Chapter Eight
Although it was a Sunday morning, none of the household, above or below stairs, expressed any interest in attending church.
April considered it, since she had discovered church yards after the service were a hotbed of gossip—the wrong reason for attendance, perhaps, and in any case, there seemed too much to learn in the house first, and she wanted to be close if and when Edward awoke.
Returning to the kitchen some time after she had eaten, she saw that the maids had brought down the breakfast dishes.
While one of the temporary girls from the village washed them, Becky and Peggy passed each other, one going in and the other coming out, of the housekeeper’s sitting room, presumably looking in on Edward.
“Is there any change?” April asked Peggy, who was coming out.
She shook her head, and Mrs. Riley turned from her mixing bowl, spoon in hand, to scowl at her.
“Cleaning in the drawing room and the dining room,” she growled. She raised her voice. “Becky! Take Janet and get on with the bedchambers!”
The maids obeyed speedily enough, while April pulled up a stool and sat a couple of feet away from Mrs. Riley, who eyed her in some displeasure.
“Who would have done this to Edward?” April asked bluntly.
She half-expected the cook to remain tight-lipped in defence of her underlings and had marshalled several arguments to persuade her. However, it seemed Mrs. Riley had already reached the right conclusions, for she answered at once with grim abruptness.
“He ain’t exactly made a lot of friends here. Scorned women and their angry menfolk don’t make for a peaceful life. I’m guessing you know all that. Those two silly minxes should know better.” She jerked her head in the direction the maids had left by.
“Both of them?”
“Just Peggy at first. Turned her head from poor Bert Godley who was devoted to her. They could have had their own cottage in time, when old Godley retires and Bert becomes head gardener.”
“I understand a lot of people have cause to be angry with Edward. But who would act on it in this way?”
“That I don’t know.” There was open worry in Mrs. Riley’s face and voice. “I just hope they regret it.”
“Did Lady Temperley know about Edward’s pursuit of her maidservants?”
“No, thank the Lord. If he’d actually caught one of them, if you see what I mean, it would have been a different story.”
“You mean he never went beyond flirtation?”
“Mrs. Ballam, the housekeeper, and me made sure it didn’t. Not that flirtation ain’t enough to ruin a maid’s reputation and get her dismissed.”
April was rather surprised by the woman’s certainty. “I saw Edward the night before last, on the maids’ side of the attic.”
Mrs. Riley dropped her mixing spoon. Her hand flew upward as though to dismiss April’s words, then her eyes fell and she grasped the spoon again. “What were you doing up there anyway?”
April blinked. “Following the strange noises in this house. Haven’t you noticed them?”
Mrs. Riley looked almost disappointed to be balked of a telling-off and a quarrel. “No.”
You’re lying. April moved on. “Did Edward use the summer house for his assignations?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised, especially when the family isn’t here, but if he did, it was behind my back and Mrs. Ballam’s.”
“Do the maids ever leave the house at night?”
“Of course not,” Mrs. Riley said, genuine shock in her eyes.
April set the key from Edward’s pocket on the table in front of her. She had extracted it from Piers before breakfast. “Do you recognize this key?”
“No.” It was too quick. And it was another lie, which the cook hastened to justify. “I only deal with the kitchen door keys. The rest’s Mr. Langton’s responsibility. He’s the butler.”
“So in his absence, it was Edward’s responsibility to see all the doors and windows locked at night, and unlocked in the morning?”
“Yes.”
“Were all the doors still locked this morning?”
“As far as I know.”
April picked up the key again.
“Leave it here, if you like,” Mrs. Riley said quickly. “I’ll ask the girls.”
“No need, Mrs. Riley,” April said. “I’ll ask them myself. Thanks for your help. Oh, who is the magistrate around here? Is it Sir Dominic?”
“No, it’s Mr. Alexander over at Tatley Manor. You’re not going to involve him, are you?”
“We’ll have to, if there was a crime.”
***
SINCE SHE HADN’T HAD time yet this morning, April went from the kitchen to her own room to practise her handwriting. She also had an ulterior motive for lurking there, for she could hear the maids’ voices further along the corridor and she wanted a word with Becky.
Her opportunity came when, after a quick knock, Becky’s face appeared around the partially open door. “Pardon me, but can we make your ladyship’s bed now?”
April put her pen in the stand and her notebook in the drawer. “In a moment. Come in and close the door.”
The girl obeyed, looking slightly alarmed. April let her come closer, further away from the door, where she suspected the other girl, recruited from the village, was listening.
