02 - Murder at Dareswick Hall (10 page)

‘She
was in awe of us, Mrs Hodges and myself, too afraid of us to tell us the truth.
And she was ashamed of what she’d done. She knew she would bring shame on the
household. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know who to turn to. She
should have turned to us, of course, Mrs Hodges and me. We would have helped
her, made sure that she and the babe didn’t stave. She should have known that
our bark was worse than our bite, she should have –.’

‘Damn
it, man, just tell me what happened to her!’ Sneddon almost shouted the words
in his impatience. His face was now a ghastly shade of white and he was
perspiring profusely, as if he had a fever. He turned and looked beseechingly
at the butler and lowered his voice to just above a whisper. ‘Please, just tell
me what happened to her.’

‘She
took the only course of action that lay open to her, as she saw it, my lord,’
Crabtree said slowly. ‘One morning early this year, a cold and frosty morning
if I recollect, she got up at dawn and stole out of the house. She went down to
the lake, filled her pockets with stones and drowned herself.’

‘Oh, my
God!’ Sneddon let out a cry and began to sob. ‘But I didn’t know, I didn’t
know. If only she’d come to me for help.’

‘And
what would you have done, my lord, if she had?’ demanded Crabtree, giving full
vent to his fury. ‘Would you have helped her or sent her packing? If it hadn’t
been for you she could have been happy here. Who knows, she may have risen to the
station of housekeeper here one day. Or she might have had a chance of
marriage. That young footman who spilt the soup on you, and has lost his
position as a consequence, he was sweet on the girl but painfully shy. He’d
have made her a good husband, he’d have done right by her.’

‘Is that
why Hallam hates me so? Because of the girl? I thought it was because of
Josephine, I thought…’

‘Mabel’s
death brought scandal to this house. We all knew, the servants I should say,
who’d done her wrong, but inevitably there was gossip in the village and the
general view held was that Mr Hallam had got Mabel into trouble. We tried to
put them straight, the other servants and I, but to no avail. Mud sticks as
they say. No smoke without fire. Young Mr Hallam, he’s had an awful time of it.
And Mrs Hodges and I, we are that upset by what has happened and always will
be. We see it that we let her down, you see. We will always feel that we could
have done more to help the girl if only she had felt that she could confide in
us.’

‘I want
to be left alone now, please,’ Sneddon said, pouring himself another glass of
whisky, his eyes still filled with tears.

Crabtree
withdrew, closing the door quietly behind him. Suddenly he felt quite sober as
he made his way back to the servants’ quarters. He had overstepped the mark, he
knew. He had berated Lord Sneddon as if he had been a delinquent junior servant
in his charge, not a guest and a member of the British aristocracy at that. He
had little doubt that in the morning, in the cold light of day, Lord Sneddon
would see things differently. He would look back and consider the butler’s
behaviour towards him as having been impertinent. He would be vindictive,
Crabtree felt sure, particularly as the butler had seen him at his worst,
blubbering like a child. Would he insist that the butler be dismissed from his
position? Would he make it a prerequisite to his marrying Miss Isabella? The
baron, he knew, would acquiesce however reluctantly, for he was desperate that
at least one of his daughters marry well. And he could do no better than have
his daughter marry a man destined to become a duke.

Crabtree
trembled. He had let his emotions get the better of him. If only he had not
drunk that last glass of whisky. If only Lord Sneddon had retired to bed at the
same time as the others. It might be the last night, he thought, that he lay
beneath the roof of Dareswick Hall in the employ of his master. What would he
do? He had nowhere else to go, this was his home. Things could not get much
worse than this. He must take matters into his own hands. He must go and speak
to Lord Sneddon first thing in the morning, apologise for his outburst. With
that last thought, he turned over in his bed and fell into a fitful sleep.

