Amy did not know what she would do once she was in London, all she knew was that she had to go there. And there were two things, short of the madness of running away from home, that she must do. The first was to induce the Ramseys to invite her, and the other was to come up with a reason to persuade her mother. That seemed impossible, but she knew she must try—and despite all odds—succeed.
“Emma should consult the doctor again, she can’t just abandon her cure.”
Amy stressed this as if poor Emma wouldn’t make it without another visit.
“But the doctor said he was finished treating her,” said her puzzled mother.
“I don’t think so,” said Amy. “I was certain he said he wanted to see her in another week or two.”
“Funny, I don’t remember that,” said her mother, straining to remember something the doctor had never said.
Emma started to speak, but Amy gave her a look that told the poor patient that she better remain silent, or else. After a monumental and strident performance that would put to shame the greatest performers that walked the boards, Amy to her profound relief and great surprise, achieved her goal. The Ramseys invited the girls, and her mother, still puzzling over what the doctor hadn’t said, agreed.
At some point, Mattie got included, and undoubtedly allowed herself to be included because Leo was going back to London, which made the Ramsey’ house of great interest to her. Afterward, Amy could not remember how Mattie got included and
wondered if it wasn’t just a spontaneous act of nature.
Emma, the original subject of the discussion, did not appear to be sold on the idea of returning to the big city so soon, until Sir Frank mentioned that he was going to visit the Royal Naval Observatory at Greenwich during the week and Emma might want to come along. This caused Emma to join the effort, changing any reluctance to wholehearted support. Eventually, Lady Sibbridge was buried under an avalanche of pleading.
Because of the need for the three young ladies to prepare for the trip, the Ramseys were willing to remain that night with the Sibbridges. It gave Sir Frank an opportunity for an extended visit with Amy’s father. They even played a game of chess for the first time in over two years. It was an unusual game it must be admitted, with different rules from any ever used before, but it was chess.
Because the preparations did not require the presence of the girls during the afternoon, they decided on a picnic, each was agreeable for her own reasons. It would prove a pleasant distraction before they went to the stinky and sooty old city. The two young men were most happy to come along to provide “protection”.
Since it was a windy afternoon they decided that rather than have the picnic on their favorite hilltop, they would instead have it beside the road to Hillfield house. They selected a spot next to the path that led to the river and the old mill. There was a beautiful bower that was perfect for their purposes. Since they had eaten lunch and did not want to do their dinner too much damage, they took along some cakes, pastries, and some cider. Their appetite was lackluster at best, and their snack, because that is what it really was, soon gave way to other activities.
After they had nibbled some cake, Mattie and Leo were quietly talking and Amy suspected they would prefer there was no eavesdropper present. Emma was tracking down flora and fauna in the form of insects, mostly stripped ones with stingers, which Amy considered slightly threatening but which fascinated Emma. Pigsly was crawling through the bushes, evidently on some mission for Emma. His bright red rounded face and little orange moustache and big mop of orange hair seemed to combine with his grunts to truly present a porcine appearance.
After chastising herself for thinking impolite thoughts about the friendly Pigsly, Amy wandered off by herself down the path in the direction of the River Arne and the mill.
For a while she sat by the river, daydreaming. It was no longer swollen, but gurgled past quite lazily. She drowsily viewed the old mill. Old ruins, amid lush vegetation, seemed to project an aura of ancient times and knights in armor, even if in life it was more likely country wights in village cloth.
Finally, drawn to the ruin she struggled to her feet and carefully stepped from stone to stone over the ford to the mill. Walking through the old arched stone door she went inside the ruined building. She loved to stand inside the ruin and absorb the feeling of antiquity. She was standing with her eyes closed, looking upward for no apparent reason, when she thought she heard voices.
She listened. At first, all was silent, and then she heard them again, louder and more distinct. They were coming from the west, the direction of the London Road. Then she saw them. Two rough looking characters were making their way through the brush, and heading in the direction of the mill. Could she make it out of the mill and back to the others without being seen?
Taking a chance, she slipped out of the ruin, but she realized there was no way she could cross the ford without the two ruffians seeing her, so she slipped around to the east side of the mill and crouched down. They were carrying a small metal box. She immediately called to mind what Sir Frank had said. They must be taking some loot to their hiding place across the river.
Fearfully, she realized they would almost certainly see her as they passed the mill. Even if they were too occupied to spot her at first, as they struggled with the casket across the ford they couldn’t help but see her. She could not move to the back of the mill because of the millpond and the old wrecked millwheel. A lad might make it if he was lucky, but she couldn’t in her crinoline dress. She braced herself as the voices reached the mill.
They stopped and one of them came forward. She could see the edge of his hat brim as she crouched as low as possible. By the movements of his hat she could tell that he was looking in both directions.
“Il n'y a personne ici. Il est sûr.”
Then the other man spoke. He was inside the mill.
“Then come’n ‘elp me you fiddler’s monkey.”
To Amy’s overwhelming relief the lookout joined the other ruffian in the mill. She thought of looking in the window to see what they were up to, but realized that was inviting certain discovery. Then she noticed a small crack in the wall.
