Death Below Stairs

by Jennifer Ashley

  Daniel gave me a nod, his eyes showing triumph. He knew he’d won. “Certainly. I will send messages, and we will catch the two o’clock from Paddington.”

  My eyes widened. It was already noon. “That’s very little time.”

  “You’ll do well. A cab will be waiting at the end of the mews at one o’clock.” He flashed me a cocky grin, the good-natured deliveryman once more, and headed through the scullery to the back door before I could protest.

  • • •

  Daniel had procured first-class tickets for all of us.

  I generally dressed well when I traveled by train—no need to be slovenly when the entire world can observe one. Or, if not the entire world, then at least the travelers on a Friday afternoon at Paddington Station.

  I liked my second-best dress, a rich brown broadcloth trimmed with black piping, and my hat with its matching black ribbon, but I felt a fool being helped aboard by the conductor among the ladies in their gowns created by high-fashion modistes and hats made by the best milliners in London. They rather stared at me, but we were all too well-bred to say anything.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when the conductor ushered me into a large compartment with its seats facing each other and shut the door, leaving me in relative privacy.

  I was alone for the moment. The hansom cab that had brought me here had been waiting at the end of the mews, as Daniel had promised, at one o’clock precisely, though Daniel hadn’t been in it. The driver was Lewis, who’d driven us from Euston Station after Daniel’s fracas there, and he’d greeted me cheerfully. Lewis let me off at the station and handed me a ticket he said Daniel had obtained for me, giving me barely enough time to find the correct carriage and get aboard before the train was due to depart.

  I’d never been inside a first-class compartment. When I’d traveled with my previous employer to Bath, only her lady’s maid went with her to her first-class seat while the rest of the servants rode together in third.

  This compartment was certainly luxurious. So it should be for a fare that cost nearly four pounds, according to the Bradshaw, to go all the way to Cornwall. The walls were polished wood with an inlay of flowers and curling designs, and the seats were upholstered in softest velvet, with extra cushions to lounge against and footstools if one wished. Lush carpet covered the generous amount of floor between the forward- and rear-facing seats—we’d not sit with our knees squashed against one another’s. The glass windows were etched with the same sort of curlicues as on the walls, and velvet curtains could be pulled across these windows and the door to the corridor if the occupants desired more seclusion.

  I automatically plopped down onto a seat that would be facing forward when the train moved, as I always did when riding third class—a cook in third class was at the top of the hierarchy and so was entitled to a more comfortable seat than her assistants. But here I was at the bottom of the chain, so I rose again and reseated myself facing the rear.

  The door onto the platform opened at that moment to admit Daniel and Mr. Thanos, a porter slamming it shut behind them. Mr. Thanos wore clothes no different from what I’d seen him in last night—indeed, I believe it was the same suit—but Daniel had once again dressed the part of a gentleman.

  I was sorry, because I didn’t feel as comfortable with him when he was in this guise. His hair had been tamed to lie flat, like Elgin’s, and he wore a coat of finely woven fabric, dark with a thin gray stripe. A waistcoat of the same material buttoned nearly to his throat, and a cravat poked above that, its ends tucked neatly beneath the waistcoat. Daniel’s trousers were slim but cut to flow over polished, well-made boots. He removed a tall hat as he entered, as did Elgin, Daniel placing his above one of the seats in the space made for such things.

  “Mrs. Holloway,” Daniel said, gesturing to the forward-facing seat I’d vacated as he removed his gloves. “Please.”

  When Daniel dressed like this his voice changed as well, taking on the smooth tones of an educated man, the edge of the London streets gone. He also was more polite, stiffly so. This Daniel was a stranger to me.

  I drew my feet back under my skirt and clutched my reticule in my lap. “I am quite comfortable where I am, thank you.”

  Daniel remained with his hand out to indicate the other seat—where a lady should sit. I didn’t budge.

  Elgin settled the argument by dropping into the seat facing me. “Leave her alone, McAdam. Sit down. We’re about to start.”

  Daniel finished stripping off his gloves and laying them next to his hat before he took the place next to Elgin, resigned, but I saw the glint in his eye that said he’d renew the argument as soon as he was able.

