Defend and Betray - Anne Perry [81]
“Is that the sort of person she was?”
“Yes sir, I believe so—a great deal of courage, stood up to anyone to protect ’er own …”
“Miss Sabella?”
“Yes sir—but …” Hagger was caught in a dilemma, his face pink, his body stiff.
“It’s all right,” Monk assured him. “Miss Sabella was not responsible. That is beyond question.”
Hagger relaxed a little. “I don’t know ’ow to ’elp,” he said miserably. “There isn’t any reason why a decent woman kills her husband—unless he threatened her life.”
“Was the general ever violent towards her?”
Hagger looked shocked. “Oh no sir! Most certainly not.”
“Would you know, if he had been?”
“I believe so, sir. But you can ask Ginny, what’s Mrs. Carlyon’s maid. She’d know beyond question.”
“I’ll do that, Mr. Hagger, if you will be so good as to allow me to go upstairs and find her?”
“I’ll ’ave ’er sent for.”
“No—I should prefer to speak to her in her normal place of work, if you please. Make her less nervous, you understand?” Actually that was not the reason. Monk wished to see Alexandra’s bedroom and if possible her dressing room and something of her wardrobe. It would furnish him a better picture of the woman. All he had seen her wearing was a dark skirt and plain blouse; far from her usual dress, he imagined.
“By all means,” Hagger concurred. “If you’ll follow me, sir.” And he led the way through a surprisingly busy kitchen, where the cook was presiding over the first preparation for a large dinner. The scullery maid had apparently already prepared the vegetables, the kitchen maid was carrying dirty pots and pans to the sink for the scullery maid to wash, and the cook herself was chopping large quantities of meat ready to put into a pie dish, lined with pastry, and the crust ready rolled to go on when she had finished.
A packet of Purcel’s portable jelly mixture, newly available since the Great Exhibition of 1851, was lying ready to make for a later course, along with cold apple pie, cream and fresh cheese. It looked as if the meal would feed a dozen.
Then of course Monk remembered that even when all the family were at home, they only added three more to the household, which was predominantly staff, and with upstairs and downstairs, indoor and outdoor, must have numbered at least twelve, and they continued regardless of the death of the general or the imprisonment of Mrs. Carlyon, at least for the moment.
Along the corridor they passed the pantry, where a footman was cleaning the knives with India rubber, a buff leather knife board and a green-and-red tin of Wellington knife polish. Then past the housekeeper’s sitting room with door closed, the butler’s sitting room similarly, and through the green baize door to the main house. Of course most of the cleaning work would normally be done before the family rose for breakfast, but at present there was hardly any need, so the maids had an extra hour in bed, and were now occupied in sweeping, beating carpets, polishing floors with melted candle ends and turpentine, cleaning brass with boiling vinegar.
Up the stairs and along the landing Monk followed Hagger until they came to the master bedroom, apparently the general’s, past his dressing room next door, and on to a very fine sunny and spacious room which he announced as being Mrs. Carlyon’s. Opening off it to the left was a dressing room where cupboard doors stood open and a ladies’ maid was busy brushing down a blue-gray outdoor cape which must have suited Alexandra’s fair coloring excellently.
The girl looked up in surprise as she saw Hagger, and Monk behind him. Monk judged her to be in her midtwenties, thin and dark, but with a remarkably pleasant countenance.
Hagger wasted no time. “Ginny, this is Mr. Monk. He is working for the mistress’s lawyers, trying to find out something that will help her. He wants to ask you some questions, and you will answer him as much as you can—anything ’e wants to know. Understand?”
“Yes, Mr. Hagger.” She looked very puzzled, but not unwilling.
“Right.” Hagger turned to Monk. “You come down when you’re ready, an’ if there’s ought else as can