“Not especially, Mrs. Pickering.”
“Would you be more comfortable retiring from your duties? John already paid you, after all. It's no skin off of my back if he wasted his money.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mrs. Tilly look up from her work, though I couldn't make out her expression.
“I've already spoken to Mrs. Carlton about it,” I said carefully. “She insisted that I stay on.”
“Birdie's not the one in charge here, however much she likes to think she is. So I'm asking you: do you want to retire from your duties?”
I knew from her tone that she was baiting me, but I didn't react. I knew that she was tricking me and would still have me serving her lunch in half an hour's time, so whatever game she was trying to play, I had no qualms about playing along. I gave her a shrug.
“If you're giving me permission, then yes,” I said.
“Alright, then: I'll let you go. But do me a favor before you take your apron off … pour me a cup of tea.”
I gave her the slightest raise of my eyebrow, then dutifully stepped forward and lifted the kettle from the stove. Turning slightly, I looked for where she had put her mug, but the counter-tops were empty. She hadn't even taken the tea canister out.
“Is there a particular type you prefer –?” I began, but I never finished the sentence. Without warning, Marjorie reached forward and grabbed my free hand, slamming it down upon the burner. I let out a horrible, mangled cry and wrenched my arm from her grasp, but the excruciating sting of hot coils searing into my flesh remained. My knees buckled and I dropped to the floor, smacking my head against the corner of the counter as I went. My right hand released the kettle, sending it crashing down to the floor beside me. It sprayed me with boiling water, but I was unaware of anything except for the sickening feeling of the ruined flesh on my hand.
I let out a wail, clenching my hand to my stomach and pressing it to stop the pain, but to no avail.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph –” Mrs. Tilly said from somewhere behind me, followed by the sound of her rolling pin falling from the table and hitting the floor.
“There you go,” Marjorie tutted from somewhere above me, and the hem of her skirt brushed against my cheek as she stepped over me to get to the door, “no more work for you …”
I could hear the sound of her footsteps change as they stepped off of the kitchen tiles and onto the hardwood in the hallway, though somewhere in my mind I believed that she wouldn't leave me there to suffer. I rocked back and forth in my place, the pain rendering me senseless.
“Please,” I called over to Mrs. Tilly. “Please – cold water –”
The cook's outline was just a blur of black and white through my watering eyes. She stooped to retrieve her rolling pin, then brought it back up to the table.
“The sink's right there,” she said gruffly. “Get it yourself.”
I let out another hoarse cry, readying to beg her if only she would turn the faucet on for me, but then instead I rolled to my knees and pushed myself to my feet. With my hand still clutched to my stomach, I staggered blindly to the Pantry and ran out the servants' door, falling down the steps and onto the path. I pressed my hand into the snow, letting out a wailing moan as the cold hit my hand. My vision was marred by spots of blackness that grew and grew until I couldn't see, but I stayed in my place, gritting my teeth so I wouldn't shout.
“No, no, no – no, no, no –” I repeated over and over again, wishing that the words would numb the wound faster than the snow. “No –”
I pressed my face into the ground, forcing myself not to lose consciousness. I couldn't tell if it was the pain or the blow to the head that was threatening me to pass out, but I knew that I couldn't allow it. A concussion would render me confused – or worse, cause memory loss. Stay awake, stay awake, I repeated over and over in my head, though the pain was so intense that it would have been easier to blackout. Instead I swore under my breath: cursing Marjorie, cursing the household, cursing John. I cursed until I went numb from cold, and only then did I lift my head. The snow was stained red with blood. I pulled my fingers from beneath the white: they were an unnatural shade of gray, not unlike the color of John's skin when I had discovered him, and whatever pain I had experienced was gone: there was no feeling in it anymore.
“Mmm. Mmmm.”
The sound came from my throat, but I didn't know what word I had been trying to say. I staggered to my feet, my legs wobbling so much that they could barely hold me, and my stiff cheeks wouldn't allow me to move my face. I clutched my left hand to me as I stumbled back up the steps to go inside. It felt as though it had been turned to metal.
Mrs. Tilly wasn't in the kitchen. The scattered remains of lunch dishes were piled by the sink, though it was difficult to believe that an entire meal had passed while I had been outside. I knocked into them on my way to the door. I couldn't tell if it was dark already or if my vision had been impaired, and I couldn't think clearly enough to care about the answer. With every ounce of concentration I could muster, I forced myself to remember how many steps it was to the staircase in the Foyer, then led myself upstairs to the third floor.
“Alexandra?”
I didn't quite register Lennox's voice; I barely remembered walking from the stairs to my room.
“Alexandra – what's happened to you?”
I felt his hands on my face before I had even noticed he was next to me. His skin was hot in comparison to mine, and it was only then that my body seemed to realize how piercingly cold I was. I shivered violently.
“Here – here,” he said quickly, ripping the blanket from my bed and wrapping it around me before returning his hands to my face. “What happened to you?”
I slumped up against him, wishing that I could get warm again. My frigid hand lay like a stone at my side.
“What happened to you?” he repeated. As my eyes began to close, he gave me a firm shake to keep me awake. “Alexandra – what's happened?”
