A Dangerous Mourning Part 15

"Who do you think is lying?" Beatrice asked.

Hester hesitated very slightly and moved to tidy the bed, plump up the pillows and generally appear to be working. "I don't know, but it is quite certain that someone must be."

Beatrice looked startled, as though it were not an answer she had foreseen.

"You mean someone is protecting the murderer? Why? Who would do such a thing and why? What reason could they have?"

Hester tried to excuse herself. "I meant merely that since it is someone in the house, that person is lying to protect himself." Then she realized the opportunity she had very nearly lost. "Although when you mention it, you are quite right, it seems most unlikely that no one else has any idea who it is, or why. I daresay several people are evading the truth, one way or another." She glanced up from the bed at Beatrice. "Wouldn't you, Lady Moidore?''

Beatrice hesitated. "I fear so," she said very quietly.

"If you ask me who,'' Hester went on, disregarding the fact that no one had asked her, "I have formed very few opinions. I can easily imagine why some people would hide a truth they knew, or suspected, in order to protect someone they cared for-" She watched Beatrice's face and saw the muscles tighten as if pain had caught her unaware. "I would hesitate to say something," Hester continued, "which might cause an unjustified suspicion-and therefore a great deal of distress. For example, an affection that might have been misunderstood-"

Beatrice stared back at her, wide-eyed. "Did you say that to Mr. Monk?"

"Oh no," Hester replied demurely."He might have thought I had someone in particular in mind.''

Beatrice smiled very slightly. She walked back towards the bed and lay on it, weary not in body but in mind, and Hester gently pulled the covers over her, trying to hide her own impatience. She was convinced Beatrice knew something, and every day that pa.s.sed in silence was adding to the danger that it might never be discovered but that the whole household would close in on itself in corroding suspicion and concealed accusations. And would her silence be enough to protect her indefinitely from the murderer?

"Are you comfortable?" she asked gently.

"Yes thank you," Beatrice said absently. "Hester?"

"Yes?"

"Were you frightened in the Crimea? It must have been dangerous at times. Did you not fear for yourself-and for those of whom you had grown fond?''

"Yes of course." Hester's mind flew back to the times when she had lain in her cot with horror creeping over her skin and the sick knowledge of what pain awaited the men she had seen so shortly before, the numbing cold in the heights above Se-bastopol, the mutilation of wounds, the carnage of battle, bodies broken and so mangled as to be almost unrecognizable as human, only as bleeding flesh, once alive and capable of unimaginable pain. It was seldom herself for whom she had been frightened; only sometimes, when she was so tired she felt ill, did the sudden specter of typhoid or cholera so terrify her as to cause her stomach to lurch and the sweat to break out and stand cold on her body.

Beatrice was looking at her, for once her eyes sharp with real interest-there was nothing polite or feigned in it.

Hester smiled. "Yes I was afraid sometimes, but not often. Mostly I was too busy. When you can do something about even die smallest part of it, the overwhelming sick horror goes. You stop seeing the whole thing and see only the tiny part you are dealing with, and the fact that you can do something calms you. Even if all you accomplish is easing one person's distress or helping someone to endure with hope instead of despair. Sometimes it is just tidying up that helps, getting a kind of order out of the chaos.''

Only when she had finished and saw the understanding in Beatrice's face did she realize the additional meanings of what she had said. If anyone had asked her earlier if she would have changed her life for Beatrice's, married and secure in status and well-being with family and friends, she would have accepted it as a woman's most ideal role, as if it were a stupid thing even to doubt.

Perhaps Beatrice would just as quickly have refused. Now they had both changed their views with a surprise which was still growing inside them. Beatrice was safe from material misfortune, but she was also withering inside with boredom and lack of accomplishment. Pain appalled her because she had no part in addressing it. She endured pa.s.sively, without knowledge or weapon with which to fight it, either in herself or in those she loved or pitied. It was a kind of distress Hester had seen before, but never more than casually, and never with so sharp and wounding an understanding.

Now it would be clumsy to try to put into words what was far too subtle, and which they both needed time to face in their own perceptions. Hester wanted to say something that would offer comfort, but anything that came to her mind sounded patronizing and would have shattered the delicate empathy between them.

