Her mistress meanwhile was gripping Judith’s hand so tightly that all her rings were digging painfully into her granddaughter’s hand.
“They are gone, Tillie?” she asked. “Stolen?”
It was as if everyone else had been waiting only for that word to be spoken. There was a buzzing of sound and a crescendo of excitement.
“There are no thieves in this house,” Aunt Effingham said sharply. “The very idea! You must look harder, Tillie. They must be somewhere .”
“I hunted everywhere, ma’am,” Tillie said. “Three times.”
“There have been a number of outsiders here tonight,” Mrs. Hardinge pointed out, “and some of their servants.”
“We are all outsiders too,” Mr. Webster reminded her.
“We cannot possibly suspect any of our guests,” Uncle George said.
“Someone has stolen Mother’s jewels,” Aunt Louisa told him. “They obviously did not disappear on their own.”
“But whoever would have had a motive?” her mother asked.
Branwell, Judith thought and felt instantly ashamed. Bran would never steal. Would he? From his own grandmother? But would he for that very reason have justified his act as one of borrowing rather than stealing? Who else could have done it? Bran had been backed farther into a corner this evening. He had left Harewood in the middle of the ball, in the middle of the night. He had been very agitated. He had not wanted her to go upstairs with him or see him on his way. Branwell. It was Bran. And soon everyone else would realize it too. She felt dizzy and had to concentrate hard upon not fainting.
“Who is short of money?” Horace asked.
His words hung in the air rather like an obscenity. No one answered.
“And who had the opportunity?” he asked. “Who knew where Step-grandmama keeps her jewels and would be bold enough to go into her room to get them?”
Branwell. It seemed to Judith that the name fairly screamed itself into the silence.
“It could not have been an outsider,” Horace continued. “Not unless he was a very bold man indeed or had an accomplice in the house. How would anyone know the right room? How would he accomplish the task without being detected? Or missed from the ballroom? Was anyone missing from the ballroom for any length of time?”
Branwell.
Everyone seemed to speak at once after that. Everyone had an opinion, a suggestion, or a shocked comment on the theft. Judith bent her head to her grandmother’s.
“Will you sit down, Grandmama?” she asked. “You are trembling.”
They both sat, and Judith chafed the old lady’s hands.
“They will be found,” she said. “Don’t worry.”
But how far had Bran well ridden by now? And where was he going? What would he do with the jewels? Pawn them? Sell them? Surely he would not do that. Surely there were some remnants of honor left in his conscience. He must see that the jewels would have to be retrievable. But how would they ever be redeemed?
“It is not so much the value of the jewels,” her grandmother said, “as the fact that your grandpapa gave them to me. Who could hate me this much, Judith? There was a thief in my own room . How can I ever go into it again?”
Her voice was shaking and breathless. She sounded old and defeated.
Uncle George and Horace finally took charge again. They sent the butler to fetch all the servants so that all could be questioned. Judith wanted to take her grandmother upstairs, even if only to her own room, where she could be quiet and Tillie could perhaps bring her a cup of tea and her night things to change into. But her grandmother would not move.
It was a long, tedious process, which was clearly going to lead nowhere, Judith thought over the next half an hour. What amazed her more than anything else was that no one had missed Branwell yet. Uncle George asked if any servant had been upstairs to the bedchamber floor since the ball began. Three of them had, including the chambermaid Judith had bumped into on the way out of her room. All of them had had a good reason to be up there and all of them had worked at Hare wood long enough to be judged trustworthy.
“And no one else went up there?” Uncle George added with a sigh.
“If you please, sir,” the maid said. “Miss Law did.”
All eyes turned Judith’s way, and she felt herself flushing.
“I went up to exchange Grandmama’s earrings,” she said. “The others were pinching her. But the jewel box was in its accustomed place at that time and all the jewelry was in it. I made the exchange and came back down. The theft must have happened since that time. It was ... let me see. It was between the first and second sets.”
“But you was coming out of your room, miss,” the chambermaid said. “You was flying and we ran right into each other. Remember?”
“That is right,” Judith said. “The earrings Grandmama wanted were in my reticule, where they had been since the evening we were all at Grandmaison.”
“It must have been when you were returning to the ballroom that you almost ran into me, Cousin,”
Horace said. “You were quite breathless. You looked to be almost in a panic. But yes, I can confirm that that was between the first and second sets.”
“Judith, my love.” Her grandmother was very close to tears. “I sent you up there and might have been sending you to your death. What if you had walked in on the thief? You might have been struck over the head.”
“It did not happen, Grandmama,” she said soothingly. She wished she had walked in on Bran. She could have prevented this whole nightmare.
“Well,” Horace said briskly, “we are going to have to start searching, that is all.”
“Distasteful,” Uncle George said. “We cannot search people’s rooms, and the thief would hardly have hidden the jewels in any of the public rooms.”
“Well, I for one do not object to having my room searched,” Horace said. “In fact, Father, I insist that it be the first to be searched.”
“If I may make so bold, Sir George,” the butler said, stepping forward, “I will volunteer my own room to be searched and those of the other servants too unless anyone has an objection. If anyone does, speak up now.”
The servants all held their peace. Which of them, after all, would voice an objection when doing so must throw instant suspicion on them?
Lord Braithwaite cleared his throat. “You may search my room too, sir,” he said.
There was a murmuring of assent from all the other guests, though Judith guessed it was grudging in many cases. It would feel like violation to have one’s room searched, to feel even if only for a few minutes that one was being suspected of theft. But she kept her mouth shut.
“Would you like to go to your room, Grandmama?” she asked again after Uncle George, Horace, the butler, and Tillie had left the ballroom. “Or to mine if you would prefer?”
“No.” Her grandmother was looking more dejected than Judith had ever seen her. “I will stay here. I hope they do not find the jewels. Is that not foolish? I would rather never see them again than know that someone in this house has stolen them. Why did whoever it is not ask me? I have plenty. I would give to any relative or friend or servant in need. But I suppose people are too proud to ask, are they not?”
Julianne was sobbing in her mother’s arms, and looking remarkably pretty in the process.
“This has turned out to be a perfectly horrid evening,” she wailed. “I have hated every moment of it, and I am sure everyone else will pronounce it a disaster and never accept another invitation from us all their lives.”
The servants stood in silence. The guests huddled in small, self-conscious groups, talking in lowered voices.