Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman (31 page)

“And that would explain Wilfred's preoccupation all week, poor man. Is it bad, darling?” Clementine asked her husband.

“Probably a hiccup; I'm just a farmer, you know I don't understand these things. White Star had a lot of problems with the
Olympic
's collision with the
Hawke,
it says here. I don't remember that, do you? Oh yes, and then there was that strike over lifeboats, that was nasty. The
Olympic
was steaming out of port, and the crew turned the ship round—they said none of the lifeboats were seaworthy, so the ship has been out of commission for a refit, taken months apparently. The legacy of the
Titanic
still haunts White Star, I'm afraid. Too bad all this publicity … Still, Wilfred's up in town now taking care of things, I expect.” Her husband, financially secure, with his eighty thousand fecund acres, could afford to be offhand about Sir Wilfred's financial responsibilities in the City.

So this was why Sir Wilfred had been so preoccupied and anxious, she thought, and she wearily crossed another minor suspect off their list. More bad news to share with Mrs. Jackson.

All their suspects for Teddy's murder had dissolved, with questions left unanswered and only the sordid facts of Teddy's mistreatment of Violet laid bare. And now this most disconcerting new element, this man in the shrubbery who came out of God knows where. Their investigation was foundering.

“When we go to war with Germany, won't that put a stop to passenger ships to America?” asked Ellis, and she could have screamed.
Not war talk at breakfast surely; this was why women had breakfast in their rooms.
She harrumphed to herself.

“
If
we go to war … you've been listening to Winston again, Ellis. I can't believe how much money we are spending on building dreadnoughts. Pray we do not go to war with Germany. It is not the answer, my boy. But yes, if we do, then all our ships will join the navy, passenger liners included. Our best defense has always been our huge navy.” Lord Montfort hated the thought of war.

She was turning to her daughter when she heard Harry and Ellis enthusing about the merits of aeroplanes and their possible usefulness in wartime, and her irritation knew no bounds. She made a point of catching Harry's eye, frowned at him in a most repressive way, and, ignoring his hurt look of entreaty, changed the topic of conversation to something a little less controversial.

“Well, as the morning appears to be my own, I think I will pop down to the quarry garden. Mr. Thrower will be there, and we can enjoy a nice ramble among the new plantings. If this lovely weather holds, I think we should have a picnic there for luncheon tomorrow. Verity, what about you, dear, would you like to come with me?” She had made a supreme effort to conceal her irritability and succeeded.

To her relief, her daughter, who was not as much interested in gardens as she was in the displaying of beautiful things in houses, said she thought she might rearrange the furniture in the tapestry room and rang for Mrs. Jackson to ask for help from Agnes, Elsie, and Mary, as the menservants were off to Northcombe.

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later, Mrs. Jackson and the maids arrived in the tapestry room to find that Lady Verity de Lamballe had collected up all the pretty things she could manage alone and now stood contemplating chairs and other small pieces of furniture. Mrs. Jackson was used to Lady Verity's passion for rearranging the rooms in the house. She had developed a wonderful eye for beautiful things and had made great improvements on her visits to Iyntwood. According to Lady Montfort, she had transformed her house in Paris, bringing in exquisite pieces from dusty old forgotten rooms and arranging them simply and with great balance to bring out the best of the lovely rooms and the de Lamballe family's superb collections of porcelain and Gobelins tapestries.

“We have to get rid of this heavy furniture it makes the room feel stuffy and overcrowded. But we can keep this.” Lady Verity tapped her fingertips on the surface of a delicate pier table. “It's beautiful when you get it away from that monstrous chair. So we'll move this baroque sofa to right here under the window, and then balance it by getting rid of both those hideous wing chairs and moving the Hepplewhite pier table to here.”

Mrs. Jackson was slender, but she was strong, and she smiled at the red-faced silence, except for grunts and muttered instructions as they heaved the furniture around. The sofa was long and heavy and it took a lot of effort to move it across the room. Finally they had it in place and were able to straighten up, breathless and giggling at a little squeal from Mary, who had barely escaped getting her foot mashed.

