“Aye, all three of them—Master John, Miss Rose, and the baby. Martha blamed herself fierce for not being able to save them, especially little Elizabeth. Said she should have been sleeping in the nursery instead of…” Molly paused, catching herself.
“Instead of what?” Georgiana asked with innocent curiosity.
“Well,” Molly said reluctantly, “there had been talk that Martha was keeping company with someone she shouldn’t. Thomas Rumsey, the butler. He was dismissed not long before the fire for… irregularities in his conduct.”
“Wait, so Martha didn’t rescue the baby?” Elizabeth felt her heart drop to her stomach. If Martha hadn’t saved Elizabeth Darcy, then it meant she was lying now, using Elizabeth as an imposter.
“Said the flames were too thick.” Molly shook her head. “They found the bodies of John and Rose, but the baby was too small. Musthave turned to ash. Although I’m a cook, and well, a roast just doesn’t turn to ash without burned bones.”
Both Elizabeth and Georgiana shuddered at the imagery.
“But Martha didn’t leave Pemberley, did she?” Elizabeth asked. “Even though that butler left?”
“Oh no, dear. Martha was married to Ralph Wickham, the Pemberley steward.”
“My grandfather was still alive,” Georgiana said. “So Ralph must have worked for him.”
“Your grandfather had suffered a fall and could not walk,” Molly said. “Your aunt Rose tended to him day and night. Your uncle John went to the magistrate.”
“Whatever for?” Elizabeth found it difficult to follow Molly’s story.
“The contraband,” Molly said. “Silks from China recorded as muslin. But not my place to speculate about my betters.”
“Uncle John might have discovered something that put him in danger?” Elizabeth pressed.
“Might have,” Molly agreed noncommittally. “Or he might have enjoyed his cups too much. A philosophical one, friendly to a fault, but head in the clouds.”
Her father was a drunk? Elizabeth exchanged a glance with Georgiana, who shrugged.
“Where’s Mr. Rumsey today?” Elizabeth asked.
Molly glanced around furtively and shrugged. “I suppose he’s found another situation. Current butler is Mr. Furgate. Been there twenty years. You look just like her, your aunt Rose, but you got that Darcy chin. Dainty with rosebud lips and spirited eyes. Not like those Bingley girls, overly tall and horse-faced. Set their sights on the Matlock boys, they did.”
Elizabeth suppressed a laugh at the description of Charles’s older sisters.
“You mean my Fitzwilliam cousins?” Georgiana asked. “Augustus and Richard?”
“Probably, but the Bingleys are from trade, and not all that savory. Blackguards, all.” Molly’s eyes grew blank as she stared into the past. “Your uncle John was too good for this world. So was your aunt Rose. God always takes the best people home first.”
“Yes, that is often the case,” Elizabeth said sympathetically.
“Whose daughter did you say you are?” she asked Elizabeth, blinking as if she hadn’t been introduced. “You have that look about you.”
“I think Molly needs her rest now,” Georgiana interjected gently, noting the old woman’s increasingly wandering attention.
They bid Molly farewell and continued toward the house, Elizabeth’s thoughts in turmoil. Two bodies, not three. And Martha’s strange behavior.
“What do you make of that?” Georgiana asked as they entered the cool dimness of the servants’ corridor.
“I hardly know,” Elizabeth admitted. “It contradicts everything I’ve been told, yet raises more questions than answers.”
“The stillroom should be along this passage,” Georgiana said, guiding Elizabeth through the warren of corridors that comprised Pemberley’s service areas. “There’s another elderly servant, Mrs. Winters.”
They found the stillroom filled with the pungent scents of drying herbs and simmering preserves. A thin, severe woman with iron-gray hair pulled into a tight knot stood at a work table, methodically crushing lavender flowers in a mortar.
“Mrs. Winters,” Georgiana said, “this is Miss Elizabeth Bennet. She’s researching her family connection to the Darcys.”
The woman looked up, her pale eyes narrowing as they fixed on Elizabeth’s face. “Bennet, is it? Rose Bennet’s relation?”
