The Thirteenth Tale

When Margaret was young, she learned the phonetic alphabet. She used it to write her dead twin’s name and kept the folded paper near her. Now, Margaret uses the phonetic alphabet to transcribe the sounds that Emmeline spoke to her but is unable to decipher Emmeline’s meaning.

For six months, things continue as usual at Angelfield with just John-the-dig, Emmeline, and Adeline. They close up most of the rooms, and John hires a boy, Ambrose Proctor, to help him with the garden so that he can work on the house. Vida worries that Ambrose will notice Emmeline, who is beginning to look like a woman, and who has been dressing in Isabelle’s clothing. When she expresses the worry to John, he says that things will change, that he will not always be there, and that they are growing up. She finds a diary in Emmeline’s treasure box but before she can pick it up, Emmeline slams the box shut. Vida threatens to leave Angelfield and hides in the library, but Emmeline finds her later and puts a ring with a green stone on her finger.

John is getting old, and his duties are tiring him. One day, he and Vida go into the topiary garden, and he shows her how to trim and shape the trees. Adeline works at it all day, and John pronounces her efforts “not bad.” One day, she goes to the shed to get the ladder, but it is already gone. Ambrose tells her that John has taken it around the house to fix the roof, but the ladder is lying on the ground and John is dead beside it. She notices that the safety catch on the ladder is not engaged, and suspects that someone sabotaged it while John was on the ladder. She faints and Ambrose catches her, saying he will help her.

After hearing this story, Margaret returns to her room and finds a letter from the genealogist she had written to, but he informs her that he has not found Hester yet. Margaret leaves the house with Shadow and follows the wall all the way around. She finds a window, looks through it, and sees Vida’s sister, being fed by Judith, with a spoon that looks identical to the one that Aurelius owns. She has found Emmeline.

Margaret continues with her work, and wonders who had meddled with John-the-dig’s ladder. Vida continues with her story. After John’s fall from the ladder, she sends Ambrose to bring Dr. Maudsley. When the doctor comes, he thinks she is Emmeline, and then is unsure whether she is Adeline. She begins to cry in order to distract him. The doctor asks where Charlie is, and she tells him that he is away and won’t be back for several days. When he says that, in the absence of her uncle, they cannot stay at the house alone, she reminds him of what happened with Hester, and, embarrassed, he drops the subject. Ambrose says that his grandmother could check on the twins, and the doctor accepts that. After the doctor leaves, Vida tells Ambrose that his grandmother needn’t come, and he replies that he does not have a grandmother.

The next day, Ambrose drives Vida and Emmeline to Mr. Lomax’s office. They tell him about John’s death, and that Charlie is absent, but they need money for John’s funeral. While there, Vida asks the solicitor about how to declare Charlie dead and tells him that Charlie had said he was going to Peru. At John’s funeral, she overhears Mr. Lomax and Dr. Maudsley talking about her family’s situation, and Charlie’s disappearance. They both see her as being a capable, kind-hearted person, and Emmeline as being the strange one. They are not quite sure which girl is which. Vida has been holding her tears for John back until she could grieve privately, but once she is alone, finds she can no longer cry.

That night, Judith wakes Margaret up and takes her to Vida’s room. Vida is very upset and crying, and Judith does not know what to do. Margaret comforts her, understanding that Vida, after their storytelling session that day, is finally crying for John-the-dig. Margaret asks Vida if Emmeline was the one who released the safety catch, and Vida says no. Margaret stays with Vida until she falls asleep. She remembers her father comforting her in a similar way when she was young and had seen two little girls together and had felt the absence of her twin.

After comforting Vida, Margaret returns to her room. She is thinking about John’s death, and who could have released the safety catch, and she can only come up with one answer: Adeline. She resists the idea, after having seen Vida’s extreme grief for John, but she also remembers the other cruel things that Adeline had done, the violence to John and Emmeline, among others. She then remembers Vida’s kindness in pulling John back into the topiary garden after the Missus’s death. She is flummoxed. She finds the scrap of paper on which she had dictated, phonetically, Emmeline’s words to her in the winter garden. She takes a bath, thinking about Emmeline’s message, playing with different ways to arrange the pronunciation, and suddenly understands the meaning. It still does not make any sense to her, and she does not quite believe her own translation.

Margaret is losing all sense of time at Vida’s house. She has put her own life on hold and completely entered the world of Vida’s story. It is December, and her birthday is coming up, which is also the anniversary of her twin’s death. The day after she comforted Vida, they do not meet. The day after that, Vida summons Margaret to her room and asks her to cut her hair. As she does, Vida continues her story.

After the funeral, Vida realizes that if Hester had still been at the house, none of this would have happened, and John would still be alive. Ambrose continues to come to work in the garden, and occasionally brings game as well, for them to eat. Vida and Ambrose become friends, as he gives her cigarettes and she gives him cups of tea, and they sit in the seats that the Missus and John used to sit in. Emmeline watches Ambrose and smiles at him, despite Vida telling her not to. One day, she warns Ambrose away from Emmeline, and he implies that she is not the sister that he is interested in. She brushes him off, and their kitchen time together ends.

After Margaret has cut Vida’s hair, she goes back to her own room, she wonders about Ambrose, Vida, and Emmeline. She thinks about Aurelius as well, but is unable to come to any conclusions, except that she realizes Aurelius was the young man in the brown suit who asked Vida to tell him the truth.