The Dashwood Sisters Tell All (14 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A
t dinner the night before, Mimi and I had agreed to meet very early for breakfast to try to finish solving the riddles. I had left the windows open in my room to relieve some of the heat, so the birdsong at first light woke me bright and early. I sat up in bed and picked up the list of riddles from the nightstand.

“What are you trying to tell us?” I was reduced to talking to an inanimate object.

I took a quick shower and headed downstairs, but Mimi was already there, seated at the table in the bay window.

“This is a first,” I said, nodding at her with approval. The night before, I hadn't been able to bring myself to tell her that the diary was missing. I was going to have to confess sooner or later. Probably sooner, and then I would have to admit that I should have listened to her suggestion about the hotel safe.

She stuck out her tongue at me and then smiled. “Don't be so bossy, or I won't help you with the riddles.”

“Can I be bossy enough to help myself to some of your coffee?” I nodded toward the French press on the table.

“All right. But you owe me.”

The easy camaraderie was as welcome as it was unexpected.

“So did you have any blinding insights in the middle of the night?” I asked her. “Any symbolic dreams that would simplify this whole thing?”

Mimi sighed. “I wish. What about you?”

I poured my coffee and stirred in a lump of sugar. “Let's get to work.” I pulled the sheet of paper containing the transcribed riddles from my pocket. Mimi took it from me, unfolded it, and laid it on the table. She reread the first one.

Along the narrow way it goes
From house to house and back again
A carpet for a traveler's woes
That always brings one home again.

“So what's
it
?” I asked her. “
Along the narrow way it goes
?”

“
From house to house
?” She fiddled with the handle of her coffee cup. “A salesman, maybe?” she said with a smile.

“I’m pretty sure they’d never heard of the Fuller Brush guy back then.” I laughed. “Really, what's narrow, goes from house to house, and has something to do with travelers?”

Mimi smiled. “That's easy. It's a road.”

“Good.” I let out a little sigh of relief. Maybe this part wouldn't be that hard after all. “What about the next one?” I picked up the paper from the table to read.

A gentleman learns from an early age
To play his part upon the stage
His lines are crisp, his speech is clear
He studies most from year to year.

“That doesn't even make sense.” Mimi frowned. “Is she talking about a theater or something?”

I took another sip of coffee. “Or it could mean ‘school,’ or something like that.
Learns
and
studies
. Maybe Cassandra meant where a gentleman gets his education.”

“Okay, then we’ve got
road
and
school
. What's next?”

I read the third riddle again.

Couples crowd to dance in time
A flower thus may last for years
A wine must age to be sublime
But first the grapes must run quite clear.

“No clue,” Mimi said.

“Wait.” Excitement rose in my chest, because I was starting to get a feel for Cassandra Austen's turn of mind. “What do the three things have in common?”

Mimi scanned the paper again. “Well, I just read in
Sense and Sensibility
about a ball with too many people to fit in the room being called a
squeeze
. And that's what you do to grapes to get wine.”

“But not to a flower to make it last,” I said. “That you have to
press
.”

We sat in silence for a moment, sipping our coffee.

“Let's move on to the last one,” Mimi said. She read it out loud.

Tailor, draper, seamstress all
Needles, thread and trimmings
Fashion, fair or rough or small
With trunks and boxes brimming

“I’ve been thinking about that one.” Mimi tossed the paper to the table. “It's clothes, of course.” She leaned back in her chair. “It doesn't make sense, though, when you put them together.
Road
,
clothes
,
school
and
press
. What do those things have in common? Maybe we don't have the words right.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, that first one,” Mimi said. “It could mean
road
or
street
or even
highway
.”

“
Clothes squeeze
,” I read. “But that doesn't make any sense. The closest thing I can think of would be a pants press.”

“Pants press?” Mimi looked at me incredulously. “Like that thing in our hotel room in London?” The strange contraption—strange to us Americans, at least, who made do with an iron and ironing board—was a staple in British hotels.

“That doesn't make sense, though, does it?” I studied the list of words again. What if we’d gotten the riddle wrong? We might have mistaken a stray mark for underlining. And now we didn't have the diary to be sure.

“Besides,” Mimi said with a small laugh, “I think
pants
means underwear over here. Isn't it called a trouser press?”

“We’ll never figure this out.” I wasn't usually so pessimistic, but with the prospect of confessing the loss of the diary looming over me, I wasn't feeling very positive. I had to tell Mimi the truth about the theft. “Look, Meems, I should have come to your room last night and talked to you.”

Her face scrunched up in a funny expression. “It's okay, Ell. I don't need sympathy.”

