Patricia Gaffney - [Wyckerley 02] Read online

  “I—yes—I—”

  “Quite. Do you think you could manage a household?” Everyone, including Mrs. Wade, stared at him in disbelief. “Mine, I’m speaking of,” he clarified, turning toward his fellow magistrates but still addressing the woman. “I happen to be in urgent need of a housekeeper, my former one having retired only this week. I’d pay you whatever she earned, and naturally you’d have your room and board. It’s no sinecure, I assure you; the place is in chaos—I’m having difficulty entertaining my friends.” That was all true, and came out sounding perfectly rational, he thought. Strange, since his real motives for offering employment to this woman, this murderess, were murky in the extreme and would undoubtedly prove, if a light were shone on them, to be the reverse of rational. “Do you know who I am?” he thought to ask.

  “Lord D’Aubrey—they told us.”

  “Right, and my house is Lynton Great Hall, which is unfortunately not nearly as grand as its name. You’d have your work cut out for you, as the saying goes. Well, madam, what is your answer?”

  “My lord!” sputtered the mayor, coming to his feet. He had to pound on the table for order because the whispering among the spectators had become full-throated exclamations of surprise and excitement. “I beg you to reconsider this—this—perhaps hastily made offer, which I’m sure you’ve made in good faith, out of your kind and generous nature.”

  Sebastian bowed gratefully, smiling. His motives might be murky, but one thing was certain: they had nothing to do with either kindness or generosity.

  “But perhaps it is a little too hasty? The woman is a convicted felon, my lord, the crime she committed a terrible one—”

  “For which she paid a high price and has presumably repented. Have you repented, Mrs. Wade? Ah, she’s speechless. Well, we will give her the benefit of the doubt. Fell me, Mayor, are you a proponent of the retribution theory of penal servitude, or the rehabilitation theory?”

  “What? Why, I support both, to some extent. I suppose you would say a judicious mix of the two.”

  “Yes, very good, very diplomatic; one might say mayoral, even. Under either theory, sir, do you think it was intended that a convict prisoner pay for her crime indefinitely, without regard to the length of the sentence she’s served already?”

  “Certainly not, but with respect, my lord, is that really the point?”

  “No, you’re quite right. The point is that Mrs. Wade wouldn’t be here if she had been able to find a job after her incarceration. Would you agree with that—that she’s committed no actual crime?”

  Vanstone couldn’t seem to answer. It was Cannock who finally said, “No, my lord, other than indigence, which is more of a condition, I suppose.”

  “Thank you, sir. And that being the case, you’ll also agree that the remedy for her unfortunate condition is employment, not imprisonment. I’m as eager as anyone here—more so, I daresay—not to tax our charity allotment with the addition of aliens and undesirables. By hiring Mrs. Wade, I can save the parish the cost of supporting her in the workhouse, save the overburdened judges the trouble and expense of trying her at assize—for what we’ve concluded is not a crime to begin with—and offer gainful employment to a woman who we have no reason to think was not rehabilitated by our modern and enlightened criminal justice system. And I get a housekeeper in the bargain. Gentlemen, what could you possibly find objectionable in this ingenious solution?”

  Mayor Vanstone found many things objectionable in it, but what they all boiled down to was an aversion to the thought of the lord of Lynton Great Hall employing a felon for his housekeeper. Since Sebastian wasn’t prepared to explain that, either to himself or to Vanstone, and certainly not to the sharp-eyed spectators who were following the debate as if the future of civilized life in Wyckerley depended on it, he resorted to tyranny—the favored fallback of English aristocrats when democracy wasn’t going their way. “Right, then,” he said, “it’s done.”

  Occasionally the rewards of viscountcy were extremely gratifying.

  He turned back to Mrs. Wade. Rachel, her name was. She looked dazed. Now that he had her, a hundred misgivings assailed him. What if she were stupid? What if she proved incompetent? What if she murdered him in his bed?

  She’d been following the exchange in a kind of frozen fascination, and the swiftness of the resolution had caught her off guard. “Oh, I say,” he exclaimed, as though the thought had just occurred to him, “you haven’t said whether or not you agree to my proposal, Mrs. Wade. Well?” he prompted when she couldn’t seem to speak.

