by Tessa Arlen
“You are certain?” she said under her breath as she looked up at the butler, convinced that she had misunderstood.
“Yes, m’lady, absolutely certain.”
She had always found Hollyoak to be a master of understatement, but she thought she detected a little tension lapping around the edges of his impassive demeanor.
“Very well then, please meet me in the morning room with Mrs. Jackson, after tea.”
And she turned back to the task of giving her guests a sustaining cup of tea to allay the shock of their afternoon.
Chapter Eight
Earlier that day, Mrs. Jackson had taken up a command position in the wide corridor belowstairs that was the arterial route between servants’ hall, kitchens, and workrooms. Her head ached and her feet hurt. She had been directing efforts to put the house in order after the ball long before her breakfast, keeping her fellow servants bent to the task of staying on schedule. After the endless hours of preparation for yesterday, culminating in the excitement of arriving guests, dinner, and the ball, she was running on less than three hours of sleep.
The sound of Cook’s harsh voice, a continual backdrop to the morning, wore on her nerves as Mrs. Thwaite and the kitchen maids flogged through the last of the preparations for luncheon upstairs. Painfully aware of Cook’s grating and shrill glottal stop and her dropped aitches, Mrs. Jackson often found herself wondering how someone as coarse in voice and sensitivity as Mrs. Thwaite could produce food of such delicate subtlety and complex flavor.
Determined to find a quiet spot until it was time for the servants’ midday dinner, Mrs. Jackson shut herself away in the china and crystal pantry to inventory all the plates, glasses, and serving dishes that had been used for the ball. As she ticked off the last item of Sevres in the ledger she was thankful to hear that Mrs. Thwaite’s voice had become less caustic and her tone a little kinder. She emerged from her pantry and realized with a sinking heart that it was merely because Mrs. Thwaite was indulging herself in her favorite pastime: gossip.
“What’s going on with this new maid do you reckon?” she heard Mable Thwaite ask her kitchen maid, Iris White.
“She’s all right really, not a bit stuck up for all her father’s a schoolmaster.”
Mrs. Jackson cocked a protective ear and walked into the kitchen as they were obviously talking about her new third housemaid, Violet Simkins.
“I didn’t say what was wrong with her, I meant what was up with her. She looks really miserable all the time. There’s something broody about that girl.”
“I dunno, I think she has mood problems or something.”
Mrs. Jackson filled a kettle with cold water and set it to boil on the hob.
“Well I never—mood problems, is it?” Mrs. Thwaite’s voice was triumphant. “That’s the sort of behavior we expect from upstairs with young girls, not down here. Down here we work through our mood problems and no time to think, neither.”
Mrs. Jackson took a cup and saucer from the pine kitchen dresser and decided she would stay out of it, unless things got too unkind, but Mrs. Thwaite’s next remark hit home.
“And where was Miss Violet all afternoon yesterday, off in the rose garden reading a book?” Mrs. Jackson heard a snigger from the listening kitchen maids and decided that things had gone too far.
“Her dad was pulled in to help out with the orchestra last night and Vi was given a half hour off to have a cuppa with him in Mrs. Jackson’s parlor, ladyship’s instructions,” Iris blundered on.
“Well, I never. A cuppa tea with her dad, whatever will it be next? Mrs. Jackson getting too easy in her ways, is she?”
Mrs. Jackson measured tea leaves into the pot and poured hot water from the kettle, and a woody, astringent aroma lifted up in a pungent cloud of steam. She firmly put the lid on the teapot. It was high time Mable Thwaite’s gossip came to an end; the woman was the limit. She came farther into the kitchen so that Mrs. Thwaite could see her.
“In this house we do not speculate on Lady Montfort’s orders, or mine, Mrs. Thwaite.” She kept her tone level. “Violet is doing a good job in the house, despite her homesickness.”
“Homesickness?” Mrs. Thwaite tempered a bowl of butter. “Well, we all get homesick, Mrs. Jackson, no doubt about that, but we don’t get to sit about with a nice cuppa tea in the middle of the afternoon, taking our ease.”
Using her most repressive voice, she answered, “I would have thought you were too busy right now to waste your time on how the new maid is settling in.”
