Lady Helena Investigates

by Jane Steen

  “If she had an accomplice, it was certainly Susan.” Who would have been about twelve years old, I believed. But it had been New Year’s Eve, a cold night for a little girl to be out. Had it snowed? Had Susan been staying at Hyrst? I had no idea. I remembered absolutely nothing about Papa’s death except for going to see him laid out on his bed, silver-haired and dignified, his hands neatly crossed on his chest with a prayer book tucked under them.

  My father wasn’t buried in this new necropolis, of course. Like all the more recent Earls of Broadmere, he had been afforded a place in the crypt of Littleberry’s great church of St. Michael, sealed in a niche behind a tablet engraved with all of his names and titles.

  A memory from several months after Papa’s death surfaced along with my recollection of the crypt. I was standing next to Mama staring at that tablet while ancient Mr. Victor, a sexton now long dead, held up a lamp so we could read the writing. He was weak, and the light trembled and wavered, but we didn’t insult him by refusing his help.

  “I wish there were a place to lay flowers,” I heard my younger self say.

  “Flowers are vulgar.” And Mama took my arm, gently turning me away from my father’s last resting place. She began talking briskly about the dinner we were to give to mark Michael’s engagement to Cecilia.

  “It’s not at all proper.” Her voice was both deadened and magnified by the crypt’s stone walls. “But sometimes mourning must give way to celebration.”

  I hadn’t cared much about whether we were observing mourning properly, sad as I was about Papa’s demise. I was simply glad to get away from the dreadful musty smell of underground decay and return home. I wanted to look once more at a certain nosegay sent to Hyrst by the pleasant baronet who lived at Whitcombe House. He was much older than me, to be sure, but Daniel had been dead for almost three years, and I had begun to find some enjoyment in Justin’s gentle attentiveness, especially now that I had lost the second most important man in my life.

  The pain of that loss suddenly stabbed me, fresh and sharp once more, made sharper still by the new knowledge that Papa had it in him to be cruel. I felt the slide of tears down my cheek, cooled by the breeze. The two women passed me, still talking, one of them holding a basket containing gardening tools. If they heard me sniff, it would have been understandable. They nodded their sympathy as they passed, addressing me as “m’lady” in hushed tones.

  “Dear God, Justin,” I whispered. “Do you know now what happened? Is it true the dead see all? Did Mama corrupt Susan, or did Susan corrupt Mama?”

  My tears flowed faster as I thought of the day when Mama, screaming incoherently, had banished Susan from Hyrst once and for all. What had the child said? Had a terrible, shared secret lain between them? I couldn’t reach it—couldn’t reach them—I had set out to find the truth and had only found a shadow of the substance. I had failed.

  “Lady Helena.”

  I gave a small shriek and turned, but what with the veil and the crying could only make out the vague shape of a man looming over me. My heart leapt into my throat.

  “How dare you approach me without warning—whoever you are—I—”

  “It’s Armand Fortier, and I’ve already spoken your name twice. I’m sorry to find you in such distress, although I suppose it’s to be expected.”

  I fumbled at the strings of my reticule, realizing my face must be wet and slimy. I couldn’t possibly use my veil to wipe it. If I had a handkerchief at all it was probably of inadequate size for the gargantuan task of restoring my countenance.

  And then, mercifully, a large and very serviceable square of clean linen was pressed into my hand. I turned away and effected the necessary operations, blowing my nose as quietly as I could.

  “Thank you.”

  My headache had now assumed abominable proportions. I was doubly grateful for my veil, which cut down the harshness of the noon light as well as disguising the state of my face.

  “I apologize profusely for intruding on your grief.” Fortier held up his hands in a gesture I found hard to interpret. “I have absolutely no excuse for being here either. I wish I could say I just happened to be passing by, but the truth is—I followed you. At least I waited at the entrance to the cemetery hoping to see you come out—and then cursed myself for a fool when I remembered you could just as easily have gone on down the hill by the other gate. I wanted to see you, so—here I am.” He let his arms drop by his sides, his whole demeanor more uncertain, less confident than usual.

