The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place (21 page)

“Don’t crush the wee dog, Jock,” the woman declared. “However much he may vex you.”

“He’s a bloody devil!” shouted the workman whose name, apparently, was Jock. “A foul cur what ought to be dropped in the pond with a rock tied to its tail!”

Pocked Louise hurried forward and snatched him up.

“I beg your pardon,” Smooth Kitty said coldly. “The dog is only doing his duty and protecting us from strangers.”

“I aren’t a stranger,” the man said. “I’ve worked for Mrs. Lally eleven years.”

Mrs. Lally, for Jock obviously referred to the woman in the grape-festooned hat, saw no reason to correct Jock’s social graces at this moment. “Young misses,” she said, curtseying toward the girls, “are you
sure
your headmistress ain’t around for me to speak with? I hate leaving these belongings of her brother’s here without at least speaking to her.”

Smooth Kitty shook her head. “I do apologize, but Mrs. Plackett stepped out for the afternoon.”

Mrs. Lally’s grapes quivered. “Well, it’s most inconvenient of her. Not that anyone ever minds
my
convenience. It’s only because I’m a Christian woman that I bother bringing these things by, instead of selling them at top price to recoup my losses on that brother of hers.” The landlady peered from side to side, as though to catch some eavesdropper. “Other landlords would do it in two shakes, and the magistrate’d let ’em. Three months behind, he was! He assured me, just the last night I saw him, he told me his sister in Ely would
f
loat him out of his troubles. And doesn’t he up and vanish on me without a word or a farthing!”

Little Aldous bared his teeth and growled at Mrs. Lally from the safety of Louise’s grasp. Louise’s mind churned with her own thoughts. From the look of it, Smooth Kitty had the same idea—this Mrs. Lally clearly expected Mrs. Plackett to pay up Mr. Godding’s rent, if only to preserve their family’s reputation. But the girls couldn’t spare money like that.

“Mind you, I’m not the only one he owes money to,” Mrs. Lally went on. “Certain men’ve been coming around for weeks now, troubling the gentleman over his debts.” She leaned forward and whispered as though somehow they wouldn’t all hear. “He
gambles
!”

The revelation failed to produce the shocked effect Mrs. Lally evidently hoped for. But she had heavier ammunition.

“I for one am not so sure he went to India to help some precious nephew.”

Remain calm, Kitty,
that young lady told herself. “And why is that?”

Mrs. Lally now found some of the satisfaction she’d come looking for, albeit not the monetary kind. “I think he went running from the debt collectors and the bookies.”

Dour Elinor and Pocked Louise looked at each other for enlightenment.

“I beg your pardon,” Smooth Kitty said at length. “I don’t know what that term means.”

Mrs. Lally pursed her lips, evidently enjoying the worldly-wise knowledge she possessed that these higher-born, better educated young ladies did not. “Bookies. Bookmakers. The chaps that hold the betting books. At horseraces. Roulette. Brag tables. Gentlemen’s clubs.”

Smooth Kitty began to feel a bit dizzy.

“They’re smooth enough at first,” Mrs. Lally went on, “with their fancy gloves and nice mustaches. It’s when you don’t pay up that they take a different turn.”

Finally some insight. “And you think Mr. Godding has
f
led from these … bookies? To avoid paying gambling debts?”

The landlady shrugged. “Seems more in his nature than going off to help a nephew. What do you think?”

Smooth Kitty began rapidly to lose patience with this woman. “I only know what my headmistress told me, and I have no reason to doubt her.”

While this conversation took place, Pocked Louise balanced little Aldous on one hip, and fished in her pocket for her notebook and pencil. It wasn’t easy to write with a dog in her arms, but she managed to scrawl “
bookies
” on her list of suspects. If only she could learn their names!

Smooth Kitty, meanwhile, had decided it was time to change the subject with these unwelcome guests. Money had she none, but hospitality must be observed.

“Can I offer you something to eat or drink, Mrs. Lally? Mr., er, Jock?’

“What’re you having?” Jock licked his lips.

Mrs. Lally would have none of this distraction. “Know what else he does, Miss?”

Smooth Kitty’s voice was as frosty and uninterested as she could possibly make it. “We scarcely knew—
know
our headmistress’s brother, never mind his private pastimes.”

Mrs. Lally was undaunted. “He consorts with
women!”
Her glance fell upon Disgraceful Mary Jane. “Can you countenance such a thing, Miss?”

Disgraceful Mary Jane swallowed a laugh. “Indeed, I’m shocked,” that young lady replied. “I can’t countenance a woman who would stoop to keeping company with him.”

