A Curious Beginning (20 page)

He drifted away for a moment and I heard the creak of shutters being folded into place. After that there was the sharp rasp of a match, and then a little bud of light blossomed. He lit a candle. “We dare not light more than this. The window overlooks a small garden with a high wall. We should be safe enough.”

He took a breath, steeling himself, I thought, then moved to the desk.

“What are you looking for?”

He frowned at the piles of papers and books, the upset inkstand, the scattered pens. “Anything amiss. The trouble is, Max was as tidy as they come. All of this is amiss.”

I left him to it and wandered the room, hunting for the elusive scent that had tickled my nose when I had first opened the sealed room. I sniffed the chairs and the rugs, much to Stoker's amusement.

“You look like a demented bloodhound. What on earth are you doing?” he demanded, his brow furrowed as he moved to the baron's bookshelf.

I ignored him for a moment, putting my nose so near to the rug that the silk nub brushed the tip of my nose. Eureka! I peered into the pile of the rug and saw it—a tiny seed, greenish brown in color, and lightly curved. It appeared to be striped, but as I held it to the light of our solitary candle, I saw that it was actually ridged. I gave another sniff and detected a strong odor reminiscent of aniseed.

“Stoker, was the baron in the habit of chewing caraway seeds?”

“Caraway? No. He loathed the stuff.”

“How do you know?”

He said nothing for a long moment as he traced a row of books, his fingers trailing along the spines. I waited, and finally he answered, his hand resting on a thick volume bound in green kid.

“He hated seedcake. Why?”

I withdrew a handkerchief and wrapped the seed carefully before returning it to my pocket.

“I think it might be a clue.”

He snorted. “A caraway seed? Well, perhaps. But I doubt it is as good as this,” he said, tapping the wide green book.

“What have you there?”

He slid it carefully from the shelf. “The only book in the entire study written in Italian.”

“And is that significant?” I asked, coming to peer around his shoulder as he carried it to the desk.

“Only if you know that Max did not read Italian.” He opened the book carefully, and for the first few pages, it seemed we were doomed to disappointment. It was some sort of treatise with colored plates upon the subject of mollusks, boring in the extreme, but Stoker riffled through the pages, and the secret of the book was revealed—a hollow space, neatly cleared out of the big book to leave just enough room for a packet of papers folded and bound with a violet silk ribbon.

I reached for it with greedy fingers, but before I could touch it, there was the sound of breaking glass.

Instantly, Stoker doused the candle with his bare fingers while I scooped the packet out of the book and shoved it into my pocket. Stoker's lips brushed my ear. “That came from the kitchen. Someone's had the same idea we did, only without a key.”

“Housebreaker?” I whispered.

I felt his head give a shake in the negative under my mouth. “Housebreaker wouldn't make noise. He will be on his way here.”

The thought ought to have filled me with fear; instead I was conscious of a rising excitement. I put a hand to my hatpin, and Stoker's closed over it.

“Easy. No need to seek trouble before it finds you. We shall use the adjoining door into the dining room, circle around him, and go out the way we came. He will be none the wiser.”

I nodded and he led me swiftly through the connecting door, easing it closed just as footsteps trod heavily down the hall towards the study door. We crept into the hall, but just as it seemed we were about to gain the stairs in safety, disaster struck. In his haste, Stoker brushed against the elephant's foot, upsetting it and all of the walking sticks. The crash of them against the polished boards echoed throughout the house with all the drama of a cannon shot.

“Run!” Stoker commanded, pushing me. We fled, down the stairs and through the kitchen, broken glass crunching underfoot as we ran. Footsteps pounded behind us, and I caught a glimpse of a broad black shadow, darker than the darkness itself, bent upon catching us. Stoker wrenched open the door to the area, and just as I went to pass through it, a hand grasped for my shoulder. I shrugged away, kicking backward like a mule.

There was a muffled curse as my foot connected with something soft and fleshy, and that moment's delay was enough. I reached for Stoker's hand and he half hauled me up the stairs. But our malefactor had made quick work of his recovery. No sooner had we gained the pavement than I felt the weight of his hand upon my shoulder.

