I know of.”
“Do you think the old woman in the house might answer some questions?”
“She doesn’t say much. Taciturn, she is.” He savoured the word. “Bit of a recluse. Has her groceries delivered. We got into a fence dispute a couple of years ago. Had to get the fence viewer in. Kids leave her alone on Halloween. I don’t quite understand how she’s immune, but she is. She’s long past her allotted four score and ten.”
“Three score,” Miranda said.
“She’s old,” said Oxley.
“Will you buy her property when she dies?” asked Morgan.
“I dunno. It belongs to the Griffin estate. If they’ll sell …”
Miranda exchanged glances with Morgan. “We’ll see,” she said.
“Yeah,” said R. Oxley, hitching up his overalls and turning away. “Meanwhile, back to work. Come tour the mill sometime.”
Miranda and Morgan walked up the slight incline toward the house. It was on a virtual island since the main flow of the river ran around behind it and over another dam where it fell across a tumble of rocks and converged with the channelled sluice water that flowed out from under the mill.
“I paid for it myself, you know,” said Miranda. “The coat … with my own money.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I didn’t want you to think it was on Griffin’s account. I am a woman of means, somewhat modest perhaps, but I can pay my own way.”
“I have not the slightest doubt.”
They ambled across the grass to the house and stepped up onto the porch.
“It seems deserted,” said Morgan, looking at the faded crewelwork hanging lank beyond small panes of glass in the door. They moved to the edge of the porch and gazed beyond the pond to where the river emerged from a channel in the marsh. “Carp and koi,” he said, not feeling the need to explain the equation. “Imagine this river teeming with koi.”
“They used to shovel them out in the spring for fertilizer.”
“Carp?”
“Out of the streams when they were swimming to spawn.” Miranda touched his arm. “Do you really think my coat’s too big? It was the only one I tried on.”
“I like it.”
“Good. I like it, too.”
They turned back to the door that strangely projected an emptiness inside. As they were about to knock, it swung open.
“I’ve been observing you,” said an elderly woman, not at all what they expected. She was slender, small, bright, absolutely solid on her feet, and smiling. “It’s a lovely view. You two seem to be having a very good day.”
Thrown off guard, Miranda blurted, “Do you know Molly Bray?”
“Of course, dear. She’s my granddaughter. Come in and have some tea. The water’s near boiling already.”
10
Crayfish, Walleyes, and Pike
“Let me describe her,” the old woman said, blowing across the top of her cup. She looked from Morgan to Miranda and back again, then talked into the space between them. Her voice was warm, embracing the past, inviting them to share in her affection, while her eyes moistened with images visible only to her.
“She was an angel and a devil, Molly Bray. It would make your head spin. As a wee girl, she’d march along beside you like nobody’s business. She wouldn’t hold your hand, mind you, but she’d be close enough you could feel her little body against your leg. Do you know she had her own garden? She wouldn’t let me help. She grew a whole garden of radishes one year.”
“She lived here with you?” Miranda asked, sipping her tea, trying to be as subtle as possible about straining the loose bits through her teeth.
“Oh, yes, from an infant. She was such a good baby …”
“Where was her mother?”
“She didn’t have a mother. What’s your name, dear?” They had introduced themselves when they came in, but the old woman was busying herself with tea paraphernalia and hadn’t paid attention.
“I’m sorry. I’m Miranda Quin. This is David Morgan. We’re —”
“She didn’t have a mother and she didn’t have a father. In those days we looked after our own.”
“That wasn’t so long ago, Mrs. …?” Morgan asked. The woman had neglected to give them her name, the tea ritual taking precedence over niceties apparently deemed less important.
“Former times. I’m thinking of my parents’ day. When you don’t have a family of your own, you do that. I’m Miss Elizabeth Clarke. I’m an old maid. I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Morgan. Would either of you like a dash of hot water?”
“No, thank you,” said Miranda and Morgan simultaneously.
“I have my tea mailed to me directly from England. This one’s Lapsang Souchong. Do you like it?”
“It has a distinctive flavour,” said Miranda. Morgan, who wasn’t so diplomatic, said nothing.
“If you’d prefer, I have some Tippi Assam.”
“You buy it in England?” asked Morgan, succumbing to the notion he had to say something on the subject. “Are you English?”
“Yes,” said the old woman. “Seven or eight generations back. Depends on whether you follow my moth-er’s side or my father’s. I’ve never been there. No desire to go. It’s all Jane Austen and Charles Dickens in my mind, and that’s how I like it. And Winston Churchill and Twiggy.”
Morgan took a deep breath over his teacup. The odour of hot asphalt gave way to an aroma of damp winter evenings warmed by the embers of an open fire.
He looked around. There was only a space heater, smelling faintly of rancid oil. Maybe Miranda was wrong. This house, a cottage, really, must have been built after the advent of cast-iron stoves.
Elizabeth Clarke watched him as he surveyed the small room. She had lived here all her life and her mother before that, and her people before that. She knew what he was thinking.
“There was a fireplace in the back wall. It was filled in. Caused a dreadful draft. The iron pot-belly was better, but it leaked smoke. Then we replaced it with another made from steel. It’s still out back. After that we brought in a modern oil burner. I suppose most heat with electricity now.”
“I suppose they do,” said Morgan.
He was enchanted by how comfortable she was among the generations that had lived here and died. Strangely, it was a bit like he felt himself in the subterranean depths of the Griffin
