The Suspicion at Sanditon (Or, the Disappearance of Lady Denham) Page 8

  “It is too late to organize anything,” Mr. Woodcock said. “Her one-hundredth birthday is tomorrow.”

  “Dear me! It is, indeed. That is not even enough time to advertise within town.” He sighed. “Perhaps in sixteen years we can plan a remembrance for the one-hundredth anniversary of her disappearance.”

  As they left the hotel, Mr. Parker consoled himself with the pleasure he anticipated in Lady Denham’s coming dinner party. He was especially delighted by the Darcys’ inclusion in it. “You must have made a very favorable impression on her ladyship,” he said. “While she entertains on a scale commensurate with her station, she seldom hosts elaborate affairs, so for her to have invited you this early in your acquaintance demonstrates a particular regard.”

  Elizabeth could not recall herself or Darcy having said anything so amazing as to strike a great impression on the dowager. In fact, Lady Denham talked so extensively of her own concerns that Elizabeth and Darcy had not been required—nor even had sufficient opportunity—to say much at all. After they parted company with Mr. Parker and returned to their cottage to dress for dinner, Elizabeth shared this thought with Darcy.

  “I suspect,” Darcy replied, “that her ladyship’s invitation was motivated more by the slight she would have committed had she excluded us while we stood before her, than by an intense desire for our companionship.”

  “Well, however we came by the invitation, it sounds like an interesting collection of guests. I am rather looking forward to it.”

  Volume the Second

  IN WHICH THE SEARCH FOR LADY DENHAM COMMENCES

  “Her faults may be entirely imputed to her want of Education. She has good natural Sense, but quite uncultivated.”

  —Thomas Parker, speaking of Lady Denham, Sanditon

  Ten

  “The Novels which I approve are such as display Human Nature with Grandeur—such as shew her in the Sublimities of intense Feeling—Such as exhibit the progress of strong Passion from the first Germ of incipient Susceptibility to the utmost Energies of Reason half-dethroned,—where we see the strong spark of Woman’s Captivations elicit such Fire in the Soul of Man as leads him—(though at the risk of some Aberration from the strict line of Primitive Obligations)—to hazard all, dare all, atchieve [sic] all, to obtain her.”

  —Sir Edward Denham, Sanditon

  “What do you mean, Lady Denham is missing?” Josiah Hollis demanded.

  “I cannot find her,” Miss Brereton said. “She is not in her apartment. I expected to discover her in her dressing room, perhaps taking longer to make up her toilette than usual, since this is a bigger affair than Sanditon House has hosted for some time. But she was not there. Some of the items on her dressing table are in disarray, and the seat is lying on its side—I thought perhaps she had become indisposed and struggled her way into bed, but her bedchamber is also empty.”

  “Did I not say she appeared unwell when I last saw her?” Diana rose from the sofa and went to Miss Brereton, where she could be in the middle of the conversation. “Lady Denham is bilious,” she declared. “I did not like her color when last I saw her. I told her as much, and offered to prepare a decoction of sorrel root, but she would not hear of it—so I sent it over later, along with a phial of the sedative I regularly prepare for Susan, to ensure she gets a proper night’s rest. I wager she did not take either of them.” She sighed. “If only she had heeded my advice. Well, if she is feeling poorly, she cannot have gone far and must be somewhere in the house. Did you look elsewhere?”

  “I checked her favorite sitting room, in case she is not ill and simply lost track of time. When I did not discover her there, I was uncertain what to do next. I do not wish to raise a panic, but—”

  “No—no need to panic,” Thomas Parker said.

  Not yet, Elizabeth thought. Lady Denham was an eccentric old dowager, used to doing as she pleased, particularly in her own house. And elderly people, eccentric or not, wealthy or not, could become distracted, or confused, or forgetful. Heavens, Elizabeth was but five-and-twenty and only last month had forgotten an engagement herself, despite having recorded it in her diary. An appointment with one’s dressmaker, however, was a far cry from forgetting about a dinner for thirteen guests, which had surely required numerous communications with her servants throughout the day. Elizabeth also did not like the image of that overturned seat.

