“So they returned?”
“Yes, once a replacement for him could be found and he got the living here from Matilda’s grandfather,” he said. “As for Rodney Scolfield, he did not remember much about him at all. Denied the story of the tigers altogether.”
“Do you think Miss Fitzgerald invented the whole thing?”
“It is possible she did, but I don’t necessarily think so. It seems to me the incident was far more significant to her than to her father. He had myriad other things to worry about.”
“So how do we feel about Miss Fitzgerald?” I asked.
“She remains a suspect,” Colin said. “Her behavior has been not quite cricket.”
“Something about her connection with Rodney is still nagging at me,” I said, “but perhaps it’s only that I don’t want to think them having met in India and then again here is nothing more than coincidence.”
“Humans always long for significance,” Colin said. “Sometimes explanations don’t provide the tidy endings we prefer. In this case, however, I am inclined to agree with you.”
*
Colin spent the remainder of the day speaking to the outdoor servants at both Anglemore and Montagu. I went back to the site of the murder, hoping I might find some clue overlooked by him and the police. The abbey had not originally been part of the estate, and the family had not bothered to do anything with the building when the land had been granted during the reformation. It had crumbled gracefully, its walls still standing, but the upper level and the roof had long ago collapsed. Remains of sculptures lay scattered across the cracked stone floor through which wildflowers now grew, their blooms returning color to a space that hundreds of years ago would have been full of it. The altar, marred and broken, stood at one end. Not far from it was a small pile of cigar ashes that had already been identified as Archibald’s, but I found nothing else related to the night of the murder. I went back to the house and climbed the stairs to the nursery. All of the babies were awake, and all of them on the floor, playing, insomuch as babies can. Tom was back to his favorite trick of banging his rattle against a block. Richard was lying on his stomach and pushing himself up with his little arms, over and over. Henry, flat on his back, was looking at the ceiling, doing not much of anything.
“Is this Lily’s work?” I asked, noticing a sketch of the boys that was sitting on a table.
“It is indeed. She came up on her afternoon a few weeks ago. Said she wanted to capture them when they still had nothing to think about but smiling. It’s a lovely likeness, isn’t it?”
“That it is,” I said.
“If you don’t mind me saying so, Lady Emily, Lily is too bright to remain a maid. With a little education and some training in the social graces she would make a fine governess.”
“That is an astute observation, Nanny. I shall give the matter serious consideration,” I said, looking at the sketch again. “They are handsome boys, aren’t they?”
“You are a devoted mother, Lady Emily. I am so glad of it. Some of these ladies today, well, I need not tell you. I have, after all, met Lady Bromley.”
“Yes, I am so sorry, Nanny,” I said. “I know she can be a bother.”
“I have taken it upon myself to reform her. She wants me reciting the list of the kings of England to the boys three times a day, even now, when they’re little babies. Says she wants to be sure they’ve learned it by the time they’re able to speak. Thing is, madam, these are smart boys. They’d learn it in two days flat, if it took that long, and it will be much longer than two days before they can speak. Does she want me to bore them to death?”
“She can be difficult.”
“I told her the queen’s nanny confided in me years ago that Prince Albert insisted on his children hearing German, French, and English in the nursery every single day so that they would be able to speak all three languages fluently.”
“Did he really?”
Nanny looked up at the ceiling and gave a little shrug. “Well, madam, the truth is I’ve not the slightest idea. I’ve never met the queen’s nanny. I do know, however, that Lady Bromley prides herself on her French, and I followed up my little tidbit about the prince with the helpful suggestion that when she visits the boys, she should speak to them in French. She’s so focused on that now that she leaves me more or less alone. She hasn’t asked me once since then about the list of kings.”
“My,” I said, with a gasp of admiration. “Nanny, I am most impressed.”
“Thank you, madam.”
We both turned at the sound of gurgly laughter. Henry was no longer on his back, but flipped over onto his front, his smile indicating he was well pleased with himself. He rolled again, onto his back, and once more onto his front. He then pushed himself up and laughed heartily. I scooped him up in my arms and kissed his chubby cheeks.
“They are delightful, aren’t they?” I asked. “I don’t know what I would do without them.”
“That’s the first time he’s managed from back to front, madam,” Nanny said. “They’re all good strong boys.”
“Indeed they are,” I said. “Nanny, I came up to talk to you as well as to see the boys. Did any of the nursery staff notice anything out of sorts the night Lord Montagu was murdered?”
“You know we’ve answered all these questions already, madam. Our Colin was pleased as punch to show off his investigative skills to us. He was as eager as a little boy.”
“I know, but it’s possible you or someone else has remembered a detail that had previously escaped notice.”
“I don’t think so, madam. I’m sorry not to be of more help.”
“Have you heard anything from the maid I dismissed?”
“No, Lady Emily, and I’m not likely to. She’s probably in a factory now. Couldn’t get another position in service without a character, and you know as well as I that she didn’t deserve one.”
I winced, knowing how bad factory conditions could be. She deserved no comfort, though, after deliberately neglecting and then hurting a child. This was a case of merit, or the lack thereof, determining a person’s fate. “I know you are right,” I said.
