The Angel of Hever Castle: A City of Mystery Christmas Novella Read online

  “Where do the girls deliver their babies?”

  “Upstairs mostly,” Melly said, glancing upward to the ceiling. “They don’t go to the hospital unless there’s trouble.”

  “But you didn’t see her after the child was born. Didn’t see her leave.”

  Melly shook her head with some impatience, so Emma changed her tack.

  “Do you mind me asking why one woman here would serve as another’s maid? Why, for example, Rose Spencer might require an elaborate coiffure for dinner and you are here in the kitchen paring potatoes?”

  Melly seemed amused by the question. “You think there can’t be an upstairs and a downstairs, even in a place like this? No, we may all be the same boat, us girls, but some of us are in posh cabins and others in steerage.” She chuckled, and Emma marveled that a girl in her circumstances could manage to show so much spirit. “I’m only here at all,” Melly went on, “’cause my baby was sired by a gentleman.”

  “Ah,” said Emma, realization dawning at last. Kirkland School might exist primarily for the daughters of the wealthy, but it also served as a hiding place for servants who had been impregnated by the sons – or perhaps even the fathers – of those same upstanding houses.

  “Do you know who the father of Rose Spencer’s child was?” Emma asked, chopping carrots so erratically that Melly was frowning at her work. “Did she ever let anything about him slip? You know, girl to girl, as you were fixing her hair?”

  Melly shook her head. “She weren’t that type.”

  “Arrogant?”

  “Heartbroken. Barely spoke at all except to thank me, to say I’d done a proper job.” The expression on Melly’s face grew sad, even reflective. “Some of them are like that, you know. Walk around here like ghosts, but not saying nothing to nobody, not sleeping, hardly eating. This is a sad house, Miss. A place where women have too much time to think about what they’ve done lost.” But then she paused, a memory suddenly surfacing. “Don’t think her man was her match in social class though, ‘cause once I was telling her that my beau was a gentleman and she said ‘That doesn’t matter,’ which is a queer thing to say, when of course we all know it does. She wouldn’t have said something so foolish lest her own beau wasn’t a gentleman, would she now?”

  Emma found Melly’s honesty touching. She was observant and quick-witted as well, and she wondered what would become of the girl once she delivered her child. It was unlikely the mistress of her former house would want her back, fine hairdressing skills or not.

  “There,” Emma said, stepping back from the work table. “Despite my promises, I’ve made a proper mess of the carrots, so I suspect that you have helped me far more than I have helped you. If you don’t mind me asking, Melly, where shall you go after your baby is born?”

  “Back to my man, Miss. Me and the baby as well, of course.”

  “The father of your child has made a provision for you?”

  Uncertainty crept across the girl’s features and Emma realized she did not understand the word “provision.” Melly handed Emma a large earthenware bowl and motioned to show she should scoop all the vegetable peelings into it. “He’s coming for us, you see,” she said, “as soon as the baby is born. And the money’s not a problem, for he’s proper up and down, my man is. Only the best will suit him. He smokes Turkish cigarettes and drinks French brandy and drives a carriage…it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, Miss, with purple velvet on the seat cushions. I’ve ridden in it with him, you know. He’s taken me out with him more than once.”

  “No doubt he has.”

  “Purple on the seats and the curtains and even the rugs. Like it was rigged out for a king.”

  “That sounds lovely,” Emma said faintly.

  Melly lifted her chin. “He says he loves me.”

  “Yes,” said Emma, raking the scraps and peels into the bowl. Slop for a pig somewhere, she hoped, and not the basis for the dinner for Melly and the other servants. For you could never tell. Some of the most respectable looking houses could also be the cruelest to those helpless souls in their employ. “Yes, I’m sure he says he does.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Emma has a theory,” Trevor said, putting the telegram in his vest pocket.

  “I’m not surprised,” Rayley said. “The one thing our little troupe has never lacked for is theories.”

