Chapter 48
“Ladies?” Their server approached their table in the inn’s lounge the next morning, just as they were finishing breakfast. “Would you be the Dunagin sisters?”
“We would,” Maeve said. In the meantime, Therese surreptitiously slid the napkin containing the scones from their bread basket into the tote bag hanging from the back of her chair.
The server pretended not to notice. “I’ve been asked to give you a message. Lady Esme Rossington, over at the gardener’s cottage? She rang to say she’d like you to visit her this morning.”
“Uh-oh.” Therese raised an eyebrow at her sister. “A command performance with the lady herself. Wonder what that’s about?”
“Don’t know, but we’ll have to make it brief. We need to get on the road to Dublin sooner rather than later.”
“Would you relax, please?” Therese said. “Our flight doesn’t leave for another twenty-four hours. We have plenty of time.”
“Twenty hours. And unless you want to drive, I’m in charge of our departure time.”
They rang the bell and waited. They heard Sinead barking from inside, and then the slow, halting footsteps as her owner made her way to the door.
Esme peered out at them, looking startled by their appearance. “Oh. It’s you.”
“The server at the inn gave us a message that you wanted to see us,” Maeve said.
“Come along inside,” Esme said, turning her back to them as she shuffled down the hallway.
She was dressed in an oversized men’s zip-front hoodie worn over a long flannel nightgown, with a knit beanie pulled down to her sparse silver eyebrows, and on her feet she wore unlaced moccasins.
Her face was paler than usual, and her breathing sounded labored.
Sinead, after sniffing the visitors’ ankles, trotted along beside her mistress.
Unlike their previous meetings, this time Esme guided Maeve and Therese into a parlor. She sat on a faded tufted velvet settee facing a marble fireplace that held an ugly electric heater whose thermostat was turned to blast, and pointed to a pair of matching velvet slipper chairs.
“I have something for you,” Esme announced. There was a small wooden box next to her on the sofa, and she placed it on her lap. “You’re leaving today, are you not?”
The sisters nodded in unison. Sinead plopped herself down on the rug at their feet.
“When my boiler ceased working recently, I was forced to go down to the cellar to try to suss out the problem. Horrible, dark places, cellars, and I hadn’t been in this one since taking possession of the cottage.
Along with a jumble of rubbish my stepmother Marguerite shipped over here from the manor house before moving back to London, I found this box.
” She patted the lid, then held it up for the sisters to see. “I’d never seen it before.”
It was dark wood, with carved detailing and a small brass crest on the hinged lid.
Therese craned her neck to get a better view as Esme raised the lid and dumped the contents into her lap. There was a small red leather-bound book; an oval framed daguerreotype; a short, slender string of pearls; and a folded handkerchief, yellowed, with faded embroidered flowers.
“I can’t say why I didn’t toss this out,” she went on. “Obviously nothing here of any value. The pearls aren’t even real. I gave it all a cursory glance, stuck the box on the mantel over there, and didn’t give it another thought. Until…”
She pointed at Therese. “Until after you came poking about, asking questions and making a nuisance of yourself.”
“Is that…” Therese started. “Are those things Kathleen’s?”
“I believe so.” Esme picked up the book. “Pride and Prejudice.” She traced a finger along a faded line of script on the flyleaf and read aloud. “‘For Kathleen. On her sixteenth birthday. Fondly, DER.’ That would be my great-aunt Delia.”
Maeve’s eyes widened.
Esme handed her the daguerreotype. It showed a pensive young woman in profile, hair in a long braid that hung over one shoulder and a string of pearls around her long, pale neck.
“This must be your great-grandmother. It’s not anyone I recognize from any of our family photos.”
“She must have left this stuff behind, the night Delia sent her away,” Maeve said. She looked up at the old woman. “Are you giving these things to us?”
“Why not?” Esme said. “I’ve no use for more things in my life. As my darling brother pointed out to me just this week.”
“I thought you said your brother was dead,” Therese piped up.
Esme gave her a cool look. “No, I believe I said he could be in hell for all I cared. But as it turns out, Geoffrey is very much alive, and even more insufferable than I’d remembered.”
