Ashworth Hall (37 page)

Privately she thought that sometimes they were made by men without consciences, but she did not say so.

“Thank you for coming,” he said warmly. “I didn’t like quarreling with you.” He held out his hand.

She put hers out and his fingers closed over it, strong and gentle. He pulled her towards him and she yielded willingly. Very softly he kissed her lips, then let her go. She sat back feeling a peace and happiness settle inside her. The argument was not over. She still thought he was wrong in some of his ideas, but the feeling was right, and other things would be dealt with later. Caring was what mattered. She smiled back at him, letting her fingers slip from his and sitting back on her chair. She put her hand on the table to steady herself and glanced sideways as she accidentally moved the blue paper and the candles.

“Don’t touch that!” Finn started forward, his face tight and hard, his body stiff.

She froze, staring at him. She had never seen him like this before, such anger in him, and something else, uglier and more alien. She had touched two of the candles. They had felt different from each other. One was waxy, like any candle she was used to. The other was vaguely sticky, not the same.

“Leave it alone,” he said between his teeth.

“Sorry,” she said shakily. “I didn’t mean no ’arm.”

“No … no, of course not.” He seemed to be struggling for words, driven by a consurning emotion that he fought against—and lost. “It … you just … you shouldn’t …”

A prickle of horror ran through her. Maybe it was not a candle, as she had assumed. She had seen no wick in it. Could that be what dynamite was like?

She looked at his face and knew with a sick misery that she was right. Were it just a candle, her seeing it, touching it, would never have made them suddenly strangers.

She folded her arms, unconsciously hiding her hands and the fact that she was trembling.

He was still watching her. He must have seen the change in her face. Did he guess the fearful thought that beat in her mind?

“Gracie?”

“Yes!” She had answered too quickly, she knew it the moment the word was out of her mouth. She saw it in his eyes. Finn had had the materials for the bomb which had exploded in the study and killed Lorcan McGinley, his own master. How could he be part of such a betrayal? Had he meant to kill him all the time, and not Mr. Radley at all?

She had stood up without realizing it.

“I gotta go,” she said, her voice almost choking her. She gulped and swallowed air. She scrambled towards the door and only remembered to stop and turn around to face him just as she touched the handle. She must explain herself, her flight. Anything but the truth. “If anyone come ’ere an’ finds me, we’ll both be in trouble,” she blurted. “I only wanted to say I were sorry. I shouldn’t ’a spoke.”

“Gracie …” He stood up too and moved towards her.

She forced herself to smile. It must have been sickly. She knew it was false, and he must know it too. But she had to get out … now … this minute. Her mind was in chaos. She could not believe it, it was too horrible. There must be another answer, but she could not stay there to ask him.

She pulled the door open, her hands shaking, and almost tripped over and fell, banging against the jamb as she went out.

“Gracie!” He came after her.

She fled without looking back, clattering down the steps to the main men’s landing, then down again to the corridor, and almost bumped into Doll.

“Sorry,” she gasped. “Didn’t mean ter tread on yer.”

“Gracie! You all right?” Doll asked anxiously. “You look awful.”

“Got an ’eadache,” Gracie said, putting her hand up as if in pain. She heard footsteps behind her. It must be Finn. But he would not come in here, not with Doll. “I’ll just go an’ get a … a bit o’ lavender oil, or summink. A cup o’ tea, p’raps.”

“I’ll get you one,” Doll offered immediately. “No wonder you’ve got a headache, with all that’s going on. Come with me, I’ll look after you.” She would not take a denial.

Gracie accepted, though she had no choice short of an argument, and her head was in too much fever of thought to master any reasoning. Obediently she followed Doll along to the pantry where the kettle was, and the small hob. She saw no one in the corridor. She sat down in the chair while Doll fussed over her.

What had Finn done? How had he gotten the dynamite? Had he made the bomb himself? Hadn’t Pitt proved he was not there? He would have thought of that, he thought of everything. And Finn could not have killed Mr. Greville. Mr. O’Day had been watching or listening to him all the time.

