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  We Will Make Mischief Together

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  We Will

  Make Mischief Together

  J. HEPBURN

  Frances once had a life of her own, and a future in a world that was throwing off old shackles. That was before she was hauled back home to be chained by convention and family, and the dearest person in the world to her went missing, presumed dead.

  Then a battered wooden box arrives, bearing a cryptic message from someone she thought long dead.

  We Will Make Mischief Together

  By J. Hepburn

  Published by Less Than Three Press LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by Nicole Field

  Cover designed by Aisha Akeju

  This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  First Edition March 2018

  Copyright © 2018 by J. Hepburn

  Printed in the United States of America

  Digital ISBN 9781684312269

  We Will Make Mischief Together

  "Who sent this, Charles?"

  "I cannot say, Madam, it does not appear to bear a return address." The butler had intercepted the engineer's apprentice on his dash inside to deliver to me the strange wooden box. However, he had not been quick enough to prevent me knowing about it.

  I could only imagine the explosion that would happen later when Charles asserted his dominance over everything that servants did inside the manor's many walls.

  The box was so dirty that a maid had been instructed to put an extra cloth on the table before Charles let the boy put it down. One side bore a burn mark and one corner was splintered, but the wood appeared solid and weathered to an almost iron hardness. I could not tell what type of wood it was, and it did not have the look or smell of any of the trees I knew: certainly not eucalypt or silky oak.

  "If you do not know who it was from, Charles," I said, my impatience suppressed beneath layers of bitterly learned self-discipline but emerging nonetheless as exaggerated enunciation, "can you tell me who delivered it?"

  Charles raised an icy eyebrow at the engineer’s apprentice, Alex, which finally broke through layers of social hierarchy and let the one person who had something useful to say, speak. The fact that Alex had the box at all said something, of course. Why would any delivery to me come through the workshop?

  "Box came in a crate of spare parts for the engines, Miss," he said, too brightly and with too much cockiness to risk mollifying Charles' suppressed wrath. "Bill and me opened 'er up and there it was, Miss, just like that."

  "Just like that" meant with my full name—Frances Jeanne Ramsden—stamped (stamped, by the Lord!) on what was obviously the top. There was not even an address.

  I tried to think. Somebody had put a box meant for me, but not addressed, in a crate bound for my family's estate. Alex had said "opened 'er up and there it was", as though they had discovered it right on top, not buried deep down. So somebody who knew the address could have opened the crate? Or had they been there when the crate was first nailed shut? Regardless, someone had deliberately used that delivery method, not postage—and not delivery by hand. Hidden among engine parts, delivered to the workshop… I felt a tingle of excitement I struggled mightily, in Charles' presence, to suppress. I could almost smell machine oil again—unless that was Alex. I had not had grease under my fingernails since being unceremoniously hauled back to the family estate by father's men. Now, the closest I got was the torture of watching my foolish brother Hugh drive engines he neither understood nor understood how to properly use. As if he had ever adjusted a steam regulator, rebuilt an oil pump, or been spanked by a Headmistress for having grease too heavily ground into his skin to wash out!

  No: This box had come from someone who understood me, and nobody on this entire estate save dear Bill could lay claim to that. It would be the first message I had received from any of the old crew since I last saw them in person, and it was taking all I had to hide my emotions.

  This deduction, however, did little to answer the pressing question: Where had it come from? And why did the box look so old? There was staining and damage to my printed name, so it was not simply an old box grabbed at random two days ago—it had been travelling for a while. And a stamp? That took effort. Far easier to glue on paper or use a paint brush. But paper can come off, by accident or time, and paint does not hold as well as ink. How long had this mysterious object been seeking me out?

  Without thinking, I reached out and turned the box around, then lifted it on its edge so I could see underneath. Charles nearly choked.

  It did not seem heavy enough to contain anything substantial and I could see nothing else printed or attached to the wood. The only marking was my name on top.

  I looked back at the grinning Alex. If he was so eager himself to know what was inside... my eyes dropped to his belt. Sure enough, there was something carried inside his oil-stained trousers, the head nearly lost in the folds of his hand-me-down shirt. It looked like a pry bar.

  "Open it, Alex," I said.

  Charles' chilly expression became an iceberg at my breach of social rules, but I decided I could ignore it today. I had been good all week, I deserved this.

  Alex leapt forward, not concealing his eagerness. He had the top of the box off in a minute, the aged wood squealing as long but thin nails were ripped out. Alex used his entire body weight to lever against the teeth of the bar. He only just remembered in time to not drop the lid on the clean tablecloth, and to not dive inside the box himself. He tried to stay as close as he could, almost on tiptoe to peer inside, but a cough from Charles made him deflate and retreat to a less unacceptable distance, still holding the pry bar and the lid between his hands.

