Chapter V: A Theft

Previously, on Calamity's Trinket

Nell had an early morning tête-à-tête with the stranger and came away none the wiser.

Throughout history, everywhere

Once it was hidden in the heart of a forest in Wales and two men who might otherwise have lived long and fulfilling lives hacked each other to death over it.

For a while it lay apparently forgotten at the bottom of a pond in Osaka. But it had not been forgotten. A woman disguised as a servant was biding her time until the coast appeared clear. When she moved to take it her adversary, also in disguise, held her head under the water until she drowned.

At times it was secured inside safes thought unbreakable, or behind devious traps and puzzles. But no safe is unbreakable forever, no trap or puzzle so complex that it’s never solved.

Over the centuries – over the millennia – it changed hands with blood and poison and deceit, never still for long, always hunted.

It was defended through wars, sheltered through storms, rescued from shipwrecks.

It crossed the ages and it crossed the oceans and it had come to rest, briefly, in Nell Bartlett’s dresser drawer.

Now, Here

The days after the adventure with Mr Dupont felt flat and grey and Nell began to wonder if she hadn’t unleashed something unsavoury within herself. She’d never been invigorated by the balls and tea parties that made up her social life but, while already pale, they were now positively wan in comparison.

And what was she to do about that? A person can’t manufacture handsome bleeding men to rescue night after night simply to stave off boredom. But plodding placidly along from one society event to the next chit chatting about this lord’s recent engagement, or that countess’s poor taste in headdresses was intolerable.

The only brief moment of excitement came at a garden party when Lady Ashcroft launched a campaign of snide quips at Nell.

‘I just worry for your mother,’ she said to Nell, over a wilting cucumber sandwich. ‘You have duty to her, you must understand. You have a duty to your father’s name.’

Nell blinked at her for a few moments before she replied. She’d assumed people would be gossiping about her behind her back, but she’d assumed that it would take something more scandalous than a haircut and a night dancing for one of the society mamas to turn to direct action.

‘I think my mother’s fine,’ she said, keeping a bland smile plastered to her face. ‘But thank you for your concern.’

‘Of course she’s not fine. Her only daughter parading around as you are?’

‘I wasn’t aware I was parading, Lady Ashcroft,’ said Nell. ‘I rather thought I was simply enjoying the season.’

‘The season is not for enjoyment,’ Lady Ashcroft replied. ‘There is a reason for all this and you appear to have entirely forgotten that.’

Nell let her smile grow a little wider, a little more wicked.

‘I believe you’re fighting a losing battle there,’ she said. ‘The world has changed since your debut. We have things on our minds other than marriage.’

‘Pish,’ said Lady Ashcroft. ‘No one is denying the unpleasantness of recent years, but that was merely a season. We can return now to what really matters.’

Nell raised an eyebrow. She was beginning to enjoy herself.

‘Oh?’ she said.

‘Don’t play coy with me, young lady. You must marry. You have precious little time left before you’re quite on the shelf.’

‘You know I’ve always wanted to know what goes on up there on that shelf,’ said Nell.

Lady Ashcroft’s mouth fell open.

‘Well! I can see my advice is not wanted.’

‘It most certainly is not,’ said Nell. ‘But I wouldn’t have thought that mattered to you.’

‘Hmph.’ Lady Ashcroft narrowed her eyes at Nell. ‘Perhaps I was wrong to be concerned for your mother. I suspect that she’s really to blame for this outburst.’

Nell was quite prepared to deal with criticism directed at her, but she was not about to let slights towards her mother go unanswered. She sucked in a breath sharply but before she could speak, Lady Ashcroft’s piercing glare moved from her face to something just behind her.

‘I told you, Lizzie,’ she said. ‘I warned you about letting this girl do whatever she wanted.’

Nell’s head snapped around. Her mother was gazing calmly at Lady Ashcroft.

‘It’s Mrs Bartlett, actually,’ she said. ‘Elizabeth if you must, but only if you must. And I was never sure why you expected me to listen to parenting advice from you.’

Nell looked back at Lady Ashcroft, whose face was starting to develop purple blotches. Her mouth was working as if she was trying to speak but no words came out.

‘Now let’s not get too worked up,’ Nell’s mother was saying. ‘We all of us have lived through too much to let a little spat ruin our afternoons.’

Lady Ashcroft drew herself up and found her voice again.

‘I will not tolerate this slight to my son—’

But Mrs Bartlett cut her off.

