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The next few days were filled with relative calm. With the skies continuing to weep upon the soggy roads of Charlottetown, there was less to do but stay around the house. Ethel used most of the time to get Ernest’s things in order, but when she craved a break from reality, she’d tuck herself away, up on the third floor with Little Women, and read. The space up there was best at dusk, when the sky blushed red as the moon whispered to it sweet nothings. Oddly enough, it was there she had the fiercest dreams. Dozing on the chaise lounge, exhausted by the day’s visits with sympathetic well-wishers and neighbours. Ethel often dreamt of colliding ships, seabed graveyards, and mounds of mud floating with caskets.
Beulah always found her after a while, and arm in arm they’d walk to the second floor until Ethel was abed. It was a great relief to be found and escorted by Beulah. Ethel couldn’t imagine waking in the night alone, thinking of burglars and the like while anxiously analysing every little sound she heard as she made her way to her room. But despite the threat of waking alone in the dark, Ethel always found herself back here, watching over the water and reading.
The police, after extensive examination of the body, had returned Ernest’s remains to the family. Funeral arrangements needed to be made, and Ethel thought, with some manner of grim amusement, that it was all to be made much easier since she’d been through the same with Roland.
For some matters, she wished Dolly had been there to consult. Small things, like choosing the colour of the flowers for the funeral parlour, or which suit would most favour Ernie’s form, were delicate things only his wife would know best. On the other hand, however, Ethel was glad to make the hard choices. Which casket was most preferred? Who should lead the sermon? Where should people be received? Useless questions that were entirely necessary, but also miserable and heart wrenching.
“According to his will, he wants to be buried in Summerside.”
“Summerside?” Ethel replied, looking over the desk of papers to where Beulah sat on the other side. “Not in Charlottetown? Where his widow and his businesses are?” Could they take his body back and leave Dolly to mourn without a grave?
Ethel squirmed and bit at her lip. “We need to wait until Dolly has returned before having the funeral, anyway. In the meantime, we can plan for the body to come home to Greens Shore and for there to be a separate ceremony in Charlottetown so people may pay their respects. We should also make sure there is a memorial stone...”
“I’ll make a note to inform the mortician.”
Beulah nodded and scribbled something on a sheet of paper, before resuming her pile of documents to file. Everywhere smelled of ink and paper, but the scent was becoming tiresome. Both her and Beulah had been working like toy soldiers, mindlessly marching ahead to complete tasks and obligations. Being together made it all easier, but the amount of energy it drew each day gave cause for sleepless nights.
Ethel was constantly hearing sounds. Thumps from the third floor, scratches from the kitchens. Sometimes she’d hear footsteps in the hall while in bed. During the day she also noticed things had gone missing. Liquor, bread, meat from the pantry. Things would be moved all over the house. Cabinets left open, a picture askew, but she thought perhaps Al or Adella were likely the culprits. It was hard to know what liberties Ernest and Dolly had allowed their staff, so Ethel just made note of it, if for nothing else than to help chronicle the days at Eden Hall.
The mud wasn’t a creature of mercy. The roads were sopping wet swamps one day, and hungry bogs the next. Winds that hardly blew across a picket fence could topple it if they’d not been buried deep enough, and even the planks of the sidewalks had sunk along the building’s hem.
Ethel worried over Dolly and prayed that the poor girl didn’t think she had abandoned her. There was so much Ethel wanted to ask her about. So much more she wanted to know.
Constable Bertram came around a few times, often just to check on her, but a few days after their initial meeting, he’d arrived to tell her that the brooch had gone missing. “Dolly said the brooch was lost.”
“Lost? When?” Ethel asked, her tea ignored as they sat in Ernest’s now-tidied den.
“Sometime after you’d arrived at Eden Hall.” Andrew Bertram seemed lost in the scent of the perking tea for a moment. With his eyes closed, he took a sip before setting it down on the saucer in his palm. “She wasn’t sure how or where she’d lost it, but I figure it could have been stolen. If so, someone could have pawned it off for cash. The store you mentioned—” he said when he failed to recall its name.
“E.W. Taylor’s?”
“Yes. The owner there confirmed it had been pawned a few days prior.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a velvet box trimmed in gold embroidery. Ethel’s eyes glazed over when he opened it to reveal the silver and garnet brooch Dolly had worn the first night Ethel had arrived at Eden Hall.
How could she have lost it? Ethel wondered, taking the box and smiling into the light that shined from its garnet clusters. Dolly hadn’t worn it to dinner that night, at the Windmill. And every day after, she had stayed at home sick.
“Did he recall who pawned it?” Ethel asked, her fingers twitching as her hands rung together.
Bertram shook his head and pinched at his top lip in an anxious apology. “He couldn’t recall finding him familiar.”
“He could have been a sailor,” she said.
“If so, the sailors have all gone, Miss Ethel. The last few ships left for Boston the very day your brother was found. If a burglar came into Eden Hall, twice, and killed Ernest, it’s likely they’ve already left via boat.”
The best-case scenario was that the killer got away...
Ethel hung her head and peered across the polished tabletop. She tapped at the saucer with her fingers, chewed at her inner cheek, all signs to just stop thinking and carry onward. But how well did she know everyone at Eden Hall? How much did she know Al, or Adella, or even Dolly?
