The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place (33 page)

They saw Julius only rarely, usually for Sunday dinners. He’d taken lodgings in the city of Ely, and was preparing to enter Oxford by studying with a tutor. There was plenty of room now in Prickwillow Place’s budget for meat at mealtimes, and this without even dipping into the doubloons now stowed safely back in the carved wooden palace. Since the school’s headmistress no longer needed to routinely rescue a dissolute brother, the girls’ tuition payments adequately covered expenses.

Mrs. Godding held a memorial service for Mrs. Plackett and Mr. Godding a week after the strawberry social. It was a silent, somber day for the young ladies. The bodies now lay buried in Saint Mary’s churchyard, nowhere near each other. Mrs. Godding insisted upon that. “The murderer,” she said, “shall not insult his victim’s memory by lying beside her until Judgment Day.” Dour Elinor had supervised the grave digging and pronounced it adequately executed.

One particular Sunday afternoon after a splendid dinner cooked by Dull Martha, Mrs. Godding suggested that they take their strawberries and cream dessert outdoors for a picnic in the garden. She spread old blankets on the ground, and they sat and watched Aldous chase the chickens. Their cherry tree sapling, which the police had uprooted when they exhumed the bodies, Mrs. Godding had suggested they replant and nurture. It hadn’t died yet.

“How are your studies coming along, Mr. Godding?” Pocked Louise asked Julius.

Julius leaned back and spread out his arms to capture more sun. “Very well, thank you, Miss Dudley,” he said. “Do you know, I have decided to follow in my mother’s footsteps and study medicine?”

“Splendid.” Pocked Louise was extremely pleased. “Somehow or other, I shall find a way to do the same. I heard Cambridge University admits a few woman scholars.”

“There’s an opening for a surgeon in Ely,” said Stout Alice. “I suggest you hurry along in your studies.”

Disgraceful Mary Jane plucked the petals off a wild violet. “Did you hear the news at church today, Alice? Your odious law clerk, Leland Murphy, has received a promotion at Mr. Wilkins’s law firm.”

“I thought he looked remarkably dapper in his new suit of clothes,” added Smooth Kitty.

“I had heard the news.” Stout Alice tried not to smile, and failed.

“Speaking of new clothes,” said Mrs. Godding, “for those of you willing to stay on over summer term, I am thinking of spending time working on tailoring skills. A modern woman should not be wholly reliant on dressmakers. When you can sew your own things, you can ensure a proper, stylish fit.”

Dull Martha’s ears perked up in dismay at this. “Summer term?”

Mrs. Godding bit into a fat strawberry laden with cream. “No Latin, Martha, I assure you.” She waved the stem of the berry at Stout Alice. “Now, in your case, Alice, I’m eager to tailor a dress for you. You have a lovely figure, and you shouldn’t go on dressing like a sixty-year old widow.”

Alice blushed scarlet. “I don’t!”

Julius laughed. “Mother, you’re embarrassing your students again.”

“I’m not embarrassed,” Alice said. “I just … think I’ll go inside for a pitcher of water and some cups.”

“I’ll go with you, Alice,” said Mary Jane.

Dull Martha and Dear Roberta pleaded for Pocked Louise and Mrs. Godding to join them in a game of croquet, and to the astonishment of all, Dour Elinor joined them.

Kitty and Julius sat alone in silence and watched Aldous steal the ball and run off with it every time someone struck it with a mallet.

“I suppose we should go join in the game,” Kitty said.

“Or not,” said Julius.

Kitty found her awareness of every detail around her heightened, as if looking at the world through a magnifying glass, and hearing every birdsong through a trumpet. She had had no chance to speak with Julius privately since the horrid night when the bodies were found. She shuddered to think what he must think of her. And she hated noticing how much these worries bothered her.

“How are
your
studies coming along, Miss Heaton?” Julius asked.

“Hm?” Kitty looked up. “Studies? Oh. Very well.” She smiled. “Your mother is an excellent teacher.”

“I’m not surprised to hear it,” Julius said. “I think
she
has been surprised to discover how much she enjoys this. Taking over the school has been good for her. She was rather bored in India, except when she volunteered at her clinic.”

