Mist of Midnight (5 page)

“I do not dine with Captain Whitfield,” I said. “I dine in my rooms. In any case, I would certainly not consider dressing to please him.” A faint blush crept up, as I'd never been good at dissembling.

She raised an eyebrow and put the dress back in the wardrobe. “I understand. He's a Hussar. So very attractive, but a little dangerous,
non
?”

Ah, the Hussars—light cavalry regiments known for their loyalty, courage, and daring, but also for their womanizing, risk-­taking, and a healthy view of their worth in the world.

“They fearlessly take what they want or feel owed,” Michelene continued.

“Perhaps that is only the French Hussars,” I said. “Not the English.” But she'd put her finger on it. He was an attractive, but also a potentially dangerous, quantity. Certainly a man very much different from those I'd experienced.

In another context, time and place, set of circumstances, that would not have been altogether unwelcome.

Michelene continued on as if she hadn't heard me. “Hussars would scare many women, especially women who have been rather, what is the English word, protected?” She looked puzzled. “Coddled!” She clicked her fingers as she said it. “Now, I am very fatigued, and I should like to rest in my rooms for a while. I will be but a moment away if you need me, and will be back later this evening to undress your hair and help you prepare for bed.”

“Thank you.” I smiled. “But I do feel that the gray gown needs to be returned. If I am invited to Graffam, we can purchase a new gown then.”

She frowned.

I continued softly, but with an effort to assert my authority, “That will be all for now.”

She offered a patronizing, sophisticated smile and left. Instead of mistress of the house, I felt like an imperious little girl pretending to tell her governess what to do.

T
he next morning, after breakfast, a new silver salver rested on the large table in the main hallway, reflecting the glory of the mid-May sunshine. I looked questioningly at Landreth, who was supervising some workmen near the sitting room.

“That's the salver for calling cards, miss,” he said. “I've taken the liberty of having it placed here again, as you will surely be receiving callers.”

I nodded slowly. “Thank you, Landreth.” I walked closer to him and lowered my voice. “I'm sorry to trouble you, but could you kindly inform me of the protocol for callers?”

“You don't know, miss?” His tone was bewildered and, perhaps, a little suspicious.

I shook my head. “If I had intended to adopt a false identity, surely I would have familiarized myself with the appropriate etiquette before embarking on such a deception.”

“If you were of the right station, miss, then yes, you would have known to do so.”

I looked at him and he at me, a standoff. “But you do not find me to speak in an uneducated manner, do you?” I gently put forth.

“No,” he said. “But neither did she.” We both knew whom he meant by
she
.

Had she not known calling protocol either? Or had she spoken more coarsely than he'd first considered?

I could see I'd need to share with him what I'd already told Michelene. “I assure you that my mother raised me in all ways as gently English born, from the taking of tea to the playing of instruments, such that were available, to the appropriate manner in which to interact with household staff, ” I said quietly, “caring for their comfort as well as my own. However, some customs seem to
have held a different protocol among the English in India than the English at home—calling among them. I should genuinely appreciate your guidance.”

He nodded, apparently satisfied with my explanation. “During the week, ladies come by to leave cards, and from time to time, once you know the environs, you shall do the same. You'll choose a day when you'll accept visitors and on all other days only your closet acquaintances will call.”

I did not have any close acquaintances, though I yearned for some, even one. “Shall I need calling cards as well?”

He nodded. “Michelene can assist with that.” I noted the unusually iron tone when he spoke her name as she approached from the stairway. They looked at one another with something short of disgust. There had been something amiss when she was here the last time, I was becoming certain of it. But a servant without discretion is soon a servant without a situation, so I could not expect Captain Whitfield's staff to tell tales.

“What day would you like to be ‘at home'?” he asked.

I shrugged helplessly. Was one day better than another? “Monday?”

“Thursday would be an excellent choice.”

“Thursday then.”

“And,” he continued, “there is a sliding passage in the sitting room.” We walked to the room together and he showed me. “I will announce each visitor before she comes, and if you choose to be not ‘at home' just then, you may slip through this passage into the breakfast room and disappear without causing distress.”

