Face Down Beneath The Eleanor Cross Part 11

"She does not keep very many servants," Lady Appleton observed.

"Only four live in." Jennet finished untangling her mistress's long, thick hair and returned the mother-of-pearl inlaid comb to the top of the little table that held the Venetian mirror. "Two maids, a manservant, and the groom." The current steward, who also oversaw neighboring Denholm Hall, lived there with his family.

Jennet held up a clean bodice already loosely joined to a stomacher stiffened with wooden busks. Lady Appleton stood still while Jennet dropped the garment over her head, took a moment to readjust the ankle-length chemise beneath, then held her arms out to the sides so that Jennet could tighten and tie the ribbons that held the pieces together.

"Did anyone know where Mabel went?"

Jennet was glad Lady Appleton could not see her face. She had not asked. Mabel Hussey, who had been both cook and housekeeper before Lady Appleton's first visit to Lancas.h.i.+re, had been the bane of Jennet's existence throughout her tenure at Appleton Manor. The two women had clashed over every detail of running the household and although Jennet had been the one Lady Appleton left in charge, Mabel had resisted all Jennet's attempts to drive her away. She'd taken unholy delight in staying on as cook after Lady Appleton returned to Leigh Abbey. She'd known Jennet wanted her gone and refused to cooperate just to torment her.

Why, then, would she have let Eleanor send her packing?

"I do not know where Mabel is." It was the simple truth.

"Did you ask if Eleanor was here throughout Yuletide?"

"Aye, I did. They claim she was, but they also showed all those signs of nervousness you told me to watch for-eyes s.h.i.+fting away, fiddling with skirts and ap.r.o.ns, a hesitation before answering."

By the time Jennet finished giving a full account of her conversation with the maids, most of the details so trivial as to be useless, Lady Appleton was fully dressed and ready to begin her day.

"They may be telling the truth about Eleanor's presence in Lancas.h.i.+re," she said. "It is possible their nervousness stems from another cause. A pilfered bit of food from the pantry or some similar minor offense."

"She may have paid them to lie. Or threatened them if they did not."

"You do not care for Eleanor, do you, Jennet? What do her servants think of her?"

Jennet had deliberately saved one d.a.m.ning bit of information until the end of her account. "According to Blanche, the dairy maid, two different male guests have stayed here during the past year."

Bundling her unruly hair into a caul, Lady Appleton handed Jennet a French hood to arrange over it. "You think one of them could have been Robert?"

"Aye, and since none of these servants were at Appleton Manor five years ago, when Sir Robert last visited here, none of them could have recognized him."

"Did the maids give you names?"

Jennet nodded. "Aye. One I recognize and one I do not."

"Names can be a.s.sumed." She sounded calm, but Jennet sensed she had Lady Appleton's full attention.

"John Secole was one name. He lived here nigh onto six months and left during this past summer."

"What appearance had he?"

"Dark haired. Bearded."

Lady Appleton fingered a small, jeweled case she wore as a pendant. Inside was a miniature of Sir Robert. Like most portraits Jennet had seen, it had features so stylized as to make the subject almost unrecognizable. The man painted in little with beard and mustache could as easily be mistaken for Sir Walter or Lord Robin as Sir Robert.

The sound of a horseman approaching drew Jennet to the window. She was unsurprised to recognize the rider.

"What is he doing here?" Lady Appleton asked, coming up behind Jennet to stare down into the courtyard.

The shutters had been opened at dawn to let in the bright winter sun, but the light was accompanied by eddies of cold air coming in around the leaded panes.

As they watched, Eleanor Lowell, cloaked and hooded, emerged to greet her visitor. "Never tell me Master Grimshaw is her other suitor," Lady Appleton whispered.

"Both before and after the mysterious Master Secole." Jennet relished the moment. It was rare anyone could confound Lady Appleton.

Matthew Grimshaw had changed little in the years since Jennet had last seen him. Tall and gaunt, he was almost bald, with small dark eyes, no beard, and a long, pinched face.

As if he sensed he was being watched, he glanced nervously up at the house. Lady Appleton drew back from the window, pulling Jennet with her. She was limping, Jennet noticed. The leg she'd injured five years earlier still pained her when the weather was as cold and damp as it was this morning.

"Matthew Grimshaw," she muttered, shaking her head. "I thought Eleanor had better taste in men. After Robert, even with all his faults... Grimshaw?"

"He has been a regular visitor since she arrived here. Blanche thinks he wants to marry her mistress. Lettice is sure Eleanor has ruined her chance to become Mistress Grimshaw by granting him her favors before marriage."