  “I don’t know whether I should object to that or not.” I assumed an arch tone in an attempt to cheer myself up. “I’m unaccustomed to gentlemen accosting me in cemeteries. Were you worried about me? Being alone, I mean?”

  “Not particularly. Littleberry has the advantage of being a safe place for women. Although I admit I was concerned about what your frame of mind must be, given yesterday’s revelations. I’ve been thinking about you ever since I left Whitcombe.”

  “I’ve been thinking too.” I tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice but failed. “Discovering that your father was faithless and manipulative and that the woman who bore and nurtured you is a killer certainly merits deep thought.”

  “Faithless and manipulative—was that the motive? You seemed so sure we were looking at a confession and that the crime was murder. I’m sorry Miss Guttridge came back when she did.”

  “And that our conversation ended in polite nothings? I suppose I could have continued it in front of Guttridge.” I sniffed and applied Fortier’s handkerchief to my nose. “She certainly realizes something’s up. I don’t think I spoke a word for the rest of the day. But as confidential a person as Guttridge is, this is too deep and terrible a secret for anyone to bear.”

  “Except yourself. And Lord Broadmere?”

  “He doesn’t have the information that allowed me to put two and two together, so to speak. He didn’t hear Susan’s words about getting the dose wrong, which is what makes me sure she learned to poison from Mama. I don’t think he knows about Papa’s affairs—that was Mama’s motive, by the by. My sisters know, but they don’t know about the picture, and I will never tell them. I’ve asked Michael never to mention it, and I believe he won’t.”

  “Affairs, in the plural?” I heard the note of revelation in Fortier’s voice. “Excuse me for asking—how old was your father when he died?”

  For a moment, I didn’t understand, but then my mind caught up with Fortier’s. “He’d had his seventieth birthday in the summer—but I don’t know if there’d been any recent case of infidelity.” I hesitated, then plowed on. “There had been something that had upset Mama terribly a decade before. That’s when she stopped writing in her notebooks and took up painting more seriously. The sketchbook you saw when we first met dates to around halfway through that period. I can’t help wondering if Mama wasn’t in her right mind by the time she—did what she did.” I swallowed. “There might have been something else that triggered it, of course. Something Papa did or said—who knows? That’s one of the awful aspects of this whole business—not knowing the whole story.”

  I could see Fortier nodding as the breeze once more blew my veil back against my face. How odd I must look from Fortier’s viewpoint, I thought, the black net molding my features like one of those statues of grief. Yet aside from my headache, my mood had lifted simply from the relief of being able to discuss the whole business with a rational human being.

  “You’re right though,” I said quietly after a few moments’ thought. “There should be an explanation for the ten-year gap between the worst incident of betrayal and my father’s death, and I think I know what it was. Michael. Mama waited until he was old enough to cope with inheriting the title. She waited until he had turned eighteen—just—and wanted to marry Cecilia. I don’t think she opposed the match as Papa did—I wish I had been paying attention back then—and she must have thought Michael would be all right with a wife at his side. And by then he also had Brandrick, I suppose.”

&
nbsp; “It’s a sound theory.”

  I shuddered. “It is. And if it’s true, that means my mother spent ten years plotting to kill my father.” I took a deep breath. “Ten years in which to get the recipe right and all those workhouse patients to practice on.”

  I could hear the hardness in my voice, the cynicism, and Fortier certainly didn’t miss it.

  “Helena.” He stepped forward and then stopped. “Good God, I wish I knew what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything.” I stepped back from Justin’s graveside and turned to Fortier. “Oddly enough, I don’t feel I need comforting. I don’t need sympathy. I have the truth now, or at least as near to the truth as I can possibly get, and . . . I have the strength I need to deal with it. I’ve learned the worst about my parents and I—I find I still love them.” I turned back to Justin’s grave, looking down at the clay that held his bones. “And I did it all without you, Justin. I must be growing up.”

