Finished Off (A Bellehaven House Mystery Book 2) (10 page)

How dare they manhandle her friend like that! How dare they treat her like a common street thief! Someone should teach them a little respect. Gritting her teeth, Grace clamped her hat more firmly on her head, then set off after the wagon.

Meredith arrived back at Bellehaven a little later
than she'd intended, and she had to rush to change her wet clothes before heading for the music room.

As she reached the door, she could hear the students' voices raised in laughter. Apparently one of the girls was entertaining the others—and raising quite an uproar.

Curious to see who owned this remarkable talent, Meredith quickened her pace. As she drew closer to the door, however, she heard a male voice mingled with the girlish giggles and squeals. Setting her teeth, Meredith turned the handle and thrust the door open.

As she had expected, Roger Platt sat on the edge of her desk, surrounded by a bevy of giggling young maidens. One of them, Sadie Harcourt, was actually pressed against the young man's knees in a shocking display of familiarity. So intent were the pupils on attracting Mr. Platt's attention, they failed to notice Meredith until she raised her voice to be heard above the babble.

"Just
what
do you think you are doing?"

The young women closest to her sprang away and scrambled to the performance platform, leaving three of the students still engrossed in her new assistant's teasing comments.

"I think you should all let your hair down," Roger Platt said, actually reaching out to touch Sadie's bound locks. "It would make you look infinitely seductive."

Sadie simpered, while the other two girls gazed at her in envy.

Meredith took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "If any of you intend to enjoy your debut into society, I suggest you return to your places immediately." All three girls spun around and, amid giggles from the other students, dashed to join their companions.

Meredith turned to the young man, whose face now wore an anxious frown. "As for you, Mr. Platt, I will see you outside in the hallway. Right this minute."

"Er, right. Right away." He slipped off the desk and hurried from the room.

"Now then." Meredith faced the students and raised her hand. "You will begin singing your first aria. I shall listen
to it outside, and if I hear one sour note, you will all return this evening for an extra rehearsal. Is that clear?"

A mumbled chorus of "Yes, miss" answered her.

"Very well, then. One . . . two . . . three . . ."

The pupils' voices soared, and Meredith left them to continue while she gave Roger Platt a piece of her mind.

When she stepped outside, he was lounging against the wall, hands tucked into the pockets of his trousers. As Meredith closed the door with a sharp snap, he pushed himself to attention. "Look, Mrs. Llewellyn—" he began, but she gave him no opportunity to continue.

"I warned you once," she said, putting as much disdain as she could into her tone. "Normally that would be enough. In deference to Mr. Hamilton and his somewhat biased opinion of you, however, I will give you an undeserved second chance."

Relief swept over Platt's face. "That's jolly decent of you, Mrs. Llewellyn, but—"

She held up her hand to silence him. "In the future, if I so much as see you within ten feet of one of my students, you will be instantly dismissed, and no amount of support from Mr. Hamilton will save your job. I hope I make myself clear."

He started to speak again, but once more she cut him off with a swift gesture. "Go back to your desk and finish those reports. I want them completed before you leave this afternoon."

A look of alarm leapt into his eyes. "This afternoon? I don't know if I can manage that—"

"You
will
manage that." She gave him her iciest stare. "You will not leave until they are finished."

He opened his mouth once more to protest, then apparently thought better of it and snapped his mouth shut.

Satisfied she had made her point, Meredith turned her back on him, opened the door, and walked into a chorus of a beautiful Bach aria.

Both Felicity and Essie expressed their admiration
when Meredith related the event to them later. Seated in the teacher's lounge, Essie clapped her hands. "Well done, Meredith! That must have put the young man in his place."

"I would have sacked him on the spot," Felicity said with a sniff. "Hamilton or no Hamilton."

"I think Mr. Platt was testing my authority," Meredith said, reaching for the latest copy of the
Post
. "Mr. Hamilton can be so overbearing and condescending, as if he has sole control over the management of Bellehaven. I believe Mr. Platt assumed he could do as he liked in Mr. Hamilton's absence."