  She glanced at Darcy, hoping to catch his gaze and thereby judge whether he was of like mind, but his attention was on Thomas Parker.

  “Perhaps Lady Denham stepped outside for some air,” Mr. Parker continued.

  “This house is so drafty, there is no need to step outside for air,” Mr. Hollis said. “Just stand near a window—open or closed.”

  “It is not drafty,” Sir Edward said.

  “I feel a draft right now,” Mr. Hollis claimed.

  “You are not anywhere near a window,” Miss Denham said. “If you feel moving air, it is your own bluster.” She gathered her shawl, which had been hanging loosely at her elbows, more tightly against her arms. “Even if Sanditon House did suffer drafts, at least it is not damp, like Denham Park.”

  “Nothing is worse than damp.” Arthur shuddered and looked about, as if Damp were a creature lurking in a corner of the room, waiting to pounce. “Gives me the rheumatism, damp does.”

  “Nothing is worse than the rheumatism,” Susan said.

  “Consumption,” Diana trumped.

  “Alas, consumption!” Sir Edward cried. “Certain death! How many poor, beleaguered heroines have succumbed to the insidious grasp of a galloping consumption—their life-light flickering until finally extinguished? What could be more tragic than the wasting away of youth, and strength, and virtue—a fate all the more heartrending for the helplessness of those who bear witness to it?”

  “Oh, yes!” Diana agreed. “It is so very dreadful to observe—the coughing up of blood and other humors, the choking—”

  “What blood? What choking?” Sir Edward asked. “Nay, I refer to the fainting spells of an increasingly delicate constitution overcome, the cheeks flushed against the angelic paleness of the skin—

  ‘If this be dying … there is nothing at all shocking in it. My body hardly sensible of pain, my mind at ease, my intellects clear and perfect as ever.’

  —the slow, peaceful decline,” concluded Sir Edward, “of a beautiful death.”

  Diana and Susan launched into an extensive exchange on the most effective treatments for consumption, to which Sir Edward attended closely in the event that he should ever wake up and find himself in a sentimental novel.

  Sidney Parker turned to Charlotte and Mrs. Darcy. “Other ladies spend their evenings reading popular novels; my sisters read aloud from Culpeper’s Herbal and the Pharmacopœia of the Royal College of Physicians.”

  Charlotte offered a small smile in return. Though not disinclined to receive attention from the most charismatic gentleman in the room, she appeared uncertain as to whether he jested about his sisters’ reading material. Given their obsession with all things bodily, Elizabeth was uncertain herself.

  “Now, Sidney,” Diana said, “you know we are so familiar with Culpeper that we scarcely open the book anymore, and the Pharmacopœia we consult only as needed. In the evenings, we have lately been reading the latest volume of The London Medical Repository and Review.”

  “I stand corrected. My apologies for having misrepresented you.” Sidney’s mouth quirked. “I cannot help but think,” he murmured in a voice low enough that only those beside him could hear, “that perhaps faced with the prospect of an entire evening of conversation such as this, Lady Denham decided she preferred the silence of her own company.”

  “You say that lightly,” Miss Heywood replied. “Are you not concerned for her well-being?”

  “I assure you, Miss Heywood, though sometimes I may speak with more levity than I ought, tonight I have Lady Denham’s best interests at heart.”

  Elizabeth hoped someone in the room did, for m
ost of the others seemed to have forgotten about Lady Denham, and poor Miss Brereton was at a loss to redirect the discussion back to the missing dowager. Mr. Hollis complained of drafts again, earning another peevish response from Miss Denham. Arthur, noticing the darkening sky, advocated the lighting of a preemptive fire before Damp arrived along with the rain.

  Darcy and Thomas Parker commenced a side conversation of their own—which Elizabeth was fairly confident contained the only words of substance presently being spoken in the room. She excused herself from her current companions and moved toward the pair. When she reached them, she was surprised, though not unpleasantly, to realize that Sidney had followed her.

