‘Oh, miss, I’m that relieved,’ said Gladys, beginning to sob less violently. ‘I thought you suspected me like everyone else and I couldn’t bear it. Not after you was kind enough to get me this job at the Manor.’ Her face crumpled again. ‘But what’s going to happen now, miss? I’ll never get another job. Mr Evington won’t give me a reference, and word of this’ll be all round Little Oakleigh, and Greater Oakleigh, too, by tomorrow, if I don’t miss my guess, so who will employ me now?’
‘Hush, Gladys. Dry your eyes. It is not as bad as you think. If the worst comes to the worst, you can always come and work for me. I have been thinking for some time that I need a maid at the Lodge.’
‘Oh, miss, it’s that kind of you, but everyone knows how hard it’s been for you since your father died. There ain’t no way you can afford to take on a maid, not even with your job at the Manor.’
‘My job at the Manor?’ asked Cicely faintly. She had no idea that anyone else knew about it.
Gladys nodded. ‘Yes, miss. You needs what you make from your job to pay Tom to help Gibson.’
‘How did you know?’ asked Cicely, mystified. ‘I thought I had kept my secret so well.’
‘Ain’t no such thing as a secret,’ sniffed Gladys. ‘Not in Little Oakleigh. Everyone’s known for ages but no one’s said anything to you, miss, they know you have your pride.’
Cicely gave a rueful smile. The village was a small place, and sooner or later even the best-kept secrets slipped out. ‘Well, never mind, Gladys, I will help you to find another position. Meanwhile, I intend to speak to Mr Evington on your behalf. Once he realizes that you are not the sort of girl to steal a necklace I am sure he will relent.’
Gladys looked unconvinced. Nevertheless, her conversation with Cicely had done much to soothe her, and when Cicely said she meant to go and find Mr Evington and speak to him that very minute, Gladys said nothing to detain her.
Straightening her shoulders, Cicely passed out of the room . . . not noticing Alex standing in the shadows in the hallway, stunned.
The conversation he had overheard had shaken him to his foundations. It had made him reconsider all his preconceived notions about Cicely, and acknowledge that he had been completely wrong about her. He had come to Oakleigh Manor prepared - no, if he was honest with himself, he had come to Oakleigh Manor determined - to dislike her, and he had attributed to her thoughts and feelings she did not possess.
Before he had even met her he had classed her as one of the people who had made life so impossible for his sister, but that was completely wrong. Far from turning against Gladys, as others had turned against Katie when she had been falsely accused, Cicely had gone out of her way to help the girl. And if Cicely had been present when Katie had needed help, she would have helped Katie as well.
And just what other preconceived notions had he been clinging to for the past few weeks?
The notion that Cicely’s father had been an arrogant and careless man, happy to ruin innocent tradesmen by never paying his bills - that had been one of his totally unjustified thoughts. For instead of being an arrogant and careless man who felt himself too grand to settle his accounts, Mr Haringay had instead been a harmless eccentric who had retreated from the world after his beloved wife had died. He had been guilty of nothing worse than absent-mindedness.
Then again, there was the idea that Cicely was a wealthy woman who had taken a job as his secretary out of boredom, when such was not the case. She had taken a job in order to pay the salary of a boy to help her ageing butler, as the conversation he had just overheard had revealed.
And what of his idea that she had been glad to get rid of the Manor, seeing it as a white elephant? Her distress at the thought of the chestnut being cut down showed that her feelings were quite otherwise. Far from viewing the Manor as a draughty old barn of a place, as he had assumed, she had loved it as her home, for that was what it had been. To her, it was the house in which she and her family had lived for generation after generation, and it carried with it happy memories of her childhood, and the mother she had lost at an early age.
From beginning to end he had built his judgements of her, not on fair and just observation as he usually did, but on prejudice.
It was not pleasant, but it must be acknowledged for all that. He had been wilfully blind.
The realization brought other feelings in its wake. Warm, deep feelings for Cicely which he had too long denied . . .
The sound of Gladys sobbing brought him back to the present, and forced him to put his other thoughts aside - for now. Entering the study, he quickly reassured the girl that she would not lose her position.
‘I never meant to dismiss you,’ he said, ‘but I had to say it in order to calm my guests. You have nothing to fear, however. I know you did not take the necklace and you will not suffer for it having been found in your apron.’ Then, on a different note, he asked, ‘Do you know how it got there, Gladys?’
‘No, sir, I’m sure I don’t.’
‘Did any of the guests bump into you? Might one of them have dropped it in your apron pocket?’