  And with that, I turned on my heel and held out a hand toward Fortier. “Would you take me home, please? It’ll be time for luncheon soon, and I don’t want to keep my staff waiting.”

  I couldn’t read his expression from behind my veil. He said nothing as he let me take his arm and we turned to walk uphill.

  As we neared the main road, the breeze died down, and my veil hung heavy and stifling over my face. Thick hedges of hornbeam and hawthorn hid us from view. Over us towered the cedars of Lebanon planted when the cemetery was new, already grown to a great height. The path underfoot was dry and dusty and scattered with debris from the trees. The only sounds I could hear through my veil were the clicks and rattles of small stones dislodged by our feet.

  “Do you realize,” I said after a long stretch of silence, “that the truth has come to light with very little investigative effort on my part? This isn’t how it happens in novels.”

  Fortier made a small sound that might have signified laughter, but when he spoke his voice was grave.

  “If you doubt your qualifications as an investigator, you’re quite wrong—although your methods are unorthodox. You elicited the confession about Sir Justin’s death because you were gracious and kind to Susan Hatherall. And it was your persistence in using your mother’s journals and paintings to tell her story, to find her again, as my sister says, that led you to this latest discovery.”

  “And what revelations.” I kicked viciously at a stone. “The woeful degeneration of a noble English family.”

  “Perhaps.” I felt Fortier’s arm pull me in a little closer. “But I wouldn’t dwell on it, if I were you. The tragedy of your mother and father belongs to the distant past and is perhaps better left there.”

  “You say that? I thought you wanted all things out in the light of day.”

  “I was an arrogant idiot to talk about the importance of truth as if it were some kind of dogma.” I thought I heard Fortier sigh. “When I think of the horrible repercussions that the revelation of your mother’s actions would lead to, I would carry this secret to my grave—for your sake. And I had no right to insist on truth from you when I couldn’t offer you my own.”

  He stopped walking and turned toward me.

  “Helena, I’m going to have to leave for France again soon. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. That’s why I was waiting for you—there’s something I want to say. Something that was best not said across your husband’s grave.”

  “You make it sound terribly serious.” I was suddenly very conscious of my heartbeat.

  “Love is always serious.” But there was an edge of laughter in his voice—and then, suddenly, a tenderness that turned my legs to jelly. “You must know by now that I love you, my dear. That truth, at least, is best laid bare to the daylight.”

  I did know. I had known at least since the night of Susan’s death. But I had turned my back on Fortier’s love then, as I must do now.

  “You know I can’t.” I spoke rapidly, looking down at my toes. “Not yet. I loved my husband, and it’s been too short a time since I lost him. Leaving all other considerations aside.”

  “Such as the social gulf between us?”

  Impatiently, I pushed back my veil, heedless of the fact that my eyes were surely still red and my face blotchy. Fortier suddenly came into sharp focus, his face earnest and drawn.

  “No, not that,” I said. “I daresay we could get around that. Ned had no title when Gerry wed him, and you’re a gentleman—aren’t you?”

  Lines of amusement creased Fortier’s cheeks and puckered the tender skin around his eyes. “I am, indubitably, a gentleman.” His face became serious again. “Helena, do you know what I love most about you?”

  I took a deep breath, realizing how impeded my breathing had become. “I shouldn’t be listening to this.”

  “It’s the contrasts. The sensible countrywoman and the wide-eyed innocent. The imperious aristocrat and the hard worker who’s perfectly ready to get her hands dirty. The confidence and the uncertainty in you. I could spend the rest of my life studying your character.”

  I took a step backward, certain he was about to grasp my hand. “I definitely shouldn’t be listening to this. Look, Fortier, I’m—what’s the phrase?—flattered by your regard for me. More than flattered. But—”

  “And your beauty. Your sweet, perfect face, your elegant little figure—”

  “Now you are really going too far.” I could feel myself flush up to the roots of my hair.

