If Rose Haggard had committed suicide. And if the even darker rumours of murder weren’t true.
I had avoided asking Emily much about Cousin Patrick before, just because of the significance of his name. I hadn’t wanted him to be the same Patrick who’d insinuated himself into my mother’s séance gathering.
Had I?
However, I couldn’t pin Emily down in a quiet corner just yet either. She’d rung the bell and was giving orders for the new guest’s comfort. Susan watched her, frowning, as if she considered it to be her position to arrange such matters. Only it wasn’t, and the sudden dip of her eyes told me she knew it. I thought it frightened her, the knowledge that she had no real place here.
I wondered what she did all day. She seemed to more or less ignore her daughter, and all she had for company were a grumpy old lady and a young couple still in the first flush of love. And assorted guests, I supposed. Mr. Faversham was personable and Prince Bela effortlessly charming. I suspected a string of guests had come and gone since Emily’s marriage, lightening the dullness of mourning in the house for the late Sir George Haggard, Susan’s husband. Perhaps she’d been so happy here that she didn’t want to leave.
She didn’t look happy. In fact, she didn’t look as if she’d ever been happy.
Someone sat on the sofa beside me, and I glanced up quickly to find Prince Bela there. Since Arthur now sat beside his wife, holding her hand, I’d ensconced myself on the end of the other sofa.
“They make a sweet couple, do they not, madame?” Bela said.
“Entirely,” I agreed. It struck me that he’d chosen this place to see if I’d quiz him or scold him over his unusual position with the maid Milly—to call it no worse. But if I wanted the truth, I’d go to Milly, not Bela. On the other hand, I was quite happy to use him as a source of other information. “It’s always good for a house to have a happy couple installed. There seems to have been too many tragedies here.”
“Indeed, madame. By all accounts.” It sounded just a little mechanical, but then the man had recently seen his country torn apart by revolution and war, with all the brutality and loss that entailed. It probably placed a different perspective on single, personal tragedies.
So although I meant to ask him about Patrick, I said instead, “What is your story, Prince?”
He smiled faintly. “One day, if you have many hours to while away, I might tell you. It’s not fit for a pretty baroness’s drawing room.”
I felt it then, a mountain of pain and loss, compassion and disappointment—and a large dose of determination. There was more, much more to this young man than he showed the world. And most impressive of all, his limpid brown eyes gave away none of it.
“I’ll look forward to that,” I said sincerely, and he smiled at me. He couldn’t help flirting, it seemed, even with the companion. But it had already struck me that he and the pampered English gentleman Arthur, who couldn’t have been very far apart in age, had a world of difference in experience. “How did you and Arthur meet?” I asked curiously. “Do you have family connections?”
“Lord, no. I met him through Patrick.”
I blinked. “Then it’s Patrick who is your friend?”
“Both of them by now, I hope. Patrick used some of my experiences to write about the late revolution in Hungary for his journal. We became friends through that, and one day I met Arthur with him.”
But I was floundering now, one step behind. “For his…?”
“Patrick is a very fine writer and journalist,” Bela explained. His lips twitched with amusement. “Don’t look so pale, Mrs. Darke. What could he possibly have to write about you?”
“What indeed?” I said faintly. When he’d come to my mother’s séance, he might not have been checking up on me but on her. He might have been investigating the medium craze and all the charlatanry that went with it. It would account for his obvious scorn, and I had to admit he had no way of knowing that we were any different. After all, even my mother was half-showman. I pulled myself together. “I’m more surprised that Mr. Haggard has a profession.”
Bela shrugged. “He’s the son of a younger son, with a stepfamily by his mother’s second marriage to care for. Do you disapprove of gentle folk working, Mrs. Darke?”
I acknowledged the faint challenge in his eyes and laughed. “I know where this is going. You wish to draw me into radical discussion.”
Bela grinned, but a deep voice behind us sent butterflies swarming through my stomach and up my spine.
“And yet I’m sure we’d all love to hear your answer, Mrs. Darke.”
