Bath Belles Part 1

BATH BELLES.

Joan Smith.

Chapter One.

"It's not very large, is it?" Mama said as she peered through her spectacles at a residence that very much resembled a doll's house. Mama was p.r.o.ne to understatement and euphemism.

"No wonder we had such trouble finding it," I replied, squinting into the setting sun, whose rays slanted through the narrow s.p.a.ces between our little brick house and the larger, grander ones on either side.

My sister Esther, who was only a few years beyond an interest in dolls, exclaimed, "I think it's sweet!" Esther was seventeen, prettier than any doll, and spoiled beyond redemption. "Just like a child's playhouse."

"Yes, indeed, but we are not children," I pointed out while Esther was busy showing Mama the cla.s.sical pediment, and soon we went up the walk toward the door, pa.s.sing through a pair of clipped yews that were the only horticultural embellishment.

Mama looked around at the neighboring homes and commented, "The location is considered good, I believe."

Graham Sutton, who had purchased the house, had a.s.sured me it was an easy walk to New Bond Street. The house rested on Elm Street, halfway between Mayfair and Soho, Graham had said, though I subsequently learned it was rather closer to Soho. I took the key the lawyer had given me and opened the door. Then I felt, suddenly, the greatest reluctance to enter. Mama smiled sadly, took my arm, and said, "It must be done sooner or later, Belle." With her encouraging me, I went into the house where my fiance, Graham Sutton, had been murdered two years before, just a month before we were to be married.

The house, left to me in his will, was to have been our home. Two years had elapsed before my coming to claim it because of a legal tie-up. Graham's half-sister from Reisling, whom he scarcely knew, had contested the will and lost. I received the house, its contents, and his carriage; his cousin and good friend Eliot Sutton was left the remainder of the estate.

I had looked forward to living with Graham in London, where he was making his way in a legal career. With him dead, however, I intended to sell the house and return to Bath with my mother and sister. I was born and raised there, and it would take more than a doll's house to pull me away. Graham's aunt, Yootha Mailer, had a summer home in Bath, where Graham and I met and eventually fell in love. I was probably the only lady in all of England for whom the sulphurous waters of the Pump Room carried the scent of romance.

The house had gaslight, but it would have been disconnected. As evening was fast approaching, I said, "We'd better scare up some candles before dark," and plunged into the hallway. The fanlight displayed a half circle of light on the marble floor and wood paneling within. There was no gleam anywhere, but only the dullness of dust-coated surfaces. We entered timidly and turned right at the first archway into a scene of awful confusion. Every piece of furniture was askew, chairs turned upside down, books and bibelots knocked to the floor, cupboards open with their contents scattered about.

"Good gracious, what a mess!" Mama said mildly, employing her customary understatement. The place looked as though a tornado had ripped through it.

Esther exclaimed with more joy than dismay, "We've been burgled!"

"Let's have a look at the rest of it," I said, and darted back into the hall to find another doorway. The dining room was similarly disarranged. Going through the place room by room, I found that every single chamber was in the same state. Someone had started at the bottom and gone to the top, setting everything at odds.

"We had best call a constable," Mama suggested.

"Yes, but first let us find a hotel room for the night," I countered.

We had come up to London on the mail coach from Bath, taking a hired cab from the coach stop to the house, and were bone-weary. Three defenseless women walking the streets after dark seemed a bad idea. Graham had been murdered in the safety of his own home. G.o.d only knew what would befall us in this wicked city.

The "convenient location" close to New Bond Street was little help. We turned away from New Bond in error and ended up in Soho before we finally hailed a pa.s.sing hackney. When my father was alive, he had always stayed at Reddishes Hotel, and no other one occurred to any of us. We went directly to Reddishes and got booked in before calling a constable. The clerk advised us that a Bow Street Runner was what we wanted, and a Runner it was who came to our aid some hours later. A Crawler seemed a more suitable description.

Officer Harrow was a gruff, plain-spoken man who wore a ridiculous broad-brimmed white hat and a straight blue jacket. He listened to our story, showing interest only when the words "two years ago" came up.

"You oughtn't to have waited two years to report it!"

"You oughtn't to have taken two hours to come!" I shot back swiftly, and explained the delay.

