Ashworth Hall (34 page)

“No, I in’t frightened.” She managed to snatch her hand away at last. She sniffed fiercely and gulped.

He produced a handkerchief, quite a nice, clean white one, and gave it to her.

She took it only out of necessity, poking the cuttings into her pocket first. She really did have to blow her nose and wipe away the tears.

“Thank you,” she said grudgingly. She would not let Tellman, of all people, catch her out in bad manners.

“Do you know something, Gracie?” he persisted, grasping her again. “If you do, you’ve got to tell me!”

She glared at him and blew her nose a second time. It was infuriating not to be able to control tears. She hated having him see her weakness.

“You have to!” His voice rose, as if he were frightened himself. “Don’t be so stupid!”

“In’t stupid!” she burst out, pulling away from him. “You watch ’oo yer callin’ names! ’Ow dare yer—

“How can I protect you if you don’t tell me wot the danger is?” he said angrily, and suddenly she knew it really was fear in his voice, even in his face and the locked muscles of his body as he braced himself to hold on to her against her will. “Do you think they won’t blow you up too, or push you down stairs, or just wring your neck, if they think you know enough to get them hanged?” He was shaking now too.

She stopped abruptly, staring at him.

He blushed very faintly.

“I don’t know nuffink, I swear,” she said honestly. “If I did, I’d tell Mr. Pitt. Don’t yer know that? Now ’oo’s stupid?” She blew her nose for a last time and looked at the handkerchief. “I’ll wash it an’ give it yer back.”

“You don’t need to …” he said magnanimously, then blushed more deeply.

She took a deep breath and let it out shakily.

“I gotter go an’ do me work. If’n yer remember, I got extra jobs ter do, seen’ as the master’s valet in’t much use.” And with that she stuffed the handkerchief into her pocket and marched off, leaving him standing in the corridor looking after her.

10

E
MILY KNEW
that she had been unfair to both Charlotte and Pitt after the explosion. Part of her had realized it even as she was striking out, but she was so terrified and angry and overwhelmed with immediate relief that she had lost control of her emotions. Now, a day later, she knew she must apologize.

She went to look for Pitt first. There was a sense in which he would be the easier. It was he whom she had attacked. It was Charlotte, on his behalf, because he was vulnerable in that he had so far failed, who would find it harder to forgive. She was walking along the passage towards the stillroom and laundry rooms, where Dükes had said Pitt was, when she was waylaid by the kitchen maid, carrying an empty basket.

“I in’t goin’ in there, m’lady, if we’re ’ungry the rest o’ the week. I in’t goin’ in there if we starve, an’ that’s a fact.” She stood with her feet apart and one hand on her hip, fist clenched, almost as if she expected someone to try to carry her forcibly wherever it was.

“Where aren’t you going, Mae?” Emily asked reasonably. She was used to the vagueness of maids. It could almost certainly be sorted out with a little reason and a great deal of firmness.

“Ter fetch the meat,” Mae answered resolutely. “I absolutely in’t.” She stared at Emily, and her eyes did not waver, which was a bad sign. Servants did not defy their employers like that if they wanted to keep their places.

“It’s your job,” Emily pointed out. “If Cook sent you. Did she?”

“I don’t care if God hisself sent me, I in’t going!” Mae stood her ground without blinking.

This was not the time to be having to dismiss a kitchen maid, especially a good one. And Mae had been good until now. What on earth had got into the girl? Perhaps there was some point in trying reason.

“Why not? You always have before.”

“In’t bin corpses o’ dead men in the ice’ouse afore,” Mae answered in a husky voice. “Men as was murdered an’ don’t lie easy. Dead wot went afore their time an’ wants vengeance.”

Emily had forgotten the bodies were there.

“No,” she said as calmly as she could. “Of course not. Anyway, you don’t have the keys. I expect Superintendent Pitt has them. I’ll go and fetch the meat myself.”

“You can’t do that!” Mae was horrified.

“Well, somebody has to,” Emily replied. “I didn’t kill anyone, so I’m not afraid of dead bodies. I must offer my guests food. Go back to the kitchen and tell Mrs. Williams I’ll bring the meat.”

Mae stood motionless.

“Go on,” Emily ordered her.

Mae was white-faced.

