Lady Anne and the Menacing Mystic

by Victoria Hamilton

  Her carriage awaited; Osei handed her up into it, bowed and strode off to see to his duties. Inside the carriage Irusan awaited in fluffy splendor. Many a lady carried with her a small dog as companion. Anne had decided that if her cat chose to accompany her—unlike a dog, a cat must choose for himself—she would welcome it, as eccentric as it would undoubtedly appear. Today was one of the days he had followed her out to the carriage.

  They traveled a short distance, and then Anne told the driver to wait; she entered the Milsom Street residence of the Bestwicks. Lady John was not receiving visitors, the maid informed her, but Anne tartly told her to summon Lolly. Her real aim was to enlist her cousin’s aid to interview the mystic’s maidservant, so she was perfectly content not to see Lydia that day. Lolly was, as always, willing to help in any way possible.

  Shortly thereafter they were let down at Margaret’s Buildings. Anne stiffened her back. “Lolly, if you will wait for me in your rooms, I have some business with the mystic.”

  “Is it about poor Lydia?”

  “It is indeed.”

  “May I go up with you, Anne?”

  “I think this is something I had best do on my own.”

  Lolly did not argue. Anne, with Irusan prancing at her side, strode down the street, ignoring the amazed expressions of passersby. She entered, greeted young Bridie with a nod and a wink, and said she would see the mystic, if the woman was free. The child, with a frightened look, told her there were no patrons present and bade her ascend and sit in the anteroom. The girl hastened to her employer. Anne could hear the murmur of voices, a shout and a slap. She started up from her chair, but Bridie, her cheek red and tears in her eyes, came out to the anteroom, curtseyed and bid her enter. Anne sailed in, followed by Irusan, who proceeded to investigate each corner of the room, his tail swishing, his whiskers twitching, and his nose wiggling. His entire attitude, watchful and alert, indicated that there were mousies afoot.

  The mystic was seated in her spot and sent a baleful look at the cat but did not object. “What do you want, lady?” she asked. “You’re here to make trouble for me.”

  Anne sat. “Perhaps.”

  A quivering Bridie offered Anne tea, but she shook her head. “No, I’m not here to have my leaves read, or my palm, or my fortune or future.”

  The mystic stared at her. “Why are ye here?”

  “I’m here to set you straight. As long as you are just taking people’s money to feed them a line about their supposed future, I was not your enemy. But you are harming someone I love.”

  “I harm no one,” the woman said. “I tell them their . . . their future.”

  Anne paused; there was something in the old woman’s voice, a quavering tone. Her eyes darted, and she appeared to shrink in her seat. This did not fit with Anne’s view of her as a bold teller of lies for profit. Was she a cat’s-paw, in someone else’s control . . . perhaps a certain gold-haired gentleman? It was an interesting thought, and one she would have to ponder, but not now. “You are going to deny what I have to say, but I know the truth. My name is Lady Anne Addison.”

  “I know who you are.” The woman was sullen, uneasy, slumping humpbacked in her chair.

  “Do you? Do you know which of us—you or me—a magistrate is most likely to listen to?”

  The woman’s beady eyes dilated and protruded; it was the reaction of someone frightened. Good, Anne thought. Perhaps she should not bully an old woman, but a message must be sent, a lesson imparted.

  “I came here with a young woman who was heavy with child. I did not know it at the time, but you and your henchman, Mr. Thomas Graeme, had a wicked, vile plot to wrest from her money and jewels using fakery and intimidation. You heard of her somehow, likely from some other of your clients.” The Bestwicks had been in Bath two months and had made some acquaintances in that time, many of whom no doubt visited the mystic. It was the only way the woman could have learned of Lydia, and how soft a victim of the swindle she would be.

  The mystic made no move nor protestation.

  “You sent her a note, saying she and her baby were cursed, and that she needed a purveyor of magic so she could uncurse herself. You were the obvious choice; what other seer, or prophetess, would she have heard of but the woman all of Bath is exclaiming over? And like a fool I delivered her to you, the perfect sweet stupid victim.” Her voice shook. She took a moment to contain it, to submerge her rage with reason. She took a long deep breath and sat ramrod straight. “Since then she has given you money—or jewelry, more likely, for she has little money of her own—and in return you gave her talismans and potions to uncurse her unborn child.”

