To Sleep No More (A Dalton & Dalton Mystery) Read online

  Chapter 2

  THE ENCLOSED hansom cab Alex had hired at the Westfield, Massachusetts, railway station was much more comfortable than the buckboard wagon she traveled in back in Idaho, but, like her current surroundings, it was also more austere. And constricting. And oh-so-boringly refined.

  The driver pulled the cab to a stop in front of Uncle Henry’s white two-story mansion at the end of the tree-bordered lane. So little had changed in the five years since Alex had left she could almost smell the aroma of the Joe Pye weeds that grew throughout the surrounding unoccupied properties and taste the bitterness of the tea she’d made with them to soothe her cousin Fay’s high fever. She and Fay had been what—sixteen years old at that time?

  “Would you like help with your luggage, Miss?” the driver said through the small trap door behind her. He sat on a sprung seat behind and above her compartment.

  Alex dabbed her handkerchief to her eyes and forced a smile. It simply wouldn’t do for him, or anyone for that matter, to believe she’d lost control of her emotions. “No. Thank you.” She gathered Ivy from where she slept on the seat beside her and set her inside the red and orange carpetbag.

  Ivy looked up at Alex. She yawned.

  “Stay quiet for just a little longer,” Alex whispered. She clutched the closed carpetbag with one hand and the handle of her hard suitcase with the other and climbed out of the cab.

  When the driver turned the horse back toward the main road, Alex straightened her spine and stepped through the gray stone fence’s black wrought iron gate.

  “Metal and rock,” Alex muttered. Dissimilar objects forced to stand side by side. The first time she’d seen them, she’d been a newly-orphaned child moving to this manor from the West—the farm—where she’d grown up. She’d hardly noticed the gate then, but now she suspected Uncle Henry had put the metal and rock together on purpose. As a symbol for what life was really about. He did—had done—things like that over the years.

  Alex frowned. But no more.

  She drew back her shoulders, walked to the manor’s double front doors, and set her luggage on the ground next to her. She pulled a telegram from the curved welt pocket of her dark green linen traveling dress. The message had come from her uncle’s lawyer a week and a half ago, the day after she and Vera had returned home from their expedition, and she’d held it, read it, refolded it so many times the paper now felt more like a rag than a document.

  Alexandra Dalton Stop Henry Watson dead Stop Specified you must attend reading of will July twenty third of this year Stop Four in afternoon Stop M Talbot

  Alex slid the telegram back into her pocket and closed her eyes until her lips stopped quivering. Showing emotion wouldn’t restore her uncle back to life, nor would it keep Edna Shaw, her and Fay’s previous governess who’d later become her uncle’s housekeeper, from fussing over her. She rang the bell.

  Ivy squirmed inside the carpetbag. Alex, smiling sadly, opened it. “I suppose it’s safe enough for you to come out now.”

  Instead of crawling out, Ivy stood on her hind paws and wrapped her front legs around Alex’s shin.

  Alex shook her head. The poor thing had been even more clingy since that creature had stung her. She was probably afraid she’d run into another one. But then, maybe that wasn’t the reason at all. Maybe, as Vera had suggested, Ivy still carried a trace of the creature’s poison in her blood. That was bound to make her feel out of sorts.

  The front door swung open. Edna, a short, spindly woman with silver hair and astute blue eyes gazed up and down the length of Alex. Her gray, tiny-flower-patterned day dress looked just as it had when she’d taught Alex in the upstairs schoolroom, but her apron looked as white as a new bolt of cloth. “My dearest girl! Come in.”

  “Hello, Edna.” Alex leaned into Edna’s easy embrace and followed her through the front door into the large entry hall. Other than the fact that electric light now lit the room rather than candles, very little had changed. The same black walnut floors led to the drawing room on their left, the formal dining room on their right, and the wide staircase with the same pale yellow crest-patterned wall bench straight in front of them. For a tiny moment, Alex wished she’d had the courage to face her Aunt’s disapproval all those years ago and had slid down the staircase’s carved wood banister all the way from the top floor where the family’s bedrooms were to the kitchen and servant’s quarters in the basement. Surely such a memory would have lifted her spirits.

