Ashworth Hall (20 page)

Justine accepted her dismissal gracefully, leaving Pitt alone with Eudora.

Eudora leaned even closer to the fire, as if in spite of the now almost oppressive heat in the room, she were still cold. The yellow light from the flames lit her cheeks and the gentle angle of her chin, and cast the shadows of her lashes on her skin.

Pitt felt brutal, but he had no choice. He forced himself to remember Greville’s dead face under the water, the indignity of his body, Doll’s screaming; and Denbigh lying dead in a London alley.

“Was Kathleen O’Brien a thief, Mrs. Greville?” he asked.

“No, I don’t believe so,” she whispered.

“Was she dismissed for refusing to accommodate your husband’s wishes regarding her?”

“That … may have been part of the reason. She was … difficult.” She would not be drawn further. He could see it in the set of her shoulders. For all its softness under the draping of her dark dress, her body was rigid. There was much in her form, her auburn coloring, which was like Charlotte, except that she was so much more vulnerable.

“Was your brother, Mr. Doyle, aware of your husband’s tastes and his indulgences?”

“I never told him,” she said instantly. It was an answer of pride. It was also evasive. “One does not discuss such things. It would be embarrassing … and disloyal.” There was criticism in her voice, and a huskiness, as if she were close to tears.

He thought of all she had endured in the last few days, the tensions of the pressure upon Greville to succeed in an almost impossible task, the fear for his life which she knew was real. Then Piers had arrived and announced his betrothal, obviously without having even told his family he was deeply in love, let alone consulting them about his plans. The day after that, her husband had been murdered. Now Pitt was forcing her to realize that much of the entire life she had known was false, marred by ugliness and betrayal of her heart, her home, her innermost values. Her pain must be all but intolerable.

And yet she sat by the fire, blank-faced, and remained polite. A lesser woman would have wept, screamed, abused him for his cruelty. He hated being the instrument of her suffering. But it was far from impossible that Padraig Doyle had killed Greville. Greville’s treatment of Eudora would free Doyle from the constraints of family loyalties which might otherwise have held his hand. He was Irish, he was Catholic, he was a Nationalist. Greville would trust him above any other man in the house. They might easily have quarreled, but Greville would never have expected violence from him. He would have sat in the bath quite unafraid until the very last moment, when it was too late to cry out.

“Has your brother stayed with you at Oakfield House?”

“No, not for years.” She did not look at him.

“In London?”

“Sometimes. A great many people stayed with us in London. My husband has … had a very important position.”

“Do you go to Ireland from time to time?”

She hesitated.

He waited. The coals settled in the fire.

“Yes. Ireland was my home. I go back occasionally.”

There was no point in pressing her. All the questions in his mind were there between them. She understood, and would not answer.

“I’m sorry to have had to speak to you of it,” he said after a few moments. “I wish I could simply have burned the letters.”

“I understand,” she replied. “At least I think I do.” She looked up at him. “Mr. Pitt? Did Piers read these letters?”

“Yes … but he was not there when I spoke to the servants. He knew nothing about Kathleen O’Brien, or that there were other women in London.”

“Will you please tell him only what he has to know? Ainsley was his father ….”

“Of course. I have no desire to damage Mr. Greville’s reputation in anyone’s eyes, least of all his family’s ….”

She smiled at him. “I know. I do not envy you your task, Mr. Pitt. It must be very distressing at times.”

“Because it causes others pain,” he said gently. “People who are too much hurt already.”

She looked at him a moment longer, then turned back to the fire.

He excused himself and went out and back downstairs to see if Jack was yet free. He was not yet ready to find Charlotte. She was so at home here, so very competent, moving easily in this great house with its high ceilings, exquisite furniture and discreet servants going about their business. He could remember too clearly being one of the servants himself ever to take them for granted. At heart he would always be an outsider.

6

E
MILY WAS EXHAUSTED,
and yet she found it hard to sleep except fitfully. The day after Pitt had gone to Oakfield House, she was awake even before the most junior housemaid, although instead of getting up, she lay in the dark going over all the disasters of the weekend in her mind and dreading the day to come.

When she did get up she had a steady dull headache, and her first cup of tea did not help, nor did the hot water her maid brought her to wash in, but the aroma of the oil of lavender she offered was very pleasant. Emily dressed carefully in a teal-blue gown and admired her reflection in the glass, although it gave her no pleasure. She looked perfect. Her figure was completely returned after the birth of her daughter Evangeline, at present safely with her nurse and her elder half brother, Edward, in their London house. The morning dress was the latest fashion, and the color became her, as did any green or blue. Her fair hair, with its soft, natural curl which Charlotte used to envy so much, was elaborately dressed and set exactly as intended. No maid ever had difficulty with it.

