The Winter Rose (107 page)

"More tea, Msabu?"

India turned to Lady Wilton's butler. They had rented the house from
her and the servants, too. The butler was a tall, graceful man dressed
in a white tunic and trousers. "No, thank you, Joseph," she said.

"And for the Missy?" Joseph asked, nodding at Charlotte's empty cup and her empty chair.

India realized, with a start, that her daughter was gone. When had she slipped away? And how had she not noticed?

"No, I don't think she'll be wanting more. Have you seen her?"

"She was in the kitchen with the cook. Helping her make a cake. But I think now she is hunting for nightingales."

"She's not underfoot, is she?"

Joseph smiled. "No, Msabu. She is not that kind of child."

"If you see her, will you send her to me, please?"

India felt terrible. She was so wrapped up in her private pain, she
hadn't even noticed her child's absence. Charlotte had obviously become
bored and had slipped away. As soon as she came back, India would make
it up to her. They would go for a walk or take a picnic into the hills.
She must put a brave face on things for Charlotte's sake. She mustn't be
so inward, so distant; she was all the girl had.

India thought, with a brief flush of pleasure, how happy Charlotte
was here. In fact, she was flourishing. She'd made a full recovery. Her
color was good again and her spirits high. She was free here to ride and
explore the whole day long, without her father demanding her quiet,
decorous presence at this ceremony or on that tour.

Mercifully, they'd both seen very little of Freddie. He'd gone riding
today. He wanted to see the mountain, he'd said, and wouldn't be back
until after supper--hours from now. She was glad of his absences. He was
always either out riding or shut up in Lady Wilton's study, writing his
endless reports.

He tended to rise late here, take lunch, and then disappear into the
hills, or into his work, laboring far into the night, not stopping until
two or three o'clock the next morning. She always knew when he
finished. Awake in her bed, she would hear the haunting strains of the
"Raindrop Prelude" echoing through the house and smell the scent of
tobacco. He liked to smoke when he finished his work. And he liked to
listen to his music box. He never went anywhere without it. At home it
resided in his study, under the portrait of his ancestor, Richard
Lytton, the Red Earl. When he traveled, he insisted on bringing it with
him and insisted on packing it himself. No one else could touch it. Not
even Charlotte, who, for some strange reason, also loved the sad melody.
She had taken it down once when she was quite small to listen to it.
Freddie had found her sitting on the floor with it, and had punished her
severely. She was never to touch it, he said. Never. No one was.

As India was thinking of the music box, she suddenly heard a crash
from inside the house, and then a few notes of the melody, strangely off
key.

She was just rising from her chair, about to go and see what had happened, when Charlotte appeared, white-faced.

"There you are, darling," India said. "I was wondering where you'd got to."

"Mummy," she said quietly. "Mummy, come quick."

"Why? What is it?"

"I've broken Father's music box."

"Charlotte, no!" India said. "How?"

"I was playing in the study. With Jane. We were under the desk,
pretending it was a fort. We pretended that the Masai were attacking. I
got up to run out of the study and knocked the table where the music box
was resting. It fell to the floor."

"Charlotte, you should never have gone in there!"

"I know, Mummy. I'm sorry," she said, panic in her eyes.

"How bad is it? Maybe we can fix it. Is it smashed? Are there springs sticking out?"

"No, Mummy. No springs. Just jewelry."

"Jewelry?" India repeated, puzzled. She followed an anxious Charlotte
into the study. The box was on the floor, open and upside down. One of
its feet had come off. A small drawer was sticking out of it, spilling
what indeed looked like jewelry across the carpet. India knelt down. She
carefully picked it up. "It has a hidden drawer," she said. "It must've
popped out when it hit the floor."

Something glinted against the dark colors of the carpet. India picked
it up. She stared at it, not comprehending. It was her dragonfly comb;
the one that had belonged to her mother. The one that Hugh Mullins had
taken and pawned. She turned it over. It had her mother's initials,
ISJ--the same as her own--engraved on the back.

But it can't be, India thought, her hand going to the back of her
head, because that comb was in her hair. Her father had gotten it back
from the police. Its mate had never been found. Hugh had been accused of
stealing them both and had gone to jail for refusing to return the
second one.

