Chapter Three
“N o,” Solomon said, managing to pinch it off at last with his fingers. “It’s a couple of white cotton threads. What color was Miss Niall’s nightgown?”
“White…” Maule swallowed hard. “You’re right, then. Whoever did this pushed the body out from the shore with this. Why would he bother? Did he mean to hide her?”
“I doubt it. She wasn’t weighed down, was she? I think he meant her to be seen. Too close into the bank and a casual observer like your gardener might not have noticed except from particular angles.”
Maule wrinkled his brow in consternation. “Can’t see the point. Man must be a lunatic. But then, who else would do such a thing to an innocent young lady?”
Solomon gave no answer. Instead, wrapping the threads in his folded handkerchief, he put them in his pocket. As they left the boat shed, he asked, “Did you row out on the lake alone when you went?”
Maule blushed again. “No, I took the children, and my wife.”
“Very proper,” Solomon replied.
“You can take yours out, if you wish,” Maule said. “I understand you’re more recently married than I am. Romantic gestures are always appreciated, if frequently sabotaged by the presence of children.”
Solomon smiled faintly.
“Mind you, the lake doesn’t seem so attractive anymore,” Maule said with a sigh. “Come on, let’s go and have tea with the ladies. Afraid you’ll have to do the penance of meeting my children, too. They have tea with us every day, mainly to give their poor governess a break.”
Solomon didn’t entirely believe in his reason for the children’s presence at tea. And he was proven right when, as soon as they entered the drawing room, three children launched themselves from the table to grab Maule’s arm, hand, and leg respectively. Moreover, he did not immediately scold them but hugged them back before scowling direly and pointing to the table. Though they obeyed, the children did not look remotely abashed, let alone frightened.
“Oh, you have met Mr. Grey,” Lady Maule said to her husband, apparently used to this ritual. “Come and meet my dear friend, Mrs. Grey. Constance, my husband, Sir Humphrey Maule.”
Constance rose to curtsey and offered her hand with the grace she brought to every movement. “Sir Humphrey, I’m delighted to meet you at last. And your delightful family, of course.”
“Delightful? Ha!” said Maule, making his children grin again. “Grey, these are our children, Benjamin, Juliana, and Clive.”
Benjamin, the eldest, could have been around ten or even eleven, the others a year or so younger. They all stood to bow and curtsey, regarding him with great interest.
It was certainly a lively tea party, although Solomon found the children well behaved. If they stepped over the line from lively to rowdy, Elizabeth intervened with a word that quieted them down. She must have made a good governess, he reflected. Kind but strict, although perhaps not as strict as some parents required. To Solomon they seemed happy children, which he mentioned to Constance when they finally had the chance to speak alone in their bedchamber.
“I think they are,” she agreed. “When Elizabeth first came here as governess, she said they were running wild for much of the day and cowed by their father during brief parental inspections. After his first wife died, I don’t think he knew what to do with them.”
“When did she die?”
“Shortly after Clive was born, so about eight years ago. There were complications from the birth, apparently. A fever. About eighteen months ago, Elizabeth arrived as governess, gradually involving their father more in the children’s lives, which seems to have been good for both of them. I suppose it is also how she grew closer to him.”
“Then their marriage is a happy one?” Solomon asked, pacing to the window, where his gaze seemed to be drawn inexorably through the trees to the glinting water of the lake. The spots of intense red were like droplets of blood. Foolish fantasy.
“You think it isn’t?” Constance asked. She was moving around behind him, putting her clothes away in drawers and cupboards. Next to his.
He shrugged without turning. “I can’t make up my mind. He seems devoted, says my wife with pride, takes her and his children rowing on the lake. But I don’t think he’s being entirely truthful.”
She stilled. He could feel her turning to look at his back. “You don’t like him.”
“Actually, I do. He just strikes me as a man with a secret.” Reluctantly, he turned to face Constance.
She had put her hairbrushes next to his on the dressing table, along with a perfume bottle and a couple of the mysterious jars that always seemed to accompany a female. It was all disconcertingly domesticated.
“I’m not sure Elizabeth was telling me everything either,” she admitted. “She loves him. Of that I am not in doubt. But whether he loves her, whether they are covering for each other… Do you think someone did kill that woman? Or was it a tragic accident, as they first thought, and the family is simply lashing out?”
