by Lisa Tuttle
“Your father.”
“Please do not remind me.”
I sat beside her. “Well, I had much rather hear about Charles Manning. Did you know him well? What was your impression of him?”
“He was all right, I suppose. If that sounds halfhearted, I am sorry, but after all, I was never in love with him.” She smiled provocatively. “That should mean I saw him more clearly, although my sisters may disagree.”
Did she mean to imply that both her sisters had been in love with Charles Manning? I held my tongue, hoping she would reveal more if I let her rattle on.
She gave a thoughtful sigh. “Portrait of a young man. Hmmm. Well, you know what he looked like, so I shall not dwell on his outward appearance. Inwardly, he seemed gentle, intelligent, well read, well spoken, interested in all sorts of curious and occult matters—like his good friend Mr. Ott—so naturally Bella found him agreeable. And he treated Ann like a proper grown-up young lady, always complimented her on something or other, asked her opinion on little things—since she had nothing to say on great matters—and when she spoke, he stared into her eyes as if she was the most fascinating creature on two legs—pardon my English!” She laughed at her own joke. “And then he started bringing her little presents—flowers and sweets—and it began to seem that he was coming to Wayside Cross just to see her. Ann had never had a suitor before, and she took it very seriously; of course she was positively bouleversé by what happened; she really thought they would be married, and now, now she groans and cries and thinks there will never be anyone else who wants to marry her in her whole life. What rubbish! I can’t see why she’d want to get married anyway. I don’t.”
“You think he was only being kind, that he was not serious in his intentions?”
She frowned. “Oh, no, he wanted to marry her, all right. Went down on bended knee before her. She still wears his ring—only a frippery little thing, but the meaning could not be plainer: two hands clasping a heart.”
“So they were engaged to be married.”
“Not really. Bella wouldn’t have it. She said Ann was too young, and Charles could not afford a wife—and she was quite right. He had no job, no position except as an unpaid associate of Mr. Ott, and any money he managed to make went to that silly School.”
“But was Charles counting on an inheritance? Perhaps, if his brother had known he wished to marry, he would have been more generous?”
“No. He told—he told Ann there was no money, nothing but the house in London, and if he took her there as his wife, as he meant to do, they would have to share with his brother.”
“How did Ann feel about that?”
She gave a gusty sigh. “Oh, what does it matter how she felt? It was nothing but a dream. It was never to happen. It was all romancing, castles in the air. Ann is still a child. She gets her ideas about love from books and plays. She liked having a lover and talking about marriage, but we are her family and this is her home, and she is far from ready to leave it.”
“How old is your sister?”
“Ann turned sixteen in October.”
“When did she meet Charles Manning?”
“Why, the same day we all did—it was sometime toward the end of June. Mr. Ott brought him here and introduced him.”
“Mr. Ott is a good friend of Miss Bulstrode, I think?”
She smiled slyly. “You had better ask Miss Bulstrode about that.”
“He comes here often?”
“Oh, yes.” Then she stopped and considered my question. “That is, he used to. Now you mention it, I have not seen Mr. Ott since the summer.”
“Since Mr. Manning was introduced?”
“Oh, no, much later than that. They both visited us all through the summer. But, let me think.” She cocked her head thoughtfully. “Why, Mr. Ott has not called upon us since early September. And how strange it is that he has not made a condolence call.” She gasped. “Is it possible he does not know that Charles—”
“He knows,” I said. “He read about Mr. Manning’s death in a London newspaper.” Seizing the opportunity, I asked, “And how did you hear about it?”
Her eyes widened. “Me? Well, I suppose . . . Why, from Bella.”
“You do not subscribe to a London paper?”
“No.”
“So how did she learn it?”
“I did not inquire. Someone told her. What does it matter?” She stared at me suspiciously.
“Forgive me. I did not mean to offend.”
“You are very inquisitive,” she said coldly.
“It is my nature to be so, I fear. Mr. Jesperson and I brought the news to the Vicarage. Until we arrived, the Ringers had no idea that their lodger would never return. So I had steeled myself to be the bearer of sad tidings here, too, only to find you all in mourning already.”
“I am sure we are all very sorry to have disappointed your expectations,” said Miss Alys icily, and stood up, indicating clearly that our interview was at an end.
“I do beg your pardon. I only meant to explain how the question rose in my mind.”
“It is of no importance.”
“No,” I agreed, as false as she. “It is of no importance whatsoever.”
This time I walked back to the Vicarage from Wayside Cross with no sense that I was being followed or spied upon. Arriving, I encountered Mrs. Ringer.
“Oh, Miss Lane,” she said. “Mr. Jesperson has left you a note.”
She handed me a paper that had been folded over and edges glued shut.
“Come into the parlor—you may use my paper knife, and read your letter in comfort by the fire,” she said kindly, and although I did not relish another cozy tête-à-tête with her, I followed her instructions. The paper knife was a necessity.
The “letter” did not take long to peruse, consisting as it did of only two lines:
What color was the baby’s blanket?
Meet me for dinner, Chapman’s Inn, Cromer, 1 p.m.
