A Lady in Disguise

by Sandra Byrd

  She squealed. “I feel so grand! Our home. And just ahead of the baby, too. But, Jamie . . . the stairs.”

  She got up, and I ducked back around the corner, hoping she wouldn’t climb the stairs.

  “Thomas knows someone at the London Hydraulic Power Company who will come to Winton and survey the possibility of having a lift installed. I overheard him talking to the hydraulic man, which is how I knew he’d intended it for us. Thomas said he could not bear to tear down the staircase, though. It had important memories for him.”

  My heart melted.

  “Does Miss Young not want any of the furnishings?” Lisbeth asked. “I understood that she was to send someone along to pick up her mother’s costumes and such, perhaps after the sale has closed. Perhaps she has made some arrangements with Thomas?”

  They walked down the hall then, and I leaned over and listened. I did not think they would mount the stairs because of Captain Lockwood’s injuries.

  “He told me he’d hoped to hear from her after an unpleasant conversation they had at Lady Tolfee’s ball, but Miss Young did not write. He sent a letter to her, which Miss Young did not respond to, and also sent several telegraphs. She’d left angry with him and did not move to reconcile.”

  I almost shouted. Where had my letter gone? And why had I not received his? A thought occurred. Why had Mrs. W’s magazines been rumpled? Someone, most probably the police, had been leafing through them. And perhaps pinching my mail, isolating me further from anyone who might help, including Thomas.

  Thomas had not heard from me and then let me have my way after I’d declined to eat supper with him. I trust you know your mind, Miss Young, he’d once said to me. I would not seek to persuade you, or anyone, against your will and better judgment.

  “Does Miss Young want the art?” Captain Lockwood asked. “Even if she and Thomas have fallen out, we should ask her if there is anything else at all that she would like, or we could keep for her for as long as she’d like.”

  So kind.

  “I shall write to her and ask,” Lisbeth said. “I liked her very much indeed. It’s too bad . . .”

  “It is a pity, indeed,” Jamie said. “I’d never seen Thomas so happy, ever, as he was when he was with Miss Young. He’s done well by us and I hoped he would find happiness for himself, too. Alas.”

  “You’re happy, then?” Lisbeth asked.

  Jamie responded. “Knowing this is to be ours, now the papers are signed, well, last night was the first night I have had no nightmares since the war.”

  “I’m glad we shared this moment privately,” Lisbeth said. “Just we two, our first day in our home. The happiest day of my life. I’m also glad Thomas will not know we breached his secret.” A soft kiss.

  They began to talk about their coming baby, and I slipped away, not wanting to intrude, even secretly, on their intimate thoughts and the happiest day of their lives.

  I went back into the Tapestry bedroom and cried softly into my maid’s apron.

  Oh, Thomas, what a fool I have been. It’s not that your mother wanted the house for herself, it’s that she wanted it for her wounded child! Any good mother would want her child near her, especially a child, even a grown one, who needed help as Jamie did. It was not wrong that she prevailed upon her other child, Thomas, who would help her do what was best for them all.

  Yes, Lady Lockwood had been cutting and sharp. But she had also truly appreciated the gift I’d sent, and I’d been so concerned with being treated badly that I did not see how I had made some very similar assumptions myself.

  Lord, please let me be filled with grace from now on.

  The mercy was this—it was not too late. Unless Thomas had eloped during his month’s long journey to their other holdings, I could go to him and say what a fool I had been, and ask if he’d be willing to overlook that, this once.

  I sneaked another biscuit out of my bag, hoping that Captain and Mrs. Lockwood would leave soon. There was another piece of my heart I needed to save before I could seek out Thomas. The part that had belonged to Papa. I could not rest until I knew.

  Jamie and Lisbeth finally left, locking the door behind them, but as the carriage pulled away, it stopped midway down the drive. Jamie had the driver get out and look around for something, but he apparently saw nothing that concerned them because they soon were on their way once more.

