The significance of Dimity’s words was not lost on me. If she’d spoken with Lucasta, she must have known the woman personally, which meant that she could give me a reliable, firsthand account of Lucasta’s behavior and character.
Grateful for the diversion, I sank more deeply into the plump armchair and focused my attention on recalling the strange tale Catchpole had told about Lucasta Eleanora DeClerke—granddaughter of Grundy and Rose, heiress to the family fortune, the last of the line, the brokenhearted bride-that-never-was, the plucky young woman who turned Ladythorne into a sanctuary for wounded soldiers and spent her last years on earth alone in one room, consumed with hatred, writing endless letters to America.
“You spoke with Lucasta DeClerke?” I said, emerging from my musings. “I thought she was a recluse. Did you know her?”
I met her on a few occasions. My commanding officer sent me up from London during the war, to collect information about British flying officers convalescing at Ladythorne Abbey. Lucasta wasn’t a recluse in those days—quite the opposite. She was most hospitable. When I told her I was from Finch, she welcomed me as a neighbor. It was from her that I learned the history of the house and the DeClerke family. She made my days at the abbey among the most pleasant of the war.
The wind whistled outside the windows, and I looked up from the journal to stare into the fire, lost in thought. If I closed my eyes I could see the mischievous child in Catchpole’s photograph grown into young womanhood. If I concentrated, I could see Dimity in her trim uniform, walking arm in arm with the bustling heiress, surveying the hospital beds dressed with the family linen, the nourishing meals served on the family china. Dimity would have been fascinated by the story of Grundy DeClerke’s rise in the world, impressed by Lucasta’s dedication, and grateful to find respite, however brief, from the dangerous, dark days of the Blitz.
“How old was Lucasta when you met her?” I asked.
She was nineteen, and I can vouch for the fact that she possessed a teenager’s boundless energy. No job was beneath her. She lent a hand wherever it was needed, whether it was emptying bedpans or filling out reams of paperwork. I could scarcely keep up with her. She was sweetly pretty, too, and took great care always to dress smartly. The ward matron didn’t approve, naturally, but Lucasta paid her not the slightest attention. She knew by instinct that the sight of a pretty girl can lift a wounded man’s spirits, and dressed accordingly. She brought color, freshness, and gaiety to men who’d almost forgotten such things existed.
Lucasta seemed to come to life before me, tireless, cheerful, caring, and so very young. What brutal blow, I wondered, had transformed this scintillating creature, this beguiling gamine, into a shriveled hermit huddled in one room, living on tea and toast and hatred?
“What happened to her, Dimity? Why did she change?”
No one came through the war unchanged, Lori. Lucasta had suffered heart-rending losses.
“So did you,” I reminded her gently, “but you didn’t let your suffering turn you into a hermit.”
While it’s true that my fiancé was killed in the war, my situation was different from Lucasta’s. I was older when I lost Bobby than she was when she lost her young man. I’d led a less sheltered life. I was better prepared to carry on, despite my grief. And
I caught my breath when the handwriting stopped; after a moment, I gave a little sputter of exasperation. “Please don’t leave me dangling, Dimity. Catchpole couldn’t tell us what happened because he didn’t know. Lucasta never confided in him or his parents. If you can fill in the blanks, please do.”
I was about to add that I could cope with my losses better than Lucasta because I wasn’t betrayed by those I served, as she was.
I shifted Reginald to my left arm and turned up the lamp’s wick, the better to see Dimity’s response to my next question.
“How was she betrayed, Dimity?”
I found out quite by accident. I was working late one night at headquarters and overheard a conversation between two high-ranking officers. Something had happened at Ladythorne Abbey. A theft. Miss Lucasta DeClerke believed that one of the American officers then in residence at the abbey had stolen an extremely valuable family heirloom. It was a blanket accusation. She had no particular suspect in mind, but she wanted the culprit identified and brought to justice, and her property returned.
“But no one listened to her,” I put in eagerly, as Catchpole’s tale came rushing back. “Catchpole told us that the whole thing was hushed up, that the authorities brushed her off because they didn’t want to provoke a diplomatic stink between allies so near the end of the war in Europe.”
