by Issy Brooke
COULD LADY BEACONBERG really have orchestrated the carriage accident? Adelia mulled it over. She had to have accomplices, she thought, and the best placed would be Sir Arthur, in spite of all this current animosity between them. Certainly, Sir Arthur was looking rather guilty in Adelia’s eyes and, it seemed, in the eyes of the police, too. To have them working together was no great leap.
She took the idea further. Perhaps there was an affair happening between Lady Beaconberg and Sir Arthur. Lady Beaconberg could have felt justified in doing so, as she already knew about her husband’s own dalliances outside of the home. Sir Arthur was the most accessible man for her to meet without raising undue suspicion. They could pretend to have an antipathy to further deflect any questions.
And then, Adelia thought, perhaps Lord Beaconberg discovered this duplicity on the part of his wife. Ah yes! What then? He would be furious, of course. He would almost certainly call Sir Arthur out. He would definitely bar him from attending any dinners held at Dovewood – that would then account for Sir Arthur’s absence which Adelia had remarked upon that night a week ago.
Could Sir Arthur and Lady Beaconberg have then colluded to rid their lives of Lord Beaconberg altogether?
Adelia sat back down, stroking one of the hanks of embroidery thread that she had rewound. The stumbling block to her fantasy was that Lord Beaconberg had willed the business to Sir Arthur.
Doing so left his wife in dangerous debt – perhaps that was his aim all along? A final spiteful act to hit her where it most hurt?
But of course, Lord Beaconberg hadn’t known that his life was in danger. Maybe his will was an old one and sorely in need of updating. Maybe it was written back when the two business partners were still firm friends.
By seeing it that way, things still fitted together as a plausible explanation. But she did not know exactly when the will had been made. She’d have to ask Theodore to look into it.
“May I come in and sit with you?” Elizabeth appeared silently at the door.
“Of course. Please do. Your mother has retired for the night.”
“I know.” Elizabeth was dressed in clothing far more suitable for a retirement to her own bedroom, in a loose long robe and comfortable satin dressing-gown over the top, and silk slippers on her fine, thin feet. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, ready to be brushed and plaited for the night. She tucked her feet up as she curled on the chair that her mother had not long vacated, and picked at a loose fibre on a cushion that she cradled on her lap like it was a pet.
“Lady Calaway, I have not always been very nice or kind. Not just to you, but to everyone. I know this and I wanted to say that I am sorry for it.”
“Thank you. You are young and you have had many worries to deal with lately.”
Elizabeth stabbed at the cushion with one sharp nail. “It does not excuse my behaviour. But you must see that I am so stifled here; I have to leave, I simply must! Mama does not understand at all.”
“You do realise that she is keen to make a good match for you because the only real freedom you will have in life will come to you because of money?” Adelia said gently.
“I don’t believe it. True freedom is being married to a man I choose myself.”
“You do get to choose. We will suggest some suitable matches but no one will force you to accept anyone that you do not like.”
“And if I like none of them, and continue to favour Francis, then what? Oh, I know: I’ll be locked in my room again. That’s mama’s favourite trick. I spit out the stuff she gives me, and escape out of the window, of course – don’t tell her!”
“That is foolish and risky behaviour.”
Elizabeth shrugged. “It is all I can think of to do. The urge comes upon me and before I can think about it, I’ve already done it. It’s how I am. I can’t really help it.”
“Well, under the circumstances of your father’s death, you can rest a little easier in the knowledge that no one shall be expecting you to choose anyone to marry – not yet.”
“I want to be in London. I want to go to parties and meet dozens of men, dozens and dozens.”
“And what of Francis?”
“He can come too.”
“How would he fare in London, do you think? Can you not see that you are not, in fact, well-matched at all? You have different aims in life.”
“No, we don’t! You don’t know anything about what we talk about when we are alone.”
“You should not be alone with him. Has he ever ... behaved inappropriately or in an unwelcome fashion?”
