Strange Capers Read online

  I was startled out of my ruminative state by a strangled “Aagh!” from Rachel. I looked in alarm to see she was reading the letter bearing Aiglon’s frank.

  “What’s the matter? Is someone dead?” I asked. Her face, an alarming shade of red, faded before my very eyes to rose, to pink, to bone-white.

  “Worse!” she managed to choke out. “Aiglon is coming to Thornbury!”

  I suspect my own color faded just as rapidly. “When?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow.”

  We exchanged a guilty stare. I felt an urge to jump up from the table and run and hide. Rachel must have felt even more culpable, but such was her sangfroid that she only called out “Willard” in a little fainter voice than usual.

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  Rachel is really a marvel of efficiency. Even before Willard came shuffling into the room, she had recovered her wits sufficiently to begin laying plans and preparing strategies to cover her larceny.

  “The carpet for the front stairs must be the first matter of business,” she said.

  “Leave it, Rachel. You posted that note asking for money only today. He won’t expect to see it done yet,” I advised.

  Her nose pulled downward as she braced herself to confess the whole. “Actually, I said I had had it done already and enclosed a bill. He will have received my letter before he leaves tomorrow. He says he will be arriving around dinnertime. Aiglon will be driving his curricle in this season—fifteen miles an hour, over the sixty-mile drive. We shall have to give Willard a hand with the laying of it.”

  “How are we to make it look new?” I asked.

  “We’ll keep the lights low,” she said, glancing again at the troublesome letter.

  “Why is he coming? Is there some special reason?”

  “To rusticate—he wants no company. Well, that’s something at least. He won’t be expecting a round of parties. He’s having his yacht sent down. That looks like a longish visit ...”

  “Rachel, about the dovecote,” I reminded her. That loomed in my mind as the worst of her schemes, but she had her explanation for it in the twinkling of an eye.

  “Vandals. Vandals knocked it down, and it was such a mess we just had the stones hauled away. There is that pile of stones at the back of the garden where half the dry wall fell down five years ago. The sea gulls made such depredations on the doves’ eggs that we decided the coast was no proper place for a dovecote. What else? The saloon curtains were paid for over a year ago, so their condition can be explained by the malign sea air.”

  “What room will you put him in? The blue guest room would be the likeliest spot if it had curtains and a canopy. The other guest rooms are small.”

  “Yes, we have the best rooms ourselves, those with a view of the sea. I really think...Would you mind terribly to remove to the little yellow room at the back, Constance? It will only be for a week or so.”

  “Of course I don’t mind. It is Aiglon’s own house after all, but he must plan to stay longer than a week if he’s having his yacht sent down,” I pointed out.

  “Longer? We’ll be rid of him in three days,” she prophesied merrily, and laughed.

  There was a febrile excitement about her during that meal, which I put down to Aiglon’s visit. God knows it would have been enough to put any ordinary person into spasms of fright, but I think now that the visit wasn’t the cause of it at all. Looking back, it seemed a happy or anticipatory sort of excitement.

  The thing I remember most about that night is helping Willard haul the blue carpet downstairs and hang it on the clothesline at about nine o’clock. Rachel, who took a supervisory position, had lights fixed in the backyard to allow Willard and the servants to beat the carpet into newness. While they beat, I measured the front stairs, and when the carpet was as clean as a fifteen-year-old carpet with several grease stains could be, we laid it in the saloon and cut it into strips.

  Before any of us were allowed to lay our heads on our pillows that night, we had to install it. There was a tremendous commotion of hammering and running for sharper knives and scissors to cut through the thick rug. Willard’s spirit was willing but his forearm was weak, so the stable boy and I ended up wielding the hammer. Other than the strange bellying at the curve of the stairs where we couldn’t get it to lay flat, it didn’t look too bad. Certainly not new, but not bad. At one o’clock in the morning, the job was done, and we were allowed to retire with the reminder to meet at seven in the morning to begin last-minute preparations.

