A Fatal Freedom (16 page)

Ursula thought for a moment then decided there could be no harm in telling the truth. ‘Do you remember Mrs Peters, who stayed here for a little while?’

Mrs Crumble, busy fetching the tea caddy, nodded. ‘’Course I do.’

Unexpectedly Meg said, ‘Lovely, Mrs Peters was.’ She stroked the cat more vigorously and it jumped down. ‘Aw, don’t do that, Tiddles.’ The cat ignored her. ‘Always writing, Mrs Peters was,’ Meg added, her hands collapsed in her lap.

Ursula finished a mouthful of stew, her mind suddenly alive. ‘You saw her writing, Meg?’

A decided nod.

‘In a diary? A book, that is?’

An equally decided shake of the head. ‘Naw, on paper. Letters.’

Ursula wondered who Alice had been writing to. The obvious answer would have been Daniel, but she hadn’t known where he was. Perhaps the girl was writing to close friends. ‘It’s convenient to have that postbox on the corner,’ she said slowly.

‘Aw, she didn’t post ’em.’ Meg said.

‘She didn’t?’

‘She burned ’em.’

‘Burned them?’

‘In her grate. Used matches, she did. Then she’d cry.’

Ursula wondered why the girl would go to the trouble of writing letters only to set fire to them. Had she been writing to Daniel after all, hoping she would find out where he was so she could send them? Then perhaps burned them when no address was forthcoming, in case they fell into the wrong hand.

‘You saw her when you cleaned her room, is that it?’

Meg gave another vigorous nod. ‘Left when I started cleaning. Put letters in drawer. Always writing she was,’ she repeated. A sly look came over her face and she scrambled in a pocket of her crumpled dark grey cotton dress. ‘Found this in her grate, I did.’ She brought out a scrappy piece of paper, its edges singed brown. ‘Lovely she was, Mrs Peters.’ Meg smoothed the paper over her knee and peered down at it.

‘What’s it say?’ asked Mrs Crumble, filling a teapot with boiling water and bringing it over to the table. ‘Writing to her young man, was she?’

Meg looked closely at the paper, bending her head so she sat hunched. ‘Can’t read.’ She held the paper out to Mrs Crumble. ‘You read it.’

Mrs Crumble took the paper and held it carefully, scanning the words as though they were difficult to make out.

Ursula felt she should intervene. This was as bad as eavesdropping, especially as Alice had meant whatever she had written to be destroyed.

‘I don’t think …’ she started.

But Mrs Crumble wasn’t paying attention. ‘“you, my darling, I have worked it,”’ she read in a monotone, each word given equal weight. ‘The next word looks odd,’ she said in a normal voice. ‘I think a bit’s been burned away. “aniel, I can do it, I know I can. It readful” – is that a word? Something to do with reading?’ she asked Ursula.

Ursula thought for a moment. ‘It might be “dreadful”,’ she said. ‘The “d” could have got lost.’

‘“aniel, I can do it, I know I can, dreadful, but then we can be free for” there’s another bit must have gone. “He will be gone.” That’s it.’ She turned the bit of paper over. ‘Nothing on the other side. What do you think it means?’ she handed Ursula the piece of paper.

‘Here, it’s mine,’ said an agitated Meg. ‘You had it to read, not give away.’

‘You shall have it back,’ Ursula said soothingly. ‘I just want to see how much was burned.’ The writing that was there was educated, the letters clearly formed, controlled but flowing attractively. No difficulty in reading them.

‘Don’t make much sense,’ complained Mrs Crumble.

‘Mrs Peters was planning to leave her husband and run away with the young man who came here, Daniel Rokeby.’

‘Ooh, is that where she went when she left?’ The cook sounded excited.

‘No, she went back to her husband. She found she was …’ Ursula paused for a moment as she sought for the right phrase. ‘With child’ sounded too biblical, and she was averse to ‘in an interesting condition’; it was a ridiculous way of describing such a natural event. ‘In the family way,’ she came up with at last.

At least both women had no difficulty understanding what she meant.

‘That’s nice,’ said Meg.

‘Cripes!’ said Mrs Crumble. ‘And gone back to her husband? I thought she was escaping from him.’

Ursula swallowed an involuntary smile. Servants did indeed know everything that went on in the house where they worked, or nearly everything. Then she wondered what Mrs Crumble and Meg knew about her. But what was there to know?

