Death at Bishops Keep scs-1

by Robin Paige

  "Tom Potter," a muffled voice replied.

  Kate frowned. Tom Potter?

  All o' us hates her fer it. Tom Potter most of all.

  Mrs. Pratt faced Kate. "If yer done makin' yer tea, miss," she said pointedly, "Mudd'll take that tray up fer yer."

  Kate picked up the tray she had prepared. "Thank you," she said, "but I can do it." She walked toward the door to the stairs. When she reached it, she turned.

  Mrs. Pratt had already admitted Tom Potter, speaking to him in quick, hard sentences. He was a slender, boyish-looking young man in a rough brown coat, brown trousers, and brown felt hat. A fierceness shone in his eyes, and when he stepped to the fireplace to bend over Harriet, his voice was soft but vibrating with a scarcely restrained anger.

  "Don' cry, child," he said quietly. "We'll make it right, I swear t' yer. She'll not be beatin' yer again."

  Mrs. Pratt stepped swiftly forward, interposing herself between Kate and the visitor. It was clear that there would be no introduction. Instead, she said, her voice level, "I'm grateful t' yer, miss, fer what ye did this evenin'."

  "I wish I could have done more," Kate said.

  "Ye did what ye culd." She squinted at Kate, considering. " 'Tis true yer uncle's a copper?"

  "Yes," Kate said.

  "Ah," Cook said thoughtfully. She seemed about to say something else, but instead grasped the stairway door and opened it so Kate could go through. ' 'Well, ring if yer wants anythin' else."

  "I shall," Kate said. "Thank you."

  The apprehension did not leave Kate as she carried her tray upstairs to her room; rather, it was magnified by the recollection of Jenny's lover, vowing to right Harriet's wrong. All considerations of morality and ethics aside, Aunt Jaggers was inviting trouble when she mistreated the servants. It was not unheard of for them to take revenge, for the person who felt entrapped and powerless to turn to crime. There was the Belgian maid who strangled her elderly employer. And the Irish maid-of-all-work who was hanged at Newgate for bludgeoning her employer, hacking her body into pieces, andKate shook herself. She couldn't dismiss the fears that menaced her. They were legitimate, for the wrongs Jenny and Harriet had suffered were real wrongs, just as the Belgian maid and Kate Webster were real murderers, and not merely characters in Beryl Bardwell's sensational thrillers. But she couldn't give way to her apprehension, for if she did, she would have to ask herself what would happen to her, caught as she was in the web of her aunt's malice.

  Kate carried her tray into her room, lighted the fire, and sat down to eat, grateful for the silence and the opportunity to be alone. When she was finished, she pulled off her shoes and took out the manuscript of "The Conspiracy of the Golden Scarab." If she expected to meet her deadline, she had to work-regardless of what storms might be brewing around her.

  She scribbled furiously for several hours, pausing only to refill her teacup and mend the fire. When she finally laid down her pen and gulped the last of the cold tea, her draft of the next chapter-set in an English country manor and featuring characters that greatly resembled Sir Charles Sheridan and Bradford and Eleanor Marsden-was done. It was a trifle short on sensation, she thought critically, but it was satisfy-ingly full of the realistic details her readers loved. Perhaps she could devise*a startling plot twist-a death or some other disaster-involving the medium, whose character was beginning to seem to Kate more and more ambiguous. She still had the notes she had scribbled after her visit to Mrs. Farns-worth's. She might even work Oscar Wilde and Conan Doyle into the plot-suitably disguised, of course.

  And the Irish maid who had been hanged at Newgate for bludgeoning her mistress.

  32

  But answer came mere none.

  — SIR WALTER SCOTT, The Brioal 01 Triermain

  It was raining in a drizzly, halfhearted fashion when Charles got back on his horse after leaving Mrs. Farnsworth's house on Keenan Street. If the lady had any answers, she had not imparted them to him. But perhaps there was another way to get to the bottom of the affair. He rode toward the village of Dedham, three miles to the north of Marsden Manor, along the River Stour.

