Wanting her angry because then she might be careless, Frevisse repeated, still curtly, “Your quarrel with your husband. Tell me.”
Mary’s face paled with in-held fury, her lips tightened to a narrow line, and her hands, until now neatly folded in front of her, spasmed into fists. But only briefly. With effort, she eased her hands, dragged her face back to a simply puzzled hurt, and said softly, as if resigned to being cruelly used, speaking to some point just past Frevisse’s ear, “It was no more than what we always quarreled over. That he wasted every chance we had and didn’t care he’d dragged me down with him.”
‘Only usual things? Nothing about the lease lost to Gilbey Dunn?“
Mary’s gaze jerked sideways to Frevisse’s face. “Of course about that,” she said with an angry edge to the words. “ ‘Twas where we started. All of our quarreling was just more of the same. Not that any of it ever did any good.”
‘Why quarrel with him then?“
‘Because it made me feel better!“
‘Where did you quarrel?“
‘Anywhere we happened to be.“
‘I mean the last quarrel you had.“
Mary drew and let go a deep, impatient breath. “In Shaldewell Field. As if you hadn’t been told and told again by all the staring big-ears in the village. What’s the point of asking about Matthew? It’s Tom was murdered here. Why aren’t you asking about him?”
‘Don’t you care who murdered your husband?“
‘Of course I care, but it didn’t happen here. Why ask me questions? Unless you think I did it!“ Mary flung the words and only afterwards, hearing them, went round-eyed with horror. ”You do! You think that, don’t you?“ She turned fiercely on her brother. ”And you stand there and let her!“
‘What I think,“ Frevisse said, cutting off whatever Perryn might have answered, ”is that I want you to answer my questions and not make trouble over it.“
Mary snapped her mouth shut, thought on that, then said sullenly, still angry but willing to try to contain it, “We quarreled. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.” She sent her brother a resentful glance and amended, “Maybe a little worse that last time. I was that mad at him for losing the lease and all.”
‘You quarreled and locked him out of his house…“
‘Our house. My house,“ Mary snapped.
‘He went to sleep in the barn and in the night ran off,“ Frevisse went on. ”Had he ever threatened to run off, this time or another?“
‘Matthew? He never threatened anything. Wouldn’t say boo to a goose unless he was goaded to it. Was too afraid the goose might say boo back at him,“ Mary said disgustedly.
‘But you weren’t surprised to find he was gone?“
Mary shrugged. “I didn’t think he was gone far. Not until Gilbey’s horse was found missing.”
Frevisse looked at Perryn. “Where was Gilbey’s horse taken from?”
Careful not to look at his sister, Perryn said, “It was staked out to graze with his other one. In Farnfield.” The field that Matthew Woderove had lost to Gilbey. “Well away from the village, close to the wood,” Perryn said. “He could be away with no one likely to notice.”
‘At least he showed that much sense,“ Mary said.
‘Did he take anything with him?“ Frevisse asked her, curt again.
‘Just what he had with him when he came in from the field. No, he left the hoe, and good thing, too. All he took was what he was wearing and his scrip. A good leather bag, that was. Whoever did for him must have taken it, the bastard.“
Frevisse clamped down on her growing unfondness for Mary Woderove. Under all Mary’s passions of indignation and angers, there was a coldness to her that made Frevisse doubt she had ever really warmed to anyone except herself. More than that, Frevisse was beginning to suspect that she worked at keeping others hot with anger, the better to work them to her cold will, and not meaning to be worked, Frevisse said coldly, “Now. Tell me about Tom. When did you see him last?”
‘Tom,“ Mary echoed with bitter pain. ”Just because he loved me, no one minds that he was murdered!“
Refusing to be drawn into pointing out that if she did not care, she would not be asking questions about it, Frevisse repeated, “When did you see him last?”
‘Saturday midday.“ Brought to it, Mary gave the answer flatly. ”I keep telling people that.“
‘You’d been telling him he ought to leave here, to run. Would you have run with him?“
Mary gave her brother an angry glance. “I’d have gone to him but not with him. I meant to stay here a while.”
‘Making trouble over the Woderove holding, despite you knew it would do you no good,“ Frevisse said.
Mary jerked her chin at her brother. “Why should he get off easy? Him and the others that hate me around here. If nothing else, I want my harvest off it.”
‘Why not have Tom stay until after the harvest then?“ Perryn asked, goaded. ”Then you could have gone off together with money in hand.“
‘Because I was that mad I wasn’t thinking that far ahead,“ Mary snapped back at him. ”I just saw you wanted Tom ruined, and I wanted him away before you could.“
‘Did he tell you he was going to run?“ Frevisse asked.
‘Nay. At the last all I’d had out of him was that he had to think on it a while.“
‘When you didn’t see him again, did you think he’d gone off after all?“
Mary completely refused that thought. “He’d not have gone off without saying to me he was. I thought he was still angry at me for pushing him, that’s all, and when I’d had enough of him staying away, I went to his place.”
‘When?“
‘Sunday. Early. When most folk were to Mass, so I wouldn’t have to see anyone.“
‘He wasn’t there? Or any sign of him?“ Frevisse asked.
‘Course he wasn’t there. From all they’re saying, he was dead by then, wasn’t he? But I didn’t know that, did I? All I could tell was that he’d not run. Naught was gone that he would have taken with him. So I reckoned he was about, and all I need do was wait till he came back to me.
He always came back to me. But this time…“ Her mouth suddenly trembled, making her look like a small child fighting off tears; and piteously as a small child, she said, ”… this time he never did. I never saw him again ever.“
Unmoved by Mary’s sorrow for her own pain, Frevisse asked, “Has there been anyone angry out of the ordinary with Tom? Was there anyone he was afraid of?”
‘Tom? He wasn’t afraid of anyone, was Tom. But, aye, there was someone angry at him out of the ordinary. Gilbey Dunn. Frighted for his wife with her namby town-face and hot skirts. As if Tom would have looked at that flinty bit of bitchdom.“
‘Mary!“ Perryn said.
‘You think she doesn’t know about those kind?“ Mary jerked her chin at Frevisse. ”I’ll warrant she knows more about them than you do. Flinty bitches.“
Determined to be untouched by Mary’s venom, Frevisse said, “What are you going to do now that Tom is dead?”
‘Do?“ Mary’s brittle anger was back. ”What can I do, now I’ve been robbed of everything? I’ll live somehow. I’ll…“ She made a sudden, unexpected struggle against the anger, bowed her head, and said, strangling a little on the submission, ”We have to accept what comes to us. People die. It happens. Father Edmund’s been saying that, to help me. He’s been kind.“ She gave her brother a sour look. ”Unlike some.“ She lowered her eyes again and said stiffly, ”I just want to take what’s left me and make do. That’s what Father Edmund’s been helping me to see. That I have to thank God for what I have and make do with it.“
And Father Edmund had better take care, Frevisse thought without trying to curb the unkindness, or Mary would very likely next be trying to make do with him.
Chapter 19