Page 14 of A Lesson in Propriety (Merriweather Academy for Young Ladies #1)
Fourteen
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Mother is once again refusing to come out of her room,” Annaliese said as she trudged up to join Drusilla, her appearance allowing Drusilla a brief respite from the drudgery of cleaning a medieval tapestry that had been hanging on the wall—until Drusilla had noticed numerous spiders gathered on the backside of it, something that Annaliese had informed her was called a clutter , as the spiders weren’t actually touching one another but were spread out across the tapestry.
According to Annaliese, if the spiders had been touching, they would have been called a cluster , and given that the castle hadn’t been properly cleaned since the household staff had abandoned their posts almost a year and a half before, Drusilla was relatively certain she’d happen upon a cluster of spiders at some point in time, something she was definitely not looking forward to.
She gave the tapestry one last thump with the raggedy old broom she’d found in the kitchen, giving a bit of a start when Annaliese edged up beside her and began plucking spiders from the apron Drusilla had also found in the kitchen, her sister setting each creepy-crawly gently on the ground instead of flinging them through the air, something Drusilla would have certainly done if she’d noticed the little darlings clinging to an apron she would have never imagined donning a mere month ago.
“These won’t hurt you, at least not much,” Annaliese said, scooping another spider into her gloved hand. “They’re wolf spiders, from the family Lycosidae, and are a common spider found throughout the States.”
“They seem to be quite common inside the castle. But what do you mean they won’t hurt me much ?”
“They’ll only bite if they’re feeling threatened.”
“You don’t think the spiders view being plucked off my apron as a little threatening?”
“An interesting point,” Annaliese said before she set the spider on the ground and made a bit of a shooing motion when it simply stood there, undoubtedly wondering if it should hop back on Drusilla and see how tasty she was. Annaliese leaned over and gave it a prod, straightening a second later when the spider finally scrambled across the back courtyard.
“I think I got them all,” Annaliese said after giving Drusilla a thorough perusal. “And since you’re now spider-free, to return to the mother situation, know that besides refusing to leave her room, Mother has been overly enthusiastic with using the annunciator today, something that has left Mrs. O’Sullivan in a testy frame of mind.”
“Why would Mother be ringing for Mrs. O’Sullivan when she just had breakfast delivered to her an hour ago?”
“I imagine she’s decided she’s in desperate need of a second pot of coffee.”
“But she knows we have limited staff at the moment and she can’t expect to be waited on hand and foot.”
“I’m sure Mother’s aware of that, but since she’s still under the impression she’ll run into another ghost if she steps out of her room, she’s reluctant to do any fetching for herself.”
Drusilla leaned her chin against the top of the broom handle, wondering how in the world it had happened that her life had turned so troubling of late.
In all honesty, during the three days that had passed since they’d landed in Chicago, she’d found herself thinking time and again that it would have been helpful if she hadn’t enjoyed such a pampered life for most of her twenty-two years, given how difficult life seemed to be turning these days.
Pampered young ladies usually didn’t find themselves responsible for putting an entire castle in order that hadn’t seen a broom in forever, nor did they ever have to make do with a skeleton staff to accomplish that—how many rooms actually needed to be cleaned, she couldn’t say as of yet, although she’d wandered through thirty-two at last count. She had the sneaking suspicion there were at least thirty-two more to go, if not more, given the size of the castle.
“Missed one,” Annaliese said cheerfully as she plucked a spider from Drusilla’s sleeve, yanking Drusilla straight out of her thoughts.
Annaliese set the spider down and straightened. “I’m sure that’s all of them, but you might want to consider changing your clothes soon, and perhaps take a bath just to be on the safe side, although I wouldn’t advise you asking Mrs. O’Sullivan to heat up the water since she is, as I mentioned, testy.”
“Sound advice, but know that I’ll talk to Mother and encourage her to avoid being a nuisance with the annunciator, which might have Mrs. O’Sullivan’s testiness abating.”
Annaliese leaned closer. “Mother might not be able to be a nuisance with it for much longer because when I left the kitchen a few minutes ago, Mrs. O’Sullivan and Mr. Grimsby were in the process of trying to disassemble the lever that’s connected to Mother’s room.”
“I’m sure Mother will simply resort to ringing for Miss Tremblay, who’ll then become testy as well, since Mother set her lady’s maid the daunting task of unpacking and finding proper storage places for all of our clothes, the only thing of value we were able to salvage that the bank didn’t demand we hand over to settle some debts.”