There was more to it than that, I’m afraid. Lucasta evidently hurt her case by withholding vital information. She offered no proof that the theft had taken place. She refused to show anyone where the stolen items had been kept, and she never retained a solicitor to represent her. Even if the military authorities had wanted to conduct an investigation at such a sensitive time, they had no way of collecting evidence or following leads.
I sighed. “I guess they couldn’t just take her word for it.”
I’m afraid not. I’m certain that their refusal to take her at her word compounded her sense of outrage. She’d welcomed those young men into her home. No doors were locked against them because she trusted them implicitly. When they betrayed her trust, she turned to the authorities for redress, and they, too, betrayed her. They shut down the convalescent home and left Lucasta to shake her fist at the wind. It was a sad and sorry end to what had been a happy and successful partnership.
I twiddled Reginald’s ears absently and tried to imagine what Lucasta had felt at the happy partnership’s ignominious demise. “I can understand the military keeping a lid on the incident, Dimity, but if I’d been in Lucasta’s shoes, I’d have screamed it from every rooftop in London. At the very least, I’d’ve written an angry letter to the Times. Why didn’t she go public?”
Her cries would have gone unheard. Consider the state we were in, Lori. We had far more pressing problems to deal with than an unsubstantiated theft in a remote country house. We were clearing the streets of rubble, rebuilding, trying to conceive of what life would be like without war. It was a year before I could sleep without blackout curtains, many more before I stopped reflexively scanning the night sky for bombers. Who would listen to the unproven complaints of a wealthy heiress when the rest of us were still queuing up at the butcher’s with ration books, and when thousands were still homeless?
“She must have felt utterly abandoned,” I said, drawing Reginald closer. “Did she tell you what happened? Did she ask you for help?”
Lucasta refused to see me, speak with me, or have anything to do with me after her demands for justice were rebuffed. She cut me out of her life completely because I’d told her of my great friendship with your mother.
I put a hand to my forehead, remembering Catchpole’s rants about thieving Yanks. “She cut you out because my mother was an American, and Lucasta had declared her own private war on the United States.”
I’m afraid so. It’s a great pity, but this final blow, coming upon so many others, drove Lucasta into a kind of obsessive madness from which she never emerged.
“What on earth was stolen?” I demanded. “What material possession could possibly be worth the price of her sanity?”
It was known as the Peacock parure.
“Sorry?” I squinted at the unfamiliar word. “What’s a . . . parure? ”
A parure is a matched set of jewelry. The Peacock parure was a particularly magnificent set: It consisted of a tiara, four bracelets, a choker, an elaborate necklace, two brooches, and a pair of earrings—an unparalleled display of the finest diamonds and the purest white gold. Grundy DeClerke bought the Peacock parure from an Indian prince and presented it to Lucasta’s grandmother as a belated wedding gift when they gave their Jubilee ball. I like to think it was his way of thanking her for marrying him long before he’d made his fortune.
&nbs
p; An image of Rose DeClerke took shape in my mind—the ostrich feathers waving languidly above the glittering tiara, the sturdy wrists graced with four spectacular bracelets, the daring neckline designed to display the waterfall of diamonds cascading from the choker encircling her neck.
“And the earrings were the size of my thumbnail,” I murmured, and sat up excitedly. “I think I’ve seen it, Dimity. I think I’ve seen the Peacock parure. Not the real thing, but a photograph of it.” I described the morocco-bound album Jamie had found in the library, the memento of the costume ball the DeClerkes had given in honor of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. “There were peacocks in the photo, too, so she must have been wearing the parure. Diamonds for the Diamond Jubilee,” I concluded. “What could be more romantic?”
The parure became a cherished heirloom, Lori. It was given to Lucasta’s mother on her wedding day, and Lucasta, in turn, would have received it on hers, had the happy day ever occurred. The Peacock parure wasn’t simply a material possession, my dear. It was a symbol of everything Lucasta had lost—the past she’d shared with her father, the future she’d hoped to share with her husband. Its disappearance must have cut her to the quick.
