The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place (10 page)

“
Dear
Barnes! You are too, too good, and far too generous of heart. But I must insist, I really must. Mrs. Plackett herself was quite vehement. She says you deserve a bit of holiday.”

“She said that?”

Kitty gulped. Considering Mrs. Plackett’s usual demeanor toward her hired help, perhaps she was stretching belief too far.

“We girls can tend to all that’s needful today. We shall keep a quiet vigil in the parlor, studying our lesson books and remembering our headmistress, her brother, and her … nephew in our prayers.”

Smooth Kitty bowed her head in a touching display of pious concern. Stout Alice followed suit, counting heartbeats and waiting for Barnes to
leave
, for the love of heaven. But still the daily woman hesitated. Never had a tenacious work ethic proved so irritating.

Finally Barnes curtseyed in acquiescence. “Well enough, Miss Katherine,” she said. “If Mrs. Plackett insists, I’ll take my holiday. But first let me just nip inside for a pan of mine I left here last week. I need it for a recipe for my poor mother.”

“Tell me what it looks like, and I’ll get it for you,” Alice exclaimed, too eagerly.

Barnes cocked her head to one side. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you girls were trying to keep me out of the house,” she said. “Remember, I was a girl once myself. You’re not up to any mischief while your headmistress is unwell, are you?”

“None in the slightest!” Stout Alice exclaimed.

“Really, Barnes.” Smooth Kitty looked quietly affronted. “At a time like this, what an insinuation.”

Amanda Barnes bowed her head. “I apologize. There I go again, not thinking before I speak. Oh! And here’s another thing I didn’t think of.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a large, thick, folded hank of cloth. “Mrs. Rumsey asked me to bring this to you. It’s three yards of linen for your strawberry social tablecloth.”

Smooth Kitty reached for the fabric. It felt silky beneath her hands. “Thank you, Miss Barnes. We’ll have to make hasty work of it, but we shall do our best. Good morning to you.”

Amanda turned to leave, then halted. “Is there hope the young nephew will recover?”

“Precious little,” Kitty replied. “He’s said to be a weakly child. His constitution is feeble.” She sniffed tragically. “We fear the worst. Poor Mrs. Plackett.”

There was an awful pause. They waited. Barnes’s shoes were rooted to the gravel of Saint Etheldreda’s driveway. Stout Alice could see no end to this terrible impasse. She began to understand why her grandmother complained so often about dealing with hired help.

“Yoo-hoooo!”

A voice came bellowing from down the road, approaching Saint Etheldreda’s at a rapid clip.

“Yoo-hoooo, I say! Alice! Kitty! Look what I’ve found!”

The shock of surprise zipping up Kitty’s spine was positively electric. It was little Pocked Louise, dragging—or being dragged by—something on a string, waving what looked like a stick in the air, and galloping like a schoolboy.

“Kitty! Alice! Look!” the breathless Louise cried. “Oh, hullo, Barnes. Look, girls, what a jolly day we’re going to have. I got us a tree to plant, just like you asked, but best of all, I got us a puppy!”

CHAPTER 8

The streak of black and white speckled fur dragged Louise around behind the house and out of sight.

Smooth Kitty and Stout Alice avoided meeting Amanda Barnes’s gaze. What Barnes must think now, Kitty couldn’t stomach to guess. The awkward silence was broken by a trotting horse appearing far down the road, pulling a lightweight chaise.

“Doctor Snelling, making his rounds,” Barnes observed.

“He’s on his way to call upon Mrs. Plackett,” Smooth Kitty said. “Alice, perhaps you should go inside and change your clothes.”

Alice blanched, then slipped indoors. The horror! It was one thing to pretend to be sixty-two-year-old Constance Plackett while sleeping in a darkened room with a blind, drugged, ear-plugged old choir mistress; quite another thing to play Mrs. Plackett by the light of morning for the scrutinizing eyes of a man of medicine.

“I don’t see why Miss Alice needs to change her clothes,” Miss Barnes said. “You’ll forgive my saying so, Miss Katherine, but
your
frock has quite a splash of mud around the hems. I’ll tackle it on washing day.”

Dr. Snelling’s gleaming chaise advanced slowly up the road, pulled by a well-groomed bay mare. Kitty watched it come with mounting dread. Oh, this aggravating Amanda Barnes!

The doctor stopped his chaise, climbed out stif
f
ly, and tied it to a post near the front door.

“Morning,” he called out. “Don’t mind me. I’ll show myself in.”

