Wiles of a Stranger (8 page)

I decided to test him, which meant putting myself forward more than a governess might politely do. Our role was to sit back and listen, speaking only if our charge got out of hand. My test must pose a question whose reply required some close knowledge of the Peninsular was. Burgos seemed a likely subject for the test question. When he began on some talk of taking French prisoners, leaked innocently, “Would you have taken a great many prisoners after a battle such as Burgos?”

“Hundreds of them,” he said, waving a hand airily.

This absolutely confirmed in my mind that the man was an impostor. After the defeat of Burgos nearly half the English Army ended up prisoners, whereas the French seldom left many soldiers behind. Wellington had been confused at the reason for finding so few stragglers, and concluded that the French marched more quickly, and kept closer ranks. I rather wondered that Beaudel did not realize Burgos had been no victory for us, but the battle had taken place some time ago, and our defeats always received less publicity than our victories.

If Major Morrison was not a real major, then who was he, and why was he here? I have already indicated that he directed a good deal of attention to Lucien, which is not to say he omitted Mrs. Beaudel from his observation, or myself either. He was a very sharp observer of us all.

The hostess could not be accused of outright flirtation, with her husband sitting beside her. She actually said very little, but she managed her heavily-lidded eyes in such a way that before long, the major began directing the better part of his conversation to her. After some interchanges between them, he returned his attention to Lucien.

“So you are the little fellow who owns the Beaudel collection,” he said heartily, while his fingers massaged his quizzing glass. “You are pretty young to own a boxful of diamonds and jewelry. I hope you take good care of them.”

“My uncle takes care of them for me,” Lucien replied, in his foggy little voice that could still surprise me by its deepness. “A man tried to steal some a few days ago, but Uncle caught him.”

“That is a shocking thing!” the major exclaimed, looking to Beaudel for confirmation.

With my mind alive to some charade on this man’s part, I began to see playacting in every move be made. I took the notion he was no more surprised at the story than I was. He knew it all along. It is not that he did not react strongly enough. Quite the contrary, he overreacted. His gray eyes widened, his brows shot up. The whole performance smelled of Covent Garden.

“I was very surprised,” Beaudel allowed. “He was an eminent authority in the jewel world. I had not thought Diamond Dutch would sink to stealing, but he was caught with a few stones in his pocket.”

“No better than he should be, I daresay,” Morrison said.

I glared at him, the gorge rising in my throat. He lifted his quizzing glass and regarded me for a longish moment, while I stifled my anger, unable to retaliate. Then he turned back to Beaudel. “Were they valuable stones he stole?”

“As to that, he did not have access to anything worth real money. They were not flawless gems, nor very large. Some of the pieces my brother picked up in India for an old song, but very likely he did not know that.”

“If the foremost diamond expert in the county did not know it, who would?” the major asked, his head at a haughty angle.

For half a moment, I felt it would be possible to like the major. It was an excellent point. If my father were to steal, which he never would do, he would not bother to pick up a handful of flawed or small stones worth very little. He soon rattled on to earn my disgust.

“Of course if he were short of blunt, he might very well sink to stealing baubles. Well, he did do it, so there is no point in discussing the matter. Shall we have a look at the Italian jewelry now, sir? I shall return tomorrow to see them in the light of day, of course. I hope it will not be cloudy. How about it, Lucien? May I see your jewels?” he asked, turning to the boy.

“You will have to ask my uncle,” Lucien told him.

This was not necessary. Beaudel was already arising to go for the key, while his wife took advantage of his absence to roll her eyes at the major, and he took advantage of the opportunity to compliment her on her appearance, finding it eligible to tell another man’s wife he was surprised to discover one quite unsuspected jewel at Glanbury Park.

It was Lucien who called them to order, in his own inimitable and blunt way. “Aunt Stella always looks well when we are having company. She dresses up for hours.”

“Children should be seen, and not speak unless spoken to, Lucien,” I felt obliged to tell him, but my heart was not in  it.

“People hardly ever speak to me when there are adults about,” he replied.

