`He did. Oh, it's all great nonsense, to be sure. But it's still fine, wouldn't you say? And he but a boy of nine!'
`Do you mind if I keep it for a day or so? I'll see it's returned to you,' he added when she looked hesitant.
`To be sure you may keep it, my lord. Only, I won't deny I would like to have it back.'
`I understand.' Sebastian tucked the boy's poem into his pocket. `Do you have any idea how Miss Tennyson and the children planned to spend yesterday afternoon?'
She looked thoughtful for a moment, then shook her head. `No, my lord; I don't know as I ever heard her mention it. We always lay out a cold collation for the family in the dining room, you see, before we leave for our half day. They eat when they come home from church, before they go out again. We left a lovely spread, with a side of beef and salmon in aspic and a chilled asparagus soup.'
`And did Miss Tennyson and the children eat the meal you left for them on Sunday?'
`Oh, yes, my lord. In fact, the plate with Mrs. Reagan's oatmeal cookies was completely empty except for a few crumbs.' She plopped back down in her chair, her hands wringing together so hard the fingers turned white. `Oh, if only Mr. Tennyson had been here!' she cried. `Then we'd have known for certain something was amiss when they didn't come home last night.'
`What time did the servants return to the house?'
`The others were back by seven, although I'm afraid I myself wasn't in until nearly eight. I spent the day with my sister in Kent Town, you see; her husband's ever so sick, and Miss Tennyson told me not to worry if I was a bit late. She was that way, you know, so kind and generous. And now...' Her voice cracked and she turned her face away, her throat working silently.
Sebastian said, `Were you concerned when you arrived back and realized Miss Tennyson and the children hadn't returned themselves?'
`Well, of course I was! We all were. Margaret Campbell, she's the boys nurse, you know, was all for going to the public office at once. She was convinced something must have happened to them. But we had no way of knowing that for certain, and who could ever have imagined that something like this had occurred? I mean, what if Miss Tennyson had simply decided to spend the night with some friends and forgot to tell us? Or she could have received bad news from the boys parents and set off with the children for Lincolnshire. To tell the truth, I thought she might even have reconsidered staying in London and decided to join her brother in the country after all. I can tell you, she would not have thanked us if we'd raised a ruckus for naught.'
Sebastian watched her twist her handkerchief around her fist.
`Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to do either Miss Tennyson or the boys harm?'
Her puffy face crumpled. `No,' she cried. `None of this makes any sense. Why would anyone want to harm either her or those poor, poor lads? Why?'
Sebastian rested his hand on her shoulder. It was a useless, awkward gesture of comfort, but she looked up at him with pleading eyes, her plump, matronly form shuddering with need for a measure of understanding and reassurance he could not give.
Chapter 9
Leaving the servants hall, Sebastian climbed the stairs to the nursery at the top of the Tennyson house.
It was a cheerful place, its walls newly covered in brightly sprigged paper and flooded with light from the rows of long windows overlooking the broad, sun-dappled expanse of the river. The two little boys might have only been visiting for the summer, but it was obvious that Gabrielle Tennyson had prepared for her young cousins stay with loving care.
Pausing at the entrance to the schoolroom, Sebastian let his gaze drift over the armies of tin soldiers that marched in neat formations across the scrubbed floorboards. Cockhorses and drums and wooden boats littered the room; shelves of books beckoned with promises of endless hours spent vicariously adventuring in faraway lands. On the edge of a big, sturdy table near the door lay a cluster of small, disparate objects: a broken clay pipe bowl, a glowing brown chestnut, a blue and white ceramic bead as if a boy had hurriedly emptied his pockets of their treasures and then never come back for them.
A woman's voice sounded behind him. `And who might you be, then?'
Turning, Sebastian found himself being regarded with a suspicious scowl by a bony woman with thick, dark red hair, gaunt cheeks, and pale gray eyes. `You must be the boys' nurse, Miss Campbell.'
`I am.' Her gaze swept him with obvious suspicion, her voice raspy with a thick northern brogue. `And you?'
`Lord Devlin.'
She sniffed. `I heard them talking about you in the servants' hall.' She pushed past him into the room and swung to face him, her thin frame rigid with hostility and what he suspected was a carefully controlled, intensely private grief.
`Seems a queer thing for a lord to do, getting hisself mixed up in murder. But then, London folk is queer.'
Sebastian found himself faintly smiling. `You came with the boys from Lincolnshire?'
`I did, yes. Been with Master George since he was born, I have, and little Master Alfred too.'
`I understand the boys' father is a rector?'
`Aye.' A wary light crept into her eyes.
Seeing it, Sebastian said, `Tell me about him.'
`The Reverend Tennyson?' She folded her arms across her stomach, her hands clenched tight around her bony elbows. `What is there to tell? He's a brilliant man for all he's so big and hulking and clumsy.'
`I'm told he's not well. Nothing serious, I hope?'
The fingers gripping her elbows reminded him of claws clinging desperately to a shifting purchase. `He hasna been well for a long time now.' She hesitated, then added, `A very long time.' Lingering ill health was all too common in their society, frequently caused by consumption, but more often by some unknown debilitating affliction.
Sebastian wandered the room, his attention seemingly all for the scattered toys and books. `And the boys? Are they hale?'
`Ach, you'd be hard put to find two sturdier lads. To be sure, Master George can be a bit wild and hotheaded, but there's no malice in him.'
It struck him as a profoundly strange thing for her to say. He paused beside a scattering of books on the window seat overlooking the river. They were the usual assortment of boys adventure stories. Flipping open one of the covers, he found himself staring at the name George Tennyson written in the same round copperplate as the poem given him by the housekeeper.
Looking up, he said, `Do you know where Miss Tennyson planned to take her young cousins yesterday?'
The nursemaid shook her head. `No. She told them it was a surprise.'
`Could she perhaps have intended to show them the excavations at Camlet Moat?'
`She could, I suppose. But how would that be a surprise? She'd taken them up there before.'
`Perhaps she'd discovered something new she wanted to show them.'
`I wouldn't know about that.'
Sebastian studied the woman's plain, tensely held face.
`What do you think has happened to them, Miss Campbell?'
She pressed her lips into a hard, straight line, her nostrils flaring on a quickly indrawn breath, her forehead creasing with a sudden upwelling of emotion she fought to suppress. It was a moment before she could speak. `I don't know,' she said, shaking her head. `I just don't know. I keep thinking about those poor wee bairns out there somewhere, alone and afraid, with no one to care for them. Or... or...' But here her voice broke and she could only shake her head, unwilling to put her worst fears into words.
He said, `Did you ever hear Miss Tennyson mention the name of an antiquary with whom she had quarreled?'