  “Tom, I am curious as to your and Mr. Darcy’s thoughts regarding this situation,” Sidney said.

  “It is unlike Lady Denham to keep people waiting with no explanation,” his brother replied, “let alone to leave an article of furniture in an upended state.”

  Darcy’s countenance reflected Thomas Parker’s apprehension. “I was just asking Mr. Parker who among the present company is the most appropriate individual to initiate an effort to locate Lady Denham.”

  “Unfortunately,” Mr. Parker said, “nobody in this room holds clear authority or responsibility to take command of Sanditon House or its staff. Lady Denham has no children of her own. Her only blood relations are cousins once or twice removed; of these, Miss Brereton alone is present, but her status in Sanditon House is that of an impoverished dependent charitably taken in as a companion—not quite a servant, but also not fully a member of the family.”

  “What of Sir Edward?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Sir Edward and Miss Denham are Lady Denham’s nephew and niece by her second marriage. They have no legal claim upon her or Sanditon House.”

  “And yourself?” Darcy asked.

  “Although I am her business ally, I have only the sanction of friendship to act on her behalf in personal matters—which of course I will do if called upon, and if my doing so is acceptable to those with even slight family connections.” Mr. Parker nodded almost imperceptibly toward Josiah Hollis.

  They all exchanged glances. Whatever that unpleasant man’s connection to Lady Denham might be, nobody wanted him to develop any ideas about taking charge.

  “Someone needs to take action to determine whether Lady Denham’s absence is intentional, accidental, or involuntary,” Darcy said. “I suggest that Miss Brereton, because she is a resident of the household and therefore most familiar with the staff, find and speak with Lady Denham’s maid.”

  “That does seem the obvious place to start,” Elizabeth said. Lady Denham’s personal attendant would have helped her dress for tonight’s engagement and would have been conscious of the time at which her mistress needed to be ready to greet her guests. That hour having come and gone, her maid was more likely than anyone else to know her mistress’s whereabouts, or was herself with Lady Denham at this moment.

  She glanced about the room. Restlessness had seized its occupants, most of whom engaged in rampant speculation and vacuous statements of self-confident authority. Even Mr. Hollis had risen from his chair to mill around. “I do not think the maid should be summoned here,” Elizabeth continued. “The number of people might overwhelm her. Miss Brereton should speak with her elsewhere.”

  “Agreed,” Darcy said, “and you should accompany her. If the maid’s report suggests that anything out of the ordinary has happened, Miss Brereton might not know what questions need to be asked.”

  Sidney looked at Darcy. “Do you also wish to participate in the interview with the maid?”

  “I have learned from my wife that women are often more forthcoming among themselves.”

  Sidney laughed. “So they are. Well, let us extract Miss Brereton from the scintillating discourse enveloping her, and send her with Mrs. Darcy to find the maid and relieve our collective suspense.”

  Miss Brereton was easily—and willingly—disengaged, not to mention grateful for guidance on how to proceed. She thought talking to Lady Denham’s maid was a wise suggestion—regretted not having thought of it herself—and accepted without question Elizabeth’s offer to accompany her. With a signal to the footman to follow them, and an opportunely spirited moment of discussion among the larger company as a distraction, the two ladies slipped out of the room unnoticed.

  Or so they thought.

  Eleven

  “I do beleive [sic] those are best off that have fewest Servants.”

  —Lady Denham, Sanditon

  Once in the hall, Miss Brereton sent the footman to the servants’ hall with a message for the housekeeper. “Tell Mrs. Riley to send Rebecca to us in the blue room, and to continue to hold dinner.” As he departed on his commission, Miss Brereton’s gaze followed him. “I pray there is a simple explanation.”

  “I am sure there is.” Elizabeth’s conscience pricked her only slightly at the venial lie. She was not sure of anything at present, but she saw no reason to increase Miss Brereton’s anxiety. The somber cast of Clara’s countenance and the way her eyes scanned the hall and doorways for a sign of Lady Denham, bespoke a young lady already altered from the blithe Miss Brereton who had greeted Elizabeth and Darcy an hour earlier. “However, if there is not,” Elizabeth added, “hearing in private whatever information the maid imparts enables you to determine what would be appropriate to disclose to the other guests.”