“Wait!” Kitty cried.
Stall him, stall him!
“Er, tell me, Doctor Snelling, if you would be so kind, please, how Mrs., er, Benson? No, Bennion, fared last evening. At the birth of her child.”

Dr. Snelling scowled. “A daughter,” he grumbled. “I lost my wager. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

And before Kitty could stop him, he pushed open the door and disappeared into the dark bowels of the house.

Kitty found herself in a moment of peril, and like all great women, she let the moment of crisis infuse her with strength she hadn’t known she possessed. Summoning the very essence of her dear departed Aunt Katherine, that imposing force of nature after whom she was named, she drew herself up to her full height, which was not very great, and still managed to look down her nose at the daily housekeeper.

“Good
morning
to you, Barnes,” she said with polite but decisive firmness. She seized Barnes’s wrist and pressed the wages into her palm. “Enjoy your holiday. I must go inside now and tend to my late headmistress.”

Barnes’s eyes widened. “Your
late
headmistress?”

“Late,” she replied with frosty dignity, “for her doctor’s appointment.” She turned abruptly, went inside, and closed the door behind her.

Kitty could not pause to revel in her triumph.
Late headmistress!
That had been a near catastrophe. She dropped the tablecloth linen into a chair and ran to the door of her headmistress’s bedroom. Low voices inside, sounding male and female, and not the least bit animated, met her ears.

She pushed open the door and entered the dim room. The curtains were drawn shut.

Dr. Snelling turned from examining Mrs. Plackett to look up at Kitty. “Pardon me, young lady,” he said. “I’m examining my patient.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Plackett said in a frosty voice. “Kindly afford me my privacy, Katherine, and resume your studies in the schoolroom.”

Smooth Kitty was so astonished, she nearly stumbled backwards, which would have been anything but smooth, so it is fortunate that she did not in fact do so. But there she was! Mrs. Plackett, in the
f
lesh, dressed in her customary widow’s mourning, peering through a black lacy veil, and speaking in her unmistakable voice to Dr. Snelling.

Kitty backed out of the room. She began to feel a bit faint.

Dour Elinor and Disgraceful Mary Jane appeared in the hallway. Mary Jane seized Kitty’s elbow and dragged her into the parlor where Dull Martha and Dear Roberta were already seated. All the girls struggled to silence their mirth over some suppressed joke.

“Isn’t she absolutely brilliant?” Disgraceful Mary Jane whispered.

Kitty was at a loss. “Who, Mrs. Plackett?”

“No, silly.” Mary Jane sank into a soft chair and kicked up her heels. “Elinor!’

Smooth Kitty turned a bewildered glance upon Elinor, hoping to find some explanation. She saw nothing outside the ordinary in the girl’s stark, pallid, morose appearance.

Mary Jane sat up straight in her chair. “You don’t comprehend yet, do you?” She laughed. “What, you goose, did you think it was Mrs. Plackett in there?”

Kitty would have died before admitting as much to Mary Jane.

“Elinor made Alice up,” Mary Jane explained. “She used her artist’s charcoals to paint Mrs. Plackett’s face right onto Alice’s. She did it like lightning, wrinkles and bumps and all. You should have seen it. Well, you did, didn’t you? Bit of a shocker, wasn’t it?”

Kitty clutched the armrests of her chair. “But … the clothes! And the hair, and … everything! She only went inside a moment or two ago. How could you possibly?”

Disgraceful Mary Jane preened before a small mirror she kept in her pocket. “We pounced on her, naturally.”

“We all helped,” Dear Roberta added. “She came running in, calling for assistance, so we all pitched in. Martha ran for Mrs. Plackett’s old clothes…”

“While I dumped talcum in her hair and twisted it up like Mrs. Plackett’s,” Mary Jane added.

“Elinor used her pencils and pastels to do her face up astonishingly,” Martha offered.

“And I adjusted Mrs. Plackett’s corsets so that Alice was … Plackett-shaped.” Dear Roberta beamed with simple pride.

“I held Doctor Snelling at the door for a minute or two,” Mary Jane said. “I’m rather better at it than you are, Kitty.”

Smooth Kitty sank back in her chair. “Well. Nothing more can surprise me after this. Superbly done, girls. Now we can only pray that Doctor Snelling fails to recognize the difference between a sick and aged liver, and a young and healthy one.”

“Shall he cut her open, do you think, for a closer peek?” asked Dour Elinor with genuine interest.

Kitty ignored Elinor. A smile began to spread across her face. “Do you realize what this means?” she whispered. “If Alice can trick Doctor Snelling into believing she’s Mrs. Plackett, then we can fool anyone!”