“I don’t know. Maule showed me where she was found. Far enough away from the bank that she was unlikely to have slipped into the water. The lake is very still and sheltered. Short of a high wind, the body is unlikely to have moved much. It’s possible someone put her in the water, then pushed her away from the bank with a boat hook.”
He took the handkerchief from his pocket and carefully unfolded it to show her the threads of cotton. “I found them on the end of the hook, almost unnoticeable.”
“Well done,” she said, peering at them. She raised her eyes to his face. “So it’s possible she was killed elsewhere and dropped in the lake…to implicate the Maules? Elizabeth in particular?”
“Unless the murderer was just trying to hide the body and didn’t realize it would rise naturally to the surface.”
She sighed. “Why would anyone kill her in the first place? She has hardly been back in the country long enough to have acquired murder-worthy quantities of ill will. They only returned here in the spring, a bare six months ago.”
“Elizabeth didn’t like her,” he pointed out.
“Elizabeth is not particularly secure,” Constance said ruefully. “In her position among her neighbors or in her marriage. If this woman was lovely and charming, she could easily feel threatened.”
“You think she was jealous?” Solomon asked.
Constance frowned. “Not jealous enough to commit murder, though it could explain her antipathy. She is not quarrelsome by nature, but she will defend herself. She could not have survived if she didn’t.”
“What if defending herself—or her husband and new family—necessitated being rid of Frances Niall?”
Constance shook her head violently. “No. She would have found another way. In any case, what on earth could one woman recently returned from India possibly have done to threaten a neighbor who probably knew her from childhood?”
“I have no idea. None of it seems very likely, and yet the woman is dead, fished out of their lake, and she did not drown.”
“If you are right,” Constance said slowly, walking away from him toward the bed, “about someone deliberately implicating Elizabeth in her death, then it has to have been someone who knew Frances had come here to speak to her. We need to speak to her family.”
“I suspect that will have to wait until tomorrow. Do you want to see the lake?”
“Yes,” said Constance decisively.
*
Elizabeth was deciding between a pearl necklace and a simple gold locket when Humphrey wandered into the bedroom with his cuff links in one hand.
“Oblige me, my love,” he said, as he often did.
Elizabeth smiled as she laid down her own jewelry and went to him. She liked performing these little wifely services for him. As she threaded the buttons through his cuffs she asked, “Did you play football with the boys?”
“I did. They put me in goal and thrashed me. Tomorrow, I get my revenge.”
Elizabeth reached for his other cuff. “Do you like my friends?”
“Of course I do. He’s quite sharp, isn’t he?”
“Mr. Grey? Constance says so, but like you, I hadn’t met him until today. Then you agree they might help us?”
Humphrey scowled. He did that a lot, bless him, though mostly he meant nothing by it. “Probably more use than those policemen,” he growled. “But we shall see.” He raised his gaze from the threaded cuff link to her face. “They are…discreet people, are they not?”
“No one is more discreet than Constance. And he must be cut from the same cloth. But I can’t see why it matters particularly. If Frances truly was murdered, then everyone needs to know who did it.”
“Of course,” he said testily. “But when people’s lives are probed into, all sorts of things come out, things no one wants to become subjects of gossip.”
Her stomach twinged. “ Things ? What sort of things?” When he didn’t answer, she said brittlely, “Things like my past?”
“Or anyone else’s. Everyone makes mistakes.”
“Well, Constance knows all of mine. She does not know yours.” It was a childish thing to say, and she regretted it instantly.
He snatched his hand away from her. “What do you mean by that? What exactly do you suspect me of?”
“Nothing,” she said miserably. “It is you who can never forget mine.” And if he learned the whole truth, that would be the end of everything.
*
Constance was not used to such domesticity, the day-to-day interactions between married couples. Unpacking her belongings and placing them beside Solomon’s had disconcerted her in some strange way, which might have been why, during dinner that evening, she imagined some sort of tension had sprung up between the truly married couple in the house.
Not that they were ever rude or even short with each other, but there was no sign of the playfulness or the banter she had seen earlier at tea when the children were present. Since the servants were constantly in and out of the dining room, there could be no discussion of the murder, so conversation was impersonal.
