For a moment it seemed as if my hostess might set about the housekeeper with her cane. She half-raised herself from her chair, gripping its handle in a determined hold, but then fell back again, a wry smile twisting her thin lips.
‘Oh, mind your own business, Elvina, and leave me to mine.’
The armed truce had been re-established between them and they again saluted one another with a nod and a grin. When the passage door had closed behind the housekeeper, Jacquetta settled herself in her chair and asked, ‘Right! Where do you want me to begin?’
‘I’m hoping,’ I said, ‘that you’re going to tell me what happened on the night that Eris Lilywhite disappeared.’
She laughed. ‘Oh, you are, are you? Has Maud Lilywhite put you up to asking these questions?’
‘No.’ True enough: it was Theresa. ‘I’ve told you, I’m naturally curious. I can’t keep my nose out of other people’s affairs. If my mother were still alive, she’d tell you I was born like it.’
‘Well, if it’s simply nosiness, I’ve no objection to telling you what you want to know,’ Jacquetta conceded. ‘Elvina’s right. If I have a weakness, it’s for good-looking young men. And we don’t get many of those wandering into this part of the world, especially in winter. So! Where shall I start?’
‘It was your brother’s birthday, I believe. At least, according to the elder Mistress Lilywhite.’
My companion nodded. ‘The first of September. Nathaniel was fifty-nine. Everyone had been summoned for the feast. Most of Lower Brockhurst was expected to attend. But then, a few days before, Nat developed a nasty rheum that descended to his chest. So the general feasting was cancelled. Eris Lilywhite and Ruth Hodges from the kitchen were sent down to the village to tell everyone not to come. But the family were still expected to be present, that went without saying. My brother’s nothing if not patriarchal. He likes to keep us all under his thumb, especially his sons. The farm and its land are not entailed, you see … Ah! I can see by your face that that’s shocked you.’
It had, indeed. Such a circumstance had not occurred to me. It put an entirely new complexion on Nathaniel’s proposed marriage to Eris Lilywhite. A child of theirs could have inherited outright under the terms of any new will that Nathaniel decided to make. I became more certain than ever that Eris had been murdered.
Jacquetta went on, ‘Tom’s always been a bit of a rebel. Edward – Ned – my elder nephew, is fifteen years older than his brother and has always been Nathaniel’s right-hand man, ever since he was old enough to help around the farm. He married to please his father. Petronelle’s a local girl who brought a decent dowry with her. A good, hard-working lass – well, woman now: she’s thirty-eight and more – who’s presented the old man with two strapping grandsons. She wouldn’t have been Ned’s choice I’m sure, left to himself, but Nathaniel insisted and, as ever, my nephew did as he was bidden. So Tom, you see, has always presumed that Ned will inherit Dragonswick and has never seen the need to toe the line in quite the same way that his brother does.
‘Mind you, that isn’t to say that Tom doesn’t respect his father nor want to please him. He knew that Nathaniel would be delighted when he got himself betrothed to Rosamund Bush. William Bush is known to be plump in the pocket and Rosamund’s his only child. We were all delighted, if it comes to that. Rosamund’s a very pretty, pleasant and friendly girl. She’d have been an asset to this family in more ways than one … I’m assuming that much of this story is already familiar to you, chapman. It should be if you’ve been in Lower Brockhurst for nearly twenty-four hours.’
I laughed. ‘All villages are the same, Mistress; hotbeds of gossip. But you’re right. I didn’t arrive until late yesterday afternoon, and it seems as if I’m already acquainted with everyone’s business.’
Jacquetta leaned forward and gripped my left knee, then let her long, bony fingers splay into what was a surprisingly sensuous caress. Perhaps she felt the sudden tension of my body, because after a moment she gave a dry chuckle and withdrew her hand. ‘Where was I?’ she asked.
‘Your nephew Tom’s betrothal to Rosamund Bush.’
