A Murder at Rosamund's Gate (21 page)

Anders cleared his throat, sounding a bit like a bullfrog Lucy would hear at the lake. “Jones tells me you’ve been cleaning pots all morning and have met Jones’s particular standards. I can assure you, she is most discerning.”

Lucy somehow doubted that, but who would turn down free labor?

“However, I must see you clean before I can lend my good name to a recommendation. I see you still have your apron on, and a clean rag. Let me see you clean that grate. On your hands and knees, my lass.” He laughed jovially.

She looked at the grate and back at Anders. He was perspiring. Lucy remembered the stable, and what had nearly happened there. Shakily, she knew no one would heed her screams. Missus Jones was not like to help. It was bad enough for a young woman without a friend in the world, but for an old woman that could be the end. Jones probably overlooked her master’s transgressions. Perhaps that was why she looked guilty when she mentioned Effie. Poor Effie! Had she been trying to escape the master’s household when death caught up with her anyway?

Anxious to get away herself, Lucy began to cast about for an excuse to leave the room. “Let me get a bin,” she suggested, trying to stall. “This grate looks like it has not been cleaned in some time.”

“Never mind the bin,” Anders said, his voice growing gruff and his body flushed. “Lift your skirts.” He lunged toward her, his movements bovine and lumbering. Lucy nimbly jumped aside, but he still stood between her and the door.

“Help!” she screamed. “Oh, help!”

“There’s no one to help you, my dear. Do let me take this moment”—he grabbed her with great meaty hands—“to thank you for first servicing my house and then servicing me. It’s been so long since my Effie left. I’ve been craving female company.”

Hoping to divert him, she screamed, “Was it you? You who killed Effie? That’s what they all think, you know!”

Momentarily startled, he stopped. “What?” he roared. “I did not kill Effie! ’Twas those damn Quakers, I have no doubt! Why would I kill the best lay I’m likely to get—”

His face, already a mottled purple, started to twitch. Dropping her arms, he began to claw at his throat, gasping for air, flopping about on the floor. “Did—not—kill—Effie.” He groaned softly, spittle dropping from his lips.

Hesitantly, Lucy looked at him. “Uh, Missus Jones?” she called.

The door opened. The servant must have been listening at the door. She came in and calmly regarded Anders, who was still twitching, but less violently than before. They both watched him in silence. Then he stopped.

“Is he dead?” Lucy whispered.

“Let us hope so.” Jones bent over the body. “He’s not breathing, and I can’t hear his heart. Good thing, bloody bastard.” She straightened up and glared at Lucy. “Look, girl. He was a bad one, he was. I heard you asking him about Effie, and I don’t know why. I will tell you, though, that there’s no way that he, bullying coward that he was, told you a lie on his deathbed. He didn’t kill her.”

Lucy gulped. “Do you know who did it, then?”

“One of those blasted Quakers. She was mad about one of them, stupid git. Didn’t know, did she, they’re all touched in the head. Found out too late, didn’t she.” Jones shook her finger at Lucy. “Best you count yourself lucky and hightail it back to where you came, and pretend you never set foot in this misbegotten house. I’ve some things to take care of here.”

Lucy got her meaning full and clear. Jones wanted Lucy to go so she could pick through Anders’s belongings for anything of worth, a common enough practice, to be sure. Indeed, Jones had already pulled out a sack and started to fill it with things she could easily peddle. Likely as not, she’d tell no one of Anders’s death until she had near robbed him blind. She could clear out, a richer woman than she’d ever been, with none the wiser about her criminal misdeed.

Lucy fled, saying a small prayer for Effie, who had not been protected as she should have been. As she passed the Thames, she longed to jump in and wash away the vile aura that enclosed her.

15

May Day came and passed. The grimness in the city kept people out of the streets, a heavy fog further quelling the Londoners’ spirits. No blooming bouquets, no dancing, and nary a maypole in sight, only withered dried flowers keeping death at bay. Every time Lucy went to market, she heard gossip about the spreading distemper. Spotted fever, some called it.

“It’s them godforsaken lot in St. Giles,” one neighbor sniffed, a burly woman known to everyone as Goodwife Cruff. “We know they have the sickness. I heard tell of near three dozen secret burials, just last week.”

“The mayor should just board the whole lot of them, and let them rot,” another fishwife added. “We’ve no need of their sickness here.”