Gladys’s face creased in concentration. Then she shook her head. ‘I couldn’t rightly say, sir.’
‘Very well, Gladys. I suggest you go to your room, and we will speak of this again in the morning.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Gladys went out, shutting the door behind her.
Leaving Alex to ponder anew the warm and fulfilling emotions that were flooding his breast.
Cicely had looked all over for Alex, but he was nowhere to be found. The orchestra was playing again and people were dancing. She had expected an air of constraint to be hanging over the party, but the opposite had happened. The theft of the necklace had given people something to talk about, and now that the culprit had been found and punished - or so they thought - the guests could enjoy reliving the sensation.
But none of that helped Cicely. She still needed to find Alex and convince him that Gladys had nothing to do with the theft. But she had the feeling that she knew who had been responsible.
At last, being unable to find Alex, she returned to the study in order to tell Gladys that she should go to bed. To her surprise, she found Alex there.
He turned round as she entered the room.
‘Come in, and shut the door.’
Cicely did as he said, preparing herself to stand up for Gladys, but his first words told her that would not be necessary.
‘You have no need to worry,’ he said. ‘I know Gladys is innocent.’
She looked at him in surprise. Then asked, ‘How?’
‘Because,’ he said, ‘I planned tonight’s robbery. Oh, not its execution,’ he hastened to reassure her. ‘But I planned for it to happen. Miss Postlethwaite is - let’s just say, she is a friend of mine - and her necklace was the bait. You see, it is not the first time this has happened, that a valuable piece of jewellery has been stolen at a fashionable gathering.’
‘I know.’ Cicely sighed, and sat down. ‘And I believe I know who the culprit is.’
It was his turn to look surprised. ‘You do?’
She nodded. ‘I can’t prove it, unfortunately, but I believe the thief is the Honourable Martin Goss.’
She saw the blank look of astonishment on his face. Misunderstanding his expression, and thinking that he was astonished at the fact she had accused an Honourable gentleman of being a thief, instead of realizing that he was astonished that she knew the thief’s identity, she went on to explain.
‘A few years ago, I had a Season in London, thanks to the generosity of one of my aunts. I went to stay with her, and we attended many balls and soirées. At one of the soirées a valuable brooch was stolen. It was never recovered. But just before it disappeared I had seen the Honourable Goss bump into the lady who owned it. The next second it had vanished.’
‘The next second, you say?’
‘Yes. You see, I had just been looking at the brooch, and admiring it from a distance. Then Mr G
oss bumped into the lady, and when he had excused himself her brooch was no longer there.’
‘And you think he took it?’
‘I am certain of it.’
‘And so am I.’
Briefly, he explained about the theft that had occurred whilst Katie had been in service, and the conclusion of the painful episode.
‘I see.’ Cicely let out a long sigh. ‘So that is why you dislike the landed gentry. Because they treated your sister unfairly, and cast her off without any means of support. No wonder you were so hostile when you came here.’
‘I was wrong to be so. I was judging you on something you had had no part in.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘My only consolation is that you also judged me.’
She said ruefully, ‘You’re right. I did.’
‘Is it really so terrible?’ he asked, suddenly serious. ‘My being a cit?’ His eyes scanned her face, as though he would find the answer written there.
She swallowed. ‘It isn’t terrible at all.’
A wave of relief washed over his face. To break the tension that was rapidly gathering he said with a smile, ‘But you didn’t like me. Admit it. You were as prejudiced against me to begin with as I was against you.’
Cicely shook her head. ‘No. I wasn’t prejudiced. Or, at least, it wasn’t entirely prejudice. It’s true I didn’t have a high opinion of cits - they have no idea of how to behave in the countryside, and they have no sensitivity - but my dislike of you wasn’t based on something someone else had done. I disliked you because of what you yourself had done - or rather, not done.’
He looked at her enquiringly.
‘I disliked you because you didn’t come to look at the Manor. Everyone else came to look. They commented on its grandeur, and its picturesqueness, and its lovely views. But none of them bought it. Then you did. But you purchased it as though it were something of no consequence. You didn’t even bother to come to look at it yourself, and that hurt me. You sent your agent to look at it instead. You didn’t value the Manor as I wanted you to. And so I thought you were a man without heart or soul.’
He let out a long sigh. ‘What you say is true, up to a point - but only up to a point. The reason I didn’t come to look at the Manor was because I never meant to settle here. I simply needed a grand house in which to set the stage for another robbery to take place. That being the case, one house was as good as another.’
