The Hollow of Fear

by Sherry Thomas

  Livia stared at Lady Avery. She had never thought of the women as being in any way helpful. To anyone. She wasn’t sure she believed Lady Avery, who admitted that she’d made up the bit about the “great indiscretion.” Might this not be another gambit to make sure Livia didn’t say anything about their having gone into every guest room at Stern Hollow?

  The next moment a huge premonition slammed into her. “And what, exactly, is this injustice you are so interested in just now?”

  “I mentioned that we spoke to the servants,” said Lady Avery. “They are a loyal lot, down to the scullery maids, and didn’t consider it our business to ask after their master and mistress. But we both received the impression that while they are reluctant to say anything, they are as puzzled about Lady Ingram’s departure as we are.

  “Neither of the coachmen drove her to a railway station. No one in the house, in fact, saw her on the night of her birthday ball, after about half past midnight or quarter to one. The children and their governess aren’t here right now, but we learned that even the children didn’t get to say good-bye to her. The entire household, with a few exceptions, was ordered back to Stern Hollow the very next day, while Lord Ingram himself took the children to the seaside—neither of which had been in the plans earlier.”

  “Plans always change,” countered Livia, even as her stomach once again twisted with dread. “And wasn’t it said that it was a sudden collapse? They had a houseful of guests. Given Lady Ingram’s private nature, wouldn’t it be like her to leave, since she must, with as little noise and drama as possible?”

  The ladies did not escalate the debate. Livia was beginning to wonder whether her argument carried more weight than she thought it did, when Lady Avery said, “This is our first visit to Stern Hollow. I take it, Miss Holmes, that the same is true for you?”

  “That is correct,” Livia answered warily.

  “What do you think of the estate?”

  Their path turned and the house came back into view, quite close now, serene and lovely, nestled in its sweet green dell. “I find it enchanting.”

  “We find it a little chilling.”

  Livia’s fingertips tingled with alarm. They were about to speak of Lady Ingram again.

  “There is no imprint of Lady Ingram upon this place,” Lady Avery continued. “Not at all. We spoke to all the senior servants, the majordomo, the butler, the housekeeper, the chef, the head gardener, et cetera, et cetera. It would seem that any and all alteration or improvement originated with Lord Ingram. Your room, for example, had been redecorated to his specification within the past year or so. The nursery. The library. The addition of certain fruit trees to the walled garden. It has all been Lord Ingram. It was as if—”

  “As if Lady Ingram has no interest in houses or gardens,” said Livia heatedly. “Such women do exist.”

  Charlotte was one. She appreciated a beautiful house, but she wouldn’t lift a finger to help make one. And any interest she had in horticulture was tied directly to whether the species in question could be made into a good pudding.

  “I don’t doubt the existence of such women. But that is a terribly innocent interpretation on your part, Miss Holmes. Lord Ingram could very well have forbidden any input from his wife with regard to her own home.”

  “That is a preposterous statement to put forward, Lady Avery. Lady Ingram has one of the largest allowances in Society. And her husband has thrown a lavish ball to celebrate her birthday every year, even after he learned that she married him only for his money. He has been more than generous to her at every turn and does not have it in his character to practice such meanness.”

  “Being generous to his wife and undertaking extravagant gestures are choices that reflect well on him. They reflect especially well on him when it is believed that she does not deserve either. But think back to their rupture. I have investigated it, and everything rests on the word of one then-new under-housemaid, who told the other servants, who in turn passed on the gossip to servants they knew in other households. The story filtered upward to the ears of their masters and mistresses, and eventually a picture emerged that was wholly uncomplimentary to Lady Ingram.”

  Livia threw up her hands. “Because the truth was wholly uncomplimentary to Lady Ingram.”

  “We will allow for that possibility. But then you must also allow for the possibility that the truth might not be as complimentary to Lord Ingram: He could have orchestrated what the public was allowed to learn, in order to tilt the narrative heavily in his favor, and then practiced intimidation at home to isolate his wife and cow her into silence.”

