The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place

  “This won’t do,” Smooth Kitty exclaimed. “I can’t see a thing in all this mush. Mary Jane, do you remember where you dumped tonight’s bucket?”

  “Never mind.” Pocked Louise had squatted down some feet away from the edge of the pile. Dour Elinor crouched beside her. “We have what we need.”

  A frigid wind blew over them, snuffing out several candles.

  “What is it?” Smooth Kitty cried, then immediately felt ashamed of the fear in her voice.

  “A stoat, with a piece of veal in its mouth,” Pocked Louise announced with scientific neutrality. “I trod on its fur.”

  Dour Elinor supplied the vital detail. “It’s dead.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “Poor little thing,” Stout Alice said. She dabbed her eyes with Mrs. Plackett’s nightgown sleeve.

  “Hardly,” Disgraceful Mary Jane said. “That stoat’s probably the one that’s been making off with our baby chicks.”

  “Justice will find you in the end,” Dour Elinor declared.

  “Just like it did Mrs. Plackett and Mr. Godding?” Pocked Louise asked.

  “Oh, let’s go inside,” Disgraceful Mary Jane exclaimed. “I’m sick and tired of this whole business. It’s a wretched dead rodent, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Technically not a rodent.” Louise pried the stoat’s jaws apart and wrestled her morsel of meat from its vicious teeth. “A member of the weasel family.” She peered over the rest of the compost pile, snagged the other piece of slimy fried veal, and wrapped it in a handkerchief. Then they trudged back toward the house, by now with only one lit candle, Kitty’s, among them.

  “Hsst!” Kitty threw an arm back to block the other girls from advancing, and quickly blew out her light. “Don’t move.”

  They waited, silent and watchful.

  Stout Alice felt a curious tingly terror run up her spine and wondered if she might lose control of herself and start to scream. Odd, she thought. I’m not the fanciful sort. Could it be ghosts? Rubbish. But what, if not? How would Mrs. Plackett’s ghost feel to discover Alice impersonating the dead and making off with her clothes? Any more of this, my girl, she scolded herself, and it’ll be the sanatorium for you.

  They waited. A thin crescent moon peeked through a gap in thick-covering clouds. Pocked Louise listened to the silence till her ears itched. What had Kitty heard or seen?

  Then they heard it. A snap, sharp as a drumbeat. A breaking twig.

  Something moved in the dark. They sensed rather than saw it. Then there was no doubting it. Footsteps ran away, crashing through brambles and brush, helter-skelter toward the Butts farm.

  Tension drained from the group like sand from a broken hourglass. “It’s only stupid Henry,” Disgraceful Mary Jane said. “We had nothing to fear.”

  “But did he hear us?” Dour Elinor whispered. “We spoke freely of death!”

  Smooth Kitty kicked at a tuft of grass with her bare toes. She should have known better. She should have foreseen this. As someone who prided herself on leadership, on management, on remembering every detail, this whole business had grown terribly sloppy.

  “Those footsteps sounded fairly far away,” Stout Alice said. “I think we can comfortably assume Henry didn’t hear us. If he did, he probably wouldn’t have understood it all.”

  “See? I told you he’s stupid,” Mary Jane said.

  “I didn’t mean that,” Alice said. “I meant, without context, our words would make little sense to him … Oh, never mind.”

  They reached the door and went inside. Their nightgowns were wet to the knees with dew from the tall grasses. They sat by the coals in the parlor fireplace for several minutes to dry off. No one spoke.

  “Well, here I go,” Stout Alice said at last. “Time for me to crawl into bed with Miss Fringle, on the very spot where a dead woman has lain for hours. At least I’m spared your job of hauling her away somewhere and hiding her. Where will you stuff the old girl?”

  Smooth Kitty was happy to forget about Henry Butts for a moment. “Oh, I already have that figured out,” she said. “We’ll carry her upstairs to your bed.”

  * * *

  Pocked Louise and Dour Elinor retired to the bedroom they shared with Stout Alice while the older girl remained downstairs in the parlor, waiting to change beds with Mrs. Plackett’s body. Louise crawled in between her chilly sheets and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Are you worried a bit, Elinor?” she asked her roommate.

