by Joan Smith
“Sukey used to jiggle the library door loose,” I told Lorna. “That would be an easier way inside, but we’d have to sneak upstairs.”
“Oh, let us go that way,” she said at once. “I’m not at all sure the vine could take my weight. I could break a leg if I fell from that height.”
That was enough to convince me to use the door. I led the way around to the study, peered in through the glass windows of the French door into total darkness, and jiggled the door handle. The door still rattled loosely in its frame. I remembered Sukey used to shake it, then turn the knob and give the door a sharp push. On the second try the door opened with a slight squawk.
We darted off into the shadows, but when no one came to investigate, we advanced and crept inside. Wan moonlight shining through the French door showed the outline of tables and chairs. It turned the marble busts atop the bookshelves into ghostly guardians. Shakespeare, closest to the door, seemed to be staring right at us.
“I’m all confused,” Lorna whispered, looking around. “Which way do we go?”
“Out the door straight ahead, turn left down the corridor into the front hall and up the stairs.”
We waited at the open door to be sure we were alone. The only sound was the ticking of the long case clock at the end of the corridor. After a moment Lorna led the way out the door, creeping out into the corridor, down past another door, then into the hallway and up the grand stairway with the carved balustrade. The carpeted runner down the centre of the stairs muffled our footsteps.
Below us spread the parquet floor of the lofty entranceway that soared three stories high. We tiptoed up, up, with our hearts in our mouths, at least mine was. At the top we stopped a moment to listen, looking down the long corridor of closed doors. All was dark and silent. I knew Sukey’s room had been next door to Lorna’s, and turned left, with Lorna creeping behind me, actually holding on to my skirt.
I had seen Lorna’s room once or twice, but in the dim light could not tell if things had been changed. The window hangings were pulled to the sides and in the moonlight the canopied bed with the curtains closed around it gave the strange effect of a small building within the bedroom. Dresser, vanity table, desk, a shepherd’s chair and table were ranged along the walls. Lorna closed the door and looked all around, as if getting her bearings.
“The safe is there, hidden behind the skirt of the dressing table,” she said, hurrying towards it. “It isn’t a real safe, just a little chest I used to keep less valuable pieces of everyday jewelry in. Of course I don’t have the key.”
I wondered if she had come to get her jewelry, perhaps some other pieces like the pearl ring to prove who she was. She rooted behind the table skirt and drew out a carved wooden box with a domed lid. It was about a foot long and eight inches wide and deep with a lock hanging open. She lifted the lid and turned it upside down.
“I see Acton has helped himself to my bits and pieces,” she said with disgust. Then she returned the box to its hiding place and went to the dresser. She drew out the bottom drawer and placed it on the floor. Her fingers scrabbled around in the space between the bottom drawer and the floor. Her breathing, I noticed, was heavy with excitement. “It’s gone!” she said in a voice of doom.
“What is, Lorna? What are you looking for?”
“Some private correspondence. Letters, love letters.”
“Perhaps they’re in the drawer.” Each drawer was subjected to a mad tossing, but without success. “He’s got it,” she said in an angry, defeated voice, and stood up.
I hastily replaced the bottom drawer, restored all the drawers to some semblance of order and closed them so they would not know we had been there, searching. “If the letters are not here, let us go. Or is there something else? You said it.”
She took one last look around, then said in a hard voice, “No, there’s nothing else. But I’ll have this for my trouble, and to hell with the lot of them.” She strode across the room and plucked a painting from the wall. It was not large, an oval frame about fifteen inches high and ten or twelve wide. The gilt frame shone dully in the moonlight. I couldn’t discern the painting, but it looked like the head and shoulders of a young girl. “Put it back, Lorna! They’ll see at once that it’s missing.”
“Let them. It’s mine! Papa gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday. He thought the girl looked like me.” She gave a sort of hiccoughing sob and held the painting to her breast as if it were her dearest possession while her whole body weaved back and forth in anguish.
At such moments it was impossible to doubt her claim. I was still on thorns to escape before we were discovered, however. “Let us go,” I urged, taking her by the elbow. She came without further arguing. We retraced our steps, along the corridor to the staircase. The grand staircase has a turn in it. I didn’t notice until we were around the bend that some dark object loomed at the bottom of the stairs.
