Lady Anne and the Menacing Mystic

by Victoria Hamilton

  He looked terribly sad, his face lined with weariness. Susanna clung to him, but it was clear she did so for his sake, not hers; she was bearing his weight with her own young strength. Anne couldn’t tell if their mutual affection was gratitude, love, or friendship. She could not guess at Quin’s feelings, but from her knowledge of her friend she suspected on Susanna’s side it was love, a swift and complete meeting of the mind and heart. That was something her friend had never found in all the years she had been “out” in London and in Bath. She hoped Alethea didn’t get in their way, that she let the two determine their own futures. There were not two more deserving souls in the whole nation.

  They all chatted, then Susanna and Lolly stood and moved away to obtain glasses of punch. Anne had only a few minutes. Of anyone she could have told what was worrying her, she instinctively trusted Quin’s intelligence and calm reflection the most.

  The room was still crowded; she bent her head to his and kept her voice low. “Mr. Birkenhead, I have been sorely distressed today by what I have heard from the gossipmongers who use this place to spread their tales.”

  “I’m sorry you’ve been disturbed,” he said, the lines of discomfort on his narrow face beginning to ease as he sat at his leisure. “What gossip in particular has upset you?”

  “I think you know it must have to do with Mr. Lonsdale and his untimely death,” she said, watching his expression.

  He nodded, sadness on his pale face. “I’m not surprised. It was bound to be spoken of.”

  “The worst of it is, some are saying that he could not bear to live any longer, and so effected his own death and chose Bertie and Alethea’s home purposely to embarrass them.”

  Quin still did not appear surprised. “My lady, if that is all that is disturbing you, I would advise you let such malicious gossip die aborning. It is not worth dignifying by denying.”

  “There is something in what you say, sir.” While she acknowledged his methodology, she suspected that in this case it might be better to fight the gossip than let it go. Rumor, like a creeping weed, could send snaking tendrils into each crack and crevice, crumbling in time the sturdiest edifice, even one as strong as the Birkenhead family. “But there is more to my concern; when I walked with Mr. Lonsdale on Sunday, he was clearly in distress. He spoke of sins that would keep him from taking his position as a vicar if he should be offered one.” She was silent for a long moment. “I don’t understand what he meant.”

  “You don’t think I know what was in his mind or heart?” Quin replied. “Or that, even if I did, I would feel free to spread such information about a fellow I considered a friend? It would be a . . . a desecration of his good name, and for naught, since he is gone. It’s not as though we can solve his problems after death. I will stoutly defend his name wherever I hear slander, but I will never reveal anything about his personal life.”

  She would have expected nothing less from the gentleman. “Your brother is going to miss Mr. Lonsdale.”

  “Yes,” he replied. “They were close.” And that was all he would say, though he was clearly pondering what she told him.

  She felt a little better for having shared her worries with him. Anne returned Lolly to the Bestwick home. She had not forgotten her concern for Lydia, and her secretiveness over visits to the mystic. The last thing she said to her cousin was, should Lydia go again to the mystic, Anne would like to be there. She must learn of it ahead of time, though.

  “A message will find me any time of day, Lolly. Please, for Lydia’s sake, don’t fail me.”

  “I don’t know if I will be able to, Anne, dear, but I will do my best.”

  It had been a long, sad day with little concrete information to help her understand how and why Alfred Lonsdale died. It was not her mystery to elucidate, and yet . . . it was a puzzle, and unsolved puzzles were anathema to her. She must uncover the explanation.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The next morning Mrs. McKellar again attended Anne and they fitted more wardrobe items, including the dress she would wear to marry Darkefell. The gown was colorful and alluring, everything she wished to be for her husband. Made from scarlet silk, it was trimmed in gold embroidered vines that lined the stomacher and the neckline of the gown. With it she would wear her ruby parure, the necklace of which would drape perfectly in her décolleté. She shivered, thinking of her husband-to-be. He was unlike any man she had ever met, and despite all they had already been to each other, it was beyond comprehension that soon they would be man and wife.

