Wiles of a Stranger (3 page)

The boys were left under the guardianship of the governor’s brother, Charles Beaudel. The collection of jewels was only mentioned. Sir Giles had been a small collector before his appointment to India. Some medieval and Renaissance pieces from Europe were the beginning of it. The lack of emphasis on the jewelry did not surprise me. Collectors will often shun publicity, fearing to attract the attention of thieves.

There was a paragraph on Lady Beaudel, the governor’s wife. She was the daughter of a noble family who traced its roots back to the Plantagenets. Lord Sacheverel was the present patriarch of the family. He appeared to be an elderly gentleman, with several sons holding high positions in the Foreign Office and the Army. One was in India.

After two readings, I was more familiar with the background, but no farther ahead as to what my next step should be. When the servant came to take away my tray, she glanced at the paper. “I see you’re reading about our famous robbery, miss,” she said, smiling pleasantly. She was a young, red-cheeked wench, open and friendly.

“A shocking thing,” I said, wondering if she might have any information to add to my knowledge.

“It is, but mind it comes as no surprise to us here in town. No more than was to be expected, says I.”

 “What do you mean?” I asked, my ears stretching.

“Between the bold young hussy old Mr. Beaudel has married and her carrying on with the lads behind his back and the jewels being hardly locked up at all, it’s no surprise at all they’re gone. What amazes me is that it’s a London gent that took them. I made sure she’d make off with them herself. I’ll tell you this, miss, I’ve seen Mrs. Beaudel in public with diamonds on her neck that don’t belong to her in the least.”

She had picked up the tray and was heading for the door.

“Wait! Why don’t you sit down a minute and rest, my dear? You look fagged to death.”

“My legs are a mite tired,” she admitted, but she did not take a seat. She rested one end of the tray on the edge of the dresser and sighed.

“Have the police looked into the possibility of Mrs. Beaudel’s having taken the diamonds?” I asked, making it a casual, conversational question.

“She couldn’t have done, could she? They found them on the old gent. Diamond Dutch, he’s called. Though they do say he got rid of some of them before they picked him up. More are missing than he had rattling in his pocket is what I heard said.”

I waited with bated breath to hear the police were looking for Diamond Dutch’s daughter, his accomplice. Miraculously, no mention was made of it. “That’s true,” I murmured.

“Still, I think there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. What about Miss Little, for instance?” she asked, with a sage nod of her head.

“Who is Miss Little?”

“The governess up at the Park.”

“What had she to do with it? Her name wasn’t in the paper.”

“They wouldn’t have known when it was written. She didn’t disappear till today.”

“Disappear? What do you mean?”

“She’s gone. Vanished. Left without a word to anyone, and from what I ever heard, she’s not the sort would do a thing like that. Very attached she was to the little lad.”

“Did you know her?”

“Not personally, but the whole town’s buzzing with the story. She’s been gone since noon today, miss. There’s some as say she was seen talking to a gentleman at the edge of town, got right into the carriage with him, a stranger, this morning. She might have been talked into running off with him, for they say she took her clothes and all that with her from the Park. Then there’s others as say she was killed, and her things done away with to cover it up. I haven’t heard it said yet she was in on the job with the old gentleman, Diamond Dutch, but it will be said before long. His daughter did come to Chelmsford with him, but it seems she left before he got back from the Park, so unless he tossed the diamonds out the window of his carriage to her, she can’t have anything to do with it. Then he would have tossed them all while he was about it, wouldn’t he?”

“This is the first I’ve heard of a daughter,” I said, turning aside to hide my nervousness.

“It’s what Billie McKee from the Stag and Hounds told me, but two lies leave his mouth for every word of truth. They’ll be in a fine pickle up at the Park, with the jewels missing, and no one to mind the wee lad.”

“They’ll have to hire another governess,” I said automatically, but even as the words were said, I felt a giddy stirring in my insides. I was suddenly eager to be rid of the servant. I had some serious thinking to do.

“They’ll be advertising right away, I fancy. The hussy that runs the house won’t want the bother of a kid. He’ll cramp her style too much. Well, I’d best be off. Is there anything you need, while I’m here, miss?”

“Nothing, thank you.”

