What the Dead Leave Behind

by Rosemary Simpson

  She paused for a moment, fighting off the sense of doom that suddenly swept over her, distracting herself from her fear by identifying the voices raised in conversation. James Kincaid in from the stable, German Clara, Frank the bootboy whose speech cracked alarmingly whenever he opened his mouth, Brigid the kitchen maid, Brian the footman who also helped out with whatever needed doing, Mrs. Barstow arguing with Cook about something. She didn’t hear Mr. Jackson’s voice, but he often sat in glowering silence at the head of the table. It was all so very ordinary. She’d say an extra decade of the rosary before she fell asleep tonight and beg forgiveness for giving in to superstition. The Church taught that there were no such creatures as banshees.

  Halfway down the staircase Colleen heard the door to the first floor open softly, then a quick patter of footsteps on the stairs behind her. Before she could turn to see who was there, something round and hard like a knuckled fist struck her in the small of the back. Her left foot skidded out from under her as though she’d slid on a patch of slick ice. Both arms shot out, but there was no banister to grab hold of and break her fall. She felt herself tumbling forward, head striking repeatedly against the steps and the walls as she twisted and somersaulted faster and faster downward. Someone screamed.

  Chairs scraped, footfalls hammered against the stone floor, cups slammed into saucers, alarmed voices called out, demanding to know what was happening.

  Sprawled at the foot of the staircase, arms and legs crooked at impossible angles, blood streaming into her eyes and blinding her, Colleen knew the Church was wrong.

  There were such creatures as banshees, and one of them had wailed her death.

  CHAPTER 15

  Colleen lay atop the long table in the servants’ hall until Dr. Worthington could be located and summoned to the MacKenzie mansion. Cook washed the blood from the maid’s face, tears streaming down her cheeks as she repeatedly wrung out the cloth in warm water that quickly turned red again every time the basin was emptied and refilled.

  James Kincaid straightened Colleen’s limbs and ran his hands over them with the gentle, expert attention he gave the horses in his care.

  “I don’t know how it’s possible,” he said, covering her from feet to chin under a warm blanket, “but I don’t think anything’s broken. I can’t feel a fracture, and there’s no sign of bone breaking through the skin. She’ll have internal injuries, though. Bound to. And that’s what may do her in.”

  Upstairs a battle raged. Victoria was insisting that the girl be bundled into one of the carriages and taken to Bellevue Hospital, where there was an Emergency Pavilion for accident cases like this. Openly defying her stepmother, Prudence refused to allow Colleen to be moved from where she lay until the doctor had examined her. She sent Frank the bootboy on a fast run to Dr. Worthington’s home and office only a few blocks away, following him out into the hallway to slip a whole greenback into his hand and whisper instructions to then run on to the Fifth Avenue Hotel and bring back a gentleman named Geoffrey Hunter.

  “I really don’t think it necessary for the girl to be seen by the physician who cared for your father, Prudence. Bellevue is a public hospital; she’ll be well looked after there. Dr. Worthington may refuse to treat her, and he’d certainly be within his rights to do so,” Victoria persisted.

  “He won’t refuse. When my father was alive, it was understood that every person living in his home would receive the best possible care should he fall ill or be injured. Dr. Worthington has treated many of our servants in the past; he won’t turn us down now.” Prudence was determined that no one but Dr. Worthington would treat Colleen.

  “Jackson, tell James to ready the small carriage. I’m sure Dr. Worthington will see the sense of taking her to Bellevue,” Victoria continued to argue. “Mrs. Barstow can accompany her as far as the Emergency Pavilion, but no farther. She’s needed here.”

  “Yes, madam.” Jackson’s odd-colored eyes were muddied, as though the yellowish brown of the pupils had spilled over into the white of the sclera. He held himself rigidly straight, but the fingers of his hands twitched in tiny, repeated, and uncontrollable spasms. He glanced at Mrs. Barstow, standing beside him. Her face had paled at Victoria’s order; she looked as though the last place in the world she wanted to be was riding in a carriage cradling Colleen’s body in her arms.

