“How long did your symptoms persist?”
“An eternity. Though the clock insisted it wasn’t more than two hours.”
“And what did your father think?”
“He was at loss for an explanation. I didn’t run a fever, didn’t have enlarged lymph nodes, didn’t exhibit other aches and pains or any gastrointestinal symptoms. I was fine before and I was fine after: I ate well, I moved well, and I slept well.
“He consulted his books for half a day but in the end wondered if I wasn’t simply reacting to London. He said that in his practice he came across men and women who suffered from headache, shortness of breath, and general malaise. If he couldn’t find any pathological explanation for their unwellness, he encouraged them to spend some time in the country, where air and water are both less polluted. More often than not, they improved.
“I was skeptical and pointed out that I’d been in London for two months. Shouldn’t I have reacted to it sooner? He said the effects could be cumulative—that sometimes people who have lived in London for decades find that they suddenly can’t tolerate the city anymore.
“So we discussed the matter—at length, I would say. But I didn’t worry. After all, I was probably overdue for some kind of unwellness. But when it happened again, just as inexplicably, I grew afraid that someone in the house might be conspiring against me.”
“When did it happen again?”
“The night before last. Mrs. Burns usually lays out biscuits and coffee at about quarter to ten. I had the exact same symptoms as I got into bed and spent a horrible few hours clutching at my throat, my poor father by my side. At breakfast we were discussing it again when Mrs. Burns came into the room. And I swear to you, Miss Holmes, I swear that she refused to meet my eyes.”
Mrs. Watson didn’t have a housekeeper, so Madame Gascoigne, her cook, made cakes and biscuits for the household. Today her contribution was a plate of thin, crispy, saddle-shaped almond biscuits—tuiles, she’d called them, which must be French for exceedingly delicious. Charlotte picked up another one. “Why do you think Mrs. Burns has designs on your father, Mrs. Morris?”
“Almost as soon as I arrived for my visit, I felt her hostility toward me. I am friendly by nature and got along well with my father’s old housekeeper. Mrs. Burns, on the other hand, has been curt whenever I try to engage her in conversation.”
Mrs. Morris paused to eat a tuile. “I asked my father what he thought of her demeanor and he said he found her perfectly agreeable. Now, Miss Holmes, you must understand, I have been raised not to make unreasonable demands of the staff. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed my boots—they are not my best pair. My father would consider it imposing on the staff if I wore my best pair knowing that they would get muddy, and then handed them over to a maid, expecting them to be made spotless again.
“Since my arrival in London, I have folded myself into the routines of my father’s house and made sure to cause minimal disruption. So Mrs. Burns has no good reason to dislike me, and yet she clearly does. Is it not natural to assume, then, that she sees my presence as an obstacle?
“I also learned from my father that she wasn’t always a woman of the serving class. Her own father was a doctor, too, but he died from drink and in debt. Again, is it not natural to assume that she would want to raise herself back to the station she had once enjoyed? And to remember that she would have some familiarity with poisons and such?”
Charlotte nodded slowly, but it was only to buy time to eat the tuile in her hand before she went on with her questioning. Not sleeping enough made her hungrier.
“What kind of biscuits did Mrs. Burns serve, Mrs. Morris? And were they the same both times?”
“They were dessert biscuits both times.”
“And your father didn’t suffer either time?”
“My father likes currants in his biscuits. I despise them. Mrs. Burns makes two batches of the same biscuits, one with currants, one without. We never eat each other’s biscuits. Besides, it would defeat Mrs. Burns’s purpose if she accidentally killed him, wouldn’t it?”
Charlotte adored currants. After all, plum cake, that great English misnomer, was characterized by the addition of half a pound of currants for every pound of flour. Livia, however, was in complete agreement with Mrs. Morris where currants were concerned.
“Have you spoken to your father about your suspicions?”
Mrs. Morris sighed. “It would be no use. He would think me unkind for having such thoughts. In fact, once, when I pointed out that Mrs. Burns might have her cap set on him—jokingly, of course—he was sincerely baffled. To him Mrs. Burns was everything a woman in her position ought to be. He couldn’t remotely conceive that she might be strategizing to become the lady of the house one of these days.”
“I see. I assume you brought the rest of the biscuits, Mrs. Morris?”
“I did—I saved them. I understand Mr. Holmes was able to deduce, in the Sackville case, that something else had been substituted for strychnine. Will he be able to tell if any noxious substance had been added in these biscuits?”
Charlotte had bought a few chemistry sets in her time, but she was no trained chemical analyst. That didn’t mean Sherlock Holmes couldn’t be—clearly, Mrs. Morris already believed him to be proficient in that capacity.
“It will reflect in our fees but it can be done.”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Morris, sagging with relief. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“In the meanwhile,” said Charlotte, “I trust you won’t eat any more biscuits at home.”
“Have no fear. I will not touch anything served in that house.”
Mrs. Watson returned to escort Mrs. Morris out—and to assess fees in the ground-floor room that had been turned into a small office. As they headed down the stairs, Charlotte stuck her head out of the parlor.
