Death Below Stairs

  “What is it about, then?” Again he spoke in a gentle but persuasive tone.

  I had the feeling that if I did not tell him, Daniel would take it upon himself to find out. He knew many of my secrets already—had known them before I’d revealed them to him one day last autumn. He knew all about my daughter and where she lived, as well as my sham marriage, and how hard I’d worked to make certain Grace was taken care of.

  I cleared my throat and decided to simply tell him. “The friends who look after my daughter wish to adopt her. Is that not good news?”

  Daniel said nothing. I looked up from wiping my nose, and I saw in his eyes complete understanding of every bit of turmoil in my heart.

  “Oh, Kat.”

  “Don’t,” I said savagely. “Do not make me cry or moan. I am a selfish, selfish woman. I must do what is best for Grace. She is far more important than I am. Or my sentimentality.”

  These words should have been brisk and decisive. Instead, every one came out of me with supreme effort, and my voice broke on the last.

  My vision blurred. The coach wheel became a wash of black and gold, the stables around us dissolving, Daniel a dark smudge in the shadows.

  I was falling, but no, Daniel caught me. He was strong—his arms held me as my legs weakened.

  “She is yours,” Daniel said into my ear. I heard more the rumble of his voice than his individual words. “A part of you. Never let anyone take that away.”

  Daniel’s coat smelled of wool, horses, and London smoke, the coarsely woven fabric holding the scents.

  “They’ve been so good to her,” I said, using the argument with which I’d been berating myself. “I can’t let her starve. Or go to a workhouse.” The brick walls of the shut-down workhouse on Mount Street, its windows bleak eyes into nothing, haunted me.

  “Is she starving?” Daniel asked me in a reasonable tone. “Scrubbing floors in a workhouse? Of course not, because you have made certain of it. Will your friends throw her out if you refuse them? I doubt that. If they were that sort of people, you would not have sent her to them in the first place.”

  I recognized that he spoke the truth. Joanna and Sam would be disappointed, hurt, if I turned down their kind offer. But I doubted they’d take their regret out on Grace.

  “It would be a good thing for her,” I continued. “Not only now, but later, when she goes out to find work, when she wishes to marry. Being part of a decent family will help her. Shall she be the daughter of Mr. Millburn, a respectable solicitor’s clerk? Or the fatherless child of a cook who is hiding her disgrace?”

  Daniel said gently, “She will be the daughter of a good woman who looks out for her.”

  I wanted to believe him, to cling to his words, but I could not convince myself Daniel was right. “What chances will she have if she remains with me? I do not want Grace to go into service—I want her to have a family of her own, with a large-hearted husband who has more than two coins to rub together.”

  I felt the vibration of his chuckle. “She’ll be able to do what she pleases, I’ll wager. The world is changing, with new jobs for young women in shops and businesses, new machines like the telegraph that ladies seem to take to more readily than gentlemen.”

  I drew back from his embrace, but my hands remained limply on his chest. “I know you are trying to comfort me, Daniel, but—forgive me—you know nothing about it. You are obviously not a deliveryman or man-of-all-work, but a toff who has decided to dress up and play among us, the same way Lady Cynthia dresses up like a gentleman and sneaks into their clubs. You grew up without fear for your future. Those rooms you have near Covent Garden are not where you truly live. There is nothing of you there. You use the boardinghouse as part of your play.”

  “Partly true.” Daniel didn’t sound worried I’d concluded all this. “But you are wrong that I grew up without fear. I grew up as James did, on the streets, always searching for my next meal, not knowing who or what I was. One day, I will tell you all about it, I promise you. When I found James in the same situation, when I discovered he was my son . . .” Daniel stopped and took a long breath, all amusement gone. “I held on to him. I wrapped my arms around him and didn’t want to let go.”

  His hands tightened on my arms. I stared up at him, startled from my grief and uncertainty.

  “You’ve had to face the same decisions about James, haven’t you?” I said, realizing.

  “Oh yes,” Daniel answered. “Should I send him away for his own sake? Keep him near me? Be his father in truth? Leave him be and make sure he is well from afar?”

