Jane and the Stillroom Maid Page 16

  “You are lost in reverie, Jane,” Lord Harold remarked as we descended the final curve of road towards Miller’s Dale. “You are hardly attending to what I have said.”

  “I freely confess that I have heard not a word,” I admitted, “though you speak so well and so knowledge-ably, my lord, on every subject. It is one of your talents, is it not? The judicious employment of silence and volubility. It is an aspect of your character that must make you a friend to every salon. I have an idea of the scene: Lord Harold enters upon a fashionable rout; he takes the measure of his company, and determines in an instant whether the taciturn or the feckless is most suited to the occasion.”

  Lord Harold drew up his horses not far from the miller’s cottage. “I appear to have misjudged the present instance lamentably.”

  “Not at all,” I protested. “Your voice gave the perfect foil to thought—so insinuating, so low, so charming in every respect. I have been gazing upon the beauties of the Peaks, and considering of Andrew Danforth’s bed.”

  “Jane!”

  “Do not Jane me! Everyone is always doing it—particularly my cousin Mr. Cooper, who seems to feel himself my moral arbiter now my father is gone to rest. The presumption is most trying, I do assure you.”

  “You have the advantage of me, dear lady,” Lord Harold replied, as he swung himself down from our hired curricle; “for I have never considered of Andrew Danforth’s bed in the whole course of our acquaintance.”

  “A palpable falsehood. It was first brought to my notice by your own communications.”

  He looked up, and offered his hand. “You would mean the fact of Tess Arnold’s having been discovered in it?”

  “Exactly.” I stepped lightly from the curricle and smoothed the creases from my rose-coloured gown. “The housekeeper claims the maid was dismissed for an indiscretion. Sir James would have it that the indiscretion was Andrew Danforth’s. The gentleman, I may add, does not seem unduly grieved by Tess Arnold’s death, so there cannot have been much affection in the case—at least on Andrew Danforth’s side.”

  “But we know nothing of the maidservant’s heart. She may have allowed herself to regard anything as possible. She may have aspired even to becoming Mrs. Andrew Danforth. He is, after all, only a younger son.”

  “And must therefore make his fortune through marriage! It has been my experience, my lord, that the habits of younger sons run to considerable expense. Andrew Danforth intends to have a Duke’s daughter, and all of Parliament at his feet; and with such ambitions, Tess Arnold must prove a shameful impediment.”

  “Lady Harriot and her role in Danforth’s brilliant career may have been utterly unknown to the stillroom maid,” Lord Harold objected.

  “I very much doubt that there was anything toward in the Peaks that Tess Arnold did not know. From what I hear of her character, she was a woman to regard intelligence as gold.”

  “Very well. Proceed with the fruits of reverie, Jane. I expect to be amply repaid for my wasted chatter along the road.”

  “George Hemming confessed to having called Tess Arnold out on Monday night, with the intention of murdering her,” I declared, “and yet, she is known to have been dismissed. Did she quit Penfolds Hall that evening at the housekeeper’s injunction? Or George Hemming’s?”

  “That is the first of many flaws in the solicitor’s story.”

  “And one reason I do not believe it—entirely.”

  Lord Harold looked at me swiftly. “Then you credit some part of the tale?”

  “I have observed, Lord Harold, that when a man would plausibly lie—as George Hemming has done—he is inclined to present a patchwork, not a tale made of whole cloth. I believe him when he says that the girl would blackmail him—that she had blackmailed him, for years together. So much of his confession bears the ring of truth.”

  “Then we must consider what the maidservant might be in a position to learn,” Lord Harold mused, “and turn to profitable account.”

  “She was a stillroom maid. She was everywhere regarded as a sort of country apothecary—the compounder of draughts, of ointments, of remedies for common ills. Therein lay her knowledge and her power. We must find the cause of Hemming’s grievance among the herbs and simples of Tess Arnold’s storeroom. I know, for example, that he lost his wife in childbed nearly a decade ago.”

