Twelfth Night (4 page)

Chapter Five

ENTER
Snug
.

—
A
Midsummer Night’s Dream
, IV, ii
(stage directions)

We slipped unnoticed into a side door of the Abbey. Aquinas had already finished his rounds, locking up the doors and windows, but he left the side door open, and Brisbane’s considerable skills with a lockpick were not required. We hurried up to the Jubilee Tower, avoiding the various members of staff who were still trotting about, carrying and fetching late into the night.

“There!” I said to Perdita as Brisbane closed the door behind us. “Take off your coat and no one will know you’ve been out of the Abbey at all.”

She removed it slowly as Brisbane stirred up the fire.

“The footman is supposed to do that,” she told him, nodding to the poker in his hand.

He gave her a serious look. “I think a man ought to be able to stoke his own fire, don’t you? A woman, too, for that matter.”

She nodded. “We haven’t footmen at the Home Farm. Father says it’s all a silly bit of pretension. We have a cook and a maid.”

“A much simpler way to live,” he agreed.

They made a charming picture in the firelight, my tall, handsome husband and the serious little girl. I felt a pang then, a piercing sense of loss I could not identify.

Brisbane quirked a brow at me. “Everything all right, love?”

I brightened. “Yes, but I’m famished. Ring for tea and chocolate, will you?”

He crossed the room, and the motion caused a stirring in the cage by the bell pull.

Perdita crept near to it, her eyes round with fascination. “Grim’s awake,” she said, nodding towards my pet raven. “Must you keep him in the cage?”

“I do when I am not in the room. I do not trust him not to make a meal on my little Snug,” I told her.

I went to the bedside table where a silver sauce boat stood. Snug still slumbered within, tucked into his handkerchief nest. I lifted him out carefully and held him on my palm for Perdita to see.

She nodded again, but her eyes returned to Grim. The senior footman, William IV, scratched at the door then and while Brisbane gave the order for our refreshment, I tucked Snug into my décolletage—his favourite resting place—and went to the cage.

Grim cocked his head and gave a throaty quork. “That’s for me,” he said, bobbing up and down as his gleaming black eyes fixed upon Snug’s little head.

“That is most assuredly
not
for you,” I corrected. I opened the door and stepped away. “He will come out of his own accord,” I told Perdita. “If you like, you can offer him an enticement. There is a box of sugarplums on the desk, and he is particularly fond of those. Drop one on the floor.”

She did as I bade her, and within a moment Grim had hopped from his cage to nibble at the sweet. Perdita knelt, watching him with rapt fascination. His feathers gleamed an oily green in the light, and she put out a careful finger to stroke down his back. Grim bobbed again, this time in approval, and Perdita smiled broadly.

“I like him.”

I took another plum and placed it carefully onto her palm. “Keep your fingers straight and don’t lose your nerve,” I instructed.

Grim eyed her thoughtfully, but Perdita stood her ground. After a long moment, he hopped to her knee, dipping his head daintily to take the plum from her palm. He threw back his head and swallowed it down in one go then emitted a satisfied quork.

“He likes you, too,” I told her. “He does not consent to take food from anyone.”

“Someday I’ll have a raven,” she said decisively. “They’re better than silly old dogs or cats.”

She continued to feed Grim his sweets, and within a few minutes William IV returned with a tray laden with cups of chocolate, steaming great fragrant clouds into the room, and piles of sliced bread with toasting forks and butter.

We settled down to toasting the bread in front of the fire and ate masses of it, burning our fingers and streaking our hands with sweet butter.

“That was perfect,” Perdita said, giving a happy sigh. “I sometimes help myself to food in the larder when I go out at night, but it’s always cold pie or a bit of cheese. Never anything
hot.
”

“The hazards of detective work,” Brisbane murmured.

Perdita agreed fervently then her expression grew pensive. “I might like to be a detective, a proper detective like you, Uncle Brisbane.”

Brisbane looked surprised, but I smiled. “That seems to be a popular opinion amongst the younger set in the family,” I told him. “Tarquin has a school friend staying, Quentin. He is particularly enthusiastic on the subject of your talents.”

“Well, I do have many,” he said with a rakish grin. I smiled, but Perdita’s expression was serious.

“Quentin certainly thinks so. He’s written a book about you.”

Brisbane’s mouth twitched, but he did not laugh. “A book? You don’t say.”

“It’s revolting,” she told him. “Not you, Uncle Brisbane, but his attitude. It’s
worshipful
. He’s pasted clippings from newspaper articles about your cases into a scrapbook. And he has a squashed bit of tobacco he says came from one of your cigars.”

“Preposterous,” I said briskly. “Brisbane would never discard his cigar in the street.”

Perdita shrugged. “He’s a boy, Aunt Julia. You cannot believe everything he says.” Her posture was world-weary, and I began to wonder exactly how my favourite brother, a farmer and countryman, had managed to produce this unique child.

“You aren’t like other children, Perdita. I find that refreshing,” I told her.

