Chapter 5

There wasa moment when nothing happened, when no one moved or even breathed. Then Laetitia squealed, and slapped a hand to her mouth. Not the one with the cucumber sandwich, sadly; the other one.

Constance gasped. Francis swore, and the legs of his chair scraped on the flagstones as he pushed it back. Aunt Roz's chair fell over with a clatter as she shot to her feet and started running with Francis right behind.

I met Christopher's shocked stare across the table.

"Is that—?" He couldn't seem to find the words to continue, so he just stared at me.

I nodded. And pushed to my feet, too, a little less violently than either Aunt Roz or Francis. "Excuse me, please. I'm going to see if there's anything I can do."

Christopher nodded.

"Who…?"

I glanced at Constance—she had turned pale and looked faint—and back at Christopher. "Stay with her. Explain."

He nodded. "Be careful."

"Of course." Not that there was anything to worry about. Abigail Dole wasn't likely to be contagious, or a danger to me in any other way.

By the time I reached the cluster of people on the lawn, it had swelled to include Uncle Herbert and Crispin as well as Francis and Aunt Roz. The latter two were on their knees on the grass, one on either side of Abigail. She was, for all intents and purposes, pale as death. Her eyes were closed, with dark circles like bruises against her translucent skin, but her chest was moving, so at least she was alive. Her pale arms looked like sticks poking out of the sleeves of the dress.

Uncle Herbert had taken it upon himself to pick up little Bess. When Abigail had crumpled, the baby had tumbled out of her arms onto the grass, and had started wailing.

It hadn't been a far drop and the landing had been soft, so it was probably shock more than pain, and the shrill cries died into wet hiccoughs as Uncle Herbert cradled the baby in the crook of one arm and rocked back and forth with her, crooning.

"Well, hello there. Aren't you a pretty girl? Who do you belong to, then?"

Crispin was standing a few feet away staring at them both, eyes wide in his pale face.

"You've seen her before," I asked him briskly as I brushed past with a—quick deliberate—knock of my shoulder to his arm, "haven't you?"

He slanted his eyes my way before turning back to Uncle Herbert and Bess. "It was a few months ago. She—it—didn't look like this then."

No, I could well imagine. A two-month-old looks quite different from a five-or-six-month old. She'd been a bit less distinctly a Sutherland the last time he'd seen her, I imagined.

"Are you sure you don't know her mother?" I asked, looking over at Abigail. Aunt Roz was patting her hand now, while Francis was peeling back her eyelids to look at her pupils. Crispin examined her, too, for a moment, and then shook his head.

"No, Darling. I realize you have no reason to believe me, given my—" he grimaced, "reputation, but I swear I don't. I saw her at Sutherland House in March, of course, you know that, but that was the first time I saw her."

After a moment he added, "I do try to be careful, you know. The last thing I want is to have to marry someone just because I had a bit too much fun one night."

"Of course." It would be about his own convenience and no one else's. Of course it would. "If you're worried about that happening, you could just keep your flies closed, you know."

"In this case," Crispin said coldly, "I did."

Uncle Herbert was still rocking the baby, shifting from one foot to the other. Her cries had died to sniffles and she had found her thumb and was sucking on it, eyes on his face. One pair of Astley blue eyes contemplated another.

"Are you all right," I asked, "or would you like me to take over?"

He shot me a quick look. "I imagine I have more experience with this than you do, Pippa, having had three of my own. She's fine for now, and so am I."

I nodded. "Her name is Bess. Elizabeth, I guess. Last name Dole. Her mother is Abigail. She came to the flat last week, looking for Christopher."

At those words, the color drained out of Uncle Herbert's cheeks, too. "Kit?" he croaked.

"Obviously not," I said. "I mean, yes. She was looking for Christopher. But he's not who she's really looking for. We all know that."

I looked back down at Abigail. By now, Francis was scooping her up off the ground and into his arms, and Aunt Roz was getting to her feet, too.

