“We had a long talk over breakfast this morning. Do not mistake her bluster for a lack of vulnerability.”
“You had breakfast with her? This morning? I thought you were shooting here.”
“I went to Montagu,” he said. “They are my birds, after all.”
Breakfasting together? This, though fascinating, was not something I could contend with at the moment. I needed to speak to Davis about Archibald’s predilection for women below his station. “Would you excuse me? I need to speak to my butler in private, and this is the room—”
“Don’t say another word. I’m already gone.”
Davis responded to the bell and brought with him a wire from Colin, who explained that his colleague had caught up with the woman we had thought was Miss Gifford. She was someone else altogether. We would have to start our search all over again. I turned to my butler.
“I am afraid I have something very difficult to speak to you about.” While he listened to me, Davis’s face was as grave as I’d ever seen it. “I do not want to alarm you,” I said, “but I think I should speak to each of the female staff privately. Can you arrange that in a manner that won’t too badly disrupt you all below stairs?”
“Of course, madam.”
“Have you heard any talk of such goings-on in the house?” I asked.
“I have not, madam, and I would like to believe such a thing could not go on without me taking notice. I have some concerns about Prudence in the kitchen and Johnny, one of the grooms. They seem to be gravitating to each other in a most unsavory fashion. Not the sort that would lead to marriage, madam, if you grasp my meaning.”
“I do, Davis.”
“I shall start sending the girls up to you at once. It is Lily’s afternoon, so she’ll be last, when she returns. I imagine port would be desired afterward?”
“Thank you, Davis.”
“I might even be persuaded to allow you a cigar, madam. I cannot imagine this series of interviews will be anything short of trying.”
Davis was spot on. Each of the maids squirmed uncomfortably as I questioned her. We were all embarrassed. Of everyone so far, only Alice kept her head high.
“Lily is frequently lecturing us about this below stairs, madam,” she said. “She’s always on about virtue and not doing anything to jeopardize our positions. May I be direct, madam?”
“Please,” I said.
“We’ve not had cause to worry much about that sort of thing in this house. Mr. Hargreaves is a fine gentleman, and it seems that most of his friends are, too.”
“Most of them?”
“Well, I am not ready to pronounce a verdict on Lord Flyte, madam. He seems honest and upstanding, but I can’t quite believe he wants to picnic with a housemaid.”
“I can assure you, he does,” I said. “He’s one of the most honorable men I have ever known.”
“They’re always honorable to ladies like you, madam, but some of them treat the likes of us very differently.”
“I do believe you, Alice,” I said, “but I have a great deal of faith in Lord Flyte.”
“Yes, madam.” She bobbed a curtsy.
“You will tell me, though, if anything untoward happens? Anything that alarms you? I do not want Lily to be hurt.”
“Of course, madam,” she said. “I would make sure Lily came straight to you.”
“Thank you, Alice. That is all.” I rubbed my forehead as she left. The door opened almost as soon as she was gone. “Hello, Prudence,” I said. “Do sit down. I need to speak with you about something rather difficult. It has come to my attention that someone among the staff may have suffered at the hands of Lord Montagu before he was murdered. Do you know of what I speak?”
“I sure do, madam,” she said. “I should have come to you sooner, I suppose, but I didn’t think there was any harm in it.”
“Please tell me what you know.”
“Well, it was Lily, wasn’t it? She’s always had an eye for the gentlemen, and I saw her near the lake that night. Johnny’s my sweetheart, he’s one of the grooms.”
“Yes, I know who he is.”
“We’d gone for a walk when I’d finished the washing up, and I saw Lily was out, too. Her work is generally done much before mine, madam.”
“Was she alone?”
“She was.” Prudence drew a sharp breath. “I don’t think she would have done any harm to a man like Lord Montagu, madam. But I did see her alongside the lake, right near the old abbey.”
“Did she go inside?”
“I don’t know, madam. I wasn’t there long enough to see.”
“When was this?”
