I Spy...

It is dangerous when you overhear a random snatch of conversation on a train. Even after it has passed out of use you continue to wonder what it might have meant. On overhearing the statement “he used to be a spy” I could not help the imagining of a little scene of my own.

“He used toe used be a spy.” The statement sunk in the silence like the proverbial stone. “He led a band of mercenaries.” There was little obvious discomfort in her sister’s composure, though Eleanor liked to imagine that the needle was stabbed into the tapestry with an overabundance of necessary force. “He murdered his second wife.” She tried again, injecting more blood-thirsty relish into her words. Finally she was rewarded with a satisfying response.

“Blast,” came the reply as her sister retrieved her hand from below the material and sucked the welling blood from an injured fingertip. “Accursed needle.” She muttered with a frown of annoyance for the offending instrument.

“Oh come on Anne. Are you not in the least bit curious?” She asked of her sister, practically aquiver with curiosity herself. “You might be living next door to a murderer. How dreadfully exciting. Nothing exciting ever happens to me.” She ended with an exaggerated sigh that made it halfway to a pout.

Anne eyed her younger sister, who was slouched carelessly with legs hooked over the arm of the chair and a foot absentmindedly kicking the air. She hid her smile of affectionate amusement and murmured quietly.

“Two wives, my, how terribly careless of him.” Eleanor rolled her eyes expressing a youthful contempt for her sister’s facetiousness.

“I knew you were listening! And I do not know why you pretend to be so fastidious about village gossip. They talk about our lives often enough.” Anne pressed a gentle hand to the tapestry she had been embroidering, as if in smoothing out the creases of the material on her lap she could rid the lines of worry from her own brow.

“I simply think we should avoid prematurely judging others.” She said in a carefully measured voice. “Remember poor Mistress Hawthorne? A few carless moments of gossip and everyone believed her to be a witch, when nothing could have been further from the truth.” Eleanor had the decency to look shame-faced for at least half a minute before whispering with a wicked light in her eye,

“He’s bound to be handsome though with a reputation like that.”