Buckingham Palace Gardens (9 page)

It was on the tip of Gracie's tongue to say, “I'm going to marry a policeman! And not just a constable, a sergeant.” Then she realized she could never say that here. A pity. It would stop Ada's patronizing air quickly enough.

“Wot is it?” Ada asked her, staring, duster in her hand.

“Yeah.” Gracie let her breath out. “I see wot yer mean. One o' them guardsmen'd be nice.”

Ada laughed. “They're gentlemen, stupid! Yer a daft little article! Where d'yer come from, then? Yer better lookin' out fer a delivery boy, or summink o' that sort. When yer finished 'ere yer can sweep the stairs. Then yer can fetch the linen up from the laundry, so we can change all the beds when we do the rooms. An' don't 'ang about. There in't no time ter waste.”

“I'm coming.” Gracie was amazed how much she resented being ordered around. She had not expected it to be so difficult. Maybe Samuel had something after all. But freedom came at a very high price. And she was here to help Pitt, and to work for her country.

Perhaps the bedrooms might yield some piece of information, although she could not think what it would be. How on earth could she learn anything useful? What would be useful anyway? How would she recognize it if it were there? And what would happen to Pitt if they failed?

However, she had very little time to spare to do more than clean up, dust, tidy, straighten, and fetch linen for Ada. It was hard work going up and down the stairs, and there was a rigid hierarchy among the servants in which she was at the very bottom, which Ada never allowed her to forget. In spite of the fact that she was twenty-one, and therefore very senior for a maid, on this occasion she was passing herself off as far less, and it pinched a little that it was without any difficulty at all. Narraway had told Mr. Tyndale both her real age and that which she was assuming, and he had not argued. She was the newest here, and that was what counted. Ada enjoyed her power and made the most of it. She must have been new once, and she was making sure of her repayment for every indignity she had suffered.

Gracie was on her way up with a pile of towels she could hardly see over the top of when Edwards caught up with her and offered to carry them for her. “No, thank you,” she declined.

“Independent, are we?” he said with a slight edge of offense in his voice.

She avoided his eyes, not wanting to see what might be in them. “Not really,” she said steadily, climbing the steps by touch more than sight. “Can't afford ter get the wrong side of anyone on me first day.”

“An' what if I think you're being standoffish?” he asked. “Too good to take a bit of an 'and from someone?”

“You wouldn't be so daft!” she said sharply, hoping to heaven it were true. She didn't need trouble from an amorous footman. “Yer know Ada better'n that, even if yer don't know me.” She promptly tripped over the bottom step of the next flight, and he grabbed at her arm to steady her. “Thanks,” she said tartly. “Now don't get me on the wrong side o' nobody, please.”

“Ada's gone downstairs,” he replied. “I'll 'elp yer put these in the rooms, so yer don't fall over yer feet again.”

“Yeah? An' if one o' them ladies comes into 'er room, 'ow are yer goin' ter explain that then, eh?” she said quickly. “Don't yer get caught up 'ere on this landin', or them police is goin' ter ask yer 'ow often yer come up 'ere when yer in't supposed ter!”

That silenced him smartly, and she was relieved to see him go back down the stairs again, leaving her alone to place the towels. Since Ada was gone, she had a little more time. She must make use of it.

She was quick in the women's rooms. Mrs. Quase's bedroom was very feminine. She had lots of perfumes and decorative combs, pretty handkerchiefs, silver-backed brushes, creams and ointments in crystal jars. Gracie imagined a woman very keen to preserve her beauty. She could not resist a quick look into the wardrobe, and estimated enough money spent on dresses to pay a score of maids for a year. From what she could see, her frocks were all immaculately cared for.

Mr. Quase's room was different. There was no smell of perfume in it, rather more like leather and boot polish. The surfaces were very tidy and there was a case for papers. She touched it and found it locked.

