The Shape of Sand (33 page)

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Authors: Marjorie Eccles

Tags: #Mystery, #Historical

BOOK: The Shape of Sand
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He pushed the file away impatiently. If Wycombe hadn't killed her, then who else – apart from the husband, still odds-on favourite with Grigsby – was left as a suspect? Out of the people staying there that night were only realistically left Rose Jessamy and Kit Sacheverell himself, and despite the reservations he'd voiced to Tom Verrier, he didn't lay much on the theory of that young woman as murderess.
The interview with Sacheverell, the padre, Father Christopher as he apparently wished to be known, had got them nowhere, apart from establishing that he'd slept at Charnley that night and for some reason left the next morning by the earliest possible train, walking several miles across country to catch a main line train not subject to the vagaries of Sunday timetables as was the branch line that served Charnley. It was not inconceivable. A few miles would have been nothing to him. He had, after all, been a young and presumably fit man. But Grigsby had sensed something behind that abrupt departure that wasn't being revealed. As a suspect, he'd had means and opportunity, but as for motive? He'd been a great favourite of Beatrice Jardine's, apparently. She had been a surrogate mother to him. As likely to suspect the dead son, Marcus. Yet Grigsby had been left wondering.
Were they, after all, left with Rose Jessamy as a suspect? Means and opportunity, yes, but again no motive. Those missing garnets still bothered Grigsby, but he couldn't fairly see her strangling Beatrice for them – and she had, in fact, every reason to wish to keep her employer alive. She had the best means and opportunity of disposing of the body, but anyone reasonably handy and familiar with her techniques could have hit upon that hiding place.
Which brought another niggle: as Harriet Jardine had pointed out, her mother was no light weight, and unless she'd been murdered in situ, it would have needed at least two people to manhandle her body into the west wing.
With a sigh, Grigsby took another swig of beer. He pulled his plate towards him, bit succulently into his pork pie and
chewed, staring down at the foam sliding down the sides of his pint glass. He speared a pickled onion and popped it in to join the pie. Half a mo', he thought all at once, galvanised, his masticating halted – how about this, how about the maid, saying goodnight to her mistress –
The pub door burst open and Fairchild hurried in, a look of controlled excitement on his patrician features. Grigsby swallowed the onion, whole. “What the hell?”
“Wait for it, Guv. They've found another body at Charnley.”
He didn't get the reaction he expected. “Not another mummy?” Grigsby asked flatly, when he could.
“No, this time it's a floater. In the lake.”
 
“She left a letter, Mrs Kaplan,” said Fairchild later. “With her handbag and shoes, by the edge of the lake. The missing garnets were in the bag, too.”
“Oh, those garnets! I found them in her — I found her gloating over them years and years ago. It was how I got her to stay with me all that time. She called it blackmail, but I preferred to think of it as self-preservation.” The old woman suddenly looked a hundred. “Who's going to look after me now?”
“Perhaps you'd like to see the letter.”
“I don't know that I would.” But all the same, she took it in trembling fingers and began to read.
 
