“Here we are,” she announced. “They’ve brought a pack of fizzy drinks as well.”
“Dinnertime already?” Barnaby and I said.
I tried to pay for my share of the takeout, pushing a ten-pound and a five-pound note toward Celia, but she waved me away. Nor did she eat with us. She returned only after we’d decimated the large Mediterranean Deluxe, this time carrying file boxes. I jumped up to help, and we lowered the boxes onto the table.
“Celia?” Barnaby said in surprise.
“Honestly, Nancy, I don’t think you’ll find much about Hannah in all that,” she said to me. “But you’re welcome to try.”
It was, of course, the notes and letters surrounding The Descent. All the ‘contentious documents’ Celia had been hiding in her closet or under her bed.
“Thank you, this is wonderful,” I told her. To Barnaby, I said, “There may be something more in here about the parasol flower. Or something to give an indication of why Hannah’s art ended up with the Peterboroughs.”
He nodded cautiously.
“Have you ever tried to locate Hannah’s descendants?” I asked them. I thought of the letters in which Hannah had characterized her husband’s opposition to her art.
Barnaby and Celia looked at each other.
“What for?” she said. “If you don’t find proof of ownership in those documents, that says nothing about who rightfully owns these works, Nancy.”
Barnaby was looking around the room at our private, stunning exposition. “These paintings have been in our family for generations.”
“What Barnaby means to say is that Eva and Charles Peterborough collected art from all over the world,” said Celia. “They were patrons of the arts. That is certainly well-documented historically.”
My heart was thrumming. The Munks had not even cared to look at the paintings in decades! “I’m not trying to cause any trouble,” I said. “But you agreed with me, Barnaby, how strange this situation is. Hannah was mailing these paintings to Henri Godot. So how did they end up…” My hands floated upward at my sides. “One could argue these paintings belong to Godot and his inheritors. She was trying to send them to him.”
And if they’d reached their destination, I wondered, what difference might that have made for Hannah?
“Perhaps one could say that,” said Barnaby, his bass voice sounding even deeper than usual. “Is that what you’re saying, Nancy?”
The Munks looked at me anxiously.
No, I wasn’t saying that, I told them. “Are you saying you want to stop?” Kenneth Cavanaugh had asked me. I excused myself to visit Celia’s peacock-themed powder room, where I scrubbed pizza grease from my hands with scented soap and water.
Thirty Eight
In the Ladies Association boardroom, Lucy Finch taps the gavel several times. “Thank you all for coming to our emergency meeting. I’m sure you know by now that Mrs. Peterborough and her family are recovering at the Residency from their terrible ordeal.”
Ladies make sympathetic noises. Beatrice Watts makes the sign of the cross. Hannah closes her eyes to stop from rolling them. She had been alarmed, of course, on the night of the fire. She woke to the sounds of whinnying horses and doors banging open along the street. In her dressing gown, she’d tiptoed onto the veranda. Next door, at the Residency, lanterns were glowing through the windows.
“Hannah.” It was Hazel, not three paces away, a night bonnet wrapped around her full face.
“Cripes, Hazel! You startled me!”
“I was coming to your door as you walked out. They’re rising against us, Hannah. Do you remember, a few years ago, how they lit up the train depot?” Hazel didn’t wait for her to recall. “This may be hardest for you to bear, of us all.”
“For me to bear? I don’t understand you, Hazel. What time is it?”
“The darkies have torched Idlewyld.”
“What? What do you mean?”
Hazel was unable to offer any concrete information. Hannah finally gave up and sprinted across the lawn to the Residency in her bare feet.
As she approached, two cadets on horseback trotted past her. A third horse, a russet mare, danced and circled near the veranda.
Seeing her, Darshan stilled the horse with a gentle “woah.”
“Idlewyld is…? What has happened, Sergeant?”
“Fire. I don’t know much more than that.”
“May I come with you? Ride out with you?”
