The Suspicion at Sanditon (Or, the Disappearance of Lady Denham) Page 22

  Elizabeth gasped. Darcy sat back down beside her and carefully opened the letter, holding it so that Elizabeth could read it along with him.

  Dearest Ivy,

  I never intended to fall in love with you.

  In truth, I never intended to know you at all. After that day when I was eight or so, when we happened upon each other near the grotto, and played at hide-and-seek and drakes-and-ducks until the shadows grew long and my father’s manservant discovered us, I received the worst thrashing of my young life for consorting with an inferior, and swore I would never commit that error again. I put you from my mind, and if a stray recollection entered my thoughts in all the years I was at Eton, it flitted past like a ghostly impression, too fleeting to take full form.

  But when we chanced upon each other again, on the eve of my departure for Oxford, I could not help but draw near, to determine whether the dark-eyed waif before me were indeed the girl of my memory, or even a corporeal woman at all, rather than a trick of the light. I did not realize, in that moment, that you would bewitch me, not with sorcery or faerie dust or the stuff of midsummer nights’ dreams, but with the opposite—your unaffected, honest way of looking at the world and the creatures that populate it.

  I spent Michaelmas Term immersed in my new environs, but despite all the distractions of university and the novelty of living in relative independence, every now and again my mind’s eye would conjure an image of you. When I returned at Christmas, my long rambles through Sanditon Park were inspired as much by hope of another chance encounter with you, as by the need to escape the confines of my father’s house and domineering presence. It is a cold house, and he a cold man. Though I had returned to the dwelling of my birth, I experienced no sense of homecoming.

  Until I felt a snowball strike me squarely in the back—and turned to find you, greeting me with an impish smile that warmed me despite the frigid air.

  I need not describe to you the joyful moments of those too-brief weeks before I returned to Oxford, nor when I came back to Sanditon at Easter, for you shared them. Our first tentative kiss in the grotto. The spring afternoon when our kisses led to more. The first night I sneaked you into Sanditon House whilst my father was away—and realized that its walls would not be an eternal prison if someday you dwelled inside them with me.

  Dear G–d, Ivy, where are you? I learned of your disappearance only upon arriving home after Trinity Term. I came back intending to ask for your hand, to bear the wrath of my father and disinheritance if I must. Let my younger brother have what he so covets; I am weary of his skulking about hoping to catch me in some transgression. There have been times when I wondered whether Oswald suspected my connection with you, and I looked forward to defeating that trump card by laying it before our father myself.

  Instead, you are gone, and I must guard with anguished silence what we were—nay, are—to one another, even as I fear for your safety and endeavor to learn all I can about the night you vanished. Though weeks have passed since your shawl was found, the village is yet abuzz. Even my father, unfeeling tyrant that he is, not only lends resources toward the effort to find you, but directs it. That will change in an instant should he so much as suspect what is in my heart.

  Sanditon House is cold once more—colder than ever it was in winter. I refuse to believe that you are dead. I would know. I would have felt your passing somehow—over a hundred miles away in Oxford, I would have felt your death as if it were an amputation of my own limb. I keep your miniature in my breast pocket, next to my heart, at all times. Do you still have mine?

  I know not where or how to reach you, so I shall leave this letter in the one place I can think of—the grotto, in the niche where we exchanged notes when I was last home. If by some miracle it finds its way to you—if you are reading this—come to me. You know how to use the old siege tunnel to enter the house without being seen. Or send me word of where you are, and I will move heaven and earth to join you. Even if you have passed from this life and haunt the woods as some villagers claim, I beg you—send me a sign. I love you, Ivy. Please do not be gone forever.

  I am and shall always remain—

  Your most devoted,

  A.H.

  Elizabeth read the letter twice before meeting Darcy’s gaze. “Archibald Hollis and Ivy Woodcock—all those years ago! Crossed lovers parted before they even had a chance.”