“Then why didn’t she cooperate with the authorities?” I asked, with a touch of asperity. “Why didn’t she show them the hiding place? Why didn’t she hire a lawyer? I mean, if her grandmother’s jewels meant the world to her, why didn’t she do everything she could to get them back? Unless . . .” My voice trailed off as a disturbing idea derailed my train of thought.
Dimity was a step ahead of me. Unless the parure was never stolen. Unless Lucasta invented the theft for reasons of her own. Is that what you were about to say?
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Give me a minute.”
I stared into the fire and tried to put myself in Lucasta’s place. The war was winding down. The convalescent home was going to close no matter what I did. I’d already lost my father and my fiancé. Now I was losing what had become my mission in life. What would I do next?
“Could it be, Dimity?” I hesitated to speak because I couldn’t quite believe what I was saying. “Is it possible that she . . . made the whole thing up? It would explain why she didn’t hire a lawyer or produce any evidence for the authorities.”
It would also explain why she never discussed the theft with those closest to her. Lucasta told me how fond she was of the Catchpoles, and you’ve told me that the family remained loyal to her for years, despite increasingly trying circumstances. Yet Catchpole himself admitted that he never knew what happened, nor did his parents. Why didn’t she confide in them? The Catchpoles would have been her staunchest supporters.
“They probably would have stuck by her even if they’d known that the theft was nothing but a sick fantasy. But they might have treated her differently—with an undercurrent of pity, perhaps. They wouldn’t have shared her outrage.” I ran a hand through my hair in consternation. “Did Lucasta invent a robbery because she couldn’t handle her real losses—including the loss of her wounded officers?”
The suspicion has crossed my mind from time to time, over the years. I first met Lucasta only a few months after her father’s shocking death. Considering the circumstances, I found her almost too bright, too cheerful. Everyone spoke of how brave she was, but I couldn’t help wondering if she was concealing a great deal of anger behind her pretty smile. I couldn’t be sure, of course. People sometimes are what they present themselves to be. In light of subsequent events, however, I believe my suspicions were well-founded. Suppressed anger, as you know, is like a time bomb. Sooner or later it’s bound to explode, and God help those who are in its way when it does.
“She buried her grief in her work,” I mused aloud, “and when her work ended, her grief ambushed her. She concocted a crazy story because she was furious with the world for taking away everyone she loved.” The notion left me dazed and saddened. “The worst thing is, she fed off that rage for the rest of her life. The letters she wrote to America were probably filled with false accusations. Maybe she came to believe her own lies. It’s so awful, Dimity.”
Particularly awful for the accused, I should think. You do realize the implications of our new line of reasoning, don’t you, my dear?
“Implications?” I pondered Dimity’s question for a moment, then sat forward in the chair. “Are you suggesting . . .” I swept the room with a searching gaze. “Are you telling me that the Peacock parure is still hidden in Ladythorne Abbey?”
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if it were. If found, it would finally remove the taint of suspicion from those poor officers who bore the brunt of Lucasta’s paranoid delusions. I suspect you were sent here for precisely that purpose.
I looked down at the journal with a perplexed frown. “No one sent me here, Dimity.”
Come now, Lori—you were caught in a storm that wasn’t forecast, placed on a path you’d no intention of taking, and led to a house you never knew existed. Do you truly believe you came here by chance?
“It’s not all that unusual for me to take the wrong path,” I put in, in the interest of truth.
Whether you came here by design or by accident, you’ve been given a puzzle to solve. I suggest you solve it. Find the Peacock parure, my dear. Prove to the world that those men were innocent.
Fourteen
I sat in befuddled silence as Dimity’s words faded from the page. Any notion I’d had of sleep faded with them. It was as if she’d ordered me to don my armor and ride off in search of the Holy Grail. I liked the idea, but felt singularly ill-equipped to follow through on it.
