That Summer: A Novel (45 page)

“How do people live like this?” Julia asked, drawing the drapes closed, thankful for whatever familial thrift had caused Aunt Regina to retain the anachronistically heavy curtains on their brass rods.

“It will die down,” Nick said with authority, and Julia remembered that he had good reason to know. He’d been that two-week wonder once, in much more painful circumstances.

“I don’t know,” said Julia. “I was rather tempted by the one who offered me a private séance with Gavin Thorne, results guaranteed. It would be nice to have a firsthand account of what actually happened out there.”

In deference to their surroundings, while Nick had built the fire Julia had made a pot of tea in Aunt Regina’s battered brown pot, paired, incongruously, with a set of delicate Spode cups and saucers. Among the bounty in Nick’s grocery bags had been a variety of biscuits, so Julia had arranged ginger biscuits and chocolate fingers on a plate and now they sat, surrounded by crumbs and warmed by tea, on Aunt Regina’s comfortably saggy old sofa, watching the flames in the fireplace snap and crackle.

Nick had discarded his jacket, which hung limply off the side of the couch. His collar was open and his feet were stretched comfortably out in front of him.

It all felt very cozily domestic, but for the reporters outside and, of course, the hole in the floor of the summerhouse where Gavin Thorne’s body had lain, unsanctified, for the past 160 years.

“At least now we know that Thorne didn’t run off on Imogen Grantham,” said Nick. His arm stretched out along the back of the sofa, brushing Julia’s shoulder. “Poor sod.”

“Poor Imogen,” countered Julia, allowing herself the luxury of leaning into his arm. “Can you imagine, all those months, living in this house, wondering what had happened to her lover? I wonder if she suspected, or if she just thought that Thorne had abandoned her.”

Among the belongings found on the body, worn by time but still legible, had been papers and tickets for a Mr. and Mrs. Gareth Rose. Julia found it ironic that they had been bound for New York. It was enough to make one wonder about karma. If they had made it to New York—if Imogen’s daughter had been born there—

Then Julia’s mother would never have met her father and there would have been no her, she reminded herself. But it struck Julia strongly, all the same, that she had wound up where Gavin and Imogen had intended to be.

She curled her legs up underneath her, resting her arm against the back of the couch. “In some ways, it makes it sadder. To think that they were so close to happiness and someone stopped them.”

Nick snagged a ginger biscuit from the plate. “‘Stopped’ is such a tasteful euphemism,” he murmured. “As opposed to ‘walloped,’ ‘whacked,’ or ‘otherwise slaughtered.’”

The police had managed to confirm that the bones were of the right time period, give or take a few decades, and that the skull showed signs of fracture, presumably with some sort of blunt instrument.

“It’s like a game of Clue,” said Julia. “Do you think it was the candlestick in the conservatory or the fireplace poker in the library?”

“Or a gentleman’s walking stick,” suggested Nick. He crunched down on his biscuit with obvious relish, scattering crumbs across his knees. “There’s one logical suspect in all this.”

It didn’t take much to figure out what he was thinking. “Hell hath no fury like a husband wronged?”

“Divorce wasn’t easy back then.” He leaned back, regarding her speculatively. “If Imogen Grantham was having an affair with Gavin Thorne in 1849 and her daughter was born in 1850 … Did it ever occur to you that Thorne might be your great-great-grandfather?”

“Actually, no,” said Julia slowly. It had all seemed like a story in a book, something long ago and far away, with no practical application. Purely of academic interest. “That’s … wow.”

Nick took another bite of his biscuit, looking far too pleased with himself. “It would explain the artistic strain.”

Julia narrowed her eyes at him. “I thought you were the one who said these things didn’t necessarily run in families. Or what was that about your notable performance in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
?”

“Notable for being anything but notable,” Nick corrected. He twisted his head to look at her. “Don’t you like the idea?”

Julia leaned back against the cushions, trying to make sense of it all. “In the abstract, yes.” It was kind of neat to think of being descended from one of the original Pre-Raphaelites. “But it doesn’t really make any difference, does it? I’m still the same me I was before, whether I’m descended from Gavin Thorne or the dustman.”

“Or William the Conquerer—if your cousin Caroline is to be believed,” said Nick blandly.

Julia lobbed a small embroidered pillow at him.