The major engaged him in some pleasant nonsense until Beaudel returned, then we all went along to the study for another view of the collection. I was not specifically invited, but as Lucien went, I tagged along. The jewels I have already described. The major examined them with the keenest interest, and a few comments indicating that he knew what he was talking about. The old Italian necklace he was particularly interested in. He was marvelously impressed with it, and hinted without asking outright why it was for sale. Beaudel repeated he was not actually eager to sell, and pressed the major for some idea of what price he had in mind.

“I will have to have my man examine it thoroughly,” he said, to evade a quotation. It was a common practice for each party to push the other for the first bid. “He should arrive from London tomorrow. A pity to put him to the bother when Diamond Dutch is within a stone’s throw of your front door, but I don’t suppose they’d let him out.”

“I wouldn’t let him inside the house if he
were
allowed out,” Beaudel said sharply.

“Quite right,” the major said, in his tart, military way, that reeked to me now of playacting. “If you have any other such pieces, I would be interested in seeing them as well.”

Mrs. Beaudel urged her husband to show him the sapphire, which Beaudel did, but unwillingly. She wanted the major to admire all the various pieces, but whether this was to have a chance to talk to him, or in hopes he would want to buy, was not quite clear to me. When the display was finished, she rang for Wiggins and ordered tea. You never saw a more proper butler than Wiggins, nor a more uninterested mistress than Mrs. Beaudel. Morrison was not the only actor in the house.

Lucien and I were not included in the taking of tea. We went upstairs and I put him to bed, with all the little rituals established the night before. I did not learn by what sequence of events the major was invited to remain overnight, but when footfalls were eventually heard coming up the stairs, there were three pairs of feet, and a lady’s voice pointing out a guest room to Major Morrison.

Knowing the lady’s predilection for nighttime meetings belowstairs, I was afraid to roam myself. Just what I might hope to discover was unclear besides, although I was curious to rifle Mr. Beaudel’s desk, on the off chance of finding some piece of incrimination. Before many more nights, I planned to follow Mrs. Beaudel and find out just what it was she and Wiggins did belowstairs, other than make love, that is.

When at last the house settled down to silence, I tiptoed to my door and placed my ear against it, to learn whether Stella left her room. Hearing nothing, I opened my door and went quietly into the dark hallway. No light came up from below, but there was a line of illumination visible beneath the door of the room given to Morrison. Glancing at Lucien’s room, I noticed that his door was open. I went back for my lamp and went in, to see that his bed was empty. He was not in the room.  The most terrible misapprehension came over me, all in a flash. I took the idea someone was planning to harm him. Kidnapping, even murder did not seem too farfetched, there in the dark, thundering silence of the night. I had to tell Beaudel, of course.

I turned down the hall to do so, past Morrison’s room. As I passed, I heard a snicker of suppressed laughter within, Lucien’s laughter. I did not know whether I was more relieved, or shocked, or angry. I was extremely agitated in any case, and went in that state to the major’s door and knocked sharply. I blame my next inexcusable step on my state of nerves. I went barging in without waiting for anyone to bid me enter. I might have been faced with the major in any state of dishabille, but was confronted with no more than him in shirt sleeves. His jacket was cast aside, his boots kicked against a wall, while he himself was sprawled on the bed, playing with toy soldiers.

“What is going on here?” I demanded at once.

“A reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo,” the major answered, regarding me with a pair of devil-may-care eyes. All traces of the military gentleman were abandoned. The slovenly disarray of his garments spoke clearly of an unfamiliarity with Army life. I remember my surprise to see in what tidy form Richard kept his room on the few occasions we had the pleasure of his company, after he had taken his commission. His batman was partially responsible, but an officer would be sure his batman kept the place neat.

“A defeat, or a victory?” I demanded, remembering Burgos.

“Oh, a victory. We are being the English, of course,” he answered, unaware of my irony. “Did you take me for a Frenchie?”

I ignored him. “Lucien, what are you doing out of bed at this hour?” I asked angrily.

“I am playing soldiers with Major Morrison. He invited me to.”

“At eleven-thirty at night?”

