Cursed Once More: The Sequel to With This Curse

by Amanda DeWees

  “Sir, the servants.” Mr. Lynch shut the library door with a rebuking air. “I’m certain the baroness doesn’t want this matter trumpeted to the entire household.”

  “As grateful as I am for your discretion,” I said, “I think it may be best to inform all the servants and involve them in the search.”

  “Search!” My uncle snorted. “So you think he’s unwilling to be found, do you? Tell the truth: you quarreled. He probably means to teach you a little lesson by making himself scarce. Wise fellow, the baron—nothing brings a wife to heel better than being ignored for a spell.”

  I was very tempted to reply with a pointed reminder that I had experience of married life and he had none, but descending to such childish one-upmanship would be of no use. Instead I briefly set forth the circumstances under which Atticus had left: the early hour, the mysterious errand, the fact that he had fully dressed. This rendered both men thoughtful.

  “What do you think he meant by something he needed to see to?” my uncle asked, his manner much more subdued than before.

  I stared straight at him as I said, “I can think of a few things he might have been curious about, or even suspicious.” I had the satisfaction of seeing my uncle’s beady eyes widen for one startled moment before darting away. He looked the very picture of guilt. “I want to summon a constable,” I announced.

  He vigorously waved his hands as if to expunge the idea. “Now, now, don’t get in a pet, niece. There’s no need for such dramatics. Ladies are so apt to work themselves into fits over the least little things!”

  “On the contrary, sir,” his ward said coolly, “Lady Telford has always struck me as a woman of great good sense. If she feels that this is an emergency, oughtn’t we to take her concerns seriously?”

  Sputtering, my uncle replied, “I never said this was not a serious situation. I merely think that introducing a police officer into the matter at this early stage is excessive and—and inconvenient.”

  “Inconvenient to whom, exactly?” I asked.

  He heaved himself out of his chair and paced over to stare out of one of the mullioned windows. “If your husband has merely been taking the air and returns to find the house all at sixes and sevens and the police questioning everybody, he will be mightily embarrassed.”

  “That prospect does not strike fear into my heart, Mr. Burleigh,” I said. Fear did, however, seem to be present in my uncle. Yesterday he had also been reluctant to involve the police in the matter of Grigore. My suspicions were redoubled. Why should an innocent man protest so vigorously against the presence of the police?

  “I would be much easier in my mind if the authorities were to take a hand in the search,” I told him. “We should also ask volunteers from the estate to help comb the countryside. What if you’re correct and Atticus was merely taking a walk? That was many hours ago. He might have had an accident of some sort.”

  Mr. Lynch nodded gravely. “Yes, he may have struck his head, or had a fit of some sort, or even—I hate to say it—been set upon by footpads. Such things, alas, are not unknown even this far from the city. Sir, I don’t see that we have any reason not to involve the authorities.”

  My uncle remained standing with his back to us. In a strangely solemn tone of voice, he said, “If you both insist upon it, I suppose we must. When Thomas returns from taking Durrington to the station I’ll send him back to fetch a constable.” Now he turned to face us, and the choleric flush had faded from his jowly face. “But before that,” he continued, “we should search the house thoroughly to rule out what we can, because the constable is sure to ask us if we have. We can make a systematic sweep starting with the servants’ quarters and moving through the whole house. If, as you suggest, your husband has fallen ill or somehow been wounded, he may be unable to call for help.”

  This resolve was a surprise, albeit a pleasant one. This threw my suspicions into confusion. I could not reconcile this decision with his earlier appearance of guilt.

  My uncle’s secret motives could wait until later for me to examine, however. At this moment it was vital to take advantage of his cooperation in searching for my husband. “That is an excellent idea,” I said. “Mr. Lynch, perhaps you would search the grounds while we sweep the indoors?”

  “Of course,” he said. “There are plenty of places where he might have come to grief. I beg your pardon,” he amended hastily. “I mean that there are many ditches and crevasses where he might have slipped and turned his ankle, or something of that sort.” He bowed briefly. “I hope I shall return with good news, my lady.”

