Magnificent Devices 6: A Lady of Spirit Page 7

  Oh my.

  She was making assumptions where she had no proof—or any confidence of Lizzie’s that would make her think such a thing. But Claire remembered all too well how she herself had felt in the moments after Andrew had first kissed her, that day in his laboratory. She too had been giddy and hardly in control of her faculties.

  But at the same time, she was not the sister of the heir to a shipping empire. While Claire might have been expected to make a stunning match at one time, her father’s mistake in gambling her inheritance on the combustion engine had put paid to that, and while it had left her penniless, it also freed her to choose her own path. Up until a month ago, Claire had believed Lizzie free to do the same.

  But now she wondered. Would the Seacombes welcome Tigg into the bosom of the family in much the way they had welcomed Maggie? Or would his prospects as a lieutenant in the Royal Aeronautics Corps be sufficient to recommend him as a grandson-in-law, if their attachment remained true until Lizzie was of age?

  Or was Claire’s mind galloping ahead in paths where it had no business, and she was spinning a fancy out of a moonlit night, a white dress, and the scent of roses?

  “Is everyone gone?” Lizzie asked. “We slipped away when Miss Penford began at the piano. Is Maggie with you?”

  “No,” Claire replied. “I thought she might be with you.”

  Tigg shook his head. “We haven’t seen her.”

  “Then she must have gone up to bed, because she was not in the drawing room when everyone took their leave. Which reminds me, Lizzie—since dinner was in your and Maggie’s honor, it was not well done of either of you not to see the guests off at the end of it.”

  “Oh … I am sorry, Lady.” They had reached the terrace now, and Lizzie’s chagrin was illuminated by the wide bars of light falling through the French doors. “I never thought of it. I—we—”

  “It’s my fault, Lady,” Tigg said. “I convinced her to take a walk along the cliff-top, and we lost track of time.”

  “It happens,” Andrew said easily. “But there are bound to be several such occasions over the next two weeks, so bear it in mind. One’s obligations to one’s guests take precedence over … moonlit walks upon the cliffs.”

  And whatever else might have gone on there.

  Claire and Lizzie bade the gentlemen good-night on the gallery, and then went their separate ways to their rooms.

  But when Claire stepped into the girls’ room, expecting to see Maggie, she was surprised to find it empty, the beds neatly turned back, and their nightgowns laid out by the maid upon the coverlet.

  “That’s odd,” Lizzie said. “Where could she be?”

  “It is not like her to disappear without you,” Claire said. “And she is not with Claude.”

  “Perhaps she has gone into her mother’s old room. She found a letter, you know, Lady. Under the floorboard, when we were exploring. We believe it was from a gentleman to her mother, in 1877. I’ll just run along there and check, shall I, in case she has gone back for another look?”

  “At eleven at night?” But with the Mopsies, one ought not to put limits on what they might do, no matter what time of night it was.

  Lizzie was back in five minutes, shaking her head. “I don’t understand it.”

  “Did she seem upset to you this evening?” Claire asked carefully. “Distressed in any way that might have caused her to behave rashly?”

  “Maggie? Rash? I don’t think so. She seemed perfectly content, and she was laughing at dinner. But then, sitting next to Claude would make anybody laugh. One simply can’t help it.”

  Perhaps Claire had taken offense at something that existed only in her own mind, and Maggie was not in the least upset. But be that as it may, she would not be able to sleep until she knew her girl to be safely in her bed.

  “I shall fetch Tigg and Mr. Malvern,” Claire said at last, “and we will mount a search—quietly. I do not wish your grandparents or the staff to be alarmed.”

  Fortunately, neither Tigg nor Andrew had got much further than removing their jackets, and when they assembled in the gallery overlooking the front entry once more, Claire told them what was amiss. “Tigg and I will take the main floor and downstairs—the kitchens and so forth. Andrew, you take Lizzie and search the upper floors. If you can get out onto the roof, do so, since—” She flashed a smile at Lizzie. “—the girls have a particular fondness for them.”

  “Why should Tigg and I not go together?” Lizzie objected.

