“What was it like?” The heat from the fire was really getting to Flora now, making her feel quite faint. “I mean, what shape was it?”
“Round,” said Edna.
“Oh!” said Flora and felt the ground settle under her feet.
“I mean the inside of the strainer part and the cup underneath was round. The handles on either side made it a sort of oval. That was another thing,” Edna was back to feeling put upon, “it was shaped like a bird and Mabel always knew I couldn’t
abide
birds.”
“Was it ...” Flora knew without looking that Vivian had also tensed in his chair. “... Was it shaped like a swan?”
“Why, yes, I’d say that was it,” replied Edna. “Is there something I need to know about that tea strainer?”
“Don’t upset yourself,” said Vivian. “If it’s the one we think it is,” he stood and reached for Flora’s hand, “it’s already been missing for two hundred years.”
“I don’t understand why Lady Gossinger would send that tea strainer to her sister. Unless she didn’t know it was the one that had belonged to Queen Charlotte and created such an uproar when it disappeared.” Flora and Vivian were walking back to Wishbone Street in a drizzling late afternoon rain.
“Of course she knew! She must have heard Uncle Henry describe it a hundred times.” Vivian was clear in his own mind why her Ladyship had taken such a treacherous course of action. Mabel had been beside herself with rage about Uncle Henry’s plans for Gossinger and had taken her petty revenge, one which had the added spice of being accomplished without her husband being any the wiser. “What an opportunity to laugh up her sleeve each time he brought up the subject of the purloined tea strainer!”
“But how did she come to have it?” Flora wrapped her arms around herself to make up for the folly of not having worn a jacket.
Vivian, without breaking pace, shrugged out of his and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Yes, that’s the real question. The Family has searched Gossinger from top to bottom over the last two hundred years looking for that piece of silver. I know I did as a child.”
“Me, too,” said Flora. “And now that we know it really does still exist it’s gone again, bought by somebody at the church bazaar who probably paid a pound for it and has no idea at all of its value. Or the fact that it rightfully belongs to the Royal Family.”
“I am so angry,” Vivian ground the words out through his teeth, “that I was about to walk us under a bus. One gets used to the heady roar of traffic and I wasn’t looking both ways. Sorry about that.”
“There has to be something we don’t understand about what happened.” Flora slipped her arms into the sleeves of his jacket and wrapped the fronts across her chest, missing the look he gave her. “Perhaps Lady Gossinger sent the tea strainer to Edna by mistake. Couldn’t it be this way, that she had just found it and had it wrapped up waiting to surprise Sir Henry, and also had another package to send her sister of about the same size, and just got them mixed up?”
“You
do
believe in fairy tales, don’t you?”
“I don’t like to judge someone without knowing all the facts,” Flora responded as they turned onto Wishbone Street. “And Edna did tell us that Lady Gossinger rang up to ask if Boris had given her the present and Edna told her she had sold it at the bazaar. Perhaps her Ladyship was about to ask for it back because she realized she’d made a terrible mistake.”
“What we need to do is pray,” said Vivian, “that whoever bought it didn’t decide it was a piece of junk,
as so often happens with bargains when you get them home, and pitch it in the dustbin.”
“We have to think positively,” Flora agreed, “but I suppose that’s hard to do when you’re getting drenched to the skin. Won’t you take your jacket back?”
“We’re almost at the shop.”
“At least will you promise to let me help you find the tea strainer?”
“Of course. The legend is every bit as much part of your heritage as it is mine. More so, in fact.”
“Because Grandpa loved the Gossinger silver collection?” Flora felt her love for the man walking beside her open up like a flower and it was difficult to keep her voice level. “It’s really nice you think that way, Vivian, but we both know it isn’t so. What’s wrong? You’ve got a funny look on your face.”
“There’s a woman standing outside the shop.”
“What about it?” Flora had trouble seeing so far: The rain was coming down harder, so that the brim of her hat couldn’t keep it off her face. “It’s probably someone taking cover until this eases off a bit.”
“Or waiting for us to get back.” Vivian quickened his pace. “Yes, I was right! It is Cousin Sophie, with a suitcase at her feet.”
“Miss Doffit? Whatever would she be doing here?”
“Another intriguing question,” Vivian replied.
“Thank goodness you’re back, both of you, although I was only expecting Flora,” Miss Doffit exclaimed. “Luckily I’ve only been waiting here five minutes. But there’s a dog inside that’s been barking at me. And as you can see, the feathers on my lovely powder blue hat are sopping wet, which wouldn’t matter so much, I suppose, if they came from the kind of birds that swim.”
