Lucy couldn’t believe her ears. What was Lord Grave doing, mentioning MAAM in front of Becky? Had he been drinking too much after-dinner brandy?
“We should send the maids back to bed, though,” Lord Percy said.
“Yes, of course. Although … Becky, come here a moment. I want a word with you.”
Becky stuck her bottom lip out mutinously, but did as Lord Grave said. He led her a little way off down the corridor and whispered briefly in her ear. Then the two of them rejoined the others.
“Off to bed, now, both of you!” Lord Grave commanded.
Whatever Lord Grave said to Becky had calmed her rebelliousness; she turned on her heel and strode off without complaint. Lucy was about to follow when Smell said quietly, “Don’t you want Luce at the meeting?”
Lord Grave stepped backwards and stared at Smell, his mouth hanging open. “Yes, er, spot on. Of course we do. Let’s get going.” But he didn’t get going anywhere. He stayed where he was, looking surreptitiously around. It was almost as though he didn’t know where to go next.
“Are we having the meeting here?” Lucy said after a few moments, puzzled at Lord Grave’s behaviour as well as his lack of action in what seemed like a rather serious situation.
“Of course not! Lead the way, Percy!”
“What about the others?” Smell asked.
“Ah yes, the others,” Lord Grave said. “Perhaps you could go and fetch them, Stink?” With that, Lord Percy bundled Lord Grave off down the corridor. Lucy watched them go, still utterly bewildered.
“Is Lord Grave … drunk?”
“Just what I was thinking. ’E must ’ave been at the brandy,” Smell agreed. “Never seen ’im act so gormless.”
“Did you hear what he said to Becky?”
“Nope. Was too quiet even for my superior ’earing. I’d better get off and round everyone up. See you at the meeting.”
“What on earth is going on, George?” Lady Sibyl asked.
Lord Grave didn’t immediately reply. He was too busy gazing around the MAAM meeting room, as though all its contents had become newly fascinating to him. This seemed strange to Lucy, who had just taken her place at the table. Lord Grave was usually very nonchalant about all the instruments, as he had seen and no doubt used everything many times before.
“Well?” Lady Sibyl demanded, drumming her fingers on the table.
“Oh, so sorry, what did you say?” Lord Grave mumbled, still staring at the instrument cabinet.
“What is going on? Why have you called us here? What happened to the statue of Lady Constance?” Lady Sibyl persisted.
“It’s obvious, I would have thought,” Lord Percy replied somewhat testily, narrowing his eyes at Lady Sibyl. “Someone tried to break in to the Room of Curiosities. Lord Grave’s great-grandmother usually guards the key, doesn’t she?”
“Well, I didn’t know that, did I?” Lady Sibyl replied.
“But why would anyone want to break into that room?” Prudence Beguildy asked.
“No idea,” Lord Grave said, shrugging his shoulders.
The rest of MAAM exchanged puzzled looks.
“If you don’t know, how are we supposed to?” Beguildy Beguildy asked, examining his fingernails. “After all, you don’t allow any of us, apart from Lord Percy, inside the dratted room. We don’t know what’s inside, hence we can’t deduce why someone might want to break in.”
“You mean none of you know how to get in?” Lord Grave asked, looking very put out at this revelation.
“George, what’s wrong with you? Of course we don’t,” Lady Sibyl said.
“Has anything been stolen?” Lucy asked.
“They didn’t get the keys, so they couldn’t have got inside. I would say it’s safe to assume they didn’t manage to swipe anything,” Lord Grave said, sounding strangely glum.
“Hang on, have you actually checked nothing’s missing?” Lucy asked.
Lord Grave looked slightly bewildered.
“You have checked, haven’t you, George?” Lady Sibyl asked.
“Hell’s teeth! Of course, woman! Do you take me for a fool?” Lord Grave replied, raising his voice a little.
Lady Sibyl drew herself very upright in her chair. Lucy could see that she was shocked and hurt at the way Lord Grave had spoken to her. It seemed very out of character; Lord Grave was extremely fond of Lady Sibyl and she was the only person allowed to call him by his first name.
“Well, George. Perhaps if you don’t require my help …” Lady Sibyl began, pushing back her chair. Vonk hurried over to help her.
“I’m sure we can manage without you,” Lord Grave said in a horrible, sneering voice.