  It was useless to argue with her stepmother. Prudence swept past her, past the butler and the housekeeper, out the parlor door. Without thinking, she walked as quickly as she could down the hallway and pushed open the door that gave onto the servants’ stairway to the basement. Halfway down she realized what she had done and came to a dead stop. Her hands reached out on either side to flatten themselves against the walls and steady her. Whatever had caused Colleen to lose her footing might still be on the stairs. She inched her way toward the basement, skirts brushing the stairs behind her as she continued to push against the walls. She took a deep breath when she reached the bottom, and stood looking upward for a moment, wondering on which step Colleen’s fall had begun.

  “She’s not come around yet, Miss Prudence.” Cook’s face contracted with the effort not to weep; her work-worn hands stroked Colleen’s hair gently.

  “Dr. Worthington is on his way. He’ll know what to do.” It was the only comfort Prudence could offer. Colleen was as pale as a corpse laid out for washing; only the slight rise and fall of her chest assured those watching over her that she was still alive.

  “Kincaid, Mrs. MacKenzie wants the small carriage hitched and waiting in front of the stables. As soon as the doctor comes, if he does, you’re to drive Colleen to Bellevue.” Jackson’s voice was harsh and overly loud.

  “Bellevue Hospital?”

  “Is there another Bellevue? Hurry up, man.”

  “She can’t just be laid out on the seat, Mr. Jackson. Unconscious like this, she’ll roll off and that’ll surely be the death of her.”

  “Mrs. Barstow will ride with her to the Emergency Pavilion. On Mrs. MacKenzie’s orders.” Jackson stood over Colleen for a moment, listening to the ragged, shallow breathing. “Let me know the moment it looks like she’s coming around.” Then he turned like a soldier executing an about-face and disappeared down the narrow corridor that led to his office and the wine cellar.

  “Colleen is not going anywhere unless Dr. Worthington orders it, Kincaid,” Prudence said reassuringly. “You can hitch up the horses, but there’s no need to worry. I won’t allow anything or anyone to harm her.” It was frightening to see Colleen lie so still, so far away from everything going on around her.

  “Will the doctor come soon, miss?” Brigid’s small voice quavered; big tears rolled down her fourteen-year-old cheeks.

  “As fast as Frank’s feet can get to him.” Prudence looked at the cups and saucers and sandwich plates that had been hastily removed from the table where Colleen lay. The servants’ tea was scattered over every available surface, mute evidence of the haste with which they had left the table and run to the stairway when they heard her cry out and fall. “I think it might be a good idea to straighten up a bit while we’re waiting. And perhaps Cook can organize some more hot tea. We could all use a cup.”

  It wasn’t much, but it was something to do, something to get everybody moving again, a semblance of normality to take the place of what was so very disturbingly not normal.

  “Did anyone wipe down the stairs after Colleen fell?” Prudence asked Brian the footman. He served at table, answered the front door sometimes for Jackson, and did every other job the butler gave him. An even dispositioned young man of twenty, he was clearly determined to please, set on working his way up the service ladder.

  “I did, miss. There was some blood on the steps. You have to get blood up right away or it stains all the way into the wood.”

  “Would you show me?”

  Brian led the way to the foot of the staircase and pointed upward. “There’s nothing to see, miss. I took a damp mop to the stairs.”

  “Was there anythi
ng slippery on the stairs, Brian? A spill perhaps?”

  “I wasn’t looking for anything but the blood, miss. And there wasn’t very much of that.” He screwed up his face in concentration. “I was wondering if Colleen might have got something on the bottom of her boot and not realized it. Then if she was in a hurry coming down the stairs . . .”

  “They’re very steep, aren’t they?”

  “We’re all told to be careful, miss.”

  “Where is the mop you used?”

  “In the bucket, miss. There hasn’t been time to rinse it out. Do you want to see that, too?” The tone of his voice told her how odd he thought her questions were.

  “Yes. But we’ll keep this between us, shall we?”

  “Of course, miss. Whatever you say, miss.”

  The bucket had been placed just inside the scullery, mop handle leaning against the wall.

  “Thank you, Brian. You’d best get yourself a cup of tea while you can, before the doctor arrives.”

  Prudence watched him walk back into the servants’ hall, then she closed the scullery door and took out a handkerchief. There was barely an inch of dirty water in the bottom of the bucket, but what she wanted, if it was there, would be clinging to the cotton strands of the mop. She held the mop upright over the bucket until the last drops of water had fallen, then squeezed the mop head between the folds of her handkerchief until finally her fingers felt what she had been afraid she would find. Grease, some kind of slippery grease had adhered to the mop head and now stained the handkerchief.