‘The Bible tells us that God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
‘This was one of the first things I learned from my religion. That you must take responsibility for your own actions in life. So I make no claim for anyone's sympathy over what happened to Mrs Beatrice Jardine, except to say that what I did was for the master, Mr Amory Jardine. He had never given me anything much more than a kindly glance, I was simply his wife's maid, always there, but he was a good man and I couldn't stand by any longer and see him deceived. Also, I never forgot how he'd helped Fred after that spot of bother he'd been in. Fred was a handful and no mistake, but I was very fond of him. He'd always stuck up for me against my stepfather, who was a sight too free with his fists when he'd had a drop, and he wouldn't allow his
brothers to make me into the family drudge.
‘Beatrice was four years older than me, but we played together when we were children. Until Miss grew up and went away and became a society lady, I used to go up to the Big House when I was sent for – though only because I was told to go, not because I wanted to. They said she was lonely – but how could I believe that, living in that beautiful house with a nanny and a governess and dozens of servants, whatever she wanted to eat and cupboards full of toys and nice clothes to wear? She was so pretty, too, with golden ringlets and a pink and white complexion. Whereas I – well, I was only eight years old when it all began, and I still believed in magic, that one day I might be transformed from an ugly duckling into a fairy princess. But being with Miss made me aware that I never would be. I soon learned to read in people's faces what they thought when they saw us together – and I knew by the way she smiled that she saw it, too, and liked it. But even if the positions had been reversed, if she'd been the plain one and me the beauty, she would still have had the advantage over me, with her money and her upbringing. And her nature, that took it all for granted.
‘I never wanted to be a lady's maid, not to anyone, least of all to Miss. My spirit was too independent for that – even my stepfather couldn't beat it out of me — but when she offered me the position when she became Mrs Jardine I knew I'd be a fool not to accept. My mother had died, and the only prospect I could see ahead of me was a lifetime of skivvying for that household of great, hulking, working men – Fred excepted. No one would ever marry me. I'd inherited most of the ugliness of the family (and all its sourness, according to my stepfather). Going into service was the only way I could see out of a life I hated. The difficulty would be in controlling the rebelliousness Nature had endowed me with. But I vowed, with God's help, I would learn.
‘I knew how lucky I was to have the chance. Pampered and lapped in luxury as Madam was, never lifting a finger to help herself, she was no worse than any other ladies of her class and upbringing, I suppose, most of them having less regard for servants than if they were the carpets they trod on. But the position of lady's maid was easy, compared to that of other servants in the house. One of absolute luxury after what I'd been used to. Washing delicate silk and lace underclothes and blouses by hand, ironing them while they were still damp to bring them back to
perfection, was about the most strenuous task I'd be asked to do. There was a lot of sewing, small repairs and alterations and so on. I was even allowed to make some of her simpler clothes, since my mother, who'd been a sewing woman up at the Hall, had taught me from an early age to be handy with a needle. There were plenty of perks, too, especially in the way of cast-offs. Not that I would ever make a fool of myself trying to wear any of Madam's clothes, should she ever see fit to give any to me (which in fact she never did) but she was generous enough in tossing over to me presents she'd been given that hadn't pleased her. And half-read books, stockings which only needed a darn or two, silk underclothes that I could make over, an umbrella or a leather handbag she'd grown tired of. When she went up to Mount Street in London, I went with her of course, and on visits to other country houses, where I thought I might meet other women in similar positions, though I never managed to make friends with any. We visited interesting places, here and abroad – the best of which was Egypt, where it all began. That was where I maided for Mrs Kaplan, Lady Glendinning as she was then.
‘At least
she
didn't expect you to be at her beck and call, day and night. She was kind to me, in her own fashion. (I know she has always thought I've stayed with her all these years because she found the garnets one day when she was snooping in my room, and blackmailed me into not leaving, but the truth is, after Beatrice Jardine, I liked working for her. She's always talked to me as if I was a human being, and we even had a laugh or two together sometimes.) But the time in Egypt didn't last long. It was soon back to Charnley, and the old routine, the children – and Mr Jardine.
‘How can I explain what he was like? He was such a nice man, always pleasant, though I guessed he had worries of his own that he didn't share with his wife and family. All the same, he found time and the money to order that grand birthday party for her.
