by Blythe Baker
Soon, the guests came through, each giving Mrs. Montford words of encouragement and love, sharing their support for her. Some invited her to stay with them for a while. I heard yet others promise to visit so she would not have to remain in such a home all alone. As soon as they would turn away, however, I could see the relief in their eyes, the joy in their hearts that it was not they who were grieving, and they had not lost someone so dear. They could offer lovely words but would easily step back into their own lives soon enough.
I could not blame them, of course. They would all have their own times of sorrow. I should not wish it upon them. I simply wished that my lady did not have to be the one enduring it now.
Mrs. Townson and Mr. Jerome entered the room.
“I am sorry,” Mrs. Townson said to my mistress, though the tone of her voice remained flat. “I will miss him, as well. Dearly.”
I chanced a look, and thought I saw tears shining in Mrs. Townson’s eyes. But as I blinked, focusing further upon her, I decided it must have been nothing more than a trick of the light.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Montford said. “I understand how difficult it can be to lose a brother. I know that he loved you.”
Mrs. Townson nodded. “And I him. The world shall not be the same without him.”
“No, it certainly will not,” Mrs. Montford said.
With that, Mrs. Townson started toward the door, sweeping right past me, back out to the foyer.
Mr. Jerome stepped up and gave Mrs. Montford a small bow.
“My condolences,” he said. “Truly. I am wounded at his loss.”
I gazed at Mrs. Montford out of the corner of my eye, and I saw her bottom lip tremble ever so slightly. “Thank you, Jerome,” she said. “You were quite special to him.”
I could not resist. I looked at Jerome and saw a tight smile appear on his face, which a moment later morphed into more of a grimace. I did not know what to make of the expression. Was it grief? Or simple difficulty keeping in place the mask of regret that his role required him to wear?
He turned on his heel and started toward the door.
Another guest approached, one of Mrs. Montford’s teatime friends.
Warm air brushed against my cheek. I turned my head ever so slightly, only to find Mr. Jerome leaning down toward me as he passed by.
“Meet me in the drawing room at eleven.”
The instruction came as the faintest of whispers. If it were not for the brush of wind against my skin from his passing by me, I might have convinced myself that I had invented it.
9
“You cannot be serious.”
I looked up from my place at the end of my bed where I sat cross-legged, finally confessing to Selina what Mr. Jerome had whispered to me in the drawing room as he passed by me. I had been thinking on it all throughout the rest of the funeral, when we had gone to the churchyard, and when we had come home to have dinner with a select few guests, most of whom were staying at the manor for the time being.
I picked at the edge of a patch sewn into the quilt spread across the top of my bed, the chartreuse fabric having faded from years of wear and washing.
Selina glared at me from her usual seat in the windowsill. It was barely wide enough to sit upon, but she insisted upon it every time she came into my room. She said she preferred my view of the sky, as it was unobstructed by the trees from the forest on the eastern side of the manor.
“Anna, how could you possibly think this is wise?” she asked. “You yourself said it is entirely possible that he could be the one who killed the Colonel!”
She was not wrong. I did not meet her gaze. “Yes, but how can I know unless I—”
“Have you lost all your sense?” Selina asked. “What makes you think that you must meet him in search of information? And how can you be certain that he will not try to harm you?”
“Why would he do that?” I said.
“Oh, come now, Anna. Think! You and he discussed who might have killed the Colonel. And if he senses that you suspect he and his mother are somehow responsible, then why would he allow you to walk away?” she asked.
“He might wish to tell me something about the Colonel’s death,” I said.
“I would expect so, yes,” Selina said. “Perhaps he wishes to confess that he did it.” She crossed her arms and turned her attention out of the darkened window. “Given everything that has gone on, I do not think it would be wise for you to meet him alone. Or safe.”
“I suppose you are right,” I said. “Though I would be lying if I did not admit that my curiosity is getting the better of me.”
“Which is why I will be accompanying you,” she said.
I blinked up at her. “You…what?”
“I will not come in with you, of course,” she said. “I will stay outside of the room, ready to intervene if he tries anything…unsavory.”
Relief washed through me. “Thank you, Selina,” I said.
At ten minutes to eleven, Selina and I started down the stairs, our arms laden with linens. She suggested we carry them in messy bundles, so as to make them seem as if they were dirty. There would be fewer questions of transferring linens needing to be cleaned at such a late hour than bringing fresh ones to a guest.
My heart thundered in my ears, and I hid my face behind the laundry whenever another staff member passed by. Every sound made my heart tumble, and I very nearly fell down the stairs as the slam of a door closing down the hall made me jump.
We reached the drawing room just as the grandfather clock at the end of the hall began to chime. The downstairs appeared deserted, which surprised me, given how late the day had seemed to stretch.
As we had agreed, Selina gave me a subtle nod before turning away and walking down the hall toward the foyer, as if to seem busy. No one would notice a maid, of course. Even Mrs. Carlisle, who would question why we were up so late, would likely not be too suspicious, given the neediness of some of the guests, as well as the tidying that I was certain other maids were still doing.
