Murder on the Serpentine

by Anne Perry

  “Yes, of course. It could be the same time,” Emily said quickly. “If she stepped out of society for a while, giving Felicia the chance to take her place, that could be why. What about her husband then? Perhaps he matters.”

  “It’s all in the feelings,” Charlotte said, as much to herself as to Emily. “We need to find someone who observed the private moments, as a lady’s maid does, and yet is not involved themself. How are we to find who was Delia’s maid then? With luck, it will not be the same one as now, and we can get her to talk. I wonder how difficult Delia was to work for. She doesn’t seem to be particularly gentle or agreeable.”

  Emily considered that for several seconds. Then they each suggested possibilities, discarding them one by one.

  “I could ask my maid to make some inquiries,” Emily said at last. “But the moment she mentioned my name it would be as bad as if I was asking myself. In fact worse, because it would look so underhanded.”

  “But a lady’s maid would be a good idea,” Charlotte replied. “One maid to another. She could say that her aunt or cousin had known Delia’s maid twenty years ago, and she was trying to contact her, for family reasons.”

  “But it would be bound to come out that she is my maid,” Emily argued.

  “Yes, I know. I wasn’t thinking of your maid. I don’t have one. Minnie Maude would be game enough to do it, but she couldn’t pass herself off as a lady’s maid. She’s far too”—she searched for a kinder word than “blunt”—“individual. And apart from that, she would tell Thomas. She would be bound to, sooner or later. I was thinking of asking Gwen, Aunt Vespasia’s maid. If one of us told her most of the real reason, she would do it. She does anything if she thinks it is for Vespasia’s sake…”

  That was the worst part of all this. Thomas’s disillusionment she could try to heal, but Vespasia’s would be terrible—and unreachable. She forced it out of her thoughts.

  “Isn’t it for Vespasia’s sake because of Narraway?” Emily’s eyebrows went up.

  “And Thomas’s, yes.” She nodded. “But she doesn’t need to know at all…not yet.”

  “You are far more devious than I thought you were,” Emily said with distinct appreciation. “I always believed you were a bit too straightforward.”

  “That’s because I’m better at it than you are,” Charlotte responded a little tartly. “The art of being devious is in not looking it.”

  “Then go ahead and be devious with Gwen. You probably know her better than I do.”

  —

  TWO LONG, DIFFICULT DAYS passed before the plan worked, but it did so very well. Gwen proved to be inventive and quite a clever actress, a skill that pleased her immensely. She was devoted to Vespasia and willing to take any sort of risks to help, although she did ask that they not tell Vespasia herself of her role, except for such details as were absolutely necessary.

  She returned to Charlotte and told her that Elsie Dimmock had been Delia Kendrick’s lady’s maid a great deal of her working life, and had been a housemaid before that in the home of Delia’s parents. She was now living in a cottage outside Maidstone, in Kent, which she had inherited from her own parents and was able to keep up with a pension afforded her by Mrs. Kendrick. She seemed, in Gwen’s opinion, a very obliging sort of person.

  Charlotte thanked her warmly, refunded her the train and cab fares she had spent, and told her that if she preferred it, Lady Vespasia did not need to know of the matter at all.

  Gwen accepted the money reluctantly, and thanked her.

  It was early in the day still, and Charlotte knew there was no time to waste. She telephoned Emily to give her the news. She dressed in her most ordinary clothes—a simple white blouse with a dusky blue skirt and a straw hat—and set out to meet Emily under the clock at the railway station, where they would catch a train to Maidstone. They discussed their plans over the journey both in the train and in a hansom from Maidstone station to the street where Elsie Dimmock lived.

  “I hope to heaven she is in,” Emily said dubiously.

  “Well, if she isn’t we will have to wait.” Charlotte refused to entertain the idea that they could fail, at least without trying a great deal harder. “We will ask the neighbors where she is, if necessary.”

  Emily kept in step with her, and when they went up the front path to the rose-surrounded door it was Emily who tugged on the bell rope.