  “They never stood a chance,” Darcy replied. “These are the words of an idealistic youth who had yet to even reach his majority. Victor Hollis would never have permitted a marriage between them. The engagement would have had to remain a secret until they came of age—unlikely, with his brother already suspicious and Archibald behaving so indiscreetly as to bring his inamorata into the house and commission an artist to paint their miniatures. As soon as Victor learned of the affair, he would have turned Ivy and her father out of the hermitage, and likely leveled other sanctions upon Archibald. How long would their love have lasted with nothing to live on but misery?”

  “I had forgotten what a romantic you are.”

  “I am rational, which is far more useful.”

  She had to grant him that, as well as the fact that Archibald and Ivy would have faced a very difficult future. Sustaining a happy marriage was challenging enough when one had a comfortable income and the support of family and friends.

  “All right, then, my rational husband—I believe we can safely guess the identity of the woman in the miniature we found in Archibald’s trunk, and how it came to be there. But if Archibald left this note in the grotto, how did it come to be in his pocket?”

  “In any number of ways—it has had the better part of a century to find its way there. Perhaps he reconsidered and never left it in the grotto at all, lest Oswald or someone else find it. Perhaps Oswald did find it, and either brought it to their father or used it for extortion. Perhaps Archibald retrieved it from the grotto after so much time passed that he finally accepted Ivy’s death.”

  Perhaps, Elizabeth speculated, Ivy was the reason Archibald Hollis did not marry until very late in life. Had it taken him that long to give up hope? “I wonder whether Lady Denham knows about Ivy.”

  “The grotto holds a marble statue of a young girl dressed in leaves and adorned with flowers,” Darcy said. “The entrance is covered in ivy. And unlike other structures on the grounds, it has been allowed to fall into neglect.”

  Lady Denham knew.

  “Regardless,” Darcy continued, “of greater concern to Lady Denham at present is Archibald’s mention of a tunnel by which the house can be secretly entered—and who else might possess knowledge of it.”

  “The tunnel could explain how the kidnapper managed to abduct her without anyone’s seeing them.”

  “And how he has continued to similarly spirit away the other ladies. The question is, where does the tunnel connect to the house, and where does it lead? If it is an old sally-port, it must be a remnant of the castle on whose foundations Sanditon House was built. When you discovered the house’s architectural drawings, did you notice such a tunnel?”

  Elizabeth considered a moment. “I do not believe so. There were passages between and behind rooms that I took for servants’ passages—quite a few, actually—but I did not note any that led outside. Nor do I recall seeing any plan that included the cellars or other subterranean areas of the house. However, I did not study the plans closely. We were looking for legal documents, not renderings of Sanditon House and its grounds.”

  Darcy rose and extended his hand to her. “I find myself increasingly interested in those drawings.”

  Twenty-five

  “Wine … always does me good. The more Wine I drink (in moderation) the better I am.”

  —Arthur Parker, Sanditon

  Josiah Hollis entered the portrait room and scarcely acknowledged its occupants before heading for the wine decanter, ignoring the startled looks he received. Charlotte glanced toward the doorway, expecting the Darcys to have accompanied him. Her gaze, however, met onl
y empty space.

  As Mr. Hollis unstoppered the decanter, Thomas Parker was the first to find his voice. “Where are Mr. and Mrs. Darcy?”

  “How would I know? I have been sleeping.”

  “They went to wake you.”

  “Well, the storm beat them to it.” He splashed wine into his glass. A few dark red drops escaped the rim and trickled down the side to stain his hand. To Charlotte’s astonishment, he licked them off. She was glad her own glass had been poured before Mr. Hollis got his hands on the decanter.

  “Elderberry.” He grimaced. “There was port in here earlier. Where is the servant who refilled the decanter?” Upon receiving no response, he shrugged and took a full sip, then replenished his glass.

  Charlotte rather liked elderberry wine, but generally limited herself to a single glass. She was not even sure she would finish this one; Lady Denham’s wine was stronger than what she was used to at home. Mr. Hollis, however, seemed to be imposing no such limitation on himself. Another long sip and another refill followed before he carried the glass to the chair nearest Miss Brereton and sat down.