“Yer can’t carry meat, m’lady.” She took a huge gulp of air. “It in’t fittin’. I’ll come an’ carry it, if yer swear yer’ll come in wi’ me? I’ll be all right if yer come wi’ me.”

“Thank you,” Emily said gravely. “That is very brave of you, Mae. We’ll get the keys from Mr. Pitt and go together.”

“Yes, m’lady.”

They found Pitt five minutes later, returning from speaking with Padraig’s valet and going to look for Kezia.

“Thomas,” Emily said quickly. She could not apologize for her earlier behavior in front of the kitchen maid. She smiled at him as meekly as she could and saw the surprise in his eyes. “Thomas, we have run out of meat in the kitchen and need to fetch some from the icehouse. I believe you have the keys, since …” She let the sentence hang unfinished. “Would you please come with us? Mae is nervous to go alone, and I promised to stay beside her.”

Pitt looked at her steadily for a moment without answering, then slowly he smiled back. “Of course. I’ll take you there now.”

“Thank you, Thomas,” she said softly. She did not need to say more. He knew that was an apology.

Finding Charlotte proved more difficult, and when she did, knowing what to say was even harder. Charlotte was obviously still angry and upset. She had been up to London, without telling anyone why, and returned so late everyone else had already been in bed. Normally, of course, at a country house weekend like this they would remain up enjoying themselves, possibly until two or three in the morning. But there was nothing usual about this weekend. No one wished to be in general company any longer than was obligatory for the most basic good manners.

Now they were standing in the first open space in the conservatory between the potted palms and the orchid which Fergal had broken, although they did not know it. Emily had been passing in the hall when she had glanced across and seen Charlotte, and gone in. Now she did not know how to begin.

“Good morning,” Charlotte said a trifle stiffly.

“What do you mean ‘Good morning’?” Emily responded. “We saw each other at breakfast.”

“What else would you like me to say?” Charlotte asked, raising her eyebrows. “It doesn’t seem the time for light conversation, and I’m not going to discuss the case with you. We will only end up quarreling again. If you don’t know what I think of your treatment of Thomas, then I’ll tell you.” It was a threat; it was implicit in every angle of her body and line of her face.

Emily’s heart sank. Could Charlotte not understand how terrified she was for Jack, not only for his life—which must be obvious to anyone—but that he would fail the challenge of making some kind of success of this conference and his career would be over before it began? They had asked too much of him far too soon. It was grossly unfair. Pitt was not the only one faced with failure, and no one was threatening his life. She needed Charlotte’s help and companionship, her support, not her anger. But if it had to be begged for, it was of no use. Suddenly she felt more in sympathy with Kezia Moynihan than she would have thought possible.

“No, thank you,” she said stiffly. This was not the apology she had intended. “You have already made it quite plain in your manner.” Nothing was going the way she had planned.

They stood in stiff silence facing each other, neither sure what to say next, temper and pride dictating one thing, deeper emotion another.

Fifteen feet away, on the farther side of a dense, tangled vine with yellow trumpet flowers, one of the outside doors of the conservatory opened. Emily turned instantly, but she could not see anyone through the foliage, although their footsteps were plain.

“You’re being unreasonable!” Fergal Moynihan’s voice came heatedly.

The door closed with a sharp snap.

“Because I won’t agree with you?” Iona’s voice retorted, equally hard and angry.

“Because you won’t be realistic,” he answered, lowering his tone a little. “We both have to make accommodations.”

“What ‘accommodations,’ as you put it, are you making?” she demanded. “You won’t listen to me about the core and the soul of it. You just say they are mysteries, folklore. You laugh at the most sacred things of all.”

“I don’t laugh at them,” he protested.

“Yes, you do! You mock them. You pay lip service, because you don’t want to make me angry, but in your heart you don’t believe—”

Emily and Charlotte glanced at each other, eyes wide.

“Now you’re accusing me not for what I say or do but for what you imagine I believe?” Fergal was growing angry again. “It’s impossible to please you! You are just looking for a quarrel. Why can’t you be honest—”

“I am honest! It’s you who’s lying, not only to me but to yourself ….” Iona’s voice retaliated.

“I am not lying!” he shouted. “I’m telling you the truth! That’s the problem. You don’t want truth because it doesn’t fit with your myths and fairy stories and the superstitions you let govern your life—”

“You don’t understand faith!” she shouted back. “All you know is rules and how to condemn people. I should have known better ….” There was a sound of quick clattering footsteps and the door opening.

