The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place (15 page)

“We will send you the letter and your upcoming month’s pay,” said Stout Alice.

Barnes nodded and opened the door. A cloud of burnt
f
lour fumes entered the room, but the daily woman had too much pride to cough. She showed herself down the corridor and out of the house. Smooth Kitty felt her whole body de
f
late when she heard the front door close.

Disgraceful Mary Jane poked her head in the door. “How’d that go?”

“Badly enough,” Stout Alice said. She pulled off her nightcap. “How goes the cooking?”

Mary Jane shrugged. “The muffins weren’t a total success, but the rice pudding looks decent. A little lumpy, maybe. But come and eat Barnes’s eel pie. She made it specially for you.”

“Did you test it for poison?” Alice asked.

That’s when the tears caught up with Kitty. “We don’t have to test Barnes’s eel pie,” she lamented. “It’ll be right as rain. Poor, poor woman.” She buried her face in a pillow.

CHAPTER 13

The students enrolled at Saint Etheldreda’s School for Young Ladies set out the following morning for a walk into the village of Ely, armed with baskets and parasols, on a mission to complete several errands of vital importance. It was a fine clear day, with warm sun balanced by cool breezes blowing in across the fens. Saint Mary’s church bells were just ringing ten o’clock as they closed the front door to the school behind them, and Mr. Shambles, the rooster, crowed at them as they closed the gate.

“This is fine, for a change,” Disgraceful Mary Jane declared, as they set off down Prickwillow Road toward Ely. “That house was beginning to close in on me.”

The cry of the train whistle greeted them from the far-off station.

“Someday let’s board that train and go somewhere interesting,” Stout Alice said.

“Agreed,” said Disgraceful Mary Jane. “Someplace exotic and far away.”

“In the meantime,” Kitty said sternly, “until we can board that train, we’ve got business to attend to. Today we’ll shop, tomorrow we’ll wash clothes. We’ve got some terribly muddy frocks, and we promised Alice we’d launder Mrs. Plackett’s things.”

“
Things
,” Stout Alice repeated, “Speaking of Mrs. Plackett’s things, Kitty, dear, where did you put Admiral Lockwood’s elephant?”

“I put it in the curio cabinet in the drawing room,” Kitty said. “Why do you ask?”

Alice frowned. “I can’t say, really. It’s certain to be quite valuable, don’t you think?”

“I locked the cabinet.” Kitty felt defensive, which made her cross. “It’s safe enough there. I’m sure that’s what Mrs. Plackett would have done.”

“I’m just thinking about our murderer,” Alice said slowly. “He let himself into the house to poison the meat. It makes me wonder, is all.”

“Maybe we should conceal the elephant somewhere no one would ever think to look,” Dull Martha ventured.

“I’ll think about it,” Kitty said, rather loftily. Secretly she suspected Alice was right to be concerned. But taking precautions was
her
role in their little tribe. Anything she didn’t think of first, she couldn’t consider to be valid, on principle.

Before long they reached the bustle of the city of Ely itself. Because it had a cathedral it was considered a city; by any other measure it was a small, bustling market town. But even a hamlet feels like a metropolis to bright, social young ladies who have been cloistered far too long in one house. The shopkeepers in their aprons, the tradesmen in their boots, and the housewives with their caps and babies were an invigorating sight. They proved the world was more than seven maidens, two corpses, and a puppy. Even Dour Elinor took notice of other living creatures with curious interest.

They stopped first at the post office on Market Street, where they mailed a stack of written bills, one to each of their families, as well as polite notes in Mrs. Plackett’s counterfeit hand to Miss Fringle, inquiring after her health; to Mrs. Rumsey, thanking her for the tablecloth linen; and to Admiral Lockwood, thanking him for his solicitous inquiries and generous gifts.

“That one was the most horrid one to write,” Dour Elinor muttered, dropping it in the letterbox. “Kitty made me redo it twice. She said my writing wasn’t
alluring
enough.”

“Disgusting,” Pocked Louise said.

“But necessary,” added Smooth Kitty.

“And wonderfully scandalous,” said Disgraceful Mary Jane.

Elinor was unappeased. “How does one make ‘Thank you for the elephant’ sound alluring, I’d like to know?”

Each letter had informed its recipient that Mrs. Plackett was beginning to mend, and feeling much better now. Kitty thought this advisable, so that Mrs. Plackett’s sudden appearance at tomorrow’s strawberry social did not attract too much unwelcome comment.