"—don't know what we'll do," she was saying. "We don't have a single available bedroom. Wilkins and Hughes have to put up above the pub in the village as it is. Perhaps one of you boys wouldn't mind…?"

The three of them started for the terrasse and the door to the house. Aunt Roz was still talking.

"—should have a doctor look at her, I suppose, although it's probably just exhaustion and the heat. She may not have eaten anything recently. Some rest and food might be all she needs. But?—"

As they moved past us, Aunt Roz took Uncle Herbert by the elbow and tugged. "Come along, dear. She'll want to see her baby when she wakes up, I expect. If we keep him or her?—"

"Her," I said quickly as I fell in behind. "Bess."

Aunt Roz gave me a look, but didn't inquire, "—her away, I'm sure it won't be a good idea…"

The procession moved across the flagstones. From out of the corner of my eye I could see Lady Laetitia and her mother, their heads together in a whispered conversation, and Uncle Harold, with his face like stone. Crispin had followed the rest of us up on the terrasse, and was making his slow way back to their table, seemingly deep in thought.

"Crispin, dear?"

When Aunt Roz said his name, he jumped, and his eyes shot to her, startled. "Yes, Aunt?"

"Drive down to the village, would you? Fetch Doctor White and bring him back here."

Crispin nodded and turned on his heel. By the time his feet hit the grass, he was running.

"Come along, Pippa," Aunt Roz said, and I held the door as we all passed through and into the house.

A minute later,Abigail had been deposited on one of the Chesterfields in the library, and Francis was dusting off his hands, almost literally. He was brushing them down his sleeves repeatedly, as if trying to get rid of the imprint of Abigail's body.

"Here." Aunt Roz took little Bess out of Uncle Herbert's arms and dropped her into mine. I held on as best I could as Aunt Roz continued. "Better go back outside. We can't leave Harold and Euphemia in charge for too long. One of us should be there."

Uncle Harold nodded, eyes lingering on Abigail. "What do I tell them?"

"The truth," Aunt Roz said. "The doctor's coming, and until he's looked at her, we have no idea what's going on."

"Did you hear what Pippa said?"

Aunt Roz glanced at me.

"The girl's name is Abigail Dole," I said. "This is Bess. They came to the Essex House Mansions last week looking for Christopher."

Aunt Roz looked unfazed by this statement. "Well, we know she isn't Christopher's. Francis, do you have something you'd like to confess?"

Francis shook his head. "No, Mother."

"Herbert?"

Uncle Herbert looked offended. "Of course not, Roslyn. How can you even suggest?—?"

"It's just as well to be sure, dear." She patted his arm and then nodded towards the door. "Go on out there and mitigate whatever damage you can. I'll stay with her until the doctor gets here. You push off too, Francis."

Francis hesitated, glancing from Abigail to Bess to his mother and back. "What if?—?"

"The doctor will be here soon," I told him. "The village isn't far." And Crispin wouldn't be holding back, I assumed. I added, significantly, "Constance must be worried."

Francis blinked, and then panic streaked across his eyes for a moment as that thought penetrated, before he spun on his heel and headed for the door.

"Well done, Pippa." Aunt Roz waited for them both to get out of sight before she sank down next to Abigail with a sigh. "Tell me everything."

"There's not much to tell," I said, eyeing her. "She showed up a few months ago at Sutherland House. According to Rogers, she was looking for the Duke's grandson. This was?—"

"Before Henry died." Aunt Roz nodded. "Naturally they thought she was looking for Crispin."

"Of course. And it makes sense that they would, given how free he is with his favors." Not to mention his habit of using Sutherland House as his own private love nest whenever he was in Town. If Abigail had been there before, it made sense that she would come back.

After a moment, when Aunt Roz hadn't said anything, I added, "Who else is there? We know the baby isn't Christopher's, and Francis said she wasn't his…"

"What Francis said," Aunt Roz told me, and there was an edge to her voice, "was that there wasn't anything he wanted to confess. It's not exactly the same thing, is it?"