  “I could hardly believe it when Henry told me you were coming,” Edna said.

  Ivy sat on Alex’s feet.

  “You mean Uncle Henry’s lawyer, Mr. Talbot, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. Mr. Talbot.” Edna pursed her lips and straightened her apron. “I hope I haven’t upset you, dear?”

  “Not at all.” Alex looked away from Edna—it was easier not to cry that way—and scanned the hallway. “Is Fay already here?” Uncle Henry’s daughter would of course inherit the Watson fortune. That was as it should be, but since her uncle had specifically asked Alex to be at the reading of his will too, Alex hoped he’d left something to her. A small memento, even a final message would comfort her heart. But even if neither were the case, Alex would have answered her uncle’s bidding anyway. Uncle Henry had taken her into his home and family when she was twelve after her parents had died of influenza. Alex owed much of the woman she’d become to Uncle Henry. More than that, she’d loved him like her own father.

  “I’m afraid you’re the first to arrive, my girl.” Edna motioned to the drawing room. “If you’ll come this way.”

  Alex furrowed her brows. “Wouldn’t this meeting be more appropriate in Uncle Henry’s office?”

  “His orders were for you to wait in the drawing room.”

  Alex sighed. Perhaps Mr. Talbot had developed eccentricities in his old age. The stars knew her uncle had.

  “I’ll take your bags to your old room for you while you wait.” Once again, Edna eyed the length of Alex. “Or would you prefer to freshen up?”

  “That’s very thoughtful, Edna, but I’ll wait until after I’ve spoken with Mr. Talbot.” Then I’ll have time enough to take both a bath and a nap. Alex scooped Ivy into her arms. “I must ask you to please not open any of my bags, though.”

  Edna stared at Alex as if she expected her to explain her request, but Alex held her tongue. Not many people, especially a genteel woman, would appreciate finding a jar with a tarantula living inside it. Vera had insisted Alex take the spider with her in case she needed him to bite Ivy a second time. Alex had suggested they have him bite Ivy right then and be done with it, but Vera had contended that Alistair’s powers were untested. It would be better to watch over Ivy and have him bite a second time only if Ivy seemed in danger. In the end, Alex had conceded, promising to keep tabs on Alistair and record any changes in his behavior.

  “Very well, Alexandra.” Edna gathered Alex’s luggage and headed to the staircase. “You can find your way, I’m sure.”

  “Yes.” Alex took a deep breath, nudged Ivy from her feet, and moved into the drawing room. She gaped. Everything except the tall windows with white shutters and the long, rectangular mirror beside the doorway at the back of the room had changed from predominately red coloring to white. The table cloths, the chairs, the sofas. Even a delicate off-white carpet had replaced the red-and-gold-patterned one.

  Alex shook her head. What had possessed her uncle to make so many alterations? Had he truly not known how important this room had been to Fay and her? Or had it no longer mattered, since both of them had moved away?

  She took two slow steps, scanning from one end of the room to the other. Some nights, when she and Fay had been so caught up with their comings and goings that they couldn’t sleep, Edna had gathered them there. She’d offered them something warm to drink, tea or hot cocoa, and they’d told her of their hopes and especially of their fears. Edna, in turn, had spoken of days she’d wished she’d known: happy days filled with love and fami
ly and children. At those times, Edna had seemed like the mother Alex and Fay wished they still had.

  “Hang on to the goodness of your lives,” Edna would say before Alex and Fay had finally kissed her good night. “Happiness can be fleeting.”

  Alex fingered the pink ribbon on her wrist. That statement was true enough. Even the comfort she’d once found in that room hadn’t lasted. “Come now, Ivy. If I have to sit, you might as well fill my lap.”

  Ivy mewed, and the two sat on the white velvet wing chair close to the door. Who would arrive next? Fay or Mr. Talbot?

  ***