"Well, I must say, you handled it well." Felicity picked up the book on Latin phrases she'd been studying for the past week. "I would have boxed his ears and sent him packing."

Essie giggled. "What's he like, anyway? Mr. Platt, I mean. I haven't seen him as yet."

Meredith wrinkled her brow. "A pleasant-enough young man, I suppose, even if he is somewhat misguided about his duties. He has no experience, so time will tell if he will be a valid assistant."

"That's what you get for allowing Hamilton to pick your staff. Look at the ignoramus he picked to replace Kathleen."

Unfortunately at that moment the door opened and Sylvia Montrose swept in. Judging by the outrage on her face, it seemed likely that she had overheard Felicity's comment.

Meredith dropped her newspaper and summoned a smile. "I'm so glad you could join us, Sylvia! We were just talking about the new assistant. Rather a dunce, I'm afraid. I'm hoping he will improve enough to be useful in the long run."

Sylvia flicked an uncertain glance at Felicity, then apparently decided to accept Meredith's version of the conversation. "I'm sorry he is causing you trouble. I haven't met him as yet."

"No, Meredith's keeping him all to herself." Felicity snapped her book shut and stood. "I haven't even seen him in the dining room yet."

"That's because he eats in my office." Meredith met her curious stare. "I don't want him mixing with the students."

"Ah, good idea." Felicity moved to the door. "Speaking of the dining room, isn't it about time we were in there?"

Glancing at the clock, Meredith quickly got to her feet. "I had no idea of the time. My little excursion this morning has quite disorganized my day."

Both Essie and Felicity looked at her. "You went out somewhere?"

Cursing herself for her slip of the tongue, she nodded. She had made the mistake of telling both her friends about her visit to the orphanage, and Felicity had beseeched her to forget about the little girl, since there was nothing she could do to help her.

She had gone so far as to say that she believed Meredith's encounters were actually apparitions that appeared to her in dreams, confirming Meredith's suspicions that Felicity never had believed that she could see ghosts.

Meredith had made up her mind after that to keep any matters concerning the ghost private, so that she couldn't be swayed by her friend's skepticism. It seemed, however, that now she would have to take both Felicity and Essie into her confidence after all.

Grace had to run really fast to keep the police wagon
in sight, and by the time it reached the constabulary, her feet smarted from blisters and her lungs hurt to breathe.

Two of her hatpins had fallen out and were lying somewhere on the road behind her, leaving her hat to lurch from its sole anchor onto her shoulder. Fighting for breath, she leaned against the wall opposite the building where the bobbies were now hustling their prisoners through the doors.

So far she hadn't seen Olivia, so she had to be still in the wagon. There was only one bobby standing by it now, one hand holding the door shut while he waited for his companions to return.

Grace squared her shoulders and tried to ignore the collywobbles in her stomach. This was her best chance to get Olivia out of there and she had to take it now.

Opening her mouth, she let out a piercing scream. The bobby turned around, his truncheon at the ready.

Grace rushed toward him, still screaming, her hat flapping around on her shoulder like an aggravated parrot. "That man stole my handbag!" She pointed down the road at a group of pedestrians. "Look, there he is, in the middle of all those people."

The bobby stared at her for a second. "What's he look like?"

Grace started bawling as loud as she could. "He's young and he's got my handbag with all me money in his hand."

"Right. You stay there, miss, and I'll go after him."

The constable dashed off, and Grace didn't wait to see where he went. She tugged open the door and stared at half a dozen militant faces inside the wagon.

Olivia leapt forward with a cry of relief. "Grace! Thank goodness!"

"Come on!" Grace grabbed her hand and pulled her from the van. A lusty shout behind them warned her the constable was on his way back and wasn't terribly pleased to see his prisoners all leaping from the wagon.

The rest of the women split up in different directions. Grace plunged down an alleyway with Olivia right behind her, and the two of them didn't stop running until they were on the outskirts of the town.

Meredith waited until she was alone with Felicity
and Essie that afternoon. Rather than risk having Sylvia walk in on her conversation, she'd asked them to join her for a stroll on the school grounds, something she often did when she had problems to sort out in her head.