Well, no. Now that she mentioned it, I supposed it wasn't.

"Surely you don't think…?"

"I don't think anything," Aunt Roz said, which was clearly a lie. She was thinking all sorts of things; she just wasn't sharing them with me. "Go on. She went to Sutherland House, and Crispin refused her. Then she came to your flat?"

"Last week. It must have taken her all this time to track down where we live, I assume."

Aunt Roz nodded.

"Christopher wasn't home. I asked her to come upstairs and wait for him, but instead she ran away. All I got out of her that time, was her name and the baby's name."

"And now she's here."

Indubitably.

"It seems, then," Aunt Roz said, "that one of two things is happening. She got herself in the family way by someone in the Astley family?—"

"There's really no denying that, is there?"

Aunt Roz looked at little Bess, now contentedly chewing her thumb while perched on my hip. "That the baby is a Sutherland? No, there's no denying that, I'm afraid. So either Miss Dole went to Sutherland House looking for her baby's father, and when she determined that Crispin wasn't he, she found out where Christopher and you live, and went to look at Christopher. And then?—"

"I told her that if she'd seen Crispin she'd seen Christopher," I said, "and Flossie Schlomsky agreed with me…"

"—and now she's learned where Francis lives, and has come to take a look at him."

So she was essentially going down the line of Astleys looking for the right one. "Or?"

"Or," Aunt Roz said, eyeing the unconscious figure critically, "she knows exactly who little Bess's father is, and she's here to force him to acknowledge her."

"Blackmail?"

She shrugged, and I added, "When you say that she knows exactly who he is…?"

"She went to Sutherland House first," Aunt Roz said, "didn't she?"

"So you think it's Crispin."

She slanted me a look. "Don't you?"

Did I? "Every time we've talked about it," I said, "he has told me it isn't. He said it again just a few minutes ago. He's said it every time I've asked." And I had asked more than once.

"He has every reason to lie," Aunt Roz pointed out. "If this truly is his baby, Harold will go spare. And the last person he'd want to admit it in front of?—"

"Is Laetitia Marsden. Of course."

"No," Aunt Roz said, blinking. "That wasn't…"

I brushed her off. "It doesn't matter. He could be lying. Or he could have forgotten. Or he could be telling the truth. I don't know how we'd ever know for certain. People lie. Even if Abigail wakes up and says he's Bess's father, it won't be proof."

"It'll be proof enough for me," Aunt Roz said. She turned to look at the unconscious girl. "I'm surprised it has taken as long as it has, honestly. I don't suppose you carry smelling salts, Pippa?"

"Of course not. I'm hardly in the habit of fainting."

She nodded. "Nor am I. And I don't suppose Euphemia or her daughter are the swooning sort, either. Perhaps Constance…?"

"I could go inquire," I said. "Unless something's wrong with her that smelling salts won't fix. Did you check her for injuries? Maybe someone shot her, or conked her over the head…"

"To many murder mysteries, Pippa." She smiled at me fondly, but shook her head. "If she'd been shot, we'd have heard it, and besides, there'd be blood. If she were conked on the head, we'd be able to see that too, I imagine. Besides, who would do it? We were all on the terrasse when she walked up. Unless you imagine Cook was running around in the bushes with a rolling pin?"

Hardly. "I guess we just wait for St George to come back with the doctor, then."

"Not much more we can do, I imagine. I'm sure Gerald will have a way of waking her when he comes."

She sat in silence for a few seconds before glancing at the door. "I wonder what's going on out on the terrasse. Whether Herbert managed to calm the waters."

The waters hadn't struck me as being particularly choppy, but what did I know? There was bound to be some curiosity, certainly, although Uncle Herbert hadn't the information to quell any of that. None of us did.

"I could stick my head through the door and see," I suggested. "I'm not doing you any good standing here. Or her any good, either."

"You're holding her baby," Aunt Roz said, and pushed herself to her feet. "I'll go."

