Death at Daisy's Folly (18 page)

She considered for a moment. “I see that we would both bring certain liabilities to a marriage. Although, should I retire to the garret and scribble for days on end, you might begin to feel that you had the worst of the bargain. Or should my name—
your
name—be somehow associated with Beryl Bardwell's stories.”

“You may scribble at will!” he exclaimed. “And if your identity should come to light, we shall have plenty to talk about at dinner parties.”

“If we are invited.”

“Oh, but we shall be. Almost any hostess in the land would welcome Beryl Bardwell. But do not assume that anyone will tell you anything they don't want to see in print.”

Her lips were trembling. “Then you are asking me to marry you, in spite of . . . everything?”

He put his arms around her. “Will you, in spite of everything ?”

She hesitated for only a moment. “Yes,” she said, her voice low but resolute. “Whether it is wise or not.”

He kissed her again, delighting in the way her arms slipped eagerly around his neck. It seemed to him that he could go on kissing her into the afternoon and the night and the next morning, and he reflected with stunned delight that soon—very soon, perhaps—he would be free to do just that.

But a moment later, she pulled away and straightened her hat, which had tipped over one ear. She looked down. “I fear,” she said, “that we are not showing the proper respect.”

He followed her gaze to the blanketed corpse lying on the path. “Good Lord,” he groaned, “I forgot all about Reggie.”

In the late Victorian and early Edwardian periods, the servant
class underwent a dramatic change. Many individuals began to
perceive opportunities for betterment in other situations and
resent their paltry wages and low status in the great houses.
This resentment was expressed, in some instances, by a sullen
sluggishness; in others, by outright belligerence and a more or
less open rebellion. Such individuals could be easily influenced
by the Anarchist sentiment which abounded in the last decade
of the century.

—THOMAS SEYMOUR
Social Precursors of the Great War

 

 

H
alf-stunned by what had just occurred between them, Charles sent Kate off with instructions to see what she could learn from the women guests and upper servants and upstairs maids—a daunting task, for there were quite a number to interrogate. It was a delicate task, too, requiring not only finesse in asking questions but an ear for lying answers. He did not doubt that Kate was up to it.

When she had gone, he set up his camera and took the necessary photographs. Then he summoned the men who had been promised and oversaw the removal of Wallace's body to the game larder, a low building with a stone floor, a wooden sink and large table for cleaning and butchering game, and heavy plank shelves suitable for laying out a corpse. He left Wallace in the company of a number of naked grouse and pheasants dangling from hooks in the rafters, with a man to guard the door. Then, after making inquiries as to the whereabouts of Deaf John, he went off to the nearby forge, where the man was said to work. With luck, it would take only a minute to question him and discover whether he could shed any light on the groom's death.

But questioning Deaf John took longer than he expected. Encountering the smith on the path to the forge, he was directed to the old man's cottage. According to the smith, the farrier (who worked under his supervision) had come to the smithy with chills and a fever that morning and had been sent back to his bed.

“Perhaps,” Charles said, “I should ask you to go with me to see him. If the man is truly deaf, I may not be able to make my questions understood.”

“Ye'll ‘ave no trouble,” the smith said, wiping his nose on his coarse sleeve. “People think John's simple an' doan't give 'im credit. But ‘e's canny, right 'nough, an' clever at readin' lips. Anyway, I seen ‘is girl Meg goin' that way, too, a little bit agon, carryin' a pail o' soup fer 'er faither's lunch. She'll ‘elp ye talk t' 'im.”

The cottage stood at the end of a dirt lane lined by several such cottages, all rented to estate workers. The dooryard was mostly packed dirt, with the frosted remains of a few summer flowers under the window. The thatched building had only one room downstairs, with two small casement windows set into the thick walls and a Dutch door, the top half of which stood open. Looking in, Charles saw that the dim room was furnished with a table, several chairs, and a narrow bed, with a potato sack thrown down by way of hearth rug and a paraffin lamp set on the table for light.