But all these things were trivial. Even the wretched thought of having to cajole and persuade the staff to do their duties, calming upset nerves, soothing fears, assuring them there was no lunatic in the house, no one else was going to be killed, was merely the duty of a good hostess. What underlay everything else was her fear for Jack. Cornwallis had asked him, and he had stepped into Greville’s position as chairman as if he had no conception of the danger in which he was placing himself. If there were people who cared so intensely about preventing the conference’s success that they would murder Greville to achieve that, then they would almost certainly be prepared to murder Jack also.

And Pitt was doing nothing to protect him, except leave that wretched Tellman at Jack’s elbow … as if that were any use! He did not even know who or what he was protecting him from. They should have canceled the conference. It was the only sane thing to do. Bring in more police and question everybody until the answer was clear. Cornwallis himself should have come.

She could feel the panic rising inside her. She saw pictures in her imagination of Jack lying dead, his face white, his eyes closed, and the tears prickled her eyes, her stomach knotted and suddenly she felt sick. There was no point in any false comfort of saying it could not happen. Of course it could. It had already happened once. Eudora Greville was a widow. She was alone, she had lost the man she had loved. Presumably, she had loved him? Not that that had anything to do with it. Emily loved Jack. This morning, sitting at her dressing table with a brooch in her hand, fingers shaking, she realized how very much.

And she was furious with him for accepting the chairmanship, even though she would have done the same herself, could she ever be in such a position. She had never run away from anything she wanted in her life. She would have despised him if he had. But he would at least have been safe.

And the other fear, which she refused to look at, was that he would fail, not just because the task was probably impossible, but because he was not the diplomat Ainsley Greville had been. He had not the experience, the polish, the knowledge of Irish affairs, simply not the skill.

All that hovered on the edge of her mind, and she would not allow it to the center. She would not permit herself to put it into words. It was disloyal, and it was untrue … possibly. She loved Jack for his charm, for his gentleness with her, his ability to laugh, to be funny and brave, to see the beautiful in things and enjoy it, and because he loved her. She did not need him to be clever, to become famous or earn a great deal of money. She already had money, inherited from George.

Perhaps Jack needed to do these things for himself, or at least to try, to find his own measure, succeed or fail. She would rather have protected him … from both dangers. Her son, Edward, was George’s son, not Jack’s, and there were times when she thought of him with the same fierce desire to shield him from harm, even from the necessary pains of growing. She had never considered herself maternal. The idea was ridiculous. Nobody was less so. She was practical, ambitious, witty, quick to learn, she could adapt to almost any situation, and she never told herself comfortable lies. She was a good-natured realist.

And yet that morning she quarreled with Jack. It was the last thing she had intended to do. He came into her dressing room almost the moment Gwen left. He stood behind her, meeting her eyes in the glass and smiling. He bent and kissed the top of her head without disarranging her hair.

She swiveled around on the seat, regarding him very seriously.

“You will be careful, won’t you?” she urged. “Keep Tellman with you. I know he’s a misery, but just endure it for the present.” She rose to her feet, unconsciously putting up her hands to straighten his lapels, although they were perfect, and dust off an imaginary fleck of cotton.

“Stop fussing, Emily,” he said quietly. “Nobody is going to attack me in public. I doubt anybody is going to attack me at all.”

“Why not? Don’t you think you can do whatever Ainsley Greville began? You were there all the time. I’m sure you can do as much as he could have.” Then she changed her mind, realizing what she had implied. “Although perhaps all you should really try to accomplish is keeping everyone from giving up. It could always be continued later, in London ….”

“When they can appoint a new chairman,” he said with a smile, but she saw the hurt in his eyes, self-mocking but very real.

“When they can take better care of your safety,” she corrected him, but she knew he did not believe her. What could she say to undo it? How could she make him believe that she had confidence in him, whatever anyone else thought? If she tried too hard she would only make it worse. Why did he have to want something so difficult? Perhaps it was more than he had the skill to achieve?

How could she persuade him she believed something she was not sure of herself? And all the time the sick fear for him crawled around inside her, gnawing away at everything else, stopping her from thinking clearly. She tried to tell herself it was foolish. But it was not foolish. The body of Ainsley Greville, lying in the icehouse, was horrible testimony of that!

“Thomas will take as good care of our safety as can be done,” he said after a moment’s silence. “The house is full of people. Don’t worry. Just see if you can keep Kezia and Iona from quarreling, and look after poor Eudora.”

“Of course,” she said as if it were a simple task. He did not even appreciate that the real struggle would be to keep the servants from quarreling, having hysterics, or walking out altogether.

“Charlotte will help you,” he added.

“Of course,” she agreed with an inward shudder. Charlotte would mean well, but her idea of tact could be a disaster. She would have to make sure she did not allow Charlotte anywhere near the kitchen. Charlotte’s confronting the cook would be the ultimate domestic catastrophe.

