Chapter 3
Emma’s mind cast up a terrifying image. “Is it Father? Is he ill?”
Miss Bates grabbed her arm, tugging her through the door. “It’s not your father. It’s … oh, Mrs. Knightley, please come. It’s the most dreadful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Emma allowed Miss Bates to propel her into the room—a room even chillier than the old stone corridors of the abbey. The doors to the terrace were wide open, their thick velvet curtains flapping in the gusty night air.
She darted a glance toward the fireplace, where she’d settled her father and the ladies earlier in the evening. Father had flung off his lap blanket and come to his feet, supporting a wideawake and obviously distressed Mrs. Bates.
“Dearest,” Emma exclaimed. “Why are you and Mrs. Bates standing about with the doors open? It’s freezing in here.”
She took the elderly woman by the arm to steer her back to her wingback, but her father waved her away.
“Emma, you must go outside and look! It is too dreadful for words.”
“I will, just as soon as I get Mrs. Bates settled. And you must also sit under your blanket.”
Miss Bates appeared at her side. “Let me take care of Mother and your father. You go outside.”
Emma glanced at her with some surprise. The spinster had always reminded her of a little sparrow, flitting here and there with great cheer but prone to bouts of nerves during moments of great upset.
Now, though, she seemed to have recovered her equanimity as she took her mother’s arm and helped her to resume her seat in front of the marble-topped fireplace.
When Father sank into his chair and took up the lap blanket in trembling hands, a grim premonition seized Emma. She drew in a slow, calming breath, and then she strode toward the open doors.
“Wait.” Miss Bates snatched a wool shawl draped over the back of a chair—it looked like Isabella’s—and rushed to give it to her. “You’ll perish in that light gown, Mrs. Knightley.”
Emma wrapped the shawl around her shoulders and picked up a lamp from one of the side tables. “All right. Now, let us go see.”
They stepped onto the wide stone terrace that faced the back gardens.
The garden furniture was stored away until spring, so the terrace was bare.
In the fitful light of the lamp, a thin layer of frost glittered on the gray stones.
The garden looked as it always did at this time of year—the trees with their leafless branches reaching like spindly arms to the sky, and the flower beds empty save for the boxwoods and the rose bushes cut back for winter.
All was silent but for the faint drift of music from the other end of the abbey.
Emma held the lamp up higher. The light dazzled her, but once her vision adjusted she saw nothing but the inkblot lawn stretching away into the darkness.
“Miss Bates, what am I supposed to see?”
Wordlessly, the spinster pointed over to the left.
Emma turned and almost dropped the lamp. The body of a woman lay on the stones, limbs splayed out in a terrible fashion.
“Good God!” she gasped.
The gruesome image swam before her eyes in a wave of vertigo. Emma felt herself sway, sending the lamplight wildly flickering.
“Mrs. Knightley,” the spinster cried. “Are you all right?”
Emma forced past the nauseating wave. “Yes.”
She took a few steps forward and held out the lamp so as to illuminate the entire body. A sickening sorrow tightened her chest.
“She is dead, isn’t she?” whispered Miss Bates.
“There can be no doubt of that.”
The unnatural attitude of the limbs, the pool of blood spreading outward from beneath the head … there was no need to feel for a pulse to recognize that the poor girl had expired.
“It is Prudence, isn’t it?” asked Miss Bates. “The maid.”
“I’m afraid it is.”
“But we saw her only two hours ago! She brought us supper and was so terribly sweet. You should have seen her with Mother, Mrs. Knightley. Prudence was so good with her. How could this possibly be?”
Emma stepped back a few paces and looked upward, already quite sure of what she would see—an open casement window on the top floor of the abbey, light faintly issuing forth.
While that floor housed the servants’ quarters, how in heaven’s name could Prudence manage to fall out the window?
Indeed, why was the window even open on such a cold night?
On that thought, a shiver racked through her, as the immediate shock of seeing the body began to fade. She glanced over at Miss Bates, whose shoulders were drawn up around her ears, her thick shawl wrapped tightly around her body. The poor woman looked frozen and miserable.
Emma put a hand on her shoulder. “Come, we must go back inside before you freeze to death.”
Miss Bates startled under her touch. “Oh, yes, whatever you say, Mrs. Knightley. But shouldn’t we do something about the body… .” She swallowed. “Cover her with something? It’s so dreadfully cold out here.”
“The cold won’t bother her now.”
When the other woman’s gaze leapt to hers, Emma winced. What a dreadfully inappropriate thing to say. Perhaps the night air was freezing her brain.