“I’m sure that’s exactly what Mother will do, but it’s better if Miss Tremblay gets annoyed rather than Mrs. O’Sullivan because I shudder to think how we’d survive if we didn’t have Mrs. O’Sullivan around to feed us.”
“We do seem to be rather deficient in kitchen skills,” Drusilla muttered.
“I believe nonexistent would be a better way to phrase that.” Annaliese brightened. “But at least we can now claim to have the basic rudiments of cleaning down, something I never imagined either of us would ever obtain and...”
The rest of Annaliese’s words got lost when the sound of kraas rang out, a term her sister had told her was the call ravens made. In the blink of an eye, the ravens came swooshing into view, where they promptly swooshed directly up to one of the turrets and got themselves settled on their roosting spot of choice.
Annaliese shaded her eyes with her hand and directed her attention the ravens’ way. “Is it just me or have you been wondering if our dear aunt Ottilie might possess a bit of a macabre nature, given that she adored living in a creepy old castle that unquestionably possesses a rather sinister air about it?”
“It’s not just you,” Drusilla said right before the sound of a loud gong echoing through the air caused the ravens to take flight, and a second gong left her blowing out a breath. “Any guesses on who that’ll turn out to be at the front gate? Another merchant, perhaps, or yet another developer who stopped in at the Mead and Vittles and had Gus or one of the other hack drivers apprise them of the fact we’re now the owners of the castle?”
“My money’s on a developer, although let’s hope if that’s the case, and Norbert turns them away, that they’ll simply resort to pressing their face against the bars of the front gate and looking longingly at a property they covet instead of being like that man who worked for Mr. Loughlin MacSherry.” Annaliese gave a shudder. “That man was lucky he didn’t suffer a serious injury when he tried to scale the gate after Norbert told him we weren’t receiving callers and ended up slipping and almost impaling himself on one of the iron spikes.”
“I’m sure his boss wasn’t happy to learn Norbert had to cut off the man’s trousers to set him free, or happy to learn that man told Norbert that Loughlin MacSherry had sent him in the first place.”
“At least we know now that Rhenick Whittenbecker wasn’t lying when he told us that members of the criminal underworld are keen to acquire this property, since Norbert told us that Loughlin MacSherry is one of the most ruthless crime bosses in the area.”
Drusilla lifted her chin. “Rhenick Whittenbecker might not have been lying about that, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t lying about stopping by here on the pretense of merely wanting to see if Aunt Ottilie had returned home. Given that the man had the audacity to tell me that I needed to marry him—and for my own good, no less—he’s fortunate I didn’t try harder to shoot him.”
“Was it that you weren’t trying to aim at him, or that you’re really far more inept with handling a weapon than I imagined?”
Drusilla’s lips twitched. “I’ll own up to ineptness, which is exactly why Seraphina promised, after she discovered that weapons room down by the dungeons, to train me up just as soon as we find some spare time.”
Annaliese smiled. “She promised to do the same with me, as well as work with the ferrets to see if they’re capable of learning how to attack on command. It was sheer luck they took my snapping of fingers as a sign to chase off Mr. Whittenbecker.”
Drusilla returned the smile. “They did turn out to be amaz ingly competent at ridding us of that insufferable man’s presence, just as they’re turning out to be competent with ridding the castle of rodents, which has allowed us to concentrate our cleanup efforts elsewhere. But speaking of those efforts...”
She propped the handle of the broom against the now hopefully spider-free tapestry before fishing a list of chores she’d compiled that morning out of her apron pocket. After glancing over it, she lifted her head. “Next up for me is to investigate the giant fireplace in the great hall, since Norbert doesn’t know if the coal furnace is still safe to use and the nights are still rather chilly.”
“Does a fireplace need a specific investigation? I always thought you just piled logs into the grate and lit them on fire.”
“That’s what I thought as well, but Mr. Grimsby, who evidently knows a thing or two about chimneys because proper butlers are apparently supposed to be knowledgeable about such matters, believes something is blocking what he called the flue. The last thing we need is to burn the castle down, since that will truly leave us homeless and will also dash our hopes in opening up our academy.”
“Too right it would, although I’m not sure the castle, since it’s made of stone, would be easy to burn down, but there’d undoubtedly be smoke.” Annaliese’s eyes began to twinkle. “And not that this is something I’d normally recommend, but perhaps we shouldn’t clean out that flue thing completely because if Mother smelled smoke, she’d leave her room in a heartbeat.”
