The Secret of Pembrooke Park(71)

That was the detail she’d been forgetting. Had Abigail overlooked a clue about the secret room in the dolls’ house itself? She crossed the room and regarded the model of Pembrooke Park.

There were the master’s and mistress’s bedchambers with their matching fireplaces, except for the missing miniature portrait, just as in the house itself. Two smaller bedchambers lay beside each large bedroom, instead of behind them across the gallery as they were in reality. But surely this was a simple contrivance for practicality, to make all the rooms of the dolls’ house accessible from one side.

Abigail knelt in front of the dolls’ house until her knees ached, opening tiny doors, and searching the drawer beneath by candlelight. Nothing. She noticed a black streak painted up the kitchen wall above the open hearth. A very realistic effect. But otherwise she saw nothing she hadn’t noticed before. Suddenly she glimpsed her reflection in the looking glass and stilled.

What was she doing? She was a woman of three and twenty, not a little girl. And a practical woman at that—not some dreamer or desperate gambler. She rose stiffly and returned to her bed. She closed her eyes and listened but heard nothing. The house was unusually quiet. No winnowing voices. No trespassing footsteps. When was the last time she had heard any? Apparently Duncan, or whomever it was, had long ago given up the search.

It was time for her to do so as well.

She blew out her candle and pulled up the bedclothes. As of tomorrow, she would lay aside her search for treasure and find a more useful way to spend her time. She had been foolish to entertain the notion. To hope.

Would Gilbert expect the woman he wed to bring a hefty dowry into the marriage? He was just starting out in his career, likely many years away from financial success. Even a poor clergyman like William Chapman no doubt hoped for a wealthy wife, or at least one with some sort of dowry. She sighed. It couldn’t be helped. She had no dowry, and the majority of her father’s wealth was gone. And no mythical treasure was going to appear to replace it.



The next afternoon, another letter arrived. Abigail had begun to fear she had received her last word from that source. She opened it right there in the hall and read the journal page eagerly.

How strange it feels to benefit from the misfortune of others. To live in the house of relatives I have never met and now, never shall. My father says I am being ridiculous.

“This is your grandparents’ house—the house I grew up in. I have every right to be here, and so do you.”

If this is my grandparents’ house, why have I never been here before? Why no Easter visits, Christmas dinners, or leisurely summer holidays?

Apparently there was a falling out between him and his parents when he was young, and he’d had to join the navy to earn his own way in life—as he often told us, part bitter, part proud. But now he seems determined to act the part of a landed gentleman, ordering fine suits and fast horses. He wants so badly to win the admiration of our neighbors, and is growing increasingly angry as he realizes that taking over his brother’s house has not brought him the respect he sees as his due.

I once had an aunt who died of typhus. I once had a cousin who died as well. A girl like me, who liked pretty frocks and played with the dolls’ house in my room—her room.

Aunt and Uncle Pembrooke. Eleanor. I feel I am coming to know them at least a little, through what they left behind. Beautiful clothes, well cared for. Beautiful gardens, well appreciated. Beautiful pianoforte—well used.

They were reverent or at least religious. There is a family Bible hidden away, and a well-worn prayer book in the family box in the estate church, though we attend but rarely.

The girl was loved. Cherished even, if the carefully stored baby clothes mean what I think they mean. Indulged, if the dolls’ house was hers and not our grandmother’s collection.

And the girl knew, I believe, where the secret room was. Discovered it, and kept it to herself. As I have.

Aha! Abigail thought in triumph. The writer had found the secret room. Unless she had some reason to prevaricate, to lead Abigail on a wild-goose chase for her own personal amusement. And why would that be? Unless . . . Was she hoping Abigail would do the work—find the treasure for her? But if she already knew where the room was, why would she give a stranger clues to its whereabouts?

Gilbert would say that the room the writer had found was likely now the closet in her bedchamber. However, Gilbert might have missed something. After all, he had not read the journal pages. Perhaps she ought to have shown them to him. But she prized them as her personal secret to savor. . . .

Abigail went down to the library, determined to look at the plans again.





Chapter 14


Over the next few days, Abigail endeavored to study the plans and search the house at every opportunity, but her search was hindered by the presence of a houseguest. Miles Pembrooke took an active interest in her concerns and movements and often asked to accompany her whenever she went for a walk or even to sit in the library, saying he would simply keep her company while she read or wrote letters or whatever she was about.

She felt she couldn’t—or shouldn’t—study the plans with Miles looking over her shoulder. So she made great headway in the novel she was reading entitled Persuasion. She would be able to give it to Leah in a few days’ time at this rate.

One afternoon, the post arrived as she prepared for what she hoped would be a solitary walk. Her heart lifted to see another letter in that now-familiar hand, but Miles came upon her before she could open it, and she quickly slipped it beneath a letter from her father’s solicitor.