A Dangerous Mourning Part 17

"Good gracious. You do impress me, Miss Latterly," he said sincerely. "If you can spare time, I should be most interested to hear some of your opinions upon what you saw. I have heard rumors of great incompetence and a terrible number of unnecessary deaths, but then others say such stories are spread by the disaffected and the troublemakers wis.h.i.+ng to advance their own cause at the expense of others."

"Oh, there is some of that too," she agreed, setting her quill and paper aside. He seemed so genuinely concerned it gave her a distinct pleasure to recount to him both some of what she had seen and experienced and the conclusions she had drawn from it.

He listened with total attention, and his few questions were perceptive and made with both pity and a wry humor she found most attractive. Away from the influence of his family, and for an hour forgetting his sister's death and all the misery and suspicion it brought in its wake, he was a man of individual ideas, some quite innovative with regard to social conditions and the terms of agreement and service between the governed and the governing.

They were deep in discussion and the shadows outside were lengthening when Romola came in, and although they were both aware of her, it was several minutes before they let go of the topic of argument and acknowledged her presence.

"Papa wishes to speak to you," she said with a frown. "He is waiting in the withdrawing room."

Reluctantly Cyprian rose to his feet and excused himself-from Hester as if she had been a much regarded friend, not a semiservant.

When he had gone Romola looked at Hester with perplexed concern in her smooth fece. Her complexion really was very lovely and her features perfectly proportioned, all except her lower lip, which was a trifle full and drooped at the corners sometimes, giving her a discontented look in repose, especially when she was tired.

"Really, Miss Latterly, I don't know how to express myself without seeming critical, or how to offer advice where it may not be desired. But if you wish to obtain a husband, and surely all natural women must, then you will have to learn to master this intellectual and argumentative side of your nature. Men do not find it in the least attractive in a woman. It makes them uncomfortable. It is not restful and does not make a man feel at his ease or as if you give proper deference to his judgment. One does not wish to appear opinionated! That would be quite dreadful."

She moved a stray hair back into its pins with a skilled hand.

"I can remember my mama advising me when I was a girl- it is most unbecoming in a woman to be agitated about anything. Almost all men dislike agitation and anything that detracts from a woman's image as serene, dependable, innocent of all vulgarity or meanness, never critical of anything except slovenliness or unchast.i.ty, and above all never contradictory towards a man, even if you should think him mistaken. Learn how to run your household, how to eat elegantly, how to dress well and deport yourself with dignity and charm, the correct form of address for everyone in society, and a little painting or drawing, as much music as you can master, especially singing if you have any gift at all, some needlework, an elegant hand with a pen, and a pleasing turn of phrase for a letter-and above all how to be obedient and control your temper no matter how you may be provoked.

"If you do all these things, Miss Latterly, you will marry as well as your comeliness and your station in life allow, and you will make your husband happy. Therefore you also will be happy.'' She shook her head very slightly."I fear you have quite a way to go."

Hester achieved the last of these admonitions instantly, and kept her temper in spite of monstrous provocation.

"Thank you, Mrs. Moidore," she said after taking a deep breath. "I fear perhaps I am destined to remain single, but I shall not forget your advice."

"Oh, I hope not," Romola said with deep sympathy. "It is a most unnatural state for a woman. Learn to bridle your tongue, Miss Latterly, and never give up hope."

Fortunately, upon that final piece of counsel she went back to the withdrawing room, leaving Hester boiling with words unsaid. And yet she was curiously perplexed, and her temper crippled by a sense of pity that did not yet know its object, only that there was confusion and unhappiness and she was sharply aware of it.

Hester took the opportunity to rise early the following day and find herself small tasks around the kitchen and laundry in the hope of improving her acquaintance with some of the other servants-and whatever knowledge they might have. Even if the pieces seemed to them to be meaningless, to Monk they might fit with other sc.r.a.ps to form a picture.

Annie and Maggie were chasing each other up the stairs and falling over in giggles, stuffing their ap.r.o.ns in their mouths to stop the sound from carrying along the landing.

"What's entertained you so early?" Hester asked with a smile.

They both looked at her, wide-eyed and shaking with laughter.

"Well?" Hester said, without criticism in her tone. "Can't you share it? I could use a joke myself."

"Mrs. Sandeman," Maggie volunteered, pus.h.i.+ng her fab-hair out of her eyes. "It's those papers she's got, miss. You never seen anything like it, honest, such tales as'd curdle your blood-and goings-on between men and women as'd make a street girl blush."

