As Brodie knocked on the door of the cottage, Gilly said that he would return in an hour in order for us to make the afternoon train back to London.
We waited several moments and began to think that Mrs. Walmsley wasn’t going to answer. Then, there was a sound from the latch and the door slowly opened.
“Yes?”
Everything that I might have expected—someone perhaps hoping to frighten a young woman for financial gain, or out of some other scheme—immediately disappeared.
Cora Walmsley was small and slightly stooped at the shoulders. She wore a simple gray gown that was much mended. Gray hair was pulled back into a bun, and the lines on her face spoke of pain and heartache, which I certainly had no intention of adding to.
“You are C. Walmsley who recently set a letter to Charlotte Mallory in London?”
I saw the uneasiness that filled those eyes. “You are not Charlotte Mallory.”
“No, but we’re here on her behalf.”
“Behalf?”
“There has been an incident,” Brodie explained. “Miss Mallory is dead and your letter was found with her.”
“Dead?” she replied, obviously quite surprised. “Are you the police?”
“No,” Brodie assured her. “We are trying to find out what happened on behalf of a friend.”
There was still that suspicion. I took the letter out of my bag and showed it to her.
“You sent her this letter, and she had written you back.” I had that letter as well. Possible evidence, Brodie had called it.
“We are only trying to find some answers.”
“Dead?” she repeated and shook her head. “I never meant no harm, not for her.”
Not for her? What was that supposed to mean? Someone else perhaps?
She finally stepped back and opened the door.
“I meant no harm when I sent those letters,” she repeated as we sat at the table to one side of the main room of the cottage.
“Why did you send them?”
She looked from me to Brodie, then finally said, “All I’ve got is tea to offer you.”
“That is not necessary Mrs. Walmsley,” Brodie assured her. “We do not want to impose.”
She fixed tea, perhaps taking the time to try to decide what to tell us, if anything.
She set mismatched cups on the table.
“I read about you in the dailies,” she said, returning to pour tea into the cup before of me.
“Lady Forsythe. You don’t use the title?”
“I find it awkward at times, and I now use my husband’s name as well,” I explained with a look over at Brodie.
She set the teapot down.
“My husband passed this last winter,” she explained. Her face softened. “Hewasa good man.” And then as if to convince us of that, or perhaps herself, “He was!” Her voice trembled as she continued.
“We came here almost five years ago it is now.” She looked from Brodie to me. “He said that the country air would be good for our son and he bought this cottage for us.