‘As he was the father, she thought it was her duty.’

‘Treat her right, will he?’ asked Meg, frowning in concentration and holding out her hand for the return of the piece of paper. ‘Mrs Peters is nice.’

Ursula quickly memorised the few words on the scrap of paper and handed it back to Meg, watching her return it to her pocket.

‘Wasn’t burned,’ Meg said. ‘So it’s mine.’ Her tone was matter-of-fact rather than defensive.

Well, if Alice hadn’t ensured all her pieces of paper had gone up in flames, then she had to accept the consequences.

Ursula thanked Mrs Crumble for her supper and went upstairs.

Up in her room, she found paper and pencil and reproduced as well as she could the words as they had appeared on the unburned portion of the letter. The first word did not start with a capital letter, which meant the first phrase was only part of a sentence:

‘you, my darling, I have worked it’

‘aniel, I can do it, I know I can. It’

‘readful, but then we can be free for’

‘He will be gone.’

She tore the left-hand side of the paper away, trying to copy the singed bit of the original. How much had been burned? Had the other part of it been wider than her piece, or narrower? With the missing words in place, could it be part of a letter explaining to Daniel that Alice could leave her husband and run away with him, so that they could be free to enjoy their lives together? But what did that last little phrase mean: ‘He will be gone’?

* * *

Ursula had a largely sleepless night, tossing and turning as she tried to make sense of that scrap of paper. It was hopeless, and that last sentence haunted her.

Breakfast was almost over. The last of the other boarders left, finishing her tea standing up before uttering a muttered farewell.

Ursula wasn’t due at Mrs Bruton’s for another hour and was happy to enjoy some more toast and another cup of tea. She was beginning to appreciate this English habit. The brew was a great deal better than the stewed coffee she had had to endure in California.

There was a knock at the door and Ursula looked up in surprise as Thomas Jackman entered, very smart, wearing a brown suit with curved corners to the jacket and a starched wing collar to his blue shirt. His brown shoes were highly polished. His bowler in his hand, he looked pleased with himself.

‘Good heavens,’ she said, smiling. ‘Mr Jackman. Will you sit down and take a cup of tea?’

‘Thank you.’ He placed the hat on the sideboard.

There was a spare clean cup on the table and Ursula poured the tea, adding milk and offering him sugar. He watched her with a slightly puzzled expression. ‘Do you always add the milk after?’ he asked, taking the cup.

Ursula nodded. She had seen the other boarders pour the milk into their cups before adding the tea but she had watched it being done the other way using cream at Mountstanton and it seemed a sensible procedure to her, allowing the strength of the brew to be assessed so the right amount of milk could be added.

‘Are you on your way to Miss Fentiman’s?’

He nodded.

‘And you look as though you are going to accept the commission.’ There was something about the confident way he lifted the cup and drank his tea that told her this. But maybe he always acted in this way. It struck Ursula how little she actually knew Thomas Jackman.

‘Well, now, Miss Grandison, I would be grateful for a little information from you before I take the step of accepting the case.’ He put down the cup and leaned back in his chair, sitting almost sideways on, one arm resting on the table.

Ursula raised an eyebrow at him. ‘If there is anything I can tell you, please ask, but it is unlikely. You know the situation better than I, surely?’

His gaze remained level. ‘Daniel Rokeby,’ he said. ‘What is your impression of that young man?’

‘Ah, Daniel!’ She paused for a moment. ‘What, Jackman, are you actually asking me?’

His hand moved slightly as though her use of his surname disturbed him. It did make her sound as though she thought of him as a servant. She wondered why she had not called him ‘Mr Jackman’, or used his Christian name, as she had started to do at Mountstanton. It would have been more polite and more friendly.

‘Do you, Thomas, think Daniel might have murdered Joshua Peters?’

His bright eyes gave her a sardonic look, as though he understood exactly why she had used his given name. ‘Well, Ursula, Daniel Rokeby had everything to gain by Peters’ death. What I am asking is, do you consider him capable of the deed?’

She looked down at the half piece of toast left on her plate. ‘He’s a bit of a puzzle,’ she said slowly. ‘One moment he seems a charming, intelligent, quite sophisticated young man; the next he’s arrogant, unthinking and immature. But you must have seen more of him than I during your tailing of Alice Peters. What is your opinion?’

