A Mysterious Season

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  “That is a perfectly exceptional child,” Brisbane said when she was gone. “I think she must be what you were like as a little girl.”

  “I was never so—” I began. But then I thought about Perdita. A little odd, mistress of her own interests, curious, with a penchant for speaking her mind. “Yes, I suppose rather.”

  He smiled and put down his cup. He slapped his thighs, and I went to him, sliding onto his lap, my head fitting comfortably into the hollow of his neck.

  “I am very happy you are mine,” I told him.

  Brisbane produced his customary phrase for such occasions. “Show me.”

  And so I did.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Now good digestion wait on appetite, And health on both!

  —Macbeth, III, iv, 38

  The next morning was grey and dull, with a thick, muffling fog creeping through the countryside, settling in hollows and wreathing hills until all was quiet and still. But inside the Abbey pandemonium reigned.

  “It’s the oysters,” Morag told me with grim satisfaction. “They had a bad lot and every member of the family is down with it.”

  “With what?” I demanded, still fatigued from my marital exertions. Brisbane was a very thorough husband.

  “Poisoning,” she said, her voice tart. “What I just told you. They’re all down sick with the oysters. The village doctor has been and said they’ll all be right as rain once they’ve heaved it all out, but in the meanwhile, the maids and footmen are run off their feet with slop buckets and rags and—” I felt my stomach give a lurch.

  “That’s enough, Morag. One does not require the unsavoury details. I suppose Cook isn’t doing breakfast, then?”

  Morag shrugged. “I’ll bring a tray up.”

  “How is the baby this morning?” I asked, certain she had already been to the nursery.

  Her face took on a tender expression. “Sweet as a newborn lamb, he is. I gave him his morning feed, and he opened his eyes wide as you please, as if to say thank you.”

  I rolled my eyes at her, but she ignored me. Instead, she gave Brisbane a tender look. “Mind you don’t wake the master. You’re not taking proper care of him. A wife ought to see her husband has a regular supper instead of stuffing him with toast and chocolate at all hours.”

  She banged out, and Brisbane opened an eye, grinning at me. I shoved his shoulder. “Stop. It isn’t decent that my lady’s maid should like you so much more than she does me.”

  “I am nicer to her than you are,” he pointed out.

  Aquinas, acting as valet to Brisbane as well as butler since Father’s own staff was indisposed, arrived then with his shaving water. When we had both completed our ablutions, we sat down to eat the breakfast Morag had secured. Brisbane uncovered a dish to find something unappetising looking back at him. He poked it tentatively with a fork.

  “What do you think it is?”

  “I daren’t guess,” I told him. “The undercook must still be at the helm in the kitchens. Toast for me, thanks.”

  He covered the dish up again, and we fell on the toast. “I can’t live on bread, Julia. Not if you mean to ravish me so thoroughly. A man has to keep his strength up.”

  I pulled a face. “Why don’t we walk down to the vicarage? Uncle Fly has an excellent housekeeper. Aunt Hermia’s tried to hire her away for years, but she won’t leave her post.. She’s devoted to Uncle Fly.”

  Brisbane was on his feet before I finished the sentence. We donned our outdoor things and hurried out of the Abbey.

  * * *

  At the vicarage, Uncle Fly was absent on a call to an elderly parishioner, but his housekeeper, Mrs. Tweed, insisted upon feeding us, anyway.

  “And what would Mr. Twickham say if he heard I turned away his favourite goddaughter?”

  I dimpled at her, and she hurried us to the table, bringing in steaming plates of eggs, crispy sausages, rashers of savoury bacon, muffins, wedges of veal pie, fruit compote, pots of marmalade and a great bowl of her own special spiced and buttered porridge.

  We ate until Brisbane begged her to stop, although she did manage to press upon him one last devilled kidney.

  “You are a glorious cook, Mrs. Tweed,” he told her. “I wonder you haven’t been hired away from Mr. Twickham yet. If I thought it would tempt you, I’d offer you twice the salary he pays.” She gave him a fond smile.

