by Joan Smith
I could hardly argue with such a rational explanation. I would have decided on the spot Mr. Rupert was of no further use to me had it not been for the manner of his last speech. It was said more forcefully than he usually spoke. He had stuttered a little too over the word “departed.” I took the notion that what he started to say was the word “dead.”
Did he know Rosalie was dead then? And if he knew, how had he discovered it? He had been seeing Bess after Rosalie’s disappearance.... I must continue in his good graces, encourage him to ask me out again. Above all, I must not arouse his suspicions too high, must not show my rampant interest in Rosalie.
For the remainder of the drive, I was busy to admire his handling of the reins and his wonderful sporting carriage, and to ask him fatuous questions about his varied career in foreign places. He was flattered enough that he invited me to drive out with him again the next Sunday afternoon, weather permitting. I consented most graciously.
As I entered the house, I realized I was dreading our next outing. Would Rosalie have liked this gentleman any better than I did myself? I found him vain and egotistical. She was not terribly hard to please where men were concerned, and there were very few gentlemen around Widecombe—that must account for it.
Chapter Twelve
When someone has been murdered, the obvious corollary is that there must be a corpse. I intended making it my business to find Rosalie’s, for without it, how should I convince the authorities she had been killed?
During most of the day, I was confined in my searching by my duties to Bobby. These I did not take lightly, despite the more pressing business that had brought me to Palin Park. My work and my progress with the child continued satisfactorily. As soon as he went for his daily visit to the stable, however, I was off investigating all corners of the estate for a fresh grave. My original suspicion that she had been killed out on the moors proved to be false, or at least unlikely. This I learned from Bess, who was not omitted as a possible source of information, despite my dislike of the girl.
She would pop into my room from time to time, giving a light, hasty knock, then entering without waiting to be invited. On one visit, I managed to bring up the subject of Miss Thompson.
“I wonder if Miss Thompson got home safely,” I mentioned casually.
“I don’t see why not. I wonder she didn’t write to Molly, as they were such good friends. You’d think she would have written, as she didn’t see fit to say goodbye to any of us. I heard her in her room that night, getting her belongings together, opening drawers and slamming cupboard doors. I knocked on the door, but she had it locked, and wouldn’t let me in. Ashamed of herself, I suppose.”
“When was this, Bess?”
“Oh, hours after her set-to with madame about the ring. That occurred in the nursery, right in front of Bobby. You could hear them shouting all down the hall. It threw the boy into a fit of hollering and screaming. They sent Molly up to sit with him and try to shut him up. It was quite late at night, about nine or so. Then later Mr. Palin’s carriage left with Rosalie’s trunk.”
“And with Rosalie?”
“So I assume. I only saw the carriage leave the driveway, the big carriage.”
“You have no idea who was in it?”
“It must have been her and Mr. Palin. What do you care, anyway?”
After such a remark I could not push harder, but I knew a carriage would have hard passage over the moors. I knew too that if Rosalie had been safely delivered to the coaching stop, she would have returned to London, or at least let us know where she was. She was dead, and it seemed to me the safest place to dispose of her body was on Palin property. Why risk a more public disposal? About the other occupant of the carriage, there was no reason to conclude it had been Mr. Palin. His wife seemed the more likely occupant to me.
The water would wear away the stone, and I would learn the truth. I received my answer from Harriet, with a mention that nothing had been heard of Cousin Laura. I wrote her again, another vague, uninformative letter.
Monsieur Arouet became a great favorite of Mrs. Palin’s. I made any excuse I could to pass through the family portion of the house, and more than once heard her throaty laughter echo through the closed door of the drawing room. Whether Martin continued sitting with them I do not know. I believe she was sometimes dispensed with, for on one of those trips, I saw madame’s bedroom door close as I peeped around the corner of the nursery wing. Arouet usually left at lunch hour, but on several occasions at that period, madame chose to ride through the park rather than to the moors. It was impossible to think of the suave, worldly Monsieur Arouet clambering over the moors to meet her. The gazebo, nestled in a valley in the park and given privacy by the surrounding trees, seemed more suited to his urban nature.