"I wonder if she sent for him when we arrived?"

"She may have had no need to. He is in the habit of paying regular visits."

Jennet was more curious about Grimshaw's opinion of Rosamond. He'd had naught but unkind things to say to her when she'd given birth to Susan. Master Grimshaw's meddling opinion had been that servants should neither marry nor have children, since a family might interfere with the efficient performance of household duties.

Lady Appleton had returned to the window and surprised Jennet by chuckling. "Our stay here will not lack drama," she remarked.

Jennet peeked out. Sir Walter had joined the two figures in the courtyard. "What do you mean? Does Sir Walter already know Master Grimshaw? Are they old enemies?"

"Say rather that they are new rivals. I vow, Jennet, every time Eleanor and Walter looked at each other last night, I could almost see the air heat in the s.p.a.ce between them. It is possible neither has yet acknowledged the attraction, but it is only a matter of time before they must."

"Eleanor Lowell and... Sir Walter! But, madam, how can you sound so pleased?"

"I want my old friend to be happy."

"He would be happy with you."

"You know I never intend to remarry."

"But he does not believe you when you say so. He hopes to persuade you to become Lady Pendennis one day. I know he does." And of all the gentlemen Jennet had met, she thought none so fit as Sir Walter to teach Lady Appleton the joys of marriage.

"He believes me now." Lady Appleton made Jennet sit on the window seat beside her. "Sir Walter asked me to become his wife before we left Leigh Abbey. I refused him."

"Faith, he's quick to s.h.i.+ft his interest!" Jennet glanced again into the courtyard.

"Eleanor might suit him well, always a.s.suming she did not kill Robert."

But Jennet could not share her mistress's sentiment. In truth, this unexpected development left her feeling most uneasy.

Chapter 24.

Susanna's first full day at Appleton Manor was hectic but satisfying. Pretending to believe Matthew Grimshaw had come to pay his respects to her, she questioned him about several matters of business he'd attended to for her during the previous two years.

She did not mention Robert.

Neither did Grimshaw.

When Grimshaw left, Walter joined her. Ill at ease, he reported that Eleanor had admitted to knowing Robert had not died in France. She'd received a letter from him but denied any other contact.

After dinner, a quiet meal during which no one seemed to feel much like talking, Susanna closeted herself with her steward, then interviewed each of the servants. By the time she dismissed the dairy maid, she was in need of solitude. She sought it in the stillroom.

The changes Eleanor had made there suggested she had little interest in medicinal herbs. Curious, Susanna began to explore. She found only a few common remedies, stored in stoppered pots and small vials. h.o.r.ehound drops for coughs. A salve made of saffron, lettuce seed, white poppy seed, and woman's milk to induce sleep. A small ceramic container bore the label, "for hemorrhoids." Removing the thin skin tied over its mouth, which appeared to be coming loose, Susanna sniffed, then eyed the mixture inside. At a guess, it contained dill, dog fennel, and pellitory of Spain, beaten with sheep's suet and black soap.

Most of the s.p.a.ce in the stillroom was filled with the tub Eleanor used to cool down vaporized infusions and the results of this process, all in neatly labelled bottles-water of wormwood, water of strawberry, lavender water, even orange water. Several jars contained rose petals steeped in salt, which formed an aromatic paste that would eventually be made into rose water.

Susanna found evidence that Eleanor also used the stillroom when she made vinegars and pickles and jams and jellies. Gla.s.s basins, tumblers, and salvers, sweetmeat and syllabub gla.s.ses, tin biscuit pans, and a copper preserving pan had been added to the utensils she had installed five years earlier, the copper pot for boiling ingredients for cordials, a pair of bra.s.s scales and weights, and the cone-shaped pewter alembic. A layer of dust covered the latter.

"I overheard them talking," Jennet announced from the doorway.

"Eleanor and Grimshaw?" Susanna retied the cover of the salve pot and returned it to the niche where she'd found it.

"Aye."

Susanna knew she should not encourage Jennet to eavesdrop but her ability to listen in on other people's conversations often proved useful. "Close the door behind you and tell me what you learned."

"Most of what they said was in whispers and I could not make out any words. But then they stood right in front of the place where I was hiding and I heard Eleanor say that she expects her daughter to inherit Appleton Manor." Jennet looked outraged at the idea.

"A not unreasonable hope. Rosamond is Robert's only child." Susanna had antic.i.p.ated Eleanor's desire for an inheritance for the girl. It seemed natural that a mother would be concerned about her two-year-old's welfare.