“Oh no,” Elizabeth giggled with a very knowing smile. “It’s all been very appropriate and most welcome.”
“You know what I am talking about.”
“Then say it directly and stop insulting me. It’s not just you. Everyone does it, all the time, as if talking of love and relationship and the secrets between men and women will somehow corrupt me. Me! I have lived in this godforsaken outback of countryside all my life. I know what happens. I know more than anyone gives me credit for.”
“Such as?” Adelia said, challenging her.
Elizabeth did turn pink, just a little, before she said, “Well, I know about papa and his relationship, and no one thinks I could possibly know that.”
“I see.”
“Say it. Tell me what everyone else knows. I already know it, but I want to hear you say it.”
“Douglas Parr Mackie,” Adelia said, with a low look to the door just in case Lady Beaconberg was listening and about to throw herself back into the room.
“Aha! Yes, thank you.”
“Did you really know it?”
“Of course I did. I just wanted to see if you had the courage to be honest with me when no one else would. Thank you.”
“What else do you know, then? Were there other women?”
“No, just Eileen Mackie.”
Adelia looked at Elizabeth with new eyes. “Do you think your father died in an accident?”
“Oh – mama’s little bugbear! Yes, I think it was a tragic accident. Who would have killed him, and how would they have done it? It’s a rather silly way to go about murdering someone, don’t you think?”
“It is. There are easier ways.”
“Exactly so,” said Elizabeth. “A pistol shot from a hidden place is always going to be best.”
“You’ve thought about this?” Adelia said it with a smile to show she was joking and after a moment’s pause, Elizabeth laughed.
“From time to time. I think most people do. No, I think it’s all a big fuss over nothing. The problem with it all is that it rakes up things from the past that ought to stay in the past. They think they’re investigating a murder but they’ll turn up stuff that everyone really should forget – like Douglas Mackie. Now everyone will tiptoe around to try to stop me hearing about it, and it’s utterly tiresome. Can’t you see why I want to leave?”
“Elizabeth, yes, I totally understand your desire to leave. But you must be canny about it, because a rash decision now will ruin your life for ever.”
“A rash decision – oh, you mean our elopement.”
“Please, please tell me that’s not still planned.”
Elizabeth gave her a silly sly smile that Adelia wanted to slap off her face. “Not at the moment. I am in mourning, after all.”
Adelia bit her tongue on the matter because she could see that Elizabeth was only going to toy with her.
Instead, Adelia asked, “Are you aware of your father’s will?”
“Oh yes. It’s not been read yet but the stables go to Sir Arthur and mama gets nothing but debt.”
“You know about the debt?”
“I’d be blind not to know. Surely everyone knows?”
“Does your mother know?”
Elizabeth laughed. “Everyone except Mama. Mama is singularly stupid when it comes to matters of money. I really don’t think she has any idea. I cannot wait until the will is read. I want it to be in a public place. As many people as
possible should see her reaction. It will be a lark.”
“Elizabeth, that is cruel of you!”
“Oh, don’t take on. She loves a chance for drama, and this will be perfect for her. She can have the hysterical vapours and be the very centre of attention for hours. She will adore it.”
Adelia was not to be mollified. “No, I must insist that it is still cruel of you. She will be upset. You don’t understand what it means for her, and for you, do you? Your lives cannot carry on like this here. You could lose Dovewood.”
Elizabeth shrugged. She was young and she was also immature, and there was nothing that Adelia could do about either of those things.
Elizabeth uncurled her legs and stretched, yawning. “Maybe Sir Arthur will be a gentleman and give her the share in the business.”
“Is that likely?”
“Of course not. She wouldn’t take it even if he offered it. She hates him.”
“Is it true? And why?”
“Oh heavens, isn’t it obvious?” Elizabeth said. “She has always loathed him and it is no act. He simply isn’t of the right background. I mean, nor is mama when you look into her background but she conveniently forgets that. Perhaps he reminds her too much of what she is.” She stood up and went to the door, then paused and looked back.