  Curiosity momentarily overcame my own troubles. “What did you decide?”

  “I claimed him as my own, had it legally declared. Then I found a place for him to stay where he would be safe. Living with me would not be safe.” Daniel looked exasperated. “I had to drag him back from running away three times before I convinced him to stay. He did not trust me, but I did not blame him too much. He’d been deceived by men before who’d vowed to take care of him—one took every penny he earned and gave him nothing, another tried to have his way with him. I made James tell me who they were, and I had a few . . . chats . . . with these fellows.”

  From the coolness in his voice, I imagined the villains had come out much the worse for these “chats.” I had often wondered about James’s mother, but Daniel had never mentioned her, and James had once told me he did not remember her. He’d been living with a charwoman when Daniel arrived in his life. One day I would pry the story from Daniel, but not this moment.

  Daniel rubbed my arms, his confident expression returning. “Don’t worry, Kat. We’ll look after Grace. She’ll grow up safe and happy—we’ll make sure of it.”

  I felt a small measure of relief. If Daniel would help me, I might not feel obligated to hand Grace over to my friends completely while I became only a marginal part of her life.

  I’d feel more relief if I trusted Daniel without reservation. That is, I did trust him—mostly—but I did not understand him. Daniel came and went without warning, whenever he pleased. Trustworthy, possibly. Reliable, no.

  I wiped tears from my eyes. “Thank you,” I said, my gratitude sincere. “I will think on it.”

  Daniel’s hands were heavy on my arms, his eyes dark in the shadows. Instead of releasing me, he leaned down and brushed a kiss to my lips.

  His mouth was warm against mine, and for a moment, I simply gave in to the enjoyment of it.

  I knew that if I let myself, I could have more from Daniel than brief kisses. He would give me all I asked for; of that I was certain. He was handsome, strong, and could be kind.

  But I had already brought one child into the world—hence my present difficulty. I would not risk bringing in another.

  I let myself indulge in the kiss for now, closing my eyes to savor the warmth easing through my heart. I would hold this moment to me like a treasure, to be taken out and remembered when I was cold and alone in the night.

  Daniel eased the kiss to its end. He said nothing, but the question was in his eyes. Perhaps not for the immediate moment, or even tonight, but someday.

  I shook my head the slightest bit, slid from his embrace, picked up the tray from the stairs, and left the stables. The mews were cold, rain and wind beginning, and I huddled into my shawl as I hurried home.

  • • •

  I was not very hungry, but I understood the need to keep up my strength, no matter the state of my emotions. When I returned to the kitchen, it was to find that the servants had finished every drop of soup as well as all the pork cutlets, so I ate greens and buns, saving a bit of the vegetables for soup tomorrow.

  The staff went about their various chores for cleaning the kitchen and servants’ hall and shutting down the house upstairs for the night. Lady Rankin was actually going out, and so was Lord Rankin, though to different places—Lady Rankin to the opera, Lord Rankin to a l
ecture by members of the Royal Society. I was surprised he was interested in science, but some men became patrons of the Royal Society to make themselves appear to be clever.

  I wanted to corner Mrs. Bowen and find out more about why she’d left and then returned so quickly, but she eluded me, going upstairs to see that Lady Rankin set off without hindrance. Simms departed with Lord Rankin, Mr. Davis shut himself in the butler’s pantry to see to the silver, and I sent Mary to bed early, as she’d done much work for me today.

  Alone, I made up my lists for what I’d need from the markets in the morning. Mary had not had time to get the eggs, so I would have to, as well as fresh produce, fish, and meat. The kitchen grew quiet as I puttered about, and though my heart still quickened every time I went into the larder, I seemed to be able to do so now without the numbing panic I’d experienced the morning after Sinead’s death.

  As I worked, I wanted to let Daniel’s words reassure me. Don’t worry, Kat. We’ll look after Grace. She’ll grow up safe and happy.

  He was so confident, so certain. I envied him that surety.

  Someone banged through the green bias door and hurried down the stairs. I hadn’t lived here long enough to distinguish footsteps, though I’d already learned the difference between Davis and Simms—the first quick and quiet with buoyancy, the second lugubrious and slow, as though Simms resented the fact that he had to come below stairs at all. These footsteps were rapid but clattering, and I experienced a moment of fear when I couldn’t place them.

