Page 70 of Death at the Dower House
“I’m hardly in their category…” I protested, and then I realized I was focused on entirely the wrong thing. “I don’t think that’s true, Constance. There are plenty of men who would rather have you than Laetitia.”
Francis, for one. Not that I was about to express that sentiment aloud. It was up to Francis himself to broach, if he so desired.
“She’s not very nice,” I added. “Even Crispin says so. And Johanna is dead.”
And hadn’t been very nice, either. Not that it’s kind to say something like that about someone who’s recently deceased. But she would never get the chance to outshine Constance again, so at least there was that silver lining.
“And that’s another thing,” Constance said and lowered her voice. “Someone killed her, Pippa. Someone here at the Dower House strangled Johanna. And he’s still walking around! What’s to stop him from strangling someone else?”
“I’m sure he must have had a reason,” I said, choosing to continue with Constance’s pronoun instead of mentioning that the killer might not be a man at all, “and it would have been a reason that doesn’t apply to anyone else. None of the gentlemen here are serial murderers. If there had been a string of young women strangled lately, we would have heard about it.”
Constance didn’t seem at all reassured by that. “Perhaps she’s the first!”
“I suppose she might be. But I think it’s more likely that whoever did it had a reason beyond just liking to strangle women. Besides, you and I are all right. We’re sharing a room. We’ll keep the door locked, and we’ll stick together and make sure we don’t get caught anywhere alone.”
Constance shot a fearful look over her shoulder and lowered her voice another degree. “What about Mr. Astley? I’ve been spending a lot of time with him.”
“Francis?” I shook my head. “Francis wouldn’t hurt a fly. He saw so much death and devastation in the war, he’s scarred for life. It’s not my place to tell you this, really…”
“It’s all right, Pippa,” Constance interrupted. “Mr. Astley… Francis—” She flushed, “has already told me that he takes a sleeping draught sometimes because the memories of the war haunt him. On the day of the funerals he showed me the bottle and told me he’d taken a small dose that morning, to make it through the day—just enough to calm his nerves—and he said he’d likely have to take a bigger dose that night, because funerals are difficult for him…”
I could well imagine that they were. He had been through so many, starting with Robert’s, and then a long line of friends’ and fellow soldiers’ on the battlefield. Not that funerals are necessarily any easier for the rest of us. “Did he also happen to mention—?”
“That he drinks too much sometimes?” Constance asked. “Or that he occasionally indulges in some other form of narcotic?” She nodded. “He told me everything. Or at least I think he told me everything. I can’t imagine what else there might be.”
That sounded promising, anyway. Francis wasn’t keeping secrets.
“That’s good,” I said. “Although I was actually going to ask whether he had mentioned sharing his dope with St George that day. Crispin was practically comatose by the end of his mother’s funeral…”
Constance patted my hand. “He didn’t say, Pippa. I’m sorry. Gilbert came along at that point, and Francis dropped the bottle back into his pocket—”
“He had it with him? At the funerals?”
She nodded. “I imagine he wanted to have it handy in case he needed more, you know?”
Or in case someone else needed some, perhaps. I wondered whether Francis had foreseen his cousin’s need and brought the bottle because he thought Crispin might need it. Kind of him, if so.
“He said he’d be able to stop,” Constance said softly, but without looking at me. “I don’t know if that’s true.”
I didn’t know whether it was true, either. Although I hoped for both their sakes that it was. Constance seemed taken with Francis, and if he had shared all these personal details about himself—he’d never toldmeany of these things—it appeared he must return her feelings. For the sake of their potential future relationship, as well as for all of us who loved him and didn’t want to lose him, I hoped Francis was right and he could stop.
Sixteen
We endedup putting Lady Peckham’s trunk and bag in the box room under the stairs, since neither of us wanted to drag it into our room, and since the Dowager’s Chamber was still a crime scene. The local mortuary had removed Johanna’s body, after Tom had taken photographs and Finchley fingerprints, and now she was down in the village being examined by Doctor Curtis from Scotland Yard along with the local coroner. I doubted an autopsy was necessary, since Johanna’s cause of death was surely obvious, but an examination was undoubtedly in order. After all, we didn’t know what, if anything, might have happened to her before she died, did we?
After that, we headed up to our shared room and started our preparations for supper. “Will this be all right?” I asked Constance, as I held up my yellow spangled dress. “I have a black dress, but it’s an afternoon dress, not an evening dress, that I brought for the funerals.”
“You can wear whatever you want, Pippa.” She kept her back to me as she examined her own gowns in the wardrobe. “Mother wasn’t your mother, and Johanna wasn’t your… whatever she was supposed to be to me.”
Not sister, clearly. “I don’t want to be insensitive, though. I can wear the black, but it isn’t a dinner dress.”
“Wear the yellow,” Constance said, with a glance over her shoulder. “It’s a lovely dress. I enjoyed wearing it earlier this week when you let me borrow it. I must wear black, and Lady Laetitia doesn’t seem to wear much else—”
And looked marvelous in it, annoyingly.
“And of course all the men will be in black tie…”
Of course. Black and white all around.