Her spirits lifted as she realized he was not the insensitive person she had supposed. But then they quickly sank again as she took in the full implication of his words. ‘Then you don’t intend to settle here?’ she asked. Her voice sounded hollow to her own ears. ‘You will be going back to London once you have caught the thief?’
And why did that thought make her stomach clench? she wondered.
But before Alex could answer her, the door opened and Roddy entered the room.
Cicely stepped away from Alex, immediately brought back to her senses. She was in a small room far from the main body of the company with a gentleman. If word of it got out, it would give rise to gossip of a malicious kind, and although she was too well liked in the neighbourhood for it to do her any real harm, still it was something she would rather avoid.
‘I must go,’ she said.
She suited her actions to her words and slipped out of the room.
‘Sorry,’ said Roddy sheepishly.
‘Your timing is atrocious,’ said Alex, trying to make the remark humorous, but with an edge of tension in his voice.
‘It’s just that your guests seem about ready to leave.’
Alex nodded. ‘I’ll join you in a minute,’ he said.
Roddy left, and after straightening his bow tie Alex followed him out of the room.
Only to bump into Lord Chuffington.
‘I say,’ said Chuff Chuff, ‘have you seen my fiancée anywhere?’
‘I didn’t know you had a fiancée,’ remarked Alex.
‘Good lord, yes. Had one for ever.’
‘Congratulations,’ said Alex, keen to make up for his earlier unjustified resentment against all of the landed classes by being particularly affable to Lord Chuffington. ‘And when is the wedding to be?’
‘Oh, soon,’ said Chuff Chuff amiably, ‘Not easy - funerals and what not - but all that’s over with now. Dare say it will be any time now.’
‘I wish you every happiness,’ said Alex. ‘As to having seen your fiancée, I won’t know whether I’ve seen her or not until you tell me who she is.’
‘What? Oh, yes, it’s Cicely. Cicely Haringay.’
Alex felt every limb grow still. ‘Cicely Haringay?’ he repeated.
‘Yes. You know. Used to own the Manor. Lives down at the Lodge. Moving to Parmiston soon, though, of course. Wouldn’t want to live at the Lodge for ever.’
‘No.’ Alex’s voice was faint. ‘I don’t suppose she would.’
‘Used to better things,’ said Chuff Chuff.
Alex forced the words out. ‘As you say. She’s used to better things.’ Then, rousing himself, he said, ‘No. I’m sorry, Chuffington, I don’t know where she is.’
‘Oh, well. Better cut along then.’
And so saying he ambled off in search of Cicely.
Leaving Alex feeling as though Chuffington had struck him a body blow. Chuffington? Engaged to Cicely? It couldn’t be.
But why couldn’t it be? They were two of a kind. Both from the landed classes and both from the same neighbourhood, it was just the sort of marriage that was taking place all the time.
Cursing himself for having thought . . . but never mind what he’d thought. He’d been a fool. Cicely was engaged to Chuffington. He refused to recognise the hollow emptiness that swept over him, or acknowledge what it meant. Cicely was to marry Lord Chuffington. And that was the end of it.
‘We failed.’
Eugenie sounded as tired as Alex felt. He had just said farewell to the last of the guests who had spent the evening at the Manor for the ball, whilst his house guests had retired upstairs to bed. Now Eugenie and Alex, together with Roddy, were sitting in the drawing-room discussing their failed attempt to catch Goss.
‘I know.’
‘It was my fault. I should have checked to see that Gladys hadn’t come back into the room before I raised the alarm,’ she said.
‘That wasn’t your job,’ said Roddy morosely. ‘It was my job to make sure there were no maids present, so that Goss couldn’t frame another innocent young girl, and then give you a sign so that you could cry thief. And that’s what you did.’
‘It was no one’s fault,’ said Alex. ‘We couldn’t have foreseen that Gladys would slip back into the room at such a critical moment.’
‘Why did she return?’ asked Roddy curiously. ‘Have you asked her?’
Alex nodded. ‘It was because she found Mrs Godiver’s handkerchief. Mrs Godiver had dropped it in the hallway and Gladys recognised it, so she was going to return it.’
‘Unluckily for us,’ said Eugenie. ‘Because Goss took advantage of the situation and put the necklace in her apron pocket. He’s an even more accomplished thief than we thought.’
‘I wish we could have caught him,’ sighed Roddy.
‘But we didn’t,’ said Eugenie despondently.
‘We will,’ said Alex. ‘We’ll just have to come up with a better plan - one in which he will have no opportunity to slip the stolen article into the pocket of an innocent maid.’