“What?”

“I know I made a fool of myself with Ethan. I probably got what I deserved.”

I hated that for her, but at least she was taking some responsibility for a change.

“I’m sorry.” And I was. However strained our relationship might have been, I wanted my sister to be happy.

“Thanks.”

“But that's not what I meant about coming to talk with you.” I took a deep breath. “I guess I have a confession of my own to make.”

She leaned back in her chair and smiled. “This should be good. Is it Daniel? Have you two gotten together?”

“No. I mean, maybe. I don't know. But that's not what I should have talked to you about.”
Oh dear.

“What is it?” she said, exasperated. “C’mon, Ell. It can't be that bad.”

“It's the diary.”

Her face fell, and so did my stomach.

“It's gone, isn’t it?” She didn't ask it as a question. In fact, it was almost as if she was expecting it.

“When I got back early yesterday afternoon, it wasn't there. Someone's taken it.”

Mimi's face went white as a sheet.

At that moment, our tête-à-tête was interrupted by none other than Mrs. Parrot. She came into the small dining room carrying a glass of orange juice from the cold buffet outside the door. The color of the juice matched her hair.

“Good morning, Ellen. Mimi. Would you mind if I joined you?” She didn't wait for an answer before pulling out a chair at our table.

“Please do,” I said, although I didn't really mean it. I folded the notepaper and slipped it into my pocket. Mimi shot me a frustrated look. Then she sent Mrs. Parrot a more malevolent one.

“How are you both feeling this morning?” Mrs. Parrot looked at us through the thick lenses of her glasses, as if examining two bugs under a microscope.

“We’re very well, thank you,” Mimi said in her most prim and proper voice. “And you?”

“Also very well, thank you.”

Silence fell, and a waiter appeared. Mrs. Parrot ordered a pot of tea and brown toast.

“Are you looking forward to Selborne today?” she asked.

“I’m sure it will be lovely,” I said. How was I supposed to carry on as if this were a normal piece of breakfast chitchat? “Is there anything in particular we should look for on the walk?” It was hard to think about anything but Cassandra's diary and her riddles, especially when my main suspect for the diary theft was happily buttering her toast in front of me.

“Anything special? No, no.” Mrs. Parrot poured out her tea. “Simply enjoy the beauty.”

Mimi's gaze shot daggers at Mrs. Parrot, but I sent her a warning look. No way was I going to let her attack the woman without proof. Not after the awkward scene when Mrs. Parrot found me lurking in her room, and not when I couldn't be one hundred percent sure that this woman was the culprit. That was another thing Mimi didn't know about. She still didn't know that Daniel knew about the diary.

Mimi sat down her coffee cup and looked at the older woman. “Mrs. Parrot, there's something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

Uh-oh. I could see where this was going. Mimi's style could be considered confrontational under the best of circumstances.

I leaped into the fray. “Will you be walking into Selborne with us today?”

“No, no, my dear. I’m afraid it's a bit too rough for me.”

“Oh.” What else was I supposed to say?

“Mrs. Parrot—” Mimi was not to be dissuaded.

I jumped in again. “We’ve enjoyed seeing you this morning, but Mimi and I really need to run back to our rooms and finish packing.”

“Of course, dears. Needs must.” She smiled at us quite fondly, really, which seemed strange.

I practically dragged Mimi out of her chair. “C’mon, sis. We don't have much time.”

Mimi's arm was rigid beneath my hand, but she cooperated, thank goodness. I knew I’d pay for my intervention later though.

I led her from the breakfast room, away from Mrs. Parrot and the potential explosion of accusations.

“You should have let me confront her,” Mimi hissed as we moved toward the stairs. “What if she took the diary?”

“She wouldn't have admitted anything.” I shoved her up the staircase in front of me.

“Maybe not,” she said over her shoulder, “but she would have given herself away somehow. We’ve got to get that diary back.”

“We will, okay? But we can't just accuse someone of theft without proof.”

“Then we’ll get proof.”

I sighed and climbed the stairs after her. “I certainly hope so, Meems. I certainly hope so.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

M
y sister should have let me confront Mrs. Parrot. She had to have been the one who took the diary, because if she wasn’t…Well, she had to have taken it.

Ellen hustled me off to my room and told me to leave finding the diary to her. I didn't want to agree, but she looked so distressed—and I felt so guilty—that I finally gave in.

Thursday was our last full day of walking. I emerged from the hotel a little early so that I could get Tom to help me with my feet.