  I saw a person in a man’s frock coat and trousers in the dim passage, and I came to my feet, thinking for a startled instant it was the master. I relaxed in relief when Lady Cynthia dashed into the kitchen, her restless hands already moving as she spoke.

  “What’s happened to my Bradshaw, Mrs. H.? Old Bowen’s let me down. Sara’s useless—if Rankin wasn’t too mean to pay for a proper lady’s maid for my sister, there would be someone to wait on the rest of us. Simms won’t even speak to me.”

  I saw frustration in Lady Cynthia’s eyes, and behind it, hurt. An unmarried woman in her world, a spinster, was a rather useless thing. Even the staff in this house treated her as an appendage to the main family, a hanger-on until she managed to marry, if she ever did. I felt pity for her.

  “I beg your pardon, my lady,” I said in a kind voice. “There was much to do in the kitchen tonight, and Mrs. Bowen had to catch up with things after her few days out. I’ll hunt up a Bradshaw for you.”

  I took my keys from my pocket and ushered Cynthia from the kitchen. I didn’t have as many keys as Mrs. Bowen, who could unlock every door and every cupboard in the house, but I could open the larder, the housekeeper’s parlor, and the servants’ hall, in addition to the kitchen. The butler’s pantry, where the silver was kept, and the small wine cellar would be off-limits until I proved I could be trusted.

  Lady Cynthia followed me down the passage. “I say, you’re a good sort, Mrs. H. Not like some.”

  I wasn’t certain which some she referred to, and I did not ask. I unlocked the housekeeper’s parlor and we went into the small room.

  It was a simple chamber with a narrow sofa and Mrs. Bowen’s favorite upholstered chair, a small dining table where the senior staff took meals, a desk that was shut and locked, and an open bookcase.

  I did not have the key to the desk, so I scanned the bookshelves, hoping to find what Lady Cynthia needed. I could always pop ’round to a newsagents to fetch a Bradshaw, but I did not fancy going out into the dark and rain until I found a newsagents still open for business.

  The bookshelf held several cookbooks, two of which belonged to me, and various books belonging to members of the staff—a collection of Mr. Dickens’s stories, books about foreign lands, works on housekeeping and gardening, and one book on the philosophy of science. I was interested in the ones about foreign lands, places I’d likely never go, but I wondered about the one on the philosophy of science. Probably it was Mr. Davis’s; he was interested in odd bits of information.

  “Ah,” I said. Among the travel books rested a brownish yellow paper copy of Bradshaw’s Railway Handbook. I thumbed the pages, which were worn with use. “Brighton. Let me see.”

  I flipped through until I came upon timetables for the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway. Most trains to Brighton began at London Bridge Station—though the fast trains originated at Victoria Station—then made their way south.

  “There’s a train at nine twenty in the morning on weekdays,” I read, “which reaches Brighton about an hour and a half later. Another at eleven, twelve, and two . . . all the way to ten o’clock at night. A fast train leaves from Victoria Station at eight in the morning. If you are an early riser, you can reach Brighton with plenty of time to enjoy that city for the rest of the day.”

  “I am an early riser,” Lady Cynthia said with a scornful laugh. “I can’t say the same for Bobby.”

  I barely heard her. My gaze became fixed as I stared at the columns of numbers and letters. The columns were ruled, the times marching horizontally across the page, the names of the stations listed vertically.

  A spark of excitement struck me. The scrap of paper I’d found in the larder had similar columns, though no actual names of stations, but it might be the jottings of someone noting what trains arrived where, and when.

  Which was innocent enough. The Bradshaw sat on the shelf in this room, and any of the staff could make a note of trains to certain destinations on a scrap of paper and slip it into his or her pocket.

  But why were those train times important enough for a man to sneak into the larder in the middle of the night to search for them or leave them for someone else, and fight off Daniel when he was caught?

  My heart beat faster and my fingertips tingled. I must speak to Daniel right away, never mind the tittle-tattle about me rushing to the stables to seek him.

