Joan had discounted Frances Challoner as a suspect even before they left London. The pleasant young woman simply did not look the sort to commission a murder, which is what she would have had to do at such a remove. Moreover, it seemed unlikely to Joan that Frances Challoner would have sufficient motive to kill her uncle to secure land and chattels that would fall to her anyway in the course of time.
“A jealous neighbor, then? Perhaps a disgruntled servant?” Matthew suggested.
“If you are thinking of Moll/7 Joan said, “I will readily grant that the woman has the disposition. Whether she had cause is another question.”
The problem with all these deliberations was that, because of Joan's illness, they had hardly begun to investigate matters or persons at the castle. And a good third of their allotted month was nearly gone, if one counted the days of travel from London to Derbyshire, as Matthew was convinced the Queen had.
“Tomorrow, I intend to rise from my bed of affliction and go about my duties, ready or not,” Joan declared with grim determination. She was as frustrated as her husband by the delay in beginning their real work at Thorncombe.
“And so you shall,” Matthew said. “But only if you’re able. The Queen’s business is important, but I’ll not sacrifice your health.”
She was pleased by his concern and told him so, kissing him heartily on the lips and calling him sweetheart and other pet names she had for him, and they spent a pleasant hour in such amorous discourse, wherein she proved to the satisfaction of them both that she was a whole woman again.
Later, Matthew said, “The sun has dried things out now. Tomorrow Edward will accompany me on a visit to the tenants’ farms. There aren’t many left—no more than halt a dozen. We may visit the neighbor, too. Stafford’s his name. Wouldn’t hurt to introduce myself tc him. I also want Edward to show me the exact place where Sir John drowned.”
She warned him against making his interest in the death too obvious. He told her he would be discreet.
“You’ll be gone all day, then,” she said.
“Very likely.”
“Well, see that you don’t lose your way in this wilderness. See that the hostler provides you with a good mount and no uppitv stallion to break your neck with and—”
She stopped when she raw the suppressed laughter in his eyes. Realizing that she was mothering him unconscionably, she flushed with embarrassment. Would she make her good man into another t !uth Fludd with all her admonishments, and herself a something worse thereby She knew Matthew was an able horseman. Never had he become lost that she remembered, nor had he ever been
thrown. She remembered, too, that Edward would be a more than adequate guide through the neighborhood. She took Matthew's hand and held it in a firm grasp. “Forgive me," she said softly. “I didn't mean to treat you as a child."
With a good-natured laugh he bent and kissed her on the cheek. Then they walked downstairs and through the kitchen to the rear porch of the house.
“You take care," he said to her. “1 would sooner face the menace of these lonely wastes than the dark passages of Thorn-combe, where madmen lurk to do harm of nights. Are you sure you’re well enough to be up and about?"
She assured him she was. Over his shoulder, she saw Edward coming across the courtyard with a broad stride. Matthew turned away from her to the young hostler and greeted him.
Then Joan watched as the two men went off toward the stable. She envied her husband a little for his day's adventure, and yet she realized, too, that he was right. She had an adventure of her own, and she had exaggerated her recovery. In fact, she felt weakened by her long sojourn in bed and she still had the sniffles. Besides, she thought in one last effort to expunge the demon of self-pity, why should she envy Matthew's tour of smelly barns and tenants' hovels?
As she turned to go into the house again, she thought of Moll. Had the old woman's resentment and hostility not so poisoned their relationship, Joan would have had her predecessor for a guide to her new duties. But Joan would not want Moll for a guide now, nor did she suppose the old woman would offer her services. Joan’s illness had prevented a confrontation over the dead cat. It had also prevented any questions about Aileen Mogaill’s relations with the other servants. The decision to keep her murder a secret had made it seem, at four days' remove, that the murder had never happened at all, that its hapless victim really had vanished into thin air.
Joan found Una in the kitchen. The woman wore her usual expression of friendly accommodation and Joan felt a surge of fellow feeling for the Irishwoman. Although a foreigner and ignorant of the English tongue, Una seemed to be without guile. Even more to the point, she was no sourpuss, which was a welcome relief to Joan, whose natural inclination was to be friendly to all she met, save for knaves and fools, whom she did not suffer readily.
She decided to ask Una to be her companion on her explora-
tions of the castle. The problem was how to ask. At first, Joan put her request into simple English accompanied by such sign language that seemed, to Joan, to express her intent. To which the cook responded with an affable smile and an obvious failure to comprehend. Then Joan grasped Unas arm and made gestures indicating the various regions of the house. This strategy proved more effective. Understanding shone in the Irishwomans eyes and she nodded her head vigorously and pointed to the passage leading to the deeper recesses of Thorncombe.
"Then let us begin,” Joan said.
Her husband had, since their arrival at Thorncombe, strolled curiously through the chambers of the new house and the castle and given her some report of his findings, so what Joan now saw in person was no surprise to her. The downstairs of the new house consisted of a spacious hall, an adjoining parlor or withdrawing room, a grand staircase, a dining room—in addition, of course, to these smaller rooms occupied by the household servants in the course of their duties: the kitchen, pantry, buttery, and steward s office. All the larger rooms of the ground floor were sparsely furnished, as was befitting a master who had spent only a few months of the year in residence and had no wife or child to maintain and no interest in entertaining the local gentry. The Challoner hounds had been sold at their masters death, so that there was little sign now of canine damage, although there was a slight lingering odor. Joan noticed a layer of dust here and there, but nothing that could not be remedied in short order once she had organized the maids.
