The Intrigue At Highbury Part 28

Miss Bates reached for the pot. "What about you, Mrs. Knightley? Would you care for tea?"

"I think it has gone cold," Miss Jones said. She moved the pot to the other side of the table and reached for one of the teacups. "Let us read your fortune, Miss Bates, before your impression fades from the leaves. Afterwards, we can make a fresh pot if anybody cares for a cup. Where is your maid? The remaining tea from this pot should be dumped so that nothing interferes with the signs."

Elizabeth did not recall such interference having been a concern when Miss Jones told her fortune at the Crown; the would-be drabarni had embellished her patter with experience. Considering how unpracticed Loretta's "dukkering" had been when she arrived in the village, Elizabeth could only imagine how she must have sounded while affecting to read Edgar Churchill's leaves at the gypsy camp. The fortune that poor Nellie heard this morning had likely been far more intriguing and smoothly delivered than Edgar's, at a fraction of the price. She wondered how much Miss Bates was being charged for this performance.

"Oh! Well! We certainly do not want anything to fade or interfere. Patty, come take away this pot for us.-She will be but a moment, I am sure. Can we begin? What must I do?"

"Simply take a seat and keep still, so I may concentrate."

"Ah, I can do that." She sat down at the table, across from Miss Jones. "Right here-as I was before?"

"Yes, just so. Now, tell me the question you held in your mind as you drank the tea."

Miss Bates closed her eyes and rested one hand on the table. "When will poor Mr. Deal return to his friends in Highbury?"

Thirty-six.

"Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief."

-Mr. Knightley, Emma You may open your eyes, Miss Bates. Let us see what the leaves say." Miss Jones rotated the teacup. "Look-there is a D-and a trail of leaves-that means a journey." She looked up at her client. "I said you may open your eyes, Miss Bates."

The spinster blinked several times and brought her other hand to her head. "Forgive me-I feel a bit dizzy. It must be the excitement. Though it is exceedingly warm in here."

Elizabeth and Mrs. Knightley exchanged glances and went to her directly. Mrs. Knightley put a hand to the spinster's forehead. "She does feel quite warm."

"Maybe someone should open a window," Miss Jones suggested.

While Mrs. Knightley attended Miss Bates, Elizabeth approached not the window, but the teapot. Perhaps she could determine by smell whether the tea had been adulterated. Before she could reach it, however, Miss Jones seized the pot.

"Good idea," said Miss Jones. "We should get these things out of the way." She picked up Miss Bates's teacup with her other hand.

Elizabeth reached again toward the pot. "I was not-"

Miss Jones rose and spun away from her chair to take the tea things into the next room.

A folded sheet of paper fell from her skirts.

They both watched it slide to the floor. And then both scrambled to retrieve it. Though Miss Jones was closer, her hands were full, and Elizabeth s.n.a.t.c.hed it up first.

It was Mr. Deal's note. He thanked Miss Bates for the tea he had enjoyed with the ladies on Sunday, and in return humbly offered a special China black he reserved for his best customers. He further urged her to try it before he next saw her, so that she might tell him whether she liked it.

Miss Jones disciplined her anxious expression into one of false brightness. "Look at that! It must have fallen aside after Miss Bates showed it to me. Thank heaven we found it.-Good news, Miss Bates-Mrs. Darcy has found your letter."

Miss Bates blinked. "The letter from Mr. Deal?" She rubbed her eyes and blinked again. "I am having trouble seeing it. Patty," she called out, "can you bring my spectacles? Everything is a blur."

Elizabeth fixed Miss Jones with her own gaze. She could see quite clearly.

Miss Jones had taken the letter. Just as she had seized the teapot. Or-more to the point-seized the tea inside it. The tea that had arrived with the letter. The tea that she did not want anybody else examining too closely.

Elizabeth no longer needed to whiff the tea to guess whether it had been poisoned. Or to guess how Edgar Churchill and Nellie had been poisoned. Like Miss Bates, both of them had drunk tea with Miss Jones shortly before falling ill. Elizabeth could not account for Frank Churchill's poisoning-yet-but the other three could not be coincidence.

Much as Elizabeth doubted, it remained possible that someone else had poisoned the tea-Mr. Deal or Rawnie Zsofia-but it was beyond doubt that Miss Jones had knowingly administered it. Clever lying girl.