He ducked neatly, saying, “But where it does matter is in terms of motive. If Grantham knew that his wife was carrying another man’s child…”

“We don’t know that for sure. Even if she was, Grantham might have been happily ignorant. Did you see those piles and piles of diaries up in the attic? Those were their daughter’s—Olivia’s. It doesn’t sound like Grantham ever mistreated her or neglected her or ever gave any indication that he wasn’t her real father.”

“He didn’t have to, did he?” Nick argued. “The adulterous parties were both dead. Easier to hush it up and play the doting father.”

Julia wasn’t convinced. “You don’t think it would have come out, somehow, in his behavior if he’d known?”

“People are unpredictable,” said Nick profoundly. “What we do know is that someone killed Thorne, here, on the grounds of this house, and had the means to stick him away under the summerhouse. Who else could it be?”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Herne Hill, 1857

It was a rainy Tuesday and Olivia Grantham needed someplace to hide.

To be fair, she hadn’t meant to spill ink on Miss Penbury’s false curls. Penbury was terribly proud of her hairpiece, although how she could assume that anyone believed that it was real Olivia didn’t know. It wasn’t even the same color as the rest of her hair. The curls were a determined auburn, while the rest of Miss Penbury’s hair was a rather streaky grayish brown.

Olivia had a strange fascination with those tightly rolled curls. So, when she had happened to come upon Miss Penbury’s hairpiece unattended …

Really, she had just been looking at it. It was pure bad luck that she had happened to knock over that bottle of ink and even worse luck that Penbury had come in before Olivia had got it all sopped up. Apparently, dropping the false front into the washbasin hadn’t been at all the thing to do.

Olivia had fled the schoolroom while Penbury was still mourning over her sodden curls, which were now no longer auburn but a rather greenish black. It was, Olivia had decided, safer to be out of the way until the hubbub had died down.

But where to hide? Penbury knew most of her usual haunts: behind the thick drapes in the drawing room, beneath the claw-footed sideboard in the dining room, in that curious little nook between the day nursery and the night nursery. She couldn’t take refuge in the trees in the orchard; the world outside was uniformly damp and gray and Olivia had no desire to be dripped upon, even in the interest of eluding Miss Penbury and a—she had to admit—somewhat deserved scolding.

But only somewhat. It wasn’t as though she had intended to ruin Penbury’s false front. Although it had turned a rather fascinating color once the ink had spilled on it.

Somehow, Olivia suspected Penbury wouldn’t quite appreciate that.

For want of better options, she darted into Aunt Jane’s room. Papa’s room was off-limits, and the room that had belonged to Olivia’s mama was too sacred to enter. Papa had kept it just as it had been when she was alive, and Olivia didn’t go there. Sometimes, she would creep as far as the door and, heart high in her chest, open it and peer inside the shrouded interior—and then close it again very quickly, before she was caught.

But Aunt Jane was just Aunt Jane, and while she might be cross at finding Olivia hiding at the back of her wardrobe, she would certainly be less cross than Penbury. By rights, Aunt Jane’s room was forbidden territory; Olivia wasn’t meant to be fussing with her aunt’s things. In practice, though, Olivia couldn’t imagine Aunt Jane would scold, any more than she had scolded when she caught Olivia wearing her best going-to-church hat and one of Father’s cravats as a scarf. Aunt Jane pretended to be strict, but her scoldings were usually followed with a slice of bread and jam, the amount of jam directly proportional to the length of the scolding.

Olivia had once overheard Aunt Jane telling Father that Olivia was the daughter she had never had. While she knew this was meant kindly, Olivia was secretly, guiltily, glad that Aunt Jane wasn’t her mother. Her real mother was much more interesting. She knew very little about her, only that she had been beautiful—there was her portrait in the drawing room, all dark hair and big, soulful eyes—and that she had died bringing Olivia into the world, which Olivia found terribly sad and romantic.

Aunt Jane, prim, prosaic Aunt Jane, with her graying blond hair and the horrible candies that gave her breath an odd stench, just couldn’t compete, although in the everyday course of things it was Aunt Jane to whom Olivia went running with scraped knees and small triumphs.

Her room also had the distinct advantage of boasting a commodious wardrobe, with plenty of room for an agile seven-year-old to scrunch in tight at the back. One side was filled from top to bottom with drawers, the other crowded with cloth-covered dresses hanging from pegs. With a quick glance over her shoulder Olivia tugged open the doors of the wardrobe and scrambled into the opening, burrowing between a wool petticoat and a scratchy thing of stiffened horsehair, only to find her ingress thwarted by something large and rectangular leaning against the back of the wardrobe, something that took up all of the valuable hiding space behind the dresses.