‘I was not insulting Gregory,’ she said. ‘I always liked him. I never thought less of him for his…problems…and I always thought it was a shame that you and Lord Ashcroft went to such lengths to distance yourself from him.’

Lady Ashcroft’s face was paler now and she was quiet.

‘Surely if the war taught us anything it’s that we shouldn’t let silly little social rules define us.’

For a moment there was a softness in the grand old woman’s eyes, but then she pursed her lips and shook her head and it was gone.

‘All of you young upstarts,’ she said, her voice low now, and venomous. ‘Pretending we live in some new world because of one war, that you can decide which rules matter and which do not.’

‘Oh, we don’t think the world is new,’ said Mrs Bartlett. ‘We’ve just started seeing it a bit more clearly, I think.’

Lady Ashcroft sniffed once, moved her gimlet eyes back to Nell, sniffed again, and walked away. Nell turned to her mother her eyes wide.

‘Mother!’ she said. Mrs Bartlett was blinking rapidly and shaking her hands as if they were numb.

‘Ooh, I need to sit down. Or I need to walk about very quickly. Or I need some lemonade. Or whisky.’

‘But you were wonderful!’

Mrs Bartlett shook her head.

‘I should not have said all those things.’

‘But you were right,’ cried Nell. ‘I don’t know about Lady Ashcroft’s son, but you were right about everything else.’

Her mother gave a small, weak laugh.

‘Yes, well, being rude to one’s social betters isn’t any easier when you’re right, you know. Probably it’s a lot more difficult.’

Nell took her mother’s arm and began slowly walking her towards the refreshment table.

‘What happened to him. Geoffrey, did you say? What problems did he have?’

‘Gregory,’ said Mrs Bartlett sad with a sad smile. ‘He was just a drunk. Very jolly a lot of the time, but then he would get, I don’t know, very morose. Despondent. And then he would drink. Which wouldn’t have been too much of a problem really – most young lords drink – but he did it very publicly. Lord and Lady Ashcroft couldn’t disown him. He was the sole heir. But they did their best to make him unwelcome in their home. Unwelcome in anyone’s homes.’

‘Oh.’ Nell didn’t want to ask more. She was sure she knew what was coming. He mother sighed.

‘He died in Flanders,’ said her mother.

Nell nodded but didn’t reply. She poured out two glasses of lemonade and they moved away again. Her mother gave her shoulders a shake.

‘I have to say, Nell,’ she said, ‘when you said you’d make me abandon what was seemly I did not expect it to go this far.’

Nell laughed.

‘Stitching up a bleeding stranger is ok, but calmly putting down a rude old woman is too much?’ she said.

‘Well quite,’ said her mother. But she was smiling to herself as she sipped her lemonade.

Two days after the affair of the garden party, though, Nell was drooping with boredom. We’ve all experienced something like this of course. The gently depressing slide back into normality after a grand occasion or trip. But for Nell there was something more about this moment. She’d had a glimpse of a world wholly different from her own and her awareness of it wouldn’t shift, no matter how she tried to turn her mind back to needlework and afternoon tea.

After a particularly soporific afternoon of callers and cake, she took herself off for a walk with the energy of an unbroken horse escaping its stable. She strode through the streets of Mayfair thinking of the life stretching before her. She had told her mother she wanted to have adventures, but she couldn’t now think of any that would be satisfying.

She could travel – see the great places of the world. But wandering around the ruins of Greece with a guide, eating at fine restaurants, sleeping in a comfortable hotel suite…none of that seemed as interesting now as it had previously.

She could take off with nothing but a suitcase and see where the winds took her. Wander from place to place on a whim, trusting on the fates to guide her path. But she didn’t like to feel aimless. She wanted to move with purpose, she wanted a reason to leave the comfort of her life.

For the first time she felt constrained by having nothing to do. She was glad she didn’t have to get married anymore, but at least that had been a future she could envision.

Now…what?

That phrase was clinging to her as she walked, tapping in her head in a rhythm with her footsteps, nipping at her like a gnat.

Now what, now what, now what?

She’d come out to try and clear her head but instead the aggravation was mounting within her with no sign of abating. She turned a corner and realised that she’d returned to her own street, she was facing her own house, ahead of her own boring life. Without really being aware of it she stopped walking and let out a strangled yell of frustration.

And there was a movement in the corner of her eye.

Nell turned her head slowly.

The late afternoon sun was casting a shadow across the alley that led to the mews and suddenly she was sure that just one moment before someone had been standing there.