“You will be happy to learn that Maria is much recovered,” said Mrs. Ringer as she picked up her knitting. “So much recovered that, rather than rest in bed all day, she is now sitting up in the kitchen, helping Cook with a few small tasks. Her strength will not be overtaxed, and she will have someone to keep an eye on her, as Doctor ordered.”
“That sounds reasonable,” I said cautiously. “And what of her future?”
“Why, she will stay on here, working for us. You did not imagine we would turn her out?”
This was exactly what I had feared, but I did not like to say so.
“Maria is not a bad girl—only unfortunate. She cannot be blamed for what happened, except as her own innocent ignorance may have contributed. Naturally, it would have been better if she had confided in us, but there is no point in crying over spilled milk. We cannot change what is past.” Mrs. Ringer spoke placidly as her fingers worked and the needles clicked. She was making something green—perhaps a scarf, perhaps part of something bigger. I thought of Mr. Jesperson’s question. No one would have made a blanket for Maria’s baby, and yet she must have wrapped it in something.
“And what about the baby?”
“There is no baby.” The needles never faltered.
“There is,” I said stubbornly. “There is a missing baby.”
“That is not your problem.”
“I beg your pardon, but it must be someone’s. I do not think it fair to leave Maria alone to bear the burden. I would like to help her if I can.”
“If you would like to help Maria, you would do better to forget she ever had a baby. Surely you must see that she is better off without the burden of an illegitimate child. And it would in no way help her to find its tiny corpse in a ditch or hedgerow.”
“So you believe she killed her baby?”
She stopped knitting. “I said no such thing.”
“You do not say it in so many words, but in every other way you imply it,” I replied. “I do not believe that Maria has committed any crime—and yet a crime has
been committed. Someone stole that baby away, and it may not be too late to save it. I am determined to find out the truth.”
“Well, now you are honest. You do not wish to help Maria, as I do, but only to satisfy your own curiosity. You are as foolish and as arrogant as that young man who is your traveling companion; you are self-centered and dangerously willful in your determination to find what you call ‘the truth.’ Curiosity killed the cat, Miss Lane. Some questions should not be asked.”
On that final, warning note, she stood and swept out of the room, leaving me staring at her abandoned piece of knitting, still too small to make a blanket for anything bigger than a mouse.
“Curiosity killed the cat.” How often had I heard that? And “Some questions should not be asked.” That might apply in polite society, but was not that why polite society was so stuffy and stultified? Human beings could not grow, nor society advance, without asking questions. Only, when choosing facts over belief, and asking questions, one must be prepared for uncomfortable answers. It was certainly possible that Maria would not like, nor be helped by, whatever we found, but I would not, could not, turn away from this problem out of fear or pity for her situation. If the baby was alive, we must find it. If the baby was dead—I still wanted to know that, and to learn how it had met its end, and while I would do whatever I could to see she was not unjustly punished, I thought Maria deserved to know the truth.
I got up and went to the kitchen where I found Maria all alone, sitting and peeling a pile of potatoes. I wondered what had become of Cook—I could only pray that Mr. Jesperson had not offended her in some way with his questions and caused her to leave, for I guessed the Ringers would far more easily forgive him the loss of a bicycle than the loss of their cherished Cook.
“Hello, Maria,” I said. “Do you remember me? I am Miss Lane. Do not get up—I only want to ask you a few questions.”
I pulled out a chair and sat down beside her.
“What sort o’ questions?”
I looked into her worried gray eyes, and felt a pang of remorse. What if I was wrong and the doctor was right, and she had killed her baby in a moment of despairing madness? But I took a deep breath and forced myself to go on. “I should like to help find your baby.”
“Oh, miss, if you could! Doctor told me not to think about it anymore, and then Mrs. Ringer, she said the same—she said we should forget all about it, and carry on as before, only . . . I can’t forget, and I don’t want to forget, my little Annie.”
“You called her Annie?”
“’Twas my mother’s name.” Worry constricted her small features. “But . . . she wasn’t baptized. There wasn’t time for that! I called her Annie to myself and to Billy, but there was nobody else I could tell. I should’ve told the reverend, shouldn’t I, and asked him to baptize her? I was so afraid they’d turn me out, if they knew, and I’d nowhere to go—except to my sister’s, and I couldn’t go back there.” A sob welled up and choked her off.
“Did your sister know—about Annie?”
“No, miss, I told you—I didn’t even know, before . . . didn’t know until . . . I thought I was dying, the pain was so bad—but then it was all over, and it was like a miracle, my own little baby girl!” From tears to sunshine, her face wreathed in smiles, recalling that happy moment when she found herself no longer alone in the world, the mother of a baby girl. Looking at her, listening to her, I felt entirely certain that she could have done nothing to harm her child.
“Did you have a blanket for your baby?”
“I wrapped her in my shawl—the good blue woolen shawl Mrs. Ringer made for me last Christmas.”
“Light blue or dark blue?”
“Sky blue—beautiful.” She sighed. “Nicest thing I ever had.” She bit her lip. “I didn’t have no clothes for her. So I just wrapped her in the shawl.”
