Death at Bishop's Keep (13 page)

—CHARLES DICKENS, “The Chimes, 2nd Quarter”

 

 

 

“A
n' bless this food to our use an' us in Thy service,“ Mudd said. “Amen.”

'men,” chorused the servants obediently, from benches arranged along both sides of the staff dining table.

From her place at the foot of the table, opposite Mudd, Cook saw Pocket slip a boiled egg under his jersey. “Pocket,” she remarked, “if yer'll be so good as t' put that egg on yer plate, Mr. Mudd'll ladle th' soup.”

Reddening, Pocket—at seventeen, he served as groom, doubled as footman and coachman, and did a great deal of the garden work beside—placed the egg on his plate. “Thought I'd ‘ave a bit o' snack a'ter,” he muttered. “Didn't mean nothin', Mrs. Pratt.”

“That's all right, Pocket,” Amelia comforted him. “Th' times is long t' tea. I gets hungry m'self, and I don't have yer heavy work.”

Cook looked down the table. The household staff was gathered for the midday meal in the servants' hall, a damp room lacking the comforts of fire and carpet, with a patch of mildew the very shape of Ireland on the wall beside the door. Cook blackly credited the room's cheerlessness to Jaggers, who, when she ordered the carpet removed and the fireplace blocked up, had had the gall to
read
the explanation to Cook out of one of her household manuals.
From Kitchen to Garret,
Cook remembered with some bitterness, by a Mrs. Panton. “Carpets should not be installed in the servants' hall nor fires laid” (Mrs. Panton wrote and Jaggers concurred), because such luxuries might induce the servants to loiter instead of getting on with their tasks. Mrs. Panton also permitted the installation of a discarded sofa or armchair, but grudgingly. “If the servants are young, heedless, or have not lived any time in the establishment, these little additions to their comfort are not necessary.” It was Jaggers's opinion that one side chair was sufficient and a sofa superfluous.

That, Cook thought resentfully, was only one of the wretched Jaggers's opinions, on a par with her strict economies with the servants' food. The joint that Cook roasted for the dining room, for instance, was expected to reappear on the servants' table for at least five midday meals, variously incarnated until it concluded in a hash that was mostly cabbage and potato. As to tea and cakes, as there'd been in cheerful abundance until the coming of Jaggers four years ago—Well, such treats now were had only on high holy days, such as Christmas and Boxing Day, and even then, the quantity was stinting.

And where, Cook asked herself with a tightening of the jaw, were her perquisites—the drippings she'd sold to the candlemaker, the cony wool that had gone for seven shillings a pound to the hatter and the muff maker, the old tea leaves—all the valuable salvage that she had been permitted by the old Mrs. Ardleigh and by Miss Sabrina Ardleigh after? Why, they'd been sacrificed with the fire and the carpet, of course, on the altar of Jaggers's ha'penny economies.

In her mind, Cook could not pay Miss Ardleigh's sister the compliment of calling her
Mrs.
She was Jaggers, like any other servant, for that's what she was—a servant gotten above herself. And a younger sister gotten above an elder, too, which was most mysterious. Cook couldn't for the life of her fathom how Miss Ardleigh had allowed it to happen, or what mysterious hold the younger sister had over the elder.

Waiting for her bowl of steaming oxtail soup to be relayed hand to hand down the table, Cook frowned. In her experience, penny soul never amounted to tuppence, and Jaggers would sooner or later get what was coming to her, if she had to see to it herself. Then Miss Ardleigh would resume her proper authority abovestairs, and belowstairs would be left to Cook (which was her natural right, seeing as Mudd was young and a come-lately with a great lot to learn). And when that happened, Cook intended to have not only a carpet and a sofa, but a fire as welt—not for herself, either, but for the young ones, seeing that their lives were so bleak and work-filled.

Cook received her soup, scowling. And so it should be, shouldn't it? She was senior in this house, wasn't she? She thought back to the day, twenty-one years ago next month, when the shy and awkward young Sarah Perkins, as she had been called before her marriage to the unfortunate Mr. Pratt, was hired as scullery maid by the late Mrs. Ardleigh. Sarah had grown in skill, had prospered in her perquisites and tradesmen's commissions, and had kept her place through the various comings and goings of maids, butlers, drunken cooks, and careless housekeepers—comings and goings that, since Jaggers, had picked up speed like a runaway cart on a steep downhill grade. Harriet and Nettie were only the latest in a long line of kitchen maids and tweenies, while Mudd at twenty-six was the third butler in four years. Impressed by himself, Mudd was; he had been hired from a London agency, and in his previous place had been only a footman. And Amelia at barely eighteen was the fourth parlor maid coming directly after poor Jenny.

