Cattawade bowed. “So I have been informed, madam.”
“You could help me a great deal.”
A wary look came into his face. “In what way, madam?”
“Who knows the household better than you, Cattawade? Indeed, whose opinion of the marquis could I better trust? I sometimes think those long in service are more fully acquainted with their masters than are the immediate family.”
In the harsher glare from a large candelabrum set on a small table in a corner of the vestibule, Ottilia was able to note the look of gratification that entered the butler’s features. It always paid to credit people with more than their share of knowledge.
“I have known his lordship for a very long time,” Cattawade conceded, a gracious note in his voice.
“Just so.” Ottilia smiled at him, and then gave a start, as if she had recalled something. “If I had not forgot! Lord Francis thought you might be able to enlighten me as to what happened that morning before he came upon the scene. When were you first aroused, Cattawade?”
“I hardly know now.” The butler thought for a moment. “I remember I was in the process of dressing myself, madam, when I heard Huntshaw’s screams.”
“What did you do?”
“I proceeded without delay down to this floor and discovered several persons outside her ladyship’s bedchamber there.”
“Who were they?”
“Huntshaw herself, madam. There were also Abel the footman and Diplock, my lord Francis’s valet.”
“Was the housekeeper there, too?”
“Mrs. Thriplow arrived a moment or two after, I believe, along with the kitchen maid and the boots. For by the time I had gone in to ascertain the cause of Huntshaw’s distress—”
“So you were the second person to see her ladyship’s body?”
A faint look of doubt crept into the man’s features. “I cannot be certain, madam. There were, as I say, others present already.”
“Very well. And what did you do while you were in the bedchamber?”
“I opened the shutters and the windows, madam.”
“Why? To bring light to the scene?”
A spasm crossed his face. “To let out the stench. I could see well enough.”
A diminution of pallor told Ottilia he was not as composed as she had thought. Even the memory had shaken his urbanity. He must have been severely affected by what he had seen. She forbore to press the point.
“Did you touch anything else?”
“No, madam.”
“And you did not go into the dressing room?”
“It did not occur to me to do so. The immediate necessity, it seemed to me, was to apprise a member of the family of what had occurred. But my lord Francis came upon us before I had opportunity to do so.”
Ottilia probed carefully. “Was it to Lord Francis you intended to carry the news?”
The butler nodded. “Yes, madam.”
“Why not to your master, the marquis?”
Cattawade showed hesitation for the first time, his gaze sliding away from her. Then he shifted with surprise. Flicking a glance in that direction, Ottilia saw the dowager standing quietly in the doorway of the back bedchamber, attired in a dressing robe with a nightcap on her head. Ottilia went quickly across.
“My dear ma’am, I beg your pardon. Did we wake you?”
The dowager stepped out into the vestibule before Ottilia could reach her. “I was awake, but never mind that.” She had evidently been there for several moments, for she approached the butler, upon whom her gaze was fixed. “Why did you not go straight to the master with this news, Cattawade?”
Ottilia rejoined them in time to note the butler’s resumption of the rigidity of manner reserved for his calling. His answer was couched in the expressionless tone that gave nothing away.
“Because I knew his lordship had left the house, my lady.”
The dowager sprang on this. “How did you know? Did you see him go?”
“No, my lady. But Foscot had roused me earlier. His lordship had called for two bottles of brandy to be taken to his chaise. There were none in the pantry, and I have the key to the wine cellar.”
Ottilia tried to recover lost ground, speaking with exaggerated courtesy and friendliness. “Tell me, Cattawade, had you any idea of the time of night?”
To Ottilia’s regret, the butler did not unbend in the slightest. He merely gave a fractional shake of the head. “No, madam. I took it to be some time around three or four, but I could not say for certain.”
“Very well, let that pass. So you got up to fetch the bottles. Did you take them to your master?”
“No, madam. Foscot accompanied me and took them himself.”