It wobbled dangerously as Olivia bumped into it, and she caught at a cloth-shrouded corner to keep it from falling. The linen wrappings tugged free in her hand, revealing a corner of a brightly painted scene, like something out of a storybook.

She had only the briefest impression of a king with a crown, and a lady with a cup, and, best of all, a darling black and white dog with its paws stretched out in front of it before there was the sound of angry footsteps and someone was upon her, hauling her out backward by the collar of her dress.

“You wicked, wicked girl!” It was Aunt Jane’s voice, but Aunt Jane as Olivia had never heard her before. “What are you doing here?”

Aunt Jane’s face was flushed with anger; she seemed to crackle with rage, from the top of her head down to the bottom of her crinoline. Olivia felt uncertain. She had never seen Aunt Jane like this before. She hadn’t thought that Aunt Jane would mind so about Miss Penbury’s curls.

Dropping her head, Olivia scuffed the toe of her buttoned boot against the carpet. “Miss Penbury—”

Aunt Jane grabbed her ungently by the arm and hauled her forward. “You can imagine I shall have a word with your Miss Penbury! Allowing you to run wild—like a little savage!—what your father will say…”

Olivia pulled back against Aunt Jane’s arm, too curious to be wise. “But, Aunt Jane, what about the picture?”

Her aunt stopped abruptly. Her hands descended on Olivia’s shoulders like talons. “There is no picture,” she said.

“But there was,” Olivia began stubbornly. In her short life she had seldom been contradicted and thwarted, and certainly not by Aunt Jane, purveyor of jam and bread. “It was the prettiest—”

Olivia’s teeth rattled in her mouth as her aunt shook her hard enough to make the ribbon slide free from her hair. Olivia looked up at Aunt Jane in shock and indignation. What she saw in her aunt’s face scared her, scared her into silence.

“There is no picture,” Aunt Jane said savagely. “Do you understand me?” Another shake. “There is no picture.”

Despite herself, Olivia nodded. This was worse than Miss Penbury, worse than the discolored curls. “Aunt Jane…”

“Come along.” Taking hold of her arm, her aunt propelled her forward. “You’re going back to the nursery and you’ll stay there while I tell your Miss Penbury what I think of her notions of discipline.”

Meekly Olivia obeyed, although she couldn’t resist taking one last look over her shoulder as her aunt tugged her through the door of the room. But it was no use. The angle of the wardrobe door hid any sign of the picture within.

There had been a picture. She had seen it; she had touched it. But she knew enough not to press the point. Aunt Jane had never raised a hand to her in anger before, had never called her wicked. The words stung.

Olivia was confined to the nursery for a week, a long week with an indignant Penbury, still furious at Olivia over the destruction of her beloved hairpiece and even more outraged over the dressing-down she had received from Aunt Jane over Olivia’s conduct. Olivia was set to writing out lines.
A young lady must never
 …

There were to be no walks in the garden until she showed herself capable of behaving like a young lady, and she was forbidden the use of her watercolors for a month.

Inwardly Olivia seethed at the injustice of it all. She didn’t understand why Aunt Jane was so angry. It wasn’t as though Olivia had meant any harm, and didn’t the vicar always say it was intentions that counted? And there had so been a picture.

The idea of the picture haunted her. At night, she lay in her narrow bed in the night nursery, with Penbury snoring in her little room just beyond, and tried to reconstruct the scene from the little bit she had seen.

Bit by bit, life fell back into its normal patterns. Penbury bought herself a new cap and seemed resigned, if not reconciled, to the loss of her curls. Aunt Jane indicated her forgiveness by allowing Olivia to wind her wool, despite Olivia’s tendency to get it into tangles. The weather cleared enough to permit the walks that Miss Penbury loosely termed “instruction in natural history.”

It was several weeks before Olivia had her opportunity. She waited cunningly until Miss Penbury was laid up with a toothache and Aunt Jane had been called away to a meeting of one of her benevolent societies. Having assured, via a visit down the back stairs, that Anna and Cook were engaged in a comfortable coze in the kitchen (and secured herself a biscuit in the process), she crept into Aunt Jane’s room.