Page 24 of The Vanished Sister

When Lord Ingram returned, Mrs. Newell and her family in his wake, there was the usual round of greetings. Mrs. Watson introduced Penelope as her niece who arrived only this afternoon.

No one seemed to catch the very important detail that Penelope, who was also Mrs. Carstairs’s niece, hadn’t been at High Burrow: The Stanmore Newells and their daughter looked befuddled, Mrs. Newell grave, and Miss Olivia, gravely alarmed.

“I do apologize for intruding upon you,” said Mrs. Newell, once she had taken the seat Lord Ingram offered. “But Mr. Charles Carstairs informed us, roughly an hour ago, that his mother will be unable to perform her duties as our hostess and that they were worried about her.”

A cry rose in Mrs. Watson’s throat. Lord Ingram glanced at her. Miss Olivia, across the parlor, mouthed something. I will tell you, she seemed to be saying. Stay calm. I will tell you.

Mrs. Watson clamped her teeth together and ground her heels into the parquet floor.

“Of course young Charles did not say so, but I understood that our presence would no longer be required,” continued Mrs. Newell. “But there wasn’t enough time for us to both pack properly and make the last train leaving Ilfracombe this evening. Dare I hope, my lord, that you would take us in for the night?”

“But of course, ma’am,” answered Lord Ingram. “I’m sorry that circumstances forced you to decamp but I’m glad to have the pleasure of your company. Shall we have your luggage brought in?”

When everyone consented, he added, “Let me make sure that we have chambers ready. Miss Redmayne, will you look after our guests during my brief absence? And Mrs. Watson, will you instruct the kitchen staff on my behalf?”

Mrs. Watson understood his intentions. When they’d taken care of food and lodging for five extra people, Miss Olivia had found an excuse to leave the parlor and join them in the entry hall. Together they mounted the steps to Miss Charlotte’s room.

Inside, Miss Charlotte sat before her dressing table, her beard already glued on. “Something the matter?” she asked in her own voice.

“It’s Mrs. Carstairs,” said Miss Olivia. She gave a brief account of the day at High Burrow, leading up to Everett Carstairs’s return and his trip upstairs to see his wife.

Mrs. Watson clutched at Lord Ingram’s sleeve.

“Mrs. Carstairs’s door was locked. She did not respond to knocking. After members of her family entered with a spare key, the ensuing silence indicated that they didn’t see her inside. Then Mrs. Wellesley cried, ‘Look at this. What does this mean?’ At the time the door to the apartment was half open, but within seconds someone closed it. Also, when the door closed, I believe Mrs. Carstairs’s maid and the housekeeper were expelled from the apartment: I heard them going into the service stairs.”

“So what was the thing that my niece wanted everyone to look at?” demanded Mrs. Watson, barely realizing that this was the first time she’d referred to—or thought of, for that matter—Justina’s daughter as her own blood relation.

Miss Olivia shook her head. “I’m sorry, I never saw the item—or heard anything about it. I returned to the drawing room, otherwise I’d have been gone too long. A few minutes after that, Reginald Carstairs beckoned his brother to go to him. Not long afterward Everett and Charles Carstairs rode out in the direction of Combe Martin—maybe they went all the way to Ilfracombe. I believe Reginald Carstairs remained to search the grounds, and Mrs. Wellesley, the inside of the house.

“Charles Carstairs returned shortly before five. Mrs. Wellesley ran out to meet him. Reginald Carstairs arrived on horseback soon after that. They conferred, Charles Carstairs spoke to us, and you know the rest.”

So Justina, who had bid Mrs. Watson farewell last night, had promptly disappeared? The skin on Mrs. Watson’s entire body seemed to have hardened, a scaly prison that barely allowed movement.

With some difficulty she turned toward the window, but it did not give in the direction of High Burrow. Instead she saw the gardens, the tennis court, and the pavilion slightly farther off that housed a bench swing. Everything glistened in the newly emerged sunlight, everything fresh and new, far removed from the strife of the world.

Miss Charlotte, adjusting a man’s wig on her head, asked calmly, “And then?”

Miss Olivia, who had been looking at Mrs. Watson, started. “Right. Then Mrs. Stanmore Newell became extremely animated, but Mrs. Newell restrained her and told Charles Carstairs that we’d leave. She intended to take accommodation in Ilfracombe for the night; I was the one who volunteered Sans Souci, since I wished to confer with you all as soon as possible. I do apologize for the inconvenience this causes.”

“It’s very little trouble to me,” said Miss Charlotte, whose skin did not care for the glue used for the prosthetic beard.

“And it’s well within the capacity of the house to handle a few more guests,” added Lord Ingram. “You were right to come here first, Miss Olivia. We needed to know this development.”

They did indeed need to know this, thought Mrs. Watson wildly, she herself especially. But what was she to do with this knowledge, now that it was unfortunately hers?

The rest of the day lasted forever. The night, too, proved interminable. Yet it was barely after sunrise when Mrs. Watson woke up groggy and unhappy, her heart pounding from a nightmare no less potent for its details having already faded from her mind.

She got up, dressed, and slipped out of the house. On the terrace she met Miss Olivia, who habitually rose early. Wordlessly they took each other’s arm.

Miss Olivia did not ask if she was all right; they all knew she wasn’t. That unsettling feeling she’d had when she last spoke to Justina—as if Justina had said everything she ever wanted to say—why had she obeyed Justina’s instructions and returned meekly to her room? Why had she accepted, in her heart, that they were two ships passing in the night, destined for only a single moment of closeness?

She and Miss Olivia stood at the balustrade at the edge of the terrace and stared toward High Burrow.

Miss Olivia sighed and bowed her head. The next moment Mrs. Watson felt, through their interlinked arms, the girl’s spasm of shock.

“There’s something—my goodness, is that a…a dress floating in the water?”

Mrs. Watson squinted down. Below the terrace the bluff dropped down nearly a hundred feet. She needed glasses for reading but for seeing things beyond an arm’s reach her eyes functioned just fine.