A Pinch of Poison

by Alyssa Maxwell

  Lilyanne blushed to the roots of her flaming hair, but her eyes held steady as she shook her head. “I won’t, Zara. I’m not like that.” Eva heard the implied sentiment—Lilyanne was not like Zara herself. “I can see that whatever has happened is quite serious, and only a beast would laugh at another’s ill fortune.”

  Eva experienced a surge of pride in the girl’s generosity—all things considered. She was proud of all three girls for showing Lady Zara more kindness than she had ever shown any of them. Would Zara waste the opportunity? It was entirely up to her to rise to the occasion or not, and Eva was preparing to back out of the room and leave them to it when Lady Zara suddenly thrust a finger in her direction.

  “Miss Huntford, go ahead, you tell them. They’ll find out eventually anyway. And I can hardly bear to speak the words again.”

  The others turned their attention on Eva, and she explained what little she knew. When she was done, Jane assumed a mystified expression. “Is that all?”

  “All? Don’t you understand? It’s everything.” Lady Zara moaned.

  Jane shook her head. “No, it isn’t. So you won’t be wildly rich any longer. This is why Miss Finch wanted us to learn as much as we can at school—so that we have skills and knowledge and can depend on ourselves in life.”

  “Didn’t you hear?” Zara snapped. “I shall have to leave school. My parents can no longer afford it.” She broke into sobs again, fell prone on the bed, and curled onto her side.

  Jane climbed up beside her. “My family can’t afford my tuition either, but I have a scholarship. Perhaps you’ll also be awarded a scholarship.”

  “I’m not smart like you.”

  “Nonsense,” Jane replied. “You simply aren’t in the habit of trying much, are you? I suppose you didn’t have to, with Miss Finch helping you along the way she was.”

  Lady Zara picked her head up off the mattress. “You knew about that?”

  Eva, too, snapped to attention at Jane’s disclosure. She hadn’t thought anyone else but she and Phoebe knew about Miss Finch’s altering of Zara’s marks. She wondered how Jane become privy to that information.

  Meanwhile, Jane shrugged. “I guessed,” she said, rather evasively. “It seemed the only logical explanation.”

  Eva continued to wonder about that, but Lilyanne’s next words startled her from her thoughts.

  “We can help you with your studies.”

  Lady Zara twisted around to view Lilyanne. Her puffy eyes narrowed and her brows gathered. “Why would you do that?”

  As Jane had done, Lilyanne shrugged. Her lips tilted in a small, shy smile.

  Lady Zara scowled. “Oh, but what would I do afterward? Work?” The word dripped with distaste. “Shall I be like Miss Sedgewick, well-bred but forced to earn a living? Or like—” Her gaze drifted to Eva. Yes, she supposed to a girl like Zara Worthington, born to ease and advantage, Eva’s life might seem insufferable. But that didn’t stop Eva from holding her chin level and meeting Zara’s gaze head-on.

  “Yes, you can work,” Jane said decisively. “You’ll find something you’re good at and enjoy, and earn your own money and be your own mistress. I don’t see anything tragic in that.”

  Lady Amelia had been quiet thus far, hanging back and looking slightly uncertain. Eva understood why. Of the girls, she alone now inhabited the realm of the upper classes. How to fashion a persuasive argument in defense of employment when she herself would face no such decision unless she did so purely by choice?

  Yet, Eva would not have her young lady believing she need apologize for her privileged life. She caught her eye, smiled, and nodded, for it had been Amelia who had brought the other two here to investigate the sounds of distress coming from the room; Amelia who always had the well-being of others forefront in her mind. Eva quietly crossed the room to her.

  “You were right to insist on coming in, my lady,” she whispered. She gestured at Lady Zara. “I believe she’ll be all right, now that she has friends to count on.”

  Amelia tossed her arms around her in a brief embrace. “Thank you, Eva.”

  “If that will be all, I’ll go now and tend to the outerwear before I return to help you all dress for dinner.” Before Eva closed the door behind her, she glanced in one more time to see all four girls sitting on the bed, and Lady Zara wiping her tears away on the handkerchief Lady Amelia handed her.

