by Blythe Baker
I walked slowly towards the room I was sharing with Alice, waiting for the definitive click of Nicholas’ door closing before I began walking at a normal pace. Just as I passed Lady Harwood’s door, however, it opened and Dr. Shaw stepped out, black medical bag in hand. He startled at the sight of me.
“Apologies,” I said. “That is the second time I’ve done that to someone tonight. Apparently, I should walk with a heavier footfall.”
“Quite alright,” Dr. Shaw said, barely managing a grimace at my attempt at humor. He tipped his head to me. “Goodnight, Miss Beckingham.”
He moved to walk past me, but I followed after him. “Actually, Dr. Shaw, do you have a moment?”
He looked regretfully towards his door just next door, and I knew he was probably as tired as everyone else—perhaps even more so since he had the task of caring for Lady Harwood, who had been anxious all day about the possibility that she could contract whatever mysterious illness had killed Augusta Whitlock. Finally, he turned back to me and folded his hands in front of him, the bag banging against his thighs. “Of course, Miss Beckingham. How can I help?”
“You examined Augusta Whitlock, correct?”
His shoulders lifted slightly as though he was shielding himself. “I did.”
“And you believed her death to be from natural causes?”
“I did. I was honest in my assessment and had no reason to believe she was suffering from anything other than ill health,” he said. “It was obvious to everyone that her health was failing from the moment she arrived at the estate, so I counted her pale complexion, dizzy spells, and chills and fevers as normal for her. I never suspected for a moment it could have been from poison.”
“Poison?” I asked, taking a step closer to the doctor and lowering my voice. “Do the police believe she was poisoned?”
Dr. Shaw looked around nervously, clearly trying to decide whether he had said too much or whether he should be alone with me in the hallway. I was far too concerned about his answer to my question to be concerned with decency or something as trivial as personal space. “That is my understanding. I am not being consulted on the case, so I cannot say for certain either way. I only know that the evidence they have and my description of her symptoms led them to the conclusion of homicide.”
Questions swirled around my mind. If Augusta Whitlock arrived at the estate suffering the symptoms of a possible poisoning then she would have had to have been poisoned prior to her arrival. Though, thinking back to the first day I met her in the back garden, I couldn’t remember her stumbling or seeming especially ill. She had on a thick velvet dress, which I found odd given the heat, but I didn’t really begin to notice her symptoms worsening until the morning of her argument with Miss Brown.
“Do they know when she could have been poisoned?” I asked. “Or how? Was it a slow-acting poison or one that would take effect immediately?”
Dr. Shaw took another step away from me, his long, gaunt face growing paler with each word I spoke. He shook his head. “I really do not know, Miss Beckingham. You will need to speak to the police, though it is my understanding that they are not sharing many details since the killer has not yet been captured.”
I nodded and tried to ease back. Dr. Shaw looked moments away from running down the hallway, and I didn’t want to scare him away. Not when he could be a useful source of information later. Still, I had to wonder what he thought about his employer. Lady Harwood had been in an argument with the deceased moments before her death. I didn’t pretend to assume Lady Harwood travelled with poison hidden in her pocket, but Dr. Shaw’s medical bag had not been too far away. Perhaps, she had snuck something out of it.
Just as I was about to casually bring up the matter, Lady Harwood herself called to Dr. Shaw from her room. “Dr. Shaw? Is that you in the hallway?”
Dr. Shaw looked at me as though he blamed me for him having to go back into the lady’s room. He quietly excused himself and stepped inside.
“Oh, good,” Lady Harwood said, her voice muffled through the door. “Could you take my temperature one more time? I’m feeling feverish.”
Catherine’s wedding was in two more days. I had two days to solve this murder before it effectively ruined her big day and her honeymoon. Two days to sort through a lifetime of family history and an entire household’s worth of motive. The truth was, no matter who was my main suspect, anyone could have done it. Sane people liked to look for reason and logic in murder, but murderers were rarely concerned with being rational. The act of murder itself proved that the person who committed it was acting beyond the bounds of normal human behavior. So, how then, were normal humans meant to solve the crimes?
Miss Brown was a possibility. She had been fired the day before the old woman’s death, and in the days preceding, Aunt Augusta had worked Miss Brown to the bone. Was it possible she had grown tired of the old woman’s demands and set out to kill her? It could have been out of frustration or, based on her lingering stares at the old woman’s grandson, it could have been out of love. Perhaps, Miss Brown wanted to free Nicholas Whitlock from the hold of his grandmother’s illness? It was possible, but the poison she administered would have had to be slow-acting since she was not present at the time of the death.
Lady Harwood was another possibility, as she too had argued with the deceased, but her motive would have been born from the heat of the moment. She would have needed to have poison on hand that she could administer quickly without anyone noticing. It seemed far-fetched, though, as I’d told Lady Ashton, stranger things had happened.
Nicholas Whitlock seemed the most likely suspect, though if Lady Ashton was correct, he would not inherit anything since Augusta Whitlock kept her will in a secret location. So, the murder would have been committed out of sheer hatred rather than any hope of gain. Unless, of course, he had the will, which was something I desperately needed to know.
