Gage looked to me with a skeptical gleam in his eyes, and I knew he would want to question this Mrs. Ogston. I was of the same opinion as Mr. Wallace—grief could make people say terrible things—but I decided it couldn’t hurt to find out what her attitude toward Miss Wallace was now.
“Is there anything else we should know about your daughter?” Gage asked. “Anyone you think we should talk to while Mr. Paxton is away? We may not get another chance.”
Mr. Wallace settled back in his chair with a sigh. “I s’pose you intend to visit the island.”
“Yes. And speak to a few people in the village, as well as the ferrymen.”
“I canna think of anyone else in particular, except maybe Calum MacMath and his ole cronies. They sit ootside the inn on fair days, gossiping like a bunch o’ magpies while they watch the ships come in.”
I cracked a smile at this affable description. Every village in the British Isles must have had at least a trio of these older men who congregated in the public inn or tavern to while away their hours. They were often the best source of gossip in any village, even more so than their wives.
“We’ll speak to them, then,” Gage said, hiding his own grin of amusement. “Now, before we go, if we could see Miss Wallace’s room and speak to her maid, one of them might provide a clue that Mr. Paxton has missed.”
Mr. Wallace sat up in surprise. “But why would there be anything in her room? She couldn’t have kenned she was going to go missing.”
“No, but she might have come into contact with someone suspicious and made a note of it or kept a record of her visits and we can deduce a pattern from them. I don’t ask to alarm you.” Gage’s voice lowered to a soothing tone. “There may be nothing there at all. But I do have some experience with this sort of thing, and I would rather have a look now than discover later that there was a clue waiting for us there all along.”
Mr. Wallace nodded tentatively at first and then with more certainty. “Aye. I dinna think she kept an appointment book, but you’d best look. And I spoke to her maid the moment I kenned she was missing, but I reckon ye should speak with her, too.”
“Thank you.”
*
Miss Wallace’s maid was a stalwart Scottish lass, and I was relieved to be facing a composed woman and not a timid, sobbing mass of petticoats, though I could tell from the red rims and puffiness around her eyes that she had wept at some point, and recently. She perched on the edge of a ladder-back chair while Gage and I searched Miss Wallace’s bedchamber.
“Nay, Miss Mary doesna keep a ’pointment book. She keeps it all up here.” Kady tapped her head with her forefinger. “Has a mind like a trap, that’n.”
“What about a journal or a diary?” I asked as I glanced back and forth between the maid and the bookshelf I was perusing.
The maid shook her head.
“Something to write her visions in?”
She hesitated to respond, drawing all of my attention to her. Kady didn’t seem to know how to answer, and I suddenly realized her dilemma.
“Mr. Wallace told us about her second sight.”
She searched my eyes and, apparently finding me trustworthy, replied, “She doesna write them doon. No’ those horrible things.” Her brow lowered into a fierce frown. “They’re a curse, I tell ye. And she’s told me more than once she wishes she could make ’em stop.”
I abandoned the bookshelf and moved forward to perch on the edge of the bed closer to the maid, leaving the search to Gage. Somehow I could sense that this conversation was far more important than whatever we would find in this room.
“I understand that most of her visions are quite unpleasant.”
“Aye. Many o’ ’em come as nightmares. When she was but a wee lass, she would wake up screamin’ like a banshee, puir dear. I took to sleepin’ at the foot o’ the bed jus’ so I could be here when she woke.”
“Are they always like that?” I asked in some concern. What kind of existence was that, to fall asleep afraid to dream? Unbidden, an image of Will pacing his floors in an effort to outrun sleep flashed through my mind.
The kindhearted older woman reached forward to pat my hand where it lay on my knee. “Nay. The older she grew, and the better she got at understandin’ ’em, the less they troubled her. The real bad ones still upset her somethin’ awful, but she’s learned to live wi’ the rest.” Her face clouded with worry and her gaze turned distant. “That is, ’til recently.”
I glanced at Gage, who had looked up from his search of Miss Wallace’s desk drawer at the change in the maid’s tone of voice.
“Why recently? What happened?”
Kady looked up at me, her face lined with worry. “I dinna ken for sure. Maybe it’s because she seemed so happy the few weeks afore it happened. Happier than I’ve ever seen her. But then the nightmares began again.”