  “You are kind to say it, Mr. Brisbane. But I doubt a kinder man or better employer than Mr. Twickham exists. Besides, what would I do up in London? All that noise and excitement is not for me, it isn’t. Blessingstoke is a nice, peaceful village, and it suits me down to the ground. Although,” she added in a conspiratorial tone, “I heard a fuss the like of which you never heard on Saturday last. I thought it was the end of times, I did.”

  I flicked a glance at Brisbane. I had forgot Mrs. Tweed’s preoccupation with the end of times. As a young woman, she had read the book of Revelations and it had affected her deeply. She never read another word of the Bible, nor did she attend the services that Uncle Fly conducted at St. Barnabas. Uncle Fly liked to joke her about her poor attendance record, but she merely smiled and said as she worked in the vicarage, God would be able to find her easily.

  I dismissed her remark, but Brisbane gave her a thoughtful look. “What sort of noise, Mrs. Tweed?”

  She tipped her head, thinking. “It was a great moaning. I’ll never forget the sound of it. Fairly chilled my bones, it did. Something so sad, like a soul in torment.”

  “Did you investigate?” I asked, reaching for the last muffin with casual fingers. I did not meet Brisbane’s eyes. I did not need to look into them to know what he was thinking.

  She ruffled up like a plump pigeon. “Certainly not. The dead do not always rest easily, you know. It was one of the poor souls in the graveyard, no doubt. You’ll want a fresh pot of tea. That one’s gone cold,” she said, taking up the teapot and bearing it off to the kitchen.

  Brisbane and I stared after her. “Have you ever seen a more incurious soul? She hears lamentations in the graveyard and doesn’t go looking to see what it is?”

  Brisbane fixed me with a knowing look, and I nodded. We did not speak. It was too coincidental that rumours of a ghost at the cottage had surfaced just about the same time Mrs. Tweed heard unearthly noises and a baby had appeared from nowhere. A curiosity was at hand.

  * * *

  After refusing more offers of food and rolling ourselves out the door, we struck off on the path towards the cottage. In the mist, the little dwelling was hid from us until the last moment, the grimness of the trees sheltering it even as we crept near. The shutters were tightly drawn, but a thin whisper of smoke stirred at the edge of the chimney.

  “Funny sort of ghost to need a warm fire,” I put in.

  Brisbane paused. “You know as well as I do there is no ghost,” he said. “But if we do find the child’s mother here, we can do nothing to compel her to take him back.”

  We had stopped just on the edge of the copse, on the verge of the little clearing, and I turned to question him, my voice low.

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “We cannot prove the child is hers unless she confesses to it. Even then, we have no authority to force her to take it. And even if we had, would you want to? She clearly has no interest in rearing him herself. She cared enough for his welfare to leave him where he would be swiftly discovered, and he was well-wrapped against the cold, but beyond that, she is not connected to this child. For whatever reason, she is unable to take proper care of him and does not wish to.”

  “She is afraid,” I said suddenly.

  His brow furrowed. “How can you be certain?”

  “The cottage has not been let or it would be common knowledge in the village,” I pointed out. “Even if the lettor were ailing or u
nsocial, food and drink would be ordered from the village, the doctor called when the baby was on his way. But nothing. Whoever lives here has gone to great pains to keep her presence a secret from anyone. What else does that suggest but fear?”

  “I can think of a dozen reasons just as sound, but you may be right. Still, if she is afraid, marching in might only alarm her further.”

  “What choice do we have?” I demanded.

  He gave me a piercing stare from those witch-black eyes, and I conceded. “Very well. It isn’t just about finding the mother for the child’s sake. I am curious. I want to solve the mystery for Perdita’s sake. I’d like to see her have something to lord over the boys for once.”

  “For once? I’ll wager Mistress Perdita leads them a merry dance all on her own,” he said. “But very well. We’ll find out. For her.”

  I smothered a smile. My clever niece had warmed something in him, and he was clearly feeling indulgent. We moved to the cottage, and before I could ask what he meant to do, he strode openly up to the door and knocked sharply.

