The Suspicion at Sanditon (Or, the Disappearance of Lady Denham) Read online

  She would not think too closely about the fact that their chamber also belonged to Archibald Hollis, who could even now be haunting his former abode.

  Thunder rumbled, signaling a renewal of the storm’s strength, and within minutes the sound of heavier rainfall muffled that of her own steps. She was approaching the long gallery, through which she would cut to reach the Darcys’ quarters—and, she hoped, their companionship.

  At least, she believed she neared the gallery. She rued having left behind her candle. She had fled the Parker sisters’ chamber so unsettled that she had not wanted to enter another shadowy room—even her own—to retrieve it. The sconces in the corridors would suffice, she had told herself, not realizing how widely they were scattered until she passed more empty holders and unlit tapers than dependable flames—evidence of Lady Denham’s boasted frugality. At the moment, she could do with more light and less economy.

  Nor had she considered that her journey would take her through a maze of interconnected rooms that opened into each other but not the main corridor. Presently unlit by fire, sconce, or sunlight, they defied easy navigation, and as she stumbled through the latest series of rooms, she began to wonder whether she had taken a wrong turn at some point. She did not remember the distance being so great. Perhaps, however, the disorientation wrought upon her senses by the darkness made both the distance and the minutes spent traversing it seem longer than they were.

  After what seemed an interminable amount of time, she found the gallery and entered. Now she truly was observed—by generations of late Hollises scarcely discernible in their frames. She strode past the portraits as quickly as she dared, keeping to the middle of the narrow room. In her haste, she tripped over a buckled strip of the rug that ran down its length, and nearly pitched forward. The moment of panic before she caught her balance convinced her that she would do better to aim her gaze downward to avoid similar hazards rather than nervously shift it from side to side. Her own feet posed greater danger than barely visible images of long-dead forebears and spectres of her imagination.

  As she reached the end of the gallery, she turned sharply to exit—and slammed headlong into a shadowed but unquestionably solid figure.

  Her soft cry of surprise turned to a gasp of alarm as the man reached out and seized her upper arms. Heart pounding, she tried to step back, but he held her fast. His head moved close to hers as he peered at her intently.

  “Miss Heywood?”

  His voice penetrated her panic. He had spoken her name as a question, and sounded as startled as she. Charlotte widened her eyes in the dimness, trying to make out his features.

  “Miss Heywood, you are positively shaking. Are you well?” The voice was familiar, as was the faint outline of his countenance.

  “Mr. Parker?”

  “Yes—Sidney Parker.”

  A distant flash of lightning illuminated the gallery just long enough to confirm his identity. She released breath she did not realize she had been holding, involuntarily issuing a sound of relief that was half gasp, half sob.

  “Are you injured?” he asked.

  Several deep breaths followed as she worked to regain her composure under Sidney’s scrutinizing gaze. She was grateful for the darkness that obscured her face from clear view. “No—only rattled.”

  “Dear Miss Heywood! Of course you are, being knocked about and then seized by an unknown man in the dark.” He loosened his grip on her arms and dropped one hand down to his side. “Forgive my catching you in such an ungentlemanlike manner—I acted instinctively, fearing our collision had thrown you off balance, or caused you to swoon.” His other hand moved to her elbow, continuing to offer support. “Indeed, I fear you may swoon yet.”

  “I am not generally given to swooning.”

  “You do not impress me as the type of lady who makes a habit of it. However, I did nearly knock you down, so swooning or some other dramatic response is well within your rights.”

  Now that the initial surprise of encountering Sidney had passed, her nerves steadied. “I shall reserve that right for some greater occasion.”

  “Well, let us hope such an occasion does not arrive soon. This evening has proven eventful enough already.” He paused. “Do accept my apologies for all but charging into you, and for having frightened you so. I neither saw nor heard your approach.”

  “Nor I yours.” She did not add that she had already done a thorough job of frightening herself before he happened upon her. “Let us not argue for the greater share of blame.”

