Death at Blenheim Palace (21 page)

Bulls-eye was not happy to hear what had been done behind his back, but did not feel that he was in a position to object. “I ’ope this one’s not goin’ to be any trouble,” he said in a grudging tone. “Not like the other one.”

“No trouble at all, I guarantee it,” Dawkins said soothingly. “She’s got a great deal more experience, and a cool head.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice as if imparting a secret. “And she’s a screwsman, to boot.”

“A screwsman!” Bulls-eye said, genuinely surprised. “A
female
screwsman?” A screwsman was a specialist in locks and keys—screws—and had the ability to make the wax impressions from which duplicate keys could be created. It was a useful skill, and Bulls-eye knew that a female screwsman would be a valuable asset in a country-house game.

“Yes, and a prime one at that,” Dawkins said smugly. “She can be depended upon to keep her trap shut and do what she’s told—and use her brain, too. She’ll see that we get the schedule of the weekend’s activities, the layout of the guest and family bedrooms,
and
the keys.”

“The keys’ll make all the diff’rence,” Bulls-eye said thoughtfully, beginning to see the merit in the plan. And it wouldn’t hurt to keep Alfred in the dark as well. The boy was young and inexperienced, and Bulls-eye suspected that he’d lost his head over the girl. Once that kind of thing got started, it caused problems for everybody.

“The keys’ll help,” Dawkins agreed. “But as I said, we’ll stick to the plan. There’ll be the usual commotion below-stairs when the guests arrive with all their servants and baggage. ’Specially the Royal Flapdoodles. They’ll have two dozen servants and a trainload of trunks, and nobody’ll know who’s who or what’s what. That’s when the rest of the crew’ll go in disguised as extra help. And when they come back out, they’ll be loaded with all the fine jewels those fine ladies have brought to show off to the King.”

Bulls-eye nodded. The plan sounded good. It always sounded good, and it always worked. He had been temporarily rattled, that was all. The girl had rattled him, and he was rattled thinking about her. He pushed the thought away, comforting himself with the idea of a female screwsman, especially groomed by Mr. N himself for jobs in the best places.

Dawkins smiled agreeably. “There, now, Bulls-eye. Feeling better?”

“I b’lieve I am,” Bulls-eye said.

“Well, good,” Dawkins said. His smile was gone. “Now, maybe we’d better talk about the other one. Alfred, is that his name?”

Bulls-eye sighed, feeling rattled again. It was time for another mug of ale.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

An American heiress who married an English Duke was more
likely to be a character in a tragedy, rather than a fairy tale.
“You’re going to be put in a cage,” warns Ralph Touchett when
Isabel Archer considers a European marriage in Henry James’s
The Portrait of a Lady,
a warning that came true for too many.
For instance, Consuelo Vanderbilt Marlborough’s fabulous
dowry came entirely under the control of her husband, and she
had no funds of her own. But for Consuelo, even worse was her
husband’s coldness toward her and the dismay she felt about
Blenheim, the “monstrous house,” as she called it, which
seemed to be her prison.

 
“American Heiresses, English Duchesses” Susan Blake

 
 
 
Kate had been only a little late for the luncheon, and as it turned out, there were just the two of them, Consuelo and herself. Charles had driven to Oxford, Winston had taken the pony cart to Woodstock, and the Duke had gone off with Mr. Meloy to have a look at a distant hay field. Botsy Northcote and Gladys Deacon were still absent.

Kate was tempted to share the results of her morning investigations with Consuelo, but she reluctantly decided against it. For one thing, she thought perhaps she ought to keep what she had discovered private until she had a chance to discuss it with Charles. For another, she wasn’t entirely sure that Marlborough was clear of suspicion, and until that was so, she ought not to involve his wife in what she (or Beryl, rather) was coming to think of as an investigation. And of course there were the servants, hovering over the luncheon table, taking in their every word. Kate did not feel comfortable mentioning Gladys’s name or bringing up anything of a personal nature.

