The Care and Management of Lies by Jacqueline Winspear Page A

mind, and Kezia always came with a good provision of carrots to reward the animal for her kind nature. Now, as she waited her turn to be served, Kezia could not help but notice two things. The first was that talk of war had increased, though there seemed to be no escalation in venom towards the Hun, despite stories appearing in the newspaper—the local edition came in on a Friday. For the most part, dailies did not sell in the village, and one only saw a Times or a Daily Mail or the Evening Standard if a copy had been found on the train and then made the rounds of interested parties. Staff at the four large estates in the area would bring copies home, which went into circulation in due course. Thus, the village was in general a well-informed community, but not completely up-to-date. Perhaps it was an appreciation that their news of world events, of parliamentary debate and stories of poor little Belgium, was delayed that tempered the villagers’ response; however, it occurred to Kezia that while London boiled with opinion and rhetoric, inspiring young men to march to war, in this rural area there was a slow simmer—and, as she had discovered, a slow simmer could generate just as much heat underneath the pot.
    It seemed that the sight of Edmund Hawkes in the uniform of an officer had been the source of some gossip. During her visits to the village, and especially to the shop, or to the library run by the vicar’s wife and a coterie of women whose husbands worked in London— He works up in Town , they would say, or He’s in the City —Kezia came to understand that the village’s confidence in the Hawkes family had never been that high, but that Edmund Hawkes was looked upon with an interest bordering upon fascination. It was noted that he traveled to London several times each month, that he had a serious demeanor and was always dressed in an appropriate manner for such an excursion. At the same time, he was spoken of as a man who would rather while away his days scribbling in his notebook—yet his management of the estate, his guardianship of the land, suggested otherwise. It was said that he had an arrangement with the landlord of the Queen’s Head and several other hostelries within a ten-mile radius that if his father were to venture in, there should be a limit to the number of times his glass could be refilled. It occurred to Kezia that Edmund Hawkes might like to perpetuate a certain idea of himself, and in so doing had the upper hand, as if he held a cloak of invisibility over his true character. It also came to mind that if she had time to think about the likes of Edmund Hawkes, her brain was becoming stale.
    Then there was the second thing that Kezia noticed as she awaited her turn to step up to the counter and read out her list of groceries, listening as other women asked for a pound of this, or half of that, taking account of the fact that she never saw the poorer women in the shop, or if she did, they bought only bread and dripping, or perhaps a quarter pound of the cheapest cheddar. Kezia noticed that each woman—and some remained to chat even after purchasing their goods—seemed to cast her eyes in the direction of her waist and then turn to nod to another woman, or frown and begin a natter. Such was this interest that Kezia thought the clasp on her belt had come loose, or the cloth puckered, bringing up her skirt. An unusual quiet seemed to fall when she read out her list—flour, butter, currants and raisins, some spice for stew, a bottle of gravy browning—and though she could not be sure, it was as if she had disappointed the company gathered behind her.
    As Kezia drove back to the farm, she hoped Tom would not mention that she had already gone into the village every day so far this week. His mother went but once a week at most, doing all her shopping in one fell swoop and returning with her baskets laden. And as for her mother, Kezia was well aware that merchants called upon the parsonage, and that