A Dangerous Mourning Read online

“Lady Moidore, I am Hester Latterly. I am a nurse, and I have come to look after you until you feel better.”

  Beatrice sat up slowly on her elbows. “A nurse?” she said with a faint, slightly twisted smile. “I’m not—” Then she changed her mind and lay back again. “There has been a murder in my family—that is not an illness.”

  So Araminta had not even told her of the arrangements, let alone consulted her—unless, of course, she had forgotten?

  “No,” Hester agreed aloud. “I would consider it more in the nature of an injury. But I learned most of my nursing in the Crimea, so I am used to injury and the shock and distress it causes. One can take some time even to desire to recover.”

  “In the Crimea? How useful.”

  Hester was surprised. It was an odd comment to make. She looked more carefully at Beatrice’s sensitive, intelligent face with its wide eyes, jutting nose and fine lips. She was far from a classic beauty, nor did she have the rather heavy, sulky look that was currently much admired. She appeared far too spirited to appeal to many men, who might care for something a great deal more domestic seeming. And yet today her aspect completely denied the nature implicit in her features.

  “Yes,” Hester agreed. “And now that my family are dead and were not able to leave me provided for, I require to remain useful.”

  Beatrice sat up again. “It must be very satisfying to be useful. My children are adult and married themselves. We do a great deal of entertaining—at least we did—but my daughter Araminta is highly skilled at preparing guest lists that will be interesting and amusing, my cook is the envy of half of London, and my butler knows where to hire any extra help we might need. All my staff are highly trained, and I have an extremely efficient housekeeper who does not appreciate my meddling in her affairs.”

  Hester smiled. “Yes, I can imagine. I have met her. Have you taken luncheon today?”

  “I am not hungry.”

  “Then you should take a little soup, and some fruit, It can give you very unpleasant effects if you do not drink. Internal distress will not help you at all.”

  Beatrice looked as surprised as her indifference would allow.

  “You are very blunt.”

  “I do not wish to be misunderstood.”

  Beatrice smiled in spite of herself. “I doubt you very often are.”

  Hester kept her composure. She must not forget that her primary duty was to care for a woman suffering deeply.

  “May I bring you a little soup, and some fruit tart, or a custard?”

  “I imagine you will bring it anyway—and I daresay you are hungry yourself?”

  Hester smiled, glanced around the room once more, and went to begin her duties in the kitchen.

  It was that evening that Hester made her next acquaintance with Araminta. She had come downstairs to the library to fetch a book which she thought would interest Beatrice and possibly help her to sleep, and she was searching along the shelves past weighty histories, and even weightier philosophies, until she should come to poetries and novels. She was bent over on her knees with her skirts around her when Araminta came in.

  “Have you mislaid something, Miss Latterly?” she asked with faint disapproval. It was an undignified position, and too much at home for someone who was more or less a servant.

  Hester rose to her feet and straightened her clothes. They were much of a height and looked at each other across a small reading table. Araminta was dressed in black silk trimmed with velvet with tiny silk ribbons on the bodice and her hair was as vivid as marigolds in the sun. Hester was dressed in blue-gray with a white apron, and her hair was a very ordinary brown with faint touches of honey or auburn in it in the sun, but excessively dull compared with Araminta’s.

  “No, Mrs. Kellard,” she replied gravely. “I came to find something for Lady Moidore to read before she retires, so it might help her to sleep.”

  “Indeed? I would think a little laudanum would serve better?”

  “It is a last resort, ma’am,” Hester said levelly. “It tends to form a dependency, and can make one feel unwell afterwards.”

  “I imagine you know that my sister was murdered in this house less than three weeks ago?” Araminta stood very straight, her eyes unwavering. Hester admired her moral courage to be so blunt on a subject many would consider too shocking to speak of at all.

  “Yes I am,” she said gravely. “It is not surprising that your mother is extremely distressed, especially since I understand the police are still here quite often asking questions. I thought a book might take her mind off present grief, at least long enough to fall asleep, without causing the heaviness of drugs. It will not serve her to evade the pain forever. I don’t mean to sound harsh. I have lost my own parents and a brother; I am acquainted with bereavement.”