Lady Sibyl’s mouth trembled, but she didn’t reply. Instead, she turned and walked gracefully out of the MAAM meeting room, then slammed the door behind her in a most inelegant manner.
There was an awkward silence, which Prudence eventually broke. “You shouldn’t have spoken to Lady Sibyl like that,” she said in a slightly wavering voice.
“Oh, don’t you start!” Lord Grave banged his fist on the table, making everyone jump. He eyed Prudence. Like her brother, Prudence was a keen sailor, and she was fond of clothes with a naval theme. The purple silk dressing gown she wore was richly embroidered with white helms and anchors.
“You’re very fond of the sea, I take it. Why don’t you go and jump—”
“Lord Grave!” Lord Percy interjected. “I think perhaps we’re all a bit kna— are all a little tired. And you’re, um, overwrought at the loss of the statue of your beloved great-grandmother. A family heirloom with great sentimental value, yes?”
Lord Grave rubbed his face. “Yes. You’re right. I’m sorry, Prudence. I think we should all get some sleep. Busy day tomorrow. Final preparations for the ball. In fact, Vonk, I’d like to discuss some, um, stuff with you in my room before you go back to bed.”
“Very well, your Lordship, happy to discuss stuff if you so wish,” Vonk said rather stiffly. He looked most put out at the prospect of losing even more sleep.
Lucy had been intending to mention the unusual happening with Becky, Violet and the boy from the alley. But something about Lord Grave’s manner, and Lord Percy’s, made her pause. Instead, she dawdled around while everyone stood up and began making their way out of the meeting room. Lucy caught Bertie’s gaze as he was about to pass by, and winked, gesturing at him to stay instead. Luckily, the rest of MAAM were too preoccupied to notice that Lucy and Bertie weren’t in a hurry to leave and so the two of them were soon left alone except for Smell.
“That was very odd. And some other strange things happened yesterday afternoon,” Lucy said, and brought Bertie up to date on seeing the boy from the alley. “I was going to tell Lord Grave about it, but he doesn’t seem to be himself at the moment.”
“Agreed,” Smell replied. “Never seen Grave act like that before.”
Bertie eyed them both. “Perhaps he’s just tired and upset, like Lord Percy said?”
Smell licked his front paw. “Or maybe ’e’s ’ad a blow to the ’ead and it’s changed ’is personality? And not for the better!”
Bertie, Lucy and Smell went their separate ways. Lucy wearily trudged back to bed, even though she knew she would have to get up again in an hour or two. Becky’s bed was empty. Lucy wondered whether her fellow servant was up to no good somewhere else in the house. But tiredness soon overcame her and she drifted off to sleep without giving the matter any further thought. She began having a pleasant dream about Beguildy Beguildy. He was dressed in a frilly cap and apron and Lucy was the lady of the house, ordering him to do ever more unpleasant tasks such as cleaning out the chamber pots and mucking out the elephants in the wildlife park. She was just about to command that he trimmed the lawns of Grave Hall using only his teeth when she suddenly woke up.
Thunder was rumbling outside and, at first, Lucy thought the noise must have interrupted her dream. She snuggled further under the blankets and closed her eyes, hoping to get back to bos
sing Beguildy Beguildy about. But then she felt something tickle her cheek. She opened her eyes. A flash of lightning lit up the room. Becky was crouched next to Lucy’s bed.
The scissors she clenched in her fist were aimed towards Lucy’s face.
Lucy rolled out of Becky’s reach, just as the lighting faded. She landed on the floor with a hard bump, but immediately scrambled to her feet and lurched in what she thought was the direction of the door. But the dark and the shock of the attack had confused her and she banged into something. In the next flash of lightning she realised she had stumbled into the end of Becky’s bed, which was nearest the door. The room went black again, but at least Lucy now had her bearings. She was about to make a run for it when Becky grabbed her from behind in a headlock. Lucy felt cold metal digging into her cheek. There was only one thing to do.
She screamed as long and as hard as she could.
Becky froze. Moments later, footsteps thundered along the passageway outside and the bedroom door crashed open just as Becky let Lucy go. There was a loud thump. The storm was right overhead now; thunder boomed above the roofs of Grave Hall and the bursts of lightning were close together, illuminating the broad form of Mrs Crawley standing in the doorway. The cook-cum-housekeeper fumbled her way over to the fireplace, where a heavy candlestick stood on the mantelpiece. She dug into the pocket of her flowery patterned dressing gown and pulled out a box of matches.
