CHAPTER 3

A TALE OF WOE

WE ARRIVED, PANTING, at our rooms on the third floor of Main House, without being seen or scolded for our dishevelment and dirt-smudged hands. Poor Hector was most dismayed at the ruffling of his hair and the grimy state of his sailor collar.

As neither Lucy nor I had a nursemaid in attendance, an under-parlormaid had been assigned to assist with our dressing and undressing. Hector was not considered old enough to have a valet, but he was well accustomed to looking after his own grooming. One luxury was that Stephen, the boot boy, would polish our shoes each night. We had only to leave them in the hallway outside our doors before going to bed, and they would appear as shiny as brand-new by morning.

“A veritable magic trick!” said Hector.

We were met by a thin girl with a turned-up nose and white-blonde hair. Pale eyelashes made her blue eyes look as round as buttons. Her name was Dot, she said. She was fourteen and had come into service last summer.

“My brother is one of the footmen,” she confided. “Lord Greyson’s been ever so good, hiring Frederick after his spot of trouble, and then me soon after. There’s four more littler than us at home, so we’re happy as anything, working here.”

What had Frederick been in trouble about, I wondered? It would be too rude to ask.

“What was Frederick’s spot of trouble?” said Lucy.

Dot flushed and told us. He’d fallen in with the wrong sort of lads and they’d nicked things from the village shops. But it was all behind him now, Dot swore. He was an excellent member of the household, Mr. Pressman had said only last week.

Lucy and I were to sleep together in the big nursery, and Hector was next door in a little room to himself.

“You won’t find it spooky?” Dot wondered. “Being up here all alone?”

“We love it!” Lucy flung wide her arms.

“Truly, Dot,” I said. “It’s like having our own domain!”

“Only until tomorrow,” said Dot. “When the actors come. They’ll be staying in the servants’ wing, across the landing, top floor of East House.”

“Actors?” I said.

“Yes, miss. That lady who come today with her foreign husband, it’s a troupe of actors she knows somehow.”

“Mrs. Sivam,” I said. “And Mr. Sivam.”

“Yes, miss.” Color warmed Dot’s cheeks. “So, young Lady Greyson—”

“My sister,” I said.

“Yes, miss.” Her cheeks got pinker. “We calls her the young Lady Greyson so she don’t get mixed up with the old one, his lordship’s mother. M’lady, your sister, hired them to come make tableaux, special for the holiday.”

Lucy clapped her hands and bobbed up and down on her toes. Part of me wanted to squeal like a child too, but most of me was grown-up enough to say, “Was this meant to be a surprise, Dot?”

“I s’pose it mighta been, miss. But I only told so’s you’d be ready for the invasion of your…domain, come morning. That’s how I started, right? Telling you there’d be more guests on this floor tomorrow.” Dot stepped into the corridor and pointed across the landing to another suite of rooms. “The two men actors will have what used to be the schoolroom when there were little’uns here, that’s what I was told. And there’s a…a lady actor too, though I don’t see as how she can be called a lady. She’ll be in the extra maid’s room down at the end,” said Dot. “But old Lady Greyson, she thinks—”

BONG!

The dinner bell! And we hadn’t begun to change our clothes!

“No!” cried Lucy. “We haven’t even washed! Grandmamma will be livid. Come on, Dot, lickety-split!” She turned around so that the maid could unhook the fastenings all down her back. My dress had front buttons, and my fingers flew. I could not shame Marjorie on our very first evening!

A quiet tap at the door. “I am ready,” said Hector.

“Well, we’re not!” I called. “Give us one minute!”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “One minute? Can you tidy those curls in one minute?”

I dipped a flannel into the basin and cleaned my face and hands. At least Dot had brought us warm water. The cloth came away grimed with tunnel dust. My new dress, made especially for this week, was an over-the-head sort, with only one button under the collar at the back. Lucy did up mine while Dot fussed with Lucy’s. I helped undo her plaits and we hurriedly brushed while counting to fifty.

