A Respectable Actress

by Dorothy Love

  India buttered a biscuit. “Have you seen Philip this morning?”

  “No. He left before I got up. To catch the early steamer to the city, I expect.”

  “Oh. Any idea when he will return?”

  “Philip comes and goes when he wants. He hardly ever consults me or apprises me of his plans.”

  India frowned at Amelia’s tart reply. “Have I done something to offend you?”

  Amelia tossed her pen onto the table. “I was perfectly capable of acting as hostess last week. I’m not sure why Philip thought it was necessary to install you in my place.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t think of it that way. When he asked me to return, he said you needed help preparing for such a large number of guests, that’s all. I was surprised when he asked me to sit at the foot of the table. I didn’t ask for it, and I would have gladly changed places with you. I’m sorry to have caused you any unhappiness over it.”

  “My brother has grown to depend on you too much. What happens when you leave town? Where does that leave him then?”

  “I may have a chance to remain in Savannah. I don’t know for how long. But for as long as I am there, I hope he will always call upon me for help, as he would call upon any friend.”

  Amelia’s dark brows rose. She retrieved her pen. “I must finish these letters so they can go out tomorrow.”

  “I won’t keep you then.” India rose. “Have Mrs. Wheeler’s things been boxed up for return?”

  “Binah finished packing the china yesterday. The boxes are on the porch.”

  “Maybe I’ll return them this morning, if you can help me hitch the horse and rig.”

  Half an hour later, with the boxes packed closely beside her and Amelia’s directions to Mrs. Wheeler’s house jotted onto the back of a sheet of writing paper, India set off. Sunlight dappled the narrow road and illuminated a pair of cardinals flitting among the trees. The road twisted and turned, offering intermittent glimpses of the sea. Now and then a gust of sharp wind chilled her face. India laughed out loud as the horse trotted along. What a blessing freedom was. She still trembled when she thought of how close she had come to losing it.

  Another few minutes brought India to Mrs. Wheeler’s. The house, half hidden behind a thick growth of old trees, was a simple clapboard affair set above a tabby foundation. Twin chimneys rose from each end. In the side yard a horse stood cropping grass.

  India halted the rig and set the brake. “Hello?”

  The door opened, and Mrs. Wheeler emerged, drying her hands on the bottom of her faded blue apron. “Miss Hartley. What a lovely surprise.”

  India gestured toward the wagon. “I brought your dishes back. But the mattresses wouldn’t fit.”

  “Oh, never mind those. I have no use for them. I am glad to have Mother’s Limoges back though.”

  India helped her carry the boxes into the dining room. “We can unpack them if you like, to be sure nothing is broken.”

  “I’ll do that later. I just finished breakfast. I slept later than usual this morning. Coffee’s still hot if you want some.”

  “I would. Thank you.”

  Mrs. Wheeler poured two cups and handed India one. They crossed the hall to the parlor, where fine furnishings, paintings, sculptures, and gilt-framed portraits lent a museum-like quality to the spacious, high-ceilinged room.

  “Don’t be flummoxed by all this stuff.” Mrs. Wheeler motioned India to a delicate chair upholstered in cranberry-and-green needlepoint. “It may remind some people of Versailles, but really it’s only the remnants of an old life that is no more.”

  “Well, I think it’s beautiful,” India said.

  Mrs. Wheeler dropped onto an overstuffed chair and set aside her cup. “Every time Mrs. Garrison visits here she tells me I ought to get rid of the clutter. She has no idea what these things mean to me.”

  India recalled Mrs. Wheeler’s story of her mother’s trip to France and the china she designed there. “It means a great deal to you.”

  “Yes, indeed. Every bit of it. Take that painting of the fox hunt there. My father brought that back from England in the ’30s. It was a gift from his hosts for his skill on horseback. Duke somebody or other. Father was thrilled. He died not long after. Every time I look at that painting, I remember the pleasure it brought him, and it comforts me.”

  India sipped her coffee while Mrs. Wheeler recounted the provenance of a sculpture purchased on a tour of Europe when she was young. “It came from the smallest garret you can imagine. There was a sign on the street in Paris, directing me up the stairs to the gallery. Ha! Some gallery. There was hardly room to turn around. But that little piece caught my eye, and I had to have it. Now, that portrait there by the door, that’s my mother. Painted when she was just eighteen. I can’t imagine why Mrs. Garrison thinks I ought to part with it.”

  Mrs. Wheeler went on talking about the remnants of her life before the war stripped everything away, leaving her to live in genteel shabbiness. It wasn’t the things themselves that mattered as much as the precious memories they held for her.

  India listened. This house was more than four crumbling walls and a sagging roof. It was a refuge. Mrs. Wheeler knew who she was and where she belonged. And so did Philip. Indigo Point was as much a part of him as blood and bone.

