Star of the East: A Lady Emily Christmas Story Read online

  I cleared my throat. “And?”

  “So far as I can tell, no one who shouldn’t have been in either your room or Sunita’s was there the night of the theft,” he said. “Nanny and one of the maids brought the boys to your room to tell you good night, but you had already gone to the dining room, and that was before the jewelry had been stolen, which is unfortunate, as I do like the idea of one of your children taking after me. Other than that, nothing seems to have happened beyond the servants’ ordinary tasks. No one was lurking in corridors after you all went to bed.”

  “And what about Sally?” I asked. “Were you able to discover anything that might have led her to act in desperation?”

  “If Sally were a decade younger than she is, I would be concerned that she now expects me to suggest an elopement, but as she is closer in age to my grandmother than, shall we say, you, I felt on fairly safe ground using every means possible to extract information. Fortunately, she took my good-natured conversation as it was intended. She is quite thoroughly panicked that she will be blamed for the theft, but I do not believe her to be guilty.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I cannot reveal all my methods. You know better than to ask.”

  “I do not think she took it, either,” I said, “but I am glad to have you confirm my conclusion.”

  “What led you to it?”

  “I cannot reveal all my methods,” I said. “You know better than to ask.”

  “Be coy if you like. You’re very pretty when you are out of sorts. Your cheeks go pink.”

  “That turban does not suit you at all,” I said.

  “I should expect nothing else from you, should I?” He sighed. “Regardless, and much though it pains me, I must return to your mother. I have very nearly convinced her to have her portrait painted in the style of the Pre-Raphaelites. Can you picture it? Lady Bromley as the drowned Ophelia?”

  “Lady Macbeth would better suit her,” I said. “You are quite confident no one was seen entering Sunita’s room?”

  “I am, but that does not bring us closer to identifying the culprit.”

  “No, but it does suggest that the servants are not lying.”

  “I am certain they are not,” he said. “They seem to be more or less convinced that your mother could slay them using only her mental prowess if they ever disobeyed her.”

  “What a pleasant place to work,” I said.

  “What a pleasant place to be a little girl.” His blue eyes met mine. “I am sorry, Emily. She is a bear and it cannot have been easy.” He pressed my right hand between both of his, and then raised it to his lips. I tolerated this for an instant longer than I ordinarily would have before pulling it away.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Is there anything else I should know?”

  “The Blue Room is extremely secure. It would be difficult to access from outside without a ladder. The ground is frozen, but I saw no signs of one having been used. The snow could have hidden any marks there, but none were left on the outside of any of the windows on that side of the house. Generally, a ladder will scar the paint at least a bit, unless it is used by someone of consummate skill, like myself.”

  “Colin searched outside that morning and saw no signs of anyone having trudged through the snow.”

  “Then your thief, my darling girl, is one of your own. I put my money on the earl. He might prefer a stint in jail to being trapped here with his wife.” He tapped on my chin with his finger. “Does that cheer you up?”

  “It does, thank you.”

  “Harassing my wife, are you, Capet?” Colin asked, striding into the room.

  “Far from it. She did, after all, request my assistance.”

  “Yes, yes,” Colin said. “So where are we?”

  We discussed all of our limited evidence, but I still was not satisfied. “I feel so close to the truth, but I cannot quite grasp it. I do have one idea, though. Gather everyone in whichever is my mother’s preferred drawing room—that ought to appease her—and I shall join you as soon as possible.”

  I rushed to my father’s study, where, after a brief telephone conversation, I was confident in the conclusions I had drawn. As I left the room, Jones came to me.

  “Mr. Hargreaves says you will find him and the others in the Gold Drawing Room. Also, Nanny asks that you come up to see the boys,” he said. “Evidently they have made drawings for you.”

  “Tell her I shall be there within the hour. Thank you, Jones.” I smiled. Drawing was one of the few activities all three boys enjoyed equally. Richard would have used every single color available to cover every square inch of his paper; close examination would reveal Tom’s careful scribbles to be recognizable animals; Henry’s would be an exuberant mess, his pencil applied with such force it most likely would have torn through the paper.

