The Thirteenth Tale

After the twins steal the carriage and baby, some of the men from the village go to Dr. Maudsley, who acts as a sort of town elder. They are tired of their homes and property being intruded on and think that something is wrong with the twins. The doctor asks his wife to go to Angelfield and speak to Isabelle, thinking that Isabelle may talk to another woman more easily. Upon arriving at Angelfield, Mrs. Maudsley is not able to find anyone in the house. The house itself is filthy because the Missus is getting old and is not able to clean it properly.

Mrs. Maudsley tours the house, and in the music room, sits down and plays the piano. It is horribly out of tune, and while she is playing, a woman in white, unseen by Mrs. Maudsley before, gets up from the chaise lounge and hits her in the head with a violin. The Missus finds her, unconscious and injured, on the floor and summons the doctor, who tells them that Mrs. Maudsley will be fine. She tells them about the woman in white, and when Isabelle comes through the door, identifies her as the woman with the violin. The doctor questions Isabelle and determines that she should be sent to a psychiatric care facility. The following day, she is taken away, unresisting, and Charlie signs the papers to have her taken there. Once the carriage has disappeared from view, Charlie becomes distraught.

Margaret is preparing to transcribe that day’s interview. She will be leaving the next morning for three days and is packing when Vida summons her to the library. Vida talks of the characters that crowd her thoughts, each demanding that their story be told. Throughout her life, and behind all of the other characters, a green-eyed girl has been patiently waiting for her turn. Now she is the only character left. Margaret responds that the girl is Vida, and Vida replies that she is someone Vida used to be.

Margaret returns to London and starts her research with the almanacs in her father’s bookshop. She finds an entry for George Angelfield (Isabelle’s father) and confirms everything Vida told her. The information is spare, and she knows that Vida could have looked these facts up just as easily as Margaret did. The information she finds about Charlie Angelfield indicates that he had been legally declared dead, the usual legal process when a person has been missing for a number of years. She also finds a portrait of the twins’ father, Roland March.

Margaret goes to the offices of the Banbury Herald, a small local newspaper that would cover any news of Angelfield. In the archives, she finds information about the fire that Vida mentioned, deemed accidental. According to the story, the twin nieces of the owner had been home, but had escaped unharmed, and the owner, Charlie Angelfield, was believed to have been abroad at the time. While she is at the archive, Margaret looks for evidence of the boy in the brown suit that Vida had written about in her first letter, who had worked at the Herald and come to interview her. Margaret finds no evidence that such a boy ever existed. She believes that Vida made him up in order to lure her in and is disappointed that Vida lied to her.

Margaret continues on her research journey and makes her way to the Angelfield estate. The building has been destroyed in a fire and is a ruin. She explores the building from the outside, then realizes that she is looking in at a library and enters the building. She carefully climbs the stairs of the ruin and is just about to enter one of the still intact rooms when the doorknob begins to turn under her hand.

Margaret runs down the stairs in a panic and falls amidst the debris littering the house. A large man comes down the stairs, concerned for her and apologizing for frightening her. He offers to make tea and goes back upstairs to the room where he keeps some provisions. When he comes back down, he has a first aid kit, and cleans and bandages her injured leg. The man introduces himself as Aurelius Alphonse Love. He serves her tea and homemade cake, and they talk. He asks her if she has a mother and tells her that he does not. Mrs. Love is the woman that took him in, but he does not know who his mother and father are. Margaret asks him if he lives in the Angelfield ruin, but he lives in a cottage nearby. He gives her his card and tells her to call him if she visits the ruin again, so that he can have her for tea.

After Margaret leaves Angelfield, she goes to the local church. She finds John-the-dig’s and Mrs. Dunne’s graves, and then goes inside the church to locate the Angelfield family graves. She finds George’s and Isabelle’s graves but is unable to find Charlie’s. When she does find it, it is made of black stone, plain and small and hidden, with no dates. That night, when she speaks to her father, he asks her to visit their home and her mother. Instead, Margaret tells her father she is going back to Vida’s house the next day. In the middle of the night, Margaret wakes up feeling her twin again, but in the morning, there is no sign of her.