Jane and the Stillroom Maid (7 page)

“Freemasons,” Sir James repeated with a hint of irony in his voice. “I suspect the local lodge has rejected Tivey as a member. However excellent his hands with horses and broken sinews, he is not what our Derbyshire gentry would like to call
one of ourselves;
and so he seizes this opportunity to paint us all with a grisly brush. He shall certainly do some damage, to be sure—there are many enough among the Bakewell rabble who are willing to believe the rankest sort of nonsense.”

“But Masons have long been regarded as pillars of respectability,” objected my cousin Mr. Cooper. “I do not mean to say that this was always the case; there was a time, indeed, when God-fearing folk understood the Brethren to have formed a dark cabal, a sort of heretical sect, and the Masonic affection for obscure symbols did not recommend their cause. But such ignorance must be a thing of the past. To be a Freemason is to be recognised as a decent and benevolent fellow—and one who moves in the first circles. Even so exalted a gentleman as my esteemed patron, Sir George Mumps, is not above joining a lodge. He pressed me most flatteringly only last winter to become a member; but, however, I could not spare the time from my parish duties. It is impossible that a Mason should be connected with so disgraceful an affair as the maid’s murder—and if such accusations were to reach Sir George’s ears, I am sure he would refute them most indignantly!”

“But as Tivey has seen fit to point out, there is a ritual execution prescribed for traitors to the lodge,” Sir James replied, “and the maidservant’s case is very like in nearly every particular. Tivey has published the nature of the girl’s wounds in Bakewell’s streets, and many are now crying revenge against the Secret Brotherhood.”

“In what way does the maid’s case appear similar, Sir James?” I enquired.

“When a man betrays his brother Masons, he is to be executed in a rather grim and unhappy manner. His throat is slit, his bowels cut out, and his tongue torn from his mouth. You see the resemblance to Tess Arnold’s case.”

“But for the throat-cutting,” I murmured, “and the addition of a lead ball to the forehead. And do you credit Mr. Tivey’s accusation?”

Sir James shrugged expressively. “I am a member of the Duke’s lodge myself, Miss Austen. I cannot be considered impartial. But I may attest that the maidservant’s name was never broached in our proceedings, and that no formal decision was taken to murder her in this way. What a rogue Mason may have done, however …”

The Justice allowed his thought to trail away; the conclusion was evident enough. Sir James Villiers was placed in a most awkward position. As a Mason in commission of the peace, he must judge the very institution of which he was himself a member—a fact that should not be lost upon the common folk of Bakewell. The matter of the maid’s brutal end should become a cause for politics.

“The Duke’s lodge, you say?” Mr. Cooper’s interest had been swiftly regained. Here was influence to rival Sir George Mumps’s.

“His Grace the Duke of Devonshire has long been a member of two lodges—the Prince of Wales’s, which he attends while resident in London; and the Bakewell Brotherhood founded by his father, the fourth Duke.”

“But a woman should never be admitted to either,” I observed, “unless she went disguised as a man.”

Sir James surveyed my countenance narrowly. “You have hit upon the very point, Miss Austen, that most supports Tivey’s wildest suppositions. Tess Arnold was arrayed as a gentleman on the night of her death; and I
will not disguise that her master, Charles Danforth, is a Mason like his neighbours. It is our custom to go masked into certain of our ceremonies; and with her face concealed, the girl might credibly have passed for an absent Brother.”

“And did the local lodge convene that night?”

“It did,” Sir James replied. “But certainly not among the rocks above Miller’s Dale.”

“Was Charles Danforth present?”

“I believe that he was. His brother, Andrew, however, did not appear, having an engagement to dine at Chatsworth that evening.”

“—Though the Duke is a fellow Mason?”

Sir James smiled. “Indolence marks nearly every endeavour in which His Grace is engaged, Miss Austen. It should not be extraordinary for the Brotherhood to meet, and Devonshire to remain comfortably at home.”

I rose restlessly and took a turn about the room. What possible interest could a mere maid have felt in the proceedings of gentlemen? As Sir James acknowledged, Freemasons cloaked their meetings in an air of mystery. They trafficked in rituals and signs. Had Tess Arnold attempted to pierce the veil as a sort of joke? But I could not believe she had stumbled upon the idea herself. Someone—some man, who might possibly have supplied her extraordinary clothes—had suggested the plan; and it was probably
he
who killed her.