“That will not do, Cattawade,” snapped the dowager. “I know your habits. You would consider it your duty to hand the bottles personally to his lordship. What should induce you to do otherwise?”
The butler did not flinch. “The knowledge, my lady, conveyed to me by Foscot, that his lordship was in a foul temper.”
“He was, was he?”
“Yes, my lady, he having quarrelled violently, according to Foscot, with her ladyship.”
Ottilia eyed him with new interest. “And in the morning you discovered her ladyship murdered. What did you suppose, Cattawade?”
His eyes went to the dowager, and the mask slipped a little as his jowls reddened. “I confess, madam, I thought what anyone might think. It was not a welcome notion.”
“It was a false one,” the dowager returned on a harsh note.
“I am in hopes of so proving,” Ottilia said, and gave the man her warmest smile.
For the first time in their dealings, the butler showed real emotion. The rims of his eyes gleamed and his mouth quivered. “I hope and trust you will, madam, for the horror of that suspicion haunts us all.”
“I will do my best. And I am so grateful for your help, Cattawade. I am sure we will have occasion to talk again.”
Her words, she was glad to see, had silenced the dowager, who shot her a sharp look. Ottilia hurriedly nodded dismissal to the butler, who bowed and circumspectly withdrew. She turned to her employer with a smile, ushering her back towards her bedchamber, from which the glow of many candles set the vestibule alight.
“I am sorry to have been so thoughtless as to talk outside your chamber.”
“I am only too glad to hear another voice,” said the dowager, leading the way into the room. “Come in with me, my dear.”
Ottilia entered behind her and saw at once that the truckle bed set up beside the four-poster was empty. “But where is Miss Venner?”
The dowager was climbing back into bed. The curtains were not drawn and there were candles burning on the mantel, on the night table, and in one of the wall sconces.
“In the dining parlour, I trust. I sent her to fetch me a glass of port.” She settled herself against the pillows and patted the bedclothes beside her. “What have you been up to this late in the night?”
Obediently, Ottilia perched on the edge of the bed. “I thought it as well to seize opportunity at once and begin upon my explorations.” She gave a brief account of what she had found. “Although I cannot think Colonel Tretower will do anything but pooh-pooh the suggestion that a lover came by any of these ways. Nor can I blame him, for each has its drawbacks.”
To Ottilia’s dismay, the dowager shivered. “Are you cold, ma’am?”
“To the bone,” came the reply, “but not from lack of heat.”
Her glance shifted, as if she tried to penetrate the wall separating this chamber from that of the late marchioness.
“Dear me, is it so very uncomfortable, ma’am?”
“To lie behind Emily’s chamber? It is perfectly morbid, just as Francis said.” Abruptly, she hit the pillow beside her with a clenched fist. “Why had this to happen? It is so cruel. Who could have done it? Who would be so vicious? Oh, it does not bear thinking of!”
Ottilia reached out, taking hold of that fist and cradling i
t. “Hush, ma’am. We will discover him, I promise you. The truth will come to light.”
For several moments the dowager did not speak, her anguished gaze remaining fixed upon Ottilia’s face. She bore the scrutiny without protest, aware that her employer’s eye was concentrated rather on the inner turmoil of her emotions than on herself. At last the dowager spoke, and with weariness.
“I see that image of her ruined features and feel nothing. It is as if there is no reality in it, as if I dwelled in a dream.”
Ottilia said nothing. This was the expected stupor, catching up at last with the elderly dame. It was perhaps merciful that the overburdened mind should close down for a while, leaving one numb. She was no stranger to the phenomenon.
“What is your given name?” asked the dowager abruptly. “It is absurd, after all that has passed, to be addressing you as ‘Mrs. Draycott.’ I feel as if I had known you forever.”
“I know just what you mean,” she returned warmly. “I would be only too happy if you will call me Ottilia.”
The dowager’s brows rose. “Yes, I remember now. Unusual. But I like it. It suits you.”