My second meeting with Mr. Rupert was eliminated due to rain. I was thankful, but he sent me a note asking for a postponement.
As November eased into December, I had made such progress with Bobby that it was time to make known to his father the fact that he was not retarded, but only hard of hearing. Absolutely no doubt in the matter remained with me.
Mr. Palin remarked more than once on his nightly visits that the boy seemed happier, better-behaved. “Less restless,” he called it, but he must have seen it was more than that. For the big announcement, I asked Mrs. Steyne to have both Mr. and Mrs. Palin come to the nursery. Madame had not been there in over a week. She took virtually no notice of her stepson. One would think she would at least simulate liking him, if only to please her husband.
She was beautiful, as usual, in a deep-blue velvet gown, cut low en coeur, to show the beginning swell of her bosoms. Her waist was minute, its tininess emphasized by the bouffant skirts. Mr. Palin looked darkly handsome, towering a head taller behind her.
“What is it you want, Jane?” she asked, with a show of pleasantness.
Bobby came to me and clutched my fingers when they entered. Even his beloved father’s presence was not enough to draw him toward the door tonight, when madame was accompanying him.
“I have an announcement that I think will please you both,” I said, trying to draw Bobby forward from behind my skirts, where he was skulking.
Mr. Palin looked interested. “How intriguing,” he said, with a smile to his wife.
The memory of that visit is so painful, so embarrassing, it bothers me still to recall it. My Bobby, who was showing such good signs of learning, of behaving normally, stood clinging to me like a limpet, with his fingers stuck in his mouth, looking nearly witless, as he examined his stepmother with a scowl. “Bad girl” was his sole speech during the time they were there. That disobliging comment he made not once, not twice, but three times, with great emphasis.
I explained my theory that he was partially deaf, but no amount of calling him could get him to glance at me. I explained that he was now eating with a knife and fork, but his food was not there to demonstrate the point. I outlined his great advance in naming objects, but any common item held up for him to identify was met with a blank stare. I was as close to disliking the child as I ever was. It almost seemed he had decided to punish me, to disprove my theory, to rob me of my moment of glory, make me look a fool.
“He is nervous,” I apologized. “I should not have made this demonstration so formal. It has put him on edge.”
“Don’t apologize, my dear,” Mrs. Palin said graciously. “We are very pleased with your work.” I felt she was sorry for me.
“Really, he could talk for you if he would,” I said then to Mr. Palin.
“I have noticed a marked improvement in his spirits since your coming,” he told me kindly, but he too thought I was imagining things.
“Shall we go down to dinner, Robert?” his wife asked.
“Yes.” But before Mr. Palin left, he turned to me and said, “There is no need to try quite so hard, Miss Bingham. You are doing all that can be done for the boy. It is not possible to make bricks without straw. I mean...” He hesitated, chagrined at what had
come out of his mouth, for he was as well as saying the boy was witless, and it hurt him to realize he had accepted that hard fact. “You know what I mean,” he said.
I was on the verge of tears from frustration, disappointment, even some anger toward the stubborn child. Mr. Palin smiled kindly, sadly, and patted my hand. It was first time he had ever touched me. His hands were noticeably warm.
As the couple walked from the room, I heard Mrs. Palin say, in her normal conversational voice, “Did I tell you Monsieur Arouet is finished with my portrait? He has taken it to London for framing and to exhibit it briefly at a private show of his own work, trying to reel in more clients, then he will bring it back. I hope you like it. It flatters...” Her voice trailed off into the distance.
She couldn’t care less whether her stepson was a moron or a genius, but I thought the father might have shown more concern. I turned to Bobby, ready to give him a piece of my mind. “Bad Bobby,” he said, looking at me fearfully. He knew he had disappointed me. His little fingers stole into mine, while his lower lip jutted out. Tears would be the next step.