“What use does Mr. Tivey intend to make of the sensation he has caused?” my cousin enquired.

Sir James pursed his lips. “He may simply enjoy the discomfiture of his betters. Or hope to see an institution destroyed, that determined to reject him.”

“So you regard his malice as having a general, rather than a particular, target in view?” I observed.

The Justice lifted a satiric brow. “Miss Austen, where Michael Tivey is concerned, I cannot profess to apprehend
anything. If you believe he hopes to discredit one person—I will not say you nay.”

“Mr. George Hemming was very loath to carry the body into Bakewell,” I said slowly. “I rather wonder if he expected Mr. Tivey’s accusation.”

“Mr. Hemming is a Freemason as well as a solicitor; and highly regarded in both realms.”

“But he was not in attendance at the lodge Monday evening—for he took tea with us in this very room that night! Something of ritual murder he must suspect, however. I can think of no other objection, no other explanation for his anxiety towards a stranger.”

“He did not recognise the maid?” Sir James enquired searchingly.

“Emphatically not. He was at great pains to underline that the young man—as we then believed Deceased to be—was foreign to him.”

“I confess I am surprised to hear it. George Hemming has served as Charles Danforth’s solicitor for many years, and old Mr. Danforth before him; he must be familiar with every person attached to Penfolds Hall.”

Sir James’s intelligence must be such as to astonish. If Michael Tivey had known the girl at a glance, then George Hemming could not be excused by the fact of men’s clothes and a fearful mutilation. His every action must now be weighed in light of this deceit. I glanced at my cousin, but Mr. Cooper’s countenance revealed nothing of anxiety.

“Has the wretched girl any family?” he asked the Justice.

“Yes, indeed. Once Tivey had put a name to the corpse, Tess Arnold’s mother besieged the Snake and Hind with a demand for the girl’s body, and no amount of explanation on Tivey’s part—no mention of inquests or the mysteries of the Law—would satisfy her. She was required to be physically restrained, and uttered all manner of abuse.”

“How dreadful!” I replied. “But it is to be expected, perhaps, that a mother should wish to see her child in such a circumstance. Her distress does not bear thinking of.”

“Mrs. Arnold is blind,” Sir James returned succinctly, “and has seen nothing for a score of years. I rather think her object in display was to make as much trouble as possible for all concerned. You may imagine how the townsfolk relished the scene. I was very nearly struck down this evening in my passage through the streets, with cries of ‘Murderer!’ and ‘Vengeance against the Dark Brotherhood!’”

My cousin looked all his indignation. “We shall believe ourselves in France by and by, if order is not established. When I consider what Sir George Mumps, my noble patron, would say—”

“Could Mrs. Arnold offer an account of the girl’s movements, Sir James?” I broke in hastily. “Could she explain her daughter’s extraordinary mode of dress?”

Sir James replied in the negative. “Betty Arnold knew little of Tess’s life at the Great House. The woman lives with her younger daughter in a tenant cottage, while Tess shared a bed with two other maids in the servants’ wing of Penfolds Hall.”

“Did the other maids observe the girl’s direction Monday night? Could they name, perhaps, the owner of her borrowed feathers?”

Sir James paused in the act of replying, and eyed me dubiously; and only then did I recollect that a Justice should never share his knowledge before an Inquest, particularly with a person so wholly unconnected to the neighbourhood as myself.

“Pray forgive me,” I managed. “My interest borders on the unseemly. It is only that having discovered the poor girl, I am naturally anxious—”

“I do understand. But I must beg you to await the Coroner’s panel.”

“When is it to meet?” Mr. Cooper enquired.

“Thursday morning—and it cannot be too soon for my liking,” Sir James said frankly. “Tivey made no effort to conceal the extent of the girl’s wounds; and the mood of the townspeople is grown quite ugly. The savagery of her end has given rise to fear and speculation; both will work a hideous change in the quietest folk. All manner of accusation and rumour fly about.”

“A good deal of it must concern ourselves,” I observed. “Though I assure you we know little of Freemasonry, we are nonetheless strangers in the neighbourhood, and must consequently draw every eye.”

“Nonsense!” my cousin cried; but his colour had heightened unhealthily.

