“What’s this?” Ophelia had almost stepped on something at
the base of the cave wall.
Penrose crouched and held the lantern over it. “Good God,”
he muttered. “Is it . . . a shrine?”
Small earthenware dishes held what appeared to be chocolate
drops, purple berries, and loose pearls. A clay vase held a
red and white striped rose.
Churches in New England didn’t have shrines. They didn’t
even have stained glass windows or statues.
“Pearls,” Ophelia said. “Madame Dieudonné was missing a
pearl necklace.” But—she looked carefully at the shrine—no
ruby ring. Still, the pearls connected the shrine, very
loosely, to the missing ring. There was hope yet.
“This resembles the offerings people of the Orient assemble
for their gods or ancestors,” Penrose said.
“Those are belladonna berries, professor.” The skin of
Ophelia’s back felt all itchy and crawly, and she stole a
glance to the black gap where the cave continued into the
earth. Someone could be back there. Watching.
“Miss Flax,” Penrose said slowly. “Look at this.” He lifted
the lantern, illuminating the picture on the wall above the
shrine.
Heavens to Betsy. A carved, black-painted beast, half-man,
half-boar, undulated in the light.
The body of the beast was like a man’s, although the feet
seemed—Gabriel squinted—yes, they seemed to have hooves. But
the head! It was unmistakably that of a furry boar, with
large pointed tusks and tiny round ears.
A slight crunching sound made Gabriel and Miss Flax freeze.
Their eyes met.
Silence.
Gabriel knew that somewhere in the shadows, someone or
something lay in wait.
Miss Flax, wide-eyed, in those awful trousers, seemed at
once horribly vulnerable and dear beyond measure. The pistol
tucked into Gabriel waistband felt newly heavy. He picked up
the lantern and slowly stood, willing himself not to exude
the essence of fear in case whatever was watching was an animal.
“Come,” he mouthed to Miss Flax, wrapping his free
hand around her wrist. “Slowly.”
She stayed very close to him as they walked steadily out of
the cave.
They emerged into the cold, damp night. The moon glowed
whitely above. The air tasted of soil and rot.
“Shouldn’t you extinguish the lamp?” Miss Flax whispered as
they started down the rocky, ice-slicked slope. “So they
can’t see us?” She tugged her wrist free of his hand so she
could climb.
“Wild animals are afraid of light.” Gabriel longed to grab
her wrist again, to enfold her, keep her safe. If something
were to befall her—
“It wasn’t an animal in there,” Miss Flax said. “It was a
human being. I could feel it. Animals don’t make
one feel so frightened.”
“Not any animals?”
“No. Animals never seem evil, and I felt something
evil up there in the cave.”
BEAUTY, BEAST and BELLADONNA
Beware of allowing yourself to be prejudiced by
appearances. –Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve,
“Beauty and the Beast” (1756)
1
The day had arrived. Miss Ophelia Flax’s last day in Paris,
her last day in Artemis Stunt’s gilt-edged apartment choked
with woody perfumes and cigarette haze. Ophelia had chosen
December 12th, 1867, at eleven o’clock in the
morning as the precise time she would make a clean breast of
it. And now it was half past ten.
Ophelia swept aside brocade curtains and shoved a window
open. Rain spattered her face. She leaned out and squinted
up the street. Boulevard Saint-Michel was a valley of stone
buildings with iron balconies and steep slate roofs. Beyond
carriages and bobbling umbrellas, a horse-drawn omnibus
splashed closer.
“Time to go,” she said, and latched the window shut. She
turned. “Good-bye, Henrietta. You will write to me—telegraph
me, even—if Prue changes her mind about the convent?”
“Of course, darling.” Henrietta Bright sat at the vanity
table, still in her frothy dressing gown. “But where shall I
send a letter?” She shrugged a half-bare shoulder in the
looking glass. Reassuring herself, no doubt, that at
forty-odd years of age she was still just as dazzling as the
New York theater critics used to say.
“I’ll let the clerk at Howard DeLuxe’s Varieties know my
forwarding address,” Ophelia said. “Once I have one.” She
pulled on cheap gloves with twice-darned fingertips.