“Frustrating Bobby! Why did you do it?”
“Bobby is a bad boy,” he said.
It was the first time I had heard him use the connecting verb. If only he had done that for his father, it would have made some impression.
“Bobby is sorry,” he said, with such a sweet expression I took him into my arms for a good hug. His hands went around my neck as I lifted him up off the floor, and his head nuzzled into my neck. I felt strangely overcome with love for him, as though he were my own child. For a moment I could not speak for the lump in my throat. He was content to remain perfectly motionless, clinging to me.
“Come along, monkey. I’ll read you a story,” I said, when I was able to speak.
I felt not only protective of my little charge, but downright possessive. If they didn’t care about him, they could go to the devil, I would make a model little English gentleman of their discard.
There was a flurry of excitement in the house the next day. Madame was going to Bath to visit some old friends for a week or so. I planned to accomplish two things during her absence. I would, by some means as yet unknown, enter her room and search it while she and Martin were away, and I would venture out on the moors to try to find the hut spoken of by Molly. My hardest looking had discovered no trace of Rosalie’s grave on the Palin estate. I was again looking toward the moors as a possible burying place.
It chanced that the more dangerous of these jobs, the trip to the moors, was easier of accomplishment than the other. When Bobby had his session in the stable the next afternoon, I told Molly I was going out for a walk. She often came with me, but with Christmas looming before us now, she sometimes had to stay behind to help Cook with the extra work. On that afternoon, she sat in a corner blanching almonds. As it was cold and windy, I do not believe she regretted it.
I bundled up warmly, with a shawl over my usual outerwear. I was happy for my borrowed spectacles, for the most memorable unpleasantness of that walk across the moors was the sand blowing in my face. The spectacles kept it from my eyes, at least. The walking was difficult, over rutted rock and hard-packed earth, with the wind coming directly into my face. It would be easier on the return trip. My greatest fear was losing my way. I had not told them at the Park of my destination, as I wished to keep it a secret from everyone. I kept looking back over my shoulder as I traveled, and could see the towering bulk of the house always behind me, to keep my bearings.
It was not till I had passed beyond the outcropping of rock pointed out to me as Rosalie’s route that I lost sight of Palin Park. I had not proceeded far beyond that point before a squat, small building came into view, just visible in the distance. Any signs of human occupancy such as footprints or hoof prints had been obliterated by the gusting wind. The hut had no door. It was low, one story high, with daylight showing through the broken roof. There was no furniture, no indication that anyone stayed here, no remnants of a fire, for instance, no creature comforts at all. The single room was perhaps eight feet square, with unglazed window openings on two walls. The place provided so little welcome that it was not credible as a spot for a rendezvous. If people met here, it could only be that the hut provided a landmark, a place that would not be missed or confused with another spot.
I stood in the middle of the room, turning a complete circle to examine every nook and cranny. The earth underfoot was hard-packed, had not lately been disturbed to form a grave. A small bush had sprung up in one corner of the place, withered and sere now in the windy cold, turned a brownish-black color. As there was nothing else to see but a few loose-lying rocks, I walked toward the bush. Two wine bottles had been tossed behind it. They did not bear a label. Any wanderer or traveler on the moors might have left them behind. In a storm, this hut had likely rendered its meager hospitality to many over the years.
I lifted out the two bottles. One was dry inside, dusty, with a spider either dead or dormant resting on its bottom. The other had the dregs, a few drops, of wine still inside, indicating it was a relative newcomer to the spot. It might have been left by anyone. Madame could have concealed it beneath her voluminous riding skirt, but the austerity of the spot made it difficult to picture her entertaining or being entertained here.
