Page 60 of Murder at Madame Chambon's
“He didn’t?”She could barely attend to him as she stepped forward, reverently running her hand over the smooth, cold marble face of an ancestor who’d died the previous century.
“No, you were born when he lived rather a humble life.But if you are patient, I’ll introduce you to your forbears while I tell you the story.”
Evelina followed him as he explained each of the effigies and marble-topped tombs while she shook her head in disbelief.If she’d only known, she could have held her head up high when the girls at the convent had scorned her for knowing so little about her mama and papa.
Together, they walked the length of the crypt.Ten, fifteen yards of flag-stoned floor with engraved eulogies upon the walls, gloriously colored paintings and stained-glass windows.
“Mr.Grimshaw!”She stopped suddenly, calling out to him as he walked a few yards in front of her.”
“Yes, Evelina?”He turned.“It’s time I should be returning home.It’s growing late and cold.”
“Mr.Grimshaw, please bring the light.I think I just saw my namesake.”
“Your namesake?”
“Yes, a grave.A sarcophagus.I see it belongs to a young girl called Evelina.She died when she was a child, but I cannot see what year she was born unless you bring me the light.”
“Ah, you have found Evelina.”
Mr.Grimshaw hovered near the doorway.
“I have.Please, bring the lantern so I can quickly look and then I will be ready to leave.Then you said you’d take me to my father?Does that mean he doesn’t live far?”
“No, he doesn’t live far away at all, Evelina.In fact, he lives at Ravenhall Manor just ten minutes away by carriage.”Mr.Grimshaw raised the lantern high and for a moment, the light illuminated far more than just where he stood.
“Ravenhall Manor?”Evelina repeated in confusion as she bent close and saw that the girl had only lived to the age of five though she couldn’t quite see the year she’d been born.
“Then why has Mama hidden the truth from me?I’ve been trying to locate him ever since I came to London.”
A strange, gnawing unease churned in her breast.Ravenhall Manor?The estate of the 5th Earl of Ravenhall?It didn’t make sense.Her father lived so close?And now the child named Evelina.So many questions, she didn’t know which to ask first.
Agitated, she ran her hand over the gold-chiseled letters in the aged marble.“Mr.Grimshaw, I think there must be a repeat of family names unless two daughters named Evelina were born to my father.”
“Only one, Evelina,” came Mr.Grimshaw’s distant reply.
Evelina glanced up, frowning as she puzzled over the wording.
“Mr Grimshaw—” She drew her hand away and ran towards the sliver of light, quickly snuffed out.
But not before his final words resonated throughout the silent, empty chamber as she heard the sound of the iron key turning.“And you are that one.”
Chapter 29
Highgate Cemetery certainly is a very … ghostly place,” Evelina remarked as the horses picked their way past freshly dug graves and vast family crypts.She could barely believe she was soon going to be reunited with what she’d felt was missing her entire life.
She hugged herself against a shiver that ran through her, despite the fact it was summer.
“And my father….?Please tell me about him.How fortuitous we met.As I truly going to see him again after all this time?”
Mr.Grimshaw smiled.He was not an ebullient gentleman, but it was kind of him to take the trouble to first help her out of her predicament and then to take her to her father.
Glancing at his intricately carved cane, she remarked, “Have you perhaps been to India, sir?My Papa visited India when I was twelve and he sent me a wooden box with a very fine carving of two entwined snakes similar to your cane.”
A shadow crossed Mr.Grimshaw’s hawkish face.“I was sent to India as a young man.”
“How very exciting,” Evelina said, trying to bolster his spirits.
“I did not think so.My father and then my brother had died unexpectedly in quick succession which meant I had to leave the estate where I’d been born and grown up—” his nostrils flared—“while the executors searched for the new heir.The family thought it was easier to send me away.”