After hearing me out, he gave his verdict. "London is full of thieves, ladies. Lock up your purses-and your daughters, ma'am," he added, with a bow to Mama. She grabbed for Esther's hand and held it tightly. "What you've had is squatters. You're lucky there's a stick of lumber left in the place, after two years standing vacant. I've known them to carry off the doors and shutters. Oh, you can count yourself lucky you've still got the foundations. Two years! If you can figure out what's missing, send me a list, and I'll keep an eye peeled for it in my rounds of the fencing kens-that's the warehouses where they keep stolen goods-but it will have been hawked long since."

"Where are these warehouses? We'll go ourselves," I told him.

He c.o.c.ked his head to one side and stared at my ignorance. "That you will not, Miss Haley. Stop Hole Abbey is no place for a lady. It's the thieves' lair, you see. You wouldn't even understand a word they say, for they have their own jargon."

"We don't know what is missing. We were never in the house before," I pointed out.

This earned us a highly suspicious glance. "It'd be silver plate and knickknacks they carried off first," he said.

I remembered seeing silver candlesticks on the dining table that afternoon, and some jewelry on Graham's dresser. I mentioned this to the officer, who nibbled his quill and concluded that the burglar had been in a hurry, which seemed unlikely, considering he had had two years of uninterrupted time in which to carry out his depredations.

This ignited the officer's interest to the point of offering to come around the next day and "look us over," as he phrased it. He had already examined Esther quite thoroughly, I can a.s.sure you.

Mama allowed, after he left, that it was "very strange," and that the officer was "not terribly helpful."

"We'll send home for some servants tomorrow and have them set the place to rights before selling," I decided. "Hotchkiss and Bettie will come."

We had only planned to stay one or two nights and make the house our headquarters. As our family carriage wasn't accustomed to traveling more than ten miles, we had opted for the coach. And as we had opted for the expensive mail coach, we had taken only those seats that were absolutely necessary.

"Does that mean we'll be staying in London longer?" Esther asked hopefully. Though both Mama and I had spoiled her quite dreadfully, we had not succ.u.mbed to her pleas that we remove to the house for a Season or anything of that sort. November would hardly have been the time for it if we had. It did begin to look as though she might get a week in the city, however.

"Yes, you wretched child, we must stay," I told her.

She clapped her hands and danced in glee. Her blond curls bounced up and down, and her blue eyes sparkled.

Looking across the room to a mirror that was tarnished with age, I noticed no such enchanting reflection of myself. It wasn't the dimness of the light nor the splotching of the mirror that accounted for it, either. I looked tired and dispirited, the way I felt. Ever since Graham's death I had lived in a sort of disbelieving limbo. My hair never was gold like Esther's, nor my eyes blue, but I had allowed my brown curls to grow longer, thus robbing them of their bounce. Sorrow had taken the glow from my eyes and the roses from my cheeks. My gown hung a little slack on me, as I had lost weight. Over the past two years I had come to more closely resemble Mama than Esther. If Graham were to enter the room this minute, it would be to Esther that his eyes turned, not to me.

Esther's fluting question pulled me from my distraction. "Can we go down and eat in the dining room?" It wasn't directed to Mama but to me. Since my father's death, his duties had somehow devolved on me. I was the one who had to make the hard decisions and receive reproachful glances. One such decision was required of me that moment. How could we go below without proper evening clothes? We had only a bandbox each, containing nightgowns and linens.

"I'm afraid not, Esther," I said, and explained the problem.

"It's not very grand here. We could go as we are," she parried.

"It is rather grander than that, my dear," Mama told her, but not without a questioning look to the tyrant.

We ate our dinner in our room, discussing what was best. "We'll go back to Elm Street first thing in the morning," I decided. "We'll do what we can to set things right, then call in an estate agent and turn the house over to him to sell. I wonder what commission he will expect."

"Grenier at home takes four percent," Mama told me.

"Then no doubt a London agent will take five," I concluded. "Graham paid close to five thousand for the house. I'll ask five-two years must have given some appreciation, with our inflation rate."