Jenny. Cook could still not think of her without a black hatred boiling in her heart toward Jaggers. Not that the girl hadn't been foolish, but most girls were, now and again, and were forgiven and welcomed back into the fold. No, Jaggers's sin was by far the worst, and she'd be damned to bloody hell for it. Cook tore a piece of bread into her soup, her scowl darkening. If Miss Ardleigh had done what was proper when she was told about the situation, instead of shirking it onto her sister, what had happened would never have happened. Cook was sure of it.

Amelia turned to Nettie, worried. “Ain't yer found it yet?”

“I've looked ever‘where, truly I 'ave,” said Nettie. Her thin face was frightened. “I can't think where it's got to. ‘Twas there afore this mornin' an' now 'tis gone. When she finds it missin', I'll be blamed, sure.”

Cook pushed away the thought of Jenny and gave Nettie a reproachful look. “I've told yer a dozen times, child, yer must have extra diligence 'n her rooms. Clean th' grate an' black it, make up th' fire, empty th' slops, dust th' shelves, sweep th' carpet wi' damp tea leaves t' keep down th' dust, an' scrub yer hands afore yer change th' linen.”

“But I do!” Nettie wailed. She was a few months shy of fourteen, lonely and heartsick, Cook knew, in her first place. “I'm ever so careful when I dusts, an' she always looks at my fingernails t' be sure they're clean afore I makes up th' bed. But there's so many lit‘le pieces o' everythin', so many bits o' china an' glass anv—”

“P'rhaps she won't miss it,” put in Pocket hopefully, fishing in his soup with a spoon for a bit of meat. He was a great tease. Only now, he was as concerned as the others.

“Oh, she'll miss it, all right,” Mudd said with a grim look.

“Eyes like a bloody ‘awk, that one 'as. Greedy as a 'awk, too,” he added. “Always first to the tea cakes.”

Cook nodded. She and Mudd did not agree on everything, but on this subject, they were in total harmony.

“Anyway,” Harriet said, patting Nettie's hand, “ 'tis only a pincushion.” Harriet was two years younger than Nettie, but her commonsensical cheerfulness often made her seem older.

“But th'
queen's
pincushion!” Nettie cried, stricken. “Wi' th'
queen's
pichur ringed round in
pearls.
Worth a year's wage, at least!”

“Come now, Nettie,” Cook admonished, “hold yer tongue. We'll 'ave no more loose talk.” She looked down the table at Mudd. “How's th' young miss settlin' in?”

“That one?” The butler arched an expressive eyebrow. “She's not so young, Mrs. P., truth be told. But nosy. Asks too many questions.” He gave the parlor maid a stem glance. “Amelia nearly gave us away th' other mornin'.”

Cook glared at Amelia. “Ain't yer bin told not t' talk?” she demanded roughly.

“I din't talk,” Amelia replied, lifting her chin with a pert defiance. “Not really. She took me by surprise. She's sly, that one. Talks back, too. I heard her tellin' Mrs. Jaggers that she wouldn't mind th' rules.”

“Garn!” Harriet exclaimed enviously. “Wish
I
could do that!”

Cook frowned at Harriet until she squirmed and dropped her bread. “An' just how did yer
happen
to hear her talk back, I wonder?” she inquired of Amelia, her voice rich with sarcasm.

The girl's fair face flushed. “I was dustin' th' table in th' hall outside Mrs. Jaggers's sittin' room. Th' young miss an' Mrs. Jaggers was talkin' loud, they was, over th' clatter o' that barmy-brained parrot.” She scraped bacon drippings on her bread. “T‘were my parrot, th' wretched bird'ud be in th' stewpot aready.”

Amelia had to clean the parrot's cage because Jaggers did not trust Nettie with the task. The bird had belonged to Jaggers's dead husband, and the silly woman had been daft enough to keep it. Cook snorted under her breath. Any husband of hers who had died possessed of a parrot would find it dead in the dustbin before the last clod fell onto his coffin.