  The train jolted and bumped, moving slowly out of the station. It backed out, as Paddington was the end of the line for this train, so I had a hollow victory—for the moment my seat was the forward-facing one.

  “James is not with you?” I asked Daniel. As the young man seemed to lurk wherever Daniel was, I was surprised not to see him slide into the compartment after him, or perhaps haunting the corridor.

  “Not at all,” Daniel said, retaining his quiet politeness. “Oh, he wanted to come, but I explained that it was far too dangerous, and he should stay in my rooms in Southampton Street until I returned.”

  I raised my brows. “James agreed to that?”

  “No.” Daniel made a wry face, looking like his old self a moment. “We had a flaming row about it. In the end, I locked him in my bedchamber and gave the landlady the key. She’ll see that he’s fed.”

  Elgin gaped at him. “Good Lord, McAdam, you can’t go about locking your son into your rooms. Anyway, won’t he just go out the window?”

  “I imagine he’ll free himself before long,” Daniel said, unworried. “But too late to follow me. Perhaps while he’s busy thinking up ways to escape, he’ll see sense and remain in London.”

  I wasn’t so certain James would suddenly become obedient. He was quite resourceful—I would be interested to learn what he would do.

  The conversation was interrupted when Lady Cynthia shoved open the door, bracing herself against the train’s movement, her head turned as she bellowed down the corridor. “No, put the box in that compartment, man. Yes, that’s the one.”

  She rolled her eyes in exasperation and then nearly fell into the compartment as the train went around a curve. Elgin surged to his feet to steady her, but he stumbled over Daniel in doing so. Daniel half rose to catch them both.

  Lady Cynthia swung out of the men’s reaches and landed on the seat beside me. “Sorry. Had to run for it—impossible in this gear.”

  She referred to what had all three of us staring at her. Lady Cynthia was wearing a gown, a white, high-necked affair, rather like the one I’d seen on Lady Rankin the first day I’d entered Lord Rankin’s house. Lace edged her bodice’s placket, the cuffs of the long sleeves, and the collar. The gown’s underskirt bore three rows of ruffles, and the overskirt was gathered over a small bustle, which Lady Cynthia shoved out of the way as she settled herself.

  “My damned sister decided she wouldn’t let me go with you unless I wore a frock. She had Simms and Davis block my way to the front door, if you please. Was easier to give in. Bloody nuisance. For what possible reason should a woman lock a cage around her middle and strap a wad of padding to her bum?”

  I understood her point. Ladies’ gowns could be works of beauty, it was true, but not very practical.

  Elgin listened to her shocking speech with his mouth slightly open. Daniel showed he didn’t care one whit for what Lady Cynthia wore or said by opening a notebook he pulled from his pocket.

  Cynthia studied Daniel across from her. “You clean up well, McAdam. Knew you weren’t quite cricket. You the police?”

  Daniel glanced up briefly. “Don’t insult me, Lady C.,” he said with a touch of impudence, then returned to his notebook.

  Lady Cynthia looked to
me for explanation, but I could only shrug. Elgin continued to gape at her, so Lady Cynthia gave up, sent Daniel another narrow look, then turned to watch out of the window as the train righted itself and went chugging off west.

  We made our slow way through London, the wheels beneath us bumping along the points. This particular train did not stop in the smaller stations in London and would not pause until Slough. I knew this because I had looked it up, by way of my handy Bradshaw.

  We didn’t speak much until we pulled away from Slough then Maidenhead—the train would continue without a break now until Reading.

  Lady Cynthia rose in a rustle of skirts. “Back in a tick,” she said cheerfully.

  Daniel began to politely get to his feet, but Elgin launched himself from the seat and managed to get around Daniel and wrench open the door into the corridor for her. Lady Cynthia sent him a surprised look but slipped away without a word. Elgin watched her go, his hand remaining on the door handle.

  Daniel sat back down and winked at me. “Are we going to calculate the times?” he asked Elgin. “Or are we making a journey to the seaside for the health benefits?”