  I hurried along, reaching his side just as the bolt scraped back. My heart pounded against my chest. I was no Gypsy; I left the second sight to Brisbane. But at that moment, I had the strangest feeling we were on the verge of something momentous. But even Brisbane’s clever Gypsy ways could never have divined what awaited us in Stone Cottage.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak

  Whispers the o’er-fraught heart, and bids it break.

  —Macbeth, IV, iii, 209

  The door swung back slowly, the hinges silent, as if they had been recently oiled. A woman stood in the shadow of the doorway, and as she beckoned us forward, I saw precisely what the boys had described—a witch.

  At least that was my first impression. Her nose was long and hooked towards her pointed chin, but her eyes were kindly, and when she gestured us forward, she gave us a kindly smile. There was a single room in the cottage with a scrubbed table and a freshly swept hearth upon which a kettle sang. A bed lay in the corner of the room, neatly made with a pile of quilts, and there was a slim figure tucked into it. She raised her hand in a gesture that might have been supplication.

  “Julia.” Her voice was weak, and I was aghast at how thin she had grown. But I would know her anywhere.

  “Lucy!” I cried. I went to embrace my cousin, but the slender, birdlike bones would bear little affection. Brisbane followed me, his manner gentle as he took her hand.

  “Lucy, I am glad to see you,” he said gravely. “But I think whatever you have to say, you will wish to say to Julia alone.”

  Sudden tears sparkled in her eyes. “You are very good.”

  “I will wait outside,” he said, and the kindly witch showed him out. She returned with a chair for me and dipped her head to Lucy.

  “I will be up in the loft if you need me, Mrs. Brisbane.”

  She gathered up her skirts and left us, climbing the steep ladder to the loft. I did not blame her. Like many cottages, this one was snug and easy to heat, but the greatest warmth would gather upstairs under the low rafters. No doubt this was where the creature did her sewing and such, and I dismissed her from my mind as soon as she had gone. I settled myself on my chair and looked at Lucy with expectant eyes.

  “I wish she would not call me that,” she said faintly.

  “It is your name.”

  She closed her eyes as if a spasm of pain gripped her. But when she opened them, the sudden tears were gone. “I wish I were not. Marrying Brisbane’s father was the greatest mistake I ever made.”

  I said nothing, and she gave a short, sharp laugh. “How kind of you not to tell me I was stupid. Believe me, I have said it to myself almost every day since.”

  During a previous investigation in India, Lucy, a recent widow with a sizeable fortune from her late husband’s estate, had eloped with Brisbane’s father, a darkly glamourous man of breathtaking villainy.3 I had hoped the marriage would be the making of him, but it appeared it had been her undoing.

  “I am sorry it was unhappy,” I told her.

  “I think you mean it,” she said, picking at the quilt with restless fingers.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I have left him,” she said simply. “I have run away from my husband.”

  “How long has it been?”

  She shrugged, her expression dreamy. “I can’t remember anymore. It’s been so long, so many rented accommodations, so many hurried flights on trains and mail coaches and steamers. I have eluded him across half the world, and still he hunts me.”

  “Is that why you did not come to the Abbey? Father would have taken you in. Surely you must know that.”

  She rubbed her temples. “I know. But I could not bring his cruelty to bear on anyone else. Yet I longed to be close to my family. I am weak and foolish and—”

  I sighed. It had ever been Lucy’s habit to carp on her shortcomings. But her life had been full of woes, great and small, and I could not be unkind to her.

  I covered her hand with my own. “Lucy, you ought to have come to us. Brisbane and I would have cared for you. He has a thousand connections in London, abroad. He could have hid you anywhere.”

  “I thought of it,” she told me. “But then I read in the newspaper about your accident.”

  She stopped there and turned her hand to grasp mine. “I am very sorry about your child.”

