Page 15 of The Missing Page
“Maybe wait until we’re ready to leave,” James said, his cheeks flushing.
Leo loved that James, however civilized he was, liked the reminder that Leo was ready to be very uncivilized indeed on his behalf.
James was silent for a moment. “I ought to be more generous about Sir Anthony. It’s awful to lose a patient, and to have lost my father and then Rose in quick succession must have been awful.”
Something about James’s phrasing didn’t sound right. “Was Rose Sir Anthony’s patient?”
James frowned. “It’s funny you ask. No. I don’t think so, at least. You know, he used to tell Rose that she needed a doctor. At the time I assumed she had a headache or an upset stomach or something, because at the time I always had one or the other.” He paused, and Leo wondered if it was dawning on James that his childhood stomachaches and headaches might have been part and parcel of the anxieties that troubled him now. “But maybe Sir Anthony had noticed that Rose…wasn’t doing very well. Even if Rose wasn’t his patient, he must have felt responsible. No wonder he was peculiar during my consultation.”
Leo didn’t point out that James’s conclusion only made sense if Sir Anthony Marchand really believed that Rose Bellamy had taken her own life. Leo was certain that someone in this house either shared Rupert Bellamy’s suspicions or knew more than they were letting on, and that person might well be Marchand.
“We ought to get out of bed,” Leo said. “But first, will you tell me what you think happened to your cousin?”
James was silent for a long moment. “I don’t know. One morning Rose simply wasn’t there, and the house was in an uproar looking for her. And then my uncle—not Rupert, but Reverend Sommers—drove down from Wychcomb St. Mary to take me back to the vicarage. Later on, people said that Rose had a swimming accident, but—” He paused. “I tried not to think about it. And nobody talked about it, which made it all the easier not to think about.”
Leo nodded, taking in this information. There was a lot James wasn’t saying. What did he mean by an uproar? Who was there that day? Who summoned Reverend Sommers to take James away, and why? Who were the people who said Rose had a swimming accident? James might not know the answer to any of these questions, but he knew more than he thought. People always did. And Leo was good at weaseling his way into the corners of people’s minds.
He shouldn’t do that. There was no need to ferret out the Bellamy family secrets. This situation called for sympathy, not espionage. He ought to—pat James’s hand, perhaps? Kiss his forehead? He had no clue. He could manage that sort of thing when he was playing a role for a job, but he was trying to be honest—or something resembling honest—with James.
“I wonder if nobody at all talks about her,” James went on. “Based on what Lilah said, they don’t. And that seems unfair, almost. Unfair to her memory, I suppose. People deserve to be remembered.”
Leo clenched his fist. Graveyards were filled with the forgotten. People slipped out of memory as easily as a knife through butter. But not for James. Not for people like James.
“All right,” Leo said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
James raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t mean for you to—”
“Let me,” Leo said, and forestalled any protest with a kiss. He didn’t have much to offer James, but ferreting out secrets was something he could do.
CHAPTER TEN
James entered the dining room to discover Camilla and Lilah grimly inspecting a box of Farmer’s Glory.
“It simply won’t do,” Camilla pronounced, as if personally aggrieved by this box of cereal.
“There was toast, but it went fast,” Lilah said. “Good morning, James. Where’s your Mr. Page?”
James pulled out a seat for himself. “He’s gone to ring the garage.” In truth, Leo was prowling about somewhere he shouldn’t be. He poured some of the cereal into a bowl and reached for a small pitcher containing milk so skimmed as to be nearly blue.
“It just won’t do,” Camilla repeated. “When I think of the meals Martha used to organize at Blackthorn, it’s hard to believe the same person could put a box of cold cereal on the table and still hold her head up.”
“Rationing, Mother,” Lilah said, in the tone of someone who had waged this battle a number of times and had little hope of being listened to.
“I sometimes have cold cereal for my own breakfast,” James ventured. “Nothing wrong with it.”
“Of course not,” said Camilla magnanimously. She almost certainly had never eaten a single spoonful of oat flakes or wheat flakes or any other kind of flakes in her life. “But this is Blackthorn. And Martha’s been the mistress of Blackthorn since Mother died.”
“You say that as if it’s an official position,” said Lilah, “like Master of the Horse or Warden of the Bedchamber or—”
“But that’s howshetreated it, darling. She was always very serious about things being done correctly. She and Rose used to get into tremendous rows when Rose tried to sit down to dinner in grease-stained coveralls, or when Rose wandered about the house with a sandwich in one hand. And now here Martha is serving things in packets, the poor dear. It doesn’t bear thinking about.”
It was the wordcoverallsthat did it, or maybe that word combined with the Blackthorn dining room, identical to how it had been in 1927. As clear as if it was happening that moment, he could see Rose leaning against the door frame in a filthy pair of coveralls, carrying a spanner in one hand and eating a tea cake with the other.
“It’s my own home,” Rose said through a mouthful of cake. “I’ll wear whatever I please.”
Martha looked up from where she was arranging a vase of flowers on a table that was set for twenty. “Consider your sister. If people think she was raised in a home with no standards—”
“Camilla’s an heiress. Nobody will care in the least whether she has an eccentric sister. She could have twenty eccentric sisters and people would still be lining up to marry her.”