I opened the door for her. She smiled over her shoulder and hastened off with her tray. I was too excited to sit down. I paced the short distance from window to door, scheming how I could get Miss Little’s job. There was a deal of scheming to be done. They would not hire Diamond Dutch’s daughter. Indeed, they would want references from a Miss Stacey, which she would be hard-pressed to produce.

There were a few letters to be written to arrange the matter. My first was to our housekeeper, Mrs. Farell, to inform her I had minded her three children for the past two years, and given her complete satisfaction. She was to confirm this if the Beaudels should enquire.

The newspaper account was cut out and enclosed to help explain this bizarre request. Next I wrote a prim and proper note to Mr. Beaudel, for I had taken a great aversion to his wife. The note explained that I was on my way home to my father’s place in Norfolk, making him a doctor so that I would sound respectable. I told a sad tale of Mrs. Farell’s children having been sent away to school, and my job being terminated. I had learned at the inn of his difficulty, and wished to have the opportunity of discussing the position of governess with him.

Lastly, I tried to think of some way of letting my father know what I was doing. To inform him by letter was too dangerous. A prisoner’s mail might be read before it was delivered. Sending a verbal message with an inn boy was equally treacherous. I was still pondering this problem when I went to bed.

Chapter Three

Mr. Beaudel must have been extremely eager to hire a new governess. He was at the Shipwalk to interview me before noon the next day, bringing Lucien with him. I had spent a worried morning walking past the jail, looking at the barred windows, hoping for a sight of my father, without any luck.

I had no preconceived idea of how Mr. Beaudel would appear. He was a tall, gentle man, in his middle years, his brown hair receding in twin arcs from his forehead. He was rather pale, and obviously worried. He did not look at all the sort to have been interested in such a dasher as his wife.

The boy was a surprise. He didn’t look like a boy at all. There was some gravity in him that made him seem a miniature old man. He was small for his age, daintily formed, with silken black hair that any maiden would envy for its soft waves. His lashes were long and sooty black, his eyes blue, his face pale, and his expression very serious. He held onto his uncle’s hand, but his attention was all for me. His eyes wandered over me in that frank, disconcerting way children have, missing nothing.

Beaudel had no sooner introduced himself than Lucien spoke up. “My governess ran away,” he said. He had a clear, deep voice, with some unique sound to it. Not a lisp, but a peculiar way of holding his tongue that approached a lisp. “Maybe we will hire you, if we like you.”

“And if Miss Stacey likes us,” Beaudel told him, with a tolerant smile to me, to excuse this outspokenness.

The upshot, before many minutes, was that we all three liked each other very much indeed. This may have been egged along by Beaudel’s desperate need of a governess and my determination to be the one selected. He did not even jot down Mrs. Farell’s address. He was a pretty good judge of character, he said. I held every facial muscle firm at this absurd statement. I told only such lies as were necessary, and regretted the need of telling any.

Beaudel was not at all what I expected. I had hoped I might dislike him thoroughly. My job was to prove him either a fool or a scoundrel. If he had not engineered the deception of concealing diamonds in my father’s pockets, he had been hoodwinked by someone who had done so. I had already lit on his wife as the culprit, and was extremely curious to meet her.

“Shall I report to Mrs. Beaudel, or to yourself?” I asked him as we jogged along the road to Glanbury Park. He had not once mentioned her.

“Either one. We both hold ourselves responsible for Lucien. She would have come with me this morning to meet you, but she had a headache. She is prone to migraine, my wife. I wish she would see a doctor.”

“Aunt Stella says the doctor makes her sick,” Lucien informed me, with a wise little laugh. “It is a joke. He should make her well, but he makes her sick. Why aren’t you laughing, Miss Stacey?”

“You offend Miss Stacey to say so, Lucien,” Beaudel pointed out, which sent me to look for a reason. I soon recalled my new persona.

“My father is a doctor, you must know,” I said.

I would have to be wary to remember who I now was, but at least I could stop being wary about being recognized by some employee of the Stag and Hounds. After some innocuous chatter from Lucien, I judged it not too forward to enquire of Beaudel whether anything more had been heard of Miss Little.

“Not a word from her,” he said sadly, shaking his head. “I hope no harm has come to her. She is not the sort of woman I would have thought to behave in this manner. She was very conscientious in her duties. I would be afraid she had met with an accident, but for the fact of her closets and bureau being emptied. The police are looking into her disappearance.”

