Chapter Three — The Locked Escritoire #3
“Is anything the matter?” Mrs Gardiner asked.
“Nothing to alarm anyone,” he said at once.
Elizabeth disliked the phrase on principle.
“My aunt has mislaid some papers, I believe. A small household matter.”
Colonel Avery, who had joined them, snorted. “Household matters do not send housekeepers white to the lips.”
Felix smiled faintly. “Dear Colonel, you have always preferred direct lines where curves may be kinder.”
“Curves are where scoundrels hide.”
Lady Ashbourne appeared then in the doorway. Her face was composed, but Elizabeth saw the hardness in it. Not fear. Anger, contained beneath discipline. Behind her stood Mrs Clary, looking far more distressed than a misplaced paper warranted.
“I must ask your indulgence,” Lady Ashbourne said. “There has been a small disturbance in my sitting room. Nothing of danger. Nothing that need inconvenience the party. But I should be grateful if we might return inside while the servants restore order.”
“A disturbance?” Mrs Lyndhurst repeated, already radiant with concern. “Oh, Lady Ashbourne, how very distressing.”
“Not distressing,” Lady Ashbourne said. “Only inconvenient.”
The distinction was delivered with such authority that several people appeared ready to accept it. Colonel Avery was not among them.
“What sort of disturbance?”
Lady Ashbourne’s eyes moved toward him with warning. “A private one.”
“Private disturbances have a way of becoming public if not looked at properly.”
“Then we shall look at it properly and prevent the necessity.”
No one could decently press her further.
Yet the very refusal sharpened attention.
Guests began to move indoors, not hurriedly but with that controlled curiosity by which well-bred people approach impropriety while pretending to withdraw from it.
Elizabeth entered beside Mrs Gardiner, with Jane close behind.
Darcy came a little later, his expression unreadable.
The disturbance lay not in the music room, as Elizabeth had first wondered, but in Lady Ashbourne’s private sitting room adjoining it.
The door stood open. Lady Ashbourne had evidently intended to close it, but Colonel Avery, whether by accident or obstinacy, had placed himself where he could see enough, and what he saw he announced.
“Good God. Someone has forced your desk.”
The effect was immediate. Mrs Lyndhurst gave a soft cry. Miss Trent went pale. Mrs Harrow, who had come in last, stopped so abruptly that Jane nearly touched her shoulder. Felix moved toward his aunt.
“My dear aunt,” he said, low and solicitous, “you should sit down.”
“I am not faint, Felix.”
“No, but—”
“I am not faint.”
The private sitting room, though smaller than the drawing room, had the same exact beauty as the rest of Silvermere, now made shocking by the smallest disorder.
A chair had been moved aside. Papers lay upon the carpet near a writing table.
A drawer stood open. And there, near the window where the morning light fell coldly upon polished wood, was the escritoire Elizabeth had seen the previous evening beneath Felix’s resting hand.
Its lid was forced.
The damage was not dramatic. There was no shattered panel, no broken hinge, no violent scattering of contents.
Only a splinter near the lock, a slight gouge where some instrument had been inserted, the brass fitting bent just enough to offend the eye.
In another house, perhaps, the injury might have seemed small.
At Silvermere, where every surface appeared to have been preserved from accident by force of will, it had the effect of a wound.
Elizabeth looked not first at the desk but at Lady Ashbourne.
Her ladyship’s face had hardened. She stood very still, and the room seemed to arrange itself around her even in disorder. Mrs Clary’s distress now became more comprehensible. This was not merely damage to furniture. It was a breach in a system that depended upon nothing ever seeming breached.
Felix bent toward the lock. “When was this discovered?”
Mrs Clary answered before Lady Ashbourne could. “A quarter hour ago, sir. I came to bring her ladyship’s note-paper as instructed and found the room so.”
“Who has been here this morning?”
“No one with leave.”
Lady Ashbourne said, “Clary.”
The housekeeper stopped at once, but not before Elizabeth heard the implication. No one with leave.
Mrs Lyndhurst clutched her reticule. “How dreadful. To think of such a thing occurring while we were all walking. There must be thieves.”
Colonel Avery looked at her. “Thieves generally take silver, ma’am. Not private desks under a lady’s nose.”
Mrs Lyndhurst flushed. “I spoke only from natural alarm.”
“Natural alarm is often inaccurate.”
“Colonel,” Lady Ashbourne said sharply.