“I’ll be glad to,” he said when I asked him for a little blister triage. He led me back into the garden and the bench where we’d sat the night before. His offer of assistance and the reminder of our nighttime confidences made me uncomfortable, but not in an uneasy way. It was more that I’d let him come too close, and now I wasn't sure how to put distance between us again.

Somehow having another person tend to my feet, especially a male person, felt exceptionally intimate. Tom probably did this all the time in his role as tour leader, but I couldn't remember the last time someone had performed first aid on me like that. Actually, I could. My mother couldn't stand the sight of blood, so it was usually my sister who wound up having to squirt the Bactine on my injuries and apply the Band-Aids.

Tom eyed his handiwork. “It looks like everything is holding up pretty well.”

“I guess so.” I sighed. “Are you sure you can't just magically heal them?”

He finished applying the last blister patch and patted the top of my foot. “I would if I could.” Then he winked at me.

I would never have figured Tom Braddock for a winking kind of guy, but he did have amazing silver-blue eyes. The wink emphasized the lines around the corner of his eyes.

Soon the others joined us, and Tom gave his now-traditional beginning-of-the-day introduction.

“The village we’re visiting today, Selborne, was the home of Gilbert White,” he began. “He was a famous eighteenth-century naturalist. It's almost certain that he was acquainted with Jane Austen's father, as they were both clergymen and lived within a few miles of one another.”

To my relief, Ethan didn't appear that morning. I overheard one of the Austenites ask Tom about him, but Tom's answer was noncommittal. “He may catch up with us at Selborne” was all he had said. I was relieved by Ethan's absence but also worried. What if he, and not Mrs. Parrot, had taken the diary? How in the world would I ever get it back?

There was nothing I could do at the moment, so I focused on putting one foot in front of the other as we made our way toward Selborne. The walk into the village skirted fields and rambled down country lanes overhung with leafy tree limbs. We climbed our first hanger, or hill, as we made our way through Selborne Common, a wooded area with occasional open spaces. We mounted a ridge, crested the hill, and then descended once more into the valley. Underfoot, the ground was slippery with dried leaves. For all that I had dreaded coming to England, I had, despite my blisters, found a measure of peace in walking the footpaths and byways.

As we drew closer to the village, we began to pass the most darling little cottages, all thatched roofs and climbing roses, and the sight of them lifted my spirits. Each one seemed to contain a breathtakingly beautiful front garden, and before we even reached the village, I was in love. How could anyone who ever visited this place contemplate leaving?

We came to the edge of the village green, which Tom informed us in Hampshire was called a plestor. Mrs. Parrot was waiting once again with the van and the refreshments, and I gratefully claimed a large glass of orange-flavored water. The day had grown more humid so that by midmorning my T-shirt clung to me. If it hadn't been for the nettles, I would have zipped off the lower part of my convertible hiking pants. My fear of nettles, though, won out over my need for comfort.

“We’ll rest a few minutes here, then set off down the lythe,” Tom said.
Lythe
was another Hampshire term—it meant “valley.”

We passed the church and then came to the edge of the churchyard. From there, we had a beautiful view down the length of the valley.

“This is the Short Lythe,” Tom said. “Beyond it is the Long Lythe. We’ll walk to the end and then circle back through the trees over there. That will lead us back into the village and to—”

“A pub for lunch,” we all chorused, now accustomed to the routine.

Mrs. Parrot took our lunch orders and refilled our water bottles, and then we set off.

For the first time, I walked in the front of the group with Tom. It was much less stressful now, not having to position myself so that I could “accidentally” end up next to Ethan. Tom and I chatted as we made our way down the steep descent into the valley, and I felt more peaceful than I had in a long time. I enjoyed walking with him at the front.

“How are the feet holding up?” Tom asked as we made our way under a canopy of tree limbs.

“Don't fuss.” I smiled at him to show that I appreciated his concern, but his shoulders stiffened.

“I wasn't fussing.” He’d been smiling a moment ago, but now he was looking straight ahead. Great. I’d allowed myself to forget for a moment that Tom was, in fact, a guy. And guys never liked to be scolded, especially if they were showing concern.

“I’m sorry. I appreciate your helping me. A lot. Otherwise I’d be stuck back in the van with Mrs. Parrot.”

“What's wrong with Mrs. Parrot?”

Now I’d really put my foot in it. “Nothing. Sorry. I’m just—”

“We’re fortunate to have someone of her caliber on this trip.”

“Yes. Of course we are.” Tears stung my eyes. I’d alienated the one ally I had left.

“It's a shame Ethan couldn't make it.” He didn't even look at me as he spoke.

“No, it isn’t.”

“Are you sure?”

Now he was making me mad. “I realize I’ve been an idiot, okay? No need to rub it in.”