“Possibly,” Dour Elinor said.

The bedroom door opened in the hallway, and heavy footsteps advanced out.

“I’m glad to hear you’re feeling so much better,” they heard.

“Thank you, Doctor.” The voice
f
loated down the hall as if straight from the grave. Smooth Kitty wasn’t the only one to shudder. “I’m deeply indebted to you.”

Dr. Snelling moved toward the door, pausing within view of the girls. “As to that, there is the small matter of your account. I must remind you to respond to your most recent statement of balances due.”

There was an awkward pause. Smooth Kitty and Disgraceful Mary Jane eyed one other.

“Of course,” Alice-as-Mrs.-Plackett replied. “I apologize, Doctor. I’ve felt too poorly of late to keep up with financial matters. I will attend to it directly.”

“I’m obliged to you for that small consideration. Lord knows a country surgeon will never be a rich man. Still…” He checked his gold watch. “We all like to eat.” He passed out of sight, and the girls heard the sound of the front door opening and closing, and shortly thereafter the sound of hoofs clopping and wheels rolling over the gravel drive.

Stout Alice, still as Mrs. Plackett, peeped around the doorway and smiled. The girls
f
lew to her side and tackled her with hugs.

“You did it!” Kitty exclaimed. “You made an examining doctor believe you were a sixty year-old woman!”

“Sixty-two,” Alice laughed.

There was another knock at the door. Stout Alice sighed. “I’ll go change. We’d best not push our luck with two impersonations.”

“No, don’t,” Kitty said. “Stay. I want to see if this will work. Mary Jane, get the door, will you?”

Mary Jane ushered Henry Butts into the parlor. Kitty watched him like a hawk to see if he spotted the counterfeit Mrs. Plackett.

“Note for you, Ma’am,” he said, handing Stout Alice an envelope.

“Thank you, young man,” the false Mrs. Plackett said. “Katherine. Be so good as to reward Master Butts’s helpfulness? I seem to have misplaced my change-purse.”

Kitty fished in her pocket for a suitable coin for Henry, but that young gallant refused any payment. “No, thank you, Ma’am,” he said. “It was my pleasure.” He turned to go, then turned back. “Pardon me, Ma’am,” he ventured. “If I may ask…” He bit his lower lip.

“Yes, Master Butts?” said Stout Alice. “What is it?”

Henry blushed. His gaze roamed around the room until it rested upon Disgraceful Mary Jane. He took a deep breath, then addressed the supposed headmistress once more. “There’s a strawberry social Wednesday night at the parish. Will you be going?”

“No,” Smooth Kitty said, while,

“Yes,” Stout Alice said, and,

“Absolutely,” Disgraceful Mary Jane said.

Kitty and Mary Jane glared at each other.

“We are going,” Alice said in Mrs. Plackett’s most commanding voice. “Such an opportunity to socialize with our neighbors is one not to be missed.”

Kitty had no choice but to curtsey in deference to her headmistress for Henry’s benefit.

Henry couldn’t hide his excitement. Disgraceful Mary Jane made matters worse by winking at him. He turned and bolted for the exit, colliding heavily with the doorway. At last the front door slammed shut behind him.

“Well, Mrs. Plackett,” Smooth Kitty said with a touch of asperity, “I’m glad to hear you’re recovered enough from your shock and grief over young Julius to feel like venturing out into society.”

Stout Alice plucked her widow’s headpiece off. “I’m not going as Mrs. Plackett,” she cried. “I can’t!” Her thoughts went racing to Leland Murphy, who had asked her specially if she was going. She hoped fervently that Smooth Kitty, whom Alice sometimes suspected of being a mind-reader, had no way to know it.

“You’ve no choice,” Kitty replied. “You’ve committed us to attend the social, and it’s inconceivable that Mrs. Plackett would allow her charges out at an evening party unsupervised. Alice will have to remain home with a headache while Mrs. Plackett chaperones us.”

A knot of keen disappointment welled up in Stout Alice’s bosom. She wanted to contradict Kitty—she
must
contradict her—but Alice saw in a terrible instant that she was right. Only as Mrs. Plackett could she attend the social. “I think I
do
have a headache,” she said. “It’s been a ghastly twelve hours. I’m going to go lie down.”

Before Alice could leave the room, they heard a whining and a scratching noise at the rear door that led from the parlor straight out into the gardens. The door opened, and in shot a black and white dog, followed closely by Pocked Louise.