His face was grim, his eyes shadowed. “Of course not, madam.” He turned the horse as the door opened. James Finch stepped out, shouted something—a number, she recalled—and Darshan signaled with a wave.
“Darshan. Wait.”
The horse whinnied as he tightened the reins.
“Do be careful,” she said.
He nodded, kicked the mare’s flanks, and cantered away.
When she later learned that it was the doctor’s cabin alone that had been destroyed by fire, she felt an overwhelming relief. It was a guilt-laced pleasure, offset by a certain amount of sympathy for the Peterboroughs. But this, she thinks, this meeting is too much.
Lucy is droning on. “…growing stronger by the hour, poor child. They’ve all had quite a shock, but Dr. MacGillivery assures me they will make a complete recovery.”
The association’s secretary, at Lucy’s request, begins reading out a long list of items starting with candelabras and ending with a soup tureen. An emergency fund, what rubbish! Do they not know how well-provisioned the Idlewyld mansion is? Lucy must be under the impression the cabin contained household provisions and family heirlooms. Eva had not bothered to set her straight.
“How is the colonel?” whispers Hazel, who is seated to her left.
“Oh. Recovering. From his illness, not from the announcement.”
“Yes, well, I was rather in shock about that, too. After all George has done for the man.” She nods towards Lucy. “To be passed over like that!”
The list having been finally itemized, Lucy Finch addresses the group. “I thought each one of us might volunteer for at least two items, with an aim to supplementing the Peterborough’s family belongings within the month.”
“And don’t forget, Lucy, the church has an emergency fund for…” Beatrice’s voice trails off, her brow knuckling.
She has remembered the family’s atheism. Hannah wants to laugh. God, none of them even know Eva! She swallows and raises a hand, then speaks without being called on. “I’m just not—” Hannah clears her throat. “Ladies, I’m just wondering…thankfully the main house wasn’t damaged at all, as I understand it. I don’t wish to seem insensitive, but are we certain the Peterboroughs need any of these provisions?”
Lucy pounces. “This family is homeless, distraught, and in fear for their lives, Mrs. Inglis. Yesterday Mrs. Peterborough was perfectly grateful for the assistance I could offer her. One has to take care not to sink into a reverse prejudice, in which the very wealthy are discounted on the basis of their wealth. I imagine this might be especially challenging for a socialist such as yourself.”
“I’m not a socialist, Lucy.” Hannah frowns at them. “Nor are the Peterboroughs homeless! And I know it wasn’t bed linens and crockery they kept in that cabin.”
The ladies are staring at her, expecting a reasonable explanation. If not crockery, then what? Hannah shakes her head and apologizes. No, she’s never gone in the cabin herself. In despair, she lapses into silence.
Lucy, hawk-eyed, is about to resume when Eva herself enters the room. The half-circles under her eyes look as if they’ve been scored with scissors. A navy dress sits awkwardly upon her tensed shoulders.
“Good morning, everyone. I’m sorry to be late. I must take my sleep when I can get it these days.”
“How are you faring, Eva?” Lucy replies on behalf of the group.
“Fine, thank you.
As best as can be expected.” Her voice is raspy. She moves to a place at the table.
“Does the family need suet?” inquires Marilese Blumengard, a Dutch homesteader.
Eva ignores this. “Have there been any arrests?” she addresses Lucy.
“No,” reports Lucy. “Not as yet.”
“Terrible,” says Hazel, uncorking a flood of sympathies from around the table.
“Oh, you poor, poor thing,” says the treasurer.
“Makes you wonder if you’re safe in your own bed.”
“You’re not safe in your own bed.”
“With these darkie servants everywhere.”
“And these darkie police!”
Hannah shifts in her chair, regretting once again that she has come.
“All of them, bone idle,” says Hazel. “That Kling sergeant, they found him sleeping at his desk, didn’t they?”
“Well, it was the middle of the night,” Hannah can’t help but point out. “It’s a wonder he was even at the station!”