He eased the set of his wing collar. Ursula had always thought there could be few more uncomfortable items of male clothing than those collars, starched and fashioned into a knifelike sharpness.

‘Before last night, whenever I have seen Mr Rokeby, he has been lavishing charm on Mrs Peters, who is a very pretty woman.’

‘Would you say he was genuinely in love with her?’

Jackman gave her a sidelong look. ‘Perhaps,’ he said slowly. ‘Together they seemed to inhabit a bubble, cutting out everything around them, no matter where they were.’

Ursula remembered the mention of Millie Rudge during the meeting at his house. ‘You told me you’d made friends with Alice’s maid? Did you ask her what she thought her mistress felt for the man she was constantly meeting?’

‘I did indeed. She thought Mrs Peters was in love in a way she had never been with her husband.’ He leaned slightly towards Ursula. ‘So, do you think Rokeby capable of murder?’

She sighed. ‘How is one to tell? He hasn’t given the impression that a killing instinct lurks beneath the surface. But, maybe, if he wanted something strongly enough …’ She thought of something else. ‘Didn’t you think it odd how he took against you so immediately?’

‘If I was a man full of myself, which I assure you I am not, I’d be tempted to the conclusion he was guilty of the crime and afraid I would nobble him.’

Ursula had thought the same.

‘Do you think he could be that devious?’ Jackman asked.

She gave the question careful thought. ‘My instinct says it is unlikely but, then, I really haven’t seen much of him.’ She remembered his passion the afternoon he had returned from the Lake District and taken Alice out into the square’s garden. ‘I think that devising murder through poisoned chocolates requires a much more malevolent character than Daniel’s.’

Should she tell him about the scrap of singed paper Meg had found? No, she decided, not until she had figured out the exact meaning of what was there. For Alice seemed the least malevolent person she had ever met. There had to be some other reason than the obvious for the words that had been written.

Jackman picked up his bowler. ‘Ursula Grandison, my thanks for your opinion. I shall now visit Miss Fentiman and tell her I shall take the case.’ He put his hat on his head, slightly too far back. It gave him an oddly rakish look.

‘Thomas Jackman, I hope what I said can be of use.’

He gave her a slight bow and left.

Ursula sat at the table for a few more minutes, then realised she ran the risk of being late for Mrs Bruton. Running upstairs to ready herself, she found not having told Jackman about the bit of paper was becoming increasingly difficult to handle. Why hadn’t she told him? Was it because she thought he would jump to the wrong conclusions? That would mean she did not trust him. But would they be the wrong conclusions? Was she trying too hard to believe Alice Peters could not be guilty of her husband’s murder?

Millie woke with a start. For a moment she thought she’d heard that horror-filled scream that had broken into her sleep ten days earlier.

She had sat up in bed, every nerve quivering. Surely it must have woken the whole household. She rose, pulled on her cotton dressing gown and her slippers then ran down the stairs to the drawing room.

Outside the door, she had hesitated. What if burglars had broken in and were stealing the silver? But it was six o’clock in the morning, and any self-respecting burglar would be long gone. Quietly she entered. Sarah stood rigid in the middle of the floor, the bucket of coal on its side, nuggets and dust all over the carpet.

‘What’s happened?’ Millie cried.

Sarah pointed at the wing chair by the fire, the chair that Joshua Peters always sat in. And there he was, his face contorted with pain, his body flexed into an extraordinary position, his eyes – oh his eyes! Millie thought she would be haunted by the agony in those eyes to her dying day.

She had had hysterics.

* * *

Millie Rudge was born ambitious. Her mother had encouraged her. ‘You’re bright, you can go far. Perhaps even end up housekeeper to a large household,’ she said.

Millie, though, soon singled out the position of lady’s maid as her aim. It had status, was apart from the general household servants, meant you didn’t have to wear a uniform, and brought perks such as beautiful clothes casually donated by a mistress to a loyal maid, who could wear or, more usefully, sell them.

She had always been good with her needle and she set herself to learn the accomplishments needed to make her a skilled lady’s maid: hairdressing – the other maids she worked with proved willing models – the care and washing of special materials such as silks, lace, cashmere and others. She discovered which magazines reported on the latest fashions, made friends with a seamstress and learned how to create patterns that would capture a particular look.