Lady in the Stray (5 page)

Vashti marveled at the action; she would have wagered there was no room in Minette’s bodice for aught save Minette. “I don’t understand. My cousin left me a letter? Why should he do such a thing?”

“You’re his heiress.” Minette wriggled with impatience. “Perhaps he had something to say to you that he didn’t wish his solicitor to know about.”

“I don’t know what.” Vashti looked even more doubtful. “I never even met the man.”

“Non?”
Minette raised both eyebrows upon receipt of this clanker. Marmaduke had also been disposed toward the telling of whiskers, she recalled. “We are all entitled to our little secrets, eh? I shall not press you. Do read Marmaduke’s letter,
chérie!”

“Secrets?” Why this outspoken young Frenchwoman should doubt her word, Vashti couldn’t think, but there was little question that doubt her Minette did. Not for the first time, Vashti wondered if there could be some mistake in the matter of her cousin’s will. Yet the solicitor hadn’t questioned her identity. It was quite a puzzle.

Minette tsk-tsk’d impatiently. Vashti lowered her eyes to the letter and read. “He charges me to care for you,” she said, nonplussed.

“Tiens!”
Pretending to read the letter herself, Minette twitched it away. “Me
and
Orphanstrange! That is a great relief, because I was very melancholy to think that Marmaduke had failed to make the provision for us that he should. Indeed, I was very angry to discover he had left all to you, but now that I have met you I no longer mind. You will take us in hand, Mademoiselle Beaufils, and I will
not
be tossed back out into the streets!” She beamed.

“Take you in hand?” Vashti pulled off her shabby bonnet, as if that simple act might alleviate her headache. It did not. “Would that I might!”

To prevent a closer perusal of the letter purported to be from the late Marmaduke, Minette popped the missive back into its previous resting place. “You mustn’t feel guilty because Marmaduke left all to you instead of me! He was prone to queer notions when he was in his cups. Not that I mean to infer there was anything smoky about him leaving all to you, or nothing queerer than that someone who looks like you do should be left upon the shelf! I can only think you must have preferred to remain unattached.” Minette shrugged. “Me, I would prefer to be snugly placed, and
was,
until Marmaduke broke his neck. I disremember when I have been so put out by anything! If Marmaduke had had a grain of proper feeling he wouldn’t have been
so
careless—but you are his flesh and blood, and I don’t hold it against
you
that Marmaduke got drunk as a wheelbarrow and tumbled down the stair.”

“Thank you!” Vashti rubbed her brow. “However, I can’t take anyone in hand. I regret that I can’t carry out my cousin’s instructions. Though I’d like to help you, it begins to look as though Charlot and I will be forced to return to my aunt in Brighton. My cousin’s solicitor has advised me to sell the house.”

In her native tongue, Minette made an extremely rude remark concerning Mr. Heath’s origins. “There is no money, eh?” she asked.

In a helpless gesture, Vashti spread her hands. “I’m sorry. None at all.”

At all costs, Mountjoy House must not be sold. Adopting a solicitous manner, Minette sat down beside Vashti on the sofa. “This is a sad blow,
n’est-ce pas?
For us both! But all is not yet lost. And if I do not despair, Mademoiselle Beaufils, then you must not, because all you have to look forward to is a return to your aunt, and
I
must contemplate much worse. Me, I do not fall into a lethargy, nonetheless
;
nor should you. All is not yet lost!” Her companion’s hands being pressed to her temples, Minette patted Vashti’s knee.

“How can you say that?” As if it weren’t trial enough to be responsible for Charlot and his menagerie, now Vashti must number among her dependents a very superior gentleman’s gentleman and a damsel who was probably no better than she should be. “I’ve just told you I can’t provide for you, no matter what my cousin wished.”

“
Bêtise
!” Even more energetically, Minette patted Vashti’s knee. “But of course you can. It only wants reopening the house.” Had she gone too far too fast? From Vashti’s stunned expression, Minette deduced she had. “I will abide by what you decide,
naturellement.
We shall be great friends, Mademoiselle Beaufils.”

“Providing,” Vashti inserted wryly, “that I don’t turn you out.”

“There is that,” Minette allowed. “Not that I should hold it against you, but since we would not then see one another, we could hardly become bosom bows.
Ah, ça
! We have come to an understanding, I think. You may leave all the details to Orphanstrange and me.”

“Details.” Matters had slipped quickly out of Vashti’s grasp.

