Lady Jayne Disappears

by Joanna Davidson Politano

  ~Nathaniel Droll, Lady Jayne Disappears

  “Rise and get up, sleepy!” Juliette’s voice jarred against the sharp throb in my head as the sound forced me out of sleep. It was morning. I twisted onto my side, legs tangled in the sheets, and groaned. Had I managed to get myself into bed? No, it was the maids. Digory had been there too. Flashes of memory from the previous night swirled through the flood of pain. The room with the purple dresses. The man in the hall. I jerked as a shiver climbed my spine.

  Before I could string together the words to ask questions—and really, what on earth could I ask without sounding like a madwoman?—Juliette approached the bed and flung an armload of bright fabric onto it. “I’ve brought you a dress for the day, but only one.”

  “I’m sure it’s lovely.” Would the girl remain all morning? I massaged the splitting pain in my forehead, eyes closed.

  “I do hope you’re feeling better today.” Her voice softened and the bed sank at the edge under her weight. “How’s your head?”

  Forcing myself up, I leaned against the headboard and continued the gentle massage. “Still attached, it seems.”

  Juliette giggled, eyes sparkling. “Good. You’ll look much better in the gown I brought for you today. Aren’t you going to ask me why I brought only one?”

  I opened my eyes and fingered the gown—a green-and-yellow affair with stripes that somehow managed to be feminine. “The dressmaker from Bristol. She’s coming today.”

  “Yes! She’s bringing a full swath of samples and fabrics and everything you could want.” Juliette took my hands. “We’re to start right away.”

  “Without breakfast?” My stomach growled.

  “I suppose we could manage a hasty breakfast, if you need one.” Disapproval shadowed her lovely face.

  After gingerly dressing with the help of a chambermaid, whom I forbade to yank my hair into a formal design, I led the way down the stairs. The pounding receded with my slow steps and long inhales of fresh air pouring through open windows in the great hall.

  In the morning room, Glenna and Garamond stood near the sideboard, Glenna leaning over to spoon more oatmeal. “Yes, but she simply does not belong. You cannot shove a bird into a rabbit nest and hope it survives. I’ll talk to Mother about it presently, in very strong terms.”

  Garamond’s eyes widened as he spotted us, his finger jamming into his wife’s fleshy arm.

  “You needn’t always shush me, you know. I’m more than a mantelpiece decoration in your life. My opinions needn’t—”

  One final shove stopped the flow of words my curiosity desperately wanted to hear but my soft heart wished to shut out.

  “Good morning, Mama. Father.” Juliette brushed into the room, smile in place.

  I only followed because she’d gripped my wrist like a shackle and yanked me along. Juliette fit in here. Mask in place, she could glide about as if she’d heard nothing. I, however, would need a dark room and a good cry before I could appear such.

  A slamming door in the great hall broke the tension. Footsteps clicked on the tile and voices carried in to us. “I’ll announce your arrival.” Digory appeared at the door. “A Miss Flossy Payne to see you. May I say you are at home?”

  “Oh, of course we’re at home! Tell her to meet us in Miss Harcourt’s suite immediately.” Laying hold of my hand, Juliette pulled me out the door and up the stairs again, plates abandoned. When did wealthy women have a chance to eat?

  The whole affair felt awkward and somehow degrading as the two women spun and measured my body. My body. Had Papa really wanted all this for me?

  “And our wonderful Miss Wicke will do the embellishments.” Juliette took a servant girl by the arms and swung her out of her shadowed corner where she’d stood like furniture. “She does our sewing, and she makes the most lovely adornments on the gowns.”

  The slender young woman, with hair severely parted and pulled back, tolerated the girl’s embrace before backing into position again. Her plain face held the gravity of one who had endured a hundred burdens already, but carried none of the lines of age.

  “I knew a man named Harcourt once.” The dressmaker from Bristol, a pleasantly eccentric woman with frizzy hair, broke into my thoughts.

  Juliette spoke up before I could answer. “He isn’t likely any relation to Aurelie. My cousin comes from far away, with no relations around besides us.”

  I did not correct the mistruth.