  “A housekeeper,” she said carefully, as if needing to make certain she had the exact nature of this astounding deus ex machina straight in her mind.

  “That’s it. We can put you up in the Tavistock lockup for two months, after which the assize judge will send you to the workhouse, probably for the rest of your life. Or you can come home with me and manage my household. Which do you choose?”

  She didn’t smile, not so much as a twitch of the lip. But a desert-dry look of appreciation flickered briefly in her eyes, and it set his mind to rest on two out of three scores: she wasn’t stupid, and she wouldn’t be incompetent.

  “My lord,” she said with appropriate solemnity, “I choose the latter.”

  III

  THE SHORT CARRIAGE ride back to Lynton Hall was accomplished in virtual silence. Sebastian could have broken it, could have chattered all the way home if he’d cared to torment his new housekeeper. Had she not been allowed to speak in prison? It would explain why the simple utterance of words seemed to exhaust all her resources. Instead of talking to her, he watched her (not an activity calculated to set her at ease), bothered only occasionally by the strangeness, the enormity of what he’d just done. Since he couldn’t justify it, he decided to put off thinking about it.

  They were facing each other on opposite seats of the brougham. Once their knees bumped when the carriage swung round a curve, and Mrs. Wade shrank back as if from a sparking fireplace. To keep from meeting his eyes, she looked out the window and watched the village go by, then the newly plowed fields, then the greening oaks and alders bordering the carriageway to his house. Her one and only possession, a tapestry bag, lay on the seat by her thigh; she kept a protective hand on it at all times, seemingly out of habit. She’d been robbed in Chudleigh, he recalled. He studied her sharp, clean-edged profile, in pale relief against the dark seat cushion. Shafts of the blinding sunset struck her in the face, making her squint. She lifted her hand to shield her eyes, and he saw that the nails were short and broken, the palm calloused. Her shabby dress had a faint stain on the bodice that looked as if it had been washed, futilely, more than once. The constable had said they’d found her in a barn, surviving on stolen apples. Impossible; it was a picture he could not make his mind form. Even with her derelict clothes and deplorable hair, she looked like someone’s upper-class governess fallen on hard times. Or . . . a nun. That was it, she looked like a nun, who’d suddenly been yanked out of her dark, safe cloister and shoved into the chaos of real life.

  Lynton Great Hall came into view through the carriage window. Her pale-eyed gaze sharpened and her face lost its shuttered self-consciousness. Sebastian tried to see the house through her eyes, the three E-shaped stories of weathered Dartmoor granite, mellowed to the color of honey in the waning sunlight. It wasn’t particularly grand, and the interior, as Mrs. Wade would soon find out, was a minefield of domestic inconveniences. But it had a rough-and-ready elegance that he liked, as if it couldn’t make up its mind whether it was a manor, a fort, or a farmhouse. Lili had ridiculed it—which had instantly enhanced his fondness for the old pile. Steyne Court, his father’s estate in Rye, was much bigger, a palace compared to Lynton. Sebastian would inherit Steyne, too, one day, but in the meantime Lynton Great Hall was perfectly adequate. Especially since he didn’t plan to spend much time here.

  They rolled over the short, graceful bridge spanning the Wyck, not fifty yards from the west front of the house, and for a
second he thought he saw pleasure on the face of his new housekeeper. But when she glanced at him and then quickly away, no hint of a smile leavened her somber features. The carriage passed under the gatehouse arch and clattered into the weedy flagstone courtyard, upsetting a flock of rooks roosting on the battlements. Sebastian jumped down and reached for the woman’s hand to help her negotiate the step. She looked confused for a second; then her face cleared and she took his hand, as if remembering something old and long forgotten.

  “This isn’t the formal entrance—that’s on the other side; we passed it in the carriage—but it’s the door everyone uses,” he told her, gesturing to the studded oak portal with “A.D. 1490” chiseled in the stone block overhead. Inside, one of the maids—Susan, he thought her name was—was lighting the lamps in the hall. She looked startled, as well she might; a couple of hours ago he’d left the house with one woman, and now he was back with another. She dropped a curtsy and began to turn away. “Wait,” he ordered, and she halted. “It’s Susan, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir.” She curtsied again; she had a pretty, freckled face, and bright orange hair under her mobcap.

