Murder on the Cliffs (11 page)

I agreed to stay with Lianne at Padthaway until two.

“Two! But we’ve only done half the house and I’ve so much to show you. You can stay again to night. Old Ewe Sinclaire won’t mind. We can send a note around to her—”

“No,” I said firmly. “I am staying at the cottage.” I did not say
my parents would never permit me to stay beneath the roof of suspected murderers for an extended stay.
Saint Christopher! Any female of marriageable age being in residence here would be written about in the papers and they’d assume—

I swallowed. However unjust and without any foundation, they’d assume Lord David and I—

“Let’s see Jenny.”

Pulled across the foyer, I asked where she lived.

Lianne giggled. “Here, of course. I love Jenny.”

Her soft smile indicated the depth of their relationship and I understood. Children of aristocratic house holds were often left to nannies, nurses, governesses, and boarding schools. I had been fortunate with my own family. Perhaps because they dabbled so much in the theatrical arts, the world of literature and politics, with all of its social pursuits, had been open to me.

Jenny Pollock, I learned on the way to the servant’s quarters, was your typical part- of- the- furniture employee. She’d started off as a nursery maid when Lord David was born and grew to the rank of head nurse over the years. Never having married, her “babies” were everything to her, and I saw this reflected in her face when she greeted Lianne.

She was a stout woman, forty or thereabouts, pleasant- looking with rosy cheeks and a merry outlook. Abandoning her rocking chair and knitting, she drew us into her cozy parlor overlooking a part of the garden and went to switch on the kettle.

“So ye’re the du Maurier lass.” Jenny waddled back into her sitting room, fluffing cushions and undertaking to make a new guest comfortable and welcome. “Very nice ye’ve been to my Lee Lee . . . nasty business all that. Murder, they think.”

Chattering on, she disappeared to pour our tea. “Poor lass. I’m glad that fuddy inspector ain’t lettin’ ’em off. Somebody done her in, I say. Pretty girl like that, set to marry my David. I ask ye. Who’d go and kill themselves when she had so much to live for? A baby, mind!”

Expressing shock and outrage, tinged with a large degree of sorrow, Jenny soon returned with a tea tray bearing spiced lemon biscuits that she had baked herself.

“Didn’t like ’er at first when she came here. I call such pretty girls ‘players.’ And Vicky was cruel to my Lee Lee after catchin’ my David’s eye. I warned him, but he wouldn’t listen. Smitten, he were. Then Vicky comes here to get me on her side. But I knew her game and she didn’t like me warnin’ me boy.”

“I can imagine not,” I said, catching Lianne’s sneer across the room. I wondered how much truth lived in Jenny’s assessment. Was Victoria truly cruel to Lianne? Or perhaps in exercising her new role, Victoria’s firmness didn’t appeal to Lianne and such firmness translated to cruelty in Jenny’s eyes. The servants would know. I’d have to question those girls when I saw them again.

Frowning, Jenny Pollock resumed her rocking chair, tea in hand. “I told Lee Lee to be nice to her when I saw David were serious. Vicky kept coming here. She wanted my approval. Or David did. I soon saw she just carried on to get attention. The pretty ones often do. She knew she’d have a hard fight to get past her ladyship.”

“She did it deliberately,” Lianne said, munching on her biscuit. “To get at me. She was a player, like you said. She enjoyed causing trouble.”

The resentful younger sister, I thought. Though I didn’t have a brother, I appreciated Lianne’s dilemma. A beloved older brother and a hated girlfriend who commandeered his affection and time, and
flaunted
it.

Jenny sighed. “I just want all my babies to be happy. When I knew it were serious with Vicky,” she lowered her voice for emphasis, “I opened me heart to ’er. She was really a nice lass under all that and she did
try
with my Lee Lee—”

“Only because you told her to,” Lianne interrupted. “She would’ve gone on tormenting me if David didn’t love you as he does.”

Twisting to me, Lianne’s smile, upon mentioning her brother, softened. “Jenny’s more than a nurse to us. She’s a true mummy. It was she who dried our tears and stayed up with us when we were sick. My
real
mother would never do those things.”

A common complaint in many aristocratic house holds. The children were wanted for appearances, to carry on the family name; the parents also followed a code, a code of no affection in some cases, and I pitied Lianne and David. But any warmth and security they’d missed with their parents they’d certainly gained with Jenny. “So you believe Victoria may have been murdered, Mrs. Pollock?”