  A plump woman of at least sixty-five answered the door after a few moments. She had a homely face but the most beautiful silver-gray hair, which caught the light like a halo. She wiped her hands on her apron and looked at them with puzzlement.

  “I am Emily Radley, and this is my sister, Charlotte,” Emily said with a sweet smile. “Are you Mrs. Elsie Dimmock?” It was a courtesy on occasion to give an older woman the title of Mrs. even though she might never have married.

  “I’m Elsie Dimmock, ma’am. How can I help you?” She did not move from the doorway, not expecting them to come in.

  Charlotte swallowed. This was the most difficult part, the one over which she and Emily had had the most disagreement. She spoke softly.

  “We are friends of Mrs. Delia Kendrick.” She saw the swift recognition in Elsie Dimmock’s eyes, and then instant concern.

  “May we come in?” Charlotte asked. “There has been a little unpleasantness…rumors, you know? And as her friends we wish, vigorously, to stop them before they can spread any more widely. She won’t do it herself; I suppose it is natural. We all have a little pride, and—”

  “Oh, Miss Delia has that all right,” Elsie agreed with something that was close to a laugh, but too tight in her throat to come out that way. “Her own worst enemy at times. But then, aren’t we all?” She opened the door wider. “I don’t know how I can help, but I’ll do my best.”

  Charlotte and Emily glanced at each other, then followed Elsie inside the neat, lavender-smelling house. It was a cottage, one entered straight from the doorstep into the front sitting room, with its fireplace and comfortable furniture. There was a bowl of mixed flowers on the table, the first bright petals beginning to drop.

  So Elsie was not surprised. Maybe there had been gossip before, from which Delia had not defended herself. Pride again, or perhaps because it had been true?

  Emily sat with unself-conscious elegance on the settee, and Charlotte took one of the armchairs.

  “Can I make you a cup of tea?” Elsie offered.

  “No, thank you,” Emily replied. “We don’t wish to put you to any trouble.”

  “That would be so kind of you,” Charlotte accepted. Emily might not know, but doing something familiar and useful, like making tea, would set Elsie more at ease. She would feel she had offered hospitality and was in some way in control of events.

  Elsie disappeared about the task.

  With obvious difficulty Emily refrained from saying anything. This was not the time for a disagreement.

  As soon as Elsie had returned with the tea and poured it, she asked what the gossip had been about this time. While the kettle was coming to the boil she had cut slices of cake and she offered them now.

  “Unfortunately there has been a death,” Charlotte said as soon as she had swallowed the first mouthful. “At first it was seen as an accident, but now a question has been raised as to it being an attack.”

  “Oh dear.” Elsie looked alarmed.

  “The thing is,” Charlotte continued, “he was a man who knew a great deal about other people, not always to their credit. The speculation is as to which particular piece of information got him…attacked. I’m sorry to say…killed. I’m sure you can imagine how many people are seizing the chance to make awful suggestions in order to take vengeance for one thing or another, real or not. And Mrs. Kendrick is a woman of whom many others are jealous. It’s ugly, and so unfair.”

  “As if she hadn’t had enough.” Elsie looked truly distressed.

  “Has it happened before?” Emily asked with sympathy, and before Charlotte could say anything.

&nbs
p; “Some people just seem to attract tragedy.” Elsie was staring wide-eyed into her own memory. Charlotte guessed that perhaps she spent a lot of time alone, since her retirement. She must miss the constant company of living in a big house, the other servants always coming and going, the banter and teasing, mostly good-natured: everyone’s interest in the lives of the family they served. This cottage was comfortable, very much better than what most servants could retire to, but it might be too quiet at times, and all the freedom could also be lonely.

  Charlotte accepted another piece of cake and bit into it with very clear pleasure, but she was subtle enough not to offer a compliment overtly, at least not yet.

  “I believe she lost her first husband,” Emily said sadly. “I understand how hard that can be, the shock. The wondering what you are going to do, how you are going to manage.”

  “That happened to you too, miss?”

  “Yes. I know just how it feels. So…lost!”