“But yes!” Minette crossed her arms beneath her bosom and placed a thoughtful finger to her lips. “The so-proper Mr. Heath will not approve, but I will deal with him. Perhaps he may be persuaded to make us a little loan, because to reopen the house will take a tidy sum. There are servants to be hired, and supplies to be laid in. Do not concern yourself, Mademoiselle Beaufils! We will start off small. And it will not require so very much sacrifice.” Her mischievous smile flashed. “I will make you a confidence. The faro bank is almost intact.”

With each additional disclosure, Brighton sounded more of a haven, despite the dire warnings of Aunt Adder. “Faro bank,” Vashti echoed.

“Oui!”
Minette was not attending. “And if we are still short of funds—
voilà!
We can pop the plate.”

Vashti looked slowly around the drawing room, with its Gothic accoutrements and Egyptian furnishings, Brussels carpet and oak walls. Her gaze came to rest on her companion, whose expression was enthusiastic. “I am glad you have inherited Mountjoy House, though I did not expect to be!” confided Minette disarmingly. “We have been dull as ditchwater here alone. Perhaps you will not wish to appear in the public rooms, since your cousin’s death is so recent—although I do not regard it, and if I don’t, neither should any other, because no one else was so close to Marmaduke!”

The precise nature of her cousin’s relationship with this loquacious damsel, Vashti left to puzzle over another time. “Just what manner of house is this?” she asked.

“Mon dieu!
You do not know?” Minette’s green eyes opened wide. Irrepressibly, she giggled.
“Ma chère,
you have inherited a gaming hell!”

CHAPTER FIVE

“A what?” echoed Charlot, amazed. “You are bamming me, Vashti! Uncle Marmaduke ran a gaming house?”

“I wish I were, er, bamming you.” Vashti sought solace from Calliope, who had sufficiently recovered from the arduous journey to emit a deep rumbling purr. “It was a very popular gaming house, from all accounts— among not only wealthy gamblers but also émigrés. A pretty piece of business this is altogether! On the one side is Minette, who expects me to provide for her, and on the other is Mr. Heath, who clearly dreads that I shall be as prone to fits of folly as my cousin Marmaduke. Between the pair of them, I don’t know which way to turn.”

“Mr. Heath was asking me some very queer questions,” volunteered Charlot, snuggling closer to Mohammed. “About you and Papa and how we escaped from France. I could make no sense of it, but I suppose he had a reason. He doesn’t
look
like a pudding-head!”

To this comment, Vashti vouchsafed no comment, instead gazed in a somewhat gloomy manner around her bedroom. Previously her cousin’s province, the chamber was opulently Oriental in furnishing, with lavish display of dragons and pagodas, japanned decorations, lacquer and bamboo. On the floor was a carpet of Oriental inspiration, made at the Axminster factory. The oak mantel’s ornamental panel featured carved mandarins, the heads of which also leered from the handle of the very Gothic door. The walls were hung with Chinese papers in a large design of trees and flowers, after the manner of tapestry. The effect, in conjunction with vaulted ceiling and Gothic windows, was distinctly bizarre.

“All the same,” continued Charlot, “there was nothing wrong with the drains.”

“Drains?” Because Vashti had been preoccupied with the more immediate details of her inheritance, her tone was blank.

Charlot was accustomed to his sister’s air-dreaming. “Drains,” he repeated. “You remember, Vashti. That lady—Minette—said there was something wrong with the drains, and so we all went to see. And there wasn’t! Very fine drains they are, in fact, more like tunnels, and lined with brickwork. Orphanstrange said there’s even a drain that leads out into the garden, but he wouldn’t tell me where the entrance is. The whole house is riddled with passageways and secret rooms and hidey-holes; fancy that!”

Vashti shivered slightly; Mountjoy House was macabre enough without imagining hidden crannies which might house all manner of distasteful specimens—or from which hostile eyes might spy. That was an odd notion, surely? Somber as was the atmosphere, they had encountered no overt hostility in Mountjoy House. Minette had been positively ebullient, and Orphanstrange perfectly correct.

“Gracious! What am I to do with a valet?” Vashti rubbed her arms, which as result of her somber reflections were covered with gooseflesh.