  Bleary-eyed and stiff, and with a throbbing thumb where the hammer had hit me, I straggled upstairs to bed. It was only after I lay down that I wondered why Aiglon was coming to Thornbury at this time. His being with the Foreign Office made me wonder if he was to take some part in the anti-Napoleon preparations. On that score, I wasn’t unhappy to have an able-bodied man in the house. There were wicked stories circulating in the neighborhood as to how French soldiers treated their victims—especially female victims. Of course Aiglon was a lord and a government official, and this might induce the French to treat his household with some latitude. On the other hand, the French had a particular hatred of the nobility.

  I reviewed what I knew about Aiglon from having heard him spoken of for five years. His real country seat was in Hampshire, not Sussex. It was called Westleigh and, according to rumor, was a magnificent heap. If he wanted to rusticate, why did he not go there? All my thoughts confirmed that he was coming on military business. Although he was invariably spoken of as a fashionable rake and rattle, it seemed to me that his having taken a government position showed there was more to him than that. It was spoken of as an important position as well, some sort of liaison work between the government and the military.

  I also knew that Aiglon was a bachelor, though he had skated near the edge of engagement with a few ladies since I’d come to Thornbury. I, a fairly poor connection, was not in the least hopeful that he would become so enamored of me during his brief visit that any romance would develop. But if he turned out to be handsome, a pleasant flirtation was not impossible. It was on this stray wisp of a happy thought that I finally slept.

  I believe Rachel slept even more poorly than myself. I heard her door open at some time during the night. It was raining and pitch black outside. I wondered what detail she had remembered and risen out of her bed to attend to. I heard her tiptoe past my room, but she hadn’t lit a candle. She went downstairs, and I fell asleep again before she returned.

  The first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes was the sodden, gray sky. Perhaps Aiglon will delay his visit, I thought optimistically. I didn’t know him then, and thus had no way of suspecting his single-mindedness once he had set his course of action.

  The rest of the day was one of busy, organized confusion. I had to remove all my personal effects from my room and take them across the hall to the yellow guest room. That done, I gave Aiglon’s room a good cleaning with beeswax and turpentine until the furniture gleamed. Meg, the kitchen girl, was set to sweeping the carpet with tea leaves sprinkled to keep down the dust.

  Rachel spent some time in the kitchen overseeing a feast to tempt the palate of a London rattle. I was assigned the job of setting the table for dinner. I enjoyed that, but having to go out into the garden to cull flowers in the pouring rain was less pleasant. I was a little annoyed to notice that one of the servants had made free with my waterproof coat and pattens. The coat was still damp and had mud splattered around the hem. I mentioned this to Rachel in passing when she came to approve the dinner table.

  “You mustn’t blame Meg, Constance. Actually, I borrowed it myself,” she admitted. “The roses look a bit skimpy, don’t you think?” she asked, surveying the centerpiece. She rooted in the basket of discards and stuck a few pieces of greenery amidst the blooms. “There, that’s better.’’

  “What are you serving, Rachel?” I asked. I was a little miffed that she’d worn my coat and gotten it dirty when she might as easily have put on her own. But that, I susp
ect, is the secret of her elegance. Her clothes are protected from rough wear.

  She named an assortment of delicacies: turbot, fowl, a ham, and side dishes. While she spoke, I found myself wondering when she had been out and why. I asked about it, but she gave me her annoyed mare’s look. “I went to put a few stones where the dovecote used to be,” she answered. She is such a clever liar that she couches all of her remarks as if to indicate that the lie is a fact. The dovecote was never anywhere but in her mind and in a letter to Riddell.

  “You got mud on the hem of my coat,” I said.

  “Give it to Meg to clean.”

  Meg had so much to do that I took the coat upstairs myself. I noticed that the mud on the inner side had hardened to blobs of earth. It was still wet on the outside, as I had worn it to cut flowers, but along the inner hem it was bone dry. I must have accused Rachel unjustly. That mud had been there for hours. It must have been there overnight.

  At the time, I had no reason to suspect that Rachel’s nocturnal ramble had taken her outdoors in my coat, and she certainly didn’t say so. I was privy to most of her crimes, but this one she had kept to herself. Only Willard knew what she was up to, and Willard would gladly have gone to the stake before he’d say a word against Lady Savage.

