Young Woman in a Garden

by Delia Sherman

  Mrs. Mildmay, much moved, reached out and patted her brother’s hand. “There’s no need to be talking of wills and dying, Brother. I’ve no doubt you’ll see out your century with ease.”

  He shook his head heavily. “I will not see out the year. No, Caroline, don’t argue with me. The ring must stay in the family.” He rose slowly and tottered as he stood and Mrs. Mildmay sprang to her feet to steady him. Once more he kissed her cheek. “God bless you, Caroline. I don’t suppose I’ll see you again.”

  After this conversation, Mrs. Mildmay was not much amazed when, not three days later, she received word that Sir Alvord had suffered an apoplectic fit. At first, his life was despaired of, and even when it seemed sure he would live, he could no longer move his arms or legs, but must be fed and turned and bathed like an infant. In this great exigency, Lady Basingstoke displayed all the careful tenderness that could be hoped from a loving wife and, although she was herself not a young woman, undertook the entire burden of his nursing. To be sure, there were nurses hired to tend him, but as Lady Basingstoke considered them all worthless baggages, she would not leave any of them alone with him for more than a few moments. So it was that when Mrs. Mildmay called to inquire after her brother’s health, Lady Basingstoke did not come down to her, but received her in Sir Alvord’s dressing room with the communicating door ajar.

  She was seated in a shabby wing-chair, her head inclined upon her hand in an attitude eloquent of the most complete dejection, but she lifted her head at Mrs. Mildmay’s entrance and waved her to a chair. “Please forgive me not rising to greet you, dear Caroline,” she said. “I am utterly prostrate, as you see. He had a very bad night, and this morning was discovered to be unable to speak. Sir Omicron Pie has warned me to prepare myself for the worst.”

  Mrs. Mildmay may have considered her brother’s wife a harpy, but it would be a harder heart than hers to have denied Lady Basingstoke a sister’s comfort at such a time. “My dear Margaret,” she said. “I am so very sorry. You must let me know if there is anything I may do to help you. Sit with Alvord, perhaps, so that you can take some rest?”

  “No, no. You are too kind, Caroline, but no. Dear Alvord will suffer no one about him but me.” Her voice faltered and she raised her hand to her eyes, as though to hide springing tears. The gesture reminded Mrs. Mildmay irresistibly of her brother’s when he had come to call, the more so that it displayed Lady Basingstoke’s hand, well kept and very large for a woman, just now made to look delicate by a great gold ring set with a single large, red stone: the Parwat Ruby.

  “I beg your pardon, Margaret,” said Mrs. Mildmay, “but is that not Alvord’s ring?”

  The question caused Lady Basingstoke to have recourse to her handkerchief, and it was not until she had composed herself that she said, “He gave it to me last night. It was as though he knew he’d soon be beyond speech, for he took it from his finger and put it upon mine, saying that it was the dearest wish of his heart to see it always upon my hand. It is, of course, far too big; but I have tied it on with a bit of cotton, which I trust will hold it until I can bear to be parted with it long enough to have it made to fit.”

  “How very touching,” said Mrs. Mildmay. There was nothing so very exceptionable in her tone, but Lady Basingstoke absolutely frowned at her and requested her to explain what she meant.

  “Only that dear Alvord was not commonly so fluent in his speech.”

  “I think, dear Mrs. Mildmay, that you are hardly qualified to have an opinion,” said Lady Basingstoke, “considering that you have hardly spoken to him twice in twenty years. I assure you it took place just as I have told you.”

  “No doubt,” answered Mrs. Mildmay, and took her leave not many minutes afterwards. It is perhaps not necessary to say that Mrs. Mildmay had every doubt as to the accuracy of Lady Basingstoke’s recollection, but she could hardly say so. An evening call is not a Will, after all, and her brother had every right to change his mind as to the distribution of his own property.

  Now Lady Basingstoke was even more indispensable to Sir Alvord than when he had been merely bed-bound, for she was the only one who could make shift to understand his gruntings and gesturings and bring him a little ease. In fact, she dispensed with the nurses altogether and snatched her rest when she might upon a trundle bed, for in her absence he would become unbearably agitated. Sir Omicron Pie continued to call each morning, but he could do nothing above prescribing a calming draught. Given the tenor of her last visit, Mrs. Mildmay was not surprised when the butler turned her from the door when next she came to call. But she was much astonished the following morning, when she read the notice of Sir Alvord Basingstoke’s death in The Times.