  Miss Brereton regarded him with composure, but the fidgety manner in which she smoothed the skirt of her gown betrayed her unease. Mr. Granville discreetly caught her hand and pressed it. It was a forward gesture for a gentleman of such slight acquaintance, and she turned to him with a disconcerted look. He responded with one that seemed to say, “Hollis’s proximity need not frighten you—a friend is near,” and released her hand. The exchange occurred so fleetingly that Charlotte doubted the Parker brothers—their three pairs of eyes focused on Mr. Hollis—had observed it. Mr. Hollis surely had not. Apparently having rapidly overcome his disdain for elderberry wine, his attention had been engaged by the act of consuming half the glass.

  “Where are your sisters and the Denhams?” Mr. Hollis asked. “Or have you misplaced them, too?” He drained more of his wine.

  “Sir Edward is on an errand,” Thomas Parker replied. “My sisters … we are presently uncertain. Sidney has just gone to look for them in their chamber again.”

  Mr. Hollis found this so amusing that he nearly spat out the wine. “Truly? You managed to lose three women and Mr. Darcy while I was napping? That does not even include Lady Denham. Seems rather careless to me.”

  “The Darcys are not lost,” Thomas Parker said sharply. “As for my sisters, this is no humorous matter, and I would appreciate your treating the subject with the gravity it warrants.”

  “Yes, sir.” He chuckled as he swirled the last of the wine in his glass.

  Charlotte wished Mr. Darcy were present to steer the conversation with Mr. Hollis in the direction upon which they had agreed. Thomas Parker, his emotions more engaged by the disappearance of his sisters, already showed signs of vulnerability to Mr. Hollis’s abrasiveness.

  Fortunately, Mr. Granville intervened. In what she presumed was an effort to keep the tone of this interview amiable—or at least civil—he offered Mr. Hollis a half-smile. “Between the storm and our missing hostess, I am surprised you were able to sleep at all.”

  “When you reach my age, Mr. Granville, you will not wonder.” Mr. Hollis ran one hand through his hair, attempting to tame it, but the grey locks demonstrated a will of their own and sprang right back into the cowlick that had formed since they had last seen him. He looked, for all appearances, to have truly dozed through at least part of the past hour. “I will point out that your staying awake does not seem to have done the missing ladies any good. If my safety depends upon the lot of you, I was better off alone in my chamber.”

  “If that is where you truly have been,” Thomas Parker said.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You tell us.”

  “I was in my bedroom, sleeping. Anybody who says otherwise is a liar.”

  Charlotte was not the only one in the room who glanced at Mr. Granville following Josiah Hollis’s declaration. His responding look said, “What did I tell you?”

  During the exchange between Mr. Hollis and Mr. Granville, Sidney Parker had returned to the room and silently slipped into a vacant chair. At Thomas’s silent question, Sidney shook his head. Susan and Diana were still unaccounted for. Charlotte was so disappointed by the news that she could only imagine what Sidney and his brothers felt.

  Mr. Granville, meanwhile, continued his interview with Mr. Hollis. “I am wondering—which of the bedchambers was yours when you stayed here as a boy?”

  “I did not ‘stay’ here, like some sort of transient guest. I lived here, as my uncle’s intended heir—at least, until Miss Philadelphia Brereton got her hooks into him. I was shown the door within a month of their marriage, and seldom invited back—never, after Uncle Archibald’s death. She planned to have a child of her own, and when she did not, claims of blood meant nothing to her as far as my uncle’s estate went. I was not the only one who—”

  “Yes, we heard all about this from you earlier this evening,” Mr. Granville said. “You were treated most unfairly, but I did not mean to bring up that unpleasantness again. I was only curious about whether you happened to be in the same bedchamber tonight that you occupied in the old days—the familiarity could account for your peaceful slumber on a night such as this. Though I suppose, having lived here, you are probably familiar with every corner of this house.”

  “I should say so.”

  “Has it changed much since your time here? Surely you managed to take a little self-guided tour in all the hours we have been confined here. I know I would not be able to resist the temptation were I the rightful heir to Sanditon House.”

