Autumn

by Lisa Ann Brown

  “Does Eli dance?” Shelaine inquired and Arabel was momentarily brought up short.

  “I really do not know,” Arabel confessed, “but I imagine so. The Gypsies all seem to have been born with music in their veins, but if for some reason Eli doesn’t dance, then neither shall I. I should be more pleased to sit with him and not dance than I would be content to dance with anyone besides Eli.”

  “Why, Arabel Spade,” Shelaine teased, “you are as far gone as me this time!”

  Arabel laughed and agreed, yes, far gone over Eli she most certainly was.

  Some time later, when the excited talk of boys had died down, Arabel brought up the puzzling issue of her grandparents marriage and asked if the maid who’d told Shelaine the story was still employed at Murphy Estates. Shelaine told her that the maid retained her position, and once they’d finished their teas, Shelaine went to fetch the woman and bring her to Arabel for a quick conversation.

  While her friend was out of the room, Arabel went to stand by the window. She peered out toward the stables, looking for Eli and Ira but she saw neither although the third story window from which she peered boasted a lovely view of the estate.

  A moment later, Shelaine reappeared, towing a tall, thin woman with wiry grey hair beside her. The woman’s name was Dorcas Harding and she bobbed a curtsey to Arabel while Shelaine left the room to seek out her mother for something. Shelaine promised to return in a little while, thus giving the two women ample time for a private interview.

  Arabel invited Dorcas to sit with her and after a slight hesitation, the maid perched herself in the comfy chair Shelaine had just vacated.

  “Miss Shelaine said you wanted to speak with me, miss, about your grandmother, Mrs. Johnston out in Crow’s Nest Pass?” Dorcas ventured uneasily and Arabel smiled warmly at her.

  “Yes, that’s right, Dorcas,” Arabel replied. “I am most curious about the events leading up to my grandfather’s death. I’m wondering if there is any incident in particular which stands out in your mind as being a forerunner to the demise of their marriage and my grandfather’s passing. I must confess, I do not know the reason he died.”

  Dorcas took a moment to measure Arabel’s words and then slowly began to relate a version of the tale Arabel had heard previously from Shelaine.

  “Well, miss, I was around your age when I started work for Mrs. Johnston in Crow’s Nest Pass,” Dorcas began, “and she weren’t yet as old me, I reckon, and already the mistress of a great big house.” The maid’s eyes turned misty as she recalled her youth. “Mrs. Johnston was a young, timid thing, always wantin’ to do right by her husband-”

  At this junction in her recitation, Dorcas paused and Arabel assured her to please speak her mind, and to be honest, as Arabel wanted the truth as best as she could recall it. Although it baffled Arabel entirely to imagine Amelia Bodean as either young or timid, she said nothing to Dorcas but waited for the maid to continue the story, keeping her thoughts and her emotions as shuttered as possible.

  The older lady began again, her voice steadier now and her tone a tad more enthusiastic as she warmed to her tale and Arabel received the feeling it was a story that had been told more than once over the years.

  “Your grandfather was poisoned, miss, and there’s not one but two but seven I reckon that would point the finger at your granny.” Dorcas bowed her head. “I’m mighty sad t’ be the one telling you this, miss, but you said you wanted the truth, as best as I can know it.”

  Arabel nodded, feeling slightly ill. “Yes,” she confirmed to Dorcas. “I do mean to hear the truth, please, as best as you can know it.”

  Dorcas nodded in return at Arabel. The maid settled into the chair, leaning back, remembering; her eyes took on a hazy glaze as she gazed into the shadows of what once was.

  “Well, your grandmother was young when she married, just a slip of a girl, an’ by all accounts, pretty far gone with loving your granddad. Miss Amelia Bodean had stars in her eyes it seemed, as Mr. Markus was much older, and she thought the world of him. He’d been married before, of course, but his first wife died in childbirth, and your granny was sure they’d be different, and have a barnful of bairns together.” Dorcas paused to take a breath and Arabel found she was on the edge of her seat, eerily riveted, as she listened to the sad tale of her grandmother’s heartache.

