The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place

  “Kitty! Alice! Look!” the breathless Louise cried. “Oh, hullo, Barnes. Look, girls, what a jolly day we’re going to have. I got us a tree to plant, just like you asked, but best of all, I got us a puppy!”

  CHAPTER 8

  The streak of black-and-white speckled fur dragged Louise around behind the house and out of sight.

  Smooth Kitty and Stout Alice avoided meeting Amanda Barnes’s gaze. What Barnes must think now, Kitty couldn’t stomach to guess. The awkward silence was broken by a trotting horse appearing far down the road, pulling a lightweight chaise.

  “Doctor Snelling, making his rounds,” Barnes observed.

  “He’s on his way to call upon Mrs. Plackett,” Smooth Kitty said. “Alice, perhaps you should go inside and change your clothes.”

  Alice blanched, then slipped indoors. The horror! It was one thing to pretend to be sixty-two-year-old Constance Plackett while sleeping in a darkened room with a blind, drugged, ear-plugged old choir mistress; quite another thing to play Mrs. Plackett by the light of morning for the scrutinizing eyes of a man of medicine.

  “I don’t see why Miss Alice needs to change her clothes,” Miss Barnes said. “You’ll forgive my saying so, Miss Katherine, but your frock has quite a splash of mud around the hems. I’ll tackle it on washing day.”

  Dr. Snelling’s gleaming chaise advanced slowly up the road, pulled by a well-groomed bay mare. Kitty watched it come with mounting dread. Oh, this aggravating Amanda Barnes!

  The doctor stopped his chaise, climbed out stiffly, and tied it to a post near the front door.

  “Morning,” he called out. “Don’t mind me. I’ll show myself in.”

  “Wait!” Kitty cried. Stall him, stall him! “Er, tell me, Doctor Snelling, if you would be so kind, please, how Mrs., er, Benson? No, Bennion, fared last evening. At the birth of her child.”

  Dr. Snelling scowled. “A daughter,” he grumbled. “I lost my wager. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

  And before Kitty could stop him, he pushed open the door and disappeared into the dark bowels of the house.

  Kitty found herself in a moment of peril, and like all great women, she let the moment of crisis infuse her with strength she hadn’t known she possessed. Summoning the very essence of her dear departed Aunt Katherine, that imposing force of nature after whom she was named, she drew herself up to her full height, which was not very great, and still managed to look down her nose at the daily housekeeper.

  “Good morning to you, Barnes,” she said with polite but decisive firmness. She seized Barnes’s wrist and pressed the wages into her palm. “Enjoy your holiday. I must go inside now and tend to my late headmistress.”

  Barnes’s eyes widened. “Your late headmistress?”

  “Late,” she replied with frosty dignity, “for her doctor’s appointment.” She turned abruptly, went inside, and closed the door behind her.

  * * *

  Kitty could not pause to revel in her triumph. Late headmistress! That had been a near catastrophe. She dropped the tablecloth linen into a chair and ran to the door of her headmistress’s bedroom. Low voices inside, sounding male and female, and not the least bit animated, met her ears.

  She pushed open the door and entered the dim room. The curtains were drawn shut.

  Dr. Snelling turned from examining Mrs. Plackett to look up at Kitty. “Pardon me, young lady,” he said. “I’m examining my patient.”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Plackett said in a frosty voice. “Kindly afford me my privacy, Katherine, and resume your studies in the schoolroom.”

  Smooth Kitty was so astonished, she nearly stumbled backward, which would have been anything but smooth, so it is fortunate that she did not in fact do so. But there she was! Mrs. Plackett, in the flesh, dressed in her customary widow’s mourning, peering through a black lacy veil, and speaking in her unmistakable voice to Dr. Snelling.

  Kitty backed out of the room. She began to feel a bit faint.

  Dour Elinor and Disgraceful Mary Jane appeared in the hallway. Mary Jane seized Kitty’s elbow and dragged her into the parlor where Dull Martha and Dear Roberta were already seated. All the girls struggled to silence their mirth over some suppressed joke.

  “Isn’t she absolutely brilliant?” Disgraceful Mary Jane whispered.

  Kitty was at a loss. “Who, Mrs. Plackett?”

  “No, silly.” Mary Jane sank into a soft chair and kicked up her heels. “Elinor!”