I smiled. “Thank you, Landreth. You are invaluable. I shall thank Captain Whitfield when he returns for allowing you to continue to assist me.” He didn't smile, but his cheeks pinked. It was enough, for now.

“Captain Whitfield will return on Thursday next, miss.”

“Very good.” I walked back into the hallway and saw Michelene standing very near the large new salver. She dipped her hand into it, which was rather bold, and pulled out a card.

“Someone has already been by?” I asked.

Landreth nodded and Michelene brought the card to me. “Miss Delia Dainley.” Miss Dainley's card was subtly embossed. I looked up and noticed a look pass between Michelene and Landreth.

“What is it?” I asked.

Michelene spoke. “There exists at least one coddled young Englishwoman who is not afraid of Hussars. Miss Dainley.”

CHAPTER FIVE

T
he next Thursday, after a small and leisurely lunch, Michelene helped me prepare for Miss Dainley's call. Several other women had also left cards, so I might expect one or two others to drop by as well. “It's very kind of them to call upon me so quickly after my arrival,” I said with both nerves and enthusiasm.

Michelene continued to twist and wrap my hair around the back of my head, tying it off, and pulling some free into long curls. “Perhaps they want to see you quickly, wondering how long you'll be here.”

I frowned at her. “What a thing to say! I plan to be here a good long while.”

“
Oui
,” she replied. “But I think that the woman claiming to be Miss Ravenshaw, who was here earlier, she believed so as well.”

Had she meant I would be found out as a pretender? Or—my face cooled—that I'd be dead, like the first woman?

I reflected upon that for a moment. “What was she like?”

“Oh, I do not speak of the dead,” she said, even though she had. She quickly crossed herself. “But I will say that she was beautiful and well cared for. Even after I came to serve as lady's maid,
she kept her Indian maid close. They were like sisters,
non
? She did not like to be separated from her.”

“Did you speak to her—the maid, I mean?” I asked. I was as curious about that woman, almost, as I was about the imposter.

“The maid did not speak English, nor French,” she replied. “So we could not talk.”

“What language did they speak?” I asked. This truly surprised me.

She shrugged. “It sounded heathen. You might ask Captain Whitfield. He seemed quite taken with her.” She pulled some of my hair to the front and ran over it with an iron she'd heated in the fireplace grill.

“Taken with the maid?”

She shook her head. “With Mademoiselle Ravenshaw. Perhaps the maid, too. He seems quite appreciative of ladies, and they of him, which is perhaps why there is no Mrs. Whitfield. No one he's been willing to set others aside for. Though that's not necessarily a requirement of a happy marriage,
d'accord
?”

“What? But of course it is,” I said. She tsk-tsked me in that characteristically French manner but said nothing further and indicated I should stand as she adjusted my dress front and back.

I thought about Captain Whitfield and his pull on me. I should have been more resistant to his charms than almost anyone, as he had, for the moment, appropriated my house and doubted my integrity. Was he capable of harming someone, her, me, to keep the house? Had he planned it that way, or was he as he seemed, a gentlemanly victim of circumstance, much like myself ? If she had indeed been murdered, perhaps someone else had done it. Who else had motive? I should seek to find out. Cautiously.

I strengthened my resolve to remain focused on the visitor at hand. It made me quite jumpy. Would she like me? Could she become, I hoped, a friend?

“Tell me about Miss Dainley,” I said. “What should I expect?”

“She's a mild young woman, at least on the outside. Sweet, like the cherries. But with a hard stone inside,
non
?” She pulled the top layer of the skirt of my dress up to one hip and hooked it there with a hidden clasp. Then she made certain that the buttons on the bodice of my dress were tightly closed and straight from neck to waist. “I understand she is to leave for India soon.”

“Indeed! Perhaps this is why she wanted to meet with me.” I could be useful!