  As the afternoon wore on, orders flew like sparks from Rachel’s lips, and the servants, including myself, hopped to execute them. A fire was laid in the grate; wine was poured into decanters and one was taken to Aiglon’s room; lamps unwittingly lit too close to the old-new stair carpet were extinguished; other saloon lamps were adjusted, moved, and moved again to allow some rays of light without showing too much detail of the moldering curtains.

  By four o’clock, our nerves were stretched taut. There was nothing more to be done but prepare our own toilettes. I had some trouble finding what I wanted in my new room, for my belongings were thrown helter-skelter on the bed and chairs. At least the gowns were hanging in the clothes-press, and I went to select one. Despite my hazel eyes, Rachel has approved of my wearing light blue. It is my favorite color, and my blue silk is my favorite outfit for an elegant evening at home. It has a low neckline and is embellished with a bit of Mechlin lace and velvet ribbons. Besides a deal of trinkets, my jewelry box holds two necklaces. One is a small strand of pearls, from my grandmother, the other is an even smaller set of sapphires and diamonds. Rachel calls the stones “chips,” but they are so cleverly set in gold that they look larger than chips. I fastened the sapphires around my neck and stood back to admire the effect.

  I brushed my hair till it shone, then arranged a wave to fall forward on the left side and scooped the rest of it up on the back of my head in the basket style. It looked well, but, to impress Aiglon, I decided it wasn’t quite grand enough and hence entwined the pearl necklace amidst the basket of curls. This done, I went to Rachel for her approval. She nodded and handed me her bottle of perfume. One of the small perquisites of living with her was that I was allowed to use her perfume when we entertained or went out.

  I noticed an old book sitting on her dressing table. Its title was An Anecdotal History of Folkestone and Environs.

  “Is that the book you bought for Aiglon?” I asked, looking at it.

  “I’ve changed my mind about giving it to him. It smells musty and the pages are all spotted,” she said, and whisked it into a drawer. “What do you think of this, Rachel?”

  My attention was distracted immediately by her latest theft. There, hanging from her ears and looking for all the world like monstrous diamond drops, were two pendants from the crystal chandelier lamps Willard had polished yesterday. I could only gasp in admiration of her cunning.

  “Rachel, you really are up to all the rigs!” I laughed.

  “You must make yourself a pair, too, Constance, but we shan’t both wear them at the same time. Be sure you take them from the inner side of the lamps. They’ll never be missed. I took mine from the lamp by the door, so you get yours from the other one.”

  “Aiglon will think they’re diamonds and won’t be so generous in future,” I warned.

  “Generous?” she asked, staring. “It is news to me if running this shambles of a place for one hundred pounds a year is generosity!”

  “A hundred pounds! You never told me he paid you!” I gasped.

  A pink blush suffused her face. She hadn’t meant to reveal that fact, and if I had had my wits about me, I would have realized she was quite upset. In retrospect, I wonder if she carefully chose the moment of revelation to put that book, which she had so swiftly shuffled into her drawer, out of my mind. I wouldn’t put it past her.

  “It doesn’t begin to cover the expenses,” Rachel said, and arose. But I knew the expense of the servants was covered separately from this salary. “We shall have a glass of wine before dinner. I hope he comes on time,” she continued, dismissing the former topic. “His note said he’d be here for dinner. I daresay he will he expecting city hours, but he shan’t find them here.”

  As we descended the stairs the view of the front hall was unusually fine after all our hard work. The old marble floor shone, and the lamps twinkled cheerfully, casting a glow on the woodwork and gilt frames. This seemed to put Rachel in a good mood.

  “Perhaps we’ll have one party while Aiglon is with us,” she said. “It seems a shame not to show off our work to the community. We owe Lord Ware an invitation, and the Wigginses—any number of people.”

