Cozy Case Files, Volume 17, page 1
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“The Matter is far from settled, Miss Hermione. In fact, it has grown grave.”
1885: London, England. When Violet’s aunt Adelia decides to abscond with her newest paramour, she leaves behind her two volatile nieces, one dedicated housekeeper, and a mailbox full of trouble. After years of penning the replies of the most popular agony aunt in London, Miss Hermione, Adelia is giving up her authorial pursuits to go all in on love. And unfortunately for her elder niece, Adelia has left the fate of Miss Hermione in Violet’s hands.
The first letter Violet receives is full, not of prissy pondering, but of portent. Ivy Armstrong is in need of help and fears for her life. When Violet visits the village where the letters were posted, she finds that nothing is as it seems.…
With Sephora––her sassy and snobbish sister––to care for, a murder to solve, and her own complicated feelings for a certain caddish Eli Marsh to corral, Violet is almost too busy to dole out advice to the British. Almost. She quickly discovers that when you represent the best-loved agony aunt in Britain, both marauding husbands and murder are par for the course.
My dear Miss Hermione,
I must open my heart to you and share a secret I cannot tell another soul. In my years of attending school at Miss Simpson’s Academy for Young Ladies, I thought I’d learned all I needed in order to be a proper wife.
Now, I am not certain. You see, Miss Hermione, I have recently married and I know I should be the happiest woman on earth. I am, indeed, the happiest woman on earth! My husband’s love radiates through all he does for me. We are compatible and congenial. And yet, lately … oh, Miss Hermione, I feel so bunglesome. Just thinking about my dearest husband makes me forget myself and lately, my head has been so much in the clouds, I have had a number of foolish accidents. I dread it will happen again and that in itself has made me so overanxious and apprehensive, I am sure my darling will see me as artless and not worthy of his love. Please help me, Miss Hermione.
A Desperate but Hopeful Wife
Dear Desperate but Hopeful,
You poor lamb! I blame no one at all for the predicament in which you find yourself as much as I blame the outmoded—and dare I say it, preposterous—expectations of Society.
We hold Love in high esteem and think of it as other-worldly and miraculous. Thus blinded, we expect all who are drawn to Love to be swept away, quite removed from their ordinary lives. Stuff and nonsense!
Certainly, Love has brought you to the happy state in which you find yourself, but now, Desperate but Hopeful, you must do your part.
The less you worry about how you might impress others with impossible perfection, the more confidence you’ll feel and the fewer accidents you’ll have. Realize your true worth and make your way in the world, not simply as an adjunct to your husband but as his equal. Certainly, you should wish to please him, just as he should do the same for you. But you are only human. Cast aside your worries and your uneasiness. Your husband has found the woman of his dreams. Now she needs to plant herself firmly in reality, ease herself into the new role of wife, and start living.
You may be Hopeful about these matters, my dear, but when it comes to such things, neither you—nor any woman—should ever feel Desperate.
Miss Hermione
Chapter 1
Violet
London
June 29, 1885
It should be known from the beginning, I am no flibbertigibbet. Nor am I inclined to the sorts of vapors which often envelop my half sister Sephora and cause her to swoon—usually when there is an attractive young man in the vicinity to offer assistance.
No, I, Violet Manville, am levelheaded. Commonsensical. Well ordered of both habit and mind.
Perhaps that is why I felt especially vulnerable that particular morning standing in my aunt Adelia’s library, the inner sanctum I had never before been allowed to enter, scanning the labels written on the drawers of the filing cabinets in front of me.
Unfaithful Husbands
Comportment
Disrespectful Children
Mothers-in-Law
My heart beat double time. My jaw went slack. An instinct of self-preservation kicked in and I stepped back, putting distance between myself, those oak cabinets, and all I had just learned they meant.
It hardly helped. An invisible hand tightened around my throat and I gasped for air like a doomed sailor submerged in an icy sea. At that moment, every bit of wit abandoned me. But then, there was little room for it considering I was filled with trepidation.
“But, Aunt Adelia…” Drawn as a moth to flame yet fully aware of what happens to the unfortunate insect when it gets too close, I looked again to the cabinets. Their labels were written in a flamboyant, flowing hand that belied what I suspected was the serious nature of the contents of each drawer.
Manners
Morals
Mourning
“Aunt Adelia…” I gulped, a sound that betrayed my apprehension. “You must surely be mistaken. You cannot possibly think I could—”
“Of course you can.” My aunt bustled from desk to bookcase, from bookcase to armoire, from armoire to the desk again, retrieving a gold cigarette case, casting aside a pair of kid gloves and unwanted papers that fluttered to the floor like so many fallen flower petals.
