by Anne Perry
But there had been blood on the knife they found. Whose blood, if this slender paper knife was what had killed Octavia?
Not whose. It was a kitchen knife—a good cook’s kitchen would have plenty of blood available from time to time. One roast, one fish to be gutted, or a chicken. Who could tell the difference between one sort of blood and another?
And if it was not Octavia’s blood on the knife, was it hers on the peignoir?
Then a sudden shaft of memory caught her with a shock like cold water. Had not Beatrice said something about Octavia having torn her peignoir, the lace, and not being skilled at such fine needlework, she had accepted Beatrice’s offer to mend it for her? Which would mean she had not even been wearing it when she died. But no one knew that except Beatrice—and out of sensitivity to her grief, no one had shown her the blood-soaked garment. Araminta had identified it as being the one Octavia had worn to her room that night—and so it was—at least as far as the upstairs landing. Then she had gone to say good-night to her mother and left the garment there.
Rose too could be mistaken, for the same reason. She would only know it was Octavia’s, not when she had worn it.
Or would she? She would at least know when it was last laundered. It was her duty to wash and iron such things—and to mend them should it be necessary. How had she overlooked mending the lace? A laundrymaid should do better.
She would have to ask her about it in the morning.
Suddenly she was returned to the present—and the realization that she was standing in her nightgown in Sir Basil’s study, in exactly the same spot where Octavia in her despair must have killed herself—holding the same blade in her hand. If anyone found her here she would have not a shred of an excuse—and if it was whoever found Octavia, they would see immediately that she also knew.
The candle was low and the bowl filling with melted wax. She replaced the knife, setting it exactly as it had been, then picked up the candle and went as quickly as she could to the door and opened it almost soundlessly. The hallway was in darkness; she could make out only the dimmest luminescence from the window that faced onto the front of the house, and the falling snow.
Silently she tiptoed across the hall, the tiles cold on her bare feet, and up the stairs, seeing only a tiny pool of light around herself, barely enough to place her feet without tripping. At the top she crossed the landing and with difficulty found the bottom of the female servants’ stairway.
At last in her own room she snuffed out the candle and climbed into her cold bed. She was chilled and shaking, the perspiration wet on her body and her stomach sick.
In the morning it took all the self-control she possessed to see first to Beatrice’s comfort, and her breakfast, and then to Septimus, and to leave him without seeming hasty or neglectful in her duty. It was nearly ten o’clock before she was able to make her way to the laundry and find Rose.
“Rose,” she began quietly, not to catch Lizzie’s attention. She would certainly want to know what was going on, to supervise if it was any kind of work, and to prevent it until a more suitable time if it was not.
“What do you want?” Rose looked pale; her skin had lost its porcelain clarity and bloom and her eyes were very dark, almost hollow. She had taken Percival’s death hard. There was some part of her still intrigued by him, and perhaps she was haunted by her own evidence and the part she had played before the arrest, the petty malice and small straw of direction that might have led Monk to him.
“Rose,” Hester spoke again, urgently, to draw Rose’s attention away from the apron of Dinah’s she was smoothing with the flatiron. “It is about Miss Octavia—”
“What about her?” Rose was uninterested, and her hand moved back and forth with the iron, her eyes bent on her work.
“You cared for her clothes, didn’t you? Or was it Lizzie?”
“No.” Still Rose did not look at her. “Lizzie usually cared for Lady Moidore’s and Miss Araminta’s, and sometimes Mrs. Cyprian’s. I did Miss Octavia’s, and the gentlemen’s linens, and we split the maids’ aprons and caps as the need came. Why? What does it matter now?”
“When was the last time you laundered Miss Octavia’s peignoir with the lace lilies on it—before she was killed?”
Rose put down the iron at last and turned to Hester with a frown. She considered for several minutes before she answered.
“I ironed it the morning before, and took it up about noon. She wore it that night, I expect—” She took a deep breath. “And I heard she did the night after, and was killed in it.”
“Was it torn?”
Rose’s face tightened. “Of course not. Do you think I don’t know my job?”
“If she had torn it the first night, would she have given it to you to mend?”
“More probably Mary, but then Mary might have brought it to me—she’s competent, and pretty good at altering tailored things and dinner gowns, but those lilies are very fine work. Why? What does it matter now?” Her face screwed up. “Anyway, Mary must have mended it, because I didn’t—and it wasn’t torn when the police gave it to me to identify; the lilies and all the lace were perfect.”
Hester felt a sick excitement.
“Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure—to swear someone’s life on?”
Rose looked as if she had been struck; the last vestige of blood left her face.
“Who is there to swear for? Percival’s already dead! You know that! What’s wrong with you? Why do you care now about a piece of lace?”
“Are you?” Hester insisted. “Are you absolutely sure?”
“Yes I am.” Rose was angry because she did not understand Hester’s insistence and it frightened her. “It wasn’t torn when the police showed it to me with the blood on it. That part of it wasn’t stained, and it was perfectly all right.”
“You couldn’t be mistaken? Is there more than one piece of lace on it?”