  “It’s a bad business,” she exclaimed to her husband, who was enjoying the text of Mr. Gresham’s latest speech. “It’s a bad business when a sister must read of her brother’s passing in the public press.”

  “Not at all, my dear. Devoted wife, prostrate widow. Likely it slipped her mind. Here’s Gresham rabbitting on about the poor again, as if he could do anything, with his party feeling as it does about taxes. It’s a crime, that’s what it is. A crime and a sin.”

  “I daresay, Quintus, but do pay attention. When I called yesterday afternoon, the curtains were not drawn, there was no crepe on the knocker, and the butler said only that his mistress was not at home to visitors.”

  “Man wasn’t dead yet,” said Mr. Mildmay reasonably.

  “Nonsense,” said his wife. “I defy even the most energetic widow to get a notice of death in The Times in anything under a day, and if he were alive when I called, she could have had only a few hours. I call it a bad business.”

  “Odd, anyway,” said Mr. Mildmay. “Wonder if he left you anything?”

  “As if I cared about that! He did mention his ruby ring to me when last I saw him, but I doubt that anything will come of it.”

  Mr. Mildmay put down his paper. “His ruby, eh? Worth a good few hundred pounds, I’d think. The ruby would be worth having indeed.”

  “The ring may be worth what it will, Quintus. My point is that Alvord expressed the wish that it remain in the family, and yet I saw it upon Lady Basingstoke’s hand.”

  “Woman’s his wife, Caroline. A wife is part of a man’s family, I hope.”

  “Not when she’s a widow, Quintus, for she may then marry again and take her husband’s property into another man’s family.”

  “Then we must hope that your brother put the thing down in his Will.” Mr. Mildmay took up his paper again to show that the subject was closed, firing as he did so a warning shot around its crackling edges: “Won’t look well to make a fuss, Caroline.”

  Mrs. Mildmay so far agreed with her husband that she was able to pay her condolence call and support the grieving widow at Sir Alvord’s funeral without adverting to the subject of Sir Alvord’s last visit. Yet as she stood next to Lady Basingstoke at the graveside, she could not suppress a shudder at the sight of the Parwat Ruby glowing balefully against the deep black of the widow’s wash-leather gloves. She could not think it well done of Margaret to have worn it, hoping only that her grief had blinded her to the impropriety of flaunting a ruby at a funeral. Yet, as the first shovelfuls of dirt fell upon the casket, Mrs. Mildmay could have sworn that the widow was smiling.

  “But she was heavily veiled,” exclaimed her bosom friend Lady Fitzaskerly when Mrs. Mildmay had unburdened herself of her righteous anger.

  “Nonetheless,” said Mrs. Mildmay. “You know what she looks like.”

  “A horse in a flaxen wig,” replied Lady Fitzaskerly, who disliked Lady Basingstoke as heartily as the most exacting friend could wish.

  “Precisely. And the heaviest veil to be purchased at Liberty’s would be insufficient to hide the most subtle of her expressions. The woman was grinning like an ape. And there was no mention of the ring in the Will—not a single word, though many of his collections are dispersed and the entire contents of his library are to be given to his club.”

  “Perh
aps he fell ill before the lawyer might be called.”

  “Perhaps. And perhaps he didn’t. I thought Mr. Chess wished to speak to me when the document had been read, but Lady Basingstoke entirely engaged his attention. And now here is a note from Mr. Chess in the first mail this morning, begging me to receive him at four this very afternoon. What do you think of that?”

  Lady Fitzaskerly did not know what to think, but she found the whole matter so very interesting that she could not forbear mentioning it to Lady Glencora Palliser when next she had occasion to call upon her. Lady Glen was sitting, as she often was, with Madam Max Goesler of Park Lane.

  “Why, it’s just like the Eustace diamonds!” Lady Glencora exclaimed when Lady Fitzaskerly had done. “You remember the fuss, when that silly girl Lizzie Eustace stole her own diamonds to keep them from her husband’s family?”