Stoker had me by one arm, the blackguard by the other, and I gave a gasp as the intruder's hand tightened upon my newly stitched limb. Stoker either heard me or felt the sudden drag as I came to a halt, for he stopped and turned, raising his fist, but before he could strike the fellow, a gunshot rang out. I heard the whine of the bullet as it passed some distance away, chipping a piece of stone from the façade of the baron's house. The malefactor had understood the warning. Instantly, the grip upon my arm released, and he fled, a shadow slipping down the street. A second shadow detached itself from across the street and gave chase, the pair of them disappearing into the night.

Stoker did not release my hand. “Are you all right?”

“I think so,” I lied. There was a hot lick of pain along my newly stitched wound, but there was little point in alarming Stoker before we had reached safety.

“Come on,” he ordered. He hurried me to the corner, where he hailed a hansom and gave an address not terribly far from Bishop's Folly. It was indiscreet, but it would save us an hour's walk, and I could have wept with gratitude.

“Did you get a look at the fellow?” he asked, pitching his voice low so the driver should not overhear.

“No. Did you?”

“Not at all.”

“But I know who he is,” I said grimly.

Stoker gave a start. “The devil you do! Who was it?”

“I cannot say for certain, but I believe it was my importunate friend from Paddington Station, Mr. de Clare.”

“What makes you think so?”

“When we spoke at the station, I noticed a peculiar scent, something green and spicy. I thought it a sort of toilet water, but when I found the seed in the baron's study I recognized it.”

“Caraway,” he finished.

“Indeed. I believe Mr. de Clare has made another attempt to get my attention.”

“Unless . . .” he began slowly.

“Yes?” I prompted.

“Unless he was keeping watch across the street in case we should appear.”

I gaped at him. “You think Mr. de Clare was our savior instead? You think
he
fired the shot that drove the housebreaker away?”

“It is possible.”

“Then how did the seed come to be in the study
before
we arrived?”

“Mr. de Clare and Max clearly had some connection. Perhaps it is as Mr. de Clare said and they were in league together. You must admit, it is also an explanation which fits the facts.”

I nibbled at my lower lip for a moment, considering. “I suppose you are correct,” I admitted. “It is possible that Mr. de Clare was telling the truth at Paddington. He might have had my welfare at heart, and he may be entirely innocent of any wrongdoing. But whether he was our housebreaker or our savior, why did he not declare himself?”

“He hardly had the chance,” Stoker pointed out reasonably. “I didn't even have time to draw a knife. We fled from the intruder as soon as he appeared, and the fellow across the street was clearly more determined to give chase to the housebreaker than speak with us.”

“So either Mr. de Clare was standing watch across the street and has just prevented us from being accosted by the intruder, or Mr. de Clare
was
the intruder,” I summarized. “But what purpose did the intruder have in breaking into the baron's study?”

“Perhaps he was looking for that,” Stoker suggested, gesturing to the pocket where I had secured the purloined packet . “If it was Mr. de Clare, perhaps the baron meant to entrust it to him at some point—presumably Mr. de Clare knew of its existence but not its precise whereabouts. With Max dead, the fellow would have no choice but to search on his own for it. He might have lost that bit of caraway seed at any time. Or perhaps he was looking for you.” I said nothing, and Stoker went on, warming to his theme. “Yes, I like this idea quite a lot. What if Mr. de Clare knows something about you, something truly important?”

“Such as?”

“Oh, it could be anything. You say the aunts told you that you were a foundling, but what if my kidnapping theory is correct? You could have parents alive somewhere who have been searching for you for a quarter of a century.”

“I told you the aunts would never do such a thing,” I reminded him with considerable coldness.

“Very well,” he amended. “Perhaps you really are an orphan but you were left something—something valuable like an inheritance. It might be a bit of money or some jewels. Max had the papers that can prove your claim, but with him dead and no clue of where to find the papers or you, Mr. de Clare has no choice save to return to Max's house to search for the packet—and keep watch, hoping eventually you will make an appearance.”

“That is a tale straight from one of Mrs. Radcliffe's thrillers, Stoker. I expected better from you.”

“It is a perfectly logical hypothesis,” he returned. “Now, do shut up and stop interrupting whilst I'm being interesting. Where did I leave off?”

“Mr. de Clare is sitting watchfully every night, waiting for me to show myself.”