Through it she could see the two men. They were pushing some of the weeds and debris on the floor of the mill out of the way. Then they produced an iron bar and began to pry loose a flat stone from the floor of the mill. There was a gap under the stone into which the men lowered the chest.
After they were finished, they put the stone back in place, pushed the weeds and debris back over the stone, and when they were content that everything looked natural again, they quickly left. Amy turned and leaned against the wall of the mill. She looked down at the river, and then rose and carefully looked through the gap in the mill wall. Seeing that the coast was clear, she climbed down to the river, crossed the ford, and returned to the others, her heart pounding away.
Chapter 33
At breakfast the next morning, the young people were abuzz with their journey to London that morning. Amy’s mother said nothing, but ate her breakfast in silence, while her father ate in silence as usual. When they were almost finished, Sir Frank and Lady Ramsey came into the dining room.
Sir Frank had made an early morning visit to the local authorities to tell them what Amy had seen the previous day. After her frightening near encounter with the brigands, she had not told her companions what happened because she did not want to spoil their fun nor scare them. She felt it was over and done with, and she had come out of it all right, and she didn’t want her mother to find out, so discretion seemed the best approach.
Later, after dinner, when she found Sir Frank alone in the living room, she told him all that had occurred that afternoon. He commended her discretion and recommended that she tell no one. Information has its way of seeping out through unseen cracks. A casual word spoken while a servant is present. The servant makes an innocent remark in the village that finds its way to the wrong ears. And this did involve valuables that the authorities
might wish to leave in their hiding place so as not to alert the thieves until they were ready to apprehend them.
They were soon on their way to London Town. The only dampener to their excitement and exuberance was that their mother decided that it would be improper for the girls to go to London without her being present. So Sir Anthony and Lady Sibbridge were journeying to London with them. At the Ramsey’s insistence, they rode in the Ramsey’s coach. Amy and Emma were with their father and mother and the Ramseys, while Mattie was with Leo and Pigsly in Pigsly’s green monster.
Early Wednesday morning, Sir Frank took Emma along on his visit to the observatory at Greenwich to see the telescope and astronomical equipment, as well as the mark where the prime meridian ran through the observatory, the 0° of longitude.
When they were gone, and her mother and Lady Ramsey were deep in conversation in the living room, while her father, not being in his own house with his own study, sat a silent sentinel beside them, Amy approached Leo.
“Would you be willing,” she asked, “to take me to where Sir Benjamin is residing?”
Amy was not as aggressive as she had been the previous day at lunch, largely because now she was in London where Ben was, she did not feel quite as frustrated, and also because some reality has set in. Now she was here she didn’t know quite what she wanted to do or where to begin. It took a little coaxing, but finally Leo acquiesced. A week ago she would have been loath to make such a request asking him to go into such a dangerous rat’s nest of crime and violence, but now she had found out that the genial and benign looking Leo was something more, and capable of defending himself and others, she felt comfortable asking him.
He agreed, less than enthusiasticly, but it all proved fruitless as Ben was not there. Seeing Amy’s frustration, and trying to cheer her, Leo suggested they go back to the house and get Amy and Mattie’s mother’s permission to go to Vauxhall Gardens, which would be closing soon for the winter. It costs two shillings each but was a lot of fun with fireworks and various acts and music.
At the house, to Amy’s surprise, her mother wanted to go with them to the Gardens. As they were preparing to leave, Amy, who had been loath to go, not being in the mood for gay and happy people, music and entertainments, because of her disappointment at not finding Ben, decided she had a headache and needed to stay at the house rather than going along with the others.
Perhaps it is the power of suggestion, or the guilt over embellishing or even inventing a headache, that caused Amy, who was exhausted with fretting over Ben and everything else that had been going on, to lie down to rest.
About three in the afternoon, one of the maids came in to tell her there was someone who wished to see her. The person was waiting in the kitchen not the drawing room, because they came to the back door. That puzzled Amy who could not imagine who would come to see her in London, and why they would go to the back door of the house and not the front door.
In the kitchen she found a woman with refined features, and who was not all that old, but looked worn and weary. The woman was wearing what were once the clothes of an affluent lady, but now they were worn and patched. Amy assumed they must be cast-offs.
With uncertainty, she approached the woman.
“May I help you?
“Are you Amaryllis Sebbridge, milady?”
“Yes, I am. May I inquire who you are and why you want to see me?”
“I am Christine Anselan.”
It took a few moments for it to sink in what the woman had just said. It was, of course, a name she was not unfamiliar with, although in a far different context. Sir Hugh Anselan had owned the ship that Captain Buchanan had commanded. Captain Buchanan and his wife and tiny daughter had visited Sir Hugh Anselan the day their coach plunged into the River Avon and they drowned. Sir Hugh had a ne’er-do-well son named Ishmael who seemed to have disappeared off the surface of the earth. He was the one that even Ben with all his acquaintances and contacts could not track down. No one knew of Ishmael Anselan or his whereabouts. And now a woman, a stranger to Amy, but with that same name, wanted to talk to her. Who was this woman?