She'd suggested meeting them in the memorial garden the students had planted in the woods in Kathleen's honor. The rain had stopped, and a weak sun peeked around the
clouds. Standing by the flowerbed, she gazed at the students' handiwork. Dozens of golden marigolds nodded their heads in the afternoon breeze, while reddish-brown leaves fluttered down to join them.

Above her head, sparrows chirped in the leafy branches of the elms, and feathery ferns swayed back and forth beneath them. It was warm and peaceful in this little clearing. Meredith smiled. Kathleen would have been very happy to know she was being remembered in such serene surroundings.

She almost expected to see the misty shape of her friend appear, although she knew that wouldn't happen again. She couldn't help wondering if Kathleen knew of her struggles to help Emma Lewis. If so, she wouldn't be too happy with the little progress she'd made.

A rustling sound among the trees signaled the arrival of her friends, and she turned to greet them as they walked out into the small clearing.

Essie seemed nervous, and kept glancing over her shoulder, while Felicity seemed merely curious.

"It must be important if you're skulking around out here," Felicity said when she had reached Meredith's side. "You haven't been breaking the law, have you?"

Meredith laughed. "Nothing that I'm aware of, at least." She glanced at Essie. "You don't have to worry, Essie. Kathleen's ghost won't be coming back."

Essie rubbed her upper arms. "It's not Kathleen. I know she's gone. But what about your other ghost? The little girl?"

Meredith shook her head. "She only appears at night, and in my room. Nowhere else. Not even in the house she lived in."

Felicity gave her a sharp look. "You've been there? To that child's house?"

"Yes." Meredith walked over to the bench that Tom, the gardener, had placed by the flowerbed and sat down. "I went there earlier this morning."

Essie uttered a small sound of concern. "That must have been frightening."

Remembering her narrow escape on the staircase, Meredith gave her a rueful smile. "A little, perhaps. But I wanted to find out more about Emma Lewis."

Felicity shook her head. "I might have known you wouldn't give up. But if the child wasn't murdered, what does she want from you?"

"Well, as I told you, I thought at first it was simply to be reunited with her family." Meredith stretched her feet out in front of her. "But now I'm not so sure."

Essie came and sat down beside her, while Felicity perched a hip on the iron arm of the bench.

"So what are you saying?" Felicity demanded. "You're not suggesting the child was murdered after all?"

"No," Meredith said quietly. "But I do think it's entirely possible that her family was murdered."

Chapter 8

"Did you really think you could both be gone all day
without me knowing it?" Mrs. Wilkins glared at each of the maids in turn.

Olivia stared back with her usual defiance, while Grace seemed to have acquired an intense interest in her shoes.

When neither girl answered, Mrs. Wilkins crossed her arms. "Miss Fingle wants to see you both in her office."

Grace whimpered, and even Olivia looked worried. "What for?"

"For taking the day off again." Mrs. Wilkins shook her head. In spite of her annoyance with the young girls, she prayed Mona wouldn't give them the sack. Maids were hard to find in a village the size of Crickling Green.

Most young women nowadays moved to London to be in service with affluent families who could afford to take good care of their servants. Grace and Olivia might not be the most industrious of maids, and they were certainly a handful from time to time, but she would really hate to see them leave.

Grace shuffled her foot back and forth, looking as if she would burst into tears any minute.

"We weren't gone all day," Olivia said, trying to sound a lot more defiant than she looked. "We came back this afternoon. We was up there cleaning out the attic, like we said, weren't we, Grace."

Grace nodded, her bottom lip firmly clamped between her teeth.

"No, you were not." Mrs. Wilkins puffed out her breath. "I went up there, didn't I. Miss Fingle told me she never gave you orders to clean it, so I went up to see what you were up to, and judging by the dust on the stairs, no one has been near the attic in months."

"We had to go to Witcheston," Grace burst out. "We got orders to go."

"Orders from who?"

Olivia nudged her friend with her elbow. "Shut your mouth, Grace."

"From the WSPU." Grace glanced at Olivia. "Sorry, Olivia, but we might as well tell the truth."