She watched Mrs. Thwaite set the butter down and start to break eggs, deftly separating whites from yolks.
“That’s as may be, but a little talk about the facts of life wouldn’t go amiss. Violet’s got James and John making complete fools of themselves,” Cook said, referring to the footmen who, Mrs. Jackson had to silently agree, had been showing off for Violet’s benefit ever since she had started at the house eight weeks ago.
Mrs. Jackson closed in on the kitchen table and said, “Servants’ dinner is in two minutes. I hope you have things in hand, Mrs. Thwaite, we must not be late,” and she left to walk down the corridor to take her place at the top of the table on Mr. Hollyoak’s right, as the servants filed in to take their places for their midday meal.
Mr. Hollyoak was clearly irritated as he took his place at the head of the table, and waited for the visiting servants to seat themselves in the order of their masters’ precedence. She followed his glare to its far end and Violet’s empty chair next to the scullery maid, Mary. Mrs. Jackson did not tolerate unpunctuality for meals, nor did the butler; latecomers forfeited their dinner. She caught his eye as he cast a glance of silent criticism in her direction. She lifted her eyebrows, tilting her head a little, mutely asking for tolerance after the arduous weeks they had all been through. Catching his minimal acquiescing nod, she sent Mary up to the room she shared with Violet.
When Mary returned, Mrs. Jackson listened to the tiny whisper that everyone strained to hear: Violet was not in their room. She turned her head to catch Mr. Hollyoak’s frown. He made no comment but proceeded to say grace, and Mrs. Jackson said that Violet would go without her dinner today.
After their meal, Mrs. Jackson spent a valuable half hour, when she should have been placing her weekly order with Fortnum & Mason on the telephone, looking for Violet. She searched the house while the family and their guests were gathered in the dining room for their luncheon, but there was no sign of the girl. She checked the kitchen courtyard, and sent Dick off to the kitchen gardens and the stable block. But when he came back to report that there was no sign of Violet, she decided that she would wait before she made a fuss about Violet’s apparent disappearance—something she did not forgive herself for later on that day.
She became aware that the tenor of the afternoon had changed when Theo Cartwright arrived at the scullery door as they were cleaning up after upstairs luncheon. She heard his voice quite distinctly demanding to speak to Lord Montfort on a matter of great importance. He sounded so agitated that it caused Mrs. Jackson her first tremor of real anxiety about the missing housemaid. She sent for Mr. Hollyoak, who was enjoying forty winks in his pantry, to speak to the gamekeeper.
Whatever it was that Theo told Mr. Hollyoak, it was bad news of the worst sort, Mrs. Jackson grasped, as she watched the butler shrug himself into his morning coat and make for the scullery door with more haste than he usually employed. Convinced that Theo’s waxy white face and agitated manner had something to do with Violet’s disappearance, she hovered by the butler’s pantry, waiting for Mr. Hollyoak to return. Her inner panic and horror knew no bounds when twenty-two minutes later he reappeared and told her that Theo had found a dead man hanging from his gibbet.
“Did he say who it was?” She had asked the butler this question a half-dozen times until she could tell by the set of his shoulders that she should not say another word on the matter.
“You are worried about Violet, aren’t you?” She heard kindly concern in his vo
ice and nodded her head.
“I want to send Dick to the village to see if she’s with her father,” she said.
“Not yet, Mrs. Jackson. A man has been killed on the estate, a missing housemaid is of no consequence right now. We will wait until his lordship returns to the house and then we’ll see.”
She had patiently waited in suppressed anxiety as she watched the kitchen clock and was almost worn to a frazzle when two hours later Lord Montfort returned to the house and Mr. Hollyoak came down the stairs and called her into his pantry.
“Strictly between us, Mrs. Jackson, it was Mr. Teddy they found in the wood. Hanged from the large gibbet there, murdered. It’s unthinkable, isn’t it?” Hollyoak prided himself in never betraying emotion, but she heard how shocked he was.