  “Mrs. Wade, meet Susan, one of your charges. This is the new housekeeper,” he informed the maid. “You’ll report to her, just as you used to do with Mrs. Fruit.”

  A comical look of amazement came over Susan. She stared at Mrs. Wade, at Sebastian, back to Mrs. Wade. She gave a little nervous laugh, then blushed beet-red when she realized he wasn’t joking.

  As for the woman, it was impossible to tell what she was thinking. She might be embarrassed, and there might be a flicker of sympathy in her eyes for Susan’s discomfort; but otherwise her reserve was too opaque to penetrate.

  “You’ll have Mrs. Fruit’s old rooms on this floor,” Sebastian said shortly, suddenly out of patience with her unvarying reticence. “You’ll dine with me tonight, and we’ll discuss your duties. I keep country hours here—dinner’s at six. Please be punctual. Susan, show Mrs. Wade to her quarters.” Not waiting for an answer, he left the two women standing in the hall and went off to get a drink.

  ***

  By six o’clock, he’d consumed enough rye whiskey to restore his good humor. He was hungry, and his French cook, whom he had brought down from the London house, had made spiced prawns, quails stuffed with cranberries and truffles, and a fillet of beef. Sebastian took his seat at the dining-room table, waved away the footman and poured his own glass of wine, and sipped it thoughtfully while he waited for his housekeeper.

  By six-ten, she hadn’t come. A bad beginning. He rang for a servant. Susan appeared, and he told her to go and fetch Mrs. Wade. She returned in five minutes with a message that Mrs. Wade was just coming. Sebastian grunted and drank more wine. Ten more minutes passed. He threw his napkin on his empty plate and stood up.

  Her rooms were in the far corner of the east wing, near the library and the musty, unused chapel. It was a long way, but there were only two turns; she couldn’t have gotten lost. Was she primping? Vanity was the last vice he’d have accused Mrs. Wade of possessing. No one had lit candles in the long, windowless corridor. He was mentally cursing the incompetence of his staff and his own unexplainable impetuousness in hiring an incompetent housekeeper—when a soft sound halted him in his tracks.

  In her colorless dress, she was only a blur against the dark gray of the wall to which she seemed to be clinging. He went toward her until he was close enough to touch her. Close enough to smell the fresh scent of soap and water on her skin. “What’s wrong? Are you ill?”

  “No, my lord, no, truly, I’m not ill.” She spoke quickly, fearfully; if she were ill, she would lose her new “place.”

  “What, then?”

  “Nothing, only a—a weakness, and it was just for a moment. Now I’m all right.”

  “Oh, I can see that.” He could see very little, but there was enough light to make out the faint line of perspiration over her top lip. “How long were you in the lockup before your hearing today, Mrs. Wade?”

  “A day. And a night.”

  “Did they feed you?”

  A pause. “Yes.”

  “Mm. Something more than pilfered apples, I hope.” She was incapable of smiling, or of acknowledging his jest in any way. “Permit me,” he murmured, sliding his arm around her waist. If she’d been stronger, he was sure she’d have stiffened; but as it was she could only bear the intimate contact with a wan, speechless dignity. They began to move slowly down the hall, back the way he’d come. She kept her hand at her side, and sometimes he felt it brush against his thigh. She was tall, but so slim he could have gotten his arm around two of her. She felt a little boneless by the time they reached the main corridor; he stopped under the lighted sconce and looked down at her, keeping her in the crook of his arm. “Not going to faint on me, are you, Mrs. Wade?”

  “Oh, no.” But her face looked pearly white in the candlelight, and she’d gone so far as to let her temple rest lightly on the shoulder of his coat. They stood still for a period of two full minutes. “I’m all right now,” she said positively at its conclusion, pulling away from him to prove it.

  She looked a bit better, not quite so ghostly. He offered his arm; she took it, and they made a slow, stately procession to the dining room without further delays.

