The Girl at Rosewood Hall (A Lady Jane Mystery)

by Annis Bell

  “That I wouldn’t know, my lady. I just wanted to say it.” The woman’s thin-lipped mouth twitched, but she said no more.

  “Thank you. I won’t let myself be intimidated. Those who don’t do their job well must live with the consequences. Mrs. Thomas will receive her full month’s pay plus an extra week. Now fetch Mr. Coleman.”

  Instead of obeying the request, Mrs. Roche replied, “Mr. Coleman’s been putting around a lot of questions, my lady. He might be the new butler, but he’s no right to go spying on us behind our backs. We’ve managed this household to your uncle’s satisfaction for many years.”

  Floyd had begun asking questions among the staff. Of course that didn’t suit them, which could really only mean they had something to hide. “Mr. Coleman is not spying, he is checking the facts. You will have to make the best of it. Thank you!”

  Jane detested having to resort to such heavy-handedness, but it was imperative for her to gain the respect of her domestic staff. She was the new mistress of Mulberry Park, and she would tolerate no lies or intrigues behind her back. It would have been easier with a husband at her side. Jane automatically straightened her shoulders and eyed Mrs. Roche coolly.

  Without a word, the woman turned and left. When, a moment later, the familiar face of Floyd appeared, Jane let out a sigh of relief. “You would not believe how happy I am to see you. Please, take a glass of sherry or whatever’s there on the sideboard and tell me what you’ve found out.”

  Her loyal butler bowed his head and smiled politely. “I will gladly bring you a glass, my lady, but I would prefer to do without.”

  Jane waved it off. “As you like.” Floyd poured a glass of port and handed it to her while she briefly related her discussion with Mrs. Roche. He always knew exactly what was needed, Jane thought, as she swallowed a mouthful of the sweet wine.

  “You have made the right decision, my lady. I have been looking into the Thomas clan, and I don’t like what I hear. The cook’s brother has been behind bars a number of times for smuggling and fighting, and their father was sent to Australia for blackmail.”

  Jane nearly dropped her glass. “What? Good God!”

  Floyd’s face grew serious. “The cook’s sister is married to the owner of the guesthouse in the village.”

  “Those baskets she’s been taking from our kitchen! We would only have to prove it, although . . . she has been dismissed now. Perhaps we should leave it at that. What do you think, Floyd?”

  “I believe that would be the more elegant solution,” the butler replied. “Anything else will only cause bad blood. That still leaves the tenants. Poaching is a serious crime. No one has a disparaging word to say about Mr. Roche and his wife. They’re not from around here, in any case, but from Norfolk. I could make some inquiries, of course, but I believe your uncle did that when he hired them. They have been working here for more than twenty years.”

  “A lot can happen in twenty years, and people change,” said Jane grimly, and looked out the window into the darkness. “We should light lamps outside, like we did in Rosewood.”

  “Yes. I’ll see to it,” Floyd said, and his voice took on a sympathetic tone. “Perhaps Lady Alison has time to visit you? The house is not yet especially livable, and very big . . . Well, Captain Wescott will come soon, no doubt.”

  Jane sighed. “Oh, Floyd, I fear my husband’s business will keep him tied up in London, and it will be quite a while before he visits us.”

  She turned the glass between her hands and watched the ruby-red liquid gleam in the lamplight. A tear rolled down her cheek. “My uncle loved port . . . do you remember, Floyd?”

  “Naturally, my lady. He is sorely missed.”

  Jane looked up and saw a telling gleam in Floyd’s eyes, but the butler quickly brought himself back under control. He stood before her, as dutiful as ever, providing the sense of security so familiar to her at Rosewood.

  “Thank you, Floyd.”

  The butler blinked and turned to the Indian painting. “We could decorate this salon with the colonial items you brought with you from India. There is still that unopened crate full of them upstairs.”

  “That is an excellent suggestion. But I don’t like this light green at all.” She smiled crookedly.

  Floyd nodded. “Curry, possibly?”