  She belonged to no one and to nothing.

  “Anyway,” Mrs. Wheeler went on. “I’ve rambled enough. I’m sure you have more important things to do than listen to an old woman’s reminiscences.”

  “Actually, I enjoyed it.”

  “Did you? Well then, you must come again. I have a whole box of tintypes upstairs. We’ll go through them together. I’ve got stories that will curl your hair. More than it already is.”

  The older woman followed India out into the yard. “Now that you know where I am, don’t be a stranger.”

  India waved and turned the rig for home.

  It was nearly noon when India rounded the last bend in the road and Indigo Point came into view. She left the horse tethered in the yard and went inside. Apparently Almarene and Binah had finished their chores and left for the day. The kitchen was tidy, the skillets and pans washed and dried and hanging on their hooks. The iron was still warm, and the faint smell of starch lingered in the air.

  In the dining room a scribbled note from Amelia announced that she had driven with Mrs. Garrison to visit the Couper cousins, who were ailing again. India went upstairs and removed her hat. She opened her trunk and began folding some of her things inside. Now that she was no longer needed at Indigo Point, she was eager to return to Savannah, as soon as Philip thought it was safe, to meet with Mr. Kennedy. She hoped he hadn’t already hired someone else to manage his theater. She had expected a letter from Celia Mackay this week, but so far, nothing.

  Wheels crunched on the road and India peered out the window. An unfamiliar rig was coming along the drive. India went downstairs as the rig rolled to a stop.

  A woman wearing an enormous plumed hat stepped out, placing one delicately booted foot and then the other onto the dusty ground. She started up the front steps.

  “Hello again.” The voice was low and melodious. And unmistak
able.

  Laura Sinclair had returned to Indigo Point.

  CHAPTER 30

  INDIA FOUND HER VOICE. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “I was invited.”

  “I’m sure.” Laura shifted a large tapestry satchel onto her other arm and glanced up at the house.

  “The Sinclairs are not at home,” India said. “You’ve made a fruitless trip, I’m afraid.”

  “Not at all.” Laura swept past India and pushed her way into the entry hall. She released a loud sigh. “Just as shabby and unappealing as it ever was. I swan, I do not know why anyone would choose to live here.”

  Laura started up the stairs.

  “Just a minute,” India said. “I’m not sure I ought to let you go up there.”

  Laura laughed, a light tinkling sound. “Why ever not? It was my home, however briefly, once upon a time. I’ve come to collect what’s mine.”

  Laura removed a key from her pocket and unlocked the room at the top of the stairs. India followed her inside. The room smelled faintly of disuse and candle wax. A thin shaft of light lay across the satin gown covering the bed. The forest of little glass candle holders still lay scattered across the floor where they had fallen during India’s confrontation with Mrs. Catchpole.

  Laura opened her satchel and began rifling through the drawers of the mahogany chest. She opened the wardrobe and began stuffing shoes and shawls and a small leather jewel case inside. “You can keep the dresses,” she said. “They are hopelessly out of fashion. But there ought to be something here that I can sell. Apart from my portrait I mean. I don’t think I can part with it. It’s quite a nice likeness, don’t you think?”

  “Why did you do it?” India stood in the open doorway, arms crossed against her chest.

  “Do what?”

  “Why did you burn the chapel? With an innocent girl inside?”

  “Philip told you?”

  India waited.

  “When he found me in Savannah, he told me he suspected I had conspired with Mr. Sterling to set fire to the chapel. But it’s nothing more than wild conjecture.”

  “But you were concerned enough to agree to meet with Judge Bartlett. To explain to him how you switched guns so I would shoot Mr. Sterling for you.”

  “Well, yes. I’m sure you know by now Philip can be quite charming and persuasive when he wants to be. He convinced me it would be best to admit my part in the whole thing.”

  “You were willing to commit murder to leave Indigo Point. In order to be with Mr. Sterling.”

  “You can’t prove it.”

  “‘Fire is bright. Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light leaps in the flame from cedar plank or weed. And love is fire.’ I’m the one who found your letter book in an abandoned boat near King’s Retreat.”

  “And clever one that you are, you pieced together the details of my duplicity.” Laura paled and released a mirthless laugh. “I never did have any kind of luck.”

  India swept one hand around the dimly lit room. “Poor Mrs. Catchpole mourned you every day. She kept this room as a shrine to your memory. She wouldn’t let anyone come in here. She tried to kill me when I did.”

  “Poor Mrs. Catchpole? Is that what you think? That shrewd old crone was in on the whole thing.”

  “What?”