"And the agent will get two hundred and fifty guineas just for showing a few customers through your house," Mama said wistfully. "Six months of our income. My, it seems an easy way to earn one's money, does it not?"

"Yes, but it saves our loitering around town, you know. He will handle the whole for us. The buyer might require a mortgage-I believe the agent helps with that."

"You could take the mortgage yourself," Mama pointed out.

"What is the point of that?"

"Why, the house would be easier to sell if it had a mortgage, and you'd get your money by installments, with good interest. We don't need an agent at all is what I'm saying, Belle. Why give away two hundred and fifty guineas? We could have a nice holiday in London on such a sum."

It was a point to ponder. "I shall put a sign in the window while we're there, at least," I agreed.

Esther and Mama nodded conspiratorially at having cajoled me a step forward. "And a notice in the papers," Mama added. "That will not cost more than a few shillings, and it will bring the house to the attention of anyone who is looking."

"Since we are staying, could we go to the theater one night?" Esther asked eagerly. "Please, Belle. I've never been to a real theater. We can have our gowns brought by Hotchkiss. We can call on Graham's aunt Yootha, too, and she'll invite us to a party. She is very sociable. We can go shopping on Bond Street-Graham said the house was within walking distance. Oh, it's so exciting!"

Some little excitement invaded my own being at her words. I had been so miserably depressed after Graham's death I had hardly felt like living at all, but gradually the melancholia had lifted. I had put off mourning clothes, and now, at last, I began to feel a new burgeoning of spirit within me.

Yes, why not stay, if it would please little Esther? Heaven above knew she had a dull time of it at home, and so had I. Even Mama looked with lively interest to see my reaction. Poor girl, she was feeling dull, too. I wasn't the only one who had lost my mate. Papa had died only three years ago, and he had been her life. So many dire calamities befalling us had made me feel, at times, that we were all living in the Book of Job. All Mama's doings had spun around Papa's parish work at the cathedral. My father had been nothing so grand as a bishop, but only a minor ecclesiastic.

"We'll call on Yootha Mailer tomorrow, Mama, shall we?" I asked, to advise her that the tyrant was seeking her view.

"I'll drop her a note tonight" was her reply, her face split wide in a smile, and she gave another of those conspiratorial winks at Esther, as though to say, "We've conned her." I was not the ogre you might think, but someone had to manage the budget and the little difficulties that crop up in even the simplest of lives.

Mama was already rushing to the desk. "See, the hotel has this letter paper right here, and a pen as well."

They did not think to provide ink, so the letter was postponed till the next day. The reluctant tyrant was too backward to go down into the public lobby for a pot of ink. We ate what we could of the hotel fare. There was no hiding the taste of warmed-over beef, and the custard served for dessert was a block of hard stuff sitting in whey.

"A little runny," Mama said forgivingly.

Esther and I pushed ours away and finished the meal with bread and b.u.t.ter. The tea was potable, and the general mood one of rejoicing.

It was odd that, having gone at last to the house where Graham had been killed, I should now begin to push him to the back of my mind and feel something like joy and excitement return to my life. A little trip will often drive away the blue devils. I should not have waited so long to get out again into the world. When a young lady is staring at the windy side of twenty, she hasn't time to dawdle. Was it possible my mind had begun to consider the unthinkable-that I might yet find someone to usurp Graham's place in my heart?

The next morning, unwilling to waste a minute before getting into the social whirl, Mama asked the maid for ink and wrote her note to Yootha Mailer before taking breakfast. I used the time to write my sale notice for the newspapers and my letter home to Hotchkiss and Ettie, and I had them all sent off by a hotel page. This done, we called a hackney to deliver us once more to Elm Street.

Having been astonished by the small size of the house the day before, I was agreeably surprised to find it was larger than I remembered. The bright sun striking its facade removed the previous day's gloom and made it appear prettier. The doorway was elegant, and the facade had leaded windows on either side of the door. It was three stories high-too tall for anything of symmetry or balance, but it was in decent repair. Nothing, alas, had changed within. The confusion was still there waiting for us, but it was easier to face in the morning than at the end of a long trip. We put off our pelisses, tucked tea towels into our waistbands, and got to work.