“It was only eleven when we started,” he told me, with a conspiratorial little grin at his newfound friend.

“Never volunteer any information under interrogation,” Morrison cautioned him, with a playful quirk of his brows in my direction.

I could see no good reason why this visitor should be at pains to insinuate himself with Lucien. At that moment, I could see no bad reason either, but such an unusual act must have some explanation.

“Go to bed at once,” I ordered.

He looked to see if the major would countermand this order. “She’s the boss,” Morrison told him ruefully.

“A girl can’t be a boss,” Lucien countered, regarding me as though I were less than nothing, though he did begin gathering up his soldiers.

“You’ll learn better as you grow older. Women are always the boss,” the major told him, as he got lazily, and belatedly, to his feet, a leery light in those gray eyes. “Don’t be angry with the boy. It is my fault,” he said.

“Did you awaken him at eleven o’clock at night to invite him to play?”

“Of course not. We could both have waited till morning for such a rare treat. I merely opened his door to see him, and as he was awake, he showed me his soldiers.”

I stared, incredulous, at his having gone down the hall after being shown his room by the Beaudels, to look at Lucien.

“I like children,” he added lamely.

I continued to stare. The excuse was unacceptable, and he knew it. “The fact is,” he continued, “I had a son myself, who would be Lucien’s age now, if he had lived. A little older. He died while I was in Spain. I never knew him at this age. I hope you can forgive me.”

He looked at Lucien with a sad little smile as he spoke.

How quickly I had been put in the wrong. I felt a perfect monster, complaining of his behavior, when it had such a grievous reason behind it. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“It is quite all right. You could not possibly know. How should you? It was wrong of me to pull the child out of his bed at such an hour. It shan’t happen again.”

Lucien had his soldiers in their box, and came toward the door. “I will go back to bed now, Miss Stacey,” he told me, with great condescension.

“You’d better, before you get me into any more trouble,” Morrison said, tousling his head and smiling, with what looked like real affection, at the boy. It softened his harsh face, that smile. I found myself wondering how he would look with a clean shave. He was not as old at close range as I had thought. Or rather, this less martinet-like posture and expression lent a more youthful air to him. I now judged his age to be in the late twenties. He had married young, to have a son Lucien’s age.

While these thoughts passed quickly through my mind, he went on speaking to Lucien. “Don’t forget you’re going to show me your pony tomorrow.”

“Don’t you forget you are going to buy me an ice,” Lucien bartered back.

An ice could not be bought closer than at Chelmsford. If the major thought Lucien would be allowed away from home with a virtual stranger, I was sure he was mistaken, but that would be for Beaudel to tell him.

“If we can prevail on Miss— ah, Stacey’s, is it?—good graces to let you off the leash,” the major answered, with a playful, quizzing glance at me. “Do you allow such freedoms, ma’am, or are you not an old enough hand at the job to have established rules yet?”

“Miss Stacey has only been here for two days,” Lucien answered for me.

The satisfied air that settled on the major told me as clearly as words that this was what he had been angling to discover. Why on earth did he want to know that? For that matter, how had he come to suspect I was so new at the job?

“That’s what I thought,” he said cryptically. “Miss Stacey is much too young to have been here longer than two days.”

A guilty flush suffused my face. What did the man know?

“What a pair of ruffians we are, Lucien. We have set the young lady to blushing. One would think a London lady would be more accustomed to bantering.”

“Miss Stacey isn’t from London. She is from Norfolk. Her papa is a doctor,” Lucien answered.

“Is that what she told you? Then of course it must be true. We gentlemen never question the word of a lady. Or hardly ever. Good-night, Miss Stacey. I hope you sleep well. I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow. I am sure you and I will have a great deal to talk about.”

“She mostly likes to talk about ‘rithmetic,” Lucien warned, as he went out the door.

The major bowed us out, and stood with his arm against the jamb, smiling as we hastened off. I am convinced no officer would stand so casually. Their bones or joints stiffen up so that they stand like wooden men, even when waltzing. Oh no, this major was no real veteran, but who, and what, was he?