"Indeed?" Hester raised her eyebrows. "Mrs. Sandeman has some very colorful reading?"

"Mostly purple, I'd say." Annie grinned.

"Scarlet," Maggie corrected, and burst into giggles again.

"Where did you get this?" Hester asked her, holding the paper and trying to keep a sober face.

"Out of her room when we cleaned it," Annie replied with transparent innocence.

"At this time in the morning?'' Hester said doubtfully. "It's only half past six. Don't tell me Mrs. Sandeman is up already?"

"Oh no. 'Course not. She doesn't get up till lunchtime," Maggie said quickly. "Sleeping it off, I shouldn't wonder."

"Sleeping what off?" Hester was not going to let it go. "She wasn't out yesterday evening."

"She gets tiddly in her room,'' Annie replied."Mr. Thirsk brings it to her from the cellar. I dunno why; I never thought he liked her. But I suppose he must do, to pinch port wine for her-and the best stuff too."

"He takes it because he hates Sir Basil, stupid!" Maggie said sharply. "That's why he takes the best. One of these days Sir Basil's going to send Mr. Phillips for a bottle of old port, and there isn't going to be any left. Mrs. Sandeman's drunk it all."

"I still don't think he likes her," Annie insisted. "Have you seen the way his eyes are when he looks at her?''

"Perhaps he had a fancy for her?" Maggie said hopefully, a whole new vista of speculation opening up before her imagination. "And she turned him down, so now he hates her."

"No." Annie was quite sure. "No, I think he despises her. He used to be a pretty good soldier, you know-I mean something special-before he had a tragic love affair."

"How do you know?" Hester demanded. "I'm sure he didn't tell you."

" 'Course not. I heard 'er ladys.h.i.+p talking about it to Mr. Cyprian. I think he thinks she's disgusting-not like a lady should be at all." Her eyes grew wider. "What if she made an improper advance to him, and he was revolted and turned her down?"

"Then she should hate him," Hester pointed out.

"Oh, she does," Annie said instantly. "One of these days she'll tell Sir Basil about him taking the port, you'll see. Only maybe she'll be so squiffy by then he won't believe her."

Hester seized the opportunity, and was half ashamed of doing it.

"Who do you think killed Mrs. Haslett?"

Their smiles vanished.

"Well, Mr. Cyprian's much too nice, an' why would he anyway?" Annie dismissed him. "Mrs. Moidore never takes that much notice of anyone else to hate them. Nor does Mrs. Sandeman-"

"Unless Mrs. Haslett knew something disgraceful about her?" Maggie offered. "That's probably it. I reckon Mrs. Sandeman would stick a knife into you if you threatened to split on her."

"True," Annie agreed. Then her face sobered and she lost all the imagination and the banter. "Honestly, miss, we think it's likely Percival, who has airs about himself in that department, and fancied Mrs. Haslett. Thinks he's one d.i.c.kens of a fellow, he does."

"Thinks G.o.d made him as a special gift for women." Maggie sniffed with scorn. " 'Course there's some daft enough to let him. Then G.o.d doesn't know much about women, is all I can say."

"And Rose," Annie went on. "She's got a real thing for Percival. Really taken bad with him-the more fool her."

"Then why would she kill Mrs. Haslett?" Hester asked.

"Jealousy, of course." They both looked at her as if she were slow-witted.

Hester was surprised. "Did Percival really have that much of a fancy for Mrs. Haslett? But he's a footman, for goodness' sake."

"Tell him that," Annie said with deep disgust.

Nellie, the little tweeny maid, came scurrying up the stairs with a broom in one hand and a pail of cold tea leaves in the other, ready to scatter them on the carpets to lay the dust.

"Why aren't you sweeping?" she demanded, looking at the two older girls. "If Mrs. Willis catches me at eight and we 'aven't done this it'll be trouble. I don't want to go to bed without me tea."

The housekeeper's name was enough to galvanize both the girls into instant action, and they left Hester on the landing while they ran downstairs for their own brooms and dusters.

In the kitchen an hour later, Hester prepared a breakfast tray for Beatrice, just tea, toast, b.u.t.ter and apricot preserve. She was thanking the gardener for one of the very last of the late roses for the silver vase when she pa.s.sed Sal, the red-haired kitchen maid, laughing loudly and nudging the footman from next door, who had sneaked over, ostensibly with a message from his cook for hers. The two of them were flirting with a lot of poking and slapping on the doorstep, and Sal's loud voice could be heard up the scullery steps and along the pa.s.sage to the kitchen.