"I wonder where it happened," Esther remarked as we put the cushions back on the sofa and arranged the toss pillows on top of them. The sofa was a pale blue satin, striped with a deeper blue and yellow. The velvet toss pillows were gold, to match the draperies. Graham had selected all this elegance, consulting with me on colors and styles.

"Right here, I expect," I said. "His body was found on the sofa." My voice was hard and cold, to prevent it from trembling at the awful picture that darted into my head of poor Graham stretched out, perhaps on the very velvet pillow I held in my hands, and clutched to my breast.

Esther peered around at the sofa and carpet. Her voice was sepulchral. "I wonder if there's any blood," she said.

"Not likely, Esther. A victim of strangulation doesn't bleed, as far as I know."

The police a.s.sumed Graham had been strangled by human hands, as no rope or cord was left behind. The motive was called robbery. His money purse was missing, but a small diamond tie pin was left intact. How much cash would a struggling young solicitor carry with him? Surely not enough that he would defend it with his life. Graham would have, though. He was like that. The injustice of it would have caused him to fight to the death. It was not mere chance that had led him to the study of the law.

"Who do you think killed him?" Esther asked as she went on fitting some drawers into a small wall table.

"A person or persons unknown," I said grimly. I really didn't want to know more or to think about it at all. Some criminal had killed a good, honorable man and gotten clean away. It was done, and no good could come from harking back to it. The police had investigated thoroughly, Yootha had said, and had learned nothing.

"Esther, come and help me in the kitchen," Mama said, but her worried voice revealed her reasoning. She didn't want me reminded unnecessarily of the past. Esther would have a peal rung over her for discussing the murder. As though I could help thinking the same thoughts myself!

We got the living and dining rooms and a bedroom each put to rights by noon and were ready for lunch. We set off in the proper direction to reach New Bond Street, where we made our meal at a small restaurant. I was in charge of decisions for us all, and my next decision was that henceforth we would eat at the house. Meals out were not only unappetizing and expensive, but also inconvenient. We shopped for food, and then I remembered to go and have the gas turned on. We returned to Elm Street, already finding the little brick house familiar and welcoming after the hour spent amid the busy throng of London.

During the afternoon we arranged our creature comforts around us in the house, moving lamps and small tables and so on to suit us. We put away the food when it was delivered and were just lighting candles to ward off the early dark of November when the man from the gas company came to connect us. We enjoyed our first meal there by gaslight, and we felt very modern and citified, turning the k.n.o.bs to make it as bright as daylight till the tyrant decided we were wasting expensive gas and turned them down to a less harsh glare.

Building a fire in the stove proved difficult. I had seen the servants light the grate often enough that I knew what should be done, but the thing was harder to accomplish in a closed stove. In the end we ate cold ham with bread and cheese in the saloon and heated our tea kettle on the hob while Esther made toast on a long fork. It was cozy, like a picnic, eating around the fire with an unusual quant.i.ty of traffic streaming past a few yards beyond. For the first dozen carriages we ran to look out the window, but in the end we became blase about the clatter and the bobbing lights. We drew the curtains and settled in to read the papers we had picked up while shopping. Our advertis.e.m.e.nt had not been inserted yet.

"I shall put my sign in the window," I decided, and drew one up to look as official and businesslike as my wobbly print could make it. That it be legible from the street was the important point. "House for Sale. Inquire within" was all I wrote.

Meanwhile, Esther had discovered the entertainment page of the paper and was busy regaling us with all manner of divertiss.e.m.e.nts open to Londoners and tourists. There were plays and concerts, operas and ballets, lectures, and public dances enough to satisfy the entire population of London. Esther soon decided that what suited a clutch of unescorted ladies from Bath was a comedy to be played for a week at the Haymarket Theatre. She received tentative agreement, pending arrival of our servants with our clothes and approval from Yoofa Mailer, who was to be our social arbiter.

I spent close to an hour checking the real estate columns to determine if the price we planned to ask for our house was fair. I couldn't make head or tail of the prices demanded, but I a.s.sumed that the reason one eight-room house was going for seven thousand guineas and another for four must have to do with location. As there was nothing "with gas" under five, I decided to ask six and judge by my first customer's face if he thought me insane or a flat.

