CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Chambermaid’s View
“. . . there is an expression in her features of something very like deceit . . .”
Bury, Charlotte, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting
Mr. Poole’s bookroom was at the back of the house. Much of the space was taken up by a mahogany desk situated facing the door. Rosalind’s shoes sank into the rich Turkey carpet. The shelves were filled with heavy volumes, which did not look as if they’d been touched since they were purchased. There was an almost equal number of ledgers and notebooks, all of which were well thumbed, broken spined, and battered.
Mrs. Poole glanced about her, as if she wanted to make sure everything was in order.
“If you will be all right on your own?” she asked them. “I need to go see my stepdaughter.”
“Yes, of course,” said Rosalind.
“You may ring for Judith if you need anything.”
Mrs. Poole left them there. Rosalind closed the door.
Adam gave a low whistle.
“Yes,” agreed Rosalind. “They are a conundrum.”
He looked thoughtfully at the door. “What do you think of Mrs. Poole particularly?”
Rosalind also found herself watching the door. She wondered if Adam noticed the shifting shadows just visible in the narrow space between the door and the floorboards. Someone was there, listening.
Mrs. Poole? Not likely. She was genuinely worried about Letitia and wanted to speak with her.
“Mrs. Poole confuses me,” said Rosalind out loud. “I wonder how she came to be married to Mr. Poole. I suspect money will be behind it, and the need to care for her brother.”
Adam nodded and turned from the door. “I’ll begin with the desk. And you?”
Rosalind stepped closer to him. “I’ll begin with the maid,” she murmured.
Adam cocked his brow. Rosalind nodded once. Adam stepped back, gesturing that she should proceed.
Rosalind lifted her voice. “I will go now and find Miss Poole.” The shadows shifted and vanished. Rosalind waited for a single heartbeat and then opened the door. She was just in time to see Judith vanish into another doorway at the end of the hall.
Rosalind did not rush. She did not need to. Judith very obviously wanted to know exactly what was happening with the family. She would not have gone far. She also probably did not think Rosalind might breach the invisible barrier between abovestairs and below.
In a house of this quality, the doors to servants’ stairs would be discreetly placed and generally fitted to look as much as possible like a portion of the wall. When she reached the door, Rosalind paused to listen. Her eyebrows rose. From the other side came the faint but unmistakable sound of weeping.
Rosalind pulled her handkerchief from her sleeve and opened the door.
Judith stood on the bare landing. The maid looked up, startled. Tears streaked the young woman’s pale face, and her eyes were bright red.
Wordlessly, Rosalind handed Judith the kerchief. She also stepped onto the landing and closed the door behind them, shutting off most of the light, leaving them in the dim and dust of the servants’ stairs.
“Thank you, miss.” Judith wiped her eyes and nose. “I just . . . I didn’t . . .”
Rosalind did not make her finish. “You must have been quite devoted to your employer.”
“Yes, miss,” whispered Judith. “He was a good man, a kind man. No matter what she says.” She glared at the door over Rosalind’s shoulder, but clearly, she was seeing Mrs. Poole. “What they say,” she amended.
“It seems to me that Mrs. Poole is in a difficult place.”
“Huh!” Judith sniffed and wiped her nose again. “Don’t waste your sympathy on that one. She got what she wanted.”
Rosalind let her brows rise. “It was not a good marriage?”
Judith hesitated. Rosalind’s eyes had adjusted to the dim light, and she could see that the maid was torn between trusting someone from the world of upstairs and wanting to discomfort a woman she disliked.
“That depends what you consider good. As I say, she got what she wanted.”
“Was the marriage for money?” asked Rosalind. “Mrs. Poole appears to be a woman with elevated tastes.”
“Oh, she looks the part, all right,” said Judith. “That’s how she drew him in, isn’t it? He wanted someone who could give him polish. Get him in with the quality. Find the girl a husband with a title and all that.” She waved the handkerchief, indicating what she thought of “all that.”
“Men in Mr. Poole’s position often choose wives who can help them socially.”
Judith shrugged. “Well, he could have chosen better.”
“They did not agree, then?”
“Agree?” Judith snorted. “She barely spoke to him. Was pleased enough to take his money but thought he was beneath her. Her kind, beg your pardon, can’t see past their own noses. She thinks all about her place and her family but doesn’t spare a minute’s sympathy for anyone else.”
“But Mr. Poole did?”