  This was ludicrous. “No one could have cowed Lady Ingram into silence.”

  “Appearances are often deceiving,” said Lady Somersby, who until now had been happy to let her sister do all the talking. “You should trust us on this, Miss Holmes. It has been our vocation in life to see beneath the surface. Women who appear perfectly happy sometimes live in fear of their lives. And men who give every impression in public of kindness and amiability can be monsters in private.”

  “And you believe Lord Ingram—Lord Ingram—to be such a man?”

  “No one is above suspicion on such matters, because in private no one is entirely what they seem in public.”

  But wouldn’t Charlotte have known if he was a monster? Wouldn’t she have honed in on all the clues?

  Then again, as remarkable as Charlotte was, she was still only human. He was her faithful friend; his wife remained barely an acquaintance. Would her opinion have been swayed, as Livia’s most certainly would have been, by that unspoken hostility on Lady Ingram’s part?

  “Only last night you were telling me, Lady Somersby, that Lady Ingram might have run away from home. Now you portray her as a prisoner in her own marriage.”

  “Both are possible. We searched the manor not to look through anyone’s things but to see whether she might have left behind some clues to her fate.”

  “Her fate? What do you think has happened to her?”

  “What would your parents have done to your sister if she hadn’t run away?” asked Lady Somersby.

  Livia felt her jaw unhinge. “You think Lady Ingram has been shoved into the attic like Mr. Rochester’s wife?”

  “Who is this Mr. Rochester?” asked Lady Avery. “Why have I never heard of such infamy?”

  “Fictional character, Caro. Dreadful mad wife in the attic, and with her there he tries to marry someone else.” Lady Somersby turned back to Livia. “At least Lord Ingram won’t be able to commit bigamy with your sister, since we all know he’s already married.”

  Livia could barely keep her voice from rising an entire octave. “Why do you keep bringing everything back to my sister?”

  “Everything comes back to her because she is an understandable motive. Think of this, what if Lady Ingram had something to do with her downfall? What if, instead of Mrs. Shrewsbury, it had been Lady Ingram who organized that mob who marched in on her and Mr. Shrewsbury? And what if Lord Ingram, in punishing his wife, thinks of himself as having righted a wrong perpetrated against Miss Charlotte Holmes?”

  “Ladies, I begin to weary of declaring your ideas preposterous. It isn’t so simple to hold someone prisoner!” Livia had tried writing something like that in her Sherlock Holmes story and the problems had immediately become apparent. “How does he feed her? Who empties her chamber pot? How does he prevent her from screaming without suffocating her in the process?”

  A scream pierced the peaceful afternoon.

  Livia started. The ladies looked at each other in confusion. The scream came again, a man’s scream. The three women picked up their skirts and ran.

  The path led downhill. Soon Livia saw the man. The boy, rather, an adolescent dressed in a dark jacket and dark trousers. A servant of the house.

  He was on his knees. When he saw the women coming toward him, he rose unsteadily to h
is feet and attempted to speak.

  “She’s—she’s—” He swallowed. “She’s in there. She’s in there!”

  He pointed to a grassy mound to their left.

  “Who is in there?” demanded Lady Avery.

  But the boy trembled, as if he’d come down with a case of palsy, and couldn’t get another word out.

  Livia peered at the mound. “Is that the icehouse?”

  “I believe so,” said Lady Somersby grimly.

  They found the entrance on the north side of the mound. The heavy door hadn’t been locked but had shut by its own weight. With some effort, Livia pulled it open.

  What in the world was she doing? She should be staying with the poor, traumatized boy. Why was she headed for a destination that had made him run out screaming?

  And who was she?

  They passed through three antechambers, each chillier than its predecessor. The second one smelled of a badly kept latrine. Livia grimaced. Why should there be such a disagreeable odor in an icehouse?