A postman met them in passing as they left the post office, and tipped his hat.

“Morning, young ladies,” he said. “So sorry to hear about Mrs. Plackett’s nephew ailing.”

They curtseyed in mute surprise, but the street all around them was too crowded now to discuss. They made their way to High Street. Over the rooftops of the Market Street lodgings and shops loomed grand Ely Cathedral—a friendly silhouette from a distance but almost terrifying in its ponderous bulk up close. Saint Etheldreda was its patron saint and founder, and their own school, as with so many other institutions in the city of Ely, was named for her.

“The Cathedral of the Maiden Saint,” Pocked Louise murmured.

Dear Roberta bowed her head. “May she deliver us maidens from our present troubles.”

Stout Alice patted Roberta’s back. “We need all the help we can get.”

“Young ladies,” said a voice from behind them. They turned to see a woman dressed in a stately mauve jacket and skirt, with a peacock-green blouse, nodding graciously toward them. “Will you be so kind, my dear young ladies, as to convey to your headmistress Mrs. Groutley-Ball’s best wishes and concerns regarding her brother and nephew?”

They nodded mutely. Mrs. Groutley-Ball did likewise and moved on down the street.

“What in heaven’s name is going on?” whispered Disgraceful Mary Jane.

“Miss Fringle, I think,” Stout Alice replied. “She wouldn’t miss a chance to tell a living soul about the calamities at Constance Plackett’s house.”

Smooth Kitty’s mouth was set in a grim line. “I don’t like it,” she said. “It does our cause no favors. The less people mindful of our affairs, the better.”

“Then we should move to London,” Pocked Louise said, “for there’s no escaping everyone knowing your affairs in Ely.”

Their next errand was far from pleasant. They made their way down High Street to Saint Mary’s Street, where they passed their own parish church. Reverend Rumsey waved good morning to them from the rectory window by raising his glass in the air. From Saint Mary’s Street they turned onto Cromwell Avenue, where the lord protector himself once lived. In a little row of dwellings, they found the number that marked where Amanda Barnes lived with her mother.

Smooth Kitty jingled the bell. Nothing happened.

A little boy rolling a hoop watched them from some distance up the street. He looked like a youth with a high opinion of no one.

They waited, and were just about to leave, when Kitty thought she heard something from within. It was a slow, shuf
f
ling, scraping sound.

The door creaked open, and there stood a very elderly woman indeed. Her white hair was pulled back off her face into a wispy bun. Her face drooped in folds of wrinkled skin, and her tired, careworn eyes took in the sight of the young ladies without any show of welcome.

“Mrs. Barnes?” Smooth Kitty began. “Does Amanda Barnes live here?”

Mrs. Barnes nodded once.

Smooth Kitty held out an envelope. “Then may we leave this for her?” The old lady made no move to take it. “It contains her letter of reference, and her upcoming month’s pay.”

Still the old woman stared blearily at them, without any gesture toward accepting the envelope.

“It’s got
money
in it,” Disgraceful Mary Jane added loudly.

Stout Alice elbowed Mary Jane. Slowly, the woman took the envelope.

Kitty curtseyed, and the other young ladies followed suit. Then they hurried back down Cromwell Street toward Saint Mary’s. The surly youth sent his hoop
f
lying along the road after them. Pocked Louise heard it rattle, turned, and caught it before it struck Dour Elinor.

“I say!” she cried, glaring at the young miscreant. “What do you mean by this?”

The boy sauntered over and plucked the hoop from Pocked Louise. “Stuck up prigs, sacking my aunt,” he said. “My brother Jimmy told me all about it. He’s what delivers your groceries. Every week she fusses over the order. Makes Jimmy bring it to her so she can check if the foodstuffs is fine enough for you lot. There’s nothing she hain’t done for that school. Mam said so. And this is the thanks she gets.” He scrunched up his freckled nose in a scowl laced with all the malice his eight-year-old face could hold, and stuck out his tongue.

“Stick your tongue out and somebody’ll chop it off,” snapped Disgraceful Mary Jane.

“Stop,” Stout Alice murmured. “Let be.” To the youth she said, “Good morning, young lad,” then turned and walked away.

Once clear of Cromwell Street, everyone breathed easier. They headed back to Market Street, prepared to fill their baskets with groceries.

“Let’s not go to our usual shop,” Pocked Louise suggested. “I don’t think I’m ready to meet the wrath of another of Barnes’s nephews just yet.”