I snapped my head around, more than happy to give him one he would not have expected, only he’d already moved past us to greet old Lady Haggard and Susan. I refused to shout after his retreating back, although the temptation was strong.
“Patrick and I differ in our approach,” Bela informed me. “I want to organize the poor; he wants to educate the rich.”
“Educate them to understand the plight of the poor,” Mr. Faversham interjected dryly.
Bela merely smiled at Mr. Haggard’s back. At the time, I was more interested in the reactions of the women.
The old lady was barely civil to the latest guest, growling at him, “Back again, are you? I suppose you’re hungry.”
“Starving,” Patrick said, and moved on to Susan, who was smiling at him. I hadn’t seen her smile before.
“I asked them to bring you something in here, Cousin Patrick,” Emily said. “If you don’t mind the informality?”
“Not at all. You can all tell me what happened while I eat.”
Since a tray was brought in just then and set on the card table, he moved and sat down with perfect ease to eat while Arthur recounted the tragic events of this morning and his discovery of the broken latch on the window.
That made Patrick pause with his loaded fork halfway to his mouth. He lowered it. “How long had it been broken?”
“Can’t have been long,” Arthur said. “For it opened perfectly normally the day before. Maybe when Milly shut it that night, it broke, but she never reported it. It could even have broken when Martin fell into it.”
“It could,” Patrick agreed. “Though it doesn’t really explain what Martin was doing up there in the first place.”
“If you ask me, the servants have closed ranks and aren’t going to tell us,” Arthur said ruefully.
“He was looking for his sweetheart,” Bela said unexpectedly. “Who cleans the attic room.”
“Not at that time of the morning, she doesn’t,” Arthur protested. “I’m usually there.”
Now that was interesting, and Patrick’s quick glance at him told me he thought so too.
“Are you?” Emily asked, intrigued. “Is that where you paint?”
“Yes, and you weren’t meant to know,” Arthur exclaimed.
“Why ever not?”
“Because I’m painting you a surprise that I don’t want you peeking at until it’s ready.”
Emily squeezed his arm and pressed her cheek to his shoulder. “I won’t peek,” she promised.
“So why weren’t you up there painting this morning?” Patrick pursued, picking up his knife and fork again.
“I hung around the breakfast room to meet Barbara,” Arthur said carelessly, revealing rather endearingly that he thought of me by my Christian name, no doubt because that was how Emily spoke of me. “I mean Mrs. Darke,” he added with a grin and a half-mocking bow of apology in my direction.
“Barbara is fine,” I said generously.
“Certainly an entertainment not to be missed,” Patrick murmured. “But going back to the accident, is there anything to show that Martin was taken ill? Any reason he might have fallen against the window? He seemed to me a strong and healthy lad. Did he trip over something?”
Patrick Haggard obviously had no difficulty putting the stable boy’
s name to his face. I wondered how much time he spent here. If the grief I’d witnessed had been for his dead wife or for Martin himself…
“Nothing was overturned,” Arthur replied gloomily.
Emily took a deep breath. “Perhaps he saw something that unnerved him.”
Patrick raised one eyebrow. “Arthur’s paintings?”
“Hoi!” Arthur objected, throwing a cushion halfheartedly in his cousin’s direction.
“Of course not,” Emily said. “But the servants do see and hear strange things in this house. I do. Barbara, you should go up to the attic—”
“I already have,” I interrupted.
Emily gazed at me with wide, half-frightened, half-avid eyes. She could have been a schoolgirl again. “Really? What did you see?”
“Nothing scarier than your husband,” I said apologetically.
“But didn’t you feel something?” she demanded. “After all—” She broke off, balking, no doubt at the words After all, Rose Haggard killed herself there. And you said Martin’s name before he died.
“You’re being ridiculous, Emily,” Susan said sharply. “What are you imagining now? That some kind of ghostly apparition scared Martin so that he fainted or otherwise stumbled into the window?”
