Deception's Daughter (Martha Beale Mysteries Series)

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Chapter OneIN THE WIND, GHOSTSTHE GUSTS GROW IN STRENGTH and purpose, swirling over the ground in rust-colored eddies that pluck up and then discharge particles of desiccated leaves, ocher-brown twigs, gritty pebbles, and the sere, yellowish grasses that were once the verdant summer-scented lawns and meadows of Beale House. When the breeze spins away in order to buffet another area of the property, the wake smells acrid, brittle, and dead, as if no flowery plants had ever graced its path, no fresh green shoot had ever ripened, no inch of soil had ever yielded up a nurturing loam and the dense aroma of burgeoning life.Standing on the veranda of her father's country estateher house and property nowMartha raises a hand to her bonnet as she gazes past the gardens with their artfully arrayed statuary, past thejardinieresimported from Europe, past the formal promenades and rose walks until her view takes in the fields and woods that stretch down to the Schuylkill River's distant banks.And yet the heavens are blue, she thinks,and the river, half full and sluggish though it may be, is as azurine as hope. Despite the scorching September afternoon, despite the sun and cloudless sky, she shivers.Then a voice calling her from within disturbs her reverie; and she turns, as she always does, in habitual and brisk compliance. It will take her many months or many years to unlearn the patterns of her youth."Mother," she hears again, and Ella flies outside, her high-buttoned boots tapping across the stone flags, the skirts of her traveling costume creating miniature storms from the powdery soil that has blown up against the house. "Must we leave? Must we? And why today? Why?"Martha's green-gray eyes don't lose their clouded apprehension, and her long, aristocratic face retains its pensive stamp, but she smiles for the child's sake. "We must return to town for your schooling, dear heart. As you well know. For your schooling and for Cai's."Ella's expression remains defiant. Since she became Martha Beale's ward seven months before, the eleven-year-old's sallow complexion has grown pink with health, her thin shoulders have rounded, and her hair has taken on a lustrous flaxen hue; but her eyes can still spark with mistrust as though she cannot help but anticipate the loss of everything she has come to know and love."All pleasant occasions must come to an end eventually," Martha continues, her words accompanied by a frown that for a moment replicates Ella's."But why? We're happy here. You and I and Cai.""Mistress Why and Wherefore." Martha tilts her head and smiles in earnest. "Because the summer has reached its conclusion as it does every year, and always will. And we three must leave the countryside and journey to our home in the city. But we'll return here. This house and these barns and fields won't vanish. They'll patiently await our coming again, just as they awaited me during the times I traveled back and forth to Philadelphia with my father. There will be many more holidays, and many more hours of idle pleasure. Now, you go and find Cai, and then we can have a final tramp in the gardens while the footmen load the trunks into the carriages in preparation for our departure.""He's with Jacob and the dogs" is the short reply. "Cai was crying. Jacob took him to see the hens in order to cheer him.""Just so." Martha nods in agreement with this decision. Jacob Oberholtzer is the estate's head gardener and was one of her father's most faithful servants. The old man, for he surely is that by now, will know precisely what to do with an unhappy five-and-a-half-year-old boy. "Well, you go and ask Jacob if he can spare our Caspar for a few