“Why should you do anything at all with him?” Reluctantly, Charlot abandoned his speculations upon the fascinating topic of medieval drains and the myriad purposes they might well have served, perhaps as escape routes during the Civil War, perhaps as an excellent hiding place for the treasure of his Cousin Marmaduke. When opportunity was granted him, Charlot thought, he must explore. He didn’t acquaint his sister with his ambition, since her own lack of boldness left her unsympathetic to such ambitions.

“I must provide for Orphanstrange, as well as Minette; it was Cousin Marmaduke’s request.” Vashti ran agitated fingers through her honey-colored curls. “I forgot you haven’t seen his letter. Minette gave it to me.”

Sometimes, thought Charlot, his sister could be very provoking.
“What
letter? Show it to me!”

“Minette kept it.” For the first time, Vashti realized such behavior was strange. “Perhaps she thought I wouldn’t honor Marmaduke’s wishes, might even destroy his instructions. Well!”

“Don’t poker up!” begged Charlot as his sister’s eyebrows drew down into a frown. “It sounds to me like there’s something dashed smoky about this, sis. If Cousin Marmaduke wished you to have a letter, why didn’t he leave it with his solicitor, like he did everything else?”

Vashti cast about in her memory for the wording of the letter and recalled nothing that Marmaduke might have best kept from his solicitor—not that consideration of the sensibilities of others could be considered the late Marmaduke’s strong point. “That
is
odd!” she said slowly. “And that’s not the only thing. People keep saying that I’m not what they expected.”

Charlot was more interested in his menagerie, which was disposed about him on Vashti’s large tent bed, with the exception of the frog, Greensleeves, who was of an inclination to explore. “Maybe everyone expects you to be a curst rum touch, like Cousin Marmaduke was. You needn’t pull a long face over me, sis; I’m only repeating what I heard.” Since Vashti could not fairly argue, and Charlot knew when not to press a point, conversation between them lapsed.

The hour was far advanced, and the rest of the household had retired. The hush that hung over the old house was profound—save for that queer rustling in the walls.

In response to that rustling, Vashti was afflicted anew with gooseflesh. Accustomed as she might be to friendly Bacchus, currently nestled against Calliope’s furry side, Vashti was less than eager to make the acquaintance of the rat’s less domesticated kin. Feeling absurdly nervous, she glanced around the room. Suspiciously she peered at the lacquered cabinet, japanned in bright colors, which sat on an elaborate carved and silvered stand. Her gaze brushed the oak mantel. Almost, it seemed as if one of the carved mandarins returned her stare. Vashti drew back abruptly within the richly gold-fringed draperies of her tent bed. Her eyes had begun to play tricks. Considering the events of this long day, it was scant wonder she was fatigued.

All the same, Vashti wasn’t anxious to banish Charlot to his own chamber so that she might gain some sorely needed rest. Sleep would prove elusive this night. There were decisions to be made. “I don’t know what to do for the best,” Vashti sighed.

“Is that what’s put you in a tweak?” Charlot roused from silent communication with the garden snake, Python. “It doesn’t seem to me we have much choice, sis—unless you want to go back to Aunt Adder? I thought not!” He grinned. “Were we to run a gaming house, Aunt Adder would likely wash her hands of us.”

This not-unwelcome prospect brought a sparkle to Vashti’s own amber eye. “Now I understand why Mr. Heath kept telling us Mountjoy House wouldn’t
do,
poor man! He was right, Charlot. It would be shockingly irregular of us to reopen the house. Although Minette assures me we wouldn’t have to lift a finger—or at least need not appear in the gaming rooms.” She wrinkled her lovely brow. “If only there were someone whose advice I might seek!”

“Ask Aunt Adder!” Charlot wasn’t especially fond of his sister in this shilly-shallying mood. “Peagoose! Or Mr. Heath, because he’ll tell you the same thing. He doesn’t want us to live here any more than Aunt Adder does. The only difference is
he’s
more polite.”

Vashti stroked the calico cat, tickled the white rat’s whiskers and sighed. “One cannot blame him for it; I don’t imagine that acting as Marmaduke’s solicitor was any easy task. Naturally Mr. Heath wishes to have the house sold and his part in this business neatly tidied up. And naturally Aunt Adder would prefer that we return to Brighton so that she may save herself the expense of hiring another domestic. And of course Minette and Orphanstrange would prefer that I keep them as opposed to seeking employment elsewhere.” There was little doubt as to what would happen to Minette in that case, Vashti thought; the only wonder was that it hadn’t yet. “What would
you
prefer, Charlot?”