  “Eh? Oh.” Elgin closed the door, tripped back over Daniel’s feet again, and landed heavily on his seat. “Right.” He pulled out his pocket watch, but his gaze strayed to the windows to the corridor. “A damn fine-looking woman,” he pronounced. “No matter what she wears.”

  • • •

  I did not think it possible for Elgin to work out where the Queen’s train would be at the times on the paper we’d found, as we couldn’t be sure our train would ever keep to a steady speed, but he cheerfully said that was no bother. He would compensate.

  “In his head,” Daniel told me disparagingly as Elgin looked out the window, humming a tune in his throat. “I remember the day I explained to him that not everyone can carry on multiple calculations in his brain plus memorize several theorems at the same time as admiring art in the Louvre.”

  Elgin paid no attention. He was fully absorbed in the countryside flying past the window.

  The only distraction for him was when Lady Cynthia threw open the door to stroll back inside, now dressed in her full suit of gentlemen’s clothing.

  “Much better,” she said as she flopped down beside me. “A person can be comfortable in this.” She demonstrated by stretching out her legs and crossing her booted ankles. “Your frocks are more sensible than most, Mrs. H., but Rankin would have even worse apoplexy if I wore servants’ clothes. At least I have these made by a Bond Street tailor.” She ran a hand down her jacket in admiration of an expert’s work.

  I took no offense, because I quite agreed with her.

  Daniel gave Elgin, who again was staring at her, a sharp nudge. Elgin blinked, flushed, and returned to gazing out the window.

  The weather was good, and as we left the metropolis far behind, I saw skies clear and blue, dotted with white clouds sailing over stretches of green gashed with the black of newly plowed fields. There was a reason London was called the Smoke—very apparent now that the black smudge of incessant coal fires had faded from the expanse of sky.

  My daughter would love this. I could imagine holding her on my lap while I pointed out things we passed, pictured her delight watching the lambs following their mothers in the fields, their legs too long as they stumbled along.

  My heart burned. I wanted this—wanted to be with Grace every second, with every breath. The rightness of it swelled in my chest.

  We reached Swindon around five o’clock. I wished I had been able to pack some food for us, but Daniel had arranged this as well, it seemed. A porter brought us a basket stuffed with bread, fruit, cheese, cold meat, and wine, and we feasted. Daniel must have known where to procure the best provender, because the oranges were juicy, the hard cheese had a sharp bite, the meat was moist, the bread crusty but soft inside. Elgin stuffed food and drink absently into his mouth, and Daniel ate without comment, but Lady Cynthia robustly enjoyed every bite.

  We passed Bath, the farthest extent of my travels, and then as the sky darkened, Bristol, where the train waited as new cars were coupled to ours and we changed tracks to head to the southwest. Next, Weston-super-Mare, Bridgwater, Taunton, Exeter. As the moon rose, we traveled along the edge of what Daniel told me was Dartmoor. The expanse of it stretched to the horizon, this treacherous moor the site of many dire tales, as well as a prison where men were sent to labor until they dropped of it.

  I decided the moor didn’t strike the terror into my heart it was supposed to—I found something rather appealing in the dark expanse, with rises of gray rock sharp in the moonlight. I would have to come here in daylight one day, and explore.

  As we slowed much later to click into Plymouth, Elgin turned to us. He’d been silent much of the time, staring out of the window or checking the pocket watch in his hand. Daniel had occasionally studied his own watch, but I’d seen him shake his head, frowning. Cynthia had fallen asleep after Exeter, her face innocent as a babe’s as she relaxed. Now she sat up, her fair hair mussed, looking around muzzily.

  Elgin’s expression was troubled as he regarded us, a somber light in his eyes.

  “They’re bridges,” he announced.

  19

  The two simple words fell into silence. The four of us looked at one another as Elgin’s statement sank in.

  Bridges were vulnerable places on a train line, taking tracks across wide rivers or rolling over steep valleys as viaducts. A bridge failing and falling could be a horrific disaster, a tragedy for so many. Even with all the engineering marvels in the world and men who could work out how to build stronger and more stable structures, bridges still gave way, destroying trains, cargo, and people.