  “But the whole time, miss, even right from the start, it was doomed. They say your grandfather was stepping out, miss, with a Gypsy woman named Paloma Porchetto, even when Miss Amelia Bodean was with child! She was married too, that Paloma was. To a bad man, miss, a very bad man; evil, you might even say. And he found out, this bad man, about your granddad and Paloma, and he told your granny, Amelia Bodean, and that’s how they say she got the poison. It was Gypsy poison miss, from the dark side!” Dorcas shuddered and Arabel had to refrain from instinctively copying the woman’s movement.

  Arabel felt grimly hollowed out by this new information. All former traces of Arabel’s hopeful naïveté were now thoroughly dashed. Her grandmother Amelia Bodean– a pregnant murderess? Who would ever have fathomed it?

  “Why did she not stand trial for his death?” Arabel questioned, determined to hear all of the bleak tale, regardless of the personal demons the information unleashed.

  Dorcas shook her head. “Most said the Mayor was bought off, and the Chief too, though it wasn’t Chief Constable Bartlin back then, miss, it was Chief Constable Normandile, an’ everyone knew he was soft on your granny. The Johnston family, too, they had money, and weren’t keen on scandal. T’was all brushed away, so to speak, and Mr. Markus laid to rest in an uneasy grave.”

  “No one was ever charged with his death?”

  “No miss, the matter was just…dropped.”

  A brief silence ensued as Arabel collected her thoughts and sought to rationally pursue the most advantageous line of questioning.

  “And this Paloma woman? What happened to her?”

  “She disappeared, just after your granddad’s murder. Folks thought her husband’d wrung her neck, he was cold enough and evil enough, they say, but her body was never found so there was never naught to prove.”

  “Do you recall the husband’s name, Paloma’s husband?”

  Dorcas shook her head. “I’ll think on it, miss, but I reckon I recall her name because it was so unusual-like. Their last name was Porchetto, but his first name, I don’t recall knowing.” The maid closed her eyes, again, thinking.

  “Raoul!” she exclaimed a moment later, triumphantly. “Raoul Porchetto! That’s him, the evil man that was married to Paloma!”

  Arabel smiled grimly. Raoul Porchetto. Paloma Porchetto. Two more names for the inquiry list.

  “Alright. So, were you still employed at the Johnston’s when my mother met my father?”

  “Yes, miss. I was there until your mother ran away to get married.”

  Arabel was stunned. “Ran away? They didn’t get married in town?” she asked incredulously and Dorcas shook her head emphatically.

  “Why, no miss. They eloped. Your granny said she’d disown Miss Vi if she wouldn’t let your daddy alone, but Miss Vi was stubborn, an’ she knew she’d found her man, so she left your granny’s house for good, and I reckon she never did step foot in it again, rest her poor soul.”

  “What reason did my grandmother have for objecting to Patrick Spade?”

  “Well I don’t rightly know, miss, Mrs. Johnston never came out and spoke plainly with Miss Vi. They argued, plenty, and your mama took to sneaking out at night to meet your daddy and some say she was already with child when they married at last but those are the tales folks say when they’re jealous and many were jealous of Miss Vi!”

  “Why? Why were others jealous of my mother?”

  “She was a great beauty, miss. And so keen on life! You’d think such beauty would make for a shrewish, selfish manner but your mama was a right lady, miss. A right lady.”

  “But you honestly haven’t any clue as to what objection my grandmother
took against my father?”

  “No, miss, just his lack of fortune, I always reckoned.”

  “He wasn’t involved in anything…unsavoury? Or perhaps, magical?”

  Dorcas’ eyes lit with a sudden memory. “That’s it! Yes, there was something, now if only I can remember it!” The maid closed her eyes again, searching through the far away past for a glimmer of a memory she’d long since put away.

  Arabel glanced out the window to distract herself while she waited on the maid’s memory. Arabel could see a faint sun attempting to poke through the thin veil of grey cloud; she tried to ignore her unhelpful desire to shake the maid until she dislodged the faint recollection from her brain. Arabel strove for patience. She wanted to scream, or cry, at the very least. Somehow this delving into the past was proving more painful than she’d thought it would be.

  “Patrick Spade had ties to the Gypsies! That was it! He weren’t no Gypsy himself but there was something that strung him to them, and your granny hated the lot of them. She despised all of the Gypsies after the affair your granddad had!”

