Mist of Midnight

by Sandra Byrd

  I felt her spirit there, familiar, almost like perfume that lingered long after one left the room.

  But that was nonsense. The familiarity was that she had, in some way, been me, if only for a time. She now lay dead, in my grave. She’d plundered my family and poached my heritage. The room was quiet but not at rest, if a room could be thus described. The linens were upon her bed; I assumed they had been washed and replaced. How had she died? Had they been bloodied? I’m not sure I should like to know.

  There was nothing personal left in the room, no dresses nor shoes: Michelene had seen to that. I walked over to the small table by the window, which seemed to have served as a desk of some kind. Had she written letters here, authorized bills, pretending to be me?

  I brought the lamp close to the desk and could see, faintly, written in Tamil on the desk itself, a proverb.

  Evil will befall him who does evil to others.

  It had been brushed on in henna by a practiced hand. Was the person who had pretended to be me part Indian, an Anglo-­Indian? Or had it been the maid? “Why did someone write this?” I whispered. “And why in Tamil?”

  Because no one else here can read Tamil.

  But they clearly wanted, expected, some Tamil-reading person to find it.

  I heard what I thought was a voice, a whisper, so I turned the lamp as low as it could go without putting it out altogether and sat steady in the chair. I motioned for Marie to come to me so I could keep her quiet, too, but she faithfully remained on the bed of the young woman who had first taken her in as an orphaned kitten.

  Who had done evil to whom? Had evil been visited upon the woman who had impersonated me? Or was someone promising justice in the end to whosoever had done evil to an innocent woman? The possibilities traveled through my mind. The imposter. Her maid. Someone unknown. Someone known.

  Luke? I had to face that real possibility.

  He had, in every other way, seemed so honorable to me. I had heard innuendos from others, but had not yet seen evidence of it myself. I could not believe that of him, still, in spite of his own admission of waywardness.

  Could not believe or would not believe?

  Would not believe.

  I wish my mother were here, Lord. I wish for guidance. I do not want to make a terrible mistake and give myself and my house, my legacy, to an untrustworthy man. But equally, I do not want to live my life in loneliness, and Luke is the only man who has ever quickened my heart. Why would You take my parents and brother from me but not provide someone else to love me?

  After a few more moments, I heard no more voices and turned the lamp back up. I quietly opened the wardrobe, but saw nothing, as I’d expected. There was most probably little else to see in the room but I wanted to open the remaining bureau drawers, just to be certain. I pulled them out one by one. All were empty. One, however, stuck and did not smoothly return to place. I jiggled it a little, then harder, and it loosened and slid back, but as it did, something clanked against the frame behind the drawer. I reached my hand to the back, only able to do so because my arm and hand were thin, and unstuck something from the farthest reaches. I pulled it out.

  A bottle of Dr. Warburg’s Tincture! It was capped, but a sticky ooze surrounded the neck of the bottle, which is how, I supposed, it had come to be stuck to the drawer. I set it down and replaced the drawer. Captain Whitfield was the only one who’d ever mentioned the tincture, and had, in fact, procured it from the military hospital he frequented.

  I picked up the bottle and prepared to leave the room, gathering the cat in my free arm as she would not leave otherwise.

  Luke had brought some tincture to me from the military hospital. He’d brought some to her, too, it seemed. She’d have had to claim malaria if she’d been posing as someone who’d lived in India.

  Once in my room I tucked the key and the newly found bottle into the travel dress deeply hidden in my wardrobe. I wished in some ways that I was still the simple, hopeful girl who had worn that thin dress sailing to what she’d thought would be a peaceful future six months earlier. I was home, yes, but now in love with a man I was uncertain I could trust. A man who would shortly leave for Derbyshire or, more probably, for India.

  I looked at my bureau, at my own half-empty bottle of Warburg’s. I determined to take it no more. It was, perhaps, not safe, not if Luke was who I feared he might be, doing what I feared he might do, and may have already done. Could he have given her a bottle that had been . . . amended, somehow?