  “Presumably that is why Lady Burke-Heppenstall recommended you. I think it will be most beneficial if you can keep my mother’s mind from dwelling upon Octavia, my sister, or upon who might have been responsible for her death.” Araminta’s eyes did not flinch or evade in the slightest. “I am glad you are not afraid to be in the house. You have no need to be.” She raised her shoulders very slightly. It was a cold gesture. “It is highly possible it was some mistaken relationship which ended in tragedy. If you conduct yourself with propriety, and do not encourage any attentions whatever, nor give the appearance of meddling or being inquisitive—”

  The door opened and Myles Kellard came in. Hester’s first thought was that he was an extraordinarily handsome man with a quite individual air to him, a man who might laugh or sing, or tell wild and entertaining stories. If his mouth was a trifle self-indulgent, perhaps it was only that of a dreamer.

  “—you will find no trouble at all.” Araminta finished without turning to look at him or acknowledge his presence.

  “Are you warning Miss Latterly about our intrusive and rather arrogant policeman?” Myles asked curiously. He turned and smiled at Hester, an easy and charming expression. “Ignore him, Miss Latterly. And if he is overpersistent, report him to me, and I shall be glad to dispatch him for you forthwith. Whomever else he suspects—” His eyes surveyed her with mild interest, and she felt a sudden pang of regret that she was so ungenerously endowed and dressed so very plainly. It would have been most agreeable to see a spark of interest light in such a man’s eyes as he looked at her.

  “He will not suspect Miss Latterly,” Araminta said for him. “Principally because she was not here at the time.”

  “Of course not,” he agreed, putting out his arm towards his wife. With a delicate, almost imperceptible gesture she moved away from him so he did not touch her.

  He froze, changed direction and reached instead to straighten a picture which was sitting on the desk.

  “Otherwise he might,” Araminta continued coolly, stiffening her back. “He seems to suspect everyone else, even the family.”

  “Rubbish!” Myles attempted to sound impatient, but Hester thought he was more uncomfortable. There was a sudden pinkness to his skin and his eyes moved restlessly from one object to another, avoiding their faces. “That is absurd! None of us could have the slightest reason for such a fearful thing, nor would we if we had. Really, Minta, you will be frightening Miss Latterly.”

  “I did not say one of us had done it, Myles, merely that Inspector Monk believed it of us—I think it must have been something Percival said about you.” She watched the color ebb from his skin, then turned away and continued deliberately. “He is most irresponsible. If I were quite sure I should have him dismissed.” She spoke very clearly. Her tone suggested she was musing aloud, intent upon her thoughts for themselves, not for any effect upon others, but her body inside its beautiful gown was as stiff as a twig in the still air, and her voice was penetrating. “I think it is the suspicion of what Percival said that has made Mama take to her bed. Perhaps if you were to avoid her, Myles, it might be better for her. She may be afraid of you—” She turned suddenly and smiled at him, dazzling and brittle. “Which is perf
ectly absurd, I know—but fear is at times irrational. We can have the wildest ideas about people, and no one can convince us they are unfounded.”

  She cocked her head a little to one side. “After all, whatever reason could you possibly have to have quarreled so violently with Octavia?” She hesitated. “And yet she is sure you have. I hope she does not tell Mr. Monk so, as it would be most distressing for us.” She swiveled around to Hester. “Do see if you can help her to take a rather firmer hold on reality, Miss Latterly. We shall all be eternally grateful to you. Now I must go and see how poor Romola is. She has a headache, and Cyprian never knows what to do for her.” She swept her skirts around her and walked out, graceful and rigid.

  Hester found herself surprisingly embarrassed. It was perfectly clear that Araminta was aware she had frightened her husband, and that she took a calculated pleasure in it. Hester bent to the bookshelf again, not wishing Myles to see the knowledge in her eyes.

  He moved to stand behind her, no more than a yard away, and she was acutely conscious of his presence.