Access to the upper floor of the house would have been most convenient by the grand staircase, and in her capacity as head housekeeper she might have properly ascended by this route, especially in the absence of the mistress of the house. But to set an example for her companion, Joan ascended the back staircase, wedged between the stewards tiny office and the buttery and so narrow as to require the two women to climb single file.
The stairs led to a long gallery that afforded a fine view of the woods and lake. The interior wall opposite was hung with family portraits—a grim line of baronets, most in armor, with each portrait marked with the Challoner crest, a chevron surmounted by a boars head. Between the portraits were doors, which upon inspection
proved to give access to mostly unfurnished bedchambers. One, however, opened to a suite of chambers, which Joan surmised both by their size and superior furnishings had been Sir Johns. Her supposition was immediately confirmed by Una, who seemed afraid to enter the apartment and muttered her late masters name beneath her breath.
Joan did not compel Una to follow her into the apartment. She did not think to find evidence of Sir John’s murder there, but she did feel she might sense something in the chambers that would give her a better idea of the dead man’s character. Her sensitivity, she believed, would be the greater if she was alone. But as she began to inspect the apartment, she recognized that changes had been made since Sir John’s death. The austere masculinity she was sure had characterized the room during the baronet’s occupation had been modified. Its wall hangings and embroidered coverlet, the tall cheval glass, and handsome turkey carpet of brilliant
floral design suggested a feminine presence. Or at least the anticipation of such a presence.
As she was admiring these furnishings and allowing herself a little vanity of studying her own reflection in the cheval glass— noting with some alarm her residual pallor—she heard an unfamiliar masculine voice coming from the gallery. Going to see who it was, she found Una conversing in Irish with a ruddy-complexioned young man of about thirty, dressed in canvas doublet with silk buttons and wearing a knife and sword. The man was broad-shouldered and thick-wristed. His calves, bulging beneath the cotton hose, were muscular, but his shanks were somewhat out of proportion to the rest of his body. His hands were large and hairy. He had the straight nose, large lips, and square jaw that many women would have found attractive.
On seeing Joan, Una and the man ceased conversing, and the man introduced himself, in English, as Michael Conroy. At the same time he made a graceful bow to Joan, as though she were a gentlewoman.
'Ton must be our new housekeeper,” Michael Conroy said. “I had heard you had fallen foul of some fever since you arrived here. I’m pleased to see you so recovered.”
She thanked him for his courtesy, wary of a certain flirtatious quality in the young man’s eye and not about to be flattered into a
premature approval of his presence in the house. She had heard about Sir John’s manservant from Matthew, who had spoken to him briefly the second day at Thorncombe, but had reported being unable to determine why he remained in the house, his master dead and buried. She decided to exert her authority and ask him outright what he did to pass his time.
“Why, I wait upon Mistress Frances Challoner,” he said, lifting his eyes in surprise at the question and speaking in the same well-modulated voice as before. “I was her uncle’s personal servant. I am therefore a piece of his estate, which, upon my good master’s death, fell to his heir.” His pale handsome eyes flashed winningly.
“Are you?” Joan returned, not bothering to disguise the cynicism in her voice, for she was not sure whether what Conroy had said had any merit in law or was merely the witty retort of an obnoxious idler.
“Indeed,” he said, and he looked to Una for support, but the Irishwoman was standing quietly staring at Joan. “It was Sir John’s express wish that I continue in the employ of the family.”
“As a manservant?”
“As . . . whatever pleases my mistress.”
“And you are under her orders?” i am.
“Do you have letters in hand declaring as much?” Joan asked.
Conroy paused and flashed another broad smile. He stroked his chin. “Well, I had such a letter.”
“But you do not have it now?” she said.
“No. I’ve misplaced it.”
Joan decided it would be best to keep the upper hand in her catechism. She suspected Conroy was up to no good, and she did not like at all his masculine arrogance. “That’s very convenient for you—your misplacing it,” she said. “And, pray, how do you spend your time in the interval?”
“The interval?” Conroy asked, not quite as pleasantly as before.
“Between your master’s death, before which you had clearly defined duties, and your mistress’s coming, which may be a month or more from now.”
“Ah, yes,” he said. “Well, I read ... I care for Sir John’s papers.”
"His papers? What papers?"’
"His diary, his letters,” Conroy answered. The old smile returned. But Joan suspected the Irishman was a varlet of the first order. She could read the insolence in his eyes. Had she not seen it often before—in saucy tradesmen and apprentices and city constables contemptuous of honest country people such as herself?
"His papers record his experiences in Ireland,” Conroy continued, more boldly. "Sir John was a famous soldier. His papers have importance as . . . historical documents.”