  “It’s not so very much like it, not to my mind,” said Madam Max. “No one has stolen anything, so far as I can tell. A gentleman in his dotage has changed his mind about the disposition of his personal property and created an unpleasantness.”

  “Well, I think Mrs. Mildmay is hardly used in the matter.”

  “Consider, my dear. Lady Basingstoke is his widow. She cared for him in his last illness and shared his interests.”

  “His interests!” Lady Glencora was scornful. “We best not inquire too closely into his interests, if all I hear be true.”

  “Surely, Lady Glen, you can’t believe he was a wizard,” exclaimed Lady Fitzaskerly. “Why, he wasn’t even interested in politics.”

  “Well, he was a member of the Magus,” said Lady Glen. “And he left all his books to his club. What else am I to believe?”

  “If he was a wizard,” said Lady Fitzaskerly, “he was a decidedly odd one.”

  “Perhaps he wasn’t, then,” Lady Glen said. “Wizards like nothing better than talking, and they seldom travel. Well, how could they, being subject to seasickness as they are? Sir Alvord barely said a word in company, and he was forever in some foreign land or another.”

  “Be that as it may,” said Madam Max. “If he was a wizard, it is foolhardy at best for Lady Basingstoke to keep his ring if he wished it to go elsewhere.”

  “No doubt,” said Lady Fitzaskerly dryly. “But I knew Margaret Kennedy at school. She was the sort of girl who always ate too many cream buns, even though she was invariably sick after.”

  So Mrs. Mildmay had her partisans among the most highly placed persons in the land—a fact that might have brought her some comfort as she sat listening to her brother’s lawyer set forth his dilemma in her drawing room. Mr. Chess was a man of substance, silver-haired and solid as an Irish hound, with something of a hound’s roughness of coat and honesty of spirit, which had brought him to confess to Mrs. Mildmay that he had misplaced the most recent codicil to her brother’s Will.

  “It was the day he was taken ill, you know, or perhaps a day or two before that. He came by my chambers without the least notice, and insisted upon having it drawn up then and there and witnessed by two clerks. It described the ring most particularly—‘The stone called the Parwat Ruby, and the Ring in which it is set, the bezel two Wings of gold tapering into the Shank’—and gave it to you for your lifetime and to your son Wilson on your death, with the testator’s recommendation that neither ring nor stone be allowed to pass out of the hands of his descendants. He insisted on the exact wording.”

  “And you said that the codicil was not in the document box when you removed the Will to read it?”

  “The document box was quite empty, Mrs. Mildmay, save for the Will itself, some few papers pertaining to his investments, and a quantity of fine dust. Nevertheless, knowing his wishes in the matter, I did not think it wise to drop the matter without consulting Lady Basingstoke.”

  “And Lady Basingstoke laughed in your face,” said Mrs. Mildmay.

  “I only wish she had done something so relatively predictable.” Mr. Chess extracted his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead with it. “She heard me out quietly, then gave me to understand that the ring would have to be cut from her hand before she’d give it up. Furthermore, she impugned my memory, my competence as a lawyer, even my motives in coming to see her, and all in such a tone of voice as I hope never in my life to hear again.”

  “It was doubtless very rude of her,” said Mrs. Mildmay soothingly.

  “Rude!” Mr. Chess gave his neck a surreptitious dab. “She was most intemperate. If she were not very recently widowed, I would question her sanity.”

  “And the ring?”

  “Unless the codicil should come to light, the ring is hers, along with all her husband’s chattels and possessions not otherwise disposed of. We might file a case in Chancery on the basis of my recollection of the afternoon call, supported by affidavits from my two clerks who witnessed the document, but it would almost certainly cost more than the ring is worth, and success is by no means sure.”

  Mrs. Mildmay thought for a moment, than gave a decided nod. “I’ll let it go, then. It’s only a ring, after all. May she have joy of it, poor woman.”

  And there the matter would have rested had it not been for Lady Basingstoke herself, who, some two weeks after her husband’s death, wrote to Caroline Mildmay requiring her attendance in Grosvenor Square. You know I would come to you if I might, she wrote, but I am grown so ill that I cannot stir a foot abroad.