  “Ach, ’twouldn’t be the same one, then. Pity. A clever one, he was. The man swooped in and out of my life just that quick, but I still remember him, clear as ever. Must be five and twenty years past or more.” Her eyes sparkled with the evocative memory. “Wouldn’t mind happening upon him again.”

  “A romantic tryst. It sounds fabulously dramatic.” Juliette smiled, dimples brightening her lovely face.

  “The man’s middle name might have been romance, for the way he swept me away.” A wide grin spread over her face. “Such stories he told.”

  “Oh, do tell us about the trysts,” Juliette urged. “I must know the whole story.”

  “I’m sure she has enough to do, measuring for dresses.” My small voice cut through the terrible conversation barreling toward things I did not wish to hear. It couldn’t be Papa she spoke of, could it?

  Juliette flashed me a pert look with a question in her eyes at my rudeness. “We’ve nothing else to do while she measures. Why not let her tell it?”

  The story of the woman’s romantic three-day tryst unfolded, including long descriptions of a man with a grand presence, hearty laugh, and money to spare. It sounded like no one but Papa. But this woman couldn’t be my mother. Couldn’t. Flossy Payne. Lady Jayne.

  No.

  When the woman finally made her exit, a trail of cockney-tinged words following her down the hall, I shoved the story into the attic of my mind. I buried it in a dark corner and covered it with many sheets, never to be revisited except in some rare, unforeseen need.

  “Now we must find Father in the library and send Miss Wicke into Bristol for all the things we’ll need.”

  After dressing, I followed Juliette and Miss Wicke to the library, the room I’d craved since arriving, but it turned out to be wholly disappointing. Lined with half-sized bookshelves, the space was dominated by an ivory-and-black fireplace, taxidermy on the walls, and a large walnut desk where Garamond Gaffney sat. In this room, where books should be overwhelming and abundant, they were a mere afterthought.

  “Father, Miss Wicke must use the carriage to buy things for Aurelie’s gowns. Please tell her it’s all right, would you?” Juliette spoke with the confidence of being granted her request.

  And of course she was.

  “Where do you plan to make your purchases, Miss Wicke?” The balding man dipped his pen in the ink and wrote on the documents before him. Agreeing to his daughter’s whims had apparently become such a habit that he needn’t even give it his exclusive attention.

  The young maid stepped from the shadows. “I might find most things in Glen Cora, but I’m not certain they will have all the specialty items Miss Juliette has requested.”

  “Of course, of course. Go to Bristol if need be. Bring the notes to me, and I’ll pay them.”

  Bristol? I stepped forward. “Perhaps I should accompany Miss Wicke. I might be able to offer an opinion on things. And I’d so enjoy a day outdoors. My heart craves the sunshine.”

  At this, Garamond dropped the pen into the inkwell and looked up with a patronizing smile. “If it would do your heart good, my dear. Only that leaves Juliette alone for the day.”

  A voice came from the shadows of the library. “I would be honored to escort your daughter on the horse trails.” Rotherham shifted against a bookshelf, where he paged through a red leather volume.

  “Agreed. Well then, be on your way.”

  Why was that man everywhere, in the most intimate parts of this family’s life? How had he earned such a place, and why ever did he want it?

  I persuade
d the ever-silent Miss Wicke to drop me off on the way to Bristol in front of an overflowing curiosity shop and return for me after her errands were completed. Doubt flitted over the woman’s puckered brow, but she did not spend her few words on trying to dissuade me.

  Clutching a notebook wrapped in brown paper, I pressed through the town toward the familiar rows of crumbling houses and streets bowed up the center like an inverted spine. How fortunate to find a means of escape today. Future visits would have to be made to post all the coming installments, but those could be arranged when the time came.

  Thank you, sovereign Lord.

  Nearing the prison, memories cinched my gut, sending my heart into overtime. How had Papa so easily slipped into the background of my mind since leaving Shepton Mallet? Life had started over at Lynhurst, but returning here, even to the outer gates, his death seemed suddenly more real and recent. The wound split open, fresh and raw, the ache caving in on me.

