3.
An Evening Party
by Katherine Crighton
Miss Victoria Ellery had been eager to attend a Chesterton puzzle party from the moment she had first heard of them on the coach to London. Her cousin, Miss Campbell (with the new gloves and new hat and dress that had never been a hand-me-down) had spent the journey regaling Miss Ellery with tales of the adventures she had had so far during her own Season, often stopping to sigh and say it was too bad that Miss Ellery was arriving too late to have enjoyed them as well.
"It is so good that your mama finally let you come at last, though," Miss Campbell had said breezily, peering out the window and making faces at the chill weather.
It had taken everything Miss Ellery had had to swallow down the sharp words she wished to say—about how her careworn mother had looked upon her too-large family, the too-large debts left by her too-fickle husband, and had with a meticulous and entirely objective arithmetic determined that Victoria was the only daughter amongst them all who might have a chance of catching a rich husband in London.
The cost of it had been writing to her brother-in-law for the favor of putting up Miss Ellery for a single Season, and nearly half of that Season had gone before Mr. Campbell had finally agreed to provide the few necessities that would be required to make this attempt anything other than a fool's errand. A single trip to the dressmakers, to make over some of Miss Campbell's older dresses so that Miss Ellery might have something more recent to wear when attempting the Marriage Mart, plus some small incidentals—and nothing further. With those scant supplies in hand, Miss Ellery would have to somehow save her family from ruin.
The coach ride with her thoughtless cousin had not helped Miss Ellery's frame of mind, and she had listened with only half an ear to Miss Campbell's chatter, full of gossip about people Miss Ellery had never heard of, attending grand events for which she had no grasp of scale…until the phrase "mysterious Chesterton puzzle parties" penetrated the gloom of Miss Ellery's thoughts and landed, glinting, in her mind's eye.
It was in this moment that Miss Ellery—who had spent the last nineteen years of life a quiet problem-solver for her siblings, bookkeeper for her mother, and twice-weekly assistant to a bedridden neighbor with a penchant for writing riddles—found herself utterly and irrevocably enchanted.
The firey bloom of interest and desire to learn more about the Chesterton puzzles sustained her through the remaining coach ride; and, further, news of them kept Miss Ellery warm through the subsequent weeks—through the humiliations of her uncle's and aunt's attempts to turn her from her cousin's equal to some unconnected poor companion, and the distant indifference of the young men she met who assumed she was one anyway.
And when the unexpected—but dearly longed for—invitation was delivered to the Campbells, it was the bright kaleidoscope of countless imagined evenings that gave her the firm voice necessary to ask that they be allowed to go, and to offer, in recompense, to play quiet chaperone for her cousin for the remainder of the Season. When she saw the calculating look in her uncle's eyes, she knew she had succeeded. It meant ceding ground to the poor-companion argument, but she had nevertheless gained the one thing she could call her own in this entire wretched business: an evening trying her wits against the Chestertons.
Miss Ellery dressed with as much care that night as she was able, but in the end it didn't matter; she and Miss Campbell had only to enter the vestibule of the Chesterton townhouse to discover why the Campbells had hesitated when deciding whether to let their daughter and niece attend—regardless of the distinction a young lady might gain by solving a Chesterton puzzle. It did not, in the end, matter at all what either young lady wore, for the guests made up a strange menagerie of persons that seemed to entirely distract from the usual social concerns, ranging from society ladies that Miss Campbell had pointed out over the past weeks, to immaculate dandies covered in scented powders, to someone who Miss Ellery was certain was the dressmaker who had made-over the dress she wore that very evening. The room was a cacophony of low-voiced uncertainty from first-time guests and friendly greetings between those who, in this strange space, had found that here at least—if not in the world outside—they could speak to one another as equal players of the Chesterton games.
It was, in a word, the most wondrous place Miss Ellery had ever entered.
"We should leave," Miss Campbell wheezed in frozen tones. "We're going to be recognized and ruined and then I'll end up a spinster with you and then I shall absolutely die."
"Goodness," said Miss Ellery, looking eagerly about the vestibule for their hosts and not paying particular attention to her cousin's dire prognostications. Oh—there they were. Sir John and Lady Chesterton, and the two beside them—holding a wriggling infant, so unusual, so interesting—must be Mr. and Mrs. Sayers, the Gretna-Green marriage to cover an indiscretion that—well. The child Mr. Sayers was now holding like a recalcitrant piglet beneath his arm was older than a newborn but by no means old enough to have been the cause of an elopement. Was there another? But so close together, how odd, how curious—
An icy claw pinched around Miss Ellery's arm and hissed in her cousin's voice, "I think that might be an opera singer, Victoria, an opera singer right there, this is a disaster, we will be set upon by fortune-hunters and robbed by political malcontents!"