The master insisted that the household keep to its schedule the best they could, so he and his wife sometimes still dined with friends and neighbors. Lucy was helping the mistress for supper at the Drakes’.

“Nothing too fancy,” the mistress said to Lucy. “We are a household in mourning, even though Bessie was but a servant, she was one of us for five years now. It would be unseemly to dress too fine.”

Lucy nodded, absently smoothing her mistress’s hair into a knot pinned securely onto her head. She was still preoccupied with what she had learned, or rather what she hadn’t learned, from being at Effie’s house. What had the Quakers to do with this? Would it be worth asking Adam about it? Surely, he would laugh at such wild accusations. Besides, weren’t there hundreds of Quakers all over London, holding their secret conventicles, preaching in the streets, filling the jails? The whole day had been for naught, having brought her no closer to understanding what had happened to Bessie. Her thoughts were jumbled, flashing back to Anders’s dead body.
I’ve got to get a hold on myself,
she sighed.

“The black combs tonight, I think, dear. The red roses do something wondrous to my hair.” The mistress reached into the small box on the dressing table that held her most precious earbobs, combs, and jewelry. “You know, I find that I miss Bessie quite dearly. Does that surprise you?”

“Oh, no, mistress,” Lucy said, trying to smile. It still hurt her deeply to talk about Bessie. “I know Bessie was quite fond of you. I know she felt well treated and protected here.”

“Protected,” Mistress Hargrave repeated, pulling idly at a loose thread on her skirt. “Yes, that’s a funny thing to say. How protected could she have been? I should have done more. I would have helped her find a place for the babe.”

Their gazes met in the mirror. The mistress spoke again. “Yes, I knew she was with child. What I don’t know is—” She broke off. A second later she gripped Lucy’s hand. “Do you know? The child?”

Lucy shifted uncomfortably. It hurt too much for her to bear thinking about. The mistress continued. She was trembling, Lucy could see. “The father? Who sired the babe? Tongues have begun to wag, you know.”

Lucy gulped, for the mistress’s words were an unwitting dagger to her gut. “I know not the truth, mistress. Bessie never unburdened her soul to me.”

Mistress Hargrave went on, unaware of the pain she was causing. “I am the mistress of the household. It is I who is supposed to look after the good virtue and morality of my servants. In this, I have failed most abjectly. I lie awake at night. Could it have been a member of this household? Adam? Lucas?” she faltered, fidgeting with a small linen. “My … husband?”

“No, mistress!” Lucy averred. “That cannot be true. Even the most heinous gossip knows how devoted he is to you.” Tears threatening to spill, Lucy added, “The babe was begot by William, my brother, I would suppose. Everyone knows they were coupling.”
Or perhaps the painter,
Lucy added to herself but did not dare say.

The mistress looked contrite. “Ah, Lucy! You must think me heartless. I’m very sorry. How could I have forgotten?” The mistress rubbed a curing oil onto the fine wrinkles on her cheeks. “Do you think that is indeed what everyone believes? That it was your William, and not my son and not”—she paused—“my husband?”

“Indeed, mistress.” Lucy could barely keep the bitterness out of her voice. “’Twas Will’s passion for Bessie that seems to be setting the noose around his neck.”

As she took the combs from her mistress’s outstretched hands, Lucy’s eyes widened. The combs were black with gold and red filigree roses, obviously made by a craftsman of uncommon skill. “Oh, these combs are beautiful,” Lucy said breathlessly. “Where did you get them?”

“Oh, I can’t quite recall,” Mistress Hargrave replied. “The magistrate must have gotten them for me, during his travels. I believe they are Spanish or perhaps Flemish.”

As Lucy carefully slid the combs into her mistress’s hair, she knew she recognized them. The mistress had been wearing them in the painter’s sketches. The combs were in the same style as the lacquered hairbrush set that Bessie had kept so hidden beneath her linens.
How odd,
she thought. A little notion began to nip at her mind. “Mistress Hargrave, how is your portrait coming along?”

If she wondered about the flow of Lucy’s thoughts, the mistress didn’t let on. She spoke without a hint of guile. “I don’t rightly know. Bessie used to run such errands for me. Perhaps I shall send him a note by and by.” The mistress grew more decided. “Yes, I’ll write him a quick note that you could run over to him, inquiring about the status of my portrait and whether I need sit for him again.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lucy said, her mouth tight. She busied herself with fixing the mistress’s collar.