“And tonight, finally, you do. But before he can reveal himself to you, we are attacked by the murderous fellow who broke in tonight. The vigilant Mr. de Clare sees him off with a shot and gives chase.”

“So you like Mr. de Clare for savior whilst I like him for the villain. I suppose only time will reveal which of us has the right of it. I only hope when we do discover the truth, it is worth bleeding for,” I said dryly.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I think it is a propitious time to warn you—my stitches seem to have come undone.”

He swore fluently and reached for my arm, sliding his fingers underneath my jacket. He brought his hand away and held it up to the fitful light of a passing streetlamp. It was dark and shone wetly. “Your sleeve is soaked in blood. Do you feel faint?”

“Not in the slightest,” I lied as I pitched forward into darkness.

W
hen I came to, I was lying on a sofa in the snug of the Belvedere. How he managed to get me out of the hansom and through the gardens without attracting attention I could not imagine.

“Quite simple, really. I told the cabman you were an inebriate,” he informed me. He sat me up and wrenched my jacket aside. Next came my shirtwaist, leaving me in my corset cover. I snorted.

“What?” he demanded.

“I was just imagining poor Lady Cordelia's face if she were to see us now. We do seem to be very frequently thrown together in various states of undress.”

He thrust my flask of aguardiente at me. “Drink this and hush. I shall have to clean it before I can tell how badly you've undone my handiwork.”

The next few minutes were not pleasant, but he was quick and thorough, and as I had observed before, unfailingly gentle. As it happened, I had lost only a stitch or two, and he repaired my torn flesh, fussing all the while.

“Why the devil do I waste my skills upon you when you persist in rushing headlong into peril?” he remonstrated.

That particular remark was so blatantly unfair, it did not even merit a response, so I let it pass. I was too busy puzzling over the events of the evening.

“Do you think the fellow who shot tonight—whether Mr. de Clare or not—meant to do us a good turn? Or was he after the baron's murderer and we were simply the unwitting beneficiaries of his attack upon the assassin?”

“I do not know, and I care less,” he muttered, clipping the end of the silk thread neatly. “It will certainly scar now,” he warned me. “Don't you dare tell anyone that is my work. I used to be famous for the delicacy of my stitching, but now you've gone and ruined it.”

I surveyed the line of tiny, precise stitches and shrugged, wincing only slightly. “I shall consider it a badge of honor, a souvenir of our adventures when I am in my dotage and no one believes I once pursued a murderer.”

He opened his mouth to speak then but thought better of it. He tidied away the tools of his trade as I took up my shawl. I did not bother to re-dress, and he put my shirtwaist to soak in the little domestic office Lady Cordelia had mentioned. He came to sit beside me when he had finished. The packet lay in my lap, and I touched the violet silk ribbon.

“Why do you hesitate?” he asked.

“I suppose I have a keen appreciation for anticipation,” I said lightly. “But I do not expect you to understand.”

“Oh, it isn't that difficult,” he replied. “Before you open that packet all things are possible. It might contain any secret at all. It might be the Casket Letters, or the baron's laundry list, or the revelation that your mother was a Russian princess.”

“Precisely,” I said with a small smile.

He rummaged in my bag a moment and returned with two of my slender cigarillos. He lit them from the fire and passed one to me. “Then let us enjoy our moment of anticipation to the fullest,” he said.

“Thank you for not lighting your appalling cigars,” I told him as I savored the sweet smoke.

He grunted by way of response and we sat for a little while in companionable silence.

“Sometimes it is better not to know,” he said suddenly. He lifted his gaze to mine. “Sometimes it is better for secrets to be left alone.”

“If I am not mistaken, that is the voice of experience.”

“It is.” He dropped his gaze to his hands, the cigarillo clasped lightly in his fingers. A slender stream of blue smoke rose, curling sinuously. He fell silent then, and I did not have the heart to pry.

“We do not even know this packet has information about me,” I pointed out. “It might be something else altogether.”

“Quite,” he told me. He reached forward and ground out the last of his cigarillo on the stove. He took mine and did the same. “Very well. As Arcadia Brown would say, ‘Excelsior!'” he proclaimed, lifting a mocking brow.

The ribbon seemed to protest at being untied. It hesitated a moment, then gave way under my insistent fingers. There was a drift of papers onto my lap, letters and newspaper cuttings, and I plucked one at random. It was from an American newspaper, a photograph with a small notice.