“Close to eleven. I looked at the clock before I went to the stables to find Johnny. We was only out twenty minutes or so, maybe not even that long. I have to get up before dawn, you know, and there was still all the copper and brass to polish.”
“Prudence, I need you to be absolutely honest with me. Who did you see outside the servants’ entrance later that night? The person you spoke to Mr. Hargreaves about?”
The poor girl. She squirmed in the chair and tugged at her cap. I noticed her apron was a dingy shade of gray, and I made a mental note to have Mrs. Elliott give her a new one.
“Did you recognize the figure, Prudence?” I asked.
“I did, madam, and I know I should have told you before. I was so scared, though, with a dead body in the house and murder all around us. It was Lily, madam, come back from the lake, a look of sheer terror on her face. I’m sorry I didn’t say so before, but I was afraid of what she might do to me.”
*
None of the other maids had anything to say about Lord Montagu, though I was gratified to see how much they respected Colin and enjoyed working for us. When I had finished with all nine housemaids, the stillroom maid (who begged for a second to help with her work), two dairymaids, the other kitchen maid, the vegetable maid, three scullery maids, and the entire nursery and laundry staffs, not to mention Mrs. Elliott, Cook, and Meg, I went up the back stairs to Lily’s room. It was exceptionally tidy, as I expected, knowing Mrs. Elliott would tolerate nothing less. Lily’s uniforms hung next to Alice’s in the wardrobe, her work shoes below. Aprons and caps were neatly folded in a drawer. She did not have many personal possessions: a Bible, a packet of writing paper and envelopes, a souvenir card from the queen’s Golden Jubilee, and a well-worn handmade doll carefully wrapped in an even more worn blanket fashioned from the softest wool. Finally, in a small box, there was a rosary. I had forgot Lily was a Roman Catholic. I did not find the watercolor Simon had told me he had painted for her.
The contents of the top drawer of her dresser alarmed me. There, beneath her folded undergarments, was the book Simon had given her, but it was in no state to be read. Every page had been torn from the binding and ripped into small pieces. The cover itself had been rent into three ragged chunks. I was taken aback. Had I been entirely wrong about Lily’s character? I had believed she cared for Simon and that she had been delighted to receive his gift. He certainly had believed so. But this—this suggested a violence I had not expected. I gathered up the sad remains of the book, took them to my desk in the library, and rang for Davis.
“I am holding you to your promise of a cigar,” I said, “but not until you tell me everything you can about Lily.”
“Lily is a hardworking girl, madam, and has never given any trouble,” Davis said. “I have found her to be a conscientious member of the staff, dependable and trustworthy, always ready to go the extra mile.”
“This was in her room.” I showed him the shreds of paper. “It’s the book Lord Flyte gave her. And now Prudence has admitted to having seen Lily near the abbey shortly before Lord Montagu died.”
“Prudence is no friend of Lily’s,” Davis said. “Does anyone else corroborate her story? I have seen nothing in Lily’s character to make me believe she would be violent.”
“Johnny, the groom, was with Prudence, so I shall see what he has to say. Tell me, Davis, do you think Lily resents her s
tation in life?”
“She has never exhibited any signs of doing so,” he said. “She very much admired Jones, you know, who was a maid here for many years, and so far as I could tell, did her best to emulate her. She visits Jones sometimes, and I’ve heard her say she hopes she can stay in this household until she retires.”
“Could she be harboring secret feelings of resentment?” I asked. “The state of this book makes me think she might.”
“I am shocked at what she has done, if indeed she has done it,” Davis said. “It makes me unsure what to think.”
“Would you please fetch Johnny for me? I want to question him here.” I paced as I waited for the groom, ill at ease and unsure what to think. Johnny looked more uncomfortable than I felt when he arrived. It was likely he’d only been above stairs the day he had been hired. “Thank you for coming, Johnny,” I said. “Please take a seat.”
He did as I asked, clutching his cap tightly in his lap. “Have I done something wrong, madam?”