As I stared, the amorphous cloud separated into three parts — three people waiting to confront us at the bottom of the stairs. I soon recognized the outlines of two ladies huddled into shawls and one man. Lady Mary and Maddie, of course. The man would be Wilson, the butler. Lady Mary held a dark lantern. She lifted the window and held it aloft to get a better view of us. I could see, then, the pistol in Wilson’s hand, pointing straight at us.
“Hands up!” he shouted gleefully. I froze to the spot, mute and motionless as a statue. Lorna showed more spirit, but no more sense. She turned tail and darted, fast as a frightened hare back upstairs, with Wilson after her. She didn’t get far. In her haste she tripped over the tail of her shawl and fell, still clutching the painting. Wilson hauled her up and led her down the stairs at gunpoint, and I followed, heartily regretting that I had let myself be talked into this madness.
“I’ll send for the constable,” Wilson announced in triumph, and turned to leave. Maddie twittered behind her raised fingers. I think she was trying to object, in her own ineffectual way.
“You’ll do as I tell you,” Lady Mary told him in a sharp, no nonsense voice. “We’ll light some lamps to see what she’s stolen. You two, into the parlour. Wilson, keep your pistol on them. If they run, shoot.”
I didn’t really think Wilson would shoot me, but I wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t take the opportunity to be rid of Lorna. I knew Lady Mary meant we were to go to the ladies’ parlour and led the way, with Lorna at my heels. As we passed Lady Mary, she reached out and wrested the painting from Lorna’s clutch, causing another nervous twitter from Maddie. Wilson followed the procession to the rose parlour, where he handed the pistol to Lady Mary who handed the painting off to Maddie. He then rushed about lighting lamps, and Lorna and I stood like the criminals we were, hanging our heads in shame.
No good could come from this. Lorna hadn’t got her proof. I didn’t even want to think of all the evil consequences — shame, recriminations, possibly gaol, Mama going into a decline. And Acton — I couldn’t even imagine what he would say, and do, but it wouldn’t be pretty.
Chapter Ten
No one sat down. Lady Mary handed the pistol back to Wilson and held up the purloined painting to examine it. “The Fragonard!” she howled. “This is an extremely valuable painting — irreplaceable.” She turned a wrathful eye on Lorna, looking her up and down from her tousled hair to the old shawl over her shoulders to the ill-fitting riding habit. “You’ll go to gaol for this, Miss. What else do you have in your pockets, eh?”
“Nothing,” Lorna said boldly, “seeing as you have removed my bits of jewelry out of their case.”
“So you admit you came to steal jewelry.” She turned to Wilson, “Make a note of that, Wilson. Very interesting.” Then she turned back to Lorna and said, “Turn our your pockets.”
Lorna ignored the order. “Fortunately I had Mama’s little pearl ring with me the night the Gypsies snatched me, or you’d have stolen that proof too,” she said.
“The little ring you claim your mama gave you. I must insist you turn out your pockets.”
Lorna gave a sneering smile and did as she was ordered, but being unfamiliar with Mama’s riding habit, had difficulty finding the one little pocket in the skirt. When she pulled it out, a handkerchief with a dainty lace edging fell to the floor. I seemed to recall Mama warning me it was ill luck for the person who dropped a handkerchief to pick it up herself. We had had enough bad luck for one night. I picked it up and put it in my own pocket.
Lady Mary did not order me to turn out my pockets, nor did she actually search Lorna, and heaven knows she might have had any number of valuables concealed under the bagging bodice of Mama’s riding habit. I felt Lady Mary had only insisted on the pocket searching to shame Lorna.
“How did you break in?” was her next question. Maddie kept up her twittering and trembling throughout the ordeal. Wilson just smiled.
“The way I did when I was young,” Lorna replied in her usual bold way. “Up the vine and through my bedroom window.”
“That’s a black lie. I’ve had that window nailed shut.”
“We came in by the library door, the way Sukey used to,” I explained.