She stopped her marauding long enough to offer a smile, but I wasn’t fooled by it for a second. Smile or no smile, I knew better than to imagine she’d ever change her mind. Adelia was a rock. A fixed force in a universe where the sun had been supplanted by Adelia Henrietta Georgina Tylney Manville and the planets revolved around her and her alone. As if to prove it, she lifted her chin. “I am never wrong, dear Violet. You should know that by now.”
“I do. But—”
“I decided. A year ago. Soon after you and Sephora came here to live with me. I suspected you were the right woman for the task all along, all those years we corresponded when you traveled with your father. I’d hoped to have time to gradually ease you into this new role I have prepared for you, but…” She rounded the desk to stand in front of me. Aunt Adelia is something of a nonpareil, matchless when it comes to her impeccable clothing. Unlike me, for I preferred understated styles in colors that were just as inconspicuous, Adela adored bright hues and hats adorned with feathers. That day, she was dressed in a traveling suit the color of plums. Her hat was on the desk, and she reached for it and perched it on her head at the precise angle to make the most of her chestnut hair, her slim nose, her wide eyes. “Hamish is an unpredictable sort. It is part of his charm. He did not propose this journey to me until last night and so you see, until then, I did not know I was leaving. And before you ask, no, I do not know when we might return. That is why I need you to be a dear and handle this for me. Do not be cross. There is no way I could have told you sooner. He’s waiting for me now outside in a hansom, the train leaves Charing Cross in just another hour, and I have every confidence in you.” She gave me a peck on the cheek. “You’ll do very well.”
Just a short time before, I had been sitting quietly at the table reading the morning’s newspaper while enjoying a cup of tea and a slice of perfectly crisped toast provided by Adelia’s incomparable housekeeper, Bunty, nothing more on my mind than a visit to the British Museum that afternoon. Now, here I stood, my world turned upside down by my charming, outspoken, incorrigible aunt and all she had planned for me. Can I be blamed for raising my voice and stomping my foot?
If nothing else, my fit of pique got my aunt’s attention. Already moving to the door at her usual cyclone’s pace, she whirled to face me.
I inched back my shoulders. I am not as tall as Adelia. I am not nearly as broad. As she is nearing forty, I am her junior by sixteen years. I had been raised better than to disrespect my elders, and I reminded myself of that fact while I struggled to make her listen to reason.
“Miss Hermione is the most celebrated agony aunt in all the Empire,” I said, my voice, too high-pitched, bouncing over the words. “She is talked about everywhere. Her wisdom to those who write to her for advice is admired and extolled. Her column in A Woman’s Place magazine is fabled.”
“Well, of course it is. Really, Violet, you don’t need to preach what I already know.” She turned again to the door, but I was not done.
“Her true identity has been a mystery all these years and now…” When I stepped forward, Adelia dropped her hand from the doorknob, but kept her back to me. “You cannot reveal to me that you are Miss Hermione at the same time you tell me you are leaving for the Continent for an undetermined amount of time and you want me to take over the writing of your column.”
Slowly, she pivoted to face me, her eyes wide, her lips pursed. The picture of innocence. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Bosh!” Her laughter had the clear, sweet ring of the clink of champagne glasses. “You’ll be far more successful than I’ve ever been. You have a great deal of common sense and I have absolutely none.”
As if it would somehow emphasize what I’d just learned about the aunt I’d always thought had little more to her than a cadre of interesting friends, a paramour now and then, and the sometimes-inconvenient habit of laughing at the wrong things at the wrong time, I swept an arm toward those filing cabinets. “Yet for years you’ve been dispensing advice to all and sundry about things like mothers-in-law and unfaithful husbands.”
“Yes! It is quite the funniest thing, isn’t it? It started as a lark and simply grew.” Another laugh and she set her hand again on the brass doorknob. “Now, dear Violet, Miss Hermione will give you her final piece of advice. A lady is wise to let a man wait for her so that he tingles with anticipation at the thought of her coming and rejoices when she finally arrives. However…” She grinned. “She cannot possibly expect the railway, too, to wait.” She threw open the door and glided into the hallway where Bunty stood at the ready, Adelia’s traveling cloak over one arm and the carpetbag my aunt would carry to the station sitting nearby.
“Bunty will assist you,” Adelia told me, then leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Bunty knows the secret, as do a few select others. Remember, you cannot tell anyone. Especially Sephora. You know she never misses reading Miss Hermione’s columns. She even clips them and keeps them in an album. No, no. If she knew Miss Hermione’s true identity, she would be far too excited to keep the news to herself, and Miss Hermione’s mysterious persona is part of her allure.”
I thought back to the labels on the cabinets.
Disrespectful Children?
Mothers-in-Law?
Husbands Faithful or Unfaithful?
“But I know nothing of the subjects you wish me to consult about,” I creaked.
“Bunty will help.” She did now, holding out Adelia’s cloak so she could slip it on. “Bunty is always here for you. And you may write to me whenever you wish. Bunty will know what to do with your letters.”