  “My father had ties to the Gypsies? But you’re positive he wasn’t a Gypsy himself?”

  “No miss, he weren’t no Gypsy. His folk were from outside of The Corvids, too, and your granny’s not much for outsiders.”

  Arabel shifted tactics. “Why did you leave my grandmother’s employ?”

  “She let us all go, miss. After your mama ran away, Mrs. Johnston said she rightly couldn’t trust any of us t’ not have helped her elope and she dismissed every one of her staff.”

  “Was she drinking?”

  Dorcas’ eyes were sad as she answered Arabel and her tone subdued. “Yes, miss. Mrs. Johnston had been into the rum for some time by then I reckon, years, in fact.”

  Arabel felt she could stand to hear no more of the past. She struggled to keep her tone polite and impersonal, even as her heart raced and her mind rebelled against all she’d just been told with a fierceness which surprised her.

  “Thank you, Dorcas, you’ve been most helpful. Please send word if you recall anything else that seems likely to be important. “

  The maid curtsied again after rising from the chair but she paused before making her way to the door and looked Arabel directly in the eyes. “Pleased to help, miss. I must confess, you gave me a right start when I saw you sittin’ here – you do favour your mama so!”

  After Dorcas left the room, Arabel rose as well and went to stand again at the window. She gazed out across the expanse of Murphy Estates, past the graceful barns and stables, past the green fields and the muddy paddock, her eyes seeing nothing, registering nothing, but the blank shock of disclosure.

  Arabel’s eye drifted to the trees lining the drive. Their strong, straight, and graceful trunks stood poised to rigidly observe their domain. From the dizzying heights of the twisting limbs as they reached to the sky, and underneath, to the hidden roots, ancient and unyielding, unseen and undetected as they grew in the dark secrecy of the underground.

  Just like everything to do with my family, Arabel thought dully. Look below, into the dark, and you too will find the lies and secrets and murders that bind us.

  Shelaine entered the room and found Arabel moodily staring outside.

  “What? You didn’t like what she had to say?” Shelaine asked merrily, prompting Arabel to turn around and meet Shelaine’s laughing eyes with her own sober, sad and discontented ones. Shelaine immediately crossed to Arabel and put her arm around her friends shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, I meant no disrespect. Are you alright?”

  Arabel nodded. “Yes, I’ll be fine. There’s just so much I didn’t know.”

  “Shall I ring for more tea?”

  Arabel shook her head. “No, I must take my leave, as a matter of fact, but I will see you soon! You did say the Autumn Ball is next week?”

  “Yes! And you must invite Eli! And have a marvellous new frock made especially for the occasion! I am having a glorious new gown made out of this caramel satin that is simply superb!”

  Arabel listened as Shelaine rattled off the details of her fantastic new dress and of the upcoming ball. Arabel found she was listening with only half of her attention but her friend didn’t notice, in her enthusiastic state, and once Shelaine had wound down in her excitement, Arabel took her leave.

  The moodiness persisted, clinging to Arabel like a dark, grimy stain, while she made her way down the drive. Arabel looked for Ira, but didn’t see the crow and when she scanned the area for Eli, she was discouraged to find that she was unable to spot him either. Arabel walked along the muddy path to the road and decided to go into town rather than cross in the direction to her grandmother’s house. Arabel preferred to occupy herself with anything at all rather than face the unrepentant murderess, Amelia Bodean.

  Arabel’s somewhat dejected wanderings took her to the Muilse Tearoom and as she pushed open the door to enter, the little coloured bells jingled a gracious welcome to her. Arabel scanned the room for a seat and spied an empty table close to the kitchen. She seated herself and removed her heavy cape as she settled in to relax and gather her turbulent thoughts. A pleasant server came by and dropped off a menu and Arabel stared at the words as they swam in front of her eyes. Nothing made sense to her anymore.

  Arabel closed her eyes, willing the sick feeling in her stomach to settle.

  “Are you alright, miss? Can I get you a cup of tea?” the server was back and peered with an absent concern at Arabel’s pale face.

  “Yes, please. Lemon chamomile, if you have it. And a raspberry tart.”

  “Right away, miss.”

