The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place

by Julie Berry

  The two men set to work prying the wooden top off the crate. The girls clustered around to watch. The top came off, followed by a spate of packing rags, to reveal …

  “What is it?” inquired Dear Roberta.

  They stared at the object.

  “Well, that’s that,” said the deliveryman. “Here’s a letter for you. We’ll be off now.”

  And with that, he handed Mrs. Godding a letter from his pocket, then he and his companion gathered up the pieces of the crate and left.

  “But what is it?” Dear Roberta continued to press her question.

  Pocked Louise examined the thing all around. “It’s … wood.”

  It was indeed wood, a thick and heavy object carved intricately from solid wood, of a rich amber color. It stood about as wide and deep as an ottoman on four wooden legs, and possibly twice as tall.

  “Is it furniture?” inquired Dull Martha.

  “I wouldn’t care to sit on it. The top’s too pointy.” Pocked Louise had knelt down to examine it from all around. She traced her fingers along the grooves and protrusions, and followed the scrolling carved lines with her eyes.

  “What do you think, Mrs. Godding?” asked Smooth Kitty.

  Mrs. Godding folded her arms and frowned at the thing. “It’s indigenous, at any rate,” she said. “I would venture to guess African. Let’s see what this letter tells us.”

  “It’s a palace,” declared Pocked Louise. “See? These are pillars. These represent windows, and this is the roof.”

  Mrs. Godding unfolded the letter. “It’s from the admiral’s servant, Jeffers. Dear Mrs. Plackett,” she read. “This is a gift the admiral had prepared specially for you. He had already made arrangements for this to be delivered to your home today. I saw no reason to interrupt his plans. I’m sure you are as grieved as I am at the loss of the admiral. I hope this gives you something by which to remember him.” She folded the paper and tucked it into her pocket. “Well, well. So my sister-in-law was linked to the admiral. I wondered, when I saw him sitting next to her. Or next to you, I should say, Miss Brooks?”

  Stout Alice curtseyed. “Please. Call me Alice.”

  Pocked Louise had not ceased her probing of the wooden palace. “Here’s our problem!” she cried. “It’s backwards. The front is facing the wall. Help me turn it around, Kitty.”

  It was astonishingly heavy, and it took several girls to do the job, but together they heaved and hoisted the carving around until it faced the right way. Now it clearly represented a palace. Pocked Louise bent to examine the doors. Aldous licked her face helpfully.

  “They’re locked,” she said. “There’s a keyhole, but no key.” She searched everywhere for a key’s hiding place, then studied the door closely.

  “This is nothing that can’t keep until after breakfast,” Mrs. Godding announced. “If there’s one thing I dislike, it’s cold, clammy porridge. Come along, girls.”

  She had an air one did not quite dare disobey, but Pocked Louise didn’t budge. “Elephants,” she breathed, pointing to small carvings near the door.

  Stout Alice shook her head. “What, Louise?”

  “Elinor,” Louise cried urgently, “fetch me the elephant!”

  Dour Elinor slipped silent as a specter out of this room and into the next. She returned moments later bearing the ebony elephant. Louise fitted the brass end of the elephant’s trunk into the figure eight–shaped keyhole.

  “It has prongs that fit the nostrils,” she cried.

  “Disgusting,” said Mary Jane.

  She twisted the elephant slowly, rotating it on its trunk, and they heard the latch click. She pulled away the door. Out poured a cascade of gold coins, flowing like endless corn spilling from an opened silo.

  Aldous barked and chased his bobbed tail at the commotion. Coins clinked and showered over Pocked Louise and rolled every which way, under the furniture and out into the hall.

  “Mercy,” cried Mrs. Godding. “Fetch a basket! Something, quick.”

  The girls scrambled to chase and gather coins into their aprons.

  “They’re doubloons,” Kitty whispered in wonder. “Just like the ones we found in Mrs. Plackett’s and Mr. Godding’s pockets.”

  “Each one’s worth twenty pounds, or more,” said Pocked Louise. “Look! Here’s another note!”

  Louise fished a folded piece of paper from the opened palace door. She handed it to Smooth Kitty, who recognized the admiral’s hand immediately. Mrs. Godding was still scooping coins from her skirt into an empty vase.

