Secret Letters (18 page)

“Not until you tell me who you are.”

“Drop your weapon or I will shoot!”

The shout had echoed from behind me, and as James spun around to face the challenge, he let me go, and I toppled to the ground. I looked up to see Mr. Porter standing in the doorway, gun extended, and James on his knees before him, hands crossed behind his head. Peter Cartwright ran over to me and pulled me to my feet, then seized James by the elbows, disarmed him, and shoved him roughly to the ground. Mr. Porter advanced slowly into the room but stopped suddenly as I turned to face him. He let out a noise like a strangled grunt; his mouth dropped open and his brows came down.

“What in Heaven’s name are you doing here, Miss—”

“Mr. Porter!” exclaimed Cartwright, stepping up to him and grasping him by the arm. “Thank God you’re here! I did just as you directed, sir. But I never expected James to turn up when he did! I am so glad that you thought to follow him. Was it very difficult?”

I stared at him. My friend sounded like a student gasping questions at a teacher’s elbow. This was not the boy I knew. It was obvious that Porter had not given any of the orders; Cartwright had engineered the search (with a little help from me) and had stationed his colleague at the house to trail James. And yet he was so humble now, hovering at his master’s side like an eager lackey waiting for approval. Porter cleared his throat twice, gave me a final puzzled look and nodded slowly. “It appears that I arrived here just in time, or this young—lady might have suffered for your carelessness. What exactly is she doing here?”

“Oh, she’s all right. She will keep following me, though,” Cartwright declared. “But, sir, I believe another young girl requires your attention.” He stepped aside and pointed to the prostrate form of Lady Rose. Mr. Porter gasped and rushed over to her.

James had sat up and was watching us, studying the sullen Ellison, the unconscious lady, and my face, each in turn. Finally he turned to Cartwright and protested in a plaintive whine, “I am innocent of this.”

“Indeed?”

James jabbed his finger in Ellison’s direction. “I’ve never seen that fellow before in all my life. I found out where Lady Rose was being kept, and I came to rescue her.”

Cartwright shrugged his shoulders. “I doubt that the police will believe your story. They’ll want to know why you threatened an unarmed girl, I think. You certainly do not appear innocent, and I daresay your record is not as clean as you would have us think. However, I believe when I explain our case, you will be more than willing to help us capture the person whom we have all been seeking. If you cooperate with us, perhaps Mr. Porter can convince the authorities to overlook a few things about your past. Or we can step aside and allow the police to arrest you for kidnapping and attempted murder.”

James thrust out a defiant lip. “What things in my past are we talking about exactly?”

“Well, for starters, there is the matter of the letters.”

A shade of fear passed over the valet’s face. “Which letters are you meaning?”

“The ones that Thomas Dyer stole from his mistress and sold to you. Those must, of course, be returned to us.”

James seemed surprised by this demand but did not seem inclined to argue. “I’ll look into it.” There was a hint of sly relief behind his answer. “Anything else, sir?”

“One moment.” Cartwright stepped over to his master and, kneeling down beside him, whispered something in his ear. Porter nodded briefly, and his assistant rose and strode over to the door.

“I have to return to the estate now, James,” Cartwright told the valet. “You will come with me.”

James snorted loudly and clambered to his feet. “Just as you say, sir.”

I moved to follow them, but Cartwright turned to me abruptly and raised his eyebrows. “I’m sorry, Dora.”

“But—”

“I need you to stay with Lady Rose until her doctor comes. When she wakes up you can attend to her. We have yet to hear her story—”

“But Mr. Porter can—”

“No! I need
you
to be here.”

I slumped against the wall. At this crucial moment he was leaving me behind, and I would miss it all, the capture, the arrest, the final flourish. I would hear about it later, if he remembered to explain it to me, or I might read about it in the papers.

He saw my sour expression and, leaning down, he took my hand in his. “Dora, don’t be angry, please. I’m asking you to stay because I need you here. You know that your help has been invaluable to me. And that last trick you used to break into this house—honestly, I’m still trying to work out how you knew that Ellison had been sick on Christmas.”

