Jane Steele(6)

“Well, ’ere we are,” Agatha said in her broad rasp as she drew out an iron key.

Our servant, Agatha, who trudged about with wisps of blond hair falling in her squinting eyes, spoke entirely in platitudes. She was my sole comfort throughout that hellish week; hot broth mixed with sherry and soothing pats on the cheek are greatly cheering, even to juvenile she-devils.

The lock clicked open and I surged to plunder the trunk’s contents. We had a pair of tapers, but the light was dim and ghostly, and when my seeking fingers struck lace, I hardly knew what I held.

“Ah, what ’ave we ’ere?” Agatha rumbled from my right.

“Mamma’s summer parasol,” I recognised as I lifted it.

“Aye, Miss Jane, and what a parasol.”

There was no refuting this, so I drew out more relics—cracked men’s reading spectacles, a fawn carryall. We went on until I was so sated with untrimmed hats and books of pressed flowers that I scarce noted I held a pair of empty laudanum bottles.

Agatha placidly took them away. “Now, Miss Jane, them’s in the past, them is, over and emptied, so you just put ’em clean out o’ yer mind.”

I supposed Agatha meant Mamma was no longer ill, so I nodded. Diving into the trunk once more, I emerged with a lock of nut-brown hair very like mine woven into a small lover’s knot and pressed under silver-framed glass. I had seen it before, when it sat on Mamma’s mantelpiece, but it had long since vanished.

“This was my father’s. Were they married long before he died, Agatha?”

“Not as long as yer mum would’ve liked, poor dear.”

“Cousin Edwin told me she was no better than a parasite,” I whispered.

“Now, Miss Jane,” Agatha growled kindly, “there’s sorts as you can trust to speak plain, and there’s sorts as will say whatsoever suits. And if those two kinds o’ folks were only obvious, wi’ signs or marks o’ Cain or the like, a heap o’ trouble would be saved.”

A worm of guilt stirred in my gut. I had lied to her that very morning, when I said I would take buttered porridge and then dumped it by the pond so as not to worry her.

Lying has always come as easy for me as breathing.

“Did my father prefer living at the cottage too?”

“Bless you, he never lived ’ere after marrying yer mum. They met in Paris, where Mr. Steele dun banking—I figure he preferred being wheresoever she was.”

My head fell upon her burly shoulder. Agatha smelt of lye and the mutton she had been stewing, and just when I was too exhausted to contemplate getting my weakened legs under me and leaving the darkening garret, I pulled something I had never seen before from the trunk.

It was a letter—one in my mother’s elegant Parisian script with its bold downstrokes like a battle standard being planted. It read:

Rue M——,

2nd Arrondissement,

SUNDAY

Dear Mr. Sneeves,

Pardon, s’il vous plait, for my writing in haste, but I can hardly shift a muscle for the grief now oppressing me: my J—— has expired finally. The doctors could do nothing, and I am desolate. Doubtless your legal efforts upon my behalf and that of my daughter have been heroic, but in the absence of my husband, I must confirm our complete readiness for relocation to Highgate House. Si ce n’est pas indiscret, as my beloved J—— was ever a faithful client of yours, I request an immediate audience, for every second may prove invaluable. And please return this letter with your reply, as I live in horror our plans will be anticipated by those who would prevent us.

Veuillez agréer mes salutations empressées,

Mrs. Anne-Laure Steele

At first I had imagined that the letter was two pages, but it was kept together with the reply in a crabbed male English hand:

Rue du R——,

1st Arrondissement,

SUNDAY

Chère Mme. S——,

My most heartfelt condolences upon behalf of the firm. Mr. S—— was a highly valued patron of Sneeves, Swansea, and Turner. I await your arrival and assure you that the documents have already been drawn up to the late lamented Mr. S——’s satisfaction.

Humbly,

Cyrus Sneeves, Esq.

I could only understand that these documents referred to my eventual ownership of Highgate House; puzzled, I passed them to Agatha, who carefully folded both letters together again and returned them to the trunk.

“Well, that weren’t what I’d been expecting.” Agatha’s squinting eyes narrowed further.

“My mother wrote that when my father died?”

“A wise hen always sees her chicks are looked after. Now, there’s pickled ’erring and toast to be had. Your mother’s things seem to ’earten you, and this trunk will be ’ere tomorrow, and the day after that.”

Agatha was again strictly correct, but mistaken in her accidental assumption that I would be present.

“Did you ever meet my father, Agatha?” I questioned as she shut the trunk and heaved herself upright.

“Why, bless your ’eart, Miss Steele, what a question.” Agatha tsked fondly and trudged downstairs.

Infants own memories, perhaps, but by the time I was nine, hazy visions of Jonathan Steele were locked away like mementoes in a safe to which I knew not the combination. The bread crumbs I had gathered into his portrait scarce made a crust, let alone a meal.