“Iona!” Fergal called out.

Silence.

“What?”

His footsteps followed hers to the door.

“I love you.”

“Do you?” she asked quietly.

“You know I do. I adore you.”

There was a long silence, again broken only by sighs and the rustle of fabric, and then eventually two lots of footsteps, and the outside door closing.

Emily looked at Charlotte.

“Not so smooth a path,” Charlotte said very quietly. “Kissing isn’t a resolution to an argument, not a real one.”

“Kissing isn’t an answer at all,” Emily agreed. “It’s something you do if you want to, not to resolve a problem. In a way it only clouds the issue. It can be very nice to kiss someone, but it can stop you thinking clearly. When you’ve finished and pull apart, what is left?”

“In their case, I don’t think they know yet.” Charlotte shook her head. “And it will be very sad if they pay too much for their chance together and then discover it isn’t what they really want and it won’t work. Then they’ll have nothing.”

“I don’t think they want to hear that,” Emily pointed out.

Charlotte smiled for the first time. “I’m sure they don’t. I wonder how Kezia will feel? I hope she can find it in herself not to be too satisfied.”

Emily was surprised. “Why? Do you like him? I thought you didn’t much.”

“I don’t. I think he’s cold and pompous. But I like her. And whatever he is, he’s the only brother she has, the only family. She’ll hurt herself horribly if she doesn’t offer him some gentleness, whatever he does with it”

“Charlotte …”

“What?”

Now it was not so hard. There would never be a better time. “I’m sorry I flew at Thomas yesterday. I know it was unfair. I’m terrified for Jack.” She might as well say it all now. “Not only in case they try again to kill him, but because they’ve given him an impossible task and they might blame him if he can’t succeed.”

Charlotte held out her hand. “I know you are. The whole situation is horrible. But don’t worry about Jack not solving the Irish Problem. In three hundred years nobody else ever has. They might hate him if he did!”

Emily almost laughed, but she might too easily cry if she let go her control right at that moment. Instead she took Charlotte’s hand and held it tightly, then put her arms around her and hugged her.

After helping get the meat out of the icehouse for Emily, Pitt changed his mind about seeing Kezia and instead went to find Tellman. They needed to start again from the beginning.

“Back to Greville?” Tellman said with raised eyebrows. “I’d like to go back to Denbigh, myself, but I don’t suppose they’ll let us do that. I hate conspiracies.”

“What do you like?” Pitt asked wryly. “A nice domestic murder where the people have known each other for years, perhaps all their lives, lived under the same roof in open love and secret hate? Or someone who has been abused beyond bearing and has finally retaliated the only way they knew how?”

They were walking outside through the stable yard entrance and across the gravel path to the long lawn. The grass was wet, but the feel and smell of it was clean, and the air was still and not unpleasantly cold.

“How about simple greed?” Tellman replied grudgingly. “Someone hit over the head and robbed, then I can work out who did it and be happy to take them in and see them hanged. Well, not happy, but satisfied.”

“I shall be extremely satisfied to see this one taken,” Pitt rejoined.

“And hanged?” Tellman asked, looking sideways at him. “That’s not like you.”

Pitt shoved his hands into his pockets. “I might make an exception for people who plot political overthrow and random violence,” he replied. “I take no joy in it, but I think I can grant the necessity.”

“Got to catch him first.” With a faint smile Tellman put his hands in his pockets also.

“Who killed Greville?” Pitt said.

“I think Doyle,” Tellman replied. “He had the best reason, personal as well as political … at least as much sense in the political reason as any of them. It’s all stupid to me.” He frowned. His boots were soaking in the heavy dew on the grass, but he was used to wet feet. “Besides, Doyle has a weight about him, a passion which could carry through his beliefs.”

“Moynihan’s daft enough,” Pitt said, mimicking Tellman’s tone of a few moments earlier.

Tellman shrugged. “His sister has more real nerve than he has.”

“I agree.” Pitt nodded as they walked under the shadow of the huge cedar, their feet falling softly on the bare earth. “And I don’t suppose he killed McGinley. That looks like an accident, the bomb meant for Mr. Radley.”