Beauty, Beast, and Belladonna

by Maia Chance

  Ophelia froze. Men’s voices outside.

  She returned to the vicar’s body. Yes, his pupils were dilated, a sure sign of having eaten belladonna. And what was this? His waistcoat pocket bulged with some small object. Ophelia crouched and pulled it out. A brown glass bottle labeled “For Heart Complaints.”

  The men’s voices echoed, inside the orangerie now, and footsteps sounded on stone. Ophelia slipped the bottle back into the vicar’s waistcoat pocket and stood.

  * * *

  Griffe and Banks rushed down the aisle of plants, with Professor Penrose and Ivy close behind.

  “Ma chérie, how terrible for you,” Griffe said, brushing Ophelia’s cheek with the back of his fingers.

  She tried not to cringe.

  “I have sent the stable boy into Sarlat to fetch a doctor.” Griffe’s bloodshot eyes fell on the body, and a muscle in his cheek twitched. “The police, too—I see that no doctor will be needed. In this snow, the boy will have a difficult ride, although it is but three miles to town.”

  “Are you well, Miss Stonewall?” Penrose asked Ophelia.

  She nodded.

  “Good God,” Banks muttered when he saw the body. He wrapped his arm around Ivy and whispered into her hair, “Pray do not look, child.”

  Ivy twisted to see. “But what is that? The small bottle, beside his head? Why, that is my own bottle of traveling sickness tablets, except all the tablets are gone. Whatever could it be doing here? Did he—could the vicar have stolen it from my chamber?”

  “Ivy, go back to the château,” Banks said. “This is no place for a lady.”

  “Traveling sickness tablets?” Ophelia asked Ivy.

  “Ships and trains and coaches make me frightfully ill. Mr. Knight must have done himself in with my tablets. He took them all—see?—and they are made from atropa belladonna—deadly nightshade. The chemist told me as much.”

  Belladonna? More belladonna? “Surely your traveling sickness tablets were not potent enough to do in a grown man,” Ophelia said.

  “If he had a weak heart, perhaps,” Banks said.

  “Look at the way the rose is clasped to his chest,” Ophelia said. “It seems he was not really holding it, but—”

  “We will leave these matters to the Gendarmerie de Sarlat,” Griffe said. “You must be greatly shocked, Mademoiselle Stonewall. Please, go to the house.”

  “You as well, Ivy,” Banks said.

  Ophelia turned down the aisle of plants, although she didn’t fancy being sent away like a bad puppy. Ivy minced ahead of her, lifting her skirts above the dirt and smashed plants. In a few moments she disappeared through the door.

  Ophelia went more slowly, holding her elbows, her nerves like flyaway threads. Near the end of the aisle, where orange trees stood laden with fruit, a motion caught her eye. She stopped and peered through the stiff leaves.

  A small form—yes, a plump child in a grown-up suit of clothes, with a brown complexion and black curls—scrambled to his feet. He stuffed something in his jacket pocket.

  “What are you doing?” Ophelia whispered. “There’s a dead man in here.” She looked down the aisle to the men standing over the body. Oblivious. She looked back through the leaves; the boy had vanished.

  He must’ve been the young charge the vicar had been escorting to England. But why in tarnation had he been in this gruesome place?

  * * *

  Outside, Ophelia circled the orangerie. No footprints in the snow at the back, but too many to count at the front, now that half the household had been stomping around. If footprints could’ve been a clue to the mystery, well, they were all spoiled now.

  She went back into the château, all the while thinking that she should fetch her cloak and bonnet and go for a walk. It was snowy, yes, but until the police came and went, she wouldn’t have a chance to break things off with Griffe. How could she simply sit still? Then she remembered the parakeet and its untouched bread crumbs.

  She poked around until she found stairs coiling down into the smoky kitchen. Copper pots gleamed on stone walls, and something meaty bubbled on the hulking black cookstove. A maid chopped mushrooms at a big wooden table, talking with another maid. They both froze and lifted wide, fearful eyes when they saw Ophelia.

  They’d heard about Knight’s death, then.

  “Birdseed?” Ophelia said to the maids. “Um, cuisine de oiseau?” No, that couldn’t be right.