  Mr. Hollis stared at Mr. Granville, assessing him. Finally, he said, “I see what you are about, Granville, and you are not as clever as you think. If you were the rightful heir to Sanditon House, you very well might use this evening as an opportunity to cause mischief. I, however, have not, and no amount of verbal manipulation will make me admit that I did.”

  Before Mr. Granville could reply, Sir Edward entered the room. “I return triumphant!” the baronet declared. “I bear the object of a successful quest.” He held up a watch for all to see. As it swung from its chain, dots of reflected fire- and candlelight danced in the room.

  “Thank heavens!” Miss Brereton said. “And thank you, too, Sir Edward, for the speed at which you retrieved it. Lady Denham will be returned to us—the others, too, I am sure—and we can end this ordeal.”

  “It was a charge I willingly undertook,” he replied. His damp hair was windblown and his clothing rumpled, but on the whole he had come through the journey rather well, given the weather. “Where are the Darcys, so that I may surrender this treasure into their care?”

  “They went to collect Miss Denham from her chamber,” Miss Brereton replied. “Come to think of it, they have been gone a long time.”

  “Oh? Well, my sister is quite good at keeping one waiting. I am sure they will be along soon.”

  Charlotte noticed Sidney observing Sir Edward closely—or rather, his watch. His gaze went back and forth from the timepiece in Sir Edward’s hand to the one in Sir Harry’s portrait, and his brows drew together.

  “While we wait for them to appear, might I see the watch before we relinquish it as ransom?” Sidney asked. “I have seen it many times in Sir Harry’s portrait, and recall occasions when I saw the man himself consult it. But I have never seen it closely, nor at all recently.”

  Sir Edward appeared somewhat alarmed by the suggestion. “I … well … perhaps later? I do not want anything to happen to it between now and when we use it in trade for Lady Denham’s return, after all the trouble I suffered to retrieve it.”

  “We are in a sitting room,” Josiah Hollis said. “What do you think is going to happen to it?”

  “I—oh, I know not! I am just anxious for Lady Denham.”

  Sidney continued to frown, an expression unlike him. Charlotte studied the portrait. At full size, it provided a fairly large image of the watch in the late baronet’s hand—l
arge enough to see that its case was oval-shaped and had something inscribed on it. The round watch dangling from the chain in Sir Edward’s hand did not. She caught Sidney’s gaze. Realizing that she had made the same observation he had, he nodded in answer to her unspoken question.

  “Sir Edward,” she said, “this may seem a silly query—”

  The baronet bestowed a benevolent smile upon her. “My dear Miss Heywood, no question uttered by a fair maiden is silly.”

  She returned the smile in acknowledgment of his compliment and continued. “Did you retrieve the correct watch?”

  His smile froze. “Of course I did,” he said through closed teeth.

  Now Arthur looked from Sir Edward’s hand to the portrait. So did others.

  “No, I think Miss Heywood is right. That does not look like—”

  “Sir Harry’s watch is oval.”

  “Is the one in your hand inscribed?”

  “Is that watch even gold?”

  “I believe that is not even the same chain.”

  Sir Edward caught the watch and closed his hand around it. “Of course this is Sir Harry’s watch! Do you think I would journey all the way to Denham Park in this weather and not return with the correct timepiece? What kind of nincompoop do you take me for?”

  Mr. Hollis chortled. “Well, as long as you are asking the question…”

  “This is his watch, I tell you! It is one of my most treasured possessions—I would know it anywhere. Would any of you?”

  “More to the point,” Sidney said, “will Lady Denham’s kidnapper?” He crossed to Sir Edward and held out his hand. “May I see it?”

  Sir Edward hesitated, then sighed heavily and stuffed it into his own pocket. “There is no point.” He sighed again. “It is not my uncle’s watch. I thought—well, I thought I would dupe the kidnapper into accepting a less valuable ransom, but apparently the only dupe here is me.”

  “You would risk Lady Denham’s life over a gold watch?” Sidney asked.