A Red Herring Without Mustard

Although Father had spoken several times of his financial troubles, they had never seemed threatening: no more than a distant shadow, really, like war—or death. You knew it was there but you didn’t spend all day fretting about it.

But now, with the Mumpeters nailed up inside a crate, ready to be taken to the train for London and pawed over by strangers at the auction rooms, the reality of Father’s predicament had hit home with the force of a typhoon.

And Father—the dear man—was trying to shield us from the reality by making bright table chatter.

I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, but I dared not give in to them. It was fortunate that Daffy, who sat across from me, did not even once look up from her book.

To my left, at the far end of the table, Feely sat staring down into her lap, her face pale, her colorless lips pressed together into a tight, thin line. The dark circles under her eyes were like bruises, and her hair was lank and lifeless.

The only word to describe her was “blighted.”

My chemical wizardry had worked!

The proof of it was the fact that Feely was wearing her spectacles, which told me, without a doubt, that she had spent the day staring in horror at the spirit message that had materialized upon her looking glass.

In spite of her occasional cruelty—or perhaps because of it—Feely was a pious sort, whose time was devoted to making bargains with this saint or that about the clarity of her complexion, or the way in which a random beam of sunlight would strike her golden hair as she knelt at the altar for communion.

Where I generally believed in chemistry and the happy dance of the atom, Feely believed in the supernatural, and it was that belief I had taken advantage of.

But what had I done? I hadn’t counted on such utter devastation.

Part of my brain was telling me to leap up and run to her—to throw my arms around her neck and tell her that it was only French chalk—and not God—that had caused her misery. And then we would laugh together as we used to in the olden days.

But I couldn’t: If I did, I should have to confess to my prank in front of Father, and I wanted to spare him any further grief.

Besides, Feely would more than likely stab me to death with whatever came to hand, snow white tablecloth or not.

Which made me think of Brookie Harewood. How odd! There hadn’t been a word at the dinner table about murder. Or was it now murders, plural?

It was then, I think, that I noticed the cutlery. Instead of our usual silver utensils, I realized that each of our places had been set with the yellow-handled knives and forks that were kept in the kitchen for the use of the servants.

I could contain it no longer. I scraped my chair back from the table, mumbled something about being excused, and fled. By the time I reached the foyer, my tears were splashing about me like rain on the black-and-white checkerboard of the tiles.

I threw myself onto the bed and buried my face in the pillow.

How could revenge hurt so keenly? It didn’t make any sense. It simply didn’t. Revenge was supposed to be sweet—and so was victory!

As I lay there, flattened by misery, I heard the unmistakeable sound of Father’s leather-soled shoes outside in the hall.

I could hardly believe my ears. Father in the east wing? This was the first time since I had moved into it that he had set foot in this part of the house.

Father came slowly into the room, shuffling a little, and I heard him pause. A moment later I felt the bed sink a little as he sat down beside me.

I kept my face pressed tightly into the pillow.

After what seemed like a very long time, I felt his hand gently touching my head—but only for a moment.

He did not stroke my hair, nor did he speak, and I was glad he didn’t. His silence spared both of us the embarrassment of not knowing what to say.

And then he was gone, as quietly as he had come.

And I slept.

In the morning, the world seemed a different place.

I whistled in my bath. I even remembered to scrub my elbows.

It had come to me in the night, as if in a dream, that I must apologize to Feely. It was as simple as that.

In the first place, it would disarm her. In the second place, it would impress Father, if Feely had told him what I had done. And finally, it would make me feel all warm and self-righteous about doing the decent thing.

Besides, if I played my cards right, I could also pump Feely for information about Vanetta Harewood. I would not, of course, tell her about the lost portrait of Harriet.

It was the perfect solution.

There’s nothing as beautiful as the sound of a piano in the next room. A little distance gives the instrument a heart—at least to my sensitive hearing, it does.

As I stood outside the drawing-room door, Feely was practicing something by Rameau: Les Sauvages, I think it was called. It sometimes made me think of a moonlight glade—the Palings, perhaps—with a tribe of devils dancing in a circle like maniacs: So much more pleasing, I thought, than that sleepy old thing on the same topic by Beethoven.