Mrs. Felton looked expectantly at Mrs. Watson. Obligingly, Mrs. Watson said, “Very odd, that is.”
“I thought so myself!” Mrs. Felton exclaimed, vindicated. “The next month, she spoke to me again when I entered her lodge. This time, she asked me to go to Miss Fairchild’s place and retrieve a book for her. I’m usually not asked to go on these kinds of errands, but I said I’d go. And she said to leave the book on the mantel when I had it.
“When I came back with the book, I remembered that I was going to pay more attention to her whereabouts. I called her, but there was no answer. I walked through the lodge and she was no longer there. This time, I couldn’t say that there was anything odd about her disappearance—obviously she left after I left. But I felt strange about it. I felt she arranged it so that I’d be out of her house as soon as I’d heard her voice.”
Mrs. Watson wished she could see Miss Charlotte’s reaction, even if her countenance would be, as usual, sweetly bland, giving nothing away. She glanced over her shoulder at the girl, who was looking down at a piece of plum cake in her lap.
“And the third time?” asked Mrs. Watson, willing the girl to turn her face to the front of the dogcart, but she only picked out a raisin from the cake and put it in her mouth.
“The third time was even more . . . normal, I suppose,” said Mrs. Felton. Yet her expression, full of puzzlement, suggested otherwise. “I was in Mrs. Crosby’s house. Someone knocked at the front door. Mrs. Crosby went to answer it and I heard Miss Baxter’s voice, saying that she had some pastry from Miss Fairchild to give her. Mrs. Crosby invited Miss Baxter in for tea but Miss Baxter declined and said maybe another time.”
Mrs. Watson again glanced out of the corner of her eye at Miss Charlotte. She was now looking in the direction of the setting sun, the horizon ablaze.
“But?” said Mrs. Watson to Mrs. Felton.
Mrs. Felton, as if she’d been waiting for just that question, lifted one hand off the reins and gestured triumphantly skyward. “But Miss Baxter said, ‘Miss Fairchild asked me to give these to you.’ Now I’m not saying Miss Fairchild won’t ever do anything for anyone else; I’m sure when the spirit moves her, she does whatever she pleases and I’m sure from time to time it pleases her to lend a hand.
“But she is grand, Miss Baxter. And not the kind of grand you’d call putting on airs. She doesn’t have to put on airs; she came with airs. If she offered to carry your pastry to your friend you wouldn’t dare not let her. But if she didn’t offer, you’d never think to trouble her for it. You see what I mean?”
“I do. But is it not a bit extreme to suggest that Miss Baxter would never say that someone asked her to do something?” This time Mrs. Watson did not look back at Miss Charlotte. She’d become accustomed to the young woman’s extraordinary perspicacity, but she herself was no slouch at reading people and making inferences. “What really made you uneasy, Mrs. Felton?”
Mrs. Felton moved closer to Mrs. Watson and lowered her voice, even though there was no one else on the open headland and the walls of the Garden, though much closer than they had been earlier, were still half a mile in the distance. “Well, it’s Mrs. Crosby, you see. She’s quite the mimic. Once, in summer, I realized that I’d left behind my new tippet in her cottage. The front window was open, and as I came up the walkway I heard a conversation between her and several other women, planning a picnic on the beach in a nearby cove. I heard Miss Ellery, Mrs. Steele, and even Miss Baxter. I remember being mighty surprised that Miss Baxter was there. Because I was so surprised, I even remembered what she said. ‘You’ll just get dozens of sand fleas in your nice lobster salad. And you’ll be clearing sand out of your clothes for weeks to come.’
“But when I got close enough to look into the window, the parlor was empty except for Mrs. Crosby and Mr. Peters. He was chuckling as she said, in Miss Ellery’s voice, ‘Sand fleas, my goodness. How I detest sand fleas.’”
“So you think on that occasion it wasn’t Miss Baxter speaking but Mrs. Crosby playing a role?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know.” Mrs. Felton’s face scrunched up. “It makes me feel strange—like having ants crawl all over my feet—to talk about it. To even think about it.”
“But you do suspect that perhaps Miss Baxter has disappeared and Mrs. Crosby is helping to cover it up?” came Miss Charlotte’s inexorable question.
A gust blew. Mrs. Watson shivered and slapped a hand over her hat.
Mrs. Felton, too, shuddered. “I suppose that must be it. Isn’t that why her family wanted me to keep an eye on her in the first place? Because they worried that someone in the Garden might do away with her?
“And then I ask myself if I’ve gone completely mad. I cleaned Miss Baxter’s house this week. The hairs I sweep up, I’m sure they belong to Miss Baxter. Her hair is auburn. No one else here has hair that exact same color. And since I’ve been wondering whether she’s still there, I’ve been paying attention.
“Her pillow looks like it’s been slept on. There is more hair around her vanity chair than elsewhere in the house. There are long strands and some little strands—you know, exactly how it is with hair.”
At this contradictory evidence, Mrs. Watson’s head throbbed. A hand settled on her shoulder. She looked back. It was Miss Charlotte, who had at last shifted in her seat so that she faced the front—and the approaching Garden of Hermopolis, whose high walls, painted by sunset, had become redder and more ominous-looking.
“You are stating, Mrs. Felton, that the distribution of Miss Baxter’s hair very much accords with the natural patterns you’ve noticed over the years,” said she.
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying.” Mrs. Felton turned toward them, her brows knit together. “I’m all confused as to what’s going on. It’s awfully strange that I’ve only heard her voice but not seen her for so long. But if I look at some other evidence, it seems like she’s right there, living as safely and as peaceably as she’s done for as long as I’ve been working at the Garden!”
10
When Mrs. Watson first saw the inside of the Garden of Hermopolis, she thought of a fortified medieval village, the kind one might come across in the French countryside, with dwellings packed together in the shadow of high walls and residents who peered warily at tourists from behind drawn curtains.
But now that she and Miss Charlotte had spent some time settling in at their assigned cottage and were once again walking across the Garden, the impression of a medieval village had receded—the houses here were nowhere near crowded enough. Rather, the Garden appeared as what it was, a collection of buildings and architectural elements that had been accumulated pell-mell over the years, intended for vastly different purposes by vastly different people.
At the approximate center of the enclosed space was a largish building, likely the original farmhouse, which now served as both the Garden’s sanctuary and its library. Behind it—to the west—was the kitchen building and not far to the north stood a smaller edifice with a peaked roof, the Garden’s meditation cabin.