Kitty ate a strawberry. “You must miss seeing more of her.”

“I have been rather replaced.” He laughed. “I suppose seven daughters for one son is a more than reasonable exchange.”

Daughters. Kitty’s mind caught hold of that word, and turned it over several times. Daughters. Sisters. It pleased her.

“Do you plan to stay on for the summer term?” Julius asked.

“I do,” Kitty said. “Father won’t object.”

Julius turned to look directly at Kitty. “And how long do you expect to stay on as a student?”

Kitty steeled herself to avoid staring at his dark curls, or at the suntan he’d somehow maintained here in England. “For as long as Father lets me,” she said. “If I grow too old to be a pupil, perhaps your mother would let me teach. She says she plans to take on younger students eventually.”

Julius smiled. “I like the thought of that.”

“Of what? Me teaching?”

He shook his head. “Of you staying on here at the school. Mother’s very fond of you.”

Kitty turned to watch Mrs. Godding knock a croquet ball clear across the lawn. Aldous went bounding after it, and she called to him in dismay.

“I like her, too.”

There was only one strawberry left in the bowl. Julius dunked it in the cream and offered it to Kitty. “And this way,” he said, “I will always know where to find you.”

Kitty nearly dropped the strawberry. She popped it into her mouth, stem and all.

Mary Jane and Alice came strolling around the corner of the house bearing a pitcher and cups. At the sight of Kitty and Julius sitting by themselves, they veered toward the croquet match, leaving Kitty alone to blush.

When they were fully out of earshot, Kitty took a deep breath. “Mr. Godding.”

He looked pained. “Julius. Please.”

“Mr. Godding,” she insisted, “I must ask you this question. Can you ever forgive me for what I did to your aunt and your uncle? For my audacity, and selfishness?”

He took off his hat and rested it on one knee. “You weren’t the only one, from what I understand. If there’s any blame, shouldn’t it be divided seven ways?”

Kitty shook her head. “I thought up the plan and convinced the others it was a good idea. I was the ringleader.”

“I’m not surprised.”

Kitty tried to read his expression but couldn’t, then realized Mrs. Godding and the other girls had moved past the lilac hedge and out of view.

“I won’t deny that the sight of them made me lose my appetite for quite some time,” Julius said, with a twinkle in his eye. “But when I think about it from your perspective, I envy your daring. You had a choice between going home or building a new life for yourself. You took a chance.”

“A foolish one,” Kitty said.

“Perhaps, in hindsight,” he agreed. “All I ask is that if you should ever come upon me, strangled on a piece of cod or succumbing to a chicken leg, that you notify the undertakers straightaway. Do you promise?”

He offered her his hand to shake. She smiled and took his hand in hers. They shook. But Julius didn’t release her grip as yet.

“Friends?” he asked.

Kitty smiled. “I hope so.”

Julius looked around. They were still alone, with no one in view. He pulled her hand close and kissed it. “Good,” he said. “I insist upon it.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I chose Ely, England, as the setting for my boarding school murder mystery because Etheldreda, the Maiden Saint, was honored in the cathedral there. I wanted to write a story about a gang of clever, loyal, scandalous maiden friends, so Etheldreda seemed like a proper candidate for my project’s patron saint.

When an opportunity arose to travel to Europe, I seized the chance to visit Ely, and there I fell completely in love. Three friends and I traveled together. We were our own little scandalous sisterhood as we toured the majestic Ely Cathedral, browsed the shops and markets on streets where Oliver Cromwell once walked, strolled along the River Great Ouse, and hiked up the real Prickwillow Road. The five-star English breakfast we ate at Mrs. Smith’s home, our marvelous Ely B&B, still sizzles in my memory. (I asked Mrs. Godding to prepare it for the girls in Chapter 30, and she was happy to oblige.)

Traveling to Ely, and hobnobbing with Smooth Kitty, Disgraceful Mary Jane, Stout Alice, Pocked Louise, Dour Elinor, Dull Martha, and Dear Roberta, made this project a delight for me. Another of its charms came from researching the Victorian era, trying to understand how real people lived, ate, worked, shopped, studied, married, gambled, dressed, went to jail, died, and were buried in this fascinating period. Every quirky detail, from Mr. Nestlé’s Swiss chocolate, to Elinor’s posture brace, to the new miracle American beauty product, Vaseline, came from research texts and books and journals published during the late 19th Century.