“The other fifty strokes will have to wait until bedtime.” Lucy hurled her brush onto the bed.

“If our heads haven’t been chopped off by our grandmothers,” I said. “Making tidy hair unnecessary.”

“I believe,” Hector called through the door, “that promptness is required?”

“We’re coming!” growled Lucy.

Dot tied our hair with matching ribbons and pushed us through the door. Hector dashed down the stairs in front of us.

“I am always punctual!” he cried.

Not this time. We were the last to arrive, scurrying through the drawing room door like worried mice.

The room glittered, with candles and firelight and the twinkle of several chandeliers, as inviting a party as any could be. But all those critical eyes upon our tardy arrival, and all those frowning mouths! I wished for nothing more than a thick blanket to put over my head. But Lucy had clearly weathered this before. She went directly to her grandmother and curtsied, apologizing for all of us, claiming that we’d got turned about in the maze of corridors.

Marjorie’s exquisite appearance made her quite unfamiliar. Her dress was a midnight blue chiffon, with tiny silver beads sewn to look like flowers on the bodice. Her hair was swept elegantly up and held with a silver comb. And her cheeks were rouged! I had never seen her do that before. She seemed more like a duchess than my sister, tall and gracious, with a gleaming rope of pearls around her throat. James, handsome in his evening coat, had a hand beneath his wife’s elbow, gazing at her as if he couldn’t believe his good luck.

We were taken on a round of introductions, though we’d met nearly everyone already—or eavesdropped upon their confidential business!

Here was our first close-up look at Mr. and Mrs. Sivam. They had come to rest at Owl Park after a long sea voyage from Ceylon. Mrs. Sivam was slim and wore a coral dress with fluttering wisps of silk at the neckline and all down the sleeves. Rather like a ship at full sail. Her pale skin was faintly freckled, from sailing on the ocean for weeks and weeks, I supposed. Her pale hair coiled at the nape of her neck, showing off an elegant choker made of a million black seed pearls. She mixed us up, Lucy and me, and then apologized with giggles, for how could we be mistaken for each other?

Her husband was the first native Ceylonese I’d ever met, but spoke perfect English, as he had lived in London since finishing his time at Oxford with James. He had a shapely mustache but no side whiskers, making him more handsome to my eyes. He gravely shook our hands and then smiled so broadly that I said, “Pleased to meet you, sir,” before I’d even thought about being shy.

Next was Dr. Musselman, who was at least fifty years old but not yet bent or in need of a cane. The trim of his beard was a little lopsided and the hairs spilling from his ears quite impressive. He was tickled pink when Hector bowed. He bowed right back, chuckling, so Hector bowed again, as did the doctor. It might have gone on all evening, but Marjorie saw that James’s mother was waiting, and she moved us along.

The serving of the meal was both refined and laborious—far beyond any ritual we had at home. How had Marjorie learned such graceful manners? And such apparent ease with the fuss of servants and etiquette? Thank goodness I was not expected to say a word, for I could think of nothing to offer. Hector and I were thankfully at James’s end of the table. Lucy was beside her grandmother at the other end, chewing on her lip to avoid chattering. The Dowager Lady Greyson was a firm believer in children being permitted at table only on condition of silence. Seen but not heard. Danger lay in meeting Hector’s eye, in case we should guffaw. Yet I gleaned essential comfort from knowing he was there, directly across the table, sharing my suffering.

We made our way through prawns in savory jelly, fish consommé, pigeons in wine sauce, a red currant sorbet, lamb cutlets and roasted hare for the main course, cauliflower and broccoli, and finally dessert. We listened with polite respect to Dr. Musselman’s recollections of his time attending a viscount who was thrown from a horse, to old Lady Greyson’s series of complaints about various sauces, and to James’s effort to remember a story concerning a dog named Bouncer given as a gift to the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall on a visit to Newfoundland, near Canada.

Things looked up when Marjorie asked Mrs. Sivam to tell something of the sea voyage from Ceylon.