“My – hand.”
He grabbed for my wrists, lifting my right hand and then my left.
“Jesus – what in the world …?”
I was partially aware of him laying me down in the bed, and sometime later he held my arm in his lap as he wrapped my hand. Blankets were piled on top of me, though I couldn't seem to stop shivering. His voice spoke to me from somewhere, but I couldn't make out the words. Every time I tried to respond, gurgling sounds came out instead.
“Let's see this,” he said, the words finally intelligible to my ears. Something wet touched my forehead; he must have been dabbing at the cut with a cloth. The sting of alcohol against the open sore jolted me. I blinked up at the ceiling for several minutes, still halfway in a daze and uncertain of what had happened. As I reached to snap the rubber band on my left wrist and found a bandage covering it, though, it all came back to me.
“Don't try to move,” came Lennox's voice. He was standing by the side of my bed, his image stronger now that my vision had cleared. “You hit your head, and your hand has a very severe burn.”
I groggily pushed the blankets off of me. My skin was covered in a sheen of sweat.
“I figured that out, oddly enough,” I muttered.
“Don't try to move,” he repeated, putting a hand on my shoulder to ease me back down. “You're probably in a fog. You struck your head. You might have a concussion.”
“I don't.”
I pushed his hand off of me. He gave me a stern look.
“You can't refuse to have a concussion: it doesn't work that way.”
“It's just a bump.” I pushed myself up to a sitting position with my right arm. My head swayed and a wave of nausea came over me. “What time is it?”
He gave me another look that suggested he didn't care for my stubbornness, but then seemed to decide there was no point in fighting it.
“Quarter to six,” he said. “I asked Rachel to tell Mrs. Tilly not to expect you for dinner.”
“Don't bother. She knows.” I cou
ld tell he wanted to know what had happened, a part of me hesitated to tell him. “What did you tell Rachel?”
“Just that you were unwell. She saw me getting things out of the medicine cupboard … She didn't seem surprised. She said you'd missed lunch.”
“You didn't eat?”
He ought to have: with neither of us there, there was no telling what we had missed of the family's conversation.
“I wasn't hungry,” he said shortly. “If I had known that you were hurt, I would have come looking for you.”
“It wouldn't have mattered,” I said, my voice dull and void of emotion. “Marjorie decided to go through on her promise. She put my hand on the burner.”
He didn't respond for a long moment. His expression was unreadable.
“She … did what?” he finally managed, and there was venom in his voice that I hadn't heard before.
“She wanted to teach me a lesson.”
I was surprised at how indifferent I sounded; it was as though Lennox's anger was enough for the both of us.
“A lesson for what? Did you – you didn't accuse her of killing John, did you?”
I shook my head.
“Does she expect you had something to do with it, then?” he asked.
I surveyed my bandaged hand. He had wrapped each finger individually except for my thumb, which was bound with my palm. It was throbbing now, though I preferred the feeling to the odd sensation of not feeling it at all.
“The odd part is, I don't think she does. She just wanted to hurt me.” I looked back up at him. “I'm getting more and more convinced that it wasn't her husband who beat their children to death, though.”
Lennox didn't seem to care for my nonchalance. His face was set in a grimace.
“That does it,” he said, moving to go around the bed. “This has gone on long enough –”
“Don't,” I said, calling him back from the door. “It won't help anything to confront her. It's not like she'll suddenly have remorse.”
“Not her, but the others –”
“The others won't do anything: you know that. They'll berate her or congratulate her, depending on who it is, and then they'll argue for a while and forget all about it. It won't do anything in the long run, and it certainly won't help us figure out who killed John.”
Lennox stared at me.
“I'm not just going to stand here and pretend that it didn't happen –” he began, but I didn't let him finish. His upset was rendering me calm in return, and I was finally able to think clearly.
“Dr. Lennox, you were the one who told me not to draw attention to ourselves, so let's not. Let her think that she's won. It'll make it easier to do what we have to do to solve this.”
“I'm not remotely concerned with solving anything right now. She needs to be –”
“She needs to think that she's won,” I repeated. “Now, the family will be having dinner soon, and since I don't think I'm going to be carrying anything, you need to go down and keep up with what they're saying to one another. Then after they're all asleep, we'll go to the Augustus Suite and examine John.”
“We're not still doing that –”
“Yes, we are. Either we'll do it together, or I'll go down and poke around his body and relay every detail to you in what will probably be a very unfortunate waste of time for the both of us.” I stood up, grabbing at the nightstand as I swayed in place. “We need to find out who killed John. And if Marjorie's willing to burn my hand because I didn't clean the kitchen, then I don't want to think about what she'd do if she suspected either of us is the killer – so let's figure it out before she gets any reason to, alright?”
He gave me a begrudging stare, though I took his silence as acquiescence.
“Now,” I said, “if you don't mind, I need some privacy.”
He didn't move. By the look in his eyes, he seemed to think that perhaps I was going to trick him and go down to confront Marjorie myself despite everything I had just said to him.
“I think I should stay. You don't look very steady.”
“I'm not, but I need to change my clothes, and I imagine we'd both be a bit uncomfortable if I did it with you standing here.”
