As Death Draws Near (17 page)

I closed the book and glanced at Bree, who was replacing
the last of the texts she had been perusing on the corner of the desk. “Anything?”

“Nay. No' even a page marker.”

I knelt to gather up the letters in the bottom drawer of the dresser, estimating there to be at least twenty missives in all. Rising to my feet, I turned to look at Mother Paul. “I would like to take these and the sketchbook with me to peruse later, if I may?”

She hesitated a second and then nodded. “Whatever you need. Though when you're finished, we would like them back to send to her family along with her other personal belongings.”

I promised to handle them with care, and then made one last cursory glance around the room. Staring at the humble wooden cross hanging on the wall at the end of the bed, I couldn't help but wonder how complicated the seemingly simple lives of these women could be. Were we trying too hard to make something out of nothing, or had they been better at concealing the truth than anyone realized?

The only thing I knew for certain was that you couldn't hide the truth from God. And Lord willing, it wouldn't remain hidden from Gage and me either.

•   •   •

B
y the time the men returned, it had long passed the midday hour, so we all elected to depart in search of sustenance rather than ask the abbey to provide for us. In any case, I wanted time to think and to finish reading Mother Fidelis's letters before I attempted to ask any further questions. So Gage, Bree, and I all squeezed onto the front bench of the phaeton so that she would not get soaked sitting on the uncovered footman's bench behind, and set off toward the Priory with Marsdale and Anderley riding on horseback behind us.

Upon our arrival, the parlor was swiftly made ready for us while Gage and I changed out of our wet and soiled garments. Marsdale would have to be content with drying
himself before the fire since he'd invited himself along on this excursion. Though I'd noticed that other than the damp wrinkles, he was impeccably turned out in a new set of clothes, making me assume his valet had been able to follow our trail to Rathfarnham. Gage used the adjoining room, while Bree assisted me, providing me a moment alone with her as we wrestled with the stiff, damp fabric.

“I never had the chance to ask,” I said over my shoulder as she tugged at a stubborn button. “Why were you seeking me out earlier? When you passed Miss O'Grady?”

“Oh! I completely forgot. Mrs. Scully wanted to have a word wi' ye. Wouldna tell me why. Said it was best if she talked to ye herself.”

I exhaled in relief as the button finally came loose and the gown dropped to pool at my feet. “Well, I suppose she'll understand why I failed to come see her. I'll be sure to speak with her tomorrow.”

Bree pulled a simpler maize yellow morning dress from the wardrobe and dropped it over my head and fastened me up before sitting me down in front of the dressing table to repair my hair. Fortunately, my bonnet had preserved most of my unruly tresses from the rain.

“What of you?” I murmured, watching her in the mirror, her own strawberry blond curls matted against her head. “Have you heard from your brother?”

Bree removed and replaced pins, and reshaped a few curls with her fingers, all of which she focused on with a great deal more attention than was warranted. “Nay, m'lady. But he were always slow to respond, if at all.”

I frowned, unable to figure out why she seemed to wish to avoid this topic of conversation, but I decided it was not my place to press her.

“It's good enough,” I told her as she continued to fidget with one stubborn curl. “Go get yourself dry and warm.” She bent to retrieve my gown from the floor but I told her to leave it. “It will keep while you repair yourself and find something to eat. If the stains have ruined it, then so be it.
I don't think I'll ever be able to wear it again without thinking of Mother Mary Fidelis anyway.” I rubbed my hands over the lower part of my arms revealed beneath the puffed sleeves of my gown and nodded toward the corner of the dressing table. “The same goes for those gloves.”

“Aye, m'lady.”

With an ivory shawl draped around my shoulders, I joined the gentlemen in the parlor, where a tea tray and an arrangement of assorted sandwiches and cakes had been laid out for us with commendable speed. I was surprised Gage and Marsdale had not fallen onto them like ravenous wolves, for that was how I felt, but they'd shown admirable restraint, waiting for me to appear. I didn't waste time with conversation, but instead sank down to pour out everyone's tea. They hurried forward from their positions standing near the large stone hearth to sit around the low tea table, and we all ate happily in silence.

The only accompaniment to our contented chewing was the sound of the rain still drumming against the windows beyond the faded chartreuse drapes. Next to the puce cushions of the furniture and the silk goldenrod throw pillows, they would have seemed horribly out of place if not for the patterned Axminster carpet which featured all three shades. Even so, I was glad the remainder of the furniture and décor were rather staid in design so as not to completely overwhelm my senses.

Unsurprisingly, it was Marsdale who spoke first as he reached across to fill his plate with more food. However, he did not open with a flippant gambit, as expected, but a sudden, unexpected insight. “I wonder if that nun went to confront my cousin's killer herself.”

I paused with a sandwich lifted partway to my mouth.

“It's possible,” Gage said around a mouthful of cake, before swallowing. “Why else would she have been out there when she was supposed to be instructing her students?”

I hesitated, glancing toward the closed door. We'd been cautious not to speak of such matters anywhere the staff might overhear us, but with Marsdale present, there was
really no other option. We couldn't exactly invite him up to our bedchamber. I could just imagine what the staff would say about that, not to mention the crude insinuations Marsdale himself would make.

“Actually,” I murmured, lowering the sandwich. “She had asked the mother superior to send me to her when I arrived.” I frowned. “But she only said in the gardens. I don't know if she meant to take me to that place beyond the wall, or whether she found herself drawn there for some reason.” I hesitated to say the third option, but Gage had already gotten there himself.

“Or if she intended for you to both confront the killer together.”

I stared at him, trying to understand why the sister would have wanted to do such a thing. Had she thought the culprit could be reasoned with?

“If not that, then why else would he have killed her?” Marsdale asked.