Poisoning had become a serious crime problem in the late Victorian age, in part because life insurance had become more widespread. Alas, some desperate people began to look upon unpleasant relatives, if they carried life insurance policies, as worth more dead than alive. Poisoning cases were hard to prove, so many poisoners got away with murder. Methods of detecting poisons were less developed than they are today, but scientists and detectives made great strides in learning how to identify cyanide and other toxins. The details of Pocked Louise’s experiment where she proved the veal was poisoned came from a book published in 1849, which was intended for doctors called upon to test evidence and give testimony in criminal cases.

When it wasn’t poisoned, food in the Victorian era was a colorful concoction of dishes, some of which we might find savory, others bland, and some disgusting. The Betty Crocker of her day was a cookbook author named Elizabeth E. Lea, whose 1845 book,
Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers
is a treasure trove, and still in print today. From its helpful pages a housewife might learn how to bake breads, boil oysters, preserve pickles, discipline lazy servants, brew up salves for bunions, roast a calf’s head for dinner, and mash its brains, with bread crumbs, into appetizing ‘Brain Cakes.’ Is your mouth watering?

Victorian middle- and upper-class parents felt a deep concern to provide their daughters with the right sort of education that would advance their prospects for marriage. Schools of every kind, both public and private, sprang up for young ladies during this time period, and manners, etiquette, social graces, posture, dancing, and ladylike arts (painting, singing, needlework, and music) were taught alongside academic subjects. While many educators were undoubtedly caring and inspiring, many others, as Charles Dickens’s novels show us, seem to have been heartless and unfeeling. An education might well be an ordeal; people seemed to feel that the younger generation was best molded by harsh discipline and Spartan conditions that would save them from the sins of idleness and luxury. By these standards, our Saint Etheldreda’s School pupils may have been luckier than most, even with crabby, penny-pinching Mrs. Plackett instructing them.

It was an age obsessed with instilling proper morals in the young, and in particular in young women. Even popular music reinforced these ideals. Stout Alice’s song, which she attempted to sing at the strawberry social, came from an 1858 collection,
The Book of Popular Songs
edited (and some of them, written) by J. E. Carpenter. In these pre-radio days, this song may well have been the closest thing to a Top 40 hit. The song, “’Tis Not Fine Feathers Make Fine Birds,” compares young ladies fixated on beauty and fancy clothes to vain peacocks, and more modest, humble, virtuous girls to small, plain birds with beautiful voices. The peacock may think it’s a fancy-looking bird, warns the songwriter, but its song is a painful screech. Better to dress and live modestly, it concludes, and sing sweetly. Our scandalous sisters, and particularly Disgraceful Mary Jane, saw right through such pat, simplistic nonsense. Perhaps Mr. Carpenter, the songwriter, was unaware that the peacocks who strut around in their fancy feathers are the
boys
.

I include the entire song here for you.

’T
IS
N
OT
F
INE
F
EATHERS
M
AKE
F
INE
B
IRDS

By J. E. Carpenter, Music by N. J. S. Spoble

A peacock came, with his plumage gay,

Strutting in regal pride one day,

Where a small bird hung in a gilded cage,

Whose song might a seraph’s ear engage;

The bird sang on while the peacock stood,

Vaunting his plumes to the neighbourhood;

And the radiant sun seem’d not more bright

Than the bird that bask’d in his golden light;

But the small bird sung in his own sweet words,

“’Tis not fine feathers make fine birds!”

The peacock strutted,—a bird so fair

Never before had ventured there,

While the small bird hung at a cottage door,—

And what could a peacock wish for more?

Alas! The bird of the rainbow wing

He wasn’t contented—he tried to sing!

And they who gazed on his beauty bright,

Scared by his screaming, soon took flight;

While the small bird sung in his own sweet words,

“’Tis not fine feathers make fine birds!”

Then prithee take warning, maidens fair,

And still of the peacock’s fate beware.

Beauty and wealth won’t win your way,