She didn’t, really. But I do know Ernie... and Ernie was always a good judge of character.
“I have to tell you, Miss Ethel, that I do have one theory, and as of late, it is becoming more and more plausible.”
She picked her head up.
“Do you think it could be possible that Dolly had a lover?” He took another drink of tea, and across the room, the mantlepiece gonged at six o’clock. It startled her, the sound, the implication, the talk of adultery... and as he held her eyes ransom, Ethel inhaled and looked away.
Her first inclination had been to say no. But then, Dolly was so sweet... Ethel wondered if someone could have taken advantage of her?
“I don’t know,” she replied, realising too late how that sounded. “I mean!—I don’t think so... I-I won’t admit to knowing Dolly very well, but do I know that there was love between her and my brother.”
The constable nodded and glanced towards the office door. “I understand, and I hope I’ve not offended you, Miss Arsenault.”
She frowned but shook her head. “No. Of course not. I—I understand, but—”
“There was no evidence of anyone entering or leaving the house. If it was a lover...”
Something seemed to light in his eyes, and for a brief moment, he looked like a starved man who’d felt a nibble at the end of his fishing line. So eager was his gaze, that Ethel was prompted to follow it to the door and out towards the foyer.
“Is something the matter, Mr. Bertram?” she asked, panic welling in her chest at the alarm within his eyes.
He snapped straight, like a lad who’d been struck with a paddle. “I’m sorry, Miss Ethel, I—I thought I saw something in the corner of my eye.”
Her mind was a moth, charred in the fire. “What do you mean? No one is here.”
He looked abashed and lost for words. Leaning forward to surrender his cup, he peered at her, about to change the subject, she thought. “Miss Ethel, do you think I could call on you tomorrow?”
“Why?” What had he seen? What had happened in the space of a single second? Ethel paused, her eyes stinging from the avid stare she was levelling upon the constable.
He was gazing at a halo that hovered on the top of Ernest’s desk. The moon behind her, shining through the office window, struck his face and made him pale. “Well... It’s already late. I’m certain a lady of your calibre must go to bed early and sleep in until noon.”
She was struck off guard and sent reeling. Ethel could only blink back as he stood up and grabbed his coat to leave. “W-what?” she asked, not sure if she ought to be offended. She scrambled to follow him, almost tripping over the tabletop in an effort to get around it fast enough.
“Tomorrow, there is an early supper at my church. It’s not far from here, and there are to be a great number of individuals who were acquainted with Ernest. I know rumours like to run amok, and thought perhaps if you were to accompany me, they may see you and be...” he was grasping the den’s door handle but paused as though to toss the words around like candy in his mouth, “rest assured that the members of Eden Hall are coping well.”
Coping? Is that what she was doing? She must have been. What else was there to do? But coping well? If Ethel went with him, then Charlottetown would see Ernie’s sister. Perhaps those ill at ease with Dolly’s innocence could hear Ethel’s confidence in her and be assured of her guiltlessness.
“All right, Mr. Bertram,” she said as he was stepping out the door. Her reply gave him pause, and he stopped upon the threshold.
“The members of Eden Hall are coping well, right, Miss Ethel?”
She looked up at his inquiry, startled by his concern. As her shock evaporated into something comforting and warm, Ethel smiled down at the heavy planks of the rain drenched porch. “It’s hard to tell, but I think so. Thank you, Mr. Bertram, for your concern.”
He nodded and tipped his chin to keep his lips concealed beneath his moustache. “Then go and get your beauty sleep, Miss Ethel,” he said, moving down the stairs towards the path. The lamplighters were late, postponed by the constant rain, and so as he went, she saw the darkness of the lawn, crowned in the lace of roiling ocean waves. For a moment, Ethel’s vision blurred, and looking out the door, all there was before her was the black belly of the sea, swallowing a man.
Her mouth was open to call out to him, but the flash of panic ebbed, and though images of Roland fluttered in her mind, they tumbled like photos to settle in the album of her heart.
“That I may dazzle the natives, to-morrow...” Ethel whispered, shutting the door to lean against it.
What did you see, Mr. Bertram? She looked at her hands. They were shaking, and for the first time, Ethel noticed how thin and knobby they’d gotten. She hugged herself as the air grew cold, and a shiver ran up her spine.
Did Dolly have a lover? How possibly could she? Ernest was gone so much... Did she get lonely?
Ethel had come here at Ernest’s request for that very reason. Had she arrived too late?
Who’s to blame? What if it really was a burglar, and we’ll never know why or how they did it?
Could she accept the best-case scenario?
“Are you coming upstairs, Miss Ethel? I thought we’d wash your hair tonight,” Beulah called from upstairs, and the sound was like a bell tolling
The grandfather clock rang nine from the second floor. It was a few seconds off from the gong of the mantlepiece.
“Yes. Thank you, and if you’d like, perhaps we could share a glass or two of gin?”
Beulah made a face but smiled to show her support “If you think you need it, Miss Ethel. We can make a toast to Ernest... But make sure to mix mine with lots of lime. Never knew how Ernie did it, drinking it neat like he did.”
Ethel chuckled. Glad for Beulah’s presence. Glad not to be lonely as she wandered up to bed for the night.
