“Most of the servants in the main house are new—such a turnover these days, isn’t there? And Vivian never seemed to have much of an interest in the horses, so I wouldn’t know about the stables.”
“There was one girl in a number of her drawings—wait, let me find her.” The two women followed me to the other room and waited as I paged through the 1902 volume to a drawing of the dark-haired girl. I then took down the one labeled 1908, done when Vivian Beaconsfield was seventeen. There was the same face, grown into womanhood.
Lady Dorothy placed a finger on the more recent image. “That’s, um…”
Lily had no hesitation. “The Bailey girl.”
“Of the cheese-making Baileys?” I asked.
“Their eldest,” Lady Dorothy replied. “Ellen?”
“Emma,” Lily corrected.
“Yes, that’s right, Emma. I used to pay her a few shillings to watch the girls, from time to time.”
“The girls?”
“Vivian and Veronica. Odd to think, but there’s only eight years’ difference between them.”
“More like sisters than aunt and niece.” I had known that, but only intellectually. “This Emma girl looks a little older?”
“Two or three years, as I remember. But she was…stronger, I suppose. A working-class girl who could take care of herself, and sensible enough that I didn’t worry if she and Vivian were out all day. She moved away after the War, but it seems to me I heard she came home recently, to help her father.”
“I should talk with her, see if Vivian went to visit. How might I find the dairy?”
“We have a motor—just tell Lily when you want to go and Freddie will take you over.”
But first, I needed to do the rounds of the main house’s servants, the estate manager, and the stable hands. That took me the rest of the morning, and at the end of it, I had added little to my store of knowledge about Vivian Beaconsfield other than their opinion that she was an odd ’un—an affectionate judgment, rather than condemnatory.
One of the lads told me the horses liked her, which seemed enough for him.
The estate agent told me, though not in so many words, that the master of the estate was spending his cash unwisely, and elsewhere.
The cook liked Lady Vivian. (“When you find her, see if you can’t get her to eat something.”) So did the head gardener. (“Known her since she was a child. Only one in the Big House what knows the name of every flower here.”) And the Marquess’ housekeeper. (“She did the sweetest drawings for me every year, Christmas and my birthday.”) The butler and valet were new, hired by the Marquess out of London. Several of the household staff in his side were new, also, including one remarkable young woman with the shortest skirt, blondest curls, and heaviest makeup I’d ever seen on a housemaid—and the most impudent attitude. (“Oh, that one! Loony of the first degree, she is, what she makes the Marquess put up with, you’d never believe!”) I left the house torn between sympathy with Lady Vivian, and the uncomfortable sensation that bemoaning the Uppityness of This New Generation of Servants was a sign I was growing old.
* * *
—
I found Emma Bailey high on a ladder in a barn that contained all the evidence of cows apart from their actual presence. She was fiddling with a light fixture two feet above her head, a position that seemed alarmingly precarious. In other circumstances I might have cleared my throat, but I was afraid that startling her would make for a rapid end to the conversation.
However, either she’d heard first the car and then my footsteps, or she noticed the dimming effect of my person in the doorway. She spoke past her shoulder. “Yes?”
“Miss, er, Bailey? My name is Mary Russell, I’m—”
“Don’t touch the switch,” she warned.
“I shan’t. Do I have the name correct?”
“That’s me.” She gave a final twist at some bit of wiring, stuck a tool into her trouser pocket, then pulled out a bulb and jabbed it into the fixture. She retreated a few rungs down the ladder. “Try it now.”
The light went on without blowing fuses or exploding into flames. With a satisfied nod, she continued down the rest of the way, tipped the ladder back to collapse it, and swung it off the ground. She carried the heavy thing to the back wall and effortlessly boosted it onto a pair of hooks.
Walking back across the wide floor, she rubbed her palms together in a largely symbolic attempt at cleansing and stuck out her strong right hand for me to shake.
“Mary Russell,” I repeated.
“Emma Bailey. I need a cup of tea.”
I took the pronouncement as an invitation, and followed her across the tidy yard to the kitchen door of an equally tidy house. She stepped out of her rubber boots with scarcely a pause, pointed me to a chair tucked under a sturdy kitchen table, lit the flame beneath an ancient black kettle, and pulled two mugs from an open shelf: a series of movements as practiced and flowing as a dance.
“I’ll be back in two minutes,” she said, and left. I heard her stockinged feet trot up a flight of stairs, and obediently took my assigned position in the chair.
An orange cat wandered through the doorway and sat, tail around its front feet, facing the general direction of an empty bowl. I knew it was in fact studying me out of the corner of its eye, balanced between sudden flight and coming over to butt at my legs. Indistinct voices came from overhead, Emma Bailey’s and a softer one. Floor-boards sounded. I followed the slow progress of creaks, a door opening and closing, silence for a time, then a sudden flush of water gave a clear indication of prosperity: indoor plumbing.
Considerably more than two minutes had gone by before I heard the sure feet descending the stairway. Her hands were clean when she came in, and she’d paused to run a comb through her hair. She glanced at the steaming cup on the table in front of me and down at the cat in my lap, but continued on to the sideboard.
“I didn’t think you’d mind if I made the tea,” I said. “Everything was there.”
She didn’t comment, merely filled her cup, adding sugar and milk. She bent down to pour a dollop from the jug into the cat’s bowl—the cat having deserted me the moment she appeared—and carried her mug back to the table. I couldn’t tell if she minded my presumption, which was interesting. People are normally easier to read.
“As I said,” I started again, “my name is Mary Russell. I’m a friend of Ronnie Beacons—Ronnie Fitzwarren.”
Emma Bailey’s gaze shot up from the mug, locking onto me. Her eyes were deep brown with faint streaks of orange, and surrounded by thick black lashes under naturally arched brows. “I hear her aunt has gone missing.”
“That’s right. Ronnie asked me to come and see what I could find out.”
“Why you?”
“Because it’s not an easy thing to do with a small child.”
“No, why you?”
“Because I’m good at asking questions.”
Miss Bailey studied me from out of that impenetrable gaze. Whatever she saw, sitting across the table, seemed eventually to satisfy her. She took a hefty swallow and then sat back in her chair, the mug clasped between her hands. “Very well: ask.”
“Did you see Lady Vivian when she was here last week?”
“No, I haven’t seen either her or Ronnie in years.”
“Why not? You were friends, weren’t you?”
“Of a sort. Before the War, maybe. Not so much once she grew up.”
“She used to make sketches of you, in her books. The last one I saw was done in 1909.”
“That sounds about right.”
“She came out—was presented in Court—in 1910.”
“Around then.”
“Then travelled to France and Italy for some months afterwards.”
“That’s right.”
Her watchful attitude was remarkably like that of the orange cat, waiting for me to pass some undefined test, to prove that I might be worthy of approach.
I had been watching her in return, and now chose my words with care. “Vivian Beaconsfield was pretty, and had both money and a title, yet she never married. She didn’t even seem to meet any men she particularly liked, either during the Season or when she was travelling in Europe.”
Miss Bailey raised the cup to her lips for another swallow.