Possibilities swirled around my head as I walked back to the room Alice and I shared. Perhaps, Charles Barry was so determined to stop Catherine’s wedding to another Charles that he killed one of the guests to halt the proceedings. If so, he chose the incorrect guest. No one would particularly miss the old woman’s meanness. Except for Nicholas, apparently.
I pushed open the door to our room slowly, not wanting to wake Alice if she was already asleep, but as soon as the door opened, I noticed the lamp over the desk was on. Alice was sitting at the wooden chair in front of the desk, one leg crossed over the other, her hands perched on her knees. She was staring at the door, her expression blank.
I smiled nervously and closed the door behind me. “What is it, Alice? Why aren’t you in bed?”
“I am not a child,” she snapped, making me wonder whether our argument from earlier in the day wasn’t behind us, after all. “I can choose to go to bed when I’d like.”
“All right.” I moved to the dresser and pulled out my dressing gown. “You do what you’d like, but I am going to go to sleep. Today has been a very long, stressful day. I think we could all use the rest.”
“I know.” The two words were sharp and clear, and I stood tall and turned around to look at my youngest cousin. I narrowed my eyes, trying to decide if she was responding to my statement or making one of her own.
“What?” I asked.
Alice stood up and crossed the room slowly, her brown eyes never leaving mine. It was unsettling, the way she was staring at me. I couldn’t move or speak. It felt as though I was being hypnotized. Alice stopped just in front of me, and I realized for the first time that she was the same height as me. When I’d arrived almost a year before, she’d barely reached my nose, and now we stood nose to nose.
“I know,” she repeated.
I shook my head, still confused.
“I know,” she said for the third time. “That you are not really Rose Beckingham.”
The room seemed to spin around me, and I reached out for something to hold me steady. Alice grabbed my arm, holding me upright, her brown eyes still locking me into place.
13
I released my hold on her forearm and took a step back, trying my best to smile. To pretend like this was some kind of funny joke.
“What are you talking about, Alice?” I asked, turning to grab my nightgown from the dresser and walking over to the bed. My legs were trembling, and I hoped my dress was hiding it well enough that she wouldn’t notice.
“I remember when you first arrived in London,” Alice said evenly. “Edward had suspicions from the moment you arrived. I overheard him talking to Catherine shortly after you came to stay with us about how different you seemed. You had a scar, of course, so you looked different, but he said there was something off about your manner, too. Catherine reminded him you’d just been through a tragedy, so your personality would likely be changed forever, but Edward thought there was something more. He suspected you were an imposter only here to collect on Rose’s inheritance.”
I laid the nightgown out on the bed and made like I was going to change into my bed clothes, but I couldn’t control my hands anymore. I had no choice but to sit on the edge of the bed to keep from falling over. What was happening? How did Alice know? And how could I convince her she was wrong?
Alice walked across the room and sat on the edge of the bed, looking at me even though I refused to meet her eyes. I kept my gaze on the striped-pattern of the bedspread.
“I thought Edward was only upset because he would no longer inherit your family’s fortune. The rest of us, myself included, were just happy to hear you were alive. That someone had survived. So, I didn’t put much stock in his theory. Neither, it seems, did Catherine.”
“Good,” I said, finally finding my voice. “Because it is madness. I know things with Edward were complex, and I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, but he was not a man of sound mind, Alice. Not at the end, at least. I do not think he should be trusted.”
“What of me, Rose?” Alice asked. “Am I of sound mind?”
She sounded so grown up compared to the young girl I had first met. In that moment, she did not seem silly or naïve or immature. She sounded like an adult, and when I finally met her eyes, I could not bring myself to lie to her. So, I said nothing.
“Because I am beginning to have my doubts,” she admitted. “You were in India for many years, that is true, but you lived in London for ten years before that. There are people you grew up with who you have no recollection of. You don’t recognize members of your own family or know anything about our family history. It is as if your time in India washed away everything before it.”
I could not breathe or move or speak. I had no defense. No way to justify the gaps in my knowledge. I’d used Alice as a reference book for the Beckingham family, and it had cost me dearly. She was not the unobservant, self-absorbed girl I’d thought. Alice Beckingham, for all her love of gossip, paid attention. I only wished I’d paid better attention myself.
“All of those things alone do not necessarily mean anything,” Alice said. “But together? They paint a distressing picture. Rose, or…whoever you may be. I just want to know the truth.”
The truth. I wasn’t certain I knew the truth anymore. One thing I did know, however, was that guilt had been wrenching my insides for weeks. Ever since I returned to New York City to be with Alice and Catherine, I’d felt the urge to tell them all the truth. To reveal my deception and come clean. And since arriving in London, seeing Lord and Lady Ashton together, seeing them so excited to see me again—it made me miserable to think that I had fooled them. To think there was a possibility that their love for me was nothing more than obligation. That the family I’d come to view as my own might not feel the same way if they knew everything.
The only truth I knew was that I could no longer live in the lie. One way or another, it all would have come out eventually, and Alice was simply shortening my timeline. So, I looked up at her, tears brimming at the edges of my eyes, and told her what she wanted to know.