"All at once?" said Miss Ellery, peering at the 'opera singer.' She was fairly pretty, which Miss Ellery had been led to believe was something of a requirement, but she also, notably, wore polished Hessian boots beneath her skirts and enough powder to cover even very heavy evening whiskers.
Miss Ellery did not on the whole think that sharing this information would improve her cousin's outlook on the evening. And so, all things considered, she elected to enjoy herself regardless.
Through means of a steady forward step and selective deafness, Miss Ellery brought the two of them to their hosts to make their greetings, smiling at the dressmaker as the older woman finished her whispered conference with Mrs. Sayers and politely taking the sticky hand of the infant; with further relentless cheer Miss Ellery brought them to the ballroom to be given cups of punch by, respectively, a clockmaker and a chemist (which Miss Campbell refused, and Miss Ellery accepted with alacrity); and finally, through what any number of guests at the party might have referred to as "sheer bloodymindedness" but what Miss Ellery decided was "responsible chaperonage," hauled her cousin to the dining room for the final portion of the evening before the game began—the last Herculean task to overcome before she could at last sink herself into the once-in-a-lifetime pleasure of a Chesterton party puzzle.
And so of course it was here, naturally, that Miss Campbell finally made good on her threats of the evening, and, upon being seated beside a grizzled farrier and suffering through his greeting her with a thick West Country accent, she threw herself into a faint.
Miss Ellery was not in the dining room, finishing her pudding. Nor was she in the ballroom, seated at a table, waiting for the puzzle to begin.
She was, one way or another, Miss Campbell's chaperone for the evening, and as such she was not in the dining room, or the ballroom, or anywhere else she would rather be. She was, instead, in Sir John's study, on a stool beside the sofa her cousin lay draped unrealistically upon, chafing her cousin's limp hands and dully wondering whether Miss Campbell would "miraculously" rouse if, say, Miss Ellery were to suddenly find the fireplace poker an object of immediate interest.
Miss Ellery, in the spirit of inquiry, let go of her cousin's hands. Miss Campbell, in the spirit of vengeful melodrama, let out a feeble moan and attempted to collapse even further into the cushions.
The poker was becoming more tempting by the moment—but, fortunately for both Miss Campbell's head and Miss Ellery's unlikely enjoyment of a room in Newgate, it was at this moment that Mrs. Sayers, child in tow, entered the study.
Miss Ellery half-stood in surprise and then, glancing at her apparently unconscious cousin and keenly aware that Miss Campbell was not above creating even more havoc if she thought herself ill-served, dropped slowly back to her seat and took up her cousin's hands again. She bit back half a dozen apologies—and twice as many pleas—and settled on, "Please allow me to thank you again for the use of Sir John's study. As soon as my cousin is well enough to leave, we will return home so that she might recover more fully."
"Mm," said Mrs. Sayers, keen eyes taking in the scene. Her child, loose curls tangled over his forehead, was in a simple muslin dress and sat propped upon her hip like she was a washerwoman wearing homespun and not the daughter of a baronet in netted silk. Though the hour was late, he appeared as bright-eyed as his mother; Mrs. Sayers held him to her with one hand, and with the other tapped a small set of cards against her thigh. Her gaze flicked from Miss Ellery's hands, to Miss Campbell's shallow breathing, to—the hem of Miss Ellery's dress?—and then up to Miss Ellery's face, studying her thoughtfully.
Mrs. Sayers, Miss Ellery thought, somewhat unnerved, seemed to be someone who made a habit of seeing much more of a situation than might be said aloud.
"I'm sorry that you could not join us for the game this evening," said Mrs. Sayers, still studying the tableau taking up her father's study. "I have heard a little about you, here and there." Miss Ellery thought of the dressmaker's brief whisper, or perhaps the friendly chemist, or— "Have you much interest in puzzles?" Mrs. Sayers continued. "Or did you come tonight for more—" she paused briefly, searching for and landing on a word "—entertaining reasons?"
Miss Ellery understood her at once. Invitations accepted not for the joy of puzzles, but to find an artificial thrill at attending an event just on the edge of risque. It would not do to pretend that her cousin, at least, had meant anything other than that when she'd gossiped with her friends about the invitation. Miss Campbell had faltered when confronted with the sudden possibility of real consequences for attending the unusual party; she had never had any real interest in playing the game the Chestertons had laid out, both within their home and for, Miss Ellery now suspected, the Ton at large.
Miss Ellery, on the other hand, had had no standing to begin with; there was no consequence that could be worse than what she faced in a few short months when she went home again, husbandless and dragging even greater debt behind her to lay at her mother's feet.