But Joan was not to be cowed by learned phrases, especially not from the lips of a smooth-talking Irishman. "Historical documents indeed!” she said. "I think, sir, you are no antiquary or scholar but do little else here but be idle, which you might as well accomplish in the stable, if your legs will bear you the distance.”
At this remark, Conroy’s countenance changed utterly. His brow furrowed and he seemed to grow taller before her. "I am Mistress Frances Challoner’s servant,” he declared coldly. "As are you, Mistress Stock. It is her command that sends me packing, or bids me stay, not yours.”
Joan was about to tell Conroy just what authority she had been given when she was prevented by Una, who put a hand on Conroy’s arm and said something in Irish to pacify him. For a moment Conroy continued to glare threateningly at Joan, then his anger seemed to subside. He stepped back from her and put his hands behind his back and rocked on the balls of his feet. "Very well, very well,” he said. "I suppose Edward will share a bed with me—or put me in with one of the horses. But I warn you, my mistress will not be pleased to find out how I have been used.”
"If she is not pleased, then 1 will suffer her displeasure,” Joan said, keeping her voice steady. "In the meantime, collect your gear and move from the house. There’s much to be done here to make things ready for Mistress Frances Challoner, and it will not do to have you under foot.”
Joan left Una and Conroy standing in the gallery while she went back into the master’s apartment, not so much because she had not seen enough there but because she wanted to terminate a discussion that had become increasingly heated and dangerous. She thanked God for Una’s timely intercession, but wondered what the woman had said to mollify Conroy.
She went over to the cheval glass and looked at her reflection. At least the confrontation with Conroy had brought some color to her cheeks.
She looked around the chambers some more but found nothing that could be called a clue—either to Sir John’s death or to his maids. When she returned to the gallery she found Una waiting. Conroy, Joan was happy to see, had gone. She told Una she was ready to continue their excursion and Una looked pleased to be going. Yet suddenly, and unaccountably, Joan felt less secure in Unas company than before. Was it only because Una had exchanged words with Conroy in a language unknown to Joan, or was there something more sinister that Joan sensed?
Still rankled somewhat over her quarrel with Conroy, she now tried to focus her thoughts on the matter at hand, for she could not forget the ulterior motive of her tour. At least she had had a glimpse of Conroy’s violent nature—and could easily add him to her list of suspects. Indeed, Conroy was now the chief! He had a blackguard’s smirk, the slippery manner of a backstairs villain, and that his sword was quite capable of Aileen’s murder was well within the circumference of belief.
Joan would have liked to question Una and the other female servants about their master’s drowning, but the language barrier permitted only the most rudimentary communication and she hesitated to arouse suspicion. She did hope Matthew would learn something from Edward Bastian, who had become a co-conspirator in the hushing up of Aileen Mogaill’s murder and whose amiable deportment gave promise of further shared confidences.
Una now led the way to the end of the gallery, where a little door opened to a steep flight of narrow stairs. They climbed and came to a low-ceilinged attic, where there were many small chambers furnished with straw pallets and other simple furnishings. One chamber, detached somewhat from the rest, had a good-size bed. Joan asked if this had been the Fludds’ quarters before their removal to the lodge, and Una, evidently understanding the question, nodded her assent.
Joan looked around the chamber and decided that this should now be hers and Matthew’s. The small downstairs parlor that she and Matthew had occupied during her convalescence had been
adequate as a temporary refuge from the horrors of the Black Keep but lacked the privacy and security required for longer habitation.
Joan made Una understand her intention of occupying the chamber forthwith, and the cook went off to secure help in transporting the Stocks’ things.
While Una was gone, J
oan inspected the chamber carefully. She was gratified to find no dead cats or even innocent relics of the Fludds’ recent occupancy, but she understood now, seeing how light, airy, and accessible these quarters were, the malignity that explained her and Matthew’s assignment to the Black Keep, and a new wave of resentment swept over her. She thought, too, about Michael Conroy and his impudence. She dearly hoped she would have no further trouble with the rogue and realized how right her husband had been when he had said there was more danger in Thorncombe’s passages than in the wastes of Derbyshire.
Then Una returned and said something in Irish that Joan interpreted to mean her orders had been carried out and soon her belongings would be transferred to these new rooms. She smiled in approval, but she indicated to Una that their tour had not finished. There were still parts of the old castle Joan had not seen which she felt came within her responsibility.
Since, like the second story of the new house, the attic afforded no passage to the castle, Joan and Una were forced to retrace their steps. Joan led the way and the two women returned to the kitchen and from there passed through the cavernous banqueting hall. There was a cellar with stone walls and low vaulted ceiling that occupied their attention in between. Like many a chamber of Thorncombe it was empty, and its rough walls oozed with moisture. The place was dark and dank like most cellars and had no particular interest to Joan. Their visit was therefore brief and Joan indicated that she wanted to visit the White Keep without further ado.
Each of Thorncombe’s keeps had its own staircase, located to the left and right of the dais and hearth, and extending upward and outward in a graceful arc. The two women climbed the stairs to the left of the dais and came to a landing. Joan could see that the arrangement of chambers in the White Keep was identical to that in the Black. A large bedchamber and several smaller rooms were
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