‘Hello?’ she called out.

There was silence.

She walked slowly towards the mews, trying not to make too much noise. She was a few steps in when someone spoke.

‘You need to get out of here.’

She turned suddenly. There was a figure standing behind her. She must have walked straight passed him without noticing.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Mr Dupont. I’m glad to see you’re recovering.’

He rolled his eyes.

‘I’m serious. Go home.’

Nell felt a crackle of electricity along her spine. She tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes.

‘Hmmm,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure I will.’

‘This isn’t a game, lady.’

‘Oh, I’m no lady,’ said Nell. ‘Just a plain miss. Miss Bartlett. I did tell you as much.’

The man let his head drop back in frustration.

‘Why do you make…never mind,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to do this weird British chit chat you people seem to think is conversation. I’m not going to have a conversation at all. I need you to leave, right now. It’s nothing personal. It’s nothing to do with you at all.’

‘Well you certainly talk a lot for someone who claims to dislike conversation.’

‘Lady—’

‘Miss.’

‘Argh! Miss Bartlett. I am here on business that is important. That is nothing to do with you. And that you are now endangering. Please leave, for the love of god.’

‘Perhaps I’m just going to my own stables,’ said Nell.

‘It’s a bad time to go riding.’

Nell surveyed him for a moment. She knew she was behaving badly in at least two directions at once. A strange man skulking in the muse should definitely be reported to someone; what could he possibly be up to other than some form of skullduggery. But she was also being rude to him by hanging around when he’d made it so clear she was an annoyance.

But somehow she liked being an annoyance to this man. And if he was engaged in some kind of nefarious business she definitely wanted to know what it was.

‘Oh but where’s the fun in doing things at good times?’ she said.

‘You don’t understand what you’re messing with here.’

‘Why don’t you tell me?’ Nell asked. ‘I’m dying to know.’

He took a few deep breaths, and then stepped forward and, before Nell realised what was happening, he’d lifted her bodily over his shoulder. He strode back to the street and dumped her back on the ground.

Nell took a moment to get her breath back but was just about to express her indignation when Mr Dupont cursed under his breath and began running at the street. Nell ran after him.

‘What,’ she said, and, ‘How—’

He briefly looked back at her, snarling.

‘This is your fault, lady,’ he said.

‘Where are you going?’ she called after him.

‘Your house,’ he said. ‘Where did you think?’

Nell couldn’t understand why he would want to go there; she and her mother had made their house comfortable, but there were much richer people on the street, with much more interesting things to steal. But as they drew near her front door all those thoughts left her head. The door was wide open and there was no one to be seen.

Nell was suddenly terrified. Why would someone be in her house? What would they have done to her mother? To the servants?

Mr Dupont was already running up the stairs that lead to the door. Nell went in after him, calling for an explanation.

‘Nell?’ Her mother was coming down the stairs as Mr Dupont made for the parlour where he’d slept after his injury.

‘Oh thank god,’ said Nell. ‘Are you ok? I think someone’s in the house.’

Mr Dupont came back into the hall.

‘Where did you put it?’ he said. ‘The Guide, where is it?’

Nell shook her head.

‘What? The Guide?’

He took a few steps towards her.

‘You have it. I left it here, I was waiting to come back for it, I couldn’t…But you hid it. I told you to hide it.’

‘You mean the little stone figure? How is that a guide?’

He grasped her shoulders. Hard.

‘Where is it?’

Nell waved her hand vaguely upstairs.

‘I…It’s in my room.’

She led him upstairs, a pit forming in her stomach. She knew as soon as she got to the door that it was gone. Mr Dupont pushed passed her into the room.

‘Where did you hide it?’ he asked.

Nell swallowed hard.

‘I hid it in my dresser,’ she said. ‘But it’s not there anymore. It’s gone.’

‘What?’ he turned back to her, staring. ‘What do you mean?’

Nell stared up at him. Her breathing was shallow, she felt tears prickling at the corners of her eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I was curious. I took it out to look at it. I…I liked it. It was so strange. I put it on my mantle.’

She indicated the fireplace. The mantle now bare except for two silver candlesticks.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘Was it…was it very valuable?’

Mr Dupont let out a humourless laugh.

‘Oh Miss Bartlett,' he said.' You have no idea.’

Next time, on Calamity's Trinket

Nell finds out just what she's done.

The next chapter arrives on the fifth of October...