  There was no time for anything but blunt honesty—which was the only thing that worked with Lizzie in any case. “Because I fear you will become distracted, and I would like a quiet word with him while we are looking.”

  In the silence of the sleeping house, Claire distinctly heard Tigg gulp.

  “Everyone has a moonglobe?” Mr. Malvern whispered. “Right, then. Off we go.”

  It was almost like old times, if she had not been dressed in dinner clothes and had the Mopsies safely together as scouts. In less than five minutes, Claire and Tigg had determined that Maggie was not in the drawing room, dining room, or any of the parlors. Nor was she in the butler’s pantry, the scullery, the larder, or the main kitchen. In fact, the only person awake in the servants’ part of the house was the boot boy, whom they frightened practically out of his skin when they loomed up behind him as he was polishing his master’s boots.

  “Is there anywhere else we might look, then, mate?” Tigg asked him, when it was clear he was too frightened to answer Claire. “We’ve been all through these rooms and the ones above, with no sign of her.”

  “There’s nowt else down here, sir, but the cellars, and it’s not likely the young lady would have found her way there, being the master and mistress’s granddaughter and all.”

  “That, you will find, is faulty logic,” Claire said rather grimly. “We have exhausted the likely, so I believe it is time to consider the unlikely. Will you show us the way down, please?”

  “To the cellars, milady?” He was so shocked that he spoke to her directly.

  “Yes.”

  “Now, milady?”

  “If she is hurt, we will do her no good if we leave her there until morning.”

  “But, milady—” He scrubbed his hands on a rag. “—it’s only Mr. Nancarrow the butler who has the keys to the cellars. Because of the spirits, you see.”

  Good heavens. Were there ghosts down there? Prior victims of Seacombe pride and heartlessness? “Does he believe they will submit to lock and key?” Claire inquired impatiently.

  The boy looked up at her, his face blank with incomprehension.

  “I believe he means the sort that comes in bottles, Lady,” Tigg murmured.

  “Ah, of course,” Claire said, ashamed of the relief that swept her. “And Mr. Nancarrow has gone to bed, I suppose?”

  “Aye, milady.”

  From somewhere below, they heard a sound.

  “Are you sure you meant only the kind in bottles?” Claire whispered. “What was that?”

  Again, the sound—a hollow, muffled sound like the booming of surf … and a cry.

  A cry she would know anywhere on earth—whether above or below ground.

  “That’s Maggie,” Claire said, clutching Tigg’s arm. “Where is it coming from? Where is she?”

  Tigg dashed down the corridor, following the sound, Claire and the boot boy hot on his heels. At the far end of the corridor, on the other side of the kitchen, was a set of stone steps going down to a door that looked as though it had been there since the Norman conquest.

  Someone was pounding on the other side.

  Claire pushed the boot boy out of the way and put her mouth close to the blackened iron keyhole. “Maggie? Is that you, darling?”

  “Lady!” came a muffled cry. “Oh, thank heavens. I can’t get out—and I can’t go back. Can you get me out of here?”

  “Instantly. We shall get the butler and the keys.” She turned to the boot boy. “Go and wake Mr. Nancarrow at once and t
ell him his keys are needed.”

  “Oh, milady, I couldn’t. I’d be sacked.”

  “You can and you will,” she informed him with the command developed over three centuries of breeding. “Your mistress’s granddaughter is locked down there. If you lend her your assistance and be quick about it, not only Mr. Nancarrow but also Mrs. Seacombe will hear of it from me, in the warmest and most complimentary terms possible.”

  The boy vanished without another word.

  Claire turned back to the keyhole. “Maggie, are you hurt?”

  “No, Lady,” came the muffled reply. “But my feet are soaking wet and I’m cold. The tide came in when I wasn’t looking. I had no idea it would turn that fast.”

  How and why Maggie had been anywhere near the tide were questions for later, over a hot bath and a cup of tea.

  “Tigg, while I wait for the keys, do please go and tell Lizzie and Mr. Malvern that we have found her and as far as we can tell, she is safe.”