I stepped through the open doorway into the dimly lit room.
The fireplace along the wall held warm coals, but the fire had not been looked after since the early evening. Moonlight danced in through the window, glittering on the surface of the lake in the distance.
A lone lamp sat upon a small round table near the back of the room, and it was in the chair beside it that I found Mr. Jerome seated, an open book lying on his lap.
He looked up as soon as I entered. The flicker of motion at the edge of his vision must have caught his attention, for I knew I had not made a sound upon stepping within. A mark of a good servant was the ability to come and go silently.
“I hoped you would come,” he said. He closed his book and set it upon the table before rising to his feet. “I worried that I might not have been loud enough when I asked you to meet me.”
“I heard you,” I said.
The dim light made it hard to read the expression on his face.
He is being cautious, too.
Why? What did he have to risk in being here?
Suddenly, I did not feel as vulnerable as Selina had convinced me I might be.
“You are probably wondering, even now, why I asked you to come here,” he said.
“Yes,” I answered simply. In this instance, it would probably be best for me to say as little as possible.
“I realize that my behavior has very likely come across as bizarre,” he said. “A man like me, speaking so frankly with a servant in someone else’s household.”
I said nothing, simply standing there, watching him carefully. My expression was blank, a true reflection of my thoughts as I waited for him to reach his point. I still did not know if I could trust him.
“Given our conversation earlier, I suppose you may very well be the only one who thinks the same as I do about my uncle’s death. My mother…she will not hear the word murder. And I cannot speak with my aunt, as she refuses to discuss the matter. I cannot blame her, of course, as
it is a delicate situation. I think she believes that she cannot trust me.”
I could sense the point coming, but he was slow to get there. Did he want me to guess it?
“Mr. Jerome,” I said, uncertain whether I could stand any further anticipation. Spurred on by the knowledge that Selina stood just out in the hall, overhearing every word spoken between us, I pushed forward. “Why are you determined to include me in these matters?”
The question may have been the most reasonable I could have asked, and yet, he regarded me as if I had grown another limb.
“As you yourself have pointed out, I am a humble servant. One of Mrs. Montford’s many,” I said. “Would it not be better for you to raise this topic with someone in a position to be of help?”
His head tilted.
“I thought that was what I was doing,” he said. “Who is in a better position to see and hear all that goes on in a household than a maid? And not just any maid, either. You were studying Mr. Newton earlier. You seem to notice things. Regardless of whether he is the guilty one, you were curious. That is why you were watching him so closely, yes?”
I nodded. “That is true. But you told me that he was not responsible.”
“Indeed,” he said. “But it made me question…why do you want to know the truth? Why are you seeking answers that no one else seems to want to find?”
I had started to believe that I had the control in the situation, and yet, he had turned it around with his questions. This was no longer his investigation that I had stumbled upon. He now asked me why I wanted to learn the truth.
“I…” I said, and hesitated.
Why did I want to learn the truth?
I had not thought it through, at least not clearly. The whole business with the Colonel’s death had happened so quickly, and it seemed to be unraveling before my very eyes.
“Mrs. Montford does not seem convinced he died of natural causes,” I said.
He shook his head, and it silenced me. “I am asking for your thoughts,” he said. “Why do you want answers?”
I hesitated once again.
In truth, there was no reason for me to be involved. In fact, it would be a great deal easier for me to step back and ignore whatever would unfold. It might be somewhat difficult, given my daily proximity to Mrs. Montford, but I could disappear into the background as I usually did and wait for the storm to pass.
However…
The morning the Colonel died, I had awoken with that terrible knot in my stomach. It was as if I had known something would happen that day. Something dreadful.
When the Colonel fell to the ground, the guests around gasping and crying out in fear, it was as if a small voice at the back of my mind had whispered, I told you so.
I had not been particularly close to the Colonel, nor had I been altogether fond of him on certain occasions, especially when he would take out his frustrations on the staff when dinner parties were not up to his high standards.
That did not, and could not, negate the many times he had shown me generosity. For some reason, and I always assumed it was because I tended so diligently to his wife, he had always asked after me, and at Christmas, ensured that I received some small wrapped treats tied with silk ribbons. I was not certain if anyone else received these gifts, as they always appeared on my pillow on Christmas Eve, but I kept a silence that had not been asked of me. When some of the maids would speak out against our master, these incidents prompted me to correct them.
The idea that anyone I knew might have had his life taken from him…it was unthinkable.
“Well?” Mr. Jerome asked.
“I do not know, precisely,” I said. “It is appalling, what happened to the master, but more than that…”
“Yes?” he asked.
The color in my cheeks gave me away.
“You do not wish to say,” he said. “Why is that?”
“I had…a terrible feeling when I woke the morning the Colonel died,” I said. “Not just any sort of feeling. A sense of dread, almost as if it were a premonition.” I hated saying it, as I did not entirely believe in such things.
