‘Tell me, Lizzie, do you like your mistress? Is she kind to you?’
The question caused her brother to look at her a little asquint, as if in anticipation of her reply, which did not come immediately.
‘I do not complain,’ she said at last. ‘That would not be my place. I am sure, as my mistress has often told me, that I am slow and clumsy, and that I do not have the delicate manners of the French girl who looked after her in Paris, and who she is always setting up as an example to me. It may be, too, that I am stupid, for of course I would not expect a lady possessed of such accomplishments as Miss Carteret to think much of a poor girl like me.’
She glanced in a deliberate way towards the volume of poetry lying on the table.
I thanked her for her frankness and, after a few more words, took my leave.
Outside the cottage door, the arrangements were concluded with a handshake. And so it was that John Brine, formerly Mr Paul Carteret’s man, together with his sister Lizzie, Miss Carteret’s maid, became my eyes and ears in and around the Dower House at Evenwood.
As John Brine and I walked back, I had one other matter that I particularly wished to set before my new agent.
‘Brine, I wish you’d tell me about Josiah Pluckrose.’
The effect of my words was extraordinary.
‘Pluckrose!’ he roared, his face colouring. ‘What have you to do with that murdering devil? Tell me, or by God I’ll knock you down where you stand, agreement or no!’
Naturally, under normal circumstances, I would not for a moment have tolerated such insolence from a common fellow like John Brine; even as things were, I was within an inch of teaching him a lesson that he would not forget, for I was easily his match in height and weight, and I knew, perhaps better than he, how to conduct myself in such situations. But I drew back; for, after all, what difference of opinion could possibly exist between us regarding Josiah Pluckrose?
‘I have only one aim in view with respect to that gentleman,’ I said, ‘and that is to send him as speedily as possible, with my very best regards, to the deepest pit of hell.’ Whereupon Brine’s face took on a more compliant expression and he began to apologize, in a fumbling embarrassed sort of way, for his outburst; but I stopped him and told him straight away of my conversation with the housemaid Mary Baker, though of course I did not go so far as to divulge my prior acquaintance with friend Pluckrose.
And then he told me, in a quiet, feeling way, which almost endeared me to the fellow, that he had once entertained what he termed a ‘fondness’ for Agnes Baker, which it was left to me to interpret how I would.
‘Well, Brine,’ I said, as we walked under the gate-house arch, ‘I see there is common ground between us on the matter of Josiah Pluckrose. But what I would particularly like to know,’ I continued, feeling the need for another cigar, but having no more about me, ‘is how such a man came to be associated with Mr Phoebus Daunt. I cannot be alone in observing the incompatibility of the relationship. Can you tell me, for instance, how Mr Carteret viewed the matter?’
‘Like any right-thinking gentleman would,’ said Brine, a little evasively. ‘I know, because I heard him telling Miss Emily.’
‘Telling her what, Brine? Speak up, if you please, for there must be no secrets now between us.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, but it just don’t seem right, that’s all, speaking of what was said privately.’
I damned the fellow for his scruples. A fine spy he was going to make! I reminded him, rather pointedly, of the terms of our engagement and, after a moment or two, though still somewhat unwillingly, he began to recount the substance of the conversation that he had overheard between Mr Carteret and his daughter.
‘His Lordship had given a dinner for his birthday, and afterwards it fell to me to bring the master and Miss Emily back from the great house in the landau. It’s an old thing that belonged to Mr Carteret’s mother, but it gives good service and—’
‘Brine. The facts, if you please.’
‘To be sure, sir. Well, sir, as I say, I went up to fetch the master and the young miss back in the landau, and I saw straight away that something was up. Black as thunder her face was as I helped her in, and Mr Carteret looking nearly as bad.’
‘Go on.’
‘There was a fair old wind that night – I remember that very well – and we had a rough time of it on our way back, I can tell you, especially coming up from the river, battered and buffeted and I don’t know what. But though the wind was hard in my face, there were times when I could still catch what Master and Miss were saying.’
‘And that’s when Mr Carteret spoke of Pluckrose?’
‘Not by name, though I knew it was him the master was speaking of. He’d driven a carriage up that evening with Mr Phoebus Daunt and another gentleman – it was that same cursed evening that he first spied Agnes. There’d been some trouble in the servants’ hall – Pluckrose had been given his supper there while t’other two gents were upstairs with the quality, and he’d threatened his Lordship’s butler, Mr Cranshaw. I heard all about the rumpus from John Hooper, who saw it all. Well, we got home and I handed her out – Miss Emily, I mean – and blow me, she fair stormed into the house, with her father following, and calling to her to stop. And so I brought the landau round to the yard, and stabled the horses, like tonight, and then went along to the kitchen, for ’twas a rare old night, as I say, and Susan Rowthorn would always have a little something waiting for me, in the way of refreshment, as I might say, on such a night. “Well,” says she when I open the door, “here’s a to-do. Master and Miss are going at it hammer and tongs.” Those were her exact words: hammer and tongs. Now, Miss has a temper – we all knows that. But Susan says she’d never heard the like, doors slamming and I don’t know what.’
‘And what was the cause of the upset, do you suppose?’
‘Oh, I don’t suppose, sir. I had everything pat and in apple-pie order from Susan. She’d heard everything and noted everything, just as it happened, as is her way. I don’t know, sir, as you hadn’t ought to have brought her into your employ rather than me.’
He smiled a stupid smile, and, once again, I silently damned him, and his feeble attempt at humour.