Had he
but known that things were to get very much worse, he would not have slept. But
he was not to know that the bright light of day was to take the thought of
apologising completely from his mind and that instead he would be faced with
something altogether more shocking. Dareswick Hall had had its share of scandal
and been the subject of much gossip. But it had never before had a murder in
its midst.

Rose
slept for a couple of hours at most before she woke up with a start. Why
exactly she had woken she did not know, but she knew, even without turning
restlessly in her bed, plumping up her pillow and pulling the bedclothes up to
her neck, that she would not be able to go back to sleep again. Despite this
knowledge, she spent fifteen minutes or so sighing and tossing and turning but
sleep alluded her. She switched on her bedside light and her wristwatch showed
her that it was only just gone midnight. She thought of the long hours that
stretched out before her until the morning. If she did not go back to sleep now
she would be tired and irritable tomorrow and it would spoil the precious time
she had to spend with Cedric. There was only one thing to do. She must find
something that would send her to sleep. She had no sleeping powders with her,
but she had always found that reading in bed made her drowsy, particularly if
the book was not very engaging. She would go down to the library and choose a
book.

A
dressing gown thrown on and tied hurriedly around her, she stole out of her
room, across the landing, and groped her way down the stairs in the darkness,
afraid that turning a light on might awaken the whole house. She opened the
library door and was surprised to find that, although empty, the room was not
in darkness. A lamp burned brightly on a table near one of the wing chairs by
the fireplace and embers from the dying fire still glowed. She went over to the
nearest bookcase and quickly scanned the titles on the spines. She must find
something vaguely interesting, but not too absorbing that it would prevent her
from drifting off to sleep….

A noise
in the room stopped her in her tracks, her hand hovering over a book. She
looked around anxiously. A great form was emerging from the wing chair. In the
half light of the room it took on an almost ghostly presence as if it were not
human. Rose’s hand went instinctively to her heart and she could not prevent
herself from emitting a stifled scream.

‘Don’t
be alarmed, Miss Simpson.’

‘Lord
Sneddon, you startled me. I just came in for a book,’ Rose said hurriedly,
grabbing the first book that came to hand. ‘And now I must go, goodnight.’

In what
seemed to Rose no more than one bound, Sneddon was beside her and had taken the
book from her grasp.

‘
The
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
,’ read Sneddon. ‘I say,
Miss Simpson, that’s hardly light reading for last thing at night. Although I
have to say it may well send you to sleep. But don’t go, please, I should like
to talk to you. I should like to ask your advice.’

Memories
of her last encounter with Sneddon on the stairs at Ashgrove came back to her.
This moment here at Dareswick, shut in a library a distance away from any other
living soul, she felt more vulnerable still. There was no chance of escape,
Sneddon had seen to that because he was now standing between her and the door.

‘Please….’

‘I give
you my word that you have no reason to be frightened, Rose,’ Sneddon said
gently, seeing the fear in her eyes. ‘Look I am going to go back to the chair
by the fireplace and turn it around so that I am facing you. You can remain
standing by the door if you so wish, so that you can leave whenever you want
to, I won’t stop you. Although, of course, I’d prefer it if you pulled up the
other wing chair and sat with me beside the fire, you’ll catch your death in
that attire.’

Rose
looked at him apprehensively. He held an empty glass in his hand and that,
together with a part empty decanter of whisky on the table by his chair,
indicated that he may well be in drink, and yet the way he held her gaze
suggested that he was quite sober. She longed to go and sit in the other wing
chair by the dying fire and enjoy the last moments of its warmth, for her feet
were quite frozen. But she did not trust him so instead stood with the closed
door behind her back, the door knob clutched awkwardly in her clenched hand,
ready to make a quick escape should the circumstances so dictate.

Sneddon
shrugged his shoulders and walked over to the fireplace, turned his chair
around so that it was facing her, and sat down heavily.

‘Thank
you. Can I at least offer you a drink?’

‘No,
and I think you have probably had enough.’