Mr. Jerome’s eyes flashed. Did he think I was inventing the story? “I did not take you for one to put any stock in such…intangible things.”
That gave me pause. How could he make such an assessment of me so soon?
“Yet, that is not the whole story, is it?” he asked. “Though I suppose I do not need you to tell me. Perhaps I pry too much.”
I could almost hear Selina agreeing, saying that he had indeed pried too much.
“You will not believe me if I tell you.”
It was not what I had intended to say. It had come out a great deal harsher than I had expected.
He smirked. “I think you would be surprised what I am inclined to believe. We are talking of murder, aren’t we? That is hard enough to believe in itself.”
He certainly had a point.
“You have piqued my curiosity,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me?”
The answer rolled around in my mind, tingeing my tongue with its acrid tang, like bile coating the back of my mouth.
“It was the same sort of feeling I had the day that my father was killed.”
My words hung in the air.
The smirk slowly faded from his face.
“Once again, that is not at all what I had expected you to say. Not in the least.”
Perhaps it was due to the late hour, or the dimness of the room, but I felt a chill pass over me, as if someone were watching from the shadows.
I was six years old when the fateful event had occurred. Selina was the only other person who knew my father had been killed. My dreams were often filled with fragments and pieces of the memories of that day. Mrs. Montford and the Colonel knew, simply because it was the basis of my hire when I had come into their home.
“I expected rumors, gossip that only maids are privy to,” Mr. Jerome said. “Yet it seems that you have quite the keen intuition, as well.”
I could not tell if he meant the compliment or if it was only empty flattery. At once, my nerves got the better of me. “I would not go that far,” I said. “I did not wake with a true premonition. It was nothing more than a coincidence.”
“Perhaps,” Mr. Jerome said. “However, you still woke with such a feeling, and the Colonel died the same day.”
“Anything bad at all could have happened, and I might have blamed my anxiousness that morning,” I said.
“Quite true. And yet, you were the one who connected it to the Colonel’s death, not me,” he said.
His words settled over me, and I realized he was right. It had been my first thought. I had spent the day looking for a reason for the unease, as it would not abate. It was not until the Colonel died that it departed, only to be replaced with great sorrow and fear.
“It seems that I must ask your forgiveness,” he said. “I should never have pried. I simply hoped that you would, as I said, be able to share rumors. I did not wish to remind you of unhappy memories.”
“Thank you, Mr. Townson, but there is nothing that you need to apologize for. I did not need to share with you. I spoke of my own volition.”
He watched me cautiously, as if he did not entirely believe what I said.
It was strange, but sharing my true thoughts with him had left me feeling as though a weight had been lifted from me. Perhaps I could trust him and perhaps I couldn’t, but just speaking my feelings aloud was a relief.
With that thought, however, I realized that he now knew more than Selina did.
I made a note in my mind to apologize to her later.
“Well, if you will give me just a few more moments of your time, I believe I may have learned something of note. Something that might further our theory that the Colonel’s death was no accident.”
My heart skipped. So he did have more information. “Is this why you wished to meet me?”
He nodded. “In part, yes,” he said. “I also wanted to know if I could trust
you not to betray the digging I have decided to do into my uncle’s death. You have proven that you are, in fact, trustworthy. That…and you seem to be the only one, apart from my aunt, who is taking the possibility of his murder seriously.”
“Truly?” I asked. “No one else seems to believe it possible?”
He shook his head. “Nothing more than a mere joke,” he said.
I shifted uncomfortably on my feet. “I am willing to assist in some small way, if I can. What have you learned?”
“As you know, my uncle had a rather large family. Many siblings and even more cousins. One such cousin, Mr. Barnet, has a large gambling debt that the Colonel had some tie to.”
My curiosity piqued, I looked over at him, my eyes narrowing. “You seem to know a great deal about the Colonel, yet in the last four years, I have not seen you in attendance at any of my master’s social gatherings.”
“Yes, well, I have my mother to thank for that. I had to resort to sending letters back and forth to him and my aunt,” he said.
He met my gaze easily. Is he telling the truth?
“Mr. Barnet was here, at the funeral today,” Mr. Jerome continued.
“Wait, did you say Mr. Barnet?” I asked, the name finally registering like a spark catching on a dry log.
“Yes,” he said. “Do you know him?”
“I do,” I said. “He would come to the estate every…third Thursday, I believe.”
I thought hard, my mind searching through the memories I had from the funeral.
“He was here, of course,” I said. “He seemed…jolly, enough, despite being at a funeral.”
“Yes, I thought the same,” Mr. Jerome said.
“You said he had gambling debts?” I asked. “How was the Colonel involved?”
“The two men would bet on the races,” Mr. Jerome said. “And Mr. Barnet would often ask the Colonel for money. Eventually, he refused. And so, Mr. Barnet acquired a great deal of debt that the Colonel would not help him out from underneath.”
“And you suspect that would be cause for murder?” I asked.
“When was the last time that Mr. Barnet came to the estate for cards?” Mr. Jerome asked.