  Lord Harold surveyed my countenance. “If the lady’s death was due to any error of the maid’s, it should rather be Hemming’s case to blackmail her.”

  “True. I doubt, however, that Tess Arnold was in attendance upon Mrs. Hemming. She would have been only fifteen or so at the time. But perhaps Betty Arnold may recall the circumstances.”

  “How may the revival of such a grievance further our purpose, Jane? For you would have it that Hemming is innocent of the maid’s death. You have declared him incapable of the act.”

  “And so I believe him to be. But in the patches of truth Mr. Hemming has tossed us, we may learn much of Tess Arnold’s life and purpose.”

  “For example—why she left Penfolds Hall Monday in the dead of night.”

  “We cannot be certain that she did,” I objected. “We know only that she was dismissed from service sometime during the course of Monday, and met her death a mile from Penfolds Hall late that night. I do not imagine Mr. Tivey’s estimation of the hour of the murder to be exact; and Mrs. Haskell was prevented, by her timely swoon, from outlining the facts of the maid’s disgrace.”

  “But if Tess was dismissed for a dalliance with her employer’s brother,” Lord Harold observed, “then we may certainly set the earliest limit of her departure. Andrew Danforth is known to have quitted Penfolds for Chatsworth at roughly five o’clock. If the maid was turned away, her infraction must have been discovered before that hour.”

  “Did Danforth come on horseback?” I enquired curiously.

  “He did,” Lord Harold replied, “and an impressive animal it was. However varied his taste in young women, Andrew Danforth has a superior eye for horseflesh. The gelding could not have done less than twelve, and not more than sixteen miles an hour over the fields between Penfolds Hall and Chatsworth; and the distance to be traversed is no more than six or eight miles. I should judge that Danforth was perhaps half an hour upon his road—three-quarters, if he took the horse at a trot.”

  “And when did he appear?”

  “I cannot swear to the hour. I was dressing at the time.”

  The admission shocked me. Lord Harold was always so perfectly turned-out, I had grown to believe he was somehow beyond the common human endeavour of dressing. The idea of the Gentleman Rogue in smallclothes, before his valet and his mirror, brought a bubble of laughter to my lips. I averted my gaze, lest he espy it. “I believe Sir James was told that Danforth arrived at six o’clock. There might be time enough, I suppose, to beat a hasty course into the hills, slay the maid, and turn the horse towards Chatsworth before dinner.”

  “So early as half-past five? In August, when the light does not fade until after nine o’clock? Why run the risk of such exposure?”

  “Very well. Then let us consider his opportunity along the road home. At what time did the Chatsworth party break up?”

  “Dinner was served at seven o’clock—the Duke keeps the hours of Town, even in Derbyshire—and between the demands of cards, conversation, and Lady Harriot’s instrument, Danforth cannot have called for his mount until after one o’clock.”

  “What dreadful habits of dissipation! But he may have made his way, under a fitful moon, to the hills above Miller’s Dale no later than two o’clock.”

  “I understood that was the hour he is said to have arrived at home.” Lord Harold studied my countenance with interest. “You believe the maid to have been waiting at the place of her death, at Danforth’s instruction? It seems a tedious business, and little to the point. If he wished to be considered as beyond suspicion, due to his engagement at Chatsworth, then he should take care to fix the hour of Tess’s death during the period he was k
nown to be safely away.”

  “—Provided he were as cunning as yourself, my lord,” I observed, “but I should never assume so much. Does Miller’s Dale lie in the way from Chatsworth?”

  “Not directly. He should lose valuable moments in crossing a tortuous bit of country. I do not think he could possibly have done it, along the road home, and yet appeared at the stated hour.”

  “Let us leave, then, the whole tangle of the maid’s flight,” I suggested, “and take up instead the question of her clothes. Why choose Charles Danforth’s attire? For choice it must have been. I do not believe, as Arnold’s sister declared at the Inquest, that Tess was sent naked into the world.”

  “Perhaps she did not wish to give rise to comment if she were seen—as Mr. Hemming avows.”