  “I shouldn’t go,” said Mr. Mildmay when his wife showed him Lady Basingstoke’s letter. “You owe her nothing and she’ll only be unpleasant.”

  “I owe her kindness as my brother’s widow, and if she is unpleasant, I need not prolong my visit.”

  Mr. Mildmay smiled knowingly upon his wife. “I know how it is, Caroline. You’re eaten up with curiosity what she could have to say to you. Wild horses would not keep you from her, were she five times worse than she is.”

  “I don’t expect to find her so ill as all that,” said Mrs. Mildmay provokingly. But she did not deny her husband’s allegation, nor, in good conscience, could she. Indeed, she did not think Lady Basingstoke likely to be ill at all. But when she was shown into the parlor where Lady Basingstoke was laid down upon a sofa with a blanket over her feet, Mrs. Mildmay observed that she looked withered and drawn, with the bones of her cheeks staring out through her skin and great dark smudges beneath her eyes, which seemed to have retreated under her brows. The Parwat Ruby glowed like a live coal on her hand.

  She was attended by ferrety person with a wealth of black hair, who was introduced to Mrs. Mildmay as Dr. Drago, an Italian gentleman learned in the study of medicine and the arcane arts.

  “Dr. Drago has been invaluable to me,” said Lady Basingstoke, and held out her hand, which he kissed with great grace; though it seemed to Mrs. Mildmay, looking on with some disgust, that the salute was bestowed rather upon the Parwat Ruby than on the gaunt hand that bore it. “It is at his suggestion, in fact, that I called you here, Caroline. You know, of course, that dear Alvord was a great wizard?”

  Mrs. Mildmay drew off her gloves to cover her confusion. “A wizard, Margaret?”

  “I think I spoke clearly. Are you going to pretend that you don’t believe in wizards when the country is ruled by them? Why, half the members of the House of Lords, two-thirds of the Cabinet, and the Prime Minister himself are members of the Magus!”

  “I hardly know what I do believe, Margaret.”

  “There was never wizard living as powerful as Alvord, and it was all the ruby, Caroline, the ruby.”

  “The ruby?” Mrs. Mildmay faltered, convinced that Lady Basingstoke’s complaint was more serious than a mere perturbation of the spirit. Alvord a wizard! What would the woman say next?

  Lady Basingstoke plucked angrily at the fringe of her shawl. “Why do you mock me, Caroline? You must know what I mean. Alvord must have spoken to you. Why else would he have called on you so soon before he fell ill?”

  “I assure you, Margaret, that Alvord told me nothing. Only . . . .”
>
  Lady Basingstoke leaned forward, a horrid avidity suffusing her countenance. “Only what, dear Caroline? It is of the utmost importance that you tell me every word.”

  “I’m afraid it must cause you some distress.”

  The Italian gentleman added his voice to Lady Basingstoke’s, and reluctantly Mrs. Mildmay recounted her conversation with Sir Alvord substantially as it has been recorded here, noting Lady Basingstoke’s almost comical expression of malicious triumph when Caroline mentioned her brother’s intention to change his will. When she had made an end, Lady Basingstoke turned to the Italian gentleman and burst out, “Is there anything there, Drago? Is she telling the truth?”

  “As to that, gracious lady, I cannot say without subjecting the lady to certain tests.”

  He smiled beguilingly at Mrs. Mildmay as he spoke, as if proposing a rare treat. Mrs. Mildmay was not to be beguiled. “Tests!” she exclaimed. “Are you both mad?”

  Both Lady Basingstoke and the Italian gentleman ignored her. “Your husband certainly meant his sister to have the ring, lady, and I do not think he told her why.”

  “Well, I think he did. I think he told her all about it, and she’s come here to frighten me out of it. Well, I won’t frighten, do you hear? I won’t frighten and I won’t give up the Parwat Ruby. It’s going to make me great, isn’t it, Abbadelli? Greater than Mr. Gresham, greater than the Queen herself, and once I learn its secret, the first thing I shall do is destroy you, Caroline Mildmay!”

  With every word of this extraordinary speech, Lady Basingstoke’s voice rose, until at last she was all but screaming at her hapless sister-in-law, at the same time rising from her sofa and menacing her with such energy that Mrs. Mildmay thought it best to take her leave.