A Dangerous Mourning Part 14

"Otherwise he might," Araminta continued coolly, stiffening her back. "He seems to suspect everyone else, even the family."

"Rubbish!" Myles attempted to sound impatient, but Hester thought he was more uncomfortable. There was a sudden pinkness to his skin and his eyes moved restlessly from one object to another, avoiding their faces. "That is absurd! None of us could have the slightest reason for such a fearful thing, nor would we if we had. Really, Minta, you will be frightening Miss Latterly."

"I did not say one of us had done it, Myles, merely that Inspector Monk believed it of us-I think it must have been something Percival said about you." She watched the color ebb from his skin, then turned away and continued deliberately. "He is most irresponsible. If I were quite sure I should have him dismissed." She spoke very clearly. Her tone suggested she was musing aloud, intent upon her thoughts for themselves, not for any effect upon others, but her body inside its beautiful gown was as stiff as a twig in the still air, and her voice was penetrating. "I think it is the suspicion of what Percival said that has made Mama take to her bed. Perhaps if you were to avoid her, Myles, it might be better for her. She may be afraid of you-" She turned suddenly and smiled at him, dazzling and brittle. "Which is perfectly absurd, I know-but fear is at times irrational. We can have the wildest ideas about people, and no one can convince us they are unfounded."

She c.o.c.ked her head a little to one side."After all, whatever reason could you possibly have to have quarreled so violently with Octavia?" She hesitated. "And yet she is sure you have. I hope she does not tell Mr. Monk so, as it would be most distressing for us." She swiveled around to Hester. "Do see if you can help her to take a rather firmer hold on reality, Miss Latterly. We shall all be eternally grateful to you. Now I must go and see how poor Romola is. She has a headache, and Cyprian never knows what to do for her.'' She swept her skirts around her and walked out, graceful and rigid.

Hester found herself surprisingly embarra.s.sed. It was perfectly clear that Araminta was aware she had frightened her husband, and that she took a calculated pleasure in it. Hester bent to the bookshelf again, not wishing Myles to see the knowledge in her eyes.

He moved to stand behind her, no more than a yard away, and she was acutely conscious of his presence.

"There is no need to be concerned, Miss Latterly,'' he said with a very slight huskiness in his voice. "Lady Moidore has rather an active imagination. Like a lot of ladies. She gets her facts muddled, and frequently does not mean what she says. I am sure you understand that?" His tone implied that Hester would be the same, and her words were to be taken lightly.

She rose to her feet and met his eyes, so close she could see the shadow of his remarkable eyelashes on his cheeks, but she refused to step backwards.

"No I do not understand it, Mr. Kellard." She chose her words carefully. "I very seldom say what I do not mean, and if I do, it is accidental, a misuse of words, not a confusion in my mind."

"Of course, Miss Latterly.'' He smiled."I am sure you are at heart just like all women-"

"Perhaps if Mrs. Moidore has a headache, I should see if I can help her?'' she said quickly, to prevent herself from giving the retort in her mind.

"I doubt you can," he replied, moving aside a step. "It is not your attention she wishes for. But by all means try, if you like. It should be a nice diversion.''

She chose to misunderstand him. "If one is suffering a headache, surely whose attention it is is immaterial."

''Possibly,'' he conceded. "I've never had one-at least not of Romola's sort. Only women do."

Hester seized the first book to her hand, and holding it with its face towards her so its t.i.tle was hidden, brushed her way past him.

"If you will excuse me, I must return to see how Lady Moidore is feeling."

"Of course," he murmured. "Although I doubt it will be much different from when you left her!"

It was during the day after that she came to realize more fully what Myles had meant about Romola's headache. She was coming in from the conservatory with a few flowers for Beatrice's room when she came upon Romola and Cyprian standing with their backs to her, and too engaged in their conversation to be aware of her presence.

"It would make me very happy if you would,'' Romola said with a note of pleading in her voice, but dragged out, a little plaintive, as though she had asked many times before.

Hester stopped and took a step backwards behind the curtain, from where she could see Romola's back and Cyprian's face. He looked tired and hara.s.sed, shadows under his eyes and a hunched att.i.tude to his shoulders as though half waiting for a blow.

"You know that it would be fruitless at the moment," he replied with careful patience. "It would not make matters any better."

"Oh, Cyprian!'' She turned very petulantly, her whole body expressing disappointment and disillusion. "I really think for my sake you should try. It would make all the difference in the world tome."