“I wanted to speak to you about the night of the murder,” I said. “I am aware you had some free time late in the evening. How did you spend it?”
“I went for a walk with one of the kitchen maids, Pru.”
“Where did you go?”
“Through the big meadow and over to the lake. We was looking at the moon.”
“Did you see anyone else? Perhaps Lord Montagu?”
“No, madam, I didn’t see him, but I did see Lily. She’s a maid, madam. She was down by the lake as well.”
“What was she doing?”
“I couldn’t rightly say, madam,” he said. “She was by the old abbey. I figured she was waiting for somebody, a sweetheart maybe.”
“Why do you think that?”
“It’s a good spot for a bit of romance, isn’t it?” His eyes twinkled. “Nothing out of order, madam, of course.”
“Yes, Johnny, nothing out of order,” I said. “Which does put me in mind of something. I should like to remind you that Mr. Hargreaves and I will not tolerate anything out of order. I would like to suggest you carefully consider some of your recent behavior. We have never stood in the way of our staff getting married. Should you decide to do so, we would happily put you and your bride into a cottage on the estate. But there are to be no underhanded dealings with the female staff. Do you understand?”
“I do, madam,” he said, swallowing hard. “I take your meaning quite well.”
“Very good. Did you see Lily leave the lake?”
“No, madam, we only walked by quickly. Pru had to get back to work.”
“Is it possible that the person you heard crying that night—the one you initially mistook for a cat—could have been Lily?”
“I couldn’t swear on it, madam, but it might have been her voice.”
“Why didn’t you tell Mr. Hargreaves that you had seen Lily by the lake when he initially spoke to you about the murder?”
He leaned forward and looked very serious. “I know I should have, madam. It was nothing but wrong of me not to. Only Pru was afraid, you see. She saw her—Lily, that is—coming back to the house, all upset. Then when she knew the gentleman was dead and it was murder, she worried Lily would remember seeing us by the lake. Right by where he was killed. We could be in a heap of danger, madam.”
“I can assure you we will not let anything happen to either of you for having come forward with this information. Is there anything else?”
“No, madam. That really is all. I am awful sorry about not telling it sooner.”
“I’m glad you have told it now, Johnny,” I said. “You may get back to work. Thank you for your assistance.”
Downstairs
xviii
At precisely noon, Lily had gone down the back stairs to the ground floor and then made her way to the great hall, where she was to meet Lord Flyte—Simon, I must really try to remember to call him Simon, she reminded herself—in the great hall at the bottom of the main staircase. The house looked different to her today, as if she were seeing it from an entirely new perspective. For the moment, at least, she did not look at the rooms and quickly evaluate them to see what needed dusting. Instead, she considered them merely as pleasant spaces through which a lady—not that she was putting on airs, she knew she would never be a lady—might drift in a lovely gown on her way to meet a gentleman for a picnic. She made a quick stop in the white drawing room to look at the paintings, hoping she might be able to come up with something interesting to say about them to Simon, but found herself at a loss. When she arrived in the hall, he was waiting for her. They went out the front door—the front door!—and he, an earl, was carrying two large picnic hampers, which Lily tried to take from him.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “You are not here to work.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lily.” There was a pleasant sort of growl in his voice that gave her a thrill.
“Simon.”
“That’s better.” He smiled. “You look lovely. Blue suits you. It brings out your eyes.”
“Thank you, Simon.”
“I thought we could go to the vista I told you about, near the Temple of the Muses. I’d so like to show it to you. Then, after we’ve eaten, we could stroll through the gardens. The roses may be long past their peak, but the rest won’t disappoint.”
“That sounds perfectly lovely,” Lily said.
When they reached the vista, Lily gasped. “It’s so beautiful, even more stunning than I had imagined.” She caught herself and continued on quickly. “Although it looks no more beautiful than it did in your painting. You did a wonderful job with the light. You made it look as if the scene were alive.”