All Amy could say was: “Christine Anselan?”
“Yes. I am the wife of Ishmael Anselan.”
Amy drew in her breath. It took her a short while to assimilate this information and recover from the shock.
“Did you know my father and mother?” Amy asked, inwardly saying to herself, who I think are my father and mother, or might be.
“No,” the woman replied. “I married Ishmael Anselan some time after he had lost Broomlee Park, his father’s estate, and all his father’s business holdings. The truth is, that after he squandered all his father’s money, he married me and squandered all my money too.”
Christine saw the way Amy was looking at her, almost as if asking “why marry such a wastrel?”
“I see how you look at me, as if I were some poor girl that got tricked into marriage by a scoundrel, or forced into marriage by a parent, but neither is the case. I knew what he was, more-or-less. Ishmael has never been very sly and shrewd about concealing things. He is as clumsy and transparent about his intentions as a clear crystal goblet. But one thing he is, or rather can be if he wants to, is charming. Poor Christine got charmed into marrying an incompetent wastrel, coward, and weakling. And look where I am now.”
Startled as she was by her visitor, there was something that did not occur to Amy at first, but now she began to wonder about it.
“How did you know who I am, Christine Anselan? I’m confused. I have come to seriously speculate about the possibility that I am the daughter of a ship’s captain who died some twenty years past, by the name of John Buchanan. How do you know about me? What do you know about me?
“You really are the daughter of John Buchanan.”
Amy drew in her breath. “Are you sure?”
“I am absolutely sure.”
“How do you know? How could you possibly know?”
“You might say that Ishmael Anselan told me, but not very nicely. There are a few things you need to know Amaryllis, or rather Agnes.”
“Agnes?”
“Yes, that is the name your parents gave you when you were born.”
Agnes. Amy turns the name over in her mind.
“Do you know your mother’s name? It was Margaret, although I gather her friends called her Madge. The day they died they had been called to Broomlee Hall by Sir Hugh Anselan.”
“I know,” said Amy, “my father was going to be promoted.
Christine laughs almost sardonically but clearly not aimed at Amy.
“Promotion? It was much more than a promotion. Do you know anything about your father?”
“Only what appeared in the papers, and in legal testimony and that was mainly concerned with the accident.”
“Your grandmother’s name, your father’s mother, was Caroline Buchanan. When she was young she had run off with a young Scotsman, a doctor I believe, and married him. Her family was furious, and shunned her, this included her brother. As years went by his attitude softened and when her son was grown he gave him a job in the family business. That was why Sir Hugh hired your father.”
“Sir Hugh was my father’s uncle? He was my...my grandmother’s brother?
“Yes, that is true. Sir Hugh had become more and more troubled by his son Ishmael’s scandalous ways and his incompetence, and it was clear he could not let him take over and ruin the business. Although, Sir Hugh felt perfectly healthy, he knew he must do something, so he decided to make your father his heir and for that reason he summoned your father as well as his lawyer to make a new will, which he did. And on the road back to Bristol your father and the lawyer, in fact, all who knew of the will, died in the “accident”.”
“You don’t believe it was an accident?” asked Amy in surprise. “Would Ishmael be as bold, as evil, to kill his own cousin, as well as innocent people, to avoid losing his inheritance?”
“Ishmael? No, he is a coward, but he might have
someone do it for him.”
“But they died less than an hour, maybe less than a half hour, after the will was changed, how could he have arranged that?”
“I am sure he had figured out what was afoot.”
“How do you possibly know all this?”
“When I was first married,” replied Christine, “I met various members of his family while he was still able to keep up appearances—with my money.”
“Ishmael Anselan is still alive?”
“Very much so.”
“So he must be the danger I was warned about.”
Amy explained the package she received and the letter. Christine was clearly puzzled by the letter and who could have written it, but she pointed out that although Ishmael was no danger to Amy personally, his acquaintances were. Christine strongly emphasized to Amy what a timid coward Ishmael was.
“One thing I must know, Christine, how did you know where to find me?
Christine explained that Ishmael had long since abandoned her after her money ran out.
“That’s why I live in poverty—genteel poverty—but it still is poverty. Typical of Ishmael, once all threats to his inheritance were out of the way he lost interest in the will and failed to destroy it. When he spent his way into hard times we lived in the house where I now waste away my days. When he worked out some scheme to get money he left me and forced his mother to take him in.”
“His mother is still alive?”
“Yes she is, poor woman.”
“That would be Sir Hugh Anselan’s widow?”
“I can’t imagine what that poor woman has to go through,” said Christine shaking her head. “I know how he treats people and she has had to put up with him all these years. When he abandoned me, he left all of his papers. I thought of destroying them, but decided to hide them, out of spite I suppose, so if he ever needed them he couldn’t find them. A few days ago he crashed into the house in a most troubled, almost deranged, state, and demanded the papers. He was furious and distraught when he couldn’t find them. He searched for a long time to try and find if I had hidden them, but he never found them. Ishmael is just not very smart. They were not very well hidden. In his ranting, I learned that an heir had turned up, evidently you, and I learned your name, and even where you were residing.”
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