by Paula Paul
“Are you in pain? I’m sure Dr. Gladstone could give you something to help if you’ll allow—”
She turned her face back to Nicholas, suddenly agitated. “I don’t want to see Dr. Gladstone!”
“May I ask why not?” Nicholas tried to keep his voice as even as possible.
“Because I’m afraid.” She turned her face away from him again, as if she regretted the words she’d just uttered.
“You’re shaking. Please tell me what’s wrong. Why are you afraid? Perhaps it’s just the weather. Have you noticed how dark and gloomy it has become? There’s a storm brewing out at sea.”
She turned her face away. “It’s not the storm. It’s…nothing.”
“Obviously you’re upset,” Nicholas said. “Is Her Majesty’s visit that upsetting for you? If it is, I’ll find a way to send her—”
Lady Forsythe raised herself momentarily, almost to a sitting position. “Don’t say that, Nicholas.” She collapsed against the pillow again. “Don’t use her name at all. No one must know she’s here.”
“Calm yourself, my lady. No one need know anything at all,” Nicholas said, deciding not to tell her just how widespread the word of Her Majesty’s visit had become. “Is it that Cudney person who’s upsetting you? She seemed to be arguing with you.”
“You were spying on us!” She sounded even more agitated.
“Well, it was hard not to hear your loud voices.” Nicholas was still trying to keep a calm demeanor. “And what’s this about a brooch?”
“Nothing! Nothing at all.”
“Do I see tears in your eyes?”
“Oh, Nicholas, I miss your father so much. He would know what to do.”
“Perhaps he would, but he’s not here. Allow me to help you.”
“If only—”
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s troubling you,” Nicholas said.
“Now you sound just like him. Your father, I mean.” She took a deep breath. “I have to speak to someone, really I do, and that dreadful Madam Cudney…” She trailed off, staring at nothing.
“Dreadful Madam Cudney? I thought you liked her.”
“I thought so, too,” Lady Forsythe said. “No, I mean, of course I like her. She can be so very kind when she’s not…Well, why does she have to be so bossy and insistent about that damned brooch? After all, I’m not the one who lost it.”
Nicholas was momentarily stunned at his mother’s use of a swear word, but all he said was, “What damned brooch?”
“Oh, Nicky, it’s all so awful.” Her voice was tearful and quivered with emotion. “I don’t understand why I should have to be involved with some dead woman who got herself murdered. I want nothing to do with it, really, and it makes my condition worse when I think about it.”
“What on earth are you talking about, MaMa? Just how are you involved with the murdered woman, and what does a brooch have to do with it? Are you talking about a brooch that belongs to you, or someone else?”
Lady Forsythe wiped her eyes with the edge of the sheet. “Why, it belonged to me, of course. You know the one I’m talking about. It’s been in my family for generations. My grandmother passed it down to me. You remember, I’m sure. The one with all the diamonds.”
Nicholas had never paid much attention to his mother’s jewelry, but he nodded as if he knew the piece exactly. “Go on.”
“I never should have loaned it to her, that’s all.”
Nicholas frowned. “You loaned your brooch to Miss Elwold?”
“Miss who?”
“The dead woman.”
Lady Forsythe gasped. “Don’t be ridiculous, Nicholas. I would never loan my diamond brooch to a dead woman. I loaned it to Her Majesty, and if you don’t mind my saying so, it was careless of her to lose it when she went to the graveyard.”
For a moment, Nicholas was too stunned to speak. He pulled up a chair next to his mother’s bedside and sat down. “Her Majesty went to the graveyard. She was wearing your brooch, and she lost it while she was there.” He spoke in a measured tone as much to keep his mind from whirling out of control as to make certain he’d heard his mother correctly.
“Yes, and now Madam Cudney insists that I find it. You’d think it was her brooch that was lost or that I—”
“Hold on a moment, please,” Nicholas said, interrupting her. “Before we get to Madam Cudney, you must tell me why the queen went to the graveyard in the first place.”
Lady Forsythe frowned and looked at her son as if he might be daft. “Why, to kill that woman, of course.”