"It's just like yours, Mummy," Charlotte said. "The one in your hair."

India pulled her comb out and held it next to the one from the music
box. Two perfectly matched dragonflies. Commissioned from Louis Comfort
Tiffany by her father as a gift for her mother. The only two of their
kind. She suddenly found it difficult to breathe.

"Mummy?" Charlotte said. "Mummy, are you all right?"

"Charlotte, darling, fetch that for Mummy, please," she said,
pointing to a sparkling diamond earring a few feet away. Charlotte did
so. India turned it over in her hand. It was long, a chandelier style,
made of flawless, brilliant white diamonds. It had a small medallion
near the bottom. Worked in tiny diamonds in the medallion were the
initials GD. India did not recognize the piece; the initials meant
nothing to her. She reached across the carpet for the necklace. It, too,
had the same medallion, but larger and in the center of the piece. She
turned the necklace over. There was an inscription on the back:

For Gemma. Break a leg. Love, Sid.

India's hand came to her mouth. Break a leg... That's what one said
to performers to wish them luck before a show. Gemma. Gemma Dean. The
woman with whose murder Sid had just been charged. She had been an
actress--and Sid Malone's lover. This necklace, these earrings ...they
were hers. Sid had given them to her. They'd gone missing after her
death. She remembered hearing about that. What were they doing here, in
Freddie's music box?

India's stomach suddenly knotted with fear.

"Charlotte..." she said, pointing to the last piece of jewelry, a
heavy gold ring. A man's ring. Charlotte picked it up and placed it in
India's hand. The fear she'd felt was replaced by grief now. The ring
had a crest on it. She recognized the crest, for she had seen it many,
many times. On her cousin's hand. It was Wish's ring.

"No. God, no ...," she moaned. She closed her eyes, still clutching
the ring, and doubled over. Her head sank to the floor. "Hugh, Wish,
Gemma Dean.... It couldn't be ...he couldn't have..."

"Mummy!" Charlotte cried, alarmed. "Mummy, what is it?"

Charlotte's voice seemed to come to her from far away. It sounded
muffled and distant. And then she heard another voice. A man's voice.
Only yards away.

"Joseph!" it bellowed. "Where's the blasted boy? Call him to my office! I need help with my boots."

India's head snapped up. It was Freddie. He'd returned from his ride
early. She could hear his footsteps. On the porch. In the foyer. And
heading toward the study.

India grabbed Charlotte's arm so tightly that the little girl winced.

"Charlotte, say nothing about this to anyone," she hissed. "Nothing!

Go to your room. No, not that way! Use the veranda door. Wait for me there."

"But Mummy--"

"Do as I say! Go!"

Charlotte ran.

The footsteps were getting closer. She scooped up the jewels and
dumped them into the drawer. She picked up the music box with trembling
hands and slid the drawer back into place. She tried to push it closed,
but it stuck.

"Come on ...come on!" she whispered.

The footsteps stopped outside the door.

"Ah, there you are," she heard her husband say.

She pulled the drawer out and felt inside with her finger. A tiny
spring had come loose. She yanked it out and pushed the drawer in once
more. It clicked shut. She set the music box back on the table. It
tilted to one side. Freddie would notice it immediately. The foot, she
thought. Where's the bloody foot?

"... not the black ones. Do you understand me? The brown brogues."

She crawled around on the carpet, feeling for it. Something small and
hard bit into her knee. It was the foot. She snatched it up and
carefully placed it under the box. There was no time to glue it. She
prayed that Freddie did not want to listen to it now. She was about to
dash out of the study to the veranda when she heard the doorknob turn.
It was too late; she would never make it in time. He would see her and
demand to know what she was doing in there. She looked wildly about the
room, desperate for a place to hide. There was nothing, nowhere.

And then, at the very last second, she spotted a tiny porcelain hand
poking out from under the massive mahogany desk and dived for it.

She was on her knees under his desk when he opened the door. He was confronted by the sight of her backside.

"What the devil are you doing?" he barked.