  The woman was as still as a statue, but behind her, Anne heard the maid squeak like a mouse. Irusan growled, and there was a thud. When she turned, she saw that he had pounced and dispatched a rather large gray rat. He hunched beside it, one paw holding it down though it was clearly dead, licking it all over. He then sat up straight and began cleaning himself meticulously. He would not eat the rodent, for he was far too well fed to dine on such grubby fare. It was enough that he had killed it.

  Anne turned back to the mystic, who watched her with squinted eyes set in wrinkled pockets. The fear had dissipated, replaced by a cunning furtive wiliness. “Madam, don’t deny what I have said, for I know it’s true. I don’t know why you targeted poor Lydia, but you will stop immediately and never communicate with her again. Tell your courier to leave her alone. If she comes here, or if she writes to you, you will tell her the curse is gone, and that she and her baby are safe.” Anne rose, pushing the chair back with an impatient movement. “If you do not abide by my rules, beware; I have powerful friends. I will make sure that you and your . . . confederate will receive a visit from the magistrate in your future, whether you foresee it or not.”

  The woman’s mouth worked but no words came out. But finally she said, her voice hoarse, “Ye should not threaten an old woman, lady.”

  “Or what? You will curse me?”

  The woman stared at her in surly silence.

  Anne put two hands on the table and leaned over it, staring directly in the mystic’s beady pale eyes. “I don’t believe in your curses, and I don’t believe in your visions. You are a trickster, a fraud. You make your living off the fear and gullibility of sad and needy people.”

  “All who can afford to give me a shilling or two!” she cried.

  Anne straightened and acknowledged it with a nod. “If you had stayed with that, with a pittance in exchange for a dream and a hope, I would have left you alone. But you abused your place, and I suspect . . .” She stopped and shook her head, watching the woman, who appeared once again to be in the throes of some unnamed terror. Out of pity she softened her tone. “Do what I ask. I bid you good day. If I were you, I would pack up and leave Bath. You have wrested enough money from Bath idiots; your time here is growing short.”

  The woman glared at her.

  Anne had been about to leave, but given what she suspected, she had to issue a warning. It was her first hope to stop any future deaths. “Remember, madam, while I thought it harmless diversion I was content to be silent, but I suspect there is more, beyond your poor fortune-telling, something deadly, if I am right.” She watched the mystic for some sign she was close to the truth, but there was nothing, just a baleful glare and a chin quivering, her mouth working to withhold some emotion. “I pray, for your sake, I am not correct.” What she suspected seemed infamous, unthinkable, impossible and yet . . . she turned and headed for the door. “Come, Irusan.”

  She descended the stairs, her cat prancing before her, and went to Lolly’s rented rooms down the street. Irusan followed her in the door, which frightened the landlady. The woman shrieked in dismay and slammed the door on her section of the townhome. Anne ascended.

  “I heard my landlady scream,” Lolly said, opening her door to Anne. “Was it the sight of Irusan?”

  “She looked terrified. I don’t know why, when she saw him last time.”

  “
You carried him in that time. She’s nearsighted; I’d warrant she thought him a dog. She is one of those who are superstitious about cats. I’m so sorry, Sir Irusan,” Lolly said in a sweetly facetious apology to the large cat.

  Ears and whiskers twitching, he set about examining Lolly’s rooms, following her as she dusted and opened windows to air out the stale smell after several days away. There was a vase of dead flowers to dispose of and several pieces of mail the landlady had slipped under the door. As she fussed, Irusan sneezed at the dust she disturbed. Anne told her what she had said to the mystic.

  “I hope you haven’t stirred up trouble,” Lolly fretted, turning, cloth paused in her tidy work.

  “I’ll not have Lydia’s trusting nature abused in that way.” She wasn’t about to reveal her darker suspicions to her cousin, not yet. Anne checked her pocket watch. “It is past noon. Mayhap after what she heard Bridie will not dare to come.”

  Lolly, by the window, glanced out. “Oh, there she is now!”