“Rose, perhaps?” Patrick said in a flat voice. “If she was as desperate to leave this world as most people maintain, why the devil would she hang around in it once she was dead?”
“Oh, I’m sorry Patrick,” Emily almost whispered, “and of course it needn’t have been. This is such an old house… But it could have happened that way,” she insisted, lifting her head and gazing around at the others. “It makes as much sense as any other theory.”
This was greeted with silence. For some reason, I was sure Patrick was looking at me, but I refused even to glance in his direction to find out. And in any case, I heard him standing up only a few moments later. “Thank you for the meal, Emily,” he said politely. “Delicious as always.”
“Ring for fresh tea, Patrick,” Susan said.
I wondered if she even realized she was usurping Emily’s position. It must have been hard to stop being the lady of the house. She should leave, I thought, go back to her own family or, if she had the means, set up her own establishment.
“Bring over the cards, Susan,” old Lady Haggard commanded. “It’s time for whist.”
“Oh dear,” Emily murmured with something approaching despair.
“Why don’t you sing for us?” I suggested hastily.
Susan said, “Sing?” as if I’d suggested Emily perform cartwheels naked around the drawing room.
“Sing,” I repeated mildly. “She has beautiful voice.”
“She has,” Arthur agreed with enthusiasm. “I can’t believe you haven’t sung for us here yet, Em! Come on, we all need cheering up.”
Emily blushed and smiled. “Only if Barbara accompanies me on the piano.”
“Oh no,” I said. “No laziness, if you please. You’re more than capable of accompanying yourself.”
“Do you never stop being a teacher?”
“No.”
“Ha!” Emily crowed. “You’re my companion now, so you have to do what I say!”
“No I don’t,” I said serenely, and Emily, giving in with good grace, laughed and took herself to the piano.
Susan was frowning at me. “You’re a very odd companion, Mrs. Darke,” she observed without obvious approval.
“Isn’t she?” Patrick agreed, perching on the arm of my sofa, fortunately on Bela’s side.
“Not in the slightest,” Emily called before I could speak. “She merely has the privileges of my old teacher. But I’m eroding them.”
“I might let you, if you sing well enough.”
There was a ripple of laughter among the men and Emily, but through it, although I didn’t look at him, I was aware of Patrick watching me not without curiosity. I’d no idea what any of them made of the banter between Emily and me. They probably thought it was rudeness or encroachment. But I was Emily’s friend and determined to keep being so.
In any case, Emily sang two songs to her own accompaniment and managed to draw everyone’s attention and approval—however grudging in some cases. I was proud of her.
“Exquisite,” Prince Bela assured her.
Emily swirled back to her place beside Arthur, laughing, “Well, if I have any talent, it is due to my excellent teacher,” she said with a bow in my direction.
“Hardly,” I said dryly. “I only taught you for one year.”
“Well, it is your turn now,” Emily told me. “Although you’ll cast me directly into the shade.”
“I won’t,” I promised. “And I won’t!”
“Ah, tea,” old Lady Haggard pronounced as the fresh tea tray was brought in at last. The maids set it on the little table in front of Miss Salton’s vacant chair. I was at a loss to account for this until I realized it must be the tea-pouring chair in a never-varying ritual. I suspected a second tray was a rarity.
“Mrs. Darke,” Susan said, “be so good as to pour the tea.”
It wasn’t quite a suggestion, or even a request, more of a command that, frankly, got my back up. However, since I had no actual objection to pouring a few cups of tea, I got up, hiding the pain of my stiffening body once more, and went to sit before the pot. Somewhat to my surprise, Patrick Haggard materialized at my elbow to carry the cups. Deep anger simmered in him, no doubt from the conversation before Emily sang. He probably blamed me for it.
“How long were you a teacher, Mrs. Darke?” he enquired, taking the first cup from me.
“About five years altogether,” I replied, concentrating on the tea.
“And yet you only taught Emily for one? Perhaps you were at another school?” He presented the cup to old Lady Haggard and turned back to look me in the eye.