“You are too kind,” he said. He opened the hamper and pulled out a thick wool blanket that he spread neatly on the ground, smoothing it with great care. “Now you, Lily, are to sit, and I shall get everything ready for you.”
She did as he instructed and watched as he produced marvelous thing after marvelous thing from the hampers. Cook must have outdone herself. There was mousse made from foie gras, salmon with some sort of green sauce on it, and cold beef. Simon placed two dishes of salads on the blanket next to a bowl of fruit and arranged biscuits and cakes on a platter. There was a flask of tea and a flask of coffee, but those were for later. First, Simon insisted on opening the champagne, Bollinger, Mr. Hargreaves’s favorite. Lily recognized it.
Simon poured her a glass and clinked his against it. “I am so pleased to be here with you, Lily.”
“I couldn’t be happier,” she said.
“Start eating and tell me all about your week.”
“My week?” Lily almost laughed. “You can’t possibly want to know about my week.”
“Why not?”
“It would bore you to death, sir … Simon. You already know how I spend my time. We should talk about something interesting. You are, after all, something of an artist. Tell me how you learned to paint.”
“I am a sadly amateur artist, if I could even be called that,” Simon said. “As for learning, before I went to school I had a governess who taught me a few basics, and I honed what little I knew when I was on my Grand Tour.”
“I can’t think of a better way to record magnificent places,” Lily said. She stretched out on the blanket and watched geese flying overhead in a perfect vee. “Imagine, setting up an easel in front of the Acropolis. It must have been heaven.”
“I suppose it was, though at the time I’m afraid I took the experience entirely for granted. That is one of the things I love about spending time with you, Lily. You make me rethink everything. I have had a life in which much has been handed to me. I better appreciate all of it when I see it through your eyes.”
She blushed. “I am very flattered, sir. Simon.”
“Tell me about yourself. Do you like your work?” He was spreading the foie gras mousse on a piece of triangle-shaped toast. Lily followed his lead and did the same.
“I do. It’s satisfying. I like seeing the
results and take great pride in a well-tended-to room.”
“I can understand that,” he said. “Tangible results are deeply satisfying.”
“There’s a way in which it’s not unlike my drawing,” she said. “Immediate results whose quality depends on the care taken with the task.”
Simon’s gaze rested on hers. How did this girl, without the benefit of much education, manage to make such meaningful observations? He wanted to kiss her, to tell her he adored her sharp mind and wanted to help her hone her abilities. It was too soon, though. Wasn’t it?
“How do you spend your time?” she asked. “Other than paint, that is. You don’t maraud about the country taking care of matters for the queen like Mr. Hargreaves does, do you?”
“Oh dear.” He laughed. “I’m afraid I am not so useful as my friend. I manage my estate, take care of any problems my tenants are having, and I spend a certain amount of time in London at the House of Lords. I don’t like it much in town, but one must do one’s duty.”
“It sounds very elegant and exciting.”
“Believe me, it’s not.”
“Do you like Anglemore?”
“It’s one of the best estates in the country,” he said. “Can you picture a better scene? Look at the hills, the lake, the immaculate gardens all around us. Hargreaves takes dashed good care of it, and of his people. I admire that.”
“What do you do when you’re here?” she asked. Then, feeling cheeky, she added, “Live the life of leisure?”
Now he really laughed, a great guffaw. “Yes, I suppose I do. I have some work to attend to, things that can be done from a distance, but I’ve been spending most of my time taking long walks, shooting birds, painting, and reading. Emily has an incomparable library. Did you know she owns the books, not Hargreaves?”
“No, I didn’t,” she said.
“He gave them to her—went so far as to deed them—when he was trying to persuade her to marry him. I still goad him, saying she liked the books better than him.”
“No!” Lily gasped. “I think she adores him. He’s so handsome, how could she not?” She covered her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Behind the Shattered Glass: A Lady Emily Mystery (Lady Emily Mysteries) Page 23