  The third antechamber was quite large. The lit taper that had been set into a wall bracket illuminated shelves built to either side, holding all kinds of foodstuff that benefited from cold storage. A wheelbarrow lay sideways on the floor, which was wet from a pail of milk that had been knocked over.

  And fortunately here the air smelled mostly of milk and cold, nothing foul.

  They skirted the puddle and headed for the last door.

  Which opened to greater brightness than Livia anticipated—the lamp just inside had two lit tapers and a mirrored back. The ceiling domed above the ice well, the lip of which rose a foot from the floor.

  Nothing, as of yet, looked out of place.

  “So . . . he left his wheelbarrow outside to open this door and light the tapers,” Livia heard herself say.

  She had not advanced farther toward the ice well. She felt as if her blood was congealing, the warmth in her veins draining away.

  “Once they were lit,” said Lady Avery, her voice almost a whisper, “he would have gone to the edge of the well to take a look at the ice level.”

  Her sister took over. “Then he rushed out so fast he knocked over the wheelbarrow. For all we know, he might still be screaming outside.”

  Livia shivered—and not only from the fear that seemed to crawl out of her very marrow. The ice well was at least ten feet across in diameter and probably just as deep. How much ice did it hold? Two tons? Three? Her breaths emerged in visible puffs.

  “Shall we”—Lady Avery swallowed audibly—“shall we step forward together?”

  They did, inch by inch, as if they were approaching the edge of a cliff. The first thing that came into view was wood shavings on the far side of the ice well, providing insulation for the ice underneath.

  And then an outstretched hand.

  Her hand, whoever she was.

  Livia whimpered. She, too, wanted to turn around and sprint away. But her feet kept carrying her forward.

  At last they stood at the brim of the ice well and stared down onto Lady Ingram—Lady Ingram’s body—lying on top of the wood shavings.

  Someone patted Livia’s hand—she’d been clutching at Lady Somersby’s sleeve, with fingers that had been chilled to the bone.

  “Well,” said Lady Avery, her voice low yet harsh, “I guess this place is as cold as Switzerland.”

  Six

  Mrs. Watson was disappointed. Two days had passed since their visit to Stern Hollow, and Lord Ingram had not called. Granted, he had a houseful of someone else’s guests. But still, he should have been able to get away for an hour or two and come to pay his respects.

  “Really, he ought to know that I, at least, would have been anticipating his presence.”

  She fully expected Miss Holmes to make no comments. But Miss Holmes set aside the newspaper she had been perusing and said, “It is rather odd.”

  And that, apparently, was all she would say on the subject, for she picked up and glanced through the mail that had just arrived. “Mrs. Farr wrote back.”

  Mrs. Watson had to think for a moment to remember the name. Mrs. Winnie Farr, who had been given the idea to write Sherlock Holmes by Sergeant MacDonald, Inspector Treadles’s subordinate.

  “What did she say?”

  Miss Holmes scanned the letter and handed it to Mrs. Watson.

  Dear Mr. Holmes,

  Thank you for your kind letter.

  My sister, Miss Mimi Duffin, has been missing for almost three weeks. She is a grown woman and leaves London sometimes. But ten days ago my daughter Eliza turned seven. Mimi loves Eliza as her own and has never skipped her birthday before.

  When she didn’t come—or send any word—I worried. Her friends hadn’t seen her. Her room was already let to someone else, because she hadn’t paid rent.

  Her landlady told me that when she saw her last, Mimi was in high spirits because she was about to take up with a fine gentleman who was going to keep her in style. If I can find this gentleman—if you can help me find him—maybe I will learn what happened to Mimi.

  I hope she is alive and well, but I don’t believe it.

  Sincerely yours,

  Mrs. Winnie Farr

  “It would be a difficult search,” said Mrs. Watson. “And most likely fruitless.”

  “True,” said Miss Holmes. She tapped a finger against her chin. “Mrs. Newell’s guests will depart Stern Hollow soon. Should Lord Ingram call upon us afterward, I might mention that we are headed to some of London’s rougher districts.”