  Colleen’s fall had not been an accident.

  As she stood looking up at the narrow staircase, Prudence pictured Colleen rushing to get downstairs, not worrying about anything being on the steps because Mrs. Barstow was so strict that there was no danger of a spill not being promptly wiped up.

  Behind her came a dark, featureless form, whoever had greased the step, making sure his quarry’s foot would slip. Had that been enough? Or had an arm shot out to land a heavy blow against the girl’s back?

  There would be no proof unless Colleen regained consciousness and could tell them what had happened, but Prudence was certain the fall had been a deliberate attempt to kill her.

  * * *

  “She may not regain consciousness,” Peter Worthington said quietly. He had examined Colleen, approved of the care she had been given before he arrived, and gone back upstairs to the parlor to report his findings to Mrs. MacKenzie. “Unconsciousness this deep is never a good sign. There will have been serious damage to the brain as well as to other internal organs. We learned during the war that the gravest injuries were often those we could not see. I’m sorry, Mrs. MacKenzie, but I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do for her. She’ll need good nursing until the end, and I believe I can say that she is unaware of her own suffering. We can’t hope for anything more than that.”

  “Then Bellevue Hospital would seem to be the best place for her, wouldn’t you agree?” Victoria reached for the bellpull to summon Jackson.

  “I’m afraid I don’t. Bellevue is very good at setting broken bones and stitching up wounds, but Colleen just needs a clean and quiet bed where she can sleep out her last hours.”

  “I don’t want her in the house,” snapped Victoria. “It will be upsetting to the rest of the servants.”

  “If I may, Mrs. MacKenzie,” Geoffrey Hunter volunteered. Thanks to Frank the bootboy’s fast young legs, Hunter had intercepted Dr. Worthington just as he was getting out of his carriage. Their explanation for Hunter’s presence was simple and logical. He and Worthington had been having dinner together when the doctor was summoned, and since Hunter had been Charles Linwood’s closest friend, he had naturally been concerned for Prudence’s welfare. He had asked to come along, and Dr. Worthington had willingly agreed.

  Prudence had insisted on escorting both men to the servants’ hall herself, creating the opportunity to exchange a few private words. A plan had been hatched in those moments, groundwork laid, and Victoria defeated before she knew who her opponents were. Now they were ready to put that plan into action.

  “I may be able to be of some small service in this matter,” Hunter said.

  Victoria hesitated, looked to her brother for support. Donald Morley had taken an immediate jealous dislike to the fellow who would have been Charles Linwood’s best man had he lived. Hunter was everything Morley was not: tall, handsome, attractive to women, as muscular around the shoulders as an athlete, but with the self-assured grace of a gentleman born. He had interfered at Linwood’s funeral, and now here he was again, taking Prudence’s side when he had no right to speak. Donald wanted to tell him baldly that they didn’t require his services, but Worthington was nodding his head encouragingly; it wouldn’t be wise to ruffle the doctor’s feathers. “What did you have in mind, Mr. Hunter?” He saw Victoria’s eyes squeeze in annoyance; he’d explain it to her later.

  “I know of a boardinghouse whose landlady takes in older lodgers in need of special care. Most of them either have no remaining family or require the kind of attention that can’t easily be given in a household full of young children. Colleen could be made quite comfortable there, for the little time remaining to her.”

  “That sounds very odd,” Prudence said.

  “The war disrupted so many families that new ways of seeing to the sick and the elderly have had to be found,” explained Peter Worthington. “Geoffrey’s suggestion would seem to solve the problem. I’ve sent the occasional patient to this woman myself.”

  “I’m not sure,” objected Prudence.

  “It’s settled,” decided Victoria abruptly. “There’s no point arguing the matter, Prudence. I’ve made up my mind.”

