Page 26 of The Case of the Curate

Kate walked to the door in the wall and opened it. She found herself among a vast array of washing hung out to dry around a big flagstone square. Slipping between damp tablecloths, towels, and aprons, she found herself gazing at a door into the house. She lifted the latch and went inside.

She was in a laundry room, full of large tubs, most of them currently empty of water, though some containing yet more cloths and towels awaiting attention.

Through the half-open laundry door, she could hear a woman’s voice, no doubt the cook’s, issuing orders and scoldings among the clatter of activity. She could almost see Dinah, sliding in here from the kitchen, perhaps with a few items for washing, and, instead of rushing back to work, hurrying outside via the laundry door, through the drying yard to the garden, and to the orangery where Rupert awaited her. Only she had never gotten there.

Kate turned away and left the way she had come. Her skin prickled, as though she were walking to her own doom in Dinah’s shoes. Poor Dinah… She glanced nervously around the drying yard and tangled herself in a sheet. Silly panic arose as she fought her way free. She tried to laugh at herself, but the sense of danger did not leave her as she escaped into the walled garden, her gaze flying instantly to the plain tree and the place Dinah had died.

Yes, this must have been the route Dinah had taken to her death. But what of her killer? Was he—or she—truly a member of this household, however temporarily? Could someone else have climbed over the wall? A vagrant, as Mrs. Thornfield had suggested? The father of Dinah’s child eliminating a problem? Some other jealous suitor or betrayed lover, or someone whose secrets Dinah had learned and meant to use to her own benefit? She must have been desperate after all, unmarried and with child, and about to be turned off without a character. She could not afford the luxury of scruples…

Neither could Rupert. He had to be made to talk to her.

In the meantime, she had to banish Dinah from her mind and go and be charming at tea with Lady Chadbon and her guests. There was bound to be someone whose wavering support needed stiffening, someone whose doubts held out against the intensity of Chadbon’s pressure. Gilbert regarded her as his secret weapon, so she must not lose sight of her task in all of this…

*

It was more than an hour before Kate could escape from tea, for it turned out that Mrs. Otteridge had imagined some slight by Sir Colin Nye and was urging her husband to have nothing more to do with the man. It took all of Lord Chadbon’s charm and authority to convince Otteridge that in matters of state he had to rise above the personal and the petty, and a good deal of Kate’s patience to advise Mrs. Otteridge how to rise above Nye’s unconscionable rudeness to her and thereby win the war.

The alliance remained intact, although Kate’s nerves were ready to snap. Once again, she felt more like a nursemaid than the great political hostess Gilbert wished her to be. Finally, she escaped and, with a brief nod to Lord Chadbon standing by the library door, hurried downstairs in search of fresh air.

A liveried footman, sitting morosely in the porter’s box by the front door, sprang to his feet as she strode across the hall. Only then did she recognize Lewis, whom she had last noticed arguing with the head coachman outside his cottage.

She slowed as he moved to open the front door for her. “Thought I’d take a little air,” she said vaguely.

“Yes, my lady.”

“You’re Lewis, aren’t you?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Well, I think you might be able to help. Lady Chadbon will be writing personally to poor Dinah’s family, and she wants the facts at her fingertips, as it were, as well as a sense of her character.”

Lewis regarded her, his face carefully blank. Though he couldn’t quite hide the skeptical glint in his eyes.

“I offered to take on this task for Lady Chadbon, since she is already so busy,” Kate confided. It was sort of true. “But obviously I scarcely knew Dinah. She seemed a lively young woman that one was glad to have around.”

Lewis let his hand fall away from the latch. “She was,” he said woodenly.

“Kind? Helpful? Good-natured?”

Lewis nodded, meeting her gaze now.

“An important and much-valued member of the household’s domestic staff,” Kate added.

A hint of amusement crossed his face.

“With an excellent sense of fun,” Kate guessed, avoiding the word shirker. “When did you last see Dinah?”

“In the kitchen, the night she collapsed.”

“But were you not on duty at the drawing room that evening?” Kate asked innocently.

“I was. But I helped fetch the tea things once the gentlemen had gone in.”

“Ah, of course. And Dinah was in the kitchen at that time?”

“She brought the glasses down from the dining room to be washed. That was the last time I saw her.” His voice broke and he hastily coughed behind his hand to cover it.

“I’m sorry,” Kate said quickly. “Did she seem…normal to you at that time?”