Tomorrow.
WE ARE PLEASED TO SEE YOU BACK HOME, MISS, if you will pardon me for saying so.” The little maid who had been sent to take Annie’s place was hanging up in the wardrobe the muslin day dress Fleur had just removed. Her manner was suddenly confidential. “As Ted Jackson said, you could not be guilty of those things you are supposed to be guilty of if you have come back of your own accord. Not that most of us thought you were guilty anyway, miss.”
Fleur came out of a deep reverie. “Thank you, Mollie,” she said. “It is kind of you to say so.”
Mollie’s voice lowered and became even more confidential, though the door of Fleur’s dressing room was firmly closed and no other servant probably anywhere near it. “And if you was to ask me, miss,” she said, “I would say that Mr. Hobson got no more than he deserved. I never did like him. He always thought he was God’s gift to women.”
Hobson had been a handsome man in his own way. Mollie could not be described as a pretty girl, by any stretch of the imagination. Fleur guessed that the maid had been spurned by him at some time.
“He expected favors for nothing in return,” Mollie said, confirming her suspicions. “But I never would listen to his sweet talk, miss, though he tried it on me more than once.”
“Did he?” Fleur had spent another frustrating two hours since the Duke of Ridgeway had left, questioning the servants. She was tired, and she wished she had said nothing to him. By now he would be on his way back to Dorsetshire and she would be able to start thinking about the rest of her life. As it was, he was coming back the next morning, and she was unable even to feel the full elation that his story should have brought her. “Did he ever talk about himself, Mollie?”
“All the time,” the girl said. “It was his favorite subject, miss.”
The words were spoken with such spite that Fleur smiled despite herself.
“His father made good over at Wroxford,” Mollie said, “as a butcher, miss, and that was how Mr. Hobson was able to get such a grand position as gentleman’s man. But for all that, he had no cause to put on such airs.”
“So that is where he is from?” Fleur said. “Wroxford?”
“Oh!” Mollie’s hand came across her mouth with a loud slap. “Mr. Chapman will kill me. He said we was to remember who was paying our wages and say nothing.”
“To me?” Fleur said. “You were to say nothing to me?”
“On account of the fact that his lordship will be packing you off to jail as soon as he comes home, miss,” Mollie said. “Though I don’t think you deserve to go there. And nor do most of the others, miss. Mr. Chapman is going to kill me for sure.”
“The butler will hear nothing from my lips, Mollie,” Fleur said. “And I do thank you for telling me as much as you have. That is where Hobson is buried, then?”
“I suppose so, miss,” Mollie said. “I don’t rightly know or care. Wroxford is all of thirty miles away. I would not walk thirty yards to put flowers on his grave. I prefer Ted Jackson to him any day of the year, even if Ted is only an undergardener. Ted treats a girl as if she is special.”
Fleur got to her feet and brushed at the skirt of her silk evening dress. She did not really know why she had changed, since she would be dining alone. But it did feel good to be a lady again, to be surrounded by all her own familiar possessions.
“I must go down to dinner,” she said. “Thank you, Mollie. I will not need you later. You may have a free evening, unless someone else finds something for you to do belowstairs. Does Ted have a free evening too?” She smiled.
The girl grinned at her in conspiratorial manner. “That he does, miss,” she said. She crossed the room ahead of Fleur, but hesitated when her hand was on the doorknob. She looked about the room as if she expected to see the butler and perhaps a few other servants hiding behind the furniture. “I was a particular friend of Annie’s, miss. She looked after me, like, when I was new here.”
“Yes?” Fleur looked at the girl’s flushed cheeks.
“That night,” Mollie said, “you had left a pair of gloves in your dressing room, miss. Annie ran down to the gig with them and put them inside your trunk, on top.”
“Did she?” Fleur said.
“There was no jewels in there then,” the girl continued, “but when Annie opened the trunk later, the jewels was there, on top of the gloves. And just when she opened the trunk, his lordship and Mr. Chapman came into your room without knocking. She told them what I have just told you, miss. The next day she was sent away. She was frightened, and she told me, but she said I had better not say anything. They had given her a lot of money.”
“Had they?” Fleur said.
“Mr. Chapman will kill me if he finds out, miss,” Mollie said.
“Well, he won’t,” Fleur said. “I believe that before many days have passed, Mollie, Lord Brocklehurst himself will make clear to everyone that the matter of the jewels was an entire misunderstanding. But even so, I am glad to have had some proof ofthe matter myself. Thank you. You are the bravest of the servants in this house, and I will not forget it.”
Wroxford, she thought as she walked downstairs to dinner. Thirty miles away. And Mollie was right. Thirty yards would be too far to go to see Hobson’s grave. Except that she had killed him, and no man, however bad, she believed, deserved death at another’s hands. She must at least try to ease her conscience by kneeling at his grave.
Thirty miles. She would not be able to go there and back all within one day.
“BUTWROXFORD MUST BEthirty or thirty-five miles away,” the Reverend Booth said. “I cannot at all understand your wish to go there, Isabella. All you will see there is a grave, and perhaps a headstone. Why travel thirty miles for that?”
It was quite early the following morning. Fleur had found herself unable to wait at home for someone to call upon her. She wanted to be on her way. She would not be able to rest or know any final peace of mind until she had been to Wroxford.
