The Silent Hour

The Silent Hour: A Mrs. Meade Mystery

By Elisabeth Grace Foley

Cover design by
Historical
Editorial

Silhouette artwork by Casey Koester

Formatting by
Second Sentence Press

Photo credits

Wallpaper © Evdakovka | Vectorstock.com

Magnifying glass © mvp | Fotolia.com

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment
only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people.
If you would like to share this book with another person, please
purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this
book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use
only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and
purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of
this author.

Copyright © 2015 Elisabeth Grace Foley

Table of Contents

The Silent Hour

More Mrs. Meade

About the Author

Kill men i' the dark!—Where be these bloody
thieves?—

How silent is this town!—Ho! murder! murder!

- William Shakespeare

Frances finished cleaning the blackboard and
piled together the few books on her desk. She swept the floor in
front of the blackboard and around the stove, then stood by the
door and took a last look around the schoolhouse, now empty and
clean, before donning her jacket and hat, gathering up her books
and departing.

The Sour Springs schoolhouse stood at the end
of a little side canyon two miles south of town, whose steep walls
were clothed in rich green pine with a cloud of golden-orange
aspens below. The aspen leaves were trembling on their stalks in
the autumn breeze as Frances Ruskin stepped from the door of the
schoolhouse, but they had not yet begun to fall. In fair weather
Frances liked the walk of a mile or so down the road to the house
where she boarded; only in the winter did it take a horse to plough
up through the drifts of snow in the canyon. Today, however, she
turned the opposite way, bound for a certain spot by the side of
the road which she had come to know as a meeting-place.

Frances walked slowly, letting her arms swing
free; her books in one hand and her head tilted back to breathe in
the crisp, brilliant Colorado air. The ochre and dark-green of the
trees, the vaulted walls of the canyon, made her heart swell with
almost painfully keen appreciation of their beauty. Never before
had autumn touched her so to the quick. There was a sameness about
summer after all…its blues and greens unchanging, except near the
end when the shades grew a little tarnished…autumn was a season of
change, of finding new colors and unexpected new beauties every day
in places that had seemed drab before. To Frances it seemed a
metaphor of her own life—everything that had happened to her before
this autumn felt vague, unimportant, all of it the same. She dated
her existence from the day, exactly three weeks and two days ago,
when love came into her life.

Frances was twenty-three, and had been
teaching school in Sour Springs for two years. She was not
beautiful, but she had clear, pleasant features, frank gray eyes
and soft brown hair. She had been accustomed to working from an
early age; to providing for others in her family; and later when
left alone, to providing for herself. Reserved by nature, and with
scarcely any opinion of her own talents and attractions, it had
taken her a while to be slowly drawn into the social life of Sour
Springs by a few livelier girls who befriended her. It was at their
urging she had gone rather reluctantly to an early-autumn picnic of
young people just over a year ago, not expecting very much. But she
had
enjoyed herself, far more than she had anticipated, and
it was there that she had met Jim Cambert. Jim was nearly four
years younger than her; intelligent, a good conversationalist, and
talked to her freely without seeming to notice her slight hesitant
reserve that soon melted away in his company. A friendship sprang
up between them from then on—they got on well and never seemed
short of things to talk about; and in the months that followed,
their easy companionship became one of the bright spots in Frances’
life, seeming to broaden the horizons of her quiet, unremarkable
existence.

It had come as a shock to both of them to
discover, almost simultaneously, that their feelings for each other
had gone deeper, for the very reason that the thought had never
entered their minds since the beginning. But after the first
moments or hours of standing open-mouthed before the revelation,
nothing could have seemed more natural. The close bond between them
had already been formed before they were aware of it.

Frances came to a quiet bend in the canyon
road, and sat down on the shallow bank beside it. She sat there a
little while, watching the first few gold leaves fall gently, until
she heard the clip of approaching hooves, and Jim Cambert came
around the bend on his tall black horse. He pulled up and
dismounted at the side of the road and came over, looking down at
her with eyes warm with happiness, and then he sat down beside her
on the bank and kissed her. Frances’ fingers tightened on his coat
sleeve and she closed her eyes, enjoying the little thrill, the
more precious to her because it was something she had never thought
she would have. She lingered close to him for a long moment.

After a little while Jim drew back and smiled
at her again. He was tall and athletic and golden-haired, with a
confident air about him, and it was only when you looked him
closely in the eye that you realized with some surprise how young
he was. His matter-of-fact maturity was the product of an unusual
and colorful upbringing—orphaned as a child and taken in by his
grandfather, an old career soldier, he had grown up in barracks and
outposts and garrison towns across the country, most of his time
spent among adults. His education had been unorthodox but
broad—Major Cambert was a prolific reader who carried a ponderous
library with him from post to post, swelled by volumes he forgot to
return to their owners and thinned again by those he scattered
among friends along the way. Eventually the Major retired and
bought a small cattle ranch near Sour Springs, and when rheumatism
began to bind him to his easy-chair, Jim at sixteen became his eyes
and ears and feet on the ranch, and by now practically ran it
himself, subject only to Major Cambert’s instructions and
approval.

They sat for a while on the sunny bank, hands
clasped simply in each other’s, and talked of their future. They
had been too happy to think and speak in terms of earth much
before.

“I don’t see why we can’t get married next
week,” said Jim only half jokingly. “A month isn’t too short an
engagement when we’ve known each other this long. It isn’t as if we
have anything to do beforehand.”