Elizabeth looked again at the note. She would have to study it more thoroughly later, but the handwriting bore similarities to that of the anagram she and Mrs. Knightley had solved.

The maid entered with the spectacles. "I am sorry to be so long. I could not immediately find them."

Miss Jones thrust the teapot and cup toward the maid. "Patty, kindly take these and wash them. We will not need them any more tonight."

"No, Patty-do not wash them." Elizabeth looked at Miss Jones. "Mr. Knightley will want them."

Loretta's gaze darted from Elizabeth to the door and back. Then she let go of the china and sent it smas.h.i.+ng to the hard oak floor.

As Darcy reached the top of the stairs, a loud crash within the apartment propelled him through the door without pausing to knock. He knew Elizabeth was inside-Hartfield's coachman, waiting in his own vehicle in front of the house, had told Mr. Knightley that their wives were on a social call. As social calls did not generally involve shattered porcelain, Mr. Knightley and Mr. Deal followed hard upon.

The spectacle that greeted them required a few moments to absorb. Elizabeth stood near Miss Jones and a maid, shards of china and clumps of brown matter scattered at their feet, dark liquid spattered on their hems and spreading across the wood floor to soak into the worn Oriental rug on the other side of the room. Mrs. Knightley and Miss Bates were nearby; Miss Bates was seated at a table, gripping it with one hand as she peered toward the sodden mess on the floor. A bewildered Mrs. Bates looked as if she had just risen from her chair beside the fire. The crash was probably the first sound she had heard in a decade.

Whether all were startled more by the crash or by the abrupt entrance of the gentlemen, Darcy could not tell. He crossed to Elizabeth and satisfied himself that she appeared unharmed.

Miss Bates, however, looked ill.

"We need Mr. Perry at once," Elizabeth said. "I believe Miss Bates has been poisoned-by the tea Mr. Deal enclosed with his letter."

Mr. Knightley was halfway to the stairs in an instant. "I will send James for Perry."

"Mr. Deal did not write the letter," Darcy told Elizabeth. "We are unsure who did."

At that news, Elizabeth looked hard at Miss Jones. "Perhaps the person who served the tea."

"What is happening? Oh! What is happening? Mrs. Darcy, what did you say about poison?" Miss Bates squinted toward the door. "What was that crash? Who is here?" She tried to rise but sank back into the chair and brought her hands to her temples. "Oh, my head! It spins. . . ."

Mr. Deal regarded Miss Bates in consternation. Then turned a disbelieving gaze upon Miss Jones.

"You?" His face held shock, betrayal, bewilderment.

Miss Jones stared at him dumbly.

"What have you done, Loretta?"

"I-" She swallowed and looked down at the shattered teapot. "I accidentally dropped-"

"What have you done?" He crossed to Miss Bates and gently lifted her chin so that he could examine her eyes. The pupils were so wide that Darcy could see them from where he stood.

"Mr. Deal?" Miss Bates squinted at him. "You are out of gaol! Oh, I am glad. But I feel so poorly-"

Mr. Deal strode towards Miss Jones. He scooped up a wad of wet leaves from the floor and thrust them towards her. "You put belladonna leaves in the tea?"

"And some of the root."

Her unapologetic admission shocked him as much as the act. "Did you poison my father, too? And Frank?"

"And that little scullery wench at Randalls."

"Oh, it is so warm in here," Miss Bates moaned. "And my head . . ."

With a look of anguish, Mr. Deal threw the clump of leaves at Loretta's feet. "Patty, fetch mustard powder and a tumbler of warm water as quick as you can."

Darcy wondered whether they ought to wait until Mr. Perry arrived rather than trust Mr. Deal to properly treat Miss Bates. But Mr. Deal seemed to know what he was about-Mr. Perry had treated Frank Churchill with mustard-and time was of the essence.

Patty brought the mustard and tumbler, along with a towel for Mr. Deal. As the peddler wiped the tea from his hand, Mr. Knightley returned.

"What is transpiring?" he asked Darcy.

"Miss Jones has admitted to poisoning all four victims-with belladonna, just as Mr. Perry thought. Mr. Deal had no idea. I believe he now intends to administer an emetic to Miss Bates."

"If one of you ladies would mix a spoonful of the powder with the water?" Mr. Deal asked. As Elizabeth took the jar from the maid and began to prepare the mixture, he glanced to Mr. Knightley. "Sir, Miss Bates might be more comfortable in the privacy of her bedchamber when the mustard-water takes effect. Will you help me move her?"