  “Dear Connie,” Kitty read. “I told you I had a perfect way for you to store your husband’s gold. Your fortune and your secrets are safe with me. Yours, P.L.”

  Disgraceful Mary Jane dabbed the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief. “He was just a big Romeo, wasn’t he?” she sniffed. “Even if he was horribly old. I wish he hadn’t died. I would have married the old dear in a heartbeat.”

  “Hmph.” Mrs. Godding’s eyebrows rose at this. “I thought you had your sights set elsewhere.”

  Mary Jane shrugged. “Oh, I’m flexible.”

  Mrs. Godding bit her lip. Kitty could swear she was trying not to laugh. “There. That’s the last of it. Lock that door back up, Miss Dudley, and I insist we return to breakfast.” She wiped the smell of coins off her hands and onto her skirt. “So Constance really was hoarding a fortune.”

  “Lucky for Julius, she chose to hoard it at the home of her gentleman friend,” said Mary Jane.

  Mrs. Godding’s self-assured step faltered slightly, as if this thought had not occurred to her. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Lucky for Julius. She wrote and told me that some of her late husband’s associates had recently sent her some ‘valuables’ belonging to him. She suggested that with them, she might assist in Julius’s university costs. She urged us to come for Julius’s entrance exams, and we would discuss all the particulars. That is why we made the trip when we did.” She sat back down at her place at the head of the table. “I confess I never imagined ‘valuables’ on such a scale as this.”

  “Don’t forget the elephant,” said Dour Elinor.

  They sat at the table and picked at their plates. The butter on the toast had congealed, the eggs had turned to rubber and water, and the bacon fat had gone gruesome, but nobody said a word about it. They barely looked at their food.

  “It all begins to fit,” Pocked Louise said excitedly. “Mrs. Plackett receives a fortune in Spanish gold. She writes to you and Julius about it. She gives the gold to Admiral Lockwood for safekeeping.”

  “She asks him to see what the doubloons are worth on the exchange market,” added Kitty, remembering the admiral’s note and the twenty pounds.

  “Meanwhile,” said Pocked Louise, “she keeps one in her pocket, and for some reason we’ll never know—perhaps a whim, or a generous impulse—she gives one to her brother Aldous.”

  “Thereby alerting him,” said Stout Alice, “to the fact that she’s come into money.”

  “He asks for a large amount,” said Smooth Kitty, “probably to pay his gambling debts.”

  Dear Roberta’s eyes were wide. “But she says no.”

  “I think Mr. Godding would have become angry then,” ventured Dull Martha, “knowing him.”

  “They quarrel, and Mrs. Plackett threatens to remove him from her will,” said Pocked Louise. “Remember the letter you found, Alice, under Mrs. Plackett’s pillow?”

  “And that,” said Disgraceful Mary Jane, “was when Mr. Godding persuaded his accomplice—or pawn, rather—that he’d marry her if she helped him put his deadly plan in motion, before Mrs. Plackett could change her will.”

  “The old will must have favored Mr. Godding,” said Pocked Louise. “It may have been written before Darling Julius was even born.”

  Mrs. Godding blinked. She’d been observing this sudden volley of conversation like a spectator at Wimbledon. “Before what Julius was even born?”

  Smooth Kitty froze. Her face went cherry-red.

>   Disgraceful Mary Jane snickered. “Oh, that’s just Kitty’s pet name for your handsome son.”

  Kitty dealt a kick under the table. The rest of the girls covered their mouths with their unused napkins.

  The ever-tactful Stout Alice tried to come to her friend’s rescue. “Pass the marmalade, would you, Kitty?”

  “These eggs look delicious,” added Dear Roberta bravely. They did not. It was a tribute to her loyalty that she would set aside truth in favor of kindness.

  They listened to the muted tock of the glass-domed mantelpiece clock, and watched the dining room curtains billow in the morning breeze. Outside and across the way, the Butts farm and its sheep-speckled pastures gleamed in the sunshine.

  “I wonder,” said Mrs. Godding, “if I could teach a school.”

  Kitty glanced at Mary Jane, then over at Alice and Elinor.

  The doorbell rang once more. Mrs. Godding rose to answer it. The girls could hear the voice of Constable Quill.

  “Your beau is here, Mary Jane,” groaned Pocked Louise. “Save me from visits by more young men! I’m going upstairs to read a book.”

