A Dangerous Mourning (39 page)

Again Hester was racked with indecision. It would seem so

much kinder to suggest that no one else could be guilty, that it was only the aftermath of all the fear still lingering on, and in time it would melt away. Daily life would comfort, and this extraordinary tragedy would ease until it became only the grief one feels for any loss.

But then she thought of Percival in Newgate prison, counting the few days left to him until one morning there was no more time at all.

"Well if Percival is not guilty, who else could it have been?" She heard the words spoken aloud and instantly regretted her judgment. It was brutal. She never for an instant thought Beatrice would believe it was Rose, and none of the other servants had even entered the field of possibility. But it could not be taken back. AD she could do was wait for Beatrice's answer.

“I don't know.'' Beatrice measured each word.”I have lain in the dark each night, thinking this is my own house, where I came when I was married. I have been happy here, and wretched. I have borne five children here, and lost two, and now Octavia. I've watched them grow up, and themselves marry. IVe watched their happiness and their misery. It is all as familiar as bread and butter, or the sound of carriage wheels. And yet perhaps I know only the skin of it all, and the flesh beneath is as strange to me as Japan.''

She moved to the dressing table and began to take the pins from her hair and let it down in a shining stream like bright copper.

"The police came here and were full of sympathy and respectfully polite. Then they proved that no one could have broken in from outside, so whoever killed Octavia was one of us. For weeks they asked questions and forced us to find the answers—ugly answers, most of them, things about ourselves that were shabby, or selfish, or cowardly." She put the pins in a neat little pile in one of the cut glass trays and picked up the silver-backed brush.

“I had forgotten about Myles and that poor maid. That may seem incredible, but I had. I suppose I never thought about it much at the time, because Araminta didn't know." She pulled at her hair with the brush in long, hard strokes. "I am a coward, aren't I," she said very quietly. It was a statement, not a question. "I saw what I wanted to, and hid from the rest. And Cyprian, my beloved Cyprian—doing the same: never standing up to his father, just living in a dream world, gambling and idling his time instead of doing what he really wanted.'' She tugged even harder with the brush. "He's bored with Romola, you know. It used not to matter, but now he's suddenly realized how interesting companionship can be, and conversation that's real, where people say what they think instead of playing polite games. And of course it's far too late."

Without any forewarning Hester realized fully what she had woken in indulging her own vanity and pleasure in Cyprian's attention. She was only partly guilty, because she had not intended hurt, but it was enough. Neither had she thought, or cared, and she had sufficient intelligence that she could have.

"And poor Romola," Beatrice went on, still brushing fiercely. "She has not the slightest idea what is wrong. She has done precisely what she was taught to do, and it has ceased to work.''

"It may again," Hester said feebly, and did not believe it.

But Beatrice was not listening for inflections of a voice. Her own thoughts clamored too loudly.

"And the police have arrested Percival and gone away, leaving us to wonder what really happened." She began to brush with long, even strokes. “Why did they do that, Hester? Monk didn't believe it was Percival, I'm sure of that." She swiveled around on the dresser seat and looked at Hester, the brush still in her hand. "You spoke to him. Did you think he believed it was Percival?"

Hester let out her breath slowly. "No—no, I thought not."

Beatrice turned back to the mirror again and regarded her hair critically. "Then why did the police arrest him? It wasn't Monk, you know. Annie told me it was someone else, not even the young sergeant either. Was it simply expediency, do you suppose? The newspapers were making a terrible fuss about it and blaming the police for not solving it, so Cyprian told me. And Basil wrote to the Home Secretary, I know." Her voice sank lower. "I imagine their superiors demanded they produce some result very quickly, but I did not think Monk would give in. I thought he was such a strong man—" She did not add that Percival was expendable when a senior officer's career was threatened, but Hester knew she was thinking it; the anger in her mouth and the misery in her eyes were sufficient.

"And of course they would never accuse one of us, unless they had absolute proof. But I can't help wondering if Monk suspected one of us and simply could not find any mistake large enough, or tangible enough, to justify his action."