“I fear you view the matter only too clearly, Miss Austen,” the Justice replied. “It is to your benefit that Mr. George Hemming—a local man of some consequence—was of your party, but suspicions will remain. The corpse was found at such a remove from the gentlemen’s position on the riverbank, and a good deal of time elapsed from its initial discovery to its eventual appearance in Water Street—”

“But this is absurd!” Mr. Cooper protested. “Would you have it that Miss Austen despatched the abominable maid?
Miss Austen
, who never laid eyes on the girl in her life, and should have no cause to murder, if she had?”

“Pray contain yourself, sir,” I begged him. “You would not wish to awaken my mother.”

“I rather think,” Sir James assured my cousin, “that not the slightest suspicion has been visited upon Miss Austen’s head. Recollect that her gloves and gown were entirely free of blood.”

Unlike Mr. Cooper’s own, which were splashed with the maid’s gore by the time he achieved Water Street. My cousin considered of this; took the point that the respectable George Hemming should not be the object
of local calumny—and his countenance drained of colour.

“But I am a man of God!”

“And may undoubtedly prove that you were in your hired bedchamber at the exact hour of the maidservant’s end,” Sir James concluded briskly. “You will, however, be required to speak to the disposition of the body. Whatever misunderstandings are presently in circulation, must be silenced by the Inquest. Have you sufficient courage, Miss Austen, to face the Bakewell worthies? You shall not be charged with Freemasonry, at least.”

“I think I may say that I am equal to Bakewell’s worst, Sir James,” I replied.

“I fear you have not yet seen it; but, however, a few days of patience, Mr. Cooper”—this, to my apoplectic cousin—“and the matter should be resolved.”

“Miss Austen certainly shall
not
appear before a Coroner’s panel,” Mr. Cooper protested. “To stand in front of Mr. Tivey and the very lowest sort of folk, in a public inn, and answer all manner of impertinent questions! It does not bear thinking of.”

“I have done so before,” I observed.

“Have you, indeed?” Sir James bestowed upon me a penetrating look.

“You were not then under my protection,” my cousin replied. “I cannot allow it. What condemnation should I justly merit, from Sir George Mumps, for so exposing a young lady to the public eye!”

“But the matter, Cousin, is hardly in Sir George’s keeping,” I reminded him. “And if you will insist upon using such words as
protection
, in the absence of your excellent wife, I do not know what Sir James will think of us!”

This final declaration—carrying with it all manner of scandalous implication, as though the discomfitted clergyman had offered me
carte blanche
in return for my
favours—so shocked Mr. Cooper, that he was speechless for several minutes.

“It is unfortunate that Miss Austen should have found the body, Cooper,” Sir James went on, “but there is nothing for it. Her testimony must be invaluable. I could wish Miss Austen greater felicity in the nature of her victim, but there again, we are but sport for circumstance.”

“You know something of the girl’s history?” I asked him curiously. “Pray divulge it, if you will.”

“There are few in Bakewell who can be ignorant of her character. Tess Arnold was the subject of considerable gossip, you understand. She was not entirely a respectable creature. And there are some who would have it she was a witch.”

“A witch?” I was startled. “Surely not!”

“Mr. Cooper might be the soundest judge of such matters,” returned Sir James with a pleasing deference for my cousin. “I cannot pretend to a spiritual court; my powers are purely temporal.”

“But whence arises such a charge?” I enquired. “Surely the people of Bakewell are not so simple as to believe a serving girl possessed of the Devil.”

“She was, after all, a stillroom maid.”

“Which tells me nothing more than that she was an adept at the preservation of peaches,” I retorted peevishly. “There is nothing very wonderful in this.”

“An adept, too, at the compounding of simple medicines,” Sir James supplied. “Tess Arnold was reputed to know everything about healing the sick. There are some who claim that she had mastered still greater arts—that she sold charms for lovers, and curses for enemies; that she could blight crops and cause sheep to drop their lambs stillborn. The power of her look would sap the strength from a man, so the women of Bakewell say.”

“And now they would have it that she died at the
Devil’s hand,” I concluded. “Is that the sum of the tale? That an incubus destroyed Tess Arnold on the rock?”

In the flickering light of the lamps, I saw my cousin’s eyes, wide and grave; and then he crossed himself once against the Evil Eye.