Tonight had, simply, been a shining slice of time to experience something she would never have again.
She could say none of that. Instead, Miss Ellery swallowed down her words again—as always—and set her cousin's hands down, evading the subtle grab her cousin tried to catch hold of her again. Miss Ellery took a deep breath and said, as simply as she could, "I cannot speak for my cousin, Mrs. Sayers, but I know I, at least, am very sorry to have missed the game. I—would have enjoyed the playing of it. Very much."
Mrs. Sayers's eyes widened ever so slightly, and for the briefest moment a smile flashed across her face—
And then things began to happen very, very quickly.
In a sunny tone entirely at odds with her previous demeanor, Mrs. Sayers said, "Well then, Miss Ellery! Would you mind terribly if I took your seat? I think William is about to demand a chance to walk about the room, and I should very much like to sit by the fire while he does so." Miss Ellery, uncertain, slowly rose and Mrs. Sayers swept past her to thunk into place beside a now-pinkening Miss Campbell.
Mrs. Sayers, with something that looked like cheerful malice, set her child's feet down beside the sofa, leaving him to find his balance a few short inches from Miss Campbell's sheer muslin skirts. "Ah," said Mrs. Sayers, blithely ignoring the sudden sound of ripping seams, "I think your cousin is regaining her color; she may yet survive the night. But as I am now seated, and clearly very trapped upon this spot, would you mind ringing the bell by the door to fetch a footman for us? We can ask that a carriage be brought around for your dear unconscious cousin and yourself. And some tea, I think. Tea, William?" she said to the infant drooling now upon Miss Campbell's slippers, who in response gabbled something positive in response. "Tea it is, then," Mrs. Sayers said, and smiled brightly up at Miss Ellery.
Miss Ellery, bemused somewhat by her host's behavior, did as she was asked. When she turned back again, it was to find her way suddenly blocked by several cards—the same, in fact, that Mrs. Sayers had been holding upon her entrance to the study—laying haphazardly upon the floor in a manner that suggested that someone had recently flung them there.
"Oh dear," said Mrs. Sayers, sounding nothing like perturbed, "it appears the little puzzle I was crafting through the evening has somehow fallen and gotten all out of order. I suppose I could just pick them up and put them back together later, but—"
Here, at last, the woman's strange merriment fell away and a question flickered in one raised brow. "—I don't suppose," she said, in a voice that seemed to carry more than one meaning behind it, "you would be interested in assisting me?"
Miss Ellery felt the air stutter in her chest. She had no idea what was going on, what game was being played, what Mrs. Sayers meant by any of it—but—
Her cousin was still playing at illness, silent and unable to interrupt—
The carriage would be brought round soon, yes, but the footman had not even received the order yet, she would have time, time to, to—
And there was Mrs. Sayers, watching her with bright-eyed interest, having gifted her, for reasons of her own, a chance at the lost magic of the evening.
"Yes," Miss Ellery said, hardly realizing that she spoke. "I mean, yes. Of course. I—yes." And with eager hands, and to the squeals of William discovering how to dismember a lace hem, Miss Ellery set about collecting, and studying, the cards.
The footman came; the footman went. Young William discovered Miss Campbell's hair. A cup of tea appeared on the rug beside her, which is how Miss Ellery eventually came to realize that she was sat upon the floor, skirts twisted up around her like a schoolgirl, and that the cards were…more than what they seemed.
She blinked back uncertain tears. "I like this puzzle," she said, her voice a whisper in the study. "What do you call it?"
"'Ladders', I think," said Mrs. Sayers, touching the card whose bottom-rung read HIDDEN. Miss Ellery had placed it fourth among the eight total that had ladders written on them. "Not a very grand name," Mrs. Sayers said, "but I'm afraid it's not a very grand puzzle; just a quick one I could put together for someone who was, say, forced to leave a party earlier than they'd wished." Her hand glided to the card Miss Ellery had placed first among the eight, the one whose bottom-rung read WANT. "Someone quiet and self-effacing that I suddenly saw bloom in the company of fellow puzzlesolvers, regardless of their rank or station. Someone who, I hear, is trapped by a situation not of her own making but for which she nonetheless is willing to do what's needed to help others, even at the risk of her own happiness."
Miss Ellery looked at the cards, arranged just so, and at the question that they held.
"Well?" said Mrs. Sayers.
It was very strange to realize that tomorrow, and tomorrow, and a thousand more tomorrows, could be something more than just survived.
Miss Ellery pressed her hand upon the final card and looked up at Mrs. Sayers. "Yes," she said. "Yes."
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