  “She did mention, Lady Emily, that Master Henry quite refused to draw. She’s rather cross with him.”

  “She often is. You know that she prides herself on having raised Colin so well. I believe she fears Henry may be her only failure.”

  “If I may, Lady Emily, he is a good little chap and will turn out well.”

  “I do hope you are right, Jones,” I said.

  When I entered the drawing room, a space in which fashionable knick-knacks relentlessly covered every single surface, the mood was somber. Much though I would like to blame it on the décor being stifling, I had to admit that my mother, although a slave to many trends of the moment, had fine taste, and the objects she chose to choke her tabletops managed to do so in as elegant a fashion as possible. Nonetheless, no one was speaking. Sunita was seated between her parents on a long horsehair-covered divan, Ranjit and Ned opposite them on the chairs that completed the set. My mother, in her favorite spot in front of the blazing fireplace, was looking up at Sebastian, who was hovering next to her. Colin, leaning against the wall, looked disgruntled as he watched them, and my father stood near a window a little away from the rest of the group, his face so deep a shade of crimson I feared he was ill.

  “Papa?” I crossed to him. “Are you unwell?” He waved me away, shaking his head, his eyes bulging. I looked to Colin, who shrugged and nodded in the general direction of Sebastian and my mother. I glanced back at my father, whose shoulders were now shaking, and began to suspect that he was trying not to laugh.

  “Hargreaves tells us you know what happened to our jewels,” the maharaja said.

  “I do.” I said nothing further until I had taken the time to analyze each person’s reaction to my statement. This act proved disappointing, for aside from Sebastian adjusting his turban, no one made the slightest movement. “It seems, your highness, that your daughter has not been entirely straight with you concerning her plans for the future.”

  “Do you accuse me of being a liar?” Sunita asked, rising and turning to face her parents. “All I want is to be married and have a home of my own.”

  “Your words may possess a certain literal truth, but they do not reveal the more substantive parts of your plan, do they?” I asked. “You have been most deceptive.”

  This brought Mr. Drayton to his feet. “I cannot stand by and let you criticize her—”

  “I would expect nothing less, Ned,” I said.

  “Mr. Drayton—” Now the maharaja rose from his seat and took two steps toward the young man.

  “Everyone please do sit,” I said. They all obeyed except Sunita. “After mulling over the facts, I have determined that we do not exactly have a thief among us.” I shot a meaningful look in Sebastian’s direction. “Sunita took her own jewels because she feared there was no other way to finance her education.”

  “Finance? Education?” The maharini reached for her daughter’s arm and pulled her back onto the divan. “What is all this?”

  “It is nothing,” Sunita said. Her tone was light and dismissive on the surface, but I could hear concern underneath her forced brightness. “Lady Emily knows not of which she speaks.”

  “What has troubled m
e from the beginning about the theft—if I may still call it that—is that the diamond was returned. Surely someone in need of money would not have done such a thing. And if, as I suspect, the tika was placed in my room in a desperate effort to remove it from the possession of someone else, someone who knew Colin was searching the house for it, why was the bangle not left as well?”

  I paused and studied my audience. They were very still. Sunita was looking at the floor.

  “You have already accused my daughter of the act,” the maharaja said. “Why would she not have simply returned the jewels to her own case?”

  “Because she no longer had them,” I said. “She had given them to Ned.”

  “I say—” He stood again.

  “Last night I found several interesting items in Ranjit’s and Ned’s rooms. Am I correct, Ranjit, that you are not studying any of the sciences at Oxford?”

  “One might accuse me of not studying anything at Oxford,” Ranjit said, “but no one could claim that I am supposed to be reading science. My course is history.”

  “Yet in your room you have Darwin’s Origin of the Species, two volumes of a text about the natural sciences, and a book titled Descriptive Astronomy.”

