“But if you go back now, I fear there will soon be more upheaval in Paris. We hear talk of war.”
“Just so, and with the Prussians, nasty beasts. As a precaution, I told my brother, who sees to my affairs, to take an accommodation for me in the south of France as well as preparing my new home in Paris.”
Serafina was silent for a moment, listening to the hum of the house and the way the wind had of blowing through the eaves. She heard the faint sounds of workers on the grounds below. “You began working for the baroness here?”
She shook her head. “Wherever she went, I was with her—in Prizzi for much of the year when I first arrived and here in Bagheria in the spring and summer only, but in later years, here in Bagheria for special times, too, because you know it is now fashionable to be here at Christmas, and the baroness loved this villa so and being close to the sea. When she became ill, she preferred to stay here all the year, so we did. And now, with the baron and his business demanding that he stays here because it is so close to the harbor, I stay here, too. Wherever the main household is, you see, that is my place.”
“But I thought you were a lady’s maid.”
She canted her eyes to the window and paused. “Yes, to the baroness when she was alive, I was her lady’s maid, but after the baroness died, I became the housekeeper.”
“And the housekeeper who was here when the baroness was alive, where is she now?”
Doucette appeared to think. “She stays in Prizzi.”
“And when you are in Prizzi?”
Doucette began tapping her foot. “She has many years, the Prizzi housekeeper, poor soul, so we share the job.”
“Forgive me, Doucette. I’m asking too many questions, I do apologize.”
“Do not trouble yourself, Madame.”
“But bear with me, please. I need to ask you about Lady Caterina’s final years and her illness.”
“Of course.”
“You were with her as her lady’s maid?”
She nodded.
“You brought her meals to her when she was bedridden?”
“You misunderstand my role, Madame. I was her lady’s maid. As such, I gave direction to the cook, who fixed the tray and arranged for a maid to bring up her meals. I watched in the room as she ate. I was with her night and day when she was very ill, even when her daughter was here.”
“And when Genoveffa was not here?”
“I was with her, Madame.”
“Every day?”
“Yes, Madame.”
“No one else?”
The housekeeper slid her eyes to the side. “Every day, except of course, on my days off.”
“And who took your place?”
“I believe one of the chambermaids.”
“And the doctor who treated the baroness, you must know him as well.”
“Of course, Madame. Doctor Marcello Noce.”
“From?”
“A physician from Prizzi.” Doucette drew down the corners of her mouth and elevated her nose. If possible, she sat even straighter, her back not touching her chair. “A country doctor.”
“A what?”
“A country doctor, Madame. Someone who seemed …”
“Out of his depth?”
“Just so. In Paris we have enlightened physicians and teaching hospitals. For women’s ailments, femmes savantes and midwives such as yourself practice at La Maternité, known in all the world as the finest of lying-in hospitals. But outside of Paris, the physicians are different. We refer to them as country doctors.” Then she added, “But he was the family’s physician, you see. And the baron wished to keep her illness private. It was Lady Caterina’s wish as well. He trusted Doctor Noce to do just that.”
Serafina wrote in her notebook. “You were in the room with him when he visited?”
Doucette frowned. “Not I, Madame, the baron.”
“And when Genoveffa was here, perhaps she stayed in the room with the physician?”
Doucette thought for a long moment, shook her head. “Always the baron.”
“Your life has been difficult, but you’ve made so much of it and in such a short time. You’ve attained a position of trust in a foreign country with help from no one, and that is a great accomplishment. I need someone to whom I may turn for help in this investigation.”
The housekeeper’s face was impossible to read. It held no expression, and she stared at her. Perhaps she suspected that Serafina was about to propose something not quite trustworthy, but she continued. “Yesterday morning, Sister Genoveffa gave me a journal written by her mother in the last year of her life.”
“Yes, the daughter, a most remarkable woman.” Doucette crossed her ankles. “Difficult at first.”
“More than difficult—impossible at first.”
Doucette nodded but otherwise did not move. It was as if she held her breath, afraid that even her exhaled air would reveal too much.
Serafina continued with her story. “Unfortunately, the journal was stolen, grabbed from my hand as I left her office.”
“How terrible for you! You were hurt?”
“Not at all. Oh, the carabinieri were clever enough and retrieved it from the thieves straightaway. It was returned to me that evening.”
“Thank goodness!”
Serafina nodded. A toehold into the woman’s soul, perhaps, and she breathed more easily. “But pages were missing, just ripped out of the binding, and the cover was horribly scuffed, pressed under cartwheels, and it smelled of narrow streets.”
Doucette laughed. “I know this smell. I was born there, don’t forget.”
Relieved, Serafina continued. “It was found, a carabiniere told me, in the middle of a street in an undesirable neighborhood.”
“Horrible! The thieves in your land are everywhere, not just in certain neighborhoods. This I have noticed.”
“True. Worse since the war, but they say it will change.”