  Charles remembered Dedham quite well from the days of his youth. It was a market town for the hamlet of East Berg-holt, where he had spent summers that he still recalled with joy and wonder, visiting his grandparents and wandering the wooded hills and sweet, shallow vales. Dedham lay on the south side of the river, whose lush green banks sloped into deep water, verges fringed with willow and hawthorn and populated by choirs of songbirds. Barges moved slowly westward on the river from the harbor at Manningtree, through locks at Flatford and Dedham and Stratford St. Mary.

  Dedham's High Street ran east and west along one side of a small square. On the northeast corner stood The Marlbor-ough Head, a half-timbered building of respectable vintage that had served as a wool market in the fifteenth century, an apothecary in the seventeenth century, and finally, after 1704

  and the Battle of Blenheim, as an inn, named for the first Duke of Marlborough. It had from time to time offered the young Charles a place to warm himself and eat a hot pork pie while waiting for his grandfather to complete his business. Across High Street stood the brick Grammar School, a fine Georgian building with a calm facade and stately demeanor. And on the corner opposite stood the pride of the village, the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, its tower foursquare and of commanding height, founded on the wealth of the woolen industry and raised before King Henry's bold interference in the divine order of things. The walls were faced with stone from Caen and local knapped flint had been used to construct the tower. The buttresses were outlined heavily by large quoins of dressed stone, and in the plinth of the tower was an arrangement of quatrefoiled shields, alternating with crowns. It was altogether an impressive church, the comer-stone of village life.

  The vicarage was much less picturesquely impressive, designed not to celebrate the spirit but to answer the needs of the body for shelter and comfort. It stood beside the church, a solid, tidy brick residence with a slate roof, a respectable number of chimney pots, and green shutters. A carriage waited in the street, the mackintoshed driver hunched over his reins, clearly unhappy about the wet. As Charles rode up, a woman in a fur hat came out of the front door, her mouth set, her face marked by evident distress. She climbed into the carriage and drove off.

  In the front halfway, Charles's damp coat was taken by the solicitous housekeeper and he was shown into a small, dark parlor warmed by a brisk fire. A few moments later, Vicar Talbot appeared, a troubled look on his lined face and his lion's mane of white hair disheveled, as if his pastoral shoulders still bore the burden left behind by his just-departed parishioner. The vicar was followed by the housekeeper with the tea tray, and the next few moments were spent in the business of pouring and passing. By the time Charles was settled in his overstuffed chair by the fire, teacup and muffin plate on the table beside, the vicar's ruffled hair and troubled expression seemed somewhat soothed.

  "Well, Sir Charles," he said, relaxing into his chintz chair opposite. "What brings you out on such a dismal day?"

  "A question or two," Charles said, "concerning the man whose body was found in the Colchester digs."

  The vicar raised an eyebrow. "Ah, yes," he said, filling his pipe with tobacco. "And what has been discovered thus far about the unfortunate gentleman?"

  "Very little," Charles admitted. "We have a nationality- French-and a name-Monsieur Armand-although whether either are precisely correct is difficult to say."

  "We?" the vicar asked. "That is, you and-"

  "The police, of course," Charles said. "Inspector Wain-wright refuses to bring the Yard into a matter that clearly requires more resources than he has. I am doing what I can, which I fear is deuced little."

  "To be sure," the vicar replied. He sipped his tea. "Nothing else has been discovered?"

  "The carriage he hired, in which I found a fingerprint. Unfortunately, the victim has already been buried, so I cannot discover whether it is his fingerprint o
r belongs to someone else. If a suspect is found, I shall certainly attempt to take his prints and look for a match. And something else," he added casually. "A bit of feather. Pavo christatm."

  The vicar glanced up sharply, then went back to his pipe. Watching, Charles thought he saw an intensification of the troubled look the old man had worn when he came in the room. ' 'Found the carriage, did you?'' he remarked, propping his feet on the chintz-covered stool in front of him. "That took a bit of luck." He smiled. "Or deft detecting."

  Charles nodded. "The peacock feather, I have been told, is the insignia of the Order of the Golden Dawn."

  The vicar puffed calmly on his pipe. "Quite so," he replied. "But peacock feathers have been the rage for some years now. Everybody has them. Even I." He gestured at a ceramic vase of dried grass fronds and peacock feathers in the corner.