“Much though I would love for her to be guilty of the murder, the fact is she was up here with me all that evening.”
“One other thing, Nanny,” I said. “We’ve had it reported that someone heard a woman crying behind the house near the servants’ entrance.”
“None of us would have heard that all the way over here.”
“Would you ask the nursery maids, just in case? One of them might have gone downstairs for something.”
“I can, madam, but I must assure you that we all have revealed everything we know. Our Colin wouldn’t have settled for a single word less.”
“Thank you, Nanny,” I said and gave Henry another cuddle before returning him to the floor. “And thank you for taking such good care of the boys.”
Downstairs
x
Lily hadn’t noticed anything out of place in her room when she had collapsed into bed last night. Exhaustion had overtaken her, and she hadn’t even pulled Lord Flyte’s gift from her dresser drawer. She had been too tired. She had been busier than usual yesterday, the house chaotic following the murder. Nothing seemed to be running smoothly. Three of the dogs had come in from outside through the front door—no one admitted to having left it open—and tracked mud all through the great hall and halfway up the stairs, so she’d had to wash up after them. The stairs were always the worst. They weren’t quite deep enough to safely balance her bucket and always left her with a knot in her back.
Today, however, Lady Bromley was the only one home in the afternoon, and she had asked for her luncheon in her room, so there hadn’t been quite so much to tidy after that. The dining room hadn’t needed so much as a touch-up after she’d dusted in the morning, and this meant Lily had a few moments to herself after eating her own lunch. She slipped upstairs while the others were still sitting around the table over cups of steaming tea, listening
to Lord Montagu’s valet tell stories about his adventures in the wilds of the American West. She couldn’t look at her painting, as one of the men on the estate had offered to make a frame for it, and he wouldn’t return it for at least a fortnight, but she had enough time to study her wonderful new book.
Usually, Lily counted the steps from the servants’ hall to the top floor of the house, partly out of habit, and partly to make the four long flights go by more quickly. Today she took them two at a time and was moving too fast to count. Truth was, she moving almost too fast to breathe. She closed the door to the snug room she and Alice shared, a pleasant space with china blue walls and matching bedspreads. Lady Emily liked her staff to feel at home in their quarters and decorated their rooms accordingly. Some ladies gave their servants castoffs, but that was not allowed at Anglemore Park. She had allowed Lily to hang some of her drawings, and Lily liked to think of the room as her own little museum. She pulled the wooden rocking chair to her favorite spot in front of her small window and then went to her dresser to get her book.
She pulled open the drawer and was immediately consumed with a feeling of dread. Her stockings and her spare cap, along with the handkerchiefs her mother had lovingly trimmed with lace, were a riot of mess—and her book, her beautiful book, was not where she had left it. She flung the contents of the drawer onto her bed but did not uncover it. Nor was it in any of her other drawers. She hesitated, not wanting to disturb Alice’s privacy, but she did find herself sorely tempted to riffle through her roommate’s dresser.
“That will not do,” she whispered to herself. “Alice would never have taken it and not put it back.” She searched the rest of the room, under the two single beds, and in the wardrobe that stood next to the door, but the book eluded her. Tears smarted in her eyes. She hadn’t even had a chance to thoroughly look through it. Her stomach churned and her face felt hot. She wanted to fling herself onto her bed and have a good cry, but she knew there was work to be done, and she’d already used up any free time she would have that afternoon.
Lily poured water from the pitcher into the basin and splashed her face, blotting it dry. She smoothed her skirts and her apron and, keeping Mrs. Elliott close in mind, made sure her cap was straight before she returned downstairs. Her face was composed, but inside she felt nothing of the sort.
Today, someone had taken the world away from her, and she had a fair idea of the culprit’s identity.
11
Colin had ordered a special train to take us to London the next morning, wanting neither to lose time making stops nor to have to wait for the first regularly scheduled departure. We arrived viciously early at our house, an elegant Georgian building in Park Lane, but had both agreed it was the best course forward. My telephone call to Germany was scheduled for nine thirty, and I did not want to miss my opportunity to make it.
The telephone both terrified and fascinated me. None of my friends had them installed in their houses—what would be the purpose?—so I had only used it on rare occasions, generally when my husband was working abroad and could ring me from an official building with a telephone of its own. The tinny voice coming over the black wires seemed half magic and half demon. If I tried to contemplate how the device worked, my head would start to hurt, but I nonetheless longed to understand it.
“What troubles me,” I said to Colin as he centered the tall black object on his desk, “is how do we even know we are really speaking to the person we think we’re ringing? Anyone could be on the other end of that wire and we would never even suspect.” I looked at it suspiciously. It reminded me of a deranged candlestick.
“In this case, when you have never before heard a person’s voice, that is entirely true,” he said. “If you doubt the veracity of what you hear, we shall have to consider further options. Most likely, however, your Herr Gifford will give you a tidy bit of not quite useful information and this will prove to have been much ado about nothing.”
“If we are lucky, much ado about very little.”
“My dear girl, you look nervous. You’re biting your lip.”
