For some unfathomable reason Veronica smiled. It was ghastly, like a rictus, but there was the shadow of bitter humor in her eyes. “Perhaps,” she said softly.
Emily knew by some change in the air, a difference in the tensions of the body, that the immediate weakness was past. She would get no more from Veronica now. She finished with the boots, took them off, and stood up.
“Would you like me to draw you a bath before dinner, ma’am, or would you prefer to lie down, perhaps with a hot tisane?”
“I don’t want a bath.” Veronica stood up and went to the window. She spoke with growing decision. “Go and make me a tisane, and fetch a slice of bread and butter from the kitchen. In fact, two slices.”
Emily had a strong idea it was not so much the bread Veronica wanted as an excuse to be rid of her, but she had no choice but to obey.
She fairly ran along the passage and down the stairs, earning a sharp word of reproof from the housekeeper for her unseemly behavior.
“Yes, Mrs. Crawford. Sorry, Mrs. Crawford.” She slowed down to a more dignified walk until she was out of sight through the green baize door, then quickened into a scamper again. She asked Cook’s permission as a matter of policy, then put on a kettle and sliced the bread and butter so rapidly she made a mess of the first piece; it was too thin and fell to bits.
“ ’Ere!” Mary said helpfully. “You got ’ands like a navvy today! Let me do it for yer!” And she cut two wafer-thin slices, buttering each on the loaf first, a trick which Emily had not learned.
“Thank you; bless you!” Emily said with real gratitude, then hopped from one foot to the other waiting for the kettle to boil. But she had learned her lesson and she did not spill it.
“S’right,” Mary said approvingly. “More ’aste, less speed.”
Emily flashed her a smile, picked up the tray, and went back upstairs with it as quickly as her long skirts would allow, unable as she was with her hands full to hold them up. She stopped outside the bedroom door, hearing a murmur of voices, but even standing motionless, her cheek to the panel, she could hear no distinct words. To disturb whoever was within might cut short the very conversation she must overhear!
The dressing room!
She put the tray down and very softly tried the handle of the dressing room door, making sure the latch did not click. She swung it open, picked up the tray, and put it inside on the chest of drawers, closing the door soundlessly. The door to the bedroom was closed, she had done it herself out of habit. Now she needed to open it so fractionally the movement would not catch the eye of anyone in the bedroom, even if they were facing it. Of course, if they saw the handle move it would all be over: she would be caught eavesdropping without a shadow of an excuse.
She bent to the keyhole and put her eye to it, but she could see only the comer of the bed and a small edge of blue skirt over the chair. It was only the dress laid out for the evening. But she could hear the voices much more clearly. The answer was obvious: she must kneel with her ear to the keyhole. Carefully she took a pin out of her hair and put it on the floor as an excuse if she were caught; then she knelt to listen.
“But who was it?” Veronica’s voice was desperate, thick with something very close to panic.
Loretta’s answer came back, reassuringly gentle. “My dear, I cannot even guess! But it has nothing whatever to do with us. How could it?”
“But the dress!” Veronica cried. “That color!” The words seemed to cause her physical pain. “The dress was magenta! “
“Pull yourself together!” Loretta snarled. “You are behaving like a fool!”
For a moment there was silence and Emily wondered if Loretta had slapped her, as one does with hysterics; but there was no gasp, no indrawn breath, no sharp sound of flesh on flesh.
Veronica’s voice shuddered and the next words were forced through sobs. “Who . . . was . . . she?”
“A harlot,” Loretta replied with ice-cold contempt. “Exactly what she seemed to be, I should imagine. Although God knows why that idiot policeman should have broken her neck!”
Veronica’s question was so soft Emily strained to hear it, her shoulders hunched to keep her ear to the lock.
“Did he, Mother-in-law? Was it he?”
Emily did not even notice the cramp in her knees or the aching muscles in her neck. Nothing was further from her mind than the tea getting cold on the chest of drawers. She could hear no sound in the room, not even a rustle of silk.
“Well, I assume so!” Loretta answered after what must have been only seconds, but seemed an age. “Apparently he was found with his hands virtually round her neck, so one would presume so. There seems no other easy explanation.”
“But why?”
“My dear, how should I know? Perhaps he was so obsessed with getting his information he tried to throttle it out of her, and when she couldn’t tell him he lost his temper. It hardly matters to us.”
“But she’s dead!” Veronica’s distress was thick in her voice, even violent.
Loretta was becoming annoyed. “Which is nothing whatsoever to us!” she retorted. “What is one street woman more or less? She had a pink dress—I daresay many women do, especially of that occupation.” Then she spoke more urgently and with a peculiar rasping tone. “Get ahold of yourself, Veronica! You have much to gain, and everything to lose—everything! Remember that. Robert is dead. Let the past stay in the grave where it belongs, and make yourself a decent future with Julian Danver. I’ve done everything I can to help you, God knows, but if you give way to fits of the vapors and maudlin thoughts every time there is a tragedy somewhere, then even I cannot carry you through. Do you understand me?”
There was silence. Emily strained till she could hear her own heart thumping, but there was not even a movement beyond the keyhole.