“What will you do in New England?” Henrietta asked.
“Besides getting buried under snowdrifts and puritans? I’ve
been to Boston. The entire city is like a mortuary. No
drinking on Sundays, either.” She sipped her glass of
poison-green cordial. “Although, all that knuckle-rapping
does make the gentlemen more generous with
actresses like us when they get the chance.”
“Actresses like us?” Ophelia went to her carpetbag, packed
and ready on the opulent bed that might’ve suited the
Princess on the Pea. Ladies born and raised on New Hampshire
farmsteads did not sleep in such beds. Not without prickles
of guilt, at least. “I’m no longer an actress, Henrietta.
Neither are you.” And they were never the same kind
of actress. Or so Ophelia fervently wished to believe.
“No? Then what precisely do you call tricking the Count
Griffe into believing you are a wealthy soap heiress from
Cleveland, Ohio? Sunday school lessons?”
“I had to do it.” Ophelia dug in her carpetbag and pulled
out a bonnet with crusty patches of glue where ribbon
flowers once had been. She clamped it on her head. “I’m
calling upon the Count Griffe at eleven o’clock, on my way
to the steamship ticket office. I told you. He scarpered to
England so soon after his proposal, I never had a chance to
confess. He’s in Paris only today before he goes to his
country château, so today is my last chance to tell him
everything.”
“It’s horribly selfish of you not to wait two more weeks,
Ophelia—two measly weeks.”
Not this old song and dance again. “Wait two more weeks so
that you might accompany me to the hunting party at Griffe’s
château? Stand around and twiddle my thumbs for two whole
weeks while you hornswoggle some poor old gent into marrying
you? Money and love don’t mix, you know.”
“What? They mix beautifully. And not hornswoggle, darling.
Seduce. And Mr. Larsen isn’t a poor gentleman. He’s
as rich as Midas. Artemis confirmed as much.”
“You know what I meant. Helpless.”
“Mr. Larsen is a widower, yes.” Henrietta smiled.
“Deliciously helpless.”
“I must go now, Henrietta. Best of luck to you.”
“I’m certain Artemis would loan you her carriage—oh, wait.
Principled Miss Ophelia Flax must forge her own path. Miss
Ophelia Flax never accepts hand-outs or—”
“Artemis has been ever so kind, allowing me to stay here the
last three weeks, and I couldn’t impose any more.” Artemis
Stunt was Henrietta’s friend, a wealthy lady authoress.
“I’ll miss my omnibus.” Ophelia pawed through the carpetbag,
past her battered theatrical case and a patched petticoat,
and drew out a small box. The box, shiny black with painted
roses, had been a twenty-sixth birthday gift from Henrietta
last week. It was richer than the rest of Ophelia’s
possessions by miles, but it served a purpose: a place to
hide her little nest egg.
The omnibus fare, she well knew from her month in Paris, was
thirty centimes. She opened the box. Her lungs emptied like
a bellows. A slip of paper curled around the ruby ring
Griffe had given her. But her money—all of her hard-won
money she’d scraped together working as a lady’s maid in
Germany a few months back—was gone. Gone.
She swung toward Henrietta. “Where did you hide it?”
“Hide what?”
“My money!”
“Scowling like that will only give you wrinkles.”
“I don’t even have enough for the omnibus fare now.”
Ophelia’s plans suddenly seemed vaporously fragile. “Now
isn’t the time for jests, Henrietta. I must get to Griffe’s
house so I might go to the steamship ticket office before it
closes, and then on to the train station. The Cherbourg-New
York ship leaves only once a fortnight.”
“Why don’t you simply keep that ring? You’ll be in the
middle of the Atlantic before he even knows you’ve gone. If
it’s a farm you desire, why, that ring will pay for five
farms and two hundred cows.”
Ophelia wasn’t the smelling salts kind of lady, but her
fingers shook as she replaced the box’s lid. “Never. I would
never steal this ring—”
“He gave it to you. It wouldn’t be stealing.”
“—and I will never, ever become. . . .” Ophelia pressed her
lips together.
“Become like me, darling?”