"Oh I don't think so," Hester said quickly, then wondered how on earth she would explain knowing such a thing. Beatrice was so very nearly right in her estimate of what had happened, Runcorn's expediency over Monk's judgment, the quarrels and the pressure.

“Don't you?'' Beatrice said bleakly, putting down the brush at last. "I am afraid I do. Sometimes I think I would give anything at all to know which one of us, just so I could stop suspecting the others. Then I shrink back in horror from it, like a hideous sight—a severed head in a bucketful of maggots—only worse.'' She swiveled around on the seat again and looked at Hester. "Someone in my own family murdered my daughter. You see, they all lied. Octavia wasn't as they said, and the idea of Percival taking such a liberty, or even imagining he could, is ridiculous."

She shrugged, her slender shoulders pulling at the silk of her gown.

"I know she drank a trifle too much sometimes—but nothing like as much as Fenella does. Now if it were Fenella that would make sense. She would encourage any man." Her face darkened. "Except she picks out those who are rich because she used to accept presents from them and then pawn the gifts for money to buy clothes and perfumes and things. Then she stopped bothering with the pretenses and simply took the money outright. Basil doesn't know, of course. He'd be horrified. He'd probably throw her out."

“Was that what Octavia discovered and told to Septimus?'' Hester said eagerly.”Perhaps that was what happened?'' Then she realized how insensitive such enthusiasm was. After all, Fenella was still one of the family, even if she was shallow and vicious, and now, after the trial, a public embarrassment. She composed her face into gravity again.

"No," Beatrice said flatly. "Octavia knew about it ages ago. So did Minta. We didn't tell Basil because we despised it but understood. It is surprising what one will do when one has no money. We devise little ways, and usually they are not attractive, sometimes not even honorable." She started to fiddle with a perfume bottle, pulling the stopper out. "We are such cowards at times. I wish I couldn't see that, but I can. But Fenella would not encourage a footman beyond silly flattery. She's vain and cruel, and terrified of growing old, but she is not a whore. At least—I mean, she does not take men simply because she enjoys it—" She gave a convulsive little shudder and jammed the perfume stopper in so hard she could not remove it again. She swore under her breath and pushed the bottle to the back of the dressing table.

"I used to think Minta didn't know about Myles having forced himself on the maid, but perhaps she did? And perhaps she knew that Myles was more than properly attracted to Oc-tavia. He is very vain too, you know? He imagines all women find him pleasing." She smiled with a downward curl of her mouth, a curiously expressive gesture. "Of course a great many do. He is handsome and charming. But Octavia didn't like him. He found that very hard to take. Perhaps he was determined to make her change her mind. Some men find force quite justifiable, you know?"

She looked at Hester, then shook her head. "No, of course you don't know—you are not married. Forgive me for being so coarse. I hope I have not offended you. I think it is all a matter of degree. And Myles and Tavie thought very differently about it."

She was silent for a moment, then pulled her gown closer around her and stood up.

"Hester—I am so afraid. One of my family may be guilty. And Monk has gone off and left us, and I shall probably never know. I don't know which is worse—not knowing, and imagining everything—or knowing, and never again being able to forget, but being helpless to do anything about it. And what if they know I know? Would they murder me? How can we live together day after day?''

Hester had no answer. There was no possible comfort to give, and she did not belittle the pain by trying to find something to say.

* * * * *

It was another three days before the servants' revenge really began to bite and Fenella was sufficiently aware of it to complain to Basil. Quite by chance Hester overheard much of the conversation. She had become as invisible as the rest of the

servants, and neither Basil nor Penella was aware of her through the arch of the conservatory from the withdrawing room. She had gone there because it was the nearest she could come to a walk alone outside. She was permitted to use the ladies' maids' sitting room, which she did to read, but there was always the chance of being joined by Mary or Gladys and having to make conversation, or explain her very intellectual choice of reading.

