In the Brief Eternal Silence

by Rebecca Melvin

  Ashton met those hellish blue eyes for an instance before saying, “Family is like one body, milord, and when the left hand slashes the right, the whole of it will bleed together.”

  Andrew forwent the tea, poured straight whiskey into his cup. “I need to ask you one thing, Ashton, that I am not certain I heard correctly.”

  “As you wish, milord.”

  “Am I correct in gathering that St. James is not my cousin but my half brother?”

  Ashton hesitated for only a brief second before saying, “Indeed, sir, it is how I understood it. You heard a deal of the conversation that preceded—what it preceded?”

  “Yes. I am not proud to say that I arrived home and was determined to gain a few answers from my mother as well, never dreaming that grandmother had any clue. I heard voices when I arrived at her bedchamber door, and I admit that I hesitated intentionally for grandmother had managed to tap her quite completely it would seem.” And he gave a shudder. “God forgive me, I did not try to open the door until I was given to understand that grandmother had hit her with that bloody cane and only then discovered that grandmother had her chair against the door. I take it that you were not even aware of my trying to gain entrance in the midst of—of all of that.”

  “Forgive me, milord, but it quite escaped my notice.”

  “Well, we shall try to forget all that we have seen this night, shall we? As soon as we have broken a window, which shall not be easy as the glass must come into the room and not go out, and we must dispose of a bit of jewelry while we are at it.” He put his swollen and bruised face into his hands for a brief, weary second. “I swear I have done nothing but attend to dead bodies since I dared to become involved in my brother's business. If he has done this for twenty-three years, I do not know how he has survived.”

  “But it is all at an end now, milord,” Ashton reminded him, and he too tipped straight whiskey into his cup as he spoke. “If, indeed, you can let it rest as finished and will not blame him for this tragedy.”

  “Blame him! No, I can not blame him. I resent that he could not let it lie, but I wager I would have done the same. And in the end, he gave me to understand that he would allow me to get her out safely before he could kill her. I just came too late, damn it. I just came too late. For both of them. And if this is killing me, I dare say it will kill him as well. If he is not already dead. Jesus.” With those words he at last wept and Ashton let himself out, having a clear idea of what needed done and leaving Andrew alone with his grieving.

  But Andrew did not remain that way long, for he knew he had not the luxury. It would not be as simple as he and Ashton had discussed. His mother had been packing and everything must be unpacked and restowed before dawn so that no one would think anything but that she had been sleeping as on any other night. The fact that the murder had been so silent, just a single squeak from her before she died, he could only thank God. And also for the fact that every employee in the place was closer to death than to life when they slept.

  And with that thought he realized that most every one of them would now take tenure, and as he had every intention of living in his father's (and oh, God, he could not even call him his father any longer!) house, he saw no reason why this house should not be closed after the funerals and remain closed until St. James decided what was to be done with it.

  And the fact that the man that lay struggling for his life in Chestershire, may even now be dead because of him, was his brother? To that, Andrew only poured another drink and downed it with desperation. Then he rose and went above stairs to help Ashton with their morbid mission.

  Andrew may have thought it was luck or mere chance that he found Effington awake and below stairs when he went to St. James' establishment just before dawn a few hours later, but it was neither, for Effington, as had become his habit, was prowling around on the half expectation that his employer would arrive and be in need of his services.

  So when Earl Larrimer rode up, Effington heard his mount's hooves and peeked through the front window just in time to see that man going around the corner to the mew and the stables in the back.

  Effington pulled his robe tighter about his sleeping gown and hurried to the back of the house and out the servant's entrance in his slippers. And he was glad that he did, for it was obvious that Earl Larrimer was not only very tired, and somewhat battered, but also half-drunk. And when he dismounted, it appeared that he had some debilitating injury to his leg.

  Effington hurried forward, the cold morning air biting his thin cheeks and the point of his night cap jouncing, and propped a shoulder beneath the earl's arm just as that man reeled as his less than stable leg took the shock of his weight.

  “Here, milord!” Effington said. “I will see to your horse if you will only allow me to get you into the house. And do not curse so loudly, unless you wish for the house to awake.”

  Andrew's blue eyes focused on him. “Effington, by God! Well, Lord knows I can use your help.” He allowed Effington to help him into the house and on into St. James' study where there was a sofa and Effington settled him upon it.

  “I will be back directly,” Effington advised, but Andrew forestalled him.

  “Be a good man and pour me a drink before you go, Effington, for I need one badly.”

  “I dare say you have had more than one already!” Effington said.

  “I have, and I am in dire need of another. As you shall be, I wager, after I tell you about this night's work.”

  And Effington, already certain that Earl Larrimer's appearance was not caused by anything good, only sighed and poured the drink, handed it to him, and then went on to see to what needed done. As usual.

  It was later in the morning when the shocking and horrible news of the Dowager Duchess dying in the night, along with her daughter-in-law, one from an attack of the heart, one from foul murder, spread from the servants of one household to the other. Effington was dressed and had his bags packed. He placed them in the wardrobe of his bedchamber on the third floor of the house, and then went out from his room as though just joining the household for the day.

