ONCE MRS. EVANS HAD SATISFIED herself about the safety of her relations, and the countess had reconciled herself to the living state of the others, her ladyship suggested they partake of a little nuncheon. Not for the first time, Laura wondered how the countess kept her trim figure.
The barouche was moved to the side of the road, and a blanket spread upon a stretch of grass. The ladies sat on the blanket, well wrapped in coats and shawls, and passed the time in finishing off the contents of the picnic basket.
“I hope a certain gentleman did not see you run in so desperately,” said Elspeth.
“I rather think he did,” said Laura, her lips parting in a smile. She accepted a glass of wine, poured from the countess’s flask.
Elspeth brushed irritably at the fringes of her shawl. “Well … you are proved correct, Laura, and I hope you are satisfied.”
“I am truly vindicated, Elspeth. Pardon me if I display a little triumph, which I feel I deserve after the treatment to which I have been subjected these long weeks.”
“I never meant to wrong you, dearest. Everything I did was for love.” She nibbled on a piece of cake.
Love for whom? thought Laura. A memory returned of Elspeth as a little girl, throwing her arms around her sister’s neck and covering her face with wet kisses. She loved me then, Laura thought. Perhaps she loves me still, in some strangely limited manner of her own.
“Tell us what dreadful deed has been committed, Miss Morrison,” said Lady Clarydon.
“I await the result of the magistrate’s investigations to confirm my little theory.”
“Pray tell—we all long to know.” The countess gave the sulky Elspeth a little nudge. “Take heart, my dear. See how well it all ends.”
Elspeth forced a smile.
Laura thought for a moment, taking a sip of wine. “The seed was planted at Oakmont, when I was accused of madness in believing Mr. Templeton to be a real person. Despite all the evidence, it was only when odd things began to happen at Oakmont too that I wondered if I had taken leave of my senses.” She looked pointedly at Elspeth, who adopted an air of innocence.
“How terrible, dearest sister!” she said.
“It now seems that a criminal conspiracy led people to deny the truth. The ostler, Tom, the servant at the Charmouth Inn, the Whichales—all colluded either for reward or from fear. Mr. Whichale is at the centre of it all, I am sure.”
“But what is your theory, Miss Morrison?” said the countess. “End my misery!”
Laura bit on her cake and ate the piece thoughtfully, before saying, “It harks back to my meeting with Mr. Reece at the Assembly in Lyme. Gossip had it that he was a great favourite with his rich, dying uncle and was sure to inherit the estate.”
“Mr. Whichale!” said Mrs. Bell.
“Indeed, Mrs. Bell! You recall our meeting with Mr. Reece, Countess?”
“A pleasing young man!”
“Yes. I imagine his family sent him to Mr. Whichale in the hopes of advantage, for he is very amiable. When I encountered him again the other day, one of my first thoughts was that he did not inherit after all. I hadn’t even given him or his possible fortune a thought since I left Lyme.”
“You cannot mean a forged will also!” said the countess.
“Yes—or a new one suppressed. When I learned that Mr. Reece’s valuable commission in the Royal Artillery had been purchased by a fond uncle, I thought how well blessed he was with fond uncles.”
“You think his Uncle Whichale wished him out of the way?” said the countess.
“Yes, and perhaps he hoped to disarm suspicion with his generosity.”
“That makes good sense,” said Mrs. Bell.
“All fell into place when Mr. Templeton said he had witnessed a document for old Mr. Whichale.”
“It could have been any piece of business that he wished tied up at the end,” said Mrs. Bell.
“I could not help jumping to the conclusion that it was a will.”
“Men do sometimes worry about unfinished business matters on their deathbed,” pursued Mrs. Bell.
“Yes, indeed, they do. Yet the relations in most cases do not set a conspiracy in train.”
“How you terrify me!” said Elspeth.
Laura smiled at the way her sister’s terror took on an appearance of wide-eyed curiosity and excitement. She continued. “Imagine that on his deathbed the old man writes a new will, perhaps cutting out nephew Whichale altogether. The only witness is a man who is a stranger to the district. Mr. Whichale intends to destroy the new will but his plans are endangered when he discovers that someone else knows that Mr. Templeton came to his house the night his uncle died.”
“You!” said Mrs. Bell. “If he merely keeps you apart from Mr. Templeton, you may still tell others the truth. He must discredit you.”