Sir Humphrey, for a self-professed rough-edged country bumpkin, was clearly very well read and knowledgeable on a wide range of topics, from politics to the classics, and Elizabeth had the education to keep up. So did Solomon. It was unusual for Constance to feel at a disadvantage—she had educated herself, first in the necessities and later in pursuit of her own impulsive interests—but in this house and this company, she was all too aware of the gaps. She imagined ignoramus or even dunce imprinted on her forehead.
So she smiled, observed, and contributed little. Without her beauty and the cultivated charm that she always used as weapons, would she simply be dull?
Unimportant. I am here to help Elizabeth, not lament my upbringing .
Only over the dessert course, when the servants had all departed with the other dishes, did she say, “Tomorrow, would it be possible to call on the Nialls?”
This time, the Maules’ eyes did meet in definite if silent communication.
“It would have to be Humphrey who takes you to Fairfield Grange,” Elizabeth said. “I am not welcome there.”
“And I am understandably reluctant to go,” Sir Humphrey said, “considering the accusations Niall has thrown at my wife. Grief cannot excuse that.”
“No,” Solomon agreed. He glanced at Constance. “I suppose we could come up with some ploy or excuse.”
“I’m sure we could,” she said heartily.
Sir Humphrey glowered. “No need for that. Niall will admit me. And I shall endeavor not to hit him.”
“Excellent,” Constance said. “This is delicious, Elizabeth. You must winkle the recipe from your cook, so I can pass it on to mine.”
When the women finally withdrew, leaving the gentlemen to their port, Elizabeth asked lots of questions about the girls she had known in Constance’s establishment. Many amusing tales came out of that, capped by Elizabeth’s humorous anecdotes about the children. Constance almost forgot about the murder, though the anxiety lingered in her friend’s eyes.
Elizabeth rang for tea as soon as the gentlemen rejoined them, and after one cup, Constance pled exhaustion from the journey and retired.
“I shan’t be late,” Solomon said casually. “I’ll try not to wake you.”
This was ridiculous, Constance thought, as she closed the bedroom door and leaned against it. She was behaving more like a nervous bride than an infamous courtesan—the polite title for her profession. It was not as if Solomon would ever bring himself to touch her, at least not in that way.
But he had kissed her farewell as he left Norfolk in the summer. It had been a very brief, almost chaste kiss, and yet it had made her happy. She had taken it as a sign that she would see him again, that their friendship was not over. And yet she had been the one to go to him in the end.
What did he think of that? Did he guess…
Guess what? she asked herself aggressively. There is nothing to guess .
And yet that kiss stayed with her months later as she undressed, washed, and donned her nightgown. Inevitably, it was a pretty one of fine lawn and lace. She did not own any other kind. Would he imagine that she wore it for him? That she was trying to seduce him? After all, she had asked him to come with her, knowing they would have to pretend to be married.
No, he had known that part was her teasing. They had agreed on friendship, and Constance had no desire to change that. To be fair, neither had he.
She brushed out her hair, confined it with a ribbon, then blew out all the candles except one, which she decided to leave for Solomon, though he would undoubtedly arrive with one too. By then, she would be asleep.
Please, God .
She was not asleep. She was curled up on her side with her back to the door when she heard it open and close. He moved about the room, rustling and splashing water. Deliberately, she kept her breathing deep and even.
But apparently, he was not fooled. “Constance? Where do you expect me to sleep?”
“There is only one bed,” she pointed out.
“Precisely. If you give me a blanket, I’ll sleep on the floor.”
Am I so very repulsive? Like the untouchables of India she had read about somewhere…
“It’s a big bed,” she said lightly. “I promise not to touch you, but put the bolster between us if you’re afraid.”
“Oh, trust me, I’m afraid,” he said, drawing the bolster out from under the pillows.
It felt cold against her back. Then the mattress dipped as he climbed in and lay down. She nudged the bolster further away. He didn’t seem to notice. In fact, a few moments later, he appeared to be sound asleep.
*
She woke with someone moving around the room. Disoriented, she sat bolt upright, peering into the early morning light in search of Janey and her morning coffee. Instead, she found Solomon in his shirt and trousers, pushing his feet into boots.
“Sorry,” he said in his velvet-soft voice. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Very aware she was exposing the low-cut flimsiness of her bodice, she resisted the ridiculous, maidenly urge to snatch the covers up over her bosom. “I’m too used to having coffee shoved into my hands first thing. Is it very early?”
“Not quite eight. I wanted to speak to the gardener who found the body.”
“Good idea. I’ll come with you.”
