Escapade (7 page)

“Ask him about these?” I held up the object she had brought into the room. I had found it on the floor after I picked her up. A pair of handcuffs.

Her hand dropped to her chest and she blushed. It was a spectacular blush, a deep crimson that tinted her face from the hollow of her throat to the top of her forehead. It told me everything I wanted to know about her coming here, and then some.

I tossed the handcuffs onto the bed.

She looked down at them and then looked back at me. She raised her head. “They’re my grandfather’s,” she whispered defiantly. “Part of his collection. I thought it might be amusing if Mr. Houdini taught me how to unlock them.”

I nodded.

“It’s the
truth
,” she hissed.

“You don’t have to whisper,” I said. “No one can hear you.”

She glanced toward Houdini’s door. Looked back at me. Carefully, as if trying to decide whether I was telling the truth. She caught her lower lip between her teeth. She blushed again. Not as spectacularly, but still fairly well. She opened her eyes wide and she said, “Are you saying that, about no one being able to hear me, because you have designs on my virtue?”

“Your virtue is safe,” I said.

She looked down at her hands again, and when she looked up into my eyes she was smiling. She was trying for boldness and she got there. “Are you quite certain of that?” she said.

I smiled. I think it was a paternal smile, but I could be wrong. “Time for you to get back to your room,” I said.

She watched me. She lifted her left hand from her chest and ran her index finger down my own hand, from the back of my wrist to the first knuckle of my thumb. She canted her head slightly to the right. “Are all Americans so noble?”

I nodded. “We take an oath.”

Her fingertip was soft and warm. So was the second fingertip, when it joined the first. So was the third. She was still watching me, saying nothing.

I should have stood up. I should have moved away from her. I told myself I was only sitting there because I was curious. Someday I’ll sell myself the Brooklyn Bridge.

“Bedtime,” I said.

“You probably think,” she said, “that I’m a nymphomaniac.” “A nymphomaniac?”

“A woman who desperately—”

“I know what the word means.”

“I had a friend, Gwendolyn, who was declared a nymphomaniac. They put her into an lunatic asylum. She was smitten with one of the footmen at her father’s estate. I’ve always felt that one couldn’t blame her for it, really. Peters was absolutely dishy, and we all had a crush on him, all of us girls. But her parents took her to the family doctor and he signed some papers saying she was a nymphomaniac, and that was that. Now she’s locked away with all the lunatics.”

“Why didn’t her parents just dump the footman?”

“Dump? You mean dismiss him? Oh, they did that, first thing, of course. But Gwendolyn ran off, to be with him. She was totally smitten, you see. But they caught her. And then they had her put away with the lunatics.”

“I’m not sure that one footman makes a nymphomaniac.”

She nodded seriously. “I think that nymphomania, the idea of it, it’s something men invented, don’t you?”

“Probably,” I said. “Come on, Cecily. It’s time for bed.”

“I’m already in bed,” she said. She smiled, and then winced again. “Ow.” Her fingers squeezed lightly at my hand. “We have a rule. Here in England. If someone has a pain, a sore chin, let’s say, someone else has to kiss it. To make it better, you see.”

“We have a rule in America. We don’t fool around with the host’s daughter.”

She made a face. “Or his horse, or his automobile. I’m not just a
daughter
, you know. I’m not a piece of property. I’m a person in my own right. I’m a human being.”

“I can see that.”

“So. Do I get my kiss?”

She had gotten comfortable with the part she was playing. So had I. That was the problem.

“C’mon,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Her fingers left me. She plucked the handcuffs from the bed and held them out with both hands. She looked at me playfully over the connecting chain. “Who should wear them first, do you think? You? Or me?”

“Let’s go, Cecily.”

She moved pretty quickly for someone who had been unconscious just a few minutes ago. She swung a cuff at my arm and it clicked shut around my wrist. “You, I think.”

I stood up, away from the bed. The handcuffs dangled from my left wrist. “The key, Cecily.”

She laughed. A light musical laugh. She crossed her arms over her chest and she shook her head. She smiled, as smug as a burglar in a bank vault on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

I took a step toward her.

It was then that I heard the scream.

A woman’s scream.

Hard to tell where it came from. But the walls were stone. It had to be somewhere nearby.