“Or she’d decide that Ottilie’s ghost started a fire to force her out of her room, just like she’s claiming that ghost drove her out of her first choice of rooms, those being what used to be Ottilie’s personal suite.”
“It still seems slightly suspicious that no one besides Mother has spotted so much as a whisper of an otherworldly being, which suggests that Mother either allowed the eerie nature of the castle to influence her imagination, or she feigned a ghost sighting as a way to convince you to take Mr. Whittenbecker up on his marriage proposal.”
Drusilla allowed herself the luxury of an honest-to-goodness snort. “It was a ridiculous proposal, but since the mere mention of Mr. Whittenbecker sets my teeth on edge, I’m now going to hie myself off to the great hall to inspect a fireplace.”
“Shall I come with you?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary, but you might want to check on Seraphina. She was heading back to organize some of those weapons she found, and that was a good hour or so ago. Might be best to make certain a ghost hasn’t locked her in that dingy room where the weapons are stored.”
“I don’t believe even being locked in a dingy room by a ghost would bother Seraphina. She’d probably just find a weapon capable of blasting a hole in the wall, and blast herself out of there,” Annaliese said before she turned and walked across the courtyard, disappearing a moment later.
Grabbing hold of the broom, since there was little question she’d need to use it in the near future, Drusilla strode for the castle as well, having to resort to shoving her shoulder against a heavy door that still needed oil, but one that led to a mudroom she’d made use of often of late.
After taking a second to wipe her feet, since she’d recently learned how time-consuming mopping a floor was, Drusilla moved into a hallway, passing a music room that had a piano still draped with a linen sheet. Resisting the urge to take a moment to uncover the piano and indulge in playing for an hour or ten, something that always relaxed her, she continued forward, barely glancing at the rooms she passed, having already investigated the library, receiving parlor, sitting room, and morning room.
Stepping into the great hall, she set her sights on Mrs. O’Sullivan and Mr. Grimsby, who were standing beside the enormous fireplace, a ladder propped up against the brick wall of the flue. She made it all of three feet toward them before she caught sight of Pippin scampering across the room, carrying what seemed to be a large rat in her mouth.
At any other time in her life, a rat-carrying ferret would have seemed rather peculiar, but given the way her life was unfolding of late, it didn’t seem peculiar at all.
Before she could decide if she should address the ferret-carrying-a-rat situation, or pretend she hadn’t seen it and hope she didn’t stumble over a dead rat in the middle of the night, Annaliese came barreling into the room.
“Did you see ...?” was all Annaliese managed to get out of her mouth as she stopped and bent over, trying to catch her breath.
“Pippin’s heading up the stairs.”
“Probably to take that as a present to Mother, since my little darling seems to think Mother’s shrieks are signs of affection,” Annaliese muttered before she gulped a breath of air and took off, yelling for Pippin to stop at the top of her lungs as she took the steps two at a time.
“Mrs. Merriweather will never come out of that room if she realizes there truly are rats in here,” Mrs. O’Sullivan said with a sad shake of her head, drawing Drusilla’s attention.
“I’m sure she won’t, but that’ll be a problem for another day as it appears that you and Mr. Grimsby were inspecting that fireplace without me.”
“We’re not inspecting, simply pondering the situation,” Mr. Grimsby said, who’d been the Merriweather butler for well over twenty years. “We got the damper fully opened, but it does seem as if something’s blocking the flue because no light is getting through.”
“What do you think it is?” Drusilla asked.
“Hard to say, but I’ll know better once I get up the ladder.”
“We’ve already been over this. I’m doing the inspection because you have a bad hip and Mrs. O’Sullivan is afraid of heights.”
Ignoring that Mr. Grimsby had taken to muttering something about how it wasn’t right that a proper lady was being forced to take on the role of chimney sweep because of his rather advanced age and bad hip, Drusilla set her sights on what turned out to be a very tall ladder and began climbing up the flue.
After reaching the top of the ladder, Drusilla stretched her arms above her head and poked what appeared to be a collection of twigs that had gotten lodged in the chimney.
“Did you find anything?” Mr. Grimsby called.
“I think it’s some type of nest, but watch out below because I’m going to attempt to dislodge it,” she called as she gave the twigs another poke, stilling when a rustle of wings captured her attention.
Less than a heartbeat later, a chorus of kraas began echoing eerily around the flue, right before something fluttered directly above her head and then landed on it, the unexpectedness of that leaving Drusilla losing her grip on the ladder and plummeting toward the ground.