  She gazed at herself in the mirror, her hair still down in nighttime abandon, her eyes heavy-lidded from a night of little sleep. She touched the low bosom of the gown, tracing the neckline, imagining Tony’s hand instead of her own, his palm broad and strong, thick fingers surprisingly gentle. Shivering, she turned away from the mirror to the seamstress.

  “This is wonderful, Mrs. McKellar. I think you can take in the waist of the bodice somewhat, and the skirt too.”

  “Yes, milady.” She picked up her paper of pins and stuck some in her mouth, getting down to business.

  Anne sighed and daydreamed. Tony . . . long winter nights with him alone (but for a large retinue of servants) in a big, drafty, cold Yorkshire castle. There was so much about marriage to him that she anticipated with unadulterated joy and desire and yet . . . and yet . . . she had reservations, fears, and gloomy moments of doubt. It was tiresome, and there was no one in whom she could confide, or at least no one who understood her deep uncertainties. All dismissed her concerns with airy certainty that she would settle in to wifehood with ease.

  In her agitation she had moved. Mrs. McKellar begged her to stay still; she did not want to poke Anne. Taking a deep breath, Anne stilled herself. Irusan, who had been napping on a new velvet cushion Mrs. McKellar had sewn for him, stretched and yawned and looked up at her, blinking sleepily. He rose from the cushion, sauntered over and rubbed his whole body against Anne’s legs, purring loudly. Somehow, the cat always knew when she needed him. Mrs. McKellar smiled and rubbed Irusan’s cheeks as he stretched out his legs and clawed happily at the Turkey rug. The seamstress picked him up and put him in Anne’s arms. She nuzzled his fur and shook the gloominess away. It was the happenings of the last few days that had her despondent. She must cheer up and trust she was making the right decisions. She was deeply in love with Darkefell, and believed he returned that love with an equal fervor. All the rest they would work out between them.

  Anne put Irusan down and he resumed in place on the beautiful velvet cushion made from gown scraps in a gorgeous array of gold and azure, scarlet and emerald. He purred loudly and stretched, as the new cushion gave him room to luxuriate. Her mother and grandmother were again by the fire, this time going over visitors’ cards. Lord Westmacott was due to attend them that afternoon, and the two women exclaimed over his most recent purchase, a high-perch phaeton, made popular by the young and fashionable Prince of Wales but exceptionally lively for a gentleman of his years.

  “He’s one o’ them who goes to see the mystic,” the seamstress whispered to Anne, past a mouth bristling with pins. “I wouldn’t doubt it was her as put the notion of the carriage in his head.”

  “Lord Westmacott? How do you know he visited her?” Anne said, looking down at her as she rapidly pinned the waist, then moved up to the last seam on the bodice, tugging it to fit and inserting a line of pins.

  Taking the last pin from between her lips, Mrs. McKellar inserted it and then gave it a pat. Her green eyes sparkling in the window’s light, she said, “I hear much that goes on. The mystic’s maid, Bridie—poor girl—is friends with my sister’s char, Tompkins.”

  “And Lord Westmacott goes? Who else whose name I would recognize?” Anne asked.

  “Baron Kattenby,” she said. “Do you know that gentleman?”

  “As a matter of fact, you have heard me speak of Alethea and Bertie Birkenhead. His new fiancée is Bertie’s cousin, Mrs. Bella Venables.”

  “It is said that he chose
her because she was so strongly marked for him by the spirits. The mystic herself foresaw it!”

  “Was he seeking a wife?”

  “As much as many men do, someone to be a comfort to him in his later years, yes. The gossips say he had already begun to court another before taking up with Mrs. Venables.”

  “How was she brought to his attention?”

  “The mystic foretold in coffee grounds that a certain lady was about to come into his life, and affect it powerfully. He was to make her his bride to ensure a long life of good health and wealth. She named the lady’s height, hair color, and even her initials, BV!”

  She frowned. “How very . . . specific.”

  “So when he met her, he knew.”

  “Interesting. I was told yesterday that it was a Mr. Graeme who introduced them to each other.”

  “The hand of providence, perhaps,” Mrs. McKellar said lightly.

