Death at Bishop's Keep (23 page)

Charles felt rebuked. “Well, I—”

She rose from her chair. “Am I to take it, then,” she said with evident distaste, “that your interest in the Order is connected with your interest in this dead person?”

Charles rose also. “That is correct, ma'am,” he said. “It is of urgent importance that I discover where he spent the last day of his—”

“Then I very much fear that you have wasted your time inquiring here.” She gathered her skirt and turned toward the door. “And now if you will excuse me, I have pressing matters to attend to.” She swept out of the room, leaving behind her the lingering scent of roses and a host of puzzling questions.

“It is no use telling me there are good aunts and bad aunts. At the core, they are all alike. Sooner or later, out pops the cloven hoof.”

—P. G. WODEHOUSE The Code of the Woosters

 

 

 

W
hile Charles was on his way to Colchester, Kate was on her way to the library. She had almost finished copying out the cipher manuscript and its transcription for Mr. Yeats. It had been tedious labor, for the crabbed glyphs were written in faded sepia ink and were hard to decipher. The paper on which they were written bore a watermark of 1809—or, rather, some of the sheets did. Others bore no mark at all; curiously, they appeared to be much newer, although the script and ink were the same. And there was a further curiosity: the name and address of the German woman to whom Dr. Westcott had written for authorization of the Order of the Golden Dawn were in the same hand that had produced the cipher. Odd, Kate thought, since the woman had died only recently. Kate mentioned these puzzling facts to Aunt Sabrina, but she seemed unable to shed any light on the matter.

Aunt Sabrina, meanwhile, had been copying out her tarot deck. The precious cards had been designed by MacGregor Mathers in consultation (it was said) with his spirit guide, and hand-drawn by his wife, Moina Mathers. This original deck was loaned to each member in turn, so that a personal copy could be made. The member was required to keep the deck closely guarded and pass it on when he or she had finished copying it.

But Kate was thinking neither about the cipher document nor the Golden Dawn tarot. After what Mrs. Pratt had told her last night, she was filled with a firm determination. She would have a frank talk with Aunt Sabrina. It was too late to help Jenny, but something had to be done to restrain Aunt Jaggers, and Aunt Sabrina was the only person who could do it.

But when Kate came into the library, Aunt Sabrina was not alone. Aunt Jaggers, dressed in her customary rusty black, stood in front of the fire, while Aunt Sabrina, wearing a pale blue morning gown, was sitting at her desk, where she had been copying the cards. From their strained faces and tense postures, it was clear that the two were quarreling.

Sensing that she had stepped into a private and perhaps embarrassing exchange, Kate turned to leave. But Aunt Jaggers caught sight of her.

“What do you think you're doing, miss?” she cried violently, stamping her foot. “Eavesdropping, like the other servants?”

“Calm yourself, Bernice,” Aunt Sabrina said, rising. “Kathryn was merely—”

“Don't tell me what she was doing,” Aunt Jaggers snapped, shoulders squared, face wrenched into angry ugliness. “I've seen how this girl toadies to you and your foolish sorcery. Before she came, there was at least peace in this household.” She pulled herself up. “Clearly, your experiment is not working. She must go.”

Kate gasped as if a bucket of cold well water had been splashed over her. Go?

“You aren't serious, Bernice,” Aunt Sabrina said quietly.

“I am
very
serious,” Aunt Jaggers replied with a lofty look. “We did agree, did we not, that if this person”—she glanced coldly at Kate—“did not suit, she would be returned to America.”

Aunt Sabrina's voice was low, controlled. “But she
does
suit. She suits very well. Her work is exemplary, her manner cooperative, her ”

“She does not suit
me,”
Aunt Jaggers said flatly. “But you needn't worry about the details. I have already written to the steamship agent in London to arrange return passage for her. As soon as possible.” Her triumphant look at Kate said, How do you like
that,
miss? as plainly as if she had spoken the words.

“You are challenging me in this way,” Aunt Sabrina said, “because you know how I feel about what you did yesterday. After that disgraceful business with Jenny, I told you that your power to discipline the servants did not extend to physical punishment or discharge. What happened with Nettie sickens me, Bernice. I intend to—”

“Be careful what you intend, sister.” Aunt Jaggers's voice was flintlike, her words barbed. “Remember what I
know.”