  Smooth Kitty turned a bewildered glance upon Elinor, hoping to find some explanation. She saw nothing outside the ordinary in the girl’s pallid, morose appearance.

  Mary Jane sat up straight in her chair. “You don’t comprehend yet, do you?” She laughed. “What, you goose, did you think it was Mrs. Plackett in there?”

  Kitty would have died before admitting as much to Mary Jane.

  “Elinor made Alice up,” Mary Jane explained. “She used her artist’s charcoals to paint Mrs. Plackett’s face right onto Alice’s. She did it like lightning, wrinkles and bumps and all. You should have seen it. Well, you did, didn’t you? Bit of a shocker, wasn’t it?”

  Kitty clutched the armrests of her chair. “But … the clothes! And the hair, and … everything! She only went inside a moment or two ago. How could you possibly?”

  Disgraceful Mary Jane preened before a small mirror she kept in her pocket. “We pounced on her, naturally.”

  “We all helped,” Dear Roberta added. “She came running in, calling for assistance, so we all pitched in. Martha ran for Mrs. Plackett’s old clothes…”

  “While I dumped talcum in her hair and twisted it up like Mrs. Plackett’s,” Mary Jane added.

  “Elinor used her pencils and pastels to do her face up astonishingly,” Martha offered.

  “And I adjusted Mrs. Plackett’s corsets so that Alice was … Plackett-shaped.” Dear Roberta beamed with simple pride.

  “I held Doctor Snelling at the door for a minute or two,” Mary Jane said. “I’m rather better at it than you are, Kitty.”

  Smooth Kitty sank back in her chair. “Well. Nothing more can surprise me after this. Superbly done, girls. Now we can only pray that Doctor Snelling fails to recognize the difference between a sick and aged liver, and a young and healthy one.”

  “Shall he cut her open, do you think, for a closer peek?” asked Dour Elinor with genuine interest.

  Kitty ignored Elinor. A smile began to spread across her face. “Do you realize what this means?” she whispered. “If Alice can trick Doctor Snelling into believing she’s Mrs. Plackett, then we can fool anyone!”

  “Possibly,” Dour Elinor said.

  The bedroom door opened in the hallway, and heavy footsteps advanced out.

  “I’m glad to hear you’re feeling so much better,” they heard.

  “Thank you, Doctor.” The voice floated down the hall as if straight from the grave. Smooth Kitty wasn’t the only one to shudder. “I’m deeply indebted to you.”

  Dr. Snelling moved toward the door, pausing within view of the girls. “As to that, there is the small matter of your account. I must remind you to respond to your most recent statement of balances due.”

  There was an awkward pause. Smooth Kitty and Disgraceful Mary Jane eyed one other.

  “Of course,” Alice-as-Mrs.-Plackett replied. “I apologize, Doctor. I’ve felt too poorly of late to keep up with financial matters. I will attend to it directly.”

  “I’m obliged to you for that small consideration. Lord knows a country surgeon will never be a rich man. Still…” He checked his gold watch. “We all like to eat.” He passed out of sight, and the girls heard the sound of the front door opening and closing, and shortly thereafter the sound of hoofs clopping and wheels rolling over the gravel drive.

  Stout Alice, still as Mrs. Plackett, peeped around the doorway and smiled. The girls flew to her side and tackled her with hugs.

  “You did it!” Kitty exclaimed. “You made an examining doctor believe you were a sixty-year-old woman!”


  “Sixty-two,” Alice laughed.

  There was another knock at the door. Stout Alice sighed. “I’ll go change. We’d best not push our luck with two impersonations.”

  “No, don’t,” Kitty said. “Stay. I want to see if this will work. Mary Jane, get the door, will you?”

  Mary Jane ushered Henry Butts into the parlor. Kitty watched him like a hawk to see if he spotted the counterfeit Mrs. Plackett.

  “Note for you, ma’am,” he said, handing Stout Alice an envelope.

  “Thank you, young man,” the false Mrs. Plackett said. “Katherine. Be so good as to reward Master Butts’s helpfulness? I seem to have misplaced my change-purse.”

  Kitty fished in her pocket for a suitable coin for Henry, but that young gallant refused any payment. “No, thank you, ma’am,” he said. “It was my pleasure.” He turned to go, then turned back. “Pardon me, ma’am,” he ventured. “If I may ask…” He bit his lower lip.

