Joan Smith Page 18

  “Another scandal?” I asked, coming to sharp attention. “What are you talking about, Pinny? What scandal?”

  “Why, miss, it’s no secret he had to give up his London practice for nearly killing some lady he was giving dope to. His business fell clean off, and when he came back here, the local folks were all afraid to go near him too. It was only his wife’s dowry was all kept him going. She had some money, and when she died, she left it to him.”

  “How did she die?” I asked, fearing another dose of bad medicine, either accidental or intentional.

  “She was dancing a jig at the assembly when she fell down dead on the floor. The heart it was, miss. I had the story from my ma, who knew all about it from Lady Sinclair, the other Lady Sinclair I mean. She was her woman from away back, came with her from Suffolk when she got married to Sir Edward.”

  I looked at her with a totally new interest. “Your mother worked for the first Lady Sinclair?”

  “Yes, miss. She came here with her ladyship when she got married, and then she married Sir Edward’s head footman herself. I’ve been here from day one, born and bred here. My folks are dead now, but I have a good home.”

  “Now isn’t that interesting!”

  “I don’t know, miss. Napier says my life has been as dull as dishwater, but I don’t see that his own has been much more interesting, working for St. Regis and Mr. Sinclair all these years.”

  “Do you remember anything about your mother’s mistress, anything at all?”

  “I only remember them talking about her. I was born after she died, so I have no memory of it. She was pretty, they say, but not near so nice as your aunt. The servants all liked your aunt better till ... till lately.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s the wages, miss. She keeps putting them off. She’s paid a little something on account, but there’s a full quarter still owing. Folks need their money,” she said simply.

  I continued quizzing her while I dressed, but Pinny was too young to know anything of interest about Alice Sedgely. Still it was odd, her being in the house all the time, and my never realizing we had a representative from Suffolk. Upon further questioning, I learned the seamstress in the village, Miss Brendan, had done considerable work for the first Lady Sinclair. I decided it was time I had a new gown, and would have Miss Brendan make it up for me. If there was any local scandal, a modiste was as apt as anyone to know about it.

  But first I would investigate the secret passage. Occasionally the gods smile on us. More usually they laugh in our faces, but on this occasion they were benevolent. They led me to Welland’s green glasses, fallen from his pocket in his mad dash through the passageway, for he would not have been wearing them in the dark passage. He would want all the light his unshuttered eyes could give. They had fallen just at the foot of the stairs. I nearly stepped on them, for they had fallen half under the bottom step. My candle flame picked up the twinkle of the metal frames. I went on up to the top of the passage, very carefully, so as not to awaken my aunt. If they had been pulling a sheet before her eyes, they left no trace of it, but I remembered very well seeing Uncle Edward in Welland’s closet. He knew how it was done, and if he had not been instrumental in the Franconis initial apparition, I would be much surprised.

  His whole behavior was taking on a menacing flavor, in light of last night’s prank. ! had been too easily hoodwinked by his facile explanations. As I tallied up the evidence, I realized that it was he, and no one else, who stood out as being guilty. He was the one who championed the Franconis, he had the sheet with Edward’s picture on it, he had that stack of money and jewels, and a glib story to account for them. He said he was working for St. Regis, but no one had checked his story. He might have brought the letter of character with him, written by his own hand, for all I knew.

  And even if he was St. Regis’s secretary, who was more likely to know the family’s background, to be aware of family secrets that laid the members open to blackmail? St. Regis took a keen interest in the family; a careless word to an unscrupulous and impoverished cousin who was as sly as a fox and as poor as a churchmouse might put ideas in the fellow’s head. He might even have suggested his coming here to St. Regis to discover what was amiss, but in reality have a different intention at the back of his head. Who was he anyway? “Cousin” was a blanket term that covered everything from actual blood cousins to tenuous connections; even illegitimate kin were sometimes honored with the term.

  His actual living with St. Regis indicated he did not have a parental roof over his head. Outside of his made-up story about his mother’s locket, he had been marvelously mute on the subject of his parentage, as I considered it. Did he have any brothers or sisters? How often I had mentioned Elleri and Marie—all of my family—to him, with never a single word of any kin but St. Regis from him. It seemed as if he had dropped full-grown into Tanglewood, with no family strings but his patron.

  I was a ninnyhammer. Like any foolish, gullible, half-in-love girl, I had swallowed his stories holus-bolus, because I was a little infatuated with him. He had been at pains to see I should be too.

  It was suddenly crystal clear to me that his green glasses were worn to hide his real appearance. What other possible reason could there be? His eyes were healthy, untinged with red or weariness. A criminal, of course, would have some interest in hiding his phiz. Too clear a description of him after he had done his dirty work and left the neighborhood would make his capture easier. And if there was one thing on that man’s face more noticeable than any other, it was his damned melting chocolate eyes.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I hastened straight to my desk and wrote a lengthy letter to St. Regis. It was full of questions. Did Welland Sinclair wear green glasses? Had St. Regis sent him to Troy Fenners to investigate the matter of Aunt Loo’s fortune, and to buy back the family heirlooms? Was there any reason at all to suspect the man’s character? All these and a good many queries were scribbled down. At the end, I suggested rather urgently that St. Regis himself come at once to see what he could to straighten out the imbroglio here. This done, I sealed it up for posting in the village.