Mr. Dunkeld's room also had a case in it, larger than Quase's, and it was locked as well. There were expensive cuff links and collar studs in a small bowl. They looked like gold. His shaving things were expensive also, and he had silver-backed brushes for hair and clothes, a silver-handled shoehorn, and an engraved silver whisky flask with a pigskin case on the dresser. He was obviously a man who liked to have expensive possessions and show off a little. The room still smelled vaguely of cigar smoke, for all Ada's attempts to get rid of it. They would have to come back with more lavender and beeswax polish. What a waste of time!

She noticed also that he had seven books on the shelf, all to do with Africa. She would like to have looked at them, but she could not risk being caught.

Mrs. Dunkeld's room had no trace of the smoke. It smelled of lily of the valley, cool and clean, not sweet like Mrs. Quase's room.

She went down for more towels and came back up again.

Mrs. Sorokine's room was remarkable for the scarlet robe splashed across the bed and the strings of pearls and crystals flung on the dressing table amid a profusion of hair ornaments and jars of cream and perfume. Fearing she might come back any moment, because the room looked so interrupted, Gracie dared not stay. She placed the towels and left.

Mr. Sorokine's room was a surprise, largely because of the number of books, and none of them was about Africa, as far as Gracie could see. There was one on the bedside table with a marker in it. She picked it up and looked at the title:
The Picture of Dorian Gray.
She opened it at random and started to read. She was immediately so absorbed in the strength of the words, the evil and passion in them, that she did not hear the door open. The first she was aware of him was when he spoke.

“Can you read it?”

She was so startled the book slipped out of her hand and fell to the floor. “I'm sorry!” she said too loudly, feeling the heat scorch up her face.

He bent and picked it up, being careful to straighten the pages. “Can you?” he asked again.

She stared at him in horror. He was a tall man, handsome, with a broad brow. He had strong features, but not insensitive. Somehow, she would have expected his eyes to be brown, not the gray they were. She nodded. It was not a matter of not lying to him so much as not denying the gift Charlotte had given her.

He smiled. “What did it say?”

“It were about wanting to be beautiful always,” she answered, gulping. “An' young.”

He looked satisfied, as if her answer pleased him. “I'll leave it on the table,” he told her. “Then you can look at it again. You can put the towels on the dresser.”

She had left them in a heap on the bed. Her face still burning, she picked them up and put them where they should be. Then, with hands shaking, she fled into the corridor.

Without looking at anything at all, she replaced the towels in Mr. and Mrs. Marquand's rooms, and gathered up all the old ones. She staggered down to the laundry with them, occasionally dropping one or two and having to go back and pick them up, awkwardly, dropping others as she did so.

Downstairs in the laundry finally she dumped the lot of them in one of the big wicker baskets and decided to take a look around. If anyone found her here, she could easily say she was looking for soap or bran or any of a dozen other things. It was part of her duties to be familiar with all the cleaning materials available. She saw plenty of bran. Charlotte had shown her how to use that to clean stains out of good fabrics. There was white spirit—probably gin—for the same purpose; also soap, pumice, chalk, turpentine, pipe clay, flowers of sulfur, black rosin, several large lumps of yellow wax, laundry blue, and fresh-made starch. Below that were bottles labeled for oxalic acid, salts of sorrel, sal ammoniac, and gum arabic.

She changed her mind about attempting to help with laundry and decided to do some detecting instead. She pulled out the other wicker laundry basket and opened it up. Her heart beat violently and her stomach lurched. It was full of sheets, white, with scarlet splashes fading into brown. They were soaked, spattered, and smeared with blood. At the edges it was dull and dried, but in the middle the stains were still red and when she touched her fingertip to them they were damp. Poor woman. There was so much of it! She must have bled and bled. Gracie was a little numb at the thought. What would make anybody do such a thing? And here, of all the places in England.

But then a lot of this was not really as she had thought it would be. It was the Queen's house. It should be different from everywhere else in the world. And yet the dust and the ring marks on tables, the dropped ash, the scuffs on the floor, were exactly like anyone's house. Except that Pitt would have picked up after himself, and since he could not afford to replace his carpets and tables—he had had to save up to buy them in the first place—he would have taken more care of them.