“Not like that.” She shook her head. “Look, Miss Latterly, whatever you may think of me, and it shows in your hoitytoity manners—I know my job and I know a shoulder from a hem of a peignoir. The lace was not torn when I sent it up from the laundry, and it was not torn when I identified it for the police—for any good that does anyone.”
“It does a lot,” Hester said quietly. “Now would you swear to it?”
“Why?”
“Would you?” Hester could have shaken her in sheer frustration.
“Swear to who?” Rose persisted. “What does it matter now?” Her face worked as if some tremendous emotion shook her. “You mean—” She could hardly find the words. “You mean—it wasn’t Percival who killed her?”
“No—I don’t think so.”
Rose was very white, her skin pinched. “God! Then who?”
“I don’t know—and if you’ve any sense at all, and any desire to keep your life, let alone your job, you’ll say nothing to anyone.”
“But how do you know?” Rose persisted.
“You are better not understanding—believe me!”
“What are you going to do?” Her voice was very quiet, but there was anxiety in it, and fear.
“Prove it—if I can.”
At that moment Lizzie came over, her lips tight with irritation.
“If you need something laundered, Miss Latterly, please ask me and I will see it is done, but don’t stand here gossiping with Rose—she has work to do.”
“I’m sorry,” Hester apologized, forcing a sweet smile, and fled.
She was back in the main house and halfway up the stairs to Beatrice’s room before her thoughts cleared. If the peignoir was whole when Rose sent it up, and whole when it was found in Percival’s room, but torn when Octavia went to say goodnight to her mother, then she must have torn it some time during that day, and no one but Beatrice had noticed. She had not been wearing it when she died; it had been in Beatrice’s room. Some time between Octavia leaving it there and its being discovered, someone had taken it, and a knife from the kitchen, covered the knife in
blood and wrapped the peignoir around it, then hidden them in Percival’s room.
But who?
When had Beatrice mended it? Surely that night? Why would she bother after she knew Octavia was dead?
Then where had it been? Presumably lying in the workbasket in Beatrice’s room. No one would care about it greatly after that. Or was it returned to Octavia’s room? Yes, surely returned, since otherwise whoever had taken it would realize their mistake and know Octavia had not been wearing it when she went to bed.
She was on the top stair on the landing now. It had stopped raining and the sharp, pale winter sun shone in through the windows, making patterns on the carpet. She had passed no one else. The maids were all busy about their duties, the ladies’ maids attending to wardrobe, the housekeeper in her linen room, the upstairs maids making beds, turning mattresses and dusting everything, the tweeny somewhere in the passageway. Dinah and the footmen were somewhere in the front of the house, the family about their morning pleasures, Romola in the schoolroom with the children, Araminta writing letters in the boudoir, the men out, Beatrice still in her bedroom.
Beatrice was the only one who knew about the torn lily, so she would not make the mistake of staining that peignoir—not that Hester had ever suspected her in the first place, or certainly not alone. She might have done it with Sir Basil, but then she was also frightened that someone had murdered Octavia, and she did not know who. Indeed she feared it might have been Myles. Hester considered for only an instant that Beatrice might have been a superb actress, then she abandoned it. To begin with, why should she? She had no idea Hester would repeat anything she said, let alone everything.
Who knew which peignoir Octavia wore that evening? She had left the withdrawing room fully dressed in a dinner gown, as did all the women. Whom had she seen after changing for the night but before retiring?
Only Araminta—and her mother.
Proud, difficult, cold Araminta. It was she who had hidden her sister’s suicide, and when it was inevitable that someone should be blamed for murder, contrived that it should be Percival.
But she could not have done it alone. She was thin, almost gaunt. She could never have carried Octavia’s body upstairs. Who had helped her? Myles? Cyprian? Or Basil?
And how to prove it?
The only proof was Beatrice’s word about the torn lace lilies. But would she swear to that when she knew what it meant?
Hester needed an ally in the house. She knew Monk was outside; she had seen his dark figure every time she had passed the window, but he could not help in this.
Septimus. He was the one person she was sure was not involved, and who might have the courage to fight. And it would take courage. Percival was dead and to everyone else the matter was closed. It would be so much easier to let it all lie.
She changed her direction and instead of going to Beatrice’s room went on along the passage to Septimus’s.
He was propped up on the bed reading with the book held far in front of him for his longsighted eyes. He looked up with surprise when she came in. He was so much better her attentions were more in the nature of friendship than any medical need. He saw instantly that there was something gravely concerning her.
“What has happened?” he asked anxiously. He set the book down without marking the page.
There was nothing to be served by prevarication. She closed the door and came over and sat on the bed.
“I have made a discovery about Octavia’s death—in fact two.”
“And they are very grave,” he said earnestly. “I see that they trouble you. What are they?”
She took a deep breath. If she was mistaken, and he was implicated, or more loyal to the family, less brave than she believed, then she might be endangering herself more than she could cope with. But she would not retreat now.
“She did not die in her bedroom. I have found where she died.” She watched his face. There was nothing but interest. No start of guilt. “In Sir Basil’s study,” she finished.