I read aloud, my voice suddenly hoarse.
CELEBRATED IRISH ACTRESS LILY ASHBOURNE BEGINS AMERICAN TOUR
, the headline ran. I read the rest of the piece, a brief description of her triumphs on the English stage, and studied the photograph. I handed it to Stoker without comment, but his was brief and to the point.

“Bloody hell.”

“This cutting is from 1860. I was born in 1862. Twenty-first of June, to be precise. She must be my mother,” I said, my voice tight. “Don't you think?”

A fleeting smile touched his mouth. “She couldn't be more like you if you had been twins,” he assured me. I looked again at the elegantly resolute face, the ripple of black hair, the eyes with their curious expression of challenge.

“There is something audacious about her,” I said.

“I should imagine so,” he agreed. “Stage actresses are not known for their reticence.”

I picked up another piece of paper. “This looks like a letter to the baron—it is addressed to ‘Dearest Max.'”

“What does it say?”

I skimmed the prose quickly, noting the looping scrawl of the handwriting, the pale violet ink, the heavily underscored words. “It is from Lily. And—oh God.”

He put out his hand and I gave him the letter.

“‘Dearest Max, I hardly have the words to
thank you
for your kindnesses to me and to Baby. I was
so low
when you came to see us, and your assurances have revived my spirits. You know he will not receive my letters; my
only hope
lies with you. You
must
make him see his duty to me—and to our child. I shudder to think what will become of us if he persists in casting us off so completely. And you must not think I care about money or anything else. I want
him
, Max. I know he loved me once, and I believe he loves me
still
, in his heart of hearts. If only he would come to see me, to see his child, I know he would find the strength to defy his family. If he goes through with this marriage, I do not know what I will do. He
cannot
marry her, Max—he must not. It will be my destruction, and he will carry that for the rest of his life.'”

He broke off. “The letter is dated 20 February 1863.”

“I was eight months old,” I calculated.

“And your father was not doing his duty, either by you or your mother.”

“So Max was acting as intermediary, consoling my mother and reminding my father of his obligations even as he planned to marry another woman. I wonder if he went through with his wedding.”

Stoker had picked up another cutting, and as he read it, his face paled. “I suspect so.”

“What is that?”

His expression was apologetic. “Your mother's obituary. Dated 20 March 1863.”

“Less than a month after sending Max that letter saying she did not know what she would do if my father married another woman.” I did not take the cutting from him. “Stoker, did she—”

He shook his head. “I cannot imagine how. Not if she was buried in this cemetery,” he said, reading off the name. “Our Lady of Grace. In Dublin.”

I blinked in surprise. “She was Catholic.”

He nodded gravely. “Apparently. There is a mention of the priest who presided over her funeral, a Father Burke. Look here, it is his obituary. He died six years after your mother and according to this was the parish priest of Greymount in Dublin. Veronica, he would never have let her be buried in holy ground if she had taken her own life.”

“Still,” I persisted. “It is too coincidental. Unless she simply
willed
herself to die. Is that even possible?”

He shrugged. “I have seen stranger.”

“So, my mother was an Irish Catholic actress. I suppose Ashbourne was a stage name. I wonder if there is any way of tracing her through the burial records to find her real name.”

“No need,” he said, producing another cutting. “Her real name was Mary Katherine de Clare.”

“De Clare?”
I took the cutting. Another piece from her triumphant American tour of 1860, but this one went into great depth about her past. “She ran away from home,” I told him. “Born to a respectable Irish family and they disowned her when she went on the stage. Here is a photograph of her with her brother,” I said, pointing to the cutting. “Edmund de Clare, as a boy of fifteen.”

Stoker scrutinized the photograph. “Is this the fellow who accosted you at Paddington?”

I nodded and he handed back the cutting. The photograph was taken some years before Mary Katherine de Clare had changed her name and taken her place on the stage. She was dressed in a suitably girlish frock, standing behind her seated brother, serious in his town suit, but with the same elegant bones and graceful demeanor as his sister.

“Why didn't he tell me?” I murmured.

Stoker shrugged. “Perhaps he felt revealing himself as your uncle was too private a matter for a crowded train station.”