  He sat her at his right so he could keep an eye on her—or catch her if she started to slide under the table. As each course was served, she stared at it for a moment, as though assuring herself it was really food, and then consumed minute bites with great care. The fillet was tough. Without asking, Sebastian took her plate from her, cut the meat into small pieces, and handed it back. “Thank you,” she murmured, disconcerted. He kept topping her wineglass, but she barely touched it; she scrutinized it as she had the food, holding the glass in front of the candle, taking an occasional sip, inhaling the bouquet. She kept her eyes down, so he could only imagine what she was thinking. The less she revealed, the more he wanted to know about her.

  By meal’s end, she was a new woman. Her cheeks had natural color, and her lips weren’t set in the straight, grim line; she’d even relaxed enough to let her shoulders sink against the back of her chair. Studying her over his glass, Sebastian smiled to himself, thinking she had a little of the look of a woman after sex: tired but satisfied.

  “We’ll have that in the drawing room,” he informed a maid who came with the coffeepot on a tray. “Mrs. Wade?” Wordless, they walked together out of the dining room into the hall. All her movements and gestures were scaled down, designed to attract the least amount of attention. It was self-deprecation refined to an art form. He thought of nuns again. Silent as a cool draft, Mrs. Wade glided rather than walked, the movement of her legs barely discernible. As if the goal were to go from point A to point B without disturbing the air.

  In the drab drawing room, someone had lit a fire in the fireplace. He glanced around at the faded curtains and thin carpets, the dingy, outdated furniture. Everything in the room, the whole house, needed refurbishing, but so far he hadn’t been able to work up enough energy or enthusiasm for the task. The sole domestic improvement he’d commissioned was a second-floor bathroom, complete with bronze tub and gold fixtures, cast by Chevalier and shipped over from Paris. Lili had loved it.

  The new housekeeper was standing with her head bowed, hands folded at her waist, evidently waiting for him to sit down first.

  “Mrs. Wade, you have an extremely annoying mannerism. You won’t look at me, even when I’m speaking to you. How did you come by it, and how do you propose to get rid of it?”

  She was stunned. In her agitation, she looked away—then quickly back, remembering herself. “I beg your pardon,” she blurted, blinking fast, keeping her silver eyes wide on him with an obvious effort. “I didn’t intend any disrespect. I believe it’s a—a habit, my lord, nothing more.”

  “A habit.”

  “Yes. Acquired in prison. We—were not allowed to look at the wardens, my lord. Or indeed, at each other. It
was against the rules.”

  He could hardly believe it. “Why?” he demanded, irrationally angry with her.

  Some emotion clouded her luminous eyes for a second, then disappeared. “Because—because—I don’t know why! It was part of the punishment.”

  They looked at each other in mutual wonder and disgust, and for those few seconds, Sebastian saw her as a person, an equal, not just a woman he was planning to seduce.

  Then the maid came in with the coffee. He told Mrs. Wade to sit down on the sofa in front of the fireplace, and she obeyed with a soft-spoken, “Yes, my lord.” He couldn’t imagine her issuing orders to anyone, but that was her lookout now. He sat beside her, angling his body to face her. She sipped her coffee the way she’d drunk her wine: experimentally, as if she weren’t quite sure what it was. Out of the silence he heard himself ask, “What was it like in prison?” It wasn’t at all what he’d meant to say.

  Her face turned haggard while he watched. She looked old again. Her mouth worked, but she couldn’t get any words out. Finally she bowed her head, defeated.

  As if he’d never asked the question, he began to tell her about her housekeeping duties. There were twelve indoor servants, he thought, more or less, and they would all answer to her. He wasn’t fanatically neat, he wasn’t interested in military order; he just wanted things to run smoothly, preferably invisibly, with the least amount of effort from him. “I expect I’ll be away a good deal. There’s a bailiff who manages the estate in my absence, a man named William Holyoake. You’ll meet him tomorrow.

  “As for your Wages, I’ll have to check to see what Mrs. Fruit earned. I’m sure it was adequate, but in any case I’ll pay you what you’re worth.” She listened with grave attention, nodding in the right places. “Have you anything else to wear besides that dress?”

  “No, my lord.” She smoothed her hands over the wrinkled folds of her skirt self-consciously. “This is what they gave me on my release.”

  “Well, it won’t do.”