Ottilia interrupted the ensuing exchange of banter. “Florine attacked Joslin and hurt him badly, for I got it from Hemp. That may account for this reckoning of Tamasine’s.”
“That’s why she pushed Joslin?”
“Just so, Fan. But my problem is not solved by that.”
“How so?” Patrick leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees.
Ottilia was amused to see his interest fully aroused. “Tamasine told me she is not yet done. And that was after Joslin was killed.”
“But when she told Giles, she was clearly speaking of Joslin.”
Ottilia looked at her spouse and put up an admonitory finger. “Do not be misled by the child’s changing her tale to suit her convenience, Fan. There is rationality there. As far as someone in her condition can be rational. We must take note of Patrick’s dictum. If she is literal, we must take her literally. If she says she is not yet done, then there is more here than we have yet discovered.”
“Once you know it, will you have solved it, do you think, Tillie?”
“Perhaps, Fan.” She sighed. “If only we can also ascertain the whereabouts of those wretched missing sweets.”
Sybilla’s descent upon Willow Court upon the following morning proved untimely. Escorted by her son, with Ottilia in attendance, she entered into a scene of chaos.
Bandboxes and portmanteaux littered the hall where several persons were assembled. Cuffy, who had opened the door to the visitors, no sooner closed it behind them than he hefted a couple of the bags and followed Hemp, already climbing the stairs, similarly burdened.
A matronly figure, enveloped in a thick travelling cloak, was engaged in discussion with Miss Ingleby and Lomax. All three looked towards the new arrivals and Ottilia noted exasperation entering the companion’s face. She moved towards them, but before she could speak, Mrs Whiting came bustling through the green baize door, accompanied by a chambermaid carrying a quantity of fresh linen.
Miss Ingleby was obliged to give place to allow the cavalcade to reach the stairs, a trifling delay which allowed Ottilia to get in first.
“Lady Polbrook wished to speak with your charge, Miss Ingleby, but I see we are inopportune.”
“Extremely so.” The woman’s glance swept the party, and came to rest on the dowager’s face. “Tamasine is not at liberty today, ma’am.”
Sybilla’s black eyes snapped. “Then I will content myself with you, Miss Ingleby. Shall we step into the parlour?”
“I am much occupied, as you see. Mrs Delabole has just arrived, and —”
“Ah, you must be Tamasine’s aunt,” cut in Ottilia, sailing across the hall towards the matron, who was staring in frowning silence.
She was a faded creature who must once have been beautiful. A few strands of flaxen locks escaped a pretty cap under a serviceable bonnet, which framed a face with skin softened by the years, whose plumpness disguised its creases. Her eyes were blue like Tamasine’s, but paler in hue, and just now showed their owner to be flustered.
An uncertain smile formed on her lips as she took the hand Ottilia held out. “How do you do? I’m afraid I…”
Her voice was soft, a little breathy and she spoke with hesitance, question in her face.
Ottilia smiled. “Pray don’t be dismayed. You do not know us, but we are neighbours. I am Lady Francis Fanshawe. Allow me to present my mother-in-law, the Dowager Marchioness of Polbrook, who lives across the road. My husband and I are staying with her. Oh, this is my husband.”
Looking bemused, Mrs Delabole shook hands. “Forgive me, Lady Polbrook, I am but just arrived, I’m afraid, and I know nothing of the neighbourhood.”
Sybilla inclined her head. “I was a little acquainted with Sir Joslin. Allow me to condole with you on your loss.”
“Oh, thank you. Though I hardly knew the man, you know. I mean, we met a great many years ago, before Matt — my brother, I mean — went off to Barbados.”
“Then your situation is unenviable, if you are obliged to take all in charge.”
“Indeed, and I have left everything at sixes and sevens at home. I do not know how we are to do.” She seemed to recollect herself and tried for a measure of calm. “But I must not run on. Miss Ingleby, perhaps…?”
As the woman turned to the companion, Francis saved the day, moving to open the parlour door. “Shall we await your pleasure in here, ma’am? No doubt you will require a little time to yourself after your journey.”
