A Mortal Likeness

by Laura Joh Rowland

  I can’t see Reid or Robin Mariner, who’s still calling to me. Near the pond lies the drenched, lifeless body of a little girl with red braids—Ellen Casey. Hard, cold steel cuffs lock around my wrists. I raise my eyes skyward in hope of divine salvation.

  Two great winged beasts—each with the body of a lizard, a serpent’s neck, and a beak full of sharp teeth—swoop down upon me. Flames char their ribbed yellow wings; smoke darkens the sky. I scream as Robin cries, the crowd hurls bottles, and glass shatters.

  Coughs erupt from me, convulse my body, and waken me from the nightmare. Every breath I take wheezes painfully. Thick, hot, bitter air burns my lungs. The room glows with a hazy, flickering orange light. I’m choking on smoke, lying surrounded by flames that devour the white silk canopy over my bed. Tangled in the heavy white quilt, I kick until I’m free of it and roll off the bed, landing with a painful thud. Flames snake across the Chinese carpet toward me as I cough and wheeze, too breathless to move. My vision blackens at the edges.

  “Sarah, Sarah!” It’s not Robin calling me; the voice is deeper and louder now. It belongs to Mick. The window shatters. Cold, damp, fresh air revives my fading consciousness even as the flames around me blaze brighter. Mick crawls through the broken window. He hurries to the door and tries the knob; it’s locked. He bangs on the door and yells, “Fire! Help!”

  Nobody comes. Mick runs to me and lifts me up. I’ve never been happier to see anyone, but I fear for his life as well as mine. “Mick, why didn’t you go home?” I gasp the words out between coughs.

  “Good thing for you, I didn’t.” Staggering under my weight, he carries me to the window. “I been hidin’ in the woods. After it got dark, I snuck back to the house to look for you and Hugh. I saw the fire.”

  “Where’s Hugh?”

  “I dunno. We’ll find him later.” Coughing and gasping, Mick heaves me onto the windowsill. “We gotta get out.”

  I’m lying on my stomach with my legs dangling into the cold night and the rest of me still in the flaming room. Mick pushes my hand out the window and clamps it around something hard, thin, and knobby. “Climb down the vines.”

  “I have to save my cameras!”

  “There’s no time.”

  I slither down the brick wall, my fingers clutching at the ivy, my feet scrambling for toeholds. My eyes sting and water from the smoke. My vision is blurred, and I can barely see Mick in the window above me, silhouetted by the flames behind him. The ivy leaves are wet and slippery, and the stems I’m clutching peel away from the bricks. I scream as I fall.

  A bush catches me in a nest of sharp twigs. Mick shinnies down the wall, agile as a monkey, and lifts me out of the bush. We collapse on wet grass. I’m exhausted, my skin sore from scratches, and my sprained ankle throbs, but gulps of fresh air cleanse the smoke from my lungs, and the coughing subsides.

  “We gotta get help before the house burns down,” Mick says.

  Clambering to my feet, I see another second-story window lit by flames. The room must be two doors from mine. “Look!” I point. “Hugh is in there!”

  I don’t know how I know, and Mick doesn’t ask. He runs toward the window. Panting, I hobble after him. The fog is so thick that I can’t see the far end of the house. A man suddenly appears out of the fog and darkness, blocks our path, and says, “Who goes there?”

  He’s one of Sir Gerald’s guards. He carries a rifle in a sling over his shoulder.

  “Fire!” Mick shouts, pointing.

  The guard runs to the house and unlocks a door. Then we’re hurrying up a flight of dimly lit back stairs, bursting into the second-floor passage, which is hazy with the smoke seeping out from beneath the doors of my room and Hugh’s. The guard rings a mechanical bell that’s mounted on the wall, and its loud clangs echo through the house. Suddenly, the passage is full of guards and police constables. Servants come lugging pails. Mick and I run to Hugh’s room and bang on the door, shouting, “Hugh!”

  There’s no response. A guard pushes us aside, unlocks the door, and opens it. A blast of heat, smoke, and firelight sends us reeling away. The carpet is a sea of crackling flames around the bed where Hugh lies, his eyes closed and mouth open, veiled by smoke. Horrified, I lunge toward Hugh, but Mick pulls me back. Servants dash pails of water on the burning carpet and drench the bed. Constables rush in and carry Hugh out. Mick and I follow them to another room, where they lay Hugh on the four-poster bed. Motionless in his dark-blue silk pajamas, Hugh is as limp as a rag doll, his face unnaturally pink. I touch his cheek. It’s hot from the fire. The constables open the windows to let in fresh air. I can’t see Hugh’s chest rise or fall or hear any breath from his parted lips.