I placed the journal on the tea table, planted my elbow on the arm of the chair, and cupped my chin in my hand. Ladythorne Abbey was no Blenheim Palace, but it still had dozens of rooms. The Peacock parure might be hidden in any one of them. It might even have been broken up and stashed in several different places—earrings here, bracelets there, tiara somewhere else. I had a hard time locating stray socks in my cottage and, compared to Ladythorne Abbey, my cottage was a scantily furnished nutshell.
“It’s impossible,” I muttered. “Dimity’s asking too much.”
A small avalanche of coals sent a welter of sparks swirling up the chimney. As I knelt to add fuel to the fire, I felt Reginald’s gaze on me. Glancing over my shoulder, I detected a reproachful gleam in his black button eyes, as if he were reminding me that Dimity had never asked too much of me before.
“Listen, Reg,” I said. “The only good thing to come out of this whole conversation is that I’ve stopped thinking about Jamie. Apart from that, it’s just plain ridiculous.”
The gleam seemed to grow more reproachful.
“Okay, I’m listening.” I sat cross-legged on the hearth rug and faced my bunny, who was comfortably ensconced in the slipper chair. “Give me one good reason to believe that it’s not an absurdly impossible task.”
As I contemplated the twin sparks of firelight reflected in Reginald’s eyes, it slowly dawned on me that the task might not be as impossible as it seemed. According to Catchpole, Tessa Gibbs’s army of workmen had spent the past two years renovating the abbey. They’d gutted the attics and thoroughly refurbished the rest of the house. They’d redone the electrical wiring, put in new plumbing, relaid the floors, and replaced miles of rotting wall panels. They’d had ample opportunity to discover any treasure-filled hidey-holes that might exist in the fabric of the house. With the eagle-eyed Catchpole watching them as closely as he watched the charwomen, they couldn’t have kept such a discovery secret, and if Tessa Gibbs had suddenly come into possession of something as valuable as the Peacock parure, her lawyer—my husband—would have known about it and mentioned it to me.
“What it boils down to, Reg, is this,” I said. “We’ve limited the search. I wouldn’t have to tear walls apart or pry up floorboards to find the parure.” I glanced at the marquetry writing table. “It must be hidden in a piece of furniture—in a secret drawer or a concealed compartment of some kind.”
>
Reginald’s eyes glowed with encouragement. He seemed to think I was on the right track, so I kept going.
“Catchpole told me that some of the rooms aren’t finished yet. He said”—I frowned with the effort of recalling his exact words—“some of the furniture was pretty rough. Which means that some of the abbey’s furniture hasn’t been refinished or reglued or generally messed about. It’s as it was when Lucasta was alive.”
I hugged my knees to my chest as my plan began to take shape. I’d find the rooms with the shabbiest furniture and start from there. If necessary, I’d move on to search the furnishings in the renovated rooms. It wouldn’t be an easy job, but at least it was feasible.
“Thanks for the help, Reg.” I reached out to shake my bunny’s paw. “The needle may still be pretty miniscule, but the haystack’s not as enormous as I thought it was.”
I checked my watch. It was half past ten. If I waited until morning to begin my search, I’d have to manufacture excuses for rambling through the house alone. It would be much better to start at once, while Catchpole was in his cottage and my two housemates were asleep.
I turned the wick down low on the oil lamp to give the impression that I’d gone to bed, then took the small flashlight from the pocket of my gabardine trousers and tiptoed noiselessly into the corridor. My first stop, I decided, would be the library. Before commencing my search for shabby furniture, I wanted to feast my eyes once more on my Holy Grail.
The flashlight’s slender beam shot ahead of me as I entered the library. There was a faint trace of warmth in the room, but little light—the banked fire had burned down to cherry-red embers. Again I was aware of the heavy silence that hung over the abbey, lying deep in its hidden valley, cocooned in a mantle of snow. Even the garrulous pilgrims in the Canterbury mosaic seemed subdued, as if they’d agreed to stop swapping stories and settle in for the night. I paused briefly to admire their muted beauty, then directed the flashlight’s beam toward the table beside the chair Jamie had been using. I saw at once that the Jubilee photograph album was no longer where Wendy had left it the night before.
Aunt Dimity: Snowbound Page 12