“So you actively aided and abetted this criminal, Kate.” She gave a tsk of disgust, then said to Wilson. “You will put a stout lock on the library door tomorrow, Wilson.” Then the hostile eye returned to me. “I can’t believe you would lend yourself to such disgraceful, criminal behaviour as this, Kate. What will your poor Mama think to see you led into court in manacles?”
I cringed at the very thought. “Please, you mustn’t!” I cried. It would be the death of Mama. She was the sort of lady who cared for the good opinion of the neighbours. “I’ll do whatever you say, but don’t tell Mama. We didn’t steal anything — well, except the painting, and Lorna’s papa gave it to her for her sixteenth birthday.”
Maddie began crying. Real tears ran down her cheeks, and she didn’t have a handkerchief. Lady Mary, on the other hand, was enjoying herself hugely. “Pooh, this creature isn’t Lorna. Do you think I wouldn’t know my own niece, that I practically raised? Well, what are we to do with the pair of them, Wilson? Tie them up in the cellar until Acton returns? Now stop your bawling, Maddie.”
Maddie whimpered and wrung her hands but didn’t dare say anything. “I’ll get some stout ropes,” Wilson said, but he didn’t leave.
Lady Mary turned to Lorna. “What have you to say for yourself, Miss whoever you are?”
Lorna didn’t say a word. She just stared with her head held high, angry and defiant, at Lady Mary.
“Not so loud in your claims now, I see! If you care to apologize and sign a written statement that you are not Lady Lorna, I will consider letting you go free, on the understanding that you leave the neighbourhood for good, at once.”
Lorna lifted her chin even higher and replied in a loud, bold voice. “I’ll take my chances with the constable, Auntie. It might be the quickest way to get you into court.”
Lady Mary flinched, but whether it was at that bold “Auntie” or the mention of court, I could not tell. She didn’t react verbally to the taunt. She turned to me. “You run along home, Kate. You were a fool to let this creature talk you into breaking into our house to rob us, but you are young and green. You have had no dealings with common criminals such as this low creature. Let it be a lesson to you.”
There was nothing I wanted so much as to escape that house. But as I looked into my own heart, I knew it would be a craven thing to go and leave Lorna behind. She, brave soul, wasn’t giving an inch, even when caught red-handed. I took courage from her bravery. So obvious was Lady Mary’s hatred of her that I feared she might even have Wilson shoot her. Why did she hate her so much? Was she afraid of her? Did she fear Lorna could indeed prove who she was?
“We didn’t come to rob you, Lady Mary. Lorna only came to look for mementos. We both go, or we both stay,” I replied, not boldly but firmly.
Lady Mary uttered a reluctant laugh. “You didn’t get your spirit from your Mama,” she said. “I might consider letting you both leave if this woman will promise not to leave the neighbourhood until I have spoken to Acton.”
“Why I thought you were eager to see the back of me, Auntie,” Lorna said. She threw in that “Auntie” at every chance.
“I have changed my mind. A lady’s privilege.”
“Well, I have not.”
“I said a lady’s privilege.”
Lorna ignored the taunt. “You need have no fear I’ll leave, Auntie.” I wished she would not repeat that “Auntie”, that obviously infuriated Lady Mary. “I’m not leaving until I get what’s coming to me.”
“You’ll get that right enough. The law knows how to deal with your sort.” She turned to Wilson. “Show them out, Wilson, and make sure you lock the door behind them. Check all the doors and windows. And do something to that library door this very night.”
Maddie sighed her relief, and even attempted a watery little smile in my direction. I was extremely grateful to be leaving, but hoped to discover what the immediate future might have in store for us. “Will you tell Mama?” I asked.
“I see no reason why Lady Simmons should be worried sick over your outrageous behaviour, though it is half her fault for harboring the creature. Let us hope your guilt and recriminations will be sufficient to show you the folly of your ways. What the constable might decide to do about your house guest, I cannot say. Now go, before I change my mind.”
Wilson actually poked Lady Lorna in the back with the nose of the pistol. She turned a fiery eye on him, but didn’t tarry in getting out of the room and soon out of the house. I wasn’t two steps behind her.