“Ah, how thoughtful, yes. Miss Ingleby will arrange everything, I am sure, if someone will only direct me to my chamber.”
A prudent retreat seemed in order and Ottilia followed her mother-in-law into the familiar parlour. She detained Francis as he closed the door.
“I’m going to run upstairs in a few moments, Fan, while you remain with Sybilla.”
“Do you think that’s wise, with everyone running hither and yon?”
“That is just why. No one will pay me the least attention.”
“Pray, what are you about, Ottilia?” demanded the dowager, who had taken a seat near the fire. “Our mission here is set.”
“Yours, Sybilla, yes. Mine is to discover what has happened to Tamasine.”
The intelligence that the girl was incarcerated had been carried to the Dower House by her nephews on the previous evening. Just as she had guessed, they had raced back to Willow Court the moment they escaped their father’s eye.
“Locked up in the attic she is, Auntilla.”
“Bouncing off those mattresses like a jack-in-the-box!”
“And screaming and screaming!”
The image conjured up in Ottilia’s mind had harrowed her, engaging her sympathies for the poor child’s unenviable condition. Whether she was still in the attic remained moot, but Ottilia meant to brave the place again if necessary.
Tamasine’s room was quiet. Ottilia put her ear to the door, but no muttering rewarded her. The key was in the lock and she tried the handle. It turned and squeaked a trifle as, with care, she pushed inward. The girl was evidently not in her bedchamber. Just to be sure, Ottilia peeped around the edge of the door.
No erring daughter of the house was visible, either wandering or lying on the bed. The place was empty, which suggested she was still in her attic room. If so, she had been held there for hours. Could it be good for her?
Then Ottilia bethought her of Simeon Roy who had not been of the party downstairs. Suggestive perhaps? She could not suppose he had been permitted to remove Tamasine from the premises. The companion regarded him with too much distrust.
Leaving the child’s bedchamber as she had found it, Ottilia sneaked along the passage towards the back of the house, seeking for the stair she had used before when Tom led her to Tamasine’s eyrie. Unlikely anyone would be coming up. They were too much occupied below. She found the narrow stair and, not without a flurry of trepidation, hurried up to the floor situated under the eaves.
The sound of voices caught at her ears, but muffled. Was the door to Tamasine’s eyrie then locked? She turned the corner and crept along the passage, glad to think there was someone with the creature, if it was indeed her voice she had heard.
The door was open, but when Ottilia looked around the jamb, she could see no one. She went into the room proper and found it empty. Moreover, the voices still sounded muffled. Heavens, were they coming from above?
Standing still, she listened, cocking her head and gazing at the slanted ceiling.
A high-pitched laugh sounded. That must be Tamasine. But there was a second voice. Deeper? A sense of intrigue gripped Ottilia. Now, how in the world was she to find a way onto the roof? Convinced the voices were above her, she sped out of the room, heading for the stairwell.
No access there. She took the stairs to the landing below, moving rapidly along one side and then the other, hunting for another stair to no avail. At last she found herself back in an upper storey of the main gallery. At once Ottilia saw that the stairs continued on up and she followed them. The turn
brought a door in sight, open to the elements. A patch of dull sky showed through.
As she reached it, she could again hear the voices. Some sort of recitation seemed to be in progress, more than one voice sounding together. Ottilia stepped through the aperture and onto the roof. It looked to be extensive, but the immediate pathway led between two elevations and opened out onto a flat surface surrounded by low walls either side, then continuing into another pathway beyond.
Simeon Roy was leaning against the inner wall under a tiled elevation while Tamasine was sitting cross-legged on the flat surface nearby, evidently undisturbed by the biting wind that was already making Ottilia shiver.
Some sound must have betrayed her for Simeon turned his head. Consternation leapt into his face, but he recovered swiftly and the habitual languor succeeded it. He pulled away from the wall, dropping into one of his nonchalant poses.
“If it is not Lady Fan come to seek you out, my little Tam. What a lucky girl you are today.”
A shriek of delight emanated from Tamasine and she sang out. “Lady Fan, Lady Fan, Lady Fan.”