  CHAPTER 16

  After dinner that evening, Phoebe told Eva what Owen had learned about Nurse Delacy. Eva surprised her with how calmly she digested the news.

  “I have to say, my lady, I’m not altogether shocked that she might have taken some drastic action during the war. The woman is frightened and skittish and she’s certainly hiding something. The question is, does she have something else to hide?”

  “Such as Miss Finch’s death?” Phoebe stood up from her dressing table and hugged her wrapper around her. “One would assume Miss Finch inquired into the nurse’s previous employment before hiring her, and that she didn’t discover the incident with the dying soldier.”

  “But would she? Nurse Delacy was never charged with anything, merely sent home.” Eva gathered up the hairpins she had removed from Phoebe’s hair. “Then again, perhaps Miss Finch found out later. Someone who knew of the nurse’s deed might have alerted Miss Finch to the truth. Even the suggestion that the nurse might have taken a life would make Miss Finch wary of her.”

  “Quite possible. If Owen could find out, someone else could, too. Possibly even someone who was there at the same triage station. A patient, a doctor. Who knows? What I do know is it seems Haverleigh is a haven of secrets. Nurse Delacy, Zara, Lilyanne, Jane, Miss Sedgewick, Elliot, even Mrs. Honeychurch—all of them seem eager to protect some mystery or other.”

  “Don’t forget Miss Finch herself, my lady. Adjusting Zara’s marks, and then changing her mind.”

  Phoebe paced, her arms hugging her middle. “Yes, Miss Finch herself . . .”

  Two days later, Mr. Giles alerted Phoebe to a telephone call. She went into her grandfather’s study and closed the door. She lifted the candlestick base from the desk and placed the receiver to her ear. “This is Phoebe Renshaw.”

  “Good afternoon, Lady Phoebe. It’s Pastor Davis. I have some news for you. Have you the time now?”

  Her pulse picked up speed. “Yes, Pastor, please go on.”

  She heard a shuffling sound, as if the man shifted position and moved the receiver from one ear to the other. Then he said, “Well, I haven’t had time yet to peruse all the church records, but what I did pore through revealed no mention of your Elliot Ivers.”

  “Oh, I see.” He considered this news? Phoebe stifled a sigh. “Well, thank you, Pastor—”

  “There’s more, my lady. I came into Mowbury this morning—I’m there now—and happened upon the deacon of their church here. I’ve discovered the most extraordinary thing. While the church that stands in Mowbury now is called St. Katherine’s, it wasn’t always so. There was a much older church in town, but it burned down a few years before the war, along with the rectory and the sexton’s cottage.”

  “Was the name of this church St. James?” she asked eagerly.

  “Indeed it was, my lady. It was some years before a new church was erected, and the parish decided to rededicate the sanctuary. Start over, as it were. You see, the fire was quite a traumatic event. The vicar died, and his housekeeper and her son barely escaped with their lives.”

  “Good heavens.” She mulled this over a moment. The housekeeper and her son. . . . Could they have been Elliot and—Phoebe whisked a hand to her lips—Miss Finch? Could Miss Finch have been Elliot’s mother?

  She was jumping ahead too fast and made a physical effort to stay her excitement. “Pastor, did you learn the names of any of these people? The vicar? The housekeeper?”

  “The vicar was Father Jessup Burland.”

  Father. Some Anglican clergymen, especially within the more formal Anglo-Catholic tradition, preferred that term over Mr. or
Pastor. Elliot had indicated to Eva that his father had died in a fire. Could he have been referring to Father Burland? “And the housekeeper?”

  “Her name was Mrs. Edith Fairgate. But here is the truly dreadful thing, my lady. Her son, who was only five or six years old at the time, is believed to have started the fire. Quite by accident, of course, but the mother was so remorseful, she took her boy and moved away. No one knows where they went or what became of them. Do you suppose the son and the young man you’re trying to help are one and the same?”