  Dour Elinor combed slow strokes through her long black hair. “About what?”

  Louise shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. About murder, I suppose.”

  Elinor’s comb caught upon a snarl. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Murder doesn’t pay much heed to who’s worried about it or not. The Grim Reaper always collects his prize in the end.”

  Pocked Louise rolled her eyes. It was so frustrating, sometimes, trying to talk to Elinor. “What if it was one of us?” she asked. “Do you think it’s possible?”

  Elinor rose and stretched. “Of course I do.” Her nightgown rustled as she blew out their candle and climbed into the upper bunk of their bed. “Anything is possible.”

  “Then who?”

  “I don’t know. Whom do you suspect?”

  Louise shuddered. “Suspect! It’s such a serious word. I wouldn’t dare to suspect anyone. Not without evidence.”

  Elinor lowered her head down over the edge of her bunk. Her hair hung down almost to the top of Louise’s bed, a swaying curtain that glistened in the wavery moonlight. “I won’t tell a soul what you say,” she said. “It’s not suspecting. It’s just asking the question. A scientist asks questions to find the truth, don’t you think?”

  Louise slid down under her covers. “Yes … naturally.”

  “Then what questions occur to you?”

  This, Louise felt certain, was one of those times when saying nothing would be the wisest policy. But Elinor did promise to keep her words secret. And it wasn’t often that the older girls seemed this interested in Louise’s opinions. This was murder, after all. What if she said nothing, and then poor Elinor was the next to fall? Louise could never forgive herself.

  “I don’t know anything,” Louise whispered. “Not a thing. Not a single clue.” She took a deep breath. “But doesn’t it seem rather strange to you how quick Kitty was to take charge of things?” She heard Elinor’s soft intake of breath and plowed ahead. “I mean … this idea of running the school all by ourselves. It seemed so … almost premeditated. Almost as if Kitty had been thinking of and planning this for a long time.”

  Elinor nodded her dangling head, sending her hair undulating.

  “That’s not suspicion, of course,” Louise said. “It’s just a question I have.”

  “I know.” Elinor pulled her head back up and lay down upon her bed.

  Footsteps down the hall made them both pause. Someone creeping down the hall after dark, and tonight … Louise’s pulse raced. She slipped out of bed to listen at the door. She breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s only Kitty and Mary Jane,” she said, then blushed to think of all she’d just said. “They’re bringing us the body.”

  * * *

  Smooth Kitty woke at four o’clock in the morning, when nothing but a sable stripe along the eastern horizon suggested morning would come. After a late evening spent deep in calculating thoughts and plans, she’d had less than three hours of sleep, but Kitty was blessed with the knack of waking whenever she had predetermined to—to the precise minute. Any less control over her person would have been unacceptable to her well-ordered mind.

  She shook Disgraceful Mary Jane awake. The older girl did not rouse easily. Her chestnut curls spilled over her pillow like a waterfall. It’s a shame she’s so disgraceful, Kitty thought. She really is quite lovely. Then again, Kitty considered, perhaps moral rectitude and dazzling beauty could scarcely coexist in the same person. Not, at any rate, in a person like Mary Jane.

  “Mary Jane,” Kitty whispered. “Time to go grave digging.?
??

  “Whatever you say, Reggie,” Mary Jane murmured. “Mamma will never know.”

  “Not Reggie. Kitty,” said that young lady firmly. “Wake up!”

  “Hmph?” Mary Jane’s eyes opened reluctantly. She squinted at Kitty’s offensive candle, scowled, and rolled herself out of bed. “Did I hear you say ‘grave digging,’ or was I having a nightmare?”

  Kitty pulled her gardening frock over her shift and reached for yesterday’s stockings. No use soiling today’s before the sun was even properly up. “This whole excursion is a nightmare, I suppose,” she said, “but we must keep our eyes on the prize. Independence! Freedom from tyranny at home and at school. We shall form a perfect utopia of young womanhood right here at Saint Etheldreda’s School. It’s fitting, don’t you think? Saint Etheldreda, the Maiden Saint?”

  “Fitting for some,” Mary Jane grumbled. “Though why someone who was married twice should be sainted for remaining a maiden is more than I can figure out. I think she must have had revolting breath, and that’s the real explanation for her virtue.” She buttoned her gardening frock. “I thought one usually hired experts with stooping shoulders and strong backs to dig graves. Not young ladies studying French literature and social dancing.”

