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

  “Spencer as the mother’s maiden name?” Geraldine said. “Quite right. Tess, help me think. Do we know any woman in her forties who was a Spencer before marriage?”

  “There’s ElizaAnne Spencer Mill,” Marjorie said swiftly, answering in her mother’s stead. “It’s what gave me the idea. I met her last year at the fundraising gala for the Barrow Street orphanage. A kindly woman, and about the right age, with two growing daughters. But she and her husband have recently left London.”

  “And that in itself is suspicious,” Geraldine said. “Who in their right mind would leave London? It is the very pearl of civilization.”

  “Two daughters,” Emma said thoughtfully. “Did she mention them by name?”

  But as Marjorie regretfully shook her head, the doorbell rang.

  “Answer it, please, Emma,” Geraldine said. “Gage is in the kitchen.”

  “You really must get him some help,” Tess said distractedly. “Your social life is a whirlwind, Gerry, and it’s inhumane to expect that one poor man to handle it all. And whoever can that be at the door? I thought our party was complete.”

  “Not quite,” said Geraldine. “I invited Madame Renata.” As three questioning faces turned toward her, she hastened to explain. “Oh, I know she can be quite odd and that some have found her séances to be more… more theatrical than the occasion requires. But I believe she is a gifted medium, as skilled at her profession as Trevor is at his. And Emma dear, you needn’t tell him I said that.”

  “How much of the situation did you explain to Madame Renata?” Emma asked. “She will likely use any information you told her in order to concoct exactly the sort of answers she knows we crave. These people make their living by feeding on the false hopes of the desperate.”

  “I told her nothing, except that we sought guidance in the matter of a young girl,” Geraldine said briskly, “and please dear, wipe that outraged expression off your face and go open the door. We can’t leave the poor woman standing in the frost all night.”

  ****

  “We call upon the voices of all women,” Madame Renata intoned. “The women who were wronged, betrayed, used for another’s selfish pleasures and then abandoned. The women who trusted unworthy men and paid the price. We summon them all here, to make a protective circle around our table.”

  “The room is likely to get rather crowded,” Emma whispered to Marjorie, who giggled. Geraldine shot her a warning look across the table, before obediently bowing her head as if she were in church.

  “Let us join hands, my sisters,” Madame Renata intoned. Her head was swathed in a bright colored cloth that reminded Emma of the Caribbean women she sometimes saw in the marketplace and her hands were encrusted with jewels of every hue. The rings were most likely fakes, just like their owner, and the overall effect was more than a bit ridiculous. But she supposed at this point, they had little to lose.

  The five women sitting around the small oak table joined hands. The room was dark, save for a single candle, and silent, save for the fact that Tess was already sobbing softly. Marjorie squeezed her mother’s hand and closed her eyes.

  “The women are with us,” Madame Renata said. “They have heard the cries of our hearts. They come in their crowns, in their robes, in their scarlet capes…”

  A sudden chill ran over Emma. Scarlet capes?

  “They stand with us,” Madame Renata continued in her sing-song voice. “Mary, Anne…”

  At the name “Mary,” Emma’s head jerked up and her eyes flew open. But she was not the only one at the table to react.

  “Anne, did you say?” Tess blurted. “Anne is with us?”

  “Queen Anne comes to our table,” Madame Renata said. “Graces us with her royal presence. Your Anne is not here. She eats stew.”

  “Stew?” Tess said wildly. “What do you mean, she eats stew?”

  “Hush, Tess darling,” Geraldine said softly. “Let the woman do her work.”

  “Queen Anne is with us,” Madame Renata continued. “Daughter of Thomas, wife of Henry, mother to Elizabeth. She says she knows what it means to love, but to remain unloved in return.”

  Emma felt the first stirrings of anxiety. Geraldine claimed she said nothing to Madame Renata about the purpose of the evening beyond the fact they sought a young girl. It was highly unlikely that she had mentioned Hever Castle at all, so Madame Renata’s contention that the spirit of Queen Anne had manifested… Well, what was one to make of it? That Madame Renata’s use of her name was sheer coincidence or could it be proof that from somewhere in the netherworld, Anne Boleyn was incensed over the abuses taking place in her childhood home? And then the bit about Mary…

  “Mary, Queen of Heaven,” Madame Renata said, as if she was reading Emma’s mind. “You honor us with your presence.”