“What’s wrong with Becky?” she cried when she’d lit the candle.
Lucy turned and saw that Becky was lying stretched out on the rug that covered the floorboards, apparently in a dead faint. Lucy was sure the under-housemaid was faking it, and longed to give her a kick to prove this but didn’t quite dare as Mrs Crawley was now kneeling next to Becky’s prone form.
“Lucy, light another candle and go to my room. There are smelling salts in my bedside drawer. Be quick now!”
With great reluctance, Lucy did as she was told. By the time she came back with the smelling salts, Becky was sitting up, blinking in the light of the candle that Mrs Crawley was holding near her face.
“Whatever happened, girls?” she asked.
“She attacked me! With scissors!” Lucy said.
“What? No!” Becky said. “You were sleepwalking and I woke you up. You were about to walk into the wall.”
“Oh, Becky, you silly girl. Don’t you know it’s dangerous to wake a sleepwalker?” Mrs Crawley chided.
“I do now. She went mad. Started screaming. Scared me so much I passed out!”
Lucy couldn’t contain her fury at Becky’s barefaced lies. “That’s not true! You tried to strangle me! And cut me!”
Becky looked astonished at this accusation. “I never did!”
“Girls! Shush now! We don’t want to wake the whole house! Lucy, you say Becky had a pair of scissors? Where are they?”
“She must have hidden them!”
Mrs Crawley sighed. “Becky, stand up. Shake out your nightdress.”
“I told you, she’s lying!” Becky said furiously. But she got to her feet and shook her nightdress in an exaggerated way. It was obvious she was hiding nothing on her person.
“Both of you. Stand against that wall and don’t move,” Mrs Crawley ordered. She began searching the room. It didn’t take long as the attic was small and there were very few places a person could conceal a weapon. Mrs Crawley found nothing. Her search complete, she carefully examined Lucy’s face and neck, but there were no cuts, bruises or marks of any kind.
“I think Becky’s right. You must have been dreaming,” Mrs Crawley said as all the clocks in the house struck five. “No point going back to bed now, I suppose. Becky, you’re off to your parents today, aren’t you? How are you getting there?”
“Shanks’s pony, of course,” Becky said sulkily.
“You might as well get ready and go, then. If you make an early start you’ll be there for breakfast. Lucy, I could do with a hand in the kitchen as soon as you’re dressed. There’s an awful lot to do today.”
Lucy was more than happy to get away from Becky. As she made her way downstairs, the storm was moving on, giving way to a bright, clear day.
“Are you all right now?” Mrs Crawley asked, when Lucy came into the kitchen.
Lucy shrugged. “I suppose so.” She couldn’t help feeling resentful about Mrs Crawley believing Becky’s side of the story instead of her own.
Mrs Crawley smiled. “Oh, come on, Lucy. Cheer up. Would Becky really attack you with a pair of scissors? I know she can be nasty, but even she wouldn’t do something like that, I’m sure! Let’s get on. First things first. Could you muck out Bathsheba and give her breakfast, please?”
Although Mr Gomel the golem had taken over many of the day-to-day duties at the wildlife park, including the nasty task of mucking out the animals, Lucy was still in charge of taking care of Bathsheba. This was because Mr Gomel had developed a taste for the raw liver that Bathsheba was so fond of and kept eating it. Naturally, this had led to some tense standoffs between golem and panther, so Lucy had resumed this particular task.
She fished out her armour from its place in the kitchen broom cupboard and began strapping it on with Mrs Crawley’s help. The armour was necessary to protect Lucy from the more predatory animals when she went into the wildlife park to muck out Bathsheba’s living quarters. Then she clanked across the kitchen to collect the panther’s breakfast bucket. She was about to head outside when Vonk came yawning into the kitchen. His hair was dishevelled and his uniform crumpled. His waistcoat was missing a couple of buttons.
“Lucy’s just off to clean out Bathsheba,” Mrs Crawley told him.
“Bathsheba? Oh, the panther. That reminds me. His Lordship says that animal is to stay in the park today. He doesn’t want her at the ball either.”