“You aren’t like other aunts,” she returned. “It’s nice. The others all speak to me as though I had the wit of a sofa cushion. Particularly Aunt Olivia. She’s the
worst
. But Aunt Portia’s rather all right. You know she used to live with a woman?”

I could feel Brisbane’s smothered mirth as he waited to see how I would respond to the question. “Yes, I did. Her name was Jane, and she was a lovely person.”

“I
know
that, Aunt Julia. I met her many times. I mean, she and Aunt Portia used to live together as husband and wife. Only I suppose it would be wife and wife, would it not?”

Brisbane choked a little and hid his face behind his cup.

“I suppose the best person to ask would be Aunt Portia herself,” I replied. “There is nothing shameful or wrong about Aunt Portia, although many people would think so. She will always speak frankly with you if you want to talk.”

She nodded. “I thought so. But she’s very busy with that awful baby.”

“Jane the Younger is having a difficult time with her teeth,” I said hurriedly. At least we all hoped so. She shrieked, regularly and loudly and most often when she did not get her way. I had delicately tried to suggest as much to Portia with the result that she had not spoken to me for a fortnight.

“You say it’s teeth,” Perdita said darkly. “I still think Aunt Portia got a bad one. It can happen with windfalls.”

I blinked at her while Brisbane continued to sip at his chocolate. “I beg your pardon?”

“Windfalls. You know, when a wind comes through the orchard, dropping apples to the ground. Some are sweet and wholesome, but others are wormy and foul. That baby is a wormy apple.”

“I hardly think so,” I said firmly. “Now your chocolate is finished. Off to bed with you.”

She rose and brushed the crumbs from her fingers. “Thank you, Aunt Julia. I had a very nice time. Uncle Brisbane.” She kissed us each in turn, pressing a becrumbed face to each of ours. She waved farewell to Grim, who bobbed in reply and then she was gone, a silent little shadow slipping through the corridors of the Abbey.

“That is a perfectly exceptional child,” Brisbane said when she was gone. “I think she must be what you were like as a little girl.”

“I was never so—” I began. But then I thought about Perdita. A little odd, mistress of her own interests, curious, with a penchant for speaking her mind. “Yes, I suppose rather.”

He smiled and put down his cup. He slapped his thighs, and I went to him, sliding onto his lap, my head fitting comfortably into the hollow of his neck.

“I am very happy you are mine,” I told him.

Brisbane produced his customary phrase for such occasions. “Show me.”

And so I did.

Chapter Six

Now
good
digestion
wait
on
appetite
,
And
health
on
both
!

—
Macbeth
, III, iv, 38

The next morning was grey and dull, with a thick, muffling fog creeping through the countryside, settling in hollows and wreathing hills until all was quiet and still. But inside the Abbey pandemonium reigned.

“It’s the oysters,” Morag told me with grim satisfaction. “They had a bad lot and every member of the family is down with it.”

“With what?” I demanded, still fatigued from my marital exertions. Brisbane was a very
thorough
husband.

“Poisoning,” she said, her voice tart. “What I just told you. They’re all down sick with the oysters. The village doctor has been and said they’ll all be right as rain once they’ve heaved it all out, but in the meanwhile, the maids and footmen are run off their feet with slop buckets and rags and—” I felt my stomach give a lurch.

“That’s enough, Morag. One does not require the unsavoury details. I suppose Cook isn’t doing breakfast, then?”

Morag shrugged. “I’ll bring a tray up.”

“How is the baby this morning?” I asked, certain she had already been to the nursery.

Her face took on a tender expression. “Sweet as a newborn lamb, he is. I gave him his morning feed, and he opened his eyes wide as you please, as if to say thank you.”

I rolled my eyes at her, but she ignored me. Instead, she gave Brisbane a tender look. “Mind you don’t wake the master. You’re not taking proper care of him. A wife ought to see her husband has a regular supper instead of stuffing him with toast and chocolate at all hours.”

She banged out, and Brisbane opened an eye, grinning at me. I shoved his shoulder. “Stop. It isn’t decent that my lady’s maid should like you so much more than she does me.”

“I am nicer to her than you are,” he pointed out.

Aquinas, acting as valet to Brisbane as well as butler since Father’s own staff was indisposed, arrived then with his shaving water. When we had both completed our ablutions, we sat down to eat the breakfast Morag had secured. Brisbane uncovered a dish to find something unappetising looking back at him. He poked it tentatively with a fork.

“What do you think it is?”

“I daren’t guess,” I told him. “The undercook must still be at the helm in the kitchens. Toast for me, thanks.”

He covered the dish up again, and we fell on the toast. “I can’t live on bread, Julia. Not if you mean to ravish me so thoroughly. A man has to keep his strength up.”

I pulled a face. “Why don’t we walk down to the vicarage? Uncle Fly has an excellent housekeeper. Aunt Hermia’s tried to hire her away for years, but she won’t leave her post.. She’s devoted to Uncle Fly.”

Brisbane was on his feet before I finished the sentence. We donned our outdoor things and hurried out of the Abbey.