  So the “Anne” was Anne Boleyn and the “Mary” was the Virgin Mary. Well, Emma thought, cynicism once again trumping fear, we certainly seem to have drawn an illustrious group. She looked around the table, hoping to catch the eye of Marjorie, who would likely also be skeptical, but the young woman’s head was still bowed and her eyes still closed. She was chewing her lip nervously, perhaps trying to come to terms with the surprising news that while they were surrounded by saints and royalty, her little sister was off somewhere eating a bowl of stew.

  “Another Mary steps into our circle as well,” Madame Renata said, her voice dropping to a murmur. “She is the one in red and she bears a message…”

  Emma clinched her jaw, belief and unbelief waging war within her pounding heart. The last time Emma had seen her sister alive, Mary had been wrapped in a ruffled red cape. The garish dress of a girl who makes her living on the streets. They may have been sisters by birth, but their lives had diverged so totally by that point…one of them scrapping for a living on the mean streets of Whitechapel, the other installed in one of the mansions of Mayfair. On that windy afternoon, they had simply observed each other from afar, silently acknowledging the width of the divide between them, and then each had turned away. The image had tortured Emma for the totally of the last year. Should she have charged across the street and grabbed her sister’s red-cloaked arm? Somehow thought of the right words to persuade the girl away from her inconceivable determination to live as she did? With a little more effort, might she have changed Mary’s fate and thus saved her life?

  “The spirits say we must focus not on the past, but on the present,” said Madame Renata, once again as if in answer to Emma’s unspoken questions. “They assure us that they shall help our cause from the beyond, but also warn that we cannot rest in their help. For while they have the power to turn men’s hearts, only living women have the power to turn their hands. They say that we see what we must do. Those who need our help stand right in front of us.”

  Melly, Emma thought. She is speaking of Melly MacGraw. No, I cannot change what happened to Mary, but perhaps I can save Melly MacGraw from a similarly cruel fate.

  “Excuse me,” Tess said timidly. “Might I ask a question?”

  “The spirits will answer if they can,” said Madame Renata.

  And what a group we have to answer, Emma thought. A headless queen, a murdered prostitute, and the mother of Jesus Christ himself. Between the three of them, they should know quite a bit about life.

  “Well, it’s just one thing,” Tess whispered uncertainly. “But what did you mean when you said that Anne was eating stew? Is that some sort of symbol?”

  ****

  Trevor and Rayley watched as Anne Arborton not only finished the last of her stew, but used a crust of bread to mop up the gravy. They had brought the girl to the inn at Edenbridge where they had stayed the first night of the trip, and there had purchased her a farmer’s dinner, most likely her first solid meal in a week. She had eaten so rapidly that conversation had been limited, but now she sat back, contentedly full, and looked at the two detectives sitting across from her, smiling like a pair of proud papas.

  “There is something else I must confess,”
she said. “It was a matter of foolish pride that I did not tell you at once.”

  “And what is that?” asked Trevor, settling back in his chair as he waved to the barmaid for another ale.

  “I told you that LaRusse was missing this morning,” Anne said, looking hopefully at a berry pie cooling on a side table. “But what I didn’t tell you is that no one has seen Dorinda Spencer either.”

  ****

  “Are you quite sure this is a good idea?” Rayley said to Trevor a half hour later. They were saddled on Constable Brown’s horses and back on the trail to Hever. The moon, while not quite as full as the night of the solstice, still gave off a glorious silvery light and their travel so far had been swift and effortless. “Our task was merely to retrieve Anne, and this we have done. But I don’t feel entirely comfortable leaving her unattended at the inn. She seems willing to come back to London now, but we know the girl has an impulsive nature. What if she changes her mind yet again or, even worse, what if LaRusse somehow gets wind of her whereabouts? He might show up at the inn and carry her off.”