Chapter 14
“I don’t understand Lucas’s fascination with the graveyard,” Nancy said just as the back door to the kitchen opened and Rob and Artie entered. They were ushered in by a distant rumble of thunder and a whooshing wind. They’d come for their supper that Nancy and Alexandra had invited them to eat in the kitchen.
“Yes, it’s quite odd that he’s always going there,” Alexandra said. “Hello, Rob, Artie,” she added when she saw the boys.
“Lucas talks to ghosts,” Artie said as he scrambled into a chair and sat, swinging his legs that didn’t reach the floor.
Rob cuffed him lightly on his head. “Mind yer manners, boy, and wait until yer invited to sit.”
Nancy was about to set two bowls of oxtail stew out for the boys, but she stopped before she got to the table, still holding a bowl in each hand. “What did you just say, Artie?”
“Say ‘Excuse me rudeness,’ ” Rob prompted.
“Excuse me rudeness,” Artie said.
Nancy set the bowls down and ignored the apology. “Did you say Lucas talks to ghosts?”
Her scrutiny and Rob’s scolding had made Artie uncertain as well as uncomfortable. He glanced at Rob, as if he’d find a hint of how he should reply, but Rob refused to look at him.
“I…I only said it ’cause ’tis true,” Artie said. “I wouldn’t lie, Nance, honest I wouldn’t.”
Nancy made no reply except to shake her head, but Alexandra put a comforting hand on Artie’s thin shoulder and asked, “What makes you think Lucas can speak to ghosts?”
“I heared ’im, that’s how I know. Heared ’im plain as day.” Artie gave a nervous glance in Rob’s direction, but Rob responded with nothing more than a blank stare.
“I see,” Alexandra said. “And did the ghost say anything in response?”
“It was something that made Lucas laugh.” Artie was still nervous and was squirming in his chair.
Alexandra persisted in her questioning. “What did the ghost say that made him laugh?”
“I…doesn’t know fer certain what it all meant,” Artie said, growing more uncomfortable by the minute.
Rob spoke up for the first time. “Jist so’s you knows, I heared it, too. The spirit voice, I mean. Talking to Lucas.”
“I see,” Alexandra said with a well-practiced calm. “Did it sound something like the spirit voice we heard last night when we were hiding at the top of the stairs?”
“Oh, no!” Artie said. At the same time, Rob snorted with laughter.
“So you think ghosts are funny, do you?” Nancy said.
“Ghosts ain’t funny, but we knows that weren’t no ghost what was talkin’ last night,” Artie said.
“What makes you so sure?” Nancy asked before Alexandra could say a word.
Rob came out with another snort. “ ’Twas a trick. I can show how they done it if you wants.”
Nancy’s eyes had grown wide with renewed interest. “Of course we wants, er, want.”
“Can I have me supper first?” Artie asked.
“Of course,” Alexandra said before Nancy could interfere. “And make sure you eat slowly so you don’t end up with a stomachache.” She ignored the annoyed glance Nancy shot her way. “Bring out two more bowls, Nancy, and we’ll have our supper with the boys,” she added.
When everyone’s meal was on the table, Nancy sat down next to Alexandra and across from the two boys. “So it was all
a trick?” she asked.
“Mmm,” Rob said, slurping the stew. He added something else that was impossible to understand as he chewed a chunk of potato together with a morsel of meat.
“Don’t try to speak with your mouth full, please,” Alexandra said.
“Tell me, what was the trick?” Nancy asked, just as Rob took another big bite. He glanced at Alexandra, chewing earnestly, but said nothing.
“ ’Twas the way she got in that was the trick,” Artie said.
“How was that?” Nancy asked. “And are you sure it was female?”
“Female, all right,” Rob said, swallowing. “Didn’t ye hear the voice?”
By this time, Artie had picked up his bowl and was drinking from it. Alexandra cautioned him to put the bowl down and eat in a proper manner. Rob cuffed Artie’s head again, then got his own reprimand from Alexandra. Nancy, in the meantime, was growing more and more impatient. She’d hardly touched her stew at all.
“If Alvina found a way to creep into the house, who’s to say other ghosts and spirits can’t get in?” Nancy said.