After lunch, under the delicate shade of their lace parasols, Consuelo and Kate walked to the aviary, beyond the Italian Garden. There, hundreds of exotic birds collected from various parts of the British Empire, their bright feathers glowing like irridescent jewels, were confined within a two-story cage of wire netting. It stood adjacent to a heated building where the birds—most were from the tropics and would freeze in the Oxfordshire winters—spent the colder months. Today was very warm, however, and they were all in the outdoor cage.

“They’re beautiful,” Kate said, watching a parrot with gleaming yellow and red and blue wings dashing itself against the wire netting. “But sad, don’t you think? They don’t belong in England, somehow—like the leopards and camels and lion that King Henry kept here, when Blenheim was a Royal park.”

“I’m sure,” Consuelo said gravely, “that they would much rather be back in their own native jungles. But now that they’re here, they must be confined. If they were released, you know, they’d be dead by the first frost.” Her laugh was poignant. “There’s a parallel here, I suppose. A moral to the story.”

“I’m not quite sure that I know what you mean,” Kate said quietly.

“I think you do,” Consuelo said, as they strolled down the gravel path. “In some ways, we are alike, you and I. Both of us are American women, married to British peers—birds of a feather, one might say. In other ways, though, we are very different. You seem to have made a happy marriage, and I envy you for that. But you must know, Kate, that I have not.”

Perhaps it was the stress of the events of the last day or so, or perhaps the Duchess had begun to feel that Kate was not only a fellow American but a compassionate and reliable confidant. Whatever the reason, she linked her arm in Kate’s and spilled the story of her life.

It was, Kate thought later, one of the saddest tales she had ever heard. At a time when most women had to depend upon men because they had no money of their own and no means of earning enough to support themselves, Consuelo Vanderbilt had been a woman of independent fortune, who (most would assume) could have done whatever in the world she chose to do. But she was very young when her marital destiny was planned and executed, and of a pliant and yielding nature. It was that which had made her a victim—first of her mother, who had insisted upon her marriage to Marlborough even though Consuelo loved another man; and then of Marlborough, who having successfully married her fortune, paid no attention whatever to her.

They reached a bench in the shade of a large copper beech and sat down. “I’m grateful for the children,” Consuelo said pensively. “They give purpose to my life.” She had, Kate knew, two boys, Bert and Tigsy. “But between the governess, the head nurse, and the groom with whom they ride their ponies,” she added, “there is little time left for mother.” Her voice was forlorn. “And soon they will be off to school, and I shall lose them altogether, forever. Then what shall I do?”

Kate listened sympathetically. She herself had no children, having suffered a miscarriage several years before. For a time, she had been distraught, but she had lately been more reconciled to the situation, realizing that her inability to have children gave her a greater freedom. And she was sure that she would not have been able to tolerate the English system of childrearing, where the parents lived their own separate lives while their children were cared for by others. Patrick, the young boy she and Charles had taken into their home and their hearts, was now seventeen and she was happy to see him embarked upon his own path. But if she had borne him, she would not have been content to put him in the nursery and see him only when he was clean and combed and on his best behavior.

“Having the children go off is not the end of the world,” Kate said at last. “You did relief work during the war, and enjoyed it. Once the boys are gone, you can do more of that.”

“Yes, that’s right.” Consuelo brightened. “When Sunny was in South Africa with Lord Roberts, I was able to go to London to work with Jennie and the others to raise money for the hospital ship.” She paused. “Well, you know, Kate. You were involved, too.”

“That was a wonderful project,” Kate said reminiscently.
The Times
had called them the American Amazons—more than a dozen energetic American women led by Winston’s mother, Jennie, with the goal of raising two hundred thousand dollars to outfit the
Maine
. And they had done it, too.

Consuelo nodded. “That’s where my interests lie, you know—in social work and philanthropy. But Marlborough allows me to pursue neither, except in the most desultory way.” She made a face. “Taking beef tea and jellies to the villagers, for instance, and blankets, and hats and gloves to the children. That’s all the Marlborough women have ever done, apparently, and all I am meant to do.”