  I thought, I must get directly to searching. I did not know what I was looking for except some documentation from my thorough father. I pressed on in happy hope: the next day I would seek out Thomas and ask him and Colmore Dunn to help me with said finding.

  I took another biscuit from my bag to quell the gnawing in my stomach. I spied the love letters from Mamma to Papa. An unwelcome memory summoned forth. Collingsworth, in my bedchamber, his voice sarcastic and sure.

  Oh, and speaking of love letters, don’t even think of running off to your viscount for help . . . Francis told me all about him—you’ll see him, but not Francis now, will ya? . . . Well, the elite aren’t going to help you, my dear, because it would mean turning on their own. That, they will never do.

  What would Colmore Dunn find in the certificates? It had not looked good. Maybe they would not want to help me after all.

  I must find what Papa had left here.

  I finished looking in the Tapestry room and made a small pile of items I wanted to take with me. I went downstairs and through the passage to the laundry and the kitchens and continued to look for anything of Papa’s, even risking the beetles. Nothing.

  I looked longingly at the sink and the tap. I had no cup, but I could cup my hands. I turned the water on, and it spat brown liquid, and then ran yellow. Perhaps, given time, it would run clean. But I would not take that chance. I felt badly that I had not tended to this when Davidson had been here, neither I nor Papa. We had not known how to care for a house like this.

  I pushed open the double doors into the old linen area, which now housed Mamma’s things, and looked through the costumes once more, each trunk, one by one. Nothing in the pockets nor the false floors. Nothing in the sewing case. I peeked out of the small window in the room, but it was nearly dark and I could see nothing but a shadow of Thomas’s house in the distance.

  I hurried through the underground passage, and then upstairs into the main house. The oil lamp was flickering, and I did not want to be caught in the basement with no light.

  I walked up the stairs and double-checked the lock. The house, which had seemed so cheerful with Jamie and Lisbeth and the autumn sun streaming in, menaced once more.

  The cloths were pulled across the chairs in the Saloon. I heard the tiny squeak of mice. I looked at the gaping sockets in the chandeliers, then squeezed my eyes shut and remembered them lit and lovely, to change the mood. I ran up the staircase.

  I should leave now. There is nothing here. I am at risk here at night. The house was ominous and seemed to have swallowed me whole, as Jonah had been, as I wrestled in its belly.

  If I left now I would be walking, alone, in the dark. At least in the house I would be safe.

  In fact, I decided I might remain locked inside by myself until someone came again. Perhaps Jamie and Lisbeth would come with Lady Lockwood, very soon, as the transfer should be completed.

  My tongue was dry; it had been an entire day since I had anything to drink. My stomach clenched with hunger, and I tied the apron tighter around my middle to stave it off. I could wait a day or two at most. No more.

  I closed the door and looked out of the window. I opened up my valise and pulled out the letters, to read for comfort with the remainder of the lamplight.

  First the love letters. Then, the letter indicating Mamma’s desire to donate Winton.

  I have donated it, Mamma, and the nicest people will move in. You’d be so happy.

  I read the last letter, the one from Papa.

  Marry well, someone you trust and love without reserve, a man who can rescue you, my little ‘damsel in distress,’ should you need it.r />
  I hope to, Papa. I just don’t know about the certificates, you see, and if Thomas . . .

  Wait.

  I reread that.

  Damsel in distress. I knew who that was. It was Rapunzel.

  Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.

  My heart flooded with confidence. I had overlooked something! Whatever Papa had hidden was in the Rapunzel costume. He had signaled me by tying the braids in an odd manner—Mamma would never have allowed that, and Papa would have seen them stored properly out of love for her. I wish I had noticed that my first visit—but then again, if I had, the evidence might have been taken during the break-in at Cheyne that followed.

  I would go to the costumes directly, in the morning, when there was light enough to see well. And, well, I did not want to traverse the house, and the underground passage, alone at night.

  I pushed a heavy piece of furniture against the door, using much of my remaining strength, and then lay atop the made bed.