She felt the last remnants of her energy drop away from her, and the butler’s pantry did a slow, lazy circle and dipped to the right around her. She tried to speak but her voice didn’t rise to the occasion. She heard Mr. Hollyoak say, “Send Dick to the village, tell him to go to Mr. Simkins and ask after Violet. But on no account is he to run around the cottages looking for the girl if she is not with her dad. Not yet. But before you do that, Mrs. Jackson, please attend to the servants, they are running around like a bunch of schoolchildren.”
“What will happen now, Mr. Hollyoak?” Finally she found her voice.
“Colonel Valentine is to head up an investigation into Mr. Teddy’s murder. His sergeant will arrive shortly to talk to the servants. You had better put him in my pantry, he will need privacy.” She noticed how resigned and tired the butler was despite his correct and impressive comportment. They were old comrades, they understood each other well. She saw that he was coping but it was a struggle.
When Mrs. Jackson walked into the servants’ hall to find Dick, she was aware that the buzz of gossiping voices, from all the servants gathered there, shut off like water from a tap. She stood in the doorway and stared coldly about the room, catching the eye of major culprits. In her opinion there was no greater crime than gossip about the family, especially with outside valets and maids in the house, and she would be fierce in quelling all offenders.
As she marshaled the servants into concentrating on their duties, everything was thrown into further disarray with the arrival of Sergeant Hawkins, who had come as part of the police investigation into Mr. Teddy’s murder. She met him at the foot of the back stairs on his arrival and noticed with a sigh of resignation that he was a well-set-up, handsome man in his early thirties, with a glossy black mustache. This was all she needed, she thought. The sergeant would no doubt set the maids twittering through the servants’ hall, adding significantly to the already considerable excitement of the afternoon and her own mounting unease and irritation.
“Good afternoon, Sergeant,” she said as she walked him firmly toward the butler’s pantry, aware of the female heads poking out of scullery, larder, and pantry doorways. “I am Mrs. Jackson, Iyntwood’s housekeeper. I have arranged accommodation for you and your constable overnight in the stable block. The hallboy Dick Wilson will take you over when you are ready to turn in.
“In the meantime, you are free to use Mr. Hollyoak’s pantry for your interviews. We might have to move you if things go on too long. As you can see, it’s cramped digs down here.”
She led him back to the butler’s pantry and made sure that he understood he was not to smoke. She was pleased to see that he appeared to be a respectful man, which was a point in his favor, despite his flashy looks.
Mrs. Jackson had strong nerves and she rarely overreacted to bad news, but when Dick returned from the village to report that Jim Simkins had not seen Violet since his cup of tea with her at the house yesterday, she felt another ripple of acute alarm. She had convinced herself that Dick would come back to the house to reassure her that Violet was with her father.
Walking through the kitchen to check that preparations for the family’s tea had not been forgotten in the desperate pursuit of information and gossip, she found the footman, John, holding forth self-importantly to a group of kitchen maids.
“She lost her temper really badly, never seen anything like it. First she threw a rock at him then she called him a pig and that he should get out, no one wanted him here.”
“John.” Her voice cut across the kitchen and the footman spun around. “What are you talking about? How many times do I have to tell you? There is to be no gossip. Now come with me, please, we are going to use the Royal Doulton for tea and I can’t reach the top shelf.”
John meekly followed her to the china pantry.
“Who were you talking about just now?” she asked, pushing the door of the china pantry closed for greater privacy.
“Miss Lucinda—she had quite a falling-out with Mr. Teddy on the terrace last night just before dinner. She was in a right old state, I could see and hear her through the terrace door.”
“You are setting such a bad example, young man; this is not the sort of comportment I expect from a second footman. You never discuss our guests’ behavior, do you understand me?”
“But should I tell the sergeant what I saw, Mrs. Jackson?”
She recognized he had a point. Who held the higher authority now? Herself and Mr. Hollyoak, or the policeman sitting in the butler’s pantry?
“You don’t volunteer information to the sergeant unless he specifically asks you. Is that clear?” She held her stern look until, thoroughly crushed, he said it was.
She grimly patrolled belowstairs until she felt sure she had suppressed the hysterical need for gossip that had prevailed ever since Sergeant Hawkins’s arrival. She was aided in this by the massive effort it took to produce dinner for sixteen people in the dining room.