“You know it unnerves me to speak into that thing,” I said.
“I can speak to him if you would prefer.”
“No, I shall do it.” I forced myself to sit up straighter in my husband’s desk chair and nodded to him that I was ready. He lifted the receiver, pressed three times the cradle in which it had hung, and then spoke to the operator. He put the receiver next to my ear and pushed the base of the phone towards me so that I could speak into it with ease.
I heard a crackle and then a voice, speaking, unexpectedly, with an English accent.
“Is this Lady Emily Hargreaves?” it said.
“It is.” I realized I was shouting into the mouthpiece.
“This is Mr. Ralph Gifford. I am so pleased you received my cable and were able to telephone.”
“Yes, it is wonderful, isn’t it?” I glanced at Colin, who nodded encouragingly. “What can you tell me about Archibald Scolfield and his friend Cedric Porter?”
“Mr. Scolfield and Mr. Porter stayed in my inn for a fortnight. I moved to Germany some years ago and frequently host Englishmen at my establishment. I like to provide a real home away from home. A bit of England in Germany.”
“Was there a problem during their stay?” I asked.
“Not of which I was aware at the time. After they left, however, things changed. It came to my attention that Mr. Scolfield had taken great liberties with my sister, Fanny, a girl of only fifteen. He ruined her, Lady Emily.”
“Oh dear, how dreadful. I am most sorry to hear that, Mr. Gifford. Did Mr. Scolfield remain in touch with her?”
“No, he never contacted her again, which isn’t much of a surprise,” he said. “She never forgot him, though. I sent her to a school for young ladies in London shortly thereafter as she was in great need of a change of scene.”
“I can well imagine,” I said. “Did you not worry that he would seek her out in London?”
“It was eminently clear he had no interest in continuing the connection,” he said. “What concerns me, Lady Emily, is that she disappeared from school just about a fortnight ago, and no one has been able to locate her.”
“Give me all of the details, Mr. Gifford, and I will see what I can do.”
We only had the line for a few more minutes, so I gathered everything I could from him as efficiently as possible, not realizing I was shaking until I returned the receiver to its cradle.
“It is a relief to be finished with that,” I said.
“It does amaze me, Emily, that you shudder before technology. I should have expected the opposite,” Colin said. “Although I suppose one could surmise from your love of classical history and antiquities that you have limited interest in mechanical advancements.”
“That, my dear, would be a most unwise assumption. I do not shudder before all technology. I have been meaning to speak to you for some time about buying a motorcar. I am desperate to learn how to drive.”
“Thank heavens we are too busy to deal with that at the present time.”
“Now who is shuddering?” I asked, feeling rather pleased with myself. I had scribbled down all the details Mr. Gifford had given me of his sister, and Colin had read over my shoulder as I was writing. “Do we follow up on this now or continue on to Dover as planned?”
“I think Dover first, as we do not want to delay our appointment with Mr. Porter’s aunt,” he said. “We will go by the Yard and make sure the girl’s disappearance has already been noted. If the school filed a report, they may already have information that could prove useful to us. It is possible, though, that the school wanted the matter kept private.”
“In which case we can call in there when we return from Dover,” I said. “Should we warn them of our plans either way?”
“No,” Colin said. “There is no need and no time. We shall have to hurry as it is. Come now, let’s get a shift on.”
We had time only for a quick stop at Scotla
nd Yard. I always liked going there, particularly now that the force respected (somewhat begrudgingly) my abilities as an investigator. Today, however, I said very little, leaving it to Colin. The school had indeed filed a report, which was a welcome surprise, but so far no clues as to Miss Gifford’s whereabouts had been found.
We hurried on to Victoria Station and narrowly avoided missing our train to Dover. I sighed with relief and collapsed into my seat when Colin closed the door to our compartment. I hated rushing and hated being late, and it always took me a moment to recover from having to hurry. The journey was not a long one, only a little over two hours, but I was looking forward to the time to read. I had brought with me Charlotte’s diaries. I pulled a volume out of my satchel, cozied up next to my husband, and opened to my bookmark.
Charlotte’s affair with Pearce was now in full swing, and as she fell deeper in love with him, she grew more daring. To start, they had seen each other only when she was riding, and their meetings were more or less innocent. Eventually, though, these trysts were not enough, and she took to going for long walks in the evening when her parents were out and wouldn’t notice her absence. Pearce would meet her at a predetermined location. It was on one of these occasions that they shared their first kiss and he gave her the roses whose petals she had saved. Soon she had to come up with a different scheme to see him, as her parents started putting more and more pressure on her to marry and insisted on her participation in evening entertainments that were now geared to finding her a husband. She was too old, so far as they were concerned, ancient at twenty-one. I knew well what Charlotte must have been feeling. My own mother had once held similar opinions about me.
Charlotte resisted their machinations, however, and remained steadfast in her love for Pearce. She told her parents she felt the decision to marry was the most important of her life. She knew, she explained, that nothing was more essential than producing an heir for Montagu, and she did not want to rush into a marriage that might prove a disappointment. Surprisingly, her parents went along with her wishes, at least until the middle of 1780, when everything changed.
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