And one child, a son named Nigel, who’d been shot at age twenty-six.
“I’ll do it,” Mrs. Henny volunteered meekly. “I’ll start tomorrow.”
“No, wait until his sister arrives,” Mrs. Blackshaw said. “She may want a few mementos.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Henny murmured.
“I’ll host the funeral gathering,” Mrs. Meriwether offered. She wore a vivid blue jacket that made the kitchen look shabby around her. But then, everything looked shabby around Lucy’s mother.
“Something simple,” Mrs. Blackshaw advised with a hint of a smile, since Mrs. Meriwether’s parties tended to be extravagant.
“Oh, of course, just a cold buffet. And maybe a soup.”
Mrs. Blackshaw’s gaze shifted to the art studio door where I hid, and I leaned back, holding my breath. She kept her eyes on the door as she said, “The donation list won’t be in here. You two go upstairs, and I’ll search the parlor.”
The other women left the room, their footsteps creaking on the stairs. But Mrs. Blackshaw didn’t go to the parlor. She listened, her head cocked, then moved quickly to the door where I hid.
I spun, my eyes skimming the crowded space. An easel stood in the middle of the room, with a small table beyond it with a still life scene. A velvet drape had been nailed to the far wall as a backdrop. I hurried to the drape and slipped behind it, just as the door swung open.
I pressed my back against the wall, holding my breath. Through the fabric, I could see Mrs. Blackshaw’s shadowy form as she entered. She walked to a stack of paintings leaning against a side wall and crouched in front of them. I tilted my head to the edge of the drape and dared to watch as she shuffled through the paintings with impatience, knocking a few over. She stood again, her back to me, her hands on her waist. Her attention settled on a second easel in the far corner, covered by a sheet. She went to it and yanked the sheet away—
And I stifled a gasp.
It was a painting of me.
And yet, not me. This girl was too beautiful to be me, her eyes looking somewhere over her shoulder, her lips slightly parted. Smooth skin with a hint of rosy flush. Honey-brown curls. Eyes that drew you in. Her face and shoulders filled the canvas, giving a feeling of intimacy. The painting was almost tender in its depiction. Done by Mr. Oliver—when? Recently, judging by my age. And it was still on an easel.
Something shifted inside me, uncomfortable. When had Mr. Oliver studied me so closely? He’d gotten the varied colors of my hair just right, lighter near my face.
I watched, fascinated, as Mrs. Blackshaw took the painting off the easel and carried it to a worktable. She grabbed a palette knife off the table and stabbed at the canvas, pulling the knife down in a vicious cut. She blinded my eyes. Severed my neck. Cut at my dress. The painting fell into mutilated strips, then she tugged at the remaining bits of canvas until she’d ripped them from the outer frame.
My heart hammered in my chest. I felt stabbed myself.
I’d always envied Rowan, wondering what it would be like to have such a grandmother. I’d watched from afar as Mrs. Blackshaw organized charity dances and collected books for orphaned children—even argued with men about politics.
But clearly, she loathed me.
She stopped abruptly, glancing at the door, then tossed the palette knife onto the worktable and the wooden frame into the corner. Ribbons of painted canvas littered the worktable and floor. She hastily gathered them and crammed them into a clay water pitcher, straightening as the other women entered.
I became rigid behind the drape, my pulse racing.
“His paintings.” Mrs. Meriwether sighed. “He was never particularly good, I’m afraid.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Henny protested.
“His sister may want them,” Mrs. Blackshaw said—with such composure I hardly believed what I’d just witnessed.
The women left the room, and I heard the front door open and close.
I went to the worktable and pulled the painted canvas from the clay pitcher. The strips were dry, so the pitcher must have been empty. I spread them across the worktable and assembled them like a puzzle—a jagged, freakish portrait. I stared at it, confused and touched that Mr. Oliver had painted me so beautifully. I’d never known him to paint people, only landscapes and still lifes.
I returned the strips to the clay pitcher and took it with me when I left.
Outside, the snow was still falling, the sun setting. I hugged the pitcher as I walked.
