Untitled (7 page)

   "Mrs. Bentley is very particular."

   "Then we should not take advantage of her illness to let her room

deteriorate." She points to the cinders choking the grate, the carpet specked with ash, the blankets heaped on the sofa.

   "Mrs. Bentley cannot be disturbed. The doctor said—"

   "I know perfectly well what the doctor said. Yet that is no reason for her room to be in such disorder. And you would do well," she says, "to remove yourself to your own room at night."

   "Thank you, I'm sure." She comes so close that Mina is obliged to take a step back to avoid the feel of her breath on her face. "But I'd prefer to obey my mistress's wishes and stay close at hand."

   Mina holds the woman's gaze. "Your constant presence means the air is more quickly becoming foul. You will air the room, as I instructed, for the health of your mistress."

   Before Price can respond she turns and opens the door. Behind her the lady's maid calls out, but she pulls the door closed and walks away, down the stairs, her heart thumping wildly in her chest.

        
A
t half past three in the afternoon there is a knock at the front door. Mr. Cartwright is out on an errand, and as for Sarah— well, the trip to the shop was not supposed to take more than half an hour, yet she has not come back. Mrs. Johnson looks up from her pastry.

   "You," she tells Jane. "Quick. Make yourself presentable and answer the door."

   Jane pushes her needle through the edge of the shirt close to the button she is sewing back on. "Me?" she says. "But I've never—"

   From upstairs comes the sound of the knocker again.

   "Now, Jane. Get yourself moving."

   So she rushes from the room and up the stairs, setting her cap straight as best she can. Once she opens the door into the main hallway she slows—it wouldn't do to be heard rushing like this. But then, it wouldn't do to answer the door without looking as clean and tidy as she is able, and she isn't sure she looks either. A large mirror hangs on the wall by the hat stand and she steals a glimpse at herself. Her face looks flushed, and she still has a needle threaded with black cotton pushed through the bib of her apron. She plucks it out and drops it into her pocket.

   Whoever is at the door is getting impatient. There's another knock—a
rat-a-tat-tat
that Mrs. Johnson will scold her about, no doubt, because how could she have taken so long to get upstairs? So she hurries to open the door and swings it wide.

   There, on the doorstep, stands a large man in a hat and a black coat, an umbrella swinging from his arm. A thick beard hides the bottom half of his face. "Good God, girl," he grunts, "how long does it take to answer a door?"

   "I'm very sorry, sir."

   He makes to step forward but she doesn't move. She knows that much—she must take his name, then show him in and announce him if the family is home. "Who shall I say is calling, sir?"

   "Mr. Bentley." He watches her as she blinks.

   "Oh, sir, I am so sorry. I didn't—"

   "If I could come in, if you please." All stiff formality now.

   She steps back out of his way and bumps a small table behind her. He hands her his hat and umbrella, then tugs off his coat. "Where's Cartwright?"

   "On an errand, sir."

   "And Sarah?"

   "I don't know, sir. I think she went to the shops."

   "You think?"

   "Yes, sir." Her voice is quavering now. She grips his hat, feels the heat from his head still on it.

   He hands her his coat. "And my wife? Is she in this afternoon?"

   "I don't know sir, I—"

   But he walks away, announcing, apparently not just to her but to the household at large, "This is not good enough. There will be repercussions, mark my words."

   Her arms tremble as she reaches up to hang the coat and hat on the stand, right behind what looks like an identical hat. There is a brass umbrella stand, and she drops his umbrella into it. Then she makes for the door behind the stairs that lead to the servants' stairway back down to the kitchen. There she hides in the darkness, out of sight of Mrs. Johnson and Elsie. Maybe they hear her sobs coming down the stairs. Probably they do. But they do not come and see what is wrong, and she is thankful for that.

Chapter 4

U
proar.

   Mr. Cartwright out sending a telegram to summon the master home, Mrs. Johnson banging her pots at the stove, and upstairs the police treading to and fro. All except one young constable who has been put on duty in the kitchen and who is sipping a cup of tea that Mrs. Johnson has made for him. Every now and again he looks up at Jane to make sure she is still there across the table and, she thinks, to impress on her that he is
watching
her. She looks back just to show him she can. Of course, it might be taken the wrong way. Maybe she doesn't look innocent and able to meet his eye, but saucy or even brazen. Aren't these the words that are used about women of her class who go bad?

   She has been sitting this way for over half an hour now, her back too straight, her fingers twisting together in her lap. No tea for her and, though no one has said as much, she knows they believe her guilty. The policeman who questioned her certainly seemed to think so, though he tried to hide it by being both stern and encouraging at the same time.

   "And how would you describe this man, this 'Mr. Bentley' you opened the door to?" So she told him.

   "Didn't you find him suspicious?" he wanted to know.

   For wanting to come into his own house? What gentleman carries

his keys with him when he knows there are servants to open the door? She said as much and he cut her off with a wave of his hand. "You realize the gravity of what has happened?" he said. "And that it looks bad for you? Very bad. Not even a full day in the position and you've let a burglar into the house. We'll have to make enquiries, you know."

   Where will those enquiries lead? To Mrs. Saunders, and to the truth that she is the daughter of a murderer? Yet she did not feel panic at the thought of it as she watched him write in his notebook then slide it into his pocket. He stood, looming towards her over the table to say, "Think things over, or it will be all the worse for you." With that he jerked his head at the younger policeman so he'd know to stay and keep an eye on her.

   Now the young policeman glances at her again. His hair is a reddish blond that makes his eyebrows and lashes almost invisible. It gives him a curiously blurred look around the eyes, as though his features have been pencilled in, then erased. He blows noisily on his tea, then turns towards Jane. His pale eyes linger. Does he expect her to collapse under the power of his gaze and confess that she let in a burglar to break the lock on Mr. Bentley's desk and rifle through his papers? How can he not understand that she doesn't know a soul in this city—no one to let into the house, no one to help her out of this misunderstanding?

   She stares back at him for one second, and another, then forces herself to look away to the window. I haven't done anything wrong, she tells herself, even though that's not exactly true. After all, this is a respectable household and she got herself a position here under false pretenses, didn't she? He's still watching her, and beneath the table she presses her knuckles together until they hurt.

   Down the stairs come feet heavy against the treads. The woman from upstairs—Price. From the way her eyes flicker past her, Jane knows she has spoken against her to the policeman. Most likely she's told him she found her listening at Mrs. Bentley's door that very morning. Price whispers something to Mrs. Johnson, and Mrs. Johnson tilts her head, says, "No no, not yet."

   As for Elsie, she's got her head down amongst the parsnips she's peeling at the sink. When she's looked over at Jane it has been with awe.

   Yet all Jane did was answer the door, as she was told to do. There was the knocking, and Mrs. Johnson telling her to hurry upstairs, and the man who said he was Mr. Bentley, who gave her his hat and was angry with her. She'd cried on the stairs, then she'd gone back to her mending in the kitchen, was still at it when there was another knock at the door. Half an hour after the first? Surely not that long, but she isn't sure. Mrs. Robert back early from an outing. Jane took her coat and hung it up, asked if she would be needing tea. Mrs. Robert didn't reply. She was pointing at the coat already on the stand. "Do we have a visitor?"

   "No, ma'am. Mr. Bentley came home a little while ago."

   "Mr. Bentley? That's not possible." Her voice was thin, and she held out a hand, touched the wall as though she might fall. Her mouth looked suddenly stiff.

   For a moment Jane had not known what to say. Then she told her, "He's in the study, ma'am."

   "Very good. Please ask him to come to the drawing room." Then she walked away unsteadily.

   Hardly had Jane knocked when the man himself opened the study door. He stood right there in the way. "Yes?"

   "Mrs. Robert would like to see you in the drawing room, sir."

   "Many thanks. And would you be so good as to order up some tea?"