  I was right. I knew I was right.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I didn’t wake as early as I would have liked to, in spite of my excitement. The anxiety wrought by physical and emotional testing, and no water, had taken a toll. I coughed a little; the smoke had now oozed through the cracks in the house, surrounding the windows, and winnowed its way in through the mortar cracks. I looked at my watch pin.

  Ten o’clock. I would go downstairs, look in the costume room, and leave. I could make it to the train and back to London by early afternoon. I would go to the police officer that I suspected had whispered through my door, warning me. Or . . . I could look up Colmore Dunn’s office. Surely someone would know. I could ask Lady Lockwood where to find Thomas. I didn’t want to see Lady Lockwood till my father’s name was clear and I certainly didn’t want anyone here to see me dressed as a maid.

  I gathered my hair into a long blond knot, not bothering to replace the wig. It did not matter any longer. I looked out through the window; the entire green was fogged with smoke.

  It seemed to me that the west fields, too, were blanketed with smoke. I did not think my fields, nor the Lockwoods’, were to be fired. Thomas had said he intended to spray for Hessian fly. Hadn’t he? Perhaps it had not been effective.

  I had my bag packed and said a quiet good-bye to my mother’s room. “With some luck, I shall return, to find you warmly loved by a new family,” I said as I turned and pulled the door shut behind me.

  I walked down the stairs, but felt, eerily, as if I was being watched. I stopped abruptly and listened. I heard nothing and walked round the next set of stairs. There were watching eyes, somewhere.

  Gillian. You are imagining things. If someone had wanted to do you harm it could already have been easily accomplished.

  Once on the main-floor hallway, I stopped. A tin rested on the floor. A biscuit tin. I had not noticed that the night before; it had been dark. I leaned down and picked it up; there was still a biscuit in it. I picked it up; it was soft and fresh.

  Davidson? One would think the biscuit would have gone hard in a day or so, though, being exposed.

  A cold sweat filmed my arms.

  Someone else was here.

  No, I reassured myself. Gillian. You haven’t heard or seen anyone else. Not a footstep, not a noise. The biscuit tin was left from another time. I would have seen or heard someone or Jamie and Lisbeth would have noticed. Wouldn’t they have?

  Then again, they had stopped their carriage. Had they noticed something amiss?

  I picked up my pace a little. Through the Servery, down the stairs, and through the passage toward the outbuilding that held the kitchens, the laundry, and the storage room.

  I opened the door to the concealed servants’ passage and was hit with a fresh blast of smoke. Why? Perhaps due to the overhead air grate open to the ground. I reached the bottom stair and a deposit of ash drew my attention. I bent to look at it; it was spent pipe ash, as if someone had tapped his pipe against the rail to clear the pipe, right there.

  I knelt and leaned in closer. It was difficult to be certain because the air was already tainted with smoke from the field, but it did, to me, smell of that specific Turkish tobacco.

  A shiver of fear ran through me. The biscuit tin. And now ash, expensive, exclusive ash, the kind of ash found in the Garrick Club, and also in the Collingsworths’ pipes.

  Surely not.

  I picked up my bag again and began to walk purposefully toward the costume room. When I was nearly there, I passed the grate in the ceiling. Except that there was no longer a grate. It was a gaping hole. Someone had removed the grate, allowing for access into the house and the passage. The smoke poured in, too.

  I would get to the costume room, and look quickly. I would find what I knew must be there and then I would run, not to London, but to Darington. I would love to have made a better impression on Lady Lockwood after Papa had been cleared. But this was no time for pride.

  I did not want Jamie and Lisbeth to know I’d eavesdropped.

  The blood rushed to my head and I clenched both of my fists, the one carrying the bag and the one that was not. I sensed risk racing toward me. I must reach the costume room with all haste and find what Papa had left.

  I got to the room, slipped my free hand through the left door’s handle, and pulled it open. Once inside the room, I set down the bag and closed the door behind me. I went directly to the case that held Rapunzel.