“A dreadful theory! Yet it has a ring of truth!” said Elspeth.
“Mr. Whichale suspects that Mr. Templeton is in love with you,” said the countess. “He racks his brain for a way to keep you apart, with no communication ever again.”
“The letter!” A cry of agony interrupted them and the ladies all turned to Elspeth. “Laura!” she said. “You thought that I wrote the letter. How could you?”
Laura looked at her coolly. “We had no notion of a forged letter until the other day. However, I confess that your secret letter-writing made me wonder if you had also written to Mr. Templeton in order to put him off.”
“I would never drive off an eligible suitor, Laura.”
“I thank you for that kindness,” said Laura, too happy to be cross any longer.
She caught sight of a rider approaching from the direction the carriage had taken. As he drew near, she saw the horseman to be the constable. He slowed to turn in at the gate. “He has lost them,” she said.
In a moment or two, the constable appeared again, riding this time in the direction of the main road.
Mr. Templeton emerged from the gate and strode up to the carriage, before realising it was empty. The ladies observed him from the grassy verge. The countess giggled, as did Elspeth. Laura held her breath so as not to laugh. He turned and discovered them.
“Countess, ladies, we are almost done here.”
“Was anyone shot, sir?” asked the countess.
“The shot was a signal pre-arranged by Mr. Whichale, to tell his wife to flee without him. He became fearful of discovery when the captain and Sir Richard came enquiring after me, and set up his plan then. When he heard that both Miss Morrison and I were returned to Lyme, he was ready.” He looked quickly, with warm intensity, at Laura.
“Yet still he did not give up his ill-gotten gains,” said Laura.
“You have solved the puzzle, then?”
“Yes,” she said. “He destroyed a will that cut him out?”
“I believe he planned to fortuitously find the new will, but only if all hope of keeping the estate was gone. He left it too late.”
“The document you witnessed left all to Mr. Reece?” said Laura.
“The bulk of the fortune, yes. The constable has gone to Axminster to bring a conveyance and guards to take the criminal to prison.”
“May God forgive him,” said Mrs. Bell.
“Will he hang, sir?” said Elspeth.
“Were he not a ‘gentleman’, if one may so call him, then he would almost certainly face death. Clemency is rarely extended in cases for involving forgery, I believe. Much depends upon young Reece’s testimony. Mr. Grahame says the best Whichale can hope for is transportation to Botany Bay.”
“The Antipodes!” cried Elspeth. “The society there would not be to my taste.”
“Did he comprehend the risks before setting out to cheat his young relation of his rightful fortune?” asked Mrs. Bell.
“Greed overrode caution and every Christian principle. Yet Mr. Whichale seems convinced of his own moral right to the property. We heard him rail about young Reece’s cunning and avarice!”
“He attributes his own evil tendencies to his relation,” said Elspeth, with a saintly sigh.
Mr. Templeton agreed; then caught a glimpse of laughter in Laura’s eyes. In a second an image flashed into his mind of all the coming pleasure, the joy of learning to know her. He put the feeling aside, as he must, and turned to the countess.
“Would you be happy to return to Lyme, your ladyship?”
“Only if you promise me that I do not miss any more thrilling dramas,” said Lady Clarydon.
“The magistrate wishes only to finish writing an account of the events, after which we will depart.”
“I am quite done in,” said the countess. “The solving of mysteries is so very tiring.”
At last they all reassembled in their dining parlour in the Three Cups. Rested after the ardours of the day, the countess presided happily over an excellent dinner.
“I was very nearly right,” Laura said. “Mr. Whichale did rely upon his own household to provide the forger.”
“You ought not to take pride in deciphering the mind of a criminal!” said Elspeth.
“I should have delighted to have been his nemesis, after the devastation he wreaked upon my life,” Laura said.
“You were very clever, Laura,” said Sir Richard. “You did not wish to take the women in charge?”
“A citizen’s arrest? I had not the heart for it,” said Laura. “Mrs. Whichale is punished enough, as it is. She keenly felt her husband’s disgrace.”
“You are so kind-hearted, Laura,” said Elspeth.
“I believe I am.”
“What awaits the maid Perkins, if she is captured, Captain?” asked the countess.
“Whichale says he forced her to write the letter under threat of violence. However, he is confident he has the women well hidden. It may be that already they are on board some ship heading beyond the reach of the law.”
“He has a certain honour, then.”