  The box was filled with straw which, when the lid came off, swelled out and threatened to spill over onto the table. It was old straw, but dry and not rotten. Forgetting for a moment Charles' judgemental presence, I picked out a piece and rolled it between my fingers. How old was it? If only I had some comparison!

  Holding the ruffles of my right sleeve in my left hand, I grabbed a handful of straw and lifted it out of the box as frost threatened to form on Charles' face.

  A huge mass came out together. Underneath the straw, in the middle of the box, well-padded against any rough treatment, was a brown glass bottle well stoppered with wax. For one second, I almost forgot to breathe.

  No longer caring about getting my sleeves dirty, I picked up the bottle with my left hand and dropped the straw back where it had been.

  I couldn't see through the brown glass, but I could still feel a growing tension in my chest from what I thought it signified. I also heard Charles, who would surely recognise the bottle's common origin, and would doubtless have something to say about me handling it at all, draw breath.

  I felt a paper label against my fingers and turned the bottle away from Charles, so he would not be able to see. All I needed to see was the first two letters, to feel my heart rear up in my chest and turn over.

  It took all the self-discipline I had to contain myself.

  I abruptly pushed back my chair, desperately needing privacy and not trusting myself to keep my emotions contained for long.

  "I am going up to my room," I said, as brightly and clearly as I could. "Please have peppermint tea sent up."

  Charles reached a hand out to take the bottle. "If Madam—"
/>   "Now, Charles!"

  I walked out of the room with my head held high in my best reform-school posture and waited until I was on the staircase before I hitched up my skirts and ran.

  I had once been faster, and could run further, but I could still get to my room without slowing down, and once there I locked the door before anyone sent by my father's butler could pretend to fuss over my welfare.

  It was all I could do to not throw myself on my bed and bury my face in the covers until I could face the world again, but I could not allow myself the luxury.

  I had to know, and I had to find out before I could be interrupted.

  With an inner strength I had forgotten I possessed, I sat at my writing bureau to face the past.

  A stiletto—originally from my sewing kit but now, in defiance of "young women's propriety", my letter opener—made short work of the wax around the sides of the neck and the rest levered out easily on the stiletto's point. Inside was a rolled piece of paper. I managed to get one finger on it and pull it out carefully, and felt my heart accelerate again as I unfurled it.

  "If you're reading this," it said in handwriting so recognisable my vision swam and I had to blink furiously and scrub at my eyes with a handkerchief before I could continue, "then we are both good."

  That was all. I felt like screaming from despair and crying from relief.

  Damn you, Katharine, why now? Why now, when I had almost managed to build enough of a shell around myself to survive? Why only now let me know you were still alive?

  The paper swam in front of my eyes, but not from tears this time. My face felt hot and cold at the same time, and I had to gasp for air to try to clear my head. My corset was far too tight. I almost used the sharpened stiletto to try to cut the lacing, but that would be reported to my father, which meant it wasn’t worth it.

  I dropped the paper so I could, with shaking fingers, fumble at the knots at the small of my back. I almost resorted to the knife before finally managing to undo the first part of the knot, after which the rest was easier.

  I was still trying to loosen the laces when there was a timid knock at my door.

  With a sudden burst of energy, I snatched up the bottle and paper and shoved them in a hidden compartment in my bureau. It wasn't very secure, but it was better than leaving them in plain sight. At the last moment, as I was standing up, I remembered the pieces of wax, which I hurriedly swept under a piece of hated embroidery.

  The knock had been too timid to be anyone but a maid, but that did not mean there was only one person at the door.

  I strode to the door, staying upright through force of will but feeling more steady on my feet as the first shock of revelation dimmed.

  When I pulled the door open, Millicent nearly dropped the tray she was holding.

  I softened immediately. The junior maid, daughter of a convict woman, was perennially nervous and, I knew full well, a target of constant teasing by the footmen. But she was also the closest thing to a friend I had inside the house.

  The cup on her tray stopped rattling when I smiled at her, but nearly started again when, after flicking my gaze up and down the hall, I pulled her inside and relocked the door.

  Millicent bobbed a flustered and automatic curtsey and started stammering out, "Um, your tea..." but I waved a hand at a side table.

  "Thank you, Millicent. Please, put it down and help me out of this corset."

  Jollying Millicent into not breaking any china and helping me out of my corset without putting me back in a different one, took up enough of my mind to keep me functioning until I could get her out the door. Once again, I locked it. Astonishingly, nobody else had tried to disturb me in all that time.

  I felt drained when I sat back at my bureau. Without the corset's whale-bones keeping my back straight, I slumped in a manner that would have merited instant punishment from Ms Sinnet's tyrannical reform-school instructors.

  I retrieved the paper and unrolled it again, this time feeling just numb enough to read it without crying.

  There was no mistaking Katharine's handwriting. I knew every angle and curve. Nor was there any mistaking the label on the bottle. Nobody else had ever called me Franc, and we had never used our pet names where there was any danger of anyone else overhearing us.