“Do excuse me, Mrs. Morris. My brother has a question for you.”
“Yes?”
“Are you prone to seasickness?”
Mrs. Morris blinked. “No, not at all. I enjoy ocean voyages.”
“Thank you,” said Charlotte, and closed the door.
In the days immediately preceding their departure for the country, both Sir Henry and Lady Holmes made a number of appointments with tailors, milliners, modistes, haberdashers, and conveyers of other fine goods. They always regretted their splurges upon receipt of the accounts. But an entire Season surrounded by their wealthier peers and all the luxuries that poured into the heart of an empire never failed to eradicate memories of past regret.
This ill-considered frenzy of acquisition usually depressed Livia: another year without a proposal, another year closer to irreversible spinsterhood, and here were her parents, squandering the money that could be used to put a roof over Livia’s head in her old age, nudging her another step closer to that cabbage-eating, dingy boardinghouse-dwelling future that loomed ever over an unwanted woman without any means of support.
But at least today it meant that she, too, could be out of the house, browsing the shelves at Hatchards, dreaming of a collection of her own, so many books that the entire house would smell of leather, paper, and binding.
“Excuse me, miss, but is this yours?”
Livia spun around. Good heavens, it really was him, the young man from the park the other day, except he wasn’t holding anything out toward her.
He grinned, his brown eyes warm and crinkled at the corners. “Already looking for more books? Have you finished those two Collins novels?”
“Yes, I have, as a matter of fact.”
“And do you agree with me or my friend on their merits?”
“Your friend, most certainly. Moonstone is superior to The Woman in White.”
“No!” After that cry of mock horror, his smile was back in full force. “In that case, we must read something else in common and see if our opinions converge better the ne
xt time around.”
Her heart thudded. Was he implying that she would see him again? “Have you any titles to recommend? I intend to read more books along the lines of Moonstone and The Woman in White.”
“There is a German book from a while ago, Das Fräulein von Scuderi. Very dramatic stuff. There are also some stories by Mr. Poe, the American.”
“Oh, please don’t recommend ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue.’”
“Never! Not the blasted orangutan. I was angry for days afterward.”
“Me, too!” concurred Livia wholeheartedly. “My sister had to listen to endless grumbling on my part. And if Mr. Poe weren’t already dead, I’d have written him a strongly worded letter—and paid for the transatlantic postage to make my displeasure known.”
He laughed. To her disbelief, Livia found herself laughing with him, unabashed glee coursing through her veins. Dear God, it felt good to finally speak to someone who understood the affront that was the blasted orangutan.
Their laughter subsided. For a moment, neither of them said anything. Then he asked, “If I may be so forward, miss, what inspired your interest in this genre of stories?”
Because she had nothing to lose, she told him the truth. “I hope to write a similar story, but better, of course.”
“Please do! Will you divulge a thing or two of the plot?”
“Well, I want it to be a revenge story. A spate of mysterious deaths, a genius who strides in to untangle the web, and then, the revelation of a terrible wrong from decades ago, now avenged.”
He gasped. “You mean, a variation on the Sackville case, with the involvement of that man. Now why can’t I remember his name?”
“Holmes.”
“Yes, Sherlock Holmes. You must write it. I will be the first one in line to buy a copy.”
Charlotte had said she believed Livia could write such a story. But Charlotte never voluntarily touched fiction. This young man, however, was a connoisseur. And he wanted to read her—as of yet nonexistent—work.
“And will you stay up all night reading?” she heard herself ask.
He gazed at her. “Not likely. I will finish reading by bedtime, so I will most likely go to sleep wishing I could read it again for the first time.”
She swallowed. She must be red; her face, her throat, and even her ears felt scalding hot.
He gazed at her another moment, then bowed and left.
Livia trudged up the stairs to her room, closed the door, and flopped down on the bed.
After her first meeting with the still-nameless young man, she had felt a secret excitement—ruthlessly tamped down, of course, exemplified by her midnight jaunt to retrieve the letter about him from Mott. Nevertheless, that excitement had lingered, as if she already knew, somehow, that she would run into him again.
But now she was only dejected, convinced that they had exhausted their lifetime allotment of chance encounters.
Why hadn’t she introduced herself? Well, because she had been taught from birth that it wasn’t proper to meet anyone, men or women, but especially men, except via a trusted mutual acquaintance who could vouch for everyone involved. She’d never minded the stricture before because she didn’t enjoy meeting people. But now her unthinking obedience had robbed her of any chance she might have at . . .
At what?
She stared at the ceiling and cursed under her breath. And then, louder. The house was silent. Her parents hadn’t returned yet. She could hear footsteps and some soft, muffled words from Bernadine’s room—one of the maids must be trying to coax her to eat.
Livia rubbed her face. Why did she do this? Why let her imagination run away on the merest hint of anything? A man spoke to her for two minutes and she was ready to rip London apart to present him with a proposal of marriage.
It was not going to happen. None of it was going to happen. She needed to forget her fanciful conjectures, get up, and check on Bernadine. But the thought of facing Bernadine’s own kind of despondency only made her wish she could sink deeper into the mattress.