Ottilia walked up to the man, uttering a pleasant greeting. “How do you do, Mr Roy? I trust you are well today, Tamasine?”
“Welcome to my eyrie,” said the girl in the most ordinary of tones.
Startled, Ottilia could not think how to answer for a moment. Was this then the place she regarded as her eyrie, rather than her prison attic room? Or did she not descry a difference?
“Why, thank you, Tamasine, I am very glad to be allowed to come.”
“You won’t be for long.”
The mutter came from behind her and Ottilia threw an admonitory glance over her shoulder. Simeon Roy responded with a quirked eyebrow and an amused look.
Ottilia ignored him. “What are doing up here in your eyrie?”
Tamasine turned her hands, setting her knuckles together, and wiggled her fingers. “See? I can make people in the steeple. Simeon showed me.”
“In the church, Tam. The people are in the church, not the steeple.” Simeon played the nursery game on his fingers. “Here’s the church and here’s the steeple. Look inside and see all the little people.”
“The preacher, the preacher,” called Tamasine.
But even as Simeon began upon the rest with the preacher going upstairs and saying his prayers, the girl sprang up from her position on the floor, interrupting him with a demand for Lady Fan to look at her picture. She ran to the low wall and Ottilia was astonished to see an old mattress had been set against it. She began scrabbling inside, pulling out straw and flinging it this way and that.
Ottilia turned to Simeon Roy, keeping her voice low. “Is it safe?”
His brows lifted. “For you or for Tam? She won’t attack you if that is what you fear.”
Ottilia refrained from informing him of the earlier occasion when she very nearly had been a victim of Tamasine’s demented state.
“I meant her being on the roof? Why does she come up here?”
His lip curled. “I can no more fathom the intricacies of Tam’s mind than you, Lady Francis. I did suggest she might prefer to come in. She says she likes it here.”
Ottilia shivered and rubbed her arms. “I can’t think why anyone would put a mattress up here. She cannot lie in this cold surely?”
“I imagine she brought it up here herself. Or persuaded Hemp to do so. I doubt she wants it for its proper purpose.”
“For what then?”
But the question answered itself, for with a cry of triumph, Tamasine brought forth a crumpled collection of papers, scattering them as she hunted through them, chucking them in a disorderly way to join the wisps of straw.
What in the world would she be at now? But Ottilia was not going to enquire of the wretched Simeon. She would get no satisfactory answer.
“Does she know Mrs Delabole has arrived?”
“That’s what I came up to tell her. She is not interested.”
“Lady Fan! See? I found it!” The cry came from Tamasine, who was now holding up a scrunched ball of paper. “I made a princess picture.”
Ottilia moved to join her and took the balled paper the child held out. “May I open it?”
“It’s me,” said Tamasine gleefully. “I am the sugar princess.”
Taking this for tacit permission, Ottilia gently prised the paper apart and spread the creased sheet open. A jumble of unrelated lines and curves rambled across the paper, drawn with what looked to be charcoal. There was no impression to be made of it in any real sense, but Ottilia produced an admiring look.
“Why, this is indeed the sugar princess, Tamasine.”
For a moment the girl said nothing, eyeing Ottilia with the disconcerting stare of vacancy. Then she snatched the paper and tore it across and across, throwing it into the air. The wind caught fragments and they fluttered away, scattering across the roof.
“Wrong answer,” murmured Simeon Roy from behind her.
“A little late to be telling me that,” Ottilia snapped.
Tamasine ran to the mattress by the low wall and threw herself down upon it, lying perfectly still with her face buried. Was she feigning sleep the way she had on the first day with Miss Ingleby? Seizing her chance, Ottilia turned to confront Simeon.
“I thought you told me she could communicate in pictures.”
“Oh, she can when she chooses. If you were to inspect some of these creations she buries in her mattresses, I don’t doubt you would find plausible drawings, even recognizable in some instances.”
“It does not sound much like a communication to me, if she does not know what she draws.”
“One has to catch her in the right mood.”
Ottilia could have slapped him. “This is nonsense, Mr Roy, and you know it. I wish you will stop trying to pull the wool over my eyes. You have not engaged in correspondence with the child, unless by the medium of some intermediary.”