"That girl's no better than she should be," Mrs. Boden said with a shake of her head. "You mark my words-she's a trollop, if ever I saw one. Sal!" she shouted. "Come back in here and get on with your work!" She looked at Hester again. "She's an idle piece. It's a wonder how I put up with her. I don't know what the world's coming to." She picked up the meat knife and tested it with her finger. Hester looked at the blade and swallowed with a s.h.i.+ver when she thought that maybe it was the knife someone had held in his hands creeping up the stairs in the night to stab Octavia Haslett to death.

Mrs. Boden found the edge satisfactory and pulled over the slab of steak to begin slicing it ready for the pie.

"What with Miss Octavia's death, and now policemen creeping all over the house, everyone scared o' their own shadows, 'er ladys.h.i.+p took to 'er bed, and a good-for-nothing baggage like Sal in my kitchen-it's enough to make a decent woman give up."

"I'm sure you won't," Hester said, trying to soothe her. If she was going to be responsible for luring two housemaids away, she did not want to add to the domestic chaos by encouraging the cook to desert as well. "The police will go in time, the whole matter will be settled, her ladys.h.i.+p will recover, and you are quite capable of disciplining Sal. She cannot be the first wayward kitchen maid you've trained into being thoroughly competent-in time."

"Well now, you're right about that," Mrs. Boden agreed. "I 'ave a good 'and with girls, if I do say so myself. But I surely wish the police would find out who did it and arrest them. I don't sleep safe in my bed, wondering. I just can't believe anyone in the family would do such a thing. I've been in this house since before Mr. Cyprian was born, never mind Miss Octavia and Miss Araminta. I never did care a great deal for Mr. Kellard, but I expect he has his qualities, and he is a gentleman, after all."

"You think it was one of the servants?" Hester affected surprise, and considerable respect, as though Mrs. Boden's opinion on such matters weighed heavily with her.

"Stands to reason, don't it?" Mrs. Boden said quietly, slicing the steak with expert strokes, quick, light and extremely powerful. "And it wouldn't be any of the girls-apart from anything else, why would they?"

"Jealousy?" Hester suggested innocently.

"Nonsense." Mrs. Boden reached for the kidneys. "They wouldn't be so daft. Sal never goes upstairs. Lizzie is a bossy piece and wouldn't give a halfpenny to a blind man, but she knows right from wrong, and sticks by it whatever. Rose is a willful creature, always wants what she can't 'ave, and I wouldn't put it past her to do something wild, but not that." She shook her head. "Not murder. Too afraid of what'd happen to her, apart from anything else. Fond of 'er own skin, that one."

"And not the upstairs girls," Hester added instinctively, then wished she had waited for Mrs. Boden to speak.

"They can be silly bits of things," Mrs. Boden agreed. "But no harm in them, none at all. And Dinah's far too mild to do anything so pa.s.sionate. Nice girl, but bland as a cup of tea. Comes from a nice family in the country somewhere. Too pretty maybe, but that's parlormaids for you. And Mary and Gladys-well, that Mary's got a temper, but it's all flash and no heat. She wouldn't harm anyone-and wouldn't have any call to. Very fond of Miss Octavia, she was, very fond-and Miss Octavia of her too. Gladys is a sourpuss, puts on airs- but that's ladies' maids. No viciousness in her, least not that much. Wouldn't 'ave the courage either."

"Harold?" Hester asked. She did not even bother to mention Mr. Phillips, not because he could not have done it, but because Mrs. Boden's natural loyalties to a servant she considered of her own seniority would prevent her from entertaining the possibility with any open-mindedness.

Mrs. Boden gave her an old-fas.h.i.+oned look. "And what for, may I ask? What would Harold be doing in Miss Octavia's room in the middle of the night? He can't see any girl but Dinah, the poor boy, not but it'll do him a ha'porth of good.''

"Percival?" Hester said the inevitable.

"Must be." Mrs. Boden pushed away the last of the kidney and reached for the mixing bowl full of pastry dough. She tipped the dough out onto the board, floured it thoroughly and began to roll it out with the wooden pin, brisk, sharp strokes first one way, then turned it with a single movement and started in the other direction. "Always had ideas above himself, that one, but never thought it would go this far. Got a sight more money than I can account for," she added viciously. "Nasty streak in him. Seen it a few times. Now your kettle's boiling, don't let it fill my kitchen with steam."

