Nooks & Crannies (12 page)

Tabitha looked at her parents, who were deep in discussion, with no indication that they needed her consultation. They, unlike the others, had not worn expressions of hesitant giddiness at any point during the trust fund announcement, which probably meant one thing: the Crums were absolutely certain that they wouldn't be coming into any money.

“I'll just visit the loo,” she told them, leaving the room humming with excited, tense whispers behind her. She heard a small whisper of her own. It called to her faintly from somewhere between her heart and her mind.

There are far worse things than no longer having a family.

“Why, Pemberley,” she whispered, drawing the mouse from her pocket, “wouldn't they ever have taken one from Basil House?”

Tabitha knew any thought of earning her parents' love was slim, but still she had tried. She had tried very hard. And buried far beneath her need to be part of a family, her desire to be loved, and her frustration at not being able to earn that love, was another feeling that she couldn't quite place. It sent hot bursts of blood from her heart to her toes and fingertips. The rogue feeling threatened to rush out and show itself in an uncontrolled manner, but Tabitha took a deep breath and made a logical and concerted effort to push all emotions aside.

A proper Inspector had no room for feelings. Tabitha had no inkling of being anything special and doubted she was related to the Countess, but if nothing else, she might use the time with her parents to discover why, exactly, she had been adopted by two people who seemed to shun the very idea of children. That was a mystery she'd like to solve.

If you want to know the true personality of a person, Tibbs, never go by how they treat you. Go by how they treat the butler and the maid. In every single case, whether the crime took place in a palace or a pauper's alley box, by God, find yourself a maid to speak with.

—Inspector Percival Pensive,

The Case of the Loitering Lord

T
abitha patted her hands dry on a lavender towel. “It's a lovely home,” she told Pemberley, in what she hoped was a soothing sort of voice. She sensed that her mouse friend was feeling a bit apprehensive about the coming chat with the Crums and that he could use a burst of possibility. “And a grandmother
is
family. Perhaps I'm actually a lost DeMoss, and that's why my life has seemed like a dress that I simply can't fit into properly. Perhaps I'm to inherit a trust fund and I can buy you a cheese palace and—”

Squeakity-squeak.

“Yes, well, as I was saying to myself earlier, if that's the way of things, then perhaps I can clean floors here instead of at Augustus Home. Let's go.”

The electric lighting in the hallway made Tabitha feel shadowed as they walked hesitantly down the carpet, passing more evidence of the wealth that would soon be shared by one of the children. Silver-framed paintings and gold-set mirrors crowded the walls, making it seem as though the manor was about to close tightly upon them, like a clever plant that had trapped a missing jewel in a Pensive novel Tabitha had read.

When she returned to the dining hall, it was empty, save for Mary Pettigrew and a server taking the uneaten desserts away. Mary did not look well. Slumping forward against the table, her eyes faced the painting on the opposite wall. Tabitha got the impression that Mary was far away, looking at a much different picture in her mind. The server looked up at Tabitha's footsteps.

“Is someone coming to get Mary?” Tabitha asked.

The server blushed. “I would think so, miss. The others have gone to the drawing room or the library or the foyer.”

Sure enough, Tabitha found tight circles of parents and children scattered from the large entrance hall to the expansive library and the drawing room. The Trundles were grouped near a suit of armor, Mr. Trundle's hand gripping Barnaby's shoulder as he whispered with intensity. Mr. Wellington was just visible near the doorway of the drawing room, puffing at a thick, deep-brown cigar.

Tabitha wandered until she saw Mr. and Mrs. Crum at the base of the main staircase. They were quite huddled together, and there was a decided look about them as she approached.

“Mum. Daddy.”

They turned and glared at her in unison. When it was clear that neither of her parents would be starting a conversation, Tabitha took a deep breath. According to Inspector Pensive, it was common sense that whenever you were in a fix or at a crossroads in an investigation, there were always two choices: to do nothing and worry, or to take some sort of action and deal with its associated risks.

“I don't know if you've anything to tell me,” she began softly. She paused, wondering whether to clarify her meaning by adding
other than why you decided to abandon me and poor, sensitive Pemberley to an orphanage. Or why you adopted me in the first place if you were just going to throw me away
. “But I am to be called into the Countess's study tomorrow. Is there anything you remember about the day you got me from Basil House? Anything at all?”

“What's to remember?” Mrs. Crum said. “The only thing that chafes my memory is that you had a frightful shriek and I couldn't get you to shut up and you gave your father an insufferable headache.”

Mr. Crum nodded. “An ingrate from the start.”

As a small child, Tabitha had thought ingrate was a pet name. A loving term. She'd known better since checking at the library several years ago.
Ingrate
meant that she was ungrateful. A self-seeker. Thankless. It was seeing those words in an official book that cemented Tabitha's belief that perhaps she was at fault somehow in the mysterious case of her parents not loving her.

Mr. Crum harrumphed loudly. “And it seems that you still can't keep your gob shut. Now you're badgering us with preposterous questions.” He threw a piece of paper at her.

Tabitha picked it up. “A train ticket?”

“Yes, after this weekend you can find your own way back to the station and that will take you to a stop within a few miles of Augustus Home. You'll walk there.” Mr. Crum shook a single finger at her, then ran his hand carefully through his toupee. He bent over, leaning close while his eyes looked somewhere beyond Tabitha. “I can't
believe
we delayed our trip for this rubbish. We've stuck our necks out for you on the chance that we'd get something out of this weekend. It was supposed to be
profitable
, and now it seems the payoff comes with a ridiculous condition.”

Mrs. Crum snorted her agreement. “Ridiculous. Hopeless, even. Imagine
Tabitha
being related to a countess.” She looked at Mr. Crum. “Teacher, wasn't it?”