"What would you like for luncheon?" she asked.

"Does it matter?" Beatrice smiled and shrugged, sensing the subtlety of moving from one subject to another quite different, and painlessly trivial.

"Not in the least." Hester smiled ruefully. "But you might as well please yourself, rather than the cook."

"Well not egg custard or rice pudding!" Beatrice said with feeling. "It reminds me of the nursery. It is like being a child again."

Hester had only just returned with the tray of cold mutton, fresh pickle, and bread and b.u.t.ter and a large slice of fruit flan with cream, to Beatrice's obvious approval, when there was a sharp rap on the door and Basil came in. He walked past Hester as if he had not seen her and sat down in one of the dressing chairs close to the bed, crossing his legs and making himself comfortable.

Hester was uncertain whether to leave or not. She had few tasks to do here, and yet she was extremely curious to know more of the relations.h.i.+p between Beatrice and her husband, a relations.h.i.+p which left the woman with such a feeling of isolation that she retreated to her room instead of running towards him, either for him to protect her or the better to battle it together. After all the affliction must lie in the area of family, emotions; there must be in it grief, love, hate, probably jealousy-all surely a woman's province, the area in which her skills mattered and her strength could be used?

Now Beatrice sat propped up against her pillows and ate the cold mutton with pleasure.

Basil looked at it disapprovingly. "Is that not rather heavy for an invalid? Let me send for something better, my dear-" He reached for the bell without waiting for her answer.

"I like it," she said with a flash of anger. "There is nothing wrong with my digestion. Hester got it for me and it is not Mrs. Boden's fault. She'd have sent me more rice pudding if I had let her."

"Hester?" He frowned. "Oh-the nurse." He spoke as if she were not there, or could not hear him. "Well-I suppose if you wish it."

"I do." She ate a few more mouthfiils before speaking again. "I a.s.sume Mr. Monk is still coming?"

"Of course. But he seems to be accomplis.h.i.+ng singularly little-indeed I have seen no signs that he has achieved anything at all. He keeps questioning the servants. We shall be fortunate if they do not all give notice when this is over.'' He rested his elbows on the arms of the chair and put his fingertips together. "I have no idea how he hopes to come to any resolution. I think, my dear, you may have to prepare yourself for facing the fact that we may never know who it was." He was watching her and saw the sudden tightening, the hunch of her shoulders and the knuckles white where she held the knife. "Of course I have certain ideas," he went on. "I cannot imagine it was any of the female staff-"

"Why not?" she asked. "Why not, Basil? It is perfectly possible for a woman to stab someone with a knife. It doesn't take a great deal of strength. And Octavia would be far less likely to fear a woman in her room in the middle of the night than a man."

A flicker of irritation crossed his face. "Really, Beatrice, don't you think it is time to accept a few truths about Octavia? She had been widowed nearly two years. She was a young woman in the prime of her life-"

"So she had an affair with the footman!" Beatrice said furiously, her eyes wide, her voice cutting in its scorn. "Is that what you think of your daughter, Basil? If anyone in this house is reduced to finding their pleasure with a servant, it is far more likely to be Fenella! Except that I doubt she would ever have inspired a pa.s.sion which drove anyone to murder-unless it was to murder her. Nor would she have changed her mind and resisted at the last moment. I doubt Fenella ever declined anyone-" Her face twisted in distaste and incomprehension.

His expression mirrored an equal disgust, mixed with an anger that was no sudden flash but came from deep within him.

"Vulgarity is most unbecoming, Beatrice, and even this tragedy is no excuse for it. I shall admonish Fenella if I think the occasion warrants it. I take it you are not suggesting Fenella killed Octavia in a fit of jealousy over the attentions of the footman?"

It was obviously intended as sarcasm, but she took it literally.

"I was not suggesting it," she agreed. "But now that you raise the thought, it does not seem impossible. Percival is a good-looking young man, and I have observed Fenella regarding him with appreciation." Her face puckered and she shuddered very slightly. "I know it is revolting-" She stared beyond him to the dressing table with its cut gla.s.s containers and silver-topped bottles neatly arranged. "But there is a streak of viciousness in Fenella-"

He stood up and turned his back to her, looking out of the window, still apparently oblivious of Hester standing in the dressing room doorway with a peignoir over her arm and a clothes brush in her hand.