Jenny blushed. “I ain’t no Mrs. and Jenny’s me name. Murder . . . yes, I say it’s that.”

“But
who
? And why?”

Jenny’s lips sealed. “I don’t like to say but I’ve got me suspicions.”

“She thinks Mummy did it,” Lianne blurted out.

Jenny expressed a natural, motherly concern. “All I wish is that it doesn’t go bad for my Davie. He don’t need the stress, poor lad.”

“But how can it go bad for him unless he did it? Why would he want to kill his own bride and child?”

“There are those who hate him and will say anything. That Connan Bastion, for one, Vicky’s brother. He was always after money, and when Lord David put his foot down, Connan didn’t like it. Then his sister winds up dead. No, no, no, my Davie’s innocent. I’d stake my life on it. It’s the others I ain’t so sure about.”

“The others?”

“Her ladyship, Mrs. T, and Soames. I can never quite tell what Soames is doin’ or thinkin’, and I don’t like it. Nor did I like how friendly he and Victoria were.”

I smiled at the overtalkative Jenny and said how she reminded me of Ewe Sinclaire.

“Don’t know Ewe but heard of her as I’m house bound these days. Oh,” she said, patting my hand, “I’m so glad you’ve come to visit. You must come and have lots of cups of tea with me now, won’t ye?”

I promised to do so.

“She’s lovely,” I said to Lianne on the way out. “But how can she stay here if she and your mother don’t get along?”

“Oh, they put up with each other, and Jenny’s been here so long, Mother’ll never get rid of her. Davie wouldn’t let her, anyway. I suppose you’ve heard Mother doesn’t get on with many people, only those whom she wants to impress.”

It interested me that a woman so acutely aware of her own prominence had married so far beneath her. She had been an earl’s daughter married to an obscure lord in possession of only one house. Though on seeing more of the house, I understood the attraction. If the children were anything to judge by, Lord Hartley must have presented a dashing image to the young impressionable debutante now mistress of the house.

Mrs. Trehearn summoned us for luncheon. With such a cold, unreadable face, she looked the kind to mix poisons in the dark hours of the night.

We were directed to the Green Salon, a charming airy room of Lady Hartley’s dominion, tastefully decorated with a Victorian oval table and drapes and furnishings in swirling cream and sage greens. A roving green ivy wallpaper covered the walls, the gentle hue matching the twin divans perched under three landscape watercolor paintings.

“I painted those,” Lady Hartley beamed. “I consider it a rare accomplishment. Do you paint, Daphne?”

“No, I write.”

“Oh , how
interesting.
You’ll find much here to amuse the mind, won’t you? David has mentioned your passion for the abbey records.”

The way she said “passion” sent my face aflame, the blush deepening as her spidery eyes assessed me, her mouth poised in some kind of private amusement. I saw in that moment the hardness of a murderer, and it certainly added weight to Jenny’s suspicions.

I loved the room and the circular table set out for luncheon with its pristine white cloth and sparkling silver. I noticed the table was set for four and hoped it meant David would be joining us. The likelihood aroused a quick flutter of the heart, and to silence it, I wandered across the room to examine the table of photographs.

“My father, the late earl.” Lady Hartley marched to my side, pointing to the first silver frame. “David gets his height from him.”

She was right. The late earl stood outside his mansion in hunting gear, his proud, strong features mirroring her own.

“And this is my mother. . . . ”

I nodded politely to the line-up of her family, seeing no resemblance for Lianne and David until at last we came to the photograph I wanted to see: the late Lord Hartley. The madman who’d shot himself.

It was a wedding photograph: Lady Hartley, the beautiful, young, radiant bride, haughty and aloof; and beside her, a David.

My heart stopped.

“Yes,” Lady Hartley smiled. “The likeness is amazing, isn’t it?”

On closer inspection, I located a few minor differences. David’s father had a sharper jawline and smaller eyes, and a faint cleft in the center of his chin. Picking up the photograph beside it, a recent one of David and Lianne, I compared the likenesses. Lianne had inherited her father’s eyes and something of his expression.

“I hope she’s not boring you with the family history, Miss du Maurier,” drifted a voice from behind.