A hush falls on the room.
“Think twice about whom you choose to defend, Mrs. Inglis,” says Lucy. “People will question whether to include you at this table.”
Around the circle, heads are nodding almost imperceptibly; eyes are averted, hands folded. Hannah grips the sides of her chair. Underneath all the niceties the world has corners, is ever angled into sides. In the Perak Club next door, their husbands are no doubt talking about retribution rather than bed sheets and hairbrushes.
“Please.” Eva’s voice is bamboo splintering. “I came here today, because I have faith in the solidarity of the women of this town.”
“Well said!” Lucy exclaims. “Didn’t I assure you, Mrs. Peterborough, that it would be worth attending one of our meetings!”
“Ought we to pressure the administration?” someone suggests.
“The administration must ensure the police do their job.”
“We must get an arrest,” Eva says with conviction.
Admiration shines from Lucy’s pores. “Yes, Mrs. Peterborough, an arrest is precisely what we need.”
“It is? Why?” Hannah blurts out, beside herself with frustration. “The fire might have been a horrible accident.”
“Yet it wasn’t.” Eva smiles sourly.
“You didn’t get word from your friend and colleague on the police force?” Hazel says innocently.
One or two of the others titter.
Lucy gives Hazel a sharp glance before addressing Hannah. “The scope and severity of the burn suggests that an unusual quantity of flammable oil was present. More than would be contained in a lamp. Then, just yesterday, an empty kettle of kerosene was found in the forest behind the estate. Ladies, this is undoubtedly a case of arson.”
At the close of the LAP meeting, Hannah slips away immediately, leaving the others to coo at Eva. She is marching up Cinnamon Street when the Peterboroughs’ blacktop slows beside her and releases Eva from its belly.
“Well, that was a majestic pain in the hindquarters,” are Eva’s first words.
Hannah tilts her umbrella for a clearer view of the woman. “I was starting to wonder whether that was you in that meeting room, or a look-alike automaton. ‘I have faith in the solidarity of the women of this town,’” she mimics. “You must have practiced that one a few times.”
“I called on you, Hannah. Twice.”
“I know.”
“I wanted to apologize. I brought your portfolio and your supplies.”
“I know. Thank you. I did send you a note.”
“Your girl said you weren’t taking callers.” Eva waves at the syce and the carriage drives off. “May I walk with you?”
“Feel free,” Hannah replies drily. They chug up a particularly steep portion of the switchback before she glances again at Eva’s terrible face. “Look, I’m glad none of you were hurt. You must focus on that fact.”
“I’d rather she’d torched the main house.”
“Eva!”
She coughs spasmodically for a time, stooped over a handkerchief. “All that work.”
“Was everything destroyed? Surely not your book. Didn’t you keep your documents in the study?”
“No, the book is fine.” Eva wipes the handkerchief under her nose. “It’s everything of Charles’. All the clinical observations that are required to undergird the book’s arguments. A pity that scientific treatises require evidence.”
A pity indeed. But there is no point rehashing her objections. “You’d better get back to the Residency,” says Hannah, striking out again.
Eva hastens to keep up. “I’m in no rush, believe me. Between Lucy’s warbling and the brigadier’s preening, I’m losing my last shreds of sanity.” She enters into another coughing fit, though her eyes start twinkling. “The thing is, if we want their help, it’s better to appear to need it. I was quite proud of myself for coming to that realization. I’ve been so stubbornly competent all these years.”
“Ye-es,” Hannah says. “Eva, what do you mean ‘she?’ You said you’d rather ‘she’ had torched the house.”
“The girl who destroyed our studio. I know who it is.”
“And you want her arrested.” She recalls Eva’s insistence at the meeting. “Who?”
“Charlotte’s genduk. The girl Charles took on as an assistant. She did this to us.”
Hannah thinks of the light-skinned girl with the round shy face. Standing in the shallows, collecting river rocks by Charlotte’s side. “The one who came on our trek.”