But the room was clean-swept and neat, there was a small fire in the grate and a potted geranium on the windowsill, and the thin mattress was covered with a bright green coverlet, which had been thrown back. A stooped old graybeard whom Charles took to be Deaf John, his shoulders hunched under a blue knitted shawl, sat in a wooden chair before the fire, his large, calloused hands holding a bowl from which he was drinking a thick soup. A slight, pretty girl of sixteen or seventeen sat on a stool at his knee, a worried expression on her thin young face. She was wearing a maid's working dress of blue stuff, covered by a white apron, and her curly brown hair was tucked under a white cap. The evident tenderness of her concern for her father warmed Charles's heart, and he was hesitant to intrude. But he had come here to question the old man, and question he must.

He cleared his throat quietly, so as not to startle the girl. Even so, she whirled around, her mouth falling open at the sight of a stranger in the doorway. “I'm sorry to have frightened you, Meg.” He took off his hat. “My name is Charles Sheridan. I've come to—”

The girl's brown eyes became very large, the eyes of a frightened doe, and the freckles showed against the sudden pallor of her cheeks. “Yer th' one wot's doin' th' investigatin'?” she asked in a small, frightened voice that was barely more than a whisper. “Wot d'ye want wi' me? I doan't know anything.”

He smiled to allay her fears. “My business is with your father,” he said, opening the bottom half of the door and stepping in. The old man, gray hair straggling on either side of his weathered face, was watching him intently. “I understand that you can help me communicate with him.”

The girl looked at her father, trading fright for worry. “But ‘e doan't know anything neither, sir. 'E took bad sick this mornin' an' can't work. ‘E's bin right 'ere, either lyin' in bed er sittin' in front o' th' fire, since arter breakfast. Why, ‘e ain't even 'eard 'bout Lord Wallace gettin' shot.”

Charles was not surprised at the speed with which news traveled on the estate. He suspected that rumor of Wallace's murder had reached the Lodge before the messenger left for Chelmsford. And in spite of the Prince's concern for secrecy, the news had by now reached the far outskirts of the Park and was on its way to Dunmow.

“It is not about Lord Wallace's death that I wish to inquire,” he said, and was startled by the sudden and involuntary relief that flooded the girl's face. Struck by the idea that she knew something, he was about to question her. But he caught himself. Kate—a woman, and less intimidating—would be better able to persuade the girl to reveal anything she might know. “I have been told that your father saw someone coming out of the stable yesterday morning, about the time the Prince's groom was killed. Will you ask him if that is so?”

Deaf John put his hand on his daughter's arm, made a gruff sound, and nodded vigorously.

“‘E's sayin' 'e wants t' tell ye wot he knows,” she said nervously. “‘E read yer lips, ye see, sir, although sometimes it's better if I ask 'im, too, t' make sure ‘e's got it right.”

“Does he know the name of the person he saw coming out of the barn?”

The girl put her lips close to her father's ear and shouted. “ ‘E wants t'know ‘oo 'twas, Dad. D‘ye know 'is name?”

The old man shook his head, then grasped the shawl, lifted it and settled it again on his shoulders, saying something that sounded to Charles like a harsh, confused garble.

“‘Twere a person in a cloak, 'e says,” the girl interpreted. She seemed to Charles to be less apprehensive about this subject.

“A man or a woman?”

Another shout, another garble. The old man pointed at Charles's boots.

“‘Twere a man, by 'is boots,” she said. The old man said something, amplified by signs and gestures. “Black boots,” the girl went on, watching her father. “Dad doan't know ‘is name, but 'e owns a big gray mare.” There was another consultation, and she added, “A big gray mare wi' a new shoe on ‘er left 'ind foot.”

“Thank you,” Charles said, inwardly exultant. With such a clear description, it should be easy enough to discover the cloaked man's name. He was thanking her for her help when a shadow blotted the light from the door.

“‘Do's 'ere?” a man's voice inquired, with rough concern. “ ‘Tain't th' doctor, is't? 'E ain't took that bad, I ‘ope.”

“Marsh!” Meg exclaimed, and jumped to her feet, her eyes going from Charles to the other with a return of the fear Charles had seen earlier. “No, no, ‘tain't th' doctor,” she said hurriedly. “Dad's eat up all 'is soup an's ready fer ‘is nap. 'E'll be back t'work termorrer, sure. So ye doan't need t' stay.”