"Looking for Jane."

"Who?"

"Charlotte's doll. Ah! Here she is," India said. She backed out from
under the desk, clutching Jane, and stood up. Her face was flushed, her
breath short--not from her exertions under the desk, but it would look
that way to Freddie.

"Why is Charlotte's doll in here? Charlotte is not supposed to be in here," he said.

"She was playing under your desk. Pretending it was her fort."

"She's not to be in here. See that it doesn't happen again."

"I'm sorry. I will."

The toto came in bearing a pair of Freddie's shoes. Joseph was on his heels with a tea tray.

"Not the black wingtips!" Freddie bellowed. "The brown bloody brogues! How many times do I have to tell you?"

The boy, confused, turned to go.

"Look, just bring what you've got. I don't have all damned day. Put them down and help me with my boots."

India, grateful for once for Freddie's foul mood, hurried out of the
study and down the hallway to her bedroom. Once there, she locked the
door and sat down on her bed, clutching Jane tightly.

"It's not true," she moaned. "It can't be true."

Voices, urgent and frightened, whispered inside her head. Hugh's and Wish's.

She heard Hugh telling her, tears in his eyes, that he'd taken only
one comb, that he'd never touched the second one. Never even seen it.

She saw her lovely, laughing cousin, just before he'd died, telling
her about the donations he'd secured for her clinic, his voice full of
pride and excitement.

She remembered a picture she'd seen of Gemma Dean in a magazine, bright and beautiful, wearing her dazzling diamonds.

"Why?" she said aloud. "Why would he do it?"

A voice, a low, cold voice deep down inside her, answered her question.

"For you," it said. "For your money. Everything he's done, he's done
to get your money. He killed them because they were in his way. And if
he finds out that you know, he'll kill you, too."

"Good morning, George," Maggie Carr said as she walked by him on her
way to the cells. She stopped suddenly, held her hand to her mouth, and
coughed until she was red in the face. Seamie put a comforting hand on
her back.

"You all right, Maggie?" George Gallagher, the prison guard, asked.

"No, I'm bloody well not. I started coughing yesterday and it's only
getting worse." She coughed again and dug in her skirt pocket for a tin
of cachous.

"Nairobi throat," George said. "Comes from all the dust. Never mind
those lozenges, they don't do a thing. Drink hot water with honey and
lemon. That's what my wife gives me. Works like a charm."

Maggie said she would and George returned to his newspaper. He knew
better now than to argue about the one-visitor-at-a-time rule.

Maggie coughed again and Seamie gave her a look. She was not to
overdo it. They walked out of the guardroom and down the corridor to
Sid's cell. He stood up when he saw them, hands grasping the bars.

"Morning, lad," Maggie said. "We've come to sit with you for a bit. How are you feeling today?"

"I'm fine," Sid said. "Have you..."

Maggie held a finger to her lips. "Oh, yes. I've news of the harvest.
Roos sent a letter with the Thompson boy, telling me the plants are all
fine."

Sid stood tensely as Maggie talked on and Seamie fished in his jacket pocket.

Sid no longer looked despondent; he looked like a trapped and frantic
animal. Everything had changed for him two days ago when Maggie had
told him that Charlotte Lytton was his daughter. He hadn't believed it
at first, but then he'd told them that he had to get out, one way or
another. That he couldn't go back to London. He'd do anything, take any
risk, but he wasn't going to be hanged. Not now. Not before he'd had a
chance to ask India face-to-face if Charlotte truly was his.

Seamie had assured him that they'd think of something. "Just give us a little time," he'd said.

"I don't have any time," he'd replied. "They're putting me on the train in a few days."

Seamie glanced over his shoulder now. The corridor was empty. He
pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Sid. Keep
talking while you read this, was written at the top. He knew that George
could hear them. And that he'd become suspicious now if they all
suddenly went silent.

Sid made mechanical comments to Maggie's news about the farm while he
read the paper he'd been handed. Seamie knew what it said; he'd written
it out in his room last night after he and Maggie had finalized their
plans.

We're breaking you out. We trade clothes. I go in the cell. You walk