“Perhaps. Once when cook and I went to market, a basket of fish was taken from us, ripped from our hands, just like your book. They said we should be grateful we weren’t killed. Grateful for what? This I do not understand. But I interrupt your story.” Doucette’s cheeks colored, and her eyes sparkled. Ever so slightly, her back relaxed.
“Reading the journal last night, I noticed that some of the entries were dated, some, not. But it occurred to me that those who keep journals do not begin the year before they die, but continue in their last years with a lifelong habit.”
“Quite right, Madame. And you are wondering if I know where the baroness kept her journals from prior years?”
“Exactly.”
She hunched her shoulders. “I’m not sure, but I tell you this: I was with the baroness for ten years, and I always saw her writing in something, so there must be other books. No one took them, I can safely say—I would have known.”
“I need your help in finding them.”
“We must try her sitting room on the first floor and here, in her dressing room and wardrobe.” All business now, Doucette opened the closet door and pointed to several high shelves. “Once I saw the footman helping her store some books up there, high on a shelf in a hatbox. Come and see.”
With the housekeeper’s help, Serafina stood on the desk chair and because she was taller than Doucette, she was able to reach to the top shelf. She lifted all the hatbox lids, looked inside each box, and in addition to large hats with long feathers, found several boxes filled with the baroness’s journals. Doucette took them from Serafina’s arms and stacked them on the desk.
“Mon Dieu,” Doucette said, looking at the pile of books. “But this is not all, I know. She wrote every day, hours at a time. There must be many more.”
At once the woman started laughing so hard
she had to hold her sides, darting her eyes about the room. “You will be here long after I am gone,” she said, wiping her tears, “and still you will not have read them all! But I see the blue beneath your eyes, Madame, and if you’d allow me to say so, your hair needs a good dressing. Let me help you take these books to your room and I will fix your curls. Then, if you will excuse me, I need to see to the running of the house while you must sit and fasten your spectacles! Do not worry: we will find the rest after tea.”
They made two trips to carry all the books to Serafina’s chamber, piling them in neat rows on the desk.
After Doucette fixed Serafina’s hair in a simple but elegant style, the housekeeper took her leave. “The door to the baroness’s room is unlocked for the duration of your stay, Madame, so you may spend as much time as you wish communing with the ghost of that dear soul.”
After Doucette closed the door, Serafina sat, staring at the pile of books. On one hand, she felt relieved to have found more of the baroness’s journals—her guess had been right—but she was almost paralyzed by the enormity of her task. She thumbed through the pages of the top two books. Noticing that they were written in the 1850s, she shoved them into the bottom of one of the piles. Then she plunked back down into the chair and stared into the room. Every limb in her body was like lead. She tried to move an arm but couldn’t do it. She must finish gathering all the baroness’s books from all the nooks and crannies of this huge villa, but how could she since she found concentrating difficult? And what had she learned? Precious little. Nothing of consequence, except that the baroness had a fondness for writing words and the feast of whatever it was on Friday. Prayed a lot, the baroness, probably had high demands, but as yet she hadn’t a clear image of her.
On the plus side, Serafina seemed to have made an ally of Doucette, although to be sure, the French were a taciturn lot, often prideful, difficult to fathom, impossible to please, overfond of their cuisine which Serafina found fussy, to say nothing of their morals. She sniffed at the thought of the likes of Sarah Bernhardt, that hussy of an actress flaunting her affair with that Belgian somebody or other, then remembered with a start her affair with Loffredo, although that was different.
Her mind floated for a time until she squirmed in the seat and continued conversing with herself. Yes, the housekeeper was a clean, well-ordered, resourceful servant, faithful to her mistress, mistrustful of most strangers, including Serafina herself.
She stood and looked at herself in the glass, patting her hair and twisting back a curl over her ear, then, changing her mind, searched in her reticule for a comb and readjusted the curl back to its original place. She must admit, they had a flair for style, the French, and wondered how Loffredo would like her hair, turning her head this way and that, concluding that while the style was smart, it accented the crook in her nose.
She sat and thought again about the housekeeper. Her competence didn’t surprise Serafina, but Doucette was, first and foremost arrogant, showy, and skeptical of everyone not French, especially Sicilians. At least this one seemed to have morals. Yes, the woman was deferential as befitted a servant, polite but circumspect, as hard to read as a smooth stone and certainly in love with her city. Well, that was not unusual; Doucette could not be blamed for that. On the contrary, it was to her credit. Curious, however, was the woman’s desire to return to her home when the news from France was not good, according to what Loffredo had told her. And even more surprising was Doucette’s monetary situation: her coffers must be full if she could afford accommodation in two cities. As Serafina sat there, her limbs grew heavy and her mind misted. She must have fallen asleep in her chair when she heard a knock.
Serafina & Rosa Discuss
When Serafina opened the door, she saw Rosa followed by a footman, both carrying a load of books.
“Look what I found!” the madam trumpeted. Her eyes sharpened as she looked at the top of Serafina’s desk, already full of journals. “All right, if there’s no room on the desk, put them on the chair. You’ll have to move,” she said, flapping an arm at Serafina.
