Mette reached the end of the Mountjoy’s tree-lined lane and looked around. There was no sign of Frank, so she walked in the direction he’d told her he would be, and still could not see him. She stood outside the Wanganui Collegiate chapel, worried. Where could he have gone? Could they have followed her from the Mountjoy home, and even now be taking him away to prison again?
“Miss Jensen?”
Mette turned towards the speaker, a sturdy, fair-haired young man carrying a cricket bat over his shoulder. She was frozen with indecision. Was this a fellow conspirator of the Mountjoys? If she said yes, she was Miss Jensen, would she immediately find herself carried away to the same prison as Frank? But he looked like a nice man, not someone who…
She took a deep breath and replied. “Yes, I am Miss Jensen.”
“Jolly good,” he said. “I’m John Masterson, Reverend John Masterson. Frank asked me to look out for you. He’s in the chapel.”
Mette put her hand on her heart. “Thank goodness. I was worried he’d been taken…”
“Taken?” asked Masterson. He looked puzzled. Had Frank not told him the whole story?
“Taken…ill,” she improvised. “How do I get into the chapel?”
“Through the garden gate,” said Masterson, pointing. “I’ll let you in.” He started singing to himself softly. “Come into the garden, Maud, for the black bat…I say, that’s appropriate.” He swung his bat at one of the rose bushes.
She passed through an arched entranceway hung with tiny yellow rosebuds into the most astonishing rose garden she had ever seen. The scent was overpowering and the beauty of it stopped her in her tracks. “Ah, min gud,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything so very beautiful…”
“Thank you,” he said. “This is my garden, I’m happy to say. The Lord gave me the talent and I do the best with what he gave me. I keep my tools - he held up his cricket bat - in the vestry - it’s through the door at the back of the church.”
Unsure what he meant, she bent and touched a large, deep crimson tea rose. “Look at this, how beautiful…”
“The Lady Debra,” he said. “I named it after one of our most generous benefactors. It’s a hybrid, not unlike the Rosa Mr. Lincoln, named for the late, well…I suppose it’s more than similar if I’m to be honest. I actually used the same two…”
“Lady Debra?” Mette leaned down and sniffed the rose appreciatively. “Would the benefactor be Lady Debra Mountjoy?”
“Actually, yes. Although her husband, the Colonel, made the donation in her name. She isn’t really able…well, never mind.”
“I saw Lady Debra earlier,” said Mette. “In her garden. She was in a bath chair, assisted by her companion and a large Samoan man. Is she not well?”
Masterson apparently did not notice that Mette knew the birthplace of the servant. “She’s been unwell for many years,” he said. “Since India. I believe she and her companion were at Cawnpore. She was carried out with a broken ankle, or so I heard, and the ankle has never properly healed. It’s taken a toll on her body. On her mind as well, unfortunately. And Cawnpore traumatized her, of course, as it did everyone who was there.”
“Her mind?” asked Mette. “Is she able to speak, or…” give orders, she thought.
Masterson shook his head. “Very little. They say she has the vocabulary of a child. The colonel has been very patient and loving…he could have sent her to an asylum, but has refused to do so. He’s a distant cousin, of course, so there’s some family feeling as well.”
Mette’s mind was starting to spin with all the information. India was the key to all this trouble that Frank was in. Had he done something to bring on Lady Debra’s condition? Did her pregnancy send her off the rails? Despite herself, she could not help thinking about Gottlieb, and what he had almost done to her. Surely Frank would not…but no. Impossible. She was sure she knew the answer now, and that wasn’t it. Not that it was an answer she was happy about, and she was not in a hurry to see Frank, knowing what she knew.
“What are you doing to the roses?” she asked, desperate to change the subject.
He held up his cricket bat. “Deadheading them,” he said. “Not much cause for that yet, but there are a few…” He put both hands on the cricket bat, eyed the Lady Debra carefully, and took a swing. A wilted head arced towards the grass.
“That’s an unusual way to deadhead,” said Mette. “I’ve never grown roses, but I do have a nice summer garden outside my book shop.”
“Would you like to give it a go?” he asked. “Frank can wait a few minutes…”
Mette took the bat and swung at another dead rose, but missed it by several inches and spun around, laughing.
He took the bat from her. “Not like that. Look,” he showed her his hands, which were clasped around the top of the bat. “See how I’m holding it? One hand slightly overlapping the other, the thumb like so…”
She took the bat again and placed her hands in the same position. “Like this?”