This time I let him. Lifting my chin, I said, “I was. I spent three years as a teacher in a London school when I was young. And two at Emily’s school later on, one before and one after her departure. My skill in mathematics leads me to believe that is five years.”
“Why, now that I have all the facts, I concur,” Patrick mocked, walking back towards the table. He took the second cup from me, and our fingers accidentally touched against the saucer. Something sparked, tingling up my arm. I remembered that I’d wanted him, that he’d wanted me. That I’d dreamed of him. “And Mr. Darke? Where does he fit in?”
My hand must have jerked, for a few drops of tea sloshed into the saucer. Patrick’s gaze dropped to it, then rose to my face, his eyes unreadable.
“Leave that one for me,” I said, withdrawing my hand and pouring another cup.
“And the mysterious Mr. Darke?” he persisted. He was probably a very good journalist, though I suspected a few people slapped him. I hadn’t yet ruled it out myself.
“There was nothing mysterious about my husband,” I said calmly.
“He was a vicar,” Emily said brightly.
“Indeed?” Susan said, staring at me with fresh eyes. “Where was his living?”
“In London.”
“Then I may very well have known him. Which church?”
“St. John’s near Bethnal Green,” I replied, and tried to be amused by my immediate reloss of favour.
“Then I suppose I didn’t,” Susan said, accepting her cup from Patrick.
“I don’t approve of religion,” Bela pronounced from the sofa. “But I expect he was a good man, working among the poor.”
Oh God, don’t. Bela’s unexpected defence was undoing me as attacks on him never did.
“He was,” I managed, shoving another cup in Patrick’s vague direction. The world had gone blurry, but at least I had something to do. I steeled myself for the next barbed comment or question from Patrick Haggard, but none came, even after he’d taken the cup
from me.
Emily said brightly, “You know, I believe the storm has died down.”
“The thunder’s passed over at any rate,” Mr. Faversham observed. “How was the weather coming up from London?” he asked Patrick.
“Grim, I think. I barely noticed.”
At least in the discussion about the weather, I had time to get myself back under control. After all, neither Bela’s opinion nor Susan’s nor Patrick Haggard’s changed who Gideon had been, nor what he’d been to me.
I was drawn from my reverie by a sharp blow across my bruised shoulder. I let out a cry, which I quickly muffled into something that sounded loweringly like a grunt, and blinked to bring myself back to reality. Old Lady Haggard raised her stick again.
“I said, ring for my maids, girl!” she snarled. But she wasn’t really angry. I saw from the glint in her eye that she’d caught my pain and was pleased.
Arthur grabbed the stick and lowered it to the floor. “Mama!” he exclaimed. “Mrs. Darke is not a servant.”
“And if I were,” I said, meeting the old lady’s gaze. “you would not have permission to hit me.”
“What would you do?” she sneered. “Cast a spell on me? Make a likeness and stick pins in it?”
So, she had some idea of my background. Interesting.
“No,” I said, calmly. “I’d hit you back.”
Amidst the gasps of horror around the room, Emily gave a shocked giggle and old Lady Haggard glared at me. After an instant, rather to my surprise, she gave one of her unexpected barks of laughter.
“You might just,” she said. Though there was no admiration in her face or voice, there was no anger either.
I rose and walked over to the bell pull. Everyone seemed too shocked or embarrassed to pay any attention to me. Except Patrick Haggard. He watched me all the way there and back.
Chapter Six
As I walked to my room shortly afterwards, I got my first real hint of what Emily meant when she’d talked of creaking floorboards and whispering and a sense of presence. Now that the storm seemed to have largely blown and crashed itself out, I heard creaking at the top of the main stairs. It was impossible to guess from where, but there seemed too much of it to put down to the natural noises of an old house. And as I walked towards my own wing, I heard a sort of rushing too, like something brushing against a wall close by, never the wall next to me.
The Dead of Haggard Hall Page 6