  “I would not argue with you, Miss Heywood, for anything. I take the full responsibility upon myself. Heavens—you started as if you had seen a ghost.”

  “No, only heard one.”

  The words were out before she considered them. Why had she said that? Now he would enquire into her meaning. She recalled Thomas Parker’s statement that Sidney was a person who could say anything and get away with it. The same disarming charm that enabled him to speak freely, led others—her, at least—to reveal more than intended.

  “Just one? I should think this room is full of them. Which of these dreary-looking Hollises has been haunting you?”

  “None of them. I thought I heard someone enter your sisters’ room, but I was mistaken.”

  “Indeed? What makes you think you were mistaken?”

  He yet supported her forearm, and as a consequence, stood very close—close enough for them to partially see each other’s faces despite the lack of light—closer than she was accustomed to standing with gentlemen not her brothers, especially after midnight in a darkened house. The proximity tipped her equilibrium in a manner different from when they had bumped into each other. She was reassured by his companionship in the gloom, yet acutely alert to his nearness.

  “I went into their chamber, believing Susan might have returned in need of assistance. But there was nobody in the room at all.”

  Saying this aloud, to Sidney Parker, made the incident seem rather mundane, and she blushed to recall the anxiety she had experienced at the time. She had allowed her imagination to run as unfettered as those of Sidney’s sisters, perceiving symptoms that did not exist, exaggerating ordinary conditions into unusual. Sanditon House was an old, drafty place; the night, extraordinarily windy. The sounds she had taken for the chamber door being opened and closed were probably nothing more than it rattling in its frame in response to the gale outside.

  Another flash of lightning briefly lit Sidney’s face. She had expected to read amusement or derision in his expression, but saw only sincere interest. “How long ago was this?”

  “I am not certain—it is difficult to gauge time by oneself in darkness. Perhaps half an hour after everybody departed the corridor?” She remembered that Sidney had left with Mr. Granville to seek Susan. “Where is Mr. Granville, by the way?”

  “We separated, to cover more of the house.” He separated from Charlotte now by dropping his hand from her forearm. He did not, however, increase the distance between them.

  “That explains why you have no candle,” she said. “Otherwise, I would have seen its glow and avoided our collision.”

  “I am glad, then, that I gave it away, for I confess to enjoying this opportunity to converse with you despite the circumstances that brought it about.”

  In truth, she was beginning to enjoy Sidney Parker’s conversation and companionship rather more than might be wise. She wished for another flash of lightning, to better read his countenance, but all night long the storm had blown contrary to the preferences of any occupant of Sanditon House, and it continued its willfulness.

  “The sounds you heard in my sisters’ room—” Sidney continued. “Have you reported them to Mr. Darcy?”

  “Not yet—I was seeking him and Mrs. Darcy just now.”

  “I would not trouble him with the information, since it came to naught.”

  “All the same, I would like to speak with Mrs. Darcy before returning to my chamber.” She did not wish to reenter the deserted wing alone.
“Have you encountered the Darcys, or any of the others who are searching for your sister?”

  “I have seen Diana and Arthur—though fortunately for them, not as closely as I encountered you just now.”

  “I take it they had not found Miss Parker yet?”

  “No, but I believe Diana intended to explore the entire house in the space of an hour, for Arthur was struggling to keep up with her. If they have not found Susan, perhaps someone else has by now. We are all to reconvene very soon; in fact, I was heading back when you waylaid me. Everyone has probably gathered while we have been talking.” He offered his hand. “As we are both without lights, shall we navigate together this labyrinth of a house? I volunteer to pioneer the way and fend off any other inmates—corporeal or not—who come at us.”

  She accepted his hand. His grip was firm but gentle, and she had not realized how cold her fingers were until she felt the warmth of his. They set off in the direction from which she had just come, he leading by two paces to guard against any rogue floorboards, furnishings, or buckled carpets that might suddenly emerge to menace them.