“But it’s something,” Kate said. “It’s important.” And it was, she knew, as much as other women in Consuelo’s position did.

Consuelo sighed. “Yes, of course. Every little bit eases the burden of poverty. But it’s not enough, not nearly enough. I am capable of doing more, if only he would
let
me. Sometimes I feel so . . . so hopeless.” She glanced up at the aviary, where a pair of elegant white-crested cockatoos sat on a branch, and tears filled her eyes. “Like those birds, Kate. Fed and cared for, pampered, even—no danger of going without food or water, no danger of predators, or any sort of threat. But they’ll live their entire lives cooped up in that cage. They’ll never know the joy of flying free, of flying as high as they like, or as far.”

Kate could not answer. There was no reason for Marlborough to change, and nothing in Consuelo’s situation that suggested any alteration. She could think of nothing, short of separation or divorce, that would free Consuelo from her prison. So she could only press the Duchess’s hand and murmur a few consoling words, consoling, but meaningless.

Consuelo’s face darkened and she turned her head away. “And now, of course, there is Gladys,” she said, with even greater melancholy, “and Marlborough making a fool of himself over her. I think I could bear the coldness, and even the rebukes. It is much harder to bear the thought of his . . . unfaithfulness.”

Kate released her hand. For a moment, they sat in silence, Kate thinking of what she had found at Rosamund’s Well, and in Gladys’s bedroom, and in the rowboat. But the more she thought, the more muddled things seemed to become. “Do you think,” she asked at last, “that something . . . serious may have happened to Gladys?”

“I hope not,” Consuelo said. There was another silence. Then she added, almost reluctantly, “The girl has many moods and fancies, Kate. She’s a strange, whimsical creature, and sometimes quite . . . unpredictable.” She gave a little shrug. “Perhaps that’s why I have enjoyed her so much. She’s playful, she’s enchanting, like a child, like one of those birds. She raises my spirits. She brightens Blenheim’s gloom.”

She obviously raises the Duke’s spirits, too,
Kate thought wryly. Aloud, she repeated Consuelo’s phrases. “Strange and whimsical. Like a child.”

“Yes, very like a child,” Consuelo said reflectively. “I’ve sometimes thought that Gladys lacks any sense of consequences, and that’s why she takes the risks she does. Like that horrible business with her nose, for instance. That paraffin injection.” She shuddered. “It might do very well for now, but I hate to think what will happen in another few years.”

No sense of consequences. “Is it possible, do you think,” Kate asked slowly, “that she might be . . . well, playing some sort of game with us?”

“A game?” Consuelo frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” Kate confessed. “I’m just thinking out loud, I suppose. I was wondering whether Gladys might take pleasure in something . . . well, something childish, like hide-and-seek, perhaps.”

Consuelo stared at her incredulously. “But why would she do such a thing, Kate? She surely knows that we would be frantic.”

Kate said nothing. She could imagine any one of a half-dozen reasons, although she doubted that any of them would occur to Consuelo, who struck her as inexperienced and rather naive. Gladys might do it to make the Duke realize how much he loved her, or to teach him some sort of lesson. Or to make Northcote even more insanely jealous. Or even to mock her friend Consuelo.

The silence stretched out, filled with the raucous sounds of birds, an occasional sweet melody rising plaintively above the tuneless racket. At last Consuelo said, in a doubtful tone, “I suppose it’s possible, Kate. Once, when she and I were visiting Versailles together, she went off to Paris with her sister, without telling me.”

“I’m sure you must have been wild with worry,” Kate said.

“Oh, yes, of course.” Consuelo frowned. “But that was . . . well, it was a lark, in a way, and I’m sure her sister egged her on. They seized the opportunity of a moment. She couldn’t have done that here, of course. Where would she go? And how? It was night when she disappeared, and she was wearing evening dress. I just don’t see—”

“I’m probably wrong,” Kate said, not wanting to trouble Consuelo further. “Let’s not talk any more about it.”

But that did not mean that Kate and Beryl would not think about it. Or that Consuelo would not think about it, either.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE