin, with spots on his chin, and a suit that looked like
a costume. But when he introduced himself, his gaze was alert and active with an air of intelligence that startled Georgette.
“Are you Mrs. Lynd’s family?”
Georgette shook her head. “Did she wake?”
“Just this morning,” Dr. West said, holding out his hand. “Dr. Nathaniel West.”
Charles answered while Georgette glanced around, noting the utter lack of evidence that the young doctor had any patients. Would anyone come to see someone who looked to be an age with one of the schoolboys?
Georgette asked him, “Is Katherine Lynd here?”
The doctor shook his head, explaining, “She stayed rather late last night and said she’d be back this morning, but she’s yet to appear. Her son, the patient’s husband, hadn’t arrived by the time I had to close the surgery.”
Georgette nodded. She bypassed the doctor, ignoring his objections as she stepped into the room with a hospital bed. “Hello.”
The woman looked up and scowled. She was a large woman, with thick forearms that proclaimed a life of labor. Her cheeks were ruddy with very pale skin around the edges and watery blue eyes. Her frown was deep, and Georgette had to wonder if the victim were so unappealing because of the frown or was she just naturally that way.
“I should have guessed you wouldn’t be Katherine. I’m entirely unsurprised to be alone and bereft.”
“Oh?” Bereft?
“She’s probably lingering over her cats or harvesting her flowers. She doesn’t care about me.”
Georgette lifted her brows and glanced back, but Charles hadn’t followed. Georgette took the seat next to the bed and introduced herself. “What were you doing at Katherine’s home?”
“What were you doing there?”
Georgette leaned back. “I was attempting to visit my friend.”
“I was visiting my mother-in-law. Though why I bother, I do not know.”
Georgette could see why Katherine hadn’t arrived yet. She was a good woman, but anyone would lose patience with this vitriol. Perhaps, however, it was the result of being quite so uncomfortable. That knock on the back of her head couldn’t have felt good.
“Did you want some water?”
“The doctor wants me to wait to eat or drink.” The woman said it as though Dr. West was torturing her for the joy of it.
Georgette sighed and then asked, “Is there anything that could make you more comfortable?”
“My husband. My family.” She frowned. “What was your name again?”
“Georgette Aaron. And you?”
“Lizette Lynd.”
Georgette offered to fluff her pillows and was declined. She offered to get her a blanket and got a dark look and a comment on the stuffiness. “It wouldn’t have killed that child pretending to be a doctor to crack a window.”
“Do you remember anything?” Georgette asked, finished with offering kindness and receiving sourness.
Lizette scoffed. “Are you a police officer?”
“Just a concerned local.”
“Then mind your own business.”
Georgette took in a deep breath, held it, and then answered, “I’m delighted to see you’re awake. I was quite worried when I ran myself sick through the wood to get you help. I’ll stop by later and see if you need anything.”
Lizette didn’t even seem bothered by Georgette’s insinuation. Perhaps all of mankind was expected to jump to her assistance. Georgette shook her head. She’d have expected someone to do the same for her if she’d been found hurt in a wood, though she would have been grateful afterwards, but she wouldn’t begrudge her own actions simply because Lizette’s gaze was narrowed on Georgette like she had stepped in feces.
Georgette left quickly and found Dr. West and Charles near the receptionist desk. “You have your hands full, Dr. West.”
His ears turned red, but beyond that reaction, he revealed nothing else. “We are often not ourselves when we’re poorly.”
Georgette smiled at him, surprised again. “Too true, doctor. When did you move to our little village?”
“Only a week ago.”
Georgette felt the need to invite him to dinner, fought it, and lost. “How lovely to have you here. Would you like to join us for supper on Sunday? We’re new ourselves and it’s good to know a few faces.”
“Oh yes!”
The doctor accepted so quickly, Georgette wondered if he wasn’t a bit lonely. She glanced at Charles who stepped in and said their goodbyes.
“Darling Georgette,” he began after they had left. Of course he’d seen her conflicted thoughts. “You’d rather have dinner alone in bed than entertain the doctor.”
“I know!”
“Yet long-ago manners drilled into the younger you, ignored for years and now revived, insisted that you invite him to our house.”