"She is a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. A by-blow. A merrybegot."

"Robert's child, all the same."

Stiffening at the reprimand in Susanna's sharp tone, Jennet was quick to s.h.i.+ft the thrust of her dislike from Rosamond to Eleanor. "If the daughter inherits, the mother also profits."

"Meaning?"

"The maidservants tell me that Rosamond has, for the most part, been in the care of a woman called Nurse Bond. Her mother ignores her."

"A wet nurse?" It was not uncommon for a gentlewoman to employ one. Jennet, Susanna recalled, had done so herself for her third child, so that she might live in London with Susanna while the baby remained at Leigh Abbey with Mark.

"Nurse Bond moved here to Appleton Manor after her own babe died. She was in residence, using the chamber we now occupy for herself and the child, until two months ago, staying on even after Rosamond was weaned. Then she went off with mother and child on a trip to Manchester, and they came back without her. The maids say Mistress Rosamond cried for her nurse for weeks afterward. Doubtless she found her mother's inattention a poor subst.i.tute."

Years of experience with Jennet's vivid imagination told Susanna what she was thinking. She was wondering if the wet nurse had seen something she should not have and been disposed of to keep her from telling anyone about it.

Susanna agreed it was peculiar that Eleanor did not seem to keep servants long. "I know where Mabel is," she told Jennet. "It was no great mystery. She moved to Denholm Hall to cook for the steward's family."

"Then why did Eleanor not say so?" Jennet sounded more suspicious than ever. "She did not want us to question Mabel. That is why."

"Is it not possible Eleanor just found Mabel difficult to deal with? As you did, Jennet?" She did not allow time for a reply. "No matter. We will find out the truth of it when we talk to Mabel."

But any visit to Denholm Hall would have to wait until the next day. Dusk came early at this time of year and was already upon them.

Matthew Grimshaw joined them at supper that evening. Since Eleanor seemed pleased to have his company, Susanna made an effort to be civil to the man, though his conversation bored her to tears. She supposed she could tolerate him for the duration of one meal and an evening's entertainment.

"I've told Matthew why you are here," Eleanor announced when the first course had been served.

"Excellent." She'd expected this. No doubt that had been the part of their conversation Jennet had not been able to overhear.

"You might have mentioned your suspicions when we spoke this morning," Grimshaw chided her.

"I was certain you would volunteer the information if you'd had recent contact with Robert." Besides, since the direct approach had not produced useful results, she'd thought to try a new technique. Instead of blurting everything out, she'd waited to hear what Grimshaw had to say.

He'd said nothing then. He said nothing now.

Susanna contained a sigh.

"Did Sir Robert Appleton contact you at any time during the last eighteen months?" Walter asked. "Write to you? Visit you? Make demands on you?"

"I've had naught to do with Sir Robert for years," Grimshaw declared. "He had no reason to write to me. It has always been Lady Appleton who managed estate business."

"That is true enough." Robert had not cared for the man and the feeling had been mutual, even though Robert had once done Grimshaw a great favor. He had kept silent about certain matters that, if widely known, might have cost Grimshaw his commission as a justice of the peace.

Thinking of events five years past, Susanna reached for a bit of mutton from the trencher she shared with Walter. Eleanor was paired with Grimshaw.

"I do wonder...." Grimshaw's words trailed off, as if he'd changed his mind about sharing his concern.

"Speak up, man." Walter sounded out of temper. "If you know something of Robert Appleton, then tell us."

Fussing with his napkin, the lawyer hesitated. Weighing his words, no doubt. Susanna could not fault his sense of caution. "You will forgive me, Lady Appleton, if this subject is painful to you, but may I ask how Sir Robert died?" Her hesitation produced an unexpectedly sharp look from Grimshaw. "Was he, perhaps, murdered?"

"What makes you think so, Master Grimshaw?" Walter asked.

"Why, the very fact that you do not wish to answer my question."

"He was poisoned," Susanna said.

"Indeed? By whom?"

"That is something I intend to find out, Master Grimshaw. No doubt something Robert did during the last months of his life led to his death. That is why we are attempting to retrace his steps."

"I do not know why you think he came here," Grimshaw grumbled. "This would be the last place he'd show his face, saving only Leigh Abbey. Too many people hereabout could recognize him."

"So you might think, but my husband had some small skill with disguise."

She decided not to mention Master Secole just yet. She wanted to talk to Mabel first. Then she would broach the subject of her visitor with Eleanor. Time enough to get the lawyer's reaction later.