I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. “Oh—that. Well, his fingernails, you see—there was a ridge across his nail-plate. When a man is severely ill, the nail stops growing briefly. The distance of that line from the cuticle allowed me to estimate the date of illness.”

“Ah, of course! I did not see that.”

“But you were not close enough to him—”

“I was—but I simply did not notice. Well done, Dora.”

I forgot my disappointment for a moment. Also my throbbing arm, the case…

“Thank you.”

He nodded quietly and pulled the sleeve back from my wounded arm. “When the doctor has tended to Lady Rose, I want him to examine your burn. It’s looking worse with every passing hour.”

He turned away before I could respond and grabbed James by the shoulder. The valet glowered at him but made no protest, and together they left the house.

When they were gone, Ellison smirked at me and shook his head. “You needn’t look so cheeky, girl. He just ‘got around’ you, or didn’t you see that?”

“The police will soon be here for you,” I told him scornfully and left the room. But Ellison was right, and of course I knew it. I had truly begun to hate our prisoner.

Mr. Porter was kneeling beside Lady Rose when I joined them. He had succeeded in reviving her with some water and a swig of brandy, and he was asking her if she remembered what had happened to her.

“A rag with a strong sharp smell is all I can remember,” she told him. “Then I woke up here. My hands were tied, and a man whom I had never seen before was standing over me.”

From the next room I heard a clatter, a thud, and the sound of Ellison cursing. “I need some help in here! The blasted chair has fallen over and my face is bleeding. Hello in there!”

Porter gave me a weary look and left to tend to our troublesome prisoner. Lady Rose stared at me for a moment and then pushed herself up against the wall.

“Who are you?” she inquired in a weak voice.

It suddenly occurred to me that I did not know who I was. Was it still necessary to keep up my role as Hartfield scullery maid, or could I tell her that I was working with the detective who had rescued her? I decided to be cautious and reveal nothing about myself until I was certain it was safe.

“My name is Dora Banister, Your Ladyship,” I told her. “I’m the new maid at Hartfield Hall.”

She half-rose from the blanket as I spoke and looked about the room with growing interest. I held out a bit of muffin and she took it eagerly, and, manners quite forgotten, began to stuff it whole into her mouth. I pulled out another one and offered it to her, but she caught my wrist and turned it over. “What happened to your hand?” she asked me between mouthfuls.

I pulled my arm back and tucked it beneath my apron. “I scalded it on the stove,” I responded. “It’s nothing really.”

In truth, my burn had swelled now, and the wound looked uglier than before. The scarlet streak had darkened to a dusky purple, and though my fingers were still numb, the aching heat across my palm now seemed to radiate through my body. The room was cold and drafty, but a flush of fever warmed my cheeks and a sheen of perspiration glistened on my brow.

“What are you doing here?” she asked after she had finished her second muffin. “And where is that brutish farmer who was starving me?”

“He’s tied to a chair out there. We’re waiting for the doctor to come and then we’ll take you home. Until he arrives, I’m here to take care of you.”

Lady Rose glared at me and shook her head. “I don’t believe you,” she declared finally. “They tried starvation to get me to confess and then drugged me with opium when I refused. They forced me to write a farewell letter to my parents. Perhaps this is another trick. I have never seen you before in all my life. Tell me why I should trust you.”

Of course she did not believe me. A maid in my position would not have dared to address her mistress in such an easy way; she would have answered shortly, with great embarrassment and averted eyes. But I had to know what she was hiding, had to understand what her kidnappers had wanted from her.

“You can trust me, Lady Rose,” I assured her. “Because I’m working with the man who rescued you, who apprehended James just moments ago in this cottage.”

She frowned and reached out for another pastry.

“James, my brother’s valet? He found me here? How very poetic. Now we’ve both unearthed a secret.” She smiled to herself and bit deep into the crust.

