Page 18 of The Missing Page
“I’m not suggesting anything,” said Trevelyan in a tone that seemed calculated to irritate Sir Anthony.
Leo judged that this was likely the point at which the conversation began to go in circles, so he knocked on the open door. “I’m sorry for interrupting,” he said brightly.
“Who the devil are you?” asked Marchand, whirling around to face Leo.
In the light of day, Leo was surprised to note that Sir Anthony Marchand was—there was unfortunately no denying it—quite attractive, in a broad-shouldered, hale and hearty sort of way. He must have been very appealing indeed twenty years earlier.
“It’s Mr. Page, young James’s friend,” said Trevelyan.
“I was looking for the telephone so I can ring the garage,” said Leo.
“Under the stairs,” said Sir Anthony, already turning back to Trevelyan.
Leo made his way toward the stairs, where indeed he saw a door that was partly concealed by the paneling. He put his hand on the doorknob when he heard a voice from behind the door.
“It’s even barmier than we could have guessed, love.” Then a pause. “Yeah, yeah, I did. I told him he had until tonight. Right.” The speaker was a woman who had a London accent with the edges sanded off, a low and throaty rumble that suggested a few decades of cigarettes and whiskey. It could have been Lilah, Leo supposed, if Lilah was a very good actress indeed. Camilla was still with James in the dining room, and besides, he doubted that she or Martha could affect this sort of voice or accent. Nor could it be Mrs. Carrow, who spoke with a West Indian lilt, and who would use the telephone in the lodge.
That left Madame Fournier. Well, both he and Lilah had guessed that she wasn’t who she seemed to be. The hair, the accent, the clothing—all had seemed a bit too much. But in that case, who was she? And why was she concealing her true identity? Was she afraid of some harm coming to her, or did she plan to harm someone?
CHAPTER TWELVE
When James gave up on his breakfast, leaving half a bowl of soggy cereal and an intractably tight-lipped Camilla at the table, he went upstairs, thinking to grab a jumper before collecting Leo and walking to the village in search of something edible.
At the top of the stairs, he found Martha, standing before a cupboard and attempting to carry a stack of folded bath towels with one arm and a basket with the other.
“Let me take that,” James said, reaching for the towels. “No, I insist.”
“Thank you, dear. One forgets how much work it is to have a houseful of guests.”
“There used to be a veritable army of servants, didn’t there? There must have been a dozen.”
“More than that, when I first came here. But by the time you started visiting, I think we were down to half a dozen. Three maids, the cook, a gardener, and the chauffeur. That was enough to keep everyone in food and clean bedclothes. We’d bring in more help from the village for large parties. And then there were whatever servants the guests would bring with them, of course.”
Martha opened the door to a bathroom and put the used towels into the basket, replacing them from the stack of freshly folded towels James carried.
“Are any of the old servants still in the neighborhood?” James asked. “Perhaps they might remember something.” He felt wrong-footed, as gauche as Madame had been last night, but he pushed past the discomfort, remembering that this unpleasant conversation was why they were gathered at Blackthorn in the first place.
But Martha didn’t seem bothered. “One of our old cooks married the grocer,” she said. “Bridget Halloran, now Mrs. Mudge. None of the rest stayed nearby, as far as I know.” They proceeded down the hall into a bedroom that looked like it had been tossed by burglars. Clothing was draped over chairs, cosmetics and mysterious jars littered every flat surface, and damp towels were piled on the floor.
“Lilah’s room,” Martha explained. “It’s like this whenever she visits. I don’t know how she achieves this degree of chaos after less than twenty-four hours. If ever a woman required a lady’s maid, it’s Lilah.”
“I can’t remember the last time I encountered one of those,” James said, straightening one side of the bed covers while Martha took care of the other.
“Nor do I. A pity. Even Camilla fends for herself these days.”
That made something occur to James. “She must have had a lady’s maid back then, right?”
“There was Greta—no, it was Gladys, Camilla’s maid. But I never really knew her. She wasn’t a Blackthorn servant. She lived with Camilla and Anthony in London and traveled here with them. She was one of Anthony’s girls.”
“One of Anthony’s girls?” James repeated, trying his best to come up with a non-scandalous interpretation of those words.
“She was from the Society for the Reformation of Young Delinquents. Part of their reformation was apparently training them to go into service.”
“This is the charity that Uncle Rupert mentioned in his will, isn’t it? I didn’t realize that the, er, delinquents were meant to become domestic servants. That seems…” He let his voice trail off, unsure how to delicately phrase his point, but Martha saved him.
“It seems unwise to put pickpockets and shoplifters in among the silver teaspoons and strands of pearls? I was of the same mind. But when Camilla and Anthony first married, they were as poor as church mice. Camilla hadn’t turned twenty-one and come into her mother’s inheritance, and Rupert wouldn’t—well, Rupert was a stubborn man.”
“Did he not approve of Sir Anthony?” James asked before he could think too much about whether this question was in poor taste. “I thought Sir Anthony was a sort of family friend even before he married Camilla.”
