I smelt no verbena, only the peculiar odour of cold, wet stone and above it the piercing fragrance of evergreen needles crushed underfoot. And beyond that, the faintest hint of wood smoke. The bare branches of the oaks above rattled a little in the rising wind, and I smiled to think how like bones they sounded.
I moved silently past the graveyard, leaving the dead to their slumbers. Just beyond lay a small copse bordered by a thick shrubbery where birds slept in their nests, beaks tucked under ruffled wings. They stirred a little as I passed, and through the trees I glimpsed the cottage, Stone Cottage, shuttered tightly against the cold. And over the lopsided face of the moon, a wisp of silver smoke. The edges of the cottage shutters glowed with light, although no sound came from within.
“Hello, Aunt Julia,” said a small voice at my elbow. She must have doubled back and come behind me.
I whirled around, Aquinas’ greatcoat swirling about me in the darkness. “Good gracious, child, you startled me,” I said to Perdita. “What on earth are you doing here? Do your parents know where you are?”
She shook her head. “I’m supposed to be tucked up in bed in the girls’ nursery. Mama said we were all spending the night up at the Abbey to be with the family, but I think it’s because Papa had rather too much of Uncle Plum’s punch.”
Remembering my own delicate head from the morning, I winced. “Yes, well, it’s probably for the best. But why are you out? If the maids find you missing, there’ll be a frightful row.”
She gave me a pitying look. “I am out all the time, Aunt Julia. I haven’t been caught yet.”
“What do you do when you go out?” I asked. She was a curious child, thoughtful and logical, but with blinding flashes of intuition far beyond her years. I found her engaging. And alarming.
“I walk about. I learn things. Tonight I wanted to learn what’s really happening here.”
Realisation began to dawn. “So you would have something to lord over Tarquin?”
“Of course. I love him, but brothers are tiresome creatures sometimes, don’t you find?”
“I have five of them, child. One of them is always being tiresome. Usually it’s your Uncle Bellmont.”
She gave a sage nod. “He isn’t very friendly, is he? I always think he looks as if he’s dyspeptic. One would have thought his love affair with that medium would have softened him a bit, but he still looks like a great unhappy carp most of the time.”2
I blinked at her. She was as composed as a mediaeval saint, wearing an expression of Eastern inscrutability. “Yes, child. The less you and I discuss about that particular episode, the better. Ask me again when you’re about to be married, and then we shall have a frank discussion.”
“I shan’t marry,” she informed me coolly.
“Never?”
“Never. I mean to find some purposeful work. A husband would get in my way.”
She was serious as the grave, but I knew better than to smile. “Perhaps you will. But life has a habit of changing your mind for you. Still, better you put that remarkable brain of yours to good use than feed it nothing more demanding than flower-arranging and playing the piano. Unless those are particular passions of yours,” I added hastily.
She rolled her eyes. “I loathe music, and flowers make me sneeze.”
“There you go. I was never very good at the feminine accomplishments, either.”
“Perhaps it’s a family failing,” she suggested kindly.
“No doubt. Now, it’s turned warmish out here but still a good deal too cold to tarry. Come along with me back to the Abbey. I’ll find you a hot drink and a warm brick and once you’re properly warmed up, you can make your own way back to the nursery.”
She agreed, but I noted as she turned away that her gaze lingered on the cottage.
I hesitated. “You really want to know what’s happening there?”
“More than anything in the world,” she said fervently.
“Oh, all right then. One look in the window, and then we go.”
We had just crept forward when a shadow loomed out of the darkness towards us. With a great black cloak spreading behind, it looked like an enormous bird of prey, reaching its wings to gather us up. A gasp died in my throat as I collided with a hard chest.
“Brisbane! What are you doing here?”
He kissed me swiftly. “I might ask the same. In fact, why are we lurking outside a stranger’s cottage after dark?”
“It’s haunted,” Perdita told him helpfully. “Or not.”
“Is it, indeed? Well, that’s novel. We don’t see many ghosts in our line of work.”
I hastily related the story the boys had told me earlier. “And rather than take their word for it, Perdita thought she would settle matters herself and come and find out.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “God help us, there are two of you,” he muttered.
I poked him sharply. “That isn’t at all nice. I happen to think Perdita is a very original thinker.”
“I believe that is what Uncle Brisbane meant,” Perdita put in.
“Yes, Perdita, thank you,” Brisbane told her gallantly. “You are indeed an original.”
She tipped her head thoughtfully. “I should hate to be ordinary.”
“Yes, well, that wasn’t meant as a dare.” He turned to me to finish his tale. “Aquinas told me you took his coat and dashed off after something you saw from the window. I followed to see what mischief you were getting up to, and it wasn’t long before I realised you were following Perdita. It was just a matter of tracking your prints in the frosty ground until I had you in sight.”