Doll was making tea. The kettle was singing.

She must think properly, she must have this straight in her mind. Her head was throbbing like a drum. Finn must be helping someone. It made most sense if it was Mr. Doyle. He was on the same side. Finn must be only pretending to be on Mr. McGinley’s side.

“Gracie?”

She did not hear Doll’s voice. There must be some other explanation. Finn was not the kind of person to want something so violent and so cruel. Someone far more wicked was using him, telling him these false stories about people like Neassa Doyle, Drystan O’Day, and getting him to do terrible things without understanding what the end of it would be.

“Gracie?”

She looked up. Doll was standing in front of her with a cup of tea in her hand, her face creased with worry.

“Thank you.” She took it gingerly. It was very hot and it smelled like daisies.

“It’s chamomile,” Doll said. “It’s good for headaches and feeling upset. You really do look poorly. Now, you better go and lie down for a while. I’ll look after Mrs. Pitt for you, if she needs anything, if you like?”

Gracie forced herself to smile. “It’s all right, thank yer, I’ll be good in a minute or two. It’s just … all this … all the ’ating people, gets yer down. Yer don’t know ’oo yer can trust or Oo’s secretly plannin’ summink Orrible.”

“I know.” Doll sat down on the other chair, a cup of tea in her hands. “I think maybe we shouldn’t trust anyone, ’cepting maybe your Mr. Pitt.”

Gracie nodded, but in her mind she made the decision not to tell Pitt yet what she thought she had seen in Finn’s room. Perhaps she was wrong. She did not really know anything about dynamite. Maybe she had only imagined the look on Finn’s face.

She sipped the tea slowly. It was too hot, but it was rather nice, and gradually she began to feel a little better.

But for the rest of the afternoon she could not get the fear out of her mind. Should she tell Pitt after all? Maybe he should be the one to decide if it was dynamite, or whether Finn knew what he was doing or was being used by someone else. After all, Finn had seemed as shocked as anyone by Mr. McGinley’s death. Gracie knew that. She had seen his face. Surely if he knew that the bomb in the study would go off, he would not have stood so close to the door that he was caught by the blast when it exploded?

It all made no sense.

She was in the laundry rinsing petticoats when she looked up and saw Finn in the doorway. There was no one else around just at the moment. Gwen had been and gone, the laundry maids were at tea. She had chosen the time on purpose, not wanting to have to talk to anyone. Now she ached for there to be someone else there, anyone at all.

“Gracie!” He took a step forward; his face was dark, his eyes troubled. “We have to talk about things ….”

“This isn’t the place,” she said quietly, gulping, realizing with a kind of sick misery that she was actually afraid of him. It was not just that she did not want to face the truth, or hear him try to explain with what might be lies, she was actually physically afraid. “Someone might come in.” She heard her voice, high-pitched, almost a squeak. “Them other girls is only ’avin’ tea. They’ll be back any second now.”

“No they won’t,” he said levelly, coming further towards her. “They only went five minutes ago, and they’ll take half an hour easy, longer if they don’t have much work waiting for them.” He glanced around and saw a few items of personal linen, a little repairing, no sheets, no towels. They had all been done earlier, and it was a windy day. Everything was blown nearly dry and brought in and hung on the rails. The room smelled of clean cotton.

“Yeah, they will,” she lied, holding on to the wet petticoat and wringing it as hard as she was able, as if she could somehow use it to protect herself.

He was coming closer. There was a curious expression in his face, as if he hated what he was doing but could find no way of avoiding it.

She backed away from the tub, still holding the petticoat in her hands.

“Gracie …” he said reasonably. “Stop …”

“It in’t the place,” she said again, still moving backwards. The petticoat was wrung hard. Maybe it would have been better wet?

“I only want to talk to you,” he said earnestly.

She edged around the wooden tubs towards the farther door, past the copper boilers, still warm.

He was still corning towards her.

She picked up the big wooden pole the laundry maids used to stir the sheets.

“Gracie!” He looked hurt, as if she had struck him already.