“Ah yes, now that's much better. But it needs … I know—I thought of this last night. Agnes, pop along to the library and bring the lapis-covered vase with gilt handles for this table and the Sevres porcelain figure. They are far too elaborate for the library and will look perfect on the gilt wood console against this gray wall. I don't know why Mama says the console is Louis the Fifteenth; it looks very Fourteenth to me.”

Mrs. Jackson hurriedly said she would go to the library, as the thought of Agnes bumbling alone with 150-year-old porcelain was too much to bear.

An hour later Mrs. Jackson and her crowd of helpers stood in the doorway to take the room by surprise. Lady Verity reminded her of Lady Montfort at this moment, all enthusiasm and determined that everyone enjoy the fruits of their labors as much as she did.

“Oh yes, so much better. Don't you think, everyone? Agnes, would you move that a little to the left, thank you … yes, perfect. Well done, all of you. Mrs. Jackson, please don't let Mama move it all back again. Don't you think it better this way?”

Mrs. Jackson thought it was, and she said so. She didn't ask what they should do with the two heavy Victorian chairs parked outside the door or with the little
bibliothèque
and four petit-point footstools, proudly stitched by the dowager. They crossed the room to the windows and Mrs. Jackson opened them to let in the soft summer air to cool down their hot faces as the housemaids trooped back downstairs.

“The ball is such a huge amount of work for you all,” said Lady Verity, evidently feeling bad after she had made them all puff up and down the room. “What a tragic end to it all. I felt so miserable I couldn't come this year, but now I'm glad I wasn't here. When we were children the ball was the biggest event of our summer, you know.”

“I remember you gave Nanny a good run-around,” Mrs. Jackson replied, laughing at the memory of Nanny's ample form trying to round up her charges before bedtime.

“Poor Nanny, she was never very quick on her feet. Harry was the worst, he would pretend to play along, and then we would double round the east portico and creep through the gardens to the rose garden and hide in the north pavilion. No one ever looked for us there.”

Mrs. Jackson was happy to join in her laughter. She had known Lady Verity since she was a little girl and was particularly fond of the eldest Talbot daughter, who was pure sweetness and light. Lady Althea was younger by two years, and because she was such a tomboy she had often sided with Lord Haversham against their elder sister, making Lady Verity appear to be as good as gold, when in fact she had always been the ringleader. Lady Verity continued recounting the escapades of her childhood.

“If Mr. Ellis was staying here, he would join us. We would hide out in the north pavilion because we could easily see into the ballroom across the terrace—and all the misbehaving that went on in the rose garden.” Lady Verity smiled at her recognition of social naughtiness and Mrs. Jackson quickly looked away as memories of Lady Waterford loomed. “Lord Haversham and Mr. Ellis would creep through the gap in the yew hedge and bring us back pasties and ale from the dray. One year Lord Haversham drank so much rough cider that he was sick all over the pavilion floor!”

“How old were you then, Lady Verity?” Mrs. Jackson asked.

“Oh, I was about twelve, the boys would have been nine. If we thought Nanny was coming or Hollyoak, we would jump over the side and hide at the back of the pavilion. We could make our getaway through the yew hedge into the woods if it looked like someone was onto us, but we were never caught.”

“The secret lives of children.” Mrs. Jackson laughed. “You were all such a handful, I don't know how poor old Nanny coped.”

“She didn't really, but she did give the boys a good walloping with her slipper when she caught them smoking Father's cigars. I think Mr. Oscar was with them that time, or perhaps it was Mr. Mallory, I don't remember now.”

“I had no idea you could get through the yew hedge behind the north pavilion. That hedge has to be at least four feet thick,” Mrs. Jackson said, making Lady Verity backtrack.

“Oh yes, it's cut that way, straight in almost to the middle, a sharp left turn and a right turn to come out the other side. Unless you are looking for it you can't see it. You have to squeeze anyway. It was made so anyone working in the rose garden could leave without crossing the garden or the terrace.”