  Was it my imagination? Did I hear footsteps? I stopped. I knew, when I was alone, that every sound was amplified. Perhaps it had been the pipes or men in the field.

  I shook the dress, and there was nothing. I pulled it out of the case and ran my fingers over it. As I did, it seemed to me that a shadow went by the window. Had it been a shadow? Had I imagined it?

  I returned to the costume and looked it over. At the waist, I recognized some very shoddy sewing. Someone had torn this and then sewn it back again. Someone who didn’t know how to sew. I went to the mending table and pulled open a few drawers. Yes—there was the thread that had been used, loosely spooled.

  I’m sorry, Mamma. I ripped the dress open along the poor seams. “Yes, yes, this is it!”

  A notebook fell out between the layers of the gown. A small notebook, but as I opened the pages I read names and dates and places and companies. Officers with their division letters and personal warrant numbers.

  Some were listed under the heading Will Testify. Some were listed under the heading Compromised. The names of some titled men appeared by the names of companies. A heading, Seen Going into King Street, was followed by names and dates. Then, Fraudulent Companies. An address on Berry Street was listed, and noted to have been paid with illegally gained income.

  The Collingsworths’ new house was on Berry Street. Inspector Collingsworth had said my house would be seized for having been purchased with ill-gotten gains.

  No, it would not. But his would be.

  Collingsworth was, in fact, listed next. Father? Son? Both? And Jones, among some others, under the Compromised column with details on their illegal activities.

  I snapped it shut. “Papa. This will do!” I whispered in victory.

  I heard footsteps, very clearly, then. I was not imagining this.

  I opened the theater case and climbed into it, pulling the dress and the notebook in with me, and then pulled the door shut. If anyone looked into the room, they would see it all as it had been.

  I breathed heavily, but quietly. My breath in the small space was heavy, hot, and moist. I didn’t hear anything for a moment, but then I did. Someone is standing outside the door.

  The door to the room opened. And then a voice. “Collingsworth said you’d lead me to it, you foolish, foolish girl. That disguise was clever, but I knew where to look.”

  Jones!

  I nearly fainted with fear. My knees weakened, and I might have fallen had I not been so firmly propped within the trunk. I braced myself, expecting him to rush into the room and fling the doors open
. I counted to ten. The door to the room slammed shut. Was he in the room with me, still?

  The double doors were pushed open. He looked in each trunk and then opened the door to mine.

  I screamed, and he yanked me out of the trunk. I clutched the notebook, but I was not strong enough to keep it in my hand. He wrenched it from me and opened it up, paging through it, before coughing.

  “Ah, yes. The inspector will be very pleased indeed to get hold of this information. Thank you kindly, young miss.”

  “Give that to me!” I reached to snatch it, and he batted my hand away.

  “It’s mine, now, miss. Shame you went and read it, though, because now you’ll have to join Sergeant Roberts, the other man who put his nose where it did not belong.”

  Was he going to knife me, too? I called for help.

  “No one is going to help you, Miss Young. You made sure that no one was here, and I listened in on that nice young couple yesterday to see if they mentioned you. They did not. Bit of a boon—when they find the bones, they won’t even know it’s you. You’ll just have disappeared, like this.” He snapped his fingers. “Poof! A theater trick!”

  “Someone will know,” I said.

  “No one will know. It seems it’s your lucky day, however. The smoke is a much kinder way to die than committing self-murder by jumping from a high window of your former house due to your despair over your father having been found guilty and your viscount, the new owner of said house, having left you.”

  “I would never . . . ,” I began, and then I realized he was saying he had been planning to stage my death to look like a suicide. My face wrenched, in spite of my efforts to keep my fear from it.

  He laughed. “Anything else?” He picked up my bag. “I’ll take this, just in case. He looked through the Rapunzel trunk. I tried to run for the door but he caught my arm and held it hard enough to bruise. When he found nothing of interest, he used a costume sash to tie my hands behind my back and then he shoved me back in, roughly. I tried to kick him, and he pushed me hard once more and then slammed the trunk door shut.