“I’d love to,” said Frances, smiling, “but I
do feel I should go on teaching to the end of this term. If I stay
on to the Christmas holidays it’ll give the school board time to
find another teacher.”

“Christmas,” said Jim with a rueful grin.
“Well, I suppose you’re right. Have you told the board you’ll be
leaving yet?”

“No, not yet. We hadn’t made any plans,
so—I’ll give them my resignation tomorrow.” Frances hesitated just
a second, and then said, “Have you—have you told your
grandfather?”

“No, I haven’t. I guess I’ve hardly been able
to believe it myself, enough to tell it to anyone else.”

“You should,” said Frances. “It wouldn’t be
right to leave him not knowing till the last minute—and anyway, he
really ought to be the first to know.”

Jim laughed. “All right. I’ll tell
Grandfather tonight, and you can tell the board tomorrow.”

“What do you think he’ll say?” said
Frances.

“Grandfather? He’ll be tickled to death.
He’ll like having a woman in the house—it’ll make us a family
instead of a barracks. And don’t think you’ll be burdened with
taking care of him, Frances. Grandfather can’t get out of the house
much, but he’s not a complete invalid; he can hobble around indoors
with a little help from me.”

“I’m glad,” said Frances. “Glad that he’ll be
pleased, I mean. And I wouldn’t mind taking care of him if I did
need to. I—” She drew a soft little breath. “It’s all so wonderful
I can hardly credit it either. I never really dreamed much about
anything…I guess I always supposed I would go on teaching school
forever, and nothing much would ever happen to me. And now…I’m so
happy, Jim.”

Jim lifted both her hands, twining his
fingers between hers, and looked down into her eyes. “I love you,
Frances,” he said softly.

She looked up at him, her heart too full for
speech. Jim drew her into his arms and kissed her again, and the
autumn breeze slipped in a cool invisible swirl around them,
whisking a golden leaf past on a beam of sunlight.

* * *

The fire burning steadily in the fireplace
was a good one, but it looked almost small sitting back from the
center of the broad stone hearth. The big fireplace with Major
Cambert’s armchair beside it dominated the not overly large room,
which also held a battered desk filled with papers, a small iron
safe and a couple of comfortably overflowing bookcases. The room
was dark except for the fire-glow, as was the Major’s custom in the
evenings; the shifting gold light half illuminated the
weather-lined face and gray moustache of the old soldier sitting
back in his chair, an old red rug over his knees. Across from him
Jim was sitting bent forward with his elbows on his knees, kneading
his hands together, and every now and then glancing into the fire
with a little half-hidden smile as he tried to think how you put
together the words to explain about something so special.

“Grandfather, I’ve got something to tell
you,” he said at last.

“Eh? What is it?” said Major Cambert around
the stem of his pipe, as he adjusted it in his mouth.

His complacency was too much for the
happiness bubbling up inside Jim, who was obliged to get up and
stir the fire before he could go on. He did a thorough job of it,
returned the poker to its rack, and then turned around and stood on
the hearth facing his grandfather, his thumbs hooked in his belt.
“I’ve decided I want to get married.”

Major Cambert’s jaw dropped, and he stared at
his grandson for a moment, and then slowly he began to shake with
soundless laughter, which gave way to audible mirth. “You do, do
you! And when did you reach that decision?”

“Well, it happened pretty suddenly,” said Jim
with a shy smile.

“And now you’ve only to look about for the
girl, I suppose,” said Major Cambert, trying to be grave.

“Oh, no, I’ve already found one. As a matter
of fact,” said Jim, “well—I’m engaged.”

Major Cambert took his pipe out of his mouth
altogether and looked at his grandson with something like a new
respect. “Well…! Who is she, then?”

Jim plunged enthusiastically into speech.
“Frances Ruskin. You know her, of course. I met her a year ago.
You’ve met her once or twice when we were in town; I’m sure you
remember her.”

A frown slowly overtook Major Cambert’s
smile; the indulgent light faded from his eyes. “Miss—Ruskin—the
schoolteacher?”

“Yes! You remember talking to her, at the
Literary Society meeting back in the spring. She—”

“The schoolteacher?” said Major Cambert
again. He gave his grandson a look that was certainly not one of
approval, and then uttered a short dismissive sound, almost of
contempt. “Why, she’s no girl! She must be twenty-six if she’s a
day.”

“She’s only twenty-three,” said Jim, a little
stiffly, “and I don’t see what difference that makes.”

“Difference!” said Major Cambert. “It makes a
sight more difference than you’ve thought about, my boy. Why do you
want to marry her?”

Jim said, with ominous articulation, “Because
I love her, and she loves me. That’s what’s customary, isn’t
it?”

The Major gave a short bark of a laugh. “Tell
my old grandmother! Yes, I’ve seen the girl. She’s twenty-three,
going on twenty-four more than likely, and you’re not twenty yet.
Why would she want you when she could have a grown man? If she’s
accepted you, it’s because she can’t
get
a man, I’ll wager.
She knows what side her bread’s buttered on.”

“A
man
?” said Jim, his voice
strangled. “I’ve been your right hand for the past four years—I’ve
heard you say it to people time and again—and now you sit there and
tell me I’m not a man?”

“Not when it comes to women you’re not,” said
Major Cambert, scowling darkly, and moving from side to side in his
chair as he always did when upset. “You don’t know the first thing,
boy. You ought to take up with some flowery little chit of sixteen
who doesn’t know any more than you do.”