“I know!” Georgette pressed her cheek into Charles’s shoulder and whined, “I don’t know what is wrong with me. The best that can be said is that at least it’ll be in the comfort of our own home rather than being stuck in some…some…grumpy housewife’s dinner party who is competing against a standard we know nothing about.”
Charles’s laugh was not at all commiserating. “You say that as though there are secret wars between the housewives of Harper’s Hollow.”
Georgette lifted a brow at him and shook her head. “Charles darling,” she mocked sarcastically. “There is nothing to be said other than you know not of what you speak.”
“Oh, really?” His tone demanded an explanation.
“Longtime bachelors know nothing of the troubles of a small-town woman in a time of struggle. You and I are blessed with an excess in a time of struggle. So many aren’t. It’s hard enough to be a wife and a mother when you aren’t begging for the scraps of someone else’s rejected cabbages and gleaning the fields to feed too many children.”
“I know, darling. I’m sorry.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. We’re blessed more than most, Charles. You have your work and I have my writing, and we don’t find our importance by serving the best tea or being the one who engineers things for the school. Charles, the world of a housewife is so often so small that there are utter battles over being the one who makes the best fruitcake, puts together the church’s flowers, or wins the ribbons at the fair.”
“Are there really?” It was clear the idea had never occurred to him.
Georgette nodded, feeling a surprising sorrow for those women. Not because their worlds were small. Many of them gloried in their roles. She was sorry for the one who were suffocating slowly. Georgette didn’t know how they felt, though not because she hadn’t been suffocating before her book was published. She had been.
She had discovered by writing she had something to offer. Before then, she had been suffocating differently. Not lost in a family with too many mouths, not enough money, and a struggling world. She’d suffered almost entirely alone. Unwanted. Unseen. A housewife with children could easily be drowning surrounded by those who loved her.
She shivered at the thought and the shadows of her own memories and turned to Charles. He had been, after all, the first person to notice she was a person. “I love you rather desperately, Mr. Aaron.”
“Then we’re in agreement, Mrs. Aaron, for I have found that I am rather lost without you.”
He tugged her into a shadow of a hedge, took her face between his hands, and his next response was given with his lips, his hands, and their exchange of breath.
Chapter 5
JOSEPH AARON
Joseph walked to meet the early train on the off chance that Marian would get off. She usually came to Harper’s Hollow to stay with Georgette on Thursday nights. Marian preferred to be in attendance when Janey came back from school. The two of them, with little Janey, tended towards long walks, conversation over Georgette’s writing, and for a while—imagining the cottage that Joseph had bought for Marian together.
Marian’s joy in the cottage had been lost in the last weeks. The light in her eyes a
s he approached had gone out, and he was rather afraid that he should offer to let her out of their engagement. The sheer idea of it, however, left him rebelling. No. If she wanted to throw him over and give his ring back, he wasn’t going to make it easier for her.
Joseph took his auto to the doctor’s office. He’d heard at the pub there was a new doctor in the village and laughed along with the bartender about the baby-faced fool who thought he could build a business here. Joseph had suggested the man might have thought he’d have a better chance in a place where the last doctor had been a killer—and a fool.
Joseph found the doctor’s office and noticed Georgette and Charles walking down the street. They turned into the teashop before Joseph stepped into the doctor’s office. He’d met the fellow the night before when he’d been turned away from the woman—who had after all not even woken up yet.
“Hello doctor,” Joseph said, holding out his hand and shaking the other fellow’s. “How’s the patient?”
“A bit sour, I’m afraid.”
“Doctor!” a woman’s voice snapped. “Doctor! Are you even here?” The sound of dark muttering extended to the office and the poor man clenched his jaw.
“You’ve your hands full,” Joseph said.
“That’s what Mrs. Aaron said.”
The woman in the back room shouted, “Is it a party out there? Where is my mother-in-law? Typical, of course, that I’m discarded and alone after being hurt. Doctor! Doctor! I say, doctor! If you think I’m paying for this utter abandonment, you are very wrong sir! Doctor!”
“I’ll go ahead, shall I?” Joseph said, slapping the doctor on the back.
“I won’t pretend I’m not relieved,” Dr. West said, shaking his head. “She’s a fierce one.”
Joseph nodded. “Take a chance for coffee or tea, my friend. This isn’t my field, and I have no intention of staying, and I’ll be leaving as soon as I get the information I need.”
“I need help,” Dr. West muttered. “I need an assistant.”