  Poisoned.

  That night, I slipped into an edgy sleep.

  “Here,” a voice soothed; a hammered silver cup was held out. “Take it. Drink. It will make you well.” I closed my mouth firm against it but the cup was pressed against my lips anyway. It was not laudanum, this time, but tincture.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Several days later I was reading in the drawing room when Delia’s carriage pulled up. I stood up and straightened the gazettes, expecting Landreth to announce her, but no announcement came. I walked to the window and waited, wondering if all was well. Within twenty minutes she and her sister rode out with Captain Whitfield, exercising his horses again, apparently.

  This was most strange. Luke had said he did not intend to ride with her again. I had not asked why, though he had implied that perhaps it was to emphasize to her that there would be no further relationship between them. Perhaps I had assumed to be true what I wanted to be true.

  Perhaps I should walk in the autumn gardens?

  I could go near the riding areas. But not too near.

  I put on my cloak and walked down the sweeping front steps, past the lions, and toward the riding area, pretending to casually inspect the plants that were neatly grouped throughout the damp green grass of the gardens. All of a sudden in the distance their horses turned, faced the house, the grounds, and me—and then stopped.

  I did not wish to be seen as spying on them. I looked to my left, a long walk to the house. And to my right, an old stone house—once a pump house, Landreth had told me—a garden shed. I had not been in there yet.

  Inside, the walls were crumbling, and though it was dark a bit of light seeped in through broken windows. Webs claimed those windows, corner by corner, from the inside.

  Luke and Delia began to ride toward where I stood, though they could not see me, I believed, through the tall trees. I had no choice. I pulled open the door to the storage shed and slipped inside.

  It smelt of dry dirt and when some flew up with the movement of the door, I sneezed. My eyes adjusted to the light, and I crept close to a window. There were those webs, gauzy, and thready, and everywhere. There was one spider, a small one.

  I swallowed my gorge and squeezed my eyes shut, pushing away the memory of the behemoth making its way toward me. In my mind’s eye, it faded.

  Be strong and courageous.

  I opened my eyes and ignored the spider and the temptation to flee. A flood of pride filled me for a moment. I had, in part, overcome this fear!

  Voices approached. Delia and Luke were clearly arguing as they rode toward the shed. I could not hear distinct words, only heated, pleading tones. I peeked out of the window. Delia’s face was quite flushed. She tried to ride near Captain Whitfield, and he turned and seemed to speak to her in an uncommon anger and then he rode on ahead of her. She caught up, spoke again; her face looked pleading once more. He rode ahead of her, again, then, seeming to change his mind, turned his horse full around and came up behind but clearly not alongside her. Her sister, chaperoning, followed at a distance. Delia then rode toward the stables and Luke followed as they passed by me.

  After some minutes, Delia’s father’s carriage rounded the bend away from Headbourne House. She’d not even stopped for a quick greeting.

  I’d see her the next night, at the theater. Perhaps I could pry from her what was amiss without letting her know that I’d seen it transpire.r />
  My eyes had adjusted to the light, and I could see that the shed was not very big and, now that dust had settled, all it consisted of was a few shelves with tins of herbicides and paint. Some garden tools, rusty. An old wheel.

  I turned to leave, but something under a shelf caught my eye. It was a glove, brown, which is why it had blended into the ground so easily. It was hatch-stitched in an unusual manner.

  I recognized it instantly as one of Luke’s.

  Underneath it was a black bottle top, which, with my gloves still on, I picked up and examined. I was certain it was the cap to a bottle of Dr. Warburg’s Tincture.

  Michelene had said the day maid had told her that Captain Whitfield had been rummaging through the room after the lonely, midnight burial of the dead woman. What had he been looking for? The bottle I’d found? Why had he not wanted the Tamil inscription read? Perhaps he was worried it would incriminate him.

  I returned to my room. Once there, I compared my bottle with the cap I’d found, and discovered that, indeed, they matched.