Mrs. Lally had begun to nod at what she expected Mary Jane would say. When she caught Mary Jane’s
f
lippancy, her eyes narrowed.

“And why is that, Miss?” she asked stif
f
ly. “His habits may want correction, but he’s an agreeable gentleman. He makes quite a dashing figure.”

Smooth Kitty began to realize why Mrs. Lally had allowed Mr. Godding to fall three months’ delinquent in his payments. For his charms! How repulsive. “Mr. Godding’s appearance is a matter of personal taste,” Kitty said, as though to chastise Mary Jane for the landlady’s benefit.

Color rose in Mrs. Lally’s cheeks. “I’m respectable, and I keep a decent house. Gentleman or no, I need none of that sort of thing about. Your headmistress, if she has any decency, should speak to her brother about his morals.”

“
Jilted lovers,”
Pocked Louise wrote in her notebook.
“Romantic hopefuls of either deceased party.”

Smooth Kitty advanced toward the door, leaving Mrs. Lally no choice but to take a backwards step toward it also. “I am sure this will be Mrs. Plackett’s first topic of conversation with her brother when next she sees him,” she said. For a moment she pictured this joyful sibling confrontation taking place before Saint Peter at the pearly gates. “Mrs. Plackett would wish us to thank you for bringing Mr. Godding’s things here.”

Mrs. Lally looked far from finished speaking, but the sound of wheels and hoof beats on the gravel drive made her pause. It was only Henry Butts approaching in his freshly waxed cart, pulled by Merry, but the landlady looked caught, somehow, by this unexpected arrival.

“Come on, Jock.” She yanked on his canvas sleeve. “We’ve said our piece. The missus ain’t home. No point in us waiting.” With that, she turned and marched out the door. After aiming a malevolent look in little Aldous’s direction, Jock ambled after. The grapes on Mrs. Lally’s hat bobbed as she climbed stif
f
ly into her wagon.

“A touch for money, if I ever saw one,” Pocked Louise stroked Aldous between the ears. “There’s our good little guard dog! She thought she could squeeze some rent out of Mrs. Plackett, didn’t she, Kitty?”

Smooth Kitty watched their wagon drive away. “Oh, she’s owed it, I’m sure. But she’s not going to get it. Mr. Godding took his debts with him to … well, wherever he’s gone.” She smiled slyly. “Perhaps not to heaven, if his landlady’s reports are true.”

Disgraceful Mary Jane had already forgotten all about Mrs. Lally. “Look at that silly Henry Butts,” she said. “Red as an apple at the thought of squiring us all to the social. And look! He’s gone and done up the pony’s mane with
f
lowers. If he thinks he’s going to pin a
f
lower in
my
hair, he has another thing coming.”

Pocked Louise and Dour Elinor exchanged a silent look.

“Run and thank Henry for driving us,” Smooth Kitty told Mary Jane. “Try not to break his heart in the process. But tell him he’ll have to wait a while. We’re nowhere near ready.”

CHAPTER 17

Soft twilight hung over Ely proper, and candles in village bedroom windows twinkled at the young ladies of Saint Etheldreda’s School for Young Ladies ninety minutes later as they bounced toward the Saint Mary’s Church parish hall. The church bells began to chime eight o’clock, and the great cathedral’s deeper bells took up a competing
bong, bong, bong
.

Stout Alice, disguised with putty, makeup, dress, and veil as Mrs. Plackett, sat swaying next to Henry Butts in the front seat of the cart, as her headmistress would have done. The night was cool, but Alice felt sweat dampening her underthings and pooling in her slippers. Just another misery to endure on this frightful night. Perspiration was her albatross. As her grandmamma often said, it came of overdoing it at meals and taking on too much
f
lesh. But tonight, with performance anxiety
f
looding her with nausea, there was no danger of Stout Alice consuming even a morsel of strawberry tart. Not until she could get home, climb out of these dreadful clothes, and peel this ghastly putty off her face, would she even think of food.

Wretched though she was, Alice had to admit that Dour Elinor, armed with her new tools of the makeup artist’s trade, had done wonders in transforming her into Mrs. Plackett. With putty she had built up Alice’s nose to precisely the headmistress’s distinctive shape. Elinor’s eye was unfailing, and her fingers nimble. Disgraceful Mary Jane declared the likeness so complete that Alice could dispense with the veil, at least during her vocal performance. Alice preferred to hide behind a sheet of lace regardless, but the other girls prevailed upon her to remove it for her song.