  “Thank you. I hope so.”

  There was a silence after he left us. Then my uncle said, still in his newly serious tone, “Niece, it may be wise to write to your friends and servants at Gravesend in case they have heard anything from the baron that might indicate where he intended to go. Even though he told you that his intention was to return soon, he may have changed his mind and decided to pursue his investigation farther afield.”

  I had to admit that there was wisdom to the suggestion. “I’ll compose some telegrams,” I said. “But I am curious as to what you meant by an investigation. What do you think drew my husband from my side and into the night?”

  This time his eyes did not evade mine. “I wish I knew,” he said quietly. “I truly wish I did.”

  After I had dashed off the necessary letters and telegrams, Mrs. Furness and I, accompanied at my insistence by my uncle, made a search of the house. With the housekeeper unlocking the unused rooms as we went, we began with the servants’ quarters and moved upward through the common rooms and into the personal bedrooms. I hesitated not at all to rifle wardrobes, peer under beds, and prod tapestries, calling out for Atticus at frequent intervals in the ever more urgent hope that he might answer.

  To my uncle’s credit—and to my own surprise—he did not forbid me from entering anywhere. It may have embarrassed him for me to see the ruinous state of some of the chambers, with their broken furniture, flaking plaster, and cracked windows, but not once did he attempt to induce me to leave a room unsearched. By the time we descended from the attics, my black dress was almost gray with dust and accumulated cobwebs, and I was so agitated that my hands shook. I could not understand how a man could vanish so entirely unless something terrible had happened.

  Mr. Lynch had reported no results from his search of the grounds, so I sent him with Thomas to send my telegrams and fetch a constable. But there was no reassuring figure in uniform accompanying him when he returned.

  “It seems there is no longer a standing police force in Coley,” he explained. “I was given to understand that the village has so diminished in the last year that it became unnecessary.” He must have read my dismay on my face, for he added hastily, “I wired to Ilkley and Halifax to send an officer at their earliest convenience. If they can’t oblige, I think Leeds will be our best hope.”

  Where the news had brought me nothing but distress, it seemed to cheer my uncle. “So we may be left to our own devices for days yet,” he said with offensive heartiness. “Ah, well, we must make the best of it.”

  “You don’t sound at all sorry,” I burst out. “What is it that you’re so desperately afraid will be discovered? Is that what happened to Atticus? When he spoke of looking into something, did he come too close to learning what you’re trying to hide?” A terrible idea was forming in my mind. Perhaps the reason that my uncle had not discouraged my search of the house was that he knew that Atticus was not here to be found.

  Mr. Lynch’s voice was at its most soothing. “I’m sure my guardian only kept quiet about it so as not to worry you. If there had been any real danger, naturally he would have warned you.”

  “Warned me about what?” I demanded.

  My uncle looked from me to his ward with a hunted expression, saying nothing. It was left to the younger man to say, “The fellow must have been long gone by the time the baron went missing. Probably leagues away, in fact. So you see there was no reason for your uncle
to alarm you.”

  He clearly meant his words to soothe, but my heart was beating all the faster as their meaning sank in. I said, “Do you mean that Grigore has disappeared as well?”

  The young man grimaced and spread his hands. “‘Disappeared’ is not the word I would use. It looks as though he did a bolt after I left him in his room. Grigore has never been intelligent, and he evidently felt it was better to leave of his own volition even though that meant forfeiting all that we could have done to help him.”

  The words were meaningless noise to me apart from the single point that Grigore, the madman who hated and feared my husband, was unaccounted for. “When?” I whispered.

  Again my uncle did not reply, and his ward had to answer for him. “Last night,” he said.

  I stared at them, aghast. “Why did you not tell us?”

  My uncle cleared his throat as if trying to summon up his usual bluster. “A man doesn’t like to be thought incapable of handling his servants,” he rumbled, and I could have flown at him. Was his vanity responsible for this disaster?