  “Hugh!” I cry in terror.

  Mick grabs Hugh by the shoulders, shakes him, and yells his name. Hugh stiffens as though electrocuted. His mouth sucks air with a rasping, squealing sound. He begins to cough so violently that his body heaves up from the bed. Mick and I sob in relief while the constables haul Hugh into a sitting position and pound on his back. He gasps, retches, and hacks up phlegm.

  “God, I have the mother of all headaches,” he says in a hoarse voice; his green eyes are watery and bloodshot. “What the hell happened?”

  “That’s what I want to know,” says John Pierce.

  Now I notice the other people in the room, which is furnished like a boudoir in the palace of Versailles with ornate gold furniture, porcelain vases, and other art objects. Pierce, Tristan, Olivia, Lady Alexandra, and Tabitha hover by a painted mural that depicts ladies in white wigs and Marie Antoinette–style gowns playing tag in a formal garden. They’re all fully dressed, all wide awake. As they regard Hugh, Mick, and me with consternation, I become aware that I’m in my white cotton nightgown, my hair hangs in two frizzy braids, and my feet are bare. My heart is still pounding from residual terror; I’m still shaken by our close call.

  “Miss Bain’s and Lord Hugh’s rooms caught on fire,” a constable explains.

  “How did the fires start?” Tristan asks. He’s looking everywhere but at Hugh, whose gaze is riveted on Tristan.

  “They must have left candles burning and fallen asleep,” the constable says.

  “No, I didn’t!” I’ve never done such a careless thing in my life, and I’m horrified that the police think I almost burned Mariner House down.

  “Neither did I,” Hugh says, gasping. “And even if I had, wouldn’t it seem strange that Sarah did it at the same time?”

  “Them fires was no accident,” Mick says. “When I broke into Miss Sarah’s room, I smelled kerosene. Somebody musta poured it under the door.”

  I was too preoccupied with saving myself and Hugh to wonder how the fires started or why only in our rooms. I stare at Mick, astonished.

  “That’s a serious accusation,” Pierce says coldly.

  “There was no kerosene smell in either room,” the constable says. The other policemen mutter in agreement.

  “That’s because it burned away before you got your fat arses over here!” Mick says.

  “Watch your mouth, boy!” the constable says.

  Olivia smirks as if she finds the situation amusing. Lady Alexandra covers her nose with her hand and says, “The smoke is making me ill.” Tabitha, meek and worried, accompanies her out of the room.

  Mick turns to me. “Miss Sarah, somebody in this house tried to burn you and Hugh to death!”

  Wariness appears on the faces of Pierce, Olivia, and Tristan. I glance at a porcelain clock on the bureau: it’s two thirty. What were they doing up so late?

  “That’s enough,” the constable says to Mick, then turns to Sir Gerald’s guards. “Lord Hugh can stay here, but we need someplace else to put Miss Bain.”

  I clutch Hugh’s hand and say, “I’m not leaving him!”

  “Neither am I,” Mick says.

  “Where is Inspector Reid?” I ask. Although he wouldn’t jump to take my side, surely he won’t ignore the possibility of arson.

  “He’s off duty for the
night,” the constable says. “His orders were to keep you two separated.”

  “He wants us hanged for murder,” I say. “If we’re burned to death first, he won’t thank you.”

  “Good comeback, Sarah,” Hugh says with a hint of his usual humor.

  The constable looks weary, harassed. “I’ll put our men on guard outside your doors.”

  “Like we should trust you coppers,” Mick says, “after you let Jack the Ripper get away with killin’ six women.”

  The police glower at Mick; their failure to catch the Ripper is still a sensitive spot. I say, “Sir Gerald should be the one to settle this. Where is he?”

  “Daddy went to town to arrange Robin’s funeral.” Olivia sounds put out because her father deserted her in favor of what she considers trivial business. “He’s staying at his London flat.”

  So Sir Gerald is the only Mariner household member who wasn’t home when the fires started.