  One maid pointed at a pheasant dangling from the ceiling next to a bundle of garlic.

  Ophelia shook her head. What was the word for pantry? Oh, yes. “Garde-manger?” she said.

  The maid tilted her head towards a stone passage and went back to chopping.

  Ophelia found the pantry, a musty chamber filled with clay pots, jars, burlap sacks, and baskets of onions and apples. After a few minutes of looking, she found a jar of sunflower seeds. She took the jar and went upstairs.

  * * *

  Before she reached the staircase leading to the upper chambers, Bernadette waylaid her in a corridor. “Do you require a glass of cordial, Mademoiselle Stonewall? You have had such a shock. Or coffee, perhaps? I have sent for some. Waiting for the doctor and police to arrive, well, one must do something to distract oneself.”

  “Oh. Hello. Nothing for me, thank you.”

  Bernadette’s face fell. She wanted company.

  “Well, perhaps coffee,” Ophelia said. She had developed a taste for coffee while working in P. Q. Putnam’s Traveling Circus. The Astonishing Aerial Twins, Alphonso and Allegra Vito, used to prepare it for her in a funny silver pot in their wagon.

  “Ah, bon. Come in, please.” Bernadette led Ophelia into a salon with paneled walls and blue damask upholstery. “What is that little jar you are holding?”

  “Seeds for my parakeet.” Ophelia nodded in greeting to Ivy, who lolled against a cushion with a book facedown on her lap.

  “How eccentric of you to have brought a bird all this way,” Ivy said, twirling a ringlet around her finger.

  “Poor thing,” Bernadette said. “I always think such little creatures should be set free into the wild.”

  “A parakeet wouldn’t last in this climate,” Ophelia said.

  Did Bernadette’s eyes look teary? “Please do stand just there,” she said to Ophelia, pointing to a spot next to a harpsichord.

  Stand?

  “You are not wearing the ruby ring?” Bernadette asked, now gathering up something white and gauzy from a basket on the floor.

  “I seem to have forgotten to put it on.”

  Bernadette came at Ophelia with the white gauzy thing. “I am so glad I found you, for I have been mending my mother’s wedding veil.”

  Ophelia’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

  “Is it to your taste? I mean to say, if you had other plans for your bridal garments, then. . . . But when my brother announced that the wedding would be in but five day’s time, my thoughts flew to Maman’s gown and veil.”

  “The news seemed very sudden,” Ivy said. Her wide blue eyes drifted to Ophelia’s belly.

  Merciful heavens. Is that what people thought the hurry was about? Her belly? Ophelia’s ears burned.

  “There is so much to see to before the wedding,” Bernadette said. “The cakes and meats, the flowers—”

  “The invitations, of course,” Ivy said. “Such a pity that your parents won’t be able to attend due to the short notice, Miss Stonewall.”

  Ophelia opened her mouth.

  Bernadette went on, “I had always hoped to wear Maman’s gown and veil at my own wedding.” A heavy pause. Bernadette’s shoulders sagged. Then she said brightly, “This veil—is it not splendid? It is nearly seven feet long—”

  “Should just hit the floor, then,” Ivy said.

  “—and made of the finest Brussels lace. There are only a few bits to b
e mended, some of the embroidered flowers at the bottom, and a moth hole here and there. Now. Allow me to see it on you.” She draped it over Ophelia’s head.

  Ophelia stood stock-still, clutching the jar of seeds to her chest. The veil smelled like dust and camphor. Only a few more hours of this ruse, and then she’d break it off with Griffe. A few more hours. “Who tends to the plants in the orangerie?” she asked Bernadette. “Is it Marielle? I noticed there were some . . . potent medicinal plants there.”

  “How do you know of such things, Miss Stonewall?” Ivy asked.

  “Books.”

  “Ah.”

  Bernadette fiddled with the veil around Ophelia’s face. “Marielle does not tend the plants, no, although she does go into the orangerie every morning to cut herbs and greens for her cooking. The plants are cared for by our old gardener, Luc. Luc also keeps the orangerie’s coal furnace going, the furnace that heats the water for the pipes beneath the floors to keep it so warm in wintertime. But we should speak only of joyful things.” She swept the veil off. “Please, sit while I work. Ah, here is Clémence with the coffee.”