April kept her voice low and unthreatening. “Becky, what were you doing up and dressed in the middle of last night?”
Becky’s face flamed. “I told his lordship—”
“I think we should forget what you told his lordship, don’t you? You didn’t wake and dress, unless you always put on stained and crumpled clothes. You hadn’t yet been to bed, had you?”
Becky stared at the floor, tears welling in her eyes.
“No, my lady,” she whispered.
“What kept you up?”
“Nothing really, just wasn’t tired.”
“Becky. You rise early and right now are doing the work of about three people. You were tired.”
The maid shifted uncomfortably but said nothing.
“Did you leave the house, Becky?” April asked.
The girl’s head jerked up, her eyes startled as they met April’s. “Oh, no, my lady,” she said, with what seemed to be genuine shock at the very idea.
“Why did Edward go out?” April asked suddenly.
Becky’s breath caught audibly. “I couldn’t say, my lady.”
“Then you were not meeting him?”
The girl’s paling face burned up all over again. “Of course not, my lady.”
“But he had been...pursuing you?”
Becky’s eyes closed, as though she were trying to block out a wealth of hurt and humiliation. Or just stop April from reading the misery in her eyes. “He was only flirting. He don’t mean anything by it.”
“Did you?”
Becky shook her head determinedly, but at least she opened her eyes again.
“But he was also flirting with Peggy, was he not?” April said.
Something very like satisfaction showed in the maid’s expression. “No, ma’am. Peggy give him his marching orders. She’d had enough.”
“Why?” April pounced. “What had he done?”
Becky’s face and posture turned wooden. “Couldn’t say, my lady. You’d have to ask Peg.”
“Do you have a young man, Becky? A follower?”
“No, my lady,” came the stiff reply.
“Last question—who do you think might have struck Edward such a blow?”
A tear trickled down the girl’s face. “God knows, my lady. I hate to think.”
She probably did. She was a respectable local girl, had grown up among most of these people. Violence of this degree must have been appalling to contemplate, let alone when it happened to someone she knew and, presumably, liked.
April nodded. “Thank you. You can make the bed now.”
She got up and left the room. The newly recruited girl was standing well back from the door, for all the world as if she hadn’t just dashed there as April approached. She carried a brush and a cloth over her arm.
“Janet, isn’t it?” April said to her. “What time did you go home last night?”
The girl looked startled. “About nine, my lady. We went together, me and Fran and Harold. Right glad he was with us, too, considering what happened to poor Edward.”
“You all live in the village?”
“Yes, my lady.”
April nodded and gestured that she could go into the room.
She discovered Peggy dusting in the drawing room. There was no sign of the other guests.
“Shall I come back later, my lady?” Peggy asked as April entered.
“No, I was looking for you, actually. When did you go to bed last night, Peggy?”
Peggy met her gaze, deliberately wide-eyed. “Ten, my lady, when Mrs. Riley sent us.”
“I didn’t ask you when you went upstairs, but when you went to bed. None of the staff here appears to sleep much. Edward was out at two o’clock in the morning.”
“I wasn’t, my lady,” Peggy said firmly.
“Then you didn’t go to meet him at the summer house?”
Peggy tossed her head in the magnificent manner only the prettiest women can really carry off. “No.”
“Have you any idea why he went there?”
Her lip curled. “Meeting some woman, no doubt. None of my business, my lady.”
Implying it was none of April’s either. “Actually, it’s all of our business when a member of the household is attacked, possibly killed. Who was he going to meet?”
Peggy paled a little, but she shook her head. “I don’t know, my lady.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Why should I?” she asked with just a shade of aggression.
“Because, so I hear, you had transferred your affections from the young gardener—Godley, is it?—to Edward.”
“Edward was a mistake. He thought he was too good for the likes of us. Actually, he isn’t good enough for me.”
“And yet he visited the maids’ side of the attic, didn’t he?”
“Oh, no!”
That was adamant. Too adamant? It certainly contained shock, though that was easily manufactured. Or could Edward have been creeping about the maids’ quarters without them knowing? If so, it cast the footman in an even less savoury light.
“His behaviour must have angered a lot of people,” April remarked. “Do you have any idea who might have attacked him?” April held up one hand to forestall the standard denial she could already see coming. “This is important, Peggy. It affects us all. You must see that.”
The girl swallowed. “I don’t know, my lady. I wish I did.”
April took the key from her reticule. “Any idea what this opens?”
Peggy blinked at it. “No, my lady.”