“You unearthed a secret, Lady Rose?”

She looked startled for a moment, as if realizing for the first time that she had spoken her thoughts out loud. Then she slumped back against the wall and turned her face away from me. “Perhaps I have—or perhaps not. What is it to you?”

“I’m trying to help you,” I answered her. “It’s obvious that you’ve been cruelly wronged. These criminals have kidnapped you, mistreated you—starved you, even. Surely you wish them to be brought to justice?”

She turned to me and I saw that she was smiling now, a tired, ironic smile, as if she pitied me for my sad mistake. “Cruelly wronged, you said?” she echoed. “Are you talking about this?” She waved her hand over the squalid room. “This lasted a few days, and I was asleep through most of it. And while I wouldn’t want to return here again, I wouldn’t say that
this
is how they’ve wronged me.”

“Then, how—?”

“I’m not going to tell you what I know,” she interrupted. “I don’t know who you are, Miss Dora, but I can see that you aren’t meant to be here. And you’re obviously not a maid; I noticed that right away. No maid has eyes like yours. And there are no female inspectors that I know of—certainly not at your age. So either you’re a criminal—or an actress. Either way, you’re not doing what you ought to be.”

I smiled to myself. She was certainly right about that, I thought.

“No, I suppose I’m not,” I replied. “People have been telling me for years that I’m not behaving as I ought to be. But I can’t say that I regret the choices that I’ve made.”

“Well, then, we’re very different,” she retorted in a bitter voice. “As I’ve spent the last few years regretting nearly every choice I’ve made. All of the blunders, all the embarrassment I’ve caused.” She sighed and sank back farther against the wall. “You see,
I
never expected to be a disappointment.”

“Well, no one wants to be a disappointment,” I replied softly. “But I can’t imagine that anyone thinks of you that way.”

“Well, if you believe that, then you must know nothing about me.” She laughed shortly. “Nearly everybody else has heard about the earl’s clumsy daughter, about Hartfield’s social failure. That’s how they all describe me, if they remember me at all.”

“But you can still change that,” I insisted. “You have your family behind you, after all.”

“My family?” she shot back. “No, I don’t think they will support me. How could they? They’ll hate me for uncovering their secret. Still, what else could I do? What would you have done if you’d been me, if you’d been given an opportunity to change your life forever?”

I wasn’t certain what she was asking me, of course, but I had to say something, and encourage her to continue. “I suppose that I would have taken the chance,” I ventured.

She sighed and turned away. “But what if, by revealing the truth, you tore down what your family loved most?” she murmured sadly.

How does one respond to a question like that? I could not claim to understand her feelings without revealing details of my own life, without telling her of my own experience. But she did not want to hear my story, even if I’d been willing to tell it then. In fact she did not appear to want any answer from me, for she was no longer looking at me, but instead was gazing off at some point in the distance. She had only wanted to speak out loud, I realized, to voice the question that had plagued her for so long, which she had not dared to share with anyone.

“Perhaps, in the end, you won’t have to reveal the secret,” I suggested finally. “Perhaps others will do it for you.”

She nodded and lay back on the floor. “That might be the best thing after all, I think,” she agreed. “But it can’t happen that way now. I’ve hidden it, you see—and no one will find it without me.”

That was all she was prepared to say, it seemed, for she had turned her face back to the wall. Her breathing was more regular now, and after a few minutes I saw that she had drifted off to sleep.

I moved away from her and thought about what she’d just said. Several loose clues were beginning to come together in my mind.

Lady Rose had not identified James as her abductor, even though there was no question that the valet knew why his mistress had been kidnapped. Over the last few weeks he had spent hours deciphering a code in the Hartfield library; Agatha had seen him with a coded message. And just now Lady Rose had hinted that James had discovered something, that they had both “unearthed a secret,” as she had put it. Flora had mentioned seeing mud on Lady Rose’s fingers; perhaps the girl had literally unearthed it. Had Lady Rose taken something from James and hidden it away for her own purpose? But what had she had taken from him, and, more importantly, where had she concealed it?