  “Poor Miss Delia, for all that Mr. Darnley was a bad one, he was handsome as you like, and could charm the birds out of the trees. I can see him as clear as if he was standing here. Played the piano a treat, and could sing too, all sorts of old songs, romantic ones. He used to tell a lot of tales, including that one of his ancestors was married to Mary, Queen of Scots, and was murdered for love.”

  Charlotte remembered that the tragic Mary, Queen of Scots, had indeed been married to a man named Darnley, and it was suspected that she herself had ordered him to be killed. But this was not the occasion to say so.

  “How very sad,” she commented. “And he was Delia’s daughter’s father, wasn’t he? Not her present husband.”

  “Oh, yes, Miss Alice. What a sweetheart she was, such a lovely little girl. Reminded me of Miss Delia when she were that age. So happy. Bright as you like. Into everything. ‘Please, Elsie, what’s this? What’s that? What’s it for? Can I use it? Show me! Let me try!’ ” Her eyes filled with tears. “That time goes so quick, doesn’t it? Just a few years, and then they are all away. Seems like they were only babies the year before. Miss Delia married that Darnley when she were only twenty. It took him five years to spend all her money and then start looking around for someone else’s. He was a— I shouldn’t say what he was in front of ladies.” She sniffed hard.

  Charlotte was glad she had never had sufficient money to be worth marrying for. It was a blessing she had not considered quite so great in the days when she and Pitt had struggled for rent and economized on food. But that passed. The sense of being loved did not.

  Emily took a piece of the cake and sipped her tea. “It must have been very difficult for her during those years.”

  “Oh, she had fun.” Elsie’s face brightened. “Always had courage, did Miss Delia. She could make people laugh, and gentlemen like a woman who enjoys life. She had courage, youth, charm.”

  “And she was beautiful,” Charlotte added, being more generous than accurate.

  Elsie gave a little shrug. “I thought she was, but then she was the closest I’ll ever come to having a daughter myself. She wasn’t ever beautiful like the Lady Felicia. That girl was a real beauty, like a porcelain figure. Afraid to take it off the shelf and dust it, in case you dropped it and broke off a piece. But it all changed. The happiness went. And the friends.”

  “That’s what happens when your husband dies,” Emily said, biting her lip. “People change. Everything you relied on is gone. Even friends are different, like nobody knows what to say, so they avoid you.”

  “Yes, it was as if her life had stopped too.”

  “I remember,” Emily said quietly. “How did Mr. Darnley die? Was it sudden? My husband died violently, and that was the worst part of it. People said some terrible things.”

  Charlotte recalled it with a sense of chill as bitter as if it had been very recent. She could feel the fear again aching inside, hear the voices who said that Emily had killed him. Some of them believed it. They wanted to, because Emily was prettier than they were, luckier, richer, all the things they wanted to be. And then she was suddenly, in one day, vulnerable as she had never been before. Title and money did not help at all; if anything, they made it worse.

  Looking across at her, now talking quietly to this elderly lady’s maid, the break was there in her voice, the fear back, the grief in the bend of her head. However deeply she had loved George, or not, the violence of the loss broke her life apart. In her new happiness with Jack she had not put it out of her mind, only into a far corner where it could escape her attention now and then.

  “About you, too?” Elsie was full of sympathy.

  “Yes. And even after all the truth was found, and things settled down, the invitations did not come anymore,” Emily went on. “There is something about being a young widow that makes even friends nervous around you. With a man it is quite different. All the women want to look after him, make sure he is not left out, and friends invite him even more. My friends seemed to think I wanted their husbands’ attention.” Emily gave a tight little smile. “I could hardly tell them they had no need to worry, I would not have any of their husbands even with a diamond tiara attached. There is no price for boredom. But I felt terribly lonely.”

  “I watched Miss Delia just like that,” Elsie agreed. “She wasn’t beautiful like you, but she had a way with her. She was clever, and she could make people laugh. At least that is how it used to be.”

  “Before she was widowed?” Emily asked.