Judith touched the place just beneath her collar but let her hand quickly fall. “He got a man I know out of Newgate. He’d been put in for stealing.” Anger glittered in her eyes. “He didn’t do it,” Judith added quickly. “He never. The master of the house slipped him some extra to keep his mouth shut while there was a house party, and he was . . . well, not where he should be. Then his wife found the money and said T . . . the man I know must have stolen it, and the mister wouldn’t speak up.”
Rosalind nodded. “It is a shame that such things happen.”
The glower Judith gave her said that shame was not the word she’d use. “Well, even once he’d finished his sentence, he couldn’t afford to pay the fees for his keep in prison, so he had to stay there, didn’t he? Mr. Poole paid for him and got him a new place.”
“That is very generous of him,” said Rosalind. “Did he help many in such positions?”
“He always said that the law was made by the rich to use against the poor, and he wanted to help right the balance.”
Positively revolutionary, Rosalind thought. “What will you do now?”
“I’ll get along, miss.” Judith sniffed again. “Never you fear.”
“I can recommend the name of a good registry office if you want to find a new place.”
“Thank you, miss, but you needn’t bother,” said Judith. “I can go to Mrs. Percivale’s as soon as . . . well, as soon as I have need.” Judith took a deep breath. “I mustn’t stand about any longer. Thank you for the loan, miss. I’ll have this washed,” she indicated the handkerchief.
“You’re very welcome, Judith.”
Rosalind slipped back into the main corridor and stood still for a moment, thinking about all she had seen and heard since she entered the house. She thought particularly about the moment where Judith touched her collar. She knew that gesture. She’d seen Amelia make it, and Alice.
Alice, a month or so ago, had bought herself and Amelia matching charms—gold hearts that they wore tucked away beneath their dresses.
Rosalind wondered what Judith kept hidden close to her heart, and exactly who the man Mr. Poole had saved from Newgate might be.
She turned and began to make her way back to the bookroom. She walked slowly, hoping she might encounter Mrs. Poole or Letitia on the way.
Luck was not with her this time. She met no one. When she opened the door to the bookroom, she found Adam seated behind Poole’s desk, patiently leafing through stacks of correspondence. Two folios of documents had been set aside. Rosalind closed the door.
“It appears Mrs. Poole was right,” Adam said. “There is not much here. Household bills primarily. Some requests for consultation. A few begging letters from various charities.”
“Given Mr. Poole’s penchant for privacy, I’m surprised he did not keep his desk locked,” remarked Rosalind.
“Perhaps he did,” replied Adam.
“You shock me, sir!”
“Still?” Adam murmured.
Rosalind turned away before she could begin to blush in earnest. She felt, rather than saw, Adam’s warm smile.
But the warmth quickly faded. “What there is not is any strongbox or safe or hidden space,” he said. “Or anywhere else that a man might secure especially valuable documents.”
Rosalind moved to the shelves of ledgers. From the notations on the spines, they looked like they might be household accounts. She pulled a notebook at random and felt her brows inch up.
These were not accounts. These books were collections of newspaper clippings—articles from the social columns mixed with records from the courts, all of them heavily underlined and annotated. In fact, they reminded her very much of her books at home.
Something tapped at the back of her mind.
“Did you catch up with Judith?” Adam asked her.
“I did—”
But before Rosalind could get any further, the door opened. It was Mrs. Poole.
“Were you able to find anything useful?” she asked.
Adam did not look at Rosalind as she reshelved the book of clippings. “I’m afraid not,” he said. “However, we do know that Mr. Poole kept a room at the White Swan public house.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Poole. “He conducted a great deal of his business there.”
“With your permission, I’d like to search his papers to see if we can find any hint as to who might have wanted to harm him.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Mrs. Poole looked at the room around them, her expression angry, as if the room itself was to blame for not yielding answers.
“How is Miss Poole?” asked Rosalind.
“Distraught, angry, confused,” said Mrs. Poole wearily. “As are we all. Will you be much longer? The servants . . .” Mrs. Poole’s voice faltered. “We must settle the house, and, as my brother pointed out, arrangements must be made.”
“Of course, Mrs. Poole,” said Rosalind. “We will not keep you any longer.”
Adam climbed to his feet. “I am very sorry for your loss. Mr. Considen has my card. You may send for me at any time should you have any questions or think of anything that might assist with the inquiry. You will be contacted when the date of the inquest is settled. It will be soon.”
“Thank you.” Mrs. Poole’s reply was flat and reflexive.
Rosalind paused. Anger burned in Mrs. Poole’s eyes, but there was fear in her glance, as well.
“Mrs. Poole, your tragedy has come at a sensitive time for your family. If there’s any help I can offer, you may call on me at any time.”