Mrs. Jackson understood what she meant. Outside staff worked in the early hours of the morning, before the family was up and about, so they were not seen or heard. If a gardener was raking leaves and someone in the family came that way, he retreated into the nearest hedge. Most of these concealed places in the gardens had long ago grown over. Lady Montfort liked to talk to her gardeners, and she was more likely to put on her gloves and prune alongside them than to expect them to disappear when she was outside. But when the house and some of the gardens had been built, more than two hundred years ago, all servants were expected to work behind the scenes.

Mrs. Jackson experienced a little flash of excitement. In one moment she saw how everything had happened on the night of the ball and with that understanding came the identity of Teddy's murderer. It was at once a truly frightening and exhilarating moment.

She heard Lady Verity say, “I had better go and change for luncheon, and then I can surprise Mama with the improvements to the room. Thanks for your help, Mrs. Jackson; you have such a good eye for balance.” She turned and surveyed the effect of her work with satisfaction.

Walking back through the hall of the house, Mrs. Jackson heard the telephone ringing and changed direction to answer it. It was Mr. Hollyoak's job to answer the telephone from his pantry, but he had already left for Northcombe, so she went into the house telephone room. She picked up the listening piece and the operator announced a call from Colonel Valentine. Mrs. Jackson's heart sank. He asked to speak to Lord Haversham.

“This is Mrs. Jackson, sir, the housekeeper. Lord Haversham is over at Northcombe today, playing cricket.”

“I have been asked to bring Lord Haversham with to me up Scotland Yard, Mrs. Jackson; nothing terribly serious, nothing to worry about. Chief Inspector Ewan spoke with Miss Lucinda and some of her testimony is confusing. It doesn't quite fit with Lord Haversham's for the night of the ball and Ewan needs some clarification before he moves on. If Lord Haversham would telephone me at my house this evening when he returns, we can decide which would be the best train to catch tomorrow, unless he would prefer to drive.”

“Yes, sir, I will give him the message. They are expected back from Northcombe at about six o'clock.”

“Please do so, Mrs. Jackson. Goodbye.” She heard a click on the line and replaced the earpiece.

Oh yes it
is
terribly serious and something to worry about,
Mrs. Jackson thought as she walked quickly across the hall to the terrace door. Serious if Lucinda got carried away with her own sense of self-importance and said something stupid; dangerous because the eagerly listening Ewan would jump all over an opportunity to rope in Lord Haversham.

The sun was hot on the flagstones of the terrace, and she walked as fast as she dared, breaking into a little run when she knew she could not be observed. She went along the south terrace and turned right to the west portico of the house. The gardeners had finished working in the rose garden long before breakfast, and the rest of the servants were focused on preparations for luncheon. This side of the house and gardens were completely empty.

The rose garden lay before her, with its rich tapestry of golds, buffs, creams, and soft pinks, blending into deeper carmine pinks, reds, and burgundies in an intricate parterre of beds and a careful palette of color. Grass pathways divided the beds and at their intersections were stone terraces with wooden benches. At each end of the garden there were small marble temples: the north and south pavilions.

Mrs. Jackson walked along grass avenues, banked on either side by roses, their heads heavy with bloom and their fragrance soft and creamy. By the time she reached the north pavilion she felt almost giddy from their heady scent. The north pavilion, like its counterpart, was circular with open columns on one side of the sphere that looked out into the garden, and a closed column wall at the rear. An ornate stone bench stood in the center. Mrs. Jackson noticed that it was very clean; the marble had been thoroughly scrubbed quite recently. There was not a trace of garden vegetation anywhere on the pavilion floor, not a leaf, not a twig. Mrs. Jackson mounted the shallow steps and stood in the middle of the open room. Yes, Lady Verity had been right: you could sit on the balustrade and look across the rose garden and the terrace straight into the great windows of the ballroom. She wrapped her long skirt tightly around her legs, swung them over the side of the balustrade, and dropped down into the garden. She walked directly around to the back of the pavilion, where the yew hedge towered ten feet overhead. Very little daylight penetrated here and it was damp. The earth was still squashy from the rain. She trod carefully at the edge of the path, her right hand brushing the wall of the hedge.