“Did she tell you anything about herself?”
The Reverend’s wife thought about it a moment. “Not really. She mainly asked about the village.”
“What about the village?”
“She was quite interested in the past. I gather her mother visited the area some years ago.”
“Oh?” It was the first Hero had heard of any previous link between the dead woman and the village. “Did she happen to mention her mother’s name?”
“Not that I recall, no.”
Hero thoughtfully sipped her tea. “How long have you been at Ayleswick?”
“Twenty-one years as of last February.”
“You were here when the Enclosure Act went through Parliament?”
“Oh, yes. Turbulent times, those were.”
Parliament had passed thousands of Enclosure Acts over the previous three or four decades. Because each landlord pursued his own bill through Parliament on an individual basis, the slow erasure of England’s ancient common rights had progressed piecemeal and thus provoked no unified, widespread resistance. But local instances of disorder were not uncommon.
“There were some rough elements in the village at one time,” the vicar’s wife was saying, her small mouth pursed. “I’m afraid they encouraged the others in their foolishness—firing ricks of hay, tearing down fences and leveling ditches, burning effigies. That sort of thing. But they’re mostly all gone now, thankfully.”
“Where did they go?”
“Botany Bay, the lucky ones. The rest are no doubt burning in Hades.”
“You mean, they were hanged.”
“Oh, yes—although not enough of them, if you ask me.” Her eyes blazed; the vicar’s wife was obviously not an advocate of Christian clemency.
Hero had seen a weathered gibbet standing near the crossroads to the east of the village. She wondered what it did to a small community like this one, when those with power and wealth took the lives of those without either. “When was this?”
“The hangings? A year or so after I arrived.”
“And that ended it?”
“Oh, yes. That and the transportations.”
“The village seems so peaceful now,” said Hero, offering her guest a plate of small cakes. “One would never imagine it had such a violent past.”
“Believe me,” said the vicar’s wife, nibbling on a cake. “It was quite terrifying at the time.” Since vicars typically benefited from the enclosures at the expense of their poorer parishioners, it wasn’t unheard of for rioters to set fire to churches and vicarages.
“Was anyone killed—apart from those hanged, obviously?”
“No. Although Lord Seaton’s steward was threatened once by some ruffians with blackened faces.”
“You mean Samuel Atwater?”
“Mmm.”
Hero poured her visitor another cup of tea. “So, what do you think happened to Emma Chance?”
“Personally? I’ve no doubt that when all is said and done, the inquest will return a verdict of felo-de-se.”
“Suicide? Really?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose it’s possible,” said Hero.
“It’s inevitable. We’ve never had a murder in the village. At least, not of the nature they’re suggesting.”
Hero studied Agnes Underwood’s plain, complacent face. “Have there been other suicides?”
“Not for some years, no. Not since several girls did away with themselves after getting in the family way. Some silly fools whispered at the time that they’d been murdered. But in the end, the inquest found they’d died by their own hand, as expected.”
Hero sat forward. “Oh? How did they kill themselves?”
“One drowned herself in the millpond. The other threw herself off the cliffs at Northcott Gorge.”
“When was this?”
“Fifteen years ago.”
“So about the time of the enclosure troubles?”
“A few years afterward, I believe. But . . . surely you don’t mean to suggest that there is some connection—either between those suicides and the disturbances, or between what happened then and the death of this woman now?”
“No, of course not,” said Hero, reaching for the plate of cakes. “Won’t you have another?”
After the vicar’s wife bowed herself out with a profusion of flowery compliments and effusive thanks, Hero changed into a walking dress of fine cambric, its hem embellished with a deep flounce edged in pale pink. She laced up a pair of sturdy half boots, tied on a wide-brimmed straw hat with a pink ribbon, pulled on a pair of fine kid gloves of the same delicate shade, and tucked her parasol under her arm. Then she went for a walk.
Following the village’s narrow, winding high street, she turned east, skirting the edge of the green where Reuben Dickie sat on his step at the pump house, whittling another in a long line of small wooden animals. He must have a veritable Noah’s ark by now, she decided, watching his fingers move with skilled ease. He glanced up and found her watching him, and though she smiled at him, he quickly ducked his head again in confusion.