  Miss Brereton led Elizabeth down the corridor. The blue room was on the ground floor, round a corner from the portrait room. It was a small sitting room, less formal than the one they had just quit; its upholstered furniture looked softer and more inviting—if the sunlight invading from the southwest windows did not drive one away. It was an eerie light, with a greenish cast emanating from where it met the dark clouds advancing from the west.

  Miss Brereton crossed to one of the windows and drew closed the heavy draperies.

  “We seldom use this room in the evenings, though sometimes I come in here by myself when the light is fading, to watch the sun set.”

  Elizabeth imagined Miss Brereton must lead a rather lonely existence, living with an elderly dowager and without the regular friendship of girls her own age. Such a state would explain—though not excuse—her stealing away to indulge in the sympathetic companionship of Sir Edward. “Do you miss Gracechurch Street?”

  “I miss my aunt and uncle, and my cousins. They are kindness embodied, and I am grateful to them for taking me in when my parents died, despite the additional burden I placed on their household.” She closed another pair of draperies, but left the remaining windows uncovered so as not to cloak the room in darkness. The approaching clouds would accomplish that soon enough. “Yet even had I not come to Sanditon House, I would no longer be living with them by now. At the time I met Lady Denham, I was preparing to take a position as a nursery maid.”

  Elizabeth wondered whether Lady Denham often reminded Clara of her dependency. “How long have you lived at Sanditon House?”

  “Since shortly after Michaelmas.” She rejoined Elizabeth in the center of the room. “Lady Denham originally invited me for a stay of six months, intending that one of my cousins would then have a turn. When April came, however, she did not make any arrangements as to my leaving.”

  “You are here permanently, then?”

  “I do not know. Neither of us has spoken of it. I dare not broach the subject, for if Lady Denham has forgotten that my residency here was to have ended long before now, I do not wish to remind her.”

  Elizabeth pitied Miss Brereton her state of uncertainty. To be perpetually at the mercy of the dowager’s disposition—to wake every morning wondering whether this could be the day she forever went from a condition of gentility to one of servitude! Was she attempting to secure Sir Edward’s affections—and thus, her station in life—before that happened?

  Rebecca arrived. Lady Denham’s personal attendant was an older woman, with a tall, trim figure and dark eyes whose gaze shifted uncertainly between the two lad
ies. “You sent for me, miss?”

  “Lady Denham has not yet joined her guests in the portrait room, nor is she in her apartment. Have you any notion where she might be?”

  “No.” The creases between the servant’s brows deepened. “I thought she had gone to the portrait room.”

  “When did you last see her?” Elizabeth asked.

  Rebecca regarded Elizabeth warily and did not immediately respond. After a few seconds her lips parted as if she were about to speak, but then closed once more. Elizabeth suspected the cause of her hesitation—and respected it. Rebecca was a loyal servant, and Elizabeth a stranger.

  Miss Brereton recognized it, too. “Mrs. Darcy is a friend of Lady Denham’s, albeit a new one,” she assured Rebecca, “and I know her family well. You may speak to her as you would to me.”

  At this, Rebecca’s expression relaxed, though not completely. “I last saw her at about half past three, when I helped her dress for dinner.”

  “Did you see her leave her apartment?” Elizabeth asked.

  “No, ma’am. We finished early, and I began tidying her things—clearing the dressing table, hanging her dressing gown, and so on. She said to simply leave everything and come back later—she wanted a few minutes to herself before her guests arrived.”

  Elizabeth supposed that could explain the disarrayed items atop the dressing table that Clara had reported—though not the upset seat, which suggested a hasty departure.

  “Did she mention anything else she planned to do before the party? A task that might take her to another room of the house?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Rebecca’s manner became anxious again, and Elizabeth realized she was firing questions at too rapid a rate. She slowed down and took a less direct approach.

  “From the way in which you speak of her, I sense that you have a good relationship with your mistress.”