Read Online An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear - Free Book Online Page A

long out of boyhood. She was barely more than a girl. He asked for her hand, and her father eventually agreed. Her people said it would come to an end, because she was a strong-willed girl, my grandmother. But they were together for the rest of their lives and died within days of each other. I was eight years old.”
    “And the daughter?”
    “My mother died when I was twelve, going on thirteen.”
    Beulah sipped her tea again, then bent to stroke her dog’s head. “Come tomorrow, as the sun goes down. A bit of tea will be here for you.”
    DURING THE DRIVE to her father’s house, Maisie reflected upon her dismissal. She had been asked questions of her life with honesty, without guile, and she had answered in kind. The invitation for tea the following day was more than a request, it was a summons. She would be able to ask more questions, delve more deeply, during the second visit.
    Reaching the village of Chelstone, Maisie slowed the motor car and turned left into the grounds of Chelstone Manor, where she turned left again down a small gravel thoroughfare that led to her father’s cottage. She had a plan for the following day in mind now: In the morning she would go to Maidstone, to the solicitors acting for the two boys. While there she would visit the local newspaperoffice, to check on old stories about the village. Then she would come back to Heronsdene, simply to walk along the High Street and gain a sense of the community—and perhaps gather a clue as to why such a dour mood prevailed. Much of what she planned to do revolved around legwork that Billy might have done if they were in London, but Maisie looked forward to getting back to some of the nuts and bolts of investigation that had so immersed her when she was an apprentice to Maurice Blanche.
    She made a few notes on her pad before emerging from the MG, wondering, in particular, why Webb had been watching the Sandermere mansion with such interest, what it held for him, and what was at the root of his curiosity, if that’s what it was. She put her pencil and pad away and gathered up her knapsack; as she stepped from the motor car, her father was already walking toward her, ready to embrace the daughter he loved so dearly.
    LATER, AFTER THEY had eaten a tea of corned beef, carrots and potatoes and had washed and put away the china and cutlery, the pair sat together in the small beamed sitting room.
    “Soon be time to light a fire of an evening, won’t it, love?”
    “Oh, let’s not rush the summer away, Dad. Winter’ll come before we know it.”
    Frankie leaned back in his armchair and closed his eyes.
    “Tired, Dad?”
    “No, love. I was just thinking of your mother. She’s been dead—what, twenty-one years now, come April? Sometimes it feels like just yesterday that she was with us, eh?”
    Maisie fidgeted. If it was Time’s task to diminish the yearning for one who has passed, then Time had done a poor job, for Maisie could still see the ache of loneliness for his wife’s company reflected in her father’s eyes. It was a sadness that caused her to think of Simon again, though she had been determined to push allthoughts of him to the back of her mind until she visited the hospital in Richmond, a journey she expected to make on Sunday. A brief sojourn away from Kent in the midst of her work would also allow her to reflect upon her findings thus far in what she had come to think of as the Compton case, an investigation that now extended beyond the brief given her by James Compton. During the drive she would also be able to consider evidence regarding the recent burglary at the Sandermere estate.
    “Working hard, love? Got much coming in?” Frankie was sometimes uneasy when it came to sparking conversation with his daughter. He was never sure whether such a question might not be prying, or whether she could tell him what she was doing anyway. Sometimes he thought that everyone would have been better off altogether if she’d married and settled