  Oh, that was genius. “He will insist on accompanying us. We won’t wish to trouble him, of course, but who are we to keep saying no to such chivalry?” enthused Mrs. Watson. “Should I write back and arrange for an appointment with Mrs. Farr for, let’s say, three days hence?”

  Before Miss Holmes could reply, the doorbell rang. This being the maid’s afternoon off, Mrs. Watson answered the summons herself. A young man who identified himself as a groom from Stern Hollow greeted her.

  “I have an urgent message for the ladies of Rampling Cottage, mum.”

  Mrs. Watson had taken off her reading glasses before she came to the door—oh, the vanity. Now she found it difficult to make out the exact letters on the envelope—at least without holding the letter as far from her eyes as her hand could reach and squinting unattractively.

  “An urgent message for us from Stern Hollow,” she said when she returned to the sitting room. “I wonder if it’s from Lord Ingram. Drat my old eyes.”

  Almost immediately Miss Holmes said, “That’s my sister’s handwriting.”

  “Oh? What news does she have?”

  Miss Holmes took the letter. Her expression changed—changed so much that even someone not at all acquainted with her would be able to tell that something dreadful had happened.

  “My goodness, what’s going on?” cried Mrs. Watson.

  Miss Holmes did not answer. She turned the letter over and read it again from the beginning, much slower this time, as if committing every word to memory. When she was done, she set it down on the tea table and pushed it across to Mrs. Watson.

  Dear Charlotte,

  I hope my hand will stop shaking long enough for me to write.

  Although what I really want is for what I’m about to tell you to never have happened at all.

  Lady Ingram is dead. Her body was discovered in the icehouse by a kitchen helper. The poor boy ran out screaming. Lady Avery, Lady Somersby, and I, who happened to be passing nearby, ran to his aid. We then went into the icehouse to see what had so frightened him, when he couldn’t say anything beyond, “She’s in there. She’s in there!”

  We saw her in the ice well. I’m not sure what happened afterward. I think one of the ladies tasked me to inform Lord Ingram, because the next thing I can remember is insisting to the house steward that I mu
st see his master without delay.

  When he received me, I found myself as inarticulate as the kitchen helper. “We—we were near the—the icehouse,” I stammered, “the icehouse, you—you see.”

  Then I stared at him, as if he could divine what I could not bring myself to say. He looked back at me steadily, but with such weariness that my heart broke.

  At last the words came. “Lady Ingram—Lady Ingram is in the icehouse. And she is no more.”

  Now it was he who stared at me, as if I were a chair that had spoken. His lips moved, but no sounds emerged.

  “I think you will wish to see it—to see her—for yourself,” I managed.

  An eternity passed before he said, “Lady Ingram? Lady Ingram in the—in this icehouse?”

  I nodded helplessly, wishing I’d never agreed to be a harbinger of evil tiding.

  “Are you absolutely sure?” he asked, his voice so quiet I had to strain to hear.

  I could only nod with unhappy certainty.

  He rose, poured a measure of whisky, and pressed the glass into my trembling hands. “I’ll have Mrs. Sanborn send up a tea tray to your room. It has been an awful shock. Please go and take some rest.”

  I did not need to be encouraged twice.

  But now, with the tea tray beside me, my cheeks scald as I recall my utter uselessness. He’d remembered to see to my well-being but I didn’t even possess the presence of mind to comfort him. To declare my belief in his innocence. My faith that the universe would not be so cruel as to saddle him with the blame for Lady Ingram’s death.

  Alas, all I did was babble something incoherent. Worse, as I left, I wished him good luck.

  I should have at least told him that you would get to the bottom of the matter. That he was not alone in this dire misfortune. But at the time I fled with an unholy haste, only to moan and shiver in the tranquil loveliness of my room, no longer able to hold on to any illusion of sanctuary.