“Move your thumbs very slightly…yes, that’s the way. Now try again with that pink one. Keep your arms straight.”
She swung the bat back, in the way she had seen him do, then swiped at the rose he indicated. The bat connected with the rose, but also with the bough it hung from and showered them both in rose petals. “I’m so sorry…”
“Never mind,” he said. “Ah. Speak of the devil…”
Mette turned. Lady Debra’s companion and Pulau, her servant, still pushing Lady Debra in her bath chair, were entering the chapel through the vestibule door, which faced away from the street towards the school building. Mette could see now that Lady Debra was not fully in control of her senses. Her head was slumped forward, no longer erect as it had been in her own garden. She looked as if she was asleep. The companion, Elizabeth, reached down and wrenched her back into position as they passed into the vestibule, pushing her head roughly into place against the back of the bath chair.
Cricket bat in hand, Mette ran for the vestry door.
The scene before her in the chapel terrified her. Milo Mountjoy stood in front of Frank, enraged, striking at him, while Frank fended him off with his arm. Pulau and Lady Debra’s companion were immediately behind Frank, the companion clutching a purse like a weapon. Was she going to hit Frank with it? Did she have a gun in her purse?
“Frank, look out, they…” she said.
Pulau threw down his hat and put his arms around Frank, lifting him from the ground. The companion thrust Lady Debra’s bath chair to one side, causing Lady Debra to cry out; then she tore open her bag and pulled out an embroidered handkerchief and a small vial, which she emptied on the cloth. While Frank struggled in Pulau’s bear hug, the companion moved towards Frank with the cloth raised. She was going to chloroform him again!
Mette stood still for two seconds, then ran forward, the cricket bat raised over one shoulder, and took aim at Pulau’s head.
“I knew it was the companion.”
“Overlap your hands, overlap your hands,” yelled Masterson. “Careful now…”
Mette moved her thumbs slightly, balanced herself carefully, then swung as hard as she could, putting all her weight behind the move. She was going to save Frank, even though, in that moment, she would have liked to hit him on the head with the cricket bat instead of Pulau.
The bat connected with the side of Pulau’s head with a satisfying thwack, and she heard Masterson exclaim, “Well played,” as Pulau let go of Frank and slid to the ground in an awkward heap, taking Frank to the ground with him.
Masterson ran forward and jumped astride Pulau’s prone form. “I have him, I have him.” Together, he and Frank rolled Pulau on his front, and Masterson sat astride his back, close to the neck. When Pulau came to, he would find it difficult to remove the bulky reverend.
Frank rose groggily to his feet, staring at the companion, stunned. “Betty?”
She glared at Frank, still clutching the chloroform-soaked rag in her hand. “Yes Frank. Betty. And now you’ve ruined everything.”
Milo Mountjoy, who had been standing there swaying, watching the events uncomprehendingly, lunged at Frank. “You bastard. I’m going to kill you. You said you didn’t know Elizabeth, you said she wasn’t there, and now…”
Frank took a swipe at Mountjoy with his closed fist, but Mountjoy dodged out of his way, sneering. “I can outlast you,” he said. “I’m younger than you, and…”
He was stopped in mid-sentence by a punch from Frank that hit him full on his mouth; he fell back, holding his jaw, then spat out blood. “You broke my bloody tooth, you…”
Frank followed Mountjoy, fists up, ready to hit him again if he moved, but Betty threw herself between them. “Stop Frank, stop. Don’t hit him, don’t hit him. He’s our son Frank. He’s our son.”
Milo Mountjoy let out a howl. “Noooo.”
They stood as if in a tableau, like the one performed by partygoers at Christmas gatherings, of the Death of Admiral Nelson, no one knowing what to say. The impasse was broken when the chapel door opened and Captain Porter strode in, an Armed Constable on either side of him.
Mountjoy tottered to his feet, blood still streaming from his chin. “Thank God you’re here, Captain Porter,” he said. “Arrest that man.”
Captain Porter looked at him coolly. “I think not, Mr. Mountjoy. In fact, I think you and your father have some explaining to do. I’ve been talking to him for the last half hour and he’s admitted enough to have him sent home in disgrace.”
Lady Debra stirred in her bath chair. “Not mine…not mine…” she whispered.
Mette thought she saw a glimmer of something in Lady Debra’s eyes, a glimmer of knowledge and understanding.