If Ophelia fleeced rich fellows to pay her way instead of
working like honest folks, then she couldn’t live with
herself. What would become of her? Would she find herself at
forty in dressing gowns at midday and absinthe on her breath?
“You must realize I didn’t take your money, Ophelia. I’ve
got my sights set rather higher than your pitiful little
field mouse hoard. But I see how unhappy you are, so I’ll
make you an offer.”
Ophelia knew the animal glint in Henrietta’s whiskey-colored
eyes. “You wish to pay to accompany me to Griffe’s hunting
party so that you might pursue Mr. Larsen. Is that it?
“Clever girl. You ought to set yourself up in a tent with a
crystal ball. Yes. I’ll pay you whatever it was the servants
stole—and I’ve no doubt it was one of those horrid Spanish
maids that Artemis hired who pinched your money. Only keep
up the Cleveland soap heiress ruse for two weeks longer,
Ophelia, until I hook that Norwegian fish.”
Ophelia pictured the green fields and white-painted
buildings of rural New England, and her throat ached with
frustration. The trouble was, it was awfully difficult to
forge your own path when you were always flat broke. “Pay me
double or nothing,” she said.
“Deal. Forthwith will be so pleased.”
“Forthwith?” Ophelia frowned. “Forthwith Golden,
conjurer of the stage? Do you mean to say he’ll be
tagging along with us?”
“Mm.” Henrietta leaned close to the mirror and picked
something from her teeth with her little fingernail. “He’s
ever so keen for a jaunt in the country, and he adores
blasting at beasts with guns.”
Saints preserve us.
* * *
Ophelia meant to cling to her purpose like a barnacle to a
rock. It wasn’t easy. Simply gritting her teeth and
enduring the next two weeks was not really her way.
But Henrietta had her up a stump.
First, there had been the two-day flurry of activity in
Artemis Stunt’s apartment, getting a wardrobe ready for
Ophelia to play the part of a fashionable heiress at a
hunting party. Artemis was over fifty years of age but,
luckily, a bohemian and so with youthful tastes in clothing.
She was also tall, beanstalkish and large-footed, just like
Ophelia, and very enthusiastic about the entire deception.
“It would make a marvelous novelette, I think,” she said to
Ophelia. But this was exactly what Ophelia wished to avoid:
behaving like a ninny in a novelette.
And now, this interminable journey.
“Where are we now?” Henrietta, bundled in furs, stared dully
out the coach window. “The sixth tier of hell?”
Ophelia consulted the Baedeker on her knees, opened to a map
of the Périgord region. “Almost there.”
“There being the French version of the Middle of
Nowhere,” Forthwith Golden said, propping his boots on the
seat next to Henrietta. “Why do these Europeans insist upon
living in these Godforsaken pockets? What’s wrong with
Paris, anyway?”
“You said you missed the country air.” Henrietta shoved his
boots off the seat.
“Did I?” Forthwith had now and then performed conjuring
tricks in Howard DeLuxe’s Varieties back in New York, so
Ophelia knew more of him than she cared to. He was
dark-haired, too handsome, and skilled at making things
disappear. Especially money.
“You insisted upon coming along,” Henrietta said to
Forthwith, “and don’t try to deny it.”
“Ah, yes, but Henny, you neglected to tell me that your
purpose for this hunting excursion was to ensnare some
doddering old corpse into matrimony. I’ve seen that
performance of yours a dozen times, precious, and it’s
gotten a bit boring.”
“Oh, do shut up. You’re only envious because you spent your
last penny on hair pomade.”
“I hoped you’d notice. Does Mr. Larsen have any hair at all?
Or does he attempt to fool the world by combing two long
hairs over a liver-spotted dome?”
“He’s an avid sportsman, Artemis says, and a crack shot. So
I’d watch my tongue if I were you.”
“Oh dear God. A codger with a shotgun.”
“He wishes to go hunting in the American West. Shoot
buffalos from the train and all that.”
“One of those Continentals who have glamorized the whole
Westward Ho business, not realizing that it’s all freezing
to death and eating Aunt Emily’s thighbone in the mountains?”