“He protects his own family and servants, even though it may endanger his own life. He similarly exonerates his butler; it seems he told Moreley that his sick wife would die in the gutter if he did not keep silent.”
The countess turned to Mr. Templeton. “Would you say Mr. Whichale has some elements of goodness?” she said.
“I believe that all but the most hardened criminals have not closed their ears to their conscience altogether,” he said. “He saw the new will as the theft of his rights by young Reece. So I imagine he embarked upon his career of deception on an impulse when enraged.”
“He is certainly a man easily fired up,” said Sir Richard. “He saw no way out once he had begun.”
“He did not pretend to discover the new will?” asked Mrs. Bell.
“It seems that he did not destroy it thinking that he could fall back upon ignorance—after all, he was not in the room when it was signed.”
“But a taste of his ill-gotten gains and he could not give them up,” said Elspeth, with a dramatic toss of her head. There was a brief silence.
“Laura, I was startled out of my wits when you said that Mrs. Whichale had written the letter,” Sir Richard said. “What made you think so?”
“You did, Richard,” she said, enjoying his surprise. “You are always so careful of others’ feelings and took note of the lady’s fear. Yet Mr. Templeton portrayed Mrs. Whichale as serene before the strange events began to unfold.”
“I see your meaning,” said the countess. “Mrs. Whichale was perfectly tranquil before she knew of her husband’s wicked plans.”
“Her conscience made her fearful only when my brother and cousin arrived to investigate.”
The countess looked sidelong at the baronet, an arch smile lurking about her mouth. “Let us not forget that Sir Richard commonly reduces ladies to a state of trembles.”
“How often have I wished it was so!” said Sir Richard, laughing so happily at the joke, although it was at his expense, that everyone joined in. As the chuckles died down, all were startled by an attack of giggles from none other than Mrs. Bell. They turned to her, surprise writ large on every face. Laura saw the embarrassment in Mrs. Bell’s eyes, her horror at drawing attention to herself in this unseemly way. It was clear that she tried to stop her laughter and failed.
“Pray excuse me,” she said, rising.
With her handkerchief to her face, she ran out of the room. Every face turned to the baronet, who sat humming dreamily to himself until he perceived their interest and blushed.
“What an extraordinary exhibition!” said Elspeth.
Laura felt she understood. Had Mrs. Bell’s feelings, suppressed in meekness all these years, welled up at last? It charmed Laura that they should do so in an unstoppable fountain of hilarity.
She quickly filled the silence. “It now seems impossible that I believed myself deluded about Mr. Templeton’s very existence.”
“Until you heard of the mysterious letter,” said Mr. Templeton.
“My encounter with that girl was merest chance, yet it turned all my thinking around.”
“We would still have been re-united, without that chance meeting,” said Mr. Templeton. “From the moment I realised that the man on the cliff was your brother, I questioned everything. I hurried to Lyme to search for proof that the letter was not in your hand.”
“How rapidly you then tracked me down!” said Laura.
“I had determined to find you, if I had to comb the kingdom. To see you appear in front of me, two minutes later, took my breath clean away.”
Laura was caught by a sense of emotion so keenly pitched that she was all but overwhelmed. Again there was an instant’s silence in the room, broken by the footman, who opened the door to announce a visitor.
“Mrs. Morrison.”
Evalina appeared in the doorway, her fresh comeliness seemingly untouched by the fatigue of travel. There was a scrape of chairs as the gentlemen rose. Evalina had removed her bonnet, and her lacy cap sat among her black curls. The footman helped her to remove her travelling coat. Its practical brown wool peeled off and she emerged from its husk, all white muslin and lace. The warmth of the room had sent a flush to her cheeks.
“My dear Evalina, why did you not write? I would have come to escort you,” said Edward, going to her. He raised her hand to his lips.
“And miss your surprise?”
The countess gave the girl an approving look. Her own peerless beauty was unchallenged as ever but the girl’s looks delighted her: marriage, and the knowledge that went with it, had enhanced her attractions.
Laura watched her brother and his wife together, and saw at last how perfect Evalina was for him. Without knowing the cause, she saw that there was some subtle beginning of maturity in Evalina’s feelings for Edward. That degree of imbalance in their abilities would never have suited Laura, but she understood that another kind of union could benefit Edward in ways she herself could not imagine. She saw that, already, her brother’s wife began to know him in ways a sister or friend could not.