"Basil." Fenella swept in, bristling with anger. "I really must complain to you about the servants in this house. You seem to be quite unaware of it, but ever since the trial of that wretched footman, the standards have declined appallingly. This is three days in a row my morning tea has been almost cold. That fool of a maid has lost my best lace peignoir. My bedroom fee has been allowed to go out. And now the room is like a morgue. I don't know how I am supposed to dress in it. I should catch my death."

"Appropriate for a morgue," Basil said dryly.

"Don't be a fool," she snapped. "I do not find this an occasion for humor. I don't know why on earth you tolerate it. You never used to. You used to be the most exacting person I ever knew—worse even than Papa."

From where Hester was she could see only Fenella's back, but Basil's face was clearly visible. Now his expression changed and became pinched.

“My standards are as high as his ever were,'' he said coldly. "I don't know what you mean, Fenella. My tea was piping hot, my fire is blazing, and I have never missed anything in the laundry all the years I have lived here."

"And my toast was stale on my breakfast tray," she went on. "My bed linen has not been changed, and when I spoke to Mrs. Willis about it, all I got was a lot of limp excuses, and she barely even listened to what I said. You have not the command of the house you should have, Basil. I wouldn't tolerate it a moment. I know you aren't the man Papa was, but I didn't imagine you would go to pieces like this and allow everything around you to fall apart as well."

"If you don't care for it here, my dear," he said with vi-ciousness, "you may always find somewhere that suits you better, and ran it according to your own standards."

"That's just the sort of thing I would expect you to say,"

she retorted. "But you can hardly throw me out in the street now—too many people are looking at you, and what would they say? The fine Sir Basil, the rich Sir Basil"—her face was twisted with contempt—"die noble Sir Basil whom everyone respects, has thrown his widowed sister out of his home. I doubt it, my dear, I doubt it. You always wanted to live up to Papa, and then you wanted to exceed him. What people think of you matters more than anything else. I imagine that's why you hated poor Harry Haslett's father so much, even at school—he did with ease what you had to work so hard for. Well you've got it now—money, reputation, honors—you won't jeopardize it by putting me out. What would it look like?" She laughed abrasively. "What would people say? Just get your servants to do their duty.''

"Has it occurred to you, Fenella, that they are treating you like this because you betrayed their vulnerabilities in public from the witness stand—and brought it upon yourself?" His face was set in an expression of loathing and disgust, but mere was also a touch of pleasure in it, a satisfaction that he could hurt. "You made an exhibition of yourself, and servants don't forgive that."

She stiffened, and Hester could imagine the color rising up her cheeks.

"Are you going to speak to them or not? Or do they just do as they please in this house?"

"They do as they please, Fenella," he said very quietly. "And so does everyone else. No, I am not going to speak to them. It amuses me that they should take their revenge on you. As far as I am concerned, they are free to continue. Your tea will be cold, your breakfast burnt, your fire out and your linen lost as long as they like.''

She was too furious to speak. She let out a gasp of rage, swung on her heel and stormed out, head high, skirts rattling and swinging so wide they caught an ornament on the side table and sent it crashing.

Basil smiled with deep, hard, inward pleasure.

* * * * *

Monk had already found two small jobs since he advertised his services as a private inquiry agent prepared to undertake investigations outside police interest, or to continue with cases from which the police had withdrawn. One was a matter of property, and of very little reward other than that of a quickly satisfied customer and a few pounds to make sure of at least another week's lodging. The second, upon which he was currently engaged, was more involved and promised some variety and pursuit—and possibly the questioning of several people, the art for which his natural talents fitted him. It concerned a young woman who had married unfortunately and been cut off by her family, who now wished to find her again and heal the rift. He was prospering well, but after the outcome of the trial of Percival he was deeply depressed and angry. Not that he had for a moment expected anything different, but there was always a stubborn hope, even until the last, more particularly when he heard Oliver Rathbone was engaged. He had very mixed emotions about the man; there was a personal quality in him which Monk found intensely irritating, but he had no reservations in the admiration of his skill or the conviction of his dedication.