  I was already excited by the approaching visit of Aiglon. I peered hopefully into the near future and envisioned a whole new style of life, with parties and beaux. We discussed the party while awaiting Aiglon’s arrival. After fifteen minutes, we had settled the guest list and menu.

  After half an hour, we had taken our second glass of wine and begun to lose interest in the party. The talk now was of overdone meat and whipped cream that had begun to return to liquid. As the sun’s rays lengthened and grew weak, Rachel more than once mentioned eating without Aiglon. She wouldn’t do it, of course, but she seemed to take some satisfaction in making the threat. “I’ve never been so hungry in my life,” she said wearily.

  Then it happened. We discerned a distant thud of hooves and darted to the window. Soon a few moving dark spots—horses or carriage—showed above the thornbushes that guard the road, and before long the horses came into view. It looked and sounded like a whole herd of animals.

  “Good God, I swear there weren’t less than a half dozen horses pounding by the window!” Rachel squealed. “Does he expect me to stable six horses?”

  Aiglon didn’t stop at the front door but drove directly to the stable and entered the house via the kitchen. The glory of shining marble and polished chandeliers would not be his first impression of her housekeeping after all. What he would see was Meg in the kitchen surrounded by pots and pans. Rachel refused to budge until he came to her. Her nose was nearly pulled into her mouth by the time his tread was heard coming along the hall toward the saloon.

  The door opened and a well-knit young gentleman, outfitted in the highest kick of fashion, glided into the room. His dark hair was carefully clipped in the stylish Brutus do. His face was lean and rather tanned, the nose well-sculpted but hawkish, giving him a predatory air. His eyes were dark, their color not distinguishable in the shadows of the saloon, but they glittered, and darted about from myself to Rachel to the window. I noticed he wore a well-cut jacket of blue Bath cloth, and at his neck was a pristine maze of intricate folds and creases that shone immaculately white. He had Rachel’s knack of remaining elegant even during travel. There wasn’t a wrinkle in his faun trousers, and considering the rain, his Hessians were remarkably shiny.

  The apparition advanced toward me, hand extended, with a smile lifting the corners of his lips. “Cousin Rachel, delighted to see you again. How long has it been? Over a decade, I warrant. You look lovely as usual.”

  “I am not Rachel!” I exclaimed, mortified to have been mistaken for a forty-year-old dame.

  Rachel’s thin laugh floate
d on the air. “Pay him no heed, Constance. Aiglon is playing off one of his little jokes. He is a famous jokesmith,” she said, not displeased with this particular effort. “Come here and kiss your cousin, you rogue,” she commanded easily.

  Aiglon made a show of embarrassment and confusion, but there was a spark of mischief in those dark eyes. He bestowed a peck on Rachel’s arid cheek and then returned his attention to me. “And this would be Miss Bethel,” he said, extending his hand.

  “Pethel,” I corrected.

  “Quite. A relative of Sir John, I believe?”

  “Yes, he was Mama’s brother.”

  “It is kind of you to bear Rachel company. Are you making a long visit?”

  “Yes, rather. I live here,” I replied.

  Aiglon seated himself on the far end of my sofa, halfway between Rachel and myself.

  “A glass of wine, Aiglon? Tell us all the news from London. How is your dear mama?” Rachel asked. She filled a glass of wine from the side table and handed it to him.

  “She was enjoying a fit of vapors when I left.”

  “She should have come with you. The sea air would do her any amount of good,” Rachel said.

  “She prefers the smoke and fog and clamor of London. I am the one who seeks respite from it.”

  “And is that why you’re here, to rest and take the sea air?” Rachel inquired politely. “You look stout enough to me, I must say. What is the trouble, Aiglon?”

  “The lungs,” he answered readily, and gave a little cough to bolster this claim to invalidism. “But I am by no means a bed-case. I’ve brought a few mounts to do some riding. In fact, I drove my curricle down, and my grooms are bringing my traveling carriage behind me. I hope my stable here can accommodate eight extra nags.”

  “Eight!” Rachel exclaimed in horror. “I thought it was only six. I mean, six,” she corrected, for she didn’t wish to give the notion that even six were acceptable.