‘What a party that was! One that I was never likely to forget.
‘Long after they'd all gone home and I'd been dismissed for the night, Madam decided to send for me again. I was already in bed and fast asleep when the bell woke me. I was bone-weary after dancing attendance for hours, being there ready with pins and needle and thread for ladies who'd had their trains trodden on, or for those who needed hairpins to fix their hair because their maids hadn't done it properly in the first place. A box of headache
powders ready to hand, a flask of eau de cologne and another of smelling salts. I'd waited for Madam to come up to her bedroom and then I'd helped her to undress, as far as she wanted me to. But at last I got to my own room, and fell into bed exhausted. When the bell rang I looked at the clock and saw it was twenty to two. I'd only been in bed an hour! What was she doing, still awake at that time?
‘Well, quite often she was up half the night, playing cards or gossiping and tittle-tattling with her friends. Of course, she could stay in bed all the next day if she wanted to, and I don't suppose it ever occurred to her that I had to be up betimes, just in case she took it into her head to rise early for once and needed me to help her into one of those extravagant outfits of hers. But that night, she'd sent me to bed an hour ago. Well, that was Madam all over. Never thinking of anyone else, exactly as she was when she was a girl. No one else in the world but Beatrice – though what with those sweet smiles and never losing her temper, no one ever suspected how selfish she was. Except her husband. But he loved her in spite of it.
‘The bell rang again as I was throwing on some clothes. I hurried to her room, by then half expecting some emergency, such as that when she'd lost the child.
‘I soon found she'd sent for me to do nothing more than undo her necklace, her birthday present from Mr Jardine. A beautiful thing it was, garnets set in marcasite, hanging from a thin silver chain, part of a matching set. There was something wrong with the clasp, it just wouldn't open. I struggled with it but it was stuck, fast. “You'll have to have it cut off tomorrow,” I told her.
‘“Cut off? Well, then, I must sleep with it round my neck all night! Like an odalisque.” She smiled and put her hands to where the necklace lay against her white throat and stroked it.
‘I had no idea – then – what an odalisque was but I had my answer as to why she wasn't yet in bed and asleep, like any other good Christian soul. She was still undressed, with nothing on under the black jap-silk kimono. Her stockings were flung across the room and her silk chemise had slid in a pool to the floor where she'd stepped out of it. Her eyes were brilliant and her cheeks flushed, when she moved she seemed languorous and heavy. The little smile stayed at the corners of her mouth.
‘He had been to her. She thought no one knew, on those occasions. But I knew, always. I had the sense to keep my mouth shut,
but there isn't much a maid doesn't know about her mistress. And the master, her husband, Amory – oh yes. Well, if he didn't know, he must have been blind. About his friend Lord Wycombe – and the shameful way she flirted with young Kit. There had been others, from time to time, as well. I don't think he ever knew about the disgraceful way she'd treated that Iskander, but I'm sure he suspected
something
had gone on that time in Egypt, the way everyone was subdued when he arrived, the way the trip back to Cairo down the Nile was cancelled without any reasonable explanation.
‘And for some reason, I couldn't stand the thought of all this any longer. I heard myself say, as if we were still girls together, what I'd always wanted to say to her then, but never dared: “You should be ashamed of yourself, Miss.” And when she stared at me, all haughty and those blue eyes like chips of ice, I added, for good measure, “A good man like that.”
‘“What? What was that you said?”
‘It was too late to go back.'
 
 
‘I hadn't hated her, not really. She had her good points, like everyone else, and I don't suppose she could help her nature, any more than I can help mine. I stared down at her, lying on the pretty flowered carpet. She was the ugly one now. Her lovely face was all mottled and swollen, and for a while I couldn't take in what I'd done. How I'd stood behind her and taken up the slack of the necklace and twisted it until it bit into the soft white flesh, and she finally went limp.
‘And then I heard Mr Jardine in the next room, his hand on the doorknob, the door opening. There hadn't been much of a struggle, but I suppose he must have heard something. I bent down over her with some idea of covering up her body. She was still breathing. Oh, thank God, thank God! My own breath nearly stopped with relief, but I cried out to him and he rushed into the room, pushing me aside. He began to try to revive her and all at once I felt such a desperate urge to vomit I had to turn aside to use the slop pail under the washstand. I thought my stomach would never finish heaving, but all the time I could think of nothing else except to thank my maker that she was still alive. But when at last the shaming sickness stopped, and I turned around, expecting her breathing to have come back to normal, I found the master was
still kneeling over her, his face as white as chalk.

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