"You are a great deal more fastidious than most women, Beatrice," he said flatly. "I think sometimes you do not know the difference between restraint and abstemiousness."

"I know the difference between a footman and a gentleman," she said quietly, and then stopped and frowned, a curious little twitch of humor on her lips. "That's a lie-I have no idea at all. I have no familiarity with footmen whatsoever-"

He swung around, unaware of the slightest humor in her remark or in the situation, only anger and acute insult.

"This tragedy has unhinged your mind,'' he said coldly, his black eyes flat, seeming expressionless in the lamplight. "You have lost your sense of what is fitting and what is not. I think it will be better if you remain here until you can compose yourself. I suppose it is to be expected, you are not strong. Let Miss-what is her name-care for you. Araminta will see to the household until you are better. We shall not be entertaining, naturally. There is no need for you to concern yourself; we shall manage very well." And without saying anything further he walked out and closed the door very quietly behind him, letting the latch fell home with a thud.

Beatrice pushed her unfinished tray away from her and turned over, burying her face hi the pillows, and Hester could see from the quivering of her shoulders that she was weeping, although she made no sound.

Hester took the tray and put it on the side table, then wrung out a cloth in warm water from the ewer and returned to the bed. Very gently she put her arms around the other woman and held her until she was quiet, then, with great care, smoothed the hair off her brow and wiped her eyes and cheeks with the cloth.

It was the beginning of the afternoon when she was returning from the laundry with her clean ap.r.o.ns that Hester half accidentally overheard an exchange between the footman Per-cival and the laundry maid Rose. Rose was folding a pile of embroidered linen pillowcases and had just given Lizzie, who was her elder sister, the parlormaid's lace-edged ap.r.o.ns. She was standing very upright, her back rigid, her shoulders squared and her chin high. She was tiny, with a waist even Hester could almost have put her hands around, and small, square hands with amazing strength in them. Her cornflower-blue eyes were enormous in her pretty face, not spoiled by a rather long nose and overgenerous mouth.

"What do you want in here?" she asked, but her words were belied by her voice. It was phrased as a demand, but it sounded like an invitation.

"Mr. Kellard's s.h.i.+rts," Percival said noncommittally.

"I didn't know that was your job. You'll have Mr. Rhodes after you if you step out of your duties!''

"Rhodes asked me to do it for him," he replied.

"Though you'd like to be a valet, wouldn't you? Get to travel with Mr. Kellard when he goes to stay at these big houses for parties and the like-" Her voice caressed the idea, and listening, Hester could envision her eyes s.h.i.+ning, her lips parted in antic.i.p.ation, all the excitement and delights imagined, new people, an elegant servants' hall, food, music, late nights, wine, laughter and gossip.

"It'd be all right," Percival agreed, for the first time a lift of warmth in his voice also. "Although I get to some interesting places now." That was the tone of the braggart, and Hester knew it.

It seemed Rose did too. "But not inside," she pointed out. "You have to wait in the mews with the carriages."

"Oh no I don't." There was a note of sharpness in his voice, and Hester could imagine the glitter in his eyes and the little curl of his lips. She had seen it several times as he walked through the kitchen past the maids. "I quite often go inside."

"The kitchen," Rose said dismissively. "If you were a valet you'd get upstairs as well. Valet is better than a footman."

They were all acutely conscious of hierarchy.

"Butler's better still," he pointed out.

"But less fun. Look at poor old Mr. Phillips.'' She giggled. "He hasn't had any fun in twenty years-and he looks as if 'e's forgotten that."

"Don't think 'e ever wanted any of your sort o' fun." Percival sounded serious again, remote and a trifle pompous. Suddenly he was talking of men's business, and putting a woman in her place. "He had an ambition to be in the army, but they wouldn't take him because of 'is feet. Can't have been that good a footman either, with his legs. Never wear livery without padding his stocking."

Hester knew Percival did not have to add any artificial enhancement to his calves.

"His feet?" Rose was incredulous. "What's wrong with 'is feet?"