A small table beside the settee held a cloudy crystal glass. Esme tipped it to her lips, drank, and smacked her lips. “I don’t suppose either of you would care for a drink? I’m having gin, but the bottle’s in the kitchen, and I can’t trouble myself to fetch it. You may, if you like.”
“Uh, no thanks. We’re actually about to leave for Dublin. And I’m driving.”
“And it’s a little early for me,” Therese said. “When was the last time you saw your brother previously?”
“Hmm. It must have been at Papa’s funeral. Say, thirty-five years?”
“You haven’t seen or spoken to your own brother in all that time?” Maeve asked.
“Why would I? There’s no love lost between us. Papa’s will settled Geoffrey with the house in London, and you see what he left me.” She gestured around her at the parlor’s faded Victorian floral wallpaper. “I was no more than an afterthought.”
“What did he want?” Therese asked.
Instead of answering, Esme pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of the hoodie. She lit one with a tarnished silver lighter, inhaled, then exhaled an impressive plume of smoke.
Maeve tugged at the collar of her shirt. The room was oppressively hot and now the fog of cigarette smoke made her eyes water.
“What do you suppose he wanted?” Esme said. “Money. Geoffrey could never manage his own affairs. Married three times, each woman younger and worse than the one before, and each, I suspect, took with her a sizeable portion of his inheritance when she left.”
The old woman flicked ash into a teacup on the side table and her eyes narrowed. For once, she looked a little rattled.
“As dull as he is, Geoffrey does have one talent, and it’s sniffing out opportunities.
He turned up here this week, on my doorstep, to say he’d seen a newspaper article about a portrait of Lady Geraldine Fitzhugh being sold at auction in New York.
Of course he knew the painting had been stolen in the IRA raid, and he had questions. ”
The sisters waited.
“I told him that I knew nothing about the portrait and I suggested that it had probably been in the hands of some criminals—like all those artworks looted by the Nazis during the war.”
“Do you think he believed you?” Therese asked.
“One can never tell what Geoffrey is thinking. But after he left, I rang up my friend who helped arrange the sale of the painting, and he assured me that it would be impossible for the painting to be traced back here. So I’m preferring to think that my brother was simply out of funds, once again, and decided to take a fishing expedition back here to Tarrymore. ”
She looked the sisters over and now there was a malicious twinkle in her eyes.
“Geoffrey was quite interested in hearing about the two of you.”
“How would he know anything about us?” Therese asked.
“I might have given him the impression that I’d grown quite fond of our newfound relatives,” Esme said with a wheezy chuckle. She was clearly enjoying herself.
“Because?”
“To amuse myself. My brother is not a good person. He was clearly up to something, although I can’t say what. I rather liked watching him posturing and posing as he grasped for my affection.”
“Where is he now?” Maeve asked. “Is he here, in Tarrymore?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. I assure you I did not invite him to stay here, not that he would have deigned to. Oh no, Lord Geoffrey is much too grand for the gardener’s cottage.”
While they were chatting, Sinead pawed at Maeve’s leg until she picked her up and scratched the white blaze beneath the cocker spaniel’s chin. The dog responded by rewarding her with a slurp of her tongue on Maeve’s chin.
“She seems to rather like you,” Esme observed. She leaned closer. “What’s happened to your face?”
“We were walking back from dinner last night, and someone tried to run us down. If Therese hadn’t shoved me out of the way, I’d be dead,” Maeve said.
“Oh my. That’s unsettling. Surely it was an accident?” Esme exhaled and flicked more ash into the teacup.
“Maybe. But whoever slashed the tires on our rental car didn’t do that accidentally.”
“Did you report these incidents to the authorities? Must be outsiders. Likely vandals down from Cork or Dublin.”
Maeve and Therese exchanged a look and Maeve discreetly glanced down at her watch. Time to go.
Therese stuck out her hand. “We’ve taken up enough of your time, Esme.”
The old woman grasped the arms of the settee and arose. She thrust the wooden box at Therese. “I’ll let you dispose of this as you see fit.”
“That’s incredibly generous of you,” Therese said, tucking the box into her tote bag, hoping it wouldn’t crush the scone she was planning to have for lunch. “Thank you for this. And for shedding light on the question of our portrait. We want you to know that your secret is safe with us.”
For once, Esme seemed genuinely touched. “Goodbye to you both then. And as Papa would say, fair winds and following seas.”