  “Then why not wear Andrew Danforth’s clothing? It would be more the style of a besotted female, to sport the attire of her beloved.”

  “He is somewhat taller than his brother, and undoubtedly taller than the maid.”

  “I cannot recall her relative height,” I admitted, “but surely, if disguise alone was the maid’s object, she might have found ample resources enough within the servants’ wing. Danforth must possess at least one manservant.” I shook my head obstinately. “No, Lord Harold, there is a purpose to her masquerade that worries me greatly. I cannot help believing that she was intended to be mistaken for Charles Danforth. And that George Hemming perceives it.”

  Lord Harold studied me gravely. “You think that Hemming is Charles Danforth’s enemy?—That Hemming was here, in the rocks above our path, with the view to killing Charles Danforth? And that he shot the stillroom maid in error?”

  “Not at all,” I returned, “though such an admirable theory would explain his extreme disquiet upon viewing the body, his avoidance of the Inquest, and his recent confession. I admire your thinking greatly, my lord, but I cannot agree with it. George Hemming is too prosperous a man of affairs, to commence killing off his oldest clients.”

  “Then let us have your own view of the case.”

  “George Hemming is well-acquainted with Charles Danforth’s enemy—and fears that it was this person’s hand that despatched the maid in error.”

  “Jane—Jane! Must you complicate the business so dreadfully?”

  I sighed. “It is a woman’s duty in life.”

  Lord Harold did not reply. We were just then breasting one of the heights of Miller’s Dale—the very spot where I had paused to draw breath on Tuesday morning, and had considered of the crows.

  “But why should anyone expect Mr. Danforth to appear at such an hour, in such a place? He mentioned no summons in the course of the Inquest.”

  “He does admit to having dined alone, and to being a restless sleeper. He visited the Masonic Lodge, and thus is known to have been abroad on the Buxton road on Monday night. He admits to having retired, and then to rising once more with the intention of walking through his estate sometime near midnight.—What if that pattern is not unusual? What if it is known to all his domestics, and a good part of his acquaintance? Perhaps the man who killed Tess Arnold expected to find Charles Danforth—and in the variable light of a half-moon, fired upon a single figure toiling up the path from Penfolds in a gentleman’s pantaloons.”

  “You said, I think, that Tess Arnold was intended to be mistaken.” Lord Harold had come to a full stop at the brow of the hill, and stood there, breathing lightly, his eyes upon the tips of his Hessians. The gleaming dark leathers were clouded with dust. “If you would mean what I suspect—then someone must have directed the murderer to lie in wait.”

  “Of course. The person who wished Tess Arnold dead—as she so decidedly is.”

  Lord Harold’s grey eyes flicked over to my own. “The same person who took her into his bed?”

  “Why not? Who else could know of both the maid’s circumstances, and Charles Danforth’s habits? Who else should be so admirably suited to setting a snare—but Andrew Danforth?”

  “Why not shoot the maid himself? Surely such a course would require less subterfuge than this proxy killer, and a victim in disguise.”

  “Remember that Mr. Andrew aspires to politics. Such characters will be marked by their subtlety; outright murder is not in their style. It should be far too dangerous for an impecunious younger son, and might place him, rather than his brother, on the gallows. Better to dine at Chatsworth on the night in question and have one’s movements vouchsafed by a Duke. I’ll wager that Andrew would not go so near a fowling piece as the gun room at Penfolds, before the first of next month.”1

  “You think it was he who urged the maid to wear Charles Danforth’s clothes,” Lord Harold remarked.

  “Provided it was he who procured the gunman. Only in Charles Danforth’s pantaloons could Tess Arnold be killed by Charles Danforth’s enemy. Moreover, local suspicion has turned swiftly on Danforth himself, in no small part because of the maid’s clothes.”

  “You believe that Andrew intended his brother, Charles, to wear a noose, so that Andrew might come into his inheritance with the same stroke that rid him of the maid.”

  “Charles Danforth has been a most inconvenient figure for the better part of Andrew’s life. But for Charles, he might have inherited all his fond parents intended for him.”