  I had said I wanted to see some proof with my own eyes. Luke’s glove, expensively made and individually patterned, had lain under a shelf with tins labeled arsenic, a tasteless poison, all knew, normally used to kill rats. Near that glove had been a cap which fitted the style, perfectly, of Dr. Warburg’s Tincture, which Whitfield had been the only one, in my experience, able to procure.

  My heart beat faster, in fear, and it was no longer due to the presence of a spider.

  In spite of growing circumstantial evidence, I didn’t want to believe that Luke had had anything to do with her death. I had seen nothing at all in his manner toward me that would suggest that he was capable of such a thing.

  But there was the nagging question—why did others around him, some of long standing in the area, act so coolly toward him? Who else would have motive to kill her? Or why had she killed herself if she believed me dead, as, clearly from my own experience, did all.

  I looked at the bottle. It means nothing. Yes, I admitted to myself, I desperately want it to mean nothing. It is circumstantial, certainly. But significant. I will say nothing, but I will, as Scripture exhorts, in all things, guard my heart. I need to withdraw, for a time, from Captain Whitfield. From Luke.

  I wasn’t sure I could withdraw. He was like the finest laudanum to me—he comforted me and brought me rest and joy and happiness. And yet he could confuse me, too. When I was with him, all seemed clear and easy. When away, I considered that perhaps it was best we remain apart.

  I went into the armoire to pull out the key, to return it to Mrs. Blackwood, and the bottle I’d found in the imposter’s room. I reached to the back, pulling aside gowns till I found the old one, and reached into the pocket.

  The key was still there. The sticky bottle was not.

  Sweat broke out. Who had taken the bottle? How could they possibly have known it was there? Whoever had been in my room had known just when I’d be gone, and had no compunction about stealing from me. It had been done, clearly, with intention. To protect herself? Himself?

  Within an hour Annie appeared at my door, silver tray in hand. On it was the most exquisite embossed envelope I’d ever seen, clearly made with linen threads. The embossing read Miss Rebecca Ravenshaw.

  “It’s from Lady Ledbury,” she said before I could ask.

  “Thank you,” I said, taking it in hand and placing the key on the tray. As she turned to leave I spoke up once more. “Annie—was anyone in my room whilst I was out?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t believe so, miss. I’ve been on this floor cleaning for the past few hours.”

  “Michelene, perhaps?”

  “She’s gone to Winchester, as you’ll recall,” she said. “You gave her permission?”

  Yes, yes I had. “Has anyone else been about?”

  She thought for a moment. “Thornton. He’s been looking for table linens in advance of Captain Whitfield’s guests, soon to arrive.”

  Thornton, Whitfield’s valet. What guests? It would be impolite of me to ask, of course, as I’d told him to consider the guest cottage to be his home till he moved out completely. I was surprised that he hadn’t made his way over today to tell me, though.

  “Will that be all?” she asked.

  I nodded and she shut the door behind her. I pulled the invitation from the envelope; it was for the illustrious ball the earl and his wife held each autumn. The theme was Heritage. I knew from Delia that guests were expected to bring a unique gift to share and that I would have to commission a costume to be worn. After I’d considered what that costume should be, I’d go to Winchester, with Michelene, and have it made.

  I went to bed that night thinking about the Ledburys’ grand event, and how they had treated Luke so poorly from when he was a small boy, very much left alone.

  I arose and looked out of the window, hoping for a glimpse of him, but the guesthouse was dark. Beyond it, I could see the graveyard. The mists were out. I’d come to learn that, as the year turned darker, from summer to autumn, the mists thickened. My angel statue, sword held high, guarded the entrance, but behind him, plant and bush skeletons, brown and spindly, rattled in the breeze. Dead leaves clung, fruitlessly, all vitality drained. A sudden gust came and a flock of them spiraled to the ground like suicidal birds, golden and red, the remains of which would be blown away and forgotten, never to live again.