Cecily had heard it too. Her head was cocked. The smug look was gone. She was listening, puzzled.

It came again, louder this time. A long frightened shriek. A wail.

I said, “Give me the key, Cecily.”

Cecily’s forehead was furrowed, her mouth was open. She closed her mouth and reached into the pocket of her robe. She frowned. She looked at me. “It’s gone.” She dug around in her pocket. “It’s
gone
!” Her voice had become shrill. “I had it, I know I had it, but it’s
gone
!” She looked quickly around the room, looked back at me, her face awry.

Fallen out of the robe when she hit the floor? I glanced around the carpet, didn’t see it.

There had been no more screams. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad one.

I said the impolite word again.

I snatched the handcuffs up into my left hand and stuck both of them, hand and cuffs, into the pocket of my dressing gown. I took a last look at Cecily. She was on her hands and knees now atop the bed, slapping at the bedspread, her short hair flapping frantically as she looked back and forth. I ran to the door and yanked it open and I rushed out into the hall.

THE ILLUMINATION IN the corridor came from dim electric lights set in brass sconces along the stone walls. Sir David Merridale stood in front of the next doorway to my left—the door to the suite occupied by Mrs. Allardyce and Miss Turner. Just as I saw him, Sir David opened the door and plunged into the room. I sprinted toward the door—with one hand jammed in my pocket, it was an awkward sprint.

I went inside. I stuck my other hand, my right, into the right pocket of the robe. With both hands in my pockets, I might be able to pass for a normal person. Out for a casual stroll.

By the dim light of the electric lamp on the nightstand I could see three figures in the far corner of the room. Two of the figures had their backs to me. One was Sir David. The other had to be Mrs. Allardyce. Unless there were two or three people under that bulky robe, traveling as one.

The third figure stood with her back against the stone wall. She was tall. She wore a long pink flannel nightgown and her head was lowered and her hands were covering her face. Her long brown hair was loose and it spilled down over her shoulders. Miss Turner.

The door to the next chamber was open. A light was on in there.

“She’s had a nightmare,” said Mrs. Allardyce to Sir David.

Miss Turner’s head jerked up. “It was no nightmare!” she said. “I saw him.”

“Saw whom?” said Sir David. He was patting Miss Turner on the shoulder. Paternally. He was also admiring her body, I noticed. I didn’t blame him. The thin pink material clung to the curves and it draped nicely over the hollows. All the curves and all the hollows seemed to be in exactly the right places. Miss Turner, at nighttime, was a surprise.

“The ghost,” she said. “Lord Reginald.” She looked from Sir David to Mrs. Allardyce to me. “I know it sounds absurd, but he was in there!” she said, and pointed to the open door of her room.

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Allardyce. Her make-up was gone and I could understand now why she wore so much of it. She had no eyebrows and no lips. “You’ve had a long day. All this talk of ghosts has overstimulated you.”

“I
saw
him!” With her glasses gone, her thick toffee-brown hair streaming free, she looked five years younger.

“Now Jane, for goodness’ sake,” said Mrs. Allardyce. She spoke with that elaborate patience that always conveys its opposite, and always intends to. “Do stop making a nuisance of yourself. It’s time we all went back to bed.”

Sir David curled his paternal arm around Miss Turner’s shoulder. “I suspect that the young lady could do with a stiff tot of brandy. I happen to—”

Miss Turner turned and pushed his arm away with her forearm. She backed up. “Please don’t patronize me,” she said stiffly. “I’m telling you, I saw him.”

Sir David smiled his bland smile. “I’m sure you saw something,” he said. “Something that appeared to you to be—”

“I saw a bloody ghost, you fool!”

“Jane!” said Mrs. Allardyce. “You forget yourself!”

Miss Turner turned to her. Her hands were down at her sides, balled into fists. “He was there!” she said.

“Even if he had been,” said Mrs. Allardyce deliberately, “which I do not for one moment believe, there would certainly be no need to use such language.”

For a moment Miss Turner’s blue eyes flashed and her wide lips parted. It seemed to me that Mrs. Allardyce was about to learn something interesting about language. Maybe I could have picked up a thing or two myself. But then Miss Turner shut her mouth and bit her lip and looked away.

I said, “What did he look like?”

