A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell #4)(89)

She looked down at the dirty green powder in her mortar. “I have ruined this lot,” she said in a dull voice. She threw the powder into the fire and began again with a fresh bunch of leaves. “Then they announced their engagement, and for a few weeks Rosamund seemed different, quieter. I would come upon her at odd moments and she was always just sitting, lost in thought. When she was with Malcolm, her spirits were high. There was a recklessness about her, a sort of devil-may-care gleam in her eye that I could not understand. I would have thought she would have been serene. She had everything she ever wanted. But Rosamund was never serene. There was only brooding silence or that hectic gaiety. Nothing in between. No real happiness, no real love for Malcolm. I finally confronted her the night before they were married. That is when she told me that I needn’t bother myself about her. She had everything planned.”

Mertensia’s hands stilled as she spoke, her voice dreamy, her eyes fixed upon a point in the distance. “She talked for hours, it seemed. She told me all that she wanted to do, every way she meant to take charge of things. I never realized, you see, how much she had resented me when we were at school together. I thought we were equals, miserable little girls bound by our unhappiness. But Rosamund saw things differently. There was a watchfulness to her I had never seen, a brittleness. It created a strange atmosphere that summer. The air was heavy, as if waiting for a storm to break. And then I discovered that she had been taking my place.”

“In what way?” Stoker asked, his voice low and coaxing.

“It has always been the family’s responsibility to take care of the villagers. My mother did it, and before I was old enough, after her death, Trenny used to make the calls. She taught me how to pack the baskets, what to choose to give the most comfort—a broth with wine and egg yolks for a nursing mother, a calf’s-foot jelly for a broken leg, just as I did today. There is not a hearthside on this island beside which I have not sat, warming soup and knitting socks. One day I brewed up a bit of cat’s-claw tonic for old Mrs. Polglase. She has rheumatism quite badly and cat’s-claw is the best remedy. I used to take her a bottle quite regularly, but that summer there was so much to do, I had left it. I felt bad when I realized how long it had been. I took the tonic and went to the Polglase cottage, but when I got there, Rosamund was already there, reading to Mrs. Polglase. She had taken the last bottle of tonic I brewed and brought it with her. They were having a great laugh when I arrived, and it was only the first of many such times. I eventually forbade her from coming into the stillroom to take my remedies, but it did not stop her. She merely smiled like a cat with a cream pot and went about her business. She persuaded Cook to bottle up soup for her and she knitted shawls and carried books with her. People started to talk about how thoughtful she was, how considerate. She even took to arranging flowers in the church, taking my best roses before I had a chance. Everywhere I went, she had got there first. It was as if I were being erased. You saw what it was like with Mrs. Polglase. The villagers adored her. I began to see what it would be like for me once she married Malcolm. There would simply be no place for me here.”

Stoker’s gaze flicked to mine. Mertensia seemed entirely unaware that she had just confessed to a powerful motive for murder. I gave an almost imperceptible nod and he moved forward slightly, careful not to touch her, pitching his voice to a soft, honeyed tone that had always sent shivers down my spine.

“She must have broken your heart,” he said. “You could not leave St. Maddern’s. You are as much a part of this place as the sea itself.”

She gave a slow nod, the pestle slipping once more from her hand. Tears stood in her eyes and she turned, almost against her will, it seemed, burying her face in his shirt. Stoker embraced her, settling those muscled arms firmly about her as one large hand cradled her head. He murmured something soothing, I could not hear what. The words were for her only. She sobbed for a long while; then her shoulders stilled and she relaxed into his grasp.

“I am sorry,” she said brokenly, trying to regain her composure.

But Stoker kept one arm securely about her as he retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket, one of his enormous affairs of scarlet linen. She took it with a grateful, watery smile. “I am sorry I was so rude to you,” she said. “I do not really believe you are her creature.” She did not even look at me as she spoke. Her eyes were fixed adoringly on Stoker.

“I am very much my own man,” he assured her.

I tasted sourness and said nothing.

“Did you ever confront her? Tell her how you felt?” Stoker asked.

She nodded. “Precious little good it did. She merely laughed and said I was being ridiculous, and then she made some casual remark about things changing for the better on St. Maddern’s. And I went off to have a good cry in the garden. Helen found me there and I told her what had happened. She took me along to Trenny, who gave me warm milk and put me to bed. She said it was all a tempest in a teapot and everything would seem better with a good night’s sleep.”

“Excellent advice,” Stoker told her.

The feeble smile deepened. “I suppose. The wedding was fairly miserable for me, pretending to be happy for them. But then she disappeared and it was so much worse! I thought the most difficult thing would be for Rosamund to live here, but that was nothing compared to the suspicion, the whispers, the newspapers. The not knowing was diabolical.”