‘Ha!
You are quite right, Miss Simpson, but I’m afraid I shall require another glass
if I am to bare my soul to you and ask for your advice.’

‘I
don‘t know why you would. What advice could I possibly give you and why would
you want to take it?’

‘Because
I like you.’ Sneddon held up a hand as she was about to protest. ‘I know you
don’t like me and, believe me, I do not blame you. Why would someone like you,
so honest and good, see anything but the bad in me? I have behaved in the most
appalling way towards you in the past, and yet I ask you to overlook that and
hear me out. Will you do that for me, Rose?’

Rose
looked at him keenly for signs that he was mocking her. But he was in all
seriousness she suddenly had no doubt. There was no sign of his habitual arrogance
about him, instead he looked in earnest. Indeed, now that she looked at him
more closely, she wondered if he were ill. Despite his good looks, he looked
haggard. He was pale and his eyes were red and swollen as if he had recently
been weeping.

‘Please
help me, Rose,’ he implored. ‘You must tell me what I can do to put it right.
Will you?’

‘Yes,’
she said slowly, after a slight hesitation, ‘if I can.’ He was clearly in a
desperate and pathetic state. Despite her reservations she moved forward slightly,
as if to give substance to her words. For a moment she even wished that the old
self-assured and patronising Lord Sneddon would return and replace the broken
man before her. She moved further into the room, she was no longer afraid.

‘Bless
you. I have done so many dreadful things, Rose, hurt so many people. I don’t
really care about the likes of Isabella and Lavinia, of course, they can look
after themselves. It’s the others that I hurt that I can’t live with. And it’s
all too late,’ his shoulders drooped and he buried his head in his hands. ‘I’ve
only just realised how very much I cared for them, and now it’s too late. It’s
too late to do anything about it.’

‘Is
there really nothing you can do?’ asked Rose, alarmed by his anguish.

‘I
suppose you don’t know, well, why would you? There was a young housemaid here
last time I came to stay. A pretty, timid little thing, wouldn’t say boo to a
goose. A friendless orphan who nobody cared very much about. I remember she was
so desperate to believe my attentions towards her meant something. I swear I
didn’t know that I had ruined her. But the awful thing is that, even if I had,
I probably wouldn’t have done anything to help her….’

‘Yes,
Josephine told me something of it. The villagers thought Hallam was to blame.’
Rose now looked at him contemptuously, her heart hardening somewhat towards
him.

‘But
that isn’t the half of it, Rose. She was so ashamed and friendless. She felt
she had no one to turn to for help. So she drowned herself in the lake here at
Dareswick. One cold winter morning, she filled her pockets with stones and
walked out into the lake.’

Rose
gasped with horror as what he was saying sunk in. It was the only sound in the
room besides the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. In her mind’s eye a
vision of the girl rose up before her, young and desperate, tripping and
stumbling towards the lake, half blinded by tears as she made her way on her
last journey to her awful fate. Rose looked at the pathetic creature before
her, crumbled and bent over with remorse. She could not bring herself to feel
pity towards him, did not want to even, for such feelings would be misplaced.

‘You
are right, there is nothing you can do. She is beyond help now.’ She turned to
leave with a heavy heart, her book quite forgotten.

‘No, I
can’t help her. But there must be something that I can do, if not for her, then
for the others that I have hurt. Tell me, Rose, do you think I can change? Do
you think that I can become a better person?’

‘No,’
Rose said honestly, the single word springing from her lips unchecked before
she could soften it with other words. ‘But you must try.’ And then she left.

Afterwards,
in the days and months that followed, she regretted what she had said. She
should have shown more compassion. He had indicated a wish to change and she
should have given him encouragement, not cast doubt on his ability to do so.
She would remember too the way he had looked that night, desperate and
distraught, a shadow of the man he usually showed the world. She could not get
this last image of him out of her head; it would haunt her. If only she had
realised at the time, as she left him to his sorrow, that by the morning he
would be dead.