  “You were in his room?” Horror resonated in my mother’s voice. “This, Emily, is unaccountably rude, not to mention wholly inappropriate—”

  “We can discuss my many shortcomings at a later time, Mother,” I interrupted.

  Ranjit choked back laughter. “I have confessed to not studying science, Emily, but I do not recall mentioning it to you before now,” he said. “Why did you not assume the books to be mine?”

  “First—and do, please, understand that I mean no offense by saying this—because nothing about you suggested to me that you would have chosen academic texts for a pleasure trip. Next, the astronomy book is a secondhand copy from Mudie’s. Surely a wealthy Oxonian would have purchased his books new? Finally, I do not believe for an instant that you are reading Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Your sister, however, told me Miss Austen is her favorite author, and discussed Vanity Fair and Tess of the d’Urbervilles with me. It is clear that she is an intelligent young lady with an active mind. Knowing this, I deduced that all the books in your room, in fact, belong to your sister.”

  “Yes, I do greatly admire Austen,” Sunita said, “and I may have left that book in my brother’s room, but none of this proves anything.”

  “Mr. Drayton’s possessions proved nearly as revealing as your brother’s,” I said. “May I see your Kipling, please?” Ned handed me the book. I removed the slip of paper from it and spoke quietly to him. “Page fifty-two, and I promise I shall return it to the correct place.” I held the paper in front of me. “Four names are listed here: Anne, Hugo, Hilda, and Margaret.”

  “If it weren’t for the inclusion of Hugo, I should think my friend has a difficult decision in front of him,” Ranjit said.

  “It is not a list of individuals,” I said. “It is a list of colleges at Oxford that admit women.”

  “Yes, that is what I have listed, but I have many friends who are interested in women’s education,” Ned said. “If I recall, I wrote this when a group of us were trying to remember which colleges—”

  “Ned, there is no need for further comment,” I said.

  “There is no need for any of this,” Sunita said. “I am so wounded that you, Emily, would attack me like this, when I thought you were my friend. None of this points to me.”

  “I went into your room as well, Sunita.” I glowered at my mother, who was giving me a look that would have rendered Medusa’s own glare useless. “We will discuss it later, Mother. Included in Sunita’s correspondence was a letter addressed to Miss Dorothea Beale. Miss Beale, I have confirmed after speaking with her on the telephone this morning, is not only the principal at the Cheltenham Ladies’ College, she is the founder of St. Hilda’s Hall at Oxford. She told me you have been in touch with her.”

  “I do not understand any of this,” the maharaja said. “You have been telling us, Sunita, over and over that you would accept any groom we choose, and all the time you have been secretly plotting to find your way to Oxford?”

  Sunita did not reply.

  “Speak to me,” the maharaja said, but his daughter remained silent. “So you are a liar. My daughter is a liar.”

  “She was telling half-truths, your highness,” I said. “She does want to be married, but not to whatever random groom you choose.” Ned shot to his feet again. I was beginning to grow dizzy watching him go up and down. “There is no need to defend yourself, Mr. Drayton.”

  Now Sunita spoke. “It was never his idea. He was so kind last summer when he came to India with Ranjit, and so handsome. He and my brother told me so many stories about the university, and I burned to go there and attend all the lectures they missed. Ned—Mr. Drayton—agreed to help me, and since he left the Punjab, we have been writing to each other nearly everyday.”

  “My intentions, sir, have been nothing but honorable,” Ned said, standing directly in front of the maharaja and pulling himself up to his full height. “I know I cannot offer your daughter wealth, but I do hope that love and, perhaps, Oxford, might prove an adequate substitute.”

  “Now is not the time to discuss this, Mr. Drayton,” the maharaja said. “Did you steal the jewels?”

  “He did not, Father,” Sunita said. “I gave them to him. He was to sell them in order to pay for my studies and our elopement. I thought that my repeated demands to be married would, as they did, convince you that I was not yet ready to be a wife. I knew I could never be happy with anyone but Ned, and I also knew that I was coming to the age when you were likely to begin discussing prospective grooms.”