  Jane’s eyes lit up. “A solid curry or saffron tone would lend the room more warmth.”

  “An Indian salon,” said the butler.

  The next day was noticeably milder, the sky a patchy blue, and the birds were twittering in the trees. Luna, the mare Jane rode, had gray-white hair reminiscent of the light of the full moon. She trotted sedately toward the village, which lay in the hollow behind the patch of woods. It was three miles from her land to the village. A third of the woods here belonged to Mulberry Park, the rest to Bromfield Manor. The inhabitants of the village were expecting her visit, as were her tenants. They would be wondering who the new mistress of Mulberry Park was, though the estate was small and not really very grand. Rufus romped over the fields and chased the sheep. Jane whistled twice, and the Great Dane turned and covered the distance between them in a few bounds. Jane clucked her tongue and urged the mare into a fast trot. More than anything, she had been looking for an excuse to get out of the house for a few hours.

  The oppressive atmosphere about the house stemmed not only from its size and emptiness, but also from the memories associated with the many items in the boxes she had not yet unpacked. Sooner or later, she would fill the place with life—with friends and guests—but she was not yet ready to do that. She still did not feel like the mistress of Mulberry Park. First, she knew she had to win the respect of the Roches; the couple had managed the house alone for too long.

  Suddenly, Rufus barked and dashed into the undergrowth. The woods were dense, and the dog disappeared among the trees after just a few yards. Jane listened briefly, then turned Luna onto a trail that led off through the woods. The River Fowey lay in that direction, and opened into the estuary farther down.

  As she road along the trail, she called for the dog several times without success, and soon heard what sounded like a water wheel. The miller, she immediately thought. The brother of the cook? A cracking noise in the forest to her right made Jane jump. I should have brought a gun, she thought. She was a good shot, after all.

  “Is anyone there?” she shouted.

  Again, she heard the cracking sound, this time followed by rustling and the clear sound of someone running away. “Hello! Who’s there?”

  Cursing silently, she drove the horse forward, ducking under low-hanging twigs, until the trees thinned out and the sound of the water wheel grew very loud, and she could see the mill ahead.

  “Stinking mongrel!” someone shouted and Rufus yelped.

  It sounded as if the dog had been hit, for she now heard Rufus growling and the man swearing and yelling even louder.

  Jane gave Luna a sharp jab with her boots, and the horse leaped over bushes and a stone wall and landed at the top of a precipitous drop. Any farther and she and the horse would have plummeted into the waterway beneath the mill wheel.

  “What the . . . ? Get off my land, damn it!” bellowed a man in work clothes and an apron. Both man and clothes were covered in flour. He held a club in his hands and was threatening Rufus with it; the dog was holding a dead rabbit in his mouth.

  Rufus’s head was bloody, and Jane saw another bleeding wound on the Great Dane’s back. “Stop it, immediately! Rufus, drop it!”

  The dog was in shock but instantly dropped the rabbit and trotted to Jane, who stayed in the saddle and glared furiously at the man, who was obviously the miller himself. “What do you think you’re doing, beating my dog?!”

  “Your mongrel, is it? It killed my rabbit and tried to attack me.” The man paused. He was of medium height but muscular, in his late thirties, with a calculating face and a wide mouth. Clear
ly, not many women on the backs of stately horses came through this way. He finally put two and two together and swept the cap from his head. “Lady Allen?”

  “Are you the miller Thomas, related to the cook, Becky Thomas?” Jane asked sharply.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m her brother.”

  Jane inhaled sharply. “So how does that work? Running a mill when you’re sitting in prison, I mean?”

  The man’s chin jutted forward angrily. “That weren’t me, ma’am, that was our brother Fred. I’m an honest man. I’ve run this mill for years, and I’ve never ’ad no problems with the law.”

  “My apologies, Mr. Thomas,” Jane said, though she had serious reservations about the honesty of anyone from this family. “How is it that my dog caught a rabbit? Rufus is a Great Dane, not a hunting dog. Any halfway healthy rabbit can outrun him.”