“None of your servants saw her go?”

 “They say not. Lucien was the last one to see her. She took him into town yesterday morning. Nothing unusual happened there. They went to some shops to buy a few things, then came straight home. Lucien went to the stables for a ride on his pony, and was told to meet Miss Little back in the nursery. When he went, she was not there. We thought nothing of it at first, thought she was in the kitchen, or even out for a little stroll, as the day was fine. But when she was not back after a few hours, the servants went to her room, and that is when we discovered all her things were gone. She had emptied her closets, slipped away, and left us without any notice.”

“I wonder if she might have received word from home—might have been too distraught to leave a message,” I suggested. There was something in Beaudel that asked for compassion.

“I would like to think so, but it cannot be the case, Miss Stacey. It shows a kind nature in you to think it. No, the post had come long since with no letters for her. Nor was it possible for her to have taken a coach out of town. The hour was not right. She either walked or was picked up in a private carriage. I cannot think she walked, with a large valise. The police—I spoke to them before going to meet you—have been making investigations. No one saw her walking. She would hardly have headed off through the hills alone. Someone met her. It is a great mystery, but I can only assume it was an affair of the heart,” he said, with a passing glance off Lucien, as though to say “we know how it is, but will say no more before the boy.”

“Miss Little did not have a beau, Uncle,” Lucien informed him, very matter-of-factly. “She often lamented the fact.”

I looked at him, surprised anew at his ancient ways. To use such a word as “lamented” was not what one expected of a very child, and to be aware of the state of his governess’s heart too was precocious. He looked up and caught me regarding him. He smiled, very slyly, I thought. I made a mental note that we would discuss the matter again in privacy. No stone would be unturned in my effort to prove my father innocent.

“Do you have a beau, Miss Stacey?” Lucien asked.

“You are very interested in romance for a young fellow!”

“I will be your beau, if you like,” he offered.

“Thank you, but you are a little too old for me,” I replied with a damping glance.

“I don’t think so. Uncle Charles and Aunt Stella are a May and December match, and they rub along very well,” he answered.

Beaudel flushed a little pink. “Chatterbox. Miss Stacey is not interested in our family matters,” he chided gently.

“Yes, she is. Servants are always interested in family matters. Miss Little told me so. She was always interested in us.”

“Did Miss Little not tell you that children do not contradict their elders?” I asked playfully.

“I can’t recall she ever did, but she told me so many things I may have forgotten a few of them.”

Glanbury Park lay roughly five miles from the town of Chelmsford. During the last of the trip we all fell into an uncomfortable silence. We had said all we had to say to each other, and turned our thoughts inwards. It occurred to me then for the first time that what I was about to do was rash, to say the least. Possibly even criminal. To go under false pretences to a home about which I knew nothing but evil was at least foolhardy.

If I should either disappear like Miss Little, or end up in jail like my father, I would have no one to turn to. Who would believe the word of a prisoner’s daughter? The mistress of the house was a hussy, and the boy in my charge wore a strange, sly smile. On top of it all, Mr. Kirby had disappeared. He would he taken for a fabrication, an excuse by Papa to get into Glanbury Park and steal their diamonds.

The countryside at least was pleasantly pastoral. The finer country homes appeared to date from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. Many of them were timber framed, some with the elaborate parget fronts, fashioned in geometrical designs. We turned in at a set of black iron gates, drove through a small park, past a stand of firs, to my first glimpse of Glanbury.

It was an old home, designed and built before Inigo Jones went to Italy and changed English architecture (for the better, in my own view). There was no Palladian symmetry in evidence. Glanbury was a large, rambling, climbing, sprawling, brick monstrosity of a place, the left side two stories higher than the right, and topped off with a tower. There was a foolish ornamental parapet on the roof of the lower half of the house. The doorway was too small, not even a double door, but only an oaken slab. Some Flemish strapwork was in evidence, as was the patterned brickwork of which my father often boasts. Windows were high and plentiful, hinting at a bright interior. The grounds were pretty. The sun striking the ornamental greenery around the building created a charming effect. In a different mood, the oddness of the house itself might have been found interesting, rather than forbidding.