  “Yes, Master Butts?” said Stout Alice. “What is it?”

  Henry blushed. His gaze roamed around the room until it rested upon Disgraceful Mary Jane. He took a deep breath, then addressed the supposed headmistress once more. “There’s a strawberry social Wednesday night at the parish. Will you be going?”

  “No,” Smooth Kitty said, while,

  “Yes,” Stout Alice said, and,

  “Absolutely,” Disgraceful Mary Jane said.

  Kitty and Mary Jane glared at each other.

  “We are going,” Alice said in Mrs. Plackett’s most commanding voice. “Such an opportunity to socialize with our neighbors is one not to be missed.”

  Kitty had no choice but to curtsey in deference to her headmistress for Henry’s benefit.

  Henry couldn’t hide his excitement. Disgraceful Mary Jane made matters worse by winking at him. He turned and bolted for the exit, colliding heavily with the doorway. At last the front door slammed shut behind him.

  “Well, Mrs. Plackett,” Smooth Kitty said with a touch of asperity, “I’m glad to hear you’re recovered enough from your shock and grief over young Julius to feel like venturing out into society.”

  Stout Alice plucked her widow’s headpiece off. “I’m not going as Mrs. Plackett,” she cried. “I can’t!” Her thoughts went racing to Leland Murphy, who had asked her specially if she was going. She hoped fervently that Smooth Kitty, whom Alice sometimes suspected of being a mind-reader, had no way to know it.

  “You’ve no choice,” Kitty replied. “You’ve committed us to attend the social, and it’s inconceivable that Mrs. Plackett would allow her charges out at an evening party unsupervised. Alice will have to remain home with a headache while Mrs. Plackett chaperones us.”

  A knot of keen disappointment welled up in Stout Alice’s bosom. She wanted to contradict Kitty—she must contradict her—but Alice saw in a terrible instant that she was right. Only as Mrs. Plackett could she attend the social. “I think I do have a headache,” she said. “It’s been a ghastly twelve hours. I’m going to go lie down.”

  Before Alice could leave the room, they heard a whining and a scratching noise at the rear door that led from the parlor straight out into the gardens. The door opened, and in shot a black-and-white dog, followed closely by Pocked Louise.

  “Is it safe to come in now?” she asked, pulling off her bonnet. “I planted our cherry tree, and watered it with a bucket from the pump. Aldous here wanted to dig the bodies right back up, didn’t you, you naughty boy?”

  She sank to her knees and kissed the puppy, which attacked her face with loving licks.

  “Aldous?” Disgraceful Mary Jane cried. “You named him after nasty Mr. Godding?”

  “I thought we wanted a bulldog to protect us, not a silly spaniel,” Stout Alice said.

  “Aldy’s not a silly…” Pocked Louise turned and noticed Alice’s costume for the first time. She blanched for an instant, then smiled. “I say! Spot-on, Alice! You nearly made me consider the possibility of ghosts for a second.” Aldous grew more passionate in his ardent licking, and Louise abandoned human conversation in favor of canine. “That’s a boy, there, isn’t he a good boy? We don’t need any frightful bulldog, do we, Aldy? He’s a smart boy, yes he is, yes he is.”

  Dour Elinor blinked languidly. “What is it about pets that makes rational people start babbling like infants?”

  Dear Roberta and Dull Martha joined Louise on the floor to make Aldous’s acquaintance. Even Stout Alice joined the party, and admitted readily that Aldous was a smart boy and a handsome fellow and not a silly spaniel at all. He had great curly ears that flapped and flew like windmill blades as he spun his head.

  “I hope we can manage the expense of a dog,” Smooth Kitty said. “And while we’re on the subject of money, our independent feminine utopia can’t exist long without some funds, or all this fuss over hiding the bodies will come to naught. Oh!”

  Dull Martha looked up at Smooth Kitty’s exclamation. “What is it, Kitty?”

  Kitty reached into her pocket and pulled out the coins. “Nothing. Thinking of money made me remember…”

  “Yes, do tell,” Alice said. “I noticed you looked puzzled when you counted the coins in your hand this morning for Barnes.”

  “Hm, did it show?” Kitty held two gold coins up for a view in better window light. “I thought these were sovereigns, but that’s not Queen Victoria.” She squinted at the coin to read the engraving. “CAROL III, D. G. HISP. ET. IND. R.” She turned the coin over and read the other side. “Auspice Deo In Utroq Felix. Elinor? Louise? You’re our Latin scholars. What does it mean?”