“Certainly, this is true. She may wish to forgo her departure, if at all possible.” She ran a finger over the fur ruffs on my three-quarter sleeves. I looked at them and smiled; they were so beautiful. She caught my glance and looked satisfied. “She sails with the ‘fishing fleet' early in the autumn. Unless she can catch the big fish in England first.”

“You said she was not afraid of a Hussar.” I asked tentatively, “Would you be?”

Michelene smiled. “I would not be,
certainement
. It's been said that when the Hussars come, everyone begins running. The men away from them, and the women toward them.” She laughed. “They are handsome, yes, and commanding, but also, they have been known to pillage and loot the spoils of war without conscience if they feel it belongs to them. And they adore women.” She did not seem aware that she was nearly purring. She turned me to face the mirror. “
Voilà.
My handiwork.”

I gathered my courage and looked at my reflection straight on. “Oh!” I was utterly thrilled with the lovely image that was, shockingly, me! I could face anyone now. “You have transformed
me into an English lady,” I said to Michelene, embracing her. She, being a Frenchwoman, accepted my embrace with ease.

“You already are an English lady,” she said. “You simply needed a French touch.”

A knock came at the door. It was Landreth. “Miss Delia Dainley has arrived. Shall I show her into the drawing room?”

“Thank you, Landreth. I shall be down directly.”

“
Bon courage
,”
Michelene whispered as she nudged me toward the door.

Mrs. Ross had assured me that, as there would be no gentlemen present, I was free to receive Miss Dainley on my own. Landreth showed me in.

“Miss Delia Dainley, may I present Miss Rebecca Ravenshaw? Miss Ravenshaw, I give you Miss Dainley.” He thoughtfully withdrew.

I instantly recognized her—even without the riding habit. She was the woman who had been riding with Captain Whitfield. “Miss Dainley, I'm so very pleased you have come to call and take tea with me.”

Miss Dainley smiled and offered her gloved hand in response. I indicated that she should take the most comfortable chair in the room, next to the floor-to-ceiling, leaded-glass windows that overlooked the downs.

She wasn't interested in observing the downs, though; she was busy assessing me. I took from her look that Michelene had dressed me well, and a warm flush of contentment rose within me. She sat down and Annie soon appeared with a tea tray. It trembled in her hands like an unsteady cymbal. All three of us sighed little puffs of relief when it was safely settled on a sturdy side table.

“I'm very happy you were able to see me. After your
very long ordeal
, that is.” She took a teacup from Annie with a practiced
nod. “And journey?” Her raised eyebrows and the touch of asperity in her voice made it clear she, too, did not believe me to be who I said I was.

“Yes,” I said. “It was long indeed. But faith saw me through and here I am now. In my own home.”

She raised an eye to me at that and set her teacup down. She waved away the cake tray that Annie had offered. Preserving her figure, perhaps? She was a pretty woman, her long strawberry-blond hair finely curled around a creamy complexion, protected most days, I was certain, by a shadowing bonnet.

I took a sweet, so long denied to me after the Rebellion, and much to be enjoyed now that I was home. “Michelene, my lady's maid, tells me that you are planning to embark for India this coming autumn.”

She nodded. “I am the fifth daughter in my family,” she said matter-of-factly. “My brother is already in India, and he has recently assured me that, now things have quieted down and the country is firmly under British control again, it would be quite safe for me to go. He hopes to make introductions.”

She was refreshingly direct and my heart softened toward her. It was a difficult thing to be a woman. Fortunately, an unmarried
woman with property was accountable to no one but herself; this was the secure position I would soon find myself in, however temporarily tenuous this mystery had made my fate.

I reassured myself of this, anyway, over and over again, late at night.

“I hope that you will find India to be as welcoming and hospitable as I did,” I said.

She flinched and a look of surprise crossed her face. “You would not be afraid to return?”

“Not at all. I spent many happy years there up until the one
of . . . of horror.” My hand shook as the abrupt memory of my rushed and disorderly flight ahead of the rebels came back. I felt, once more, the final embrace of my mother and father. We hadn't known it would be our last. Perhaps Father had known. He'd looked mournful. I pushed the memory back, afraid it would unsettle me. My real fear, I now admitted, is that one too many unexpected memories or fancies pushing their way in would unsettle my mind for good.