Henry Butts said blessedly little on the way to town, for which silence Stout Alice was grateful. Henry would hardly be expected to maintain conversation with Widow Plackett, but Alice suspected his silence was due more to the terror he felt at escorting six handsome young ladies into town, than from any fear of their crotchety headmistress. The girls were, indeed, all looking uncommonly rosy tonight. Even Dour Elinor and Pocked Louise were forced to submit reluctantly to Disgraceful Mary Jane, who made what she called mandatory adjustments to their coiffures and added some ornaments from her own jewelry box to their somber clothes. Dear Roberta, Dull Martha, and Smooth Kitty were pretty as pie. All their bonnets were fetchingly done in pink and red ribbons. As for herself, nobody explained to Henry Butts that Alice was upstairs with a headache. Her presence wasn’t missed, a fact which only added to Alice’s gloom.

They reached the parish hall. Light streamed from its tall windows all the way down to the path where church deacons stood assisting elderly ladies from their conveyances into the social. Henry Butts sprang the brake in his cart and leaped to assist the girls one by one.

“Oh, don’t mind me, Henry.” Disgraceful Mary Jane hitched up the hem of her frock, revealing a pretty ankle as she stepped down from the cart.

“If you say so,” Henry replied, and reached to assist a blushing Dull Martha.

Disgraceful Mary Jane, who clearly did not expect to be taken at her word, frowned. But she quickly brightened. “Look, there’s Constable Quill, still in uniform!”

Dear Roberta sat straight and tall, holding the precious embroidered linen tablecloth on her lap, carefully wrapped in tissue paper. She entrusted it reluctantly to Dour Elinor as she herself disembarked from the cart.

The parish hall dazzled their eyes after the deepening dusk outdoors. Lamps and candles blazed from every table, spread with smooth white tablecloths, and decorated with paper strawberries and short bouquets of white daisies and red roses. A heaping mound of fresh strawberries graced the refreshment table, alongside platters of dainties and a huge glass urn gleaming with ruby-colored punch. The food looked too pristine, and the party as yet too sparse, for any of the guests to begin eating. What people there were in the room huddled in corners, eyeing the food and the clothing of the new arrivals.

“Well, here we are,” Smooth Kitty whispered. “Pray heaven for an uneventful night.”

“Easy for you to say.” Stout Alice rapped Kitty’s arm with her Chinese fan—exactly the kind of thing Mrs. Plackett would do. “You don’t have to play an old lady, nor sing a humiliating song for the assembly.”

“Watch where you go swatting people,” Kitty said. “You have only yourself to thank for our presence here. Let’s just hope the food is good.”

Just then, Alice saw Mr. Leland Murphy duck into the room. His face shone bright with the effort of scrubbing and shaving, as evidenced by fresh nicks to his chin. His eyes went immediately to the Saint Etheldreda party—to Alice, then away, then to Alice again. His eyebrows knitted together. He seemed confused. Someone was missing from their party. Poor Alice’s heart didn’t know whether to sing or weep.

Her thoughts were interrupted by tender concern from Dull Martha.

“Do try not to be murdered tonight, Alice,” whispered that young lady. “I should cry from now till forever if you were.”

Smooth Kitty’s fingers itched to cover Dull Martha’s mouth. “Let’s not talk nonsense, please,” she hissed. “And let’s not use the name
Alice
tonight for any reason.”

“It isn’t nonsense.” Dour Elinor looked darkly around the room. “Whoever struck Mrs. Plackett down is likely to be here.”

“Sssh!”

Pocked Louise nodded knowingly at Dour Elinor. “We shall keep a close watch.”

Mrs. Rumsey, the vicar’s wife, greeted them. She was a compact woman, straight and slim in her bearing, and severe of expression. Her efforts had wrought this magical transformation upon the parish hall, yet it was hard to reconcile her stern demeanor with the room’s bright pageant of color.

“Constance.” Mrs. Rumsey nodded to Stout Alice, who forgot, for an instant, that she must respond to that name. She realized with horror that she didn’t know Mrs. Rumsey’s first name, and should. She nodded back and tried to think of what to say.

Dear Roberta rescued her. “We’ve finished the tablecloth, Mrs. Rumsey.” She surrendered her precious package. “I hope you like it.”

Mrs. Rumsey peeled back the tissue paper and examined the needlework. “The table linens were supposed to arrive half an hour ago,” she said. “I’ll have to strip one of the tables now. But I suppose we cannot let your work go to waste. Be sure to observe the cloth submitted by the young ladies from Mrs. Usher’s school. It’s an absolute tapestry of strawberries.” She moved off in the direction of the food, gesturing for another woman on her Ladies’ Committee to assist her. Together they removed the lamp and
f
lowers from a table, and switched its plain white cloth for their embroidered one.