“She’s clever, all right,” says Eva. “Clever enough to know that razing the studio was the best way to attack us. She wanted revenge.”
Hannah starts at the word. It seems far-fetched. Yet she’s forgetting the obvious! The girl must have wanted revenge for what Charles had done to her. A shiver scuttles over her. “In that case, any one of those poor things had cause to—”
“I’m telling you,” Eva snarls, “it was her.”
Why are you telling me, Hannah wants to ask, when you have the audience of the serving Resident and his successor? And the Ladies Association wrapped around your little finger? She must know that Hannah won’t be inclined to leap to her aid, after everything that’s passed between them. They walk in silence for a time, turning onto Ridge Road, cresting its slow rise along the hillside.
“Will you speak to Sergeant Singh for me?” Eva says, on cue. “Tell him what I know, that the genduk has done this.”
“Me?”
“Resident Finch is not inclined to require an arrest.”
“The ladies have just agreed to ‘pressure the administration,’” Hannah points out.
“I don’t believe James would go so far as to overturn a police investigation. Not as his last act from the chair, as it were. And this ridiculous Effingdon-Watts, he’s for arresting the entire village, so long as it makes him look efficient. One sniveling, puffy-faced girl won’t look efficient. Please, tell your sergeant who he needs to interrogate.”
As they approach the acacia, Hannah slows and looks up into the tree. No sign of Roderick. Where has he been lately?
“What is it?” asks Eva.
“Nothing.”
The wind is picking up, making their umbrellas less than useful. Soon the familiar turquoise clapboard of Hannah’s house comes into sight up the rise, and she has yet to give Eva an answer.
“I believe you are sincere, Eva. You seem to have quite thought this through. But what do you know, really? Do you have any proof? And if so,” she shakes her head, “then you should tell him yourself. I have no special sway over the man. Nor should I.”
Eva looks at her sideways, pursuing her lips in disbelief. “It’s his job to find the proof.”
“I don’t know, Eva. I feel…”
“Oh, forget it,” she snaps. “I
thought for once you might be willing to help me.”
They walk on more swiftly than before, a lump growing in Hannah’s throat. At the flagstone pathway that leads to her veranda she says, “I’ll talk to him. I can promise you that much.”
Eva nods and rubs her eyes, offering her thanks as Hannah turns away. She doesn’t see it until she’s almost swung her foot into it, and that is when she shrieks. A tiger is gaping at her from the welcome mat, its tatty head bodiless and forlorn. One ear is ripped nearly off. A grey-pink tongue lolls out one side of the mouth. It is the sound of the sad face that hurts, the sound of so many flies whirring and buzzing and burrowing.
“What are you doing here?” she asks it.
Hearing a thump, she finds a boy in a grey miner’s jumpsuit, squatting in one corner of the veranda. Heat rises in her, anger that she does not wish to contain.
“I suppose you’re waiting for payment, are you?”
He stands and bows.
“Stop this. Do not kill any more tigers. Do you understand me?”
He blinks. “Tuan say?”
“I say. It’s over! Tell the others your hunt is over.” Hands shaking, Hannah opens her purse and pulls out two Straits dollars. “That’s all you’ll get. Wait. Take this…head away.”
His eyes are wide as he points at the severed head. “For keep the bounty, too? Take plenty fast, memsahib, plenty fast. You wait here.” He bows again and sprints off, presumably to seek some help for the removal.
Hannah walks around to the back entrance of the house and enters through the scullery, nearly tripping headlong over a pile of laundry.
Thirty Nine
Inside, the house is silent. Hannah can almost imagine that the great cat has padded quietly back to the woods. She plucks a banana from the fruit bowl. Far quieter here than it must be at the Residency. Eva will be arriving to a very concerned Lucy Finch. Gracious me, you’ve walked home? In this wet! In your condition! Lucy will probably towel her off and prop her up in bed with a cup of warm cocoa.
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