  “She needed money for a sick relation back in England. So we made a trade. I gave her a handsome check, and she helped me stage my death. The night of the fire, she helped me sneak away to King’s Retreat where the boat was waiting. But the fire caused such a commotion that everyone on this end of the island rushed over here. Just as I was about to shove off, we saw two men coming toward the landing. I jumped out, and Mrs. Catchpole and I ran through the woods to meet up with Arthur near Butler’s Island.” Laura sighed. “The next day I realized the letter book was missing, but I hoped it had fallen into the water.”

  So. It wasn’t grief that had unhinged the housekeeper. It was guilt. And perhaps the fear that her secret would one day come to light. “Then you and Mr. Sterling lived together on Isle of Hope.”

  “Not for the first year. Arthur thought it would be best if I went abroad for a time, until the furor died down. He engaged a companion for me, and I spent a year in Europe, traveling under an assumed name. It appealed to his sense of the dramatic.”

  India trembled with rage. “How could you do that to Philip?”

  “You have no idea what it was like for me here. I felt trapped on this island. Like I couldn’t get my breath. I had to get away.”

  “You could have told Philip the truth. People do get divorced these days. Leaving him would have been so much kinder than letting him think you were dead.”

  “It wasn’t that simple.”

  “In the judge’s chambers you told Philip you never were his wife. Is that true?”

  Laura seemed not to hear the question. She went on, as if trying to convince herself. “When I finally left this forsaken place, I thought I would be free. But I had to be so careful not to be recognized that I lived like a hermit. It’s true that I went to extremes to escape Indigo Point, but I ended up in another kind of prison. Even so, it was worth it, because I had Arthur. And then Victoria Bryson came along and turned his head—after everything I had risked for him—and well, something simply had to be done.”

  India stood in the doorway, momentarily stunned into silence. How could this woman be so cavalier about murder? “So. Not only did you hope I’d shoot Mr. Sterling for you, you lured that poor girl to the chapel. You must have locked her inside somehow. Then you struck a match to the benzene and left her there to die.”

  “I didn’t want to kill anyone, but I had to have a body to be discovered. I left my reliquary necklace behind so Philip would think it was I who perished. Who would have thought a former slave would possess a gold necklace that would survive the fire? And that it would turn up in the ashes after so long a time? When Philip told me, I didn’t believe him.” Laura shrugged. “More bad luck.”

  India frowned. “If Mrs. Catchpole knew you were still alive, why keep a shrine?”

  “The poor misguided creature still hoped I’d come back to Philip one day. She doted on him you know. She always did. It became annoying after a while.” Laura snapped her satchel shut and left the room.

  “But that makes no sense.” India followed her into the hallway. “How could you ever explain coming back from the dead?”

  Laura shrugged. “A long illness in a foreign land. A loss of memory suddenly restored. An escape from a clever kidnapper. We talked about it once. Or rather, Mrs. Catchpole did. I knew that once I escaped this horrid place I would never return.”

  “And yet here you are.”

  “I never expected to be spurned and left destitute. You, of all people, ought to know how quickly one’s fortunes can change.”

  Laura advanced on India, her ice-blue eyes glittering with malice. “If you hadn’t nosed around and pilfered that letter book, and blabbed to Philip about it, he never would have found me. With Arthur dead, I could have remained comfortable and anonymous on Isle of Hope. Beca
use of you, I’m forced to flee before the authorities lock me up and throw away the key.”

  The hard glint in Laura’s eyes nearly stole India’s breath. “It’s you. You are the one who wanted me dead.”

  “Can you blame me?” Laura laughed. “You’re smarter than I gave you credit for. Though not smart enough to avoid walking into a trap.”

  “What are you talking about?” India inched her way along the hallway toward the staircase, watching for a chance to put more distance between them.

  “Oh come now. It’s simple enough. I knew if Philip had the slightest inkling someone wanted to harm you he would bring you here, to his beloved old ruin, where he could keep an eye on you.” Laura shoved India hard against the stair railing. “And here you are. Dear Philip has brought you back to me.”

  It took all of India’s stage training to remain calm, to appear fearless. “Harming me won’t help you. Even if it can’t be proved that you burned Hannah to death, Judge Bartlett and Mr. McLendon know about your role in Mr. Sterling’s death. I’m surprised you aren’t locked up already.”

  Laura grinned. “They have to find me first. But they won’t. I’ve become quite adept at disguise. The one useful thing Arthur taught me.”

  Laura moved closer. India could see beads of perspiration forming on Laura’s brow.

  “Now I want you to move to the top of the stairs,” Laura said. “They’re steep enough to cause a broken neck when you fall. I’m sure it won’t be pleasant, but probably not as unpleasant as death by fire.”

  India shook her head. “I’m not moving one inch. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out now. Before—”