This time there was derision in Percival's voice. "Haven't you ever watched 'im walk? Like someone broke a gla.s.s on the floor and 'e was picking 'is way over it and treading on half of it. Corns, bunions, I don't know."

"Pity," she said dryly. "He'd 'ave made a great sergeant major-cut out for it, 'e was. Mind, I suppose butler's the next best thing-the way 'e does it. And he does have a wonderful turn for putting some visitors in their place. He can size up anyone coming to call at a glance. Dinah says he never makes a mistake, and you should see his face if he thinks someone is less than a gentleman-or a lady-or if they're mean with their little appreciations. He can be so rude, just with his eyebrows. Dinah says she's seen people ready to curl up and die with mortification. It's not every butler as can do that."

"Any good servant can tell quality from riffraff, or they're not worth their position," Percival said haughtily. "I'm sure I can-and I know how to keep people in their places. There's dozens of ways-you can affect not to hear the bell, you can forget to stoke the fire, you can simply look at them like they were something the wind blew in, and then greet the person behind them like they was royalty. I can do that just as well as Mr. Phillips."

Rose was unimpressed. She returned to her first subject. "Anyway, Percy, you'd be out from under him if you were a valet-"

Hester knew why she wanted him to change. Valets worked fer more closely with laundrymaids, and Hester had watched Rose's cornflower eyes following Percival in the few days she had been here, and knew well enough what lay behind the innocence, the casual comments, the big bows on her ap.r.o.n waist and the extra flick of her skirts and wriggle of her shoulders. She had been attracted to men often enough herself and would have behaved just the same had she Rose's confidence and her feminine skill.

"Maybe." Percival was ostentatiously uninterested. "Not sure I want to stay in this house anyway."

Hester knew that was a calculated rebuff, but she did not dare peer around the corner in case the movement was noticed. She stood still, leaning back against the piles of sheets on the shelf behind her and holding her ap.r.o.ns tightly. She could imagine the sudden cold feeling inside Rose. She remembered something much the same in the hospital in Scutari. There had been a doctor whom she admired, no, more than that, about whom she indulged in daydreams, imagined foolishness. And one day he had shattered them all with a dismissive word. For weeks afterwards she had turned it over and over in her mind, trying to decide whether he had meant it, even done it on purpose, bruising her feelings. That thought had sent waves of hot shame over her. Or had he been quite unaware and simply betrayed a side of his nature which had been there all the time-and which was better seen before she had committed herself too fer. She would never know, and now it hardly mattered.

Rose said nothing. Hester did not even hear an indrawn breath.

"After all," Percival went on, adding to it, justifying himself, "this isn't the best house right now-police coming and going, asking questions. All London knows there's been a murder. And what's more, someone here did it. They won't stop till they find them, you know.''

' "Well if they don't, they won't let you go-will they?'' Rose said spitefully. "After all-it might be you."

That must have been a thrust which struck home. For several seconds Percival was silent, then when he did speak his voice was sharp with a distinct edge, a crack of nervousness.

" Don't be stupid! What would any of us do that for? It must have been one of the family. The police aren't that easily fooled. That's why they're still here."

"Oh yes? And questioning us?" Rose retorted. "If that's so, what do they think we're going to tell them?"

"It's just an excuse." The certainty was coming back now. "They have to pretend it's us. Can you imagine what Sir Basil would say if they let on they suspected the family?"

"Nothing 'e could say!" She was still angry. "Police can go anywhere they want."

"Of course it's one of the family." Now he was contemptuous. "And I've got a few ideas who-and why. I know a few things-but I'd best say nothing; the police'll find out one of these days. Now IVe got work to do, and so 'ave you." And he pushed on past her and around the corner. Hester stepped into the doorway so she was not discovered overhearing.

"Oh yes," Mary said, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng as she flipped out a pillowcase and folded it. "Rose has a rare fancy for Percival. Stupid girl.'' She reached for another pillow slip and examined the lace to make sure it was intact before folding it to iron and put away. "He's nice enough looking, but what's that worth? He'd make a terrible husband, vain as a c.o.c.kerel and always looking to his own advantage. Like enough leave her after a year or two. Roving eye, that one, and spiteful. Now Harold's a much better man-but then he wouldn't look at Rose; he never sees anyone but Dinah. Been eating his heart out for her for the last year and a half, poor boy." She put the pillow slip away and started on a pile of lace-edged petticoats, wide enough to fall over the huge hoops that kept skirts in the ungainly but very flattering crinoline shape. At least that shape was considered charming by those who liked to look dainty and a little childlike. Personally Hester would have preferred something very much more practical, and more natural in shape. But she was out of step with fas.h.i.+on-not for the first time.