It was ridiculous! She should have pretended she had seen nothing and conducted herself with some dignity. What did she imagine? That he was going to strangle her there in the laundry room?

Yes, she did! Why not? Mr. Greville had been drowned in his own bath, and Mr. Radley would have been blown up sitting at his desk in his study if Mr. McGinley hadn’t been blown up first!

She threw the pole at him, then turned and fled, her feet clattering on the stone floor, her skirts flying, tangling around her legs, slowing her down. He must be behind her, chasing her. She could hear him, hear his feet, hear his voice calling out behind her. What would he do if he caught her? He was angry now, and hurt. She could hear that too.

She had never known she could run so fast. Her feet were sliding over the linoleum of the passageway. She barged around a corner, lurching against the wall, regained her balance with difficulty, arms flailing, and cannoned straight into someone. She let out a shriek of terror.

“Hey now! What’s the matter with you? Anyone’d think the devil himself was behind you!” It was a man’s voice, an Irish voice. He was holding on to her.

She looked up. Her heart almost stopped. It was Mr. Doyle. He had hold of her wrists and he
was
smiling.

She swung the wet petticoat hard and caught him across the side of the face, then kicked him as hard as she could on the shins.

He let go of her with a gasp of pain and astonishment.

She snatched her arms away and fled, charging through the green baize door into the hallway, leaving the door swinging on its hinges.

A footman looked at her in amazement.

“You all right, miss?” he said with a frown.

Grace was still holding the wet petticoat. Her cap had gone and she must be scarlet in the face.

“Yeah, perfickly,” she said with as much dignity as possible. “Thank yer, Albert.” She took a deep breath and decided to go upstairs to Charlotte’s room. It was probably the only place where she was safe.

11

I
T WAS NOT EASY
searching for the suppers with the blue heels. Charlotte excused herself from the luncheon table, pleading an unnamed indisposition. Let people assume it was a discomfort of the stomach. That was something about which no one would enquire too closely, nor would anyone feel compelled to follow her. For such things one wished privacy above all.

As soon as she was out of earshot of the dining room, she ran across the hall and up the stairs. A footman looked at her anxiously but said nothing. It was not his place to query the eccentric behavior of guests.

It had not been Kezia that Gracie had seen on the landing, of that Charlotte was almost certain. Kezia was too handsomely built. It could have been any other one of the three remaining female guests. She feared it was Eudora. She, above all, had a reason any woman could understand.

Charlotte already knew which was each person’s room. She would start with Eudora, who, thank goodness, had been persuaded to join everyone else for luncheon. It would have been dreadfully awkward if either of the two recently widowed women had decided to remain in their rooms, which they could well have done without needing to offer any further explanation. Emily had had to work hard to achieve that. But Emily was a good diplomat, and she was certainly fully persuaded of the necessity for solving this crime most urgently. She was still finding it very hard to keep her composure and not give way to her fear for Jack. At least there was something she could do, some oudet for her physical and mental energies, a way of helping.

Charlotte knocked on Eudora’s bedroom door, just in case Doll should be there.

There was no answer.

She opened the door and went in, and straight through to the dressing room. There was no time to consider anything now except which cupboard housed Eudora’s boots and shoes. She looked in the first and saw rows of gowns. It was horrible searching through another woman’s clothes without her knowledge. They were beautiful, heavy silks and taffetas, fine quality laces, smooth wools and gabardines. There was a rich fur collar on a traveling cape. They were colors which would have suited Charlotte perfectly. And none of these would be borrowed! She felt a prick of envy.

That was absurd! Who would want a queen’s ransom of clothes at the price of being married to a man like Ainsley Greville?

The boots and shoes were on the rack below the dresses and on shelves to one side. They were as she had thought, all earth colors and warm tones, nothing blue or with blue heels.

She did not know if she was relieved or not. That meant it was either Iona or Justine. She would like it to be Iona.

It was a grubby thing searching through other people’s bedrooms. They were so personal. It was the one place where you were most yourself, when your secrets and pretenses were taken away, where you let down your guard and allowed yourself to be vulnerable, naked in every sense, and asleep. Eudora’s room had a faint odor of lilies and something heavier, spicier. It must be a perfume she liked.