  “No, not exactly. Mr. Darnley crushed something in her. He went after other women, and he wasn’t always discreet about it, like a better man would have been. But when she took up with the Prince of Wales, it all became different. I thought as he was really fond of her. A nice gentleman, he was, for all that he is going to be king, and always was. Thoughtful, in his own way. And kind. Always very civil, he was. Here’s me born in the East End slums, learned my manners after Miss Delia’s mother took me in and taught me how to be a lady’s maid. How to act, how to look smart, how to speak. And I’m standing there saying what a nice evening it is, just like it was nothing to me to be talking to the next king of England.”

  “And she cared for him?” Emily asked.

  “Oh, yes. She was flattered, of course, but beyond that, she was real fond of him. Nearly broke her heart when she found she was with child, and had such a hard time of it she went off into the country. No wonder, poor girl: It was twins, and the little boy lived only a few weeks. It’s a wicked cruel thing to lose a child like that. Don’t see as she can ever really get over it. And loved that little girl like she was the whole world.”

  This time neither Charlotte nor Emily spoke.

  “And then she came back to London with little Alice. She’d been gone a year, and the Prince of Wales had taken up with that Lady Felicia. I begged Miss Delia to tell him why she’d gone away, but she wouldn’t do it. I thought it was pride, but I think now that it was fear that she would lose little Alice as well. Not that she wasn’t a beautiful baby, and healthy as can be.”

  “And Mr. Darnley?” Emily prompted.

  “Oh, it was about a year after that he was killed. Horse-riding accident, I think it was. Something like that. I don’t recall the details anymore. I just see in my mind the man that came to tell her, all the way from somewhere in Buckinghamshire, he said, and terribly sorry he was. And there was Miss Delia with her son dead and now her husband dead, and all her friends gossiping about her when she was too down to fight back.”

  She looked at Charlotte. “And she didn’t have a sister like you, miss, to be with her and fight the people who started all the whispers.”

  Charlotte tried to smile but she knew there was no heart in it. She could see the pain too clearly.

  “Did Delia know Mr. Narraway then?” She had to ask.

  “I don’t know, but she certainly knew him later, when it came time to find a good husband for Miss Alice. I thought she was too young, but Miss Delia said it was the right time. She was married to Mr. Kendrick by then,
and I was just about to retire. About three years ago, this would be.”

  “Mr. Narraway was helping her to find a husband for Alice?” Emily said as if confused. “Not Mr. Kendrick?”

  Elsie’s face lightened and she sat up a little straighter.

  “That’s a different matter, miss. And I don’t think I should be talking about it, if you excuse my saying so.”

  “No, of course not,” Charlotte agreed quickly. “I apologize. I only asked because of something Lady Felicia said. I can see now that it’s just…envy. But after what you have confided in us, and what I saw my own sister suffer at the hands of other people’s gossip, I want to stop it all.” She rose to her feet. “Delia is fortunate to have such a loyal friend in you. We will not mention who told us. I think discretion is better, don’t you?”

  “Yes, miss, thank you. But you will try to stop them, won’t you?” Elsie climbed to her feet as well. “She don’t deserve any more grief.”

  When they were outside, walking in the sun toward the nearest main road where they might find a hansom to take them to the railway station, neither of them spoke for several minutes.

  “I’m sorry,” Charlotte said eventually. “I’d forgotten how bad that time was for you. I suppose I wanted to help. I just felt so helpless…”

  Emily gave her a quick smile. “You helped me more than anyone else. You always believed I could not have killed George, in spite of what everyone else thought. But being a widow is always lonely because people are afraid of you. Apart from the fact that you remind them that death happens to all of us at some point, it can come suddenly, out of nowhere, and take away everything you thought you were sure of. They don’t know what to say or how to help, and they do everything except behave normally. You’re supposed to wear black for ages and sit alone in your house. It’s like the worst punishment you can think of. Do you remember when we were naughty, Miss Hampton used to make us all go and sit separately in our rooms, no books, just sit there?”