He bowed, though not repentantly. “Forgive me. But desks do not force themselves.”
No one replied. The fact, being both obvious and unwelcome, settled heavily in the room.
Lady Ashbourne turned to the company. “I am sorry this trifling matter has been observed. I dare say it is some mistake—a servant, perhaps, attempting to retrieve something and doing so clumsily.”
Mrs Clary looked wounded by the suggestion, but said nothing.
Elizabeth knew at once that Lady Ashbourne did not believe her own explanation.
The household was too well trained. No servant at Silvermere would force a locked escritoire and leave papers on the floor unless seized by madness or acting under compulsion.
And if Lady Ashbourne had truly suspected a servant’s clumsiness, she would not have allowed so many guests to stand near the threshold.
Darcy spoke with great restraint. “May I ask whether anything has been taken?”
Lady Ashbourne turned to him. She seemed, for the first time, to hesitate.
“A few letters,” she said.
The words altered the room more than any mention of jewels could have done.
Mrs Lyndhurst’s eyes widened. Miss Trent’s gaze flicked—briefly, involuntarily—toward Mrs Harrow.
Mrs Harrow had grown pale, but her posture remained erect.
Felix’s expression became more concerned.
Colonel Avery’s mouth tightened. Jane looked troubled, not curious; Bingley looked from her to Lady Ashbourne and then to Darcy, as if trying to measure the seriousness by those better practised in concealment.
“Private letters?” Darcy asked.
“All letters are private until someone makes them otherwise,” Lady Ashbourne replied.
It was an excellent answer and no answer at all.
Elizabeth’s attention moved to the floor near the escritoire.
Several papers lay scattered, but not many.
Their arrangement seemed curious. They had not been flung in haste, nor rifled through with impatience.
A small stack had been removed from one drawer, separated, and left in visible disorder.
The open drawer itself was narrow. The lock had been forced cleanly.
Too cleanly, perhaps. Elizabeth stepped nearer under the pretence of assisting Jane, who had moved toward Mrs Harrow, and looked at the splintered wood.
The break was precise. A little too neat for violence, she thought. There were no broad scratches, no marks of repeated failed attempts. Whoever had forced the lock had either known what they were doing, or wished the forcing to appear more dramatic than difficult.
Darcy was looking at the same place.
Their eyes met. Nothing passed aloud. It did not need to.
Felix, meanwhile, had begun to gather papers from the floor, but Lady Ashbourne stopped him.
“Leave them.”
“My dear aunt, I only meant—”
“Leave them.”
He withdrew his hand at once. The obedience was instant, but Elizabeth saw something flicker beneath it. Annoyance? Surprise? Or merely hurt at being corrected before others?
Mrs Lyndhurst, unable to endure suspense without contributing to it, said, “But surely, if letters have been taken, one must know what they concern. Otherwise how can one judge the danger?”
“One need not judge it,” Lady Ashbourne said. “It is my concern.”
“Of course. I did not mean—”
“No.”
The word was quiet. It ended the apology before it began.
Darcy said, “Forgive the question, Lady Ashbourne, but would any guest or servant have reason to know that this desk contained correspondence of value?”
Lady Ashbourne’s expression remained composed, but the slightest tension appeared at the corner of her mouth. “Any long-standing member of my household might know I keep personal correspondence here. It is no secret that I write in this room.”
“Personal correspondence,” Felix added, as though helpfully clarifying. “My aunt does not keep estate business here. Ledgers and legal papers are in the library safe or the steward’s office. This desk holds only letters and small private matters.”
“Only,” Elizabeth said softly.
Felix turned toward her. “I beg your pardon?”
“I was only thinking that private letters are seldom small to the persons who keep them.”
His smile returned, smooth and pleasant. “Very true, Miss Elizabeth. I spoke only in the practical sense.”
“Practicality often undervalues feeling.”
“Does it?”
“Almost professionally.”
Darcy’s gaze moved toward her, and she felt rather than saw his approval.
Lady Ashbourne intervened. “There is no reason for my guests to be troubled. The matter will be attended to within the house. Mrs Clary, you will speak to the upper servants quietly. Felix, I shall require you later.”
“Of course.”
“Mr Darcy, Colonel Avery, I thank you for your concern, but there is nothing further to be done at present.”
Colonel Avery looked as though he disagreed with every word of this but would not quarrel with Lady Ashbourne before guests. Darcy bowed. “As you wish.”