  Applegate met him as soon as he reached the second floor. “Effington!” the butler said. “You will not believe the most startling, horrendous and tragic news that has just come to us.” And the distraught butler imparted the dreadful tidings and Effington imitated shock, leaning hard against the newel post. Then, as the butler trailed off and Effington made choking back grief noises in his throat, he suddenly flung his head up. “Heavens, Applegate! And Earl Larrimer himself arrived here just last night!”

  “No!” Applegate said. “He did not!”

  “Indeed, he did!” Effington insisted. “For he himself brought tidings of the duke being in a rather bad riding accident, of which Earl Larrimer was also involved. Why he even now lies above in his lordship's chamber as I thought it was easier to put him there than to disturb any of the maids, for it was late, and he was so done in that he was nearly dropping with exhaustion and I could not see him going any further in that condition, for he had ridden clear from Chestershire, you see.”

  And so Andrew's whereabouts were carefully established. Not that they thought there to be any trouble upon that head, but if it were suspected that Andrew had been in his grandmother's house at the time of the incident, some bright soul was sure to wonder how it was that his grandmother had heard his mother's screams when Andrew, who was much younger and had much better hearing, had not. All the servants' quarters were either on the third or fourth floors, and as they were all nearly as old as their employer had been, there should be no cause for wonderment as to why they had not heard.

  Applegate's face paled at this additional news. “Milord has been in an accident also?” he asked with dreadful disbelief. “Is he to be all right?”

  And although Effington understood from Andrew that St. James' condition was in grave question indeed, he knew his fellow employees well enough to know that if he were to state this on top of the news they had just received
, that it would send the entire household into a panic. Although St. James' grandmother's servants were ready for tenure at any rate, St. James' servants, for the most part, were not. So Effington by-passed this question and rammed home the more important issue (at this moment, anyway) of Andrew's whereabouts. “Do you not see, Applegate?” he told that man in impatient and dire tones. “Earl Larrimer does not even yet know of his own mother and grandmother's deaths!”

  And Applegate paled and stammered, “Oh, my! Oh, yes!” He gathered himself, added in a whisper, “One of us shall have to tell him!”

  Effington drew himself up as a man would who is resigned to doing a very difficult duty. “I shall do it, Applegate. Never fear.”

  Applegate said, “You are a good man, Effington. A very good man!” He wiped a tear from his eye and turned to go below. Effington turned to go to milord's bedchamber.

  And Applegate reported in the kitchens of what was even then going on above stairs, that Earl Larrimer had arrived last night and was there even now, and that Effington was about the heartbreaking task of breaking the news to that poor lad, who had just had a riding accident with milord duke on the yesterday also.

  There was a good deal of exclaiming, and they all pondered and sympathized with how the handsome and likable Earl must even now be reacting, and by the time the rest of the staff of St. James' home were alerted to this circumstance, and a groom volunteered to ride over and alert the Duchess's home to this circumstance, the story was that milord Larrimer was very distraught indeed with the tidings.

  And no one dwelled upon the fact that none of them had witnessed this distraught state, for of course, it was understood that was how he would be.

  Effington, back in St. James' chambers where Andrew had managed to sleep a few fretful hours, was the only one to observe Andrew's dark head raise from where he was sitting in only his

  shorts on the side of his cousin's/brother's bed, and ask in a flat voice, “It is done then?”

  Effington nodded and said, “It is done.”

  Ashton's job was more difficult. He was normally the first to arise so other than changing his clothes he only went to the kitchens to wait, and as was his habit, he made a cup of tea and sat at the servant's table and read the newspaper that had been delivered. He had done this every morning for thirty-five years, always folding it neatly again so that the Dowager would have no inkling that someone had been reading her paper, although he suspected she knew perfectly well that he did.

  But this morning, he opened it and stared blankly at it and counted the minutes until what appeared to be a normal morning would become quite macabre. He glanced at the clock, saw he still had some time, and the only concession he made to his nervousness was to go and fetch some whiskey in his tea. By the time anyone would perhaps notice it upon his breath, the household would be aroar and no one would think it odd that he had needed a steadying dose.

  And it did steady him, and he even began to read, a little, and when the first scream came from upstairs, by Lady Lydia's lady's maid, he calculated, he had distracted himself to the point that it came as a shock and he jumped.

  He downed the last of his spiked tea, rinsed his cup, and turned to head up stairs and begin the ordeal of looking shocked, horrified, and mystified, but at the same time observant enough to point out a broken window and jewelry missing.

  By the time he reached the hallway, the entire second floor seemed to be crowded with every servant employed, from the kitchen potscrubber to Andrew's valet with a lot of maids in between, and every one of them was screaming and crying and clutching their old chests.

  Ashton strode in amongst them, for he was at the very top of the hierarchy and it was his place to take charge and make semblance. And so he observed with a pale face the scene of the double tragedy, and then he directed with a shaky but authoritive voice for Scotland Yard to be sent for and an undertaker to be sent for, and for someone to be sent to Chestershire, for to his knowledge Earl Larrimer and Milord Duke were still sojourning there.