Gage lifted his tea to drink. “Pure opportunity. Reckless though, it seems, with a class full of students so nearby.”

“But he may not have even known they were so close,” I pointed out. “That could have been mere bad luck.” I thought of Miss O'Grady and how terrified she had been. I hoped she would be able to sleep tonight.

He frowned into his cup. “Or maybe Mother Mary Fidelis knew something about Miss Lennox, something about her death that the killer feared would give him away, and so he killed her to keep her quiet.”

“Something she refused to share with me yesterday,” I added with an aggravated sigh.

His grim smile sympathized with my frustration. “Yes.”

I dropped my eyes to the stack of letters I had laid on the settee beside me. “I suppose we may never know.”

“What are those?” Marsdale asked.

“All of the correspondence I found in Mother Mary Fidelis's room. I hoped perhaps they might give us some insight into what is happening at that abbey.”

His eyes flew back to the pile of missives, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed his latest bite. I could see the thought stamped across his features before he ever uttered the words. “Did my cousin have any letters?”

“I'm afraid not,” I replied gently. “At least, none that we could find.”

He frowned and nodded, clearly wondering, as I had, why she had not.

Given the circumstances, it was only appropriate that Marsdale should be solemn, and indeed, anything else would have met with a scold from me. But this morose version of his normally irreverent self somehow seemed almost unbearable on a day when we'd already endured so much.

I left them to their discussion, finishing the rest of my food, and then settled back with another cup of tea to arrange Mother Fidelis's correspondence in some sort of order. The men did not offer to help, and for once I was grateful of it. There were not many letters, and it would be easier for one person to peruse them all to look for any context or connection.

Most of them were from various members of her family, so I elected to read all of those in the order they were written rather than separately, reasoning that some of their news would overlap. They seemed to begin almost a decade earlier, when the sisters—then just the reverend mother, a Mother Mary Ignatia, and Mother Fidelis—moved to the abbey. What had become of her letters before that date, I didn't know, but there were allusions to information in previous missives.

The early letters began cordially enough with the normal tedium, affection, and grievances veiled as concern which characterized any family, though I did notice that the Therrins perhaps squabbled more than most. I gathered that they had been a rather wealthy family, which had paid a large dowry to the convent when Mother Fidelis—or Anne, as her family continued to address her—joined. However, some members of the family seemed to refer to the matter as if there had been conditions set to it, though what Mother Fidelis could have done from inside the abbey other than pray, I didn't know.

Then at some point, the letters became rather less affable. Apparently, she had elected to limit her contact with her family even more than she had already done by living in a convent. There were rather spiteful references from some of the letter writers about her telling them that discourse with seculars was a challenge, and that they were an impediment to her religious life. What precisely she had written, I couldn't say, as I did not have access to the missives she had penned them, but from the repetition of similar language across the authors, I assumed some of the passages were direct quotes.

It also became painfully obvious that the Therrins had fallen on hard times. They were angry with her not only for what they called, “abandoning them,” but also for paying such a hefty dowry to the convent when a smaller portion would have done, or none at all. There were allusions to something in her past, and accusations of selfishness and hypocrisy after all they'd done for her. In and of itself, this sounded suspicious, but when compared with the other language in the letters, it seemed like just one of those typical childish threats that siblings seemed to coerce each other with even after they became adults. I noted that the last three letters, which went on in the same vein, had not even been opened, their seals unbroken. The only change came in the final letter, which reported the illness and subsequent death of her father two months earlier.

Setting them aside to analyze them, I didn't know how I felt about Mother Fidelis's actions toward her family. In one sense, I could appreciate her desire for peace, and how their incessant pettifoggery could hinder her efforts to focus on higher things. However, they were still her family. If my sister were to have done the same thing, I would have been incredibly hurt, and perhaps felt a little betrayed. I had no delusions that I understood everything about the Roman Catholic Church or becoming a nun, and maybe that accounted for it, but I still found the entire situation bothersome.

Right or wrong, her actions in this didn't so much matter to our inquiry as those of her family. Would one of them have
been furious enough to move beyond letter writing to physical confrontation? But then how did Miss Lennox become involved?

When I explained it all to Gage after Marsdale departed, he agreed the supposition was weak, and rather absurd. “And yet many of the rantings in these letters are also absurd and unreasonable,” I told him, holding up a pair of them in illustration.

The furrows in his brow deepened as he skimmed their contents. “I see what you mean.”

“Is it worth even looking into?”

He raked a hand back through his hair and sighed. “I suppose anything's worth looking into at this point.” His pale eyes reflected the same fatigue and frustration I felt. “Though, in this case, perhaps first we should discover whether she had any recent visitors at the abbey. Then maybe find out if any of her family members lodged nearby. If they lived in County . . .” he lifted one of the papers to look at the address “. . . Monaghan, they would have had to spend the night somewhere.”

I nodded, following his logic. “If we can't prove they were even near Rathfarnham, then they can't be viable suspects.”

“Just so.” He sank back against the settee cushions and lifted his arm to drape it over his eyes.

“I did have one more thought.”

He grunted for me to continue.

“If Mother Mary Fidelis was so intent on separating herself from the world, with limiting her contact with secular matters, then it wouldn't make much sense for her to have anything to do with the rebellion against paying tithes. ‘Render unto Caesar,' and all that.”

He lifted his arm so that he could peer under it at me. “But tithes aren't like other taxes. They're money paid to the church and its priests for their maintenance and keep. So it could be argued that it
is
a religious concern.”

“I hadn't thought of it that way.” I bit my bottom lip in consideration. “So I suppose we must leave that motive on the table as well.”

He shifted the stack of letters to the other side of him on the settee, and then pulled me toward him, settling my head in the crook of his neck. “We have too many potential motives, and none that makes much sense.”