"Thank you.'' Hester turned and went to the range, picking the kettle off the hob with a potholder and first scalding the teapot, then swilling it out and making the tea with the rest of the water.

Monk returned to Queen Anne Street because he and Evan had exhausted every other avenue of possible inquiry. They had not found the missing jewelry, nor had they expected to, but it was obligatory that they pursue it to the end, even if only to satisfy Runcorn. They had also taken the character references of every servant in the Moidore house and checked with all their previous employers, and found no blemish of character that was in the slightest way indicative of violence of emotion or action to come. There were no dark love affairs, no accusations of theft or immorality, nothing but very ordinary lives of domesticity and work.

Now there was nowhere to look except back in Queen Anne Street among the servants yet again. Monk stood in the housekeeper's sitting room waiting impatiently for Hester. He had again given Mrs. Willis no reason for asking to see the nurse, a woman who was not even present at the time of the crime. He was aware of her surprise and considerable criticism. He would have to think of some excuse before he saw her again.

There was a knock on the door.

"Come," he ordered.

Hester came in and closed the door behind her. She looked neat and professional, her hair tied back severely and her dress plain gray-blue stuff and undecorated, her ap.r.o.n crisp white. Her costume was both serviceable and more than a little prudish.

"Good morning," she said levelly.

"Good morning," he replied, and without preamble started to ask her about the days since he had last seen her, his manner more curt than he would have chosen, simply because she was so similar to her sister-in-law, Imogen, and yet so different, so lacking in mystery and feminine grace.

She was recounting her duties and all that she had seen or overheard.

"All of which tells me only that Percival is not particularly well liked," he said tartly. "Or simply that everyone is afraid and he seems the most likely scapegoat."

"Quite," she agreed briskly. "Have you a better idea?"

Her very reasonableness caught him on a raw nerve. He was acutely aware of his failure to date, and that he had nowhere else to look but here.

"Yes!" he snapped back. "Take a better look at the family. Find out more about Fenella Sandeman, for one. Have you any idea where she goes to indulge her disreputable tastes, if they really are disreputable? She stands to lose a lot if Sir Basil throws her out. Octavia might have found out that afternoon. Maybe that was what she was referring to when she spoke to Septimus. And see if you can find out whether Myles Kellard really did have an affair with Octavia, or if it is just malicious gossip among servants with idle tongues and busy imaginations. It seems they don't lack for either."

"Don't give me orders, Mr. Monk." She looked at him frostily. "I am not your sergeant."

"Constable, ma'am,'' he corrected with a sour smile. "You have promoted yourself unwarrantably. You are not my constable."

She stiffened, her shoulders square, almost military, her face angry.

"Whatever the rank I do not hold, Mr. Monk, I think the main reason for suggesting that Percival may have killed Octavia is the belief that he either was having an affair with her or was attempting to."

"And he killed her for that?" He raised his eyebrows in sarcastic inquiry.

"No," she said patiently. "Because she grew tired of him, and they quarreled, I suppose. Or possibly the laundrymaid Rose did, in jealousy. She is in love with Percival-or perhaps love is not the right word-something rather cruder and more immediate, I think, would be more accurate. Although I don't know how you can prove it.''

"Good. For a moment I was afraid you were about to instruct me."

"I would not presume-not until I am at least a sergeant." And with a swing of her skirt she turned and went out.

It was ridiculous. It was not the way he had intended the interview to go, but something about her so frequently annoyed him, an arbitrariness. A large part of his anger was because she was in some degree correct, and she knew it. He had no idea how to prove Percival's guilt-if indeed he was guilty.

Evan was busy talking to the grooms, not that he had anything else specific to ask them. Monk spoke to Phillips, learning nothing, then sent for Percival.

This time the footman looked far more nervous. Monk had seen the tense shoulders tight and a little high, the hands that were never quite still, the fine beading of sweat on the lips, and the wary eyes. It meant nothing, except that Percival had enough intelligence to know the circle was closing and he was not liked. They were all frightened for themselves, and the sooner someone was charged, the sooner life could begin to settle to normality again, and safety. The police would go, and the awful, sick suspicion would die away. They could look each other straight in the eye again.

"You're a handsome fellow." Monk looked him up and down with anything but approval. "I gather footmen are often picked for their looks.''

Percival met his eyes boldly, but Monk could almost smell his fear.

"Yes sir."

"I imagine quite a few women are enamored of you, in one way or another. Women are often attracted by good looks."

A flicker of a smirk crossed Percival's dark face and died away.