  Mr. Lynch interposed, “Please don’t worry, my lady. I’m certain Grigore’s departure had nothing to do with the baron’s disappearance.”

  “There is no possible way you can be certain of that!” My heart thudded beneath my ribs with the force of a hammer. Had Atticus been waylaid by the deluded giant? The thought made me feel so queasy that I was afraid I might faint. “If I had known Grigore had escaped, I would have done everything in my power to keep Atticus from going off by himself in the middle of the night.” By now I was straining to keep my voice steady. “I hold you both responsible for this.”

  “Clara, please—”

  “Don’t pretend this isn’t your fault! If he is injured or—or dead, his blood is on your hands.” They stared at me with similar expressions of shock, and I longed to escape the sight of them. If Atticus had come to harm through their idiotic ideas of chivalry—or, worse, my uncle’s desire to save face—I would never forgive them. Nor would I rest until I had made them regret their negligence.

  “I am taking the carriage and going to send some wires of my own,” I announced. “If I cannot raise the police quickly enough, I’ll hire a private investigator. I’ll summon my own servants from Gravesend. I’ll—”

  “These are excellent ideas,” Mr. Lynch said in a placating tone. “But you oughtn’t to go alone. Won’t you let me accompany you? It is the least I can do after having failed to warn you about Grigore.”

  Grudgingly I agreed, for an argument would merely have delayed me. My uncle did not volunteer to accompany us, perhaps out of reluctance to be closed into the small space of a carriage with me and my anger.

  Once at the station, I composed lengthy wires to Gravesend, to the Bertrams, to the authorities of several nearby towns, and to a firm of private investigators in London that I recalled had assisted Sybil Ingram when a valuable necklace of hers had gone missing. Mr. Lynch attended me patiently as I wrote these all out. At last I felt ready to return to Thurnley, but as he and I reached the threshold he paused, striking his forehead.

  “I haven’t sent word to my employer in Coventry,” he exclaimed. “He’ll be wondering what has kept me. Would you mind if I sent him a wire to let him know I’ve been detained?”

  “As you think best,” I said, with an ill grace. Now that my messages were in the hands of the telegraph operator I was eager to resume my search for Atticus.

  “I shall be quick as a wink,” he promised, putting his hand to his heart. “Do go ahead to the carriage; you needn’t stand about here getting chilled. I’ll be with you again before you know it.”

  It seemed to me that he took a considerable time, but in my state of anxiety the wait probably felt far longer than it truly was. I was glad I had taken his suggestion to wait in the carriage, where Thomas spread the rug over me before returning to his place at the reins. At last Mr. Lynch emerged.

  “Is your employer likely to dismiss you for being absent for long?” I asked as he joined me in the carriage, although I cannot say that the answer mattered to me; I was merely making conversation to keep panic—and tears—at bay.

  “Quite likely, I’m afraid, but that isn’t important.” He leaned across the carriage to take my gloved hand. “I shall do whatever I must to help you find him,” he said gently. “I owe it to you, after having kept Grigore’s disappearance from you.”

  “It is my fault more than yours.” If only I had listened to my first instinct and ignored the summons to Thurnley Hall, none of this would have happened. I could try to throw the blame on others, but a great deal of it fell on my shoulders, and I knew that I would never stop regretting my actions unless I found Atticus safe and unharmed. I shut my eyes hard so that I would not embarrass myself by weeping before my companion.

  Then I realized that there was one silver lining to the terrifying new knowledge about the Romanian: It gave me a potential clue as to where Atticus might be. If Grigore was involved in my husband’s disappearance, perhaps it was something connected to the encounter at the mausoleum that Atticus had intended to pursue.

  “Mr. Lynch, have you searched the burial grounds?” I asked.

  “Not yet.” Then his eyes widened as my meaning struck home. “You think Grigore may have forced an encounter with the baron there?”

  “It seems possible, doesn’t it?” Or else—though it was almost too horrible a thought to be endured—he might have disposed of Atticus there.