* * *

At the vicarage, Uncle Fly was absent on a call to an elderly parishioner, but his housekeeper, Mrs. Tweed, insisted upon feeding us, anyway.

“And what would Mr. Twickham say if he heard I turned away his favourite goddaughter?”

I dimpled at her, and she hurried us to the table, bringing in steaming plates of eggs, crispy sausages, rashers of savoury bacon, muffins, wedges of veal pie, fruit compote, pots of marmalade and a great bowl of her own special spiced and buttered porridge.

We ate until Brisbane begged her to stop, although she did manage to press upon him one last devilled kidney.

“You are a glorious cook, Mrs. Tweed,” he told her. “I wonder you haven’t been hired away from Mr. Twickham yet. If I thought it would tempt you, I’d offer you twice the salary he pays.” She gave him a fond smile.

“You are kind to say it, Mr. Brisbane. But I doubt a kinder man or better employer than Mr. Twickham exists. Besides, what would I do up in London? All that noise and excitement is not for me, it isn’t. Blessingstoke is a nice, peaceful village, and it suits me down to the ground. Although,” she added in a conspiratorial tone, “I heard a fuss the like of which you never heard on Saturday last. I thought it was the end of times, I did.”

I flicked a glance at Brisbane. I had forgot Mrs. Tweed’s preoccupation with the end of times. As a young woman, she had read the book of Revelations and it had affected her deeply. She never read another word of the Bible, nor did she attend the services that Uncle Fly conducted at St. Barnabas. Uncle Fly liked to joke her about her poor attendance record, but she merely smiled and said as she worked in the vicarage, God would be able to find her easily.

I dismissed her remark, but Brisbane gave her a thoughtful look. “What sort of noise, Mrs. Tweed?”

She tipped her head, thinking. “It was a great moaning. I’ll never forget the sound of it. Fairly chilled my bones, it did. Something so sad, like a soul in torment.”

“Did you investigate?” I asked, reaching for the last muffin with casual fingers. I did not meet Brisbane’s eyes. I did not need to look into them to know what he was thinking.

She ruffled up like a plump pigeon. “Certainly not. The dead do not always rest easily, you know. It was one of the poor souls in the graveyard, no doubt. You’ll want a fresh pot of tea. That one’s gone cold,” she said, taking up the teapot and bearing it off to the kitchen.

Brisbane and I stared after her. “Have you ever seen a more incurious soul? She hears lamentations in the graveyard and doesn’t go looking to see what it is?”

Brisbane fixed me with a knowing look, and I nodded. We did not speak. It was too coincidental that rumours of a ghost at the cottage had surfaced just about the same time Mrs. Tweed heard unearthly noises and a baby had appeared from nowhere. A curiosity was at hand.

* * *

After refusing more offers of food and rolling ourselves out the door, we struck off on the path towards the cottage. In the mist, the little dwelling was hid from us until the last moment, the grimness of the trees sheltering it even as we crept near. The shutters were tightly drawn, but a thin whisper of smoke stirred at the edge of the chimney.

“Funny sort of ghost to need a warm fire,” I put in.

Brisbane paused. “You know as well as I do there is no ghost,” he said. “But if we do find the child’s mother here, we can do nothing to compel her to take him back.”

We had stopped just on the edge of the copse, on the verge of the little clearing, and I turned to question him, my voice low.

“What on earth do you mean?”

“We cannot prove the child is hers unless she confesses to it. Even then, we have no authority to force her to take it. And even if we had, would you want to? She clearly has no interest in rearing him herself. She cared enough for his welfare to leave him where he would be swiftly discovered, and he was well-wrapped against the cold, but beyond that, she is not connected to this child. For whatever reason, she is unable to take proper care of him and does not wish to.”

“She is afraid,” I said suddenly.

His brow furrowed. “How can you be certain?”

“The cottage has not been let or it would be common knowledge in the village,” I pointed out. “Even if the lettor were ailing or unsocial, food and drink would be ordered from the village, the doctor called when the baby was on his way. But nothing. Whoever lives here has gone to great pains to keep her presence a secret from anyone. What else does that suggest but fear?”

“I can think of a dozen reasons just as sound, but you may be right. Still, if she is afraid, marching in might only alarm her further.”

“What choice do we have?” I demanded.

He gave me a piercing stare from those witch-black eyes, and I conceded. “Very well. It isn’t just about finding the mother for the child’s sake. I am curious. I want to solve the mystery for Perdita’s sake. I’d like to see her have something to lord over the boys for once.”

“For once? I’ll wager Mistress Perdita leads them a merry dance all on her own,” he said. “But very well. We’ll find out. For her.”

I smothered a smile. My clever niece had warmed something in him, and he was clearly feeling indulgent. We moved to the cottage, and before I could ask what he meant to do, he strode openly up to the door and knocked sharply.

I hurried along, reaching his side just as the bolt scraped back. My heart pounded against my chest. I was no Gypsy; I left the second sight to Brisbane. But at that moment, I had the strangest feeling we were on the verge of something momentous. But even Brisbane’s clever Gypsy ways could never have divined what awaited us in Stone Cottage.