Lord David’s composed entrance, the grace of his poise and attire, left me feeling quite numb. I didn’t know what to make of him, or what to think of him. Do I consider him an acquaintance, a friend, or a murderer? Should I even be here, conversing with any of these people? I wondered.

Shaking, I promptly set the photograph down, smoothened my skirt, suddenly conscious of my hair and how I looked in my day ensemble and nondescript mauve blouse.

“You must be famished.” Lady Hartley directed us to the table by ringing the bell.

I sat down in a daze, not feeling hungry in the slightest. “I cannot believe the resemblance between you and your father, my lord,” I began, attempting a normal conversation.

Glancing at the photograph, his face turned gray and his mouth tightened. I kicked myself under the table. I shouldn’t have mentioned his father.

“Where’s the photograph of Victoria?”

“I moved it,” Lady Hartley answered, instructing the maid to fill three glasses of wine and a juice for Lianne.

Waiting until the maid left, David frowned. “You had no right to do that.”

Shrugging, Lady Hartley reached for her glass. I did the same, feeling the tension between them.

“Why keep it there? Why torment yourself?”

“It ought to go back, Mother, and you know it.”

“Oh.” Lady Hartley swallowed her wine. “I’ll put it back if you insist, but I don’t see—”

“Stop it, please,” Lianne pleaded. “You’re making Daphne uncomfortable.”

I felt uncomfortable to the extreme. To help the situation, I sipped a little more wine and Lianne asked me about my father’s theater business. During the serving and consummation of lunch, I babbled on, assisted by the crisp white wine, revealing the secret of Papa’s next upcoming play for I didn’t know what else to say. The theater was a safe subject and it seemed to ease all the tensions.

However, an unpleasant side effect loomed. It reminded me of the one incident in my past where I’d been on holiday with Fernande, my French teacher and dearest friend, and she’d deliberately refilled my wineglass again and again so I should learn a lesson. Violently ill that night and the following day, I certainly did learn my lesson, and feeling flushed for a second time, I experienced all the familiar warning signs.

After my third glass, my stomach began to gurgle. The mix of nervousness and wine was a nefarious combination, and I glanced around, frantic for an escape route.

“I’ve a sudden urge to stretch my legs,” David declared, leaving his seat. “Would you join me for a stroll outside, Miss du Maurier?”

“Oh, yes.” I shot to my feet, catching Lady Hartley tapping Li-anne’s hand to let us go alone. “But I must be back at the cottage by two.”

“Two o’clock, you shall be,” he promised.

“Thank you,” I whispered once outside the room and speeding toward fresh air. “Another moment and I . . .”

“I know,” David pressed my hand. “How’s the stomach and the head?”

“Fine now,” I replied, smiling. “The wine was nice, though.”

“Yes, it was, and I thank you. I don’t know how we manage sometimes. What is there to talk about but—”

His voice snapped off and silence accompanied us the remainder of the way. I didn’t mind. My spinning head demanded I just focus on walking and controlling my swirling stomach so as not to make another embarrassing scene in front of David.

Summoning a strength of will I did not feel, I made it to the little labyrinth garden at the rear of the conservatory where David promptly steered me to a seat. Watching me clinging to the edge, a faint smile on his lips, he joined me, his face full of concern.

“Would you like some water?”

I nodded, and he went. I thought how kind and considerate he was, how lucky Victoria was to have secured such a fine man, in spite of, I dared to add, the encumbrance of having a mother- in-law like Lady Hartley.

Somewhat revived by the water and fresh air, Lord David insisted on driving me home and I conceded.

He brought the car around to the front of the house, and I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Trehearn’s stony face watching us.

I shivered.

“Don’t be frightened of old Mrs. T,” David joked as we followed the circular drive and passed through the gates. “She’s part of the furniture here, as is Jenny. You met Jenny? You talked to her?”

“Yes, my lord.”

He crooked his finger at me. “It’s David. And we love our Jenny very much, that’s why she’s still here. Part Lianne’s nurse, part live- in family, yet not family. You understand?”

I said I did. We had many nurses and governesses we grew close to during childhood years.

“You’ll be thinking my sister’s too old for a nurse, but Lianne is fragile. She’s so desperate for a friend, too, sometimes she becomes a little over eager, and I wouldn’t want you to end up despising her.”