  * * *

  Kathleen Dailey tucked the still-unresponsive Colleen into a soft, clean bed in the small first-floor room adjacent to her own. “There’s a door between the two rooms that I can leave open during the night. I’ll hear and wake up if she so much as turns over. Poor child. She was so young and so lonely when she first came to work in the kitchen. I was housekeeper then, and it didn’t take long to see that she’d make a fine parlor maid. Intelligent. A very sweet disposition. I was sorry to have to leave her to the likes of Mrs. Barstow, but then it wasn’t my choice, was it?”

  “Do you know where her family lives, Mrs. Dailey? They should be told.” Geoffrey had held Colleen in his arms all the way from Manhattan to Brooklyn.

  “The only thing I remember her telling me is that they were crammed into a couple of small rooms in one of those tenements down by the river where the factories used to be. It’s where the Irish first came after the Famine, but worse now with so many people displaced off their land by the war and trying to find work in the cities. Some newspaper reporter called it Hell’s Kitchen, and the name stuck. You could look for days or weeks even, and unless you knew where to go, you’d never find them. I wish I could be of more help, Mr. Hunter.”

  “Miss Sarah would have made a point of finding out, but she was long gone when Colleen came. Maybe Miss Prudence could find something in her room.” It was the best Cameron could suggest. As butler, he should have made it his business to know all about every member of the staff, but he hadn’t. He’d always supposed there would be more time for things like that, but there hadn’t been.

  “She looked before I left, Mr. Cameron.” Geoffrey handed him a small suitcase that contained all of Colleen Riordan’s worldly possessions. From his coat pocket he pulled out a wooden rosary and a well-worn prayerbook. “Miss MacKenzie especially asked me to be sure the rosary would be placed in her hand.”

  “I’ll do that now, sir.” Mrs. Dailey made the sign of the cross with Colleen’s rosary, kissed the crucifix, and threaded the beads around the maid’s limp fingers. “Mr. Reilly has gone for a priest from Saint Anne’s. Perhaps you and Mr. Cameron could wait for me in the parlor. I’ll see to a few things for her, then I’ll be out.”

  She waited until Mr. Hunter and Cameron had crossed the hallway into the parlor
before turning back to her patient.

  “There must be more we can do, Mr. Hunter.” Concern was written all across Ian Cameron’s face.

  Geoffrey looked carefully at the man Prudence had described as her second father. Tall, straight, every silver hair in place, dark gray eyes alert and watchful, he was a handsome man in his sixties who must have been every housemaid’s dream when he was younger. He looked like an Anglican bishop, steeped in aristocratic dignity and a touch of holiness.

  “I took that card Mrs. Dailey gave me to Billy McGlory’s place.”

  “Did you now?” Kathleen Dailey had come into the room so quietly that neither man heard her. Both stood up, waiting politely for her to seat herself. “And what did that boyo have to say for himself?”

  “All I can tell you is that Mrs. MacKenzie came into possession of information that would have ruined the Judge and forever tainted Prudence as the child of a man destroyed by scandal.”

  “So he married her to keep her quiet. Men can be such fools.” Mrs. Dailey flicked imaginary dust from her black silk skirt. “Present company excepted, of course.”

  “Unfortunately, marriage isn’t a crime,” Cameron said.

  “But blackmail is.” If we could prove it, Geoffrey added silently to himself.

  “She won’t have left anything incriminating unburned. Many’s the time I came into the library after the Judge died to find Mrs. MacKenzie standing before the fireplace feeding in papers with both hands. She never spared me a word of explanation, just a dark look because I’d interrupted her. Nothing but ashes left in the grate when she finished. I stirred them around with the poker once or twice. Here and there maybe a corner of something that hadn’t burned through, but nothing with any writing on it. I would have told Miss Prudence, but there didn’t seem any point to it. And she was his widow; she had a right to decide what should survive him and what shouldn’t.” Cameron shook his head at the memory of the flames that had consumed what remained of a life.

  “All those lovely letters Miss Sarah wrote to the Judge and he to her. I know he meant them for Miss Prudence. He’d bundled them up very neatly, and he told me once, when I came to ask him something, he told me that he hoped Miss Prudence would someday find herself a husband as good as Miss Sarah had been a wife. He had tears in his eyes. I saw him put those letters into one of his desk drawers and lock it. I suppose they’re all gone now.” All housekeepers were called Mrs. even when, like Kathleen Dailey, they’d never married. Part of her still yearned for the romantic love that long years in household service had denied her.