Chapter 8 – Finding Mabel [Afternoon tea]

Joyce had been sitting opposite Mabel Shirley for nearly fifteen minutes and was still no closer to deciding what to make of her.

The formidable Lady Hazelgrove Raymond had described had so far insisted she take another sandwich, complained about Wilkins calling her “Her Ladyship”, and apologised for the state of her boots.

Yet Joyce had not forgotten the first words she had spoken.

Welcome home.

Nor, Joyce suspected, had Mabel.

The older woman appeared perfectly content to leave the matter hanging between them.

Joyce placed her cup carefully into its saucer.

“Mabel, Raymond tells me you come from a family of greengrocers?”

Raymond stopped halfway through reaching for a sandwich.

Mabel looked at Joyce.

There was the smallest pause.

Then she smiled.

“He does talk too much.”

Raymond withdrew his hand. “I’m beginning to regret coming.”

Mabel ignored him.

“Yes, Joyce. Greengrocers. My father, his father before him, and for a time, me. Six High Street.”

“You’re very open about it.”

“Shouldn’t I be?”

Joyce met her gaze.

“Some people might prefer Lady Hazelgrove.”

Mabel’s expression changed, not offended, but interested.

“And some people,” she said, “might ask a question they already know the answer to.”

Joyce felt the corner of her mouth turn upwards.

“Occupational habit.”

“Good.”

Mabel reached for the teapot.

“You’ll need it.”

“Precisely what Commander Vane indicated,” Joyce retorted. “In this landscape of spooks and intrigue, why me?”

Mabel paused. Her eyes remained gently fixed on Joyce.

“It takes a particular sort of person to survive in this world. Someone who, as a child, learned to hide what she could do because other people told her it wasn’t real. Someone who had imaginary friends who perhaps weren’t quite so imaginary. Someone who could walk into an empty room and know what had happened there.”

Joyce’s smile had gone.

“Someone,” Mabel continued, “who might finally be ready to rediscover the world she was persuaded to forget.”

There was something in the way she said the last words that made Joyce uncomfortable.

Then she realised.

Mabel hadn’t said them.

Her lips had never moved.

Yet Joyce had heard every word as clearly as if Mabel had been sitting beside her whispering into her ear.

Mabel’s mouth curled into a smile.

This time she spoke aloud.

“And before you ask, I’m a lousy ventriloquist.”

For a second Joyce simply stared at her.

Then the two women burst out laughing.

Raymond shook his head, reached for a scone and began helping himself.

──✿──

It had been a pleasant few hours. They had taken afternoon tea, followed by a leisurely tour of the house and grounds.

Little more had been said about spooks or intrigue, and Joyce had chosen not to press the matter. It was only as they parted that Mabel offered an invitation, and with it the first hint of what was to come.

“Join me for a carriage ride tomorrow. The weather looks promising. We can talk properly then about what will be expected of you, and what you may expect from us.”

She offered nothing more, and Joyce knew better than to ask.

Now, back in the Land Rover, Joyce sat in contemplative silence as Hazelgrove disappeared behind the trees.

Raymond eventually broke it.

“Mabel will only ever ask of you what she believes you can do. There’s going to be a great deal to learn, but we’ve a few weeks before I retire. Things will begin to fall into place.”

Joyce sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, trying to find the right words.

“What is Mabel?”

Raymond glanced across at her.

“Apart from an eighty-year-old mystery,” Joyce added. “I’m in a town that doesn’t officially exist, being asked to resurrect abilities I’ve spent most of my life believing were imaginary.”

To her surprise, Raymond didn’t avoid the question.

“She is a witch.”

Joyce opened her eyes.

“Technically, a hedge witch. Trained in the old traditions of the cunning folk. But Mabel is considerably more than that. She’s an investigator, a national asset and one of the Old Blood.”

“The Old Blood?”

“Another conversation.”

Joyce gave him a look.

“You’re all very fond of saying that.”

Raymond smiled.

“You’ll understand why.”

“And you?”

“By day, much like you, a law enforcement officer.”

“And the rest of the time?”

Raymond kept his eyes on the road.

“A descendant of the Temple Guard.”

Joyce waited.

When nothing more came, she shook her head.

“Of course you are.”

Raymond laughed.

“Do you have abilities like Mabel?”

“Some. Nothing approaching hers.”

“And me?”

His expression became more serious.

“That, Joyce, is something you’re going to have to discover for yourself.”

She turned back towards the window.

*It all sounds completely mad.* She thought.

“Not mad.”

Joyce froze.

Raymond was looking straight ahead. His lips had not moved.

She turned slowly towards him.

He smiled.

“As real as the friends you had when you were a child.”

The smile faded from Joyce’s face.

Raymond returned his attention to the road.

“They weren’t imaginary, Joyce.”

A pause.

“We were looking out for you even then.”

──✿──

“Enjoy your day with Mabel tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at 09:00 on Wednesday. We can visit the nick and introduce you to the naval garrison,” Raymond had said as they parted.

That had been two hours and three cups of tea ago.

Lunch had been more than enough, and Joyce had little appetite for anything else. By nine she had made herself ready for bed, only to discover that sleep had no intention of cooperating.

Eventually she gave up and wandered downstairs.

Since arriving, everything had been something of a whirl. Boxes of books still stood unopened around the living room, and she had unpacked little beyond the necessities. A few books, however, had been left behind by the previous occupant and remained on one of the shelves.

A dictionary. Two old travel guides.

And one rather battered volume that Joyce was certain she had not noticed before.

She pulled it from the shelf.

The Nights of Friþgeard.

The binding was ancient, the title barely legible. She opened it.

Blank.

Joyce stared at the first page.

Then turned another.

Blank.

She gave a quiet sigh.

“Of course.”

The resemblance to the pages from the map case was becoming difficult to regard as coincidence.

As she watched, faint lettering began to glow across the paper.

Joyce read it.

Then smiled.

Whatever The Nights of Friþgeard had to tell her could wait until tomorrow.

She closed the book, switched off the light and went upstairs to bed.