“How did you come to be in India?” Her voice softened.

“My father was a second son, and had fought in the Burmese War, and then traveled a bit,” I said. “He returned home with distinction and, after his brother died from smallpox, my father inherited Headbourne House. He settled down, married my mother, and my brother, Peter, and I were born here. But he never forgot the people of the East Indies and some years later he put his investments into the hands of his solicitors and returned as a missionary.”

She sat there quietly for a moment. “Did your mother wish to go as well?”

That seemed a rather personal question from a woman I'd only just met, but I sensed that she was asking as much for herself as anything else, so I answered, delicately.

“My mother did not want to leave England; she had envisioned herself here, in Hampshire, at Headbourne. But my father decided we must go, and so we did.”

She nodded. “She made a way once there?”

“After sufficient time. The land is beautiful, of course, bluest of seas, and in the south, palm trees and fruitful soil that grows a veritable cornucopia. Even this”—I indicated my tea—“and coffee. We became inclined toward and grew fond of the people.” I closed my eyes for but a second. “The scent of chickpeas being
­harvested—it smells of home to me.” Was it possible to smell something that was not present? I smelled them, even now, as much as I smelled the bitter bite of the tea right in front of me, but I dared not share that. She'd think me mad.

“Chickpeas?” she asked. “Is that some foreign vegetable?”

“It is a legume common in India,” I said. Miss Dainley sniffed and sipped her tea and Annie refilled it. I'd noticed Annie hovering in the background, close enough to listen. I could hear the footsteps of several other servants in the hallway just beyond, busying themselves with tasks that allowed them to eavesdrop.

“My mother suffered extreme melancholy. The day my father baptized his first convert, my mother, brother, and I remained in our small house with our ayahs whilst my mother wept.”

Miss Dainley's eyes grew large and she signaled for Annie to bring cake to her after all. “But she recovered?”

“After some years, yes,” I said. “She made her peace with it, and with my father, who was a good man at heart. Truly, what else could she do? And many, many Indians converted to Christianity after that. Tens of thousands in various places. Eventually my mother founded the first schools for girls in southern India. She made certain that girls of all castes, including slave castes and outcastes, had access to education. And she taught them to make lace. Salvation for both body and soul. I was her closest friend and assisted her ministry in every way.”

“Lace! Why ever would that be of help?” Miss Dainley's nose wrinkled. A nickname came to me. I should have to be careful in future not to refer to her as Miss Disdain.

I smiled. “Ah, but it was. Great numbers of lower-caste women became skilled lace makers and made an income for the first time, ever. Their husbands became educated and were able to make money on the coffee plantations of Englishmen, as managers.”

“What did they do with the earnings?” Delia leaned forward and now I sensed no reserve, just interest. I weathered the rush of homesickness and imagined my Indian sisters, smiling, chattering, sitting with me, bobbins and pillows on laps on the wide bamboo veranda, its corners concealing lime-green lizards. “They were able to pay their taxes, taxes imposed for things such as men's facial hair. Worse, lower-caste women were not allowed to wear clothing above their waists, denying them dignity.”

Annie gasped and I could hear Mrs. Blackwood draw in her breath from somewhere out of sight, in the main hallway.

“They were . . . naked? Their bosoms? For all to see?” From the tone Miss Dainley used, I suspected she may have been more concerned for her future husband's view than for the humiliating plight of the Sudra women.

“Yes. My parents spoke to the rajah and the resident on their behalf. My mother loved Tamil proverbs. One was ‘The word of the destitute does not reach the assembly.' So someone in power must speak on their behalf. The missionaries helped them win the right to clothe themselves, above the waist, too, and then gave them clothes and the skills to earn money to buy their clothes in the future.”

I stopped, mortified. Why had I been rushing along like a poorly brought up girl, a verbal runaway cart on a first social call? Landreth would most certainly not approve.