Aunt Sabrina seemed to flinch and turn away, and Kate was startled to see something very like fear come into her eyes—fear and hatred. What could Aunt Jaggers possibly know that could make Aunt Sabrina afraid? What secret could be so compromising that it would force her to submit to her sister's tyranny? Kate was stunned. Aunt Jaggers was a
blackmailer!
No wonder Aunt Sabrina hated her.

Aunt Sabrina's face was white, without expression. When she spoke, her voice was so low that Kate had to strain to hear the words. “You may use your ill-gotten knowledge once too often for your own welfare, sister.”

“Perhaps I have not used it often enough,” Aunt Jaggers retorted, “for my own welfare.” She felt she had the upper hand; Kate could see it in the confident lift of her head and the aggressive line of her jaw. “Perhaps I should use it with your dear friend the vicar as well. Perhaps he would be willing to—”

Aunt Sabrina's hand moved so fast that Kate almost didn't see the slap. But she went cold inside as she heard the smart smack of flesh against flesh, and heard Aunt Jaggers's shriek.

“You struck me!” she cried furiously, her hand going to her cheek.

Aunt Sabrina's shoulders slumped suddenly, all the rigidity gone out of her, and a look of self-disgust crossed her face. It was as if having stooped to physical violence, she had lost the high ground of her moral position. “I am ... sorry,” she said, struggling for control. “Forgive me, Bernice. I did not intend—”

But Aunt Jaggers's eye had fallen on the Golden Dawn tarot deck. “Fortunetelling cards,” she shrilled. “Oh, Sabrina, how low you have fallen!” Her nostrils flared at the painted figure on the card. “I see the mark of the cloven hoof in your forehead!” She was shouting now, fixing all her inflamed morality, her burning hatred, upon the pieces of cardboard.

Aunt Sabrina took a step forward. “Don't touch those cards, Bernice,” she said. “They are not mine. They belong to—”

“The Devil!” Aunt Jaggers shrieked. And with one wild gesture, she swept up the cards and hurled them onto the blazing fire. As Kate stared in paralyzed horror, the thin paste-board cards flared brightly in the flames, curled into ash, and were gone.

“Bernice!” Aunt Sabrina whispered, horrified. “What have you done?”

Aunt Jaggers seemed to have taken strength from her action. “I have done what I should have done weeks ago. I have taken a stand against evil.” She raised her hand in a commanding gesture, her eyes like silver coins. “Mark me, sister. I have burned your cards. And unless you banish the rest of this deviltry, I promise you I will burn it, as well!” She stepped smartly to Kate's alcove and shoved Kate's box of letters onto the floor.

Aunt Sabrina straightened her shoulders. She seemed to be grappling within herself. “If you don't get out, Bernice,” she said between clenched teeth, “I will ... I will—”

Aunt Jaggers lifted her chin. “You will do what, sister?” When Aunt Sabrina did not answer, a thin, triumphant smile crossed her face, and she turned to Kate. “I will let you know when arrangements have been made for your departure,” she said.

In the fireplace, the flames flickered brightly.

“If we believe a thing to be bad ... it is our duty to try to prevent it and to damn the consequences.”

—LORD MILNER

 

 

 

Aunt Sabrina left the library a few minutes after Aunt Jaggers, saying only that she was going to her room and did not wish to be disturbed. Feeling as if she had been caught in a furious crossfire (as perhaps she had), Kate retrieved two or three cards that had escaped the flames and picked up the correspondence that Aunt Jaggers had flung on the floor. She noted that it contained a recent, already opened letter to Mrs. Farnsworth from Mr. Mathers, from Paris. The letter, marked “Private and Confidential,” must have been inadvertently included with the correspondence of the Order, which Mrs. Farnsworth had given to Aunt Sabrina.

Kate put the envelope on Aunt Sabrina's desk and busied herself with the typing of the cipher transcript for Mr. Yeats. Given Aunt Jaggers's threat to deport her, it was difficult to concentrate on her typing. But Kate pushed her worries to the back of her mind as best she could, and simply let her fingers do their mechanical work. If Aunt Jaggers was determined that she should not stay, there was hardly anything she could do to prevent her.