  “Brace yourself, for this isn’t a bad one. A girl calling herself Rose Spencer was recently at a home for unwed mothers. A rather upper class sort of place, I gather, at least as these things go, and it hides behind the façade of a boarding school for young ladies. Then apparently she had her child and disappeared, just as they all do.”

  “And Emma thinks Rose is Dorinda’s sister?” Rayley frowned. “That is a bit of a stretch. Spencer is hardly an uncommon last name.”

  “Actually, Emma theorized that Rose and Dorinda might be the same person, but your idea has merit as well.”

  “She’s suggesting that Dorinda bore LaRusse’s child and gave it up, but then returned to Hever?” Rayley asked, skepticism evident in his tone. “Why would a young woman do such a thing? Continue to chase a man after he has abandoned her so cruelly? And, even if she might imagine she would still be his paramour, why would he allow her into the walls of Hever when he has already taken up with Anne Arborton? No, the woman I met is far too composed to have been through such an ordeal and even the half-mad LaRusse would not…” He shook his head. “It stretches belief, Welles.”

  “I suppose you are right.”

  The two were walking in the fields, burrowed into their scarves and hats against the afternoon wind. It had gotten colder each day since they had come to Hever Castle, and Trevor’s gaze fell on the bush outside the gatehouse. A singular bloom remained, one final and especially hearty Christmas rose.

  “A most unusual plant,” he said, gesturing toward it. “Beautiful, but dangerous. I should take a cutting back to Geraldine for her garden.”

  “I thought Emma tended the flower garden.”

  “So she does.”

  “Then you should bring Emma the rose. What are you waiting for, Welles? Even the most patient girl must in time begin to wonder – “

  But just then the door to the gatehouse opened and Anne stumbled out. It was obvious she had been weeping and her clothing was disarranged, as if she had dressed in the darkness or in haste. Her hair was likewise tousled and she fixed on them a wild and desperate stare that Trevor thought he had seem somewhere before. Then he remembered: This was the exact same expression Anne’s mother Tess had borne when she came to Geraldine’s just days ago, begging them for help.

  “Are you looking for LaRusse?” the girl said, her voice hoarse from weeping. “May I assume that you have come like all the others - to ask him for a favor, to make some suggestion for the betterment of the colony, to fawn at his feet?” Without waiting for a response, she rushed on. “Well, you needn’t have bothered. He is gone.”

  “Gone?” said Trevor, genuinely startled, for this was the last thing he would have predicted. “Gone where?”

  “Do you think I know?” said the girl and she weaved on her feet, so unsteady that Rayley reached for her arm.

  “We all should go,” he said gently. “Let us leave this treacherous place and return to the safety of London. Christmastime is approaching. It is only right to be home with one’s family, is it not?”

  There was a beat of silence, just enough that both men hoped the girl would nod and say yes, that she was prepared to leave at once. But then Anne drew herself up and said, “But he shall be back soon, I know he shall. And you needn’t think I would leave the man I love on such foolish provocation. I know who the two of you are, you know. I have known from the very first night.”

  Now there was more than one beat of silence. There were several. Rayley was conscious he was clenching his jaw and he dared not look at Trevor.

  “You are not an artist,” Anne said haughtily, fixing her light grey eyes on Rayley�
�s face. “Your work is dreadful, everyone says so, and you hide behind the term ‘impressionism’ in an attempt to delude us that your ridiculous splashes of paint bear a sort of secret meaning. And you,” she added, turning to Trevor, “are even less of a poet. Poets talk all the time. They love the sound of their own voices and they drink at the fountain of words. They drink deeply, Sir, and their words flow out at every opportunity, yet you lurk about the fields saying nothing to anyone. No, I know full well why the two of you have traveled to Hever, so you need dissemble no more.”

  Both men held their breath. The girl pushed back her hood of her cape and spat the next words.

  “You are here for the sex.”

  Trevor let go an explosion of pent up air, which could have been interpreted as either a laugh or a cough.