Tom cast a glance over his shoulder, and I did the same. The others had dropped back so that we were virtually alone.

“Ethan said he had to go back to London on urgent business.” He paused. “I didn't want to say anything before…I thought you would think it was sour grapes. But Ethan has a reputation.”

“He's a womanizer, you mean.”

“That, but there's more.”

How much more could there be?

“Ethan inherited the house at Deane from his mother.”

“He told me that.”

“Did he tell you that it's falling down around his ears? And that he doesn't have the money to keep it up, much less renovate it?”

“I thought he was a banker in the city, or something like that.”

Tom shook his head. “No.”

A jolt of realization shook me. “Ethan thought I had money when we first met. Didn't he?” And not just a little money. Cassandra's-diary-at-auction kind of money.

“I think he thought you were a woman of means.”

“And he thought he would find a wealthy Austenite who would love the chance to date someone related to Jane Austen. Why didn't you warn me?” Anger flared in my chest. “You could have said something sooner.”

Tom looked at me as we walked and arched one eyebrow. “Would you have believed me?”

We both knew the answer.

“Sometimes,” Tom said, “we have to learn a lesson for ourselves.”

What he said should have sounded paternalistic and condescending, but instead it just sounded like the truth. My cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and I prayed for the sudden appearance of a sinkhole in the middle of the Long Lythe.

When none appeared, I stepped to the side of the path and bent down to tie my shoe, although it was already firmly tied. Thankfully, Tom kept walking, and I saw Ellen move up beside him to take my place.

I trailed behind them for the rest of the hike. Soon enough, the two of them were smiling and laughing, and it struck me that Tom and Ellen would make an ideal couple. They were both thorough, organized, and efficient. They took their duties seriously. Who was I kidding to think that a man like Tom Braddock would fall for someone like me? Ethan's rejection should have reminded me that no matter what I might look like on the outside, the woman on the inside wasn't desirable enough—or apparently wealthy enough—for the long term. How many times did I have to learn that lesson?

I looked down at my boots and kept my gaze focused on the trail for the rest of the hike.

Ellen and Tom were still in the lead when we returned a little early to Selborne. Tom told us we had almost an hour to look around the village if we liked. There was a quaint post office that was more like the English-village version of a convenience store. There were also several small galleries and artist's cooperatives. I was all set to go shopping when Ellen pulled me over to the side.

“Let's offer to buy Mrs. Parrot a drink at the pub.”

“Why?”

“Because I think she took the diary. And I’m going to get it back.”

Before I could stop her, Ellen had sprung into action.

“Mrs. Parrot.” Ellen stepped toward the older woman. “My sister and I were wondering if you might like to join us for something to drink in the pub garden.”

The older woman's face lit up, as if she were truly happy to receive the invitation. “Yes, dear. That would be delightful.”

She didn't look like someone who would sneak into Ellen's room intent on thievery, but then appearances could be deceiving, as I knew from personal experience. I didn't look like someone who had a brain in her head, but I wasn't the idiot most men took me to be. And I was holding out hope that Mrs. Parrot was the culprit, not Ethan. If Ellen thought she could get her to confess, then I was more than willing to help with the interrogation.

This pub, like the other ones we’d been to all week, boasted a low ceiling, heavy beams, and lots of charm.

“The garden's through there,” Ellen said with a nod. “Why don't I get the drinks, and you two find us a table.”

The rear of the pub boasted a cozy covered patio, but beyond that was a large garden with tables scattered under enormous trees. Several locals and their dogs had already settled in, but we found a table in the back corner in the shade.

“Have you been to Selborne often?” I asked Mrs. Parrot, more to fill the awkward silence than out of any real curiosity.

“On occasion. The garden at Gilbert White's house is very fine.” We were scheduled to spend part of our afternoon there, a tour of the house followed by a walk up the famous zigzag path. Gilbert White and a friend had built it up the steep side of the hill, or hanger.

“Here we are.” Ellen appeared balancing three large glasses. She set them on the table—diet sodas for us, and something that looked like cider for Mrs. Parrot.

I’d run out of small talk, so I let Ellen take the lead. She settled into her chair, took a sip of her soda, and then rested her clasped hands on the table.

“Mrs. Parrot, my sister and I have a dilemma, and we believe that you might be able to help us.”

The older woman's face gave nothing away. “I should be delighted to help, if I can.”

Ellen looked down at her hands and then back at Mrs. Parrot. “We’ve lost something. Something rather important.”

“We can look through the van,” Mrs. Parrot said, unruffled. “Perhaps underneath the seats…”