  “There is no need to be concerned, Miss Latterly,” he said with a very slight huskiness in his voice. “Lady Moidore has rather an active imagination. Like a lot of ladies. She gets her facts muddled, and frequently does not mean what she says. I am sure you understand that?” His tone implied that Hester would be the same, and her words were to be taken lightly.

  She rose to her feet and met his eyes, so close she could see the shadow of his remarkable eyelashes on his cheeks, but she refused to step backwards.

  “No I do not understand it, Mr. Kellard.” She chose her words carefully. “I very seldom say what I do not mean, and if I do, it is accidental, a misuse of words, not a confusion in my mind.”

  “Of course, Miss Latterly.” He smiled. “I am sure you are at heart just like all women—”

  “Perhaps if Mrs. Moidore has a headache, I should see if I can help her?” she said quickly, to prevent herself from giving the retort in her mind.

  “I doubt you can,” he replied, moving aside a step. “It is not your attention she wishes for. But by all means try, if you like. It should be a nice diversion.”

  She chose to misunderstand him. “If one is suffering a headache, surely whose attention it is is immaterial.”

  “Possibly,” he conceded. “I’ve never had one—at least not of Romola’s sort. Only women do.”

  Hester seized the first book to her hand, and holding it with its face towards her so its title was hidden, brushed her way past him.

  “If you will excuse me, I must return to see how Lady Moidore is feeling.”

  “Of course,” he murmured. “Although I doubt it will be much different from when you left her!”

  It was during the day after that she came to realize more fully what Myles had meant about Romola’s headache. She was coming in from the conservatory with a few flowers for Beatrice’s room when she came upon Romola and Cyprian standing with their backs to her, and too engaged in their conversation to be aware of her presence.

  “It would make me very happy if you would,” Romola said with a note of pleading in her voice, but dragged out, a little plaintive, as though she had asked many times before.

  Hester stopped and took a step backwards behind the curtain, from where she could see Romola’s back and Cyprian’s face. He looked tired and harassed, shadows under his eyes and a hunched attitude to his shoulders as though half waiting for a blow.

  “You know that it would be fruitless at the moment,” he replied with careful patience. “It would not make matters any better.”

  “Oh, Cyprian!” She turned very petulantly, her whole body expressing disappointment and disillusion. “I really think for my sake you should try. It would make all the difference in the world to me.”

  “I have already explained to you—” he began, then abandoned the attempt. “I know you wish it,” he said sharply, exasperation breaking through. “And if I could persuade him I would.”

  “Would you? Sometimes I wonder how important my happiness is to you.”

  “Romola—I—”

  At this point Hester could bear it no longer. She resented people who by moral pressure made others responsible for their happiness. Perhaps because no one had ever taken responsibility for hers, but without knowing the circumstances, she was still utterly on Cyprian’s side. She bumped noisily into the curtain, rattling the rings, let out a gasp of surprise and mock irritation, and then when they both turned to look at her, smiled apologetically and excused herself, sailing past them with a bunch of pink daisies in her hand. The gardener had called them something quite different, but daisies would do.

  She settled in to Queen Anne Street with some difficulty. Physically it was extremely comfortable. It was always warm enough, except in the servants’ rooms on the third and fourth floors, and the food was by far the best she had ever eaten—and the quantities were enormous. There was meat, river fish and sea fish, game, poultry, oysters, lobster, venison, jugged hare, pies, pastries, vegetables, fruit, cakes, tarts and flans, puddings and desserts. And the servants frequently ate what was returned from the dining room as well as what was cooked especially for them.

  She learned the hierarchy of the servants’ hall, exactly whose domain was where and who deferred to whom, which was extremely important. No one intruded upon anyone else’s duties, which were either above them or beneath them, and they guarded their own with jealous exactitude. Heaven forbid a senior housemaid should be asked to do what was the under housemaid’s job, or worse still, that a footman should take a liberty in the kitchen and offend the cook.

  Rather more interestingly she learned where the fondnesses lay, and the rivalries, who had taken offense at whom, and quite often why.