  Anne raced down the steps, huffing from the exertion, and threw open the door. “Bridie, come in, come in! Swiftly, girl!”

  The girl shrank back and cast her gaze sideways in alarm. “I d-don’t know—”

  “Come inside, at least,” Anne said, tugging her sleeve and glancing up and down the street. There were some strolling, but no one she recognized. “Come upstairs. I hope my visit to Mother Macree did not frighten you.”

  The girl climbed the steps, trembling with apprehension. The familiar sight of Lolly calmed her greatly, but it was seeing Irusan that completely chased away her nerves. “Oh, he is such a beautiful puss!” she cried, sitting down abruptly on the floor and watching him, wide-eyed. “I so wanted to pet him when he was examining the room, but I didn’t dare, not in front of Mother Macree.”

  He stepped toward her, sniffed delicately, nudging her chin and rubbing softly against her cheek, and then climbing into her apron-clad lap with the assured step of a monarch. The girl hummed in delight and put her slender arms around the huge cat, hugging him and nuzzling her face deep into his ruff of neck fur. She sighed happily. “What is his name?” she mumbled, her voice muffled.

  “He is Irusan, King of the Cats.” Anne exchanged a look with Lolly. This was a fortunate turn of events, the girl’s infatuation with Irusan, and she would take advantage of it. “He seems to like you,” Anne said, sitting in a chair near the maid and folding her gloved hands in her lap. “He does not do this often. In fact, he dislikes most people. You must be exceptional.”

  The child looked up and blinked, her face pinkening and her eyes wide. “Oh, no, milady, I’m just an orphan girl, not special at all.”

  “Irusan thinks differently, and I know him to be an extraordinarily good judge of character.” Anne let a moment pass. The child stroked the cat, and Irusan began his throaty murmuring purr as he curled himself into her lap and closed his eyes, stretching out at his leisure. “Would you like to brush him?” she said, and took the cat’s brush out of her pocket.

  “May I?” The girl accepted the brush and began stroking the cat’s fur, and his purr became louder, more throaty, a hum of pleasure.

  “You must be a very special girl, anyway, Bridie, for you work for the mystic. How wonderful to be in the seer’s company at all times. What insight she must give you!” She paused, then said, “What sight into your own future!”

  The girl kept her gaze down on Irusan as she murmured, “My mother woulda said t’was all a hum.”

  “Is it?”

  The maid sighed gustily. “Milady, the mystic sees no further into the future than a few coins will take her.”

  Anne hesitated, uncertain how to elicit more information. “Is she not a true seer, then?”

  “You know she isn’t. You said so yourself, milady,” Bridie said with a shrewd glance at Anne.

  “I know I said so, but still, I acknowledge that she has made the most startling pronouncements. I accused her of deception, but I cannot explain the things she knows of her clients unless she has the key to the mind.”

  “It’s all a trick, milady, all of it.” Words tumbled from the girl in rhythm with her brushing strokes. “If you could only see . . . the walls have ears.”

  “What do you mean?” Anne asked, exchanging a puzzled look with Lolly.

  Bridie then explained how the rooms were constructed, with listening tubes in the walls. Anne, eyes wide, recalled sitting in the anteroom, chatting with Lolly, Lydia and Quin. What had she said while there? Lydia had spoken of her fears for her child, and Quin had spoken of Bertie and Alethea. The listening tubes would have conveyed information to the mystic, who used it to her benefit, making it seem like otherworldly intelligence.

  “But there are things she cannot have overheard,” Anne said, thinking of Quin’s confession that he had a sister who had died in early childhood. They had most certainly not discussed that in the anteroom. However . . . there was a possible connection, and she must learn about it. “Tell me, Bridie,” she said softly, “does she have a gentleman who brings her gossip? A blond gentleman?”

  “Her grandson, you mean?”

  Grandson? Anne blinked rapidly. “Are you saying that Mr. Thomas Graeme is the mystic’s grandson?”

