Cynthia Bailey Pratt (5 page)

Jocelyn had heard reports of Regin’s determination not to let any suspicious circumstance escape him. Hammond’s behavior could certainly be considered suspicious, and Jocelyn somehow knew it would be fatal to have a large and implacable constable prying into Hammond’s affairs. She was convinced that keeping Arnold within tight boundaries would be best for him, herself, and Hammond.

For once all six members of the Luckem household sat down together. As Jocelyn came in with the salmon pie, Mrs. Luckem said, “I forgot to tell you that Mrs. . . . what was her name . . . left. I’m dreadfully sorry.”

Granville left his seat and took the serving plate from Jocelyn’s hands. She smiled at him and forgave her aunt for overlooking the housekeeper’s departure. She couldn’t be angry while the family prayed over the meal she prepared. It would be hard in any case not to forgive the Luckems their faults, even if she didn’t owe them all the happiness she knew.

Not even Tom had yet been born when Jocelyn’s father died at sea and her mother came to live with Arasta and Gaius Luckem. Julia Burnwell did not live long, and her child was absorbed into the household with little fuss and less worry. Jocelyn sometimes wondered if she had inherited some stability of temperament from her father, about whom she knew nothing beyond the bare facts of his name and rank. Certainly, she did not possess the single-minded determination of the Luckems, who did what they pleased without reference to other people.

That quality, however, did not belong solely to the Luckems. Jocelyn knew from childhood the story of her paternal grandfather, who refused to acknowledge either his son’s marriage or the birth of his only grandchild. She’d seen the letter her gentle mother wrote to the unknown man which had been returned with his reply, stinging as cold rain in the face. There would be nothing, neither money nor affection, for a brat whose relation to his son could not be proved, no matter how many “marriage certificates” were produced. Julia Burnwell never wrote again. First anger, then death, made re-approachment impossible.

Jocelyn passed the asparagus to Mr. Luckem. “I suppose,” he said, coming reluctantly into the present century, “we’ll have to advertise again.”

Granville laughed at him. ‘Really, Father, I’m sure all the housekeepers in England have heard of us. We won’t find another for love or money.”

“What’s wrong with us?” Arnold wanted to know as he flipped a bun into his pocket for one of the creatures in his room. Only Jocelyn saw, and though she pursed her lips and shook her head, she said nothing.

“Oh, you wouldn’t understand.” Granville’s gaze passed over his family, taking in all the evidence of their lack of interest in the important matters of life.

The chairs in which they sat matched neither each other nor the long rectangular table, spread with a much-stained cloth. The pictures on the wall were all drawings of Anglo-Saxon objects. His cousin, were Granville’s life part of the novels he was fond of reading, should have been a perfect beauty with classical features. Instead, she was thin and snub-nosed with ridiculous hair, the curls tightened by the heat of the kitchen. Arnold never had been told to be “seen and not heard.” And his parents were hardly the remote, cultivated persons of consequence who deserved such a son as himself.

Granville longed for the day when he would go to Oxford, to mix with the notable and noble, and to have all the advantages lost upon his elder brother, Tom. They seemed all the more precious as he realized how close he’d come to losing them today. While fixing his cravat, he’d decided that resolving any further adventures of Arnold’s would be someone else’s responsibility.

The tutor, Mr. Fletcher, read silently at the end of the table throughout the meal, a habit none of the Luckems would have considered worth mentioning to him. He did help to clear the table, using only one hand, the other employed in holding his book before his well-shaped nose. Mr. Fletcher seemed to operate like a bat, avoiding objects without seeing them.

After his task he disappeared to spend the time before bed with more reading. Jocelyn had reason to think he might spend a few moments dreaming about one living person, her friend, Helena Fain. If he did think romantically about Miss Fain, it didn’t affect his work. He was an excellent tutor and was Granville’s only hope for entering university next year.

After supper, Jocelyn pressed Arnold into washing the dishes by a glance of implied blackmail. Granville refused to ruin his hands with the coarse soap and only took up the dishtowel after his younger brother promised harm to his best coat if he didn’t agree to dry.

Later, they helped to pack their parents’ collection carefully in straw. The cousins were well used to handling the fragile objects and to swaddling them well against bumps and crashes. Arnold actually owned the lightest touch of any of them, save Jocelyn.

