Lost Among the Living(13)

The postmistress was a woman of about forty, immensely large, her flesh so soft and ruddy that I briefly wondered if she’d just had a late baby. She looked at the letters, but when she raised her gaze to me, there was no smile. “Wych Elm House,” she said. “I’d heard the family was in residence again.”

I shifted, remembering Dottie’s instructions. “Yes, they are.”

She took the letters and tucked them away. “They’ve been away for a long time.”

“They had their reasons,” I allowed.

“Perhaps.” The postmistress turned back to me. “I’m Mrs. Baines. And who might you be? Are you a member of the family?”

I stared at her. This woman, standing in her tidy rural post office with the sun shining outside, was giving me a sour expression that made me feel like an unwelcome intruder. It was a chilly interrogation, not cheerful gossip. “I was married to Mrs. Forsyth’s nephew, Alex Manders.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Mrs. Baines said. My husband’s existence, it seemed, was now verified by the village authority. “A decent man, as far as the Forsyths go, though I hear he kept to himself. I also hear that Mr. Martin is coming home.”

Of course she had. “This morning,” I said. “We expect him shortly.”

“That’s as well, then.” Mrs. Baines turned away from me and ran her gaze over the shelves of letters on her left. “I don’t know Mr. Martin myself. No one saw him much before he went to war. I hear he’s been in a hospital since.”

I tapped my fingers on the counter. No wonder Dottie had no desire to come into town herself, but had sent her lackey instead. “You seem to hear quite a few rumors about the Forsyths.”

“I do, but rumors are all there is to hear about the Forsyths, you must understand.” Mrs. Baines turned to look at me again. “They never come to town, and when it’s time to hire servants, they always hire from away. The only local girl who’s worked for them is Petra Jennings, and she was dismissed when the girl died. They must have threatened her with something, because she doesn’t speak of them.”

I understood some of her hostility then. A wealthy family like the Forsyths would be expected to provide work for the locals, not for people from away. Trust Dottie to be obtuse about something so simple. “I can speak to Mrs. Forsyth about it,” I said, “though I can’t promise anything.”

Mrs. Baines only shook her head. “I don’t think you’ll find anyone from here willing to work at Wych Elm House. Not now.”

“What do you mean?”

“The woods,” Mrs. Baines said. She gestured behind her with a beefy arm, in the vague direction of the trees two miles away. Her expression was almost angry. “That mad girl haunts them. None of the children will go in—mine certainly won’t. They’re too afraid to play in there.”

I tapped my fingers on the counter again. “You can’t hold the Forsyth family responsible for the fact that your children are afraid to play in the woods.”

“I can, and I will. It’s easy for them—they closed up the house and left. It’s us who have had to live with the ghost these three years. That girl was kept in chains, I hear. She was a beast.”

“She wasn’t a beast,” came a voice from the doorway behind her. “She had a beast, my dear. That’s a different thing.”

The man who had spoken leaned against the doorjamb, his arms crossed. He was a year or two older than she, in shirtsleeves and a waistcoat, a cloth cap on his head. He gave me a brief nod of greeting. “Good afternoon, madam. I’m Mr. Baines.”

“Good afternoon,” I replied. “What do you mean, she had a beast?”

“Please excuse my wife,” Mr. Baines replied, eyeing me levelly. “The topic of the Forsyths upsets her. I only mean that young Miss Frances Forsyth had a dog, that’s all.”

“They’re not good people,” Mrs. Baines protested, hurt. “My sister has been in service for ten years, and they wouldn’t even talk to her. And that thing was not a dog, not from what I hear.”

“Did you ever see it?” Mr. Baines asked his wife. When she was quiet, he turned back to me. “You see how upset she gets. As a stranger you may not know this, Mrs. Manders, but the Forsyths are not popular in this part of the world.”

“I see.” Dottie had warned me, if obliquely, of the attitude in the village, and she’d been correct. “What do you mean about a dog?”

“Only that Miss Frances had one,” Mr. Baines replied. “A big, angry beast. Kept outdoors, in the woods. It’s gone wild since she died and the family left the house, I’m afraid. The children say it roams the woods, vicious. That’s why they won’t go in, especially after the sun has gone down.”

I frowned. “Could that be the animal that killed the stranger on the day Frances died?”

“That’s the opinion of some,” Mr. Baines said. His wife had subsided to a chair, sullen, leaving him to take over the conversation. “No one knows who the dead man was. A vagrant meets a wild dog in the woods—who knows what happened? A simple conclusion, really. However, Mrs. Forsyth herself testified at the inquest that her daughter owned no dog at all.”

“She testified at the inquest?”