Mrs. Blackshaw had known of the painting’s existence. She’d sent the other women upstairs so she could find it and destroy it. The truth of that panged me. What had I done, except suffer for her son’s murder as surely as she had? I’d worked hard to overcome the shame of a crime I didn’t commit.
To no avail, apparently.
I walked around the side of the house and entered through the back door, where I found the kitchen dark and cold. “Birdy?” I called. I tucked the clay pitcher into the back corner of a tall cupboard, then walked to the front of the house. “Birdy?”
The house felt deserted.
My panic rose as I trotted up the staircase. “Birdy? You don’t need to hide; it’s just Valentine!” I searched the bedrooms and burned part of the house, looking under beds and opening wardrobes. Then I went through the entire house again.
But Birdy was gone.
* * *
Sam arrived on his father’s old farm horse and volunteered to ride to Birdy’s shack. I wanted to go with him, but he told me to wait. “The snow is getting deep. I’ll move faster alone.” He was gone before I could argue.
I paced for more than an hour—aware that I was hungry, but unable to eat—and had just decided to go out on my own when the door banged open and Sam entered, brushing snow off his coat. “It’s a regular blizzard out there.”
He shut the door behind him, and my hopes collapsed. “She wasn’t there?”
“No, and she hasn’t been as far as I could tell. No tracks in the snow.”
I groaned softly. “She must have been arrested. We have to go to the jailhouse.” I reached for my cloak on the wall.
But Sam placed his gloved hand over mine. “There’s no point,” he said gently. “Not in this weather. Sheriff Crane isn’t going to release her just because you show up, and she’s warmer in jail than that shack of hers.” He leaned closer, his voice low against my temple. “She’ll be fine, Val. You can see her tomorrow after school.”
What he said made sense. Outside, I could hear the storm howling. Reluctantly, I released my cloak.
* * *
The next morning, I detoured to Birdy’s shack in the woods on my way to school, just in case. But when I entered, I found the room cold and deserted.
My heart clutched when I saw the barren space. Sheriff Crane had taken away most of Birdy’s treasures, leaving only her mattress and blankets, and a few items necessary for survival. With the clutter gone, I could see the rough floorboards, caked in years of filth and rotting in places where the ceiling leaked. I felt a draft of icy air through the window.
“Oh, Birdy,” I sighed. I should have invited her to live with me years ago. There was a housekeeper’s room behind the kitchen that she could claim as her own. I would talk to Father when he returned.
If Birdy wasn’t hanged first.
I longed to go to the jailhouse, but continued to school and forced myself to go through the motions of the day—reciting poetry and learning about Constantine the Great. At lunch, I couldn’t bear the cheerful chatter of my classmates, so I ate quickly, then crossed the hall to the school library.
As I browsed the tall bookcases, I noticed a book on botany and pulled it out—then two others. I carried them to my favorite table under the window and flipped pages, my eyes skimming words and botanical drawings.
How much poison was needed to kill someone? Not much, I learned. And could it be easily hidden in tea? Yes, some poisons were tasteless.
“Interested in medicinal plants?
” Mr. Smithfield asked, peering over my shoulder.
“Just browsing,” I said, quickly shutting the book.
“Very sad about the rector,” he said carefully, watching me through his spectacles. He’d caught me sneaking books under my coat my freshman year and had been suspicious of me ever since. “Poison is a quiet weapon. Preferred by women, they say.”
“She didn’t do it,” I said, rising. One of the books lay open on the table, and I reached for it.
But Mr. Smithfield’s hand got there first. “I’ll put them away. You’d better hurry to class.” He closed the book but kept one finger purposefully tucked between the pages, marking a description of poisonous monkshood.
As soon as school was over, I hurried through the frosty woods to Birdy’s shack. But there were no new footprints in the snow and the interior looked unchanged from that morning. I decided to go home first, to make sure she wasn’t there, then I would walk across town to the jailhouse.
As I emerged from the woods into the graveyard, I saw a crowd dressed in somber black drifting away from a gaping hole in the ground—and realized, with a drop in my chest, that I’d forgotten Mr. Oliver’s funeral.