  “And but for Tess—he might have had Lady Harriot.”

  “—Or so he may be suspected of fearing.”

  Lord Harold considered all this in silence, his gaze fixed upon the limestone crag a hundred yards distant.

  “And that,” I told him quietly, “is where the poor wretch died.”

  THE SCATTERED STONES WERE STILL SPLASHED WITH dried blood, but the birds had departed, and the stench was nearly gone. Lord Harold doubled his elegant frame, his hands upon his knees, and narrowly surveyed the earth about the maidservant’s place of sacrifice.

  “Your theory, Jane—excellent though it is—does not explain the mutilation,” he observed.

  “No more it does,” I replied serenely. “I was so kind as to leave you matter for thought, my lord. You must have something to engage your restless understanding.”

  He smiled crookedly and stood up. “Let us throw blame upon the long-suffering Freemasons,” he suggested, “and be satisfied. I can observe nothing on the ground, Jane—the earth hereabouts is too trampled.”

  “But surely you are sportsman enough to study the surrounding landscape, and determine where her killer was fixed?”

  “The lead ball found its mark in the center of her forehead, I think you said.”

  Unbidden, the memory of that visage—so untroubled in the sleep of Death, the ragged hole of the wound so incongruous above the fair curls—rose like a spectre in my mind. I said with difficulty, “A remarkable shot.”

  “Too remarkable by half. Were there scorings in the dust, suggestive of the body’s having been dragged?”

  “—As though she were struck by the ball elsewhere, and brought here to the base of the rock for … anatomisation?”

  “If that is the case”—he scrabbled swiftly back along the path we had already traversed, then forward again some distance, along the way Tess Arnold might have come—“there would be blood spilled where she first fell.”

  We cast about, eyes narrowed, for the space of several moments. The sun beat down fiercely, and not a breath of air stirred; the sound of a bird’s strident call brought a prickling of gooseflesh along my arm.

  “Ah ha!”

  Lord Harold was crouching in a patch of crushed bracken perhaps fifteen yards from where I stood. I hastened to join him.

  “The ball hit her here, Jane, and she fell heavily across that rock.” He pointed to a crimson smear on a broad, dimpled boulder. “She must have lain dead some time—observe how much blood has soaked into the earth. It would naturally be disguised by the grasses”—he poked at them with his ebony walking stick, and revealed a broad brown stain—“and Sir James would hardly think to look for it; it cannot really concern him where the maid
fell.”

  “I doubt he has even visited this place.”

  “But who moved her—and why did he carve up her corpse so brutally?”

  I’d hoped the witch had died in agony.

  The Marquess of Harrington—the Duke’s unhappy young heir—had nothing to do with Andrew Danforth’s ambitions. How, then, was he concerned with Tess Arnold?

  “For the ball to find her so precisely,” Lord Harold observed, “she cannot have been moving along the path, as we had surmised. She must have been standing still, just here—”

  “Waiting for someone. By previous arrangement.”

  He looked up at me from his position on the ground, the grey eyes intent. “Yes. We must assume that she was summoned here, Jane. So much for the theory of the maid’s dismissal.”

  “Do you believe it a fabrication? Put forth by Mrs. Haskell to protect her employer?”

  Lord Harold shook his head. “No. I credit the notion of the maid’s disgrace. Certainly her sister knew of it, and resented the result. We may adjudge Mrs. Haskell’s heartlessness a mere coincidence with whatever drew Tess here.”

  “A coincidence Andrew Danforth may have seized. With Tess Arnold in disgrace—impecunious, thrown off by her employer—he may have thought her too dangerous for keeping.”

  “Blackmail, again.”

  “She would know the way to Lady Harriot’s door as readily as anyone in Bakewell.”

  Frowning, Lord Harold gazed over my head. “We must assume that the maid’s murderer was in position anywhere within a radius of perhaps twenty-five feet, Jane. No shot in the dark could be so accurate at a greater remove. Let us pace off the distance, and cover the ground within that circle, in the hope of discovering some token of the killer.”