Ophelia sighed. Oh, for a couple wads of cotton wool to stop
up her ears. Henrietta and Forthwith had been bickering for
the entire journey, first in the train compartment between
Paris and Limoges and then, since there wasn’t a train
station within 50 miles of Château Vézère, in this
bone-rattling coach. Outside, hills, hills, and more hills.
Bare, scrubby trees and meandering vineyards. Farmhouses of
sulpherous yellow stone.
A tiny orange sun sank over a murky river. Each time a draft
swept through the coach, Ophelia tasted the minerals that
foretold snow.
“Ophelia,” Forthwith said, nudging her.
“What is it?”
Forthwith made series of fluid motions with his hands, and a
green and yellow parakeet fluttered out of his cuff and
landed on his finger.
“That’s horrible. How long has that critter been stuffed up
your sleeve?” Ophelia poked out a finger and the parakeet
hopped on. Feathers tufted on the side of its head and its
eyes were possibly glazed. It was hard to say with a
parakeet. “Poor thing.”
“It hasn’t got feelings, silly.” Forthwith yawned.
“Finally,” Henrietta said, sitting up straighter.
“We’ve arrived.”
The coach passed through ornate gates. Naked trees cast
shadows across a long avenue. They clattered to a stop
before the huge front door. Château Vézère was three
stories, rectangular, and built of yellow stone, with six
chimneys, white-painted shutters, and dozens of tall,
glimmering windows. Bare black vegetation encroached on
either side, and Ophelia saw some smaller stone buildings to
the side.
“Looks like a costly doll’s house,” Henrietta said.
“I rather thought it looked like a mental asylum,” Forthwith
said.
Ophelia slid Griffe’s ruby ring on her hand, the hand that
wasn’t holding a parakeet. Someone swung the coach door open.
“Let the show begin, darlings,” Henrietta murmured.
A footman in green livery helped Ophelia down first. Garon
Gavage, the Count Griffe, bounded forward to greet her.
“Mademoiselle Stonewall, I have been restless, sleepless, in
anticipation of your arrival—ah, how belle you
look.” His dark gold mane of hair wafted in the breeze. “How
I have longed for your presence—what is this? A
petit bird?”
“What? Oh. Yes.” Ophelia couldn’t even begin to explain the
parakeet. “It’s very nice to see you, Count. How long has it
been? Three weeks?”
Griffe’s burly chest rose and fell. “Nineteen days, twenty
hours, and thirty-two minutes.”
Right.
Forthwith was out of the coach and pumping Griffe’s hand.
“Count Griffe,” he said with a toothy white smile, “pleased
to meet you. My sister has told me all about you.”
Ophelia’s belly lurched.
“Sister?” Griffe knit his brow.
“I beg your pardon,” Forthwith said. “I’m Forthwith
Stonewall, Ophelia’s brother. Didn’t my sister tell you I
was coming along?”
The rat.
“Ah!” Griffe clapped Forthwith on the shoulder. “Monsieur
Stonewall. Perhaps your sister did mention it—I have been
most distracted by business matters in England,
très forgetful . . . And who is this?”
Griffe nodded to Henrietta as she stepped down from the
coach. “Another delightful American relation, eh?”
It had better not be. Ophelia said, “This is—”
“Mrs. Henrietta Brighton,” Henrietta said quickly, and then
gave a sad smile.
Precisely when had Miss Henrietta Bright become
Mrs. Henrietta Brighton? And . . . oh,
merciful heavens. How could Ophelia have been so blind?
Henrietta was in black. All in black.
“Did Miss Stonewall neglect to mention that I would
chaperone her on this visit?” Henrietta asked Griffe. “I am
a dear friend of the Stonewall family, and I have been on a
Grand Tour in order to take my mind away from my poor
darling—darling . . . oh.” She dabbed her eyes with
a hankie.
Griffe took Henrietta’s arm and patted it as he led her
through the front door. “A widow, oui? My most
profound condolences, Madame Brighton. You are very welcome
here.”
Ophelia and Forthwith followed. The parakeet’s feet clung to
Ophelia’s finger, and tiny snowflakes fell from the
darkening sky.
“You’re shameless,” Ophelia said to Forthwith in a
hot whisper.
Forthwith grinned. “Aren’t I, though?”