I was too overcome to speak at first as we wended our weary way home. We went by the road. Thankfully we didn’t meet any of our neighbours returning from parties to which we had not been invited. Going by the road was nearly twice as long as the spinney route, but I couldn’t face the dark woods again.
After perhaps a quarter of a mile, Lorna said, “You see how they are. They won’t listen to reason. She knows perfectly well Papa gave that painting to me.”
“You shouldn’t have mentioned the jewelry, Lorna.”
“I wanted to let her know I knew she had stolen it.”
“And why the deuce did you keep calling her Auntie, when you could see how it galled her?”
“That’s why I did it,” Lorna said, and laughed. “Oh come on, Katie. It’s not the end of the world. I’ve been in worse pickles than this.” But I had not, and I was overcome.
“Mama is bound to hear of this. I wonder what she will say.”
“Do you think she’ll turn me out?” Lorna asked.
“If you’re in gaol, she won’t have to.”
“Pooh! The old bint won’t call the constable.”
“She might, Lorna. She’s very high in the instep.”
“And she hates me. But she’d have done it while her anger was at the pitch if she meant to do it at all. No, she’s not that sure of herself. Plus it would have to involve you. How did you get in so tight with her? Is it because of Acton? Is he sweet on you?”
I hadn’t mentioned Acton, but I admit he had been on my mind, right from the moment I saw the little group awaiting us at the bottom of the stairs. What on earth would he make of this?
“I doubt if she would approve of his offering for me. She’d prefer a titled lady, but as neighbours, I’ve known her forever. She doesn’t seem to dislike me as much as she dislikes some others.”
“She doesn’t like herself, that’s the trouble. What a curmudgeon she is. I shan’t live there when I prove who I am. I’ll take my dowry and get away from here. London, perhaps. You must come and visit me often. As I robbed you of your Season, I’ll have a big ball just for you and invite all the most eligible partis. Won’t Acton be jealous to see you the belle of the ball.”
Despite the offer, I wasn’t too sorry to hear she meant to leave, nor did I particularly anticipate future visits. In fact, I was becoming a trifle disenchanted with Lady Lorna, despite her heroism. Not ev
eryone was cut out to be a brave heroine like her. My quiet life had not prepared me for so much excitement. I vicariously enjoyed reading about such ladies. Reality was different. Such rash acts as we had performed that night involved not only ourselves, but Mama as well. A heroine should think of others, not just herself. In fact, Lorna really should not have involved me. And I should not have let her talk me into it. I must watch it, or I would become a Maddie to her Lady Mary, doing her bidding.
We entered the house quietly and tiptoed upstairs to avoid waking Mama. I didn’t close my eyes until dawn was showing around the edges of my window hangings. I dreaded the coming day worse than a visit to the tooth drawer. And it was every bit as bad as I feared. Worse, in fact.
Chapter Eleven
Lorna came to my bedroom the next morning before going downstairs. “Since the old malkin isn’t going to tell Lucy, we’ll not mention it, eh?” she said, as if just confirming our plan.
I had decided overnight that I really should tell Mama. “We had best prepare her before the constable comes, Lorna.”
“He won’t, not right away at least. She’ll talk it over with Acton first. What do you think he’ll do? Can you bring him around your finger? Sweet talk him. Try sniffling. That’ll work.”
The unfortunate affair was giving me a very bad impression of Lady Lorna indeed. I feared her weasely ways were contagious, for I was sorely tempted not to tell Mama. Folks always called Lorna headstrong, but her assumption that I would manipulate my friends came as an unpleasant surprise. It was due to the way she had had to live the past decades, of course, looking after herself, but it was foreign to me and I disliked it. The proper thing to do was to confess to Mama and Acton what I had done, and apologize.
Even if Lorna was Lady Lorna, breaking into the house and carrying off that painting was the wrong way to go about proving it. And I didn’t think she had gone to recover some personal mementos either. I didn’t know what “it” was she was after, but she didn’t seem as disappointed at her missing jewelry as she did when she couldn’t find whatever she was after under that bottom drawer. It was odd, her twice meeting Taylor in our spinney too. Had she made an assignation with him on their first meeting? If so, why not tell me? I was trying to help her.