Mr. Luckem oversaw the packing of the artifacts into the three small barrels Mr. Quigg had picked up in Libermore. One smelled strongly of pickles, and Mr. Luckem even made a joke, saying how he hoped the smell would “preserve” his treasures. Only the larger pieces, such as pots and the bits that were determined to be of military use, were packed in this fashion. The most delicate were carefully wrapped in Mr. and Mrs. Luckem’s own clothing.

Jocelyn helped with this task, while the boys loaded the carriage under Mr. Quigg’s supervision. Picking up a rare and beautiful enameled clasp, Jocelyn felt it would crumble to dust in her hand, no matter how gently she handled it. She cushioned it securely in her uncle’s quilted dressing gown and feared again when she took up another piece, an elaborate brooch of twisted gold.

Mrs. Luckem came in, her arms filled with some of Tom’s clothes. Jocelyn recognized the blue coat she had worn that afternoon. She thought of Hammond’s eyes flicking over it, and she suddenly felt too warm.

“Tom asked me for this old coat; there’s some sort of horse race being held, and he says it brings him luck. Interesting how old superstitions hang on, though it is disconcerting to find them in one’s own son.” While traveling to London, the Luckems planned to make a brief stop in Oxford to visit their oldest boy.

With some pride Mrs. Luckem opened the coat. “Look at this seam! There was a tear, but I took care of it.” Along the inside of the coat a ripped seam was held together with long stitches in thread of the entirely wrong color. “I think it will hold long enough for the race.”

Jocelyn hid a smile. Her mother taught her to sew almost as soon as she could speak, and she now kept the Luckems’ clothing presentable. Her aunt did like to feel as if she were contributing her own housewife’s skills, though they were somewhat less advanced than her archaeological knowledge.

After working in silence for a few moments, Arasta said, “Gaius and I have every confidence in you, Jocelyn. Please see about getting a new housekeeper for us. I am sure you can choose no worse that we have done in the past.”

“Thank you, Aunt Arasta. I’ll do my best.”

When Jocelyn went to bed, she prayed that no serious crisis would occur while her aunt and uncle were away. She knew it was useless to pray against the minor disasters that were certain to happen the moment she took charge.

As she knelt on her rag rug, a picture of Hammond as she saw him last appeared to her. She added a prayer for him, asking that he would be well. Unbidden, a hope that they might soon meet again sprang into her mind. She did not ask for it aloud.

By morning everything was prepared for the trip. The sturdy horses that worked in the fields could be spared now the plowing was done, and young Daniel whose father rented the fields, sat upon the box, the reins in his hands. He could scarcely sit still, filled with excitement at the thought that he would soon see the Metropolis for the first time.

The barrels and the valises with their contents far more precious than clothing were stowed inside, leaving scarcely any room for the human occupants. Discomfort, however, was nothing to Mr. and Mrs. Luckem as long as their treasures were safe. Their children and their niece waved goodbye, and even Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Quigg spared a moment to notice the departure.

Chapter Three

Jocelyn stopped to examine her garden but found it difficult to bend down over the beetroots. Her exercise of yesterday had left her sore, prey to strange twinges in her lower limbs. She walked slowly into the kitchen.

Sipping a cup of tea, she heard a knock at the door. “Come in, Mrs. Hodges!” she called. “Oh. Good morning, Martha. I hope your mother isn’t ill.”

The girl on the doorstep balanced two cans of milk in her broad hands. Her fresh face would have been pretty if not for the lines carved in her forehead, lines of care and worry that should not have been there for years yet. “Not to say ill, Miss Burnwell, but terrible worried in her mind. Dad didn’t come back and didn’t come back. He’s never stayed out so long before.” Crossing the kitchen, Martha poured the blue-white liquid into the pans in the pantry.

Martha Hodges’s father, Matt, was a long subject of scandal in Libermore. He did no work, although his wife and daughter did, supplying milk and cheese to those households that did not have a working dairy. This concern should have brought them in a comfortable living except for his taking the money to gamble and drink away.