She turned to me and frowned and she narrowed those dazzling eyes as though trying to figure out what I was up to. Finally, hesitantly, she spoke. “He was an old man,” she said. She turned to

Mrs. Allardyce. “Just as you said.” She turned back to me and took a deep breath. I don’t think she really cared whom she talked to, so long as it was someone who listened. “He was very old. Ancient. And thin. Skeletal. His beard was white, white and yellowish and long, like his hair.”

“You had the light on when you saw him?”

“Yes. I switched it on as soon as I heard a noise. I wasn’t sleeping.”

“What noise?”

She frowned, remembering, trying to get it right. “A sort of clicking sound,” she said. “Like claws on stone.” She put her hands to her shoulders, holding herself, and she closed her eyes.

“What was he wearing?”

The blue eyes opened. She took another breath. “A long white gown. A sort of nightgown.”

“He was tall? Short?”

“Tall,” she said. “Not so tall as you, but tall. And his head was bent over to the side. Tilted. Twisted.” She shivered again. “It was horrid. It made him seem demonic.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He said—” She caught herself. She shook her head. “No. He said nothing.”

For the first time I got the feeling she was lying. She had imagined the ghost, maybe. But if she had, she had also imagined him saying something. “Did he do anything?” I asked her.

Once again she shook her head. Once again I thought she was lying. “No,” she said. “But he was there!”

“Gentlemen,” said a female voice. I turned. It was Mrs. Corneille in a belted red silk robe. Her heavy black hair was still sleek, still perfectly groomed.

“I suggest,” said Mrs. Corneille in that dark furry voice, “that you all return to bed and permit me to care for Miss Turner.” 

“For some reason, Vanessa,” said Sir David, “I have a difficult time imagining you as Florence Nightingale.” I thought I could hear irritation in his voice, running through it like a tight thin wire.

“For some reason, David,” she said, “I have a difficult time imagining you as Dr. Livingstone. Miss Turner? Would you like to come with me? I should imagine that you’d rather not attempt to sleep just yet. And, if you feel you need it, I’ve some brandy, as well.” She smiled sweetly at Sir David. He smiled blandly back. To Miss Turner she said, “And there’s another room in my suite. You’re quite welcome to it.”

Miss Turner glanced toward the open door of her room, looked around at the rest of us, finally turned back to Mrs. Corneille. She raised her head. “Thank you. Yes. It’s very kind of you. I would like a brandy. But I must fetch my robe.”

Mrs. Corneille said, “I’ll be happy to fetch it for—”

“No, no,” said Miss Turner. “Thank you.” She dropped her arms to her sides, turned, and walked into the door that led to her room. She kept her head held high, as proud as an Egyptian queen. And Egyptian queens almost never wore pink flannel nightgowns.

Mrs. Allardyce said in a stage whisper, “You really
shouldn’t
encourage her.”

Mrs. Corneille smiled pleasantly. “I’m sure you’re right, of course. But what harm can it do if she gets away for a bit? No doubt she could do with a few moments to pull herself together. She seems basically a sound young woman.”

Mrs. Allardyce frowned. She was dubious but she would go along. Maybe because Mrs. Corneille was being sensible, but more likely because Mrs. Corneille somehow outranked her. “Very well,” she said. “But I’m not entirely sure that I approve of brandy at this hour.”

Mrs. Corneille smiled again. She was better at that than I would have been, if I’d been the one smiling at Mrs. Allardyce. “You needn’t worry,” she said. “Only a thimbleful.”

Sir David started to say something to Mrs. Corneille but just then Miss Turner returned to the room. She was wearing her glasses now and she was buttoning up the front of a shapeless gray bathrobe. None of Miss Turner’s clothes lived up to her blue eyes. Not many clothes could.

“Come along, then,” said Mrs. Corneille. She took Miss Turner’s left arm and patted it. She turned to the rest of us. “Pleasant dreams.”

Miss Turner glanced at all of us again but she said nothing.

They walked off. They made an interesting pair—Mrs. Corneille sleek and glossy in her red silk, Miss Turner taller and stiffer and almost drab now in her gray wool. You wouldn’t think it was possible for someone to look drab and proud at the same time, but Miss Turner somehow managed to pull it off.

Without looking back, the two of them walked out the door into the hallway.

I said to Mrs. Allardyce, “What was it, exactly, that woke you up?”