And then it came to me. I had noticed something no one else had. Even Cartwright had missed it, for he had searched Lady Rose’s room in the beginning and found nothing. But I knew now where it was. I knew where she had hidden her secret before she was abducted.

A
S
I
ROSE TO LEAVE
, Mr. Porter stepped into the room and moved to block my path. “One moment, please, young lady. My assistant promised me an explanation later—but I believe I’d like to hear it now. What exactly are you doing here?”

I did not want to justify my presence to this man. I was minutes away from uncovering Lady Rose’s secret, moments away from my first success, and this grumpy second-rate detective wanted an accounting
now
? He could apply to his apprentice for an answer.

“Mr. Cartwright needed my assistance, sir. That is why I’m here.”

“I beg your pardon?!”

“Mr. Porter, perhaps you ought to speak with him.”

“I most certainly intend to speak to him. This has become outrageous. A flirtation is a flirtation, and I do not begrudge a young man his
amours
, however misguided his choice might be. But to put his blind infatuation in front of his career, to intentionally endanger both—”

“
Infatuation
, sir?! You think that I came to Hartfield dressed like a maidservant in order to wink at your assistant?”

“I do not know what your game is yet, Miss Joyce, and, frankly, I do not care. But when I took that boy on I pledged that I would look after him. I made a promise to myself to do my best by him, to treat him as my own son. And I can honestly say that I’ve kept that promise. He was doing well with me, and learning a great deal. He was
recovering
, Miss Joyce, faster than anyone could have imagined. And so I think I have a duty now to ask you what you’re about and what your relationship is with my young apprentice. I have the right to understand that much!”

“I don’t know what you want to hear, sir!” I exclaimed furiously. “Mr. Cartwright asked me to help him!” I was choking on my own anger now, burning crimson with humiliation. “He asked me as a friend, a colleague—as an equal! I realize that you are worried about my involvement in this case, but I’ve done nothing,
nothing
to shame anyone.”

I would have continued in that vein, would have protested my innocence until I had convinced him, but my mind had now suddenly clouded over, and a gray fog had swirled before my eyes. Alarmed, I reached my hands out to steady myself against the wall, and then gasped as a searing pain shot across my arm.

Porter stepped forward and grasped me by the elbow. “Miss Joyce? Are you unwell?” His voice came at me like a distant roar, a muffled rumble without meaning. I shook my head to clear my sight and took a deep breath in. Porter was calling to me now, and I heard myself replying, a dull echo in my head, “I need a moment—please just give me a moment.”

I couldn’t be sick now; I had come so close! What was the use of all my work if I fell ill when they needed me the most? And I couldn’t faint before this man, this overbearing pompous bag! He would smirk at me and then lecture me about a young girl’s innocent fragility. I could never live that down. I had to overcome this nausea, the sinking blackness in my head.

A few more breaths brought back some clarity; I shook myself, pulled my shoulders back, and opened my eyes. My vision was slowly returning. I could see Porter’s frowning face, and the unpleasant sight helped to clear my mind. He had stepped forward when he’d moved to catch me, and I saw that he was no longer blocking the doorway. My path to Hartfield was now clear.

I gave him an ingratiating smile, took a final deep breath, then quickly dodged past him and headed for the door. He spun about and shouted after me. “Where are you going, girl?”

But I did not stay to answer him; I was already out the door and running toward the Hall. He would not follow me, I knew, for he could not leave Ellison and Lady Rose alone.

It was nearly evening now and the sun had set into a bleak and cloudy sky; a southerly wind bit at my ankles and snapped at my neck as I sped down across the valley. I hid my wounded hand beneath my cloak to shield it from the biting wind. By the time I reached the Hall, my chest burned with every breath I took, and my head throbbed as if a crown of freezing lead had been bound around my temples. Clutching the banister, I pulled myself up to Lady Rose’s bedroom and stumbled over to the bookcase.

