The Art of Betrayal

flipped the old-fashioned toggle switch, providing much-needed light. The second-floor landing led to a hallway running the length of the house, bisected by the main staircase. The back staircase continued to a third floor.
“What’s up there?” I asked.
“The attic and servants’ quarters under the eaves. Unused.” Tom opened a tall paneled door. “This is the master bedroom.”
I felt strange poking around the house. Mrs. Villiers had been a private woman, reluctant to divulge even the most mundane facts about her life. Now her secrets were laid bare. I could only hope they would reveal the identity of her killer.
I peered into the room. The floor was carpeted in densely woven beige wool. The bedroom suite included a king-size four-poster with a mirrored dresser and highboy. Armchairs, upholstered in peach-colored raw silk, faced each other in front of a charming tiled fireplace. The same peach raw silk covered the bed and matching shams. Like the formal rooms on the ground floor, everything was covered in dust. “No one’s used this room for a long time, have they?”
“That’s part of what I wanted you to see.” Tom pulled open a set of painted wood closet doors trimmed in gold. “Everything’s still here—clothes, shoes, hats, handbags—his and hers.”
Several formal dresses were hung in plastic. I fingered a dry cleaning receipt stapled at the top. “Look at the date—December 2002. We’ve stepped into a time capsule. After her husband’s death, Evelyn Villiers must have simply walked out and closed the door on her former life.”
Tom opened the top middle drawer of the dresser. “What does this tell you?”
The large drawer had been fitted with small, double-tiered felt compartments, now empty. “It tells me Mrs. Villiers had lots of lovely jewelry. She said her husband loved buying it for her. Where is it?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. Want to see Lucy’s bedroom?”
“Of course.”
He led the way to a second bedroom, left of the main staircase and toward the rear of the house. I stared at what might have been my own girlhood bedroom, but a decade later. The bed was covered in a patchwork quilt made from faded jeans. A wall shelf held a collection of souvenir dolls in ethnic costumes. The opposite wall was papered with pop star posters. There was Amy Winehouse with her winged eyeliner and beehive hairdo—and Pink in a black leather costume with strategically placed cutouts.
Tom opened a large mirrored wardrobe. “There’s nothing here. Same with the drawers—not so much as a hair clip or elastic band. Either Lucy took everything with her to Essex or someone cleaned it out.”
“She didn’t take this.” I picked up a floppy brown teddy bear that lay on one of two cushioned window seats. The well-worn fur made me feel sad. Lucy hadn’t been the first young girl to lose her heart to an unsuitable boyfriend. My own daughter, Christine, made a habit of it.
“I’d like to see where Mrs. Villiers slept.”
“Saved for last. This way.”
We retraced our steps. A small room near the back staircase had once been a nursery, or perhaps a maid’s room. A single window faced the front of the house. The furnishings were basic—a single iron bed, a bedside table and lamp, a plain oak dresser, and a straight-backed chair. Over the bed hung a framed photograph of a cottage by a river. On the bedside table lay a small New Testament bound in faux black leather.
One of two interior doors led to a small bath, the other to a closet, which held a meager assortment of skirts, blouses, and cardigans. Everything was clean and neatly pressed. Nothing was new. On the closet floor I saw a pair of leather walking shoes, a pair of low-heeled pumps, and a pair of bedroom slippers.
“This is so strange,” I said. “Evelyn Villiers owned this large, beautiful house but lived in one or two rooms. She had plenty of money, yet she let the place go to ruin. She had beautiful clothes but wore only a few plain things purchased decades ago. It’s almost as if she stopped living when her husband died.”
“Probably depressed. Shame she never got help.”
“Too bad she cut herself off from her only child.”
I began to notice other things. A hairbrush and comb on the oak dresser. A jar of Nivea face cream on the sink. A towel hanging on a rack in the bathroom. An ironing board, folded and tucked between the dresser and the wall. “She lived like a nun. What do you make of the picture above the bed—the old cottage?”
“Looks like an enlarged photograph.”
“Yes, it does.” I leaned closer. “Do you recognize anything—the location, I mean?”
“An English cottage beside an English river.”
“Well, that’s helpful.” I shot him a withering look and opened the drawer of the bedside table. Inside was a slim volume entitled Myths & Legends of Suffolk. I picked it up and opened to the Table of Contents. One story had been marked with a tiny penciled X—”The Green Maiden of Suffolk.”
“Tom, look at this.” I showed him the mark. “She kept a book about local legends near her bedside. She’s marked the story of the green maiden. And the green maiden in the play was the one she spoke to the night she died. Coincidence?”
“The legend of the green maiden is famous in Suffolk.”
“I know, but still.” I found the chapter and noticed several sentences underlined. “Is it all right if I take this home for a better look?”
“I’d have to get permission. I’ll let you know.”
I slipped the book back into the drawer.
The Green Maiden. Green—the color of life, the color of growth. Also the color of decomposition and decay. Everything about Hapthorn Lodge was green, from the thick ivy climbing along the walls, to the overgrown foliage blocking out the light, to the moss creeping over the stones and the ground.
“I told my mother about Evelyn Villiers’s death,” I said. “She brought up an interesting question. Eighteen years went by after her husband’s death, and suddenly last Monday