  “It’s possible, Pastor, but it sounds as though we’ve run into a dead end.” If she could only discover how Miss Finch came to hire Elliot. If she was not his mother, had she known him previously? Could she be a relative? She thought back on what she knew about Miss Finch. According to Grams, she had taught for many years at a school in York, then served as an assistant headmistress at a school in Sheffield. She wondered, did they know for a fact that Miss Finch had taught as long as she claimed? References could be forged. She fairly buzzed with speculation.

  But in the next instant, she cut her thoughts off short. Miss Finch could not be Elliot Ivers’s mother. The Haverleigh governing body would not have been satisfied with mere letters of recommendation. They would have made careful inquiries and been thorough in their scrutiny of any headmistress they hired.

  Then who was Elliot Ivers, and where had he spent the past dozen years?

  “I’m sorry I can’t be more help, my lady,” the pastor said. “Oh, I just remembered. There was also a curate, but he was away at the time of the fire and also left Mowbury immediately after. I couldn’t get his name, but if I manage to learn it, would you like me to telephone again? He may be able to supply you with more information.”

  “I would, Pastor, thank you. You’ve been a great help.” An idea came to her. “Tell me, do you have war veterans and widows among your parishioners?”

  “We most certainly do, my lady. A good dozen of our families continue to suffer in the aftermath of the war.”

  “I’ve established a local charity for the Relief and Comfort of Veterans and their Families. The RCVF. I shall add St. James Methodist Church to our list of drop-off points.”

  “How very generous of you, my lady. Thank you.”

  After she rang off, Phoebe hurried outside to the greenhouses, where Eva was assisting Grampapa with the afternoon biology lesson. Phoebe looked on, counting off the minutes and bouncing on the balls of her feet. Finally, Grampapa declared the lesson a grand success.

  “You clever girls make an old man proud,” he told the girls heartily. “Go on with you, then. Have a bit of free time before Lady Wroxly gathers you for your next lesson.”

  The girls drifted away with rather less enthusiasm than their teacher. Phoebe accepted Grampapa’s arm and walked with him back to the house. She found herself embroiled in a game of chess before she was finally able to escape to her room and ring for Eva.

  “I believe I’ve learned something about Elliot,” she burst out the moment Eva closed the bedroom door. She related Pastor Davis’s telephone call. “The fire occurred about a dozen years ago. Elliot would have been a small child, and it’s possible his mother took on an assumed name after they disappeared, because no one could ever discover what happened to them. I’m guessing Elliot Ivers isn’t his name at all.”

  Eva held up her hands. “Perhaps we should slow down just a bit, my lady. There is no real proof that this boy and Elliot Ivers are the same person.”

  “But he could be, Eva. What exactly did Elliot say to you when you visited him in his cell?”

  “He said his father died in a fire.”

  “Did he? Try to remember his exact words.”

  Eva’s forehead pinched with concentration. Then her eyebrows rose. “Yes, I remember now. When I asked him if he had lost someone in a fire, he said, ‘father.’ Not ‘my father,’ but just ‘father.’ ”

  “I thought as much. And he told you he was from James. Surely that must be St. James Church—not merely the church he attended, but where he actually lived, in the sexton’s cottage.”

  “My lady, you could be right about this.”

  “I believe I am, Eva. What’s more, I believe there has to be a link between Elliot and Miss Finch. At first I thought perhaps she was his mother, but his mother was the vicar’s housekeeper. I can’t see how such a woman could have risen to the position of headmistress, or how the school’s governing body could have failed to verify Miss Finch’s teaching references. Still, it’s not entirely impossible. I should like to speak with Mr. Amstead. I truly believe the lighting of his pipe somehow triggered the memory of the fire, and in Elliot’s mind he acted to protect Mr. Amstead, not attack him.”

  After a hesitation, Eva said, “If Elliot is the same boy and he did set that fire years ago, how many people will believe he acted out of consideration for the vicar, and not malice?”

  “He was just a small child at the time of the fire. It wouldn’t have been his fault. A terrible accident, nothing more.”

  “I can believe that,” Eva said in an ominous tone, “but others may not. Tell me, my lady, how many accidents is one young man allowed before he is declared a danger and locked away for good?”

  * * *

  Early the next morning, Eva once again found herself zooming along High Street through the village and up to the school. Earlier, she had risen at her usual time to discover Lady Phoebe already dressed and waiting for her on the ground-floor landing of the back stairs.