The door to her room creaked. Charlotte entered in a striking white day dress with purple polka dots on the bodice and purple stripes down the sleeves, a peaked straw hat trimmed with a matching purple plume in her hand.
Livia sighed—she hated for Charlotte to see her like this.
The next moment she bolted upright. “Charlotte! What are you—wait, that was you with Bernadine? You can’t stay! Mamma and Papa will be back soon.”
“I’ll leave in a minute.”
Charlotte glanced around the room in her usual unhurried manner, before she looked back at Livia with a steady, attentive gaze.
No one would ever label Charlotte tender or loving, and yet Livia had always been at ease with her little sister. She used to believe it was because Charlotte was so peculiar that she herself felt normal. But she’d been dead wrong.
Charlotte knew everything about Livia—and Charlotte did not want Livia to be anything other than who she was. And Livia had not realized how much she needed it until she met the young man and was reminded of what it felt like to be accepted.
“Are you all right, Livia?” Charlotte asked quietly.
Tears, out of nowhere, prickled the back of Livia’s eyes. She wasn’t all right. She hadn’t been all right. And she didn’t know if she would ever be all right for any sustained period of time.
“I manage,” she said. No point elaborating—Charlotte already knew the truth.
“And Bernadine, has she been like that since I left?”
“Some days.”
Livia wasn’t lying. Some days she couldn’t bring herself to go into Bernadine’s room.
Charlotte nodded—and did not immediately say anything else.
Her silence. How Livia missed the companionship of that soft, calm silence. And perhaps this was where she reciprocated Charlotte’s acceptance: She never demanded that Charlotte speak but always waited for it, trusting that when Charlotte had something to say, she would.
Which she did, presently. “You haven’t written since we saw each other on Saturday.”
“I’ve been reading—to study how other people write stories with plots involving strange and mysterious events.”
Charlotte nodded again, walked to the window, and looked out.
Livia’s alarm returned. “Anyone coming back?”
“Not yet.” Charlotte turned around. “I take it you don’t wish to tell me about the man.”
Every muscle in Livia’s body seized, yet she felt as if her arms and legs were flopping wildly, uncontrollably. “I haven’t been introduced to any man.”
Which was God’s truth, even if it was far from the whole truth.
“No, you haven’t,” said Charlotte.
Silence again, but not such a soft, calm silence anymore. Livia had no idea what to do. Should she lie? Should she confess? Or should she continue to stare at Charlotte, saying nothing?
Charlotte sat down on the windowsill, the same one she had occupied the night of her scandal, immediately before she told Livia that she would be running away from home. “Actually, I came to ask you for a favor.”
“Wh—I mean, of course. Anything.”
Anything to get the subject away from the man to whom Livia had not been introduced.
“It’s about Lady Ingram.”
“Wouldn’t you know it, I met her last night at the soiree musicale Mamma dragged me to. I couldn’t believe it, but she was very decent to me—said she understood exactly how much I wanted to escape all that yodeling. She even asked about you.”
Was this effusive enough an answer for Charlotte to forget what they were talking about before?
“She did?”
Charlotte didn’t raise a brow or the volume of her voice, but Livia thought she heard a note of surprise.
“Yes, rather
nonchalantly, too. None of that look-all-around-then-lean-in-and-whisper business.”
Charlotte didn’t speak for a minute, as if needing time to digest this unexpected nugget of intelligence. “What do you think of Lady Ingram?”
Livia shook her head. “Women of her kind make me nervous—they are so sure of themselves. I don’t know that I ever think about them so much as I pray they don’t think badly of me.”
It took only a passing glance from someone like Lady Ingram for Livia to be acutely conscious of her shortcomings. Or it could be said that she was already acutely conscious of her shortcomings and that a whiff of disdain from any quarter, real or imagined, heated that general anxiety to a froth of self-scorn.
“What I meant was, do you believe she ever loved Lord Ingram?”
What an odd question from Charlotte, who had never commented on that marriage. Had rarely brought up Lord Ingram in conversation, in fact, despite their long-standing friendship. Sometimes Livia wondered about the two, but it was usually to speculate on whether Lord Ingram might be secretly in love with Charlotte: She was fully prepared to accept that Charlotte had never felt the slightest twinge of romance in her twenty-five years on earth.
“I don’t know that Lady Ingram ever loved her husband, but I do remember thinking that she seemed awfully pleased with the match. Not to an unseemly degree, mind you, but still. I envied her that happiness.”
“Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.”
“Oh, I’m not entirely sure about that. Her happiness lasted a good long while—at least it seemed so to me.”
Charlotte cocked her head to one side. “What if it was all a pretense?”
“It was, wasn’t it? She only married him for his inheritance.”
“No, I mean, what if that happiness was all a pretense? What if she’d never been happy to marry him, even in the beginning?”
“Why are you interested in Lady Ingram, all of a sudden?”
Charlotte glanced out of the window again. “I’m going to tell you something that I learned recently, but you can’t say anything to anyone else.”
A Conspiracy in Belgravia Page 9
