Twelfth Night (3 page)

“I have no doubt,” I promised, crossing my fingers behind my back.

The boys shook hands, eyes shining with enthusiasm, but before they could make further plans, there was a commotion at the door. Portia had arrived, her hair in disarray and her skirt marred by a suspicious stain. She went directly to the buffet table, taking a glass out of Aquinas’s hand as she went. She downed it and handed it back just as I reached her.

“Do not speak to me. I cannot believe you left me there all day with that...with that
creature
,” she said, lifting a plate and surveying the contents of the table. Dishes had been arranged atop a snowy damask cloth interspersed with vast displays of winter greens and berries and hothouse flowers. Aquinas had spared no glory, putting out the Cellini salt cellars and epergnes and a vast dish for holding ice and oysters. Portia seized the oyster tongs and began to load her plate.

“Don’t finish them off,” I ordered. “I haven’t had a single one.”

She turned, picked up the very last oyster and raised it to her lips. She slurped it down without a word and handed me the shell.

“That was uncalled for,” I said, a trifle hurt. “But I cannot imagine how one small baby could upset you so terribly. He’s very tiny.”

She gave me a quelling look. “I don’t mean the child. I mean that Scottish hell hag of yours.”

“Morag? What has she done?”

Portia helped herself to a large serving of pheasant and quince jam.

“What has she not done? She spent the entire day elbowing me out of the way, making me feel the most wretched fool. Every time I touched him, she snatched him away as if she thought I were going to heave him into the fire. She crooned and fussed and made the most appalling cooing noises at him.”

I felt my blood run cold. “You mean Morag
likes
him?”

“She adores him. I think she wants to keep him for a pet,” she told me.

I laughed. “We have quite enough of those.”

As if on cue, a tiny furred head peeped out of my décolletage. Portia sighed. “Hello, Snug.” She popped a tiny grape onto her finger and dropped it down my bodice. “For the dormouse,” she said with a malicious smile.

I twitched and twisted, trying every which way to retrieve the grape as Snug chased it down, tickling as he went. “Oh, you are foul,” I told Portia bitterly. “I didn’t want anyone to know I had him with me. You know how fussy Olivia can be.”

“Why didn’t you leave him upstairs?” She scooped up some potatoes
Dauphinoise
and a serving of peas.

“Too dangerous. Between Father’s cats, my raven, all the dogs and the Siamese I am keeping for Morgan Fielding, it’s Noah’s Ark around here, and poor Snug is on everyone’s menu.”

As if to underscore the sentiment, Snug gave me a long look with his sadly sweet brown eyes and dove into my décolletage again.

“But the little fellow gives me an idea,” I said slowly.

“What?” Portia demanded.

I flicked a glance to our solemn niece, Perdita, sitting with her knees clasped as closely as her secrets. “Never you mind,” I told her. “Never you mind.”

Chapter Four

Angels
and
ministers
of
grace
defend
us
!

—
Hamlet
, I, iv, 38

Brisbane came long after the food had been cleared and
we had all retired to our rooms for an early night. Father insisted upon plenty
of rest so we would be at our peak by Twelfth Night—a losing proposition as my
brothers usually crept down to the smoking room long after Father had fallen
asleep and stayed there half the night, drinking and sharing stories. The March
sisters usually did the same, but we had the good sense to go to the billiards
room and play for money. It was always a pleasure to collect a little pin money
from my sisters.

But this night there seemed little likelihood of merriment.
Most of them looked drawn and a little pale, as if they were longing for their
beds. I went to our room in the Jubilee Tower and tucked Snug into the sauce
boat that served as his bed. He used one of Brisbane’s handkerchiefs as a bit of
nest, and he lived up to his name as he cuddled right down and went to sleep.
His peaceful slumber made me wonder how the infant upstairs was faring. I had
picked up a book, but it lay unread on my lap as I considered possibilities. A
maid might leave a child untended, but how could she conceal her condition from
the rest of the staff? Most of them had duties that required heavy lifting and
long hours. Surely no expectant mother could manage it without somehow calling
attention to her interesting condition. And how would she explain her absence
when she gave birth? None of the maids had been down with sickness.

What of a village girl, unmarried and afraid? The same
questions applied. A girl might hide a burgeoning child under petticoats and
corset, but silhouettes were slimmer than they had been in decades. It would be
far more difficult a trick than it might have been thirty years before. Still, a
small baby—and this one was rather tiny—might be concealed if it were conceived
out of wedlock and the mother were desperate.