After Martha left, Jocelyn spent a moment shaking her head over Matt Hodges’s iniquities. If it hadn’t been for Martha bringing the milk, she would have known nothing about his latest misdeed. Mrs. Hodges never said a word of complaint against her husband, although she was marked by frequent, unexplained bruises and cuts.

While waiting for her cousins to come down, Jocelyn thought about the day ahead. Examining the pantry, she saw she needed many things to run the house efficiently while her aunt and uncle were away. She made up her mind to go briefly into town to purchase what she lacked. A brisk walk would limber up her stiff muscles, as well.

She knew in her heart that shopping was just an excuse. It would be easy to walk a few steps farther up the street to the inn and to visit Hammond. I’ll do my shopping first, Jocelyn promised herself. And then if there’s time . . .

She thought for a moment longer and then dipped a mug into the fresh milk in the pantry and took a new-baked bun from a covered plate. Upstairs, Jocelyn knocked on Arnold’s door. “Arnold, dear,” she called. “I’ve brought you some breakfast.”

He did not answer. Before Jocelyn could wonder whether Arnold had disobeyed her by escaping from the house, the bedroom door slowly opened. With a sulky face Arnold sat on his low camp bed, kicking his heels and staring at the reptile in a small cage beside him. He refused to look at Jocelyn.

“You needn’t stay in your room, you know. I don’t think there’d be any harm even if you went into the garden.”

“I’m not supposed to leave until I learn my declensions. Mr. Fletcher said so.”

“Oh, that’s right. You had no chance to study them yesterday.” She set the food on the table, finding just room enough between a collection of small stones and a pile of leaves. She hoped there was nothing poisonous lurking among them. “Well,” she said. “Good luck.”

“Thank you,” he replied glumly, reaching for the bun.

In her own room, while putting on her outerwear, Jocelyn hesitated between her tilted straw hat and her deeply scooped bonnet. The straw was far more becoming to her, but thinking of Constable Regin, she knew the bonnet would serve as a better disguise. Jocelyn took up her pattens from where they lay near the fireplace and tied them on firmly to keep her feet from the mud.

As she made out her shopping list in the kitchen, Granville came down the back stair and reminded her about advertising for a new housekeeper. He helped to compose the notice in elegant language. “Though it is a waste of time, Cousin Jocelyn. No one will answer it.”

“Maybe,” Jocelyn said. “But we need someone, and I don’t know how else to get her.”

“Have you tried prayer?” Granville wanted to know as he drifted from the kitchen.

She took along a few coins of her own to pay for the advertisement and for some small articles not worth adding onto Mr. Luckem’s accounts. Arnold liked citron drops, and a few might lift his encabined spirits. Granville teased her last week for some lavender water to mix with his perfume, though he knew perfectly well the lavender was not blooming well. She would buy these things, plus a pennyworth of good tobacco for Mr. Quigg, a thing he rarely bought for himself.

With a private smile she admitted these things were bribes to keep the house quiet while the older members of the family were away. Five pence is a fair price for peace, she thought, jingling the money in her glove. Taking up a basket, she set out for town.

It had rained in the night, and she hoped her aunt and uncle were not caught in the storm as it passed over England. Not that they would mind the wet, having often braved worse weather while digging, but the specimens would be in constant danger of exposure. She did not find it difficult to imagine Mr. and Mrs. Luckem sleeping in their carriage rather than risk carrying their treasure-filled valises across a wet stableyard to their room.

Jocelyn stopped first at the dusty office of the
Libermore Weekly Proclamation.
She waited a few minutes for the clerk to attend her. Taking her advertisement over the counter, the young-old man read it through his half-glasses and said, “Looking for another housekeeper, Miss Burnwell? That’s too bad. I hope you have better luck this time.”

“So do I, Mr. Phelps. When will it appear?”

He promised her that their advertisement would be in the next issue. Jocelyn thanked him, although, like Granville, she felt that the effort was in vain. They gave their last housekeeper the position because she had been the only applicant.

After visiting the greengrocer’s, where the fresh vegetables she craved were newly arrived from warmer climes, and the butcher’s, where she used her nose constantly to guard against rottenness, Jocelyn walked along the street to Harry Yalter’s shop. She paused on the step, knowing a few paces more would take her to the alley that led to the inn.