  “Maybe,” Anne said doubtfully. She had some thoughts on that, and was beginning to get a glimmer of an idea that was, as yet, amorphous. “So you know the mystic’s maid? I recall her, a small girl with a nervous manner.”

  “Nervous, perhaps,” the seamstress said with a grim tone. “But mayhap it’s not her disposition but her position, if you understand. I’ve heard that the mystic has a foul temper and lashes out at the child.”

  “Is that so? What a pity. I’ve always thought it is a dangerous thing to mistreat your serving staff. Loyalty cannot be bought with money; it must be earned with kindness.”

  “You’re wise for a young woman, milady.” As Mrs. McKellar helped her out of the pinned bodice and gown, then turned to fold the pieces into the trunk she would use to take it back to her rooms to do the final sewing, Anne had an idea, which led to a plan. She would need help to effect it, though. “You say your sister’s charwoman is friends with Bridie?”

  “Aye. As much as the poor girl has time to be friends with anyone,” Mrs. McKellar said, standing and turning to watch Anne with curiosity in her bright, quick eyes. “We have rooms not too far away from the mystic’s. Why do you ask, milady?”

  How well did Anne know the seamstress? Not enough to confess everything, but enough to reveal some of her thoughts, she decided. “Please, sit for a moment.”

  The seamstress did, at the table by the window, and Anne sat opposite her. Thin light streamed in through the window, burnishing the dusty pink of a vase of late roses with warm golden light. “I have concerns that the mystic is leading people astray,” she said carefully, folding her hands together in front of her. “I worry that she’s using her skills to instill fear, or inspire her clients to do things they wouldn’t normally do.”

  “Such as what, milady?”

  Anne shook her head. That was more than she had intended to say. “I don’t know what I mean, exactly, but I am suspicious. Perhaps her advice leads simply to making a ridiculous acquisition, as Lord Westmacott’s high-perch phaeton. I’m a rational creature, and as such I have no patience with anyone who believes that old fraud can see the future, or speak to the dead. It’s got to be a trick, but I can’t explain it.”

  “You’ll not be believing, then, that she foretells the future?” There was a glint of knowing humor in the seamstress’s eyes as she said it.

  “I do not,” Anne said with an answering smile. “There must be some method, a way she learns things. I want to know how.”

  The seamstress looked down at her work-worn hands and frowned, pensive. “I believe there are things we don’t know, milady, things beyond the veil. I don’t believe we see and know everything there is to know, for the very air about me is filled with mysteries, the wind I cannot see though it tosses the treetops, fairy circles in the woods, the spirit of my mother, who comes to me in my sleep.” Then she looked up and with a smile said, “For all that, I’ll agree that yon Mystic of Bath is likely not a reader of things beyond that veil. But begging your pardon, milady, why do you care?”

  “My young and impressionable friend, Lady John Bestwick, is, I fear, in the woman’s clutches. She’s with child, and vulnerable. She’s going there and . . .” Anne stopped and leaned forward. “Please don’t say this to anyone else,” she murmured.

  Mrs. McKellar acknowledged the plea with a nod.

  “Lydia is lying about it, to me and to her husband, who she knows doesn’t approve. It worries me. I am the one who took her to see the mystic in the first place and I wish I hadn’t. What is the woman saying to her that has Lydia so afraid?”

  “How do you think that poor Bridie can help?”

  Anne gazed at her steadily. “Mrs. McKellar, though many of my acquaintance refuse to acknowledge it, servants know more about a household than anyone else. There are no secrets where there are servants. Bridie must know how the mystic goes about telling her clients about their lives and their future. Where does she get information from? How much is inspired guesswork? How much does she glean from the conversations she has with other clients?” For the moment she decided not to go into what she really wanted to know, how the woman knew who was looking for a spouse, and what would attract them. “I’d like to meet her . . . the little maid. Can your sister’s char arrange it?”

  The woman looked pained but hesitant. “Milady, you’re not wrong in one respect; servants know a lot about what goes on in the household. But . . .” She shook her head and fidgeted.

