“What is it?” Owen asked.
“You want a way to persuade Jessie the duke doesn’t care for her, yes?” he asked.
“Yes,” Owen said tightly, glancing across the room to where Jessie had fallen into conversation with some of the other maids.
“I asked around about the maids. If any of the other servants have seen anything of them since.” Tommie’s words made Owen snap his gaze back towards him.
“And?”
“And no, no one has seen them since.”
Owen did not hold back the curse under his breath.
“Yet, there is hope,” Tommie said and pointed across the room at the gathering of maids. “One of the girls, Laura, used to be good friends with another of the maids who vanished. She was so worried after her disappearance that she went to Mrs Jarvis.”
The housekeeper’s name made Owen look around the room, nervous of seeing the housekeeper nearby and risking her overhearing them. “Mrs Jarvis assured her that her friend was perfectly safe and well. She said she knew beyond doubt that the girl was well.”
“How would she know that then?” Owen said with a small smile.
“Exactly,” Tommie said, nodding his head. “Maybe you should ask her. Here she is, best look lively. Where’s that dough, Elsie?” He turned around, collected the bread dough from one of the cook’s hands, and began kneading it again. Owen turned to see the housekeeper was indeed entering the kitchen. Mrs Jarvis first dispersed the maids that had gathered to chat before she dispensed orders.
Owen nearly walked towards her to ask after the maids, but his feet fell still beneath him. Would she willingly tell him of such secrets? Now was certainly not the time to ask, regardless.
***
“Mrs Jarvis? May I have a moment?” Owen called as he stood in his study doorway. The housekeeper stopped walking, turning her head back to him.
“Not now, Mr Arnold, I need to arrange the maids’ business.”
“It is not as if we have many guests to attend to at present, is it?” Owen asked. “You and I both know the maids’ workload is not large these days. Your arrangements can wait a couple of minutes.” He opened his door wider, signalling for her to come inside.
The older woman’s grey hair flicked back and forth as she looked up and down the corridor before doing as he asked and following him into the study. Owen closed the door carefully behind the two of them and urged Mrs Jarvis to take a seat opposite his desk.
“Is there a problem?” Mrs Jarvis asked, sitting forward on the edge of her seat.
“There certainly is, and I think it high time we discuss the matter.” Owen sat down in his chair, resting his elbows on the desk as he stared at the housekeeper. “You must have noticed as much as anyone else how there is a pattern in this household. Maids spending far too much time above stairs, before long their dresses are let out, then they vanish completely from the house.”
Mrs Jarvis stayed perfectly still, unblinking in the return of her stare.
“Have you no comment to make on the matter?” Owen asked.
“I do not believe it is any of our business. What the maids do is their own matter.”
“Even when they disappear from these walls?” Owen asked, his tone becoming so harsh that the housekeeper shifted in her chair. Again, Mrs Jarvis stayed silent, not offering any answer. “Mrs Jarvis, silence is not an answer, so I will get to the crux of this conversation as quickly as I can. I have reason to believe that you know what becomes of our maids; maybe you have even seen them. I wish to know what happens to them.”
“That is not for you to know, Mr Arnold.”
The words were sudden, making Owen arch his eyebrows. As the butler, Owen was technically Mrs Jarvis’ superior, but the housekeeper was seldom ordered around by anyone except the duke.
“Why not?” Owen asked.
“It is for these maids only to know.”
“Does the duke know where they go?” Owen’s words had a response this time as Mrs Jarvis stood to her feet.
“If that is all, Mr Arnold, I have to get back to work.”
“You have not answered my questions, Mrs Jarvis.” Owen moved to stand, but he was too late. Mrs Jarvis was already out the door, looking back to him with just one more thing to add.