  Clémence, the beautiful, statuesque maid, carried in a tray with a coffee service. When she saw Ophelia in the veil, she stumbled and nearly dropped the tray.

  “Clémence!” Bernadette said. “Not with Maman’s Limoges cups.”

  Clémence, eyes cast down, arranged the coffee service on a table and left.

  “The servants are upset about poor Monsieur Knight,” Bernadette said, pouring coffee. “I am surprised at Clémence, however. She is the most sensible of them all. So very devoted to the family. Sugar and cream, Mademoiselle Banks?”

  Ivy nodded.

  Bernadette went on, “I do apologize if the coffee is bitter. Only Marielle makes coffee correctly, and I gave her the rest of the day off. She was so shaken by seeing the vicar.”

  “Did you hear what the servants have been saying about this beast thing?” Ivy asked. “That it walks upright, like a man, but with the hideous head of a boar—”

  “Oh, do not speak of it,” Bernadette whispered.

  Ivy shrugged.

  Ophelia tried to pry more about the gardener and the orangerie out of Bernadette, but Bernadette kept steering the conversation to the weather, weddings, and Ophelia’s supposed life amid Cleveland’s high society. Ivy listened in silence, sipping coffee and looking amused. Ophelia was relieved when Tolbert, the Parisian zoologist, appeared in the doorway.

  “Monsieur Tolbert,” Bernadette said. “Do come and take some coffee with—”

  “No time, no time.” Tolbert shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Something has been taken from my chamber. Are your servants in the habit of stealing?”

  “Most certainly not,” Bernadette cried. “Monsieur Tolbert, what has been taken? If it is an article of clothing, surely the servants meant to launder it, or—”

  “A scientific specimen of great, no, of astounding and irreplaceable value.” Tolbert’s voice shook. “I demand that you summon your servants, all of them, so that I might interrogate them.”

  “I will do no such thing. My servants do not steal.”

  “Very well, then. I am forced to take matters into my own hands.” Tolbert swung around and left.

  “Prickly little gentleman, isn’t he?” Ivy said. “Reminds me of the evil gnome in a storybook I once had.”

  Bernadette’s fingers trembled as she took up the veil, needle, and thread. “I cannot think why he is still here. I understand he has rooms in Sarlat.”

  Hours passed. Bernadette worked on mending the veil, Ivy read, and Ophelia by turns tried on the veil for Bernadette and fretted.

  She saw men through the windows, slogging through snow at the front of the château. She went to the windows. “The count and Professor Penrose,” she said. “And two gendarmes.” She recognized their blue peaked caps from her run-ins with the police in Paris. Another man wore a bowler hat and a greatcoat, and a wagon with a black horse stood in the drive. “And a doctor, I suppose.” The four men disappeared around the corner.

  “Come, Mademoiselle Stonewall, and try the veil again,” Bernadette said. “I have mended the last moth hole.”

  5

  “His heart?” Gabriel said in disbelief to the doctor from Sarlat. They, along with two gendarmes, stood beside the doctor’s wagon in the slushy front drive. They had not spent more than ten minutes examining the scene in the orangerie. “Really? Does a thrombosis—”

  “Thrombosis or angina,” the doctor said. “I cannot be certain which.”

  “All right, then, does either affliction cause a man to convulse for such a prolonged period that he would be able to create such disarray—all those broken plants and pots? That he could wound himself so grievously on a hanging pitchfork? There are belladonna plants growing in that orangerie.” While waiting for the doctor and the police, Gabriel had read in the château library about the effects of ingesting atropa belladonna. These included convulsions, staggering, loss of balance, dilated pupils—all of which Gabriel had noted the vicar had had.

  “The death throes of a heart complaint sufferer have many variations, monsieur.” Dr. Duclos, young, boneless, and bored, adjusted his hat.

  “We found a bottle of heart complaint tablets in his waistcoat pocket,” one of the gendarmes said. “He did not get to them in time.”

