Christmas Mysteries omnibus by Anne Perry

Author:Anne Perry [Perry, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ballantine Books

Mrs. Wellbeloved arrived after luncheon, carrying a large bag of potatoes, which she set down on the kitchen table with a grunt of relief. “You’ll be needin’ ’em,” she said.

“Thank you,” Clarice accepted, telling herself that Mrs. Wellbeloved meant it kindly and it would be most ungracious to tell her that she would rather have gone to the village shop and bought them herself. Three weeks was such a short time to get to know people so she could help Dominic. “Thank you,” she repeated. “That was very thoughtful. We had a visitor this morning.” She carried the potatoes into the scullery, followed hopefully by the dog, who was ever optimistic about something new to eat.

“Come down here, did he?” Mrs. Wellbeloved said, her round eyes wide with interest, wispy eyebrows high. “Well, I never.” She picked up the long-handled broom and began to sweep the floor.

Clarice returned to the kitchen, Harry still on her heels.

“He said his family has been in the village for years,” she added, tidying one of the cupboards and setting jams, pickles, savory jellies in some sort of order.

“Years!” Mrs. Wellbeloved exclaimed. “I should say centuries, more like. Since the Normans came, the way he tells it.”

“The Normans! Really?”

“Yes. Ten sixty-six, you know?” Mrs. Wellbeloved looked at her skeptically. How could she be the lady she pretended if she did not know that?

Clarice was amazed. “That’s terribly impressive!”

“Oh, he’s impressed.” Mrs. Wellbeloved bent awkwardly and picked up the modicum of dust from the floor, carefully pushing it into the dustpan. “Come over with William the Conqueror, so he said, an’ bin in this village since the year twelve hundred. Everyone knows that.” She made an expression of disdain then concealed it quickly, reaching for the bucket, putting it in the low, stone sink, and turning on the tap.

“He didn’t tell me that.” Clarice felt a need to defend him, although she had no idea why.

“Well, there’s a surprise then.” Mrs. Wellbeloved turned off the tap and heaved the bucket out. She looked at the floor skeptically. “Don’t seem too bad.”

“It isn’t,” Clarice replied. “We haven’t been here a whole day yet. I really don’t think you need to do it.”

“P’raps you’re right. I’ll just do the table then. Got to keep the table clean.” She took the scrubbing brush off its rack, along with a large box of yellow kitchen soap. “Knew his father, Sir Thomas. He was a real gentleman, poor man.”

“Why? What happened to him?”

“Went abroad, he did.” Mrs. Wellbeloved began scrubbing energetically, slopping water all over the place, wetting the entire surface of the table at once. “Foreign parts somewhere out east. Don’t recall if he ever said where, exact. Fell in love and married.” She poked loose strands of hair back into their knot. “Then she died, when Sir Peter was only about five or six years old. Wonderful woman, she was, from all he says, an’ very beautiful. Sir Thomas were so cut up by it he came home and never went back there, ever.

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