Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Everyone is shocked.
A half hour later, we are gathered in the drawing room, the site of last night’s massacre—
Goodness me, I did it again!
How readily that word pops into my head!
It is appalling, and resolving to expunge massacre from my vocabulary, I close my eyes and picture tossing the letters off a cliff into the turbulent sea below.
(More violence, Flora. Well done!)
Regardless, in the wake of Mr. Keast’s murder, we are here again, in the drawing room at Red Oaks, where Mama managed to insult every Holcroft female currently in residence.
The company is sad and confused, as the notion of the steward as a villain who lures vulnerable widows to their doom belies everything they think they know about the studious young man.
During his eighteen months of service, he displayed no interest in women, preferring to spend his time examining soil samples and advocating for farming improvements and Dutch plows and land enclosure, and now they must accept it was all a charade to hide his true self, which was a vile seducer of widows.
In expressing their confoundment, Sebastian’s mother and sisters, one after the other, stray into indelicate territory, making observations that are decidedly improper for innocent ears.
Each time it happens, my mother gently interrupts the speaker and nudges the conversation back to a more appropriate topic.
The flowers on the mantel, for example.
So far, Mama has commented on the rich purple of the irises, the delightful scent of the roses, and the endearing whimsy of the allium.
Her ability to effortlessly return the conversation to decorum reveals a coherence none of the occupants believed possible for my clumsy parent, and that is the source of their astonishment.
Eleanor, who notes that the steward’s dark good looks were broadly appealing, cannot comprehend how he found the time to court a widow when he was always bracketed in the study with their father or visiting the fields or meeting with merchants or arguing with villagers about the changes he was advising Mr. Holcroft to make or reading journals on crop cultivation methods.
“And for the affair to have progressed so far in so many months—it just does not make sense to me.
The act of consummation alone requires—"
“I hope you will excuse me, Miss Holcroft, if I am moved to express envy of how ample the peonies from your gardens are,” Mama inserts smoothly, her tone easy and natural, as though awe for the bloom’s fulsomeness is her only reason for interrupting.
“The ones we grow at Welldale House do not have that same pleasing plumpness. It is a wonder. Your gardener is to be commended.”
Eleanor colors slightly and accepts the compliment on behalf of her family.
Like her mother and sisters, she knows precisely what Mama is doing and is grateful for her tactful intervention.
What none of them can fathom is how Mama is doing it.
Merely a dozen hours before, she had been a rambling madwoman whose every syllable gave offense, and now she is the only composed voice in the room.
The explanation is death.
That is how Mama is able to do it.
Inexplicably, being in the presence of grief-stricken mourners clarifies my mother’s thinking. Something about their anguish and sorrow straightens the twisting pathways in her brain, and she speaks without stumbling over her words or rushing to issue corrections that only make everything worse.
It is a wonder to behold, especially if you have never witnessed it before. Mrs. Holcroft, who feels keenly the inappropriate bent of her and her daughters’ conversation, keeps glancing at my mother with gratitude.
And not just gratitude.
Immense gratitude.
She does not express it openly.
The words thank you do not pass her lips.
But it is patently clear to any half-wit that she hugely appreciates Mama’s efforts to observe the proprieties.
Although the easiest way to accomplish that goal would be to break up the little group, Mrs. Holcroft appears deeply reluctant to be alone with her thoughts, and when the housekeeper announces that breakfast has been laid out at last, she rises with alacrity.
“Thank you, Mrs. Jackson. Let us go, then, my dears, and partake in a meal. Sustenance is what we need to help us make sense of this tragedy. But silently, of course. We do not wish to agitate your father further with our speculations.”
But Mr. Holcroft is not present in the breakfast room when we arrive, and Papa explains that our host has been unavoidably detained.
Sarah cries out softly at this information, perceiving not incorrectly that her father is overseeing the removal of the steward’s body from his bedchamber.
He cannot in all good conscience allow it to remain on the upper floor, where the heat of the house tends to collect, and must bring it instead to the cellar, where it will linger before continuing to its final resting place.