Tabitha stiffened. “What?”

“A teacher,” Mrs. Crum repeated. “The orphanage said the note left with you indicated that your mother was training to be a schoolteacher or some such rubbish. Not a maid. And there was no mention of a father, so
no
, you are not anybody's heir, nor have you ever been.” She gritted her teeth. “You've been nothing but a waste of time.”

Tabitha felt Pemberley shift inside her apron pocket. Inspector Pensive was always brave in front of Tibbs, even if he later confessed to not feeling quite as valiant as his actions had suggested at the time. “Perhaps you're wrong and the orphanage was mistaken,” Tabitha said very quietly, issuing the challenge for her mouse's sake. “Perhaps she
is
my grandmother.”

“You? Come from gentility and money?” Mr. Crum's outstretched index finger returned, this time to poke her in the chest. He leaned forward until Tabitha smelled a combination of onion, fish, and raspberry torte. “The only thing that came with you was the blanket you were wrapped in and the promise that you had a beautiful mother. We thought we'd get into some money by marrying you off for your looks to some fool of a rich boy.”

Mrs. Crum nodded. “Men are idiots and will fall in love with anything pretty. My own mother rose from a poverty too heinous to tell us much about, and how? By marrying up. And if I hadn't fallen in love with you, Mortimer, I could have married a prince before the strains of motherhood aged me prematurely.”

“Too right, darling,” Mr. Crum lovingly agreed, “you deserve the world.” He sniffed as though he smelled something foul and grunted at his daughter. “That's the only reason we picked you, Tabitha. We had a solid plan based on you being a beauty. But what a joke that turned out to be. The orphanage woman probably said that about all the wretched babies.”

Tabitha stumbled back as though she'd been slapped. “Well,” she replied, cheeks aflame, “the haircut certainly hasn't done me any favors.”

Mrs. Crum shook her head miserably. “I was going to let it grow out when you came of age. I didn't want you catching any boy's eye too early. And now . . .” She blew her nose, unable to continue. “Oh, Mortimer, now I'll never be an upper-class member of London society!”

Mr. Crum gently stroked his wife's arm. “There, there.” He finger-brushed his mustache and breathed in, then let out a pained sigh. “We don't need London, dearest. On with the plan, I say.”

Tabitha looked between them, the two people who had plucked her from a life without parents. At least Mrs. Crum had the decency to look disturbed, but that turned out to be because Tabitha was standing on a bit of her foot. “Do get off, Tabitha.”

“I'm sorry,” Tabitha whispered. The apology sounded very far away even to herself, like the voice of a very small person stuck at the top of a very large mountain. Like a person who wasn't sure how she'd gotten stuck in the first place and whether Fate was to blame for the unfortunate situation, or if being cold and alone was somehow secretly her own fault. She peered at each of her parents' shoes in turn. “I'm very sorry I'm not what you intended.”

Mrs. Crum dabbed at her eye makeup. “Stop being difficult.”

Slowly, fingers trembling, Tabitha unpinned the bittern her mother had given her the day before. She carefully stroked the pin's brass feathers in farewell and handed her mother the brooch, realizing it would be the final time they touched. Her parents would not be coming back after one year or two years or three. They were leaving forever. “I don't know how things will work out on Sunday, but you can have the bittern back. It's a symbol of leaving. I don't believe I want it anymore.”

“How
bizarre
,” Mr. Crum muttered. “Get rid of that ugly thing.” He snatched it away from Tabitha and pitched it aside. The brooch went skittering across the foyer floor, passing through shadows and settling in some dark place.

Tabitha refused to let her gaze follow its path.

Her mother stepped forward, tilting Tabitha's chin until their eyes met. “I want you to know, Tabitha . . .”

“Yes, Mother?” Tabitha leaned forward, surprised and nearly hopeful.
Here it is. A piece of advice to guide me in my years ahead, wherever they might be spent.

Indeed, Mrs. Crum's eyes softened, and she brought a hand up to cover her mouth for a moment before speaking. “Tabitha,” her mother said, “I want you to know what a disappointment you turned out to be. Now go, Tabitha. Disappear.”

The Crums avoided her beseeching stare and strode in a confident manner through the foyer. Tabitha could see snow falling on the other side of the large front windows. Soft flakes flurried down like pieces of frozen beauty. The unlucky ones touched the glass and turned instantly to water. Tabitha was struck utterly numb as she watched them fall, as though she'd been tossed into winter itself. As though she, too, were a solitary snowflake surrounded by glass, paralyzed as she floated down, knowing that she had no power to stop herself from melting.

From disappearing forever.

Think of far worse things than being told to disappear,
she urged herself in between aching, raw breaths.
After all, you never actually believed they would come to love you.
Her chest seemed to be collapsing upon her heart and the pressure, oh, the truth's pressure was overwhelming.

Oh dear, I suppose there was a piece of you that did think that very thing. Even after they told you about Augustus Home. Stupid, stupid Tabitha.
Her parents only wanted her as something they could one day use to raise their social status. And that was all they'd ever wanted from her. She herself, as a daughter and a person, as a gangly and poorly shorn child named Tabitha Crum, was worth nothing.

Finding a small corner between a set of armor and a foyer table, Tabitha let herself sink to the floor, tucking her knees in tightly and wrapping both arms around.
There are far worse things than this, far worse things, far, far worse things.
Pemberley fussed and squeezed out of his pocket. Up Tabitha's apron he scuttled, stopping at her shoulder, where he uttered the tiniest of squeaks.

“They're wrong? My existence isn't pointless, you say?” Tabitha whispered. “Oh, Pemberley, I'm not sure I believe you this time.”