  “Men of your sad ilk come to the colony often,” Anne went on, surveying first one and then the other with narrowed eyes. “Drawn by the tales of free love and the promise of unguarded women. You pose as artists, but your true art is lovemaking and you imagine that we are all –“

  “I saw him slap you.” Trevor’s voice cut into the girl’s mad torrent of words and she paused, looking at him uncertainly. His abrupt change of topic was a calculated effort to grab the reins of this runaway conversation, and, judging by the sliver of fear which came into Anne’s face, it had worked.

  “Why would you remain loyal to such a man?” Trevor went on, seizing the advantage and determined to remain unmoved by the tears in the girl’s eyes. “I have heard your shouts of rage, your anger at the cruel position in which you have been cast. LaRusse poses you naked in the winter cold and yet paints the face of another, is that not the crux of the matter?”

  The scene was noiseless except for the soft moans of the wind. Almost involuntarily, Anne turned toward the gatehouse.

  “Take us,” Rayley said. “Show us these things he paints that hurt you so.”

  As if in some sort of trance, Anne stumbled toward the gatehouse and Trevor and Rayley followed her through the door and across the cold bare floor. The smell of paint had dissipated, but portrait was there in the corner, still on its easel, and in the full light of day they could study the work in greater detail.

  “He paints Dorinda,” Anne said. “I find her face waiting here, each morning, as if she is mocking me.” Her tone was defeated, the voice of a woman who has given all she can give and still has lost.

  “Then what remains to hold you here?” Rayley asked urgently. “You are right in saying that we are not who we claim to be, but I assure you, my dear Anne, that we come not to abuse young women but to offer you a way out of this trap.“

  “This child I hold in my arms, where does it come from?” Anne asked, flicking a fingertip toward the picture. “I have never seen him paint a child, not once, but when I ask him why it is there and what it means…he grows wild with anger. He accuses me of tormenting him. How can he say these things to me when I am the one in torment?”

  “That is not the face of Dorinda Spencer,” Trevor said flatly. “I tried to tell you so last night.”

  “What?” said Rayley, turning back toward the picture. “Of course it is.”

  “And the paint is always wet, every morning,” Anne said. “He claims not to understand it. He says he must walk in his sleep. But I know he does not leave his bed.” She flushed in shame. “I should not know whether or not a man leaves his bed in the dark of night. No decent girl knows these things, but I do.”

  “It matters not,” Rayley said. “Your family understands and forgives all. We shall catch the train tomorrow morning and you shall be home by Christmas Eve.”

  “It looks like Dorinda Spencer,” Trevor continued, talking softly to himself as if he could not hear Rayley and Anne, as if he alone were immune to the emotion engulfing the room.

  “Good God, man, what does all of that matter?” Rayley snapped. “Remember why we have come here, and it isn’t for any damned painting.”

  “I have gone too far to turn back,” Anne said.

  “One can always turn back,” Rayley said fiercely. “We have journeyed here on the wishes of your mother, with no other intention than to bring you home.”

  “It is an understandable error,” Trevor murmured, his eyes never leaving the naked Madonna’s face.

  “But first tell me,” Rayley persisted. “Do you own a white cloak? Does he?”

  “A white cloak?” Anne echoed in confusion. “I have no such garment and LaRusse wears the same clothing every day. Why do you ask? And what did my mother tell you? She does not understand me and she never has.”

  “I can see why you both fell into the same confusion,” Trevor continued, still looking down at the painting. “For there is an undeniable similarity in the faces, something very like in the mouth and the chin. And yet the woman in this portrait is not Dorinda Spencer.”

  “Meaning what?” said Rayley, throwing up his hands in exasperation.

  “Meaning that your casual comment was closer to the mark than Emma’s theory,” Trevor said. Rayley had heard this tone in Trevor’s voice before and knew what it meant. Pieces were dropping into place for his friend, and the larger picture was beginning to become clear. “LaRusse’s madness is born from guilt as well as poison. It is not Dorinda whose face he paints alone, by the dark of night. It is her sister Rose, the woman who bore his illegitimate child and then disappeared.”

  Chapter Eight

  It is the paint that does it, or so they say. It makes you sick, brings on the visions of darkness and death.