  “Of course, Lady. You’ll be all right here on your own?”

  “Certainly. I have no fear of Mr. Nancarrow sacking me. Quickly, now. I would not wish Lizzie worried a moment longer than necessary.”

  He hesitated on the first step. “Lady—about her—Lizzie—”

  “I know I said I wanted a word, but it will have to wait for another time. Just know this, Tigg—”

  “Yes, Lady?” In the greenish-white glow of his moonglobe, his brown eyes were worried, and fixed upon her as though she held the keys to his future.

  “I have no objections to your forming a deeper attachment than the comradeship you share now. You are just as dear to me as either of the girls, and your happiness has always been my first concern. But she and you may find things more complicated now than they were before.”

  “I know it, Lady. But we—it just happened—I hardly know how—”

  “We will speak of it later, dear one. For now, Maggie’s safety must be uppermost.”

  He nodded, and it seemed to Claire that his face relaxed, as though he had been afraid she would say … what? That she did not approve? That his uncertain parentage mattered more to her than his character, his intelligence, and his prospects? For all he had ever confided in her was that he was the son of a Nubian aeronaut and a Whitechapel seamstress, neither of whom he remembered. One’s reputation could not depend upon that of one’s parents, as any of them might attest. One was only responsible for one’s own, and Tigg had never given a moment’s concern in that department.

  He took the steps two at a time, and the sound of his boots faded away down the corridor.

  “Lady?” came Maggie’s voice through the keyhole.

  “Yes, darling. I’m here. The keys should be here shortly, too.”

  “Was that Tigg?”

  “Yes. He has gone to tell Lizzie and Mr. Malvern, who are searching the upper floors for you, that we have found you.”

  After a beat of silence, Maggie’s muffled voice came again. “I saw them kissing, Lady. Tigg and Lizzie.”

  “Yes, I suspected as much. Did you hear what I said to him?”

  “Yes. I—I lost my head and went down to the beach so they wouldn’t know I’d seen them. There’s a cave, Lady, and a stair that leads up here into the cellars.”

  “Is there, now? Well, I am not surprised. Pirates once used the caves at Gwynn Place.”

  “This isn’t a pirate cave. This one’s on purpose, with a quay and a big door in the rock and everything.”

  “Is it in use?” Claire asked with some surprise. What would the Seacombes be doing with a boat landing in their cellar?

  “I don’t think so. The bird droppings all over the dock have to be at least as old as Lizzie and me.”

  “Dear me. I shudder to think of the state of your clothes, dearest.” Voices sounded behind her, and a glance confirmed that it was the boot boy and Mr. Nancarrow. “Here are the keys, Maggie. We’ll have you out of there in a moment.”

  The butler, in trousers and shirtsleeves and none too happy about it, turned the huge key in the old lock, and with a well-oiled click, the door swung into the stair well.

  And with a gasp of relief, a cold and disheveled Maggie fell into Claire’s arms.

  11

  “I simply cannot believe it of you,” Grandmother said at breakfast, for what had to be the third time. “No one but the fishermen’s children and sandpickers ever ventures into Seacombe Sawan.”

  Which neatly relegated Maggie to that happy company—with whom, she thought rebelliously, she would much rather be at this moment.

  “I think it was rather splendid of her, to go exploring and to make such a discovery.” Claude saluted her with his toast, liberally covered in apple jelly. “I had no idea there was a landing in the … what is it called?”

  “A sawan is a cave in the foot of a cliff,” Grandmother said. “And we forbid you to go there. It is too dangerous, as Margaret’s thoughtless behavior has so amply proven.”

  “Your family’s history began there,” Grandfather informed Claude as Maggie concentrated on her food, her cheeks burning from the reproof. “Two hundred years ago, Pendrake Seacombe discovered the sawan and the volcanic chute that led upward through the cliff. He modified it and built the house atop it, so that during the Civil Wars, our family not only had a means to freedom, but so did the royal family. King Charles I escaped to France while a guest here, you know, in a Seacombe ship—a fishing ketch.”