  “I’m in charge while my father is gone. Let them stay together,” Tristan says to the constable. “Tell Inspector Reid that I’ll take responsibility.” He speaks in the same detached manner as he did after he shot Hugh.

  “Very well,” the constable says, glad to have the decision taken out of his hands.

  Tristan leaves the room with Olivia. Neither of them looks at Hugh, Mick, or me. John Pierce scrutinizes us with narrow, hostile eyes before he too departs.

  #

  I’m freezing in my thin nightgown, but I can’t close the window because Hugh needs fresh air. Before the police lock us in the room, I persuade them to let the servants bring our baggage and find spare clothes for Mick, whose own clothes are wet and dirty from hiding in the woods. My wardrobe and Hugh’s arrive saturated with smoke but intact. My leather trunk, satchel, and pocketbook protected the miniature camera, lenses, the photograph of my father, and other articles inside them, but my large camera and my enlarger didn’t fare as well. Their cases are charred and water damaged, and their lenses are cracked. I’m so upset, I have to remind myself that we’re lucky to be alive.

  While I tuck Hugh into bed, Mick goes in the marble-and-gold bathroom to put on his clean, dry clothes. When it’s my turn for the bathroom, I run hot water in the tub, undress, look in the mirror, and wince at my hollow, bloodshot eyes and the red scratches on my skin. I soak until the water cools, then dress, braid my hair, and find Hugh and Mick asleep in the bed. I leave one gas light burning and sit in a white-and-gold silk armchair to guard Hugh and Mick, but I’m so tired that I doze until a knock at the door rouses me.

  According to the clock on the mantle, it’s five twenty in the morning. A constable lets in Olivia, to my surprise. She brings a teapot, cups, and a covered platter on a tray. She whispers, “I thought you and your friends might be hungry.”

  “Thank you. That’s very kind of you.” I am grateful; we could probably starve as far as anyone else in Mariner House is concerned, but her kindness seems out of character.

  Even as I suspect her of ulterior motives, she sets the tray on a table and says, “Can I talk to you?” She points to the bathroom.

  It’s not wise to be alone with a person who might have tried to burn me to death, but surely she wouldn’t hurt me while the constable is outside, and I’m interested to know what she wants. I join Olivia in the bathroom and close the door. She perches on lid of the latrine, I on the edge of the tub. She looks tired and pale, but her eyes spark with nervous energy.

  “I came to tell you that Mick is right—somebody set those fires,” she says.

  Surprise jolts me because she didn’t say so earlier. “Who?”

  “First, you have to promise you’ll tell Inspector Reid.”

  “Why don’t you tell him yourself?”

  Olivia fidgets with her hair, which is in wild, crackling disarray. “Because Daddy ordered everyone not to talk to the police.”

  I wonder again why he’s not cooperating with them. “Why don’t you tell your father, then? I should expect he’d want to know who set fire to his house.”

  “Because he won’t want to hear.” Olivia pauses, draws a breath, then releases the words on a forlorn sigh. “Because it was Alexandra.”

  I’ve heard so many stories since I came to Mariner House that I won’t take this one without a grain of salt. “How do you know?”

  “Before the fires started, I happened to look out my window, and I saw Alexandra hurrying toward the house. She was carrying what I thought was a basket. I wondered what she was doing out so late. Now I know it was a can of kerosene. She must have been fetching it from the shed.” When I don’t reply, Olivia looks wounded. “Don’t you believe me?”

  I counter with a question of my own. “You don’t like your stepmother, do you?”

  Olivia shrugs. “No. I admit it. But why should I like her? She doesn’t like me. She acts as if I don’t exist. It’s been that way since she married Daddy.”

  Come to think of it, I’ve never seen Olivia and Alexandra exchange a word or even a glance.

  “I was thirteen. I was at boarding school in France when Daddy sent for me. I was so excited.” Olivia’s eyes sparkle with remembered happiness. “But when I got home, he said he was getting married the next day. He only brought me home because if his daughter wasn’t at the wedding, it wouldn’t look right.” Olivia sounds as disappointed as she must have felt. “I didn’t meet Alexandra until the wedding. She barely spoke to me. Daddy was so busy showing her off to everybody, he didn’t pay any attention to me either. I was so upset that I drank too much champagne. I got drunk and sick, and Tristan had to take care of me. Afterward, Daddy said I was a disgrace and sent me back to school. When Alexandra had a baby, it was Tristan who wrote to tell me. Daddy let me come home for Robin’s christening, and then he sent me away again.” Olivia is crying now; tears redden her eyes.