He opened his mouth and closed it.
“Ah, of course,” he said, a hint of embarrassment in his voice. “Well, in that case …”
He retreated to the nursery and shut the door. I struggled with the zipper on the back of my dress, my bandaged hand throbbing with every move I made. I tossed the uniform to the ground and put on my spare one, then made my way down the hall to wash my face one-handed. A part of me was seething, but the other part was largely numb. I had underestimated Marjorie despite everything I had heard and seen of her, and a trickle of trepidation was coming over me that I had underestimated the rest of the family, as well. Perhaps I ought to have heeded Lennox's advice to keep my head down days ago.
But unfortunately, I thought as I lay back on the bed to rest, I didn't think I was capable of doing anything of the sort – and I feared that by the end of this adventure, or lack thereof, I would have far more troubles than a bandaged head and hand.
Chapter 10
I waited for Lennox to return from dinner, anxiously tapping my feet as I surmised what the family was discussing. He wouldn't be able to repeat it word for word, and I feared that he might forget a crucial piece of information that I would have been able to use.
He came back just after nine, far earlier than I expected him.
“That was quick,” I said as he came into the room and shut the door.
“Well, after they opened the seventh bottle of wine, the conversation turned to more of an exchange of slurs, so …” He came to the end of my bed and hesitated. For a moment it looked as though he was considering sitting down, but then thought better of it. “They're all in their rooms now. I waited for them to go up.”
“They're probably not asleep yet, though.”
“Judging from how much they staggered going up the stairs, I doubt it will take long – and they'll undoubtedly be there until morning.”
“What did they talk about?”
He sighed and put his hands in his pockets, looking as though he wished he had taken notes.
“Well, Edie was very upset,” he said. “She didn't want to stay for the meal, nor did she want to be alone, so Rachel left with her midway through cocktails in the Parlor. Then, of course, her other sisters had a good time mocking her for being frightened. She's convinced she's seen another ghost.”
I clicked my teeth together, recalling how she had run from her room. It didn't make sense that she had thought I was a ghost: I was wearing my maid's uniform, just as always, after all. Perhaps she hadn't expected me to be in there cleaning, or perhaps it had been the sight of Cassandra's form peeking out into the hallway that had caused her fright.
I glanced up at Lennox. He was wearing a troubled frown, not unlike the one he adopted when he spoke of the late Mrs. Marlowe, and it struck me that he would have such empathy for Edie's faint-hearted nature.
“Do you believe she saw a ghost, Dr. Lennox?” I asked skeptically.
He hesitated.
“I believe she thinks she did,” he said. “Edie's experienced a lot of death in her lifetime. She's understandably … haunted.” He waited to see if I would question him further. When I didn't, he went on. “Anyhow, the rest of them had a fairly normal dinner. There were the usual tiffs: Bernadette commenting on Marjorie's drinking, Bill getting exasperated with Cassandra's antics, Amalia accusing everyone of murdering John …”
“How was Marjorie?”
Lennox shifted his jaw.
“She was in a very good mood,” he said darkly. “I think she was … rather pleased with herself. She made a few comments about you taking ill. She advised the others that you were probably faking it.”
“Wonderful.”
“It might work out for the best. Now you have a legitimate excuse for not working anymore.”
“I'm not going to
stop working.”
“You can't possibly –”
“Dr. Lennox, we've discussed this. There's no way I can figure out which of them is the killer by sitting up here doing nothing.”
“I doubt you'll fair much better serving them their meals. If someone admits that they did it, I'll certainly tell you.”
“But no one's going to admit to it. They might, however, let slip something that gives us reasonable doubt. Besides, it's not just the meals I'm interested in. Working means that I have access to their rooms.”
“If there was a bloodied shirt hiding in their laundry, I think you would have found it by now.”
“Or I might just not know what to look for yet.” I stood up and held my hand out for the key. “So let's do this. I'll go unlock the door.”
“No, I'll go unlock the door.”
“If you go and someone sees you, you won't have a good excuse about what you're doing. If I do it, I'll say I'm feeling much better and was checking to see if anyone needs their rooms turned down for the evening.”
He hesitated, not seeming to like the idea of me going down alone.
“This is no time to be chivalrous, Dr. Lennox. I have a bandaged hand and a slight headache: it's not the end of the world.”
He murmured in halfhearted agreement and handed me the key, and I slipped down the stairs, my slippers padding my footsteps into silence. The hallway was quiet and the doors to the bedrooms were tightly shut. I circled around the floor, glanced over the banister to the Foyer below, then, seeing that all was clear, went to the Augustus Suite and unlocked the door. It swung open, pulled by the breeze drifting through the room. I hurried back to the staircase and waved Lennox down. Just as we reached the Augustus Suite together, though, a horrible crash! came from one of the rooms down the hall.
We darted inside and shut the door, so hasty in our efforts not to be seen and anxious to know what the sound was that we had pressed ourselves to the door, momentarily unaware that we were all but pinned together. Lennox jumped back from me, removing his hands from my shoulders, and cleared his throat.
The Marlowe Murders Page 19