With no candles shrinking to alert us to the hours' pa.s.sing, we stayed up till midnight. The gaslight was remarkable, turning night to day. Mama and I repaired a rent made in the saloon draperies when they were torn from their tracks, while we all discussed the vandalization of the house.

"It seems like spite, plain and simple," Mama said. "I don't believe a single thing was stolen. The silver candlesticks are still here, and a very fine silver tea service. You'll want to take that home, Belle." She went on to name other easily removable objects that hadn't been pilfered.

"Graham's jewelry box has in it everything I remember seeing him wear, too," I agreed. "Except his diamond stickpin, and the lawyer said he will be sending over a package tomorrow with the items he was wearing when ..." I swallowed down a lump, and Mama spoke up to rescue me.

"That is an odd sort of thief," she opined.

"It was just hooligans. I'm grateful they didn't do more mischief while they were about it-break dishes and mirrors and windows, I mean."

"How do you think they got in?" Esther asked idly. "You had to unlock the door, Belle, and there were no windows broken, were there?"

I jumped up in alarm to double-check. "I didn't notice any!"

"There were none broken. They were all closed and locked. He must have had a key," Mama announced. She was a good housekeeper and noticed such things. I stopped in my tracks.

"He might have gotten in through the cellar," Esther suggested. Comforting thought!

There was nothing for it but to take a candle to the cellar and check. I was thankful we did, despite the frightening trip into the black bowels, for there, where it was not easily seen, was a window wide open to the elements, both criminal and climatic. The wrongdoer had obviously crept in there and gone up the stairs and into the pantry. There was no lock on the pantry door. We locked the bas.e.m.e.nt window, propped a chair under the handle of the pantry door, and returned to the saloon, carrying two dusty bottles of wine from Graham's well-stocked cellar.

"It's odd Graham would have left that window unlocked when everything else was closed properly," Mama said.

"Especially as it exposed his wine cellar to the cold," I agreed. Graham was a bit of a fanatic about his wine.

"What I wonder is how the thief ever discovered it," Esther mused.

"Very true," Mama nodded. "The back yard has no easy access from the street. There is that pretty bit of iron fence enclosing the yard. Fairly high, and with a spiked top. It is certainly odd."

"Officer Harrow is right," I said. "London is full of thieves." He was supposed to have dropped around earlier, but I doubted we'd ever see him.

"Yet after the whole two years, nothing much is missing, so far as we can see," Mania pointed out, frowning over the drapery, her needle poised for action. "It certainly is odd."

So it was, and we were fortunate no other marauder had discovered the secret. We agreed we must keep all doors and windows locked when we were out of the house and left it at that.

When we finally went upstairs to bed I found it impossible to occupy the master bedroom, which had been chosen as mine. Graham had done it up in dusky blue and white, according to my wishes. The canopy and drapes were blue, the carpet and walls white with some blue and gold ornaments. His things were laid out there as if he might walk in the door any moment and smile at me. I could almost imagine him coming. I felt the old excitement, aggravated now by a shivering chill. So tall, so handsome-or so he seemed to me. He had the loveliest chestnut hair, just touched with a natural wave. My favorite of Graham's features was his n.o.ble brow. It was high and clear, with the hair growing to a widow's peak in front.

I picked up his silver-backed brush, touched the comb with one of his hairs still on it. The blue jacket he must have worn to work that day was still slung over the back of a chair. The servants should have tidied up before leaving. I knew from the lawyer that the two servants had been paid and sent off, his horses sold, and other such exigent matters attended to. But no one had packed his clothes and personal effects. It would be for me to do.

I'd have Hotchkiss make up a bundle of anything he didn't want and give it to charity. Some few mementos I would keep-Graham's watch, perhaps, or a bit of jewelry. I drew open the drawer of his desk and saw bound up in blue ribbons my letters to him, as his to me were in my desk at home. The oval miniature I had given him of a young Belle Haley was there on his desk where he could look at it while he wrote to me, as he mentioned once in a letter he did. It was an eerie sensation, almost like having a last chance to talk to Graham. I said what one must say in a final conversation. Good-bye, dear Graham. I love you. Then I quietly closed the door and met Mama, come to see if I was in tears.