  With a shuddering breath, I turned left before reaching the prison and walked down the narrow Headrow Lane to number 32, the familiar thatch-roof cottage with crumbling stone walls that belonged to Shepton Mallet’s only physician and coroner, and one of the few friends Papa and I had from the outside—for no one entered Shepton Mallet unless paid or forced.

  Climbing the steps and dodging the broken one, I knocked on the door. A bang and clatter sounded inside, and the door swung open.

  “Well, well. She has returned.” Jasper Grupp’s fingers slithered over his two-day stubble, blue eyes snapping with interest. “Just as easily as she set me aside for a sleek carriage ride with a top hat.”

  “I need my mail, Jasper. If you would.” I had once found those intense blue eyes ringed with midnight sky utterly captivating.

  His mouth turned up in a devilish smile. “You don’t look like you need nothing, your majesty. All fine and feathered in that costume.”

  “I’d like to speak to your father.” Heat radiated from my overdressed body, perspiration gathering across my belly and neck.

  He turned and thunked his broad back against the door frame, arms folded over his chest, watching me. “Take and plunder at will, my lady. You know your way about the place.”

  I hesitated at the door, considering retreat. But I needed the royalty payment that would certainly have arrived. Chin high, I grasped my wrapped notebook and moved past him.

  But he grabbed my package as I glossed by, spinning me around and hissing in my face. “What a liar. Fix your hair and wear anything you like, but you’re no better’n me. Never was. How long before they know it too, prison rat?” Rage fueled by pain streamed out of his ice-blue eyes and flared his nostrils. His dirty hand squeezed my wrist, his other hand still clutching my wrapped book.

  I pounded my heel into his foot and yanked the package from his grasp. As he coiled in pain, I shoved past him into the one-room hovel. “My father was always a gentleman. Throwing a man in prison doesn’t change who he is.”

  He straightened and followed me inside. “Neither does a woman’s dress.”

  “Well, look who’s returned to us so soon!” Jasper’s father thudded down the ladder from the loft and landed with a floor-shaking thump between us. I relaxed in his jolly presence as Jasper backed into a dark corner. “Right glad I am to see ye, my girl. Have ye got something for me?” His voice vibrated off the walls, filling the little home.

  I shoved the wrapped book into the man’s hands, glad to have it away from Jasper. “I have this for you to post, Mr. Grupp, and I believe a letter may have arrived for me.”

  “Of course, of course.” The man pawed through papers on a narrow desk against the wall and returned with the familiar long envelope from Marsh House Press. “’Ere ye be, lassie.” He shifted and looked me over as a shepherd looking over a returned sheep for injury. “Folks miss ye in the Mallet. Miss them stories and yer healin’ touch. A few claim that little hand on a man’s brow cures up the meanest infection.”

  “Thank you.” Meeting the old man’s friendly eyes, I felt tears prick mine. What sort of girl actually missed debtor’s prison? But I did. So badly. A few days at Lynhurst, in the life I’d dreamed of, and I ached for the old one. What an ungrateful wretch.

  As Jasper glowered in the corner, a decision solidified in my mind. Death had occurred, whether or not I’d chosen it, and life had pivoted. I turned to Mr. Grupp, heart full. “You have no idea how I miss you, and all the others. You’ve been such a kind friend to Papa and me all these years, and I cannot thank you enough.”

  Gray eyebrows arched up. “That do sound like a goodbye of sorts.”

  I nodded. “I believe it is. I will have these letters directed to a new address closer to my new home.” My gaze flicked with meaning toward Jasper, then back. “But I do appreciate your cherished friendship. It will never be forgotten. You will never be forgotten.”

  “A fine kettle it is, losing all the excitement in our lives, and me favorite girl, too. These mystery packages ye bring are the only thing of consequence happening about the place. And you steppin’ into this house is the prettiest thing to happen to this ol’ hole. We’ll miss ye, won’t we, Jas?” The older Grupp gently squeezed my shoulder. Then in a kind whisper, “Ye do what ye need to, little Aura Rose.”

  Jasper gave a pinch-lipped smile from his corner where he watched the exchange.

  Giving the old man a quick hug that crunched the envelope against me, I left the pair and stepped back into the cloudy outdoors, delighting in Mr. Grupp’s words. They were true—just beyond those walls, arms would be thrown open to me in welcome. The sick would ask for me and my stories. My life would be poured out for those who needed comfort.