“Speaking of which,” Vivian produced the key and stuck it in the lock, “I have a nasty suspicion I know what brings you here, Cousin Sophie. It has to do at
least in part with a tea strainer in the shape of a swan. Although why my aunt didn’t come herself, I can’t begin to guess.” He held the door open for the two women to get in out of the rain.
“Are you saying
you
have it? That Mabel has been worrying herself into a frenzy for no reason?” Miss Doffit had to shout to make herself heard over Nolly’s frantic joy at being released from prison and reunited with Flora. Her old face crumpled in bewilderment, and if Vivian hadn’t picked up her suitcase at just that moment she might have sat down on it.
“No, we don’t have it,” he reached inside to snap on the light, “but let’s continue this conversation in the dry, shall we?”
“Vivian, you really shouldn’t be so cross. You’re making assumptions ...” Flora brought up the rear with Nolly in her arms.
“Oh, it’s all right, dear,” Miss Doffit spoke softly now as they all stood in the middle of the shop, “there’s no way to put the cat back in the bag once it’s out, and I’m sure it’s better this way. I haven’t lived to be my age without accepting the fact that sometimes you’re in the wrong because of trying to do right. The main thing here, Vivian, is for you to understand that poor Mabel is making herself ill over this business. She’s terrified Henry will never forgive her if he finds out what she did, although why he would I don’t know. Not if we all promise never to breathe a word.”
“There’s her sister,” said Vivian grimly.
“But she doesn’t know—”
“As of this afternoon she does.”
“That was my fault.” Flora’s mouth quivered. “I let it out about the tea strainer being a long-lost treasure. But I really don’t believe, even if her relationship with Lady Gossinger is rather cool, that Edna Smith would spill the beans to Sir Henry. Her life’s complicated
enough already. Anyway, if we can get the tea strainer back, surely that should be the end of it?”
“It would then be only the sister’s word against Mabel’s that she ever had the tea strainer and was so ungrateful as to give it to the church bazaar.” Miss Doffit pulled off her hat and squeezed it out. “I remember my mother once giving a tiara to the Women’s Institute for its summer fete. Which explains in part why we ended up with no money and I’ve spent my life, like a woman without a country, living in other people’s houses.”
“You’re trying to break my heart,” said Vivian.
“I suppose,” Cousin Sophie smiled at him, increasing her wrinkles a hundredfold, “Mabel could say, if push came to shove, that she did give her sister a tea strainer, but it wasn’t the Queen Charlotte one.”
Flora put down Nolly the better to concentrate on Edna’s defense. “I really think that this is unfair. Mrs. Smith strikes me as a decent person who is probably feeling every bit as bad as Lady Gossinger about all this. Even more so, perhaps, because she is very pro the Queen and understands that she—meaning Mrs. Smith—gave away something that belongs to Her Majesty. Poor woman, I don’t suppose she’ll get any sleep tonight.”
“That’s one of Flora’s greatest charms,” commended Vivian. “She has this boundless faith in human nature.”
“I think she has lots of charming ways,” retorted Cousin Sophie, “which doesn’t mean to say I think Henry was right to—” Stopping just in time, she deftly changed course, “—to spoil her the way he did when she was little. But I was almost as bad, I imagine. We did have fun, didn’t we, Flora, dressing up in the trunk room? One of the reasons I never married was because a duke never asked me, so it was great sport to pretend I was the Duchess of Devon, I think that was who I was. I seem to remember you aspired to being nothing more than a lady, in the titled sense of the word. And
it’s remembering those pleasant times that has me hoping, my dear, that you’ll let me stay here with you for the next few days, even though I’ll be glad to leave the treasure-hunting to you. That’s something I really wasn’t looking forward to, even though Mabel did give me money for taxis.”
“I’ll arrange for you to stay at an excellent hotel, Cousin Sophie,” said Vivian.
“I’m not sure that would be a good idea.” The old lady’s face turned mulish. “What if I should fall in the night, with no one to hear me? And I do like a cup of tea when I want one. That’s not unreasonable at my age, is it?”
“Of course you can stay here,” Flora hastened to say. “The flat upstairs has two bedrooms, both of them furnished because Vivian was kind enough to ask Sir Henry to send all the pieces from the rooms my grandfather and I used at Gossinger.”
“The bed in the smaller room is extremely hard,” Vivian said. “Flora, I need to talk to you.”