  “My sisters and the others won’t need you for two hours at least,” she had said. “So no one can protest your accompanying me on an errand this morning.” She had sent Eva back upstairs for her coat, and off they went.

  Lady Phoebe changed gears as they left the village behind them. The engine revved and the Vauxhall rushed forward on a burst of speed. “I tell you, Eva, if there is anything more to be learned about Elliot Ivers, we will find it at the school.”

  Eva held the brim of her felt hat against the wind pouring through the open sides of the motorcar. “Miss Sedgewick didn’t seem to know anything about him. Only that Miss Finch hired him and refused to let him go. I don’t trust much about the assistant headmistress, but I believed her about that. And now Miss Finch isn’t here to tell us anything.”

  “Perhaps Constable Brannock missed something when he searched her bedroom.”

  “Perhaps.” Eva didn’t think so. Just in the short amount of time she had helped the constable search, they had gone through most of the room and found nothing of interest.

  Funny, Eva might have said as much to Lady Phoebe, but the very thought of discussing being alone in the same room—a bedroom—with Constable Brannock turned her mouth dry and her tongue to lead. Luckily, Phoebe went on talking.

  “Don’t you see, Eva, that if Elliot and Miss Finch are somehow related, she might have left something to him. A fund or an annuity that could be used to secure his future and see that he’s cared for.”

  “I daresay I hope you’re right, my lady.” The engine revved as they climbed a hill, but Eva’s musings kept her too busy to grip the seat or clench her teeth. Someone somewhere must know where Elliot came from. Surely Miss Finch couldn’t have been the only person in the world who knew of his origins.

  When they arrived at the school, she once again felt an overwhelming sense of stillness and abandonment, reminiscent of the ruins of castles and abbeys she had toured with her young ladies. The mist that rose from the lawns to cloak the grounds and buildings in muted tones of silver didn’t help. A school needed activity, voices, those moments of joyous, controlled chaos before students settled in for their lessons. A school needed life, but Miss Finch’s death seemed to have drained the life right out of Haverleigh. Would the school ever fully recover?

  Inside, they didn’t go many steps before Miss Sedgewick confronted them from her office doorway. “Back again, are you? I fail to see the purpose of yet another visit, Lady Phoebe. And please don’
t tell me your grandmother sent you. I’m afraid that excuse is wearing rather thin.” Her arching eyebrows might as well have been directed at a naughty schoolgirl. Eva wondered where the woman found the impudence to speak to the Earl of Wroxly’s granddaughter that way.

  “I am here today of my own accord, Miss Sedgewick.” Lady Phoebe showed not the slightest discomfiture. “I’m here on behalf of Elliot, who is in need of our assistance.”

  Eva took in Miss Sedgewick’s attire. She wore a pleated skirt embellished with covered buttons, a shirtwaist dripping with lace at the collar and cuffs, and a belted jacket with three-quarter sleeves and buttons that matched those on the skirt. House of Worth, if Eva weren’t mistaken. She narrowed her eyes, uncaring if the assistant headmistress thought her insolent.

  “What on earth can anyone do for a brigand like Elliot Ivers?” Miss Sedgewick snapped. “He should be locked away permanently.”

  “That’s very unkind of you,” Lady Phoebe said calmly. “Very ungenerous. He seems quite alone in the world. Are we to let him languish in a cell because of something that might not be his fault?”

  “Humph. I suppose that spade jumped into his hand and insisted he attack the vicar.” Miss Sedgewick sniggered meanly. “What can you imagine you’ll find here that can possibly help him? I told you he showed up one day and Miss Finch hired him. That is all there is to the story.”

  “And you know nothing about why Miss Finch hired him?”

  “The goodness of her heart, one supposes.”

  Lady Phoebe gazed at the woman a long moment, and Eva hid a smile when Miss Sedgewick began to fidget. Then Lady Phoebe crossed to the stairs. “If you’ll excuse us.”

  Miss Sedgewick hurried along the corridor to head them off. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To Miss Finch’s bedroom, of course.”