"I have already explained to you-" he began, then abandoned the attempt. "I know you wish it," he said sharply, exasperation breaking through. "And if I could persuade him I would."

"Would you? Sometimes I wonder how important my happiness is to you."

"Romola-I-"

At this point Hester could bear it no longer. She resented people who by moral pressure made others responsible for their happiness. Perhaps because no one had ever taken responsibility for hers, but without knowing the circ.u.mstances, she was still utterly on Cyprian's side. She b.u.mped noisily into the curtain, rattling the rings, let out a gasp of surprise and mock irritation, and then when they both turned to look at her, smiled apologetically and excused herself, sailing past them with a bunch of pink daisies in her hand. The gardener had called them something quite different, but daisies would do.

She settled in to Queen Anne Street with some difficulty. Physically it was extremely comfortable. It was always warm enough, except in the servants' rooms on the third and fourth floors, and the food was by far the best she had ever eaten- and the quant.i.ties were enormous. There was meat, river fish and sea fish, game, poultry, oysters, lobster, venison, jugged hare, pies, pastries, vegetables, fruit, cakes, tarts and flans, puddings and desserts. And the servants frequently ate what was returned from the dining room as well as what was cooked especially for them.

She learned the hierarchy of the servants' hall, exactly whose domain was where and who deferred to whom, which was extremely important. No one intruded upon anyone else's duties, which were either above them or beneath them, and they guarded their own with jealous exact.i.tude. Heaven forbid a senior housemaid should be asked to do what was the under housemaid's job, or worse still, that a footman should take a liberty in the kitchen and offend the cook.

Rather more interestingly she learned where the fondnesses lay, and the rivalries, who had taken offense at whom, and quite often why.

Everyone was in awe of Mrs. Willis, and Mr. Phillips was considered more the master in any practical terms than Sir Basil, whom many of the staff never actually saw. There was a certain amount of joking and irreverence about his military mannerisms, and more than one reference to sergeant majors, but never within his hearing.

Mrs. Boden, the cook, ruled with a rod of iron in the kitchen, but it was more by skill, dazzling smiles and a very hot temper than by the sheer freezing awe of the housekeeper or the butler. Mrs. Boden was also fond of Cyprian and Rom-ola's children, the fair-haired, eight-year-old Julia and her elder brother, Arthur, who was just ten. She was given to spoiling them with treats from the kitchen whenever opportunity arose, which was frequently, because although they ate in the nursery, Mrs. Boden oversaw the preparation of the tray that was sent up.

Dinah the parlormaid was a trifle superior, but it was in good part her position rather than her nature. Parlormaids were selected for their appearance and were required to sail in and out of the front reception rooms heads high, skirts swishing, to open the front door in the afternoons and carry visitors' cards in on a silver tray. Hester actually found her very approachable, and keen to talk about her family and how good they had been to her, providing her with every opportunity to better herself.

Sal, die kitchen maid, remarked that Dinah had never been seen to receive a letter from them, but she was ignored. And Dinah took all her permitted time off duty, and once a year returned to her home village, which was somewhere in Kent.

Lizzie, the senior laundrymaid, on the other hand, was very superior indeed, and ran the laundry with an unbending discipline. Rose, and the women who came in to do some of the heavy ironing, were never seen to disobey, whatever their private feelings. It was an entertaining observation of nature, but little of it seemed of value in learning who had murdered Oc-tavia Haslett.

Of course the subject was discussed below stairs. One could not possibly have a murder in the house and expect people not to speak of it, most particularly when they were all suspected-and one of them had to be guilty.

Mrs. Boden refused even to think about it, or to permit anyone else to.

"Not in my kitchen,'' she said briskly, whisking half a dozen eggs so sharply they all but flew out of the bowl. "I'll not have gossip in here. You've got more than enough to do without wasting your time in silly chatter. Sal-you do them potatoes by the time I've finished this, or I'll know the reason why! May! May! What about the floor, then? I won't have a dirty floor in here."

Phillips stalked from one room to another, grand and grim. Mrs. Boden said the poor man had taken it very hard that such a thing should happen in his household. Since it was obviously not one of the family, to which no one replied, obviously it must be one of the servants-which automatically meant someone he had hired.

