A Christmas Secret

After Dominic had left with Genevieve Boscombe, Clarice stood in the kitchen staring out of the window at the snow on the apple tree, going over and over in her mind what Mrs. Paget had said in the cellar. The impression would not leave her that Mrs. Paget had expected to find the footprint where it was, almost as if she had known it was there. She had read the drag marks without hesitation, knowing what they were. How did she do that so accurately? Why did she assume that the woman seen leaving the vicarage in the wind and snow had had anything to do with the vicar’s death? She could have been anyone. She had even known at which step he had fallen. She had stopped at it instinctively.

Clarice turned from the window. Taking her cape from the hook in the hall, she wound it around herself and set off in the snow toward the Boscombes’ house. She must tell Dominic immediately that neither John nor Genevieve was guilty. She was afraid John Boscombe might panic, even fight Dominic when he heard what had happened, and do something that in itself would condemn him.

There was no time to waste. She took the shortcut along the path through the trees. The stream would be frozen over and safe to cross. The Boscombes’ house was only just beyond.

The crust on the snow was hard. For a moment it bore her weight, then cracked and pitched her off balance. The icy breath of the wind sighed in the branches, blowing clumps of heavy snow onto the ground. Two or three fell close to her, distracting her attention. She was almost upon the three figures before she saw them, dark and blurred in the colorless landscape. It was Dominic and John Boscombe facing Mrs. Paget.

Clarice stopped abruptly. The stream was to her right, identifiable now only as a winding strip of level ground between the banks.

They must all have seen her, but it was Mrs. Paget, ten feet closer, who moved first. She plunged forward through the deep snow, flailing her arms, crossing the ground with extraordinary speed. She reached Clarice in moments, her face contorted with fury.

Clarice stepped back, but not quickly enough. Mrs. Paget grasped hold of her, fingers like a vise, pulling her toward the stream, dragging her along. She had no time to think. She struggled, but her fists struck only the other woman’s heavy cloak.

Dominic was shouting something, but another avalanche from above drowned his words. The snow was melting.

Now they were on the flat icy surface of the stream itself, where it was easier to move.

“It won’t hold you!” Mrs. Paget shouted back at the man, triumph loud and high in her voice. “Step onto it, too, and we’ll all go down!” She turned back to Clarice. “Struggle too hard and you’ll crack the ice under us, clever vicar’s wife! Believe me, the cold under there will kill you!”

Clarice stopped moving instantly.

“Good,” Mrs. Paget said with satisfaction. “Now come with me, slowly, carefully. When we get to the far side, I might let you go. And then I might not. They’re too heavy to come after us. Nothing they can do.” She pulled again, hard, and Clarice nearly fell.

Boscombe and Dominic stopped at the brink, aware that their weight would break the ice.

Mrs. Paget laughed with a high, vicious sound. She yanked on Clarice’s arm and started forward again. Clarice did all she could to resist, but her feet had no purchase on the ice. She heard it before she realized what it was: a sharp sound, like a shot, then another, more like ripping cotton.

Mrs. Paget screamed, grabbing at Clarice and clinging to her hand so hard, Clarice cried out in pain. Mrs. Paget had fallen down on her back, legs thrashing. The ice swayed and tipped, the cracks in it fanning out, the black water swirling over it, as cold as death. Her big cloak imprisoned her in its folds.

Clarice felt the water with a shock that almost took the air from her lungs. The cold was unbelievable. She could not even cry out.

Dominic started out across the ice, calling her, heedless of the danger to himself. Boscombe was in the churning ice floes of the shallows, knee-deep, then waist-deep, his whole body outstretched to hold on to Dominic’s arm.

Clarice was paralyzed with the cold, her hand still gripped by Mrs. Paget’s like a small animal caught in the jaws of a trap.

Dominic seized her other hand, pulling hard, but Mrs. Paget would not let go. If she drowned, Clarice would drown with her.

Dominic reached past her. There was a piece of branch in his hand. He swung out hard, striking Mrs. Paget’s fingers with a force enough to break the bone. She shrieked once, drawing the black water into her lungs, and then she was gone, sucked into the current as it swept under the unbroken ice, carrying her away.

Dominic and Boscombe dragged Clarice out. She was almost unconscious, and shuddering so violently she could barely breathe. She saw lights in the gloom and heard voices, then drifted into a kind of sleep.

She woke with someone rubbing her hands and arms, then her legs. Someone else put hot tea between her lips, and she swallowed it awkwardly. It hit her stomach like fire and made her choke.

Then she saw Dominic, his face white with fear.

“Don’t be so silly,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’m not going to drown. I was just…detecting…”

He laughed, but there were tears in his eyes and on his cheeks.

“Of course you were,” he agreed. “You have to hear my Christmas sermon.”

There were murmurs of assent, and more tea, and then it all faded into a blur, distant and happy and full of kindness.