As it happened, breakfast was tense but passed off really quite well. All the men were concentrating on returning to the discussions and were finished and leaving when the women arrived, so Kezia and Fergal were able to avoid each other. Fergal and Iona cast burning looks as they passed in the doorway, but neither spoke. Eudora was still in her room. Piers and Justine were subdued, but Justine at least conducted herself with composure and sustained an agreeable conversation about trivia which drew everyone in, to Emily’s relief.

The household management was a different matter. The butler was offended because the visiting valets were not in his control, which he felt they should have been. They dined separately, and it was greatly inconvenient. The laundry maids were overworked because one of them was in bed with the vapors and there was far too much to do. Miss Moynihan’s maid gave herself airs and had managed to quarrel with Mrs. McGinley’s maid, with the result that an entire bucketful of soap was spilled all over the laundry room floor.

The scullery maid had a fit of the giggles and was perfectly useless, not that she was much good at the best of times. Eudora’s maid was so distressed she forgot what she was doing half the time, and poor Gracie was forever picking up after her—when she wasn’t watching Hennessey, or listening to him, or wondering when he was corning back again.

Tellman was getting more and more ill-tempered, and Dilkes was fed up with him. He seemed to be neither use nor ornament, although presumably his being a policeman explained that and why Pitt endured him.

But it was Mrs. Williams, the cook, who finally broke Emily’s patience.

“It isn’t my job to be doin’ plain cookin’,” she said indignantly. “I’m a professed cook, not a general cook. I do specialities. You’ll still be wantin’ that Delilah’s trifle tonight, and baked goose, no doubt? Them kitchen maids is supposed to fetch after me, not me be runnin’ behind them as they get a fit o’ cryin’, or is hidin’ from goblins in the cupboard under the stairs. And I’m not havin’ any butler tellin’ me how to discipline girls in my own kitchen, an’ that’s a fact, Mrs. Radley!”

“Who’s in the cupboard under the stairs?” Emily demanded.

“Georgina. An’ that’s no name for a kitchen maid! I told her if she don’t come out this minute, I’ll send in worse after her than goblins! I’ll come in after ’er meself. An’ she’ll rue the day! I’m not doin’ vegetables and rice puddings an’ custards. I got venison to do, an’ apple pies, an’ turbot, an’ Lord knows what else. You put a sore trial on a decent person, Mrs. Radley, an’ that’s a fact.”

Emily was obliged to bite her tongue. She would dearly like to have fired Mrs. Williams on the spot, with considerable sarcasm, but she could not afford to. Nor could she afford to lose face. It would never be forgotten, and would open the door to all kinds of future troubles.

“There is a sore trial upon all of us, Mrs. Williams,” Emily replied, forcing her expression into one of friendliness she did not feel. “We are all frightened and worried. My greatest concern is that the household should emerge from this awful weekend with honor, so that afterwards people will remember all that was good. The rest will not be associated with us, but with Irish politics.”

“Well …” Mrs. Wilhams said, snorting through her nose, “there is that, I suppose. Although I’m sure I don’t know what’s good about it.”

“The food is more than good, it is excellent,” Emily replied with something a shade less than the truth. “This is the sort of disaster which sorts the great cook from the merely good. Test under fire, Mrs. Williams. Many people can do well when everything is fine for them and there is no invention called for, no courage or extraordinary discipline.”

“Well!” Mrs. Williams straightened up noticeably. “I daresay as you have a point, Mrs. Radley. We’ll not let you down. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I daren’t stay here talking any longer, unless there was something else? I got to be about my work if I’m to do that daft Georgina’s as well.”

“Yes, of course, Mrs. Williams. Thank you.”

On returning upstairs she went into the morning room, where there was a blazing fire, and found Justine talking to Kezia and Iona. The atmosphere was brittle but still within the bounds of civility. But then Kezia had kept her greatest anger for her brother, and Charlotte had explained why. Emily thought that in similar circumstances she might have felt the same.

“I was thinking of going for a walk,” Iona said dubiously, staring out of the tall windows at the gray sky. “But it looks very cold.”

“An excellent idea,” Justine agreed, rising to her feet. “It will be invigorating, and we shall return well in time for luncheon.”

“Luncheon!” Iona looked surprised and swiveled to glance at the mantel clock, which said twenty-eight minutes to eleven. “We could walk halfway to London in that time.”

Justine smiled. “Not against that wind, and not in skirts.”

“Oh, have you worn the bloomers?” Kezia asked with interest. “They look very practical, if a little immodest. I should love to try them.”

“Do you ride a bicycle?” Emily said quickly. Bicycling was surely a safe subject. It was appalling having to think so hard before even the slightest remark. “I have seen several different sorts. It must be a marvelous sensation.” She was spinning out every comment to make it last. It was pathetic. She hoped fervently that Iona would go for a walk and leave Kezia behind. She must not be seen to try too hard to bring it about. She had never in her life before spent a weekend where almost everyone was so acutely uncomfortable.