Mrs. Willis's icy look stopped any speculation she overheard. It was indecent and complete nonsense. The police were quite incompetent, or they would know perfectly well it couldn't be anyone in the house. To discuss such a thing would only frighten the younger girls and was quite irresponsible. Anyone overheard being so foolish would be disciplined appropriately.

Of course this stopped no one who was minded to indulge in a little gossip, which was all the maids, to the endless patronizing comments of the male staff, who had quite as much to say but were less candid about it. It reached a peak at tea time in the servants' hall.

"I think it was Mr. Thirsk, when 'e was drunk," Sal said with a toss of her head. "I know 'e takes port from the cellar, an' no good sayin"e doesn't!"

"Lot o' nonsense," Lizzie dismissed with scorn. "He's ever such a gentleman. And what would he do such a thing for, may I ask?"

"Sometimes I wonder where you grew up." Gladys glanced over her shoulder to make sure Mrs. Boden was nowhere in earshot. She leaned forward over the table, her cup of tea at her elbow. "Don't you know anything?"

"She works downstairs!'' Mary hissed back at her.''Downstairs people never know half what upstairs people do."

"Go on then," Rose challenged. "Who do you think did it?"

"Mrs. Sandeman, in a fit o' jealous rage," Mary replied with conviction. "You should see some o' the outfits she wears-and d'you know where Harold says he takes her sometimes?"

They all stopped eating or drinking in breathless antic.i.p.ation of the answer.

"Well?" Maggie demanded.

"You're too young." Mary shook her head.

"Oh, go on," Maggie pleaded. "Tell us!"

"She doesn't know 'erself," Sal said with a grin. "She's 'avinus on."

"I do so!" Mary retorted. "He takes her to streets where decent women don't go-down by the Haymarket."

"What-over some admirer?" Gladys savored the possibility. "Go on! Really?"

"You got a better idea, then?" Mary asked.

Willie the bootboy appeared from the kitchen doorway, where he had been keeping cavey in case Mrs. Boden should appear.

"Well I think it was Mr. Kellard!'' he said with a backward glance over his shoulder. "May I have that piece o' cake? I'm starvin"ungry."

"That's only because you don't like 'im." Mary pushed the cake towards him, and he took it and bit into it ravenously.

"Pig," Sal said without rancor.

"I think it was Mrs. Moidore," May the scullery maid said suddenly.

"Why?" Gladys demanded with offended dignity. Romola was her charge, and she was personally offended by the suggestion.

"Go on with you!" Mary dismissed it. "YouVe never even seen Mrs. Moidore!"

"I 'ave too," May retorted. "She came down "ere when young Miss Julia was sick that time! A good mother, she is. I reckon she's too good to be true-all that peaches-an'-cream skin and 'andsome face. She done married Mr. Cyprian for 'is money."

" 'E don't 'ave any," William said with his mouth full. " 'E's always borrowin' off folks. Least that's what Percival says."

"Then Percival's speakin' out of turn," Annie criticized. "Not that I'm saying Mrs. Moidore didn't do it. But I reckon it was more likely Mrs. Kellard. Sisters can hate something 'orrible."

"What about?" Maggie asked. "Why should Mrs. Kellard hate poor Miss Octavia?''

"Well Percival said Mr. Kellard fancied Miss Octavia something rotten," Annie explained. "Not that I take any notice of what Percival says. He's got a wicked tongue, that one."

At that moment Mrs. Boden came in.

"Enough gossiping,'' she said sharply."And don't you talk with your mouth full, Annie Latimer. Get on about your business. Sal. There's carrots you 'aven't sc.r.a.ped yet, and cabbage for tonight's dinner. You 'aven't time to sit chatterin' over cups o'tea."

The last suggestion was the only one Hester thought suitable to report to Monk when he called and insisted on interviewing all the staff again, including the new nurse, even though it was pointed out to him that she had not been present at the time of the crime.

"Forget the kitchen gossip. What is your own opinion?" he asked her, his voice low so no servants pa.s.sing beyond the housekeeper's sitting room door might overhear them. She frowned and hesitated, trying to find words to convey the extraordinary feeling of embarra.s.sment and unease she had experienced in the library as Araminta swept out.

"Hester?"

"I am not sure," she said slowly. "Mr. Kellard was frightened, that I have no doubt of, but I could not even guess whether it was guilt over having murdered Octavia or simply having made some improper advance towards her-or even just fear because it was quite apparent that his wife took a certain pleasure in the whole possibility that he might be suspected quite gravely-even accused. She was-" She thought again before using the word, it was too melodramatic, then could find none more appropriate. "She was torturing him. Of course," she hurried on, "I do not know how she would react if you were to charge him. She might simply be doing this as some punishment for a private quarrel, and she may defend him to the death from outsiders.''