Equally troubled, Eleanor lays her hand on her sister’s forearm and directs her to the table, where they both take their seats.
Worried about their health, Mrs. Dowell chastises them for not attending to their own welfare and piles two plates high with gammon and shirred eggs.
She places the dishes before them and notes that famishment will do nothing to aid Mr. Keast’s cause, a point both girls readily grant.
Nothing will aid Mr. Keast’s cause.
“He is lost,” Sarah adds mournfully. “His cause is lost.”
Mrs. Dowell colors mildly at the rebuke and insists that there is still the cause of justice, for the steward’s killer must be made to stand trial for his sins.
“We cannot allow a widow with violent proclivities to roam the countryside freely, drawing other vulnerable young men into her web of deceit and desire, her bosoms heaving with—”
“Are those tulips?” Mama asks, imbuing her question with more wondrous appreciation as she gestures to the bouquet on a small table next to the window. “It is unusual to see them so late in the season. Do you have a hothouse, Mrs. Holcroft?”
Gratefully, our hostess affirms that Red Oaks has two, in fact, both situated to the south of the hall, tucked behind the stables, and lists the plants cultivated within their confines, an endeavor that takes ten minutes.
To extend the topic, Mama suggests other types of flowers that would do well in Bedfordshire’s favorable climate and mentions that Haverill Hall—the ancestral estate of her niece’s husband’s family—has a pinery.
Ordinarily, this is the sort of declaration that propels Mama into a state of high agitation, for she would never deliberately flaunt her esteemed relations, and in her rush to clarify how very unesteemed they are, she would say something horrible about Bea before making nonsensical comments about everyone else.
But this circumstance is not ordinary.
Mr. Keast is dead, which is a balm for her nerves, and she blithely sails past the misstep to the delights of the pinery itself, an impressive feat of engineering.
Oh, Mama, daring to use a word like engineering!
Surely, she has breezed too far this time.
But no!
She had learned about bark pits and glass angling during her brief spell at Haverill Hall and discusses the innovations so cogently that even Papa shows interest in the subject.
She answers his queries without rambling or stammering, and Mrs. Holcroft admires her erudition before inviting her to tour the hothouse.
Mrs. Holcroft does not mean right now, but Mama accepts eagerly and jumps to her feet, leaving the other woman no choice but to rise as well.
Papa tries to grab Mama’s hand to keep her from embarrassing him further, but she neatly steps out of his reach—on purpose or not is unclear.
Russell enters the room with Chester just in time to ask Mama where she is going.
“To confer my approval on the oleander,” she replies as she brushes by him.
My brother assumes this is more of Mama’s customary gibberish and blushes hotly as he turns to inspect the options on the sideboard.
Heaping an obscene amount of ham onto his plate, along with two thick pieces of toast, he sits down in the chair our mother recently vacated and extends his condolences to the ladies present.
Acknowledging that he had not known Mr. Keast long or well, Russell could easily judge the steward’s significance to the household by the pall his death has created.
It is prettily done.
If Russell had stopped there, I believe even Papa would have praised my brother’s address.
But he continues, conceding that it is almost impossible for a pall not to fall over a house that has suffered a murder, as violence is so disagreeable.
The banality of the understatement disgusts our father, who pushes his chair back with an abrupt screech and excuses himself from the room without bothering to provide a pretext for his departure.
The Holcroft sisters swiftly follow suit, rising en masse like kittens in a litter, leaving behind Chester, who not only agrees with my brother’s assessment but also finds it exceedingly profound.
“Violence is disagreeable, Mr. Hyde-Clare, and I wish more people were willing to say it as straightforwardly as you,” he replies as he lifts a cup of coffee to his lips and takes a sip.
“In the country, we like to pretend that brutality is simply a necessary part of existence. The way we treat animals is atrocious, as though they were put on this earth for us to do with as we pleased, including devouring them as if they have no more sentience than a spear of asparagus.”
Although there are few things Russell enjoys more than joint of beef with roasted potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, he owns himself supportive of the other man’s position before wondering why the Bible is so quiet on the subject.
The Bible is not quiet on the subject.