  “I couldn’t say, ma’am. Maybe the dog got lucky. It ’appens.” The miller twisted his mouth into a hateful grin and leaned on his club.

  “Don’t be impudent, sir. Should I dismount and check whether that rabbit’s been shot?” Jane leaned forward, but just then a second man appeared from the woods and jumped effortlessly over the stone wall.

  The family resemblance was unmistakable, though the newcomer wore tattered clothes, boots, and a hat that he had pulled low over his forehead. A leather belt crossed his chest, holding cartridges and a knife. His hands were grazed and he’d wiped blood on his thigh. The man looked shiftily from the miller to Jane. “What’s goin’ on, Will?”

  “You’re an idiot, Fred!” the miller hissed at him. “Skedaddle!”

  Fred finally seemed to comprehend the situation, then ducked and ran off into the undergrowth.

  “Looks to me like your brother is poaching on my property.”

  “That’s something you would ’ave to prove.” But the miller suddenly sounded much less sure of himself.

  Jane looked at the injured Rufus, then turned angrily back to the miller. “I’m giving you one chance to stop your brother from poaching. Should I or one of my people catch him at it again, the police will be informed.”

  Will Thomas relaxed a little and looked relieved.

  “A sack of your best flour! Tomorrow!”

  The miller narrowed his eyes and nodded curtly. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Jane steered her horse around the mill and back onto the trail. She would not ride to the village with Rufus injured. His wounds would have to be tended, and she had lost all interest in meeting any further members of the Thomas family.

  14.

  That same afternoon, Jane sat in the library, spoiling Rufus with morsels of fish. She had tended to his injuries herself. At Rosewood, she had not only learned how to ride and hunt, but had also spent time with the gamekeeper helping to look after the dogs and the animal pens. She had assisted at the birth of pups and lambs, and the sight of blood made no difference to her. If an injured animal needed attention, Jane—under the gamekeeper’s direction—had cleaned wounds and even stitched cuts.

  Floyd approached carrying a silver tray on which two letters lay. Jane would have just as well have dispensed with such cumbersome formalities, but that would have injured Floyd’s standing, and his spotless behavior served as an example to the other servants.

  “Thank you, Floyd,” she said, and tore open the first envelope. “Please, stay.”

  Jane quickly scanned the letter, which had been written in a flowing hand, and then read it aloud to him:

  Dear Lady Jane,

  Sadie has asked me to write you this letter. We are all mourning with you for the loss of the honorable Lord Henry, for your uncle was deeply beloved. Your uncle and you yourself, dear Lady Jane, have always provided, as Christians, for the needy, as you did for the poor soul of the young girl to whom you gave a dignified burial. It is therefore of necessity that I inform you of recent events.

  Fearnham is not large, and strangers are quickly remarked. Sadie mentioned to me that a man suddenly appeared in town and was asking questions about the girl who died at Rosewood Hall. A strange fellow—Sadie called him a crook—with his roots in the same region as hers. When she asked him from where he came, he said Millpool, but that cannot be true because Sadie knows the people there. She thinks he had something to do with the girl but did not want to admit it, and then he was gone again. I did not speak to the man personally, but Sadie said he was over forty, neither fat nor thin, and he was missing half the little finger on his left hand.

  After that came salutations and the signature of Verna Morris.

  “Very odd,” said Floyd thoughtfully.

  “Isn’t it? But what do we do with this news?” Jane chewed at her bottom lip. “Perhaps I should inform the captain.”

  “I consider that an outstanding idea. And you should not undertake anything yourself. It seems to me that there might be more to the death of that poor girl than we thought,” Floyd cautiously put forward.

  “And somewhere there is another poor girl named Mary waiting for someone to come and help her. Maybe I am her only hope. If she is even still alive . . .” Jane had taken the second letter and immediately recognized the wax seal of the Pembrokes. She snapped the seal and read what her cousin Matthew had written:

  Dear cousin,

  I warned you not to make yourself too comfortable in Mulberry Park. You have no right to the house, for my father has maintained it with his own money all these years. You have received far more than your due. Now fate has played into my hands and put me in a position to take what belongs to me, and I will not hesitate to enforce my claims against you. In court, if need be. But when you read what I have found, I am sure we will not need to put a lawyer to all that trouble.

