She left me then, waving her hand in farewell as she turned to the shortcut through the Cherboys woods and I started around the duck pond. I ended at the churchyard attached to St. Frideswide’s. This was a burying ground of some obvious antiquity, the engraving of the stones smoothed by the hand of age. Soft grass carpeted the ground, and thick layers of moss crept up the draperies of the various statues. Most of the stones were carved into simple designs of crosses or left as granite slabs, but a few were more elaborate confections of marble lace, inscribed with the names of the prominent families of the area.
But one family’s preeminence stood out from the rest. In the center of the graveyard was a stone edifice, a mausoleum executed in the Neo-Gothic style. The ironwork that formed the fence around it was picked out in fresh black paint, and the brass embellishments were carefully polished. I knew what the name over the door would be before I even stepped near enough to read it.templeton-vane. I touched the door, but it was locked, and I was not certain if that came as a relief or a disappointment.
Above the door was chiselled the family motto:nullae excusationes. nullae paenitentiae.No excuses. No repentance. A list of the tenants of the mausoleum had been inscribed on a bronze plaque and fixed to the door. A few assorted viscounts and their wives had been interred within at the start of the century, but two names were much brighter than the rest, the letters sharply incised. Stoker’s mother, Annabelle, was the first. Below hers was that of her husband, dead only these three years past. I read the name and blinked, then read it again. I had seen Stoker’s name written formally on a handful of occasions. The Honourable Revelstoke V. Templeton-Vane. I had never asked what the “V” stood for, but as I read his putative father’s given name for thefirst time, I found myself smiling. I tucked the information away for future use and turned to go.
As I moved down the pair of marble steps, I knocked against a small vase of late summer roses, upending it onto the ground. I hastened to put it right, noticing the small note tucked into the petals of one lush bloom.For Mamma. The handwriting was similar to Stoker’s but rounder, younger, and I cast an indulgent look towards the church itself. Merry might be a man fully grown, but he had been a child at his mother’s death, and it was apparent he still felt the loss most keenly.
Well, it would not do to disarrange his lovely token of remembrance, and I scrambled about, retrieving the flowers. One had fallen a little further than the others, caught in a bit of long grass. I reached for it and grazed my hand upon a stone half-hid by the greenery. Unlike most stones, it was plain to the point of austerity. No graven angels here, only the name, writ in stark capitals.lorenzo d’ambrogio. And the date of his death. The Templeton-Vanes had given him a resting place, I realised. But he had died violently, and I wondered how restful he had found his afterlife. Stoker regularly chided me for entertaining such thoughts, but as I had pointed out to him with considerable patience, germ theory had been a far-fetched notion until it was proven. The most outlandish ideas might have merit, even if science occasionally proved laggard in confirming them.
As if to echo my fanciful turn of mind, a soft susurration of wind ruffled the grass, rustling it uneasily. A prickle rose along the back of my neck, and the afternoon, which had been decidedly hot, turned suddenly cool.
A cloud passing over the sun, I told myself firmly. But there was no accounting for the feeling of being watched. I crouched there, bent over Lorenzo’s stone, as voices suddenly reached my ears. I glanced in the direction of the church, perfectly concealed from view but able to see the door open. From the dim interior two figures emerged into theporch, quite close together. One was Merry, his head bent low to the other, slighter form at his side. A gloved hand came up to touch his cheek, and even at that distance I sensed him blushing. The woman with him never turned, never sensed my presence. She did not tarry but lowered her veil and left him. He stood, staring after her as she went, before lifting his shoulders in a sigh and turning to go back inside.
I stayed crouched there for some minutes, until I was quite certain Merryweather was gone. And then I got to my feet and made to follow Beatrice.