  It was slow going, rousing Dull Martha and Dear Roberta from their sleep, and Martha required explanations and re-explanations of what had transpired the prior evening, as she had convinced herself in her fitful sleep that it was all a terrible dream. The revelation that it was not a dream brought new tears afresh, and hinted hysterics from Dear Roberta. All in all it took another three quarters of an hour to get all the girls ready to begin their funereal task.

  Dour Elinor and Pocked Louise had shown remarkable fortitude in sharing their bedroom with dead Mrs. Plackett without complaint. Louise was much too scientific and rational to be affected by a corpse in her room, whereas, truth be told, Elinor rather liked the experience. It held for her an aesthetic appeal akin to that which connoisseurs appreciate in an exquisite cheese. “Death is ever near,” she was wont to say, and it now brought her great satisfaction having Mrs. Plackett join their dormitory as a specimen of dying proof.

  All the girls but Stout Alice joined the grave-digging party, as she was still bravely occupied in Mrs. Plackett’s bed, maintaining illusions for Miss Fringle. The rest tiptoed down the stairs in their stocking feet and out the kitchen door, slipping on their Wellingtons as they stepped outside. Dear Roberta rubbed her bare arms and shivered. The morning was gray and damp, with a mist rising off the fields and baptizing the grasses with water droplets. No houses or buildings nearby could be seen, except the mighty cathedral’s towers, rising through the fleecy fog as though surrounded by heavenly clouds of glory.

  The girls caught a rabbit unawares in the vegetable garden, chewing dandelions. It stared at them as if in a dream, then bolted for the cover of nearby bushes. Mr. Shambles, the school’s resident rooster, stalked his way toward them through the damp grass and paused to crow indignantly.

  “Quiet, Mr. Shambles!” Pocked Louise whispered. “The sun’s not up yet, and neither are the neighbors, so keep still!”

  Mr. Shambles, not the least perturbed, pecked a fat slug and ate it.

  The girls found their shovels in the shed, one for each of them, as Mrs. Plackett had been a great believer in the wholesome virtues of gardening for young ladies. They selected an out-of-the-way corner behind the kitchen, near a stand of shrubs, and stood in a loose rectangle enclosing an area Smooth Kitty reckoned ought to accommodate two corpses, side by side.

  It seemed a solemn occasion to Dear Roberta. The pearl-gray dawn air felt thick with significance. “Oughtn’t someone to say some words?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Disgraceful Mary Jane replied. “How about these: ‘Let’s get this over with quickly.’” She plunged her shovel blade into the ground and wrenched away the first load of heavy red clay.

  They rallied round and followed Mary Jane’s example. After some confusion about where to throw the dirt, they soon made excellent progress, though Smooth Kitty couldn’t help worrying that the scrape of the shovels against the soil sounded much louder, really, than it ought to, and mightn’t they be heard? Dear Roberta’s shovel sliced a fat worm in half, and she cried a little for the poor creature, until Dour Elinor pointed out that dead human beings were the purpose of this hole, and oughtn’t she to grieve more for them than for worms? At which Dear Roberta realized that their dead headmistress and her dead brother would be laid to rest in the immediate vicinity of many worms, which would make breakfast, luncheon, tea, and supper off their moldering flesh for weeks to come, without so much as the satin lining of a coffin to protect them, and she declared that she’d lost her appetite forever.

  “Never mind your appetite,” Disgraceful Mary Jane said. “Dig quickly and dig deeply, for pity’s sake.”

  Soil in springtime is stubborn, and claylike soil all the more so. After the first layer of sod had been spaded off, they found deeper levels to be rough going, with gnarled roots from a pear tree some feet away snarling up the operation, and the sheer weight and composition of the soil vexing their work. Despite the cool foggy morning air, Smooth Kitty found perspiration running down her face and sides, but she ignored this stoically and urged the other girls to do the same. They could bathe soon enough.

  “Can you imagine what Mrs. Plackett would say if she could see us now?” asked Smooth Kitty.