“Now, you say you did not know you were expecting a baby, and you did not speak to anyone about her, but—perhaps you wrote to your sister, after the baby was born? Or to someone else?”
“No, miss, how could I? I cannot write.”
“And you’re quite certain that you told no one else?”
“No one. I told no one. But someone saw.”
“Someone besides Billy?”
“Someone else must have seen. You know they say: They see you, but you don’t see them. It was them took her. Oh, why didn’t I tell the reverend? They couldn’t have took her if she was baptized, could they?”
As she spoke, I felt a crawling sensation on the back of my neck, as when the crow had followed me unseen, and I entertained an unwelcome recollection of the old German woodcut that illustrated the uses witches made of babies.
“Maria, what are you talking about? Who saw? Do you have any idea of who could have taken your baby?”
Her eyes darted nervously around the room. “Mustn’t say,” she muttered.
“But you think you know?”
She gave the tiniest of nods.
“Won’t you tell me? Please—I want to help.”
Head down, she spoke to the table: “Them.”
“Who?”
Her eyes flashed up to mine. “You know.” But she must have seen from my look that I did not, for finally she whispered a brief phrase, so low that I caught only the last word: “. . . neighbors.”
Before I could confirm it or ask anything more, the kitchen door banged open, and there stood Mrs. Ringer, staring at me in forbidden conversation with her servant.
I stood up quickly, knowing from her grim expression that nothing I could say would made any difference.
“Miss Lane, you have been a guest in my house, but you have not had the decency to abide by my clearly stated wishes. I must ask you to leave.”
“Very well.” I walked past her, out of the kitchen, and she followed close behind. “Please pack your things. When you have done, Billy will drive you to the station.”
I was startled and, I admit, a trifle flustered by the suddenness of my eviction. “Could I not wait until—”
“Not another hour. It is in your own best interests—at this time of day, you should have no problem getting a train—or, if you prefer, a hotel room in Cromer.”
“What about Mr. Jesperson?”
“What of him?”
“Are you evicting him, too?”
“What business is that of yours?” She frowned even more darkly. “I may make my own decisions about whom to admit to my house. That man is no relation of yours, and therefore—”
“We have a business relationship, as we told you the evening we arrived.”
“Oh, yes, your publishing business,” she said with a sneer that made it clear she did not believe in it. I wished for a moment that her husband might have shared the truth with her, but probably that would have made no difference; indeed, she might have been even more suspicious of a woman who admitted to making her career out of being curious, and asking questions that should not be asked.
Chapter 13
A Fish Dinner in Cromer
The carriage was waiting in front of the house by the time I came back downstairs with my valise; Mrs. Ringer had no intention of allowing me any more time for questions. This was fine with me, as I had no wish to linger, and appreciated the luxury of such easy transport to Cromer, where I would be able to meet Mr. Jesperson for a meal, but it was rather annoying to be banished from Aylmerton just when I finally had what might be a clue to the fate of Maria’s baby.
Maria thought the neighbors had taken her. She might well be mistaken, but presumably she had some reason for her suspicion. The Vicarage was in a rather isolated spot; the only “neighbors” worthy of the name were the inhabitants of the nearest house, Wayside Cross.
Three unmarried, childless women lived there, and were gossiped about as witches. Miss Bulstrode did not even deny that label—and although I could not connect her civilized, sensitive intelligence with the horrific imagery of babies boiled in cauldrons, such things had been a matter of folk-beli
ef for centuries and, as Mr. Jesperson had said, when something was believed to be true, someone was bound to attempt it. Maria’s whispered words might have been nothing more than a reflection of those nightmare fears, roused by her loss, but it would be remiss of me not to investigate.
No smoke without fire, I thought before I could help myself, and then I winced, because it seemed like something Mrs. Ringer would say.
Billy hopped down from the driver’s seat to take my valise. “Mrs. Ringer says I am to take you to Cromer Station. You are leaving us?”
“I am leaving the Vicarage, but not Norfolk,” I said. “Do you know Chapman’s Inn?”
“Yes, miss. Will I take you there?”
I hesitated barely a moment. “Not straightaway. First, I must speak with someone at Wayside Cross. I would very much appreciate it if you could take me to that house first, wait for me there, and then take me on to Cromer.”
“Right-o, miss,” he said cheerfully, and leapt up to the driver’s seat.
We were there in a twinkling. The maid who answered the door was surprised to see me. “You are back quick, Miss Lane.”
“I know I am, Nancy, and I know your mistress is busy, but please could you tell her I promise not to detain her more than a minute or two, if she will see me now.”
She gave me a searching look. “Best come along with me now, and save time,” she said. “This way—Miss Bulstrode is tending her plants.”
I followed Nancy through the house to the kitchen, and out the back door, then along a path lined with rhododendrons to the glasshouse, where she stopped and stepped back.
“Just you go in,” she said, making a gesture to encourage me to open the door, and so I did.
It was like walking into summer. In marked contrast with the chilly November air outside, within the glasshouse the atmosphere was moist and humid and heavily scented, redolent of tropical perfumes and rot. Everywhere there was green and brown, with occasional flashes of brighter colors, red or pink or yellow, where flowers and fruit bloomed out of season.