  “Excuse me, my lady,” I began absently, closing the book and sliding it into my apron pocket. “Something I must see to.”

  I was so intent on rushing away to hunt up Daniel that I didn’t notice Lady Cynthia, until she stepped in front of me to block my way out of the parlor.

  I nearly ran into her. “I beg your pardon,” I said, stepping back. “As I said, I must see to something, my lady.”

  Lady Cynthia did not move. I looked up into her face, and found anguish, determination, and a bleakness so vast I halted in surprise.

  “No, Mrs. H.,” Lady Cynthia said, almost sadly. “I cannot let you go. You need to give me the paper you found in the larder. At once.”

  15

  Lady Cynthia stood solidly before me, her hand out as though ready to wrestle me down if I tried to walk around her.

  I remained still, my thoughts spinning. Last night Daniel had chased a man from here—or so we’d concluded. I’d decided then, from the way he’d pushed me, that it hadn’t been a woman dressed as a man. I thought again about the person I’d glimpsed fleeing Daniel, the two of them dashing up the stairs outside, silhouetted by the gas lamps of Mount Street through the high windows.

  No—that person had run like a man. Lady Cynthia, no matter what her garb, moved and gestured like a woman. It could not have been her down here last night.

  “How did you know about the paper?” I asked her.

  “Never you mind that.” Lady Cynthia’s voice went hard, but I heard the tremor in it. “Give it to me.” She took a step toward me, crowding me back into the parlor.

  Lady Cynthia was young and strong, but so was I. We were of an age, she and I, both of us healthy and hearty.

  “What is it?” I persisted. “What is on the paper you do not want me to see? It is only railway times, is it not?” I gave her a challenging look.

  Lady Cynthia’s face went ashen, the lamplight barely brushing color into her cheeks. “It wasn’t the girl’s fault, Mrs. H. She was a dupe—a go-between. Not fair on her or her
family.”

  “What girl?” I demanded. “You mean Sinead?”

  Lady Cynthia swallowed. “Yes—that’s what she called herself. She’d been with me and Em for ages, came with us to London because the poor creature thought she’d have a better chance attracting a husband. She found a man all right, a loathsome bastard. But I don’t blame her. Give me the damned paper.”

  “I don’t have it,” I said truthfully. Daniel had taken the scrap away with him after I’d copied it. “If it wasn’t you in the larder looking for it last night—who was it?”

  Lady Cynthia opened her lips to speak, but the decided voice of Mrs. Bowen interrupted her. “I sent him.”

  Mrs. Bowen, who obviously had finished sending off Lady Rankin, halted in the doorway behind Lady Cynthia. The jet buttons on her bodice moved with her sharp breath, and her eyes held glittering rage.

  The pair of them wished me to meekly bow my head, hand them the paper, and scuttle to my kitchen, asking no more questions. They certainly looked angry enough to shove me bodily back to my domain.

  “Sent who?” I asked Mrs. Bowen, remaining where I was, and then I realized the answer. “Ah. He was your beau.” I remembered Sara, the upstairs maid, telling me Mrs. Bowen was walking out with a gentleman. Apparently, this gentleman was not above performing a theft for her. Perhaps Mrs. Bowen had decided to return to her post because he’d failed to find the paper and she wanted to look for it herself.

  “Sinead was a good girl, Mrs. Holloway,” Mrs. Bowen said stiffly. “She became mixed up with an awful man who used her and endangered her. I at first thought that he must have killed her, but unfortunately he was out of London at the time.”

  “How do you know he was out of London?” I asked, my eyes narrowing.

  “It was in the newspapers, wasn’t it?” Mrs. Bowen said, and Lady Cynthia nodded, as though I ought to have known this. I hadn’t looked at a paper in days, had only heard what news Mr. Davis had read out to me. “A railway line blown up in the north of England,” Mrs. Bowen reminded me. “Sinead’s young man was there, arrested as a suspect. As much as I desire to see him hanged for Sinead’s death, I know that he was not guilty of the actual deed. But he killed her, as certainly as if he’d struck her down himself.”