“Where did you find them?” Serafina asked after the footman departed.
“Down by the sea, a lovely gazebo. I sat down and was taking in the scenery and such when I felt a bumping on the back of my leg. I looked around, found that one of the seats was ajar. I pushed it down, pried it open, and saw a huge container filled with books.”
“A wonder they weren’t fretted from the sea.”
“In a tin-lined container. Clever storage, I’ll have my carpenter make one for me.”
“But you don’t write in journals, do you?”
The madam frowned. “You know what I mean. There must be thousands of uses for it.”
Serafina stared at the pile of books. “The woman loved to write.”
“But so daft—who did she think would read it? Not me!”
“You don’t read, except for newspapers and ledgers.”
That’s not the point,” Rosa said. “It’s a waste, writing in journals for no one.”
“But lucky for us.”
“Us?”
“Us! I say, first we look in the other rooms she frequented. The baroness must have them stored there, too. It won’t take us long to search and gather them up. There are servants all over the house. We’ll ask for help.” Serafina looked at her watch pin. “After we meet with the cook, we’ll scour the sitting room and chapel—”
“Tell me, how are you going to read all of those books and find the poisoner by tomorrow night? I peeked at the baroness’s scribble, it’s a nightmare! Words everywhere, all around, in the margins, seeping into the gutters, bumping into one another. And ink of different colors—sometimes brown, or blue or black, even a purplish color that screams at the eyes. My head aches just thinking about it.” Rosa plunked herself into the overstuffed chair and took off her boots, wiggling her toes while Serafina began discussing her impressions of Doucette, including the woman’s history with the baroness. “Wealthy enough to afford taking two properties in France.”
Rosa considered this for some time but shook her head. “You’d be surprised at the wealth of some servants. Think of it, when do they have time to spend their coins?”
“And, it seems, she cannot wait to return.”
“Why wouldn’t she—her homeland,” Rosa said.
“But she was devoted to the baroness, and without her help, I would not have found the journals.”
Rosa seemed not to hear. “So she was with the baroness when her meals were served?”
Serafina nodded.
Rosa frowned. “And she’s earned enough to take two houses in France?”
“She didn’t say ‘houses,’ but she will take accommodation in Paris, another in the south or someplace outside of Paris because of the times.”
“What times?”
“Trouble in Paris these days. There’s talk of war, I know because Loffredo told me. He said Elena wrote to him, told him she’d taken a flat away from the violence.”
Rosa let the subject die, whispered “Two houses,” and ruminated.
“And after the baroness died, Doucette became the housekeeper. Does a good job, I’ll give her that, except she has no love for Adriana.”
“Why? Sweet child. Has the run of the place, though. She’ll be hard to tame when she’s older.” She paused. “What happened to the housekeeper who was here?” Rosa asked.
“She was vague about that, but said the former housekeeper now works in Prizzi.”
The two women were silent for a while.
Rosa bent to lace up her boots. Grunting, she said, “Lucre is involved. Lucre and peering eyes and payment.”
The Cook
Serafina and Rosa made their way through the oven room with its massive stone hearth and roasting pit, down several steps and through a grilled entryway lea
ding to the kitchen. They walked through a small foyer with a round table and chairs, a room for the servants’ visitors, Serafina assumed, the trim painted shiny white like the rest of the rooms below stairs, the walls newly washed in ochre and hung with prints and drawings of country kitchen scenes. They passed through the servants’ refectory and into the main room, a high-ceilinged cavernous space tiled from floor to ceiling and containing the kitchen hearth and spit and several ovens.
Copper utensils hung from hooks suspended over a main working table. In a small nook, strands of onion and garlic hung overhead, and beneath them in a corner stood a large barrel. Serafina stopped and plunged the dipper in to retrieve several olives, popping them into her mouth. Two scullery maids were busy polishing brass bowls, and the pot-boy was scouring the stoves. On a near wall stood a slate sink with running water, and at the workbench, another maid, with Renata’s supervision, added the finishing touches to a cassata while a fourth prepared a silver tray for afternoon collation.
When she saw Serafina, Renata stopped what she was doing, smiled, pointed to the corner where a white-haired woman sat. “The cook,” she mouthed and continued with her task.
The cook had close to fifty years, Serafina judged by her sunken eyes and drooping cheeks. Clothed in a pinstriped dress, long white apron and crisp cap, she sat at a chestnut desk, peering through her lorgnette at a piece of vellum. Her eyes were intelligent, her figure, slight; her dress and apron, starched, and she wrote something on linen paper with manicured hands, her pen dipping from time to time into a silver inkwell, her mouth twisting this way and that. After blotting the ink, she stood to welcome them, straightening her shoulders. “Umbrello told me that a detective would want to speak with me about the baroness’s death,” she said and offered a slight smile.
Death In Bagheria (A Serafina Florio Mystery) Page 9