“I’m Nellie Dennet.”
Alice seemed to sag under my admission, as though she hadn’t actually believed her theory was true until that moment. Her eyes went wide, and she stared at me as I began to confess my real identity and my deeds. Everything I’d done and why.
“My intentions were not malicious,” I said. “I did not and do not have any desire to harm anyone. I worked as Rose’s companion in India. I took care of her needs and kept her company. I was in the car the day it exploded, and I was the only one to survive. In the hospital, someone misidentified me as Rose, and I did not correct them. I realized quickly that I had no one in the world to depend on. Without the Beckinghams, I would have been alone in the world, homeless and destitute, so I did what I needed to do to survive. Then, I realized that I could use Rose’s inheritance to search for a missing relative. Living with you all was supposed to be temporary. I never intended to stay forever.”
“You were going to use us?” Alice asked. There was a hint of betrayal in her voice, but mostly curiosity. Alice loved a good story, and who had a better one than I did?
I nodded. “I’m sorry, but that was before I knew you. Once I met you all, I loved you at once. I did eventually find my missing relative, but he was nothing like what I remembered, and I couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing you and your family again, so I kept my secret.”
“Is that why you left with Achilles?” she asked. “You went travelling with him to get away from us?”
“I needed time and space to think. To formulate a plan,” I said. “But then Catherine messaged me to ask for help, and I couldn’t refuse. I had to come back.”
Alice listened and asked questions, probing deeper into my past. She did not display a great amount of emotion, but instead treated the conversation as an interrogation. I did my best to answer everything in full, explaining my thinking as best I could, having no idea how it would all end. I did, however, hold back from sharing the full details surrounding my unhappy reunion with my criminal brother, something that might be an insensitive topic, given the way it related to the loss of Alice’s own brother Edward.
Would Alice run from the room and tell her family about my lies at once? Would she hate me? Or be afraid of me? I had no way to know or control how everything would turn out, so I simply did my best to be honest for what felt like the first time in a very long time.
“What is your plan now?” Alice asked. “You tried to travel and run away, but now you’ve come back. What is next?”
I nervously played with the hem of my dress and shook my head. “I’m not sure, Alice. The only thing I know is that I love you and your family. I don’t have anyone else in the world. I don’t have anywhere to go. But I will not stay here if I’m not wanted. If you want me to tell everyone at once and leave, I will.”
Alice pinched her lips together in thought and then shook her head. “That isn’t what I want.”
We sat in silence for several seconds, neither of us sure what to say when, finally, Alice laughed.
I looked up, surprised by the outburst, and Alice just smiled and shook her head. “I’m not sure why I feel uncomfortable. You are still the same person I’ve known for the last year. Rose Beckingham or not, you are still Rose. You are still the cousin I know and have come to love.”
The emotion I’d been holding back threatened to spill over. I blinked away tears and swallowed back a lump in my throat.
“I love you like a sister, Rose. And I will keep your secret as long as you need me to. Though,” she said, tilting her head to the side, eyebrows raised. “I think everyone else deserves to know eventually. They may even surprise you and not be too upset.”
I wanted to believe Alice was right, but it was difficult to imagine they would respond as well as she had. Still, I smiled. “I will tell everyone eventually, but I don’t want to ruin Catherine’s wedding.”
“Any more than it has already been ruined, you mean?” Alice asked, almost laughing.
“Exactly,” I said. “I just need a bit more time.”
A
lice leaned across the bed and pulled me into a hug, her thin arms wrapped around my shoulders. “Take all the time you need. I’ll be here.”
14
Alice and I stayed up far too late chatting to be prepared when Catherine barged into our room just after dawn. She threw the door open and flung herself at my side of the bed, her palms pressing into the mattress so I almost rolled onto the floor. I yelped and scrambled into a sitting position as Alice groaned.
“What is going on?” she asked, squinting with one eye, the covers still pulled up to her shoulders.
“You have to get downstairs,” Catherine said. She still had her nightgown on, and her blonde hair was pinned down into finger curls against her scalp.
“I’m in my nightgown,” I said. “And so are you. You shouldn’t be wandering around the house.”
“Yes, what if Charles sees you?” Alice asked sleepily. I smiled at the fact that she could still manage to tease her sister while she was half-asleep.
Catherine leaned forward, putting even more weight on the bed and forcing me to scoot closer to Alice who nudged me with her elbow back onto my side of the bed. “The police sergeant is here.”
“This early?” I asked. That seemed odd, though not a reason for panic.
“He is interviewing the servants,” she said. “You should be down there to hear what they say. It could help your investigation.”
“I’m sure the police won’t allow me to sit in on their interview,” I said. “I can interview the staff separately later.”
Catherine shook her head. “There is no time. My wedding is in two days, Rose. Besides, the staff will be more forthcoming with the police than with you. For all they know, you could be the murderer.”
“They do not suspect me.”
Catherine raised her eyebrows. “Why wouldn’t they? No one knows who did it. It could be anyone. Unless, of course, you’ve found an important clue that points to someone in particular?”