Some part of Rosalind cringed even as she spoke. She was too forward. She would be seen as grubbing after this woman’s money, seeking to advance herself through the pain of others.
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Poole, and Rosalind heard both relief and genuine consideration in the words. “I may do so, especially—” She stopped. “Thank you,” she repeated.
Rosalind and Adam murmured their sympathies again and allowed themselves to be led downstairs and ushered out the door into the pale summer evening.
Judith did not reappear.
The bustle in the streets had ebbed. In the distance, church bells chimed the hour of seven. Soon it would be time for those who were going out for the evening to make their departures, but now was the lull.
“Shall we walk a little?” asked Adam. “We should be able to find a cabstand closer to the high street.”
“Yes, thank you.” Rosalind let herself glance backward toward the house. In one upstairs window, the drapes had been pulled back far enough for her to glimpse a silhouette watching them. Adam noticed, of course, and Adam looked, as well.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Difficult to say,” she replied. “But we have caused a stir.”
Adam nodded. “I very much suspect that the members of that family know more about Mr. Poole’s business than they have said.”
“I agree. Even if he did not directly share confidences, men of Poole’s description do like to brag, and when they cannot brag to their friends, they will brag to their families.”
“Do you think Mrs. Poole will take you up on your offer to call?”
“She might,” said Rosalind. “If Letitia Poole is engaged to be married, and the potential groom’s family was uneasy before this, they may now try to cry off. She’ll want to be able to reassure them, and she may hope I can help her do that.”
“Do you have any suspicion as to what might be bothering the groom’s family?”
Rosalind frowned. “There will be the general fear of scandal, of course, and there might be money troubles. All of which would be exacerbated by Mr. Poole’s death.”
“Indeed,” said Adam. “Given the lack of grief displayed by his family, I’d very much like to know the provisions of Mr. Poole’s last will and testament.”
“You think this might be a domestic matter?” asked Rosalind.
“It happens more often than people care to believe.”
They reached a street corner and became absorbed in the business of finding their way across between the carriages and carts. Safely on the other side, Adam took up the thread of their conversation again.
“What did you learn from Judith?”
“That Mr. Poole made a practice of freeing persons trapped in debtors’ prison and helping them find new positions. Given his careful clipping of newspaper articles, I suspect he gave a great deal of consideration as to which houses he placed his people in.” The something that had tapped at her thoughts before returned—a sense that she was overlooking something—but the idea would not form itself into anything definite.
Adam halted in his tracks. “Do you think Poole had someone placed with Mrs. Fitzherbert?”
“It is possible.” When Adam didn’t reply to this, Rosalind turned so she could see past the edge of her bonnet. His eyes were fixed straight ahead.
“Have you thought of something?” asked Rosalind.
“Not as such,” he answered slowly. “A feeling only. As word of Poole’s death gets out, I can’t help but wonder if others might try their luck searching his office for useful documents.”
“And if you might catch them in the act?”
Adam nodded. “Such persons may have useful information.”
Rosalind felt her breath constrict. Her mind showed her Adam alone in the dark and a desperate person beyond the door, perhaps one who had already killed a man—
She carefully set these thoughts aside before she spoke. “Then all I can say is take care.”
“I will,” said Adam softly. “What of you?”
“I will go home. I have an ocean of correspondence that must be dealt with, and I will need to let Amelia know what we’ve learned as soon as may be. Then there’s still the matter of how to find Mrs. Fitzherbert’s marriage certificate.”
“And what else?”
She did not ask him how he knew she’d left something out of her recitation. He understood her as well as she understood him. “I have been invited, most circuitously, to call on the Countess Lieven.”
“Lieven?” Adam’s voice held surprise and concern. “Have you any idea why?”
“No. But she did take particular care that Lady Jersey not find out she was inviting me.”
“What do you suspect?”
“That it has to do with Mrs. Fitzherbert, of course,” said Rosalind. “Beyond that . . .” She gestured helplessly.
“You do know that the countess is a spy?” said Adam.
“I know it’s rumored.”
“Her name is in Stafford’s files.”
“You have seen Mr. Stafford’s files?” said Rosalind. “I was under the impression those were kept very close.”
“They are, but I wanted to see what he was recording about you,” said Adam. “So, I didn’t exactly ask permission.”
Now Rosalind truly was surprised. “Is there anything in these files that I should know?”
“He pays attention to you,” said Adam. “But no more than that. He pays closer attention to the countess. So, I suppose I should ask you to take care, as well.”
“When dealing with Dorothea Lieven, that is something one must always do,” said Rosalind blandly.
Especially when there was something her grace wanted, and especially when what her grace wanted was secrets.