Marsh, a surly, pock-faced young man wearing the green and gold livery of a footman, looked a little surprised at her sudden dismissal. He dropped an armload of wood beside the fire and brushed the bark off his sleeve. “Th' smith wants ‘im back termorrer? I doan't think so.” He raised his voice and bent over the old man. “Ye wants t' stay i' bed another day er twa, ol' John,” he shouted. “They kin do without ye at th' forge.” He lowered his voice and added, to the girl, “Lit'le as they pay, they'll scarcely miss ‘im.” He turned to face Charles, his eyes angrily slitted. “An' 'oo be ye?”

“It's all right, Marsh,” the girl said. With an obvious effort at intervention, she stepped between them. “ ‘E's only somebody 'er ladyship sent to—”

“Yer th' one ‘oo's doin' th' job fer th' police, ain't ye?” Marsh asked belligerently. He pulled his black brows together and thrust out his jaw. “Well, ye might as well git yersel' gone, then. This 'ome's private. There's nothin' t' be learnt 'ere.”

Meg touched the young man's sleeve. “It's all right, Marsh,” she repeated. “Th' gentl‘man's done 'is askin' an' he's leavin‘.” When Marsh did not respond, she leaned closer and added, so low that Charles had to strain to hear, “ 'E was only askin' 'bout th' stableboy.”

“I doan't like it, Meg,” Marsh muttered. The glance he cast at Charles was half fight, half fear. “I doan't like ‘is bein' 'ere, snoopin' in pore folks' bus'ness.”

The young man was something less than one-and-twenty, Charles thought. It was unusual for a footman-Meg's brother, was he, or her sweetheart?—to be so bellicose. At Somersworth, in the lifetime of his father, such an attitude would have been grounds for instant dismissal with a bad character. But times were changing, and with them the demeanor of the servants. Their submissive obedience was giving way to a natural and irrepressible wish to better themselves and, when that wish was thwarted, a sullen resentment. That, he suspected, was what lay behind the young man's antagonism. If Marsh were in his employ, some more challenging and interesting work would have to be found for him, with opportunities for advancement.

He bowed to the old man, nodded at Meg and Marsh, and went to the door. “Thank you for your help,” he said.

“Yer welcome,” Meg said, with an attempt at civility. Marsh growled something unintelligible, and they both turned back toward the fire and the old man.

Charles retraced his steps to the smithy, a three-sided stone building with a tiled roof, as dark as a cave. The roof and walls were black with the soot of the many coal fires that had been built in the enormous stone forge at the back, and the place rang with the infernal clanging of the smith's heavy hammer. The air was acrid with coal smoke and the smell of the hot oil that was used for tempering. Walking into the place was like walking into the devil's den.

On one side of the forge, Charles saw a sturdy boy of hardly more than twelve, pumping a large ox-hide bellows fixed flat to the dirt floor. The bellows directed a stream of air into the furnace, fanning the hungry flames. On the other side of the forge, the smith was bent over an anvil, punching holes in a hot ox shoe he was fashioning from an iron bar. Behind him stood the huge beast, docile in the elaborate leather and canvas sling that supported his weight while the smithy shod him, one hoof at a time. The smith, a burly man in a leather apron, his face blackened with coal smudge, looked up as Charles approached.

“Git wot ye was after?” he asked, with a certain familiarity. Charles had long ago noticed the easy address of craftsmen, whose skill and experience seemed to give them the right to speak as an equal to almost anyone. With the skill of long practice, the smith picked up the hot shoe with his forge tongs, turned swiftly to hoist the ox's right foreleg, and applied the shoe against the horny wall of the hoof. There was a great sizzle and smoke, but the animal stood compliant as before, appearing not to notice.

“I made a start,” Charles said. He waited until the smith had finished putting in the nails, nipped them off, clinched them over, and dropped the beast's leg. “I wonder,” he said. “Do you know the name of a man whose large gray mare has a new left hind shoe? I should like to interview him.”