Rowan Blackshaw stood on the road, waiting as his grandmother stepped up into their carriage. As if sensing my presence, he turned and saw me across the graveyard, and for a moment our gazes held. Then he tipped his tall hat and stepped up into the carriage.
Through the window, his grandmother stared at me until the carriage pulled her away.
“Valentine,” a man’s voice said, and I turned to see Sheriff Crane approaching, wearing his black cloak and tall hat, his eyes glistening in the winter air. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Birdy? I went to her place twice today, but she doesn’t seem to have been there.”
My eyes widened. “I haven’t seen her. I thought you must have arrested her.”
He appraised me with shrewd eyes. “And I thought you must be hiding her.”
Suddenly, I felt the icy bite of the wind. If Birdy didn’t spend the night in jail, or my house, or her shack, where was she? “Excuse me, I have to go,” I said. I turned and hurried toward home, hoping to find her sitting in front of the warm fire.
But when I entered, I found the hearth cold.
* * *
I ate dinner alone, as I had a thousand times before. But tonight, the house seemed to whisper and breathe around me. I saw the table’s long stretch of emptiness and the vacant chairs. The stains and grooves in the wood, made by people who’d left a long time ago. I heard the scrape of my spoon against the bowl. The tick of the clock on the mantel.
I felt hollow with loneliness and worry. Had Birdy gotten lost in the storm? Or had Mr. Oliver’s killer found her and silenced her?
I wished Father would return and answer my questions. He’d been gone four days. He’d warned me that this would be a long delivery, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that his absence meant more than that. I thought of his veiled answers when I’d asked about my mother being innocent.
I fix this.
Did he kill Mr. Oliver because he knew the truth, then go into hiding until he could silence Birdy?
I didn’t want to believe it.
Something creaked upstairs. I stood, my heart leaping. I’d searched the house for Birdy, but might have missed some hidden corner. I picked up the candlestick and made my way through the dark grand foyer, then up the groaning staircase. At the top, I paused, surrounded by my circle of wavering candlelight. “Birdy?” I called carefully. “Are you here?”
Something scraped softly on the other side of the hall curtain, in the burned part of the house.
A shiver of unease ran through me. The house felt deserted; and yet, I didn’t feel alone. I pulled back the hall curtain and smelled dank, ashy air. I lifted my candle, but most of the hall remained hidden in black shadows.
The soft scraping sound came again, from my mother’s childhood room. I approached slowly, my pulse racing, pausing in the doorway. Shadows danced in the flickering candlelight, across the charred bed and towering wardrobe.
And a memory rose: my mother sitting in the corner, quietly weeping, holding a small portrait of her brother, Daniel. I’d sat close to her, trying to comfort her, but she’d seemed unaware.
The scraping sound came again, and I saw that it was just one of the boards over the window shaking in the wind. I drew a shuddering breath.
No one was here, but I opened the wardrobe and pushed back the dresses, just in case. My hands lingered on the fine silk of an ivory gown, worn by my mother at my age. It had full sleeves and delicate tucks across the bodice. A wide ribbon at the waistline. I pulled it out and held it up against myself. The length seemed right.
Impossible to think of attending the Honor Tea with Birdy missing and Mr. Oliver dead. But a lovely gown like this shouldn’t be left to rot, so I carried it back to my room.
11
The next few days melted together, full of exams at school and long hikes through the snowy woods, looking for Birdy. Sam kept trying to assure me that she was safe somewhere. But I saw in his eyes that he didn’t believe it.
On Friday, my classmates chatted with excitement about going home for the Christmas holiday—all except Lucy Meriwether, who could talk of nothing except the Honor Tea, which had been moved to her house that evening, due to a broken window in the school dining hall.
I’d decided days earlier that I wouldn’t attend. I wasn’t in the mood for a party, and it didn’t seem appropriate.
And yet, I’d cleaned and pressed my mother’s ivory dress and practiced pinning up my hair. I’d even found a pair of gray velvet shoes with little buckles in my mother’s old things that fit perfectly.