I poked around the other three corners, looking for a more helpful clue. It was just before I decided to give up that I found it. Under a rather large rock in one corner of the hut, I found a small tin box, about two inches long and half as wide. The lid was hinged on one side. Its original markings were obliterated, but it was the size and shape of a patent-medicine box commonly used for headache powders. Aunt Harriet had such a box; indeed, two houses out of three probably had. It opened to reveal a reddish-brown ointment. It smelled rather unpleasant—bitter. I would have taken it for completely irrelevant, an object dropped by a traveler, had it not been carefully hidden under a hefty stone.
I considered whether I ought to remove it or not. I wished to leave no trace that I had been here, and if the owner came looking for it, he or she would know someone had been here. I scooped out a fingerful of the contents, wrapped it in my handkerchief, hid it in my pocket and left the hut.
A walk around the area surrounding the hut revealed nothing of interest. The earth was all hard-packed, with the granite sticking out here and there. It was not a likely place for a grave. One would have to dig a month to get through the rock. Reluctantly, I retraced my steps. With the dust-laden wind at my back now, and with the outcropping for a landmark, I had no trouble getting home.
Chapter Thirteen
“Has madame left yet?” I asked Cook as I took off my shawl and hung it behind the door. There was a festive feeling in the air that indicated to me she had. Mrs. Steyne too sat with the women, having a cup of tea.
“Yes, dear, she’s gone half an hour ago,’’ Cook assured me. “Will you join us for a cup of tea?”
I was about to take my seat at the table when Mrs. Steyne told me that Bobby was in his room.
“Back from the stable already? He didn’t stay long.” I had not been gone above an hour, and the stable usually occupied him for half again as long as that, usually till I went for him or sent for him.
“Huck is hurt,” Molly said. “The stable dog nipped his paw, and Bobby is playing doctor.”
I hastened above to see what sort of a mess he was making. I envisaged a kitten tucked up in his bed, possibly wearing a nightshirt. The wound was not so severe as to require bed care, however. Huck was playing on the floor with Bobby, chasing woolen tassels that Mrs. Steyne had supplied from her capacious sewing box.
“I hear Huck is hurt,” I said, getting down on my knees to view the damage.
“Dog hurt Huck,” Bobby confirmed. He picked up the kitten and pulled out its left front paw to show me the ravages of two or three drops of blood where the teeth had pierced the kitten’s flesh.
“Let me see if it requires treatment,” I said, brushing the fur
aside to determine the extent of the injury.
The result of this simple action was so violent and so dreadful in its consequences that I feel nauseous still to recall it. Huck gave one twitch of objection, perhaps pain, as I grasped the wrist. Within seconds, he became convulsive. The jerking had the effect of causing me to let go of him immediately. He writhed on the floor, while Bobby and I stared at him, wondering what we should do. Within less than a minute, the cat became listless, his jerking motions slowing noticeably as we watched, transfixed. Then his tongue came out; he seemed to wheeze or gasp, then fell over dead. It was extremely distressing indeed to see a small, helpless animal die. Add to that Bobby’s fondness for the pet, and I feared for how it might affect the child.
He was confused, hardly more so than myself. After a moment, he picked up the lifeless little body. “Huck all gone?” he asked, his dark eyes so intelligent-looking, and so sorrowful.
“I’m afraid so, Bobby. I don’t know what to do. Maybe if we take him to the stable, the men will bury him.”
“I will do it,” he told me solemnly.
I was so relieved not to have to handle the dead animal that I agreed to this. “Come right back,” I told him, making sure he had heard and understood.
“Yes, Bingie,” he said.
I went to my own room to wash and tidy my hair, thinking I would take Bobby to the kitchen for tea, in hopes the company would cheer him, divert his mind from the minor tragedy. When I got there and asked if he had come back yet, Molly said, “He hasn’t been here, Jane. He didn’t pass through the kitchen at all.”
I told them about Huck’s death, while they all clucked in sympathy and shook their heads, except Bess, who just looked at me, narrow-eyed. There was never any telling what was in her mind, but I mistrusted her. When she realized I was regarding her, she shook herself to attention.