I felt a pang for her then, a shaft of compassion I had not
expected. What sort of woman would abandon her child without any kind of
instruction for his well-being, any trace of a claim? A desperate one, to be
certain. And desperate people made mistakes—mistakes that could unmask them.

Just then, Brisbane appeared, none the wiser for his
investigations and starving.

“Supper was cleared ages ago, but I will ring for a footman to
bring you a plate of cold meat. You really uncovered nothing?”

He shrugged. “The villagers are far more inclined to talk about
the Revels. It took the devil’s own work to stop them questioning me about being
St. George. They all seem convinced one of the maids here must have got into
trouble.”

One of the maids
had
got into
trouble, I remembered, but the footman responsible had proposed marriage to her
on Christmas Day, and they would be married as soon as it could be arranged.
1
But she was only a matter of weeks into her pregnancy.
There was simply no way the child was hers, and the rest of the maids,
questioned closely by Brisbane, had been thoroughly mystified.

Brisbane went to wash while I rang for a footman. The minutes
ticked by and yet still he did not appear, so I ventured into the corridor to
hunt one. I had to go as far as the main staircase before I found Aquinas. He
was dressed in his greatcoat for his nightly rounds about the Abbey, bolting
doors and locking windows and testing each from inside and out. He was just
starting to draw the curtain over the vast window on the landing when I found
him.

“My apologies, my lady, but the footmen are all answering bells
at present.”

“Goodness, the family are being demanding tonight. All I want
is a plate of something sent up for Mr. Brisbane as he missed his supper. Some
cold meat, that sort of thing. And some good wine.”

Just as Aquinas bowed his head and turned to grasp the velvet
curtain once more, I happened to glance out the window. A slim, quick figure
darted across the pale expanse of frosty ground and out of the soft glow from
the windows, swallowed up by the shadows beyond.

“Aquinas, give me your coat,” I ordered.

Without hesitation, he whipped off his greatcoat and dropped it
around my shoulders. I hurried down the stairs and out a side door I knew would
not yet be locked. I had no time to wrestle with bolts and chains if I meant to
catch her.

I followed her, far enough behind to keep careful eye upon her
but not close enough to alert her to my presence. She crossed the vast gardens
of the Abbey estate and then a field that divided my father’s land from the
village. A vast, lopsided waxing moon hung high overhead, casting a soft, pearly
glow over the landscape. But trees and stone walls cast thick shadows, and from
time to time I lost her and had to press on, following the marks in the frost as
best as I could in the fitful light. I was wearing soft slippers, which offered
little comfort against the cold ground, but I was silent as a spectre as I
glided after her. Not once did she look round, and I admired her courage as she
passed the graveyard at the church of St. Barnabas. It offered no horrors for
me, either. Another graveyard on another winter’s evening might have been
unwelcoming, but this graveyard was special. My mother lay there, under a stone
angel weeping tears of ice. Ivy grew over her grave now, thick and luxurious,
and the angel sported a wreath of holly and ivy in honour of the season. I
wondered idly if she rested peacefully in her tomb, but it did not matter. My
mother would offer me nothing but protection, and as I passed the graveyard, I
lifted my nose to catch a whiff of her favourite lemon verbena scent on the
night air.

I smelt no verbena, only the peculiar odour of cold, wet stone
and above it the piercing fragrance of evergreen needles crushed underfoot. And
beyond that, the faintest hint of wood smoke. The bare branches of the oaks
above rattled a little in the rising wind, and I smiled to think how like bones
they sounded.

I moved silently past the graveyard, leaving the dead to their
slumbers. Just beyond lay a small copse bordered by a thick shrubbery where
birds slept in their nests, beaks tucked under ruffled wings. They stirred a
little as I passed, and through the trees I glimpsed the cottage, Stone Cottage,
shuttered tightly against the cold. And over the lopsided face of the moon, a
wisp of silver smoke. The edges of the cottage shutters glowed with light,
although no sound came from within.

“Hello, Aunt Julia,” said a small voice at my elbow. She must
have doubled back and come behind me.

I whirled around, Aquinas’ greatcoat swirling about me in the
darkness. “Good gracious, child, you startled me,” I said to Perdita. “What on
earth are you doing here? Do your parents know where you are?”

She shook her head. “I’m supposed to be tucked up in bed in the
girls’ nursery. Mama said we were all spending the night up at the Abbey to be
with the family, but I think it’s because Papa had rather too much of Uncle
Plum’s punch.”

Remembering my own delicate head from the morning, I winced.
“Yes, well, it’s probably for the best. But why are you out? If the maids find
you missing, there’ll be a frightful row.”