  “‘Put your backs into it, you lazy girls,’” mimicked Disgraceful Mary Jane.

  “‘But mind your dresses,’” Kitty said.

  “‘And stand up straight,’” Dour Elinor added for good measure.

  “She did like to see us gardening,” offered Dear Roberta.

  “Correct.” Mary Jane heaved an unruly load of soil. “She liked us to weed and plant her flowerbeds. It saved her the trouble of hiring someone.”

  “Here’s what she can’t say to us afterwards,” said Kitty. “‘Only half a slice of toast per girl.’ From now on, ladies, she can’t starve us anymore.”

  The digging progressed at a discouraging pace. Their hands blistered, yet still the hole seemed far too shallow.

  So engrossed were they in their task that they barely noticed when Mr. Shambles flapped up off the ground in alarm. A lanky lump of curly brown fur shot past where he’d stood pecking a moment before.

  “Good morning, Brutus,” Dull Martha said, stopping to scratch the panting Bingley terrier under his bearded chin. “Did you catch any rats today?”

  “Oh, no!” Pocked Louise moaned. “Where Brutus is, Henry Butts cannot be far behind.”

  And sure enough, a young man in thick leather boots and a wide straw hat strolled into the gardens a moment later. He paused at the sight of them all, stumbled back, and flushed violet in the cheeks. Pocked Louise and Dear Roberta hid their shovels behind their backs. Dour Elinor rolled her eyes and went on digging. Brutus joined in the fun and sent a spray of soil flying out from his paws. Dull Martha’s glasses somehow fell from her nose and landed in her dress pocket, out of sight.

  “I’ll handle this,” Disgraceful Mary Jane whispered, and curtseyed sweetly. She gestured to Elinor to halt her digging. “Good morning, Mr. Butts. What brings you out so early on this lovely May morning?”

  “I … uh … morning … I … message…” Poor Henry eyed the onlooking females like a cornered mouse might eye a bevy of cats.

  Disgraceful Mary Jane laid her slim white hand on his shoulder. “My, but you are a hard worker. Up before dawn to pitch straw for the cows?”

  “Hay.” This topic of conversation drew nearer to Henry’s expertise. “Milking’s first thing.”

  “How charmingly rustic.” Mary Jane flashed a dimpled smile at Henry, a caliber of weapon that had brought much stronger men to their knees. “What brings you all this way over to see us this morning?”

  Dull Martha watched Mary Jane perform with something almost like envy. Mary Jane had a knack for saying “to see us?
?? in a way that clearly implied “to see me.” These powers were the reason Martha felt certain Mary Jane would die a duchess.

  Henry Butts swallowed several times until he was ready to give his answer. “I needed to tell you. Last night. Someone. In your garden.”

  Kitty, Mary Jane, Louise, and Elinor exchanged sly smiles. “Indeed,” Smooth Kitty said. “What were you doing in our gardens last night?”

  Henry shook his head adamantly. “Not me,” he said. “I’m not talking about me. Someone else.”

  Disgraceful Mary Jane tapped Henry playfully on his shirt buttons. “But in order to know about it, you must have been in our gardens as well.”

  His violet cheeks went straight to fuchsia. “It was B-Brutus,” he said. “Chasing coneys. I didn’t want his barking to disturb you young ladies.” Henry looked about him for help, and his eyes fell upon less intimidating faces. “Good morning, Miss Roberta, Miss Martha,” he said, nodding and doffing his hat. He suddenly realized he hadn’t removed it as soon as he met the ladies, and thrust the offending headgear behind his back to hide its shame.

  There they stood, six young ladies with shovels behind their backs, and one young man with a hat behind his.

  They looked at one another.

  Henry looked at Brutus, still digging at a furious rate, for which Pocked Louise inwardly blessed him. She wondered if treats and table scraps might induce him to excavate the entire grave.

  “What are you doing?” Henry asked.

  Several voices responded in chorus.

  “Doing?”

  “Doing,” Henry insisted, “with the shovels.”

  “Oh, these,” Mary Jane answered.

  Quick-thinking Kitty supplied an answer. “Digging,” she said.

  “Yes, but why?”

  Once more the answers tumbled out in a simultaneous heap.

  “Exercise,” said Disgraceful Mary Jane.