Charlotte went to the door and opened it, looking outside cautiously, which she realized was pointless as soon as she did it. If anyone saw the door move at all, they would see her. She had no possible excuse. There was nothing she could say to justify being in Eudora’s room.

There was no one there.

She slipped out just as Doll came around the corner. She looked prettier than Charlotte had seen her before, and for the first time she was smiling. Her head was high and she moved easily and lightly. Charlotte had no idea what had caused the change, but her start at being seen gave way immediately to a surge of happiness. If anyone in this house deserved a little joy, it was Doll.

“Afternoon, Mrs. Pitt,” Doll said cheerfully. “Can I help you? Do you need something?”

Charlotte was a long way from her own room, and she could hardly claim to be lost. She scrambled for a he which would be credible—and failed to find one.

“No, thank you,” she said simply, and then hurried past Doll towards the end of the corridor and the landing. It was a nuisance. She wanted to search Justine’s room, but Doll would still be around. They might be finishing luncheon, and Emily could not hold them indefinitely. Searching Eudora’s room had already taken some time, long enough for a complete course at least.

She could not afford to hesitate. She had better try Iona’s room.

She glanced around just to make sure there was no other servant in sight, then opened the door and went in. The floral curtains were drawn wide and the room was full of sunlight. Lorcan’s brushes and his personal effects like collar studs and cuff links were gone from the tallboy, but when she went across to the wardrobes his clothes were still hanging there, and his boots beneath. It was an unpleasant sensation, a reminder of the closeness of life and death. An instant and one was changed into the other. Yesterday morning he had been alive. He had been far braver, more selfless than she had imagined him. Now it was too late to get to know him or know anything of the man he had really been behind the rather brittle exterior and the passionate hatreds and ambitions behind which he had hidden his virtues. He had seemed so cold, and yet he could not have been.

How did Iona feel now? Was that part of the beginning of the end of her romance with Fergal Moynihan? And it did seem as if they were feeling a sudden chill, a realization of the differences between them which no amount of fascination could overcome.

She tried the next wardrobe. It held gowns, but not as many as she had expected. There were dark blues, dark greens, a rich, lush purple which she envied. They were dramatic colors, highly flattering to dark hair and blue eyes. Iona knew how to make the best of herself. From the shawls and blouses, she also knew how to make a relatively small wardrobe look much larger.

There were three pairs of boots, brown, black and fawn, and one pair of slippers, mid-green.

She closed the door and took another quick glance around. There was nothing else of interest. Her eye caught the waste-paper basket, a pretty thing of woven wicker with a flower motif on the side. There were pieces of torn paper in it. It was an appalling thing to do, but she went over and picked up two or three of them. She looked at them. It was inexcusable. They were part of a love letter from Fergal. There were only a few words, but it was unmistakable.

She dropped them again quickly, her face hot. Kezia was going to have a lot to be generous over, if she could find it in her. Perhaps Fergal would have learned something about infatuation, and about love and loss, and how easy it is to follow one’s desires, and need the compassion of those you have treated lightly, when your own time of loneliness and defeat comes.

Out on the landing there was nothing left but to go back to Justine’s room. Unless it was Kezia after all, it must be Justine.

She looked very carefully from left to right to see if Doll were still anywhere in sight, but thank heaven she was not.

Charlotte ran along the corridor and, after the very briefest rap on the door, threw it open and slipped inside, closing it behind her as quickly as she could.

It was smaller, prepared in haste for an unexpected guest. The dressing room was barely big enough for the wardrobes, dressing table, and small central table with a lace cloth and a low easy chair beside it, and a pleasant fireplace. She looked in the first wardrobe. There were several dresses, all of very good quality and apparently bought within the last year or two. The colors varied but were suitable for a young, unmarried woman. Justine might lack family; she certainly was not without funds. Her parents, or some other relative, had left her very well provided for.