He was confused. “In Basil’s study? But, my dear, that doesn’t make any sense! Why would Percival have gone to her there? And what was she doing there in the middle of the night anyway?” Then slowly the light faded from his face. “Oh—you mean that she did learn something that day, and you know what it was? Something to do with Basil?”
She told him what she had learned at the War Office, and that Octavia had been there the day of her death and learned the same.
“Oh dear God!” he said quietly. “The poor child—poor, poor child.” For several seconds he stared at the coverlet, then at last he looked up at her, his face pinched, his eyes grim and frightened. “Are you saying that Basil killed her?”
“No. I believe she killed herself—with the paper knife there in the study.”
“Then how did she get up to the bedroom?”
“Someone found her, cleaned the knife and returned it to its stand, then carried her upstairs and broke the creeper outside the window, took a few items of jewelry and a silver vase, and left her there for Annie to discover in the morning.”
“So that it should not be seen as suicide, with all the shame and scandal—” He drew a deep breath and his eyes widened in appalled horror. “But dear God! They let Percival hang for it!”
“I know.”
“But that’s monstrous. It’s murder.”
“I know that.”
“Oh—dear heaven,” he said very quietly. “What have we sunk to? Do you know who it was?”
She told him about the peignoir.
“Araminta,” he said very quietly. “But not alone. Who helped her? Who carried poor Octavia up the stairs?”
“I don’t know. It must have been a man—but I don’t know who.”
“And what are you going to do about this?”
“The only person who can prove any of it is Lady Moidore. I think she would want to. She knows it was not Percival, and I believe she might find any alternative better than the uncertainty and the fear eating away at all her relationships forever.”
“Do you?” He thought about it for some time, his hand curling and uncurling on the bedspread. “Perhaps you are right. But whether you are or not, we cannot let it pass like this—whatever its cost.”
“Then will you come with me to Lady Moidore and see if she will swear to the peignoir’s being torn the night of Octavia’s death and in her room all night, and then returned some time later?”
“Yes.” He moved to climb to his feet, and she put out both her hands to help him. “Yes,” he agreed again. “The least I can do is be there—poor Beatrice.”
He had not yet fully understood.
“But will you swear to her answer, if need be before a judge? Will you strengthen her when she realizes what it means?”
He straightened up until he stood very erect, shoulders back, chest out.
“Yes, yes I will.”
Beatrice was startled to see Septimus behind Hester when they entered her room. She was sitting at the dressing table brushing her hair. This was something which would ordinarily have been done by her maid, but since it was not necessary to dress it, she was going nowhere, she had chosen to do it herself.
“What is it?” she said quietly. “What has happened? Septimus, are you worse?”
“No, my dear.” He moved closer to her. “I am perfectly well. But something has happened about which it is necessary that you make a decision, and I am here to lend you my support.”
“A decision? What do you mean?” Already she was frightened. She looked from him to Hester. “Hester? What is it? You know something, don’t you?” She drew in her breath and made as if to ask, then her voice died and no sound came. Slowly she put the hairbrush down.
“Lady Moidore,” Hester began gently. It was cruel to spin it out. “On the night she died, you said Octavia came to your room to wish you good-night.”
“Yes—” It was barely even a whisper.
“And that her peignoir was torn across the lace
lilies on the shoulder?”
“Yes-”
“Are you absolutely sure?”
Beatrice was puzzled, some small fraction of her fear abating.
“Yes, of course I am. I offered to mend it for her.” The tears welled up in her eyes, beyond her control. “I did—” She gulped and fought to master her emotion. “I did—that night, before I went to sleep. I mended them perfectly.”
Hester wanted to touch her, to take her hands and hold them, but she was about to deal another terrible blow, and it seemed such hypocrisy, a Judas kiss.
“Would you swear to that, on your honor?”
“Of course—but who can care—now?”
“You are quite sure, Beatrice?” Septimus knelt down awkwardly in front of her, touching her with clumsy, tender hands. “You will not take that back, should it become painful in its meanings?”
She stared at him. “It is the truth—why? What are its meanings, Septimus?”
“That Octavia killed herself, my dear, and that Araminta and someone else conspired to conceal it, to protect the honor of the family.” It was so easily encapsulated, all in one sentence.
“Killed herself? But why? Harry has been dead for—for two years.”
“Because she learned that day how and why he died.” He spared her the last, ugly details, at least for now. “It was more than she could bear.”
“But Septimus.” Now her mouth and throat were so dry she could scarcely force the words. “They hanged Percival for killing her!”
“I know that, my dear. That is why we must speak.”
“Someone in my house—in my family—murdered Percival!”
“Yes.”
“Septimus, I don’t know how I can bear it!”
“There is nothing to do but bear it, Beatrice.” His voice was very gentle, but there was no wavering in it. “We cannot run away. There is no way of denying it without making it immeasurably worse.”
She clutched his hand and looked at Hester.
“Who was it?” she said, her voice barely trembling now, her eyes direct.