“Will we really lose the house, do you think? Shall we have to leave Dovewood? Did you mean it, or were you saying it to scare me?”
“There is a strong chance you will, and you must prepare yourself,” Adelia said.
And instead of it being some kind of hard truth that tore the scales from Elizabeth’s eyes, it was a fact that was merely glossed over. She tittered, and said, “I had best find a man to marry me and take me in, then!” and left.
Adelia was quite stymied. It was very clear that Elizabeth did have a great deal of knowledge about what was going on. So if she said that Sir Arthur and Lady Beaconberg really did loathe one another, where did that put Adelia’s pet theory about them working together to kill Lord Beaconberg?
ADELIA’S CIRCULAR THOUGHTS plagued her. She retired to bed but found that she could not sleep. She could hear Elizabeth’s mocking voice echoing in her head and as she replayed the conversation, she discovered that she had a growing sympathy for the young woman. Elizabeth’s plaintive cry for release was genuine, and choosing Francis Rowlandson over every other potential suitor was her one desperate act of rebellion. It was the only way she could stake a claim to her own self, her own choices; everything else put her in the power of other people. Adelia remembered her own childhood, and how her girls had coped as they had matured. All seven of them had navigated the issue in different ways.
That made her think of Mary, and her sleepwalking. She wondered if Theodore had had any success in talking to her. He still seemed to believe it was an illness and that Mary could not possibly be faking it.
Adelia got out of bed with a sigh and went to the windows to rest her head against the cool glass. Perhaps sleeplessness and sleepwalking was an illness and Adelia herself was suffering from it now as sleep seemed to elude her. Outside there was a full moon which lit the lawns with a strange and silvery light. It was around two in the morning and there should have been no movement out there.
But there was.
Adelia froze, her breath catching in her throat. The person was wearing a long cloak which disguised their shape so that she could not tell if they were male or female. They walked down the steps away from the house, furtively looking around from under a deep hood.
There was no time to waste. Adelia shot out of her room and rapped on the door of the adjoining chamber – more like a cupboard or closet – where a maid who had been assigned to her was asleep in the tiny space behind a curtain. The maid, in spite of her bleary eyes, was upright and pulling a gown around her shoulders even before she was fully awake, and together they crept down to the nearest exit on the ground floor.
But by the time they reached the spot on the dewy lawns where Adelia had seen the figure, it had gone.
“There are always folks creeping about, my lady, since those travelling sorts came and camped up by the river,” the maid said as they tiptoed back to bed.
“I have met the Romani. I cannot imagine them creeping about at night, nor why they should do so. They are actually good Christian people.”
“Oh, that is only what they want you to believe,” the maid sniffed. “I don’t believe it. I’ll tell all the others in the morning to be on their guard.”
Adelia left her to it, and went back to bed.
But the morning brought more alarms and excitement.
For Marguerite, Lady Beaconberg, was gone.
Sixteen
The alarm was raised just after Adelia had finished breakfast. She had not remarked on the fact that Lady Beaconberg was absent at that meal, as she often lingered late in bed and while someone was in mourning, who could question that? At other times it would have been indolence but at the moment it was merely grief. Likewise, Elizabeth had a habit of staying in her rooms until the early afternoon. This was not a Godly household that kept to the routine of family prayers and devotional activities and it never had been.
Adelia was just leaving the breakfast room when rushing feet alerted her to something being amiss. No one would knowingly clatter about a house in mourning with such noise and indecorum. She followed the hullaballoo and found the housekeeper in the corridor leading to the main entrance hall engaged in a kerfuffle with a panicked young maid. Meanwhile the butler was directing as many other servants as possible to search the house. Elizabeth had emerged and was dressed just as she had been when Adelia had seen her the previous night, quite inappropriately in her long nightgown and gauzy robe. She demanded to be told what was going on, and the housekeeper shrank under her gaze, losing her courage to speak. The butler stepped in.