An enigmatic smile creased the fellow’s mouth. “It is not I who believes there has been a murder at Willow Court, Lady Francis. I think you will find it difficult to convince my cousin Ruth of anything of the kind.”
Her exasperation was interrupted by the sound of dragging. She turned from him to see Tamasine pulling the mattress across the roof floor. She started forward just as the girl, without apparent effort, heaved the thing over the parapet, squealing with laughter. Then she jumped up onto the wall, stepping hazardously along it and singing out in a gleeful fashion.
“I’m walking on water, walking on water, walking on water.”
“Tamasine, no!”
Simeon caught her arm as Ottilia made to rush to pull her down. “Quiet, ma’am! She’s as lithe as a cat. She won’t fall.”
Ottilia watched in an agony of apprehension. “How can you be sure?”
“She was used to climb trees and she could rope dance as a child. She has no fear at all. She is safe, as long as no one startles her.”
The admonitory note cut at Ottilia’s nerves. She could not take her eyes off the girl and stood as if frozen to the spot, willing her to come down. It seemed an age while she pranced along the wall, utterly oblivious until a flapping of wings produced a bird taking off from a nearby chimney. Tamasine halted and pointed.
“There is the witch! Look, it’s a black crow like Lavinia!”
A manic explosion of laughter escaped her while Ottilia, unable to bear the suspense, took a step towards her. Then Tamasine jumped down and spun on the spot, crying out that Lavinia was a black crow. Reaching her, Ottilia slung an arm about her shoulders and hustled her back to a safe position in the middle of the roof.
“Come now, my dear, should you not think of coming inside? We will all take cold if we stay here.”
Aware her voice shook she looked to Simeon and found him utterly unmoved by the child putting herself at risk. Infuriated, she forced him into the fray.
“Simeon will take you down, will you not, Mr Roy? I am sure our sugar princess will be happy to go with you.�
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She danced away from Ottilia. “Simeon, Simeon, Simeon, will you rescue me?”
“With the greatest pleasure on earth, my dear little Tam. Come, let us satisfy Lady Fan and return you to your eyrie.”
With which, he threw Ottilia a mocking glance and guided the chattering girl into the pathway between the roof elevations. Feeling quite sick with the aftermath of dread, the fate of the luckless mattress loud in her mind, Ottilia trailed behind, wishing she had not come up at all. The horrible access to an easy death, for Tamasine or another, was too dismaying to contemplate.
The discussion was growing heated and Francis longed for his wife’s return. Mrs Delabole was looking perfectly bewildered, and who could blame the woman? His mother’s snapping black eyes and icy tone warned of her rising temper, and Miss Ingleby’s point-blank refusal to believe in the so-called betrothal was enough to set flinders to the flames.
“You must be dreaming, ma’am. Or else your grandson is deceiving you.”
“The news,” returned his mother in the clipped voice he knew all too well, “came not from my grandson, but from Mr Roy.”
Mrs Delabole looked startled. “Simeon? But how would he know any such thing? He cannot have been here much longer than I.”
“Long enough to cause trouble, as he always does,” said the companion on a derisive note. “The child has been unmanageable since he arrived.”
The dowager once again made herself heard. “The point, Miss Ingleby, is that there can be no question of this betrothal going forward. Giles’s father will never permit him to marry a female of an unsuitable rank, even setting aside the sad condition from which this girl of yours suffers.”
“She is not my girl, I thank God. You had much better address yourself to Mrs Delabole, ma’am. Tamasine is her responsibility now.”
The newly arrived matron appeared horrified by this. “Oh, no, no, I cannot. My dear Miss Ingleby, it is quite impossible for me to take charge of the child. I am sorry for her, of course, but you will have to remain with her, indeed you will.”
“And if I don’t choose to? You cannot make me, you know. I am minded to live a better life than to be forever at the beck and call of a creature with no consideration for anyone save her own insane desires. Lord Bennifield is welcome to her, for all of me.”
The Opium Purge (Lady Fan Mystery Book 3) Page 26