Free 02 - Flight of Fancy by Evelyn James

O’Harris and wondered if I could have
a chat with Mrs Rhone?”
    “Gladys is in the back
parlour.” The reverend Rhone ushered Clara into his vicarage, “I’m supposed to
be writing a sermon, but I just can’t seem to get the angle right. I fear I
have become a little boring of late. Quite frankly on occasions I have to catch
myself from falling asleep during my own sermon.”
    “Oh dear.” Clara said
sympathetically.
    “Are you a church goer?”
    Clara hesitated.
    “Before the war.” She
eventually admitted.
    “Yes, that’s just how it is.
Quite depressing for myself of course, and no doubt God is rather miserable
about it too. It was the war you know, never knew anything like it for thinning
out my congregation.”
    Clara felt the vicar’s choice
of words slightly unfortunate.
    “Of course, I expect things to
pick up once people get over it. God is always there, after all. Actually, that
might not be a bad catch for the sermon?” The vicar abruptly wandered off
reciting his last words to himself.
    Clara was left to find her own
way about the vicarage and to the back parlour, which was a cramped room with
the advantage of looking over the garden. Mrs Rhone was in the centre of it
surrounded by piles upon piles of knitted squares, which she was busily sewing
together. She looked up as Clara entered and removed her glasses.
    “Miss Fitzgerald, isn’t it?”
She stood to greet her guest.
    “Sorry to bother you Mrs Rhone
when you are so busy.”
    “No matter dear, take a seat.
These will take me days to sew together. There are several dear ladies who keep
their ends of wool to knit assorted squares for blankets and then they pass
them to me to sew up. I feel a tad put-upon every time they appear at my door
with another bundle. But they are so intent on doing good. This latest batch is
for the orphanage.” Mrs Rhone, indicated the various piles that stood around
her like stumpy pillars, “I don’t suppose you sew..?”
    Clara obligingly received a
needle and a set of four squares to sew together.
    “Now, pray tell me what brings
you here?”
    “Captain O’Harris’ mystery
brings me. He wants me to try and find the truth.”
    “That sounds like a good way to
bring him more heartache. He believes his aunt guilty?”
    “I think he would like me to
prove otherwise.” Clara perched two squares on her knee and began sewing with a
long strand of green wool, “I thought I would pop by and have a little chat
about the late Florence O’Harris. You knew her well, I presume?”
    “Oh my yes!” Mrs Rhone briefly
looked up from her work to smile, “Florence Minerva Highgrove was my Sunday
school teacher as a girl, before she married of course and became Florence
O’Harris.”
    “Could you tell me a bit about
her?”
    “Well…” Mrs Rhone sucked at a
strand of wool she was trying to thread into a needle, “She was pretty much
like any girl. Let me see, she would have been eighteen when I was eleven, yes,
that’s about right, and she taught at the Sunday school until I was fifteen,
and then she left to be wed. She would have been 74 this year, you know, that
makes me feel rather old! Anyway, I always remember her as a young, quite
forceful woman, who knew her own mind and would tell you as much. When she took
our lessons I always knew we were in for a good one, because she would read the
bible stories with such flare and if you asked her a question she would look
you straight in the eye and ask a question right back. I know several of the
older lads were besotted with her. My brother was fourteen and convinced he
would take her to a dance one day, when he was old enough and had a penny or
two. Of course, they were all downcast for a week when they heard she was
getting married. Nothing lasts long at that age.”
    “How did she meet Goddard O’Harris?”
    “I believe he was a connection
of the family. Florence’s father was in business and had done quite well for
himself, her mother was a force to be