  “We must search there at once,” he began, but I shook my head.

  “I shall do it. I need you to assist my uncle in his search. I’m afraid he is not very… effectual on his own.” What I really meant was that I could not trust him not to practice some further deception if left unwatched. Even this short errand had taken us away from him too long for my liking.

  “I understand,” the young man said, and the gravity in his voice suggested that he had taken my unspoken meaning. “I will be vigilant.”

  As soon as we reached Thurnley, I summoned Mrs. Furness, who accompanied me to the burial grounds. Looking through the iron gates of the mausoleum, I saw nothing that seemed altered or out of place, and I was greatly comforted that the housekeeper had to use her key to unfasten the padlock and gain entrance. The fact that the chain and lock were unbroken made it unlikely that anyone had entered before us, and thus unlikely that there would be any shocking surprises within.

  Nevertheless, we examined the interior scrupulously, looking for signs that anything had been tampered with. Until I found that all of the wall plaques were intact and undisturbed, I could not shake a horrifying vision of Atticus walled up alive in one of the niches in which the caskets were housed. To my great relief, there were no signs that anything inside had been tampered with, and as we stepped outside again I drew a breath of thankfulness. For the moment I felt reassured.

  The burial ground likewise showed no signs of any violent activity. Even the smallest grave marker, a white marble lamb without inscription, was undisturbed.

  “I suppose that must be a child’s grave,” I said to Mrs. Furness. “I wonder whose it was?” With no date, it was impossible to know whether it might have been another child of my grandmother’s.

  She snapped the padlock shut and tested that the gates were secure before replying. “That’s hard to say, my lady. Naturally many of the family will have lost children before they were old enough to be named. It is all too common.”

  Something in the subdued tone of her voice gave the words a special poignancy, as if she were speaking not of the Burleighs but of herself. Or was she simply so attached to the family that she felt their sorrows as her own? Her face wore its usual expressionless mask, but the desolation she had hinted at spurred me to say, “Perhaps that is a pain that you have some knowledge of yourself.”

  My sympathy did not induce her to confide in me, however. She merely said, “The loss of a child is something we all must feel keenly, my lady. Do you wish to examine any of
the outbuildings?”

  I assented and let her lead the way out of the burial ground, but my thoughts were still tantalized by this unexpected puzzle. Mrs. Furness wore no wedding ring, and I wondered if the “Mrs.” before her name was just the honorific bestowed on all housekeepers and not an indication of her actual marital status. If she had borne a child out of wedlock, I could well understand that she would not wish to tell me so. Yet I hoped I was mistaken. To be unable to speak of one’s grief could render it even more painful. As a young woman, when I was mourning Richard in my heart, it seemed to make it all the harder that I could not wear black for him or even speak of him, since in the eyes of the world I had no claim on him.

  Remembering this, I shook my head at my girlish folly. How much emotion I had wasted on that unworthy man… and how fervently I now hoped that I would not have cause to mourn Atticus.

  Atticus, who was fifty times the man Richard had been, who was just beginning to do so much good in the world, who after his miserable youth deserved the longest and happiest life that anyone ever had. Atticus, who had brought the transformative radiance of love into my own life, and who had not yet had the chance to be a father or even to anticipate it.

  Let him not be lost to me, I prayed silently as I continued the search for my husband. Let Atticus be near—and safe.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Four days passed.

  How little those three brief words convey of the anguish, the urgent activity, the increasing fear that spurred our searching. The growing exhaustion and creeping sense of despair, which in their turn birthed a new anxiety—that in our weariness of body and mind we would miss some vital sign that would point us to my husband.

  Inside the house and the outbuildings, outside in the pastures and on the moors, and even along the banks of the still-swollen river the searchers worked, as my uncle and Mr. Lynch tirelessly directed their activity. But even under their command it was impossible not to notice by the third day the dwindling energies of the searchers, their growing air of resignation, the encroaching carelessness.