  I let my eyes be drawn to the headstones. I could see a few, though not clearly, of course. I knew moss would have overtaken most of them; they’d be thick with green and brown, black perhaps with mold.

  Mold grows well in the dark.

  You have to visit it, you know, I told myself.

  Yes, I will, I answered.

  When?

  Soon. Very soon.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  We three left for Winchester late the following afternoon, spending a short time in the dressmaker’s shop in order to commission my outfit for the Ledburys’ ball, an outfit that was to be very unusual indeed. After a refreshing tea break we walked to the theater, which was already thrumming with chatter. Michelene looked yearningly at the gathering and I wondered what it would be like for her to have the door closed at almost every entertainment simply because she was a maid. I should not like that very much. She did not seem to, either. Daniel would be around shortly to collect her.

  Lady Ashby, alighting from her carriage at nearly the same time as I, broke out in a delighted smile when she saw me. “My dear, what marvelous timing,” she said, as her son Lewis soon appeared.

  “Do sit with us.” Baron Ashby took my arm and steered me inside. I was fairly resigned about the whole matter; sitting with them was better than being a social orphan. As my carriage pulled away, I saw Lady Ashby and Michelene catch each other’s eyes. Michelene pulled the curtain over the carriage window. Lady Ashby turned away in disgust.

  “Do you know her?” I asked Lady Ashby. “Mademoiselle d’Arbonneau?”

  “Certainly not.” She popped her parasol shut.

  The interior of the theater was rich with claret-colored velvet trimming the walls, which were highly polished dark wood. The suggestion of cigar smoke lingered; perhaps many of the men had congregated in the smoking parlor nearby before meeting for the speech. One could barely see several feet ahead of oneself, for the crowd, and the collection of tall black hats. Baron Ashby and his mother ordered steadying sherries; I declined, and disentangled myself from them long enough to slip through the crowds to greet Delia.

  I tapped her lightly on the shoulder; her sister was in attendance with her. “Delia?”

  She turned toward me, and as she did a man bumped into her in the crush; when he had made his way past her I noticed that he’d dislodged a small piece of her elaborate hair. It was one of, apparently, several false pieces holding up her magnificent arrangement.

  �
��Oh, Rebecca, hello.”

  “I missed seeing you this week,” I said. “I hope you’re well. I received my invitation to the Ledburys’ ball just a short time ago. I’m eager to learn more about it from you. Perhaps you and your sister might join me for tea sometime?”

  Her eyes filmed. “I’m afraid I won’t be attending. I’ll be sailing to India soon.”

  “You’re leaving, for certain?” I asked.

  Her sister spoke up with both sorrow, for her sister I supposed, and anger, perhaps with me? “Our father said that time enough had passed, our brother is expecting her, and she’ll sail before November. Our brother has already arranged several promising introductions.”

  Enough time had passed to catch a fish in England, as Michelene would say. Was that what their horseback argument had been about?

  “I’m very sorry,” I said. “I hope that we will be able to take tea of an afternoon together before you leave.”

  “I should like that, but I expect to be constantly occupied with packing and preparing,” she said. The gold flake of social kindness hid cold steel beneath. I felt as though she’d slapped me. She clearly felt she had lost and that I, in some way, had won. If only she’d known. I withdrew with equal coolness, my feelings wounded.

  Shortly thereafter, Lord Ashby made his way over to me. “The best seats will be taken if we don’t move into the auditorium.” He looked to Delia. “Good evening, Miss Dainley. I’ve heard you’re shortly leaving for India. Best of luck to you.”

  Delia took a deep breath, the breath of a woman frustrated with a man who need not worry about finding a wife, his title surely bait enough, though perhaps he’d had to look for one richer than was easily attained. Suddenly, she looked wan and old. “Thank you, Lord Ashby.”

  He took my arm to steer me away. I wanted to reach over and fix her fallen hairpiece, but to do so would be to call attention to it. Instead, I prayed that her sister would spot it shortly and tuck it in.