  “And how is it that you came to be wandering the house with no candle?” Sidney asked as he guided her along a route so circuitous that she utterly lost her orientation. “Or did you deliberately contrive to plough through me as repayment for the earlier misbehavior of my hat?”

  “I left it behind in haste,” she said. “In hindsight, that was not a prudent decision.”

  “Indeed not.” They entered a corridor new to her, one so black that she could only follow him in blind trust.

  “You never know whom you might run into, in the dark.”

  Twenty-one

  The window curtains seemed in motion. It could be nothing but the violence of the wind penetrating through the divisions of the shutters; and she stepped boldly forward, carelessly humming a tune, to assure herself of its being so.

  —Northanger Abbey

  Darcy’s mood as he and Elizabeth approached the portrait room was as gloomy as the house itself. The letter case they had found open on Lady Denham’s bed contained numerous items of business correspondence—but no will. He could only hope that whoever had rifled the box had also failed to find the will among its contents. The alternative—that the document was now in the intruder’s hands—would compound the difficulties of an already challenging investigation.

  “Let us keep the discovery of the ransacked papers to ourselves for the time being,” he said. “Mr. Granville’s report of Josiah Hollis’s movements casts him in greatest suspicion, but nearly every guest has been roaming the house this past hour. Any one of them could have rummaged through that letter case.”

  “Any one of them who found a way to penetrate the apartment’s entrance,” Elizabeth corrected. “How does one pass through a locked door?”

  Darcy had been pondering that very question the whole of their walk from Lady Denham’s bedchamber to the portrait room. Along the way they had stopped in their own quarters to hide the box and its remaining contents—not that he harbored illusions about the locked door of Archibald Hollis’s former apartment offering any greater security than that of Lady Denham’s. At least, however, Archibald’s apartment was above the ground floor, reducing the potential of entry through a window.

  “Several of the guests could know where a key might be surreptitiously borrowed. Josiah Hollis did, after all, tell us earlier this evening that as a boy he freely roamed all over this house, and judging from the age and demeanor of the housekeeper, I venture to say very little has changed around here in the past half century.”

  “If it has, Sir Edward and Miss Denham possess more familiarity with the current state of the house.”

  “As does Miss Brereton.”

  “Surely you do not believe Miss Brereton would so violate the privacy of her benefactress?” Elizabeth asked.

  “No, but we cannot rule her out solely on instinct. I expect that when we reach the portrait room, her report, corroborated by Thomas Parker, will remove her from suspicion. The Denham siblings, on the other hand, have to the best of our knowledge each spent this hour solitarily, and have only their own word to vouch their whereabouts.”

  “And Josiah Hollis?”

  “I think it goes without saying that I am particularly impatient to question Mr. Hollis about his nocturnal wanderings.”

  “Mr. Granville cautioned us that Josiah would likely deny leaving his room.”

  “Then we shall have to catch him in the lie.”

  “What of the other guests? We are assuming that because you and I were searching for Lady Denham’s will, the intruder entered with the same motive. Have you considered that he or she might have been seeking something else entirely?”

  “I have.” He believed he had considered all possibilities, even Susan Parker as the intruder—however unlikely, that would explain where she had disappeared to—but immediately dismissed the notion as utterly improbable. “In my opinion, expanding the list of possible motives increases our pool by only one legitimate suspect: Thomas Parker. He could have a business interest in examining Lady Denham’s papers. As for the rest of the Parkers and Miss Heywood, I do not think any one of them possesses a motive or the means to access those documents.”

  “If Diana Parker believed there was something in Lady Denham’s apartment that would lead her to Susan, I think she would find a way to obtain it even if doing so required breaking the door down herself.”

  “But it was not broken down; the intruder acted covertly. This was not a casual, opportunistic glance at something left in one’s path. Gaining entry to a locked suite requires work and forethought, especially if done in secret.”