  And then there was the phrase. "We're both good." My hands shook, and I had to take more deep breaths, swelling and separating ribs still aching from the strict waist-training corset I had forced myself to choose that morning, before I could bear to even read them again.

  We had used many secret codes between us during that year at Ms Sinnet's school in Sydney, changing them regularly to avoid detection. At the last, before we were separated, when all we could do was grab five minutes together before our presence was missed and we jeopardised any chance either of us had of leaving, we had agreed on this one last code. It meant, "I'm safe. I'm free. Come and join me and we will make more mischief together."

  The dam broke. I buried my face in my hands and wept.

  *~*~*

  It was some time before another, more authoritative, knock on my door reminded me to dress for dinner. By then, I had recovered enough to hide the incriminating bottle and paper properly and had been lying on my bed staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

  Evelyn, who had served my mother since they were both girls back home in England, and who tried to bully me with the tacit support of my father, was furious at the state of my dress and scornful that I had taken my corset off. I let all that flow past me as she bathed and dressed me. But then she plucked out a corset to wear with dinner and I contradicted her.

  "Don't be silly, girl," Evelyn answered brusquely. "Wear it."

  I flicked it out of her hands with a speed that made her blink and retrieved the much less strict one I had already chosen, which went equally well with the dress. Trump cards should not be played often lest they lose their value, but I needed one now.

  "Do not contradict me, girl," I told her quietly. "You may have been my mother's servant, but I am the daughter of the house."

  Not even my past could nullify a life spent respecting hierarchy, but it was a close thing before Evelyn backed down and laced me up.

  I mentally locked away Katharine’s message and its implications. I could not afford to consider them again until I was alone that night.

  While I was being dressed, I heard Hugh drive his shooting brake into the workshop with his usual casual disregard for safety—his or anyone else's—venting steam pressure with a piercing whistle because he was apparently incapable of finessing his pressure as he approached the stables.

  When I descended to the dining room, dressed for dinner, Hugh had changed his jacket. He still smelled of gunpowder, paraffin and blood, however. Charles' face and manner had not been improved, but the heir to the house had nearly as much authority as did the Lord and there was little any servant, even the Lord's butler, could do about it.

  Hugh openly sneered when he saw me in a wide-waisted corset, but the sneer was soon replaced by a gloating look that chilled me.

  I knew that, if I showed any reaction, he would drag my discomfort out as long as he possibly could, so I had to be the Ice Princess. I wasn't dressed for it, but I had learned, through long study of Ms Sinnet, how to be haughtier than Hugh could cope with, and it did not take long past soup for him to snap and try to reclaim territory with his own revelation.

  "You received a highly unsuitable package today," he said. "I cannot see how you expect us to trust you, dear sister."

  Two full years since I returned home, I thought. Two full years and nothing wrong. But the spin he put on "dear sister" helped me stay aloof, and I said nothing.

  He waited slightly too long for me to respond, but I remained intent on my rabbit.

  "If you must remain wilful," he continued, just shy of snapping at me, "you can explain to our father tomorrow morning." His face gave him away, growing smug a little too early and giving me time to brace myself. "He is returning early from Lo
ndon. His message came this morning. You came down to breakfast too late to hear."

  My reaction to his revelation was submerged by a tide of fury at his blatant deception. The postman had arrived while I was seated and, although I had been careful to never let Hugh know this, I knew how to read the log on the manor's telegraph. We did not have a wired telephone and father refused to have one of the new wireless radios, either. Hugh must have either intercepted the postman—on purpose—or heard yesterday.

  My icy fury, however, did not stand up to my dismay at hearing the news.

  On any other day, it would merely have depressed me, but today I needed more time before facing our father with any of his furious questions. No woman in his house was allowed to have her own life—even our mother had arranged her affairs carefully to avoid letting him know she was anything more than a docile wife who spent her days crocheting or organising the household.

  When our father was appointed to the new principality of Cunningham Downs as Governor, he had welcomed the opportunity to isolate his ailing wife and baby daughter. Only the reputation of the new schools in Sydney had convinced him to send me away for schooling. I heard later he had almost suffered a heart attack when he received news of my adventures, which may have matched my dismay at finding myself summarily transferred to Ms Sinnet's school, where the discipline finally matched father's expectations.

  I kept eating, but even our cook's best efforts tasted like ash.

  My only consolation was seeing the look of triumph on Hugh's face bleed away into anger when I refused to react. I had a lot of practice, now, at not reacting. But although my face remained icy by choice, I felt icier.

  I survived the rest of the meal, although it exhausted me. When we finished, Hugh rose, as acting man of the house, to lead us into the lounge. I stood even as a footman drew my chair back, almost making him stumble, and said, "I will retire early. I am not feeling entirely well."

  Hugh's face flushed red again. "Are you trying to defy me, sister?" he choked out.