“You don’t think it was the grocer, or his butcher man, who poisoned the veal, do you?” Dull Martha enquired. Poison and veal were subjects the poor girl still could not shake from her troubled mind.

“I considered that,” Pocked Louise replied. “But if the poison had originated with the grocer’s butcher, there’d be corpses all over town, and we’ve heard no death-knells ring.”

“Was Mrs. Plackett behind in her food bill?” Dour Elinor asked.

They found a grocer where no Barneses were employed. The proprietor, a smiling man with a shiny bald dome and red suspenders, asked to be remembered to Mrs. Plackett, and wished her a speedy recovery.

“Good Lord,” Kitty gasped, when finally they left the store laden with cans, boxes, and paper packages, including dogs’ meat. “Did somebody advertise our troubles in the newspaper?”

“It’s Miss Fringle, I tell you,” Stout Alice repeated. “Sprained ankle or no, she’d canvass the town with any gossip.”

“Next, my friend the chemist,” said Pocked Louise. “Elinor needs better cosmetics for … you-know-what.”

“Is he really your friend?” Dull Martha inquired.

Pocked Louise smiled. “No. He just operates my favorite store in town.”

They entered the chemist’s shop and set down their baskets. Kitty’s eyes roved aimlessly over the rows upon straight rows of shining bottles, each with their neatly pasted labels. Odors of potent and heady chemicals, mingled with perfumes and caramel sweets, struck her nostrils.

Elinor, Louise, and Alice shopped for cosmetic supplies together, but it was Elinor who led the purchases. “These grease paints will do nicely,” she said. “We need cold cream and stage putty.”

“Putting on a drama pageant, ladies?” Mr. Buckley, the chemist, greeted them.

Elinor ignored his question. “Do you have any Vaseline?”

Mr. Buckley looked pleased to be asked. “As a matter of fact, I do,” he said, reaching for a small gray bottle. “Been hearing all sorts of marvelous claims about this in the journals. Cures a multitude of skin problems, they say.”

Disgraceful Mary Jane, Dear Roberta, and Dull Martha wandered off to explore a display of perfumes and face creams, leaving Kitty standing by the counter. Her mind was too preoccupied to notice a customer enter the shop and stand beside her at the counter.

Mr. Buckley left the young ladies to greet the newcomer. “Can I help you, sir?”

“Bicarbonate of soda, please,” the stranger said.

“A tin, or packets?”

Kitty glanced at the customer. He was a young man dressed in a tan linen coat and a gray John Bull top hat, with a shocking bow-tie of violet silk. His face and hands were unusually browned by the sun, and he spoke with an accent she couldn’t place.

“Packets, I suppose,” the young man said. He caught sight of Kitty watching him, and tipped the brim of his hat in her direction. Kitty quickly looked away.

Mr. Buckley handed the customer his packets of powder and collected payment. “Rather young to suffer indigestion, aren’t you?” he observed with a smile.

The customer returned the smile. “They’re for my mother.” He jingled his change in his palm then placed two half-pennies back on the counter. “Ha’penny caramels, if I may.”

Mr. Buckley fished two caramels out of a tall glass jar and handed them to the customer. He unwrapped the wax paper off of one and popped it into his mouth. Then, with a wink and another tip of his hat, he dropped the other into Smooth Kitty’s grocery basket, and left the shop.

The bell on the door had stopped jingling long before Kitty stopped staring after him.

“Aren’t you going to eat it?” Mr. Buckley polished his glass countertop. His eyes twinkled at Kitty. “Mrs. Buckley made that batch fresh this morning.”

Kitty fished the sweet from her basket and eyed it suspiciously. It felt wrong, somehow, to eat the candy. As though eating it would sanction the stranger’s forward behavior.

But he was gone, and the caramel felt soft and pliant between her fingers.

And anyway, the young man was much too well-mannered and well-dressed to be a scoundrel. It was only a spontaneous burst of generosity, she decided, not
f
lirtation.

She slipped the caramel into her mouth. Rich, buttery sweetness oozed across her tongue.

“Next time Mamma sends me my allowance I’m coming back for this cologne.” Disgraceful Mary Jane reappeared at Kitty’s side, nearly causing her to choke on her candy. “By the by, who was that young man you were talking with? What did he want with you?”

Kitty struggled to conceal her chewing and keep her face blank. “Nufink.”

Elinor, Alice, and Louise returned to the counter with their final items.