  The server backed away and Arabel wearily closed her eyes again. She hoped the tea would revive her and that the shock would dissipate before she would have to leave for home. How Arabel was going to face her grandmother, she had not the faintest idea. What was the best way to deal with this onslaught of information? Should she confront her grandmother? Ask her why she’d forsaken her mother? Accuse her of murdering her husband?

  Arabel was suddenly acutely aware of someone watching her.

  Arabel turned her head to see an old Gypsy woman, two tables over, plainly staring at her. The old woman made no effort to disguise her interest in Arabel. Her black eyes peered intently into Arabel’s blue ones and Arabel was disconcerted by the woman’s direct gaze and unapologetic manner.

  The Gypsy woman’s head was wrapped in an old blue turban and she wore a drab brown dress that matched the cape she’d haphazardly slung across her thin shoulders. Her eyes were sharp and appeared incongruous within her worn face. The old woman might have been attractive once but now age and time had claimed her and only her eyes remained undaunted by their passage.

  “Do I know you?” Arabel called to the woman, feeling unsettled by her interest and vaguely irritated as well.

  The woman shook her head slightly, no.

  Arabel was determined to ignore the woman. If she hadn’t the courtesy to state her business, then Arabel would just leave her alone. She could stare all she liked, Arabel decided firmly, she refused to be baited. She’d had enough strangeness for one day. The server brought her tea and tart and Arabel forced herself to apply herself to consuming the beverage and the snack even though her throat felt constricted from unshed tears and her stomach roiled in queasy waves of unease.

  The old Gypsy woman suddenly sat herself in the chair opposite of Arabel and reached her gnarled hand for Arabel’s smooth one. She grasped hold of Arabel’s hand firmly, and turned it over, palm straight up. The old woman traced the lines on Arabel’s hand as if reading her fortune. Arabel fought the intense urge to snatch her hand away. She relaxed her breath, forcing herself to calm her taut nerves. The old woman’s hand was cold, like the crooked claw of death.

  “The lifeline…is broken,” the Gypsy woman muttered, as if to herself. “Two directions. Two choices.” She looked up at Arabel, acknowledging her finally. “Two choices,” she repeated. “A second chance to smite the
dark.”

  The woman’s finger ran lightly up the inside of Arabel’s left palm. Arabel repressed an unbidden shudder.

  “Beware the old curses,” the old Gypsy said, and then shuffled to her feet.

  Instead of returning to her table, the old woman moved toward the door. Once there, she turned back to lock her unsettling gaze onto Arabel once more, her eyes oddly hypnotic and magnetic, and then the bells jingled a jaunty farewell as the Gypsy woman opened the door and disappeared into the busy street traffic.

  Arabel sat staring after her, wondering at the woman’s unprompted exchange. Old curses? Arabel sighed deeply as she bit into her delicious raspberry tart.

  Just what I needed, Arabel thought darkly, yet another mystery to solve, to round out this perfectly unsettling morning of intrigue, gossip, speculation and ghosts of unrepentant murderers.

  A Night To Remember

  Arabel sat with Eli in the formal dining room. Candles flickered on the table, creating a romantic atmosphere and the remnants of the feast they had consumed were laid out on the table before them and had been undoubtedly some of Cook’s finest work. Now Arabel toyed with the glass stem of her wineglass as she perused Eli’s handsome face across the table.

  Eli was pouring out some more peach wine for himself as he had refilled Arabel’s glass once already. His brown eyes met hers. He smiled, his gaze as warm as a caress upon her cheek.

  “Not ready for more already?” he asked, holding up the glass bottle. Arabel shook her head and continued to stare at him. He laughed.

  “You’ll make me nervous yet, Arabel,” Eli said lightly, wondering at the intensity of her gaze.

  Arabel had been inscrutably quiet since Eli had arrived, indulging only in trifling small talk and she’d yet to inform him of what she’d discovered from the maid at Murphy Estates. They’d eaten in companionable silence and Eli still patiently waited for Arabel to share her pensive thoughts.

  Suddenly Arabel stood up, pushed her chair away, and crossed the room to Eli. He pushed his chair back to stand beside her. Arabel wrapped her arms around Eli tightly, and he pressed his lips to the top of her head, gently kissing her shiny black hair, running his hands along her back, to rest at her waist. Arabel clung to Eli with a need to reassure herself that he was real, and that their love was real.