“It shouldn’t be sold,” Robert said. “It should be burned.” His gaze flickered to me again, and I saw how grief and dissipation had worn away his long-ago handsomeness into something tired and almost haggard. “You’ve made me heel so far as to come here for Martin,” he said to Dottie, “and I’ll do my duty. But you can’t make me sit in this fright of a house all day.” He stood and left the room without another look at either of us.
A long, painful silence followed. I stared at my hands. Finally I raised my eyes and looked surreptitiously at Dottie. Her expression was blank, impassive. The flush of anger had gone from her face.
“Manders,” she said.
“Yes, Dottie.”
“I wish you to go into town and run errands for me. Purchase your new clothes at the same time. Use the car and driver.”
“Yes, Dottie.”
She sat quietly. She made no comment on my use of her first name; she never had. It was one of my small victories. I may be her paid companion, but I was family. I had refused to call her Mrs. Forsyth, and she had never complained.
She turned her head and looked at me, taking me in with her intelligent gaze. “I suppose you think I’m a fool,” she said.
“No,” I said truthfully. “I do not.”
“You were a married woman, so perhaps you have some understanding.”
I nodded. Alex and I had never had a row like that—he had never shown me one-tenth the contempt that Robert seemed to think was Dottie’s due—and yet I did understand. A marriage is unfathomable to those looking on, running as deep as the strata of rocks in the earth. That, I understood.
I pushed back my chair and stood. “What are the errands you wish done?” I asked.
Dottie followed the change of subject without a flicker of expression. “I have letters to post—they are on the holder by the front door. I do not trust the servants to do it. And you must make a trip to the chemist’s for me. You know the stomach remedy I usually use.”
“Yes, Dottie.”
“Manders, there is one more thing.”
I stood by the door and waited.
She raised her impassive gaze to me. “I assume Alex told you about Frances,” she said.
I was so surprised that the truth sprang from my lips without thought. “He told me about her existence. But all I had was a letter from the Front saying she had died.”
She blinked, and before she shuttered her gaze I saw honest surprise in her eyes. “Is that so? How interesting. However, when you go into town, you will likely hear certain rumors.”
I nodded, not wishing to mention that I’d ferreted out those same rumors from the servants’ quarters already.
Dottie lit a cigarette, the fumes mixing with the leftover smells of sausage and tea, making my stomach turn. “Frances is buried in the churchyard in town, if you want to see her,” she said. “That should tell you everything you need to know. I do not wish to speak of her, for obvious reasons, and I expect you to maintain the family’s privacy if you encounter any prurient interest in town. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Dottie.”
“I hope so. There is also a letter in the holder to go directly to my solicitor and not into any other hands.”
I left the room, collected the letters, and went to the kitchen to ask Mrs. Bennett how to go about ordering the motorcar and driver.
Once in the car, I sat in the back, watching the trees go by on the way to town. She is buried in the churchyard, if you want to see her. As with everything with Dottie, it was not a casual suggestion; it was an order, deep with meaning I could not yet discern. And as we came closer to town, I began to wonder what it was she wanted me to see.
CHAPTER SIX
The village was called Anningley, and it was a brisk little place, pretty and polite, cradled in the palm of a cup of land. I had the driver drop me near the edge of town and instructed him to wait; he gave me a succinct nod and sat back in the driver’s seat, likely hoping for me to leave so he could light a cigarette. I walked into town on foot, taking in the fresh smell of the air and the scent of the sea, somewhere over the rises to the south.
High Street held a few ladies shopping, servants gossiping at the butcher’s as they waited for the day’s cuts of meat, nannies from the nearby homes walking with small children. Shopkeepers nodded at me as I passed. I immediately felt like a stranger, dark-haired and wild-eyed after my sleepless night and unpleasant morning at Wych Elm House, lacking a husband or a child or even a pleasant routine of shopping and talk. I already felt painfully visible, so I took Dottie’s letters to the post office first and let the postmistress have at me.
The postmistress was a woman of about forty, immensely large, her flesh so soft and ruddy that I briefly wondered if she’d just had a late baby. She looked at the letters, but when she raised her gaze to me, there was no smile. “Wych Elm House,” she said. “I’d heard the family was in residence again.”
I shifted, remembering Dottie’s instructions. “Yes, they are.”
She took the letters and tucked them away. “They’ve been away for a long time.”
“They had their reasons,” I allowed.