“We are talking.”
“I mean alone. No offense, Cousin Sophie, but this is important as well as private.”
“Of course, dear.”
“Then why don’t you let me take you upstairs so you can use the bathroom to dry off and change your clothes before going into the sitting room to warm up by the fire. It’s one of those with the electric logs. I’ll turn it on for you,” Vivian told his cousin.
“And in the meantime, I’ll take Nolly out,” Flora said. “I won’t go far, and I’ll feed him when I get back.”
When Vivian and Miss Doffit had gone upstairs, Flora found the dog’s lead and attached it to his collar. She had a queer, unsettled feeling, but she told herself that one crumpet did not do much to fill the gap between lunch and dinner. And if that wasn’t the reason, she decided as she and Nolly stepped out into the rain and headed for the closest lamppost, it had to be because it had been an unsettling day—meeting Reggie, to say nothing of the rest of the afternoon. But she hadn’t imagined the strained look on Vivian’s face when he said he needed to talk to her. And she didn’t think he was worried about something as simple as her being let in for extra expense if Miss Doffit stayed with her. No, there was something more, and while her head told her it couldn’t be anything ominous, her heart had different ideas.
She was back in the shop and had only just filled Nolly’s food and water bowls when Vivian came downstairs.
“I wish we could go up to the flat,” he told her, “but Cousin Sophie might overhear. And it’s important that she doesn’t. Why don’t we sit on the floor as we did the night of the picnic? Flora, that night seems an eternity ago. So much has happened. You ... happened.”
“Do you want me to sit down because you don’t think I can handle what you have to say standing up? Yes, that’s it. You’re scaring me, Vivian.”
“Won’t you?” He made a sweeping gesture toward the floor.
“No, I won’t.” Flora clenched her hands. “Please don’t keep me in suspense.”
“I should have told you that first night; I meant to—it was why I came, but I talked myself out of doing what I knew was right.”
“Vivian, please don’t look so sad.” Her hand moved of its own accord and touched his cheek. “You’re a friend, I never thought I could say even that much, but I have to.” Somewhere outside herself she saw him take her hand in his and kiss its palm. “I trust you,” she said, “and know that you did what you thought was best for me. Now tell me.”
“It has to do with the day your grandfather died....”
“Yes?” Her heart gave a couple of thumps and then went quiet.
“We were there in the tower sitting room—Uncle Henry, Aunt Mabel, Cousin Sophie, and I—waiting for tea.”
“And I was late bringing it up.”
“So you were.” Vivian gave her hand a final squeeze. “It was after you left that Uncle Henry broke the news that he’d decided to change his will.”
“But what could that have to do with ... ?”
“Your grandfather’s death? Everything, I believe, because what he had decided was to leave Gossinger Hall to Hutchins.”
“I can’t take this in!” Flora reached behind her as if gripping the back of an invisible chair. “Why would he do something like that?”
“The house is not entailed, so there were no legal constraints. His reasoning was quite sound, to my way of thinking, and hinges on the Gossinger silver collection.” Vivian felt as though he were reciting from a rehearsed text. “The collection was brought to the house late one night in the latter part of the eighteenth century by the daughter of a local silversmith, who had grown up on the stories of the Swineherd of Stowe, the man who’d left his life savings to Lincoln Cathedral. This man, the girl’s father, wished to make a similar bequest. So he asked her to take all the pieces that remained unsold in his workrooms, on the day of his death, to Gossinger. She was to request that young Sir Rowland take them with him when he next took his carriage into Lincoln and present them to the cathedral.”
“So that’s how it got there.” Flora spoke through stiff lips.
“But things didn’t work out the way the silversmith intended. When the girl arrived, Sir Rowland was at the card table with a group of his drinking and wenching pals. He had been losing heavily all evening and in a last desperate bid to save himself from financial ruin, he staked Gossinger on the turn of a card. He lost. He must have thought he was saved by divine intervention when that girl showed up with baskets full of silver. He used the silver to stake another hand. And his luck turned. He not only got back Gossinger, but gained a small fortune as well. According to family records he gave
that
money, which may well have been more than the value of the silver at that time, to Lincoln Cathedral. But he refused to part with the pieces themselves, because he had all the superstitions of the gamester and believed that while the silver remained, Gossinger would be immune to all ill fortune. As for the girl, one legend says she and Sir Rowland became lovers. Another claims that, consumed with rage, she cursed him, and that her ghost walks Gossinger to this day.”