This respite gave Mrs. Jackson a few moments for some quiet introspection, and she took herself off to her parlor to ponder the unsolved instance of the missing Violet. She was sensible enough not to blame herself entirely for Violet’s departure, but she certainly believed herself accountable for not knowing what had made Violet so unhappy in the first place that she had, in Mrs. Thwaite’s parlance, gone and done a bunk.
She felt personally affronted by the third housemaid’s abrupt and completely unjustifiable departure. She had been impressed with Violet from the moment the young girl had come to work at the house. Violet was deft about her work, and quick to understand the importance of detail, but with enough intelligence to comprehend how the house worked as a whole. Mrs. Jackson thought she had identified some of the qualities in Violet that were necessary for her perhaps to become a candidate for the post of housekeeper when Mrs. Jackson retired. The girl’s unannounced departure was a slap in the face, and after Mrs. Jackson had recovered from the realization that Violet had actually bolted, she felt not only embarrassed that one of her girls had run off but personally and deeply hurt. Underneath this was the worry that a village girl with no life experience had left the security and safety of the house.
She pondered the possible reasons for Violet’s running off and came up with nothing. The usual whys and wherefores connected to runaway housemaids were well known. They either were in the family way or had gone off with a “follower.” Sometimes they were thieves who had been set up by gangs of housebreakers, trained to recognize lucrative hauls and courageous enough to open the door for the real work to be done in the night. All of these were highly unlikely in Mrs. Jackson’s view, as far as Violet was concerned. She knew herself to be an intelligent woman with a practical cast of mind; she relied on reason to give her answers and very rarely wasted time on conjecture. Beyond that, she was incapable of venturing. She washed her face and hands and went back downstairs to the servants’ hall. She knew that it was time she informed Violet’s employers that she was no longer in the house.
Chapter Nine
Since the news of Teddy’s death and the discovery of Lucinda’s baffling disappearance, Clementine’s nerves were so finely tuned that her skin felt too tight, every sound jarred, and it was hard to concent
rate. Standing in the morning room with Hollyoak and Mrs. Jackson as they explained Violet’s unaccountable disappearance from the house, she experienced such a wave of disbelief and incredulity that it took her several minutes to gather her wits enough to respond to the news.
No matter what question she asked, the butler and her housekeeper merely repeated their original asseverations. They didn’t know where Violet was and no one downstairs could remember having seen her since midday. She had made them take her through it all twice, interrupting continually with more questions they were unable to answer. She was quick to notice that Hollyoak, always detached and unperturbed, after ten minutes of interrogation was now thoroughly perturbed. She watched his face almost quiver as if some human emotion was trying to break through the impassive mask of his composure, and he nearly lifted a hand to smooth his hair in a gesture she knew was an indication that he was discomfited and unsure. There was a distinct whiff of reproach in the air when, utterly exasperated with him, she turned to her housekeeper for greater illumination.
Unlike the butler, Mrs. Jackson upheld iron self-possession and did not rush to smooth troubled waters. She repeated her side of the story calmly, no matter how often she was interrupted. Suddenly, hearing the sharpness in her voice, Clementine appreciated that she was being a bully and felt ashamed of herself. It would have been impossible for Mrs. Jackson to know exactly when Violet had gone missing, she told herself. It had probably been quite busy belowstairs this morning. She listened to her housekeeper explain that last night Violet had been instructed to clean and make-up the single guests’ rooms this morning, which were in a wing on the other side of the house. Lucinda’s and Teddy’s rooms had not been made up, but as they were not there to complain, this had not served as an alert. The rooms occupied by Oscar, Ellis, and Harry were not made up either, but Clementine thought it was doubtful that they had even noticed. She knew that the rest of the servants would have been rushed off their feet this morning, putting the house in order after the ball: taking up early-morning trays, preparing breakfast for the dining room, and accomplishing a hundred other chores. With so many people staying in the house, visiting valets and maids would have been coming and going between the servants’ hall and the upstairs bedrooms, adding tremendously to the demands on her servants. With the addition of her guests’ servants there would have been more than thirty people milling around in the servants’ hall for most of the day. It was fair to understand that Violet’s absence would have been hard to detect until they had all taken their allotted places for their midday meal.