Classes ended, and I slipped past the tumult in front of the school: friends shouting farewell, carriages jockeying for position, Mr. Foley scolding one of the drivers. I spotted Sam in the distance, hoisting an enormous trunk onto a carriage.
As I walked behind the school stable, Rowan called my name, and I turned to see him holding the reins of his horse. “Will I see you tonight?” he asked, and I could see in his smile that he hoped he would.
I only hesitated a moment. “Yes!” I called back. And, with a flutter of nerves, I realized I meant it.
* * *
The town looked eerily deserted as I walked to the Meriwethers’ house, shops darkened for the night, lantern light glowing in upstairs windows. The snow glittered like diamonds beneath a full moon.
I shivered in my cloak, more from apprehension than cold. I wore warm boots and carried the gray velvet shoes in my pocket.
I was late because I hadn’t been able to stop staring at myself in the mirror. Turning one way, then the other. Impressed by my own tiny waist. Admiring my hair pinned up in a crown of curls. Adjusting the gown’s neckline—first worried that it showed too much of my pale shoulders, then wishing it showed more.
Above the butcher shop, the curtains were parted enough for me to see the Sweeneys gathered around the dinner table—including sixteen-year-old Emily Sweeney, who’d been smitten with Sam for years. She glowered every time I entered the butcher shop.
Two blocks later, I reached Lucy Meriwether’s impressive house with its four white columns. Dark dinner jackets and pretty dresses fluttered inside the windows, and I could hear the lively murmur of party voices. I paused on the porch to remove my boots and pull on the gray shoes. My fingers shook as I did the tiny buckles, then I hid the boots behind one of the white columns.
I knocked, and the door was immediately opened by a servant who took my cloak and hung it in an alcove near the door. I smoothed the ivory skirt and tucked a stray curl into place, then took a cautious step into a large, square foyer with a chandelier overhead.
Mrs. Meriwether had remodeled the house last summer, talking of little else for months. The marble she’d ordered from Italy. The fabric from France. Mrs. Utley had whispered that the money came from Mrs. Meriwether’s wealthy brother who’d died.
/> The headmaster, Mr. Foley, stood in the middle of the foyer, talking to a portly man who seemed more interested in the cake he was eating. Mr. Foley noticed me and halted midsentence, his eyebrows lifting as he took in my appearance. He almost looked impressed. Then he returned to talking to the portly man.
Beyond Mr. Foley, a group of younger students sat on a curving staircase, holding plates of food. I glanced into the dining room on my right and saw an opulent buffet on a long table. Ham and roast turkey. Gingered carrots. A platter of oysters. I saw a fancy white cake on a stand, plus smaller desserts below it. A handful of guests loaded plates with eager eyes.
Mrs. Meriwether swept past me into the dining room, leaving a trail of perfume. She looked beautiful, like usual, wearing a burgundy gown, her blond hair swept up in an elegant twist. She scanned the table and whispered to a maid, who scurried away. “You must try the mincemeat,” she told Simon Greene’s parents. “It’s simply divine—the best thing my cook makes.”
But I felt too nervous to eat. I moved back across the foyer, pausing in the arched opening to the drawing room.
A warm fire crackled in the fireplace, casting a golden glow. The large room had been decorated for Christmas, with green boughs on the mantel and a fir tree in the corner, draped with strings of popcorn and foil stars. Lucy had talked about the fir tree at school—inspired by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. I could smell its piney fragrance.
Parents and trustees crowded the front of the room, closest to me. I recognized faces, even if I didn’t know their names. Most of the women sat on sofas and chairs, while the men stood in small clusters around the edges, deep in conversation. The largest group surrounded Governor Stiles, who listened carefully to what the woman beside him was saying—the only woman in the group.
Mrs. Blackshaw.
She looked elegant in deep purple, earrings sparkling against her dark, silver-edged hair. But she seemed unaware of her appearance, speaking with fervor to the governor, her hands moving. Maybe something to do with banking laws. Or the evils of slavery. Or her newest cause—women’s rights.
Girl at the Grave Page 7