   She'd only just started downstairs when she heard the rattle of the knocker as the front door closed. Hadn't she shut it properly? When she went up to check there was nobody there; the door was closed. Mrs. Robert had come out of the drawing room wanting to know who was at the door. Then she'd glanced at the stand: the coat and umbrella were gone, and only one hat remained.

   Mrs. Robert rushed to the study and swung open the door so violently that it knocked against the wall and sent a picture crashing down onto a cabinet, where its glass shattered. Such an accident merely added to the disorder of the room. Boxes and boxes of papers torn open and strewn around, the drawer of the desk lying on the floor, the front broken where the lock had been forced. Mrs. Robert walked into the room with her hands outstretched as though she could dispel this disaster. Then she held them up to her mouth and mumbled through her fingers, "Send for the police, Marie; we've been robbed."

   Marie. But she remembered Jane's name well enough when the police arrived.

   Only when the older of the two policemen broke into her account of who Jane was did Mrs. Roberts stop and let Jane be escorted out of the study. Now Jane has no idea what her mistress might have said about her, or what Sarah might be adding because now it is she who is upstairs being questioned. Still, it can't look good. Even in Teignton such stories made it into the paper, the sort of thing to catch Mrs. Saunders's eye and for her to read aloud when Jane brought in the tea. A warning, Jane had always thought it, in case she'd been thinking of stealing Mrs. Saunders's pearl earrings, or letting a young gentleman into the house when the family was out and allowing him take off with the silver plate. But she'd noticed: when the old newspapers were sent downstairs to be rolled into spills for the fires, there were other stories too.

   Mrs. Phelps would cluck her tongue in horror and say, "Listen, Jane, listen to this," then, between mouthfuls of bread and dripping, would read out stories of maids who'd put arsenic in their mistresses' tea, or valets who'd beaten their masters senseless with candlesticks, or a cook who'd bludgeoned her old mistress, boiled down her body, and sold the rendered fat to the neighbors.

   Over at the stove Mrs. Johnson is straining a stock, her back to Jane. She is, Jane thinks, keeping her back turned on purpose, shunning her for bringing down this disaster on the household. Disaster or not, dinner will be needed this evening, and Jane wonders: Will she be here to eat it? Or will she have been taken away to the police station?

   When the butcher's boy came with the meat, the policeman set to watch her glared at him, then stared from Jane to the boy as though to gauge if there was some secret communication between them. Now there has been no knock at the door for so long that he's getting bored, she can see it. He has started to fidget. So, she thinks, let him fidget. All she did was answer the door. It was Mr. Cartwright's job. Or Sarah's. As luck would have it, they were both out.

   Or, she thinks now, not luck. Design. Someone knew them by name and knew they wouldn't be answering the door. Someone knew it would be her, and that she didn't yet know Mr. Robert by sight. Who would know such a thing? She watches Mrs. Johnson, busy with the stock, and Elsie at the sink. Who would have known except for someone in the house?

   Mr. Robert has not yet returned, nor has Mr. Cartwright, who was sent to summon him. She wonders what will happen when he arrives. Already she knows the blame for the robbery has settled on her for letting the man into the house. As if she could have known! As if she has ever seen Mr. Robert Bentley! Whose fault was that? Yet somehow the policeman who took down her story thought it remarkable that she didn't know the man was a burglar. Was she supposed to have questioned him? What were the chances that he wasn't who he said he was? After all, who ever heard of such a thing?

   Sitting here, she has had plenty of time to hear the knock again, to remember Mrs. Johnson telling her to hurry, to get herself upstairs. She'd been nervous. She'd looked at herself in the mirror for a moment, taken the needle out of her apron, and stepped over to the door. And there he was, angry at her for taking so long, setting her all at odds by telling her he was Mr. Bentley. How could she have noticed anything strange about him? She'd had her head down. She'd only looked up to take his hat and umbrella, and to put them away. Then he'd said—what was it? That there would be
reper
cussions
—and had taken off for the study.

   He knew which room it was, she thinks now. Had he been in the house before? Or had someone told him where the study was? Plus there was something curious about the way he walked, bowlegged, on the edges of his feet.