  While going through my father’s papers, I came upon an old bundle of letters. Letters from your parents in Rajasthan. Your father, James, considered himself a humanitarian and refused to support the opium trade through his trading post. Of course, we all know that the East India Company would never have been as successful as it was without the opium trade, but be that as it may. Your good father went looking for trouble among the local dealers and repeatedly lost cargo consignments and orders. This all began some three years before his death. By 1837, he was up to his neck, and he asked my father for a loan. Naturally, my father helped his incompetent brother and bought up his debts.

  Jane’s hands shook. She knew what was coming next.

  The promissory notes, dearest cousin, had been laid away carefully, still clean and fresh, among the letters. An old man’s sentimentality, perhaps. Stupidity, I’d say, or simple forgetfulness. Whatever the case may be, the sum of those notes is considerable. I would give a great deal to be able to see your face right now, dear Jane. Always so self-righteous and upstanding. I do know approximately how much my father bequeathed you, and if my view of your financial situation is not mistaken, you can either sell Mulberry Park and live respectably from what is left once you have paid off these debts, or you can pay off the same from your existing assets. But in that case you will have hardly enough left over to maintain that old hovel in Cornwall.

  Oh, of course, you are married now, but the way I hear it your husband is a war veteran and amuses himself alone in London. Sadly, he has fallen out with his stinking-rich family, so not much to expect from that side, it would seem. If I know you, though, Jane, old girl, you will find a solution to your dilemma.

  In case you have any doubt as to the authenticity of the promissory notes, feel free to send old Samuel Jones over. Please understand, though, that I will not let them out of my sight. One can never be too careful.

  Matthew had signed the letter with all of the titles he was entitled to as the new Lord of Pembroke.

  “This cannot be true!” Jane whispered. “You knew my uncle. Did he ever say anything about this? Here, read it for yourself!”

  Floyd took the letter from her and, as he read, grew
paler and paler. Slowly, he looked up at Jane and folded the calamitous letter. “You would do best to inform your husband about this immediately. The consoling words of a butler can’t help you, my lady. I regret that very much.” Shaking his head, Floyd laid the letter on the table at which Jane was standing. “His lordship was always proud of his son. It is his wife’s influence that has driven Matthew to such base behavior. I can’t explain it any other way.”

  Jane leaned heavily on the table for support and stared at the letter. “Jealousy, Floyd. Matthew hates me because he thinks his father loved me more than he did him. There’s nothing I can do to fight that.”

  Despair coupled with the fear of losing her livelihood rose in Jane, cold and paralyzing. Her financial independence was everything she possessed, and if Matthew took that away from her, she would be in precisely the situation she had feared her entire life. Wescott might separate from her and go in search of some other rich heiress. Their arrangement would no longer be valid because she would be unable to keep up her side of the bargain, to offer him the particular social background he needed.

  “My lady?” Floyd was looking at her with concern. “Can I do anything else for you?”

  “Take the letter I’m about to write and have it delivered to the post office immediately.” Jane took the two letters and went over to her secretaire, which stood at a window in one corner of the room.

  It had never been easy for Jane to ask for help, and it was even more difficult for her to set out her situation to Wescott. She respected him, but when it came down to it, she hardly knew the man. She weighed every word carefully, openly admitting that she feared his reaction. Although she took care to ensure that Hettie never laced her corset too tightly, it seemed today to be taking her breath away. What idiocy it is to crush women into cages of whalebone and wire, thought Jane. One was literally forced to do practically nothing. But obstacles were there to be overcome, her uncle had always said, and Jane’s fighting spirit had been rekindled.

  She signed the letter with a polite and familiar “your faithful Jane,” folded the letter, and sealed it with wax. The crest of the Allens united a swan and a stylized rose. Finally, she addressed the letter and handed it to her patiently waiting butler.