  Disgraceful Mary Jane came close to growling. “He’s not my beau.”

  “Don’t go, Louise,” Kitty pleaded. “We may not have much more time together. Don’t anybody leave.”

  The constable entered the dining room. Mrs. Godding offered him a chair, which he accepted, and a cup of tea, which he declined.

  “It isn’t poisoned.” Mary Jane’s green eyes shot flaming darts at the constable.

  He avoided her gaze.

  “Mrs. Godding, ma’am. I’ve been speaking with the sergeant about the case of these young ladies, and we both feel that due to the serious nature of their crimes—”

  “Constable Quill.”

  The officer closed his mouth, and waited for Mrs. Godding to speak.

  “I’ve had a talk with these girls,” she said. “I believe they’re only guilty of high spirits and poor judgment.”

  Dull Martha looked very confused. “Talk? What talk?” she mouthed, which, fortunately, the police officer did not notice. Smooth Kitty placed a warning finger over her own lips.

  Constable Quill pulled his notebook from his pocket. “But the law,” he began. “Deceiving an officer of the law. Impersonating a dead person. Improper burial. These are serious offenses.”

  Mrs. Godding took a thoughtful bite of toast. “So they are, indeed. Now, with respect to the school, it now belongs to my son. With his permission I propose to remain here and run it. He will enroll at Oxford University this fall, and I would prefer to remain in England rather than return alone to India.”

  Constable Quill scratched his head. “That will be very nice for you, I’m sure, but I fail to see what—”

  “Have a piece of toast.” Mrs. Godding spread marmalade on an extra slice and handed it to him before he could object. He took a bite of the toast without thinking, then paused, startled, as if having just woken up.

  “Now, see here,” he said loudly. “These young ladies can’t just get away with what they’ve done! They must face consequences.”

  Mrs. Godding continued to gaze at Constable Quill with the same unruffled expression she’d had since he arrived.

  “They should most definitely face consequences,” she said. “I am a firm believer in accountability. It is the only way to learn maturity.”

  “At the very least, I must write to their parents.”

  “Allow me to do that, if you don’t mind,” said Mrs. Godding.

  Constable Quill was not appeased by this. “I don’t care how highborn they all are. They lied to an officer of the law … to me! And they tried to trick us all into thinking their headmistress wasn’t dead. If I have my way, and the judge reads the law like I do, they’ll spend time in a ladies’ reformatory for what they’ve done.”

  “Would you like a slice of orange, Constable?” Mrs. Godding asked.

  “No, I would not.”

  Mrs. Godding proceeded to slice herself an orange. “Time spent in a detention facility by these young ladies would no doubt place a damper on your upcoming marriage.”

  The officer’s notebook and pencil clattered onto the table. “My what?”

  “Your marriage.” She beamed a congratulatory smile at him. “Why, Constable, with my own eyes I watched you last night. Your behavior left no other conclusion in the mind of a decent observer but that you two were engaged, or very soon to be so.”

  The policeman pushed his chair back. “Now, hold a moment—”

  “Of course, I had not met either one of you, but who could fail to notice such an extremely attractive—and extremely young—couple as yourselves, gossiping off in a corner together? I commented upon it at the time, to my son. ‘Ah, young love,’ I said to Julius. ‘They must be betrothed. See how lingeringly he kisses her cheek?’”

  On the cheek! Kitty hadn’t seen that one. Mary Jane, you hussy!

  Constable Quill looked around the room like a drowning man searching for a lifeboat. The gap between his front teeth wasn’t quite so adorable now. His mouth hung open, and his forehead gleamed as a fine sweat broke out upon his brow.

  Mrs. Godding watched him with calm, bland ease. “You see, Constable, we aren’t in London anymore,” she said gently. “Here, when a man behaves familiarly toward a young woman, she is right to interpret his gestures as a promise of matrimony, and the courts are quite consistent in their upholding the same opinion from the bench. Just in yesterday’s paper there was a sad mention of a breach-of-promise case in Cambridge. How the man’s sullied reputation must harm his future career prospects, I can only imagine.”

  Constable Quill ran a finger around the inside of his uniform collar. Disgraceful Mary Jane held herself regally, managing at once to be both an image of furious beauty and wounded innocence. Kitty tried hard not to smile.