She looked older than usual, and tired. "I'll be back in a minute. Come fetch me if anything changes."

I nodded, and Aunt Roz left the library and left me alone with Abigail and Bess. For a few seconds, I could hear the heels of her shoes clicking against the wood floors, and then that was gone, too.

A minute passed. Bess babbled and bounced on my hip. Abigail didn't stir. Then there was the sound of a motorcar outside, and a blue blur shot past the windows. Crispin was back, and hopefully he had brought the doctor.

I heard the car doors slam outside, and then the boot room door opened, and rapid steps crossed the floor of the hallway. "Aunt Roslyn?"

"In here," I called. "Library."

The steps headed my way: Crispin's, and a heavier and slightly slower pair that must belong to the doctor.

I turned towards the door in time to face them, and had the pleasure of seeing Crispin come to a stop in the doorway and rock back on his heels. For several seconds he just stared at me, eyes wide. By then, the doctor had caught up, and shoved him to the side so he could waddle in. "Out of my way, boy. Where is my patient?"

"Hello, Doctor White," I said politely. "That's her, on the sofa. She walked onto the lawn earlier, and collapsed. Francis carried her in here. She hasn't woken up yet."

Doctor White has been the local doctor for as long as I've lived at Beckwith Place. He saw me through the influenza that ravaged the world in the wake of the war—saw us all through it, and well enough that we all survived, too—and has seen me for every other ailment I've had in the past dozen years, so he's practically family. Anyone who has listened to my lungs and examined my chest for rashes is close enough to be considered a relative, I think.

Even so, I didn't expect the look that traveled from me to Bess and then to Crispin, before Doctor White said, "You two?"

Crispin opened his mouth and closed it again. He looked horrified.

"Hers," I told the doctor, "actually. Nothing to do with me at all."

Crispin opened his mouth and shut it again without saying anything. Doctor White grunted. He was peeling back Abigail's eyelids the same way Francis had been doing earlier, peering intently at her pupils.

"Go fetch Aunt Roz," I told Crispin. "She went back onto the terrasse, but she told me to fetch her if anything happened before she came back."

He nodded and turned on his heel, after a last look at the baby. Over on the Chesterfield, Doctor White picked up Abigail's wrist and checked her pulse before pulling down her lip and opening her mouth. Finally, he listened to her heart before sitting back. At no point did she show any sign of life other than that she kept breathing.

By then, Aunt Roz had come back inside. Without Crispin, so he must have got caught by Laetitia, or perhaps his father. Instead, it was Christopher who tagged along behind his mother. Like Crispin, he stopped in the doorway and looked at me, but instead of behaving as if he'd seen a ghost, a corner of his mouth turned up.

"What?" I wanted to know.

He smirked, and looked astonishingly like his cousin for a second. "I can see why Crispin looked the way he did when he reached the terrasse."

"Doctor White asked whether there was something going on between us," I told him. "I'm sure he was appalled and nauseated by the suggestion."

Aunt Roz gave me a jaundiced look before turning to the doctor "What can we do for her, Gerald?"

"Nothing, Roz," Doctor White said. "It looks like a mixture of perfectly normal things. Exhaustion, malnutrition, overexertion in the heat…"

Perfectly normal things, were they?

"She'll be all right once she wakes up and we get some food and water into her. Although there's no telling when that'll happen. She could be asleep for a while. I can take her to the infirmary in the village if you'd prefer?"

"That might be best," Aunt Roz allowed. "We have a full house here, Gerald. Constance is here, as you know, and so is Francis. Pippa and Christopher are visiting. So are Harold and Crispin. And so is the entire Marsden family. I have to put Pippa and Christopher in the same room as it is…"

Doctor White lifted a hand. "Say no more. We can keep her overnight in the infirmary."

Aunt Roz's face melted into appreciation. "Thank you, Gerald."