  But before I set one toe out of that house, I convinced my aunt to have a servant hammer her cubbyhole door closed on the inside of her room, so that no one could enter it via the secret passageway. It took a little convincing, but I said I had seen a very dangerous-looking man sneaking off through the park the night before after she had been disturbed.

  “Why did you not tell me at the time?” she asked.

  “I was afraid you would not get any sleep. That is really why I slept with you.”

  “How sweet of you, my dear. That was very courageous, but are you sure it was a man?”

  “It was certainly not a woman, but whether one would care to dignify such a low person with the title of man is a moot point.”

  “I wonder who it could have been.”

  “He was headed toward the gatehouse.”

  “You don’t think it was Welland?” she asked, frowning.

  “It rather looked like him. Who is he? Other than being St. Regis’s cousin, I mean. Is he a cousin on the wrong side of the blanket, or how does it come he has no patrimony, no family ever mentioned, outside of St. Regis himself?”

  “He is an orphan,” she said, in a commiserating way. “I could not tell you precisely what the connection is. He was just always there, you know, accepted as part of St. Regis’s household.”

  “Did Edward never mention who he might be?”

  “Edward was very fond of him. I remember that. Used to write him little letters when he was at school, and send him a few guineas. Edward knew his mama, I believe. He was used to speak of Lavinia in a fond way. I never met the woman myself. She was dead before I married Edward. Welland’s papa was a cousin to Edward, I know that much at least. They made the grand tour together. I seem to remember they were both in love with Lavinia, but then St. Regis arranged the match with Alice Sedgely for Edward, and so it was the cousi
n who got to marry Lavinia. I think Welland must get those weak eyes from his mama. The Sinclairs never had any eye trouble.”

  “Do you know his father’s name?”

  “It was Welland. The son was named after his papa. Old Welland was scholarly too. Not terribly well to grass, of course, but Lavinia had some dowry. I wonder what happened to it? Young Welland hasn’t a sou to his name. He is completely dependent on St. Regis, but of course when he marries Mary, that will be all taken care of.”

  I considered this, a theory forming in my mind that was wild, farfetched, and perfectly reasonable for all that. “How many years ago would it have been that Lavinia married her Welland?”

  “Oh, mercy me, you are getting into ancient history. What do you care for all that old stuff? Welland is about twenty-eight or nine. It must have been thirty years ago.”

  “It was a marriage of convenience, was it?”

  “It must have been. The Sinclair marriages usually are, and certainly Edward was in love with Lavinia, but whether she returned the attachment I could not really say. Memory is selective. Edward used to imply she was, but we mostly remember the good parts of our past, and if some details are unpleasant, we manage to change them a little to make happier daydreaming.”

  “I wonder why St. Regis insisted on Edward marrying Alice. Lavinia cannot have been so terribly ineligible, or he would not have allowed Welland to marry her.”

  “Alice would not have Welland. She did not like Edward, but she positively loathed and despised Welland. St. Regis was determined one of them would have her, for she was very rich, and since she would not even consider Welland, in the end they made her marry my husband.”

  “I am a little surprised St. Regis would permit Welland to marry Lavinia. He seems to have had no fortune, and Lavinia very little. I wonder why he did not find another heiress for Welland.”

  “Yes, that is odd, now you mention it. St. Regis not only accepted the match, but even sponsored it. He must have, for Lavinia lived in the dower house. I often wondered if she was not St. Regis’s lover.”

  “And Welland St. Regis’s illegitimate son?” I asked, with a stir of excitement.

  “They don’t call it illegitimate when they get someone to marry the girl in time,” she pointed out. “Adulterine, I believe, is the word. I do not think it can be the case, however, for Edward would not have been fond of St. Regis’s son. He would have hated him.”

  “But he loved Lavinia.”

  “Yes, but he would have hated her having St. Regis’s child, you see. When they married her to Welland, it was only natural they have a child, and Edward did not seem to resent that so much.”

  “Does the present Welland have any brothers or sisters?”

  “No, he was the only child. I think I must return to my scriptorium now, Valerie. I have wasted I don’t know how much time with this business of nailing up the cubbyhole door. Oh, just before you go, my dear, would you mind telling me how the gentlemen kiss nowadays? I am getting to the last chapter. Of course I remember kissing, but styles and customs change, and I don’t want to make it too old-fashioned. They used to ask permission in the old days. I hated it. One seemed so fast to say yes, and so prim and proper to say no. Do they still ask?”

  “No, they don’t. What did you used to say, Auntie? Yes, or no?”

  “I made it a point never to answer at all, but only to look shocked, and willing,” she answered.

  Looking shocked would not have been difficult, with those eyes. She looked perpetually shocked. “I am going into the village to post a letter. Have you any errands for me?”

  “No, dear,” she said, already preoccupied with the trials of Gloria. She had her “story” look on her face.