  Both girls peered over Kitty’s shoulder at the coins.

  “Through the auspices—or the generosity, you might say, or grace—of God, we … live happily?” Dour Elinor ventured.

  “Prosper,” Pocked Louise said. “Charles the Third, R for ‘Rex,’ or king. ‘Hisp’ is Hispania, or ‘Spain,’ in Latin, and ‘Ind’ is for Indies.”

  The three girls looked at each other.

  “So these are Spanish coins?” Disgraceful Mary Jane inquired.

  “Old ones,” Kitty replied, peering again at the inscription.

  “Doubloons, I should think,” offered Dour Elinor.

  “Ooh, how romantic!” Disgraceful Mary Jane sighed. “They sound like something from a pirate novel.”

  Pocked Louise ignored this interruption. “They’re probably worth more than their face value,” she said. “I imagine collectors would pay extra for these.”

  Dear Roberta peeked in for a closer look. “But where did you find them, Kitty?”

  Kitty’s mind was so busy, she almost didn’t hear the question. “Hm? Oh.” She hefted them in her palm. “These are what I thought were sovereigns when we cleaned out Mrs. Plackett’s and Mr. Godding’s pockets. They each were carrying one.”

  Pocked Louise frowned. “That’s odd.”

  “Family heirloom?” offered Dear Roberta.

  Disgraceful Mary Jane threw her hands up in the air. “Maybe they each found one in the bottom of a drawer or an old sea chest. Honestly, Louise, sometimes you severely overthink things. Let’s leave off with this coin nonsense and find something to eat. I’m starving.”

  CHAPTER 9

  The students at Saint Etheldreda’s School for Young Ladies breakfasted on bread and butter and milk, and lunched on eggs gathered from the henhouse. At teatime they had toast and tea. To an outside observer these might have seemed to be the only events of this quiet day at Saint Etheldreda’s school. But as is so often the case with groups of young ladies, the real intrigue took place underneath the surface, in small domestic matters, in conversations, in whisperings, and in private thoughts.

  Take, for instance, Pocked Louise’s afternoon stroll outdoors with Aldous, ambling along the hedgerows that lined Prickwillow Road. She was still fuming over Disgraceful Mary Jane saying she overthought things. A dose of occasional thinking, she thought, would do Mary Jane a mountain of good. Pocked Louise pressed her lips together grimly. She did
n’t care what they said. She would never, never, never allow herself to grow to be a noodle-headed young lady whose brains had been sacrificed on the altar to boy-worship. Though Louise’s experience with males was limited, she knew enough of what sticky-fingered fiends her boy cousins were to know that no male, be he ever so combed and shoe-shined, could tempt her to give up her intellectual pursuits. Never.

  She wandered around a hedge, then Aldous let out a yap and dragged her headlong into someone.

  “I say! Pardon me,” that someone said, disentangling himself from the leash and from Pocked Louise. “So very sorry.”

  Louise leveled a look at him. It was a young man, a few years older, she would guess, than the eldest girls at Saint Etheldreda’s. What’s more, she deduced from his well-dressed look, courteous bearing, and rather excessive smiling, he was the sort of young man that Disgraceful Mary Jane or even Smooth Kitty might fall batty over. She was in such a pique with those overbearing young ladies, and with males in general, that she chose to hate this young man on principle.

  “Do you mind telling me,” said her new acquaintance, oblivious to the ill-regard in which Louise held him, “if this house here is the finishing school for young ladies? Saint Ethel’s?”

  Louise’s gaze narrowed. What could he want with a finishing school? Nothing worthwhile, she was sure. Perhaps he was an old beau of Mary Jane’s, and she’d posted a letter to him the moment their backs were turned. If Disgraceful Mary Jane thought the others would stand by while she invited flirtatious young men over, she had another thing coming.

  “Ely has several finishing schools for young women,” Louise said stiffly. “This house isn’t one of them.”

  “Oh,” he said, looking puzzled. “I thought for certain this was the right place. When I met you, I assumed, naturally, you must be one of the students.”

  “I live here with my grandparents.” Louise was surprised to find what a liar she’d become. But the last thing any of the girls needed was more visitors. It wasn’t her fault this person was so inquisitive.