  Their arrival at the portrait room ended their conversation for the present, for they entered to find Miss Brereton and Thomas Parker waiting within. Though the pair’s candles struggled valiantly to illuminate the space, the atmosphere of defeat that hung over them created its own darkness.

  “We discovered no sign of Susan,” Mr. Parker reported, his voice and manner a subdued echo of his normal exuberance. “We searched the entire ground floor, and also looked into my sisters’ bedchamber just now. It remains empty—Diana is not there, either.”

  “The others will join us soon,” Elizabeth said. “Perhaps they had better luck.”

  “I certainly hope so,” Mr. Parker replied. “This is entirely unlike Susan—going off somewhere without telling anybody. Diana oft-times will get a notion in her head and fly away in pursuit of it with such urgency that she does not pause to communicate her intentions, but Susan’s determination does not manifest itself quite so impulsively.”

  “All the more reason to believe that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for her absence,” Elizabeth reassured him, “just as we hope there is one for Lady Denham’s. By chance, did your exploration of the ground floor happen to include Lady Denham’s apartment?”

  “It would have, if we could have entered it.”

  “The door was locked,” Miss Brereton said, “just as you left it earlier tonight, so we assumed Miss Parker could not have entered the apartment, either, and continued on.”

  “I cannot think why Susan would have had any reason to go in there, anyway,” Mr. Parker added.

  “Nor can I,” Elizabeth said. “I enquired in hope that perhaps something within sparked your or Miss Brereton’s memory of a clue to either of the ladies’ whereabouts.”

  “Did you encounter anybody else in that part of the house?” Darcy asked. “The search for your sister was, as a whole, not undertaken in the most organized manner—we should have assigned areas of the house more specifically, so as not to waste time duplicating efforts or neglecting some areas altogether on the assumption others were exploring them.”

  “We saw Sidney, but he reported no better luck than ours.”

  “While you were in the corridor with all the bedchambers, did you speak with Miss Heywood? As her room adjoins that of your sisters, she stayed behind to watch fo
r Susan’s return.”

  “We were unaware that she remained,” Miss Brereton said. “I heard no sounds within her chamber.”

  “Nor did I,” said Mr. Parker.

  “I am surprised she did not hear you and emerge,” Elizabeth replied. “Perhaps she fell asleep. I will look in on her.”

  Elizabeth had not been long gone when Arthur Parker appeared.

  “There you are!” Thomas crossed the room to greet his brother, then glanced toward the doorway in expectation. It remained empty. “Diana is not with you?” His expression clouded for a moment, but optimism rapidly overtook his countenance. “Did you find Susan? Is Diana with her?”

  Arthur shifted uncomfortably. Still stuffed into Archibald Hollis’s too-small frock coat, he tugged at its sleeves. “We became separated.”

  “Separated? How could you have allowed that to happen? Your sole duty was to accompany her.”

  “I tried! Truly, Tom, I did—despite her constant complaint that I was slowing the pace of her search. But when we entered the morning room—”

  “The morning room? Whatever would Susan be doing there?”

  “I asked Diana that very thing, but she insisted that she heard someone moaning inside. Once she drew my attention to it, I heard the moaning, too. However, when we entered, we did not find Susan, nor any living creature—only the continued sound of moaning. I was certain it must be the ghost of Ivy Woodcock and wanted to leave at once, but Diana scoffed, and strode to the far side of the room. ‘Here is your ghost,’ she said. ‘The window is not quite shut.’ The wind howling through the casement did sound like someone moaning, but even worse—the air was so damp I thought it would surely prove the death of us both!

  “I tried to close the window,” Arthur continued, “but the wood was so swollen by the damp that it did not want to shut, and the wind kept driving against it from all the wrong angles. Diana lost patience and told me to step aside so she could close it herself, but then a sudden gust extinguished both our candles. So now the room was damp and dark! I said we should just forget about the window and move on to another room—any other room! But by then Diana was determined to conquer that window, and you know, Tom, how resolute our sister is once she sets her mind to something.”