  "Of course," Charles said thoughtfully. "Still, it is a clue, and there are bloody few of them in this affair." He paused.

  ' 'You are a member of the Order, if I understood you correctly the other evening."

  "I… am." His reply was slow, almost reluctant.

  Charles gave the other man an inquiring glance. When they talked previously, the vicar had seemed impressed with the Order, had even recommended it. Had something occurred to change his view? He spoke quietly. "I wonder, sir, if you would oblige me by telling me something of it."

  The vicar made a small grimace and shifted in his chair. "What do you want to know?"

  "Something of its history, perhaps." I "Well, then," the vicar said, as if resigned. "I first heard of it six years ago, at a meeting of the Metropolitan College of the Society of Rosicrucians. Wynn Westcott spoke of it. He is a coroner of London-then and now, a man of utterly impeccable repute." He shook his head slightly. There was in his face a kind of regretful disappointment, as if he were speaking of someone about whom he had held a mistakenly elevated opinion and could scarcely believe that he had been in error.

  He came back to himself and began to speak again. "Dr. Westcott invited me to a meeting of the temple-the Isis-Urania Temple, it was called, newly established in London. I was delighted to be asked to enter as a Neophyte." A tone of wry irony colored his words. "A neophyte, indeed. I fear I had much to learn, although I thought at the time I knew quite a lot."

  "Neophyte is a rank of entry?"

  "Yes. The members progress through various ranks, as do the Freemasons. With the proper study and the passing of certain tests, I advanced through the grades of the Outer Order-Neophyte, Zelator, Theoricus, Practicus, and Philoso-phus-and thence to the Second Order, where I now stand at the Sixth Grade, as an Adeptus Major."

  "It sounds as if there is much effort involved in this work," Charles remarked.

  "I have always been interested in the magical arts, and count the time as study of little consequence." The vicar's mouth set in a firm, fixed line, and bitterness crept into his

  tone. ' 'I have prided myself on my commitment to scientific inquiry into the occult, not out of superstitious credulousness, but on the firm foundation of objective science. To learn now that I may have been-" He bit off his sentence.

  "May have been what, sir?"

  The vicar straightened. "I think, Sir Charles, that I have said as much as I am able-more, perhaps, than I should have done. The Golden Dawn is, after all, a secret society, and its practices must remain confidential."

  Charles took a different tack. "How long has Mrs. Farns-worth been a member of the Order?''

  The vicar's gaze went back to the fire. "Ah, yes. Mrs. Farnsworth." He puffed on his pipe and a wreath of smoke rose over his head. "I first encountered the lady in the Isis-Urania Temple. An actress, then Florence Faber. Have you met?"

  "This morning," Charles said. "I called on her."

  The vicar nodded. "Her stage career, it appears, came to something of an abrupt conclusion. She apparently refused to honor a contract, which angered the play's producers. Subsequently, a larger difficulty arose over a substantial sum of money she is said to have… borrowed." He paused. "I have not inquired into the details, you understand, but I gather that there were accusations on both sides, and that the matter was concluded without litigation only on the condition that her departure from the London stage be a permanent one."

  "In other words," Charles said, "she has been blacklisted."

  "So it would seem. She married an admirer-a Colchester merchant who was said to have made a substantial fortune in railroad stock. But he died shortly after the honeymoon, leaving her to discover-with some understandable shock, I daresay-that the expected fortune had melted into a sea of debts. She only just managed to keep the house on Keenan Street from going on the auctioneer's block."

  "How does she support herself?"

  ' 'By the contributions of the wealthier members of the temple. They are glad to give generously toward the establishment of the Order in Colchester. Mrs. Farnsworth has been energetic in seeing to its expansion, and the membership here now exceeds that in Edinburgh, Bradford, and Paris, combined. She is also supported because she is a friend of West-cott's," he added. There was a touch of acid in his tone. "In the view of the members, Westcott is a god."

  "She does not plan to return to acting, then."

  "On the contrary, she does, although not at the present in London. Some friends of hers and Westcott's-again, wealthy members of the temple-are working toward that end. She will play Rosalind in As You Like It, when the Grand Theatre opens early next year."