  And that sewed the whole thing up. They would take the body to the morgue in Sarlat, where it would wait until the vicar’s parish in England was reached by telegram. The vicar’s belongings were still in his bedchamber and to be left there until the parish was heard from.

  “There is also the matter of the young boy who was traveling with Mr. Knight,” Gabriel said. “Master Christy. What is to become of him?”

  “That is a domestic affair, monsieur. You are welcome to sort it out yourself. Good day.”

  Gabriel felt uneasy as he watched the wagon rattle away down the drive. He turned and went inside to tell the others the doctor’s judgment.

  * * *

  Ophelia was trapped under the wedding veil when she saw, through the window, the vicar’s shroud-draped body being loaded into the wagon. She watched as the doctor and gendarmes spoke with Penrose and left.

  Now might be a good time to break things off with Griffe.

  “Where is your brother?” Ophelia asked Bernadette, who was fiddling with the veil.

  “I do not know. Riding, perhaps. He rides a great deal, looking over the estate. He is restless. Do not worry—he will be back in time for luncheon. He never misses a meal, my dear. And I am certain, once there are children”—a peek at Ophelia’s midriff—“well, he will become more settled.”

  Right. Time to change the subject. “What do you suppose happened to Mr. Knight?”

  “Why, suicide,” Ivy said, glancing up from her book. “Don’t you remember my stolen medicine bottle?”

  Bernadette stopped fussing with the veil. “My own father died of a heart attack, and there was something about poor Monsieur Knight’s face that reminded me—oh dear, but we really should speak of something else. Weddings, perhaps?” She sniffled.

  “What is the matter?” Ophelia asked, touching Bernadette’s shoulder.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “You’re weeping.”

  Ivy said, “Talk of weddings is not always pleasant for maiden relations.”

  Ophelia frowned at Ivy, who narrowed her eyes and smushed her lips.

  Ophelia had seen that look before, on a five year-old who’d been denied an ice cream.

  “Well, it is a trifle,” Bernadette said, blinking away tears, “and I did not mean to mention it with all that is happening, but a small item has gone missing from my bedchamber. Nothing of great value, but it was something very dear to me. Now that Monsieur Tolbert says that he, too . . . oh, là.”

  “Stolen?�
�� Ophelia asked. “What was it?”

  “It is so difficult to find trustworthy servants,” Ivy said.

  “My servants would never steal!”

  A rap sounded on the salon door, and Professor Penrose stepped inside. His eyebrows lifted when he saw Ophelia in the veil.

  “There you are,” Ivy said impatiently.

  “The doctor and the police have come and gone,” Penrose said. “They’ve taken Mr. Knight’s body away. The police will telegraph his parish in England. They asked that his things be left here in the château until further notice.”

  “What did they say he died of?” Ophelia asked.

  “His heart failed—either by a thrombosis or an angina. Clotting or constricting. Either way, natural causes.”

  Natural causes? How did that account for the empty bottle of Ivy’s traveling sickness tablets? And the convulsing, the dilated pupils, the belladonna berries . . .

  “What a relief to have that done with,” Ivy said. “Will you take coffee with us, Lord Harrington?”

  Penrose cut a glance to Ophelia and away.

  Did he suppose the hurried-up wedding was on account of her belly, too? Ugh.

  “I wish to visit the old storytelling woman in the village, Madame Genepy,” Penrose said.

  “I will come with you.” Ivy set her cup down and stood. She turned to Bernadette. “It is curious that something was stolen from you and from Mr. Tolbert, for you see, last night an amethyst bracelet was stolen from my own chamber, and Father said he is missing a pair of diamond cuff links.”

  The ruby ring. Oh, golly. What if—? “Your traveling sickness tablets were taken, too,” Ophelia said to Ivy.

  “Indeed. There is a thief afoot.”

  Ophelia removed the veil and placed it in Bernadette’s hands. Then she grabbed her jar of sunflower seeds. “I’ve just remembered something that I—please excuse me.” She strolled calmly to the salon doors, nodding as she passed Penrose. Once she was in the corridor, she hitched up her skirts in one hand, clutched the jar with the other, and ran.