“Then I suppose I had better speak nicely to the kitchen and conjure you a cup of coffee. Breakfast is not until nine.” Boots in place, he rose from the chair and reached for his coat.
She watched him amble off with supreme casualness and absolutely no awkwardness. Which, oddly, made her feel better. She threw off the covers and dressed as quickly as she could in a dark walking dress with matching jacket and stout boots.
She found Solomon in the kitchen making friends with the cook and the kitchen maid. They all looked so comfortable that she could not resist pausing at the foot of the kitchen stairs to observe them—which was when she became aware of the low-voiced conversation going on in the room beside her that stretched beneath the stairs.
She guessed it was the housekeeper’s sitting room, for the female voice was relatively cultured, if indignant, as it drifted through the half-open door.
“…no better than they should be, if you ask me. Looks like that aren’t natural.”
“His or hers, Mrs. Haslett?” inquired a male voice politely, with just a hint of sardonic humor.
Ah. Constance knew from Elizabeth that Mrs. Haslett was the housekeeper.
“Hers, of course. Too beautiful by far, and too many fine clothes into the bargain. Why would a governess have a friend like that?”
The word governess was spoken with unexpectedly virulent contempt, causing Constance to linger where she was. Especially since no one appeared to have noticed her. Everyone in the kitchen seemed to be either busy or gossiping with Solomon. Or both, in the cook’s case.
“Her ladyship is no longer a governess,” the male voice said austerely. “And I’d advise you to remember it. Besides, a governess is still a lady, and there’s no reason in the world she shouldn’t have wealthy old friends.”
A disparaging sniff sounded. “Maybe. But he doesn’t even look English to me. Watch those silly girls drooling over him—even Cook, who should know better.”
“Mrs. Haslett, you’re getting into one of your moods. And I really don’t see what you have against her ladyship. She has done wonders for the master, and for those children.”
This was better. The man was clearly the butler, whom Constance had glimpsed only once, when he announced dinner last night.
“I suppose you’re right, Mr. Manson,” the housekeeper said grudgingly. “She just doesn’t measure up to the first Lady Maule. No one could, and it breaks my heart to see a mere governess in her place.”
“It broke your heart not to see Frances Niall in her place,” Manson said dryly. “And if that had come to pass, just think where we’d be now.”
“At least the Nialls are gentry,” Mrs. Haslett muttered. “And local.”
“If you want to seek another post, Mrs. Haslett, I’m sure her ladyship would give you an excellent character.”
Another sniff. “I’m not at that stage yet. I suppose she’ll learn in time how to put a decent menu together. And I suppose she doesn’t skimp on the things that matter. I just wish she’d take more advice.”
The housekeeper’s voice came nearer, as though she were about to step out of her sitting room, so Constance walked rapidly toward Solomon. Ruefully, she reflected that Elizabeth’s life was not free from struggle, even without the murder to contend with. If Mrs. Haslett was as disrespectful to her mistress’s face—or before the lower servants—Elizabeth should dismiss her.
Catching sight of Constance, the servants about Solomon largely broke apart. Constance took the proffered cup of coffee from him, fervently saying, “Bless you!” to the cook, who beamed back at her.
She devoured the cupful in a few swallows. “Now I can face the day. Shall we walk?”
“The girl will bring you a cup to your room tomorrow, if you like,” the cook offered.
“Wonderful,” Constance said with a smile, and followed Solomon out of the back door. “Learn anything?” she murmured.
“Only that they seem to respect their master and mistress, like their positions, and had nothing at all to do with the poor lady who died. There is also a disapproving housekeeper called Mrs. Haslett.”
There is indeed . “What does she disapprove of?”
“Everything, I should guess—certainly me, although we did not discuss it.”
“She disapproves of Elizabeth, too,” Constance said, “mostly because she’s not the first Lady Maule, from what I can gather, but also because she was a mere governess. She would have preferred Frances Niall step into those shoes.”
Solomon raised his eyebrows. “Indeed? That is interesting.”
“And not very pleasant for Elizabeth. The woman doesn’t like us either, probably because we are Elizabeth’s friends. The good news is, she appears to be the only one who feels that way. I had the impression the butler had heard it all before and wished she would pull herself together or give notice. Did you learn anything else?”
He shrugged. “The Willows servants are on good terms with most of their fellows at Fairfield Grange, though one is apparently foreign.”