  Everyone was in awe of Mrs. Willis, and Mr. Phillips was considered more the master in any practical terms than Sir Basil, whom many of the staff never actually saw. There was a certain amount of joking and irreverence about his military mannerisms, and more than one reference to sergeant majors, but never within his hearing.

  Mrs. Boden, the cook, ruled with a rod of iron in the kitchen, but it was more by skill, dazzling smiles and a very hot temper than by the sheer freezing awe of the housekeeper or the butler. Mrs. Boden was also fond of Cyprian and Romola’s children, the fair-haired, eight-year-old Julia and her elder brother, Arthur, who was just ten. She was given to spoiling them with treats from the kitchen whenever opportunity arose, which was frequently, because although they ate in the nursery, Mrs. Boden oversaw the preparation of the tray that was sent up.

  Dinah the parlormaid was a trifle superior, but it was in good part her position rather than her nature. Parlormaids were selected for their appearance and were required to sail in and out of the front reception rooms heads high, skirts swishing, to open the front door in the afternoons and carry visitors’ cards in on a silver tray. Hester actually found her very approachable, and keen to talk about her family and how good they had been to her, providing her with every opportunity to better herself.

  Sal, the kitchen maid, remarked that Dinah had never been seen to receive a letter from them, but she was ignored. And Dinah took all her permitted time off duty, and once a year returned to her home village, which was somewhere in Kent.

  Lizzie, the senior laundry maid, on the other hand, was very superior indeed, and ran the laundry with an unbending discipline. Rose, and the women who came in to do some of the heavy ironing, were never seen to disobey, whatever their private feelings. It was an entertaining observation of nature, but little of it seemed of value in learning who had murdered Octavia Haslett.

  Of course the subject was discussed below stairs. One could not possibly have a murder in the house and expect people not to speak of it, most particularly when they were all suspected—and one of them had to be guilty.

  Mrs. Boden refused even to think about it, or to permit anyone else to.

  “Not in my kitchen,” she said briskly, whisking half a dozen eggs so
sharply they all but flew out of the bowl. “I’ll not have gossip in here. You’ve got more than enough to do without wasting your time in silly chatter. Sal—you do them potatoes by the time I’ve finished this, or I’ll know the reason why! May! May! What about the floor, then? I won’t have a dirty floor in here.”

  Phillips stalked from one room to another, grand and grim. Mrs. Boden said the poor man had taken it very hard that such a thing should happen in his household. Since it was obviously not one of the family, to which no one replied, obviously it must be one of the servants—which automatically meant someone he had hired.

  Mrs. Willis’s icy look stopped any speculation she overheard. It was indecent and complete nonsense. The police were quite incompetent, or they would know perfectly well it couldn’t be anyone in the house. To discuss such a thing would only frighten the younger girls and was quite irresponsible. Anyone overheard being so foolish would be disciplined appropriately.

  Of course this stopped no one who was minded to indulge in a little gossip, which was all the maids, to the endless patronizing comments of the male staff, who had quite as much to say but were less candid about it. It reached a peak at tea time in the servants’ hall.

  “I think it was Mr. Thirsk, when ’e was drunk,” Sal said with a toss of her head. “I know ’e takes port from the cellar, an’ no good sayin’ ’e doesn’t!”

  “Lot o’ nonsense,” Lizzie dismissed with scorn. “He’s ever such a gentleman. And what would he do such a thing for, may I ask?”

  “Sometimes I wonder where you grew up.” Gladys glanced over her shoulder to make sure Mrs. Boden was nowhere in earshot. She leaned forward over the table, her cup of tea at her elbow. “Don’t you know anything?”

  “She works downstairs!” Mary hissed back at her. “Downstairs people never know half what upstairs people do.”

  “Go on then,” Rose challenged. “Who do you think did it?”

  “Mrs. Sandeman, in a fit o’ jealous rage,” Mary replied with conviction. “You should see some o’ the outfits she wears—and d’you know where Harold says he takes her sometimes?”