She gave me a pitying look. “I am out all the time, Aunt Julia.
I haven’t been caught yet.”

“What do you do when you go out?” I asked. She was a curious
child, thoughtful and logical, but with blinding flashes of intuition far beyond
her years. I found her engaging. And alarming.

“I walk about. I learn things. Tonight I wanted to learn what’s
really happening here.”

Realisation began to dawn. “So you would have something to lord
over Tarquin?”

“Of course. I love him, but brothers are tiresome creatures
sometimes, don’t you find?”

“I have five of them, child. One of them is always being
tiresome. Usually it’s your Uncle Bellmont.”

She gave a sage nod. “He isn’t very friendly, is he? I always
think he looks as if he’s dyspeptic. One would have thought his love affair with
that medium would have softened him a bit, but he still looks like a great
unhappy carp most of the time.”
2

I blinked at her. She was as composed as a mediaeval saint,
wearing an expression of Eastern inscrutability. “Yes, child. The less you and I
discuss about that particular episode, the better. Ask me again when you’re
about to be married, and then we shall have a frank discussion.”

“I shan’t marry,” she informed me coolly.

“Never?”

“Never. I mean to find some purposeful work. A husband would
get in my way.”

She was serious as the grave, but I knew better than to smile.
“Perhaps you will. But life has a habit of changing your mind for you. Still,
better you put that remarkable brain of yours to good use than feed it nothing
more demanding than flower-arranging and playing the piano. Unless those are
particular passions of yours,” I added hastily.

She rolled her eyes. “I loathe music, and flowers make me
sneeze.”

“There you go. I was never very good at the feminine
accomplishments, either.”

“Perhaps it’s a family failing,” she suggested kindly.

“No doubt. Now, it’s turned warmish out here but still a good
deal too cold to tarry. Come along with me back to the Abbey. I’ll find you a
hot drink and a warm brick and once you’re properly warmed up, you can make your
own way back to the nursery.”

She agreed, but I noted as she turned away that her gaze
lingered on the cottage.

I hesitated. “You really want to know what’s happening
there?”

“More than anything in the world,” she said fervently.

“Oh, all right then. One look in the window, and then we
go.”

We had just crept forward when a shadow loomed out of the
darkness towards us. With a great black cloak spreading behind, it looked like
an enormous bird of prey, reaching its wings to gather us up. A gasp died in my
throat as I collided with a hard chest.

“Brisbane! What are you doing here?”

He kissed me swiftly. “I might ask the same. In fact, why are
we lurking outside a stranger’s cottage after dark?”

“It’s haunted,” Perdita told him helpfully. “Or not.”

“Is it, indeed? Well, that’s novel. We don’t see many ghosts in
our line of work.”

I hastily related the story the boys had told me earlier. “And
rather than take their word for it, Perdita thought she would settle matters
herself and come and find out.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “God help us, there are two of
you,” he muttered.

I poked him sharply. “That isn’t at all nice. I happen to think
Perdita is a very original thinker.”

“I believe that is what Uncle Brisbane meant,” Perdita put
in.

“Yes, Perdita, thank you,” Brisbane told her gallantly. “You
are indeed an original.”

She tipped her head thoughtfully. “I should hate to be
ordinary.”

“Yes, well, that wasn’t meant as a dare.” He turned to me to
finish his tale. “Aquinas told me you took his coat and dashed off after
something you saw from the window. I followed to see what mischief you were
getting up to, and it wasn’t long before I realised you were following Perdita.
It was just a matter of tracking your prints in the frosty ground until I had
you in sight.”

“Neatly done,” Perdita said in solemn admiration.

“Thank you.”

Perdita glanced to the cottage, but as we watched, the slender
line of yellow at the edges of the shutter was extinguished. Whoever was in the
cottage had retired for the night, and they would have a far better chance of
seeing us in the fitful moonlight than we would of making out anything from the
interior of the cottage.

I sighed and turned back to Brisbane.”Perdita and I were just
on our way back to the Abbey for a cup of chocolate and a bit of warming by the
fire.”

“And some toast,” she put in quickly. “The cold air is rather
hunger-making.”

“It isn’t that cold, but yes, we shall order some toast. I had
very little supper, and I promised your Uncle Brisbane some food,” I
returned.

She gave another wistful look at the cottage.

“Tomorrow,” I promised her.

We turned towards the Abbey, striking out across the fields,
and as our merry little band made our way home, Perdita’s hand stole into
mine.