  I went over our conversation as I jogged into the village in the whisky. I expect you have some inkling what was in my head. I was wondering, not whether Welland was St. Regis’s adulterine son, but whether he was not Edward’s. Edward had loved Lavinia; he was a bit of a philanderer; she was hastily married off to a poor cousin and supported by St. Regis himself. St. Regis had arranged it to cover up the disgrace, and to settle a proper match for Sir Edward, who was too high in prestige to marry a nobody. Naturally Edward would take an interest in his own son, would send him money, be fond of him. Equally naturally, the son would feel mightily gypped if he learned, at some latish date in his life, that while he was a pensioner, his own papa had left a good estate.

  I wondered how it had come about he only learned it at this late time in his life, for I assumed if he had known it before, he would have acted sooner. But a child would hardly be aware of such goings on, and when Welland began to grow up, he had been much away at school. It was only after he returned from university and began working as St. Regis’s secretary that he chanced upon the discovery, in some letter or document. Yes, rooting through old family records had occurred to him as a source of information. What must his reaction have been to learn that while he scribbled for a living, his own father had left a fortune in the hands of a silly widow who did not even know of his existence, except as a poor family cousin?

  There had even been talk of St. Regis giving him Troy Fenners after my aunt’s death. But Auntie was not old; her death was eons away. An impatient young man might decide to take some of his father’s patrimony before she died.

  For a frightening moment, it even occurred to me he might try to kill her, though there had been no evidence of that. There was pretty good evidence he was getting money, however, and the last remaining mystery was what he was using to blackmail her. She seemed genuinely unaware that Welland was her husband’s son, so that could not be the tool for blackmail.

  No, it was something else. Something involving a lady, a mystery, and justice. I could not see how Alice fitted into this version at all. Auntie had asked me if I was sure it was a man I had seen scuttling down the hill last night. She had spoken of Alice, seen in the nightmare, which suggested to me she thought it must be a woman. But it was probably a ghost she meant.

  I got to the village, posted my letter, and returned to Troy Fenners without bothering to see the modiste. It was while I drove up through the park that I was accosted by Welland. He pretended to be out exercising Diablo, but his exercise would not have occurred so close to home if he had not wished to see me. This was no longer construed as having anything to do with romance. He wished to discover whether his trick last night had been discovered. He would know he had lost his green glasses somewhere along the way, and be afraid I had found them, knew he had been in the secret passage, scaring my aunt to death. I would feign ignorance of the whole thing. I would not reveal by so much as a blink that I suspected him of any involvement in the affair other than his involvement as St. Regis’s ambassador. He must be lulled along into a sense of security till St. Regis arrived.

  “Good morning, Valerie. Been into the village, have you?” he asked, riding up to me. I reined in for a chat, hoping to discover something of his plans.

  “Yes, just posting a letter. What are you doing today?”

  “I am giving you a lesson in curricle-driving this afternoon, if you are willing.”

  By this time, I had formulated other plans for my afternoon. “I’m afraid I cannot. I am to help Auntie with some work—she wants to read me a few chapters from the magnum opus, to see how they appeal to me. But while we are talking, I must ask you to return the carton of family papers. Auntie was looking for something this morning. Could you bring them up to the house now?”

  “What was she looking for?” he asked swiftly.

  “Some letters from her husband,” I answered, purposely vague.

  “They’re not in that box. I’ve been all through it.”

  “Well, she was looking for the box in any case, and we had better put it back, or she might become suspicious.”

  “I’ll leave it off at the kitchen door, and trust to your ingenuity to return it to the scriptorium.”

  “Fine. You had better do it now, before lunch.”

/>   “All right. I’ll see you tonight.”

  I nodded in agreement and continued on my way. My afternoon would be spent pouring over the carton’s contents for confirmation of my theory. It was not till I had gone a few yards that I became aware of some incongruity in his appearance. He was wearing his green glasses. I had become so accustomed to seeing him in them that it did not strike me odd at first. But of course he had had plenty of time to lay in a store of them, in case of loss or breakage. He was really extremely interested in hiding his face. Was it possible he thought someone would trace a resemblance to Edward? This was not likely. His resemblance to my uncle was not so startling as that, and his father had been a Sinclair after all, to account for some family traits.

  The carton was returned to the house, noticeably lighter than before. Some items had certainly been removed, but it was impossible to imagine what they might be. I had not made that close an examination of them before they left. What remained was innocent and useless stuff. I was downstairs within an hour after luncheon, rather wishing I had accepted Welland’s offer for a driving lesson. There was no reason he could not be put to use, and I did wish to learn to drive a curricle. When Dr. Hill popped in later on, I was happy I had stayed home. I would find a moment for a private chat with him.

  “Where is Pierre today?” Hill asked.

  “He took lunch with Welland. They will be doing something together this afternoon,” Loo answered. “Did Welland ask you to join us this evening for the séance?” was the next question.

  “Séance? The Franconis have left,” he answered, startled.

  “It is not Madame Franconi who is to lead us, but another lady Welland heard of who lives a few miles away. She is either a gypsy or a witch, or both. He says she has an excellent reputation. He has been to her for a fortune reading. She knew all his future—his marriage she forecast, and he is to be married soon, you know, to Miss Milne. He has arranged a séance for this evening, right here in our feather room. He wants you to attend.”