‘Mmmm.’ She sucked her teeth, thought for a few seconds, then spat into the fire, making the flames leap and sizzle. ‘Time to move on to Eris Lilywhite. She’d come to help out in the house a few months earlier, because Elvina was poorly and Ruth Hodges … well, you’ve seen her. A sickly child, always ailing. Not like Eris, who was as strong and healthy as a young horse.’ I noted that Jacquetta spoke in the past tense, but I didn’t comment. ‘And beautiful, I’ll grant her that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lovelier girl. She had her mother’s eyes; those great, dark, liquid brown eyes that Maud inherited from her mother. And hair, an abundance of it, russet, the colour of leaves in autumn. Skin like milk. Dear, sweet heaven! I should have recognized her as trouble from the moment she set foot across the threshold. I’d seen her around the village, of course, ever since she was a child, but she was one of those girls who blossom suddenly and late. At fourteen, she was a whey-faced, skinny little thing with red hair, and not much better at fifteen. I’d lost sight of her throughout the winter – I don’t go out much during the bad weather – and she came to us in late February, last year, a month after her sixteenth birthday.’ Jacquetta took a deep breath. ‘I hardly knew her. She’d filled out … Curves everywhere! She was like a flower that had suddenly unfurled its petals overnight.’
She paused, and, although I could guess the answer, I asked, ‘Prettier than Rosamund Bush?’
‘Can you compare a star with the sun? One twinkles, the other dazzles. However, it didn’t take me long to discern that the girl had a hard edge to her. A brittleness, a sharpness that was ugly. And having discovered as much, I shall blame myself to my dying day that I failed to guess what might happen. Not, as Elvina said, that I could ever have anticipated that my brother would be smitten but, Tom, yes, I should have expected that. With hindsight, I recall the way his eyes used to follow her every time she entered and left the room. I remember him arguing with Ned one day when Ned complained that Eris was slow in bringing him his ale, saying she was overworked and that his brother was being too rough on her. Worse than that, I recollect one time seeing him catch her round the waist and kiss her cheek.’ Jacquetta beat with her fists on the arms of her chair. ‘What a fool I was! What a purblind fool! But I thought it just a bit of fun. I thought Tom safely in love with Rosamund Bush. I didn’t think him capable of looking seriously at another woman.’
‘And your brother? You suspected nothing there?’
‘Nothing,’ was the fervent answer. ‘Eris was just sixteen, Nathaniel old enough to be her grandfather. If he favoured her – and, looking back, I think perhaps he did – I considered it no more than the soft spot an elderly man might have for a young and beautiful girl. If he ever thought of marrying again, which I doubted, I expected it to be with Elvina … I expect Theresa Lilywhite has told you the gossip concerning her.’
I nodded, realizing that we had wandered yet again from the subject of Eris’s disappearance. ‘Master Rawbone’s birthday …?’ I suggested tentatively.
‘Ah, yes! Nathaniel’s feast day. It had been quiet in general, except for the weather, which started clouding over in the afternoon and by evening had developed into a full-blown storm. Maud Lilywhite called in the morning, just after dinner, but she didn’t stay long. I don’t know why she came: she’s never much liked any of us except Ned. But then, he’s friends with everyone because he never lets on what he’s really thinking. In the afternoon, the meal was laid out on the table here, and by the time Elvina had turned the hourglass for the start of the fourth hour, we were all present, dressed in our Sunday clothes (even Ned, who had penned the sheep early and sent Billy Tyrrell off home). All, that is, except Tom. Well, time went on. Five o’clock, six o’clock, seven o’clock came and went and still he didn’t appear. We ate our meal without him, Nathaniel growing more and more furious with every passing minute. The storm by now was raging and we were beginning to get worried, wondering if Tom had had an accident and was lying helpless somewhere in the wind and the rain. Ned eventually said he was going to look for him, and my brother told him to call on Maud Lilywhite at the same time to say that Eris – she’d stayed on to wait at table – wouldn’t be going home that night. The weather was too bad. She could share a bed with Elvina. But just at that very moment, the door, the one over there-’ Jacquetta indicated the door on the opposite side of the room that opened on to the front yard – ‘burst open and Tom was literally blown into the room.