“She reads, too, the young miss does,” Nettie said, putting her fright over the pincushion behind her. “Shillin'-shockers. She's got one called
The Mummy's Curse
layin' on her table, like, in plain sight.”

“Garn!”
Harriet's brown eyes were saucerlike. “Wish I could read it.” She looked at Cook. “No, I don‘t,” she amended quickly. “I'd be too a-scared. Mrs. Jaggers 'ud beat me. Anyways, I can't read that good.”

“She beats yer,” Cook said fiercely, “yer tell me. She's not t' lay a hand on th' staff—Miss Ardleigh give orders.” That much Miss Ardleigh had done, although it was after the fact. Little enough, too, but Cook meant to see that Jaggers obeyed.

“There's more.” Nettie dropped her voice. “The young miss reads th' newspaper. There's a copy o' th' Colchester
Exchange
on her dressin' table, wi' a circle drawn round a story 'bout a
murder.
Some for'n gent wi' a knife in his heart, heaved int' a hole.”

Nettie could read, and did so, much to Cook's chagrin. In this regard, Cook subscribed to the same moral principle as did Jaggers: that women, and particularly girls, should not fill their minds with what appeared in the newspaper.

At this intelligence, Harriet was speechless, and even Pocket looked impressed. “Better not let Mrs. Jaggers catch her readin' vbout murders,” he remarked.

“Nor you, Nettie,” Mudd put in sternly, mindful of his place of authority over the servants. “Rule's a rule. No newspaper readin'. Mrs. Jaggers'll flog you, sure as soot.”

“She'll flog me first,” Cook muttered.

“She can't flog th' young miss,” Nettie reflected. “That'un belongs t' Miss Ardleigh.”

“Anyway, she's fam'ly,” Amelia said, resentful. “She's not like us. She don't have t' do as told.”

“She wears wot she pleases, too,” Pocket said knowingly. He cast a glance at Cook to see if she had spied him putting three boiled eggs on his plate. “The both o' us was sent t' Colchester this morning, an' she went in trousers!”

“Trousers!” Amelia and Harriet gasped in one voice, and Cook almost choked.

“Gawd's truth,” Pocket said solemnly, holding up one hand while the other deposited a boiled egg under his jersey.
“Short
trousers, wot showed her ankle.”

“She better take care, is all I got t' say,” Mudd put in. “Jaggers may not flog ‘er, but she's got 'er ways. She's a mean'un, Jaggers is.”

“Yes,” Amelia said. Viciously, she stabbed the knife into the bread. “That's wot Jenny used t' say. Mrs. Jaggers is a mean'un.”

Mudd's cup crashed into its saucer.

Cook cleared her throat, mercifully ignoring the second egg that Pocket was spiriting under his jersey. “We don't talk ‘bout Jenny,” she said. “An' yer young ones, yer guard yer tongues. Ye don't know 'oo might be listenin'.”

A nervous silence fell upon the table.

“With the Divine permission I will apply myself to the Great Work, which is to purify and exalt my Spiritual nature, that I may at length attain to be more than human, and thus gradually raise and unite myself to my Higher and Divine Genius.”

—CANDIDATE'S OATH, The Order of the Golden Dawn

 

 

 

O
n the morning following her excursion to the Colchester excavation, Kate went with Aunt Sabrina to the library, taking with her a pad and paper and her fountain pen. On the newly installed desk in an alcove by the window sat a gleaming black-and-gold Remington Standard typewriter, arrived the day before. Kate couldn't keep her eyes off it, imagining how speedily Beryl Bardwell would now be able to produce chapters of her story, for which she had a new title—“The Conspiracy of the Golden Scarab”—which reflected some important modifications she had decided to make in the plot.

Aunt Sabrina sat down at her desk. “Did you discover anything at Colchester?” she asked. Her tone was half-anticipatory, half-apprehensive, Kate thought.

“I discovered that Sir Archibald Fairfax doesn't permit women on the site of his archaeological excavations,” Kate said. “I was summarily hauled into his field tent and instructed to leave the premises—in front of Sir Charles Sheridan, who was there, he told me, to discuss the murder.”

Aunt Sabrina frowned. “The murder? Sir Charles remains interested in the murder?”

“Yes,” Kate said. “He had earlier been to talk with Inspector Wainwright, of the Colchester police.”