  Then he closed the door on the scene and the distressed crowd dispersed and he went down to fortify himself with another furtive drink before the men from Scotland Yard should arrive.

  They of course went over the scene. But there was nothing very surprising about any of it. There was a broken window with the glass inside on the floor as it should be when someone has broken it from outside. There was the small but heavy coal shovel taken from the fireplace and lying quite bloody beside Lady Lydia. There was the poor, old and fragile Dowager where she must have come to her daughter-in-law's aid, but of course, for her to have made that journey in her weakened condition, it was no wonder that Lady Lydia was already dead and the villain gone by the time she arrived. And no wonder she suffered a fatal attack of the heart and died at the sight that met her eyes.

  Yes, it was all very sad. But it accounted for why Lady Lydia's rings were gone from her very fingers and the Dowager still retained hers. For if she had come in while the villain was still there, then surely he would have taken her jewelry also. So he must have been quite gone. The men took an inventory of the room with the help of a trembling but brave Ashton and a trembling and not-so-brave lady's maid, and discovered more jewelry missing.

  They said they should like to talk to Earl Larrimer. Ashton told them that he was out of town but would of course be informed and if they would need to speak to him when he arrived?

  But no. If they should discover anything else, they would speak to him then, but as it all seemed a very clear, if tragic, case of a burglary gone awry, they could not see disturbing him when he would be busy with making arrangements for his mother's interment. “And the Duke?” they asked. “Will he be making arrangements for the Dowager or will the Earl be doing that also?”

  And Ashton replied that he imagined the Duke would take care of his grandmother, but that he would probably arrive when the Earl did, as they were both in Chestershire where milord duke's new fiancé resided.

  So Scotland Yard's men were satisfied that no one who was to inherit was connected with the crime scene and they wished all their cases were opened and closed so neatly. Of course, it was a shame about the jewels, for they would probably never be found, for they very seldom were in cases such as these.

  They took their leave just as the undertaker and his assistants were coming in and the undertaker asked if there would be some delay. But the Scotland Yard men told him that, no, they were quite finished.

  The undertaker began the task of readying the bodies and setting up viewing in the drawing room for both ladies (although he suggested Lady Lydia's coffin remain closed) in their caskets half buried in great troughs of ice. There would be black curtaining to hide this circumstance, for no one, especially the peerage, wished to be reminded that their loved ones, without the ice, would very quickly become odorous. Even as it was, by the time both ladies were taken to their crypts the room would need fumigated.

  Although the servants of both households had the 'true' story, it was still agreed upon that they owed the old Dowager and both her grandsons their loyalty, and by the time the newspaper men came knocking on doors, the story had been changed slightly.

  Lady Lydia had indeed died by the hand of a murderous burglar, but she died of a single stab wound (for bludgeoning was just too disturbing). The Dowager, that poor, frail lady, died of an attack upon hearing the news, for that seemed more decent than stating she had been found lying in a pool of Lady Lydia's blood.

  And as Scotland Yard's standard response when dealing with a crime that involved anyone in the peerage, let alone a Dowager Duchess, was a firm 'no comment', there was no one to dispute these facts. When the story was made ready for print in the next day's newspaper, it was this still tragic but much sanitized version that was reported. It reminded no one of a day twenty-three years before when the then Duke of St. James and his wife's deaths had been screamed on the front page with every horrible detail put down for their perusal.

  Indeed,
only a few of the older members of society even recalled it, and they only said that it seemed as though the Larrimer family had certainly had its share of tragedies.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  There are times, Dante was later to reflect, when not being in complete control of one's senses, or thoughts or coherent reasoning was a blessing. For acceptance arrived at in small degrees is easier to swallow than trying to bolt a great bit of it back at once.

  And so it was for him as he lay in the bed at Miss Murdock's home.

  He was on intimate terms with his injuries, for the pain from each had its own character and its own torment and his minutes of awareness were punctuated by many hours of embattled sleep.

  Lizzie was there every time he wakened, whether it was light or whether it was dark. Sometimes she was sitting, sometimes she was pacing the floor, and sometimes she was dozing, and sometimes she was attempting to feed him or to give him something to drink. But it was the small things that seeped into his consciousness and niggled at him while he slept.

  Effington arrived at some point and St. James wakened to that man sponge bathing him and shaving him and otherwise treating him like a baby. He became aware that the noise of work on the house had stopped. And he came to realize that he no longer heard servants scurrying about during the day, or grooms calling to each other from outside. He had not heard his grandmother's cane for two days. He had not heard Andrew's voice for as long. Bertie and Ryan were still in residence, but he only caught their voices on occasion, and their hushed tones unsettled him.

  He watched a fine layer of dust collect on furniture and become more pronounced. A spider in its web in the corner failed to appear to repair its web and the web tore in more places and the dust settled on it also, and in short time it turned into a cobweb.