She looked at the shoes and boots. They too were of very fine make and style. None were blue or had blue heels.

She could not stay there any longer. Anyone could leave the table for a dozen different reasons, and she would be caught here. She would look like a petty thief at worst, or at best an unpleasantly nosy woman who snooped through other people’s clothes and personal belongings.

On second thought, perhaps it was better simply to be thought a thief!

She went out into the corridor and had only just reached the landing when she saw Justine at the head of the stairs.

“Are you feeling better?” Justine asked solicitiously.

Charlotte felt as if she must be blushing scarlet. “Yes … yes, thank you,” she stammered. “Much better. I … I wasn’t nearly as ill as I thought. Maybe the room was a little warm. A … a drink of water.” That was a stupid remark. There was plenty of water available in the dining room. It was the easiest place to find it. And the room had not been hot. Her guilt must be standing out like spilled wine on a clean tablecloth.

Justine smiled.

“I’m so glad. I expect it is just the distress of the last few days. I am sure it will affect all of us, one way or another.”

“Yes,” Charlotte said gratefully. “Yes, that will be what it is.”

Justine walked past her. She moved extraordinarily grace fully, back straight, head high, a very slight swing to her skirts. One side brushed against one of the chairs on the landing. Charlotte, who was staring after her, saw a glimpse of heel, blue heel. Justine’s gown was smoky gray-blue, with darker patterning on it. Blue slippers were right. On the first evening she had been there, when Greville had been killed, she had worn another blue dress.

Charlotte stood on the spot as if she truly were faint. She found herself gripping the railing to steady herself. Perhaps Gracie had been mistaken? She had seen the heel only for an instant. Maybe it had been gray or green? Gaslight could be misleading. It could alter colors, everyone knew that, certainly every woman. There were colors which suited perfectly in the daylight, and by gaslight made one look a hundred and jaundiced into the bargain.

She was still in the same spot when Emily came up the stairs towards her.

“What’s the matter?” Emily demanded. “You look terrible. You aren’t really ill, are you?”

“No. I saw the shoes ….”

Emotion crowded Emily’s face—elation, fear, anxiety.

“Good! Whose are they?” she demanded.

“Justine’s. She’s wearing them right now.”

Emily stared at her. “Are you sure?”

“No … yes. No, I’m not sure. Except I am, because they aren’t anyone else’s.”

Emily said nothing. She looked suddenly sad, hurt, as Charlotte felt.

“I must go and tell Thomas,” Charlotte said after a moment or two. “I wish it were not her.”

“Why?” Emily shook her head.

“Because I like her ….” Charlotte said lamely.

“No … I mean why would she kill Greville,” Emily clarified. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know that.” Charlotte started to move at last. “But she had the shoes. That’s what I’m going to tell Thomas … just that she had the shoes.”

As soon as Charlotte entered the withdrawing room Pitt stood up, excusing himself to the others, and came towards her, his face intent.

“Are you all right?” he asked her in barely more than a whisper. “You do look rather pale. Did you find the shoes?”

“Yes …”

“Well? Where are they?” Now he looked pale as well, his eyes hollow, dark-ringed from lack of sleep. “Are they Eudora’s?”

She managed the ghost of a smile. She would have preferred it if they were.

“No … they are Justine’s. She’s wearing them now.”

He stared at her. “Justine’s?” He said exactly what Emily had. “Are you sure? It makes no sense! Why on earth would Justine want to kill Ainsley Greville? She only met him—” he stopped.

Padraig Doyle moved forward from the fire where he had been standing. “Are you all right, Mrs. Pitt?” he asked with some concern.

“I’m sure she will be,” Pitt said quickly, putting his arm around Charlotte. “I think it would be better if she went upstairs and lay down. The long journey to London yesterday must have been too much for her. Please excuse us both?” And with a charming smile he guided Charlotte out of the room and closed the door behind them as Kezia also politely wished Charlotte restored health.

“You make me sound like some drooping lily,” she said hotly the moment they went out of earshot. “One trip on the train and I faint all over the place. They’ll think I’m too feeble for words.”