“But why?” Lucy asked. The panther wasn’t allowed to spend her nights inside Grave Hall as she always raided the kitchen. But most of the rest of the time she was at Lord Grave’s side.
“I’ve no idea. Ask his Lordship if you’re bothered. Any chance of some breakfast, Crawley?”
Mrs Crawley folded her arms. Her beard bristled. “Any chance of a shred of politeness from you today, Vonk?”
Vonk rolled his eyes. “Some breakfast, please.”
“That’s a slight improvement, I suppose. Lucy! Why are you hanging around? It’s going to be a struggle getting everything done without Violet and Becky to help. We need to get on!”
Once she’d finished mucking out Bathsheba’s pen, Lucy made her way over to the gate that separated the wildlife park from the rest of the grounds. As usual, Bathsheba was at her heels. Most mornings the panther would accompany Lucy back to the house and trot upstairs to Lord Grave’s bedroom. But remembering what Vonk had said, Lucy made sure she slipped through the gate before Bathsheba could follow her.
“I’m really sorry,” she told the panther as she locked the gate. Bathsheba growled in response, showing her fangs. “Not today, there’s too much going on. Lord Grave says you’re to stay here.”
But Bathsheba wasn’t appeased and, as Lucy turned and began trundling her wheelbarrow and its smelly contents back to the house, she could hear Bathsheba clawing the iron gates, making them rattle. She continued trudging along until she heard something else. Raised voices. Lucy stopped, took off her helmet and hung it on the handle of the wheelbarrow so she could hear more clearly. The voices were coming from the direction of the coach house. Intrigued, she set off across the grass towards it. She tried to move quietly but her armour clanked, so she had to stop a few metres away in case someone heard her approaching. She listened closely. The first voice she recognised was Lord Grave’s.
“Hell’s teeth! You shouldn’t have even tried that without asking me, Bone! You need to realise that I’m in charge!”
“It was a good plan! If Crawley hadn’t come along, we’d have Goodly and we’d know how to get in.” To Lucy’s amazement, this was Becky speaking. What was she doing here? She was supp
osed to be on her way to her parents’.
“It was a stupid idea,” said Lord Percy’s voice. “Goodly might not even know the new hiding place.”
“Luckily for you, Bone, we got Vonk last night. He’ll soon squeal, I bet,” Lord Grave added.
“Shirking again?” said another voice, this time from behind Lucy. She started, making her armour rattle. It was Beguildy Beguildy.
“Sneaking around again, Beguildy?” she retorted and stalked off to retrieve her wheelbarrow, furious at the interruption. She was halfway back to the house when she almost collided with Vonk.
“Watch out, girl,” he said.
Lucy stared at Vonk, taken aback at his unfriendly tone. Unperturbed, he grinned and took a puff of the very large cigar he was holding. Then he blew the smoke back out of his nose, sending whirls of white into the bright, clear air.
Lucy frowned. “You’re smoking! You don’t smoke!”
Vonk shrugged. “Well, um, special occasion. The ball.”
“Is that one of Lord Grave’s cigars?” Lucy said suspiciously.
Vonk gave a very un-Vonk-like giggle. “Might be. Might not be. Now get on with your business and let me get on with mine.”
The butler walked off towards the coach house, puffing on his cigar all the way. Lucy watched him go, her mind racing. Why were so many people acting so strangely? The seed of suspicion that had lodged itself in Lucy’s mind the day before began to sprout into a theory. She abandoned her wheelbarrow once again, sat down on one of the nearby stone benches and began thinking things through slowly and carefully.
Lucy remembered what Smell had said last night about Lord Grave having a blow to the head. He might have been joking, but maybe he was actually right. Lord Grave really was acting as though his personality had changed. His mean comments to Lady Sibyl and Prudence, and now his sudden abandonment of Bathsheba, weren’t like him at all. Lucy knew only too well that her employer could be somewhat on the moody side at times, but he hadn’t been like that since Bertie (who had been missing, presumed dead for a long time) had come home. And it wasn’t just Lord Grave. Violet, Lord Percy and now Vonk seemed to be nothing like their normal selves. Could there be some sort of magic that could make you change overnight?
Goodly and Grave in a Case of Bad Magic Page 6