“I am terribly sorry to inform you, miss, that no one can currently find your mother anywhere.”
Elizabeth’s mouth dropped open. Adelia thought that this was the first genuine and uncalculated display of emotion that she had ever seen Elizabeth convey. She blinked rapidly.
Adelia asked, “Has someone sent for the police?”
“Yes, yes,” the housekeeper blurted out breathlessly at last. “Of course. But we are still looking – we are still hopeful – maybe she’s ... around.”
“Around? Where? If she is not in her own room or any other room then where would she be? Have you checked all the rooms?” Elizabeth had found her voice again and she had channelled her confusion into pure anger directed straight at the poor housekeeper as the easiest target. “She might have been overcome by grief and be lying, even now, in a swoon on a floor somewhere where no one has looked.”
The butler said, “All the servants are checking every room for a second time, miss. And the police will be here directly.”
“Why the police?”
“She’s been taken!” wailed the housekeeper.
Adelia doubted it very much. She pushed through the servants milling about and took Elizabeth’s arm. The young woman did not fight her off. Her sudden reaction of defeat and compliance surprised Adelia, but Elizabeth allowed herself to be steered silently back to her room.
IT WAS CLEAR TO ADELIA that Elizabeth knew nothing about what could have happened to her mother. Adelia left her in the care of her lady’s maid and went back downstairs to find that Inspector Benn had arrived and was directing his own men to search the house and grounds in spite of the butler’s insistence that this had already been done twice over.
“And we shall do it again,” Inspector Benn said. “Ah! Good morning, Lady Calaway. And what can you tell me of these recent and, I must say, rather interesting events?”
“Interesting? I would call them alarming – and I can tell you nothing,” Adelia replied. “Except for one thing. Last night, at around two in the morning, I looked out of the window and saw a figure moving away from the house and they were wearing a cloak and hood.”
“Interesting, interesting indeed! Show me exactly where this was.”
She led him outside while explaining the whole thing in much greater detail. “It must be connected to Lady Beaconberg’s disappearance,” she said.
Inspector Benn peered at the lawn which was still steaming with the dew as the early morning sun came around the line of trees and began to burn the moisture off in layers that seemed to float through the air almost like mist. “I can see where you trampled around here a great deal,” he muttered. “Not just you, but two of you, if I am any judge, and after all my decades in policing, I ought to be.”
“How was I to know?” she shot back, thinking, if I am any kind of ally to the investigative trade, actually I should have known better and he’s right. Well, I shall know the next time I am careering around the countryside after dark.
He ignored her riposte and carefully picked his way, like a ballet dancer, over the wet grass. He stopped. “Yes, I can see her tracks.”
“Her? Do you think that it was Lady Beaconberg?”
“Well, it was certainly a woman with narrow feet and delicate footwear.”
She looked at the darker patches and thought it could have been anyone, but deferred to his experience. “She did not mention anything that led me to believe she had business out of doors at night; I cannot possibly imagine what she was doing. We spent the evening as usual and nothing was said nor hinted at.”
“It is obvious,” the Inspector declared, heading back to the house. “Lady Beaconberg knew about Douglas Mackie and his unfortunate origins; she knew about the will; and yes, I have also heard through a servant here that she heard about her daughter’s planned elopement with a man called Rowlandson! An elopement that was actually sanctioned by Lord Beaconberg himself, behind his own wife’s back. You have not been much of a detective for us, Lady Calaway, though I appreciate your efforts. You have not discovered any of this for us.” He smiled and it was almost in pity.
She wanted to protest that she had known all of that but it was no use. He would not believe her. He knew these things, yes, but she felt that he didn’t fully understand the connections between them. He was putting the right things together but still getting the wrong answer. But Inspector Benn, like her own husband, was a man of clear and plain facts.