"Do you think she believes him guilty?" He stood against the mantel shelf, hands in his pockets, face puckered with concentration.

She had thought hard about this ever since the incident, and her reply was ready on her lips.

"She is not afraid of him, of that I am certain. But there is a deep emotion there which has a bitterness to it, and I think he is more afraid of her-but I don't know if that has anything to do with Octavia's death or is simply that she has the power to hurt him."

She took a deep breath. "It must be extremely difficult for him, living in his father-in-law's house and in a very real way being under his jurisdiction and constantly obliged to please him or face very considerable unpleasantness. And Sir Basil does seem to rule with a heavy hand, from what I have seen." She sat sideways on the arm of one of the chairs, an att.i.tude which would have sent Mrs. Willis into a rage, both for its unladylike pose and for the harm she was sure it would do to the chair.

"I have not seen much of Mr. Thirsk or Mrs. Sandeman yet. She leads quite a busy life, and perhaps I am maligning her, but I am sure she drinks. I have seen enough of it in the war to recognize the signs, even in highly unlikely people. I saw her yesterday morning with a fearful headache which, from the pattern of her recovery, was not any ordinary illness. But I may be hasty; I only met her on the landing as I was going in to Lady Moidore."

He smiled very slightly. "And what do you think of Lady Moidore?"

Every vestige of humor vanished from her face. "I think she is very frightened. She knows or believes something which is so appalling that she dare not confront it, yet neither can she put it from her mind-"

"That it was Myles Kellard who killed Octavia?'' he asked, stepping forward a pace. "Hester-be careful!" He took her arm and held it hard, the pressure of his fingers so strong as to be almost painful. "Watch and listen as your opportunities allow, but do not ask anything! Do you hear me?"

She backed away, rubbing her arm. "Of course I hear you. You requested me to help-I am doing so. I have no intention of asking any questions-they would not answer them anyway but would dismiss me for being impertinent and intrusive. I am a servant here.''

"What about the servants?" He did not move away but remained close to her. "Be careful of the menservants, Hester, particularly the footmen. It is quite likely one of them had amorous ideas about Octavia, and misunderstood"-he shrugged-"or even understood correctly, and she got tired of the affair-"

"Good heavens. You are no better than Myles Kellard," she snapped at him. "He all but implied Octavia was a trollop."

"It is only a possibility!" he hissed sharply. "Keep your voice down. For all we know there may be a row of eavesdroppers at the door. Does your bedroom have a lock?"

"No."

"Then put a chair behind the handle."

"I hardly think-" Then she remembered that Octavia Has-lett had been murdered in her bedroom in the middle of the night, and she found she was shaking in spite of herself.

"It is someone in this house!" Monk repeated, watching her closely.

"Yes," she said obediently. "Yes, I know that. Weallknow that-that is what is so terrible."

Chapter 6.

Hester left her interview with Monk considerably chastened. Seeing him again had reminded her that this was not an ordinary household, and the difference of opinion, the quarrels, which seemed a trivial nastiness, in one case had been so deep they had led to violent and treacherous death. One of those people she looked at across the meal table, or pa.s.sed on the stairs, had stabbed Octavia in the night and left her to bleed.

It made her a little sick as she returned to Beatrice's bedroom and knocked on the door before entering. Beatrice was standing by the window staring out into the remains of the autumn garden and watching the gardener's boy sweeping up the fallen leaves and pulling a few last weeds from around the Michaelmas daisies. Arthur, his hair blowing in the wind, was helping with the solemnity of a ten-year-old. Beatrice turned as Hester came in, her face pale, her eyes wide and anxious.

"You look distressed," she said, staring at Hester. She walked over to the dressing chair but did not sit, as if the chair would imprison her and she desired the freedom to move suddenly. "Why did the police want to see you? You weren't here when-when Tavie was killed."

"No, Lady Moidore." Hester's mind raced for a reason which would be believed, and perhaps which might even prompt Beatrice to yield something of the fear Hester was sure so troubled her. "I am not entirely certain, but I believe he thought I might have observed something since I came. And I have no cause for prevaricating, insofar as I could not fear he might accuse me."