  “I am.” The corners of Fortier’s mouth turned down, and his arms, which he had raised a little as if he wanted to take me in them, fell back to his sides. “Because even if, when you’re done mourning your husband, you could marry me and make that right with your family—and I do understand, my dear, how much your family means to you—I’m not a free man.”

  “You’re not?” I asked faintly.

  “I haven’t been since I was very young. And I can’t explain everything to you because these are secrets that aren’t mine to keep or reveal as I wish. I will tell you as much as I dare—and please don’t hate me for what I’m about to say.”

  “It will make no difference. I told you, it’s too soon. Don’t you understand that, Fortier? I’ve only just begun to learn who I am as a woman alone.”

  “I do know that. And I’m grateful for it because it means you won’t walk into the arms of the next available nobleman for the sake of the child you long for.”

  “You know that?” My voice was a whisper.

  “Yes, I know that. And I wish you knew how much I crave the honor of satisfying that wish. But—” Fortier shook his head. “No, there’s no easy way of saying this. There is a woman in France whom people believe to be my wife.”

  “What?”

  Fortier raised a hand in a pleading gesture. “Listen, please, Helena. I swear to you, this is only an outward appearance. We play the part of husband and wife before the world, but there was never any marriage. She and I are in no way bound to each other by anything greater than friendship.” He took a deep breath. “As a young man, I agreed to a pretense without ever thinking of the lasting consequences. Without thinking that one day I would stand before the woman I love and feel myself unable to explain the circumstances because I’m bound to secrecy. All I can tell you is that this is no lighthearted circumstance. The matter is of the utmost seriousness.” He hesitated. “Can you trust me, Helena?”

  I looked at him, long and hard. Once again, his face was drawn, the only animation residing in his large, luminous eyes—which bore an expression of deep earnestness I could not resist.

  “I’ll have to trust you, won’t I?” I said eventually and saw his entire body relax. “Despite my family’s predictions that you’re a complete scoundrel, I’ve trusted you since—well, not the beginning, but I think I’ve trusted you since you came posthaste to my house from the ship, completely exhausted and smelling of vomit. A duplicitous man would have made an effort to look better.”

  I couldn’t help laughing as Fortier’s eyes round
ed in shock, and soon he was laughing too. He offered me his arm again, and we stepped forth, our footsteps beating time evenly on the rough dirt of the lane.

  “I’m going to take you home, Lady Helena Whitcombe,” Fortier said briskly. “And I won’t importune you with my romantic French notions again until I’ve found some way to extricate myself from the mess I’m in. But when I have, I hope you’re prepared to be wooed in earnest.”

  31

  A new beginning

  For once, Mama was in a quiet and pleasant mood when I arrived at Hyrst. She sat calmly in her bed, her back well supported by several pillows, her long white hair tidily braided and her clothing neat and orderly. Not for the first time I sent up a prayer of thanks for Belming.

  “Hello, Mama.” I leaned well in to kiss my mother’s cheek. The bed was a large, ancient four-poster with intricate carvings on the posts. Mama smelled pleasantly of lavender and clean clothes.

  “Have you sent for the gardener?” Mama’s eyes, which had been focused on nothing as if she were listening to a voice in her own head, fixed on me.

  “Why, yes, Mama. Of course I have.”

  It had been a long time since Mama had asked that question, once the prelude to any conversation with her. Of course, my recent discoveries had changed my perspective on many things, not least the significance of Mama’s herb garden. Presumably that’s where the foxgloves that had poisoned Papa had come from. Perhaps that was why concern for her garden was one of the last vestiges of her old self. Or perhaps I was entirely wrong, and her mind had simply settled on a random mania.

  “Would you like to come and see your garden, Mama?” Maybe I could get my mother talking about her plants and satisfy my own burning desire to know I was right about the foxglove poison. Even now there were moments when I thought—I hoped—I had gotten the whole thing entirely wrong and Papa had, as I’d believed for the last few years, died of heart failure following an attack of pleurisy.

  “No, dear.” My mother gave a tremulous smile but then wrinkled her brow. “Do I know you?”