“From India?” Constance asked with interest.
“Yorkshire, apparently. They didn’t ask where I come from.”
Mrs. Haslett did, though Constance chose not to tell him so. “You’re Quality, so you don’t count.”
“I’ve never been called that before.”
“I doubt you ever will be again, so make the most of it. Is that the gardener disappearing around to the front of the house with his wheelbarrow?”
They found him raking the light scattering of leaves from the front lawn and surrounding flowerbeds.
“Good morning,” Constance said cheerfully when the man, a red head perhaps in his late thirties, tugged his cap in their direction. “One of the more annoying tasks of autumn.” She indicated his rake and the pile of leaves already in his wheelbarrow.
“I don’t mind. The boy does it usually, but he’s cut his hand and can’t work much with it yet. Or so he tells me.”
“When did he do that?” Solomon asked.
“More ’n a week ago now, which is why I think he’s at it!”
“Must be a nasty cut,” Solomon agreed. “You’re Cranston, aren’t you? The head gardener.”
“I am.”
“You haven’t had much luck around here recently, I hear. Sir Humphrey has been telling us about the poor lady you pulled out of the lake.”
“That were ’orrible,” Cranston said with a shudder. “And now they’re saying she didn’t fall in by herself, neither.”
“I know you were the first to find her,” Solomon said. “So what I want to ask you—”
“Don’t see why you want to ask me anything,” Cranston said, meeting his gaze with a touch of hostility. The locals were closing ranks.
“No, it must seem a trifle ghoulish to you,” Constance said sympathetically. “The thing is, as friends of your master and mistress, we are trying to find out what actually happened to poor Miss Niall, because apart from anything else, you must see this reflects most unfairly on the whole household.”
The gardener nodded. “We can all see that, ma’am.”
“Then perhaps you’d tell me what tracks you noticed on the ground around the lake that morning when you first arrived to find her in the water.” Solomon held his gaze. “Did you see footprints before you raked them over?”
Cranston took off his hat and scratched his fiery head as though to aid remembrance. “Yes, there were a few. But then, her ladyship walked round it with Miss Niall the evening before.”
“Round about where you found the body, were there more than two sets of prints?”
Cranston plonked his hat back on. “Hard to tell. They were all tangled and scuffed before I got there.” His eyes widened slightly. “I’ll tell what I did see, though. A line of wheel tracks, like a wheelbarrow.”
“Was that not you?” Solomon asked, glancing at the wheelbarrow behind them.
“No, I didn’t take the barrow that morning. Not many leaves, so I meant to just rake them off the path into a pile and get them all at once later on.”
“So, when did you last take a wheelbarrow around the lake?
“Not since spring.”
Constance felt a twinge of excitement. “Where did they come from? The wheel marks?”
“Lord, I don’t know. I never followed them. Everything went up in the air when I saw her floating there among the lilies…”
“From the path that leads to the house, perhaps?” Solomon suggested. “Or to your shed?”
“No, they’re on the other side of the lake, aren’t they? No, it was toward the other path, the one that leads to the road and down to the village, or up to the Grange.”
Solomon pounced. “Toward the path? Did you notice the tracks actually going along that path?”
“No, I never followed them. I had to help get her out, and then I had to go home and change—and if you want the truth, I don’t like going near the lake at all now.”
“Can’t blame you for that,” Solomon said. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”
“She was brought here in a wheelbarrow ?” Constance said as soon as they were far enough away from the gardener. For some reason, the vision inspired fresh pity at the indignity, though it made no difference to the poor woman who was already dead. It seemed…disrespectful.
“I think it’s possible.” Solomon, of course, sounded perfectly calm. “The main question is, where was she brought from?”
“If it was the path Cranston thought, then it could have been the village or Fairfield Grange or anywhere else on that road. But,” she added with more than a trace of triumph, “not from The Willows.”
“Why not?” Solomon asked distractedly.
“It’s hardly the quickest way from the house. If you had just committed murder, you would not go on a tour of the estate wheeling a heavy corpse.”
“No,” Solomon agreed. “But you might take a route that offered less likelihood of being seen by a random insomniac in the house.”
Constance opened her mouth to object to that, but he forestalled her with a rueful glance.
“Unlikely, I know. But on their own, the wheelbarrow tracks don’t rule anyone out. And since they’re long gone from the ground, we can’t follow them.”