"And Dinah's got her eye on next door's footman," Mary went on, straightening the ruffles automatically. "Although I can't see anything in him, excepting he's tall, which is nice, seein' as Dinah's so tall herself. But height's no comfort on a cold night. It doesn't keep you warm, and it can't make you laugh. I expect you met some fine soldiers when you were in the army?"

Hester knew the question was kindly meant, and she answered it in the same manner.

"Oh several." She smiled. "Unfortunately they were a trifle incapacitated at the time."

"Oh." Mary laughed and shook her head as she came to the end of her mistress's clothes from this wash. "I suppose they would be. Never mind. If you work in houses like this, there's no telling who you might meet." And with that hopeful remark she picked up the bundle and carried it out, walking jauntily towards the stairs with a sway of her hips.

Hester smiled and finished her own task, then went to the kitchen to prepare a tisane for Beatrice. She was taking the tray back upstairs when she pa.s.sed Septimus coming out of the cellar door, one arm folded rather awkwardly across his chest as though he were carrying something concealed inside his jacket.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Thirsk," Hester said cheerfully, as if he had every business in the cellar.

"Er-good afternoon, Miss-er-er ..."

"Latterly," she supplied. "Lady Moidore's nurse."

"Oh yes-of course.'' He blinked his washed-out blue eyes. "I do beg your pardon. Good afternoon, Miss Latterly." He moved to get away from the cellar door, still looking extremely uncomfortable.

Annie, one of the upstairs maids, came past and gave Septimus a knowing look and smiled at Hester. She was tall and slender, like Dinah. She would have made a good parlormaid, but she was too young at the moment and raw at fifteen, and she might always be too opinionated. Hester had caught her and Maggie giggling together more than once in the maids' room on the first landing, where the morning tea was prepared, or in the linen cupboard bent double over a penny dreadful book, their eyes out like organ stops as they pored over the scenes of breathless romance and wild dangers. Heaven knew what was in their imaginations. Some of their speculations over the murder had been more colorful than credible.

"Nice child, that," Septimus said absently. "Her mother's a pastry cook over in Portman Square, but I don't think you'll ever make a cook out of her. Daydreamer.'' There was affection in his voice. "Likes to listen to stories about the army." He shrugged and nearly let slip the bottle under his arm. He blushed and grabbed at it.

Hester smiled at him."I know. She's asked me lots of questions. Actually I think both she and Maggie would make good nurses. They're just the sort of girls we need, intelligent and quick, and with minds of their own."

Septimus looked taken aback, and Hester guessed he was used to the kind of army medical care that had prevailed before Florence Nightingale, and all these new ideas were outside his experience.

"Maggie's a good girl too," he said with a frown of puzzlement. "A lot more common sense. Her mother's a laundress somewhere in the country. Welsh, I think. Accounts for the temper. Very quick temper, that girl, but any amount of patience when it's needed. Sat up all night looking after the gardener's cat when it was sick, though, so I suppose you're right, she'd be a good enough nurse. But it seems a pity to put two decent girls into that trade." He wriggled discreetly to move the bottle under his jacket high enough for it not to be noticed, and knew that he had failed. He was totally unaware of having insulted her profession; he was speaking frankly from the reputation he knew and had not even thought of her as being part of it.

Hester was torn between saving him embarra.s.sment and learning all she could. Saving him won. She looked away from the lump under his jacket and continued as if she had not observed it.

"Thank you. Perhaps I shall suggest it to them one day. Of course I had rather you did not mention my idea to the housekeeper. ''

His face twitched in half-mock, half-serious alarm.

"Believe me, Miss Latterly, I wouldn't dream of it. I am too old a soldier to mount an unnecessary charge."

"Quite," she agreed. "And I have cleared up after too many.''