Her remark caused Rob to spew out the stew he had in his mouth, spreading it across the table. That brought another reprimand from Alexandra and an impatient grumble from Nancy as she stood and retrieved a dish towel from the cupboard to clean up the mess.
“I told ye, that weren’t no ghost what got in. It was a real person what got in through the scullery,” Rob said, wiping his mouth.
“The scullery?” Alexandra said. “The same way we got in, you mean? No, I don’t think so. We would have seen her. Or him, as the case may be.”
“Went in ahead of us, way I seed it,” Rob said, “but didn’t use them outside stairs like we done.”
“The only other entrance is through the kitchen, and anyway, no one has been in through there in years, not since my father had plumbing for water installed in the house. I think the door is even boarded closed, isn’t it, Nancy?”
“ ’Tis indeed,” Nancy said with a nod. “My own mother and I nailed the board on there. The old doctor asked her to do it, and I helped her pound the nails myself.”
“A bit of bread and jam to finish the meal would do me good,” Artie said.
“Nailed ’em yerself, did ye?” Rob said with a laugh. “Well, that explains a lot.”
“What do you mean?” Nancy asked, while at the same time Alexandra gave Rob a questioning look.
“What I mean is ye got yer good points, Nance, old girl, but carpentry ain’t one of ’em. Them boards musta been loose.”
“They’re still up there, aren’t they? One board crossed over another, sealing the room off,” Nancy said with a defiant sniff.
Rob got up and walked to the corner of the kitchen where the old scullery door was partially hidden by a recently purchased contraption for washing clothes and wringing them dry between two rollers turned by hand. He walked around the washer and pulled the crossed boards from the scullery door with one gentle tug.
“The nails you used was too short,” Rob said. He placed the crossed boards on the door again and secured them with a hard push. “They come off easy, and they’s just as easy to stick up again.”
“Is they any jam?” Artie asked.
“Someone would have had to come into the kitchen to take down those boards,” Alexandra said. “Why wouldn’t they have used the outside stairs the way we did?”
“Why, indeed,” Nancy said. “And, I might add, it would be impossible to get into the kitchen, since I’m always careful to see that the entrance is locked.”
“Dr. Gladstone told us about ye sneaking up the stairs through the secret passage. Didn’t ye ever climb up them stairs that leads from the scullery to the dining room? It ain’t just stairs to the landing, you know.”
“What does that have to do with this?” Nancy asked.
Rob laughed. “Well, the truth is, Nance, it wouldn’t matter how bad ye are at carpentry, whoever that was tryin’ to be a spirit didn’t need no door. She coulda just climbed in that little window into the basement.”
“The window opens into the scullery,” Alexandra said, “and we did used to climb in that way. Remember, Nancy?”
“Oh, I remember well enough,” Nancy said, “but what I should like to know is how you knew about it, Rob? I don’t like the idea of you climbing into the house through windows, and I’m quite certain Dr. Gladstone doesn’t approve, either.”
Rob shrugged. “Never said I climbed in. Just said I knows ’tis there. Not that I’m sure yer ghost used the window, mind ye, but it coulda. I’m just pointing out that the house ain’t as safe as ye might think ’tis.”
Alexandra remembered again that her mother had suggested the passageway from the dining room to the scullery and kitchen so food could be brought into the room without the maid having to use the main stairway. After her mother’s death, her father had taken to eating at the table in the drawing room or in the kitchen, a practice that Alexandra continued. That old stairway, like the one on the outside of the house, had fallen into disuse when the entrance to the scullery from the new kitchen was boarded up. The combination dining room and family gathering place was never boarded up, but her father kept the door closed and seldom, if ever, entered. It reminded him too much of his wife and of happier days when she was still alive. Alexandra had thought no one knew about the stairs except her and Nancy. It appeared that Rob and Artie had known about them, so perhaps someone else—a would-be ghost—had been able to find them as well.
“For a bit of bread and jam, I’ll tell you more about Lucas and the spirits,” Artie said.