“Neatly done,” Perdita said in solemn admiration.
“Thank you.”
Perdita glanced to the cottage, but as we watched, the slender line of yellow at the edges of the shutter was extinguished. Whoever was in the cottage had retired for the night, and they would have a far better chance of seeing us in the fitful moonlight than we would of making out anything from the interior of the cottage.
I sighed and turned back to Brisbane.”Perdita and I were just on our way back to the Abbey for a cup of chocolate and a bit of warming by the fire.”
“And some toast,” she put in quickly. “The cold air is rather hunger-making.”
“It isn’t that cold, but yes, we shall order some toast. I had very little supper, and I promised your Uncle Brisbane some food,” I returned.
She gave another wistful look at the cottage.
“Tomorrow,” I promised her.
We turned towards the Abbey, striking out across the fields, and as our merry little band made our way home, Perdita’s hand stole into mine.
Chapter Five
ENTER Snug.
—A Midsummer Night’s Dream, IV, ii
(stage directions)
We slipped unnoticed into a side door of the Abbey. Aquinas had already finished his rounds, locking up the doors and windows, but he left the side door open, and Brisbane’s considerable skills with a lockpick were not required. We hurried up to the Jubilee Tower, avoiding the various members of staff who were still trotting about, carrying and fetching late into the night.
“There!” I said to Perdita as Brisbane closed the door behind us. “Take off your coat and no one will know you’ve been out of the Abbey at all.”
She removed it slowly as Brisbane stirred up the fire.
“The footman is supposed to do that,” she told him, nodding to the poker in his hand.
He gave her a serious look. “I think a man ought to be able to stoke his own fire, don’t you? A woman, too, for that matter.”
She nodded. “We haven’t footmen at the Home Farm. Father says it’s all a silly bit of pretension. We have a cook and a maid.”
“A much simpler way to live,” he agreed.
They made a charming picture in the firelight, my tall, handsome husband and the serious little girl. I felt a pang then, a piercing sense of loss I could not identify.
Brisbane quirked a brow at me. “Everything all right, love?”
I brightened. “Yes, but I’m famished. Ring for tea and chocolate, will you?”
He crossed the room, and the motion caused a stirring in the cage by the bell pull.
Perdita crept near to it, her eyes round with fascination. “Grim’s awake,” she said, nodding towards my pet raven. “Must you keep him in the cage?”
“I do when I am not in the room. I do not trust him not to make a meal on my little Snug,” I told her.
I went to the bedside table where a silver sauce boat stood. Snug still slumbered within, tucked into his handkerchief nest. I lifted him out carefully and held him on my palm for Perdita to see.
She nodded again, but her eyes returned to Grim. The senior footman, William IV, scratched at the door then and while Brisbane gave the order for our refreshment, I tucked Snug into my décolletage—his favourite resting place—and went to the cage.
Grim cocked his head and gave a throaty quork. “That’s for me,” he said, bobbing up and down as his gleaming black eyes fixed upon Snug’s little head.
“That is most assuredly not for you,” I corrected. I opened the door and stepped away. “He will come out of his own accord,” I told Perdita. “If you like, you can offer him an enticement. There is a box of sugarplums on the desk, and he is particularly fond of those. Drop one on the floor.”
She did as I bade her, and within a moment Grim had hopped from his cage to nibble at the sweet. Perdita knelt, watching him with rapt fascination. His feathers gleamed an oily green in the light, and she put out a careful finger to stroke down his back. Grim bobbed again, this time in approval, and Perdita smiled broadly.
“I like him.”
I took another plum and placed it carefully onto her palm. “Keep your fingers straight and don’t lose your nerve,” I instructed.
Grim eyed her thoughtfully, but Perdita stood her ground. After a long moment, he hopped to her knee, dipping his head daintily to take the plum from her palm. He threw back his head and swallowed it down in one go then emitted a satisfied quork.
“He likes you, too,” I told her. “He does not consent to take food from anyone.”
“Someday I’ll have a raven,” she said decisively. “They’re better than silly old dogs or cats.”
She continued to feed Grim his sweets, and within a few minutes William IV returned with a tray laden with cups of chocolate, steaming great fragrant clouds into the room, and piles of sliced bread with toasting forks and butter.
We settled down to toasting the bread in front of the fire and ate masses of it, burning our fingers and streaking our hands with sweet butter.
“That was perfect,” Perdita said, giving a happy sigh. “I sometimes help myself to food in the larder when I go out at night, but it’s always cold pie or a bit of cheese. Never anything hot.”
“The hazards of detective work,” Brisbane murmured.
Perdita agreed fervently then her expression grew pensive. “I might like to be a detective, a proper detective like you, Uncle Brisbane.”