The wooden clock, the broken one, was still sitting on the shelf, the only silent, lifeless piece in the entire bookcase. The other ceramic clocks each ticked their tunes, mocking their quiet brother. I plucked it off the shelf and pried the base open with my fingers. There was a hollow cavity inside where the mechanism had once been, and there, rolled into a spiral cone, was a single letter. Carefully I eased it from its hiding place and held it up, trying to read the writing by the dimming light.

On one side was a list of
I
’s and
V
’s and
X
’s arranged in neat, short columns. On the reverse, in different handwriting, was the translation of the code.

My dearest Mark, By now you understand why we can no longer see each other. It is becoming obvious that he is your son—

“DORA!” In a moment, the letter was tucked beneath my apron. Agatha was standing by the door, hands on her hips, shaking her head back and forth like an angry schoolteacher. “What are you doing here? They have been looking for you all afternoon!”

“I—the clock is broken!” I blurted out and pointed to the dismantled piece upon the shelf.

“What?”

My composure was returning to me now, and I tried again. “I was passing by the room, and I saw this clock lying on the floor. I was tryin’ to put it back together.”

She looked perplexed and shook her head. “That’s where you’ve been all day?”

I rolled my eyes. “No, ’course not. But listen, I think it was the workman that was here before that broke it. I saw him near here earlier.”

Agatha smiled. “The workman? Ah, the tall one that Flora likes?”

“That’s the one.”

“He was just in the library talking with James.”

“I’ll just go and ask him about the clock, then.”

“But you won’t find him there now.”

“Why not?”

“They both left the Hall a few minutes ago.”

I was too late. Swallowing my frustration, I turned away from her and peeked out through the window curtain. The grounds were shadowed and quiet. There was no sign of them. “Did they say where they was goin’?”

“Of course not. ’Tisn’t my business, is it? And I can’t figure out why you think it’s yours.” Her eyes narrowed, and she raised her chin. “See here, what do you want with James, anyhow?”

There was really no way to answer that without creating further questions. I had to think of something to throw her off the track, or else I would never be allowed to leave. So I decided to tell her what I thought she would want to hear, as I had run out of ideas.

“Listen, Agatha,” I whispered miserably. “If I tell you this, you have to swear to me that you won’t tell a livin’ soul.”

She relaxed a little and stepped closer to me. “You’ve been straight with me, haven’t you?” she told me. “So I’ll be straight with you.”

I wavered for a moment, exhaled slowly and ducked my head. “That workman that was here, that tall one with the green eyes—he’s very important to me. You see, the truth is—
I’m in love with him
.”

“In love with him! That’s wonderful! Oh, but, Dora, does he know?”

I shook my head and wrung my hands. A shock of pain shot through my palm and real tears started to my eyes. “He asked me to marry him. And, Agatha, I turned him down!”

“Oh, but why?” she breathed. “If you love him so?”

I managed a little hiccup of despair. “Oh, Agatha, I’m such a stupid girl! I didn’t know how much I cared for him until I realized that I was going to lose him. He’s leaving tomorrow for Ireland. And I will never see him again!”

“Ah, Dora, you poor, poor girl.” She clucked her tongue and took my hand. “Don’t cry. I think I might know where they went.”

I dried my eyes and smiled gratefully at her. This was an unexpected bonus. “You do?”

“I watched them from the window—and then I followed them. Just for a little bit, mind you. Just because I was so worried about James, you understand.”

“Of course.”

“They headed for the cemetery. Due north. Behind the church.”

“The cemetery? But—”

“I can’t imagine why, my dear, but I believe that is where they went.”

“Thank you, my friend,” I told her earnestly. “I cannot tell you what this means to me.”

“Good luck,” she murmured. “And Godspeed.”

I fled before she could wonder why I was seeking my lover in a graveyard, instead of waiting for his return to tell him of my passion.