  “She calls him Tommy.” She threaded her fingers through Irusan’s fur and pulled out a tangle. He growled and swatted at her, but she soothed him with a murmured apology whispered into his ear, and he settled once more. Bridie looked up, her pale face alight with mischief. “Mother Macree doesn’t know I know, but I overheard him calling her Grandmam and cursing her out for being slow. He brings her tidbits of gossip and news. He tells her all he has heard in the Pump Room, and from whispered confidences in some club he belongs to. He makes friends everywhere, and carries gossip when he returns. Madam has the most amazing memory. Many a time when someone comes to her, and she learns their name, she has already much information about them.”

  And that likely provided the source of the information about the late Birkenhead daughter. Lonsdale, being an intimate of the family, would know about the daughter from conversation with his friends, and perhaps in passing revealed it to Thomas Graeme, who then relayed it to his grandmother, among all the tidbits of gossip. She was inspired to bring it out at the exact right moment with Quin to astonish and inspire belief.

  Oh, how tangled was Thomas Graeme in all of this, all that had lately happened. For it was he who took the curse notes to Lydia. “Bridie, does the gentleman—the mystic’s grandson—does he bring things back for her? Did he perhaps give you something in a little sac one day?”

  “Aye, milady. Not just that time, but others. Gifts, me mistress calls them . . . offerings.”

  If she had known all of this, about Graeme’s familial connection to the mystic, before she upbraided the woman about the curse she could have more readily made the woman quiver in fear of the magistrates, knowing that Graeme was not just a confederate but her grandchild. Such a threat would have carried more weight, certainly. Her anger burned again, flaring at the information; criminality ran in the family, it seemed, and the connection made sense out of much that had seemed absurd. She took a deep breath. “Do you recall some of the gentlemen who have come to the mystic, especially those who are looking for romance or companionship?”

  Irusan turned over and stretched, lying over her lap like a large furry blanket, giving her the ability to brush his other side. Bridie continued on, almost in a trance as she spoke. “Oh, yes, there have been many.”

  “A Mr. Courtland?”

  She nodded.

  “And a Baron Kattenby?”

  “Yes, milady. And Mr. Doyne, and many others. But ladies, too.”

  Ladies, looking for love . . . Anne’s stomach lurched. “Tell me, has a Mrs. Basenstoke come to the mystic?”

  “Yes, milady. Certainly.”

  She must find out more about Mrs. Basenstoke’s suitor, Mr. Smythe. “And what does the mystic tell them, when these gentlemen and ladies come looking
for love?”

  “Why, first she learns all there is to know of them, what kind of lady they like, tall or short, stout or slender, and hair color. And what they prefer: poetry, or music, books or science . . . that sort of thing. That is at the first meeting.”

  “And then?”

  “And then she tells all to Mr. Graeme, you see. The next time or the time after that she tells them they will meet such and such a type of lady, and to look about them.”

  The conclusion was clear. Mr. Graeme somehow found or created the perfect lady for the gentleman. Chilled, Anne considered the unnatural finish of it all; in some cases it appeared to end with the death of the well-to-do husband. An unnatural death? If she was right about this, it was a horrible murdering scheme, an appalling conspiracy, but she had not a scintilla of proof. She must find the proof, before it was too late for some other gentleman or lady. Perhaps the warning she had issued to the mystic was enough to halt their wicked plans for now, but she must make haste. “Bridie, do you happen to recall a gentleman by the name of Mr. Alfred Lonsdale?” The girl nodded. “Did he visit the mystic?”

  “Aye, milady, more than once. The first time he came alone.”

  “Alone? Did he speak with the mystic?”

  “Yes, milady. They whispered. He was unhappy, I could tell.”

  “Did you overhear what was said?”

  “No. Or . . . not exactly. I did hear the gentleman say something like if you won’t stop him I must, or something like that. When he came the next time it was to meet Mr. Graeme.”

  “To meet Mr. Graeme? What day was that? Do you recall?”

  “A few days ago, milady. Oh . . . Tuesday, it t’were.”

  Tuesday . . . the very day Lonsdale died he was there, at the mystic’s abode. “Morning or afternoon?”

  “T’was . . . around this time of day, milady.”

  “Was there anyone else there?”

  The child looked a little frightened at her questions. “My mistress sent me out, milady, to get her some boiled sweets and some broth for her dinner.”