“Why, thank you, ma’am.”
“And you may address me as Sybilla.”
Ottilia was startled. “Oh, I could not.”
“I don’t see why not. Teresa does so, and you are my companion.”
“Yes, but Miss Mellis has been with you for many years, while I—”
“Have insinuated yourself into an intimacy unequalled by the wretched creature in all that time. No, I will hear no more argument, for my mind is made up.”
Ottilia felt utterly discomposed. “But, my dear ma’am, it is scarcely respectful. In the circumstances—”
She was cut off without ceremony. “The circumstances are unprecedented.”
Then, to Ottilia’s great distress, the dowager’s face crumpled and she leaned forward, holding out trembling hands.
“Oh, my dear child, can you not see how desperate I am for a friend?”
A tear slipped from under the dowager’s lashes, and Ottilia could bear no more. “Sybilla! Oh, my poor dear.”
And then her arms were enfolding the woman, who clung to her, dry sobs racking her thin body. Ottilia rocked her, hushing gently, much as she had done when one of her nephews had needed comfort. But this was a collapse she had not anticipated. The dowager appeared so strong, so assured. But to find her vulnerable after what she had endured should come as no surprise.
Within a few minutes the dowager’s sobs abated, and Ottilia felt her resist the encircling arms. Releasing her, she hunted in her pocket for a handkerchief.
Sybilla took it with a word of thanks. “I am glad we are alone,” she said a trifle shakily. “I should hate Francis to have seen me behaving like a watering pot.”
“I am sure he would much dislike to see you distressed, ma’am.”
“No, and I would not add to his troubles, poor boy. This has brought a deal of unpleasant work upon him.”
“Indeed,” agreed Ottilia, relieved to note how Lord Francis had returned to favour. She added with deliberate cheer, “But he has been a soldier, I gather, and will know how to stand to battle.”
“We must all do so, Ottilia.”
“Very true. But for the present, dear Sybilla, I think you have stood enough, do not you?”
She had expected an argument, but the sound of the door opening forestalled it. The dowager contented herself with a sigh.
“Here is Venner with my port.”
“In good time,” said Ottilia, and rose to give place to the lady’s maid by the bedside. “Good night, ma’am. Don’t let the nightmare fright you too much, I beg.”
Sybilla took the glass from her maid and sipped. “It will be well if we both sleep, Ottilia. We must needs conserve our strength.”
Ottilia was relieved to hear the more normal acerbic note returning to the dowager’s voice.
“Not only must we face the gossips in due time, but there is Candia to be thought of.”
Venner started, catching Ottilia’s attention, and she saw a flash of some violence of emotion in the woman’s face. But in a second, her customary sour expression returned. Ottilia’s response to the dowager was made without thought as she continued a surreptitious survey of the lady’s maid.
“Candia?”
“My granddaughter.”
“Of course, I had forgot.”
“The poor child will be distraught at losing her mother,” said Sybilla. “I shudder to think what it will do to her to learn the manner of Emily’s death.”
Sleep was fitful, disturbed by strange dreams wherein dark passages and contorted faces juxtaposed with a series of odd conversations and a coach hurtling into the night with a clatter of hooves upon the cobbles. This last clashed so loudly in Ottilia’s head that she woke, staring with unseeing eyes into the enclosing darkness of the bed-curtains. The clatter came again, transposing itself in her mind into something near at hand.
An instant later, she identified its source. No horse this, but the ordinary household sound of the chambermaid working at the grate in the fireplace. The happenings of the past couple of days tumbled into Ottilia’s mind, and she fastened upon one piece of information she’d been given. Without thought, she reared up in the bed and flung back the curtains on one side.
“Sukey!”
The girl cried out, dropping her tools with a clang as she tried to turn sharply. Crouched as she was, the chambermaid lost her balance, threw out her hands to save herself, and ended up on all fours, staring up at Ottilia with starting eyes.