  I can’t help feeling sorry for Olivia. She suffers from her father’s abandonment year after year, like a chronic illness, while for me the loss of my father was a brutal but swift cut, like an amputation. But I still don’t trust her. “So you wouldn’t mind getting your stepmother in trouble.” Maybe she’s trying to incriminate Lady Alexandra and get herself off the hook for Robin’s murder as well as the fires. Maybe she thinks that if Lady Alexandra and Robin were both gone, she might regain Sir Gerald’s love. “Why should I believe you?”

  “Because I wouldn’t say it unless it were true.” Olivia sniffles and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “It would upset Daddy. He doesn’t want to think Alexandra is bad. And I don’t want Daddy to be upset.”

  “Why do you care how he feels? He treats you so cruelly.” Even as I speak, although it’s true, I feel uncomfortable about criticizing Sir Gerald.

  Olivia regards me with surprise. “Because I love him.”

  It hasn’t escaped my notice that I’m a fine one to talk. My father is by all accounts a rapist and murderer, and I still love and want to protect him. “If I tell Inspector Reid that you’ve accused Lady Alexandra of setting the fires, Sir Gerald is sure to hear about it.”

  A cunning smile brightens Olivia’s face. “You could say that you saw her with the kerosene can.”

  “You’re asking me to lie.” I’m indignant, as though lying isn’t a habit for me.

  “It wouldn’t be entirely a lie. Alexandra tried to kill you and Lord Hugh. What difference does it make who saw her?”

  “Inspector Reid would be more likely to believe you than me. You should tell him that you saw Lady Alexandra.”

  “Sarah?” Mick whispers outside the bathroom door. “Who are you talkin’ to?”

  “Oh, forget I said anything,” Olivia says, peeved. “But if Alexandra tries to kill you again, and she succeeds, it’s your own fault.” She flounces out of the bathroom and bedroom. Mick is munching on biscuits and cheese from the tray she brought. Hugh awakens with a fit of coughing. After it subsides, he asks, “What’s going on?”

  I pour tea for us and relay Olivia’s story. The food and
the hot, fragrant India tea restore my strength and lift my spirits, but I can’t forget that Hugh and I are murder suspects or that the day will bring Inspector Reid back to interrogate us. I don’t know where I stand with Barrett, and we’re trapped in Mariner House with an arsonist.

  “I believe Olivia,” Mick says. “Lady A tried to kill you and Hugh because she thinks you know too much.”

  “I’m sure someone thinks so. It could have been any of the others,” I say.

  Hugh looks skeptical. “Supposing we did know who the kidnapper is, wouldn’t whoever it is think we’d have told Sir Gerald already?”

  “Maybe he thinks we’re stringing Sir Gerald along, taking his money for as long as we can,” I say.

  “Yeah, and our time is about up,” Mick says.

  “Well, here’s more evidence that it’s not Tristan,” Hugh says. “He didn’t let the police separate us.”

  “Maybe he wants to keep us together so he can kill us all at once,” I say.

  Hugh slams his teacup down on the bedside table. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, stop making up reasons to blame Tristan for everything!”

  I hate to resume our quarrel, but I have to say, “He shot you. He could have set the fires.”

  “So could Olivia. She knocked you off your horse. And she’s just come to you with a story that a blind fool could see is an attempt to send you down a garden path.”

  Mick crumbles his biscuit, uneasily caught in the middle. “It weren’t Sir G. He ain’t home. My money’s on Lady A.”

  I haven’t the heart to remind him about objectivity, for I’m relieved that Sir Gerald has an alibi. “It could have been Tabitha or Mr. Pierce,” I say for the sake of keeping the peace. After our brush with death, my friendship with Hugh seems doubly precious.

  “Well, whoever tried to kill you must be real disappointed you’re still alive,” Mick says. “We better find out who it is before they try again.”

  20

  The sound of men’s voices in the passage wakes me. I sit up straight in the chair in which I dozed off. Hugh and Mick are fast asleep. Sunlight and cold air stream through the open window. As the doorknob turns, I jump from my chair, crying, “Hugh! Mick! Wake up!”