The Last Scone At Wren Cottage

Evelyn Vale stood near the far wall, separated from the other competitors by no more than a yard and an air of complete privacy. She wore a dark green dress beneath her white apron, and her hands rested loosely at her sides. Her scones sat on a plain china plate, each one golden and high, with a delicate split across the top.

Poppy leaned close. “She hasn’t even looked at them.”

“She knows what they taste like.”

“That’s either confidence or madness.”

“In a baking contest, the distinction is largely decorative.”

Poppy grinned, then darted away with a tray of tea. Mabel watched Evelyn as she moved between the urn and the judging table. The woman’s face was composed, but there was a tightness around her mouth. Not nerves, precisely. Something more private.

Agnes Whitcombe raised her hand for silence. It took three attempts and one sharp rap of a teaspoon against a glass.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Agnes said, “the judges have reached their decision.”

The hall quietened by degrees. A chair scraped. Someone coughed into a paper napkin. Outside, rain ticked against the tall windows, turning the afternoon grey.

Mabel set down the milk jug and looked towards Evelyn.

Agnes lifted the winning card.

“This year’s village baking contest is won by Evelyn Vale.”

Applause burst out, warm and uneven. Poppy whooped from behind the tea table. Arthur clapped as though he had personally taught Evelyn how to flour a baking tin. Julian joined in a moment late, his eyes fixed not on Evelyn but on the plate of scones.

Evelyn did not move.

Then she stepped forward. Agnes placed a blue rosette in her hand and kissed the air beside her cheek.

“Your family recipe has done you proud,” Agnes said.

“It isn’t quite my family recipe,” Evelyn replied.

The words were soft, but Mabel heard them.

Agnes’s smile tightened. “Perhaps you’ll explain that when you address the hall.”

Several people turned towards Evelyn. The old custom was for the winner to say a few words about the bake, and Evelyn had been expected to speak about the unusual ingredient whispered about for years. Some said it was an old-fashioned spice. Others insisted it was a variety of apple no longer grown locally. Arthur had once suggested powdered oyster shell, which had ended that particular conversation rather abruptly.

Evelyn looked down at her scones.

“I will,” she said. “In a moment.”

She slipped the rosette onto her apron and walked towards the kitchen.

Mabel caught her eye as she passed. For an instant Evelyn’s expression changed. It was not fear, exactly. It was the look of someone who had reached the edge of a decision and found the ground beyond it uncertain.

“Are you all right?” Mabel asked.

Evelyn paused. “Do you keep the back door open?”

“Only when someone is carrying hot trays.”

“Then it may be wise to keep it shut.”

Before Mabel could ask what she meant, Evelyn moved on.

A shout came from the serving hatch.

“Mabel! We’re out of teaspoons!”

“Use the little forks.”

“They’re for cake.”

“Then today they are teaspoons with shorter handles.”

The tea service lurched back into motion. Mabel fetched milk, found napkins, rescued a child from a collapsing tower of sponge and stopped Arthur from putting a savoury tart beside the lemon drizzle. Through it all, she kept Evelyn in the corner of her vision.

The plate of winning scones remained on the judging table.

Evelyn did not return.

At first Mabel assumed she had gone to collect her coat. The kitchen was too crowded for a person to vanish elegantly. There were baskets beneath feet, aprons brushing doorframes, and enough steam to conceal a small horse. But when Agnes tapped the microphone and announced that the winner would speak shortly, Evelyn was still nowhere to be seen.

“Poppy,” Mabel said, “can you take over the urn?”

Poppy’s eyes widened. “Me?”

“You’ve been refilling cups for twenty minutes.”

“I’ve been supervising refills.”

“Supervise faster.”

Mabel pushed through the kitchen. A saucepan clanged behind her. Someone complained that the oven had been turned down. Arthur was trying to squeeze past with a stack of plates and appeared to have become wedged between the pantry door and a trestle table.

“Have you seen Evelyn?” Mabel asked.

Arthur frowned. “She was here.”

“That is not the same as seeing her now.”

“I saw her after the announcement.”

“When?”

“After the announcement.”

Mabel left him to his precision and checked the pantry. Empty, except for folding chairs and a cardboard box marked CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS. The cloakroom held three dripping umbrellas, two children’s coats and a tartan scarf that belonged to Agnes. Evelyn’s handbag was not there.

She hurried to the back door. It stood open by an inch, letting in a blade of cold air that smelled of wet earth. Beyond it, the narrow path behind the hall was slick with rain. No footsteps were visible on the paving stones.

“Mabel.”

Agnes’s voice carried from the main hall.

Mabel returned to find the committee gathered around the winning plate. Julian stood beside the judging table, his hands in his pockets. Poppy had abandoned the tea urn and was staring at the empty space where Evelyn ought to have been.

“Perhaps she’s gone home,” Julian said.

“Without her coat?” Mabel asked.

He glanced towards the cloakroom. “People do odd things when they’re excited.”

“Evelyn was not excited.”

Agnes gave Mabel a hard look. “She may have wanted a moment alone.”

“She told me she would explain the recipe.”

“Then she may have changed her mind.”

Mabel looked at the plate. The scones were still warm. One had been cut open, revealing a tender crumb flecked with something pale and fine. Beside it lay Evelyn’s recipe card, covered in neat handwriting.

At the bottom, beneath the ingredients, was a short line that seemed to have been written more heavily than the rest.

Mabel bent towards it, but Julian reached for the card first.

“Best not smudge it,” he said.

“I wasn’t planning to eat it.”

“That is reassuring.”

Agnes snatched up the card. “We should put this somewhere safe.”

“Where is Evelyn’s coat?” Mabel asked.

Poppy had already gone to the cloakroom. She returned holding a dark wool coat over both arms.

“Her handbag’s in the pocket,” she said. “And her keys. Everything.”

The noise of the hall seemed to drain away, though the kettles still hissed and rain still tapped the windows.

Mabel took the coat. It was cold and faintly damp at the shoulders, as though Evelyn had worn it outside and returned, or had stood near the open door. In one pocket, Mabel felt the hard outline of a key ring. In the other, a folded handkerchief and a packet of barley sweets.

“She wouldn’t leave without these,” Poppy said.

“People leave things,” Agnes replied. “They come back for them.”

“How long do we wait?” Arthur asked.

No one answered.

Julian looked towards the hall doors. “There’s no need to alarm everyone. She may have gone to the river path.”

“Without her handbag?” Mabel said again.

His expression sharpened. “You keep saying that.”

“Because it keeps being true.”

Agnes straightened, the recipe card clutched in her hand. “Mabel, return to the tea table. The contest is not over.”

Mabel looked at the rows of waiting cups, the cooling pots and the villagers watching from every corner of the hall. The blue rosette on Evelyn’s apron was visible in her mind, bright against green cloth. The woman had won, promised an explanation, and disappeared before giving it.

“I’m not returning to the tea table,” Mabel said.

Agnes’s eyebrows rose.

Mabel set Evelyn’s coat carefully over the back of a chair. “Not until we find her.”

For once, nobody made a joke about the scones.

End of chapter one. 14 more chapters and about 28,477 words in the full book.