Nancy was busy scowling at Rob. “You couldn’t have known about the stairs if you hadn’t been nosing around where you shouldn’t be. What kind of example are you setting for young Artie?”
“Artie’s lucky to have me, ’e is. And I sets a good example. Watched me put them boards back in place when we finds ’em on the floor this morning when we brought the milk in before ye was even outta bed. Heard me say we needs to nail ’em up ourselves. Ain’t that so, Artie?”
Artie was too preoccupied with scanning the cupboard for a jar of jam to answer, but he hurried back to his chair at the table when a gust of wind tossed something against the kitchen door, making a crashing sound. A few drops of rain splattered the window.
“Well, I never connected them boards to the spirit at first,” Rob continued. “Just thought they fell down by theirselves, but then I got to thinking if they fell down, they wouldn’t have propped theirselves against that laundry contraption all careful like. No, ’twas a person what put the boards there, and she musta been in too much of a hurry to put ’em back proper when she left. Now, don’t look at me that way, Nance. A ghost wouldn’t need to take down no boards, ’cause it wouldn’t need a door. One thing I needs you to understand, Nance, is that the spirit that come in the house weren’t no real spirit.”
Alexandra’s face was creased with a troubled frown. “Are you sure about this, Rob?”
“I’m thinkin’ spirits don’t leave footprints,” Rob said, “and they was footprints aplenty when I brung the milk. That old scullery has a dirt floor, you know. Can’t step in there without gettin’ yer shoes dirty.”
“I saw no footprints when I came down to start the fire to cook breakfast.” Nancy sounded somewhat defensive.
Rob gave her a self-satisfied grin. “ ’Course you didn’t. That’s ’cause I cleaned ’em up, knowing you’d have a fit if ye seen ’em, ye would.”
Alexandra felt a knot in her stomach, thinking that someone had been in her house uninvited. In the next moment, it occurred to her that perhaps the individual had been invited after all.
She turned to Nancy. “Did you have anything to do with this?”
“What? You think I would be so careless as to leave footprints?”
“No, that wouldn’t be like you, but I can well imagine you inviting someone to play the part of a spirit.”
“You would think that of me?” Nanc
y sounded indignant. “If I am persuaded to have a séance, it will be a real séance. I wouldn’t think of staging it. What good is that? After all ’twas for investigative purposes I did it. I wanted to find out if spirits could really be summoned. Now I’m convinced they can’t.”
“Investigative, was it?” Alexandra said, remembering Nicholas’s words.
“That’s right.”
“And as you now know, the investigation revealed that spirits aren’t real, at least not the kind who walk and talk.” Alexandra turned to Rob. “It is commendable that you were thinking of Nancy when you cleaned up the footprints, but I can’t help wishing you’d left them. I should have liked to have a look at them.”
Rob shrugged again. “ ’Twas nothing special about ’em. Lady prints. High-born lady, I would say, judging by the fact that they was most likely high-priced boots that made ’em. And, beggin’ yer pardon, Dr. Gladstone, but they wasn’t yer own prints or Nancy’s. I been here long enough that I knows yer footprints when I sees ’em. Never seen either of ye wear them fancy lady boots.”
Nancy sniffed but said nothing.
“You must tell us anything else you may know,” Alexandra said.
“Well,” Rob said, sounding a little reluctant. “They’s one more thing I has to say if you’ll allow it.”
“Of course,” Alexandra said.
“Beggin’ your pardon, Doctor, but ye’s wrong when ye says spirits ain’t real. Now, I knows the one what came here weren’t real, but I heared Lucas talkin’ to a real one with me own ears.”
“So you said,” Nancy added. “That’s what started all of this talk. Can you explain that ridiculous statement?”
“Best way to explain is to show ye if ye ain’t too scared. Be my guess Lucas is out there now talkin’ to spirits. We could go out there and listen if ye’s a mind to and got the guts to do it.”
Nancy’s reply surprised Alexandra. “I’ll get my cloak. This is something I want to hear. Will you come with us, Miss Alex?”
“Perhaps we should wait until the storm—”
“Don’t leave me here alone,” Artie cried.
“Ye can come with us,” Rob said. “Just try to keep up.”