  Fresh in the mind of every Briton was the catastrophe at Tay Bridge a little more than a year ago. The Tay, on the line that ran from Edinburgh to Dundee, had been the longest bridge in existence, before it had suddenly collapsed one night, taking a train and all its passengers down, down into the dark waters of the firth with it. The disaster and ensuing scandal had been the talk of newspapers and on everyone’s lips for months, still was.

  “Which bridges?” Daniel asked. We had rumbled over so many since London.

  Elgin answered without hesitation. “Seven so far correspond to the times, or nearly, when the Queen’s train will be passing over them. Maidenhead, Reading, Swindon, one outside Chippenham, over the Avon after Bristol, one a little north of Dartmoor, and finally . . .”

  He trailed off. We’d left Plymouth, continuing our journey into Cornwall over the River Tamar. We all went quiet as we started over the bridge that led across the river to the town of Saltash—the famous bridge I’d seen in photographs and drawings, a triumph of engineering. Two crescents of iron ran from tower to tower, curving down to each other in the middle of the bridge. Two nearly identical crescents curved upward from the bottom of each span—a wave suspended forever in time.

  The bridge had been here since I was a child, opened in an official ceremony by Albert, the Prince Consort. The man who’d designed the bridge went by the interesting name of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, which I always remembered, as it was such an unusual moniker.

  We sat transfixed as the train rolled slowly over the bridge, the wheels clicking ponderously, the iron trusses appearing to bend down to us and then up again as we passed.

  We rode in darkness, the lamps in our compartment not lighted—Elgin had waved off the conductor who’d tried to light them long ago, saying he could peer outside better without them. The headlight from our train and the flames from its firebox glinted on the great pile of iron and stone.

  “Good heavens,” I whispered.

  “Firing this bridge with the Queen on top of it would be a grand statement,” Cynthia said in a hushed voice. “The world would watch.”

  “How can we be certain it’s this bridge?” I asked. “Mr. Thanos says other bridges are p
ossible, and we don’t know what was on the part of the paper Mrs. Bowen burned.”

  But I knew in my heart that Elgin and Lady Cynthia were right. This bridge had caught the imaginations of artists and tourists alike, and was portrayed on banners advertising seaside sojourns to the west coast of England as well as pictures depicting the might of British industry. The Royal Albert Bridge, or the Cornwall Railway Bridge at Saltash, straddled the border between Devon and Cornwall, serving as the entrance to the far western county. Our Queen’s beloved prince had walked its length the day he’d opened it, declaring that it would connect Cornwall to the rest of the kingdom.

  “We check them all,” Daniel said grimly. “We cannot take a chance that while we’re looking here, they’re planning elsewhere.”

  “What can we do?” I asked, in some despair. It was difficult to banish that despair—England was vast, and at any time, anywhere, some vandal could be destroying people and things, unbeknownst to us, beyond our reach.

  “We stop it,” Daniel said. He turned on me a look of such fierceness that further words died on my lips. I’d never seen him look so before, and knew that what shone out of his eyes came from a place deep inside himself. His voice echoed in the small space of the compartment as he went on grimly. “We stop it, no matter what we have to do.”

  • • •

  We left the train at Saltash. I watched the train chug on without us, disappearing into the darkness, making its way to Penzance. Here the line became the Cornwall Railway and would switch gauges as it went west and south, as Elgin had mentioned. Passengers would have to change trains at Truro, where the gauge changeover happened, but we would be sleeping here. We’d missed the last train up to London, so we would have to spend the night.

  Fortunately, a small inn down the hill from the Saltash station had accommodation, and Daniel obtained three rooms, one each for me and Lady Cynthia, and one he would share with Elgin. Lady Cynthia had conceded to don her frock before we descended from the train, with me to help her with her lacings—so she wouldn’t shock the natives, she said. I could see she was tired, however, and likely she didn’t want to risk the inn turning us away. The folk of faraway Cornwall might not care that the oddly dressed female was Lady Cynthia, an earl’s daughter from a fashionable address in London, and refuse to accommodate an eccentric.