Page 54 of Evidence of Evil
And found it again…
Constance drew a breath and rubbed her forehead. “Thank you, Worcester. I think.”
*
Constance wished Solomonwere here. As she walked back to The Willows, her brain seemed to be reeling with the huge discovery that Frances had given birth to a child five years ago, probably en route to India. Surely this information changed everything, and yet she wasn’t sure how.
Who had known about the baby at the time? Colonel Niall, Worcester, the lady’s maid who had left… Had Frances been examined by a doctor? Did Dr. Laing know? Constance rather doubted it. His view of Frances still seemed to be rose-tinted, and she doubted Colonel Niall would have let any local physician near his daughter after the maid’s discovery.
But a subtly different version of Frances was emerging in Constance’s mind. A curious, undisciplined girl, running wild and discovering forbidden pleasures—and, like many a curious girl before her, paying the price. Or at least some of it. She had probably imagined, in her naughty escapades, that she was taking control of her own life, doing exactly as she chose without interference. But pregnancy had ended that.
At last, Frances’s father had stepped in and acted decisively. Unlike Elizabeth’s parents, he had not thrown his daughter to the wolves. He had looked after her, overseen her confinement well away from prying eyes, and arranged for the adoption of the child.
Still, just like Elizabeth, Frances had lost her baby in the end. Elizabeth had chosen this path, for the good of the child,but had Frances? Weak, probably frightened, and with all a new mother’s turbulent emotions, was she given any choice? Had that loss of control then contributed to the behavior of the woman who returned from India? Seeking power over everyone, not necessarily for any reason other than that she needed it?
It made a sort of tragic sense to Constance. Even the woman’s deliberate nastiness to both Elizabeth and Humphrey was understandable if he were the father of her child, and he had paid no price at all, but gone on with his life and married someone else. To Frances, ironically, Elizabeth must have seemed a goody two-shoes, a perfectly behaved wife and stepmother. She had had no way of knowing that Elizabeth’s past was even more shocking than her own, whatever tale she had chosen to tell Sir Humphrey.
Humphrey…Constance had to speak to him alone. How was that to be contrived without Elizabeth knowing and asking questions? Constance had advised her friend to tell her husband the whole truth. Maybe Humphrey needed to do the same.
Just past Mrs. Phelps’s cottage, Constance became aware of Mrs. Phelps herself walking rapidly from the direction of the village, a basket over her arm.
“Good day, Mrs. Phelps.”
The woman grunted. “Not looking for me, are you?”
“I wasn’t, but I am happy to see you.”
“Why?” Mrs. Phelps asked. “Been listening to rumors, have you?”
“Sometimes there’s a trace of truth in rumors.”
“Not in this one. I didn’t poison the silly girl.”
Constance blinked. “Frances Niall?”
“Who else is dead?” The old woman stumped on, though not before Constance had seen that her basket was full of herbs.
“Wait,” she exclaimed, turning and catching up with the woman. “Who said Frances was poisoned, and why pick on you?”
Mrs. Phelps smiled sourly. “I’m the witch of the village now. And no one knows how she died. Blame me. What’s more, I taught myself about herbs—cheaper than yon quack up the road—and there’s some that leave no trace behind.”
She marched on, leaving Constance staring after her. Eventually, she turned back toward The Willows.
She and Solomon had been getting bogged down in Frances’s somewhat colorful life, looking for motive and forgetting about means. Everyone seemed to have reason to want rid of Frances, but how had she died? The doctors had found no trace of poison, but as Mrs. Phelps—and indeed the villagers, by the sound of things—were pointing out, not all poisons left a measurable trace.
She almost swung back yet again to seek out Dr. Laing or Dr. Murray, but she needed to straighten her thoughts first. She was still reeling from the discovery that Frances had borne a child that she was seeking—why was she doing that?—and now, poisons were filling her mind.
How on earth could Frances have been secretly poisoned without the rest of her household getting ill too?
Bingham…lacing her hot chocolate with venom?Worcester…contaminating her plate or her wine at dinner?
If Constance went down that road, then Elizabeth was again a possibility. They had drunk tea together, or something else before their walk beside the lake. She still didn’t believe Elizabeth capable of such a thing, and certainly not before Frances had told her about carrying Humphrey’s child. So thankfully, that theory made little sense.
Constance stopped in her tracks once more as another idea struck her.
Would Francis have poisonedherself? Overcome by the awfulness she had made of her life, alienating everyone who loved her, and having assured herself of her child’s safety, had she decided to end it all?
Then the only crime was Frances’s, and her family had a different cross to bear. As did, perhaps, the father of her child.
