Page 27 of And Then There Was the One
She blinked; she hadn’t realized that her face was so transparent. “That’s Himalayan balsam,” she said, pointing to the pretty pink flowers. “They’re not native to England, and spread easily and stifle native flora.”
“You’re very fond of plants,” he said, and she glanced at him,a bit startled. “It’s only—the cases you solved. A couple of them involved poisonous herbs—you seem to know a lot about them.”
“Yes,” she said, and then added, without pausing to consider, “I want to open a botanic garden at Radcliffe Hall someday, showcasing the native flora of Gloucestershire.”
“Yes, I noticed the gardens earlier. Your doing?”
She nodded as she walked up the neat gravel path to the front door. “My mother loved to garden, and even had greenhouses built behind the house. After she died, I took over the gardening, since we can’t… well, we can’t afford a gardener anymore.” She didn’t see any point in pretending the financial situation at Radcliffe Hall was anything other than a bit desperate; surely he’d already noticed the chipped paint and worn furniture. “Anyway, I hope to expand the gardens eventually, but…”
“But what?” he prompted, reaching out a hand to her elbow to slow her approach to the door. She glanced over at him, surprised. He must have interpreted her look as a scold—which, for once, it wasn’t—and quickly dropped her elbow.
“But… well, I suppose I don’t reallyknowanything about running a botanic garden,” she said, shifting from one foot to another, twirling her umbrella in her hands. “I mean to say—I understand the plants, obviously, but I don’t know all the ins and outs of a large-scale operation like that. I don’t expect to manage something like Kew Gardens out in rural Gloucestershire, but even so… it would be helpful if I had a bit of experience, working as a gardener somewhere—Kew stopped hiring women as apprentice gardeners after the war, but there are other gardens… even horticultural colleges for women….”She trailed off, a bit uncertain. “I suppose it’s not a very common goal for a woman, but—”
“I cannot imagine that stopping you,” he said, and it did not sound like an insult; rather, there was something close to admiration in his tone, and Georgie decided to ignore this, because quite frankly she had no notion of what to do with the admiration of a man like Sebastian Fletcher-Ford.
“I’d once thought to go live with my aunt in London for a year or so,” she continued instead, “if I could apprentice at Regent’s Park, perhaps, or the Royal Horticultural Society, but…” She hesitated, but before he could prompt her to finish, she added, “I can’t leave my family. They need me.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but she turned and opened the door to the village hall, stepping through the doorway. The hall was primarily comprised of a single large room—they held an annual Christmas dance here, as well as the yearly cheese festival, which usually drew a sizable crowd each August. At the moment, however, the hall had been entirely taken over by… well, by murder. There was a giant map of Buncombe-upon-Woolly displayed prominently near the entrance, with a dramatic red X marking each spot where a murder had occurred in the past year. (Georgie scowled at the X on Radcliffe Hall.) Beyond it, there was an entire display of newspaper clippings—from bothThe Woolly Registerand (much to Arthur’s displeasure)The Deathly Dispatch, and even a couple of stories thatThe Timeshad picked up—detailing the past year’s gruesome events. The bloody knife that the Murder Tourists had mentioned had pride of place on a slightly faded cushion. The entire thing was garish and appalling.
“Well, this is delightful,” Sebastian said.
“It isn’t,” she retorted as he strolled around the room, exclaiming excitedly each time he spotted something new. Georgie’s gaze landed on the framed photograph of Detective Inspector Harriday and her frown deepened. Constable Lexington, she noticed, did not merit a mention, despite certainly having contributed just as much—if not more—to each investigation. A sudden hoot of laughter drew her attention, and she knew, with a sudden premonition of doom, what Sebastian had spotted.
“Georgie, is thatyou?”
She crossed the room to stand beside him near the back of the exhibition, where he was ogling a small framed photograph of Georgie—taken a few years earlier, because she had flatly refused to sit for a new photograph for the sake of this nonsense—next to an informational placard titled The Lady Detective.
“… ‘the village’s own Poirot’—well, not sure that’s quite accurate,” he said apologetically, as if wary of causing offense. “You don’t sound terribly Belgian, old bean.”
“Dear God,” she muttered.
“… ‘racing boldly against the clock as the snow fell heavily outside to confront a killer within her very own home’—I say, Georgie, this Christmas case sounds quite dramatic.”
“It really wasn’t. It involved a lot of standing around in the snow and tiresome telephone calls to the police—who couldn’t get through the snow to reach us, very helpful—and Abigail making endless mince pies because she bakes when she’s anxious.”
“I do love mince pies,” he said dreamily, but before he coulddrift too far into a baked-good-induced reverie, he was distracted by the framed copy of a letter in a neighboring display case. “And here is the letter from the orphanage, alerting the murderous maid to Lady Tunbridge’s identity as the mother who abandoned her!” He sounded duly impressed. “Quite a distinctive smudge on the letter ‘O’ on this typewriter—wouldn’t want to use it to send a ransom note!” He chortled.
“Fortunately, I don’t think orphanage employees are in the habit of sending frequent ransom notes,” Georgie said, as patiently as she could manage; even as she spoke, there came the sound of footsteps behind them, and Georgie and Sebastian turned in unison to see Mrs. Penbaker approaching.
“Miss Radcliffe,” she said with a slightly forced smile, looking from Georgie to Sebastian and back again. “This is a surprise. I wasn’t under the impression you were very fond of the exhibition.”
Mrs. Penbaker was considerably younger than her late husband, in her mid-forties, with a head of cropped blond hair that showed only a few strands of gray. She was wearing a neat green dress with a pleated skirt and sensible loafers; a strand of pearls was at her throat.
Georgie’s previous dealings with Mrs. Penbaker had always been scrupulously polite but not terribly warm, and she could not think that her husband’s recent death would have made her any more welcoming, particularly to questions regarding it.
Fortunately, however, she had not accounted for Sebastian.
“Mrs. Penbaker,” she said with a nod. “This is Mr. Fletcher-Ford—he’s a family friend, visiting from London.” Sebastian offered a complicated and elegant bow over Mrs. Penbaker’shand, as though she were a Regency debutante. Mrs. Penbaker raised her eyebrows at this display, but a hint of a smile played at the corners of her mouth, which Georgie took as a promising sign.
“I’m delighted to meet you,” Sebastian said. “And I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Mrs. Penbaker inclined her head with a slightly pained smile. “Thank you.”
“It must be nice to see your husband’s legacy live on, though,” Sebastian said, all earnest solemnity.
Mrs. Penbaker looked a bit startled. “In what way?”
Sebastian widened his arms in a broad, sweeping gesture that encompassed their surroundings. “Thisfascinatingexhibition. It’s quite thorough.”