One of those men really had killed that woman. Why? What kind of rage made you do something like that? Did they think they could get away with it? She had already realized that the servants here protected people from having to pay for reality the way most people do. Would they hide even this? Was that part of the job description? Were they paying you not only for your time and your obedience but for your conscience as well? She could just imagine what Samuel would say about that!

But would it help you if the law came after you? That was a totally new thought. Did Pitt have any real power here? If not, why would they pretend with nice words that they wanted him to expose the culprit ready for prosecution, only then to cover it up and deal with it themselves? She knew the answer: because they couldn't find out without him. Perhaps they needed his brains but not his honesty. How would they make him keep silent about what he knew? Did he face a danger he knew nothing of?

She was cold now, even though it was steaming hot down here, and the air was full of the smell of soap and washing soda. What could she do to help him? Should she warn him? Would that be good, or only make it worse?

She started to look through the sheets again, deeper into the basket. This might be her only chance to examine them before they were washed. They were of a quality she had never felt before: fine and soft, their threads so fine they could have been silk. And she could smell the sickly odor of the blood.

They were all stitched with tiny holes along the seam at the hem. She had seen people do drawn thread work like that. It took hours. It was beautiful. Some of them had other embroidery on as well. The two very best had what looked like a
V
and an
R,
in satin stitch, and a little crown. Victoria Regina. It could only mean one thing: The Queen's sheets had been in the cupboard where the poor woman was killed! But they were drenched in blood, soaked in it! And they were crumpled. They had been lain on, in fact they had been slept in. The blood was smeared and marked more lightly, as if transferred from someone's body who had rolled in it.

Gracie galvanized into movement. She must hide them where they could not be found, then go to fetch Pitt. She had no idea what this information meant, but someone was lying pretty badly, because this made no sense at all. Who had stolen the Queen's sheets, and used them, and for what? To carry the poor woman's body, to cover it up, to hide it for a while?

She had the sheets in her hands when she heard footsteps on the stairs and one of the maids giggling. Then Edwards the footman's voice was quite clear, cajoling, wheedling.

“C'mon, Ada! You know you want me to!”

Gracie had never been in that position herself, but she knew exactly what he meant. What she did not know was whether he was right, and Ada was perfectly willing. Either way, Gracie's presence here would make an enemy for life of at least one of them, most likely both. And she was doing badly enough with Ada as it was. She found herself hot with embarrassment that she might accidentally witness something she would very much rather not.

“Cheeky!” Ada said warmly. “I don't know nothin' o' the kind! You fancy yerself way too much, Mr. Edwards, an' that's a fact.”

“Not 'alf as much as I fancy you!” he retorted. “'Old still, then!”

They had not seen Gracie yet, but a couple of steps farther down into the laundry and they would. Worse, they would realize that she had to have heard them. What would she do? She was revolted at the thought of hiding in one of the baskets, full of other people's dirty sheets. She might even get marked with blood herself, and how would she explain that? But she had to have these sheets for Pitt. There was no other way out of here, just the one flight of stairs, and Ada and Edwards were already at the foot of it. If Gracie had not been so small, and bent double half behind the linen basket, they would have seen her by now.

She must hide the sheets safely: That was more important than saving herself from embarrassment, or even bullying in the future. It was only for a few days, after all! But how? What could she do to distract their attention? She stared around at the shelves with all their jars and packets, then at the big copper tubs bubbling away with the sheets and towels in them. If she opened the flue on the boiler, it would roar up quickly. There would be steam all over the place—perhaps even a small flood. She could hide the embroidered sheets, stuff them in the bran tub temporarily, and when Ada and Edwards were busy trying to stop the flood, she could come from the bottom of the stairs as if she had just arrived. It might work. It had to.

She crouched behind the basket and reached for the long wooden spirtle that was used to stir the linen around. It would be just long enough to reach the flue, if she were very careful. Her arm ached with the weight of holding it up from one end and keeping it steady. She must make no sudden moves or it might catch their notice.