  “Really, Abrams,” said Trevor. “Anne has come to her senses. She is undoubtedly in her bed at the inn this very minute, cozy and warm, and quite thrilled to be on her way home. And we can hardly leave a case, even an unofficial one, at such loose ends, especially not when another young woman is in danger. A woman you showed interest in merely days ago, as memory recalls.”

  “Agreed. But what makes you so sure we will find either Dorinda or LaRusse at Hever? Anne claims they are missing.”

  “The fact that Anne doesn’t know where they might be is hardly proof they’ve left the property,” Trevor said, pulling his horse to a halt as the walls of Hever came into view.

  Rayley pulled up as well. “No matter now, for it lies before us. The lost castle of a lost romance. But something seems changed.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t say.” Rayley frowned, studying the contours of the castle in the moonlight. “It is just an impression.”

  “So what do you expect we shall find here, Abrams?” Trevor said softly. “Do you think that LaRusse has fallen to Dorinda or that Dorinda has succumbed to LaRusse? For we are standing witness to a great battle, it seems. A sort of battle between the sexes, and we both know that type of fight yields no victors.”

  “I have no idea what waits for us below,” Rayley said, prodding his horse into motion. “But it frightens me.”

  ****

  “We are looking for a certain girl,” Tess said to Madame Renata. “You said you see Anne at a table, eating stew. But do you see another young woman, someone who goes by the name Dorinda Spencer?”

  The mystic paused for a moment then shook her head. “There is only darkness.”

  “Or her sister?” Emma said, aware of the breathless anxiety in her voice. “A girl named Rose?”

  Another silence, longer and more agonizing than the first. Emma was clutching Geraldine’s hand on one side and Marjorie’s on another. It seemed that every woman in the circle, save for Madame Renata, was holding her breath.

  “A Rose has stepped forward.” the mystic finally said.

  “Where is she?” Marjorie asked. “What is she doing?”

  Silence. An ocean of silence, a mountain, an eternity. The entire world seemed to have frozen.

  Madame Renata shook her head. A short, definitive gesture, followed by the opening of her eyes. “The spirits have withdrawn,” she said, in her normal voice. “Shall we have tea?”

  “Tea?” Marjorie muttered as the three older women left the table and moved into the drawing room. Tess and Geraldine were still clearly shaken, but Madame Renata was as unperturbed as a woman waking from a pleasant nap. “It’s always tea. Do you think there is truth to anything the woman said? I find the high pedigree of her spiritual guides rather questionable.”

  Emma started to confide about Mary and the red cape, but then thought the better of it. She had Marjorie seemed to be on the edge of a friendship, but it was hard to predict how a society matron might reaction to the news that Emma’s sister had been not merely a prostitute, but a victim of Jack the Ripper.

  “Do you remember what she said, there at the end?” she asked. “When she saw a girl named Rose?”

  Marjorie frowned. “She said nothing at all did she? Simply that a girl named Rose stepped forward.”

  “Stepped forward, yes. Which means, does it not, that Rose is with the spirits?”

  Marjorie’s frown deepened. “Of course. If this woman knows her business, then the girl called Rose, whoever she might be, is dead.”

  Chapter Ten

  Despite Rayley’s trepidation, the scene which greeted them at Hever Castle was tranquil. The same scraggly crew they might have expected was gathered around the long dining table, sharing a dinner of oats and potatoes. The food, while hardly aromatic or appetizing, was more plentiful than when the tyrant LaRusse was in attendance, so Trevor could only assume that the rules about gleaning were relaxed during his frequent absences. Apparently some of the artists had made a raid on a nearby farm, and the figure now presiding at the head of the table was the painter John Paul. He greeted Rayley and Trevor with an uninterested wave of the hand, his attention barely flickering from the buxom young creature at his side, and Trevor realized that no one in Hever had noticed that he, Rayley, and Anne had abandoned the castle for the Edenbridge Inn.