"It's what it's there for, my dear." He reached out and patted her shoulder. "Now, the child…"

They both looked at me, and at little Bess. And at Christopher, who was standing next to me. We probably looked like a little family, which was a strange thing to contemplate.

"Oh, we can handle that." Aunt Roz waved it off as if taking care of someone else's baby was nothing. Perhaps it was, to someone who had brought up three of her own, plus a niece.

Or perhaps she realized, as I did, that if Bess was here, Abigail would have to come back too, even if Doctor White took her to the village now. Without that, she might vanish again, and then we'd never get the answers we wanted.

Yes, much better to keep little Bess with us, as assurance of her mother's return. Besides, the baby would probably be more comfortable here than in the infirmary, anyway.

"Christopher," Aunt Roz said, "run out and fetch… No, on second thought we'll just leave them all where they are. Can you carry her?"

Christopher gave Abigail a dubious look, but he nodded.

"Lift her, then, and let's take her outside. Can either of you drive Crispin's car?"

"He'd kill us," Christopher said, as he headed for the sofa. I nodded.

Aunt Roz huffed exasperatedly. "He would not. He loves you both."

He didn't. And even if he did, at least in Christopher's case, he loved the Hispano-Suiza more. But before I could say anything about it, she had gone on. "We'll take the Bentley. Or perhaps we can find Wilkins. Harold won't mind if we take the Crossley down to the village and back. Go on, Christopher."

She nodded towards the door, and Christopher headed for it with Abigail in his arms. I was impressed, I have to say. I know Francis had lifted and carried her earlier, with no problem, but that's Francis, isn't it? He's a fully grown man almost seven years older than Christopher. Of course he would be able to lift and carry eight or nine stone of dead weight. Christopher is both younger and slighter, and I was rather impressed that he managed it, without apparent effort, too.

Aunt Roz hurried ahead of him through the library and toward the hallway.

"Go on, Philippa," Doctor White said, and nudged me into motion ahead of him. "You're on baby duty, it seems?"

"I'm sure Aunt Roz will take her away from me shortly," I said, "but for now, it seems I am. Anything we should know about taking care of a baby?"

"I'm sure Roslyn has it covered. She's had several of her own, after all. It's about time for grandchildren, isn't it?"

He beamed at little Bess.

I smiled politely. It was all I could do when I didn't know whether he was fishing for information or a confirmation or what. Anything I said would likely give an impression I didn't want to give, so it was much safer just to keep my mouth shut. And by then we had reached the boot room, where Aunt Roz was holding the door open and giving Christopher instructions for how to navigate through the mess.

"Turn sideways… yes, that's right. Be careful with the Wellies, there on your left. Don't stumble. Now watch her head… I said watch it, Christopher?—"

"I'm watching," Christopher grumbled. "I'm not going to bash her head against the door jamb, Mum. I'm not stupid."

"Of course you're not, dear. Just turn a little bit more… yes, that's right?—"

Christopher rolled his eyes, but maneuvered the body—the unconscious body—through the doorway.

"After you, Philippa," Doctor White said with a touch to my back. I made it through the door in time to see Christopher head down along the driveway towards the parked cars with Aunt Roz scurrying beside him.

Five minutes later, Uncle Harold's Crossley made its sedate way towards the village with Wilkins at the wheel and Doctor White enthroned in the passenger seat next to him, while Christopher was in the back holding onto Abigail. I had offered to come along instead, in case a woman's touch was needed, but the doctor had assured me that the nurse would manage and that he'd rather have two strong, young men capable of wrangling the body than my feminine touch.

"You stay here and mind the baby, Philippa," he told me, with a pat on the shoulder.

So that was that. Off they went. The excitement was over, at least for now.

"Better give her to me," Aunt Roz said, reaching for the baby, "or Harold will have a conniption."

She tucked Bess onto her own hip with practiced ease, and turned toward the back of the house and the croquet lawn. "Let's just go this way, shall we?"

Certainly. "Why would Uncle Harold care…?" I began, but she was already several feet away, and there was nothing I could do but follow.