A Christmas Secret

Christmas Eve dawned so cold the windows were blind with fresh snow, and even inside the air numbed fingers and toes. Outside all color was drowned: white earth, white sky. Even the black trees were mantled in white. Just a few filigree branches were hung with icicles here and there, though when it had thawed sufficiently for them to melt into daggers of ice was hard to say.

Blizzards blew in from the east, and through that cold-gripped world Genevieve Boscombe came to the door and asked to see Dominic.

The study fire wasn’t lit, so he took her into the sitting room. He spent several moments poking the wood and coal until the fire caught a better hold and started to give a little more heat. Only when she sat down and he looked more closely at her eyes did he realize that no hearth in the world was going to assuage the cold inside her.

“I killed the Reverend Wynter,” she said quietly. Her voice was flat, almost without emotion. “I lied to you when I said he wasn’t going to do anything about John and me not being married. He was going to tell everyone, so all the village would know. I couldn’t take that, not for my children.”

Dominic was stunned. After what Clarice had told him the previous evening, they both knew it was horribly possible that Genevieve Boscombe was guilty. Even so, he could not easily believe it. He hated the thought. He had liked both of them. But then how good was he really at judging character any more deeply than the superficial qualities of humor or gentleness, good manners, the ability to see what is beautiful? And he sympathized with her. He well understood those who truly loved and could not bear to lose the warmth and purpose from their lives.

“I did!” she repeated, as if he had not heard her. “It’s not a religious confession, Vicar. I expect you to tell the police so they can arrest me.” She sat with her back straight and her hands folded in her lap. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but there were no tears in them now. He thought she had probably done all her weeping, at least for the time being.

“How did you do it, Mrs. Boscombe?” he asked, still reluctant to accept and looking for a way for her to be not totally at fault.

She looked surprised, although it was visible as just a momentary flicker of the eyes. “I carried the coke scuttle down for him,” she replied. “I hit him with it. He fell, and I pulled him into the other cellar, so he wouldn’t be found too soon.”

“But you knew he would be found sometime,” he said.

“I didn’t think. I don’t remember.” And she refused to say anything further, merely requesting that he report her to the constable so she could be arrested.

There was, in effect, no constable, only the blacksmith who was appointed to represent the law in the village. She insisted on going with him. After much protest, the blacksmith locked her in the large, warm storeroom next to the forge.

Dominic went straight to tell John Boscombe what had happened, trudging through the snow. He was cold inside and out, even when he stood in Boscombe’s kitchen in front of him.

“She only said it to protect me!” Boscombe said frantically. His face was haggard, his eyes wild. “Where is she? I’ll reason with her. I was the one who killed the vicar. I quarreled with him because he wanted me to get straight with the law, and the church.” His voice was rising in pitch, rising desperately. “I had an accident in the summer. Could have been killed. Was then the vicar told me that if I had been, my family would get nothing, not even the house, because they weren’t legal. Genny and the children would be thrown onto charity, and folks might not be that kind to them, seeing I still had a wife alive that I’d never sorted things with.”

“I see,” Dominic said quietly. “And did you believe that the Reverend Wynter would have forced you to do this, whatever the cost to you?”

Boscombe hesitated.

“Did you?” Dominic insisted.

“I was afraid he would.” Boscombe evaded a direct answer. His eyes were angry, challenging. “That’s why I did it. Genny’s innocent. She didn’t even know I was already married when she—” He stopped.

“Agreed to live with you without marriage?” Dominic asked.

Boscombe was caught. To deny it would suggest Genevieve did not care about marriage, and that was obviously ridiculous.

“Was the vicar blackmailing you?” Dominic asked.

“Good God, no!” Boscombe was appalled, but a tide of color swept up his face.

Dominic guessed the reason.

“Then who is?” he said. “I don’t believe you killed the Reverend Wynter, nor did Genevieve. But you are each afraid that the other did, so there must be a terrible reason why it could be so. Someone is threatening you. Who is it?”

Boscombe’s face was wretched—eyes full of shame.

“My wife. She’s here in Cottisham. She’s asking money every week. She’ll bleed us dry.”

All the jumbled pieces were beginning to make sense at last.

“But she’s still alive, isn’t she?” Dominic said gently. “Why would you kill the Reverend Wynter, and not her? Why would either of you?”

Slowly the darkness melted from Boscombe’s face and he straightened his shoulders, leaning forward a little as if to rise. “It wasn’t Genevieve! It was Maribelle! The vicar wouldn’t have forced us to do the right thing, only helped us, but if we did, then Maribelle would get nothing! And he knew what she was doing! He wanted it all out, just like you did!”

“Maribelle?” Dominic asked, although by now he was certain he knew. His blood chilled at the thought of her alone with Clarice in the cellar where she had killed the Reverend Wynter, but there was no time to stare into nightmares now.

“Maribelle Paget was my first wife,” Boscombe admitted. “And a crueler woman never trod the earth.”

“Come.” Dominic stood up. “We must go and face her.”

“But Genevieve—”

“She’s safe. We have other things to do first. She thinks you did it, and she won’t back down from her confession until we’ve proved otherwise.”