  "You mentioned Paris," Charles said reflectively. "There is a Parisian temple, operated by someone named Mathers, I believe."

  The vicar pulled rapidly on his pipe. "Mathers. Indeed. Mathers."

  "Is he connected with the Order here in England?"

  "He was," the vicar said. The pulling became so agitated that it turned into a spate of coughing. "Fancies himself an occultist," the vicar choked out. "Involved with the kabbalah, astrology, the tarot. An eccentric with an exaggerated sense of his own importance, in my opinion. And a troublemaker."

  "But no immediate connection with the British Order?"

  The vicar's knuckles whitened around his pipe stem. The thought of Mathers seemed to waken some deep emotion in him, anger, perhaps even fear. "None, Sir Charles, that I am at liberty to discuss at this time." He pushed himself to the edge of the chair. "I have only partially answered your questions, and I am distressed to thrust you out once more into the wet. But I fear that my Sunday sermon is still in a state of disrepair and requires my active attentions. Do you mind?"

  "Of course not," Charles said, setting his cup on the table. "But before you go, perhaps…" He opened his portfolio. "Can you tell me if you recognize this man?"

  The vicar took the photograph. "This is the murdered man?" he asked. A tic appeared at the corner of his right eye.

  "Yes," Charles said.

  The vicar handed back the photograph and stood, not meeting Charles's eye. "I am afraid I cannot help you," he said.

  Charles rose as well, hearing the evasion in the clergyman's words. There might be answers here, but for the moment Vicar Talbot was keeping them to himself.

  33

  "What secrets are hidden behind the tapestry or dark?"

  — MRS. BLEDSOME, "The Aunt's Revenge," 1886

  It was nearly eight when Kate heard the carriage return. A few minutes later, she heard Aunt Sabrina's slow step on the stair, and the closing of her bedroom door. Thinking that her aunt was surely tired and hungry, Kate put on her shoes and went out into the passage. Outside Aunt Sabrina's door, she tapped gently. When she heard a blurred sound she took to be an assent, she opened the door and went in.

  Aunt Sabrina was sitting at her dressing table with her back to the door, her head in her hands. She did not look up or turn around.

  "You must be tired, Aunt Sabrina," Kate said gently. She needn't tell her now about the altercation in the kitchen, or Tom Potter; the tale had to be told, but it could wait until she was rested. "Would you like
me to fix you a bit of hot supper? I could bring it up on a tray."

  Aunt Sabrina raised her head and looked at Kate in the

  dressing table mirror. Her face was gray and old-looking and her eyes were darkly hollowed, but she managed a small smile. "You needn't bother, dear," she said. "I am not hungry-"

  Kate stared at her aunt's reflection in shocked silence. What had happened during her meeting with Mrs. Farnsworth-if that was where she had gone-to turn her skin the color of putty?

  Aunt Sabrina turned around. "My dear Kathryn," she said, and then stopped. For a moment she hesitated, as if deciding whether she should speak and how much she should say. Then she seemed to come to some painful resolution and began again, her voice faltering a little.

  "Kathryn, I know you are concerned for my well-being, and I very much wish that I could share with you what has transpired today. But I cannot." The lines around her mouth were deeply drawn and the crepey skin below her eyes was smudged with weariness.

  "I understand," Kate said, genuinely touched by her aunt's obvious dilemma. She turned to go, but Aunt Sabrina gestured, seeming to want to speak. Kate waited.

  "There is one thing more," she said at last. "Please do not distress yourself about your aunt Jaggers, Kathryn. Whatever I must do, I shall do, and quickly." Her voice took on a brittle metallic ring and her eyes, steely now, met Kate's directly. "You will not be sent away. And if something should happen to me, I have seen to it that your future here at Bishop's Keep is secure."

  "Thank you, Aunt," Kate said. But she was frightened by the tone of her aunt's voice. What did Aunt Sabrina fear that she would have to do to restrain Aunt Jaggers?

  But it was not a question Kate could ask, and when she sought her aunt's eyes again, they were hooded and remote. Kate sensed that she had come at last to some decision, to a choice that brought with it both a desperate regret and a profound pain, so pervasive and wounding that Kate could only guess at its depth and dimension.