Ashworth Hall - Anne Perry [138]
Doll was making tea. The kettle was singing.
She must think properly, she must have this straight in her mind. Her head was throbbing like a drum. Finn must be helping someone. It made most sense if it was Mr. Doyle. He was on the same side. Finn must be only pretending to be on Mr. McGinley’s side.
“Gracie?”
She did not hear Doll’s voice. There must be some other explanation. Finn was not the kind of person to want something so violent and so cruel. Someone far more wicked was using him, telling him these false stories about people like Neassa Doyle, Drystan O’Day, and getting him to do terrible things without understanding what the end of it would be.
“Gracie?”
She looked up. Doll was standing in front of her with a cup of tea in her hand, her face creased with worry.
“Thank you.” She took it gingerly. It was very hot and it smelled like daisies.
“It’s chamomile,” Doll said. “It’s good for headaches and feeling upset. You really do look poorly. Now, you better go and lie down for a while. I’ll look after Mrs. Pitt for you, if she needs anything, if you like?”
Gracie forced herself to smile. “It’s all right, thank yer, I’ll be good in a minute or two. It’s just … all this … all the ’ating people, gets yer down. Yer don’t know ’oo yer can trust or Oo’s secretly plannin’ summink Orrible.”
“I know.” Doll sat down on the other chair, a cup of tea in her hands. “I think maybe we shouldn’t trust anyone, ’cepting maybe your Mr. Pitt.”
Gracie nodded, but in her mind she made the decision not to tell Pitt yet what she thought she had seen in Finn’s room. Perhaps she was wrong. She did not really know anything about dynamite. Maybe she had only imagined the look on Finn’s face.
She sipped the tea slowly. It was too hot, but it was rather nice, and gradually she began to feel a little better.
But for the rest of the afternoon she could not get the fear out of her mind. Should she tell Pitt after all? Maybe he should be the one to decide if it was dynamite, or whether Finn knew what he was doing or was being used by someone else. After all, Finn had seemed as shocked as anyone by Mr. McGinley’s death. Gracie knew that. She had seen his face. Surely if he knew that the bomb in the study would go off, he would not have stood so close to the door that he was caught by the blast when it exploded?
It all made no sense.
She was in the laundry rinsing petticoats when she looked up and saw Finn in the doorway. There was no one else around just at the moment. Gwen had been and gone, the laundry maids were at tea. She had chosen the time on purpose, not wanting to have to talk to anyone. Now she ached for there to be someone else there, anyone at all.
“Gracie!” He took a step forward; his face was dark, his eyes troubled. “We have to talk about things ….”
“This isn’t the place,” she said quietly, gulping, realizing with a kind of sick misery that she was actually afraid of him. It was not just that she did not want to face the truth, or hear him try to explain with what might be lies, she was actually physically afraid. “Someone might come in.” She heard her voice, high-pitched, almost a squeak. “Them other girls is only ’avin’ tea. They’ll be back any second now.”
“No they won’t,” he said levelly, coming further towards her. “They only went five minutes ago, and they’ll take half an hour easy, longer if they don’t have much work waiting for them.” He glanced around and saw a few items of personal linen, a little repairing, no sheets, no towels. They had all been done earlier, and it was a windy day. Everything was blown nearly dry and brought in and hung on the rails. The room smelled of clean cotton.
“Yeah, they will,” she lied, holding on to the wet petticoat and wringing it as hard as she was able, as if she could somehow use it to protect herself.
He was coming closer. There was a curious expression in his face, as if he hated what he was