CHAPTER
20
I trailed the countess, soft-footed as a lynx—walking quietly is a skill one must hone early as a lepidopterist; a startled butterfly is a lost opportunity. But even if I had crashed through the shrubberies with the unsubtle energy ofDiceros bicornis, I doubt she would have heard me. She seemed lost in thought, her footsteps slowing and then speeding up again. Her perambulations were not, I surmised, undertaken with any sort of purpose or design. She was simply making her way back to Cherboys in a leisurely fashion.
It was no great effort to follow her. In fact, she moved so glacially that at one point I stopped behind an accommodating oak to eat another of Julien’s delectable sandwiches. When I resumed my surveillance, she was hardly further along than when I began, pausing now and again as if puzzling something out. I might have thought her distracted by the beauties of the surroundings—the trees were beleafed in green newly tinged with gold, and the late summer flowers were still offering themselves in lush-throated abandon. Even the clouds were engaging, soft and pillowy white, the sort of clouds to coax a romantic soul into lying out on the grassy Downs, imagining shapes hidden amongst them.
But the countess showed no interest in these. She kept her gaze fixed firmly ahead as she passed quite near to my place of concealment in a handy bit of bramble. A notably pretty Silver-Washed Fritillary—Argynnis paphia—swooped by in a slow arch of orange wings, but I refused to be diverted. Beatrice was not so single-minded. Her expression was one of complete distraction. She was not diverted by the bounty of the natural world because she simply did not perceive it. She was woolgathering, building castles in Spain, and it was this activity which caused her to pause now and again as she turned over some troubling thought.
I am not, as the casual reader may wonder, gifted with clairvoyance. I could not read her mental wanderings or hear the inner workings of her mind. But I am, by virtue of my occupation, a keen observer, and I noticed that every time Beatrice stopped, she raised her hand to her mouth, nibbling the corner of one thumbnail. A tiny furrow etched itself above her nose as she did so, marring the smoothness of her brow. After each reverie, she would gather herself with a little shake and move on. She was, it was apparent, working something out within herself, and I did not much care for the obvious inference: to wit, that she was debating the merits of engaging in a dalliance with young Merryweather.
The most obvious construction to put upon what I had seen was that Beatrice, as a lady suffering from a devastating illness, had sought spiritual counsel with the nearest source. But I dismissed this possibility at once on the grounds of her rosary. I could not imagine a Roman Catholic turning to an Anglican vicar for clerical consolation.
As any scientist knows, hypotheses are made to be discarded. They areworkingsuppositions, the beginnings of frameworks that may lead much more easily, and far more often, to failure. They are slender and insubstantial things, light as will-o’-the-wisps and designed to collapse at the first incongruous fact. Anything that doesnot fit within the hypothesis must be discarded. But to begin with, the facts must be assembled to see if a pattern may be detected.
So I settled onto a comfortable patch of moss and assembled my facts. First, Beatrice was a lovely woman, and men are vulnerable to the allure of physical attractions. Some, particularly clerics, are not, but I knew Merryweather well enough to know that he was a normal red-blooded fellow in all essential regards and therefore susceptible to the temptations of the flesh.
Was the little American countess likewise attracted? Possibly. Like all the Templeton-Vane men, Merry possessed the physical attributes one might find in the recovered statues of Greek antiquity. He might be untidy and shamblesome, but he had strong shoulders and sturdy thighs as well as a certain regularity of feature and vitality that is extremely attractive to the right sort of woman.
Ah, but Beatrice was a devoted wife, I hear the faithful reader object! Yet even the most accomplished adulteress may conceal her sins beneath a veneer of affection for her spouse, I reflected. In fact, a cunning woman would make a point of behaving with tenderness to her legitimate spouse in order to throw off any suspicions that she harboured feelings elsewhere. Was Beatrice capable of such machinations? I could not say. Our acquaintance was of a brief duration, but she was American and, in my experience, Americans are capable of anything.
No, I could not say with any certainty what her designs upon Merry were, but she would bear watching, I decided firmly.
I rose from my musings with a brisk air and continued on my way.