  “Don’t you think, Constable Quill, it might be in everyone’s best interests for you to leave the education and discipline of these young ladies up to me?”

  The officer slipped his notebook into his pocket. “As you say, ma’am, their offenses can certainly be seen as, er, high spirits and poor judgment. It’s clear they’re in very capable hands here with you. You won’t allow them to repeat such escapades here under your watch, I’ll wager.”

  “I’d wager right along with you,” said Mrs. Godding cheerfully, “except that we know what sort of trouble betting leads to.”

  “Quite, quite.” He wiped his brow with a handkerchief and rose to his feet. “The bureau will be rather tied up for quite a while, prosecuting Doctor Snelling and Doctor Roper, not to mention Amanda Barnes,” added the constable, doffing his helmet to the roomful of soon-to-be-reformed young ladies as he prepared to leave.

  “Poor Miss Barnes,” agreed Mrs. Godding. “It’s a pleasure to see you, Constable. Do come again, whenever you’d care to visit.”

  Mary Jane spoke through clenched teeth. “We can all have tea.”

  Constable Quill bowed, fled, and shut the door behind him with a bang.

  Mrs. Godding rose, rubbed her hands together, and gathered up her plate. “This food is inedible,” she said. “I’m going to warm my plate back up in the oven. If anyone else would like to join me, there’s plenty of room. And, Miss Mary Jane, let me give you fair warning. This was the first, last, and only time that I will indulge you in your misbehavior with young men. Next time, there will be a letter to your parents, sparing no detail.”

  Mary Jane shrugged and rose with her cold breakfast plate. “It won’t be anything they haven’t heard before.”

  “And,” Mrs. Godding added, “I will sentence you to weeks of shoveling out the pig pen on the Buttses’ farm.”

  Mary Jane halted. “I … I think my breakfast is warm enough already. Thank you, ma’am.”

  EPILOGUE

  May melted into June’s dizzying sunshine, and stalks of elfin green vegetable plants rose in lovely rows in Farmer Butts’s field. June brought examin
ations to Saint Etheldreda’s School, now renamed by Mrs. Godding “Prickwillow Place.” Examinations made the girls cross, except for Pocked Louise and Dour Elinor. Stout Alice and Smooth Kitty didn’t mind the work but would rather have been outside feasting in the sunshine. Mrs. Godding, though she lacked teaching experience, had proved to be a zealous educator. Pocked Louise, with her interest in medicine, was especially thrilled to learn all that their new headmistress could teach them about anatomy and diseases. Dear Roberta and Dull Martha gave thanks every day that they weren’t in a reformatory, nor even in trouble with their parents, and tried to be content with the academic rigor.

  Disgraceful Mary Jane, however, was brooding. Her abandonment at the hands of Freddie Quill still rankled her. She was not accustomed to rejection, and certainly not to losing one upon whom she’d set her sights and with whom she had canoodled behind the parish hall curtain. In vain could Kitty make Mary Jane see reason by pointing out that Freddie was a minor loss compared to going to jail.

  They saw Julius only rarely, usually for Sunday dinners. He’d taken lodgings in the city of Ely, and was preparing to enter Oxford by studying with a tutor. There was plenty of room now in Prickwillow Place’s budget for meat at mealtimes, and this without even dipping into the doubloons now stowed safely back in the carved wooden palace. Since the school’s headmistress no longer needed to routinely rescue a dissolute brother, the girls’ tuition payments adequately covered expenses.

  Mrs. Godding held a memorial service for Mrs. Plackett and Mr. Godding a week after the strawberry social. It was a silent, somber day for the young ladies. The bodies now lay buried in Saint Mary’s churchyard, nowhere near each other. Mrs. Godding insisted upon that. “The murderer,” she said, “shall not insult his victim’s memory by lying beside her until Judgment Day.” Dour Elinor had supervised the grave digging and pronounced it adequately executed.

  One particular Sunday afternoon after a splendid dinner cooked by Dull Martha, Mrs. Godding suggested that they take their strawberries and cream dessert outdoors for a picnic in the garden. She spread old blankets on the ground, and they sat and watched Aldous chase the chickens. Their cherry tree sapling, which the police had uprooted when they exhumed the bodies, Mrs. Godding had suggested they replant and nurture. It hadn’t died yet.