  It had been two months, but still I did not speak of it easily. The accident that caused my miscarriage had been one of my own making, and while I could not regret it as it had saved Brisbane’s life, neither could I wholly reconcile myself to our loss.4 It was something I dared not let myself dwell upon, and I had no wish to discuss it with Lucy.

  I withdrew my hand gently. “It was not to be.”

  “Perhaps,” she said. “In any event, I could not burden you with my troubles, not then. And I knew your father was in London, but I felt if I could only get near to the Abbey, someplace familiar and quiet, I could be safe.” The Abbey had never been her home, but as a distant poor relation, she had spent her share of holidays with us. I had little doubt that in her mind, the Abbey represented all that was safe in the world.

  “I came by closed carriage, quietly,” she told me. “So as not to attract notice. I thought of the vicar. He gave us this cottage for our use without telling a soul. He was so kindly when he performed my marriage to Sir Cedric. God, it seems a lifetime ago! How long has it been?”

  Her expression was dreamy again, and I wondered idly if she were taking some sort of drug.

  “Two years.”

  “So little time! And yet my life has been utterly destroyed,” she murmured. “How I wish I had died with Cedric. To have been spared what came after—”

  She broke off, covering her face with her hands, and I did not have the heart to point out that Cedric had been murdered because of her.

  There was a long, still silence broken by the crackling of the fire.

  “How is he?” she asked, and I knew she meant her child.

  “He is well. Thriving, to hear Morag tell it. My maid is helping Portia to care for him. He is in good care,” I assured her.

  She nodded, closing her eyes. “I knew the family would not let him suffer for my sins.”

  I felt a stab of exasperation. Lucy could dramatise as well as a character from Beaumont and Fletcher. “What sins, Lucy? You had a child by your husband.”

 
“Husband! Do you think I could bear to call him that?”

  “But he is,” I persisted. “Your child is legitimate. You have committed no transgression, and even if you had, we are not the sort to make a fuss over such a thing. You know that.”

  Tears leaked from her eyes and slid down to the pillow. She opened her eyes slowly. “I know. But his lordship has already been so generous. And, as I say, you all had your own troubles. I could not add to them with my burdens. It was a difficult pregnancy,” she told me. “I suffered much, no doubt because of my mental anguish. You cannot imagine what it is like to be tormented by fear, hounded and chased like an animal, never settling. Even now, I try to sleep, and I fear I can hear him, trying the locks, calling my name in that sly, insidious voice. If it were not for Nanny Bleeker, I would not have survived at all.”

  “Where did you find her?”

  “On the ship, when we fled India. She had gone to India to deliver her last charge into the care of his parents. She had been comfortably pensioned off, and…I suppose she sensed I needed a friend,” she said quietly. “It was supposed to be our wedding voyage, but he spent all of his time in the card saloon, fleecing the other passengers,” she said bitterly. I noticed she did not mention Black Jack by name. “And the nights…well, best not to speak of them.”

  “Did he mistreat you?” I felt a surge of rage at the notion that any man could raise a hand to my gentle cousin.

  Her expression was one of astonishment. “Mistreat me? He never laid a finger upon me in anger. His cruelties were of the subtler, more refined variety. He made me do things with him, to him.” She shut her eyes against the memory of their marriage bed. “But the worst of it is that he made me want to do them. I had no will except his. And when he was finished, he would tell me things, terrible things he had done, as if to make me despise myself because I could not help wanting a man capable of such deviltry. I learned to hate him during that trip. And by the time we docked in Marseilles, I knew I had conceived his child. I had made up my mind that I must escape him, for the baby’s sake. Nanny Bleeker had money, and I had put some by after Cedric died. He took most of it,” she added bitterly, “but there were one or two things he had not yet found. And Nanny and I simply disappeared in the melee at the docks. We stepped off one ship and made our way directly to another that was about to set sail for South America. There was a terrible row when they found we had stowed away, but there was an empty cabin, and we paid for it, and they looked the other way. That’s how it began, this long, terrible chase. I am the hind to his hunter, and he will find me,” she said at last breaking into long, violent sobs.