“Oh dear, I am sorry,” exclaimed Ottilia, throwing herself out of bed and going quickly across. “Let me help you up.”
Sukey allowed herself to be assisted to her feet, but she was clearly unsteady, her breathing shallow and fast, so that Ottilia felt obliged to keep a hand under her elbow to prevent her falling again.
“I am so very sorry,” she said again. “I did not mean to startle you.”
The girl found her tongue. “Ooh, miss, you give me a terrible fright! I thought it were the mistress, large as life again.”
How this might be so in a chamber set in a separate floor of the house and on the other side to boot, Ottilia forbore to enquire. It was evident Sukey was a girl with a vivid imagination. She was a plump child, little more than fourteen or fifteen, Ottilia judged, with a quantity of bouncing dark hair escaping from under the regulation cap and a pair of expressive pansy eyes that were undoubtedly destined to get her into a great deal of trouble. She was just the sort of girl to draw the opposite sex like a magnet.
“What a horrid thought,” Ottilia said, with just that touch of drama to induce the chambermaid to develop her theme.
The girl nodded and sniffed, dragging her sleeve across her nose. “It give me the shivers, miss. I thought I were back in my lady’s room, and her lying all cold and dead in the bed.”
She sniffed again, but there were no tears in the wide eyes, and it was borne in upon Ottilia that she was suffering from a cold in the head.
“Goodness, how dreadful! I am sorry to have reminded you of such an experience.”
Sukey gave an artistic shudder. “Summat awful, it were, miss. To think of my lady lying there all cold and stiff while I made up the fire! Fair makes my hair stand on end, miss.”
“I am not at all surprised. It must have been quite shocking.” She released the girl, confident the chambermaid was sufficiently recovered to stand on her own. “I don’t suppose you heard anything while you were in the chamber, did you, Sukey?”
Sukey shook her head vehemently. “I’ve a cold in me head, miss, and me ears weren’t working good.”
“I don’t suppose you saw very much, either?” Ottilia surmised, crossing to the door to retrieve her dressing robe from a hook and shrugging it on. It was cold, the chambermaid having been interrupted before she could get the fire going properly, but this was not the moment to draw her attention to the fact.
“What did you feel?”
“Ooh, it were like the time me little brother shoved a piece of ice down me back, miss.” She shuddered again. “Like as if I knowed there were summat wrong.”
Ottilia knew the propensity of people to be wise after the event, but she saw no reason to doubt the girl. A lively imagination did not preclude the possession of a sixth sense. She shifted tack.
“Can you remember what time it was when you were doing her ladyship’s room?”
The question seemed to throw Sukey, who blinked owlishly. “I start at six, miss.”
Ottilia smiled. “Yes, but I take it you do not start in her ladyship’s room.”
“Oh no, miss. I’ve the downstairs parlours to do first, so’s they’re warm when anyone comes down.”
“Very well, what time do you usually finish?”
“After seven, miss, depending.”
“Depending on what?”
“Who’s in the house, miss. But I’ve to be back downstairs afore eight to help Jane get the dining parlour ready for breakfast.”
“Then you must have been in her ladyship’s chamber somewhere between, say, half past six and a little after seven?”
“Yes, miss.” The reminder proved unfortunate, sending her back to a familiar theme. “Ooh, miss. To think she were lying dead there all the time while I were poking flinders in the flames!”
“It was horrid for you,” Ottilia soothed as patiently as she could. “It would be better to try not to think of it.”
“I can’t help it, miss,” Sukey protested. “It’s like as if I knew. Only I couldn’t do nothing for her if I had. It were too late.”
A note of hysteria had crept into the child’s voice, and Ottilia gentled her tone. “There is no need to distress yourself. You could not have known, Sukey.”
The girl struck her hands together and her whole face brightened, as if a sudden thought had attacked her.
“I did know, miss, I did. I never thought it before, but I couldn’t hear her, miss. I couldn’t hear her breathing.”
The Gilded Shroud Page 10