  But I couldn’t make my life at the Mallet anymore, for I owed no one a farthing. Instead, because of my great luck, I must return to Juliette, my cold aunt, and the echoey house where I must scheme to stay on, despite not being wanted. Having not a single penny allowed a person to live with all the freedom in the world, and having everything sometimes meant a person had nothing at all. For in truth, it was a slow death to find one’s self utterly unneeded.

  The sound of footfalls behind me tugged at my thoughts, but I continued. The clops neared until a hand yanked my arm and spun me around. “There’s a thin line between love and hate, you know. And you’re standing on the wrong side of it.”

  “Hate me all you want, Jasper. I’ll not have anything to do with you.”

  “But I will have much to do with you.”

  “What we had is fully in the past. What possible thing still ties me to you?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Oh, I wish you hadn’t asked that, princess. Would you really care to hear the answer?”

  6

  In her unwillingness to stand out and possibly appear foolish, Abigail instead became entirely invisible.

  ~Nathaniel Droll, Lady Jayne Disappears

  Rain chilled the air outside the closed-up curiosity shop where I waited for Miss Wicke to return and pushed Jasper’s threats from my mind. The man was only a bitter, jilted suitor wishing to make me squirm. He couldn’t truly do anything dangerous to me, could he?

  But he did possess a remarkable ability to deceive. I myself had experienced his expertise in this matter.

  The approaching carriage stood out among the wagons and horses in town. Eager to sink into the cushioned seats, I lifted my skirts above the puddles and sprang toward the vehicle as it stopped. Rain had drenched everything. As I reached out for the glossy black door, a boot came from above and crunched my hand. I cried out and the foot jerked and kicked me, sending me reeling back from the carriage door. With an awkward pinwheel of arms, I stumbled back and fell into the muddy road, limbs tangled in crinoline and fine fabric.

  “Miss! Oh, please forgive me.” The coachman jumped the rest of the way down from his perch atop the carriage and hovered, helping and patting. His face creased with more worry wrinkles than a hound. “I was coming to open the door for you. You shouldn’t have walked through the mud alone
. Truly, I’m sorry.”

  Miss Wicke’s pale, wide-eyed face peered down from the carriage window, watching the scene unfold. Mud spatter cooled my cheek and I simply looked at them, taking in their expressions. The two of them looked for all the world like the moon had crashed into the earth. I splashed the mud and giggled. “Well now, that’s one way to justify a hot bath.”

  Tension cut, the coachman pulled me to my feet with an embarrassing shlep as the mud released me. Miss Wicke threw open the door, and together they delivered me, sopping wet and mud drenched, to my seat in the carriage after covering the cushion with burlap.

  Puffing out a quick exhale, I smiled at the little seamstress and collapsed into the seat, tailbone throbbing where it had struck the ruts in the road. “And now I am well equipped to describe a woman falling into a puddle, if that should come about in a story.”

  Miss Wicke gave a tiny smile. “You’re not really a lady, are you?” But then she whipped a finger to her pinched lips, cheeks reddening. “I do not mean—I mean to say—”

  “Quite all right.” I held up a hand to wave off her concern as the carriage jerked forward, sailing past the paint-chipped storefronts of Glen Cora. “I most certainly am not a lady, especially at this moment. And I delight in that fact.”

  “Might I ask something, miss?” The woman’s face had eased into a more natural expression.

  “Of course. Nothing bonds two women more than stripping away all that makes us dignified, right?”

  We shared another smile, and the seamstress studied me. “Who are you, exactly?”

  Who was I? My father’s daughter, more than anything. A lifelong resident of Shepton Mallet. An interloper among my family. But especially, I was now Nathaniel Droll. “I’m not entirely sure how to answer that.”

  “It’s just that, well, Lady Pochard isn’t given to charity. She rarely has relations come to stay.”

  Head back against the soft leather cushion, I sighed. “Suppose I make up a story about who I am. It’d likely be more fascinating, and more romantically beautiful.” Until Jasper had threatened to spill where I’d come from, I’d had no idea to be ashamed of it.