“Neither of us was seasick,” said Mrs. Sivam. “The sky and the waves seemed endless, but not in a worrying way.” She looked upward as if seeing the sky above her now. “There is nothing like it, is there, Lakshay?”

“The ocean is incomprehensible to those who have never been upon it,” agreed Mr. Sivam. “Truly a marvel.”

Old Lady Greyson cleared her throat as if to object, but Grannie Jane spoke quickly.

“Were you visiting family in Ceylon?” she said.

“It was to see my father on his deathbed that we went,” said Mr. Sivam.

A flutter of condolence went around the table. Marjorie’s eyes met mine in recognition of a shared sorrow.

“He asked especially that we come to Ceylon before he died,” said Mr. Sivam. “He charged me with a task that I now must perform, to right a grievous wrong.”

“Goodness,” said Grannie Jane. “The stuff of novels.”

Mr. Sivam’s smile flashed with mischief. “A Gothic novel, perhaps, Mrs. Morton. The tale contains treachery and fatal errors, as well as a curse. As the poet Lord Byron said, ‘Truth is always strange, stranger than fiction.’ ”

“Lakshay’s story might seem unbelievable to some,” said his wife, “but we heard it from a dying man’s lips.”

“My father bequeathed to me a treasure,” said Mr. Sivam. “It has lain for many years in a vault at Lloyds Bank in London, put there by my father to protect his family, when he could not imagine an alternate action. Although I knew of it before we traveled to Ceylon this time, it was not until my father’s final hours that I heard the entire tale.”

“So mysterious,” said Marjorie.

“Lakshay, darling,” said Mrs. Sivam. “Do tell them! Is anyone nervous of hearing a scary story?”

Lucy’s grandmother made a noise that sounded like a spitting rooster—if roosters spit—but James was quick to say, “That sounds intriguing, don’t you think, Mother? I know Lucy’s not afraid, are you, missy?”

“Not one bit,” said Lucy. “We’re not afraid of anything, are we, Grandmamma?”

Lady Greyson managed a brittle smile, and we turned to Mr. Sivam.

“The treasure we are harboring,” he said, “is an emerald.”

Hector and I looked at each other and waggled our eyebrows.

“A large emerald,” said Mrs. Sivam.

“A large and very old emerald,” said her husband, “that is reputed to carry a deadly curse. I will tell you as much as I know, but there are missing pieces and shadowy episodes that even my father did not know, except by hearsay.”

He sipped from his glass of glimmering dark red wine. A footman leaned forward to pour a refill, but was waved away. The footman must be Dot’s brother, Frederick, for he shared her white-blond hair and round blue eyes.

“I will mention some of the history so that you will understand the burden I have inherited. The jewel is first mentioned in the diary of a Danish explorer, a scholar of Hindi texts, who visited Ceylon late in the 1700s. He was most particularly interested in the—”

“Sweetheart!” said his wife, laughing a little. “We don’t need a history lesson! Just tell the parts that matter!”

“To me, the history is significant,” said Mr. Sivam. “It is the conflicts and sorrows of the past that tell us what matters in the present. Though I realize it is the rumor of a curse that will thrill my younger listeners.” He winked at Lucy.

“I apologize for rushing you,” said Mrs. Sivam.

“Where did the explorer see the jewel?” said Lucy. “Surely it wasn’t sitting on his breakfast tray.”

“Mr. Bjornssen visited an ancient temple,” said Mr. Sivam, “near a village that housed a monastery. There is a spring in the cloistered garden that is said to be the source of healing waters, and many statues overlook this place of sanctuary.”

“It sounds beautiful,” said Marjorie. “Have you been there?”

“Not yet,” said Mr. Sivam. “But I am returning to Ceylon early in the new year and will carry the gemstone back to the garden where it belongs…” He broke off to smile at his wife, whose hair shone gold in the candlelight. He lowered his voice to a ghostly whisper. “Now…I will tell the tale…but I begin with a warning that the jewel is stained with a century of misfortune for those who have sought to possess it. Misfortune…and bloodshed.”