•••
As I made my way up the staircase at Cherboys, a heavy silence pressed upon me from all sides. It was the curious hour after teatime and before the dressing bell when households are invariably scattered to the winds. I had little doubt the others were out on the estate,enjoying the lazy, golden afternoon. The maids would have long since finished in the guest rooms and it was not yet time for them to reappear to assist with collars and clasps as we prepared for dinner. It was, in short, a perfect time for a little sleuthing.
I was convinced that Sir James had received a set of cuttings, and I longed to know what they said. It rankled that Stoker and Tiberius had introduced the subject of the cuttings when the ladies were absent from the dining room. It more than rankled, I decided. It was manifestly unjust to use our gender against us when they were the ones who enforced the archaic custom of withdrawing. They deserved to be pipped at the post, and by whatever means necessary. I might have deputised J. J. to investigate Sir James’ room—in her guise as a maid, she could devise a far more plausible reason to be in his suite than I—but I defended my decision to go on my own on the grounds that J. J. would be needed in the kitchens as Julien worked feverishly upon his dinner party menu.
In truth, I did not want to miss one atom of the possible delights of an investigation. I placed my butterfly hunting kit in my room and stepped out of my boots and into a pair of soft slippers. On silent feet, I slipped from my room and up the stairs to the suite assigned to the MacIvers, closing the door softly behind me. The rooms were, unsurprisingly, neat as a pin. Mrs.Brackendale ran the tightest of ships, and I pitied any member of staff who left behind an errant crumb or bit of dust. There was a bathroom with all the appropriate furniture, the porcelain polished to a high sheen, and a fresh bath mat laid upon the floor. Sir James’ shaving things were laid tidily on a stand next to the sink, and a new cake of soap had been left beside the bath. There was nothing to be learnt from this room, so I moved on to the dressing room where the dressing table held an assortment of Augusta’s toilet waters and powders and a tin of rose lip salve. I smiled at this small evidence of vanity. Augusta was so self-possessed it was amusing tofind she had any foibles at all. The drawers of the dressing table were empty, clear of even traces of powder, so thorough were the maids.
Wardrobes had been assigned to each of them. Augusta’s held a few handsome evening frocks and assorted sensible country clothes for day, everything neatly in its place. Sir James’ wardrobe was just as orderly, each shoe arranged with its mate, each suit brushed to gleaming perfection. One of the drawers held a small leather folio of the sort gentlemen use to carry papers, but a swift glance through it yielded nothing of interest. Letters from his man of business regarding land issues, tenant rents, and a frankly appalling amount of information about sheep.
But no cuttings. If Sir James had received them, he had either destroyed them or carried them about on his person. Or, I realised in some annoyance, he might have left them in Scotland for safekeeping. He would hardly want Augusta to come upon them unexpectedly.
I closed the wardrobe with a decisive snap. There remained only the bedside tables to be searched, and I found no clue in these. Augusta’s reading tastes tended towards modern novels of the moralising sort and a few fashion papers whilst the table on Sir James’ side of the bed held only periodicals devoted to animal husbandry.
It had been a pointless endeavour to search their room, I realised in annoyance. Possessions can be an eloquent testimony to a person’s character, but in the case of the MacIvers, they told me nothing I did not already know. Augusta was tidy and philanthropic; Sir James had no real interests apart from his estate.
Unless Sir James MacIver was playing a careful and canny game. I paused to consider the implications. He never confirmed he had received cuttings; only his evasive manner had convinced me that he had.But what if he had sent the cuttings to Tiberius himself?If he were our villain, he might well have sent Tiberius the threatening cuttings, assuming Tiberius would be too alarmed to raise the subject in front ofthe rest of the house party. The fact that Tiberius had done so would have come as a surprise. Quick thinking would have suggested that he ought to bluff it out, insisting gruffly that it must be a tasteless joke, all the while subtly insinuating that he himself was also a recipient. It was a clever solution, fiendishly so. It would require an ingenious brain as well as a sophisticated knowledge of human nature to execute.