  And she knows that he is almost there. That he has almost crossed that thin pale border which separates sanity from madness. He does not sleep. He does not eat. He drinks and paces and rails against his latest girl – that pale and ineffectual Anne.

  It is the white paint that will take him the rest of the way. It is not an easy thing to obtain in London, where they are wise enough to fear it, so she was forced to journey to Calais and learn the technique in a French school. It involved soaking lead plates in Mercury – dreadful stuff – and then flaking off bits to brew the white pigment. It makes you drunk, forgetful, and foolish. It brings on “the artist’s disease.” They claim it is what drove Van Gogh insane, prompted him to cut off his ear and present it to a whore.

  And so shall it work its white magic on LaRusse.

  She mixes the paint at two parts white and one part blue, far more than what is prudent. Far more than the ratio which is recommended at the art school where she learned. It might even be enough to kill him if she tried, but she doesn’t want him dead. At least not now. Not quite yet. She wants him to suffer. To remember.

  Night after night, she rises from her bed. Puts on her white cloak and runs across the meadow to the gatehouse with a lantern in one hand and her paints in another. And night after night she finds the portrait, his Angel of Hever Castle, waiting on the easel. Anne’s arms and shoulders, Anne’s breasts and hands. And yes, even Anne’s face, at least at first. But she has always been quick with a brush and within minutes, the angel of Hever is transformed. She is no longer Anne. She is Rose.

  How many more mornings until he loses his tenuous grip on reality? No man can exist forever on rum and fear and poisonous fumes. No man can pose one woman obediently naked before him and paint her in perfect detail – and yet return to his easel every morning to find another waiting for him. Her eyes wide and accusing. His baby on her lap.

  But she is prepared to stay here, no matter how many nights it takes until her vengeance is complete. LaRusse will never be allowed to forget what he did to Rose, no matter how many other women may have been in his bed or on his canvases. He must remember her face even if he forgets all the others.

  She must haunt him unto death.

  Chapter Nine

  “So let us suppose that Spencer is not the real last name of the girls,” Geraldine mused. She glanced down at Trevor’s latest telegram, which was resting on the table. “Perhaps Rose adopted a pseudonym when she ent
ered the Kirkland School, which is apparently standard practice for the young women who go there. And Dorinda took the same name before she went to Hever.”

  “But I don’t understand,” Tess, said, fitfully twisting one of her gloves. “Knowing what LaRusse did to her sister, why would Dorinda follow him to Hever?”

  “Revenge, Mama. It is all that explains it.” Marjorie, Tess’s older daughter, looked at her mother with sympathy as she spoke. The last two days had taken their toll on Tess; she had slipped from being a woman who was merely agitated and worried to someone who was having trouble thinking clearly at all.

  “It is one of humankind’s greatest motivations,” Emma said.

  “But if Anne is still at Hever,” Tess said, “I can’t see what any of the rest has to do with it.”

  “Patience, my dearest,” said Geraldine, reaching over to pat her arm. “Not one of us has forgotten that your precious Anne is the focus of all our efforts. But if my labors in the arena of crime solving have taught me anything, it is that sometimes the most unlikely strands of a story find a way to twine themselves together. Answering one question often leads to a greater understanding of another. And thus throwing light on LaRusse’s past may be the swiftest way to extract Anne from his grasp.”

  “It occurs to me,” Marjorie said thoughtfully, “that when people concoct a false surname, they rarely pull it from midair. Perhaps Spencer is some other sort of family name – their mother’s maiden name, perhaps?”

  “A reasonable notion,” Emma said, considering Marjorie with new respect. When she had first arrived on Geraldine’s doorstep with her mother, Emma had been prepared to dislike her. This young woman, scarcely two years older than Emma herself, seemed to have been uniquely blessed with good fortune. Striking beauty, a doting family, an advantageous marriage, two perfect children. It seemed almost too much to fathom that Marjorie would also be possessed of a kind heart and common sense. But in the brief time she had spent in her company, Emma had found that she was beginning to like Marjorie very much.