  Grandmother took up the tale. “The sawan was also a means by which to import food from France so that the people in the country hereabouts did not starve. This is how our family and company crests came to be.”

  “My curiosity is piqued with a vengeance.” Claude turned to Grandmother. “Please do not forbid us the … sawan. We will be careful, I promise.”

  “Claude, you heard me the first time, and I do not repeat myself,” Grandmother said, though it seemed her tone gentled when she addressed him. “In any case, it is the Lord’s Day, and we do not go gallivanting about upon the strand, but attend church at ten o’clock. Dr. Pengallon comes to lunch after the service, and in the afternoon we rest or pursue the more gentle arts.”

  “What would those be, Mrs. Seacombe?” Lady Claire inquired, cleaning up the last of her sausage and egg pie, which was quite the best thing Maggie had encountered in this house so far, saving only her mother’s letter and the sound of the Lady’s voice through the heavy door last night.

  “I should think you would be well acquainted with them, Lady Claire,” was the pointed rejoinder. “I refer to needlework, the writing of letters, or perhaps a sketch in watercolor. One may also visit about the country, but you know so few people here that I fear you must make do with our company.”

  “I can think of nothing I’d like better,” the Lady said smoothly. “Though the Misses Penford did encourage us to call.”

  “Perhaps another day,” Mr. Malvern said quickly. “I do think a walk along the cliff-top would do me good. I have heard tell of a continuous path that stretches from the Lizard all the way to Devonshire. Is it true that such a thing exists, Mr. Seacombe?”

  “It does,” Grandfather told him. “And you are welcome to take a stroll if you wish. But I should stay clear of the beach until you are more familiar with the tides. We Seacombes can practically feel the pull of them in our blood, but this gift is not given to all.”

  “I could have used that ability last night,” Maggie ventured. “The tide turned and came in so quickly that if it had not been for the stair, I should have been in some danger.”

  “My point exactly,” Grandmother said into her compote. She could have been referring to the tide. In fact, had it not been for that private conversation between her grandparents in the solitude of their room, Maggie might have thought so. But now, she clearly heard, If you cannot feel the tide, then you are not a Seacombe, are you?

  “I have no idea when the tide goes in or out, do you?” Lizzie said to Claude.

  “None,” he said
cheerfully, apparently quite unconcerned that he did not share the family heritage. “Never needed to know before, and don’t much expect to now.”

  “Do not be so hasty, my boy,” Grandfather said, offering him the dish of compote. “When you are steaming over sea on a Seacombe ship, and later, running this company, you will find such knowledge useful.”

  Claude, for once, was able to keep his thoughts on his future to himself, and in any case, there was no time to hear them if they were to be ready for church.

  When they reached the stone church at the top of the high street in town, Dr. Pengallon greeted them at the door and escorted Grandmother to the frontmost pew on the right side, as though she were the first lady in the congregation after his wife, who sat with their children on the left side under the pulpit. Later, during an interminable meal when neither the good reverend nor his wife deigned to speak to her, but made a great fuss of Lizzie and Claude, Maggie was forcibly reminded again of what she had overheard. The wheat, apparently, was already being separated from the chaff.

  But her grandparents had not reckoned on the Lady’s perspicacity. She, Mr. Malvern, and Tigg stepped bravely into the breach once the roast came in, and the conversation was distributed so equitably around the dining table that her grandparents hardly got a word in edgewise.

  It was not until that evening, when they were saying their good-nights, that Grandfather brought up the subject again, saying to Claude, “You’ll come in to the offices with me tomorrow, eh? No time like the present to have a look round.”

  “Tomorrow, sir?” Claude looked all at sea, as well he might, for this was the first they’d heard of it. “We had planned a picnic on the beach, and then a jolly ramble on the cliff-top, if we are not permitted the sawan.”

  “I would have thought you had had enough of picnics and rambles after your friends left in the spring.”

  “One can never have enough picnics,” Lizzie said gaily. “I do hope we are invited.”

  “You are certainly invited to the Seacombe offices,” Grandfather told her, clearly unwilling to let his catch school together and escape the net. “You ought to know from whence your living comes.”