By the time I reached the church it was nighttime and a light fog had settled on the earth. I wished suddenly that I had brought a dark lantern, for the moon was now my only source of light, and I could not see beyond the iron spikes of the graveyard fence. I stumbled past a tree stump and slipped across a patch of mud, then finally fell upon the gate and pushed it open. All was still within.

I wondered irritably why I had followed Agatha’s directions. She had said that they had walked in the direction of the cemetery, but she had not actually seen them there. Perhaps they had changed course or had turned around, and now I would have to find my way back through the dark alone. The place was eerie and forbidding, as cemeteries in the nighttime tend to be, and as I turned to flee I realized that I was shivering from real fear as well as from the cold.

I was only halfway out the gate when I felt a hand upon my shoulder. I opened my mouth to scream, but another hand closed over my lips and pushed me backward. Terrified, I lashed out blindly with my fists, striking desperately at my unknown enemy, in an effort to free myself. Before I could turn to face my attacker, my right arm was pinned behind my back and the hand over my mouth tightened its hold. In a last frantic attempt to escape, I pulled my left elbow forward and with all my strength drove it backward into my assailant’s chest.

There was a muffled gasp, and the grip upon my arm loosened. I twisted about to face my opponent. The next moment I had fallen back, shaking with laughter and relief.

“I was not expecting that,” muttered Peter Cartwright, rubbing one hand over his right side. “Two bruises in one day, Miss Joyce. Have you no compassion?”

I ran my fingers over my sore jaw. “You put your hand over my mouth.”

“You were about to scream and wake the dead. I tried to speak to you but you were too busy thrashing about to listen.”

“Where have you been hidden, then?”

“Behind the cherub tombstone in the corner.” He pointed to an angelic stone baby, and I saw a shadow flicker by a wreath of flowers at the base.

“James is with you?”

“And two constables as well. We are expecting company at any moment. I was not, however, expecting you. I distinctly remember telling you—”

“I came to bring you this,” I interrupted and pulled the letter from my apron. “This is what Lady Rose had hidden. This letter originally belonged to James.”

He snatched it from me and held it up, squinting at the words in the dim moonlight.

“‘My dearest Mark,’”
he read, and his eyes widened as he skimmed it. “Dora, this is from the earl’s first wife, from Lord Victor’s mother.”

“Yes, it’s their family secret—and the reason Lady Rose was kidnapped,” I told him.

“But how did you find it—” he began, then shook his head and grasped me by the shoulder. “Never mind, we’ll have to discuss that later. Come now, quickly, let’s get back into position. He will be here any moment.”

We hurried over to the tombstone, crouched beneath the icy shadows, and waited in the darkness. The minutes ticked by slowly, my legs grew stiff and cold; but I did not stir, I would not dare. Behind me I could hear the labored breathing of the heavier constable, the nasal whistle of the smaller one, and the irregular panting of the tense valet. I don’t believe Cartwright breathed at all, for he was as silent as the dead. The night air had an oppressive dampness to it. Someone had recently smoked a cigarette, and the smell of tobacco stung my eyes and made my throat constrict. The scent had never bothered me before, but it was suffocating now; my head swam and my vision blurred. I had begun to lean heavily on my companion, and I felt him shift and put his hand across my forehead. His fingers felt like icicles on my skin.

“You’re feverish, Dora,” he whispered, a shade of concern coloring his voice. I shivered as he spoke and pulled away from him.

“I’m just a little warm, that’s all. I ran all the way here.”

“Hush, now, someone’s coming!” The order came from James, who was hovering above me, having risen from the ground in his excitement.

From beyond the hill a distant thud of footsteps broke the stillness, and the bulky shadow of a man appeared upon the blue, moonlit horizon. He paused a moment by the church and seemed to look about him warily. I heard him sigh and mutter to himself as he paced before the cemetery fence. Then he pushed open the iron gate and stepped out of the shadows toward us so we could see his face.