She took Miss Bates and guided her back to the open doors. “We must leave the body exactly as is until Mr. Knightley has viewed it. And Dr. Hughes as well, I imagine.”
Emma closed the doors firmly behind them. No need to keep them open, at this point.
“I’m the one who discovered the body,” the spinster said in a miserable tone. “I don’t think Dr. Hughes will be very pleased with me.”
“I’m sure he won’t give it a second thought.”
He will absolutely give it a second thought.
In last summer’s investigation into Mrs. Elton’s death, Miss Bates had inadvertently locked horns with Highbury’s coroner on more than one occasion. Then again, Emma had also locked horns with him, deliberately so. It was likely that Dr. Hughes would be more annoyed to see Emma than Miss Bates.
At least it’s not murder.
Prudence had somehow tragically fallen to her death from the top floor of the abbey.
“Miss Bates, how did you come to discover the body?”
“Because I heard a tremendous thud coming from the terrace. We were all sitting by the fire, having a comfortable chat, although Mother had dozed off, I think. We were talking about Jane and Frank, and wondering when they might be able to come to Highbury. The baby, you know, and Jane’s health.
” She frowned. “Yes, Mother had definitely dozed off, so it was just Mr. Woodhouse and I who were chatting then.”
Miss Bates had a tendency to rattle on when she was, well, rattled. Emma had learned that trying to hurry her rarely achieved the desired results.
“So you were all sitting by the fire. What happened next?”
“Forgive me, Mrs. Knightley. As I said, your father and I were chatting. Your sister had left us several minutes before… .” She seized Emma’s arm. “Thank goodness she was not in the room! I’m so grateful she was spared this terrible shock.”
“Miss Bates, Emma,” her father called from across the library. “What is happening?”
“Just a minute, Father.” Emma refocused on Miss Bates. “So you heard the thud. Then what?”
“It was quite loud, Mrs. Knightley. At first I thought a bird—an owl or a hawk, perhaps—had flown into the doorframe. They do that sometimes, you know. They are drawn to the light and grow confused. Your father didn’t think that could possibly be right, so I decided to look.
While he wanted me to ring for a footman, I didn’t wish to bother anyone.
Now I wish I had.” She ended on an unhappy note.
“It was very brave of you,” Emma said in a comforting tone. “So, you went to investigate this noise, and …”
“I opened the door and looked out. At first I saw nothing. So I opened the doors wide and looked all around. That’s … that’s when I saw … saw Prudence. Although of course I didn’t realize it was she, at first. I could only tell it was a body.”
Emma thought for a moment. “You didn’t hear anything else before the thud? A cry, perhaps?”
“No. I think that’s why I was so … so brave as to go out and look in the first place. It never occurred to me that it would be so horrible. Oh, Mrs. Knightley, what are we to do?”
“Ring for help.” She glanced over at her father and Mrs. Bates, huddled under lap blankets and shawls. “But first let me build up the fire.”
She crossed the room, Miss Bates scurrying in her wake.
“Emma, what are we to do?” Father plaintively asked.
She retrieved the tongs from the firebox. “I’m going to get help, dear.”
“But that poor girl! We mustn’t leave her out in that perishing cold.”
“A few more minutes won’t make a difference. Please don’t worry.”
“I cannot help but worry,” he replied as she placed the log into the flames. “You and Miss Bates were out on the terrace for such a long time. We grew quite afraid, didn’t we, Mrs. Bates? What if you and Miss Bates were to come down with a putrid fever as a result?”
“We were both wearing very warm shawls. We’ll be fine.”
Miss Bates, who had been attending to her mother, glanced over her shoulder. “There is no need to worry about me, sir. I am quite robust. And Mrs. Knightley never gets sick, you know.”
Will wonders never cease?
Miss Bates was showing uncommon fortitude. Under the circumstances, it was a welcome development.
Once she got the fire going strong, Emma slipped behind her husband’s desk to yank the bellpull. “Father, someone will arrive soon to stay with you. Once they do, I should go find George.”
He reached out a hand. “Please don’t leave, Emma. What if Isabella were to return? Anyone could come into the library at any moment.”
The Bates ladies also fastened pleading gazes on her. Emma longed to find George and pass this burden over to him, but heaven only knew what Miss Bates or her father would say if a guest wandered in to chat. This situation needed careful handling.
“Then I’ll stay right here with you,” she said. “In the meantime, I think you could all do with a glass of sherry to warm you up. How would that be?”