Mason shook his head, his lips pressed in a grim line. "No, it's worse," he leaned in. "They're saying it might have been an inside job, on account of the side gate being left unlocked."
Both women gasped.
"Ye don't mean they think one of us did it?" Mollie hissed.
His dark eyes narrowed. "It's in their nature to suspect the servants first," he said with a sniff. "It's not as if any of Them Upstairs did it. At any rate, the police are sure someone tipped off the men, and so we're all restricted," here a deeper glare at Mollie, "till the culprit confesses." He turned heel and stalked away.
Mollie expressed her opinion voicelessly by directing a series of contorted faces at his back.
Pearl shook her head. "I can't believe you would run errands like that," she murmured.
Mollie frowned and squinted at her. "Like what?" She took a step back toward the doorway.
Pearl shrugged and toyed with the starched cuffs of her sleeve. "You know," she hedged. "As if... As if nothing... Happened... Not that it didn't!" She put up her hands to soften the outrage of the young kitchen maid.
"Too right it did!" Mollie huffed. “And what are they doing about it?” She snapped her fingers in front of Pearl’s face, “Bloody precious little!” She sighed and melted back into the room behind her, where four cots took up most of the space. She sank onto the one she usually slept in. “If you must know,” she said, swinging her feet and glancing up at the house-maid, “I was out at the Buxtons’, visiting Major as a thank-you for saving my life.” Mollie paused and frowned as she gave the excuse. Major hadn't been mortally wounded as she had expected, she wondered if perhaps she might have been mistaken as to the actual size of the knife and the violence of the blow.
Pearl bent to present her face before the mildewed segment of a polished mirror. She squinted and adjusted locks of hair around her face—a sure sign that she would be heading upstairs soon to attend to Miss Agatha.
“Well,” she responded primly, “I hope the trip satisfied you, because it’ll be the last one you take in a while; you can bet that Mason won’t let you do anything so frivolous if he’s got anything to say about it.”
Mollie snorted and stretched her shoulders; a loud conversation down the hallway warned everyone that supper preparations were expected to start within a moment. Picking up the day’s apron and tying it behind her, she muttered to herself, “Catch him trying to stop me from seeing that justice is done!”
Pearl stopped in the doorway, “What was that?”
“Nothing!” Mollie stood and sailed forward, pushing past the taller, more slender maid. “Out of my way!”
Pearl sighed and continued up the stairs.
Agatha sat alone in the drawing room, staring out the window as the clouds rolled past. From their elevated vantage point, she could see a fair bit of the surf rolling in, just past the embankment all overgrown with tall grasses—all that separated the town from the beach. Movement across the street attracted her eye. Agatha allowed herself a small smile as she recognized the young girl from the kite shop she had met the day before, the one who thought she was a princess. Madi… A pretty name, and somehow fitting, as carefree as the girl skipping down the lane, swinging her arms; Agatha almost wished she could join her. A few paces later, Madi stopped, and a man joined her. Agatha tilted her head and studied the newcomer; it wasn’t her father—this man wasn’t the bashful, respectable man who had chided his daughter in front of a stranger. In fact, this man was abnormally tall—Agatha had never seen him before, and she concluded, by the friendly manner with which Madi regarded him, that he must be new to Afton-by-the-Sea, and already made friends with the exuberant girl.
Watching them make their way toward the beach, Agatha sighed at the current state of affairs; what wouldn’t she give to be able to just go out, meet a person, and make friends with them so easily! Briefly, she reflected over the sorts of people she regarded as “friends”; these were citizens of the same social class as she, ones who revolved in much the same circles, or else they would probably never have met. In short, they weren’t friends, exactly. They weren’t the sort to invite on a walk to the beach; they were the sort to take tea and gossip with because of the strength of their sphere of influence. Common people could make friends all they liked, and these friends would support them, join them, and be content to merely spend hours doing nothing in particular, just to be among each other. Rich people had to make alliances, choosing wisely who to consort with, so as not to sully their reputation, and to advance ones status.
She barely glanced up as Pearl came in with the tea tray; the book had been forgotten in favor of the scene set before her, the one of the tall man and the young girl enjoying the freedom of a holiday together. Agatha let her gaze rest briefly on the face of the woman setting the teacup on the table by her elbow.
“Pearl,” she mused suddenly, “what would you say if I told you to come with me on a walk to the beach?”
Pearl blinked, compulsively adjusting her cuffs and her apron as she fought to process the request.
“Well, Madam,” she stammered. “I would ask what you would like to bring, and I would fetch it for you.”
Agatha sipped her warm tea and tilted her head again. “What if I just said we would walk out, and that is all?”
Pearl stood like a schoolgirl taking an oral exam in front of the class. She folded her arms behind her back, which she held straight and stiffly upright.