Kate was not surprised that Aunt Sabrina did not reappear when it was time for luncheon. The argument with her sister had been bad enough, but the loss of the tarot deck must be even more cruel. To members of the Golden Dawn, Mr. Mathers's precious deck of cards was a spiritual document, a map of the journey to self-transcendence and transformation. The cards were literally irreplaceable, their destruction inconceivable. Kate could not imagine how her aunt would explain it.

When Kate went at one o'clock to the kitchen to make herself a roast beef and pickle sandwich, the house was a tomb. Aunt Jaggers had ordered luncheon brought to her room; Aunt Sabrina was still absent. Mrs. Pratt was stonily silent, Harriet crept about like a mouse, and poor Nettie was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps she had been exiled again to the cellar, Kate thought with a feeling of sad helplessness. Amelia and Mudd were somewhere abovestairs, going invisibly about their work.

It was another gray, misty day. After she had eaten, Kate pulled on wellies, wrapped herself in a shawl, and went with an umbrella into the garden, where stalks of purple asters vied for pride of place with mounds of yellow chrysanthemums and fragrant lavender. But not even the wistful autumn loveliness of an English garden could keep her mind from Aunt Jaggers's threats, and she turned them over uneasily in her thoughts. What hold did the woman have over Aunt Sabrina? Could she
really
compel Kate's return to America? And what was that odd business about the vicar? What role did he play in the lives of these two women?

After a while Kate came back inside and built up the library fire once again, noticing that Aunt Sabrina had been in the room and had taken Mr. Mathers's private letter to Mrs. Farnsworth from the desk. Ten minutes later, as she was settling down to work, she heard the sound of wheels on gravel. She opened the French doors that led onto the terrace outside the library, and saw that Pocket, a mackintosh cloak thrown over his shoulders against the rain, had brought the carriage round.

Kate turned away from the French doors as Aunt Sabrina came into the library, wearing a coat and fur hat. There was a wild, almost frantic look about her.

“Why, Aunt,” Kate said, immediately concerned, “whatever is the matter?”

“I must go out,” Aunt Sabrina replied distractedly. She was holding Mr. Mathers's letter in her hand.

“Must you?” Kate asked. “It's chilly outside, and wet. If you wish to return Mr. Mathers's letter to Mrs. Farnsworth, I'm sure I could do it for you just as well.”

Aunt Sabrina was trembling. “What I have to do,
I
must do,” she said, almost incoherently. “Only I can prevent—” She stopped. “It is a matter of the utmost urgency.”

“Then permit me to go with you,” Kate said, beginning to be frightened by her aunt's strange behavior. “If you will wait just a moment while I get my—”

“No,” Aunt Sabrina said, disregarding Kate's hand on her arm. She pulled on a glove, dropping the other in her haste. “My errands may take some time, Kathryn.” She picked up the glove and yanked it on. A button snapped off and bounced across the floor, but she did not notice. “I shall likely not be home until after tea.”

Kate stepped back, dismayed. What could be so urgent about Mr. Mathers's letter that it had to be returned on such an inclement day? Why did Aunt Sabrina herself have to do it? And what did she hope to prevent?

Perhaps, though, the letter was not the real purpose of her errand. Perhaps it was Aunt Jaggers's wanton destruction of the Golden Dawn tarot deck that she was in such haste to communicate to Mrs. Farnsworth. Kate moved to the fireplace and stood, watching her aunt. It was only conjecture that Aunt Sebrina was going to Mrs. Farnsworth's. Perhaps she was going to see someone else. Who could it be?

But Aunt Sabrina's white, thin-lipped face made it clear that there would be no answer to this question. Kate reluctantly bade her goodbye and went to the French doors to watch the carriage depart, Pocket giving an encouraging chirrup to the wet horse. When the drive was empty, she returned to her chair and resumed her typing. But while she tried very hard to focus on her task, she could not help worrying about Aunt Sabrina, driving through the rain to some unknown destination, to fulfill some unknown purpose. She could not help worrying about herself, too, and her mind kept returning to the question she had asked herself in the garden. Could Aunt Jaggers actually compel her to leave Bishop's Keep and return to America?