“Perhaps.”

I read on, learning more about my mother. Famed as a gifted tragedienne, she had built her career upon the death scenes of Juliet and Ophelia. But she had been best known for the role of Phaedra in an English adaptation of Racine's
Phèdre
. There was a photograph of her, dressed in purest white, poison vial held aloft as she contemplated her fate. I raised my eyes briefly. “I presume you have noticed all her best roles were suicides?”

His expression was skeptical. “That proves nothing.”

“I suppose not,” I conceded. I burrowed through the rest of the papers—a motley collection of obituaries, notices from her plays, and two photographs. “My God,” I breathed. “Stoker, look.”

I handed him a photograph of Lily Ashbourne holding an infant. He read, “‘Me with Baby. December 1862.' You were six months old.”

I had been a plump infant, sitting upright in my mother's lap for the photograph. I must have moved, for my face was faintly blurred at the edge. But Lily's face was perfectly immobile, the moment captured forever, like a birdwing butterfly pinned to a card in all its brilliance. It had been nearly twenty-five years, but Lily Ashbourne's beauty was undimmed so long as that photograph existed to give truth to it. I peered closer and saw clutched in my chubby fist a tiny velvet mouse. Chester.

Wordlessly, Stoker handed me one of his great scarlet handkerchiefs to wipe my eyes. I moved on to the second photograph. Another photograph of me, clearly from the same sitting, for my white petticoats, stiff with embroidery, were unchanged. But Lily was missing. Instead, I was held by two women, their expressions wooden. Lily had contrived to look natural for the camera, as at ease as she might have been with a portrait painter. But these two were unaccustomed to having their pictures taken. Their chins were sharp, their mouths pursed in expressions of wariness. But even so, I knew them.

“It is Aunt Nell and Aunt Lucy!” I exclaimed. “The Harbottle sisters. I always thought they took me from a foundling home, but they must have known my mother.”

I turned over the photographs. Scribbled in the same hand as the other, in a scrawl of violet ink: “Baby with Ellie and Nan.” “I don't understand. Who are Ellie and Nan?”

Together we sorted through the papers until Stoker brandished one, triumphant. “I have it. A mention in this notice about her American tour that Miss Ashbourne will be traveling with her dresser, Nan Williams, and her maid, Ellie Williams, sisters.”

I sat back, my mind working furiously. “It makes no sense. Why would Nan and Ellie Williams change their names to Lucy and Nell Harbottle? And given me the name Veronica Speedwell? You notice there is no indication of what my mother called me, only ‘Baby.' What does it mean?”

We searched through the rest of the papers, but there was nothing more to be learned.

Finally, we gave up, assembling the papers in a rough chronological order before tying them up again. I poured more of the aguardiente and we drank in silence, as comfortably as brothers in arms, as our thoughts ran ahead.

“It is possible,” Stoker said finally, stretching out his booted legs, “that your father had much to lose by your birth.”

“What do you mean?”

“That letter from your mother to Max. She insists that she does not want money from your father. That means he must have had it to give. And he is refusing, for the sake of his family, to acknowledge your birth. Whatever relationship he enjoyed with your mother, it was finished by the time you were a few months old—possibly because of his engagement to another woman.”

“And Lily was disconsolate.” I picked up the thread of his idea. “She even threatened suicide, albeit obliquely, in her letter. What if she was more explicit in her communications to my father? He had a family to think of, money, reputation. He was at the very least from a wealthy merchant family.”

Stoker shook his head. “I would lay money on aristocracy. Gentry at least.”

“You really think so?”

He curled a handsome lip in scorn. “If there is one thing I can smell, it is the stink of my own kind trying to cover their hypocrisy. Besides, she was a famous beauty, a successful actress, the sort of woman who would not favor a poor nobody with her attentions. No, to attract her notice he would have to be someone with a name, connections.”

“That makes her sound rather mercenary,” I protested.

“Love affairs often are,” he returned easily. “They are an exchange of goods. He brought money to the liaison; she clearly brought beauty.”

“I don't think so. She mentioned in her letter to the baron that she had loved him, and he her.”

“It is possible. But at the beginning, to be noticed amidst all those other wealthy stage-door Johnnies, he must have had something quite special. Either he was very, very rich, or very, very handsome.”