Mr. Knightley met Darcy's gaze, then looked pointedly at Miss Jones.

Darcy nodded.

Mr. Deal and Mr. Knightley a.s.sisted Miss Bates into the bedroom. The magnitude of her distress was evidenced by the dearth of her discourse. She went in comparative silence, issuing only occasional murmurs. Elizabeth followed them with the mustard-water, while the maid set about cleaning up the mess of tea and broken china.

Old Mrs. Bates, upset and confused, called out for her daughter. Mrs. Knightley went to her. She tried to explain what was occurring-which, indeed, they all were still trying to figure out-but as it seemed inappropriate to shout the details of Miss Bates's distress at the volume required for the elderly lady to comprehend them, Mrs. Knightley soon gave up. She instead settled Mrs. Bates into her chair, brought over one for herself, and sat beside her, holding her hand and soothing her as best she could.

Miss Jones, meanwhile, attempted to take advantage of everybody's divided notice to make an escape. Darcy put a swift end to that notion. She had moved a single step toward the door when he swung it shut and interposed himself.

He had but one question for her.

"Why?"

She laughed derisively and said nothing, turning her head away. But her insolent expression transformed to pained when she caught sight, through the bedroom doorway, of Mr. Deal dabbing Miss Bates's flushed face with a damp cloth.

Her countenance hardened. "He does not love her, you know. He cannot love her."

"Why not?"

"Because he loves me." There was an odd light in her eyes. "Or he will-once I explain it all to him."

Darcy could not fathom an explanation that would excuse her crimes, let alone win a man's affection. She would be lucky to escape hanging.

Mr. Perry arrived and went immediately to his patient. With Miss Bates now in the apothecary's care, Mr. Knightley, Elizabeth, and Mr. Deal came out of the bedroom and closed the door behind them.

"Mr. Perry praised Mr. Deal for acting so quickly," Mr. Knightley said. "Once she voids her stomach, she should be out of danger."

Mr. Deal's anxious gaze lingered on the bedroom door.

"Hiram?"

The peddler flinched at the sound of Miss Jones's voice.

"Hiram, when you understand why I-"

He whirled to face her. "Understand? What is there to understand, Loretta? What could possibly justify what you have done?"

"I did it for you."

"You poisoned Miss Bates-a gentle soul who could not harm a mouse-for me?" He looked as if he, too, were about to become ill.

"She cannot make you happy, Hiram. She is like that little s.l.u.t Nellie and all the other women."

"What women?"

"Every village, every borough we pa.s.sed through-all of them throwing themselves at you. But none of them know you as I do. At the end of the day you are still nothing but a peddler to them. Whereas I-I would follow you anywhere! I told you so-I offered you a woman's heart and a woman's body." Her voice grew hoa.r.s.e. "But I was just a child in your eyes. You told me to go home, back to my parents."

"And you should have listened! But instead-instead of returning to your father, you murdered mine? Did you do that for me, too?"

"Edgar Churchill was never a father to you, any more than his wife was a mother."

A fresh expression of horror overtook his features. "Did you kill her, as well?"

She laughed. "I wish I could take credit. That hateful old lady deserved to die-when I overheard you tell Madam Zsofia what she had said to you, I was only sorry that G.o.d took her before I thought of it. But her death made me realize that all of the Churchills needed to be punished-and I knew that if I could be the one to bring them to justice, to make them pay for what they had done to you, to vindicate you-then-then you would see that I am not a child."

"What did Edgar and Frank Churchill do to me that merited poisoning them?"

"All of the Churchills treated you cruelly! While your parents lived in their fancy houses and wore fine clothes, while your cousin usurped your birthright, you lived amongst gypsy thieves."

He shook his head in disgust. "I have never regretted my life with the Roma."

Miss Jones's last statement brought to Darcy's mind the puzzle they had received. "Was it you who left the anagram? 'He dwelled amongst thieves'-"

" '-as they lived large in Richmond'?" Her mouth twisted into a self-satisfied smile. "I most certainly did. I could not be silent. Everyone mistook the Churchills for victims. Their hypocrisy needed to be known."

"But why did you implicate yourself and Mr. Deal with the second solution-the one about hidden motives?" Mrs. Knightley asked.