Brisbane looked surprised, but I smiled. “That seems to be a popular opinion amongst the younger set in the family,” I told him. “Tarquin has a school friend staying, Quentin. He is particularly enthusiastic on the subject of your talents.”
“Well, I do have many,” he said with a rakish grin. I smiled, but Perdita’s expression was serious.
“Quentin certainly thinks so. He’s written a book about you.”
Brisbane’s mouth twitched, but he did not laugh. “A book? You don’t say.”
“It’s revolting,” she told him. “Not you, Uncle Brisbane, but his attitude. It’s worshipful. He’s pasted clippings from newspaper articles about your cases into a scrapbook. And he has a squashed bit of tobacco he says came from one of your cigars.”
“Preposterous,” I said briskly. “Brisbane would never discard his cigar in the street.”
Perdita shrugged. “He’s a boy, Aunt Julia. You cannot believe everything he says.” Her posture was world-weary, and I began to wonder exactly how my favourite brother, a farmer and countryman, had managed to produce this unique child.
“You aren’t like other children, Perdita. I find that refreshing,” I told her.
“You aren’t like other aunts,” she returned. “It’s nice. The others all speak to me as though I had the wit of a sofa cushion. Particularly Aunt Olivia. She’s the worst. But Aunt Portia’s rather all right. You know she used to live with a woman?”
I could feel Brisbane’s smothered mirth as he waited to see how I would respond to the question. “Yes, I did. Her name was Jane, and she was a lovely person.”
“I know that, Aunt Julia. I met her many times. I mean, she and Aunt Portia used to live together as husband and wife. Only I suppose it would be wife and wife, would it not?”
Brisbane choked a little and hid his face behind his cup.
“I suppose the best person to ask would be Aunt Portia herself,” I replied. “There is nothing shameful or wrong about Aunt Portia, although many people would think so. She will always speak frankly with you if you want to talk.”
She nodded. “I thought so. But she’s very busy with that awful baby.”
“Jane the Younger is having a difficult time with her teeth,” I said hurriedly. At least we all hoped so. She shrieked, regularly and loudly and most often when she did not get her way. I had delicately tried to suggest as much to Portia with the result that she had not spoken to me for a fortnight.
“You say it’s teeth,” Perdita said darkly. “I still think Aunt Portia got a bad one. It can happen with windfalls.”
I blinked at her while Brisbane continued to sip at his chocolate. “I beg your pardon?”
“Windfalls. You know, when a wind comes through the orchard, dropping apples to the ground. Some are sweet and wholesome, but others are wormy and foul. That baby is a wormy apple.”
“I hardly think so,” I said firmly. “Now your chocolate is finished. Off to bed with you.”
She rose and brushed the crumbs from her fingers. “Thank you, Aunt Julia. I had a very nice time. Uncle Brisbane.” She kissed us each in turn, pressing a becrumbed face to each of ours. She waved farewell to Grim, who bobbed in reply and then she was gone, a silent little shadow slipping through the corridors of the Abbey.
“That is a perfectly exceptional child,” Brisbane said when she was gone. “I think she must be what you were like as a little girl.”
“I was never so—” I began. But then I thought about Perdita. A little odd, mistress of her own interests, curious, with a penchant for speaking her mind. “Yes, I suppose rather.”
He smiled and put down his cup. He slapped his thighs, and I went to him, sliding onto his lap, my head fitting comfortably into the hollow of his neck.
“I am very happy you are mine,” I told him.
Brisbane produced his customary phrase for such occasions. “Show me.”
And so I did.
Chapter Six
Now good digestion wait on appetite, And health on both!
—Macbeth, III, iv, 38
The next morning was grey and dull, with a thick, muffling fog creeping through the countryside, settling in hollows and wreathing hills until all was quiet and still. But
inside the Abbey pandemonium reigned.
“It’s the oysters,” Morag told me with grim satisfaction. “They had a bad lot and every member of the family is down with it.”
“With what?” I demanded, still fatigued from my marital exertions. Brisbane was a very thorough husband.
“Poisoning,” she said, her voice tart. “What I just told you. They’re all down sick with the oysters. The village doctor has been and said they’ll all be right as rain once they’ve heaved it all out, but in the meanwhile, the maids and footmen are run off their feet with slop buckets and rags and—” I felt my stomach give a lurch.
“That’s enough, Morag. One does not require the unsavoury details. I suppose Cook isn’t doing breakfast, then?”
Morag shrugged. “I’ll bring a tray up.”
“How is the baby this morning?” I asked, certain she had already been to the nursery.
Her face took on a tender expression. “Sweet as a newborn lamb, he is. I gave him his morning feed, and he opened his eyes wide as you please, as if to say thank you.”
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