  “Your deceit is most disappointing,” the maharaja said. “Why did you not come to me and tell me what you wanted?”

  “Would you have agreed to send me to Oxford?” Defiance had crept into Sunita’s voice.

  “No,” the maharini said. “We would not have done.”

  “I am still confused as to why the Star of the East turned up in Emily’s room,” Sebastian said.

  “Once Colin started searching beyond the servants’ rooms, we panicked,” Sunita said. “Ned, of course, had not yet had an opportunity to sell the jewels, and now he was in danger of being caught with them. He decided to put it in Emily’s case.”

  “I could not risk being seen going into Sunita’s room, and yours is very near mine,” Ned said. “Furthermore, I hoped that Sunita might be able to retrieve the set so that we still could sell it as planned.”

  “But you didn’t return the bangle.” Colin, who had been watching quietly, pushed away from the wall against which he leaned and approached Ned. “Why not?”

  “Am I to believe, Hargreaves, that this man still has the bangle?” the maharaja asked. “That he kept it so that we could not marry Sunita to anyone else?”

  “I would never do that, sir,” Ned said. “You do not know how I have tried to convince her that we ought not elope, that we should go to you and throw ourselves on your mercy. I want nothing more than to marry your daughter, but I do not want it done under the cover of night, away from her family—”

  “That is enough, Ned,” I said. “Why didn’t you return the bangle?”

  “I did. I swear I did. I had it and the tika in my jacket pocket and put them both in your jewelry case. I don’t know what happened after that.”

  “What jacket?” I asked.

  “My evening kit.”

  “Could there be a hole in the pocket lining?” I remembered that his other clothes had shown signs of mending.

  “I do not believe so,” he said. “Surely I would have felt the weight of the gold even if it had slipped into the lining.”

  “This might, Drayton, be the time to check,” Colin said.

  “Right. Of course. Very good.” He all but ran from the room. Before the door closed, a small figure slipped past him.

  “Henry!” My son, covered with c
opious evidence of what I could only assume had been a breakfast of porridge and dragging behind him an ivy-and-yew garland that ought to have been draped over a fireplace mantle, came towards me, his little arms stretched wide.

  “Mama! Pwetty for Mama. Don’t want nasty dwawing. Pwetty for Mama.” Clutched in his filthy hand was Sunita’s bangle, which he dropped onto my lap.

  Nanny crashed into the room, coming to a sudden stop when she saw the entire party assembled before her. “Lady Bromley, I cannot apologize enough for my small charge. I fear he—”

  “Has quite saved the day,” Colin said, scooping up the little boy. “Where did you find the pretty bangle for Mama, Henry?”

  “Down,” Henry said, and his father put him gently on his feet. Henry grabbed Colin’s hand—smearing his coat sleeve with porridge—and pulled him to the door. “Up. Mama’s bed.”

  “You found it in Mama’s room?” Colin asked. Henry nodded and ran back to me, climbing onto my lap. I feared my dress would never recover, but it had never been one of my favorites. “Was it in a box with something else? Something …” Colin searched for a word. “Something glittery, Henry?” Henry looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language. “Glittery,” Colin continued, looking around. “Like this?” He picked up the boy and held him in front of the maharini, who was wearing an exquisite diamond bracelet.

  Henry nodded so hard he nearly hit his head on his father’s chest.

  “But you didn’t think Mama would like glittery?” Colin asked.

  “No. Pwetty for Mama.” He kicked until Colin put him down and then crawled back onto my lap. I held him close and picked the sticky remains of porridge out of his hair.

  “You are going to have to do something about that child,” my mother said.

  Ned charged back into the room, saving me from having to reply. He was holding his evening jacket in front of him. “It is not here, I do not have it.” He fell to his knees in front of the maharaja. “I cannot apologize enough for what I have done. Please know that all I wanted was to make Sunita happy.”