  “I hope you know you can be honest with me.”

  “I wouldn’t want to offend you, milady.” She leaned forward across the table and said softly, “You do see that Bridie’s continuing to work requires discretion? You cannot think I’d bring her to you and you’d winkle out all the mystic’s secrets?” The seamstress shook her head. “That’s hardly fair to the girl. It’s a risk I’d not ask her to take. It’s nothing to you, but everything to her.”

  Anne felt a moment of shame; in her eagerness to solve a mystery, she had disregarded the real consequences for someone vulnerable to the moods and annoyance of a bad-tempered employer. “I understand.” She drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “She doesn’t enjoy her position, didn’t you say?”

  “The mystic is a harsh mistress.”

  “What if I could arrange for a better job? One in a happier household?”

  “Why would you do that, milady?”

  “Let’s say, if I am right, she may not have a job for long anyway.” If she was right and could prove it, the mystic might be chased out of Bath. “I’d rather the girl have somewhere safe to go.”

  The seamstress examined her face for a moment, one intelligent woman to another, and nodded. “I’ll see what I can do, milady.”

  After the seamstress departed, Anne excused herself from her mother’s company and repaired to her own tiny sitting room, a dim little closet off her dressing room, to write some notes, still wearing a type of banyan gown she liked for morning. She must get organized. She wrote down all the puzzles and mysteries perturbing her sleep. The chat with the seamstress had been illuminating. She wanted to discover more about the matchmaking the mystic seemed to be doing and, if she was correct, Mr. Graeme’s part in it.

  Young Mr. Graeme was the common factor linking the other enigma confounding her, the more pressing puzzle of Mr. Lonsdale’s death. There was a mystery there, one that worried her, nagging at her brain no matter how much she tried to distract herself with her curiosity about the Mystic of Bath and her influence over people, including her puzzling meetings with Lydia. Her deepest question about the strange death was, how had Mr. Lonsdale died of yew poisoning? Surely it was impossible to ingest yew accidentally?

  Truffle entered her sitting room, holding a silver salver. “The post, milady,” he said, bowing.

  She took the stack of letters. There were notes from Osei, Alethea, Lolly and Mrs. Basenstoke. From Clary, for her? Curious, she opened that one first. It was to her. The lady wrote as to a friend, brief and to the point:

  Lady Anne Addison

  Everingham House, The Paragon

  A
nne, I need your help. Something is wrong, and I don’t understand it, and I cannot speak to Roger about it. Can you come? This morning? Please?

  Mrs. Clary Basenstoke

  Gordon House, River Street

  Her breath caught. Clary was worried about Alfred’s peculiar death; that was the only interpretation she could put on such a note. She set the letter aside. Clary Basenstoke would be her first visit of the day.

  Three more notes were in the stack. Osei’s was brief and to the point: the marquess would arrive on Monday, the sixteenth day of October. The secretary had informed him by return post of the townhome rental, and that all would be ready; his employer could send staff ahead to prepare his temporary home. Anne felt a pleasurable trill down her backbone, one of anticipation and nervousness combined. They had been apart for weeks. What would a first meeting be like?

  She shrugged off those thoughts to open the next note, addressed to her in a sloping, scrawling hand. It was from Lolly, and betrayed an anxiety about Lydia that reanimated Anne’s own worries. Lolly would not hide it from her dear cousin; Lydia was going to visit the mystic again that very morning. Lydia had seemed relieved after their private meeting, but late yesterday had lapsed again into abstracted anxiety. Something preyed on her mind, something she would not divulge to Lolly. Lolly thought that Lydia was not normally a secretive lady, but she was hiding something. Would Anne come, in the afternoon, and talk to the young woman? Please?

  Of course she would. She had wanted to attend the mystic with Lydia, but perhaps that was not practical, not right now, anyway. She opened the last, from Alethea. Her friend was deeply worried about Lonsdale’s death, true, but also what it was doing to their social standing. Folks who would normally visit were ignoring their invitations and shunning them in public. Did Anne know what was wrong? Did she have any information? Could she visit? Would she visit?