“But—”
It was just as well the sound of the post arriving interrupted whatever objection I might have offered. My protests fell on deaf ears.
Bunty left to retrieve the letters and when she came back, she handed my aunt the bundle. Adelia riffled through them. “These will be your first,” she told me. “And you’ll see how simple it all is. Some silly girl asking what to do when the boy at the stables smiles at her. A woman not sure of the proper way to welcome her son’s wife to the family.”
“But…” Thinking, I tipped my head and looked from the letters to my aunt and back to the letters in her hand. “If no one knows who Miss Hermione is, how is the secret kept if the letters arrive here?”
Adelia threw back her head and laughed. “Didn’t I tell you, Bunty? Didn’t I tell you the girl is intelligent enough to handle whatever Miss Hermione’s readers can put in front of her? You mustn’t worry, Violet. It is all very simple. The letters go first to the magazine office, where my editor there forwards them to a certain Mr. Harrison at the Pig and Ox public house.”
“And this Mr. Harrison, he sends the letters on to you?”
Clearly, I’d suggested a plan not nearly convoluted enough. Adelia frowned.
“Harrison has them messengered to Mrs. Doris Sykes, the dressmaker,” she told me. “And Doris’s helper, Dolly, who is conveniently not very intelligent and has no idea what the packet she sends contains, takes them to the post. And from there … Voilà!” She waved the morning’s letters at me. “As I said, it is all very simple and quite efficient. And I promise, the inquiries will be easy enough for you to handle. You have plenty of wit, and you can call on a good deal of charm, too. A few practical bits of advice and … oh!”
Adelia’s hands stilled. Her brows lowered. Her bottom lip caught in her upper teeth, she studied a letter she pulled from the packet. “I recognize the hand,” she said, though if she was talking to me or to Bunty, I could not be sure. “It is from a woman Miss Hermione heard from a month or so ago. I do hope there is nothing more to the letter than to thank me for the advice I offered. She was uneasy in her role as a new bride, you see, and I do believe I told her she needed to be kinder to herself, to ease into the role love had brought her to. But…” She put the letter in my hands. “Be a dear and get to this one first,” she said. “Just in case.”
In case of what, I never had the chance to ask. The front door flew open and Hamish MacGill, a man who reminded me of a red-haired bear, strode into the house.
His voice boomed against the walls and fairly made the orange flowers on the indigo wallpaper dance. “Are ye comin’, woman?”
Adelia gave me a sly smile and a wink. “What was it I said about making them tingle with anticipation?” She grabbed the carpetbag from the floor and swept down the hallway. “No doubt Sephora is upstairs fussing with her hair, but I’ve already said my goodbyes to her. And you, Violet…” At the door, she turned just long enough to reach for my hand and give it a squeeze. “I am sure you will do me proud.”
Side by side, Bunty and I watched them leave. Adelia was as delightful as she was maddening, as interesting as she was mercurial, and when the hansom disappeared around the nearest corner, I realized I would miss her. Especially in light of the task she’d given me.
“Tea?” Bunty asked when the hansom was out of sight.
“Yes.” I stepped back into the house, the reality of my new responsibilities settling on my shoulders and stiffening them with resolve. “If you would, please, you may bring it into the library.”
* * *
It was my desk—at least for the foreseeable future—so really, I shouldn’t have stepped into the library and approached it as if it were one of the terrifying tigers I’d seen while traveling in India with my dear, late papa.
“Ridiculous,” I grumbled, giving my head a shake and propelling myself forward. “I can certainly write a letter. How difficult can the job of Miss Hermione be?” Like so many millions throughout the country and indeed, the Empire, I had over the years read Miss Hermione’s column. Unlike so many millions—my half sister included—I no sooner finished reading Miss Hermione’s advice than I completely put it out of my mind. How silly was it not to listen to one’s own common sense when it came to life’s conundrums and to instead ask the advice of a stranger?
Thinking about it, I couldn’t help but chuckle. It was certainly the perfect job for Adelia! She loved nothing better than to let everyone know her opinion—even when they didn’t ask for it. I was a much more private person and not so inclined to force my viewpoint on others. At least not unless they were sorely in need of it. For now, my only task would be to read over Adelia’s latest work, to understand her system and how she chose to organize things and …
A closer look at the desk and my resolve disappeared. There were papers scattered across the desk and piled on the nearby chair, a Kashmir shawl in shades of blue and green flung over the inkwell, a canvas lawn tennis case bound in black leather tossed atop an array of pens. Opera glasses. A bar of carbolic soap. The delicate porcelain cup I had once sent to Adelia when Papa was posted with the Foreign Office in Hong Kong.
Try as I might to tell myself it could all be cleaned up and handled, arranged and managed, I could not pull my gaze away from the jumble, not even when the library door snapped open.