“No need to let anyone know of this little visit.” The mistress put a stray hair back in place. “I should not like the magistrate to think me vain.”

*   *   *

Early the next morning, Lucy slipped out of the house and made her way to Putney-on-the-Green, where Del Gado lived. The houses there were decent, mostly white with wood beams, a style that had become pervasive when Henry VIII had been king. These structures were not balanced so precariously against each other as was common in some of the more run-down parts around the city. Everyone knew that King Charles admired Del Gado, having specially commissioned him to paint his favorites at court. Most notably, the seductive and infamous Nell Gwyn, rumored to be the king’s own mistress, had been lovingly rendered on canvas. However, the painter lived in a rather scandalous way, if the stories about him were indeed true.

When Lucy got to the house, she carefully compared the number to the address on the note. Yes, number five. She moved to the rear of the house, thinking to hand the note to a footman. The mistress had not asked her to wait for a reply, but she would not mind a bit of refreshment and a chat. Maybe she could get some answers.

When her first tentative knock went unnoticed, Lucy rapped on the wooden door with more force. A moment later, a young woman answered the door, and Lucy found herself gaping at her. Usually she could place a person in an instant, servant or nobleman, tradesman or convict. Everyone she knew dressed according to their station in life, and even when their fortunes rose or fell, it was not too hard to discern the place they fit in society.

This woman, however, defied expectation. She did not have the look of a lady, for her dress was cut shockingly low and her long dark hair fell loose about her shoulders. She wore no cap. Only the apron over her skirts suggested her to be a servant. What kind of servant was she, though, to be in such disarray and brazenly regarding Lucy’s small, neat form? “What?” the woman asked, disinterested.

Lucy held out the note with a shaking hand. “This for Master Del Gado,” she said. “Could you please give it to him?”

“You can bring it to him yourself,” she said, a flounce to her skirts. “I’m no servant. ’Sides, he likes to see lasses when they come to the door. Though ’tis not likely he’d be interested in drawing the likes of you.” She smirked.

Lucy hesitated at the door. She had no doubt that Del Gado had painted this girl many times, and more besides.

“Who is it, Marie?” Del Gado’s lazy, elegant voice drifted from a partly closed door.

“Just a servant with a note for you, Enrique,” Marie said. To Lucy, she said, “This way, girl.”

Her manner haughty, Marie pushed open the door. She led Lucy into what should have been a drawing room, but this room was barely furnished and had none of the pleasing elegance of the Hargraves’ home. A fire was crackling in the hearth, to be sure, but the room was dusty and the chairs looked grimy from the smoke. A few pieces of pewter lined the shelves. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling, and a mouse hole could be seen in the corner. A few sparse candles made long shadows that danced oddly when the air moved. The whole room emitted a depressed, neglected feel.

Looking about the room, Lucy was shocked by the portrait of a nude woman occupying a place of honor above the great fireplace. She appeared to be stepping from her bath, long tresses of auburn hair partially hiding her body from view. No innocent was she, Lucy thought, for her gaze was at once knowing and intimate and mysterious. A slight cough forced her to turn away.

Del Gado was regarding her carefully, smoke arising lazily from his pipe. Marie stood behind him where he sat in his chair, her arms wrapped around his neck. Her easy clutch made it clear she was not merely Del Gado’s servant.

“Ah, my little curious kitten from the Hargraves’,” Del Gado said, tapping his pipe into a small tray. “What has brought you here to my den?”

Lucy handed him the note, which he quickly perused. “So, your mistress wants me to resume the portrait,” he mused out loud. “Alas, I’ve grown a bit weary of painting your dear mistress. She is a mite too wan for my tastes. I find it too hard to awaken
that
tiger!”

Marie’s arms tightened around him. With difficulty, Del Gado extricated himself from her embrace and swatted her plump bottom. “Leave us a moment, love.”

Flouncing out of the room, Marie flashed Lucy a warning. Catching the look, the painter smiled fondly. He stood up. “Yes, Marie is a tiger, too, but she has become predictable. I am weary of her. I need a new muse. Someone younger, fresher…” He took a step closer to Lucy and breathed deeply. “Sweeter.”