  This is a topsy-turvy world indeed, Trevor thought. LaRusse departs and John Paul steps into his place. The king is dead, long live the king. People gather for breakfast, but if they do not return for dinner, no one goes looking for them or expresses the slightest curiosity as to their whereabouts. No, not even if they are young girls like Dorinda Spencer or Anne Arborton. How quickly absolute freedom can become absolute indifference.

  But at least the fact that everyone appeared to be dining as a group meant that he and Rayley could explore the castle uninterrupted. He doubted they would find LaRusse or Dorinda – or even any clue as to where they might have gone – within the occupied sections of the castle. Most likely they would have to move on to the cellar and the gatehouse if they wanted any real answers, but just as Trevor was starting toward the kitchen to begin his search, Rayley signaled to him.

  “What is it?” Trevor said, as he joined Rayley at the bottom of the stairs.

  “It’s just occurred to me what was different about the castle as we approached,” Rayley said. “You know the windows in the east turret? The ones Dorinda decreed should always stand open because of the paint fumes? They were closed.”

  ****

  The candles they had grabbed from downstairs were small and ineffectual against the dark and winding stairs. Rayley muttered a terse warning that there was no handrail and that the steps themselves were crumbling and sloped, indented by centuries of feet. Trevor, always more cautious than proud in these instances, dropped to his hands and knees for the climb, at one point clinching the candle stub between his teeth like a cigar.

  And it was in this bizarre and unmanly position that he saw the first one.

  The first picture, that is.

  It was the face of a woman, very like the face in the portrait they had found in the gatehouse. Round-eyed, lovely, beseeching. The Angel of Hever Castle.

  Trevor tried to make a sound to halt Rayley, who was above him on the winding staircase, but the candle in his mouth prevented him from making an audible sound. Besides, by that time, Rayley’s candle had found an image of its own. Another portrait, another pose, but the same woman. “He’s painted her over and over, Welles,” Rayley called back down into the darkness. His breath was ragged, both from the climb and from a growing sense of dread. “Rose, you said her name was? He has gone mad with guilt.”

  Trevor muttered something indistinct in reply, but it hardly mattered. For as the two men continued to climb they encountered portrait after portrait of Rose. Rose naked. Rose in the robes of a Queen. Rose standing. Rose reclined. Rose both indoors and out. Rose wi
th a child in her arms. Rose laughing, then stricken with grief.

  “Dear God,” said Trevor, who paused to straighten and take the candle stub in his hand. “Be careful when you reach the door, Abrams, and we must extinguish our candles before we open it. How is the situation at the top of the stairs? Do you remember?”

  “The steps lead straight to the door,” Rayley called back. “Which will give us trouble if we have to force it, since there’s no way to get a running start. And you must take care to stay to the left, Welles, don’t stand erect like that. If you lean too far to the right, you could topple into the stairwell.”

  “But how shall we…” And here Trevor hesitated, for with each step, he was growing increasingly certain that they were climbing toward a corpse, but he did not bother articulating this fear, since he was reasonably sure Rayley had come to the same conclusion. Trevor swiped his hand toward one of the pictures – this one of a pensive Rose, contemplating one of the flowers that was her namesake – and was not totally surprised that his knuckles came back smeared with wet paint. LaRusse had apparently gone into some sort of artistic frenzy – hiding in the garret and producing one hasty portrait after another, propping each on a separate step before climbing back up to begin the next.

  “How shall we what?” Rayley asked, but as he at last reached the final step, there was a sudden flurry of motion, like a bird taking flight from a high roost. He raised his candle but it was extinguished at once, with a single whoosh of air - and then it was upon him, a great rushing shape, seemingly airborne. He let out a cry as he instinctively dove to the left, toward the wall, knocking his head against the stones as he slid to his feet. Dazed, nearly blind, he watched in disbelief as the ghost took flight and a high metallic scream filled the stairwell.

  Trevor, who preferred to think of the creature as an angel, was no less stunned at its rapid appearance. He pulled back his own candle, saving the small flame from extinction, and beheld the figure in white sailing through the darkness, cutting over the stairwell in a definitive swoop, before finally sinking from sight into the dark pit below. Only the gentle thud of its landing, impossibly far beneath them, indicated that this was a human form and not a supernatural one.